Time Gone By ✡ NCIS TIVA Fanfiction

Chapter 26

The next time she awoke, it was night. Everyone had left.

All she heard was the constant mechanical beeping of some machines in the hospital.

She crawled out of her bed, testing whether she could stand on her own feet or not. Her legs were fine. So she tiptoed down the hallway, throwing quick glances into every room she passed but she didn't see who she was looking for.

As she arrived at the reception, the woman working there had fallen asleep on her desk.

Ziva was already trying to maneuver around to the computer to find out in which room Tony was in when she heard a creaking noise from behind.

Her fingers locked around a pair of scissors and she turned.

The scissors hit the ground.

Time seemed to stand still as she hurried forward as fast as she could, even though she would have liked to go faster. She stumbled and fell into his arms and both of them crashed into the nearest wall. "Tony." If she could say only one word for the rest of her life, it would be his name. His hands softly touched her face and she felt herself crying.

Not because of the pain or her scars but because she had thought she'd never see him again. She opened her mouth to tell him but he cut off her words.

"Ani ohaev otkha" He blurted out in Hebrew and pressed his lips onto hers, holding her tightly to him.

They slid down the hospital wall, both too weak to stand and broke apart, a smile on her dry lips. "I should've told you earlier. I don't know why I didn't, I'm sorry. But I mean it."

"I know." Her eyes had stopped watering and she looked down at her hands.

"What I asked of you in the cellar, I meant it too." "And I meant my answer."

"You still want to marry me?" "Yes, stupid. Of course I want to marry you."

Their lips met again and she could feel his smile until a sudden pain shot up her head and she groaned. Tony took his hand from her neck and looked down. "I'm sorry. I guess we should wait. Let ourselves get better." "I look hideous. I always will. Those... those won't go away." Ziva traced down the scars on her cheek and neck and looked up at him.

"I don't care. You look the same to me." She knew he didn't mean this in the optical way, and that was okay with her. "I'm sick of hospitals." "I guess you won't be able to avoid coming here at least one more time, even after they let you go." "What do you mean?" Instead of an answer, he carefully put a hand on her belly. Both of them flinched.

"Did it just-...?" "I think she just kicked!" Ziva put her own hand right next to his own and couldn't help but smile. "She?" Tony asked and Ziva shrugged. "I just have a feeling."

He leaned in and softly kissed her again. A few moments later, they had fallen asleep on the hospital floor, leaning on each other, their fingers entwined.

And it turned out that Tony was right. Only a few months later, they would return to this very hospital, only that this time, things weren't nearly as peaceful.