Thank you everyone for your patience and reviews! This chapter is for Bridge (burningbridges97) because it's her birthday today. I like this chapter, so I hope you like it, too. Happy birthday, girl. :D

:: Chapter 34 – Good Mourning ::

This was what much of the week was like:

Gibbs was barking orders as usual; Tony was being his normal loving, caring, and concerned self; and McGee and Abby were concerned, but I could tell I was everywhere for them. What they talked about exactly I could not tell – but I'll take a wild guess and say it had to do with my suicide attempt. If everyone was as aware of my behavioral change as Gibbs had said, then they were not doing an A plus job at it. (Unless occasional staring counted for something.) I did not exactly come to work to find my desk covered in "get well" balloons or cards or anything.

On the day I came home after spending the night at Gibbs's house, I told Tony much of what happened, omitting a few details here and there. I told him that I wore some of Shannon's old clothing, including her underwear.

His reaction was spot on. "You wore Shannon's underwear?" he said in disbelief. "Like Shannon's actual undies? What was that like?"

"Like wearing regular underwear," I said. "Just… creepy."

"And he actually let you wear them?" He was both fascinated and disgusted.

"Yeah," I answered. "I needed to wear something."

"That's just… I don't even think he's ever let Abby wear something of Shannon's. I'm honestly surprised he's ever let anyone even seen it."

It must have been that father-daughter thing.

(-/-)

For the first time since it happened, I mustered up enough courage to ask Tony to watch Tali's death video with me. It was not so much that I was scared to ask; but asking something like this was not exactly as easy as do re mi. He gave me a look like I was crazy, which I expected. Anyone would have done the same in his position. He was trying to think of the right words to say. I patiently waited. And waited. And waited. And thought that if I had to wait any longer I was going to scream.

"Tony."

"Ziva," he interrupted me, "why do you want to watch that video again?"

Why did I? I honestly had no idea. I could not have said that it was because I wanted to – because if I had not minded it, I would not have freaked out over it in the first place. So why exactly did I want to?

"I… don't know," I admitted. "I guess I feel like I have to watch it again."

"You don't," he said quickly. "You don't have to watch anything. I don't know who's making you feel like you have to watch it, but you don't."

"No one. I want to." That did not come out right.

Tony raised an eyebrow at me. "What do you mean you want to?"

"Well, not that I want to. I just… I don't know. I want to, but I don't want to. I just…" Who knew anymore?

"Okay," he relented. "Alright. I'll watch it with you if you want."

"No."

"You don't then?"

"Well, yes."

"Ziva."

I waved it off like it was nothing, though I probably already looked like an even bigger idiot. "Sorry. Let's just… watch it."

The hesitation was about as thick as an atmosphere between us, but I was unsure which one of us was more than the other. It was nighttime, by the way, thus adding to the ever-present sense of eeriness that lingered in the house. After all the lights in the living room and everywhere else were off, we went to our room and slipped into the covers in bed. To my surprise (although everything was a surprise lately), there was nothing new in the camera. No new pictures. No other videos. Nothing. Just Tali's death video.

I could feel Tony inch closer to me, until the heat coming from his body coated practically every inch of me. In the midst of this, before I played the video, I thought to myself that maybe I was seeking some kind of closure. This was the closest thing I would ever get to seeing how my sister died – as crazy and unbelievable and outrageous as it sounded. The first time was a shocker, amplified by the sheer realization that two of my co-workers were witnessing something so personal and unexpected with me. This time, I knew what was coming, and although I continued to dread it with every fiber in my body, I felt that somehow, in some way, I owed this to my sister.

I just had to do it. And at least Tony had the decency to back me up.

My thumb was right over the play button when I was stopped and asked, "Are you sure you really want to do this?"

"I'm sure."

