Title: Black Lines in Shadows
Author: vegawriters
Fandom: NCIS
Pairing: Brief mention of Ziva/Ray
Timeframe: Post Season 8
Rating: Teen
Disclaimer: I keep falling in love with beautiful characters already written by other people. If CBS is looking for a young, up and coming writer who will devote herself wholeheartedly to the process, I’m the right girl. Otherwise, I make no money from this. NCIS, Ziva, and Tony belong to other people. I’m just walking with them for a while.

Summary: Her tattoos are not black ink and shadowed, but invisible, stretched across her skin, telling a story that only she knows.



From your Door of Benevolence, cast your generosity upon me
Don't let me mix into the world of matters
Overlook my rebellion, show compassion
Take me, O Friend, to my goal - the ultimate destination
~From Beni Beni, as recorded by Niyaz. English translation.


Niyaz plays in the background while Abby dances around the apartment, her short skirt barely brushing across the top of her pale thighs. Ziva chuckles, watching from a spot near the window. Outside, a tropical storm is picking up speed; rain pounds against the window. Tony is gracious enough to clean the table; Palmer dashed back ahead of the storm to spend the night with his new girlfriend. Ducky felt the need to return home before the storm became dangerous. Gibbs sits still on her couch, sipping a glass of bourbon, his gaze focused on the empty glass McGee left behind on the coffee table when he bowed out to offer his soul to his muse. The dinner had been somber; thoughts are still on Franks and the losses of their own. What kind of people are they to sign up to take the risks they do every day? Only Abby’s lighthearted reaction to the music Ziva selected seems to ground them.

How far the two of them have come from those first few tense months when it didn’t take any kind of deep thinking to know that the beautiful young lab tech blamed Ziva for Caitlin’s death. Still not “best-friends-forever” as Abby might say, but there is an ease in how they work together. They trust each other. And as women in what America still considers work for men, they have a bond that the others on the team will never understand.

She also likes looking at Abby’s legs.

Outside, rain smashes onto buildings and tree branches scrape across brick. The storm is picking up and it is no longer safe to drive. Work and relationship protocol demands that she gives Gibbs her spare room and Tony the couch while she and Abby share her bed. She does not want to obey protocol. She wants to sit in her room with Tony, sipping wine and sharing secrets no one knows they share.

“Do you care if I change? I have an extra shirt in my purse. I always keep it in case McGee or someone spills on me at the lab.”

The questions startles Ziva but she and Gibbs both shake their head while Abby turns around to strip off the shirt she’s been wearing for the at least sixteen hours. In the dim light of the apartment, shadows dance with Abby’s tattoos and Ziva stares at them in wonder. Even Gibbs glances over, his eyes lingering, and Ziva wonders if his father figure protection of her is much more complex than any of them suspect. Not that relationships between fathers and daughters are ever anything but complex.

Abby is still rambling. “Once, Gibbs let me borrow one of his marine shirts. Do you remember that? I still have it and I wear it to bed sometimes. That isn’t weird is it? I just like being close to you.”

“It isn’t weird, Abs.” Is the soft, almost silent response.

Ziva agrees. She wouldn’t mind one of Gibbs old Marine shirts to wear to bed some nights. At first, her attraction to the older team leader was impossible to push aside, but soon the lust morphed into affection and finally a love that a daughter can only have for a father. She does not know what she would do without him. It is a silly admission, so thinks, to realize that she still needs a father, but she does. And so she has Gibbs.

There is a clatter in the kitchen and Ziva moves from her pose and hurries to join Tony. At the doorway she turns, watching as the other woman pulls a black tank top over the intricate cross on her back.

Abby wears hers tattoos like trophies, like soldiers display scars. Ziva is always happy to show off her scars; she walks taller and prouder because of what she has survived. But her tattoo is private. Her tattoo is nothing to be shared with anyone other than someone who she wants to let know her intimately.

“Are you okay, Tony?” She peeks into the kitchen. His shirt is wet.

“I just dropped a glass. Don’t worry. Nothing broke. Go back to the others.” He stares at her and she smiles softly before turning back to the guests. They are only friends, friends who know each other far too well, but there is an intimacy that dances between them, one that could spark into something more than friendship if he had not been the one to kill Michael. She has forgiven him, but the memories of that time are still too close and she still has not wrapped her mind around his willing sacrifice of his own life to save hers in Somalia. Could he really not live without her?

“Do you want wine, Abby?” Ziva moves to the wine rack. She has half a bottle of Cabernet left and at Abby’s affirmative, she pulls the stopper free and pours the blood red liquid into two crystal glasses. When she hands Abby the glass, she cannot help but stare. The tank top is tight, clinging to Abby’s breasts. She is cold. Ziva hands over the wine.

Ziva loves making love to American women. They come unhinged in bed, released from the false sense of propriety their society places on them. For as uptight as her own culture can be, she is amazed at America’s preoccupation with keeping people in their proper places. Abby is beautiful and if workplace relations were not so complicated, she would be willing to make a pass at her, but she has a feeling that McGee’s barely concealed feelings would end up putting her into an early grave. So instead she focuses on the black lines on Abby’s neck. “Why did you get your first tattoo?”

