Chapter 11

Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS, but I do "own" the other characters.

Author's Note: I think I got one, if any, reviews for my last chapter. Is no one reading it? Am I royally sucking it up? Do you not like it? Or are you there but don't want to review? I'm going to keep writing this even if I get no reviews...just because...the thought that there's someone out there enjoying the story (or someone I'm really pissing off for keeping this going) will always motivate me.

"Cure sometimes, treat often, comfort always."

- Hippocrates

"Ziva," Gibbs barked, "Downstairs, they'll be here soon. I'll be down there soon."

Ziva nodded and went to the breakroom to wait.

When the group came in, they were quieter than they had been the entire time. All of them wore varying degrees of sadness and thought. Syd rushed by with a look that Ziva had put on her own face many times.

Jack chased after her, calling her name; he didn't catch her and she ran into the women's restroom.

"What happened?" Ziva asked him.

"She broke down at the Holocaust Museum."

"It is a very moving museum."

"There was a picture of this executed Romani boy, about our age. She has a cousin who's half-Romani...it looked just like him," Jack said slowly.

Ziva patted his shoulder and walked into the restroom Syd was in.

When she got in, she found Syd slumped against the wall holding her knees close to her chest.

"Are you okay?" Ziva asked.

Syd didn't answer.

"I remember going into the Holocaust Museum for the first time. Every little Jewish girl looked like my sister, every old Jewish couple looked like my grandparents...every face looked like someone I knew," Ziva recalled, sitting beside the girl.

"I...didn't even know about the Romani...I just...I had always heard that Anthony's grandparents were Gypsies...but then I saw that boy and...I can't get that image out of my head. He was just lying there...dead...no one cared...How do you do that to another human? How do you not realize that it's wrong?!" Syd's voice raised a little and then she muted herself with sobs.

"I have asked myself that time and time again," Ziva mumbled.

Syd looked up and they sat there for a while, not saying anything at all. For some reason that she couldn't pinpoint, it made Syd better to hear someone agree with her. Someone else who had saw the living in the dead...well, she assumed that Ziva had saw the living, she didn't know.

"Jack is worried about you," Ziva stated, "He really cares about you."

Syd smiled a little.

Someone on the other side knocked on the door and called, "Syd? Are you okay?"

It was Jack.

"Talk to him. It will help," Ziva offered. Syd nodded and stood up, opening the door.

"Hey, I've, uh, I've got Anthony on my cell. I thought you might want to talk to him...you know...to talk to him," Jack held out his cell phone.

Syd smiled and took the phone from him and walked away.

"That was very good, Jack," Ziva said.

"Yeah, I remember one time I watched a movie where this kid got killed. She looked just like my sister; as soon as I got out of the theater, I called home and said 'Let me talk to Grace'. When I talked to her it made me feel better. It reminded me that it had all been a movie...That it wasn't really Grace, ya know?"

Ziva nodded and walked over to talk to Mrs. Robinson.

She told Mrs. Robinson that Gibbs would be coming down to speak to them about the case, soon. The teachers looked at her strangely, but turned back around quickly. Except for Dustin, who's gaze lingered on her for a moment longer, looking her over from head to toe.

Ziva thought nothing of it and walked away.

She sat down at a table and absentmindedly watched outside the window. She barely registered the scrape of the chair legs as Jack sat down across the table from her. Syd walked over soon and handed Jack his phone.

"Thanks, Jack. I needed that," she said, barely above a whisper.

Jack just smiled and took her hand.

It didn't take long for him to realize that Syd still wasn't back to her normal self. He smiled as he remembered something from the morning.

"Hey, Syd, remember the Ape-Lady from this morning?"

Syd smiled. Ziva turned and gave Jack a strange look, "'Ape-Lady'?"

"Yeah, me and Syd were in the primate house at the National Zoo, this morning. So, we were looking at these gorillas and they were all up playing and climbing and doing gorilla-things...except this one was all layed out in a hammock doing nothing. I pointed at it and said, 'Hey, Syd, look. It's the Ryan-monkey.'. This lady comes out of nowhere and says, 'Actually, that's not a monkey. It's an ape. Notice that it has no tail and is quite a bit larger than a monkey.' or something like that. Then she starts talking about how they can't interbreed. She won't shut up!" Jack explained.

