They return from Somalia with the weight of murder and torture hanging heavy on their minds. The private jet NCIS had booked for them to return was silent, and no one – not even Tony – tried to draw Ziva out of the mindset she had locked herself into.

But even though it was quiet, Tony felt as though he could hear Ziva screaming, banging on her glass walls. About halfway through the flight, he remembers, he looked over at Ziva, who was pressed into her seat, legs drawn up to her chest, hands cradling her head, and he saw that she was watching him. Watching him with those dead and lifeless eyes that scared him, scared him oh so much because Ziva was supposed to be brave.

And so he loses the first part of her.

Tony doesn't feel it – not yet, anyway – but slowly, the petite, powerful girl that first arrived at NCIS asking for Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs to tell him not to kill her brother is gradually disappearing, hiding beneath a veil of forced laughter and mechanical smiles.

McGee sees it, but only occasionally – he saw it when her father came to Washington, and everything fell apart. He saw the way her eyes died, just a bit, like a dimmer, when she returned to the base and told Gibbs and McGee that her father was coming back.

Gibbs saw it, just after they rescued her, and when the Kaylen Burrows incident popped up. Her eyes, normally cold and hard, suddenly softened for the marine, but they didn't just soften. They darkened as well. Darkened for blood.

And Abby…well, Abby saw it every day that she looked at Ziva, because the strong woman that Abby had come to regard as a sister was slowly fading, but there were times, when something pissed Ziva off, that a fire would rekindle in her eyes, and Abby would feel as though they had the old Ziva back.

But eventually, just like always, the flame died again.

When Tony kills Rivkin, Ziva loses it. She attacks him, screams at him, tells him that it's his fault the one man she had ever loved {liarliarpantsonfire} is dead and gone, lying in the Mossad morgue, bleeding ghosts all over the cold autopsy table.

Tony doesn't fight back, and she hates him for it. He tells her to take a punch – she holds herself back, but only just – and they stand on the concrete, bellowing at each other like wounded bulls and when he says that maybe I'd be dead and maybe you'd be having this conversation with him, Ziva suddenly forgets all about Rivkin and there's just her and Tony, back in the hotel all those years ago when they were acting like a married couple and had sex a few times (but that's a secret, so don't tell anyone) and she's brought stumbling back to reality.

And she tells him, in no uncertain terms, that perhaps she would! Words leap into her throat, words that she pushes back down, and she knows, as she walks away from him, leaving him lying on the concrete, that even though she loved Rivkin, losing Tony – seeing him lying on the autopsy table back at NCIS would not have only hurt her – it would have destroyed her.

She makes her decision that night, lying in her old bedroom, counting the cracks in her ceiling as though they were the cracks in her heart. She falls asleep crying, and wakes up the exact same way.

She doesn't say much to Gibbs – a simple goodbye and some bullshit about how her father needs her when her father needs nothing to do with her. But Gibbs doesn't question, and for that she is glad. The plane leaves, and some small, forgotten part of Ziva flies off with it. The broken part. The frail part. The family part. But she doesn't know it yet.

She's offered Michael's spot almost immediately, and they're sent on the Damocles when Ziva is packed up and ready to go. She's set as the negotiator to the captain, and they get pass on the ship. Daniel, a man she does not know, but likes a bit, becomes her confidant, and when Malachi kills him, Ziva knows that they will probably never see the light of day again.

But they do.

Malachi and Ziva arrive in North Africa on a small life raft, and she dismisses Malachi instantly, telling him that she needs to do this alone.

Two days later, Director Eli David of Mossad gets a note, written in cursive, and when he eventually deciphers it, he puts it in the trash bin and doesn't look at it again.

Your daughter is being held in North Africa. Send $1,000,000 by the next full moon, or you will never see your daughter again.

He finds no use for Ziva anymore, and instead continues his work, acting as though his daughter is back in the USA.

All three of his children are dead to him, Ziva tells Saleem, and he will not send you the money no matter what you do to him. He could care less about me than you do.

Saleem is infuriated. He slaps her – hard – and stomps out of the room. Tears roll down her cheeks. She tries to remember what it felt like to be loved. She struggles to reach that feeling. Her heart feels heavy, but like it's missing something as well. And as she sits there in that dark and dusty room, she suddenly realizes what is missing.

She's missing the only thing that she ever saw as a true family.

She's missing NCIS.

Ziva hides herself into a shell, a protective wall that she's built up around her melting mind. Words dribble from her mouth like ghosts, and when she screams at night, begging for this torture to end, no one comes to help her.

She counts the port-to-port killer's murders – there are eight of them – and when he kills Mike, she crumbles to dust in Tony's arms. Tears trace lines down her pale cheeks, and when she gets home that night, she doesn't move from her car. She just sits there and cries with her head resting on the steering wheel, hands braced against the dashboard.

And that night, after almost five years of pretending that her soul is still held together by hastily sewn stitches and snapping Sellotape, Ziva David finally loses the last piece of herself.

But, to be quite honest, it doesn't really feel any different.

So, this was written in about an hour, and I'm not really sure if I like it that much...anyway, reviews make the author smile!
Semper Fi xoxo