Day 2 - Morning
Also toward the end I am not saying that Abby had romantic feelings for Kate or Jenny, just that she never got to tell them how much they meant to her, purely platonically. Ooh, and I brought along Kat von D from LA Ink because I think she is a phenomenal tattoo artist and I think her and Abby could be really great friends. Also, italics are flashbacks.
A/N: Sorry I didn't post on my normal day, but I have been sick and heavily medicated for most of this week, but I'm better now, so I figured I would post. This is also the shortest chapter I have so far and I'm up to chapter 20 now, so if you like shorter chapters, then enjoy. If not, it's only 1 chapter

VillageVoice

"Officer David, the liaison position with NCIS is being terminated. You're going home."

"Abby!" Ziva shot up in bed, a cold sweat broken out all over her body.

"Shh…" Abby pulled Ziva into her arms and smoothed away her damp hair. "I'm here. I'm here. It's okay. It was just a dream." She gently rocked Ziva back and forth in her arms. "It was just a dream."

Ziva closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. It was just a dream. But the reality wasn't all that much better.

"You need a tattoo."

It took Ziva a minute to switch gears. It was sometimes hard to follow Abby's trains of thought. Waking up from a nightmare in the middle of a deep sleep was not the best time to step on the Sciuto train. "Excuse me?"

"You need a tattoo." The Goth restated. It was something she had been thinking about, and now seemed like a good enough time to bring it up. Ziva needed to be distracted and Abby was the queen of distractions. "I'm thinking something like, 'Abby' . . . or maybe just an 'A.'"

Ziva smiled. She knew exactly what Abby was doing and she was grateful. "You know the minute someone gets a tattoo of their partner's name or initials the relationship usually goes bitter."

"Sour." Abby corrected.

"Whatever, same difference." Ziva yawned. "The point is the minute someone . . . brands themselves with their partner's name the relationship typically ends."

Abby released Ziva from her arms and propped herself up on her arm to look at Ziva. "What part of our relationship is in any way, shape or form typical?"

Ziva mirrored Abby and propped herself up on her own arm. "I see your point. But I cannot be buried in a Jewish cemetery if I have a tattoo."

Abby shrugged. "Oh." She laid back down. "It was just an idea."

Reverse psychology, Ziva smirked. But the idea of having a part of Abby always with her was appealing. Her father was making them break-up, but she doubted that he would go so far as to have her surgically remove a tattoo. Especially if he couldn't see it.

"We could always get a puppy?"

Ziva laughed. "Oh yes, your neighbor would just love that."

"Hey, don't try to blame me on that fact that you're a screamer. That is all your doing."

Ziva smirked. "I cannot very well make myself scream now can I, Abby?"

Abby looked over at Ziva and smiled that devilish smile she had perfected over the years. "Well . . ." She turned over and raked her eyes over Ziva's body. "Okay, that part may be my fault."

"May be your fault?" Ziva questioned.

"Okay, so it's definitely my fault." Abby placed her hand on Ziva's hip, drawing slow, smooth circles until Ziva's eyes began to darken and then suddenly pulled Ziva's body to hers. "I think the good Mrs. Forrester is home now. . . How long do you think it will take her to come knocking this time?"

Ziva captured Abby's lips with her own. "Not long."

"Abigail Sciuto I cannot believe I let you talk me into this. What person in their correct mind would willingly let someone inflict this sort of pain upon themselves?"

The young, heavily tattooed apparently, 'best chick in the world' according to Abby, pulled the instrument of said pain away from Ziva's hip. "You want me to stop?"

"No." Abby said quickly. "No, you're almost done." She took the seat beside Ziva and grabbed her hand, nodding to the dark haired woman to continue.

"I had no idea this would hurt as much as it does. You have many, many tattoos. Why would you do this more than once?"

Abby brought Ziva's hand to her face and kissed her palm. "I love you so much for doing this."

"I would rather have hoped you loved me before this."

"Oh I did, I do, I-" She smirked and leaned closer to Ziva until their lips touched. "Sarcasm. You're getting better."

"I try." Ziva winced. "But in the meantime it feels like my hip is on fire."

"It's your lower abdomen and it's not on fire."

"It feels like there are a bunch of little needles are being shot into it then."

"Well that part is true, but you've been through much worse . . . right?"

Ziva glared at her. "Not willingly."

"Right, of course." She smiled sweetly. "Sorry."

Ziva untangled her hand from Abby's and brought it to the older woman's cheek. "You will be making this up to me later."

"Of course." Abby winked.

"You could make it up to her now . . ." Abby and Ziva both turned and glared at the tattoo artist. "If you'd like."

"Kat, that is so not going to happen." She and Ziva laughed as Kat went back to finishing Ziva's tattoo.

Fifteen minutes later it was done. "Kat, thanks so much for flying in to do this. I feel bad about dragging you away from LA for something so small, but" She smiled over at Ziva. "I wasn't about to let anyone else touch her. Only the best."

Kat smiled and brought Abby in for a hug. "Hey, no problem man. I always told you, I'm just a phone call away. We should get together sometime this weekend. I haven't been partying in DC in ages."

"Totally. I'll call you."

Abby lead Ziva over to the mirror and jumped up and down. "Ziva, it's gorgeous."

Ziva lowered her jeans further to admire the tattoo in the mirror. It was really pretty. It was only about five or six inches, but it was beautiful even to Ziva who didn't think tattoos were really anything to get overly excited over. She loved Abby's, but that was more who they were on than what they were actually of. She smiled over at Abby and looked down at the new tattoo. It was a single black rose, classic black and white design with a short stem and a minuscule crimson spider hanging from a thin thread of crimson silk from one of the petals. Ziva had no idea that such exquisite detail could be drawn on something so small. "Now I will always remember you."

