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 26, 2008
It was early afternoon before Ziva and Tony arrived at HQ. Ziva's day had begun at 4 am with a gruff phone call from Gibbs letting her know she was needed at a crime scene at Quantico. After processing the scene, she and Tony had stayed at the barracks to interview more than a dozen Marines about their dead Lance Corporal. No one seemed to know anything, at least that they were telling. Ziva was beyond frustrated as they reported back to Gibbs.
She was even more frustrated when Gibbs simply thrust a list of names and numbers into her hand. "Leads from McGee. Get calling." He didn't bother to stop or look over his shoulder as he headed for the elevator. "I'm going for coffee."
Ziva sat heavily and let her head drop to the desk. She tugged her gun and badge free and set them beside her. Her eyes flew open as she realized she hadn't yet checked her drawer. She looked around to see Tony's desk empty and McGee hard at work. 'Good enough. Otherwise, I would have to wait for them to leave for the day.'
Shifting just slightly so she could ease the drawer open, Ziva peeked inside. It was a book of some kind. Ziva reached for the book and enjoyed the buttery softness of the leather cover. It was black and had an intricate hand-tooled design depicting leafy vines that seemed to be twining around and growing out of the book itself. A thin strand of leather was wrapped around it and held fast with a small silver button shaped into an ivy leaf. Ziva wondered what, if anything, she would find inside as she slid the button loose. She flipped through the pages and saw that they were blank, that it was meant to be a journal. A strange impulse led her to flip all the way to the last page of the journal. At the bottom right corner of the page she saw a short, carefully written passage in Hebrew. It said simply, "For beautiful thoughts."
Ziva felt the warmth rush through her at the simple inscription and the thought behind it. She had never kept a journal before, knowing that for her to do so would be dangerous. And yet she felt no doubt whatsoever that she would soon fill the blank pages before her. She also had no doubt that the first beautiful thoughts she would write would be about her mysterious benefactor. With only two days of Chanukah left, she hoped that her suspicions about who it was would soon be confirmed.