A/N: I was stuck for what to write for Ziva, but the events of Shabbat Shalom not only shocked me senseless, but it kind of gave me inspiration.
McGee's face, as he glanced at Gibbs, made her worry more than the shooter's words; she shook him, trying to get an answer, and there it was, in his eyes, but she couldn't believe it. She ran past him, into the house, where she saw Tony just standing there. He looked toward her as she hurried in, and he just looked at her.
Blind panic surged through her veins as she saw him slumped against the door frame like some sort of perverted puppet with its strings severed, bloodstains like roses on his shirt. She let out his name in a strangled cry as she rushed past Tony to get to him.
This couldn't be happening. Not now. It wasn't happening, it was all a nightmare, it just had to be. She fell to her knees beside him as she reached for him. His skin was not that cold, but she knew.
There was no light in his eyes anymore.
She felt as if her gut had been wrenched from her body, and she just held her father's body close to her own, sobs wracking her body as she whispered to him quietly, not even noticing she had slipped back to her mother tongue. She put her small hands in his, clutching one of his large, old hands between both of her shaking ones as she had done countless times as a child.
Look, Aba, give me your hands!
Without waiting for an answer, the little dark-haired girl seized his hand and held it palm-to-palm with his own, smiling broadly.
His hands eclipsed hers endlessly, and he couldn't help but smile, nearly as widely as his daughter.
Little Ziva didn't know how many deaths that his large hands had caused, or how her own pudgy ones would soon surpass his violent toll. She had shown promise, sure, but that was just her way of showing her big brother Ari that she wouldn't be pushed around, and he had to admit how proud he had been when she tackled him to the patio floor, her curls bouncing in the sun, and sat on his chest smugly. Ari had learned his lesson and had never attempted to take her G.I. Joe doll again.
She looked down at their intertwined hands, which were wet with tears. She wiped them gently away, but the tears just wouldn't stop flowing. Her mind was racing; If she had been there, she could have stopped this? What was the last thing she had said to him? Was her anger and fury, but above all, her resentment, the last thing he would remember?
She would never get the chance to ask him. She was all alone now.
She was an orphan.
Not all that long, I know, but, as aforementioned, I'm in a tad bit of shock.