Middle of the Night
Her breath catching in her throat she sits up in bed gasping as the images from her nightmare seem to linger in the darkness. For a moment, she doesn't know where she is; her arms flailing she realizes that what her nightmare-muddled brain thought were restraints keeping her bound, were merely her sheets, tangled and sweat-soaked from her fear.
Cursing under her breath, Ziva David untangles herself from her sheets and simply breathes for a moment, her heart is still racing in her ears. Leaning forward she rests her clammy forehead in her hands and begins the calming exercises she has been taught. After what feels like an eternity but in reality is only a few minutes, she manages to peel open her eyes and immediately searches out the green illuminated digits of her alarm clock. It simply reads 3:16am. Cursing again, she reaches for a hair-band and, hands shaking, brutally ties her long locks into a ponytail. She is not going to be able to return to sleep tonight. Grabbing some workout clothes and her sneakers she dresses quickly, and heads out to her front room where she has a treadmill. Setting the machine on its most difficult workout she begins to run, hoping against hope that if she runs hard enough her mind will not linger on those months she would rather forget.
7:30am
She pulls into her parking space at NCIS headquarters, shuts the car off and checks her reflection in the mirror. Noting the dark circles that were beginning to become permanent residents beneath her eyes, she reaches into her purse, grabs some concealer and dabs it on in an attempt to make the circles less severe. Ever since Somalia, she has taken to wearing more and more make-up, not because she has suddenly developed a desire to paint her face, but rather as a mask against the world. She knows it's a frivolous act, and cowardly, but at least it minimizes the visible evidence of the many sleepless nights she was experiencing.. Without it, they would know she was not okay. Taking a deep breath she puts her make-up away, braces herself and heads into work, her haven against the stresses that were tearing her apart.
As she enters the bullpen, she notices that DiNozzo and McGee are both already at their desks.
"Ziva!" Tony calls out with his trademarked grin, "If I didn't know any better I would swear you're late!"
"Then it is good that you are not swearing, is it not?" She replies, while pulling her purse over her head and dumping it on the file cabinet next to her desk. "Do we have a case? I did not expect to see both of you here...I am not in fact late: you are early."
McGee looks up from his frantic typing on his keyboard, "Gibbs called us in at 0200. Apparently, a marine kidnapped his three year old daughter, right out from under the mother's nose."
"For what reason? Do we know?" Ziva begins to cross over to McGee's desk in an effort to see on his screen what he was so intently working on, when the voice of Gibbs interrupts her travels.
"Unknown at this point, grab your gear!" Immediately all three agents run to their desks, grab their badges, guns, and backpacks and race after Gibbs, Ziva only just making it before the door of the elevator closes.