Disclaimer: Disclaimed.
Thursday, 4 July 2013
Tony could barely feel his feet on the ground as he shadowed Ziva up the staircase to her bedroom. In fact, he'd felt out of his body since walking into his kitchen that afternoon and finding her still and bleeding on the floor. He had detached himself from reality during the hours he'd spent with her in the ER (their second visit in a week). His good sense told him this was probably because his mind needed to distance himself from the situation just enough to be able to keep functioning in a way that was useful to Ziva. If he allowed himself to really live in this horrible moment, rage would overcome him and he might abandon Ziva in favor of hunting down Eddie Hertzog and beating every ounce of life out of him. Such brutality (however justified he believed it would be) might make him feel a little bit better tonight, but it would be no good to Ziva. Or to Bonnie. Or, in the long run, to himself. So although his hands shook with fury when he thought about it, and although his heart beat rabbit fast with the adrenaline of wanting to take explosive, violent action, he wouldn't give into it. He would keep his head in its weird, semi-detached state until he could face reality head-on without killing anyone. He would stay by his partner's side and pretend like he was completely calm and in control of his emotions and ready to do anything for her that she wanted.
But hiding all that and keeping enough distance from it would be difficult. Because every time he looked at her with blood caked on her fingers and in her hair, every time he watched her take a tired and labored step, every time he heard her breath catch or a wheezed cough pass her lips, he was hit with a new feeling. Panic. Fear. Possessiveness. Protectiveness. Rage. Love.
Uselessness.
He was at a total loss over how to help her. And he was at even more of a loss over how to stop her doing what history had taught him to expect from her now, namely retreating into herself. He'd lived by her side for eight years, so he understood that she was just the type of person who needed to think things through on her own. He couldn't blame her for that. He was the same. But there was a difference between working things through in your head and isolating yourself emotionally the way Ziva tended to do. Her natural inclination was the shove all the pain and fear away, and when she did that, she invariably shoved him away too. They'd done this dance too many times. They would get close, then something awful would happen, and instead of trusting him or relying on him Ziva would retreat and leave a chasm between them that Tony could never quite bridge on his own. And, like he'd told her just two nights ago, he was sick of trying to build the bridge on his own. He needed her help.
He wouldn't remind her of that now, though. It wasn't the time. It could trigger another fight, and he didn't think either of them was up for that.
A loud boom from outside shocked Tony out of his thoughts, and he instinctively reached for his gun on his hip. It wasn't there, but he approached Ziva's bedroom window anyway to work out where the danger was coming from. If this was Eddie again, Tony was going to come after him with all the rage within him.
Ziva muttered something from behind him that Tony couldn't quite catch. Her voice was thin and raspy, and it hurt to listen to. Tony swallowed and turned back to look at her standing in the middle of her bedroom, and that hurt more. Her arm was back in its sling, there was dried blood down the side of her face and Eddie's blood caked into her fingernails, stitches and bruising to her forehead and a nasty bruise blossoming on her chin. Her t-shirt had been ripped during her fight with Eddie, so she was dressed in one of Tony's crisp white dress shirts that he had decided to leave in his apartment when he'd moved the rest of his clothes to her house. It was too big on her, making her look tiny and too vulnerable. And the collar hung too loose to hide the red marks that stood out on her neck. The marks looked worse now than they had when he'd taken photos of them in the emergency room, and Tony felt his stomach roll with nausea.
He swallowed again and tried to distance himself again. "What?"
She winced slightly as she tried to raise her voice. "Fireworks," she rasped, and another round of booms sounded on cue. "Fourth of July."
It took him a moment to process, but he finally caught on. The booms weren't any kind of threat. They were just fireworks going off in celebration of Independence Day. He could relax.
"Oh," he said, and his head and shoulders fell. "Forgot that was today."
Ziva took a sluggish step towards him. He bit his tongue to stop himself from asking if she really didn't want to stay at the hospital overnight. She had signed herself out against doctors' orders (and Tony's pleas), so he had to accept that the matter was closed. At least until she collapsed and stopped breathing and Tony would have to speed her back to the ER. Jesus, when they quit NCIS, Tony thought they'd make fewer trips to the emergency room. He thought that the upside to leaving the agency would be that he wouldn't worry even half as much about his friends' safety. But the opposite was turning out to be true.
