It is completely dark outside and Tony has been using the overhead light to stare at the wall for two hours when her voice comes from nowhere. She speaks softly, groggily, and slowly enough that each syllable in his name almost sounds like its own sentence.
He looks down, and his eyes immediately lock onto her brown ones. They are tired and hazy, but they are unmistakably Ziva's, and he cannot help himself from breathing out her name.
The serene moment is broken when she gasps, "The bomb!" and sits up too quickly. She cries out, and Tony reaches to cradle her injured shoulder, coaxing her back onto the pillows. "Tony, is everyone okay?"
"Listen, I'll fill you in, but we need to let a nurse know you woke up first."
Ziva grabs his hand as he's reaching for the call button. He is taken aback by the strength she possesses in her healthy arm. "Tell me now."
The nurse told him that it is common for patients to have poor memories of the one or two days after they are given anesthesia, but there is such fear and anxiety evident in her eyes. Even if he has to tell her again in the morning, he will not withhold comfort from her tonight.
"We're all fine," he says in the most soothing voice he can. Her muscles visibly relax. "We, as in Gibbs' team. There were… other agents who didn't make it. Um, McGee… McGee got the worst of it; he was by the window in the squad room. But his surgery went well and he's gonna be just fine." There is a long pause as he debates with himself, and then he decides to reveal all of it, to rip it off like a Band-Aid. "Ducky had a heart attack."
She gasps, tightening her grip on his fingers. "What?"
"Palmer says he's okay, too," he adds quickly. "But I thought you should know."
The sheer gravity of all the anguish that has hit their team today weighs heavily in her sullen eyes, and he fears that she is about to show that broken girl he saw just about a year ago in the same elevator they had been pulled from today. Ziva being weak both hurts and scares him.
When she cracks, there is good reason to be scared.
But she doesn't, at least for now. Instead, she moves that good hand to touch his cheek and murmurs, "What about you?"
Tony is caught off guard by the sudden change in her face and tone, but he goes along with it and sighs. The warmth of her palm against his face renews his guilt. "Me. I've got nothing but cuts and bruises."
Her fingers ghost over the markings on his face, applying the slightest pressure, not near enough to hurt. He doesn't understand how she can be worried about him when he is sitting in a chair, barely scathed, while she lays in her hospital bed hooked up to a heart monitor. Doesn't she want to know about how serious her injury was or the measures taken to repair it?
What about the reason he allowed it to happen?
"You lost a lot of blood," he tells her.
"I did not ask about me," she reminds him gently. "I asked about you."
Right then, he sees news footage from Morocco. The Damocles. Saleem Ulman. Jonas Cobb. The cumulative pain hits him so hard he feels light-headed and his chest seizes up; he has to remind himself that everything is in the past and, more importantly, that they survived it all.
He focuses on her concerned face, takes note of the fact that she still cradles his cheek in her palm. In the end, it is her acting like he's the one who needs to be cared for that causes his anger to rise like bile.
"I'm not hurt, but I'm not good, Ziva." Tony stands abruptly from his chair; her hand drops to the bed. "Do you know how many times I've almost lost you?" His voice is too loud for nighttime at a hospital, but now that he's started, he can't stop. "Too many. And it almost happened again. Why the hell do you always have to be on top of me? Can't you just let me take the hit for once?"
"For once?" she asks, her face contorting in disbelief. "Tony. You took… the ultimate hit. You came to Somalia."
Tony shakes his head, holds up his hands Neither of them wants to relive that. They don't bring it up. They don't talk about it. It's an unspoken rule and she is currently breaking it. "Stop."
"Abby told me," she pushes. "She told me the mission never would have happened without you." Her voice cracks, and he berates himself: you upset her. You caused her to bring up Somalia. You couldn't just shut your damn mouth.
"Ziva, I'm-"
Before he can finish apologizing, she cuts him off. "I didn't tackle you in the elevator, Tony. Everything happened so fast; we just fell. It was not purposeful, but I… will gladly take a shoulder injury, because you have saved my life."
He stares at her, temporarily speechless as his anger at each of them melts away, and then lowers himself onto the edge of the bed. The hair falling across her face flutters with her shuddering breath. Tony hesitantly moves it aside; her eyes are closed. "Ziva, you can't feel guilty about that."
