A/N: Hiya! I'm back! I returned from Cheshire earlier, and then went to my best mate's (April – FFN is 'Adiver') party. I was a little late… LOL.

Here's the latest chapter, sorry for taking ages!

Also, I've been doing a little project… I've been writing my own NCIS episode!

If you would like to read it, say and I will send you some.

I don't want to send all of it as it isn't all completely finished and I don't want anyone copying it… I'm kinda paranoid about that, apologies.

I hope you like this chapter, it's a bit longer than normal.

I try to move my legs, but I can't. My arms are similarly bound also, by an invisible substance I just can't break. I strain against whatever is binding me still. I try to shout, but for some reason no sound resonates from my open mouth.

I try to shout his name, I try to warn him, but my efforts are useless and I watch as the bullet hits him in the side of the head. I try to run at his attacker, but I still can't move. My father smiles his evil smile as he turns from Tony's lifeless body. I can see it in his eyes.

I'm next.

Ziva sat up with a gasp, her forehead and chest damp with perspiration. She flinched when she felt a man's arm around her shoulders, and froze in fear. Then she saw who it was.

Tony.

It was only Tony. Not her father…

She tried to blink away the image of Tony with an open wound in his skull, bleeding onto the ground. She tried to shake the image of her father coming for her, just like her had when she was a little girl. In the middle of the night. She often had nightmares. Any time she was in bed and someone opened the door, she automatically curled up, shrinking away from the door. She shrank away form her father's touch, afraid of what would happen later.

Consequences come, he had always told her. She shivered involuntarily at the memory.

"Zee?" Ziva turned around to see Tony looking up at her expectantly. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Ziva blinked in surprise. She hadn't even realized that he was awake.

"Zee…" Tony brushed away a tear from Ziva's cheek which she hadn't even noticed. "Tell me. What's wrong?"

"Just… just a small night horse." Ziva looked away.

"Night hor… oh, nightmare. What was it about?" Tony rubbed his hand in a tight circle in the small of her back.

"My father. You." Tony looked taken aback that he was in her nightmare.

"What happened?" He asked, dreading what she was going to say.

"It does not matter, Tony." Ziva replied, stopping herself turning around as she knew that she would tell him everything if she saw him properly. But in the end, she had no choice as Tony pulled her down into his arms and turned her face so she had to look straight at him.

"Ziva. Just tell me." Tony begged, and as an afterthought, added, "Please."

Ziva blinked, and a lone tear slipped down her cheek. Tony gently brushed it away. Ziva settled down in his arms and was silent. Tony was beginning to think that she'd fallen asleep when she began to speak.

"My father is a powerful man. In my night… night… my dream, he had a gun. It was drawn. He aimed it at you. I was watching, but I could not move or warn you. He shot you, and I saw you die. And then… and then… he turned on me." Ziva tried to force the words out without choking up. Tony gently rocked her, but Ziva was surprised that she didn't feel annoyed with him for doing so.

"Well, I'm here now. Alive and well." Tony grinned at her, but she didn't smile back.

"If my father finds out you have been hiding me… then… then… I am scared that my dream will become truth." Ziva added, her brow furrowed. Tony brushed her hair away from her face, and smiled at her.

"Your father won't find out, Zee. I promise." Tony was surprised at the protectiveness he felt over Ziva. He wondered what her father had done to make her so scared of him. Had he, like Tony's own father had to him, beaten her? Tony remembered reading a book called "Cross" by James Patterson. There was one bit in it that had disturbed him and actually made him thankful that his father wasn't as bad as that.

Kevin Sullivan was sitting on the cot and he told Michael [his son] to sit next to him. 'Right here, boy. By my side.'

His father put his hand on the boy's knee.

'You know how badly I can hurt you, Michael.' He said. 'You know that, right?'

'Yes, sir, I know.'

'And I will,' his father continued, 'if you tell a single living soul.'

Tell them what, Michael wanted to ask.

His father squeezed his son's leg until tears formed in Michael's eyes.

And then his father leaned forward and kissed the boy on the mouth, and did other things that no father should ever do to his son.

Tony had had a nightmare that night, of his father coming in and doing such unspeakable things. Luckily, he had never dreamt that again, but it had made him thankful that his father was only physically violent with him.

Ziva lay in Tony's arms, thinking about the same passage in the same book. She convulsed at the memory of her own father, doing things no father should ever do to his daughter. Touching her in places no father should touch. She felt physically sick and had to run to the bathroom. Tony sat up, wondering what was wrong. He heard the sounds of Ziva throwing up in the bathroom, and approached her. He gently pushed her hair back as she emptied the contents of her stomach in reply to the memories.