Ziva looked up at him with tired and worried eyes. "Are you all right?" she asked him.
Tony was so surprised and unprepared for the question that for a few long seconds all he could do was stare at her. It seemed so wrong that she should be asking after him, and his already stretched and overloaded brain just couldn't process it. "Why are you asking me that?" he had to ask.
Ziva swayed slightly as she gazed at him. It wasn't the normal gaze she gave him that made his stomach flip. It was the gaze of the concussed, and he didn't like it at all. "You look…" she trailed off, either because she wasn't completely with it, or because she realized he wouldn't like what she had to say. He guessed it was the later when a moment later she winced and averted her eyes. "I need a shower."
He stood by the foot of her bed as Ziva crossed to her dresser and retrieved some fresh clothes. Then she threw him a small, fleeting smile that gave him a strange surge of hope for their relationship, and went into her en suite. She swung the door closed but not all the way, leaving a finger-sized crack of light between the door and the jamb. He was grateful for that; he'd be able to hear it if she passed out and fell over.
He remained standing in the same spot with his eyes glued to the floor as he listened to her move around. He heard the rip as she unfastened the Velcro on her sling, and then a soft gasp. His muscles tensed as he prepared to move to help her, but his feet remained stony still. She hadn't asked for help, and he couldn't expect that it would be welcome just because they'd recently had a conversation that ended with her promising that she needed him. Tonight she had been pushed to her most vulnerable point, and going in to help her as she got undressed was probably a great way to get her to push him away from her for good. She needed to regain control over herself now. So he didn't move when he heard her gasp, or breathe out an expletive. He just stood there with his fists clenched as tight as his jaw and ready to rush in if she requested his presence. When the shower came on he let out a breath. She had managed without him.
It seemed safe for him to now lift his eyes from the floor and look around the room. He needed something to do. A distraction from anger and fear. His gaze fell on her bed. It was neatly made, just like always, but the same set of sheets had been on it for a few days and they could probably do with changing. Fresh sheets always made you feel better. That's what his mother had always said.
Quickly, Tony went down to the laundry room, found a set of clean sheets in the linen closet, and then ran back up the stairs to Ziva's bedroom. He paused by the door to the en suite and listened. When he heard the water hitting the floor of the shower in slaps he assumed Ziva was still standing up and moving, so he got to work. He stripped off all the old sheets, taking care to fold them all up neatly the way Ziva liked instead of dumping them in a heaped pile on the floor like he was used to doing. Then he started fighting with the new sheets. He kept an ear out for Ziva in case she needed help, but otherwise he kept his thoughts entirely focused on the domestic task instead of the revenge fantasies at the edges of his mind. He'd just finished getting the quilt cover on and still had the pillowcases to go when he heard Ziva call out.
"Tony?"
He looked up at the sound of her thin voice. She was standing in the doorway to the en suite, dressed in a black tank top and black knee-length drawstring pants. Her hair was dripping wet, but there was still some blood on the side of her face. He went over to her.
"Yeah. I'm here. Everything okay?"
She licked her lips as her eyes flicked away for a moment, but then looked at him all raw and open. "I need help."
His heart almost stopped from surprise, but he stayed as casual as he could. "Sure. What's up?"
She gestured in the vague direction of her head. "I cannot wash it properly."
He felt like what she was saying should have been easy to comprehend, but he struggled. "Can't wash what?"
"My hair," she elaborated. "There is blood through it, but I cannot lift my arm to wash it out. And I do not want to get my stitches wet."
He nodded and he very slowly caught on. "Okay. How do you want me to help?"
"Can you please wash it out for me?"
It seemed like a reasonable request, but his brain was still too slow to work out the logistics of it. "Sure," he said easily, but then added, "You want me to get in the shower…with you?"
