Professional Fangirl

when i got to sit down and actually think about what i wanted to talk about in the last chapter of anyway don't be a stranger i thought about how a third person would be able to dissect her character and flaws from the outside better than both of them being blind in the middle of the hurricane

i thought about how clear that is throughout the entire series: how the love they have for each other is so obvious to everyone seeing them from the outside, but not to either one of them, and how much a therapist (thank you spinoff for being evolved enough to add that) would be such a great tool for them to finally see that and for me to giddily speak through his voice explaining 'see?? this is how i see these characters'

which made me think about how i don't think i'll be able to do this from tony's point of view, simply because i don't think he would believe in therapy (okay, there's that scene in 1x07, but idc. in my head he is still very cynical about that) but that also takes away my opportunity to break him down in a way that i could with ziva

hence this long ass post

*Also an essay on how in-character the spinoff writing was.*

for @thedisdainfullysilentvisitor by request :)

Ziva's father wanted her to learn never to feel or show her feelings, because not having feelings turns a person into a weapon.

Her training is: show as little as possible. Anything you do show will be used against you. Between that and everything traumatic that's happened to her, everything dark she was made to do, Tony's right that it's actually astonishing how loving and good she is. A lot of people probably would've become cynical about people in general, manipulative, immune to suffering. But she isn't. He really meant that - he is in awe of her (even though he was holding other stuff back). This is one path that Ziva never took - she never became like her father.

But it still scared her to feel her feelings. It scared her to believe she might deserve something good out of life. There was still her father's voice in her head, the voice that says of her time captive in Somalia "It is justified". The voice of the people around her who called her a robot and calculating and cold-hearted, because they didn't see that pretending to be robotic sometimes was the only way to survive the life she was handed.

Ziva when we met her pretended to always be fine. But at NCIS there were slowly more and more cracks. She became friends with these people, and then they became her family, and they saw that she wasn't really a robot, that there was so much heart in there.

But it was still scary for her. Did she deserve having a family who loved her like this? A real father figure in Gibbs, and siblings in Abby and McGee and Palmer, and a wise uncle in Ducky? And Tony, who actually saw her, and loved her, and not just her facade? Much better to date other men, for example, whom she didn't love quite so much, and who didn't know her so deeply. Less to be broken that way. Less to hurt.

Ultimately, yes, she wanted to get away from a job that was tragedy and death, but I also think her father's voice in her head told her, you don't deserve this family, anyway. That's what happened in this moment in 1x09: this is Ziva trying not to feel her feelings. She's the one who has to be the weapon. As I've said, I think this is why she didn't tell Tony about Tali and wouldn't let him help her on the run (though not consciously). She was in a dark place and couldn't imagine that she deserved someone else protecting her, loving her, forgiving her.

This is the other path Ziva could've taken. She could've just given up, as she says.

But she never did. And that's what's incredible about Ziva. She's been through so much, but as Cote de Pablo says "she just keeps fighting", she always believes there's something more to life than this. Even though she's afraid of her own happiness, and isn't sure she deserves it, she never gives up on it either.

So, here she is in 2020, back with her family, not so sure that she deserves this, that she can be this happy, not sure that Tony and maybe even Tali will ever forgive her, but trying anyway, wanting it anyway, being happy anyway.

And through therapy, she learned to make that voice in her head quieter. It's okay to want to be happy. And she gets there with Tali.

But how it must have felt, to have her relationship with Tony crumble. How it must have felt, to know they still loved each other, and to think, this was something that her own actions, her father's voice in her head, her depression, took from her, for good. There was a sad acceptance to the way she reacted. It was not depression, not the thought that she deserved this pain, but it was a realization that she was just going to have to learn to live with it. He loves her, and knows her better than anyone, but he tried so hard to forgive her, and he just couldn't. And she had to let him go.

What's stunning about Ziva, though, is that she still let herself feel it, even when it hurts, even when he's pretending not to see it, even when she's pretending she's fine to him and to herself.

There's this little moment in 1x01 on the bench, when Tony says something about therapy, and I swear there's this tiny flicker of hope in her. Maybe he'll deal with his stuff? Let them talk and work through things and maybe even forgive each other? And after everything she's been through, for her to still allow herself that flicker of hope? Wow.

There are moments throughout those first few episodes, when she lets herself hope, just a little. He let her go in 2013 because that was what she needed, and she let him go in 2021 because he needed that from her, but now, maybe she is allowed to fight for him the way he's always fought for her, and maybe he'll let her.