He was quiet for a moment after that, like he was still not sure why in the universe I would want to watch that godforsaken video again. He only said, "Okay," and I took that as my cue to start the video. I did, and I was immediately swept away and tossed back ten years in time. I was no longer in my bedroom with Tony by my side; I was now in what strongly resembled a war zone, the earth thick and musty beneath me, chaos reigning all around me. There were people shouting in Hebrew in just about every corner I cast a glance. I knew what was going to happen – oh, did I know – but I had it set in my mind that I could change the outcome, that I had to change the outcome.

I thought of my sister, and there she was, in all her stupidity, in all her glory, wearing her heart on her sleeve, trying to save everyone in the room before even giving the idea of hauling her ass out of there a mere thought. She was about as real as I remember her. Her naturally curly hair was wild and everywhere, her eyes dark with fear but with a glimmer of hope that she could actually go through with this; concern was scribbled all over her face, could not be more obvious, her body language quick, shaking, desperate, stopping for no one, stopping for everyone.

I wondered if she could see me. I wondered what would happen if I reached out to touch her. Would she feel cold? Would her skin be as warm as her heated face? Would she feel it? Would she recognize the Ziva that stood there ten years after her death? I thought about warning her, about telling her what I knew would evidently come, but as I was about to, everything before me disappeared. The bomb did not go off, but everyone disappeared, and I was met with an almost deafening silence back in my room with Tony by my side.

"Okay. That's enough."

It took me a moment to switch lifetimes. I heard a clank sound when something collided with the frame of our bed. I looked to the side to be met with a Kleenex tissue in my face. I took it, but I did not use it. Tony took it away from me and wiped at me eyes and down my cheeks. I certainly was not expecting anything that had happened.

"I've seen enough," he said. "You've seen enough. We're not watching that again."

"Did you just throw something underneath the bed?"

"Camera," he said. "That way you can't get it in the middle of the night." Right. Unless I got out of bed and reached for it underneath the bed.

It got quiet between us. I could not find anything else to say. Part of me was glad he shut the camera off, but another part of me wanted to continue watching. I moved over to my side of the bed and wrapped myself underneath the covers. He did the same in his own side. It was still too quiet, none of us daring, or perhaps not wanting, to say something.

I did what I'd sometimes do to make me feel better, secure. I reached for his hand and slipped my fingers through his. It made me feel much better. It did not make me better completely, but that was better than feeling like shit.

A century passed between us before one of us spoke again, and it was Tony who did.

"Ziva, can I ask you something?"

"Yes."

"What's the earliest memory you have of your sister?"

Umm, what? "My earliest memory?"

"Yeah," he said. "What's the furthest back you can remember about your sister?"

"Like things we did, or…?"

"Anything, really."

I searched my mind for an answer to that, and I was pretty sure that as far back as I could go was her birth. "Well… what about when she was born?"

"You remember when she was born?"

"Well, I don't mean the moment. I mean I remember being there after she was born. She was a fat baby. And I was so jealous."

Tony chuckled, "I was a fat baby, too, if you can believe that."

"Surprise there," I said with a little laugh.

He nudged me lightly on the side, but we continued to laugh quietly. I moved up closer to him until I felt his body heat on me. I felt safer than before, and I think he knew that I was thinking that. When I looked up at him, he was staring up at the ceiling, not that there was anything interesting about it. "Tony, can I tell you something about Tali?"

He looked back at me, his face asking me if I even had to ask that question. "Of course," he said.

I sighed and began, "One of her dreams was to be on stage. You cannot imagine the countless amount of times she would drive everyone at home insane with her loud singing – aside from the catching disgusting lizards. She was not bad at it, but she liked to sing loud and off-key sometimes just to bother everyone."

"You two had lots of things in common then," Tony mused out loud. "I would have liked to have met her."

"Remember that time I was undercover in Morocco and you were on a ship?"

He rolled his eyes and scoffed as if it literally pained him to even give it a thought. "Don't remind me. I hate that Vance broke us up at one point."

