"Honey I'm home," Tony cooed, in that exaggerated voice, as he slipped through the door of their apartment, his backpack hanging off his shoulder, and a takeout bag held to his chest.
She watched, as he dumped his backpack next to the couch, put the take-out bag on the kitchen counter, and draped his jacket over the dining room table, even though they had perfectly functional coat-rack, which was not cluttered with winter coats yet.
"Hi," he said, moving toward the couch. The couch she had not moved from for over an hour. He placed a quick peck on her cheek. "How was your day?"
It was all so normal. Like a scene from one of those sitcoms he was always trying to convince her to watch. She never could get past the bright lights and canned laughter.
"You okay?" he asked.
His voice was soft, and kind. He was so kind.
He could tell she was struggling to tread water, and was offering her a lifeline.
"I will be," she said softly.
A cramp rolled through her stomach. Her period was coming. The first since the miscarriage. The ache ran deep. This too would pass.
He opened his mouth, to say something, but the thought got stuck. This had been happening more often. The latest bump in the road, was a hard one to navigate, especially together.
"Thank you for getting dinner," she said, reaching for his hand and giving it a light squeeze. "What did you end up getting?"
A flash of hurt registered on his features, he hurt when she hurt. He hurt when she tried to hide from herself.
"Falafel," he said, moving from the couch, toward the kitchen. "From that place you like."
The place with the Palestinian flag hanging behind the counter. The place where the mother of the two men who owned it, would wish her a Happy Hanukkah, because she too had visited the beaches of Haifa. The place, where the fresh Falafel tasted just like the falafel stand down the road from her apartment in Tel Aviv.
"You chose Falafel over pizza?" she asked, as she got up from the couch, teasing the throw blanket from her lap. It had felt heavy, like this fog.
When he had called her on his way home, she had asked him to pick up some dinner, and that he could pick whatever he liked. He had asked if she was okay, then too. His gut was tingling, with concern.
"Yeah," he said, with a smile, as she moved toward him. "Thought it might cheer you up."
She found her eyes moving to the floor. Had she been so silly, to think he had not noticed the low mood that had hung over her for the past few days.
"It is good falafel," Ziva declared, as Tony darted around the kitchen, finding the plates and cutlery.
She thought of the sheer tons of falafel she ate in the months after her mother died. Aunt Nettie, still swallowed up by grief would stop by the apartment on the way to her nursing shift, with take-out for Rivka's forgotten children, because Eli was not about to step up for his motherless daughters.
"Yeah," Tony said, as they walked toward the dining table. Ziva leading the way.
She sat down at the table, wincing slightly. These cramps felt like the ones she had suffered in that sociology lecture, before she found blood in her underwear. Before the evening spent in the emergency room, the smell of bleach making her nostrils ache. Before the silence, when the doctor tried to find the fetal heartbeat. The hope that they would, proved futile.
She knew these cramps were not the same, but her body often ached with memories. Years after that summer in the desert, she still felt the phantom whips from Saleem's filthy belt. She could still smell the cheap leather.
"I will cook tomorrow," Ziva said, holding the pita pocket in her hands, but not yet taking a bite. "Whatever you like."
He was greedily eating his falafel, with a piece of shredded lettuce falling onto his chest, and hummus being marooned on his check.
"If Gibbs lets us out at a reasonable hour, we could cook together," he said, holding the pita bread in his hand, and reaching his tongue up to his lip, to try and find the humus that was on his cheek. "I like it, when we cook together."
She remembered that book about love languages, that Breena had given them via Jimmy, when Tony and Ziva announced their engagement, even though they had not had an official engagement party. Neither of them had read it with much seriousness, but had completed the quiz. Both valued time spent together, as a love language. Not surprising considering their pasts.
She liked it when they cooked together too.
She took a bite of the pita bread, tasting the falafel. The falafel was perfect, not burnt. The humus was perfect, with just enough of a hint of tahini.
"Maybe we could make spaghetti," he continued, trying to get a smile from her. "We could even make the sauce from scratch."
She darted her eyes out the window. It was October already, the leaves were falling, and the air was crisp. The apartment however, was too warm. Stifling.
"Ellie called me today," Ziva declared, turning back to face him.
"Ellie," he echoed, trying to make sense of what she had told him. "Why did Bish call you?"
I know this is weird, Ellie had said as her voice came on the phone line, but I thought you might want someone to talk too. Someone who has been through it too.
She opened her mouth to speak, but the words got lost.
"She did mention something about Krav Maga," Tony uttered, answering his own question. Filling in the silence. "Guess, she wants a distraction at the moment.."
Ellie and her husband had quietly separated, as summer pittered out. There was no dramatic event, or third party, but the realization that the two of them had drifted too far apart, to ever come back together. Jake had moved out. Ellie was promised an easy divorce.
"I suppose so," Ziva said, a guilty feeling stewing in her stomach. "That is not all she wanted to talk about."
I know you'll tell Tony, Ellie had said, twenty minutes after the conversation started. It's okay. You two should talk about this kind of stuff. Jake and I never did. We just went on as if it never happened.
Ellie was younger than Ziva by eight months, but in that moment Ziva saw Ellie as the older one. The wiser one.
"Oh," Tony said, cocking his head. Confusion etched on his face. He shifted in his seat. He was so uncomfortable. He wanted to know everything about everyone. It made him a good cop.
"Ellie called because she thought I might want to talk about the miscarriage," Ziva said, sucking in a big gust of breath, then slowly letting it out. "She has had one too."
He stopped eating, placing the pita on the plate. His mouth hung ajar, as he computed the new information.
"When?" he asked. His twenty years of investigating coming up.