Ziva closed her eyes and shook her head, but an amused smile touched her lips. "No. That is not necessary."
He followed her into the bathroom that was still steamy and smelled overwhelmingly like her. It tugged at his heart, but now was hardly the time to indulge in that. "I feel like I'm being really dense," he admitted, "but I don't know how to do this."
Ziva dropped a folded towel on the floor in front of the bathtub and then slowly sat down on it. She waved her good arm behind her at the faucet. "The shower hose, Tony," she said.
Finally, he caught on that she would tip her head back over the tub like they were at a hair salon. "Oh!" he exclaimed, probably too loudly. "Okay, I'm with you now. No problem. I got this."
He took off his watch and placed it beside the sink, and then went to stand beside her. He took the shower hose from its holder and turned on the water and played with the temperature until it felt about right to him. He looked down at Ziva in time to see her forehead pinch as she closed her eyes and tilted her head back.
"You dizzy?" he asked.
"A little," she murmured. "It throbs."
"Let me know if—"
"I will."
And he had to just take her word for it. He aimed the spray at her hair, and soon a trail of bloodstained water hit the pristine white of the bathtub and swirled down the drain. There seemed to be too much of it to attribute just to the cut on her forehead, and he started worrying that she had an undiagnosed major head injury. He put the shower hose back in its holder, and before he worked some shampoo in he took a few seconds to gently feel around her head. He watched her face for signs of discomfort, but Ziva's expression didn't change. He couldn't feel any large lumps, and when he pulled his hands back there wasn't an excessive amount of blood on them. He hoped that was a good sign, but resolved to monitor her tonight like a frickin' hawk.
He worked some shampoo into her hair and rinsed it, and then repeated it again to make sure all the blood was gone. He cupped his hand around her hairline to keep the bandage covering her stitches as dry as possible, and used a face washer to get the last bits of blood off the side of her face and neck. He turned to grab her conditioner out of the shower stall, and when he turned back he saw tears leaking out of the corner of Ziva's eyes.
"Are you okay?" he asked worriedly.
Ziva sniffed and nodded.
"Are you feeling pressure in your head?" he asked, laying his hand on her gently. God, if she was bleeding onto her brain right now they wouldn't have long to get her back to the hospital.
"No," she whispered, and then wrapped her hand around his ankle. "I am okay."
Then why was she crying? "Is the water too hot?"
She shook her head again and tightened her grip on his ankle. "No. Keep going."
He eyed her warily, but squeezed some conditioner into his hand and then gently worked it into her hair. He had to go back twice for more—she had so much more hair than he did—but he got it worked in all the way to the ends of her hair.
"Are you a wait-two-minutes-for-the-conditioner-to-work kind of girl, or…?"
To his surprise, Ziva laughed. Then she coughed and held her throat, and he felt guilty.
"Sorry."
Ziva shook her head as she calmed, and gripped his ankle again. "No," she rasped. "No waiting."
He washed the conditioner out, then got a fresh towel from the cabinet under the sink and as gently as possible he dried off her hair. By the time he was finished his back was killing him from bending over, and he hoped that the next thing Ziva wanted to do was either sit down for a while or go to bed.
"You're all done," he told her as he hung the towel on the rail to dry. "That's some of my best hair washing work right there, Ziva. You should be honored."
Ziva's eyes were still damp with tears when she opened them and smiled for him. "Thank you, Tony."
She held her left hand out to him and Tony helped her to her feet. He wasn't expecting her to keep moving forward, and when she ended up with her chest against his he worried that she'd gotten dizzy and was about to fall over. But then her good arm went around to hug him tight and she rested her cheek on his chest, and he realized the embrace was intentional. He wrapped his arms around her in reply because he didn't know what else he could do for her. And because frankly, he needed it as much as she seemed to. He'd hold on to her as long as she allowed.
Eventually Ziva pulled back and gave him a grateful smile. Then her eyes went lower to his chest, and her expression turned apologetic. "Sorry. I got you wet."
He looked down at the damp patches on his t-shirt. He didn't know whether they were from her tears, her hair, or both. "No big deal."
