The lighting was low.
Only the small lights above the TV were shining down dully into the room, leaving a faint yellow glow that was just bright enough for the space they were in. Not dark, but not really light either.
Ziva preferred it that way.
Ever since she had gotten back, it was a tendency she found increasingly hard to evade. When she had been in the hospital, everything was always white, bright, clean, sterile…a change in ambience was a long time coming. Leaving Cairo and everything that went with it had been so appealing – to just leave all that behind. It was a relief she had not been expecting, when she first returned.
But now…now she didn't know.
Three days she'd been back in DC, and at first she'd been busy. Switching from the inpatient care of one hospital to the outpatient care of one on another continent was not a process without time or paperwork, and she'd been swamped with appointments and phone calls.
Now? Nothing.
Wake up early. Take some medication. Read. Fall asleep. Wake up again. Try to eat something. Take more medication. Fall asleep again. Try to walk around the living room. Get tired. Sit. Nothing. Go to bed.
And it had gotten no better with practice.
So here she was, lights dimmed and room quiet, sitting idly on her couch. She stayed that way for a while, subconsciously running her fingers over the rough surface of the cast encasing her left wrist. Killing time some would call it, but she'd done enough of that in the desert already.
(Or was it time that almost killed her?)
How useless and empty this felt, running herself down by doing nothing.
Without thought, without reluctance, she pulled forward one of the glasses resting on the table in front of the sofa, leftover from some other time. She reached for the bottle of vodka (cheap – Palmer left it here months ago, she remembered), pouring generously into her glass and determinedly ignoring the warning voice in her head.
(She'd spent enough time with that voice recently, too.)
She swallowed down the liquor, cringing slightly at the burn.
Lightly, she drummed her fingers against the glass, then reached behind her back and removed her Glock, placing it on the table. Another thing she'd taken up since she'd returned – carrying a sidearm around the house.
Empty glass in hand, she let her mind wander. Wander, but not remember. It was something she had been avoiding, going down that road. Remembering.
(Not forgetting either, that fucking voice chided. Not forgetting.)
One day.
It might have worked, with one more day. If she'd left one day sooner, she might have gotten there in time. Might have found the place much quicker. Might have seen Kadin's lies for what they really were. One more day, and she might not have to be sitting here alone. Her sister would be here with her, laughing the same laugh at the same things. Sharing stories about years of lost time, reminiscing about sneaking out of their summer home in Haifa. They'd be wounded and hurting and afraid maybe, but they'd be together.
One more day, and she might not have had to kill them all.
(You still would have, the voice reminded coldly.)
One more day, and she might have saved Tali.
Frowning, throat already burning from more than alcohol, she reached for the handle and poured herself another, wondering if this was what it felt like to destroy yourself from the inside out.
The darkness did not answer, and it felt strange, like it should bother her. Seven days in a dusty room, four of them with practically no light save for eyes and the glint of metal and the dawns she always missed. Night after night spent in agony of some kind, real or imagined. Should she not hate to spend any time in the dark?
She should. But she didn't.
She shouldn't be drinking with medication. But she was.
She shouldn't have let that man do what he did. But she did.
Why, why, had she trusted Kadin with the truth about Ari? She'd been away too long, had let the friendship grow cold, had stupidly thought a childhood closeness would equate to loyalty. Once, many many years ago, Ari had stoically told her that only dead bodies do not lie. Now, after what seemed a lifetime, after all this, she was not so sure he would say the same thing if he could see his own.
Officer Haswari, buried as a hero, a servant for Mossad and Israel. Not a killer. Not a manipulator. Not a martyr for his own cause, and his alone. Not dead at the hands of someone who had almost sacrificed everything to believe in him. Not a lie.
Moles and monsters. That was his parting legacy. His last rites.
Then what did that make her?
(Fuck you, voice.)
Would her body lie, if she died? What would they call her? A sister? She killed her brother, and her sister – as good as. A daughter? Her father inspired only apathy these days, and her mother was long gone, somewhere, far away from whatever she'd created. A soldier then? Internally, she scoffed. What good was a soldier after the war? And she'd certainly been no fighter in that fucking bunker when he –
(Stop. Stop.)
She went for the glass again, waiting dully for the numbing effect.
Why not just kill her right away? How hard would that have been? It could have been quick, clean, had they not wasted any time. One shot through the head, or maybe through the heart if they didn't want to clean her brains off the floor. Hit, dead. No in-between. No gasping breaths. Just one shot, and it would have been over. Like that. Just gone.
As if on reflex, she reached for the gun resting on the table, slowly, curiously, as if she could almost hear the bullet exploding out of the barrel. She turned it over in her palm, contemplating the mechanics of the metal sliding back, the finger against the trigger, the tiny pull that had such stopping power. How quick it could have been. How clean.
