I did my best to get this bad boy up quickly, but was thwarted by a cold that had me down so bad I skipped Fringe on Thursday and went to bed. And I make a point to watch Fringe live every week. THEN last night I was all ready to post and Comcast decided the Mid-West didnt actually need the internet so there went another day. So I'll keep the notes short…Thank you reviewers and readers! Onto the show…

Hold me now, I need to feel relief
Like I never wanted anything
I suppose I'll let this go and find a reason I'll hold onto
I'm so ashamed of defeat

And I'm outta reason to believe in me
I'm outta trying to get by
I'm so afraid of the gift you give me
I don't belong here and I'm not well

I'm so ashamed of the lie I'm living
Right on the wrong side of this
I can't face myself when I wake up and look inside a mirror
I'm so ashamed of that thing

I suppose I'll let it go till I have something more to say for me
I'm so afraid of defeat
And I'm outta reason to believe in me
I'm outta trying to defy
The Gift, Seether

Chapter Six: The Gift

He took a tentative step toward her, afraid if he got too close she would bolt. "I want you to talk to me."

"Why? Why do you want to know so badly, Tony? Morbid curiosity?" her voice was angry and defensive, the tears wiped away with the palms of her hands.

"Do you really think I want to hear in explicit detail what happened to you? Of course I don't. But I also think you need to have someone you can talk to. I can be that for you. Let me be there for you." Large brown eyes looked at him with an expression he couldn't define.

"I would not ask you to do that, Tony."

"You don't have to. That's the point." He took another step toward her. "I know you are still hurting, Ziva."

"I am fine, Tony," she said but her resolve was slowly crumbling the face of Tony's earnestness and her own confused thoughts.

Another step and he was within arms length. "Don't give me that 'fine' crap. We both know you are far from fine." He reached out a hand and touched her arm, his voice quiet. "No one goes through what you did and comes out the other side 'fine'."

She swallowed and considered his words, cursing his astuteness when it came to her. Ziva could barely admit to herself she was not fine.

"I'm not saying you need to talk now," he continued, "just soon and to someone if not me. Please."

Fear and doubt suddenly coursed through her and her head shook. "I cannot…"

He took her face in both hands, looking deep into those eyes, the ones he could easily get so lost in and suddenly understood her hesitation. "I won't think anything less of you. No one would think anything less of you."

New tears sprung in her eyes. "Yes, you will. I am a trained assassin, a Mossad officer. Getting captured was not an option…" her voice cracked and softened. "I should have been able to fight them off. Move faster. Fight harder. Finish the mission …"

He released her face and wrapped his arms around her, bringing her smaller body into his for a tight embrace. "You did all you could Ziva."

The feeling of her gripping onto his shirt almost desperately preceded the silent sobs that racked her body. Tony held onto her, laying his cheek on the top of her head, making a quiet "shushing" sound as you would do to comfort a child.

Eventually the sobs stopped and her grip on his shirt loosened, but she stayed in his embrace, enjoying the warmth and safety it provided. His arms wrapped around her provided the one thing she had been stripped of since being captured in the desert: security. Here she could fall apart and know he would hold her up. It felt good to cry, to let some of the emotion out, especially knowing that he would have her back. In her heart she knew that Tony would not pity her, or think less of her as an agent, but her mind was resisting.

A sudden long, loud grumble from her stomach broke the silence and they both laughed lightly.

"Hungry?" Tony asked without releasing her.

Pulling away from him she looked into his eyes and smiled. "Starving. I have not eaten since breakfast."

"It's…almost 7, no wonder." As much as he didn't want to, Tony put space between them. "I found this great grille…"

She shook her head. "I think I would just like to order in."

"Okay," he said and headed over to the small desk, grabbing the room service menu and returning to her. "Old habits die hard, huh?"

"Tony…thank you."

