It took a lot of makeup to cover up the old tally marks on Ziva's arms and lower legs. Her brother always told her when she was little that when bad things happened, a mark might show up somewhere on her body. She never thought it was true until her late teens when the first mark appeared.
They faded, some completely, but others would remain with her either physically or emotionally for as long as she'd live. The thing was, she couldn't even remember the battles in which she gained some of them. Funny, a normal person would remember a fight like that that caused a permanent mark, wouldn't they? But Ari had always reminded her that their family was far from normal.
He also let her know that she never had to tell anyone about the marks even if she remembered how she got them, because different people process things differently. He knew that better than anyone else she knew.
But one day Ziva woke up and found herself covered from head to toe in thick black marks instead of the usual pale ones. She remembered putting them there herself. A way to help her remember the past and watch some of the marks fade away as she got better and better through the future.
The problem was, she didn't wash away all the marks that morning. She went in to work as she did every morning. But now, with her scar painted black, someone would notice. Tony noticed.
"Why do you have a black line on your wrist, Ziva?"