Tony spends too many years worrying about Ziva David. (TW/CW: non-graphic references to captivity and assault.)
Another answer to the @giveusourtivaprompts 1k-words-or less challenge to write a Truth or Consequences fic including the line “You could have died.” The title is a Hebrew word and its transliteration: חֲשָׁשׁוֹת, a noun meaning “worries, fears, or concerns (about something or someone)”.
Tony can feel Ziva watching him during the bumpy Jeep ride back to civilization and, anxious, he speaks before she can.
“I know what you’re gonna say, Ziva. ’You’re an idiot for following me! You could have died.’ But the truth is, we haven’t gotten much sunlight in Washington recently and I thought going closer to the equator would help me tan. It’s really just a happy coincidence that you were here, too.”
Ziva doesn’t answer, which is no surprise. In the silence that follows, Tony realizes something: finding her alive doesn’t at all stop him from worrying about her.
In fact, he’s more worried now than he’s ever been.
They eventually patch things up and (somewhat awkwardly) salvage their friendship. Things start to look up: Ziva quits Mossad and slips around the obstacles preventing her from becoming an official NCIS special agent.
It’s almost enough to convince Tony that she’s as fine as she says she is, that what happened in the desert has stopped haunting her…
It’s nearly believable until Ziva is accosted during a routine investigation; unexpectedly, a man leaps from a closet and tackles her. She fights him off before Tony can help, but for a brief moment, she’s pinned down by someone twice her size. Tony has time to observe just one detail in that split second: there’s wild panic in her eyes.
Once the attacker is cuffed and placed in the backseat, Tony blocks the passenger door to stop Ziva from getting in.
“What do you want?” she asks, her voice soft, dangerous; she reminds Tony of a snake, coiled to strike.
“About what just happened… Are you—”
“I am fine.” Those three words are snarled with enough acid that Tony recoils, and when Ziva pushes past him to get in the car, he doesn’t stop her…
A nightmare wakes Tony around 0300; after tossing and turning for a few minutes, he admits defeat and decides to be first in the office for once in his career. When he steps into the bullpen just after 0400, though, it’s clear that someone else beat him here.
“Kinda early to be reorganizing files, isn’t it?” Tony observes, tone neutral, when he finds Ziva doing just that.
She’s on the floor between their desks, surrounded by papers; she doesn’t look up at him.
Having noticed her exhaustion for months, Tony doesn’t know how to answer this irrefutable statement.
Instead, he just worries.
Despite never having been to Tony’s apartment before, Ziva shows up there unannounced one night. As soon as Tony opens the door and sees her, he knows that something is very wrong.
“God, Ziva, what happened!?”
Concerned, Tony steps back, admitting her. Then he trails cautiously behind as she wanders to the living room and pauses, hugging herself and trembling. Her hair is loose and dripping wet; her skin is bright red like she’s been badly sunburned.
“What happened?” Tony repeats when she doesn’t say anything else; his voice sounds foreign to his own ears, gentle but pressing.
“I had a flashback—I thought I was there again. Saleem’s men were… they were everywhere I looked. I could not get away. I could not get away.” Ziva jerks suddenly, her voice losing its distant quality. “Then I remembered where I was, but I could still feel their hands on me. I felt… dirty. I scrubbed and scrubbed myself, but—” She swallows roughly.
“When will I feel clean again?”
Breaking down suddenly, Ziva falls to her knees.
Terrified of touching her, Tony offers what little comfort he can: keeping his distance, he joins her on the floor and sits in silent vigil for all the things she will never get back.
Ziva sleeps on Tony’s couch that night; she drifts off there out of sheer exhaustion, and he is unwilling to wake or move her.
Tony doesn’t sleep that night, instead lying restlessly in his bed and listening for sounds of distress from his friend.
He hears nothing, but still, he worries.
Tony tries to talk to Ziva about last week, but she pretends not to hear him. He tries again later and gets the same result.
He gets the message loud and clear—she doesn’t want to talk. Aware that pushing her could do further harm, he resolves to say nothing until she initiates a conversation.
For now, he’ll keep his worries to himself.
His resolve sticks, which means that the conversation never happens. Ziva doesn’t bring it up, and things again return to their tentative normal. Tony really doesn’t know what to do except follow her lead; everyone else seems to think she’s fine.
Then, however, he misses her biggest milestone—she becomes a US citizen, finally free of the father who so casually sent her to die. Tony, busy with the cartel in Mexico, isn’t there to support her.
When things settle, he offers Ziva an American flag pin for her backpack. The lame gift is small consolation for his broken promise.
“Thank you,” Ziva says; her smile doesn’t reach her eyes.
Tony adds guilt to his list of worries.
On a plane in Tel Aviv, Tony can still taste Ziva’s bittersweet kiss on his lips. Their mutual heartbreak now is his own fault; he should have done more to protect her, if only from herself.
When the plane departs, Tony knows that he failed his best friend.
Waiting for her and worrying was never going to be enough, was it?
They all watch on ZNN as Ziva’s farmhouse burns uncontrollably, and for Tony, time seems to stop. Six years of aching, six years of grief, six years of worrying… it has all led to this, and for what?
Ziva David is dead. Gone.
God, Tony wishes she was still around to worry over.