He dropped the menu onto the bed, and pulled her down, sitting on the edge. The look on his face was deadly serious. "I get that you don't want to talk to psych services. But what happened to you, what they did to you, isn't something you can just shut away and forget about. Trust me, I know, I try not to think about what happened in Africa. I try not to picture you at the mercy of a psychopath and his merry band of nut jobs, but I do." He looked down at their still joined hands. "I started seeing a therapist."

"Why?" she asked quietly, impressed that Tony would reveal something like that to her.

"Because I couldn't deal with it. The visual of you…and the fact we didn't look for you sooner. I needed to let it out before it ate me from the inside out. And I didn't experience it; I've just got my very vivid imagination to work with. So what I am telling you is: I felt better after talking about it." He reached out and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "And I always have your back, no matter what you do."

Lips pressed into a firm line she looked at him, eyes brimming once again. "I know."

"Good then." With that he picked up the menu and handed it to her. "Let's order dinner."

"You just ate!"

"I'm a growing boy."

She gave his midsection a quick glance and smirked. "Clearly."

Before he could protest she opened the menu, quickly choosing something and handing the plastic back to him, announcing she was going to shower while they waited the nearly 45 minutes for room service.

Entering the bathroom, she took a long look at her face in the mirror. On the outside she looked the same as always, but she knew on the inside she was drastically different, no matter how hard she tried to deny it. Sighing she stepped into the warm water; Tony was right, she knew that. And their conversation gave her the encouragement she needed to want to talk about it, to want to get it out, unburden herself with someone she trusted more than anyone in the world.

By the time she redressed in cotton shorts and a tank top, dinner had arrived and Tony was already seated on the couch, digging into his pasta.

"Was I in there that long?" she asked.

"Nope, they were just really fast," he stated and shoved a forkful of alfredo into his mouth. The TV had been turned onto ESPN, which seemed intent on having a LeBron James report every other topic.

Rolling her eyes, she sank into the couch next to him with her legs tucked neatly under her and pulled her plate to her—she had also ordered pasta, though a pesto sauce—and within 10 minutes the entire plate was gone. As she placed her empty plate next to his on the table and sat back, Tony pulled up the guide for the resort satellite.

"What do you want to do? We've got movies, we've got resort nightly entertainment, we've got…three pools. Your wish is my command."

It amazed her how quickly he reverted back to "normal" Tony. It was a comfort to her that he didn't dwell on their previous conversation or allow it to influence the rest of the evening, instead allowing her to choose the pace.

Taking a look outside Ziva decided quickly that she was in no mood to deal with other people right now. "I think I would rather stay in."

"Movie it is. Lets see…" Within minutes Tony had quickly eliminated half the movies available to them, proclaiming most as 'crap'. "Ok, here's what we got: the updated Star Trek, old school Princess Bride or…ooooh, that's a goodie, Executive Decision."

"Star Trek," she responded quickly, which earned her a look from Tony.

"Never pictured you as a Trekkie, Agent David."

She smiled at the use of "Agent" instead of "Officer". "Just start the movie."

Within minutes of the start of the movie she had moved closer to him on the couch, her head in the crook of his arm, which was lying across her side, his fingers just brushing the top of her shorts.

As the end of the movie rolled by, the sun was past the horizon and neither of them had turned on a lamp in the room, the only light coming from the TV screen. Still curled against Tony's side, the room dark, she felt comfortable. Empowered. Ready.

"You know, a photographic memory is not all it is cracked up to be," she started quietly and the only indication she had he heard her was the TV volume muted. "I must…lock away the memories because if I do not then I can recall every detail. The smells, the sounds, the taste of blood in my mouth, the feeling of their hands…" She paused. "He started with just the beatings, trying to get information from me. I…withstood his attempts."

The arm that had been draped along her side squeezed, pulling her closer but he said nothing.

