Ziva's POV:
Romano turned and, in that moment, I knew exactly what he planned to do. I saw the bullets leave the gun. I felt three sharp pains in my chest and torso. I landed flat on my back, my head smacking the ground. In pain, I shut my eyes. I felt nauseous. It was hard to breathe. I gasped for air as my world turned to a blur of shapes and colors. Suddenly, trembling yet gentle hands cradled my head and torso. "Boss!" Tony shouted.
Tony. I found myself thinking about him so much lately. I would let my mind wander, and it would always end up on him. A consistently recurring memory was Paris. Was that for real? Or was he really getting into the part? I had no idea. My name, faintly called, broke my rushing thoughts. "Ziva? Can you hear me? Ziva?" Tony asked, panicked that I was so slow to respond. "Tony?" I asked faintly, using up precious oxygen. I tried to lift my arms, to comfort, to tell him I would be okay. "Ziva. Stay with me. Don't leave me. Don't leave me!" Tony begged desperately, his voice shaky. "
The world went black.
Does death hurt this much? I asked myself.
My chest hurt like hell, and everything was black. I couldn't seem to move, and, when I tried, it hurt so badly that I lay back on, well, whatever I was laying on. I suddenly saw a green pulsating light right beside me. It looked like a….heart monitor?
So I wasn't dead. Just in a hospital.
I suddenly realized there was a soft hand on mine. I looked at the dark figure it belonged to. "Tony?" I asked the blackness. "Good morning." he said tiredly. "Morning?"
I saw him take out a cell phone. He showed it to me: 4:30 a.m.
"What happened?" I asked quietly.
"The doctor said you would live. You were very lucky. The bullets did not penetrate far. If they had gone in even half an inch deeper…"
He trailed off, and I knew what would have happened if the latter were true.
"However, one of the bullets ruptured your lung, so you had to go in for emergency surgery to repair it and to remove the rest of the bullets. So you are going to be on pain meds for a while, you're going to be here for another five days, and you're also going to be off of work for at least three weeks."
"Damn."
"Well, the nurse asked if anyone would volunteer to take care of you until you are off the meds."
"I can take care of myself."
"Not with your whole chest in stitches. Anyway, I said I would."
I froze. "Why would you do that? You have a life, you have work-"
He cut me off by putting a finger to my lips suddenly.
"I said I would because I care."
"About what?"
"About you."
I didn't say anything except for "What?"
"When you spend a long time with someone, you tend to care about them, Ziva. Unless they are one of these people that you hate because you spend a long time with them." He chuckled quietly to himself.
"Thank you, Tony." I said softly.
"I'll stop by after work." He kissed me on the forehead, and I felt it burn where he did.