"I don't," she replies automatically, opening her eyes and shifting just slightly so that her injured arm isn't bothered but her other arm can snake around his waist. Almost subconsciously, he leans closer to her. "I haven't for a long time. I am merely aware of… the sacrifice you were willing to make for me. And I am telling you, I'm willing to do the same thing." Their foreheads meet, and her heart monitor speeds up a little. She is alive and she is here and he feels it with every bone in his body. It is quiet except for their breathing and the beeping until she murmurs, almost in wonder, "You meant it."
"What?" Tony asks.
"You meant it when you said that you couldn't live without me."
This is a turning point. The point at which he needs to make a decision: move forward or go back. Deflect as he usually does or start being straight.
Ziva already knows. She knows what he knows, which is that yes, he meant it and that today, he still needs her just as much as he ever did. All he needs to do is stop running from what that means for them, what a mutual understanding could lead to.
This is the time to stop squelching everything.
Their time- his and Ziva's- is upon them.
One of his hands threads into her messy hair, and there is no deflection in the question he asks. "You didn't believe me?"
"Not fully. Not until now." And she brushes her lips against his. "I cannot live without you, either."
0000000000
In the morning, he is awakened by two loud nurses moving around Ziva's bed and writing in her charts, their laughter resembling the squawking of chickens. Tony sits up in his hard plastic chair and winces as he feels a twinge in his neck.
"Wha' time is it?" he slurs, more to himself than anyone, but one of the nurses pauses in the middle of a story and looks over.
"It's about nine," she says. "Glad you woke up; we were about to kick you outta here. We need to change her bandages."
Highly doubt you two have trouble waking anybody up, he thinks grouchily, and is surprised to see that Ziva is only beginning to stir. She looks better than she did yesterday; there is more color in her face, and he worked most of the knots out of her hair last night.
He stands slowly, hand braced against his aching back. "That's cool. I'll go get some food. It just doesn't feel right to eat in front of the lady while she's being fed through an IV."
The nurses chortle as he leaves the room. In the hallway, he turns toward McGee's room instead of the cafeteria. The last time Tony saw the junior agent was immediately after he and Ziva were rescued from the elevator; the paramedics had already gotten to McGee and were hurrying him out on a stretcher. He figures he owes Probie an apology for not coming to visit before now- although, McGee probably has his hands full with Abby.
When he enters the room, he does a double take. McGee is awake and sitting up in bed, but attached to twice as many wires as Ziva, including a nasal cannula. Where Tony's face is a bit scratched up, McGee's is showered with tiny incisions, and the skin that isn't marked looks puffy.
Another person he cares about, put in a hospital by Harper Dearing.
Damn that bastard.
"Tony!" Abby cries before he can think of something more eloquent to say. She is standing directly under the TV, the remote totally vertical as she flips through the channels. "Hi!"
"Hi," he says uncertainly, taken aback by how completely normal she seems. "Is that really the most comfortable way to do that?"
"This is the only place the stupid remote works," she explains, craning her neck to see the screen. "Days of Our Lives, McGee?"
There is no reply. She takes that as a no and returns to her surfing.
Tony walks further into the room, stopping at the foot of McGee's bed. "How's it goin'?" he asks lamely, stopping himself from adding a McNickname at the end.
"Great." The sarcasm is evident in the raspy voice. "Best part is that my ribs are only bruised. Heard from Gibbs?"
"Not today."
"Toddlers & Tiaras is on!"
"No," both men say at once. Abby holds up her hands in surrender. McGee asks, "How's Ziva?"
I cannot live without you, either.
All Tony says is, "She's doing well," without elaborating on his anger and guilt or the confessions that had been exchanged the night before. Something on the TV catches McGee's eye and he tells Abby to leave it. It appears to be the Discovery Channel, nothing Tony is interested in, and he plops down in a chair. He decides that he will sit in here either until Gibbs arrives or the science show gets too boring, whichever occurs first.
It is a sudden thought, coming out of nowhere and completely blindsiding him, that causes him to inhale deeply several minutes later. His companions glance over curiously, but their attention is quickly recaptured by the TV, leaving Tony to remember what the nurse had told him about anesthesia and memory loss.
Last night's conversation might not exist in Ziva's mind.
I really like this chapter, personally. But I'd love to know what you think! Thank you for reading!