STRENGTH AND TEARS (2)

When he heard her footsteps on the stairs he was surprised only that it had taken her this long to come to him. When she reached the bottom she stopped awkwardly, unsure of what to do from here, part of her desperate to run back the way she came and another part longing to stay. Eventually, Gibbs made the decision for her as he held out a sanding block to her still not turning from his boat. He knew that if he tried to initiate the conversation, she would go on the defensive as she had been doing to Tony and McGee and Abby and Ducky for the past few weeks. For this evening to have any effect, she would have to make the first move.

They sanded together in silence for a few moments before Gibbs placed down his sanding block and moved over to Ziva.

"With the grain," he instructed, placing his hands over hers and correcting her motions.

He left his hands where they were even when she was sanding perfectly as though, by holding her hands he could somehow hold her together and fix everything that Saleem had broken.

He was startled to suddenly feel something falling against his arms and even more so when he realised it was tears. In all the years that he had known Ziva he had seen her cry only once and it was quite disconcerting to see her tears falling against him.

He took her shoulders and tried to turn her around but she resisted hard, shaking her head "No, stop it. Stop it," she said through the sobs that were being to shake her shoulders despite her obvious attempts to control them.

He stopped and turned his intentions instead to trying to prise her fingers from the sanding block but she was gripping it like one would a life raft.

"Come on Ziva, just let it go," he coaxed.

At last he managed to lift the last of her fingers from the block but was entirely unprepared for her reaction.

As soon as he had taking the block from her hands her sobs intensified, causing her entire body to shake and her breaths to come in gasps. This time, when he turned her around she didn't have the strength to fight him but began to mumble in a language he didn't understand.

"Lo od! Lo od! Dai! Dai!"

"Ziva? Ziva? Come on, it's okay."

She simply began to shake harder and the words flowing from her mouth began to get louder and louder till she was practically screaming at him. He couldn't understand a word she was saying, though he was pretty sure it was more than one language, but there was no mistaking her tone. She was pleading, begging, and there was one word that she kept repeating, over and over.

"Lo!"

It didn't take a genius to figure out what that meant.

He pulled her tightly against his chest rubbing his hand up and down her back soothingly as her protests quieted again and she clutched tightly at his shirt. In time, she cried herself out and lay against his shoulder as he pressed his lips to the top of her head.

"You want to talk about it?"

"No."

"You going to talk about it?"

"No."

He sighed at her stubbornness. "Come on Ziver. You can't cry like that then not tell me what's wrong."

Without warning she ripped away from him.

"You know damn well what's wrong," she snapped "and I was not crying!"

He raised his eyebrows looking at her red eyes and the tear tracks down her cheeks and she scowled at him.

"I don't cry," she insisted. "I don't cry, I don't cry, I don't!"

She looked very close to tears again now and he sighed. "Everybody cries Ziva."

"I don't," she insisted again. "I'm a David, and an Israeli. We are the strong ones and we don't cry."

Gibbs narrowed his eyes, not at her but at the realisation that these were Eli David's words and not hers. Not for the first time he found himself cursing Eli for just how badly he had screwed up his daughter.

"Those that cry are weak," Ziva continued. "And weakness sends you to an early grave."

"Do you think Abby is weak Ziva? Or McGee? Or Tony? Or me?" Gibbs asked softly.

"No," she replied, not even having to think about it.

"Do you think we ever cry?"

"Well," this question needed more thought. "Abby does sometimes but not McGee, or Tony and defiantly not you."

Gibbs stepped closer to her cautiously, "You do not know me very well if you think I never cry. I cried when my mom died. I cried when Shannon and Kelly were killed."

She snapped her head up, surprised to hear him talk about his wife and daughter, which was a subject he generally avoided like the plague.

"I cried when I thought Tony would die. I cried when Kate was shot."

"Yes," Ziva interrupted. "But that's all when people died or you thought they were going to die. No one has died now so I have no excuse."

"I cried when Vance split the team up. I cried when I saw you so badly injured after the bomb blast in Morocco. I cried when we got you back here and I knew you were safe. Everybody cries Ziva, and tears do not make you weak, they make you human."

Ziva sat down heavily on Gibbs' workbench. "Eli never let me cry," she told him, her voice little more than a whisper. "Not even when I was small. He told me crying was a weakness and that I was not weak. Even when my . . . when my . . ."

She couldn't finish the sentence, just buried her head in her hands again as more tears began to trickle down her cheeks. Gibbs sat next to and put an arm around her shoulders. He did not pressure her for information; he knew that she would talk when she was ready.

"I cried at Tali's funeral and Eli told me that I did not have time to mourn the weak. My baby sister was dead and the only person who let me cry about it was Ari. He was the only one I could ever cry in front of. And then . . . and then I killed him! I killed him Gibbs! And now I know what Eli is capable of doing to me . . ."

She looked up at him, her dark eyes holding pain and fear. "I have no one Gibbs. Everyone I cared about, and who I thought cared about me, is gone and I am all alone. I have no one."

"That's not true," Gibbs told her, wrapping his other arm around her and holding her to him as she cried. "You have Abby, Tony, Tim, Ducky, even Jimmy who are all your friends and who care about you. And Ziva?"

She tilted her head up again to meet his eyes.

"You have me, Ziver. And if one good thing has come of all this mess, it is that maybe now you realise what Eli is like and what he has done to you, you will start to discredit all the bullshit he fed you and listen to those that really care. Because there is nothing wrong with tears Ziva, and you never need to be afraid to cry in front of me."

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