"What happened between you two?" The question was soft.
Ziva looked at her hands for a minute. "He could not let go."
Gibbs said nothing but waited for her to go on. She lifted her spoon to her lips thoughtfully and continued. "We came from two worlds that were everything alike and nothing the same. We are killers, Gibbs."
"I don't think so."
"Not anymore, maybe. But we were. And Eliot worked for Moreau."
"You worked for Ari," Gibbs said, taking a bite of his bread and washing it down with a swallow of water.
"No," Ziva corrected gently. "I worked for who I thought Ari was."
The lights flickered as the storm outside shook the windowpanes in their frames.
Gibbs considered this. "Maybe Eliot thought Moreau was someone else."
"Eliot knew exactly what he did, Gibbs. That is why," she paused to take a drink. "That's why he cannot let go. He thinks he is nothing but what he has done, who he has killed. He sees nothing but the blood on his hands."
"And you don't." It was a statement, not a question.
"I did what I had to do for my country. I stand by every decision I made, every life I had to take-"
"Because if you don't, you'll end up like him," Gibbs finished for her.
"Exactly. And now, he pays. Day in and day out." Ziva tore a piece of bread and put it carefully in her mouth. It tasted sweet, like too much yeast.
"Pays how?"
"Penance, Gibbs."
"Ah." Gibbs had met Eliot, briefly, while the two teams worked together. He was haunted by the way Eliot handled himself, how little regard for himself he had. How angry he was.
"But he is not gone."
Gibbs trained his eyes carefully on her, asking for elaboration without saying a word.
"The team he works for now, Leverage, has done what only I was able to do. They broke through that. Made him see the world in color."
"So why is he still so," Gibbs paused, looking for the right word.
"Haunted?"
Gibbs nodded.
"He pays every day. He will not let himself forget."
"And you?"
"I remember," she said slowly. "But I do not pay anymore. I found absolution."
"Where?"
Ziva pulled her phone from her pocket and woke the screen. Her background was a picture of the team, a rare still of them all smiling. She pointed.
"Right here."