A/N: A continuation, of the continuation.
DISCLAIMER: Nothing is mine. Sadly.
XLVIII
48 scars he counted marring her skin, crisscrossing across a golden canvas, faintly pink, eliciting both pain in his heart and memories in her mind. He traced each and ever one of them, as if a feather light brush of his lips will erase anything.
He's laying on his back, eyes closed, listening. The sounds of her moving about his bathroom filter through the closed door, the snap of a toothpaste bottle, the rush of the sink. And then there is silence and he sits up, leans languidly against the headboard as she opens the bathroom door, clicking the lights off as she pads into the bedroom.
She smirks at him as he watches her movements, green eyes calculating as she moves to flick the light off. Her skin is shroud in a robe, the pale pink silk skimming her knees, her wrists.
He's plunged into darkness.
"Ziva?"
"Hmm?" her murmur comes from the area between the light switch and the bed, limbo.
He shifts, the mattress groaning slightly, and she hears the whisper of the sheets. "Turn the light back on."
And her brow puckers and furrows and she is confused. "Why?"
"Because I want to see you."
Her puzzlement is palpable, but she concedes to what he asks and her fingers find the switch and flick it upwards. The room is bathed in the soft glow of lamplight and his eyes settle on hers, as she stands idly at the door, fingers still resting on the switch plate, one eyebrow arched quizzically.
He cocks a lopsided grin at her, motioning for her to join him. Ziva lingers.
"Tony," she says, slowly, tentatively, obviously still befuddled at his antics. "Why am I leaving the light on?"
"Because I've let you leave it off now for the past two months. I want to see you, Ziva. Please."
There's a snap and the lights are out once more.
She can hear him moving again, the swish of sheets as he swings his legs over the edge of the bed, the muted thump as his feet hit the carpet.
He crosses the room in a few easy strides and finds himself standing before her. His hand settles over hers and he flicks the lights back on. She blinks at him, slowly, owlishly, peering up at him between a thick fringe of lashes. He lifts his hand, gently brushing a loose strand of hair off her face.
"You trust me, right?" he asks simply, unabashedly.
Defiance enters her eyes, a jumping flame at the fact that he had the gall to ask such a thing. "Of course I trust you." And she speaks this with such conviction, such finality that he knows that it is true.
"Then what's the problem?"
Her eyes diverting to the floor are his only answer, so her moves his fingers under her chin, tilting her face up towards his, forcing her to look at him. "Trust me." And his other hand takes hers and he leads her over to the bed, untying the ribbon at her waist, slowly easing the silken garment from her skin. He smiles at her, standing before him, clothed in her underwear and bra, simple black silk and warm golden skin.
He brushes a lock of loose hair behind her ear, running the soft tress through his fingers. His ocean eyes are bright and clear and fixed firmly on her eyes, mahogany and guarded.
His lips brush her temple and she sighs, shuddering slightly. And he wraps his arms around her waist, pulls her to his chest, pressing another kiss against the junction of her neck and shoulder. He finally loosens his grip on her, holds her back at arms length, lets his gaze drop from her face . . . .
And his worst fears are confirmed, the events of last summer solidified further in concrete and there is no denying what transpired. He now has both a verbal account courtesy of her, a written record coaxed out of Ducky, and the physical evidence that crisscrosses across her skin.
The scars are small, a few exceeding two, three inches. The skin is lighter, newer than the unmarked flesh around the healed wounds. He runs a finger over a particularly jagged score, the surface slightly raised and rough, positioned just below her right breast. She stays stock still, eyes staring ahead.
He knows he shouldn't count, but he does, one, two, three, four. Silently, in his head, growing sadder and angrier and happier as the numbers climb higher and higher. And he is sad because he blames himself, remorseful that this fate befell her. And his is angry that the bullet that destroyed her tormenter was not his. But he is happy, happy that this is all that marks her, because scars are far less worse than her not being here at all.
She is laying on her stomach, cheek pressed against the coolness of his pillow, mattress soft beneath her. Her eyelids flutter open at his touch, the brush of his lips against her bare skin.
"Tony?"
"Hmm?" Another kiss pressed into her shoulder blade.
"What are you doing?"
"I am kissing it better," as this is the most obvious answer in the entire world. And he continues his ministrations down her back, every knob of her spine kissed whole.
She smiles, counting, even though she shouldn't.
One, two, three, four.
A feather light touch on her left side, right above her kidney. Another gentle brush directly under her scapula.
Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen.
He ignores nothing, not the tiny pale line at her nape, the monument of when her necklace was from her body. He finds the cluster of pockmarks from cigarette butts, some from earlier years.
Twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six.
One long gash from bomb shrapnel, carving a thin line from her hip to the back of her thigh. The ropey old bullet wound, her souvenir from Cairo.
Thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three.
An intake of breath, quiet and surprised, and a firm pressure against the curve of her waist. Because he has seen now the curving line engraved into her skin. A sloppy 'S'.
Forty-six, forty-seven, and forty-eight.
His fingers trace the series of lines etched in the small of her back.
"Did it hurt?" And his rough voice betrays his steady hands.
"Yes." Of course.
"I'm sor-" but she rolls over now, interrupting the apology perched on his tongue with a finger pressed to his lips.
"It does not hurt anymore," she tells him, her voice full of conviction, finality.
And he nods, his lips brushing hers softly.
And he tells her, "You are beautiful."
And she knows that she is whole again.