Hello my marshwiggles!

so.. people don't kill me, I know this whole putting Tony in a coma is dragging on... but please dont kill me! :(

thank you for all the lovely reviews! 81 reviews! as in 81 times someone has bothered to read my work AND tell me that they enjoy it! :D THAT'S CRAZY! :D

DISCLAIMER: disclaimed!

Chapter 8

Ziva was the first one to get over the shock.

"Abby! GO GET A DOCTOR!" she shouted sharply, and Abby was too busy being worried to be offended by Ziva's sharp words.

As Abby ran out as fast as her three inch platform boots would allow her, Ziva frantically pushed the call button, over and over again, jabbing hard at it until her thumb hurt. Initially she had been thrilled to see that Tony was showing signs of life, but now, she could see that something was not quite right. His body was convulsing violently, his arms flailing to ward off an invisible attacker. Ziva grabbed one of his flailing hands, afraid that he was going to hurt himself by striking something at the speed his arms were going at, and his eyes shot open. But nothing seemed to be registering, as he stared blankly at the ceiling through a bloodshot haze. The dark clover eyes which had once danced with life now were dark and lifeless, and Ziva had never seen anything more terrifying in her life. The hand that Ziva had grabbed had somehow been twisted as she was busy staring into his eyes, so now he was the one who held her in a grip so tight that she would feel the bones of her hands press together and grind against each other in protest. The veins on his neck jutted out so prominently that Ziva no longer recognised that man she saw in front of her. And still Tony seemed to see nothing.

Just as she felt something in her hand crack, a doctor ran into the room. Ziva tried to free her hand so she could move out of the way of the doctor and nurse, but to no avail. The doctor shone a torch into Tony's bloodshot eyes, and began to talk to him slowly and calmly.

"Mr DiNozzo, you are at Bethesda Naval Hospital, on floor 5, room 306. Do you understand?"

There was no response from Tony, just more erratic shaking and twisting in the bed sheets. Ziva's hand began to throb under the pressure, as her body tried to pump blood back into her unresponsive limb. Seeing this lack of response, the doctor turned to his nurse.

"We need some kind of Benzodiazepine, to be administered through the IV," he spoke quickly and urgently, and the blond nurse hurried out of the room in search of the required drugs.

"Mr DiNozzo," the doctor said, turning back to Tony once more, "I know you can hear me, and I wanted to let you know we're giving you something to make you a little more relaxed. We would also appreciate it if you let go of your wife's hand."

Ziva was in too much pain to argue with the doctor's presumption that she was in fact Mrs DiNozzo. Abby would see the concentration on her face stopping her from screaming in pain.

The small nurse rushed back into the room with a small vial of some drug (Abby later learnt it was pentobarbital), which she injected straight into Tony's IV. The room watched with baited breath, trying to determine when the sedative would come into effect.

It was the longest moments of Ziva's life, as she waited for the drugs for take effect. Slowly Tony's eyes began to flutter shut, and his grip on Ziva's hand became slack.

There was a silence in the room, as all parties regained their breath. After a long tense moment, the doctor was the first one to speak.

"You should go get that checked out. Let me take you to radiology."

Ziva couldn't argue with the doctor, so she stood up. She could no longer feel her hand, but she didn't know whether to be thankful for this or scared.

Abby half expected Ziva to argue, not say what she did next.

"I would appreciate that."

The doctor led Ziva out of the room and along the corridor. Their shoes made no sound as they hit the soft hospital flooring and neither of them did anything to fill the silence around them. It was eerily quiet, the hustle and bustle going on floors beneath them seemed to have been absorbed into the bright white walls until there was nothing but silence.

The doctor called up the lift, and as he leant over Ziva caught sight of his name tag. Dr Lawson. It was nice to put a name to the face of the man who had helped Tony. She shook her head and within moments the two of them were stepping in and the doors were closing on them.

"What was that?" Ziva said softly. Tony had scared her. One moment the only sign of life that he gave was the rising and falling of his chest, the next moment he was thrashing around and breaking hands.