Abby came up behind Ziva and wrapped her arms around Ziva's waist, resting her head on the Israeli's shoulder. "It's going to be hard to forget me seeing as I'm right here. But it is beautiful. I've never had someone get a tattoo for me before."

"I would do anything for you." She turned her head and captured Abby's lips, planting a feather light kiss on the taller woman's lips. Their angle blocking out a certain tattoo artist's view.

Abby fell even more in love with Ziva at that moment. It was an incredibly cheesy thing to say, but she knew such things weren't easy for the Mossad officer. "Kat look away."

Kat looked up from her instruments that she had been cleaning, not even paying attention to Abby or Ziva. She had known Abby a long time and was happy she had finally found someone who made her so happy. She didn't want to intrude on that. "Why?"

"So I can kiss my girlfriend Kat." She looked over her shoulder as Kat grabbed her tools and went off to the back room to pack everything up Abby and kissed Ziva properly. "Your very own black rose."

Ziva smiled and looked up at Abby. "My very own black rose."

"You remember when we first got together?"

"Before or after I actually believed you when you told me you had feelings for me?" Abby chuckled and snuggled into Ziva's open arms. But her laughter quickly ended. Ziva wrapped her arms tighter around Abby and sighed. "You'd lost Kate, Jenny had just been killed . . . I thought . . . I thought you were displacing your loss. That you were holding on to me because you couldn't lose another person; you couldn't lose another friend."

Abby pulled Ziva in tighter. "Everybody . . . died. Every close female friend I ever had at NCIS were killed – shot and killed. When Ducky got off the phone with Gibbs…"

Ducky flipped his phone shut and slowly turned to Abby and McGee.

"Who?" McGee asked.

Ducky took a deep breath. "Jenny."

"I liked Jenny. She was a great director, she was a good friend . . . But I wasn't really that close to her. And I was so mad at you and Tony. You were there to protect her and you failed…" She reached up to wipe a tear from her cheek. "I just couldn't lose another person. Especially not you. I hated you when you first joined NCIS because you took Kate's spot and Kate was my best friend. But it was also because I didn't hate you. I liked you. I liked you, liked you, but I didn't want to like you, like you because I couldn't let myself get close to another person who was going to leave me."

Ziva quickly wiped her own tears with the back of her hand before wrapping her arms tighter around Abby.

"But you tried. You were nice to me and invited me to your place for dinner and you really tried to be my friend. So we became friends and I just kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. Then Jenny died and Vance was sending you back to Israel. It was worse than losing you because I knew you were still living, you were still breathing, you were still existing in the same world I was. I started thinking about all the things I never said to the Director, all the things I would never get the chance to tell her, to tell Kate . . . and I had to tell you. I had to tell you how much…"

Everyone went home. Tony, McGee and even Gibbs. Gibbs undoubtedly to hide out in his basement for the next few days working on his boat trying to think of some way to not lose his entire team. Tony to pack as he shipped out in only a few hours, and McGee . . . he was actually just switching departments so he probably went home to sleep. But not Ziva. She stepped into the elevator and got off on Abby's floor. McGee has called her once they left Vance's office and told her about his and Tony's reassignments, but Ziva wanted to be the one to tell Abby what Vance was doing with her.

She was immediately aware of the fact that there was no music playing. She walked into the unusually dark lab and saw Abby sitting at the desk in her office just staring blankly at the screen in front of her. Ziva could see the reflection of the screen's image on the glass frame of Abby's evidence picture hanging on the wall behind her. It had been taken a few weeks prior. It was of all of them; Abby, Ziva, Gibbs, Jenny, Tony, McGee, Ducky, and Palmer. They were at some NCIS event that no one really knew exactly what the point was, but it was an evening void of all work and there was plenty of alcohol. So they all decided to spend the evening getting really, really drunk.

Ziva took a step deeper into Abby's lab and Abby's head shot up, her eyes locking on Ziva's. She was out of her office and had Ziva locked into a tight hug before Ziva even had the chance to blink. After a few minutes of oxygen deprivation Abby loosened her grip. "Where are you going?" Her tone and the fact that she wouldn't let Ziva go told the Israeli Abby already knew.

Ziva took a minute and wrapped her arms around Abby. She felt a sob escape Abby's lips at the contact. It took something really big to make Ziva hug her back. "Israel." She stated. "My position here with NCIS is terminated effective immediately."

Abby shook her head. "No."

"I'll let you take a really good picture to make into another mop-Ziva if you would like."

Abby shook her head again, not even being able to laugh at Ziva's attempt at a joke. "I want the real Ziva." She pulled away and looked deep into Ziva's eyes. "I want you."

Ziva smiled sadly. "I am so sorry Abby. I would much rather stay here with all of you. You all are my family now, not-"

"No, I mean I want you." Ziva wasn't quite getting it. "I have lost Kate and Jenny. They were taken from me before I had the chance to tell them how much they meant to me." She reached up and brushed a tear off of Ziva's cheek. "I am not going to make that mistake a third time."

Ziva pulled away and tilted Abby's chin until their eyes met. She gently brushed the tears from Abby's cheeks.

"I really love you Ziva."

'If only it were that simple.' Ziva nodded and wiped another tear from Abby's face. "I know." This conversation was encroaching on a dangerous subject and until Ziva knew what she was going to tell Abby, she wanted to stay far away from it. She was lying to Abby enough as it was.