Tony held her hair back with one hand, and gently massaged her back, trying to get her to relax.

"Shh, it's alright." He whispered, as he knelt on the floor next to her. "Shh."

Ziva shivered and sniffed, tears streaking down her cheeks, carrying the fear of a young girl in their wetness. The tears were long overdue, as she had trained herself never to cry when her father did unspeakable things to her in the night. Her father had trained her not to have emotions, so she had basically become a robot.

She had learned to just pretend to be asleep when he came in, as then he didn't get so much pleasure out of it as he didn't get to see her cry or plead for him to stop.

When she was younger, she had never understood what he did to her. The horrors had begun when she was just five, and she had reached the age of twelve thinking that all fathers did that. Then, when they did bullying and abuse in PSHE, she had realized that what her father did was unnatural, and only bastards like her father attacked their children in such a way.

Ziva leant her cheek against the coldness of the end of the bath, and sighed. Tony let go of her hair, but kept it away from her face.

"I'm sorry." She whispered to Tony.

"It's alright. It's not your fault." Tony comforted, kneading her shoulders to remove some of the built up tension in her body.

"It is." Ziva replied, and for some reason she didn't care that she was crying in front of someone. Contrary to what she had always been taught, and consequently believed, she didn't feel weak and useless.

When her father abused her. That was when she felt weak and useless.

"Ziva? What did your father do to you?" Tony asked. Ziva tried to change the subject.

"I need to clean my mouth out." She said, trying to keep him away from the subject. She found her toothbrush and toothpaste from where she had left them in the cupboard a few hours before. She ran the tap to fill a glass of water.

Tony watched as she brushed her teeth (somewhat violently, in his opinion). She spat out the paste and ran the tap to wash it all away down the plug hole. She rinsed out her mouth thoroughly to get the disgusting taste and smell away. Finally she rinsed the glass out, and rinsed off her toothbrush.

"Ziva?" Tony pressed. "What did your father do to make you so scared of him?"

Tony saw Ziva visibly freeze where she was.

"No…" She whispered, as memories floated to the surface of the murky brown swamp of her mind, where she had managed to keep them hidden away for the years. "No…"

"It's okay, Zee. It'll be alright." Tony stood up and enveloped her in a tight hug. He wanted to kiss the excruciating pain on her face away, and kill her father for what he had done to Ziva. "You'll be okay."

Ziva pulled away, and lifted her shirt wordlessly. At first, Tony wondered what she was doing. Then he saw them.

A line of bruises circled just above Ziva's hips. There were a few welts that were healing over, and some that were obviously scars.

"Does your father smoke?" Tony asked her, his fingers gently brushing over the blue-blackish bruises.

"Cigars." Ziva replied. Tony turned his hand, and laid it gently over one of the bruises. The bruise was wider than his own, but it was obviously hand shaped. Her father must have held her very, very hard.

"The bastard…" Tony breathed. Ziva could feel his fingers touching the bruises gently. It was soothing; his fingers were cold.

"I will not show you the others." Ziva whispered. Tony looked up at her, his eyes searching.

"Where are they…?" He was dreading the answer, and was sure that he knew.

"Here." Ziva gestured towards the top of her legs, and Tony gritted his teeth in anger. His fears had been confirmed.

"That. Fucking. Bastard." He growled. "I am going to kill him for doing this to you."

"You cannot tell him I told you… showed you." Ziva whispered, and Tony could hear the unconcealed fear in her voice. "Please."

Tony leant forward and did something completely unexpected to the both of them.

He kissed her on the lips.

"Never." He whispered, his forehead against hers, his hand cupping her chin. "Never."

A/N: Fluff at the end for dizzy-in-the-izzy as requested =D There you go, Iz! I hope you like it!

I'm going to try and update soon, hopefully tomorrow.

I need to do my Chemistry prep though… yaay. Not.

I get my exam results back next week… EEEK!

Penelope Z-L xxx

PS – Check out my blogs, the links can be found on my profile!

PPS – Message or say in your review if you want to read some of my episode!

PPPS – REVIEW =D

I have decided on most of the relationships of JENNY, JEANNE, ARI and KATE.

I have decided for Jenny and Ari.

For Jeanne:

a) Tony's ex-girlfriend

b) A girl at school who bullies Ziva but isn't Tony's ex


For Kate:

a) Tony's cousin

b) A new girl who joins the school


Please vote for either, JEANNE A or JEANNE B and KATE A orKATE B.

No other options anymore! Sorry!

If you have any ideas for Runaway in the next chapters, please suggest!