A/N: Once upon a time From Ashes was going to be a oneshot, but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to continue it as a lead-in to "Reunion." There will probably be one more part after this, so please let me know what you think!

As if anyone needs to hear it, all I own is the interpretation.


Part 2: Hands Like Secrets


The safety seemed to last only as long as Tony remained awake. He stayed with her until long, long into the night, but as his head lolled farther and farther back against her couch, slowly she felt his grip around her slacken. For the barest moment fear flared itself in her lungs and she was alone, lost again to the darkness his arms had held away. But as she pressed herself closer to his chest Tony shifted in his sleep, arms draping once more around her waist, fingertips just grazing the band of exposed skin at her back.

Ziva exhaled.


He woke early, un-rested on an unfamiliar sofa, with a substantial set of aches and pains to catalogue.

And alone.

She can't have gone far, Tony reasoned, pushing himself off the couch with rather more force than was necessary. Anxious bubbles rose and burst in his stomach. For just a second, he considered the possibility that she may not want to be found.

He shook the worry off.

To hell with that.


"Good morning," she offered, studying the cold coffee mug between her palms. Slender fingers tapped a nervous rhythm on the handle.

Ziva waited.

"How long've you been out here?" Tony asked. She made herself follow the lean of his body against the doorjamb. Her eyes only made it as far as his shoulder. Then, she had to look away.

She'd spent the night in his lap, but couldn't force herself to meet his eyes.

The air between them ached with things unsaid, but this was not the time. Ziva wasn't sure if that time would ever come. Some things were better off kept to herself.


She spoke first.

"You should go. You should be at—"

Tony cut her off, but when he did, his voice was quiet, rough with sleep.

"Is that what you need?" he asked. "To be alone?"

Ziva didn't reply. Endless electric silence filled the gap and all he could do was watch her bring her fingers to her mouth, take the edge of one fingernail between her teeth.

When she spoke next, he almost didn't hear her.

"Tony, I…" She paused. "Yes." Her eyes locked on the tabletop. "Please."

He wished she would look at him.


Sleep finally came some time into the day, but the sun wasn't enough to keep Ziva from the demons in her head. The nights would bring her to Somalia, to brimstone and dust, to captors and tunnels and blacked-out swollen eyes. The day brought her to Michael Rivkin.

He was alive, in her dreams. Alive and imposing, and when he kissed her, her lips stung, raw and torn and bleeding as if he'd bitten her. But when she pushed away it was Tony she shoved. Tony who stood before her for an instant. Tony who fell forward, eyes glazed, dead weight in her arms.

Tony with a bullet in his back.

Michael held the gun.


He counted the minutes until Gibbs would let him out of the bullpen. But when he reached his car, he couldn't go back to her. Like so many things between them now, it didn't feel right. An intrusion. They'd lost so much in the months since they'd parted ways in Israel, much more than just the physical familiarity he hadn't realized he'd thrived on until it was gone.

Exactly what else they'd lost, he didn't know, but it sure as hell felt like something had been stolen. Something he wanted back.

Tony closed the car door and sat there, head leaned back against the driver's seat, eyes closed. In limbo. Again. He sighed as if trying to force her out of his lungs, but he knew better than to think she would leave easily.

If Ziva needed someone, she would call; he was sure of that much.

He could only hope she would ask him when the time


She didn't call him until far into the night, three days later. Not until she could admit to herself that she needed him there, with her. Needed him like she needed to face her own darkness. Like she needed her life back, like she needed her team, her security, any number of other words to try to name the things she'd missed.

Maybe even more than all the rest.

Maybe she'd never know. Maybe she was better off not knowing. But if anything was certain, if she was going to fight this battle…she'd need someone at her back.

If only she'd known that before she'd stayed behind, so many months ago.

Ziva picked up the phone.


He was dozing in his chair, Teen Wolf credits music murmuring from the TV, when his cell phone woke him. Never mind that he had to stagger to the table in his boxers, never mind that it was practically 3 AM, and Gibbs was expecting him at the office at 7:30. Tony answered on the third ring. He grabbed his keys before even thinking to throw on a t-shirt or shorts, and when Ziva wouldn't say if anything was wrong he was out the door before offering to drive to her apartment.

She didn't object. She didn't say anything. But then again, she'd never been one to ask for support, either. He took that as an invitation.


She met him at the door this time, hid a wry smile at the sight of his Rambo t-shirt half tucked into old basketball shorts. He said something so very Tony and she thought she might've laughed as he stepped past her, but she couldn't remember much beyond the sight of sleep ringing his eyes.

Since when could she meet his eyes again?

She followed to sink into the corner of the couch, watched as he pulled something from his pocket and turned the TV on.

The movie was Casablanca. She'd never seen it. She was pretty sure Tony had said that was a sin.

He settled in beside her, arm stretched across the back of the couch, not touching, and she felt something rise in her chest - fear, maybe? Relief?

Ziva must have fallen asleep, because she vaguely remembered a hand in her hair, a whisper not to straighten it again, and the barely-conscious nod she'd given in reply. But when she woke in the morning, she was alone.