“Because I could,” was Abby’s light hearted reply. She pulls her pigtails free, brushing her hair and rebraiding them. Ziva sips at her wine, watching Abby, waiting for a real answer. “It was in protest.” She points to the spider web on her neck, “This is a variation on a common prison tattoo and I was in college and to protest treatment of death row prisoners, I got a similar tat. I’m not so sure how I feel about it anymore, but I keep it as a reminder. At least right now. The others followed.” Abby smirks. “Why, you thinking about it for yourself?”

Ziva’s “No!” was out of her throat before she could breathe. “No,” she said again. “It’s … frowned upon in my culture. I don’t have a tattoo.” Gibbs looks at her sharply, seeing through her hasty and clumsy lie. Behind her, she knows Tony has emerged from the kitchen. She glances away and waits for her moment to reveal her own truth. She asked Abby to reveal something, she should honor the agreement. Abby saves her.

“It’s frowned upon in this one too. Clearly I’m a criminal because of my tats, you know. Security guards follow me in stores.”

“It’s the skirts, Abby.” Tony walks across the room and pours himself a glass of wine. Ziva is rooted to her spot, her eyes on the window and the storm outside.

Before she can speak, to start to correct her lie of omission, Gibbs offers up his own explanation. “There are a couple of reasons that the Jews don’t really approve of tattooing, Abs. But there’s one really big one.” Ziva shifts uncomfortably, waiting to see if Abby understands. Abby stared at her for a long moment before her eyes grew wide.

“Oh my god, Ziva. I didn’t even think.”

“Don’t feel bad. Most people don’t.” She feels responsible for the other woman’s sudden discomfort.

Abby collapses onto the couch and leans against Gibbs, who puts a gentle arm around her. They look at each other for a long time in silence before Abby suddenly leans forward, unzips her boots, and pulls her feet free of the three inch platforms. She leans back again, tucking a knee up under her chin, and again Gibbs puts his arm around her. “Did you lose family?” Abby’s voice is childlike.

“Yes.” Ziva shrugs and stares into a point on the wall. “I don’t know what’s worse, knowing the past and being part of the generations after, or knowing that holocausts still happen around the world and feeling helpless to stop it.”

“Is that why you joined Mossad?”

“I joined Mossad because it was what I was meant to do. Some people get married. Some people stay in the military.” She smiles, “Some people become NCIS agents.” Gibbs chuckles at that and takes a long sip of his drink. “I wanted to serve in my own way.” She thinks of her tattoo, hidden from the world. Tony knows where it is. Michael. Ari was there when she was inked, shadows dancing in the dusty tent, the buzz of the battery operated needle lost in the wind in the desert. Black lines and shadow, a permanent reminder of her past, present, and unknown future. It was freeing, to shake off the painful history, to reclaim ownership of her body, and yet there is a sense of guilt she carries. She wonders what her mother’s mother would have said about Tradition.

Standing at the window, watching the storm ravish the streets of Washington, she is back in that tent, proving to her older brother that she is not merely her father’s pawn. She is marking her skin, is laughing in the face of authority figures that still haunt her people. God’s chosen ones still wander, lost, angry, beggars even in a land that should be theirs. If the United States, who claims to protect them, cannot educate its citizens to distinguish between Arabs and Jews and Extremists even while pointing fingers at these very people as the cause of their problems, how can Israel ever shake the burdens that keep them as servants? Maybe they should not have fled the Pharaoh. Maybe all these years they are still being punished for disobeying.

It’s silly to think that, she knows. But sometimes, her mind plays tricks on her sensibilities.

The song changes and in the reflection from the window, she watches Abby stand and return to dancing. The light plays off her tattoos and she moves like a modern belly dancer – all legs and arms but somehow, her body carries the movement.

Ziva smiles.

“Do you dance, Ziva?”

She nods. “Yes. In traditional ways and in your American ways.”

“Our American ways just lead to sex.”

Ziva laughs. “So do the traditional ways.”

Abby stops bouncing and grins. “Good point.” Gibbs is laughing.

Ziva wants to join her in the dancing, but there is nothing light in her soul. She thinks of Somalia and Israel and the lands that will forever fight over a few scarce resources. She thinks of Michael and Ray and Tony and Ari and her father. Mike Franks’ ghost lingers in her doorway. Her tattoos are not black ink and shadowed, but invisible, stretched across her skin, telling a story that only she knows.

Tony is behind her and she leans into him, not caring that their boss is watching. She wants him to spend the night with her. They will talk and laugh and hold each other and he will not cross the line they have crossed before. She is in a serious relationship with a man she loves. He respects that. So he will hold her while they sleep and in the morning, Tony will brush her hair back and kiss her and walk away and they will meet again on Monday and tease and flirt and he will still be the only one on the team who knows where her tattoo is.

“You should dance,” he whispers in her ear, his words caressing her more than hands ever could. She shivers and shakes her head, not wanting to perform for him in any public setting. Gibbs would look the other way if Tony joined her in her bedroom; he will not if she seduces him.

Abby is dancing for all of them, her tattoos spinning around her, a cloud of memory and future hopes, of wisdom and pain and choices made. An honoring of death as much as it is a part of life. As she turns, she winks, and Ziva starts to laugh. The music behind them speaks of lost memory and benevolent gods. In her living room, she hears the voices of the ghosts around her.

Somewhere in there, she hears herself. Hears her ghost from life past urging her to be more than the cold Mossad assassin or the assimilated immigrant.

Ziva sets her wine down on the end table, steps away from Tony, and begins to dance.