She nodded and turned, and Tony followed her back into her bedroom. He went to the head of her bed to finish putting the pillowcases on as Ziva sat on the edge of the bed. She ran her hand over the fresh quilt cover.
"Thank you."
"Nothing like clean sheets, huh?"
"Yes."
He finished with the pillows, gave them a quick fluff and dropped them in place. "Okay. Bed's ready. Do you want some water or a sandwich or something?"
Ziva shook her head. "No." She reached to pull back the bed covers, then shifted to lie down. She patted the mattress beside her. "Lie down with me?"
Who was Tony to refuse? He bent over to take off his shoes and socks, and then lowered himself onto the mattress. His back initially protested the change in position before his muscles relaxed and he began to feel the benefit to lying down.
He looked across the pillow at Ziva. She was watching him with troubled eyes. "How are you doing?" he asked her softly.
She closed her eyes briefly and sighed. "I am worried," she whispered, and Tony realized that he probably shouldn't be forcing her to talk right now.
"Sorry, we can talk tomorrow," he started, but she shook her head.
"I can whisper," she told him. "I am worried that the police still will not listen to the evidence we have on Eddie for staking Bonnie. And that he will be free to keep doing it."
Tony rolled onto his side towards her, ending up so close that his knees bumped against her shins and he could feel the heat in her skin from her shower through his clothes. "He's not getting away with it, Ziva," he reassured her, dropping his voice to a whisper as well. "McGee went ahead and took everything we have to them. They took my statement at the hospital about what we found, as well as both of our statements about what happened to you today. They took swabs of what they will find is Eddie's blood from under your nails. You tore his wrists to shreds, you know."
Ziva popped an eyebrow at him. "Did I?" She seemed genuinely surprised.
Tony nodded. "You got undeniable proof there, Agent David. But I wouldn't be surprised if the cops come by tomorrow and talk to you again. We'll make sure he gets charged, okay?"
Ziva nodded, and some of the worry left her eyes.
"Bonnie's going to be safe," he said, and without giving the action much thought he put his hand on top of hers as it rested on her stomach. "And at the least, Eddie's going to be charged with attacking you."
"Yes," she whispered, before her gaze shifted abruptly to his shoulder. She frowned deeply and bit the inside of her lip, and her hand beneath his flipped over so she could grip his fingers. "I thought…" she started, but paused and squeezed her eyes shut. Tony's heart hurt at her sudden distress, but he wasn't sure what was going on. He'd never seen her like this. "He got on top of me, and I thought he was going to…"
She trailed off again, but Tony didn't need her to finish. His nausea from earlier returned, and so did his anger, along with a flash of possessiveness that took his breath away with its might.
"I thought…" she tried again, but Tony stopped her from having to say it.
"I get it," he told her, and his voice cracked. "I know."
Ziva breathed out in relief and opened her eyes again. She took a deeper breath that made her cough, but she recovered quickly. "I panicked, Tony," she told him, as though admitting some terrible, shameful secret to him. "I should not have. I should have controlled it like I have been trained my whole life. But I couldn't."
"It's okay," he told her, hating how useless those words were right now. "You're okay, Ziva."
She nodded and breathed in slowly, drawing his comfort into her. Now her quiet tears from earlier made perfect sense to him.
"I'm with you," he added on a whim. He didn't think she would doubt it, but right then, he felt it was important to remind her.
Fresh tears sprang to her eyes, but she smiled at him. "Please stay there."
He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it. Wild horses wouldn't drag him away.
"Please do not tell McGee or Abby or anyone else," she whispered. "I am not comfortable with them knowing. But I just needed to tell you."
Tony shook his head. "I promise."
Her gaze drifted to the ceiling. "I cannot believe I panicked like that," she said, admonishing herself. "That I am letting it all get to me still."
She couldn't be talking about what happened today, and it didn't take him too long to work out what she was talking about, even if she'd never talked about it with him before. Somalia.
His stomach twisted into a knot as they entered uncharted and potentially treacherous waters. "Ziva, what you went through was a huge thing. No one expects you to just get over it."
