Just a quick A/N to say thanks to everyone for the continued support :)
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Tony's eyes were closed, but he could feel his boss beside him, holding him and keeping him from being taken...at least for the moment. They were the only moments he felt safe in that place; when he could feel him beside him. If he moved, even a little bit, he would grab out and cling to him, making sure they couldn't take either of them away...
"Hey," McGee whispered to grab Abby's attention, and motioned toward Tony, who was fast asleep. Gibbs looked over as well, noticing that the agent had somehow managed to wind up using Ziva's arm as a pillow. But she met Gibbs' eyes with a look of contentment that indicated it was of no bother to her. "I should probably head outta here," McGee said in a continued hushed voice as he stood.
"Yeah, me too," Abby stood, careful not to move too quickly and wake Tony. Gibbs stood and followed them out to the porch. "He's doing better, it seems," Abby said before giving Gibbs a hug goodbye. He nodded in agreement.
"Thanks for coming tonight," he told them. "Means a lot to him, and it was nice to see him back to his usual self."
"Yeah, it was," Tim agreed.
"Even if you were the target of some of his fun tonight?" Abby grinned.
McGee decidedly nodded, "Yeah, well...like he said, I should be used to it by now. Guess I kinda am."
Gibbs smirked and reached out to ruffle the hair at the top of Tim's head, "See ya Monday." He turned to go back into the house as they headed toward their cars. After quietly closing the door, he headed into the living room and noted the change in Tony's position. He'd turned and curled a bit on his side, facing Ziva; forehead against her shoulder and his hand just below it, lightly fisting the sleeve of her shirt. But he was still fast asleep.
Ziva met Gibbs' eyes, a looked of slight concern written in them, and he walked over to shut off the television before coming to sit on the coffee table in front of them. "As soon as Abby got up, he did this," she told him. Gibbs nodded in acknowledgment. "Should we wake him and take him upstairs?" He considered the question as he appraised Tony. "I do not mind staying here tonight, Gibbs, if it helps."
Gibbs saw a flash of something in her eyes as they focused somewhere in the air between them. She was clearly thinking back to when they'd found them in the cell; the way Tony had clung to Gibbs... He saw headlights as a car pulled up to the house, and he knew it was Ducky by the sound of the engine. Gibbs stood, bending slightly to kiss Ziva's forehead, "If you could, just for a little while longer while I talk to Duck."
She nodded and gave him a small smile before he walked back toward the door. He met the M.E out on the porch, "Hey, Duck."
"Good evening, Jethro. How did everything go?" he asked as he climbed the steps toward him.
"He did really well, actually. But he fell asleep a little while ago on Ziva."
"That explains why hers is the only remaining visiting vehicle," Ducky smirked. "Did she fall asleep as well?"
"Nah, she's up. Tony took one of those pills you called in for him, before dinner. That's probably what aided in him fallin' asleep so easily."
"That's possible, yes. It made him comfortable enough to do so, I imagine."
"Ya hungry, Ducky? Plenty of leftovers," he turned to lead him into the house.
"Quite near starving, actually," Ducky said with a slight laugh. "I'd be honored to have a bit of Ziva's cooking." The two of them were quiet as they entered the living room and looked over to Tony and Ziva.
"Go ahead and get yourself somethin'," Gibbs told Ducky, quietly. "I'm gonna see if I can't just take him upstairs." Ducky disappeared into the kitchen as Gibbs walked to the couch and sat down beside Tony. He met Ziva's eyes, "Might be best if we don't wake him at all."
"Do you think you can lift him?" she whispered.
"Only one way to find out," he replied with raised brows. He surveyed the angle and position, surmising that, before anything, he'd need to coax Tony's hand from Ziva's shirt sleeve. Gibbs gently grabbed Tony's wrist and placed his other hand across his back, with plans to, once Tony's hand was free, scoop him up grabbing under the agent's knees to carry him up the stairs as if he were a child.
