In her twenty-six years, Ziva David has become more familiar than most with waking up in a hospital. She is well accustomed to the slow process of waking her body from sedation—the heaviness of her eyelids and limbs, the struggle to make sense of the gargled speech around her, the confusion that comes with it. The feeling of a needle in her arm and the sound of a heart monitor off to the side are not foreign to her. From falling out of trees as a child to being shot in the line of duty, she has had her fair share of experiences with coming out of sedation.

Never before has doing so shocked her as much as it does now.

The first thing she is aware of is the beeping, sharp and metronomic. She is not nearly conscious enough to identify or even contemplate its source. Other sounds accompany it—somewhere in her mind she knows she's hearing a quiet conversation—but she can only focus on (her annoyance at) the steady beeping.

When she finally registers what it means, the beeps pick up in speed.

Alive. Oh, God. Alive.

The quiet voices, which before faded almost unnoticed into the background, stop abruptly. There is shuffling of feet, a gentle pressure on what she decides must be her hand, and the words start again. This time, she knows they are directed at her.

Her worn out and beaten down brain can't make sense of them, but there is a sharp pain in her chest when her subconscious recognizes the timbre and cadence of Tony DiNozzo's voice.

The beeps go ever faster.

She is dead, she has to be. Ziva David was a dead woman from the moment she set foot in that camp.

No, a little voice reminds her, you were a dead woman the second that plane left the tarmac one short.

She remembers dying—it is not something easily forgotten. She remembers hearing the death sentence she waited so long for at the lips of her torturer—we're not taking prisoners. She clearly recalls the ease with which he buried his knife to the hilt in her shoulder—my last gift to you. The parting words spoken before the thick wooden door slid shut for what she knew to be the last time are ingrained in her memory—you will rot away in this room, slowly and painfully.

After that, there was only heat, pain, hunger, thirst, and the subsequent delirium. The knowledge that she was truly, utterly, helplessly alone cut sharper than any blade still lodged in her torso (which she eventually decided was worth the energy to pull out, since she would die quicker that way).

It took longer than she would have liked, days rather than hours, but Ziva remembers eventually succumbing to the cool, peaceful embrace of death.

She. Should. Not. Be. Alive.

The phrase "dead woman walking" comes to mind, and she realizes how utterly perfectly that describes the life she led (is leading?). Since the moment she came into this world, she was only ever headed for Somalia.

Only ever destined to abandon—NCIS—and to be abandoned—everybody else.

The words around her are starting to make sense, even in her complete and utter confusion at this shocking turn of events. First and foremost, she recognizes her name, spoken with so much emotion that she feels her (annoyingly) resilient heart pang. There is feeling returning to her limbs and facial muscles, and soon it is almost painfully clear that there is a hand grasping her own.

Drowsy eyes give their first attempt at opening. Considering she never expected them to open again, Ziva thinks she does pretty well. The little light that seeps through the crack she has managed does not form into anything her brain recognizes.

She is still so close to giving up.

So tired.

But then he speaks, and she can finally understand.

"There Ziva, you almost had it. You can do it, open your eyes."

She has never heard Tony DiNozzo speak like that. For four years they worked side by side, day after day, case after case, and never once were his words so gentle and… unabashedly hopeful.

Somewhere in the confines of her brain, she curses him for that, for how can she give up now when she knows it means shattering his heart once again?

"'Ony…" she mumbles, her speech gargled and weak and hardly even there.

Someone's hand is cupping the left side of her head now, stroking back her hair. "Yeah. It's me."

She makes another attempt at opening her eyes, and they flutter a little before falling almost completely shut again. His hand gives hers a light, reassuring squeeze. It takes a few minutes, but eventually she's able to keep her eyes open, and the room around her takes shape.

Then there is Tony, sitting on the side of her bed, smiling as if he's glad to see her awake—as if she never broke his heart.

A doctor enters, and he says words that Ziva does not follow nor care about. They do not register with her brain, and after he checks her over, he says more words, then leaves.

They are alone again.

"Welcome back to the land of the living."

She licks her dry lips. "Why?" she forces out, her unused voice hoarse.

He frowns as he hands her a Styrofoam cup of water. "Why what?"

Ziva takes a sip from the cup, holding back a moan. The water is clean and cool and she has forgotten what that's like. Clearing her sore throat, she responds, "Living. Why?"

She thinks she sees a bit of heartbreak infiltrate his eyes, but he covers it quickly. "Because we weren't about to let you go."

There is not one thing Ziva can think of that is an adequate response. There is not one thing that she has done to deserve this. She flounders, visibly.

"You're going to be okay," he promises seriously, before adding, "Gibbs won't letcha be anything but." Guilt surges through her at the mention of her former boss's name.

She has done so very many things wrong by them.

Another sip of water, then, "I remember dying." The words obviously chill Tony to the core, she can see it in his eyes. He swallows past it.

"Guess you didn't die hard enough then," he jokes, and Ziva almost takes comfort in the predictability of his coping methods. "Good movie. Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia.Yippee-ki-yay, motherf—"

"Tony."

He sighs. "When we found you, you didn't have a pulse. We started CPR, eventually found one, then MedEvac-ed the hell outta there. That's really all there is to it."

"We?"

"Me and the Probie," he replies.

She stares at him. "It seems you were very lucky."

He sighs, running his hand through his unkempt hair. "God, Ziva, you have no idea."

Ziva does not have the energy to press him further. Despite having just woken up, she is exhausted.

"How long?"