"I thought I had," she whispered, her eyes still clinging to the ceiling.
He believed that she thought that. But he didn't believe it was the truth. "When was the last time you spoke to Man Hands?"
The corner of her mouth lifted at his use of her counselor's nickname. "A while ago."
"Maybe it would be a good idea to reconnect with her," he suggested. He would sit here and listen to Ziva spill her thoughts and feelings all day if she needed him to, but that didn't mean he'd be able to help her sort them out and deal with them. For that, she needed a professional.
But Ziva shook her head. "No. I don't think so. I was shocked tonight, but I will deal with it."
Tony hesitated. He wasn't sure how far he'd be able to push it before she got annoyed. But he always worried about that, and he had to stop. If they were going to have a solid relationship, he had to stop.
"Ziva, I think you do need it," he pressed. "You need to talk to someone with some kind of skill. And not just about today, or Somalia. You need to talk about your dad, and Bodnar." He watched tears well in her eyes, but this time he knew they wouldn't fall. "I worry about you."
Her eyes flicked in his direction and she smiled. "I know you do. I wish you would not."
"Can't help it."
She nodded. "I worry about you, too."
"Well, aren't we a perfect pair?" he cracked.
Ziva turned her head to look at him. "Yes," she stated, and squeezed his hand. "I am sorry about your apartment."
Tony frowned. In all of this, he couldn't say that he'd spared his apartment a single thought. "What about my apartment?"
"I think we broke some of your chairs," she said. "And there might be an indent of my face in your refrigerator."
It sounded like she was trying make light of it, but Tony wasn't in the mood for this kind of black humor. "I'll get over it," he told her. His thoughts drifted to the scene he'd walked in on that afternoon. He hadn't noticed the chairs. All he'd noticed was Ziva lying still on the floor with glass around her, her clothes bunched up and torn, and blood pouring out of her head. There could have been a person-sized hole in the wall and a pink elephant in the living room for all he knew. "I didn't know I had a vase," he heard himself say.
Ziva shrugged at him with her good shoulder. "Well, you don't anymore."
Again, he wasn't in the mood for her humor. "Jesus, Ziva."
She turned her face towards him again and closed her eyes. He was pretty sure that she was falling asleep, even though she wasn't letting go of his hand. But that was okay. He had planned on staying only about this far away from her all night anyway. He had to make sure that she didn't slip into unconsciousness.
"I did not ask for it, Tony."
Her voice was so strained that he barely heard what she'd said. And although he did hear, he didn't understand what she was talking about. "What?"
She opened sleepy eyes. "He came at me, and I defended myself," she said quietly. "I did not use excessive force. And I did not taunt him. I did not do anything that…warranted his return of force. I did not bait him."
She was crystal clear on the point, But Tony didn't know why she would think he wasn't. "Why would you think I would think you're responsible for this?"
Shame clouded her eyes. "There have been too many times when my actions have been called into question. I would understand if you had your doubts."
She was right. Her actions had been called into question many times in the past, and sometimes by him. But not now. "I don't doubt you, Ziva."
She let out a chuckle, then a cough, and closed her eyes again. "I do not deserve you," she murmured.
He'd often had the same thought about her. But in the end, he knew they were both wrong. He took a chance and leaned closer to press a lingering kiss to her cheek. "Believe me," he told her, "we definitely deserve each other."
"Sounds like a threat," she murmured.
The corner of his mouth pulled back. "Maybe."
She went quiet for a while then, and Tony stayed where he was with his hand clutching hers and his chin touching the point of her good shoulder. He let his eyes lose focus as Ziva's breathing slowed, and when his thoughts wandered towards the nightmare she believed she had been about to endure, he squeezed his eyes shut and pushed it out of his head. He couldn't deal with that right now. He just couldn't. He'd fall apart.
God, when were their lives going to get easier?