But the feeling of being suddenly pulled from where he was clinging, startled Tony from his sleep, throwing him into a panic. His whole body tensed and his breath hitched. "No..." he grabbed hold of Ziva's arm with both of his; his eyes not focusing clearly as he struggled out of Gibbs' grasp.
Gibbs let go of him immediately, moving to the coffee table in effort to allow Tony to see who he was. Ziva placed her hands on either side of Tony's face, "Tony...you are home. You are safe," she told him as she calmly stroked his cheeks and gave him a moment to focus. "Gibbs was just trying to help you up to bed," she explained.
Tony blinked a few times, allowing the words to help coax him back to reality. "Ziva?" his brow furrowed.
"Yes," she gave him a small smile. "And Gibbs," she tilted her head slightly in his direction, and Tony looked over at him.
"Oh..." he loosened his grasp on Ziva's arm and slowly lowered his head. "Sorry," he said in barely a whisper. Then he pushed up off of the couch to stand, "Guess I should head upstairs."
Gibbs stood as well, partly blocking Tony's path, and met his eyes before moving out of his way. Ziva followed after him. "I will walk you up," she told Tony, glancing briefly at Gibbs as he nodded his thanks to her.
Tony couldn't have felt more embarrassed if he'd tried. The fact that Ziva was following close behind him, made him even more anxious. "I'm good, Zi," he told her as he entered the guest room.
"I know," she replied simply. He stopped beside the bed and simply stood there, waiting for her to say her farewell and leave him alone. But she didn't leave. She was soon standing beside him, facing his profile, and he found himself turning his face away from her slightly. "You should not feel ashamed of having nightmares, Tony," she told him before setting a comforting hand on the bicep closest to her. "I had them quite often, for a long time."
After a moment of calculating what she might be referring to, he turned his face in her direction. But he remained silent, only conveying question through expression. He swallowed as her eyes bore into his for what seemed like ages. Then she spoke, "I know that we are both very different people. But I also know that you are feeling the same fear as I did; afraid that I would somehow be less capable of doing my job; consistently pursuing the goal of proving everyone wrong, despite my uncanny ability to hide any emotion I had felt at the time. You are afraid, Tony...and no one even presumes to believe that you cannot come back from this."
"You were gone for months..." he interjected.
"Yes. You were gone for a day. If I can come through what I did, I know that you can as well."
"I wasn't raised to be an assassin, Ziva. You were raised to have super-human capabilities, especially in situations like that..."
"Do you think that I felt no pain?" her voice rose, slightly offended. "Because I was raised to be capable of doing some of those same things to other people...somehow, what they did to me bore no damage? Do you realize how difficult..." her composure slipped for a fraction of a second, but Tony caught it, and it made him flinch slightly. "To be expected to recover from what happened there," she said in whispered voice, "Wasn't what hurt the most, Tony. What hurt the most, was the fact that my friends...my team was there for me, willing to help or to listen...and I pushed it aside to deal with on my own. Out of all the things that happened in Somalia, my greatest injury was the one I inflicted upon myself."
Tony narrowed his eyes as he turned around and sunk down to sit on the edge of the bed. Ziva sat down beside him and he met her eyes again. "Why?" he asked, and she knew what he was referring to.
She looked down at her knees as she folded her hands and placed them in her lap. "I...did not want to be seen differently," she began, keeping her eyes fixed on her hands. "Everything that I am...everything I have shown myself to be on this team..." she closed her eyes and shook her head in frustration, not knowing exactly how to explain this to him. "I could not start asking for help when I never needed to before," she looked at him then. "That is not who I am, and if I had started to be that person, would it have not worried you even more-so than my silence?"
"You didn't have to ask, Ziva," he told her. "Remember, I asked you..."
