I Am Damaged Goods
"I have lost myself again
Lost myself and I am nowhere to be found,
Yeah I think that I might break
Lost myself again and I feel unsafe."
-Breathe Me, Sia
He sat close to the head of the gurney, watching as they slid a needle into the underside of her arm, taping it there. He watched as they slid a board beneath her leg; saw the flickering of emotion across her face. She was looking at nobody but him, blocking out the rest of the world. He despised that she was so frightened, that she'd had to go through so much. It pained him to see that the woman he'd grown to love as a daughter in so much pain. He'd unconsciously called on his paternal side when he'd seen her lying with her head in Tony's lap. Gibbs met eyes with one of the EMTs, and then looked back towards Ziva. "Are you still in pain?" He asked, placing a hand on top of her head.
She blinked, twice – the lights were starting to go hazy. "Some." She said, feeling as if she were stumbling over her tongue. "I do not want to be numb."
He gathered her hair away from her face, freeing it from beneath her shoulders. "You're safe, Ziva – I'm not going to let anybody get past me – and we caught him." He soothed. "You can rest. You did well."
She swallowed, trying to get the words past the exhaustion. There was something – something she needed to tell him, something important. She felt as if it were one of those dreams that you tried to hold on to when you woke up, only to find the more you tried to remember it the more it faded away. "I am … afraid, Gibbs." It came out like a question.
"Fear is a natural response." He assured her. "It's okay." Again he took her hand, covering it with both of his. She suddenly seemed so small in the gurney, strapped there, the EMTs working to straighten out her leg. He leaned in to whisper his words, only for her. "I'm proud of you, Ziver."
"I am not proud of myself."
Her words broke his heart, but her hand tightened in his. "I'm proud enough for the both of us." He assured her with a sad smile. The ambulance sped its way towards the hospital, the sirens overhead roaring.
She felt the sedative they'd given her working its way through her system, turning everything slow and soft – it scared her, but she forced that feeling away. She'd been taught to use fear – use it as a response, and every instinct was telling her that this situation was dangerous – but for one of the first times in her life, she attempted to ignore them. Ziva blinked and found it hard to re-open her eyes, but found the words she'd been attempting to speak earlier.
"Gibbs…" She felt a tingling over her lips and spoke her words thickly. "What …. 'bout 'is brother?"
--
"Tell me you have him, Timmy." The forensics analyst said into the phone, pacing. She absolutely despised not being out there with them right now – Ziva was out there, hurt and afraid, and she was stuck here in her lab.
"We have him." McGee said, but his voice wasn't as happy as she wanted it to be and she stopped her pacing.
"What aren't you telling me?" She asked, and she could nearly see him flinch. "McGee, you better tell me the truth." She warned, her brow drawn as she turned to her computer, ready to hack into the hospital's records and find out exactly what he wasn't telling her.
"I am!" He exclaimed. "We have O'Neil and Gibbs is riding to the hospital with Ziva."
"McGee, how bad is she?" Abby tapped her fingers on the lab table, another warning in her voice – the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. "Don't lie to me."
"Bad?" He answered, and Abby sucked in a breath. "She'll live, Abby. She's …" He tried to find words to explain what little of her condition Tony had told him. "She's hurt pretty bad, Abby – broken leg and ribs, and well…"
"That bastard didn't, McGee. Tell me he didn't." She hit the table with her fist .
"Tony thinks so." He heard a crash over the end of the phone and spoke quickly. "We're on our way to place O'Neil in interrogation. We're leaving him there and then we're heading to the hospital."
"I'm coming with you, McGee. And don't you dare give that bastard so much as a glass of water." She said, and he hadn't expected anything less. She hung up the phone and grabbed her coat – and Bert.
--
Author's Note:
I'm sorry that this chapter was shorter – I couldn't think of a better place to end it. Writing Abby was more fun than I thought it would be. :) I can't tell you how ESTATIC I am that I got so many reviews – keep them coming! There's nothing that spurs me to write more than reviews!
If you can't tell, I only started watching NCIS a month or so ago – which was why I was so hesitant when I began writing the story. I hope it doesn't show. Anyway, thanks again!