That hope alternates with moments of dejection, of thinking it's never going to happen. The whiplash of that. Poor Ziva. Smiling and laughing with him, having him touch her, in a wedding dress no less, and then cutting him off because it's terrifying, because what if he breaks her heart again?

Kissing him, and then having him say, feelings I'd do almost anything to run away from.

And here's the third path she could've taken. She could've hidden from him. She could've refused to open herself up to this again, because it hurts, because she loves him so much and he knows her so well and he can really, really hurt her.

But she doesn't. She's such a softie over him. Even though she doesn't know if he'll ever forgive her. Look at her loving him anyway, and showing it. In the original show, she didn't touch him with the tenderness of a lover very often. It was too scary. But she's grown and healed since then, and it isn't perfect, and she stumbles sometimes, but this is Ziva how she is meant to be. Ziva, who believes she deserves love, and loves people fiercely, and shows them.

All it takes is a little bit of vulnerability from him; a willingness to show her when he's not okay, to show her that he still feels something for her, and it is suddenly the most natural thing in the world for her to touch his neck or his thigh or his arm to comfort him. To light up at his cheesy flirting, and cuddle in bed, and let them steal a moment of happiness in the midst of fighting. To let him see how terrified she was that she might have lost him, and let him hold her.

And really, for someone who was taught not to show feelings, who was taught to behave as though ends always justify means, and who was taught never to trust; who has seen so much death and sadness, and lost her whole family, and was held and tortured, and had to send her baby across the ocean from her, and survived on the run on her own for years, and believed she was the reason she and Tony could never be together...it's pretty incredible, how much she lets herself feel.

It was so rewarding, in the spinoff, to see it finally work out for her. To see her exquisitely happy, and feeling her feelings, and learning to fear them less and less even though they sometimes hurt. To see her believing, in more and more moments, that she deserves happiness, and to see her accepting that even if feeling things means the possibility of loss and pain, she wants to feel anyway.

*the beginning is light on gifs because it's hard to find ones of specific old NCIS episodes*

*also another essay on how in-character the spinoff was*

@adtiva Tony's version!

Tony when he meets Ziva: the class clown, the playboy (in theory, anyway).

He's a lonely man. He doesn't let most people get to know him that well, least of all the women he dates. He has that single bed. He works; he goes home; he works some more.

He is funny, and a jokester. That part's true. (Funny dad.) He's also really kind, and thoughtful, and smart. (Serious dad.) He's really good at using the jokester persona to outsmart people (like Eli David in S6). Not everybody sees all of that in him, but his co-workers do, sometimes.

And Ziva does. Always. From very early on.

The joking and movie references are real. His personality. But they're also a defense mechanism. The way he disarms other people so they can't look at him too closely. Because his mom died when he was young, and his dad was an absent father, and he never really learned how to feel his own feelings. He's afraid of feelings. Feelings are dangerous. Feelings mean getting hurt.

Then, that starts to change. He goes through being the team leader, the undercover assignment with Jeanne, Director Sheppard dying, being reassigned as agent afloat...and he grows up a little.

And then there's this thing with Ziva. It scares the shit out of him. Because he knows, from very early on, that she's different. For one thing, she sees right through all of his defenses, and that is absolutely terrifying. He teases her and throws her off balance, and sometimes he learns little things about her, and what a high it is, to be someone who gets to know her. But the thing is, sometimes she isn't thrown off balance, and she learns things about him instead. And that's fucking terrifying. (But maybe also feels good? To be known? To feel things?)

He knows, I think, that if he lets himself be with her, it's going to be a Thing. A Big Thing. A thing that has the potential to really, really break him. So he lets them stay in that holding pattern. He doesn't want to hurt her, or himself, and for a long time it's enough to mess her hair, and make her smile, and chase her halfway across the world to make sure she's safe, and do what he can to make her happy. To feel the feelings, but not quite acknowledged. To tell each other things about things.

But the thing is, the more he feels, this paradoxical thing happens, where he wants to feel even more. So, he puts it all on the line. He tells her. Not perfectly, not at the right time, but he tells her. And she reciprocates enough for him to believe that she does love him.

He hopes - maybe she'll come back. Maybe, at least, she'll find a way to be happy without him, and at least she'll know.

But for him to discover, instead, that she was pregnant with their child, and never told him? For her to fake her death, and go on the run for years? That is a knife to his deepest insecurities.

The first insecurity is that the people he loves will always leave. She left when she moved away, and again by keeping Tali from him, and again when she faked her death, and again by being gone for so long. Could she really love him that much, and do all of that? Was it even real?

