OK, I am SO sorry I didn't update over the weekend, barely had any time to use the computer as we had guests staying. I'm realllllllllly sorry : (

So, here goes.

Oh yeah. *Disclaimsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss vehemently*

She sits, wrapped in a blanket and shaking. He paces the floor and wants to touch her, to stroke her face and kiss her forehead and rock her till she sleeps. They are a thousand miles from each other, and from anything in the world.

"I should call Gibbs." His voice is hoarse.

"No! Tony, please don't, I'm fine, it's just, like you said, like you said it's gonna take longer, I'm not just instantly fine, but I will be, soon, please don't call Gibbs, I don't want to disturb him-"

His jaw clenches as he staggers out the true and hateful words. "Ziva, I have no idea what to do! Do you understand what I'm saying to you? I don't know what to do! It terrifies me to think that you're not in capable hands." It breaks him; quietly, gently, it breaks him inside. It seeps out through his eyes and pains her. Bitter and helpless.

"I just want...I don't know. Can I have a glass of water?" he rushes to the kitchen so fast it makes her smile. The water slops over the rim, spills down into his worried fingers and falls from the bottom. She accepts the glass – slowly, warily – and licks around the base before drinking. Something low in his stomach tightens and he looks away. A bright pink tongue, and the soft curve of her bent head. Light glows through the blossoming curls until they are fiery and ferocious. He cannot meet her eyes.

"Tony?"

"Sorry, uh, what?"

"Not listening, huh?" She smirks, a little of the old Ziva flickers through the fractures, and he pushes down the black and wicked feeling.

"Are you going to choose a movie, then?"

"Ziva, don't you think, maybe...I don't know, I really should call Gibbs."

"If you do, I promise I will kill you when I've recovered sufficient strength." There is a mocking and powerful smile on her lips, and she shifts into a more comfortable position on the couch. Relent, Tony. Break like melting toffee. For after all, boy, you are nothing more than sweet and golden.

And of course he does relent, and of course a little voice in his head tells him he just keeps making mistake after mistake. And of course all he can do is try to ignore it and hold her so tight it hurts.

After three films, she stretches and says that before the evening marathon, she'd like a meal and a shower. He watches her carefully as she leaves the room. Pad like a cat, and oh-so-graceful. He doesn't quite know how she's still got the elegance in her, the beautiful wariness that makes each movement so effortless and yet guarded.

Maybe she's never let go, he thinks, and it makes him incredibly sad.

The food is almost ready. Steaming and complete. He is silent and watchful. And she is not there.

"Ziva? Are you OK in there?" Finally, he cracks. The little voice just won't shut up, and now it is clamouring and screaming in a desperate frenzy, splashing his mind all shades of red. There is no answer; instead, a matching sudden silence within his own skull. Oh, I told you so.

Without thinking, without rationalising his decision, he jimmies the door – far too easily for comfort – and what he sees stains him a little, jars him to a fracture and grinds into an already open wound.

She is naked, drenched and forlorn, curled up in a corner against the blue tiles of the shower, water streaming relentlessly down around her. It is impossible to tell the tears from the droplets that so coat her face. Her shy new hair is plastered to her skull and her eyes are wide and wanting. The face she turns to him is porcelain and cracked, so vivid it hurts the eye. Bright lips, black eyes and a yearning in between.

He opens the door and sits down next to her, cradles her sapling legs against him and strokes her pearled skin. Closes her eyes with a thumb and echoes shh till the sound means nothing to him. His clothes soak through. He does not notice.

Oh, I have loved you for the longest time.

That night she is still cold. Her teeth chatter in a mouth devoid. There are no words and no laughs and no smiles, and he knows it is as it should be. After all is said and done, after the smirks and the teasing and the films, the blankets and hot chocolate and the pretence of tranquillity, he knows that Ziva has always been a little bruised, and the heart she professes to be empty and proud is in fact inexorably beating with unacknowledged love. And – quite simply - she does not know what to do with it. She's never thought of letting anyone know that it's there. And now it is, and it's pounding, and it's making her afraid and excited and so elevated she can barely breathe.

Things have happened. Skin has been scarred. But, for a cynical little second, she thinks that it was worth it. Because now she lies in Tony's arms every single night.

Oh, I have loved you for the longest time.

Yeah, it's a bit fluffy but it's not actually Tiva yet, just them being like 'Aww, you're such a good friend to me *sings a friendship song*'. I don't know how I feel about this chapter. It has its moments :) Hope you enjoy.