A/N Takes place after episode 5.16 Recoil.

A/N 2: During this episode, Ziva is uncharacteristically upset after killing a murderer. She looks horrible and severely troubled. At the end of the episode, we see a smiling Ziva, once again beautiful. Why was she is affected so strongly and what happened to ease her mind? I decided to try to answer those questions myself...my way.

A/N 3: I use some actual show quotes but change who says them to fit my tale when necessary.

A/N 4:/Written for my first entry in

Aftershock

Chapter 1

Driving along, she hears her cell phone ring. Looking at the man beside her, she reaches down and answers. It is McGee, calling to give her the distress code, Bernard. Something is wrong. She must find a way to abort the mission. She pretends the call is a wrong number, but he picks up her phone and asks "Who's Gibbs?"

"Wrong number."

"It's number two on your speed dial."

"Ex-boyfriend, okay? My phone please."

He quietly hands her the phone and points a revolver at her. "Drive."

She knows she's in trouble, big trouble. Where are Gibbs and McGee? They were supposed to be following.

He leads her into an empty warehouse, and makes her turn her back to him. She can feel the gun, even though she cannot see it. She can feel his desire to kill her. The gun is inches from the back of her head. With her back turned she can't anticipate his movements.

Her heart is beating wildly, so loudly in her chest that she can just barely hear him cock the gun. When will he shoot? Now? Her senses are so hyper that she swears she can feel a change in the air as he tightens his finger on the trigger.

She whirls at the last possible second. Something whizzes by her head, a burning sensation at her brow. Seconds later, the loud ear splitting boom!

Acting on pure instinct, she lunges at him, a wild animal fighting for basic survival. She kicks, she bites, she punches. He pounds, he slaps. She is thrown across the room.

The gun. It is right there. She crawls, scrambles for it. Gets it in her hands, just seconds before it's too late. Rolling on her back, she lifts the gun. He is running at her, eyes wide, mouth open, screaming in his insanity.

She pulls the trigger five times. He lands on her, knife poised to stab. His eyes bulging, staring into hers. Suddenly he is still. The eyes still staring, but now blank. Dead.

She is trapped under him. He will not stop staring into her eyes. His face shifts, changes - Hoffman's face -Ari's face-Kate's face -her father's face. Accusing her. Damning her.

Ziva David shoots up in bed, a cry just breaking from her lips, her body coated with sweat, trembling uncontrollably.

"Stop looking at me!" she cried out.

Dropping her head into her hands, Ziva sobbed. "No more. Please. No more."

As she sat on the edge of the bed, the nightmare still playing in her mind, she knows she must do something or go mad.

Gibbs found her in the morgue. She is staring at the body of Hoffman the serial killer.

"Why do you haunt me? You were guilty! You tried to kill me! Your death was justified, if not deserved," she whispered to the dead man. "I have killed greater men then you. I have forgotten more deaths. Why do your eyes haunt me? You were nothing. You are nothing. Leave me alone! "

Turning from the body, Ziva rushed out of the morgue, only to run into Gibbs.

"Ziva, what is going on with you?" Gibbs asked.

"Nothing," Ziva said without looking at him.

"Is that what this is about?" Gibbs asked. "You doubting your judgment?"

Ziva sighed, "I should have moved earlier."

"You would have if you could have," Gibbs replied.

"I left it too late," Ziva whispered. "I almost died."

"But you didn't. You gotta trust your judgment, Ziva," Gibbs replied. "Moment you don't, it won't be almost."

Gibbs walked away and Ziva slumped against the wall.

"Why do they not understand? " she asked herself for the hundredth time.

She knows she is beginning to look bad. Dark circles under her eyes, hair limp and lifeless. But she cannot seem to care. Everyone has been kind to her, even Tony, trying to take her mind off of it, trying to distract her. But no one wants to listen. She's not sure if she could even find the words if they did.

Work has become a trial. She cannot concentrate, she cannot think. She is making mistakes. She is endangering everyone. She is lost.

Gibbs, worried and tired of her depression, pulled her into his 'office' one afternoon.

"Ziva, you need to snap out of this!" Gibbs exclaimed. "You're worthless to me, to the team, like this!"

"I am trying, Gibbs," Ziva whispered. "I'm trying, but I cannot."

Sighing, Gibbs quietly said, "You need to take some time off, Ziva. Go away. Take as much time as you need."

"Go away?" Ziva repeated with a puzzled look. "Go where? There is nowhere I can go. No one I can go to."

"I don't care where you go," Gibbs retorted. "Just go as far from NCIS and D.C. as you can get. Forget this place, forget Mossad. Just go and leave it all behind. Now. Today."

"Gibbs..." Ziva began.

"It's not a suggestion, Ziva," Gibbs responded. "It's an order."

As she sat alone in her apartment, Ziva was desperately trying to think of someone, anyone, she can call for help. For a moment, she pictures the face of Jenny Sheppard, director of NCIS.

Sighing, Ziva thought, "There was a time Jenny would have been my first call. But that was years ago. She made it clear then, that I must never refer to our past relationship."

Ziva laughed bitterly. "She is the director. She must know what has happened; what is happening to me. But she has said not a word to me. Offered no advice, no sympathy, no shoulder to cry on. What point is there in calling her now?"

She dropped her head into her hands in defeat, Ziva had never felt this helpless, this broken, in her life. She wondered how she got here, to this point in her life.

Her mind served up a picture of another redheaded woman. One she had known years back, after Jenny. They had parted as friends, were actually never anything more. But as she got on the plane, the redhead had held her close and told her to call if she ever needed her, if she ever needed anything. That time had finally come.

"It doesn't matter for what or when," the redhead told her that day. "I will always be here for you, my dear Ziva. You only need to ask for my help."

Hoping she really meant what she said, Ziva picked up her cell and dialed the number that she hadn't used in years but had never forgotten.

"CSI, Willows speaking."

"Hi, Catherine," Ziva murmured into the phone. "I need your help."

Catherine Willows gave an audible gasp into the phone, "Ziva? Ziva. My God...are you...where are you?"

In a low voice, Ziva answered, "In Washington. In hell. You said I could call if..."

"How soon can you get here?" was all the redhead said.