Fic - From Ashes: Part 1: Tried to Escape
Title: From Ashes
Rating: PG
Word Count: 652
Characters: Tony DiNozzo & Ziva David, with cameos by Gibbs, McGee, & Abby
Summary: Ziva battles to collect the pieces of herself Somalia stole, and let those she'd thought she'd lost fill in the gaps she can't by herself. A short post-ep to 7x01, "Truth and Consequences."
From Ashes
There was nothing there, hiding in those cloudy dark eyes. Nothing to protect, nothing to preserve, nothing connecting with the barest ghost of a smile Tony had thought he’d seen lend life back to her face. Gibbs wordlessly replaced McGee at Ziva’s side, crossed his arm with Tony’s at her back, and together they led her into the Somalia sun.
><><
She lay in the darkness, lost to the demons that wouldn’t allow her to answer the phone. She didn’t have it in her to cross the room, to bridge the gap to her old life that waited on the other end of the receiver. Ziva curled in closer, knees to her chest, the ringing too loud, too thick and heavy in her ears.
The voicemail picked up Tony’s voice for the fifth time that night. She closed her eyes against it. The demons she could deal with. Not him. Not yet.
><><
Days passed, thin and brittle like the pages he ripped from his calendar. They ate him alive. She needed time, but Tony didn’t have the luxury of patience. He needed to know. He needed to see her, to touch her, her shoulder or her hand warm and solid under his fingers. Because for all he knew, she may never have been saved at all.
He waited. It killed him.
><><
When she finally picked up the phone, it was Abby she dialed. The familiar voice that answered sounded harsh to unused ears, the words too fast, and Ziva replied in a voice that felt too rough and slow by comparison. The pauses stretched long between their words. It was then that Abby softened.
“You’re only human, Ziva,” she said. “We’ll wait as long as you need us to.”
“Thank you,” Ziva whispered.
><><
Again he knocked. Again he went unanswered.
Tony leaned his forehead against the door. He’d expected to feel something, a burning in his eyes, an ache in his chest. Something. Anything. Numbness obliged him instead.
“Please,” he begged. The sigh echoed too loudly, hollow against the hallway walls. “Answer me.”
One second lingered into five. The door opened.
><><
She’d expected this. She’d planned out how best to delay the inevitable. But nothing, nothing could have prepared her for it.
Tony was silent when she met his eyes, just stood there as blank as she for age-long seconds. She could read nothing in his face. A wan smile turned up one corner of his mouth.
“Hello, Ziva.”
><><
Tony braced for her to shut the door to him. Instead she did no such thing.
Instead, Ziva just sighed.
He saw no fight in her anymore. Just the same empty, clouded eyes that had haunted him since Salim had pulled the hood from over her head. But she was here, in front of him for the first time since their return. Finally, he could feel relief.
><><
He hung back before her, never taking his eyes from her face. The move was hers to make, and Ziva was thankful, however thinly, for his allowing her that much.
He waited until she stepped into him, slid her arms beneath his. She tried so hard to touch him as little as possible, until Tony closed the last of the distance himself. She pressed her face into his shoulder, counted one, two, three beats before he brought his arms around her. Her fists grasped the shirt at his back like a lifeline.
><><
Ziva had no recollection of being lifted, but the next thing she’d internalized was being settled on the couch in Tony’s arms. No words passed between them, no movement, no tightening of arms around each other. She never loosened her grip on his shirt; he never brushed aside the dark hair that had fallen over her face and into his.
Her fight was long from over, but just for now, she thought, it seemed so far away.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 652
Characters: Tony DiNozzo & Ziva David, with cameos by Gibbs, McGee, & Abby
Summary: Ziva battles to collect the pieces of herself Somalia stole, and let those she'd thought she'd lost fill in the gaps she can't by herself. A short post-ep to 7x01, "Truth and Consequences."
From Ashes
There was nothing there, hiding in those cloudy dark eyes. Nothing to protect, nothing to preserve, nothing connecting with the barest ghost of a smile Tony had thought he’d seen lend life back to her face. Gibbs wordlessly replaced McGee at Ziva’s side, crossed his arm with Tony’s at her back, and together they led her into the Somalia sun.
><><
She lay in the darkness, lost to the demons that wouldn’t allow her to answer the phone. She didn’t have it in her to cross the room, to bridge the gap to her old life that waited on the other end of the receiver. Ziva curled in closer, knees to her chest, the ringing too loud, too thick and heavy in her ears.
The voicemail picked up Tony’s voice for the fifth time that night. She closed her eyes against it. The demons she could deal with. Not him. Not yet.
><><
Days passed, thin and brittle like the pages he ripped from his calendar. They ate him alive. She needed time, but Tony didn’t have the luxury of patience. He needed to know. He needed to see her, to touch her, her shoulder or her hand warm and solid under his fingers. Because for all he knew, she may never have been saved at all.
He waited. It killed him.
><><
When she finally picked up the phone, it was Abby she dialed. The familiar voice that answered sounded harsh to unused ears, the words too fast, and Ziva replied in a voice that felt too rough and slow by comparison. The pauses stretched long between their words. It was then that Abby softened.
“You’re only human, Ziva,” she said. “We’ll wait as long as you need us to.”
“Thank you,” Ziva whispered.
><><
Again he knocked. Again he went unanswered.
Tony leaned his forehead against the door. He’d expected to feel something, a burning in his eyes, an ache in his chest. Something. Anything. Numbness obliged him instead.
“Please,” he begged. The sigh echoed too loudly, hollow against the hallway walls. “Answer me.”
One second lingered into five. The door opened.
><><
She’d expected this. She’d planned out how best to delay the inevitable. But nothing, nothing could have prepared her for it.
Tony was silent when she met his eyes, just stood there as blank as she for age-long seconds. She could read nothing in his face. A wan smile turned up one corner of his mouth.
“Hello, Ziva.”
><><
Tony braced for her to shut the door to him. Instead she did no such thing.
Instead, Ziva just sighed.
He saw no fight in her anymore. Just the same empty, clouded eyes that had haunted him since Salim had pulled the hood from over her head. But she was here, in front of him for the first time since their return. Finally, he could feel relief.
><><
He hung back before her, never taking his eyes from her face. The move was hers to make, and Ziva was thankful, however thinly, for his allowing her that much.
He waited until she stepped into him, slid her arms beneath his. She tried so hard to touch him as little as possible, until Tony closed the last of the distance himself. She pressed her face into his shoulder, counted one, two, three beats before he brought his arms around her. Her fists grasped the shirt at his back like a lifeline.
><><
Ziva had no recollection of being lifted, but the next thing she’d internalized was being settled on the couch in Tony’s arms. No words passed between them, no movement, no tightening of arms around each other. She never loosened her grip on his shirt; he never brushed aside the dark hair that had fallen over her face and into his.
Her fight was long from over, but just for now, she thought, it seemed so far away.