The doctor did not have to guess what she was referring to.

"The most likely explanation is that he was experiencing some kind of night terror," the doctor replied.

"Is it hurting him?"

Dr Lawson found this question strange, but he did not show it. Here was a woman, whose hand had just been broken by her own husband, and she was asking whether he was hurting?

"Your husband i-" he was cut off by Ziva.

"He's not… he's… he's just a friend," Ziva hastily corrected, but not knowing herself what to categorise her relationship was with Tony. They were definitely more than friends, but dating seemed a childish way to put it, making what they had sound trivial and as temperamental as a breath in the wind.

"The science of the brain is a complex thing," Dr Lawson continued, not commenting on what she just said, "some coma patients experience nothing. It's like their sleeping, and when they wake up it is like no time has passed. All the stress is left to the family."

Ziva could tell that she was getting the glossed over version, that there was something that Dr Lawson was no telling her. So she did something unknown to American culture. She ignored all the rules of elevator etiquette, and turned away from the door, and to the doctor.

He could sense Ziva's eyes on him, and to that, he sighed deeply. Taking his glasses off, he wiped them with the bottom of his lab coat, biding his time before he had to answer Ziva's unasked question.

"But," he said, and now seeing that she was choosing to ignore the unspoken rules of elevator travel, turning to face her, "some people, in the rarest occasions dream so vividly, but can't escape them."

Ziva took a moment to digest this. With Tony's job, there was no doubt that he had seen some horrifying things, especially in his time with NCIS. She couldn't imagine what he was escaping from in his nightmares.

Abby was freaking out.

Pacing the room desperately, her gaze continued to return back to Tony's prone form. She was a scientist. She could tell you the chemicals in the brain that has caused Tony's meltdown. She could approximate how long Tony's episode lasted for, and work out how milliseconds and what fraction of an hour that would equate to. And yet she was terrified. Now Ziva had gone to get her hand fixed, who Tony, Tony, the huge goofball, had broken, she was left alone with her thoughts and fears. She sat down with a thud by the bed, but this time she didn't put her hand out to take Tony's

"Hey Tony," Abby started, but was cut off by a sound coming from the empty hallway. That apparently was no empty any more.

"I told you, I can walk with crutches! Fine then, ignore me!"

Abby turned to see a very irritated Kate being pushed into the room somewhat hastily by an aggravated Gibbs. Immediately Abby sided with Kate, not knowing the circumstances, but still glaring at Gibbs.

"What!" Gibbs said indignantly.

"What did you do?" Abby asked.

"What did I do?" Gibbs asked. Abby said nothing, and Gibbs decided to change the subject.

"Where is Ziva?" Gibbs asked.

"Who's Ziva?" Kate asked. She was only out for a few moments, and she was so behind. And Gibbs hadn't felt the need to update her? Typical.

"Tony and her have a thing. I didn't know who she was until yesterday," and then something struck her, "but you," she said looking at Gibbs, "brought her. How do you know her?"

Gibbs sighed. That was a story…

2 Weeks Ago

"I'm at work now, chasing up a lead in the big bad suburbs of Washington… I'm not being a baby!... yeah whatever, listen, I have to go. Gibbs is giving me evils, and soon lightning bolts are going to be shooting at me. OK, I will. Later. Bye!"

From the one side of the conversation, Gibbs couldn't tell much about whoever Tony was on the phone to. All he knew was that they made Tony's face light up like a Christmas tree when he spotted her caller ID, and that he had been talking to them for the past half an hour. The unfortunate thing was that Gibbs had spent that half an hour in the car with Tony, and now as they pulled up to the suspects house he needed his senior field agent back.

"Ziva wants me to tell you, and I quote, "don't let him do anything stupid"," Tony said to Gibbs as they got out of the car and slammed the car doors behind them.

"You get married and not tell me?" Gibbs said deadpan. He remembered other day when he caught Tony running a background check on the woman. But he just thought that it was to do with the case, or just a passing interest in a pretty girl. He didn't know that one month on they were still in contact.