…
An hour later Tony was close to falling asleep as well. He'd set his internal body clock for two hours so he could wake up and check that Ziva was still breathing and more or less coherent, but he was just sliding towards slumberland when the sound of the front door opening startled him awake. He listened hard for any clue to whether it was friend or foe, and when he heard the beeping of the alarm being reset, he relaxed. It was probably McGee coming home finally. He listened to the familiar gait climbing the stairs and then coming down the hallway, and Tony looked up just as McGee hesitantly poked his head into the room.
"Hey," McGee whispered. "She awake?"
Tony gave him a small head shake. "No."
McGee took two quiet steps into the room. "She okay?" he asked, and then his expression changed to tell Tony that he knew how dumb the question sounded. "I mean…you know."
Tony did know. And the answer was no, she wasn't completely okay. But he protected Ziva's privacy like she had asked him to. "Yeah. Just tired and sore."
McGee nodded and looked at Tony carefully. "Are you okay?"
Tony opened his mouth the reply, but his throat suddenly closed. He wasn't close to okay. But he didn't feel like diving into the depths of his scarred psyche right now. He nodded a yes and shrugged like it was no big deal. McGee didn't look convinced, but had enough class not to call Tony a liar. Tony changed the subject.
"How did it go with the police?"
McGee peeked over to check that Ziva was still sound asleep, and then sat down on the foot of her bed. Ziva didn't stir. "They picked Eddie up about an hour ago," he said, and Tony let out a sigh of genuine relief. "Right now they're not completely convinced that he's been stalking Bonnie, even with the video you took and all of our statements. But they're charging him with assault on Ziva." He lowered his voice. "I've been pushing to get it bumped up to attempted murder, but I don't know how if I'll be successful on that."
Tony gripped Ziva's hand a little tighter and sent McGee a darkly pleased smile. McGee returned it.
"One way or another, we'll nail him."
"Crucify him," Tony amended.
McGee nodded and cast a worried look down at Ziva. There was an older brother protectiveness to it that Tony appreciated. He thought Ziva probably would too. Somehow, she tolerated protectiveness more from McGee than from him.
"Thanks for doing all that tonight, Tim," he said.
McGee gave him a knowing look. "Yeah, well I figured it'd save your ass."
Tony frowned. "How?"
McGee shook his head. "Because if you'd taken everything to the police you probably would've done the DiNozzo version of the Hulk and gotten yourself arrested."
Tony pursed his lips. There was definitely truth to that. "Oh."
His friend looked down at Ziva again, and then his eyebrows drew together in a picture of unexpected guilt. "This is my fault," he said quietly.
Tony couldn't begin to imagine how McGee had come to that conclusion. "How's that?"
McGee sighed at himself. "That stupid text message," he said. "I was distracted when I was sending it and I didn't fix the autocorrect."
"The text message where you told me to pick up Kevin?" Yeah, autocorrect fail on that one.
McGee leaned forward. "No, that's the thing," he said with frustration. "I sent it to you and Ziva, and it was supposed to say that I picked up Bonnie and Kavita. I was telling you what I'd already done, not asking you to do it."
Tony had to think it over. Picks up Bonnie and Kevin versus Picked up Bonnie and Kevin. "Ohhh," he breathed. "I see."
"I didn't proof read," McGee said. "I just sent it and Ziva went to your apartment and Eddie was there, and—"
"No, McGee, stop," Tony cut in. "He was already following Ziva."
"What?"
"Probably from here," Tony said. "Ziva said at the hospital that Eddie made a comment about her car. He was following her. This had nothing to do with you. So get over it."
McGee looked relieved, but only for a moment. "It still happened. Can't get over it just like that."
Tony nodded. "Yeah. I know." His eyes drifted to Ziva, who was still sleeping. "But she's okay. And tomorrow we'll close the case for Bonnie."
McGee nodded slowly, and then gave Tony a listless smile. "Hell of a first case, huh?"
It was an understatement Tony only saw fit to answer with sarcasm. "I hope they all go as smoothly as this one."
I know a lot of you wanted to read about Tony finding Ziva in distress, but I feel like you've probably all read that kind of thing a hundred million times in fanfic. I thought this might be more interesting. [Crosses fingers.]
Continued thanks for your interest in this!