The others on the team had though her cold and unfeeling, and almost oblivious to the fact that Gibbs was fighting for his life. What they didn't know was how tenuously she was keeping her controlled facade in place. She couldn't let herself think that he might die, she had to focus on the job. Because it was all she could do for him, all he would want her to do. There was a terrorist to catch and lives to save, and he would have been the first one to give her a smack on the head if he found her waiting helplessly by his bedside instead of doing the job. So she put all her emotions in a little box locked in her heart and did the job.
But those carefully packed away feelings kept sneaking out on her. As she watched the rain through the bombed out porthole she flashed back to another rainy day when they had slow danced in the basement to some sentimental country song on the radio about there being holes in the floor of heaven, and before she could stop them the words, "It's raining," came out of her mouth and she smiled, lost in a memory.
Tony was the only one not to question her actions, but then again, he was busy holding up his own facade. The look he gave her when she offered to escort the ship's captain to NCIS let her know that he saw right through her, he didn't know all the details or the reasons behind them, but he understood that she couldn't go see Gibbs in the hospital.
She tried unsuccessfully to use humor to diffuse the tension with Abby with dramatic results. And as she splashed water on her face in the bathroom with Abby and Ducky's words echoing through her mind all the fear and anguish came dangerously close to erupting. But she bit back the tears and tried to find a deeper place within herself to store those damnable emotions.
When the call came through that Gibbs was conscious she wanted to hit her knees right there in the bullpen and thank God and whichever of his angels had protected Gibbs, but instead she closed her eyes for a moment and sent her offering of thanksgiving silently.
The news that Gibbs had no memories of the past fifteen years did not concern her, she felt confident that what they shared would transcend his amnesia, and that once his arms were around her again that the memories of their hidden moments would wash over him.
The frantic pace of the case was wearing on her and it was only through Tony's forethought of taking all of the ammunition out of her weapon that saved that miserable ship captain's life at his mention of the bomb.
When they finally put the pieces together but realized that there was still one piece missing, a piece that only Gibbs could give them, Ziva steeled her resolve and visted his darkened hospital room. The smell of burnt flesh was faint in the room and she saw the damage to his face, but not his eyes. Still as blue and clear as ever, her heart broke more than a little when there was absolutely no flicker of recognition in them. And as her tears finally broke, she wanted to remind him about them, about their secret, but she couldn't find the words, afraid that if she told him that he wouldn't believe her and would pull away from her. And that would be the one thing out of everything that had happened that would kill her inside. So instead she dug for another powerful memory they shared. Ari. Kate.
She saw it in his eyes the moment that those memories resurfaced. And his hand on her face was warm and gentle as he tried to process the flood in his mind. And her own emotional dam burst completely when he pulled her in and held her through her tears. They were the same arms, and she felt his familiar heartbeat, and his hand was stroking her hair like he always did, but there was something missing, that spark between them, the unmistakable pull they had towards each other. It was gone, just gone. And when Ziva realized it, her tears took on a new meaning without him even being aware.
In the end none of it made a difference, the ship exploded and souls were lost. Ziva saw something break inside him, and she wanted to comfort him, to comfort him like they had comforted each other so many times before after difficult cases, but it wasn't her he went to. And when he came back down from the Director's office and collected his things from Tony only to turn around and give him back his weapon and badge she felt her heart finally shatter all the way.
He said his good byes to them all and he stopped in front of her. And for a brief moment he paused and she thought she saw a flash of... something in his eyes, recognition maybe or a shadow of a memory, something. And she caught the little quirk of a grin when she called him Jethro for the first time in public, as if remembering that she had never done that before.
But then he was gone, out of the building, out of the city, and ultimately even out of the country. And the reality that he wasn't coming back set it.
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She visited his house once after he went to Mexico. She curled up on his bed that they had made love on and slept on, and made each other laugh on, and wrapped herself around his pillow and cried herself to sleep. In the morning she hurriedly grabbed her clothes out of her drawer. In her haste she didn't see a little scrap of pink flutter to the floor and disappear under the front of the dresser.
As she left and closed the door behind her, she expected never to return to his house, and as she turned the lock on the door, she also turned the final lock on the box in her heart marked "Gibbs".
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tbc...
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