Conversations
This is for the 3rd season episode 'Bait' where a teenager who's being controlled by...um, terrorists, I think...demands his dead mother. Of course Gibbs goes in as a negotiator, figures sh*t out, and eventually Jenny reveals she's found his mother and the family is reunited. This scene follows that. Also, this chapter is chronologically after the chapters for Family Secret and Ravenous, and prior to yesterday's. Meaning, Gibbs and Ziva aren't meant to have as much history in this chapter as they do in most of the others.
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Gibbs smiled, glancing back over his shoulder for one more image of Jenny standing with the crying, hugging Meyers family. He only barely turned in time to keep from walking in Ziva where she stood in the hall, her eyes, too, locked on the scene.
She looked sharply at him, and he was nearly deflected by the defensiveness in her posture before he caught the hint of tears brightening her eyes.
"Ziva?" he questioned intently, leaning in to see if she was really crying.
She looked away quickly. "Yes?" she asked. Her voice was a little huskier than normal, and Gibbs frowned.
"Is something wrong?"
Ziva shook her head but didn't meet his eyes, instead looking past him to the family reuniting.
Gibbs stepped around her, looking over her shoulder, trying to see what she saw. It took only a moment for it to hit him. "Your sister was lost in a bombing," he said softly.
Her body went rigid, and as she stiffened she pressed lightly against him. She didn't pull away and Gibbs knew that though it seemed casual, for her to stay against him was a sign of her trust.
"Yes," Ziva whispered.
They stood silently as Kody's father tilted his head back and laughed in joy at something his wife had said.
"They never found her body," Ziva finally said, still watching. "For years, against all reason and evidence, I hoped."
"For this," Gibbs finished her thought.
She nodded, her hair brushing his chin. "I am not sure I have ever been so deeply jealous," she said simply. Tears shook her voice, though Gibbs was sure that if he stepped to see, her cheeks would be dry.
Disregarding his age and all cool defiance, Kody clutched both his parents' hands as Jenny waved them out of her office.
Gibbs put a hand on Ziva's waist and pulled her back out the way so they could leave.
They boy turned to Gibbs as he passed, nodding his deep thanks, his eyes alight with happiness. He was barely recognizable as the boy who had frantically held Gibbs and his classmates hostage only hours ago.
Gibbs nodded back stoically, wishing desperately to be so transformed. He hadn't felt it as intensely since the car ride from the airport to his house when he returned from Desert Storm, forty-five minutes of desperate hope that his family would come running down the front steps and into his was beside him now and took in his expression, grasped his hand tightly for a moment.
"Me neither," he answered softly.
Ziva released his hand. "I could have made that kill shot," she said brokenly. "Tony did not want to, but I nearly did. To save your life, to save those other children, the other families..."
He shrugged. "We didn't know. I might have made the same call."
She shook her head, her curls brushing his shoulder as they watched the elevator doors close. "I do not think of children the way you do, you Americans. I am too used to children who do not think of children the way you do, children who can walk into a building with a bomb on and mean it."
"You don't have to justify that to me."
She shook her head. "But this wouldn't have happened. The Meyers—they would have been together but their son would have been dead."
Gibbs sighed, relieved events hadn't fallen out that way. "Dwelling on what could have been doesn't get us anywhere, Ziva," he finally said firmly. He had learned it the hard way, and it was the only thing he had to offer her.
She shook her head.
He looked down at her, but her eyes were closed.
"Sometimes it's the only solace," she whispered.