The delusion of past
"The past is not history Abby." He said, eyes black as coal, and the stare more intense than anything she'd seen in a while. Old memories keep piling onto me, like dead leaves. As if I have nothing better to do than look back at all the pages of old history. The fact that my past would never make for any part of the history didn't stop him from moralizing. I guess it was in his right, after all the lies I'd told him. Maybe it's just the way of the fathers, or rather father figures, as that was what he was to her, not her biological father at all.
Though, I have no idea how I can learn from my past. How can one learn from a past tainted with shadows, who haunts me with vague memories? A lot of the things in my memory never happened, and I remember several people from my childhood who I know never have existed now. I apparently made up a lot of thing when I was a child. I've been told I lived in a world of my own, with my own imaginary friends. I was young, so most of it I can't remember, but there is bits and pieces of it that's still sticking. Like the time I was only seven, and stormed running into the classroom screaming bloody murder. The teachers sent me home immediately after talking to me. I kept insisting a classmate of mine named Jessica had been killed and eaten by a bear. The only problems being that none of the children in the class were missing, and the nearest forest with bears where a days drive from the elementary school. After that I remember a blur of people who insisted on talking to me, and asking me all kinds of questions. No teacher even bothered to try to understand the wickedness of my mind after that, but then again I barely understood myself at that age. I lived in my own world, I didn't need any of the grown-ups in it.
I grew up to graduate from high school, loosing all my imaginary friends and the memory of them as they were replaced with living real people. I have only vague memories of my childhood, until I reached the age of 11 and they started prescribing me pills, forcing me to take them. Never quite got why they gave them to me, I suppose it was because of the delusional state of my mind at the time. Half psychological, half medical they said, the doctors said when they thought I couldn't hear them. They talked hushed about it, so I never asked too many questions. What you don't know can't hurt you, right?
I moved away from home. my masters degree in criminology and forensic science from Georgia State University. It only took so long before I got the job at NCIS, and sort of adopted Gibbs as my surrogate father or father figure if you like. The team sort of attached themselves to me, and I to them, bonding through forensic science and drinking nights down at the bar. No one who saw me would call me unhappy, but sometimes I could be a little un-abby (the team called me that when I wasn't acting like myself, but it rarely ever happened).
Then in came ex secret service agent Kate Todd. We clicked, on so many levels, until they fatal day where she never returned to the office. The day everything changed. The day that is the reason for this, and everything that has happened since. She walked in through the office doors for the first time, protecting the bastard that killed Kate. I remember hating her, from the first minute. It took only so long after that before I broke, and suddenly and truly realised that Kate would never return. It hit me hard. So hard that I could not breathe, everything hurt.
With Ziva came the change, with her the pills and the doctors came back. It's only been a week or a month at most since she first turned up at NCIS. It feels like forever. My hands are running through my hair now, making a veil of black hair in front of my face. They will not let me wear it in pig tails here. Screaming, I'm not much more than a ball of nerves. They cannot keep me here, but then they are. A world without Kate in it doesn't seem worth returning to anyway. I can feel my tears, warm, as they make rivers over my face. If she hadn't been the one to replace Kate, maybe it hadn't all gone so wrong. I know it's just another excuse. I need someone outside of me to blame for this.
Her name is Ziva David, and her brother Ari killed Kate, and his bullet should have plunged into me instead. My life might as well be over. The ice assassin and her brother ruined it.
Kate my love, can you hear me? You were and still are the fire of my life. No water or ice shall perish your flame in my heart.