Idly, she fiddled with the small lever on the side, turning the safety off and then on again. It was an old habit she'd picked up on stakeouts, something that her coworkers had found unnerving. Out of all of them, Jen was the only one who thought it was also a little funny.
Jen.
Just as dead as all the rest.
(One more day and she might have saved her, too.)
Another swig of vodka slid down her throat. She couldn't taste it anymore.
This was supposed to be easier. She had doctors, all the time she needed, friends that brought her food. Coming home was supposed to be a start to healing, a step closer to the endgame of – what, going back to normal? How many times had she watched that luxury slip away?
Foolish, Ari would have called her. Foolish.
This was supposed to be easier.
(Only dead bodies do not lie, he had said, but he's dead and he lied.)
No one told her that coming home would drown her in the grief she could no longer push away. Fingers gripped tightly, she turned the gun over in her palm again, sweating into the grip. The metal was cool and heavy in her hand.
Safety off.
Hit, dead. How quick it could have been.
Without warning a pounding sounded at her door, causing her to jump slightly, eyes darting to the source of the noise. She kept her hand on her weapon, heart racing, refusing to relax until she recognized the muffled voice from the other side.
"Ziva, are you in there? It's Abby!" the voice yelled, still knocking loudly.
Quickly she rose to her feet, haphazardly sliding the gun onto the table, disturbed at how loud and unexpected this visitor was. Her head spun in a familiar haze as she made her way to the door, pulling it open slowly.
(Only then did she realize how badly her hands were shaking.)
"You are here! Good. You weren't answering your phone so I thought I'd check," explained Abby, striding inside confidently, taking no notice of the blank look she received in return.
Ziva closed the door quietly, her movements still measured, tentative. She turned back around to face her guest, who was brimming with her usual enthusiasm.
"Okay so I have some really good news. Like, really good news," Abby repeated excitedly, mistaking Ziva's slightly stunned silence for indifference.
She continued on.
"Gibbs caught Walker! They're bringing him into NCIS right now. Oh this is finally over," she sighed, rushing forward to catch Ziva in a tight embrace. It was only the surface of the door and rapidly failing willpower that stopped her from falling over.
This, Abby did notice. She retracted her grip, thinking she had been too rough with her not-yet-recovered friend, but the blank look on Ziva's face had not disappeared, and something else caught the attention of her nose.
The worry changed into a reluctant suspicion.
"Were you drinking?" she asked flatly, gaze flickering between the heavy eyes and slight flush of her normally skin.
Ziva said nothing.
"You were, weren't you?" asked Abby knowingly, the worry returning tenfold. She took the opportunity to look around the apartment, spotting the table by the sofa, where the bottle of vodka was lying open next to the glass.
Abby sighed again, a hint of sadness creeping.
"If anyone deserves a drink it's you, but you really should read the warning labels. Narcotics and alcohol? Terrible idea. How much did you have?"
Ziva swallowed, struggling to imitate what a healthy, sober person would do in this situation.
"I do not know."
"Wow. Okay," conceded Abby, looking around the room again, as if the walls would give her the answers she needed. "What were you doing?"
She barely received a shrug in response.
Abby's eyes were softening, the sadness melting to a fear she did not want to admit to.
"Why – why is your gun on the table like that?"
Had she responded, mumbled some lie about needing to feel safe, old habits, or cleaning to pass the time – something, Abby might have believed her. Had she said anything, anything at all, it might have worked.
"Ziva. Answer me."
But she didn't.
She did not say a single word.
(Literally could not.)
And with that silence, that last, debilitating silence, Abby knew.
Out of nowhere the back of her hand stung across Ziva's cheek, the unexpectedness of it leaving her head spinning even more. Slowly, she brought her balance back to center, shadowed eyes blurred by unshed tears.
Still, she kept her silence.
(Had she not mastered that in the desert as well?)
"What, you were just going to throw everything away?" accused Abby, unable to stop her own tears – angry, thick tears – from falling, too. "How could you even think of that?" she repeated, a strangling hurt lining her voice.
The stone cold expression never faltered, not for a second.
"I tried not to," she said lowly, trying in vain to steady herself and stop her still-shaking hands from giving her away.
(Only dead bodies do not lie.)
Abby rushed forward and pulled her friend into an embrace, holding on tighter than she possibly ever had. The palm that pressed against Ziva's cheek was meant as a sign of understanding and reconciliation, of grim reality giving way to the unnamed, unchanged.
"I'm not going to bury you. I won't do it," she affirmed, her words quiet, achingly calm.
Liquor and guilt and that persistent drowning feeling did not mix well. Ziva's stomach knotted and tightened as an unpleasant reminder, warm and threatening.
"I know."
It was strange, seeing the friend she had taken for granted smile through her tears, and it pulled at her heart far more than being hit across the face.
"Will you come with me? Gibbs is waiting for us."
Ziva nodded. Slow, defeated, like being drowned over and over and over –
"Okay. Onto NCIS."
(And still being alive.)
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