Yeah, I was not too keen on thinking about that time, either. "I had to go undercover as a singer at one point, and… all I could think of was Tali. It just made me think of her and how she would have loved to have been in my position if it got her to perform in front of people. She loved the opera and classical music and performing and all that." I told him something I rarely told anyone because it was too painful to think about sometimes. "Before she died, not too long before, she asked me to slow dance with her. She wanted to teach me how to do it, because I did not know how, and for some weird reason, she felt I should know how to. I know that probably sounds weird, two sisters dancing together…"

I felt Tony shake his head. "Not at all," he said quietly.

I went on. "I can't remember what musical piece we danced to," I said. "But I do remember it was classical music. She was always into that. It is one of my favorite and last memories of her." A tear or two may or may not have crept up on me (okay, it did), but I made it clear to myself that I did not want to cry. I had already done way too much of that already, and enough was enough. But I just could not help it. The topic of my sister and her dreams and one of my last memories of her was not a light one. In several ways, talking about her felt like someone was cutting me open with a knife. Seldom did it make me feel just a little better – and that was when I talked about it to Tony. Otherwise, it felt like a dam of emotions burst open and happened to take me with it.

I turned to look at him square in the eyes. He looked back at me, but did not say anything. "Look," I began, "talking about Tali is not something I always like to do."

"I know," he interrupted me. "And I'm honored that you choose to share these memories with me when you don't have to."

"Tony, I really do appreciate you listening when I tell you. I cannot just tell anyone about this. It is not exactly the easiest thing in the world to open up about your dead sibling."

"I know," he said again. "It's not easy to open up about someone you cared so much about. Believe me, I know. I may not have had a brother or a sister so that I could share some cool memories with you, but I know what that feeling is like."

My free hand reached up to caress his cheek, but when I did, he drew his own hand and placed it over mine and held it in place. "But you have me," I told him. "And I am your partner."

"Soul mate," he added, and I knew where he was going with this.

"Best friend," I finished. It was something he had told me a while back when I was having another one of my constant rough nights.

"I love you times a million," he said.

"I love you infinity," I shot back.

With his hand, he took my hand that rested on his cheek, brought it to his lips and kissed my fingertips lightly. Nothing else was said; nothing else needed to be said. The quiet, soothing sound of each other's breathing lulled the other to sleep.

To say I panicked when I woke up the next morning was putting things mildly. I was freaked out. Tony was not by my side, or anywhere near me. In fact, he was not even in the room. It probably would have been logical to think that he was maybe in the kitchen or the bathroom or somewhere else, but given the way things had been going lately – completely unpredictable – I could not risk taking a chance.

I was so wrapped up in my own alarm that I did not immediately notice that there was music playing. Wait, what? Music? Now I was just confused. Why was there music playing? And why did it sound so familiar?

I tossed the covers aside and carefully stepped outside of the room. It was early, around six in the morning. As per usual, I was dead tired, but I knew I would not be able to find sleep again even if I tried. Tony was out in the living room still in his nightwear, and I was still too groggy to be able to make out anything.

"Good morning, beautiful," he said, oddly cheerfully. He lowered down the volume.

The heavy feeling of familiarity still clung on to me. It was classical music, but the piece I did not recognize. "What are you doing?"

"I couldn't sleep well last night," he admitted, which made two of us. I could not sleep well ever. "So I just got to thinking… about what you told me about Tali and her dream and your last dance with her and all that." He raised the volume back up again, and realization dawned on me completely right then. I recognized the musical piece as O Mio Babbino Caro, forever etched into my mind as the song that accompanied the last dance I ever had with my sister. But Tony could not have possibly known what song it was if not even I could remember it the night before. How in the world did he know? Or was it just a wild – a very wild – guess?

I was rooted to my spot. I dared not blink, could not blink, could not do anything besides stare.

"I know these past few weeks have been tough," he said. "And I know Tali's been on your mind a lot, too. I just thought maybe you could take a morning and… spend it with her. And with me," he added, almost as if he did want to be left out, a little jokingly. But after this… how could it ever even cross my mind to leave him out?

I did not know what to say, but something was said. As usual, it was something stupid.