And the second insecurity is: he isn't good enough at loving people. Because what better explanation could there be for what she did than that she didn't think he'd be a good dad, a good partner; that she didn't want him there, and didn't want his help?

That episode where he's framed for murder and interrogates himself?He doesn't think he's that great. He doesn't always see what she sees in him. How painful it must be, to know that she knows about his childhood, and have her keep him from his daughter and fake her death anyway. Didn't she know how that it would break him? How painful it would be, to have lost this person, after he'd let her in, and when he'd thought she'd seen him clearly.

That whole situation teaches him - maybe it isn't good if he's too open. Maybe that's too dangerous. Maybe he should be careful. Not give away too much. Not let Tali see him crying over the photo of Ziva, because he doesn't want to scar her the way he was scarred.

By the time Ziva comes back, he's determined to do this right. It's been so long, and he loves her so much, and he just wants her, them, and he'll do anything to make it work.

He's grown up even more. He's a dad now. He feels a lot of his feelings. He's really good with Tali, being silly, and sweet, and protecting her. He wants so much for her to have a different childhood than his. Tali is safe. He's allowed to have feelings about Tali.

He still loves Ziva so much.

They're in a relationship for the first time in their lives, saying I love you, I'm sure, sleeping in the same bed. But with that mask down, in some ways, there are more other masks than there ever were at NCIS. They hide more from each other than they used to. It's even scarier. Now the real thing, their romantic relationship, is on the line.

What she did still hurts. He doesn't want it to hurt. He's afraid of his own anger, resentment, pain. He wants to ask Ziva to reassure him: that she did really see him, and know him; that she always loved him; that she knew he'd be a good dad; that she won't disappear again; that she believes him when he says that he loves her; that she's sorry. But he doesn't know how to ask for any of that. Feelings are terrifying. He doesn't want to get hurt. He doesn't want to hurt her. What if he asks for something, tries to tell her how she hurt him, and he breaks them?

Oh, but when she does reassure him - the way he melts. That scene by his door: he's all eagerness, trying to touch her everywhere, like she might disappear. And when she decides not to stop them, and kisses him, and drags him to bed, the way all of that frantic energy just leaves him? The way it soothes that part of him that thinks she might leave again...

So, he thinks, he can do this. He can pretend for her. Out of love for her, and terror for himself. The way she looks at him when he says she doesn't hurt him - he would walk over hot coals to make her look at him like that. He wants it to be true. He wants to be the guy who makes her happy. He wants to know that he's good at loving her.

The problem is, the feelings are still there, and they all come out sideways. Telling her he wanted her to have a stress-free day and that's why he didn't tell her Tali was missing? He knows her better than that. He was really afraid of breaking her, and afraid of how that would break him. He was angry with her for leaving him, and lying about Tali, but also, he was angry with her for making him angry, because he never wanted to be someone who hurt her.

There's something boyish about the way he looks at her by the pool. He really thought it would work. He really thought that maybe the way you protect the people you love is by protecting them from painful feelings.

It seems like in 2022-2024, he began to see what he'd done. He thought: she hurt me. But also he thought: I hurt her. I was mean. I hid things. I couldn't just forgive her.

He does what he'd done at NCIS. He concentrates on work (and Tali) and tries not to feel what he felt. He gets into relationships where he feels less, because he never wants to love someone as much as he loves Ziva, because that hurt too much. Because nobody's ever gonna be her.

He believes he's a good dad, but he still doesn't think he's a very good partner. What should it say about him, that he's the reason he isn't with the love of his life? Maybe he will always misjudge relationships. Maybe she didn't feel for him what he'd thought, or maybe he just didn't love her well enough, but either way, clearly he was wrong to think he could be happy like that, feel like that.

The way he flinches and grimaces and turns from her. He can't feel. He can't. It'll hurt too much.

But Ziva...Ziva snaps him out of it. Encourages him to feel again.

He finally sees her again. He realizes, it was never about her not thinking he'd be a good dad and partner, or about him not loving her well enough. It was about their pain. Both of them.

Maybe this isn't as broken as he'd thought. Maybe he didn't break them. Maybe it's okay for their past to hurt, and for them to love each other anyway. They can be them again, and tell each other things, but better.

That realization makes it pretty impossible not to want her. He tried to bottle up his feelings for her, and now they burst out.

Like her, he has wobbles. Wouldn't it be better to run away from these feelings? Then, no one gets hurt.

