There is heavy breathing and a soft, almost imperceptible pain. Eyes that have seen too much for their years open in surprise. They meet and melt.
Moon on skin. It pools like butter next to his warm and gentle body. She curls around him like a lover, relishing the comfort of a pulsing heart underneath fingertips that ache. And she flickers through her memories. They come in a rush, in a storm, and she tries to organise them, settle and file them, control them, but they flood her. She submits.
The way her father stroked her hair when she was younger. It always irritated her and yet she smiled so purely she almost convinced herself that she needed the fatherly comfort.
How her mother would push her gently away when she entwined her young arms around busy legs. The rejection was loving, and yet it stung so bitter.
The cool marble floor of her home. She would lie with her cheek pressed against the stone, three years old and already so far from anyone who could possibly have cared. She saw the world side-ways up, and would smile knowingly.
That smile terrified her mother and it made her father proud.
***
Talia. So pretty, and so young, and so utterly and irrevocably gone. There was simply nothing to mourn. She ended so completely.
And then, the one that remained. Ari. He had smiled at her, kissed her gently on the forehead and rocked her like a child the night that Tali was taken from them. And she had destroyed him. She had knelt in the blood that she had split and she prayed for him.
And she had tried to tell herself that there was no other way. But there was.
There always is.
***
She had seen the hard, flat resentment in the eyes of man that she admired. She had seen him tired and vulnerable, and yet she had still felt curiously overpowered by such intense bitterness. And, that first time she said goodbye, packed her trash and walked away, there was no regret in his eyes.
Every time after that, she had been too afraid to look. She never knew that, in all the goodbyes that followed, there was nothing but regret.
***
She crouched in the gloom over the body of a vague and bloodied friend. She tried to feel pain, grief, a hopeless wave of aching loneliness. Nothing. Nothing for her friend Jacob Levy, whose company she had so enjoyed. And she wondered wearily whether there was any love left in her.
***
The time she had been sent back to Israel, her home, her land, and all she had felt was panic. No joy. No joy on reunion. No reunion. A simple handshake, a few worthless words and a glossy plane ticket to Morocco told her all she could ever want to know about her father. And as she flew further and further away from anyone that possibly cared, all she could feel was his green eyes on her trembling back. All she could think about was missed opportunities. When she cried, it was only for them. When she dreamt, it was only of him.
***
How the other children stayed away from little Ziva David. How they sensed something feral and crouching in her unflinching gaze. Power, a black and languid control that seemed so achingly empty. Ziva David has stone in her eyes and tears in her heart.
***
When she was fourteen years old, she spied on a guest – she could never remember his name – changing in his room. She had hidden behind a curtain with wide curious eyes and a bright and wanting mouth. He was a year older than her, but seemed an age apart. She watched his hands, and suddenly realised that she was happiest when alone and untouched. He had seemed so vulnerable.
***
Tony had tasted so damn good. Sweet and somehow spicy, and the scent that clung to his skin made her want to spill over into honesty. His capable hands had held her so carefully. A porcelain bomb. He'd kissed each fingertip like it was more than simply an act. She'd felt his arousal against her stomach, and it had surprised and jarred her beyond belief. She was always so knowing, and she'd tried to cover up such innocent shock but he'd read it as clearly as a book and the smirk that graced his lips spoke a thousand words. Yes, they had said, you can make me feel that way. You can do that to me.
But what counts is that she wanted to.
***
The bullet had grazed her cheekbone. Heat flared. Blood flowed. And she still managed to kill. Perfectly, neatly. Lifeless eyes that would not let her go. His corpse rested on top of her like all the men she had ever seduced. Some of them she kissed. Some of them she killed. All of them she left. And when Tony tried to touch her hair she lashed out, panic-struck and terrified. And the shocked hurt in his eyes spoke volumes.
But you can kill so easily, Ziva. Why is this one getting to you? After all, you can kill so easily. It's what you do. It's all you're good for.
***
She had cried herself to sleep so many nights. She had sobbed till she was sick. She had curled up like a baby and let the sadness take over her brittle little body until she was as weak as a ragdoll. She detested crying in front of others.
Yet she had cried in front of Gibbs, on Gibbs. She often cringed with the memory. Such blatant frailty disgusted her. But she had cried - for herself, for him, for Ari. For her father and her sister. For Shannon and Kelly, faceless names that caused unimaginable pain to so silent a man. She cried for her own stupidity.
She cried for wanting.
***
When Tony fucked, she knew it. Sometimes, he told her. Sometimes, he hinted. But the times that stung the most were when he was silent and reserved. The times when it was not her business. Because that meant that it meant something, and never had she so wanted something to be meaningless than when Tony loved a girl that wasn't her.
***
She realises that she is growing older, and she is as alone as the day that she left her mothers' womb. Every day, the mirror seems to mock her. She knows she is attractive, but she also knows that her beauty is scornful and savage, and glitters sharply. She has seen happy women, and they are soft and glowing. And Ziva does not glow.
She wakes up alone, and always has done.
And as she lies in the slack arms of a man that does not understand, she wonders bitterly whether things have ever been different.
Argh! NOOOO! Computer's on the fritz (faint NCIS-reference alert) AGAIN, which means, firstly, that soon I'm going to be charged with modemocide ("Did you, or did you not, Miss Smith, hack your defenceless modem into 73 pieces with a meat cleaver?") but secondly, updates will, once again, be sporadic. I'm so sorry.
Also, on a lighter note, I'm celebrating my birthday on Sunday! Woohoo! Yeah, it's like a month early but yayyyy anyway!
OK. That's all from me. Enjoy Ziva's sleepless nights. Jeez, she really needs a break, methinks. Maybe some rampant sex with Tony will do the trick...