There is pain in his eyes. "About three and a half months."

She feels like she has had the wind knocked out of her. "I slept for three and a half months?!"

His eyes widen. "No! No, that's how long you were captive, I thought you meant… No, you were asleep for three days," he assures her.

"Where are we?" she inquires, almost afraid of the answer. If he says Israel, she knows she would be better off dead.

If he says Israel, then that means her sins are too great.

"Bethesda. They patched you up in Mogadishu pretty well, stabilized you for the flight back here. They kept you sedated for a while, you were pretty…" he takes a deep breath. "It was pretty bad."

She looks away from him, the pain in his gaze too much for her to handle. "I am sorry, Tony."

"That's a conversation for another time," he replies. "Not now. Later. Not now."

Ziva nods, understanding. "Has my father called at all?"

The look on Tony's face tells her all she needs to know.

"I see."

"Ziva…"

"No," she responds, shaking her head, "it is fine. He left me for dead, and I… have made peace with that. I do not want to see him."

There is silence, and guilt in Tony's expression that Ziva does not understand.

"You are feeling guilty," she states. "Why?"

He shrugs. "Waited too long." She cocks her head to the side.

"What were you waiting for?"

"The extraction team to be in place."

"I thought you were the extraction team?" she asks, frowning a little.

Tony chuckles humorlessly. "No. We were the… extract-ees."

She is confused once again. Nothing he is saying is making any sense. "I do not understand."

"I wouldn't expect you to. I never explained. You drew your own conclusions."

She takes a deep breath. "You were not there to rescue me." The words cut through her like ice.

"No, we weren't," he confirms, and she feels a small piece of her die.

They were not trying to rescue her.

Before she can reply, he continues.

"We were there to avenge you."

At first, she does not understand—and then she does, and all words fly from her mind. There is a full minute where she cannot form a sentence, cannot focus on anything but the fact that they risked their lives simply to avenge her.

"You… thought I was dead...so you...?" she trails off, her voice on the brink of cracking.

"Mmhmm."

"I do not know if that is incredibly sweet or incredibly foolish," she admits.

"Me neither."

"You could have died."

"We all die sometime."

"It does not need to be for a stupid reason."

He almost looks offended at that. "You call vengeance… stupid?"

"When it is vengeance for someone who does not deserve it, then yes." She says it with all the dignity she can muster.

"Do not say that," he demands, his voice fierce.

"You were willing to give your life in vengeance of a woman who was nothing but cold to you?"

"No. I was planning to," he snaps back at her, and all of a sudden the world freezes. She does not know how to respond to such a thing. "Like I said, we all die sometime. Figured I might as well take some of those bastards with me."

"Tony…"

"Look, Ziva, it's like this. I know that you went to Somalia with every intention of giving your life for your cause. I did the same. Neither of us expected to leave that compound alive, but you know what? We both did."

"It is different for you," she insists. "You…now have a reason to…"

"Oh yeah, and you don't?"

"Do not pretend you know what it is like, Tony," she growls. "Do not pretend you know what it is like to spend three and a half months preparing yourself to die, begging to die, and then essentially dying. Do not pretend you understand how hard that is to come back from, because you don't. You cannot know."

"You're right, I don't. But I know that you don't really have a reason to die anymore, either," he points out.

"I do not have a home, Tony! My father does not care if I'm alive or dead. I am not welcome in America. I am… alone."

Now it is apparently Tony's turn to be angry. "Don't you dare," he responds, his voice low and dangerous. "You're not alone. Not by a long shot. What the hell am I, or McGee or Gibbs or Abby or Ducky for that matter? You've never been alone, not since you joined this team. All you ever had to do was ask and we'd be there. And who the hell said you weren't welcome in America? Why do you think we're in DC? You think we just brought you here so we could ship you off on the next C-130 headed for Israel?" Tony's little rant shocks her, and even makes her feel a little bit guilty.

"I did not…"

He sighs, shoulders slumping. "Look, we're not going anywhere. You're not going anywhere. Everything will sort itself out, you'll see, okay?"

"You cannot know that for sure."

"Call it a gut feeling."

"Are you sure you are not just hungry?"

"Well, I am that," he responds, grinning cheekily.

"I have not eaten in…" she trails off, not entirely sure that her estimate of one week is correct, "…a while."

"What food do you want the most?" he asks, a mischievous smile lighting up his face.

"I am not sure that the doctors—"

"Screw the doctors, I'm taking care of my injured partner. Is berry mango madness okay?"

The words themselves seem to make her mouth water. "Yes. And a waffle from that one place…" Her memory goes blank for a second, but luckily Tony knows just what she is talking about.

"Alright. Got it. I'll get McDeliveryBoy right on that." He pulls out his cell phone.

Ziva smirks, before turning a little more serious. "Can you tell him to come here? I want to thank him."

"Yep. Sure thing, jelly bean."

"That did not rhyme."

"Close enough."

"So when you correct my idioms I am never 'close enough' but when I correct your rhyming skills you are?"

"Mmhmm," Tony responds as he puts the phone to his ear.

"You are insufferable."

"And that's why you love me," he adds a second before McGee picks up the line and they start talking.

It is then and there that Ziva David decides that her partner (because he always will be her partner) is a very easy man to love.

And she realizes that, at some point during their conversation, she stopped hating the fact that her heart is still beating.

A/N: I'm not sure if I will continue this or not. Maybe if the mood strikes. Thanks so much for the wonderful feedback for the last chapter! Please let me know what you think of this one!