A/N: Chapter 3…. I'm not sure how it turned out. I was super tired when I wrote it. Please review, good or bad! Thanks for reading!

Disclaimer: NCIS no es mio

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Tony was left with his thoughts while his partner slept silently, head in his lap.

"Ziva's not snoring. Odd. God, she usually sounds like an asthmatic trucker. Maybe her ribs are bugging her. She really is too tough for her own good. She should just tell me the truth about how much pain she's in. I could help her more easily. But of course, she's Mossad. She doesn't show pain. My ninja's too proud.

Wait… why do I even care? And when did she become my ninja? Well, she's my partner, of course it's natural to care about her. And I guess it gives me possession of her. Sort of. I'm pretty sure Ziva would have already killed me with 12 out of the 18 ways she can do so with a paperclip if she knew I was thinking this. Even in her current state.

Damn, she's beat up. I hate seeing her like this. I'd switch places with her in a heartbeat if I could. Then again, that would have involved me climbing a 3 story giant oak, which would in all likelihood never happen, unless I was severely inebriated. Even then, doubt I would make it past the first few branches.

Focus, DiNozzo, you have a job to do. God, I need Gibbs, he'd get us out of this mess. But I guess even Gibbs can't control the weather. We're stuck here until it lets up. This reminds me of that scene in…."

While Tony was lost in his mental replay of an episode of "Walker Texas Ranger", Ziva began to stir in her sleep. At first it was just a barley noticeable flickering of her eyelids, but as she began thrashing about and whimpering as if in pain, Tony snapped out of his reverie.

"Shit, she must be having a nightmare. What do I do? Wake her up? But she needs to sleep. But this can't be good for her ribs. Or leg. Or wrist. Ugh I have to wake the ninja. Last time this happened, I had a gun to my cheekbone…. Great."

Tony gently shook her shoulder. "Ziva, Ziva, wake up. You're having a nightmare. Come on, Zi, wakey, wakey!"

At the sound of her partner's voice, Ziva's eyes shot open as she gasped for breath and tried to sit up.

"Easy does it Zi, lie down. You're okay, you just had a bad dream. You're safe here. Relatively. I mean, we are stuck in a cave in the middle of the woods without cell phone reception and you can't walk… but you're still safe…." Tony rambled on, as Ziva just looked at him in confusion, still trying to regulate her breathing.

It wasn't until Tony asked her if she was cold that Ziva realized she was shaking.

"No, I am fine, Tony. Here is your shirt, you should put it back on. Gibbs will be upset if you get sick," Ziva lied. She really was cold, though that was not the reason she was shaking.

Her brain flashed back to the nightmare she hadn't had in probably 15 years.

"Ziva, Ziva, you can't catch me! You can't catch me!' a boy, who looked to be around the age of 6, chanted in excited Hebrew, running up the stairs and out onto the flat, tiled roof of the David's multi-storied house in Tel Aviv.

'Aaron, the rules for hide and seek specifically say you cannot hide on the roof! Cheater!' cried an upset Tali. Ever the rule follower….

'You had better run, Aaron, I will get you!' joked a 12 year old Ziva, running after the smaller boy. She enjoyed making her little brother laugh. He was the youngest and most innocent of them all.

'Zivaleh, you're too slow!' he cried, as he turned around and stuck out his tongue at his older sister, still running in the opposite direction of his pursuer.

'Aaron, watch out!' screamed Ziva, too late, as she watched her baby brother trip over the small wall, bordering the edge of the roof. Watching in horror as his angelic face, now contorted in surprise and fear, disappeared over the edge of the wall.

Ziva and Tali sprinted over to the side of the roof and peered over the edge, only to find a motionless heap of limbs, all bent in unnatural positions."

"Zi, you okay? You kinda zoned out there," Tony probed, noting his partner's glaze over expression and tear filled eyes.

"Yes Tony, I am fine. It was nothing," she hastily replied. Looking away from Tony when she realized her eyes were moist.

"Sweetcheeks, I can tell when you're lying. Just tell me. What was your dream about? Or is it your leg that's bothering you?"

