Icarus
These past few months…it's been too much. Too good. Ziva is back and Tony is smiling and Tim is confident…
He's almost remembered how to be happy again.
And he doesn't know what to do.
It hasn't all been perfect.
Ziva is still trying to put all the pieces back together. Four months…he has nightmares, sometimes, about those four months. When she believes no one is watching, when she is sure she is alone, sometimes he catches glimpses of the jagged pieces of her soul that she tries to push down, to keep together, but that keep rising up to stab her.
He is always watching.
Tony watches too. Watches and tries to get closer, but he has daggers of his own and sometimes it seems as if he and Ziva simply stab each other with the daggers in their hearts, multiplying their hurt.
Still…
Ziva's return has filled a wound that he's had...for a very long time. A great big gaping hole in his psyche. Ever since…
Kate.
He had forgotten how to hope.
But now Ziva is back and that hole, it's gotten smaller, and some days he can't feel it at all. Because every time the darkness wells back up and he feels the cynicism begin to overrule his senses, he looks up. And see her standing there. The impossible child. Who never should have been saved.
But she was. Because of his team.
His dad is back in his life and some days he thinks the effort is more trouble than it's worth. He knows his team finds it amusing, how he acts when his father is around. He wishes he could find it amusing too. But every second he spends with his dad dredges up old memories, memories of a different time, memories pouring out until it seems there will be nothing left of him…
Memories of family.
And try as he might, he can't stop them from flowing, can't shut them down, and it's out of his control and he hates not being in control and some days he wishes that he had never gone back to Stillwater, never seen his father again, lived the rest of his life without Jackson Gibbs, without memories, without hurt...
Without family, whispers the dark part of his soul.
And he knows it is right.
Because…his father…is another impossible gift. "It's not supposed to be easy," he had said, that night of Christmas, and though he was talking about killing a man, he might have been talking about them. And it hasn't been easy, has been so hard it hurts, but he's trying, and his dad is trying, and that night of Christmas, later that night, after they had handed out the toys…
He had found himself crying. Lying in bed silently crying as he stared at the ceiling. Because he had forgotten…
About Christmas. About family. And now he finally remembered again.
Shannon…Kelly…
He thinks they would understand.
He knows it can't last. Knows he needs to tear away the blinders, to put up his guard, to reform the barricades he has painstakingly placed around his heart. But every time he goes to set them back up, to add another post to the fence, to lock in the shield …
He finds his team is already there.
And try as he might he can't shut them out.
He can't stop joking with Ducky down in autopsy. Can't stop the smile that appears on his face every time he sees Abby. Can't stop teasing Tim about love-struck polygraphists and jetpacks and evidence yard arrests. Can't stop letting Ziva know she's home. Can't stop telling Tony how proud he is of him. And he is. So proud.
Of them all.
And there is a strange feeling welling up from his gut and making his chest tighten and overflowing into a grin.
And at some point he realizes…
He doesn't want it to stop. Not anymore.
But each night the darkness wells up and whispers,
It won't last.
A memory. He is standing outside MTAC, leaning on the railing, gazing down upon his team. Abby is there, for whatever reason, spinning circles in his chair, head tilted back. Tony is crumpling up old paperwork and aiming at Tim's trash can. Tim is fishing the paper out and throwing it back at Tony's head. And Ziva, watching them, is shaking her head, unable to keep a smile off her face.
He knows he should stop them. Should storm down and growl something about running a nursery before telling them to get back to work. But he can't seem to muster up the energy and so instead he just stands there, watching.
A perfect moment.
Then a door slams shut and he turns his head. Just for an instant. But when he glances back down…they're gone. Vanished. Like they were never there.
He never did find out where they had disappeared to.
He tells himself this will end badly. After all he's seen…all the deaths…
I miss you…
Every day is just living on borrowed time.
So he tries to make his team see that; tries to make himself see that. Curses the hope that's formed deep inside. He stares down at a dirty bomb and attempts to defuse it with shaking hands, even though he has no business even being in the building. He steps in front of an accelerating car and tries to shoot down a suspect, ignoring the possibility of standing off to the side. Trying desperately to get through to his stupid brain and his treacherous heart that THIS CAN'T LAST.
It can't.
McGee was with him both times. He wonders if that means something.
Nothing, says his heart, Except that he's becoming more and more like you every day. And the thought causes a spark of pride to form in his soul.
But the dark part of his soul, the blackness that trusts no one and suspects everything and causes him to earn that second "b", the part that rises up at the end of long days dealing with crimes that cause him to doubt all of humanity…
That part whispers,
He's next.
He knows it can't last. He wishes it would.
He's almost happy.