Disclaimer: These characters belong to Donald P. Bellisario, Bellisarius Productions, CBS, Paramount, etc. No copyright infringement intended.
A/N: I am not Jewish, so please forgive me any small mistakes I may make regarding the customs, etc. I'm trying my best to be accurate. It was just too fun an idea to pass up!
December 27, 2008
Ziva enjoyed her rising sense of anticipation as she boarded the elevator in the lobby. She could hardly wait to get to her desk to see what delightful surprise had been left for her this time. Little did she know that she wouldn't have to wait even that long.
The moment the doors slid open, a flash of blue caught her eye. Waiting on her desk, situated exactly above the drawer they couldn't possibly have fit in, was a small vase full of irises. Ziva looked around quickly as she stepped in to the room, but of course there was no one there but herself. She strode eagerly to her desk to take a closer look. The flowers were a vivid blue, with equally bright splashes of yellow at the center of the petals. 'The colors of Chanukah!'
A wide smile lit Ziva's face as she impulsively plucked one of the flowers from the vase and brought it to her nose. There was just the slightest hint of sweet fragrance. Ziva closed her eyes as sense memory took over. Just as irises grow wild in the US, they grow too in Israel. She remembered being fascinated by the beautiful rainbow of wildflowers when she was very young, before her sense of wonder was dulled by all her training.
Ziva's smile grew impossibly wider when she realized that she had been feeling that same sense of child-like wonder for the last week. And if her suspicions were correct, this intangible gift of wonder was completely intentional. As beautiful and thoughtful as each of the individual gifts had been, the revelation she had in that moment was the biggest gift of all.
