Just something that came to my head. I thought that maybe Ziva might go to Abby for a little coping once her father died since now she lost both of her parents. Read and review if you like. Thank you! Enjoy!
She stood outside the door a little nervous about the whole thing. She quickly shook her head. She knew she had to talk to someone and it just felt kind of right to talk to the person behind the door. They knew what she was feeling…well sort of. She shook her head one last time and knocked on the door.
Abby looked at the clock on her wall it was just past 11. Wondering who could be visiting her at this time she peeked through peep - hole and was surprised at who she saw.
"Ziva!" Abby cried out. Ziva gave a slight smile and asked if she could come in.
"I am sorry that I am here so late. I really had to see someone and I felt you were that someone"
"Are you okay? I mean of course you are not okay, you just came back from your dad's funeral. I meant are you like okay like you won't do anything crazy or dangerous okay. That was a stupid thing to say sorry" Ziva smiled as the scientist rambled on talking with her hands as she usually did.
"I am fine, thank you for asking"
Abby smiled and offered her some tea and they sat down on the couch sipping in an awkward but yet comforting silence.
"So" Abby finally said "What can I help you with?"
Pausing for just a second Ziva finally said "I would like to know how you did it."
"Did what?" Abby asked titling her head to the side.
"Both of your parents have died. Yes? I would like to know how you coped with it."
To say Abby was surprised by the question was an understatement. She always knew Ziva was blunt and usually hid her emotions easily. However since she officially joined NCIS as an agent she have been gradually getting better at the whole emotion thing. Still Ziva coming for help, especially her help and advice was still shocking.
"I am sorry, I should not have come and asked you such a personal question. I will be leaving now" Ziva got up to leave but Abby reached out and grabbed her hand to stop her.
"No, you don't have to leave. It's just that no has asked me about my parents death in so long it just surprised me. Stay please"
Ziva then sat back down on the couch waiting for Abby to answer her question. After taking a long sip from her tea, Abby let out a big sigh and bit her lip. She then got up and walked over to her closet and grabbed what looked like photo book and opened it to the middle. Sitting back down closer to Ziva this time she begin her tale.
"This" Pointing her finger to the cake in the picture "was my 16th birthday cake. My parents tried to hide it from me by putting it in the fridge in the garage. They knew I never went out there because it smelled of something rotten and still to this day I still don't know what that smell was. But anyways, as you can see it was big and had a picture of me when I was a baby and of my 10th grade school picture. It was an ice cream cake which I was totally obsessed with at the time.
See, my parents were planning this huge sweet sixteen for me." Seeing the confusion on Ziva's face she felt the need to explain. "Apparently turning sixteen is a big deal to people, specifically girls so they have a big party for it and it is called a sweet sixteen" Ziva only nodded and told Abby to continue.
"Well, they were planning a sweet sixteen for me. I wasn't supposed to know about it but my brother who has a big mouth told me anyways. I swear you can't trust that guy with anything. I was acting like I didn't know anything. Going about my daily business. They were going to have the party at the church. So the night before they went out to the church to make sure everything was ready. I had a hinky feeling about them going out that night. I don't know why I had it at the time. I just did. Luca stayed behind, he had a project or whatever to do for school.
So. Umm…" Trying to fight back the tears that were coming, she quickly swallowed, closed her eyes and flipped the page to a picture of a clear sky. "Umm...I was told they left the church around 10:00. The church was only a 10 minute drive and it was a clear evening, no clouds so you could see the stars perfectly. I remembered being on the roof looking up at the stars. I was sitting on a blanket and laid down on it and closed my eyes. Next thing I knew I was being violently shaken by my brother who said someone was at the door. It was the police saying that they needed both me and brother at the hospital. Um… turns out my parents were 6 blocks from my house and out of nowhere a drunk driver came and hit them head on. My dad died instantly and my mom died later that night. Me and my brother saw her one last time before. She told, well she signed to us saying 'I love you' and stuff like that." Just then Abby laughed a little but Ziva instantly recognized that it wasn't her usual laughter it was one filled with sadness and hurt. "The last thing my mom told me was 'Happy Birthday and she was glad she got to see me one last time on my special day'. She died at 12:02 on my birthday. No matter how much my brother annoys me to no end, he ended up doing something smart and took a picture of all three of us then took a picture of me and her at exactly 12:00." Abby then flipped to the two pictures she was talking about. By this time she had clear tears in her eyes.
