Sooo, I decided this one's going out to LoveIsAScar15, just coz your reviews and enthusiasm never fail to make me smile. Welcome back ;)
and everyone else, your reviews really do make my day so thankyou :)
Disclaimer: I do not own Ziva (sigh), or Tony (I wish!), or any of NCIS and its characters (*cries*)
For the second night in a row she slept without nightmares and for the second morning in a row, Ziva woke on a couch that was not hers.
She stood up carefully, so as not to wake Tony who was curled up down the other end in a position that would surely mean listening to him complain about his back for weeks.
She was going to have to face work today. It was the last thing she wanted to think about but she could hardly expect them to go on for a third day without her and with no explanation as to where she had been. However she was pretty sure she couldn't turn up in the same clothes she had been wearing since the other morning and she knew turning up with Tony was only going to raise a whole lot more questions than she could deal with so she was left with a dilemma. Her car was at her apartment where Tony had left it after picking it up from the park on his way home the day before so she was not left with many options. She was going to have to wake Tony up if she wanted to get home in time to get ready for work.
It almost hurt him to pull away from the curb in front of her apartment block after dropping her off, leaving her with the words 'see you at work.' He had meant them to sound confident and reassuring but somehow they had come out as something of a plea. As if he was begging her to be okay and to walk out of those elevator doors in a few hours bearing that genuine smile he had caught a glimpse of the night before and teasing him as she always had.
He shuddered as he thought of the last time he had dropped her off at her house, two weeks ago now. Right before things fell apart. It was funny how much could change in such a short amount of time. Before that day, Ziva had been invincible. She had been strong, impenetrable, unbroken. In his eyes at least.
He knew more now. He knew that everything he thought he knew about people from looking at them could be completely wrong. Yes, she was still Ziva, and she was still unbelievably strong, only not in the way he had first thought. She wasn't unbreakable, just the opposite actually, she was extremely fragile, scarred by the things she'd seen and done and yet somehow she held herself together. She put on a mask and came to work every morning, smiled, laughed and teased her way through the day before going home to her thoughts and memories, the ones that had finally pushed her to breaking point.
Last night she had finally answered the question that had been n the back of his mind for days. Sitting on the bench at the park she had said she couldn't face it today. He hadn't known what had made that day any different from the others but he had left it, not wanting to push her. Last night as they watched Holly finally kiss Paul, rain soaking them both and the screen had faded to black, she had turned to him and told him.
Tali's birthday. That's what had made it different to any other day. It had been Tali's birthday and all she wanted was to be able to hug her little sister and watch the smile as she tore at wrapping and blew out candles. But she couldn't do that. She never would again.
He wiped at the moisture in his eyes as he drove and cleared his throat. He had to focus on the positives if he was going to help her get through this day. She had spent years being strong for him, for the team, and now it was his turn.
He felt a pain in his back as he climbed out of the car and headed towards the NCIS building, he really had to stop falling asleep on the couch like that.
She turned to watch as he turned out of her street. She never thought it would be so hard to watch someone leave, especially someone she was going to see in a few hours. Ignoring the feeling in her stomach as his car disappeared around the corner, she looked away, took a deep breath, and headed into the building in front of her.
Once upstairs, she opened the door to her apartment and looked around. She had not been there in a few days and nothing had changed, everything was as she had left it. Only, after spending some time in Tony's apartment, it felt different. It didn't have the same warm feeling as his did, didn't feel lived in. She couldn't put her finger on it but it was as if something was missing.
After showering and changing, Ziva moved to the bathroom again to put on her makeup. As she did she felt the armour returning, each brush stroke was like a brick in the wall or another layer of the mask. She felt the calm take over as she slowly became work Ziva again, pushing all the emotions of the last few days down so that she could focus on the task at hand. Once that was done she grabbed her bag, gun, and keys, and headed to the door. Before closing it behind her, she turned back, to check the apartment one last time and for a moment the poker face slipped, if she was honest she knew exactly what was wrong with her apartment, it was lonely.
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