Pairing: Ducky/Ziva friendship
Spoilers: Slight McWriter.
Ducky's chapter! I like it, so I hope you will too :D and thank you so much to everyone who reviewed the last chapter! You guys are the bestest :D I wish to give you all the rainbows in the world!
-Soph
Ducky, McGee, and Palmer show up as a group shortly after work hours, three heads peering around the doorway in a rather comical show of solidarity. She beckons them in with a smile. Tony suddenly tightens his grip on her, as if he's afraid the other three might take her away; she shoots him a puzzled look as the others gather around her bed. If they notice the movement, they say nothing.
"How are you, my dear?" Ducky smiles and pats her shoulder. "I'm sorry we could not make it here earlier. Jethro…suggested that we stay at the Navy Yard and hold the fort."
"Yeah." McGee shifts on his feet, looking down at the floor. "I wanted to come with Abby but Gibbs said to stay at work. I got you this though…it's the newest Deep Six book. It's the early edition; hasn't gone into official circulation yet."
He leans forward to hand her the book, and then freezes halfway. "U-uh…uhm…I'm not advertising this, by the way. I just thought you might want something to read…"
"I do appreciate it, McGee. Thank you." She smiles reassuringly and stretches forward to take the book. She can't quite make it; her stitches pull painfully on her flesh. Tony takes it for her and lays it in her open hands; she accepts it, sinking deflatedly into her pillows. Another thing she can't do on her own. How many months more before she can at least pretend to be self-sufficient again?
Tony entwines her fingers with his and gives her a squeeze.
"Mr Palmer…" Ducky begins. "Timothy, Anthony. Could I please have a moment alone with Ziva? I promise you that I will take good care of her."
Tony hesitates while McGee and Palmer move towards the door; she nods and gives his hand an answering squeeze. She doesn't know what Ducky has in mind and she doesn't know if she's up for another round of emotional explosion, but she trusts Ducky. Tony eventually unentangles his fingers from hers and shuffles out of the room.
She watches his retreat, wondering when they started spending so much time together.
Ducky sinks down onto her bed. "Where does it hurt?" he asks quietly, and she knows he's not talking about her stitches.
"Everywhere." It's probably the most truthful answer she can give him. "Everything hurts. I used to be able to…fight several men. At the same time. Now, I cannot even stretch forward to take a book."
"You have not lost your skills, Ziva."
"No. I have only lost the opportunity to use them."
"Do you really think so?"
"I can't work…knowing that I have this hanging over my head. I'll have to schedule my life around chemotherapy and doctor's visits and the hope that I do not relapse. How can I do everything that work will require, knowing I have to constantly pay attention to these things? I will have to keep taking days off, and while I'm having chemo and recovering from my surgery I will not be able to do things like I used to."
"The effects from the surgery and the chemotherapy will wear off eventually."
"Yes. But what if I relapse?"
"Then we shall have to do it again. But Ziva, there is no point in worrying about something that has not occurred."
She purses her lips. "I'm merely preparing myself."
"Preparing oneself…means educating oneself. Knowing the symptoms and the stages, and the remission and relapse rates. As I am sure, you are well aware of them. You are prepared. Preparing oneself does not mean worrying. It is like crossing a road, Ziva. There is always a possibility of being hit. When we are prepared, we look left and right and make sure that there are no cars before crossing. We do not wait because we are afraid of being hit, because then we might never get across."
She nods ruefully. Ducky's right, as Abby was. Have they always been that wise, or had she simply lost perspective? "Ducky…I lost…my will to live."
"How do you mean, my dear?"
"These…few weeks…I've been doing everything because I should, but I don't really want to do them. I don't even know why I took the surgery…I think it was an automatic decision."
"Perhaps you still have the will to live, if you took the surgery."
She shakes her head. "My thoughts were all about dying. Not that I wanted to die, but they kept coming to me."
"Ahhh, well, you've had a difficult time. Preoccupation with death, Ziva, is normal when we're facing something that might potentially be fatal."
"It should not be."
"Perhaps so, and perhaps not. It's simply an evolutionary mechanism. We cannot stay alive by ignoring the threats to our survival. But we also cannot stay alive by thinking only about the thing that threatens our survival. Imagine if you are to face down a criminal who's holding a gun by focusing only on him. You will forget how you are supposed to react. You will forget the knife hidden at your waist and the gun strapped to your ankle, and the escape route behind him. Ziva, you remember those things in such situations now because you have been trained to remember them. You have not been trained to face cancer. So it is normal for you to forget. But if you can tell me this now, about your having lost the will to live, then perhaps it means you've not completely forgotten. After all, we cannot find what we don't know we've lost."
"I had some help from Abby with that."
"Well, my dear, we are here for you."
She's surprised when her eyes tear up again at that. She's starting to forget why she'd kept this from them; why she'd refused to let Gibbs and Tony tell them. "Thank you, Ducky."
"Always a pleasure, my girl." Ducky gives her a gentle hug before standing up again. "Now, would you like for the boys to come back in?"