Authors Note: I haven't written anything in a long time, but for some reason I recently got the urge to write. This is my first multi-chapter fic, and I hope it goes well. No idea when I will be updating again.
Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS or its characters. Some days I wish I did.
The first thing that pops into her head as she watches him walk away is why. It's a simple question, really, but it branches off into so much more. Why me? Why do all the crappy things in this world have to happen to me? Out of the seven billion or so people on the earth, why can't bad things happen to someone else for a change?
She's not stupid. She's not irrational, or unreasonable, or delusional, or any other word that would imply that she is not fully aware that all the bad in the world does not happen to her. Still, sometimes she wonders. Still, sometimes she thinks. Still, sometimes, when she looks back at her childhood she imagines a time where it wasn't her. She imagines a past where she grew up in a fully functioning family with a father and a mother, a brother and a sister, a group of people who all loved each other. She imagines a father who didn't train his kids from a young age to grow up in a painful world, but who showed them love and patience, acknowledging that it was okay to make mistakes. She imagines a mother who didn't die so young, a mother who didn't drag her kids away from their father without a decent explanation. She imagines a sister who wasn't torn from the grips of life at the young age of sixteen, who didn't experience the blinding pain as a bomb tore her apart. And most of all, she imagines a past where her brother did not make the decisions that led her to claim his life. She imagines a lot. She thinks a lot. She wishes for a lot.
Perhaps one of the things she wishes that she could change the most is her relationship with the man boarding the plane. She made her decision, a decision to chase down the past that was given to her, and she made the decision to disappear to do it. And after she made that decision, after she returned to the place where her mother was buried, and her childhood home, and her sister's grave, she was found. By the person she wanted to find her the least. For a long time during the months she was gone she deluded herself into thinking that she would never be found, and that her disappearing act would only hurt herself. She believed that she could wallow in the past forever, never coming out and facing reality. Maybe a small part of her knew that was unreasonable, but she doubts it. When she tries, she can convince herself of anything. After all, in her life she has relied on her ability to do just that. It is the only way she was able to do some of the things she has done.
She returns her attention to the airplane and the man within. She can still feel a phantom of the pressure of his lips on hers, a ghost of a promise that came too late. In her mind she traces his every move, watching the white exterior, wishing it was invisible so that she could see him better. However, she has her imagination. By now, she thinks, he is on the plane, probably storing his bag. A few moments later, she is sure that he must be in his seat fascinating his seatbelt. She details his every move in her mind, imagining and thinking until she watches the plane go down the runway. It's while she is turning away that she notices a flash of orange. She turns back, panicking. The plane is no longer a plane, but a ball of flames. Good things happen too late. Good things don't always work out. Good things are hard to manage. And as she turns away from the airfield, she is certain that is true.
Ziva David wakes with a name on her lips and a feeling of panic in her chest. The sheets on her bed are twisted around her, and she claws at them while trying to sit up. Sweat runs down the small of her back as she reaches for the bottle of water next to her on the nightstand. Her breathe catches in her chest and she begins to panic, worried that she is having another anxiety attack. In the past few months, they have become more and more common. So have the nightmares.
The one she just dragged herself from is the most common, but there are many visions that haunt her dreams. They make her nighttime word hell, and recently their effects have been dragging through into the next day. As a result, she has been sleepy and jumpy at her new job. She has only been working at Bill and Bob's Shop 'til You Drop Supermarket for a little under two weeks, and despite the fact that the job is unlike anything she has ever experienced, she loves it. It is safer than anywhere else she has ever worked. She does not have to watch her back or worry that someone she loves will die in the next few minutes. Besides, she doesn't keep contact with those she loves anymore. It is too hard.
Ziva glances at the clock next to her bed and notes that she has another two hours before she has to be at work. She is exhausted, but she knows that there is no way she will fall back asleep. Sighing, she pushes the covers off of her and grabs her running clothes, changing fast in the cool night air. The air conditioner in her small hotel room is cranked on high, and despite herself she is shivering. She wants to hop right back under the covers and sleep for a year, but she knows that if she does the dreams will return. With that thought she pulls on her running shoes and leaves the hotel room, making sure to grab her key as she leaves. She had an awkward experience earlier that week as the seedy hotel manager unlocked her room for her, peeking in at her stuff as the door swung open. To make it more awkward, she was stuck in a too small towel because she had been returning from the hotel's over-chlorinated pool. She shudders at the thought. A repeat performance is not desired.
As she walks the hall to the hotel's small exercise room she listens to the quiet. Most people are still sleeping, even though it is bordering seven o' clock on a Tuesday morning. She can faintly hear someone snoring through the thin walls, and laughs quietly to herself. Tony used to tease her about her snoring. He said that Ziva sounded like a dying truck driver, among other things. She is still laughing as she opens the door to the small exercise room and stares at the treadmill. It's the only piece of exercise machinery in the room. She sighs and wishes for the gym membership that she used to have. While she is wishing, she desires a night of full sleep and a nice clean apartment. She is getting tired of the string of crappy hotels and minimum wage jobs. Still, she knows that she asked for this. She is the one who decided to leave all she knew in order to completely find herself. And she knew it would be hard. Although she didn't think it would be this hard.
Ziva puts her water bottle on a small table next to the treadmill and pushes her headphones in her ears. She cranks the volume up high and gets lost in the music. After she steps on the treadmill and cranks the setting to where she can run 5 miles in a half hour, she allows her body to relax into the comfortable pace. The run is familiar to her, and she finds that she doesn't have to think. Her breathing and footsteps sync until she is lost in the trouble-free world of her own imagination.
Half an hour later she is covered in sweat and in the middle of an endorphin rush. She is finally positive and feels that she is on top of the world. She also feels hungry. The hotel she is staying at is not one of the sort to provide free breakfast, and she knows she will have to fend for herself. She decides that she feels like pancakes, for the first time in months. She doesn't fight it and instead decides to go with the flow. She returns to her hotel room and quickly showers, before grabbing her purse and leaving again. Years of habits have led her to be cautious as she steps into the bright morning, and she instinctively puts her hand to her hip where her gun used to be. The gun is gone, but she still has a knife in her boot. After all, old habits die hard.
She quickly walks the couple of blocks to a breakfast place she had passed a few times before. The place is pretty much empty, and her order is taken right away. The chocolate chip pancakes she ordered on a whim are eaten quickly and quietly. She tips the obviously pregnant teenage waitress 20 dollars, even though her bill came to less than that, and leaves the same way she came in. Quietly. Peacefully. Ghostlike.
She returns the hotel with only half an hour to go until her shift starts. She curses her indulgence, and quickly changes into her uniform. At any job she has had before, she was always early, rarely late, and even more rarely exactly on time. Since she started taking smaller jobs her old ways had been relaxing. At first it had been hard, but now she is used to it. Still, that doesn't mean she likes coming into work late. She is in and out of the hotel room in five minutes.
Nothing interesting happens to her at work. She stocks shelves, mans the cash register, and has an interesting conversation with an elderly lady during her lunch break. She is bored out of her skull for half the day and has the innate feeling that she has accomplished nothing by the time she clocks out. Later that night, as she sits alone in her hotel room reading a book, she pauses to ask herself what she is doing. She can't keep living like this. She can't keep living in a world where she is all alone in a sea of strangers. She always knew that this period was temporary. She knew she would never be able to leave forever. And she decides it is time to go home.
I have been wondering what has been happening to Ziva these past few months since her character left the show. I suspect she had money to survive without working, but in my head she is trying to experience what she never got a chance to, including bad jobs. So I wrote this. I am exploring her missing months.