"Before we knew her," Ziva said relaying the facts in a clinical tone. Similar to one she used to use, when relaying the facts of a case. "About a year and a half ago."
The same summer that Tony and Ziva had spent galavanting around Israel, unlocking secrets or her past and getting closer, Ellie and Jake were suffering a personal tragedy. They were grieving the almost. Hopes had been dashed.
"That explains a lot," he muttered, bringing the pita back to his mouth. He had swallowed the surprising news now.
"What do you mean?" she asked, frowning slightly.
"I kinda told everyone together," Tony started. "Well McGee already knew, but it was easier that way, I didn't want to keep having the same conversation with everyone. Anyway, Ellie got really quiet, and never talked about it. I thought it was because she didn't really know you, she's still getting used to the whole oversharing team dynamic."
You guys are so close, Ellie had said all those months ago, when Ziva first met her. Ellie had been tipsy and honest.
"It seems it was a bit more than that," she murmured.
"Yeah," he echoed. "Talking to her, did it help?"
Her face flushed.
Its weird, Ellie said, as they settled into comfortable conversation. People always say its really common, but nobody ever talks about it.
Ziva's throaty chuckle had filled the line then.
"It did," she said. "It really did."
It wasn't planned Ellie had started I wanted to wait for a couple more years. Jake was all gung-ho. But, I didn't feel ready. I felt like it would effect my life more than his.
Ellie's words had stunned Ziva, because as she heard them, because it felt like those words were own. Somebody finally got it.
"Good," he said. "That's really good."
He reached across the table and took her hand. He offered her a warm smile. A full moon of a smile.
"We talked for a while," Ziva said, feeling the wash of relief. Glad to finally be speaking about it. "She does want do Krav Maga, so we may talk again."
I still very guilty, Ziva had admitted with tears pricking her eyes. It felt like it happened, because I was too worried about what would change. I was more concerned about my classes.
"Good," Tony repeated. "It's good."
"I still feel guilty," Ziva admitted.
The guilt ebbed and flowed. Sometimes the voice of reason, convinced her that it was just something that had happened, nothing she could have done would have changed that. Sometimes that voice got muted.
Tony's face fell.
"Like it was all my fault," Ziva continued.
He let out a breath.
"It wasn't your fault," he said softly, rubbing her knuckles. "I don't blame you, nobody blames you."
How many times, had he said that. How many times had she tried to tell herself that. How many times had it fallen on death ears.
"I know," she said softly. "But it still feels that way."
Time would heal. She knew this. But for now it just hurt. It hurt so much.
"It helped to talk to Ellie," Ziva said after a few moments of quiet. "She had similar feelings, that was comforting. It helped to know that someone else had been through it."
He nodded.
"I'm glad we're talking about this," he said softly.
She nodded too. They had made promises to keep talking about things, especially the difficult things. In recent weeks, they had fallen back into old habits. Of not talking. Of hiding. Both from themselves and each other.
"I thought I was moving forward," Ziva said quietly. Admitting it to herself, finally. "But, now it feels like I have moved backwards. Like that game with the snakes and the ladders."
The path to healing was never linear. She knew this.
"Talk to me," he whispered. Begging her to let him in.
"My period is coming, the first one since-," Ziva said, swallowing thickly. "The cramps feel similar, and it is bringing back memories."
She could remember the pain, so severe that it distracted her from her class. She could remember the shock of the unexpected blood in her underwear.
His face crumpled, with pain. There was so much pain.
She remembered that busy ER. The drugs they gave her to ensure the miscarriage completed without complications. The well meaning nurse, who had said that miscarriages were usually a sign of future fertility.
"Is there anything I can do?" he asked. "To make it better."
How badly he wanted to help. How badly he wanted to make it all better.
"You are here," Ziva said softly. "That is helping."
So many people had not been there for her.
"Ellie and Jake are splitting up," he said, after a few quiet seconds.
Splitting up was an understatement. Jake and Ellie were married, they had made the promise of forever.
"Yes," Ziva replied.
He opened his mouth again, wanting to speak.
"They only had their miscarriage like a year ago," he finally said. He did not want their miscarriage to split them up too.
"I do not think, they are not splitting because of the miscarriage," Ziva replied, reading between the lines, and bringing the hidden conversation out of the shadows.
"It's probably part of it," Tony muttered.
They could not possibly know if the miscarriage was part of it. They were outside observers to Jake and Ellie's marriage, and did not know either of them well enough, to make such inferences. So much would be bubbling away under the surface. Maybe, separating was the best thing for Jake and Ellie to do. To cut ties, rather than plodding along in a dying marriage, while the bitterness seeped into them.
"Maybe," she offered. Giving him the lifeline, and trying to soothe his fears. "But, there were other things too."
"They stopped finding things to talk about," Tony reported. "All they talked about was work, then when Ellie's security clearance changed."
She knew what he was talking about, he had told her about the conversation he had with Ellie all those months ago. She also knew what he trying to say. He was talking about them. What if they stopped finding things to talk about?
"That's not going to happen to us," she whispered. Offering reassurances.
It was a plea to the universe. Begging for loud dinner tables, car trips filled with laughter, and long nights of talking before bed. Hoping the silence never formed between them, building a wall they could never tear down.
"We won't let it," he said, with a smile.
Til death do them part.
A/N: I don't own a thing.
Thanks so much for the reads, reviews and faves, both new and recurring.
The next chapter will feature Senior and Tony talking about things.
It's a long weekend here, so I want to have a shorter break between chapters.
I know in cannon Ellie didn't split from her husband until like a whole year later, but at this point this fic barely resembles cannon. Also, I wanted Ziva to have someone to talk too, but I haven't seen enough of Ellie to write her character.