He'd lost another daughter.
AN: Hey! So I found this and decided to post it so I wouldn't just be hanging on to it anymore. This story is officially Au I think now because of course (thank god) Ziva doesn't die. This little fic didn't really fit anywhere else and I didn't want to make it a one shot, so I added it on here. Here ya go!
The pain was unbearable.
His beautiful, wonderful, perfect Ziva.
He'd lost enough loved ones, Kelly alone tore his heart apart and melted the broken fragments.
But not Ziver too.
And Gibbs sat there, alone in his basement staring at nothing attempting to drown himself in bourbon. He took another gulp, the liquid searing down his throat, and he set the bottle back down with a sharp clump that shattered the empty silence.
A bomb. He'd seen the news footage. And Tony had been on the phone to her at the time. Well, Tony was distraught, anguished, man did his boy need help. Gibbs knew Tony and Ziva were soulmates. Year after year he became surer and surer, until lately he was considering to just tell them to get on with it.
He'd lost the chance now.
Just like he'd lost her.
8 bloody years. He'd known her for 8 years, and since the moment she shot Ari saving his life exactly where he sat now, Gibbs had irrevocably formed an unexplainable bond with her. And she had become his daughter, him her father.
They were too similar, him and Ziva. Like broken shards of a whole, they agreed perfectly with each other, fitting in with each others beliefs. They were the perfect team.
He couldn't understand how this could've happen.
The poor girl had suffered through so many struggles, why had this happened? She had not deserved it, hell, she deserved a fairy tale ending perfect to the core.
Gibbs continued to reminisce, he really didn't understand how this could've happen, he would never understand. Her presence was ever there, lingering in his thoughts.
And still he sat there unmoving, overwhelmed by this tragedy.
And he did for many nights, wallowing in his grief for Ziva David.
But eventually there was one night when things changed a bit.
As usual, the night wasted away quickly, sun deciding to split through his dusty basement windows too early.
The rays spread across the room like always before, but this time as they did Gibbs began to feel a new sense of hope, or hope that there could be hope. Ziver was gone and while he would continue to mourn her for the rest of his life, and remember her forever, he would honour her memory the one way Leroy Jethro Gibbs could do better than everyone.
And so he started to carve the wood.