"Ziva is a friend," Tony said, pulling her phone out, and swiping to find a picture of her, "that's her, right there."

Gibbs took the phone from Tony and holding it at arm's length, he tilted his head to one side to try and make out the picture better. As the photo came into focus, he saw Tony with his arm slung around the shoulders of a Middle Eastern beauty. He vaguely remembered seeing a photo of her when Tony was running a background check, but now he took a proper look at her. She was defiantly beautiful, but not in the way that Tony went for. There was not a bleach blond tip or dark root in sight. Instead, she had a sweet heart shaped face with deep brown eyes. In that moment, those eyes were lit up in laughter as the Tony in the photo whispered something in her ear. Ziva wore a strappy golden vest top, and the strange thing was that Tony was not checking her out in his usual "leering at the hot chick" way. Instead, he had that look in his eye that he was worshipping her, like she was an angel walking on the earth.

Or it was all a trick of the light.

"Good friend," Gibbs said casually, knowing that there was something more to it, yet not pushing Tony to say anything.

Tony sighed a deep sigh, "yeah.. a really good friend."

"But, you want more," Gibbs stated simply.

"It's not that simple."

Silence.

"Well… I don't want to stuff up boss," Tony said finally. But then he couldn't help but add, "like you."

Gibbs naturally greeted that statement with a solid head slap, and the issue wasn't spoken off again.

oooOOOooo

An hour later Abby was called back into work to solidify the evidence that would put the people who did this to Tony. Local LEOs, who had been first at the scene had taken the case, and with the help of Abby and some forensic work and McGee's superior computer skills, they were now working to track down the men involved. McGee had not left the office since, determined to find the people who dared hurt his team. And now Abby had to head back to the office too. Which also meant leaving Tony's side for the first time since the accident. She did not want to, but she was fuelled by the same passion that Timmy had, and was going to find those people. She just wished she could monitor Tony at the same time.

Soon after Abby's speedy exit, her theory being the faster she went the sooner she could get back, fatigue overran Kate's adrenalin, and the toll of the previous days and the gunshot wound began to pile up, and Gibbs had eventually dragged her back off to his house. Gibbs was reluctant to leave Ziva alone, especially after Abby recounted what had happened that morning with her hand. But Ziva was stubborn and loyal, and Gibbs respected that. He promised to pop by later that evening with dinner, which Ziva graciously thanked him for. She hadn't thought much about eating, there being much more important things on her mind. Tim had dropped in for literally a moment to see Tony, but had to run back to the office to go help Abby and catch those bastards. And then there was one.

Ziva sat there by Tony's bed, having refused everyone's offers to take her home. She had to be there. Even if he woke up and had another incident, she would not leave him.

Ziva could feel her eyelids get heavy when she heard something.

"Ziva?"

Ziva watched as Tony's eyes flutter open, and for a moment her voice caught in her throat and her eyes pricked with the promise that tears were going to fall.

"Ziva?" Tony's hoarse voice asked, but he was taken over by a coughing fit as he fought with the ventilator.

"Hey," Ziva said softly, immediately standing up, "you're going to have to breathe out as I take this out, OK?"

Tony nodded through the rasping breaths.

"OK, 1…2…3…" and she pulled the breathing tube out of his mouth. She was by his mouth with a cup of water in seconds, letting the fluid drip down into his throat slowly to sooth it. When his breathing returned to normal, she sat back down to press the call button with her now wrapped up hand.

"What… happened?" he said weakly, looking down at her hand with the movement.

"It's nothing," she said quickly, "how are you feeling?"
"I… I," he started saying, but she could see his eyes grow heavy once again.

"It's OK, Anthony, just sleep," Ziva said, reaching over and sitting on the side of his bed. She took his hand into her broken one, and the other one came to stroke his hair gently. Leaning over, she pressed a soft kiss on the arc of his brow as he slept.

i would love it if you reviewed, if you have taken the time to read this far, and you're still here! and reading this. :D please tell me if the "Tony hospitalized" thing is getting old... thankyou! :D