Author's note: Please be warned, there are allusions to rape in this chapter. I have couched it in the best manner I could think of, even consulting my best friend who is a lawyer on how to mention it.
She crept into the sickbay, as quietly as she could while leaning on a crutch. She didn't feel as though she needed it, but the doctor insisted that if she was going to be out of bed, she had to use it. For once,, Ziva was too exhausted to argue for once and she acquiesced.
He was laying there, his eyes closed, but Ziva knew Tony well and knew he wasn't totally asleep. She did hear some light snoring and looked up, seeing McGee sitting upright on the other side of the bed, his head lolling to the side. But Ziva wasn't there for Tim. She was here for Tony.
She still couldn't believe that she was here, onboard an American vessel, alive. She truly believed she was going to be killed. When Saleem came to grab her, throwing the satchel over her head, she thought she was going to be taken out and shot. It was a surprise when she was thrust into a chair and the bag was removed. At first, she thought she was dreaming, but when Saleem left and Tony spoke, she knew she was not.
"Well, how was your summer?"
It was asked in the tone he used most of the time, joking around, laced with sarcasm. If it were a dream, that was how he would sound. But he wouldn't look like this. In the years they had worked together, he had rarely looked like this. He was usually pristine, immaculate, his hair perfectly coiffed, his skin clean and smooth. It was very unusual for him to not look that way.
She figured that, if it was a dream, that would be how he looked. And she had thought of him these last four months...had dreamed about him. Mostly, they were memories of their years together, missions undertaken, roles played. Maybe one or two fantasies, echoes of times they needed to appear to be more...intimate than they actually were. But, always, he had a cocky smile and a twinkle in his eye.
The smile that greeted her in that room was not so broad as it usually was and his eyes were unfocused. But there was still an arrogance about him, one that told her he was supremely confident in his own success, even in the face of such hopelessness. He was, always, the wildcard, he told Saleem, the one who laughed in the face of adversity. And he had been right, in the end, as the bullet sickeningly hit its mark.
If Tony and McGee were there with her, it told her who had the means and ability to fire that shot. And it was confirmed when he said, "Let's go home."
Now, on their way there, she stood, looking down at the resting man, trying to think of what to do next. She knew there were things that needed to be said, things that she needed to say. But she was afraid. She was afraid she would be rebuked. Ziva remembered their last words to each other in Israel, said in anger, pain.
As she sat in the hovel they threw her in, she relived their confrontation, every painful word said...no, yelled. And she regretted it. She regretted confronting Tony at headquarters, because she knew he had been correct. She regretted making Gibbs choose, because she had no right to make the demand. She regretted trusting her father, because his had been a demand no father should make of a child.
She hated herself. How wrong she had been, about those three men who were so important to her! Now, her greatest fear was that she had irreparably damaged her relationship with Tony and Gibbs. She had been conscious the entire time after they emerged from the shack, as the medics worked on her, to the plane waiting to airlift them out of Africa. In that whole time, Gibbs had not said one word to her, his expression more unreadable than normal.
Slowly, she backed up, shame overwhelming her. She did not want to disturb Tony's slumber. He needed it, maybe even more than her. As quietly as she could, she returned to her own hospital bed, hoping she had not disturbed anyone.
She returned to find a pair of blue eyes staring at her. "Feeling better?" Gibbs asked the question flat, emotionless, as if it were a nurse checking up on her.
"Yes," she answered simply as she returned to her bed. Gibbs got up and helped her back in, for which she thanked him. But she knew there was so much more she needed to be grateful to him for.
"Once you and DiNozzo are medically cleared, we're going to head back to Washington," he informed her.
She heard his words, but they weren't computing in her brain. They were taking her back to Washington? Why? She was not part of NCIS anymore, she figured. Why not return her to Israel, to her father?
"Is that where you want to go?"
Ziva has gotten so lost in her own thoughts, she hadn't realized she had asked the last question aloud. She came back to the moment, looked at Gibbs. "No." The answer was barely a whisper, but Gibbs heard. Then, louder, "There is nothing left for me in Israel."
A simple nod. "DC it is, then." Then he left.
Ziva was alone again, with only her memories, how she had gotten here, now. It was not long ago, she believed she had no future at all.
And, if she were honest without herself, she still wondered that.
She had been so close to completing her mission, to proving her loyalty to her father. But she had failed in the end. That was all that would matter.
She was surprised death had not been immediate.
They had beaten her, tried to extract information, but she had not yielded. It had become a daily ritual, the questions followed by her defiance followed by more beatings. She could hear the flesh of their fists on her face, on her chest, but after a while she did not feel it. Her face swelled to the point she could not see out of one eye.
Her wrists and ankles were raw from the coarse rope they used to bind her to the chair, the table. But again, after some time had passed, she had lost that feeling as well.
The next thing that came, well, they made her a...plaything. She tried to fight them off at first, but again, as time passed, her struggles were less and less, until she stopped. That, too, she did not feel, as if she were out of her own body.
In the rare times, when she was by herself, she remembered, she dreamed. She dreamed of her body on top of another, more playful, more amourous. Then, her partner had smelled of cologne, of expensive soaps. Luxurious sheets encased their bodies as they rolled around on a soft bed
Even when they weren't so intimately close, she could still smell those scents, even across a room. She could still feel the textures of the fabric on her bare skin.
He would smile at her. He seemed to always smile at her. She saw him standing in the bright sunlight, a camera aimed at her, while she lounged on a deck chair, reading a book. He was annoying her. At least, that was what she wanted to convey to him. In truth, it not the worst thing that could be happening to her.
Now, she was living through the worst. And still, she was amazed she was still alive.
As to be expected, she lost track of time. The first week, maybe two, she was able to tell the changing of the days. The sun rising, the sun setting. But by now, she could not tell one day from the next. They bled into each other, no distinguishable differences.
Until one day, she heard a commotion through the window in the room she was kept in. The voices seemed to reactivate her brain, as she made out that two prisoners were being brought in. She heard the laughter of the men as they informed the others they had been merely driving in the desert.
Who in their right mind would drive into this region of the world? A name flashed in her brain, for some reason, but she dismissed it immediately.
That bridge was ash, floating downstream, no hope to rebuild.
Her interrogator returned that night, asking her who she was working with. He had not asked her that question in some time. She answered him truthfully. She could not think of who it could be.
The arrival of the prisoners did help her to be able to tell the days apart. That was because the next day, her interrogator returned, jerking her off the ground and throwing a satchel over her head. She stumbled a number of times on her way to wherever they were going. She heard a door open. Then, a voice spoke as she was shoved into a chair.
"Questions are being asked in town about missing NCIS agents, concerned that US forces might mobilize. One of you will tell me the identities and locations of all the operatives in the area and the other one will die."
Before the cloth was removed from her head, she could not be sure she had heard correctly. It sounded like he said NCIS. But that was not possible. Then it was gone and she looked up.
She saw him.