A/N - thanks for the reviews. I was planning to make this part longer but it wrote itself this way. Also, the reference to the past was suggested by my helper - thanks!

The Same Mistake – part 4

What happened next was going to be important.

He looked past her for a moment, catching sight of their reflections in the mirror above the fireplace. This time he didn't see her lying on the ground, her life bleeding away, but instead smiling at him across a restaurant table, wrapped up in his arms, waking him with soft kisses – a whole kaleidoscope of memories from their time together.

"Ducky says you aren't sleeping, I know Ziva stays here some nights." He refused to allow her to brush away what had happened .

"I see I'm not the only one who's been keeping track. Ziva and I have an understanding, she pretends she's here because she doesn't trust my safety to all those armed guards and I pretend not to know it's her way of dealing with some quite unnecessary guilt."

But it wasn't just Ziva; he knew that Abby and DiNozzo had spent a few evenings here, that Ducky had dinner with her regularly and that McGee was still reeling from the fact that she'd kicked his ass at chess and one of his video games.

"Abs is worried about you as well."

"That's a low blow Jethro." He didn't know why he was surprised that his team had come to occupy a space he hadn't been able to. As though they had decided to keep her safe until he sorted himself out. They were all feeling guilty – McGee thinking he should have got to her sooner, the rest of them dealing with the fact that the one suspect they'd missed had gone on to target the event they'd deemed safe.

The agency was on the back foot; trying to walk in her heels, as she'd once termed it, proving uncomfortable. It wasn't surprising that she was working when she should be recouperating, but it probably wasn't a good idea either.

"And what about you? Are you worried about me?" He definitely wasn't going to respond to that, though he suspected she didn't need to hear the words to be able to make an educated guess as to the answer. Her eyes were grave, the weight of the truth between them.

"You were like this in the Czech Republic," she looked surprised at his words, even though she clamped down on the reaction almost straight away. He knew she was thinking that he didn't do this, didn't talk about their past. She'd raised it from time to time, but he never did. "I almost got the Doctors to knock you out for a few days."

When she'd taken the round to the thigh their undercover mission had been blown – but they'd been far from safe. He'd had to strap the wound and watch her walk around on it for two days before they'd been able to get to a hospital. He remembered how determined she'd been to tough it out, how much pain she'd been in - and how worried he'd been about her. "Every time you went to sleep I checked your temperature, to make sure you weren't getting an infection."

"I know." At his raised eyebrow she tilted her head, in her eyes a request for forgiveness over an old deception. "I wasn't always asleep." Her lips quirked in a smile in response to whatever she saw in his expression. "And I wasn't this bad in the Czech Republic, I didn't have an agency to run then – just a partner who was blaming himself."

Their eyes met and he said quietly, "I owe you an apology." She sighed, and reminded him of one of his core beliefs.

"It's a sign of weakness,"

"Not between friends," he took another step towards her, "between partners."

TBC