Chapter Text
He spotted her from the hospital, trailed her to the ladis’ room, she just got out of a cubical, totally unprepared for the attack. In the matter of seconds, Ziva was pinned down on the floor, his knee on her thigh, a gun with silencer pressing to her head. Her eyes were wide with scared.
“What did you have on me Ziva David.” He snarled.
“We have enough!” She tried to threw him off of her, but she couldn’t, his arm pressing firmly to her chest, making her hard to breath, so she tried to rolled over to decreased the weight on her abdomen, but a sharping pain from her lower side blinding her vision. She struggled so hard, only for him to find out the bulge of her stomach.
“That’s a bonus.” He aimed his gun to her belly. “Tell me what you’ve got on me!”
“Everything”
Bang.
Tony was sitting in a plastic chair near Ziva’s hospital bed. “Ziva shh…” Tony held her unwounded right hand in his palms, kissing the back of her hand. “It’s ok, you just had a surgery.”
Two hours ago…
After he heard the gunshot, he felt the blood in his body boiled with fear. He dropped his backpack on the ground and ran to the ladies’ room. He found Ziva sitting on the ground in the corner near the sink, her left shoulder oozing out blood, eyes fluttering, trying to stay conscious. Her other hand pressed firmly on her bump protectively. In front of her near the door, an unconscious Trent Kort was lying on the ground, Ziva’s knife wedged on his chest. Tony pressed the blue bottom on the wall and rushed to Ziva’s side, grabbing a towel to apply more pressure on her wounded shoulder.
“Stay with me Ziva, help is on the way.”
“Tony… I am so cold…” Her eyes felt like tons heavy, her breathing was heavy trying to stay awake.
“Ziva.” Tony kept the pressure to the wound while squeezing her right hand on her bump. “Ziva, I love you so much, stay with me, I CAN’T loss you.”
“Tony…” Ziva was shivering from staying on the floor and the blood loss. “Hi Tony…” Ziva let out a smile before lost the battle to unconsciousness.
Doctors rushed in the second her eyes were shut. Thank goodness they were in a hospital. He followed her back into the hospital, waiting for the doctors to dig out the bullet.
Gibbs arrived at the hospital, finding a devastated DiNozzo pacing out the OR.
“DiNozzo, what the hell happened ?”
DiNozzo was furious, his face crimson red from his emotion. “That son of a bitch Trent Kort did that to her. He came after one of us AGAIN!”
Gibbs flipped open his cell phone. “Fornell, I need to talk to you.”
Now…
“The baby! ” Ziva’s hands shot to her stomach. Sharping pain on her left shoulder almost made her pass out. Thank God her belly was intact, no bleeding, the familiar bump safely cradled by her hand. Ziva tried to fight the anesthesia, to stay awake, to tell Tony what happened, but the wound coupled with the drug was pulling her back to unconsciousness.
Tony joined a hand on top of her belly, giving her hand a little squeeze. “The baby’s fine. Your shoulder’s not.”
Ziva tried to speak up, but her voice came out as mumbling whispers “ It was Trent Kort.”
“I know ninja, you stabbed him hard on his chest.” Tony cupped her face in his left hand, his right still laced with her fingers. “He was out of surgery and cuffed to his bed.”
Ziva breathed rapidly to fight the anesthesia, but Tony would not let her. He softly stroked her face with his thumb, whispering words of reassurance. “Safe your strength, love, you’ve lost a lot of blood. Gibbs and Fornell are on their way here, I will not let anything happen to you or our baby.”
Her holding to his hand tightened. With all the mental power she was able to conjure up, she let out a whisper. “Stay with me.”
“I’m not leaving your side ever again.”
She fell asleep again.
“How’s Ziva?” Gibbs pulled up another chair to sit beside Tony, with Fornell looming over his shoulder, standing behind Gibbs. “And the baby?”
“They are both fine. It was a close one. The doctors said had we not been in a hospital…” Tony’s let go of Ziva’s hand and turned to face their boss. “How come we weren’t alerted?”
“He must had used alias, but facial recognition was malfunction for some reason.” Fornell rubbed his beard.
Gibbs added : “We need to find out why he was targeting Ziva.” Gibbs sighed, scratching his jaw, mirroring Fornell. “Bishop and McGee are checking security footages and Abby’s processing his wallet and cellphone.”
Ziva let out whimper in her dreams. She heard people talking, but couldn’t place the owner of the voice or the content. The numbness sore radiated from her left shoulder. She focused on the pain, using it as an anchor to the lucid world. When she finally came to herself, three familiar voices were discussing forensic thing.
“Hey Ziva.” Tony’s warm hand held her cold one. “Gibbs and Fornell are here.”
She tried to push herself to a sitting position, but groaned at the pain radiating from her wound. “Tony, can you…”
Tony helped her reclined to a pile of pillows supporting her back.
“Kiddo, you don’t have to talk about it right now.” Gibbs gave her right hand an affective pat. “We know it’s Kort.”
“No, Gibbs, I have to tell you this before I pass out again. I was taken by surprise. He showed up from nowhere. He’s got two guns. I kicked the one with the silencer out of his hand, but his back up shot me.” Ziva winced at the memory, her right arm wrapped around her belly. “I think it’s premeditated, but he didn’t know I was pregnant until he saw my belly, so he must had traced our track somehow, but not available to more information.”
“You think our car or phone was bugged?”