Despite that, though, he starts to let her in, just a little. He asks for what he needs. He lets her see when he's hurting, and comfort him. He makes the smallest gesture towards showing her that he still feels for her as much as he ever did, even though just saying "I appreciate you" makes his heart beat out of his chest.

She's able to reassure him, now. To touch him, and hold him, and take the reigns when he can't start the conversation about their feelings because it scares him too much. If their past was so much about him fighting for her, now she's fighting for him. Helping him get justice for Henry; comforting him when he's hurting. Reassuring him that she feels as much as he ever imagined for him, and that she feels his love for her in turn. And the thing is, he lets her.

And not reluctantly, or halfway, because once Tony is committed to something, he's all in, and he's the one to say those scary words first: I love you, and not even be that scared anymore.

He'll stumble, sometimes, and forget, and be scared; but in the end, he understands that it's okay for him to have needs and feelings. It's good for both of them, and for their daughter. He doesn't have to look away from his feelings, even the uncomfortable ones.

It's supposed to feel this good. Being loved. Having a family. It's supposed to be joking and laughter, but also tears and being held and needing reassurance. He isn't bad at this. He knows that from the way Tali grabs for him when she's upset and trusts him implicitly and laughs at his jokes. He knows because of the way Ziva looks at him and kisses him, and because he talked her out of that stupid martyr bullshit with Jonah not by being careful, but by being honest.

Now that he's allowing himself, he's actually okay at this feeling thing. Good, even, given the way Ziva's looking at him and melting into his arms. Feelings are scary. But they feel good, too. Really, really good.

***

Blunt Force

Kensi raced through the halls, pushing past crew in an effort to reach the man pushing the garbage bin. Sam rushed past her, tackling the guy, and the bin tipped over, Deeks spilling out in a limp heap.

“Oh my god,” she murmured, dropping in front of him. He’d fallen at an awkward angle with legs twisted beneath him and his head tilted to the side. She hovered over him, hesitant to move his head or neck if he had any injuries. Thankfully, she could see his chest rose and fall shallowly, but evenly.

“Deeks. Deeks, can you open your eyes?” Kensi asked, unable to control the shaking in her voice. Carefully, she slipped her left hand under his head and probed the back of his skull, wincing when she felt a prominent bump just below his crown.

“Kensi,” Sam prompted from behind her.

“He’s not responding at all. He needs medical attention.” She smoothed his hair back with the tips of her fingers. It scared her to see him so still.

“I’ll alert the on-board medic and have Eric call in a med-evac,” Sam said, and Kensi nodded without looking at him, completely focused on Deeks.

***

Deeks woke with a pained grimace, instinctively tugging away from something tangled around his arm. Opening his eyes, he squinted against a bright flare of light, and after a few blinks, realized he was in a hospital.

Crap, he must have pissed off a defendant.

Wincing, fumbled at his nose and after a few tries, removed the nasal cannula, instantly feeling better without it scraping the inner tissue. With that out of the way, he took stock of his situation.

His head throbbed worse than the only time he got drunk in college and opening his eyes more than a slit made the pain spike and his stomach clench. He heard the door open, and lazily turned his head towards it, praying that whoever it was wouldn’t turn on a light.

Fortunately, the nurse who entered with a rolling cart of medical equipment kept the lights off and spoke in a low tone as she greeted him.

“Good to see you awake, Mr. Deeks. Let me just check your blood pressure and heart, and I’ll grab your doctor.”

As she placed the stethoscope on his skin, he noted the name tag displayed below her left shoulder.

“Tamara, what happened to me?”

She recorded his heart rate, wrapping a blood pressure cuff around his bicep. She offered him a smile. “I wish I could tell you, but you’ll have to wait for the doctor. You just rest for now.”

“You can’t even tell me how I bumped my head?” he pressed, turning up the charm as much as he could in his current state.

“Sorry, no chance, darling. I’ll come check on you in a little while. Maybe I’ll even bring you some jello.”

“Well, that is my favorite,” he commented with a wan smile. The thought of eating sounded awful right now.

Tamara left, and he leaned back, closing his eyes in a futile attempt to ignore how truly awful he felt. He let his thoughts drift to the last thing he remembered, but all that came to mind was something involving spinach.

The last case he’d worked involved a known drug dealer. No, a DV case. He rubbed his temples as his thoughts and memories ran together in a dizzying, confusing mess.

