"Tony!" Ziva cried as she jumped into the elevator. People crowded past us, frantically trying to get to an exit.
"Ziva!" I cried back, launching myself into the elevator. I landed on my stomach. Ziva was frantically pushing buttons, trying to get the elevator to go down.
"Damn it! Go down!" She growled. I got to my feet, and held back her hands. I looked her in the eye.
"It will be okay."
She was shaking, and I held her hands tighter.
And that's when we heard it.
It wasn't really a sound, but a total sensory overload. The boom shook me. I felt it vibrate in my teeth, felt it shake everything. And that's when she launched me into the wall.
"No, Ziva!" I screamed, but she said nothing.
And the world was black.
I woke up, shaking. I couldn't make out anything, but I could feel walls around me. It was crumpled metal.
Suddenly, everything came back to me. The bomb, the explosion.
The caving elevator.
Ziva pushing me out of the way.
Suddenly, an adrenaline surge. I sat up, but immediately regretted it. I rubbed the part of my head where the metal had made contact with my skull.
Pumping up every ounce of strength I had, I screamed into the darkness.
"ZIVA!"
No response. I tried again.
"ZIVA!" I yelled frantically.
I started to panic. I stood up. Suddenly, my whole body stung, and I realized that I was being assaulted by shards of metal sticking out of the remnants of the elevator. I got on my knees, and started crawling, feeling for Ziva.
After what I guessed was about an hour, I really started to panic. I began to have flashbacks.
Suddenly, I was back in the Somalian camp. Ziva, covered in the dirt and blood of three months, stared at me from her chair.
"Why are you here?"
I shrugged. "Couldn't live without you, I guess."
I couldn't.
The memory made me surge forward, feeling every corner for her.
Suddenly, I was in front of NCIS. Ziva was glaring at me, fire in her eyes.
"You jeopardized you entire career, and for what?" She spat.
"For you."
"Ziva!" I cried out desperately.
Now, I was in the bullpen, sitting with her, on her desk.
"I'm just glad to know that there is someone in my life that is just as romantically dysfunctional as me." She smiled that beautiful, perfect smile.
I suddenly felt myself crack a smile. "Ziva, do you really consider me to be…in your life?"
In her life.
I was in her life.
And if she died, I died.
Suddenly, the blackness wasn't just around me; it was in me. It was crushing me, making it harder for me to breathe. Suddenly, more images came to my mind: Ziva, crushed under a piece of metal, her neck snapped, me at a funeral with a headstone that read R.I.P Ziva David, me laying flowers on the grave of my partner.
I felt tears in my eyes, but I refused to let them fall.
Now we were in the Paris hotel. She held my hand, her face dangerously close to me.
I smirked. "I guess you're not interested in premium channels."
There was no mistaking the want in her eyes.
"There is only one thing I'm interested in now."
Her lips met mine, and a fire blazed in me, warming me from the top of my head to the tip of my toes.
I felt alive.
I kissed her back, wanting nothing more than to sink into her.
She was mine.
And I was hers.
I was hers.
Forever.
Suddenly, movement. In the darkness, something stirred. A strand of hope glowed in the darkness that I felt in me and around me.
"Zi-Ziva?" I whispered, crawling towards the mass. "Ziva?"
Suddenly, a moan. Relief flooded me. The crushing weight of the darkness dissipated into nothingness.
"Ziva!" I crawled faster. I felt for her, and, suddenly, my hand met the soft fabric of her shirt.
She moaned again. I lightly shook her.
"Ziva, it's me." I said quietly. I felt her roll over. I laid down next to her, my arm across her.
"My….pocket…." She whispered. I reached into her pants pocket and pulled out a cell phone. I felt for the button, and I clicked it.
Suddenly, her face was illuminated by the glow of the phone.
"Tony?" she asked. I nodded.
"Tony! Oh my god! I'm so glad you're alive!" She cried out, bringing a hand up to my face.
Trying hard to cry, I took her in my arms, and kissed her.
"Me too, Zi. Me too."