To be honest, Ziva had completely forgotten about her injuries; she had been too consumed in her nightmare to notice. Her leg throbbed in increasing pain, and her ribs seemed to catch fire every time she took a breath. She glanced down at her wrist and noticed it had turned a nice shade of purple and had begun to swell. But none of this mattered to her as she tried to rid her thoughts of her long-forgotten dream.

Her attempts to forget the nightmare only made matters worse as the thoughts refused to leave her mind. She began to shake more noticeably and her eyes welled up with tears once again, this time with such force that one managed to escape before she could wipe it away.

"Zi, do you wanna sit up? You seem cold. Here, lean against me, you'll be warmer," Tony suggested, thinking she was shaking out of lack of warmth instead of reliving the horrible nightmare. He sat her up as she cautiously slid her way between his legs, leaning against his chest, as he put his arms around her, careful not to jar her sensitive ribs. She had to admit, this was a lot warmer.

Tony gently reached over and lifted her right leg onto the backpack once more the elevate it, before returning his warm embrace around her torso.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" he gently asked, noticing Ziva was still shaken by whatever had caused her to wake up in such a panic. "When I was younger, I used to have a stuffed dog—no mocking, I was like 8, that I used to sleep with. Whenever I had a bad dream, I used to retell it to Buddy and it seemed to make it less scary."

Ziva gave him a half smirk at his concession and took a deep, shuddering breath as she began, "When I was twelve, my 6 year old brother died," she stated bluntly, trying to distance herself from the situation.

"Wait, you had a brother?" questioned Tony, "I thought you had a sister named Tali?"

"Yes, I had a brother. And a sister as well. Both are dead now." "Actually two brothers," Ziva thought, thinking briefly of Ari.

"We were playing hide and seek, as I think you call it here. The kind where you must chase the person after you have found them. Aaron decided to run onto the roof. As I was chasing him, he lost his footing a slipped over the edge. Our house was 4 stories. He died on impact. That is what the doctors said. My father never forgave me. In his eyes, I am responsible for the death of his only heir." Ziva sucked in a sharp breath, trying to control her emotions as she finished telling Tony a secret she had never told anyone else before.

Tony didn't know what to say. He knew Ziva wouldn't care for an "I'm sorry" or a "That's awful." So he did the only thing he could think of. He pulled her closer to him, taking her ice-like hands in his own and wrapping her in a sincere, and hopefully comforting embrace.

At Tony's surprising actions, Ziva's eyes once again filled up with tears. "Ziva, you are crying more today than you have in the past 4 years. Get a handful of yourself. Be grateful that your back is to Tony so he cannot see you like this." Ziva tensed up at first, but then relaxed into his embrace, allowing herself to be comforted in a way she had never been comforted before. It reminded her of the way her mother used to rock her as a child, long before any accidents or bombings occurred. When she was still an innocent, carefree little girl.

"He always hated me after that. No matter what I did to prove myself to him, I was never good enough. I have spent my entire life trying to make up for an accident that occurred when I was twelve," Ziva admitted in a hoarse whisper. "I just want him to forgive me."

With that, Ziva shut her eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath, leaning her head back against Tony's shoulder.

Tony, who had remained silent throughout Ziva's heartbreaking explanation, planted a soft kiss on the side of her head, not knowing what to say to make her feel better. He had no joke or movie reference for this kind of thing. As he stared out the mouth of the cave, he noticed the rain beginning to let up.

"Ziva, I know you're a tough, ass-kicking, Mossad assassin, and you don't like to talk about your feelings and stuff like that. But if you ever feel like sharing, or need someone to vent to, I'm always here. I'm a good listener," he smiled at her, trying to lighten the mood with his last statement, though he whole-heartedly meant what he said.

Ziva simply turned her head and looked up at him, giving him a soft, half-smile and a brief nod before returning her head to the crook of his neck.

"Look, Sweetcheeks. The rain is starting to let up. Maybe we do have a shot at making it back to the car before dark."

Mehh…. Whaddya think? Tell it to me straight. I have a hard time writing the more emotional, touchy-feely stuff. Especially trying to keep them both in character.