"What is this picture?" Ziva pointed to the picture that was on the next page.
"Oh, Luca took a picture of the hospital room she was in and since my dad died at the scene the next day he took a picture of the street the accident happened at. My aunt was already coming down for my party so she ended up being our caregiver and agreed to move in with us so we wouldn't have to move. For the first 6 months I talked as little as possible only really communicating in sign language trying to preserve their memory. Then, one of my classmates got into an accident he was driving drunk. He lived the person he hit died. I got so angry, I refused to get behind the wheel and I barely did any sign language after that. I felt that I had to be strong for my brother and after he learned about my classmate who got into an accident. He asked me why it always seems the person that is drunk lives but the others suffer. Because that is what happened with our parents. Then he confessed that he didn't think that he could be strong and he was only doing it for me. We both laughed at that and then cried for our parent's death. That made me feel a little better. I stopped putting on a front and let myself feel for their death. I stopped being strong. It may sound weird but letting myself feel really helped. I really can't really describe it."
At this point Ziva's own brown eyes were filled with sadness and she looked like she was on the brink of tears. She quickly shake her head trying to fight the tears.
"I am sorry, I did not know"
"Oh, no Z it is not your fault at all. I mean yeah you knew my parents died from a car crash cause when you came here you researched all our backgrounds. But you only saw what was on paper. Why don't you stay the night, it is late and I have work tomorrow. I don't know if you are going in tomorrow but even you aren't I think you still should. You shouldn't be alone tonight"
"Okay. May I use your shower?"
"Yes, of course I think I have towels in there let me check"
Ziva followed Abby through her bedroom and was about to follow her to the bathroom when she stopped right next to the casket. Running her hands over the lid. When Ziva first heard that Abby owned a casket she thought the rumors were false. When she was in Abby's apartment for the first time she quickly knew the rumors were very much true. She would not deny the casket was beautiful, it was all silver. It had a cross craved in it on the lid. It looks like hand drawn flowers and different things from names to different bands to different hand drawn figures and looked like names of different chemicals it seemed. Everything that was just so Abby like. Just then Ziva caught sight of a name on the bottom of the casket. Bending down she discovered several names at the bottom.
"Abby" Ziva cried out trying to make sense of the names. When she spotted Catilin Todd's name and then Jenny Shepard's and then Mike Franks' she realized it was people who had died that meant a lot to her.
"Yeah" Abby said while carrying out towels she quickly stopped in her tracks when she saw the ex-mossad bent down tracing the letters of the names.
"Is this is what I think it is?"
"I write names of the people who I considered close to me or I know I would miss very much. Too many times I thought I would have to write Gibbs name or Tony's or Mcgee's. I came way to close to writing your name when you went to Somalia. I know it is stupid to write other people's name on my casket but..."
"No, no it is not stupid not in the least bit…it is sweet. It fits you. You care about a lot of people and care deeply it only makes sense to bring them to the grave with you. And I promise to try my hardest to make sure that the team doesn't end up on the casket too soon"
Just then Abby ran over and gave Ziva a huge hug, she tensed a little but quickly relaxed and gave into the hug. Abby pulled back and looked Ziva in her eyes.
"Thank you that was one of the sweetest things you ever said to me"
"You are welcome Abigail"
"Now go take a shower everything is in there that you need." She watched as Ziva made her way into the bathroom.
"Oh and Ziva you don't have to be strong. Not tonight just let it out" And with that Abby turned on her heel and left for the living room.
Alone in the shower Ziva allowed herself to finally just cry. First she cried for the death of her father and then for the death of her sister and mother and even for the death of Ari. She cried for all the times she didn't allow herself to cry. Once she realized she was out of tears and that the shower has long gone cold. She turned it off and quickly dried herself and slipped on the shorts and shirt Abby provided for her. She slipped in between the sheets on the bed and let her exhaustion take over.
Abby sneaked in the bedroom to make sure that Ziva was okay. She smiled to herself when she saw Ziva sleeping and let out a small laugh when she heard her snore. She snuck over and gave Ziva a small kiss on the forehead and then climbed in and wrapped her arms around her. Finally letting herself drift off to sleep.