"Ziva." Gibbs murmurs, touching her shoulder lightly. She's been sitting at her desk for almost an hour, staring at the specked table top, hands laced in her hair, holding her head up. Very slowly she lifts her head and looks up at him with sad and sorry eyes.
"Yes?" She whispers – her voice shatters like glass hitting the concrete. Gibbs turns his head to McGee, who has been watching them, but focuses on his computer when he sees the older man looking at him. He looks at Tony as well, but Tony is lying with his head on the desk, staring at the wall of the bullpen, eyes open but seeing nothing.
"You need to go home." Gibbs tells her gently – Ziva sniffles, but rises to her feet nonetheless. She staggers and almost collapses at the fast movement, but Gibbs has dashed around her desk and has his arms wrapped safely around her waist before she can fall far, holding her upright. Ziva lets out a heavy sigh and clutches at his arm.
"I am okay, Gibbs." Ziva says softly, letting him push her to her feet gently, as though carrying a porcelain doll. Gibbs looks almost as though he wants to contradict her, but then he decides against it. With an arm still wrapped around her, he cocks his head at DiNozzo.
"Tony. Could you drive Ziva home? Please?" He adds, almost as an afterthought, and the change in the room is instantaneous. McGee's eyes fly off his computer and he bites so hard on the pen he's chewing that the ink flies out the end and stains his muddy shirt. Tony – who had propped his head up on his elbows – slips sideways and falls off his chair. And Ziva just merely looks at Gibbs in surprise but her dark brown eyes show just how tired she is.
"'Course I will, Boss." Tony says, leaping to his feet and grabbing his things off of his desk. Ziva, who is now sure she can stand on her own two feet, gently eases Gibbs's arm off her, gives him a quick smile and a thank you and grabs her coat off her chair, ignoring the way dried dirt and blood crackle to the floor. Ziva follows Tony to the elevator, ignores the fact that she can feel everyone's eyes following her, ignores the fact that she can feel Tony watching her. When they are both in the elevator, Tony pushes the 1st floor button, the doors close, and the machine starts to move.
There's a mechanical click above their heads, and everything else happens in a rapid succession.
Ziva is assaulted with images, so many images – a dark room, dusty, cloudy but with the bitter tinge of Caf-Pow. A young man with a dirt streaked face screaming at her to reveal her secrets. Her own voice, weak from lack of use, whispering back that she has no secrets. The next image is worse – five or six men, hovering over her with malicious gleams in their eyes as they stare down at the victim. She screams and begs for them to let her go – she has told them everything she knows – and she ignores the pain that begins in her throat, like someone scratching at her with sandpaper. The same young man with the dirt streaked face now holding a gun, pointed straight at her knee. He's screaming soundless words, and she is merely whispering back.
And then he pulls the trigger.
The first bullet penetrates her right thigh and she screams out in pain but almost instantly clamps her jaw shut again, feeling as though wire is being weaved between her teeth. The second bullet hits her left foot, and she bites down so hard on her tongue that she tastes blood. And finally, the last image – Tony, sitting on the chair in front of her, bound by his hands, his appearance much the same, a little dishevelled but otherwise okay. McGee, lying on the floor face down, muttering something to himself that sounds like a countdown. And her own voice whispers through her mind, over and over and over again:
'I am ready to die.'
With Tony, in the elevator, she screams in agony and drops to her knees, with such force that the whole elevator shakes. Tony jumps but then follows suit, trying to grab her, trying to help her. "Stop! Stop! Please!" She shouts, her head in her hands, shaking violently.
"Ziva. Ziva. Ziva." Tony murmurs frantically, tugging on her arm. If possible, she screams louder at the human contact – a hair-raising scream that is so full of anguish and of pain that it physically kills Tony to listen to her. Finally, abandoning all pretences, Tony folds his arms around her thin and shaking shoulders and drags her to his chest, holding her tight.
She sobs into his chest, her hands folding around his shirt as she leans into him, forbidden tears running down her cheeks. She feels weak letting someone see her like this, but she knows she can trust Tony. "Make it stop. Please." She whimpers into his t-shirt, almost crawling into his lap as she collapses in on herself.
Tony strokes her hair, fights back his own tears and murmurs into the silence of the elevator, "I'm trying, Ziva, I'm trying." Very slowly, she lifts up her head and looks at him with weak and weary eyes, and she gives him a watery smile.
"Thank you." She whispers, and then collapses in his arms.
Later that night, when Tony gets to her apartment, he carries her up the front steps, finds her spare keys hidden under her doormat and unlocks the door. Her apartment is neat and clean and un-lived-in, but as Tony walks back to her bedroom at the very back of her apartment, Ziva murmurs something in Hebrew, smiles and nuzzles into his chest. He deposits her onto her bed slowly, slips of her shoes, jeans and t-shirt – he ignores the blood that stains her entire body, especially between her legs, and instead gently eases on a clean t-shirt from a drawer. He tucks her in and kisses her forehead, and just as he's about to leave, something grabs his arm.
He turns in shock to see Ziva, still asleep, clutching at his arm as though her life depends on it. "Stay." She mumbles, tugging hard on his arm. Tony resists the urge to laugh, but obliges. He slips off his own shoes, jeans and t-shirt and slips into the opposite side of the bed. After a moment of inner battle, he wraps an arm around her bruised stomach and holds her close – she curls up against him like a cat and he smiles. And then, he falls asleep.
When Ziva wakes up with her ear pressed against Tony's bare chest, her legs entwined with his, an arm wrapped around his waist and his arm underneath her shoulder, she pauses for a moment to just listen to the sound of his serene breathing. And then, with a small smile, she nuzzles back into him with a single thought in her mind.
That she could definitely get used to this.
A lot of these little shot things are from season 6 end to season 7 beginning because that was actually one of the most adorable familyish (don't think that's a word) episodes, especially with the Abby and Ziva friendship hug. So please review, because I LOVED writing this little one-shot. Also, I'm a Tiva shipper. Just thought I'd let you know.
no white horse for me