"Yeah, but you were egging her on. 'So, there can't be, like, a mape?'" Syd pointed out.

"I had an honest question!" Jack defended, "Anyways, so we try to keep going and everytime we take a step BAM! The lady is right there. Telling us facts about monkeys and apes and whatever else...We would try to sneak out with another group, but she'd call us back to tell us something else. She followed us into the next room. It was weird."

"You were stalked by an 'Ape-Lady'?" Ziva asked, smirking a little.

"Absolutely," Jack grinned.

"I've had that problem," Tony's voice said.

Ziva felt pressure on the top of her head and her shoulders and she knew that Tony was behind her with his chin on her head and his hands on her shoulders.

"I have no doubt that you have," Ziva replied, leaning back so that she was looking into Tony's green eyes. He leaned down and gave her a light peck on the lips.

"I can tell you the story," he offered.

"No, no, that is fine," she replied.

"Really? It's a good story."

"I am sure that it is, but no."

"No, really. Let me tell it."

"I am better off not knowing, I think."

"Oh, come on, Zee-vah."

As Tony and Ziva bickered, Jack turned back to Syd. He reached down and took her hand and looked into her eyes, searching them for signs of pain. "You sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine, Jack," she smiled. He could tell that she was still hurting a little.

"Sydney Zane Carter, tell me the truth," he said.

She grinned a little when he said her whole name, "Jack, I am still a little shaken up by what I saw today. You are too, I can tell. It won't just go away, but its not anything that you can just snap your fingers and it goes away. You've done a lot. I really needed to talk to Anthony, thank you for that. Jack, I swear, its nothing that will come between us. Now, do you promise to stop worrying about me?"

Jack froze. He just looked at her.

"Jackson Slade Harper, would you stop worrying about me?" she asked him again.

"You said 'come between us'...there's an 'us' now?" he said.

"There's always been an 'us', Jack. You're one of my best friends," she replied.

"What if I wanted 'us' to be more than best friends?" he asked.

"Jack...what are you getting at?" she asked hesitantly.

"What about giving us dating a shot?" he offered.

"You know I've never really dated before," she said, almost warningly.

"What a better person to start with than your best friend?" he smiled the most charming smile in his arsenal and she couldn't help but smile back.

"Alright, I'll try it."

"You won't be sorry. I promise," he kept smiling and he looked at her with honesty in his eyes.

He leaned in and gave her a soft kiss on the cheek.

Moments later, the elevator pinged and Gibbs marched into the breakroom and gave a look to Tony and Ziva, who jumped up and were at his side within seconds.

Gibbs looked around the room, evaluating who to start with.

It was going to be a rough evening.

A.N.: Yeah, if I had got to spend more than 30 minutes in the Holocaust Museum, I might have reacted a little more motivated. (Stupid band trip schedule) However, stepping into the cattle car that carried Elie Wiesel and he described in the book Night, was really moving. As were the shoes. I highly recommend the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. It is motivational and you will never look at the time period the same way again. Since going there, everything about the Holocaust just seems more real to me and physically affects me more.

I do have a cousin named Anthony. His grandparents (not on my side of the family) are real Romani Gypsies. We joke with him a lot because he looks like a stereotypical Romani...But we tease my brother, too because he looks like a stereotypical Jewish dude...and a stereotypical Italian. He acts like the stereotypical Italian, too. Has an Italian flag next to his bed, a Scarface poster over his bed, a Scarface cover for his phone, he slicks his hair back and speaks with a bad New Jersey accent...oh, Zach...He dressed as Al Capone for Halloween and looked so much like him that it was pathetic...*sigh*

Ape-Lady is real. It happened to me. Only the guy was my friend, Jeremy, and we called the gorilla 'the Casey-monkey' because Casey was another percussionist in the band and he didn't do anything. He would crawl behind the timpani and sleep.

Okay, guys I totally understand being too busy to review. I've been there. Sucks. I know. But, hey, if you've got the time, please review!

This one is for my friend Emily. She was so excited about giving blood the other day. Absolutely pumped. Talked about it all morning. When she got there, they pricked her finger and told her that her iron was too low. They pricked another finger (on the other hand) to be sure, and her iron was still too low. She came back to class and was absolutely depressed. We were all trying to cheer her up. So this one's for Emily! I don't think low iron will keep you out of the police academy, good luck on becoming a police dog!