"Yes, Tony. You did... Can you not see where I made my mistake? We are all here for you," she put a hand on his cheek and she shifted more to face him. "But you keep running away whenever you need us, and you do not have to. You are more afraid of what we will think, then of what he did to you. Do not let him win, Tony... Do not make the same mistake that I did..."
"I'm not as good at hiding it as you are," he said quietly.
"As you said," she smirked, "I was raised to be an assassin. But I keep getting the feeling that you, in some different way, were raised with the same belief that fear or sadness makes you weak." Tony looked away from her. "You do a better job than most at hiding it, Tony. But when it is too much...when you find yourself bursting at the seams, do not burden yourself even further by worrying about what we will think. We know that you are a good man; a strong man. And you are a great agent." When he remained turned away, she moved from the bed to stand in front of him and took his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her. "No one questions that, Tony," she narrowed her eyes as they darted back and forth between his. She saw that he was at least absorbing what she'd told him, and she leaned down, placing a kiss on his forehead. "Goodnight," she let her hands fall from his face, then turned to leave him to his thoughts...
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"He already has a therapist, Jethro," Ducky said quietly as they talked at the kitchen table. "He simply needs to make an appointment."
"Tony's countin' on comin' back to work Monday, Duck."
"Well, if you're asking for my opinion on whether or not he's ready, I'm afraid there's only one way to find out for sure. But I would, however, suggest that you talk to someone about the experience." Gibbs cocked his head and looked slightly amused. "Yes, I thought you might respond that way."
"In case you forgot, I wasn't the one hurt."
"On the contrary, and I can't believe I have to say this again, you were the target of Griswald's torture. Did you forget that?" his eyes locked on Gibbs'. Luckily for him, Ziva appeared in the doorway.
"Gibbs, can I speak with you for a moment?" she asked, and Gibbs pushed up from the table. He walked past her toward the basement door and she followed him down the steps. He went straight for the bottle of bourbon.
"Drink?" he asked as he poured a shot into his coffee mug.
"No, thank you. I'll be leaving shortly."
He turned to face her, mug in hand, "What'd you need to speak to me about?" he asked before taking a sip.
"I wanted to inform you that I...watched the video footage," she told him, and his brows raised in question. "It is secured in evidence now. But I needed to see it, Gibbs. I needed to know what happened...so that I could be of help, if necessary." Gibbs remained silent, but kept his eyes on her. She grew a bit nervous. "I did not mean to invade your privacy... But I did not want to be the only one on the team who did not know."
"Coulda read the report, Ziva," he narrowed his eyes.
"I did," she told him. "It is not the same thing. I have seen many things in my life, Gibbs. I knew I could handle it. I just...wanted to let you know that I had."
"Why?" he asked as he set his empty cup down on the bench. "Why did you wanna let me know?"
"Because...if the roles were reversed and you did the same as I did, I would want you to tell me."
"Did you tell Tony?"
She furrowed her brow and looked away for just a second, "No. But only because I...I..." she shook her head to clear her thoughts. "He would believe that I was speaking to him purely out of pity. And that is not what he needs right now." After a moment, Gibbs nodded and sank down onto a stool as he rubbed his palms roughly against his forehead. "Ducky was right, you know," she said, and he dropped his hands onto his lap as he looked up at her. "The torture was targeted at you." He turned his head away, much like Tony had done to her earlier. But she walked up closer to him and he was forced to look back up at her. "If I had had the privilege of my friend's survival after similar circumstances, I would have wanted, very much, to be able to talk it through with them."
There was something very personalized by the way she'd said it, and the way her eyes now glistened, Gibbs knew that it wasn't just a hypothetical comparison. Any frustration he might have felt up to that point, dissipated, and he stood and pulled her into an embrace. "Ziver..."
She returned the hug, feeling slightly displaced, but hell-bent on letting herself feel and show it; as if some kind of representative light for her colleagues. "Sometimes it is just not enough to kill..." she said in barely a whisper. "Do not allow Griswald to keep doing this to both of you."
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tbc...