"The drugs, they also did not work. We are…trained to resist the effects. It took close to a month of torture before Saleem realized that he would not get the information he desired from me. I would not betray NCIS or Mossad." Tears welled in her eyes as the memories assaulted her and she spoke again, her voice breaking. "It was after that he allowed some of the senior men to…use me for their own enjoyment. That was the only reason I was kept alive, to be treated like a commodity and an outlet for their anger when objectives were not met. Or as a prize when they were."

"Ziva…" he whispered into her hair.

"Every time they raped or beat me I silently wished for death. Saleem would take pleasure in…" She shook her head as if trying to remove the memory.

"You don't have to…" he started to say but she cut him off knowing if she stopped she would be unable to start again.

"He would let me think I was going to die, push me to the edge…and then bring me back." Her hand absently went to her neck, the feeling of his rough, dirty hands strangling her still as real as they were a year ago. A warm, comforting hand started to rub her back slowly and she touched the flag she now wore as if it was a ward that would keep the horrors away.

He nuzzled her hair and whispered, "You are the strongest person I know."

The feeling of his warm breath tickling her temple erased the feeling of her torturer. "When he stabbed me I thought for sure that was it, I would bleed to death on the dirt floor of my cell. I welcomed it, Tony. I was not scared of dying; I was thrilled I would finally escape him. How is that strong?"

"I don't think many people in that position would have made it that far and not lost their minds. You thought that was your only escape. And at the time, it was. I don't hold it against you."

She lifted her head and looked at him. "Then you were there, sitting in front of me. I thought I was seeing things. Or that I actually had died and was now in Hell. But no…you had travelled thousands of miles into the desert, into unknown territory in the search of a madman. For revenge."

A small smirk crossed his face. "You were an added bonus."

She ignored his lightheartedness. "After the way we parted, after I shoved a gun into your chest and accused you of…"

"I doesn't matter, the whys. What matters is you are here."

"I was not worthy of your actions."

"Yes. You were." His tone was final. "Despite what you still think, you did not deserve…what they did to you. No one does."

Now she placed her hands on either side of his face. "Tony, thank you. For then…and now."

Slowly she leaned in and placed a gentle kiss on his lips, she wanted—needed—to feel alive again. No…normal. She wanted to feel normal, and not have her time in Africa taint her feelings and actions. She wanted to have a man touch her with desire and not flinch or flashback. Ziva knew Tony could do all these things for her, because it came down to trust. The last man she allowed to touch her had walked away after she had nearly broken his wrist. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, he was attractive and they had hit it off at the bar, but he was a stranger and had not earned her trust, so when he groped her on the way out she…reacted. She had been as surprised as he when she lashed out. Needless to say, she went home alone that night; and had not attempted anything like it again.

But this was Tony. Trust didn't get any deeper between two people then it did with them.

So when he returned her kiss and slid a hand down to cup her ass, she did not flinch and did not flash back. Instead a familiar, warm feeling rushed through her.

It didn't take long for the single kiss to escalate into lengthy kisses broken up by short breaks for panting breaths.

As she moved her body to straddle him, Tony became painfully aware what having his beautiful, lithe partner on his lap was doing to him. Warms lips on his neck sent a jolt through his body and he knew they would have to stop now or risk not stopping and Tony wasn't willing to go there, not tonight. Their emotions were too raw and at the surface.

Reluctantly he pulled away from her, stilling her motions. "Ziva, stop."

She let out a noise of disappointment but leaned back.

"I…I don't think right now is a good idea. Not after…"

He was right, and she knew it, so she placed her forehead on his and took several long breaths to calm herself.

Silently she stood and held out a hand—which he took—and led him to the bed. Tonight would have been poor timing at best or an emotional disaster at worst.

Despite her reservations about opening up to him, Tony had been right. Ziva felt as though a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She felt freer, more in control then she had in over a year. The memories were no longer oppressive.

As she drifted into sleep Ziva felt a light kiss being dropped onto her head, she knew Tony was right. Having sex tonight would have been an emotional response to pouring out her heart, but tomorrow was a new day. And a day they had off.

She would not let the opportunity pass her by.

Tbc…..