"But Tony, I…"

He raised an eyebrow and waited for me to continue. "You…?"

"I just woke up. I haven't even showered."

He shrugged. "Me neither," he said. "Who cares? I don't."

My nose started to get a familiar ticklish feeling. I knew what that meant, but I did everything to keep myself and my voice steady.

"Ziva?" Tony said. My eyes went back up to meet his gaze. "Why don't you teach me what Tali taught you?" He was quiet now, as quiet as he could be under the sound of the music. It seemed as though he was keeping quiet so as to not break something. What it was, I did not know. But I had to look past that.

It had been years, I told myself as I agreed. Years since I did this with her. I feared being rusty, but everything came to me once I began – wanted or unwanted. It came regardless. I approached him. I placed my hand on his shoulder and led his arm around just a few inches above my waist. Our free hands joined and fingers intertwined. A sudden memory came to me, one I had stored all the way in the back of my mind, suddenly feeling too shy to ask.

"What is it?" Tony asked.

"I just remembered something Tali asked me that time we danced."

"What?"

"Nothing. It's not important," I lied.

"I'm sure it's important," he said. "What is it?"

I stopped for a moment, but the music continued, stopping for no one, not one single memory. It suddenly sounded so silly, but something pushed me to say it anyway. "Is it okay if I step on your feet?"

He chuckled lightly. "Well, it's a good think you're not Bigfoot."

He had no shoes on, making the whole thing just a little more difficult, but not impossible. I stepped on his feet, and it was like being with Tali all over again. I was taller than her, and yet she insisted that I stepped on her feet. I never got to ask why she wanted me to do it, and I will obviously never know either. If I thought about it too much, it would irritate me, so for the time being, I'd have to enjoy the time I was spending with her.

I put my head down on his shoulder, her shoulder. She was leading the way, like she did that one time, and I followed her. Her scent as I always remembered it hung heavily in the air around us. She squeezed my hand a few times, but I closed my eyes and held on tight to the memory of her. I feared opening them and not seeing her anymore, not feeling her against me, of forgetting what it was like to be in her embrace. I held on to everything as much as I could by keeping my eyes closed. I would have liked to have opened my eyes, but I knew everything would disappear if I did and that she would leave me again if I did. This was a moment between us once again and no one else, and even if just for a minute more, I wanted to grasp on to that.

I think she was about to speak, but my right foot suddenly slid off Tony's foot, momentarily stopping us. Everything I had been holding on to was gone.

"Sorry," I said.

"It's okay."

I looked down at the floor with sudden interest. I thought about telling him what I was thinking, but then decided against it. There was no easy way to put the fact that I was having a nice dance with my sister and that it was then rudely interrupted into words. But Tony just knew everything. He lifted my chin up so that my eyes could meet his. I did not have to even speak a word. My teary eyes spoke loud and clear to him.

"It's okay," he said again. "This is your time with her. Don't let anything take that away from you right now."

I nodded, but before I bit down on my bottom lip hard enough for it to draw blood, I said, "Thank you, Tony. Really." There was a pause before I added, "I love you times a million."

"I love you infinity," he said back as my head found its way back to his shoulder. It no longer became Tali's shoulder, and the air around us continued to smell the way it always smelled. I did not close my eyes; I merely enjoyed the time I was spending with Tony.

There was no use chasing after something that was not there. Tali was already gone, her absence triggered by a simple interruption, with a seemingly permanent effect. She, however, continued to linger inside my mind, like she always did.

"So why exactly do I have to learn how to do this dance?" Before she could even answer me, I went on, "I have no use for this, tateleh."

Her smirk was a little smug at first, but then she laughed it off. Even with an unshakeable feeling that something was going to happen before anything actually happened, she still managed to find the optimistic side of things. We stood in our positions, me being taller than her, and she wrinkled her nose, found my eyes, and said, "You will see, Zivaleh. One day you will meet that special someone, and you will have to dance with him – whoever he is."