“I’ll have Abby to check them. You take my car later.” Gibbs gave Ziva’s a pat through the blanket. “You take care of yourself and the little one, kiddo.”
Ziva smiled to them as Gibbs and Fornell left the room.
“Do you want to lie down?”
“No, I … I need to …” She swallowed a lump. “I…” Her tears fell.
“Shh… it’s ok… Do you want to watch a movie or read a book? Or I can get some jello from the canteen.” Tony jacked his thumb towards the door.
“NO, just… just stay here with me for a while.” Ziva shivered. “I am so cold. Can you…” She extended her arm inviting Tony to scooped up with her.
Tony removed his coat and snuggled in her bed, holding her at her waist avoiding putting any pressure on her wounded shoulder. His palm sneaked up on her bump, slowly rubbing the swell. “Baby showed herself through your coat huh? Eager to announced herself. A DiNozzo no doubt.”
“Yeah, that she is.” Ziva joined his hand on her bump, leaning her head on Tony’s shoulder, her eyes fluttering, struggling not to fall asleep. A sudden movement from her belly pulled her back awake. “Did you feel it ?”
“That’s…” Tony stuttered. “She’s moving? Our baby girl is moving !” He lost his word for the first time in his life by the joy that their baby was not only unharmed but also thrive after the event.
“I felt the fluttering days ago, first I thought it was gas, but then it keeps happening.” Ziva started sobbing “I felt nothing when I woke up just now, so I thought… I was so scared Tony.”
“No, Ziva, don’t cry, you just lost a lot of blood, you don’t want to loss too many fluid” Tony held her closer to him, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I got you, I got both of you.”
Ziva grabbed his shirt and buried her face in it, trying to contain her emotion with no vail. Tears seeping through DiNozzo’s cloth. Within the next minute, his shirt was soak through when she finally wined the battle to the crying.
“Zi, do you think I can get out a second and change my cloth?” Tony brushed the last tear from the corner of her eye. “Boss just got me my go bag.”
“Yeah, just… hurry…” Ziva eased herself off from Tony, sliding down to the bed rapping her arm around her torso.
By the time Tony emerged from the ensuite bathroom, Ziva had fallen asleep. Tony opted to make her comfortable but also fight the urge to hold her in his arms. Instead, he sat by the hospital bed and held her hand watching her sleep.
Only half an hour latter, Ziva was whimpering in her sleep, her hand had gotten colder despite his down coat on her blanket. This all looked so painfully familiar, when Tony reached for her forehead, he found her burning up. He wasted on time to press the call button on the wall.
“Agent DiNozzo.” Doctor Langer had been paged to the ward after Tony sounded the alarm. “We review the test result on Agent David. The fever wasn’t caused by pathological reasons. It might be caused by psychological factors couple with immune system and hormonal regulation.”
“Which means?”
“We don’t want to give her too much medication since we’ve already used antibiotics during the surgery, but also we don’t want her body temperature to go over 38.5℃, which ruled her overheat right now at 39℃. We need to use physical method to bring down her core temp.”
Ziva felt like she was swimming in ice cold water. Her body must had been flowing in the Arctic Ocean. It must be a dream, but the shivering was real. She prayed her eyes open for a second, and saw Tony reapplying a fresh cold towel on her forehead. She reached down to her thigh where the blanket was tucked, pulling it pack up but noticing her belly had been exposed out of her hospital gown. A hand stop her motion and tucked the blanket back. She let out a protesting moan but couldn’t conjured the strength to do more.
“Ziva” Tony was relived to see her conscious again. “No…no… we need to lower your body temperature.” He gently eased the blanket back, but pulled her gown back down to cover her stomach. “You had a fever and you were out for four hours. Doctor Langer and I were getting worried.”
“But I am so cold.” Her bottom lip trembled letting out a sob. “Can I at lest hold your hand?”
“Sure bambina. I’ll just put this cloth on your forehead.”
Ziva trembles when the cold touched her skin.
“Sorry, it won’t take long now that your temperature dropped a little.”
Ziva started crying. The out of character crying shook Tony to his core. On the one hand, he felt privilege to the level of trust for her to show weakness, on the other hand, the strain must be so damn hard for her to cry like this.
“I promise this will be the last one.” Tony held her hand in his palm. Her hand had been warmer and dry for now, which was a good sign according to Dr. Langer. He reached towards her face wiping the tears off. “Would you like some ice-cream now that you are awake?”
“Yes I guess.” She tighten her hold on his hand. “But I don’t want you to leave.”
“It’s ok, I’ll get McProbie to get it.”
“Is he here?”
“Yeah, he and Abby came here after work. They are in the canteen right now.”
“Sorry to make you guys worry.” She was getting misty eyes again.
“Hey, none of that, ok? We are basically families.” He pressed a kiss on her knuckle. “Do you want chocolate chips or vanilla ?”
“I want minty chocolate if they have them.”
“On it.” Tony pulled out his phone and dialed “McGee, can you bring us some food? We are starved here…Yeah, she is awake…no I don’t want coffee but thank you for asking. What do you mean I never said thank you… just bring them up.” Despite his attempt to acting like his old self, the softening smile reached to his lips.
Ziva let out a smirk, bringing his hand to her baby. “She had softened you already.”
“What do you mean soften? David? I am always soft. I am the king of softy.”
They fell into comfortable quiet, the only sound was the beeping monitor hooked up to her and her baby.
“Tony?” Ziva looked into his eyes. “I love you too.”