Ziva stared at the reflection in the mirror looking deep into her own eyes. It was not something she did often, in fact it was something she hated doing and yet she knew of the constant need to remind herself of who and what she was.
She did not see what others saw; the beautiful face, intelligent eyes but rather the mask that was all she could maintain these days. It was too hard to take off, it took to much energy. It was by far much easier to simply let the mask stay in place.
It was a good mask, very few people ever saw through it and when they did most wished they had not. For they saw what she saw every time she looked in the mirror; the cold blooded murderer, the calculating torturer, the whore. She had killed so many, names no longer mattered, faces blurred together, she had at first kept a record of their names, then she had counted and then she had just counted the innocent who had died at her hand, finally she had stopped that as well. The times she had let men use her to get what she wanted or something her father wanted her to get, the times when a mission had hung on seducing men she could not stand, let alone smile at as they touched her. But she had done it anyway.
She wondered yet again why her father had given her a religion, perhaps he had wanted to give her hope. She snorted as she dried her face, it was more likely so she thought of herself as damned so she might as well do as she was told. She did think of herself as damned, she knew that no God would ever take her, not with the filthy blackened state of her soul.
She stepped out back into the office, heading for her desk, more endless paper work had to be done. It was infuriating, they spent more time doing paper work then they did catching the criminals. The flare of anger that this caused got push down with the rest. All the emotions that she was not allowed to feel, could not or should not feel were all down there. She though of it as her Pandora's box. If she opened it, her world would end. All of the feelings that had accumulated would come surging forth, anger, fear, resentment, pain, confusion, disappointment and the sadness. Sadness at the state of the world, the state of humanity and sadness for herself.
Tony sat across from her working at his own desk, he looked up as she sat down. "You okay?"
"Yes, I am fine thank you" he kept looking at her for a few seconds, then looked back to his work. He had seen through the mask, had done so long ago. Ziva looked at her computer screen grateful that he let her keep it. She just was not strong enough to do without it. Yet.