***

Kensi had been waiting for Deeks to regain consciousness for the better part of a day. He’d been through CAT scans, and MRI, and numerous other tests to ensure he didn’t have serious brain damage. So far they’d all come back with minimal signs of injury, which was a relief, but she wouldn’t breathe easily until he woke up.

She’d spent the morning pretending to read a book one of the nurses gave her—she hadn’t processed a single word of it—and staring at Deeks, silently pleading with him to wake up.

At lunchtime, the lead nurse had convinced Kensi to grab something for herself while she checked on Deeks. Kensi reluctantly agreed, running down to the vending machine rather than the cafe for a pop tart, which she ate cold before heading back to his floor.

As she stepped off the elevator, the nurse flagged her down. Kensi’s stomach sank and she thought she might be sick or faint as she rushed over to her.

“Agent Blye, Detective Deeks is awake,” she said, offering Kensi a smile.

“Oh my god,” Kensi whispered, pressing her hand over her mouth. “Is he ok? Did he say anything?”

“He’s conscious and responsive, but the doctor will need to examine him to know more,” she responded not unkindly. Kensi frowned at the vague answer and the nurse clarified, “It’s good news. Why don’t you go on in. Just remember to be gentle since he’s likely to be sensitive to light and sound.

“Of course. Thank you, Tamara.”

Kensi opened the door stepping into the dimmed room. Deeks turned his head, squinting at her through the slits of his eyes.

“Deeks,” she said, relieved to see him indeed conscious and apparently alert. “I’m so glad you’re awake. How do you feel?” She stopped at the side of his bed, resting a hand on his arm before removing it just as quickly.

He followed the movement with a confused frown. “Hi,” he said, voice throatier than usual. “I’ve been better. Have we met before? My memory’s a little shaky, but I’m pretty sure I’d, uh, remember a gorgeous brunette.”

Tilting her head, she gave him a measuring look, then folded her arms across her chest as she recalled the last time he’d been in a hospital bed. “Deeks, this isn’t funny. Stop messing around.”

“Believe me, I wish I was joking, but I don’t have any idea who you are,” he insisted.

“I’m Kensi. Kensi Blye,” she tried out of desperation. There wasn’t a hint of recognition in his eyes though. He stared back at her with a growing look of dismay, and licked his lips, lifting a hand to drag his hand through his hair before he apparently remembered it wasn’t a good idea.

“Well, this is new,” he muttered to himself. “I guess this explains why I can’t remember what I had for breakfast or my last case.”

He sounded so perfectly like her Deeks, his upper lip quirked in a half-smile as he stared up at her. He was as friendly as ever, but as he would be to a potential witness they met on the strange. Not his partner of three years.

She paced a few steps away, leaning against the nearest wall. “Ok, so what do you remember?”

Leaning his head back, he squinted as though the effort of thinking physically hurt. “Uh, my name is Martin A. Deeks. Most people call me Deeks, but some call me Marty. I am a public defender for the LA county court system and I like to surf,” he said, nodding as he said each point.

Kensi suddenly felt like her knees might give out, and she quickly grabbed onto the back of the chair next to her. Deeks hadn’t just forgotten her, but entire years of his life.

“Are you ok?” he asked, because of course even with a concussion and amnesia, he still picked up on her distress.

“Um yeah.” She awkwardly tugged on the hem of her shirt. How the hell did she break this kind of news to him. She supposed she could let his doctor handle it, but that seemed cruel. Not to mention, cowardly.

“I take it you know something I don’t. What exactly happened to me?”

Kensi inhaled deeply before she took the plunge. “Um, this is going to be difficult, but you were hit in the back of the head.”

“Yeah, I kind of figured that out from the pounding headache and ostrich egg sized bump. What else?”

Suddenly standing felt to impersonal for this conversation, so she pulled the chair up to the side of his bed, sitting on the edge with her hands folded tightly in her lap.

“Deeks, you are not a lawyer. Well, you are, but you don’t practice anymore. You’re a detective with the LAPD,” she told him.

He took the revelation remarkably well, barely showing any reaction other than a slight widening of his eyes and flaring of his nostrils.

“Wow, ok. That’s, uh, that’s unexpected,” he said on a breathy laugh. “What year is it?”

“2012.”

“Crap,” he muttered, rubbing both hands over his face.

Kensi looked away, uncomfortable with his distress. She wanted to comfort him somehow, but they didn’t do that. At least she didn’t. She dealt comfort in stilted words and pulled punches. Besides that, Deeks didn’t remember her.

“So this absolutely isn’t an elaborate scheme?” she checked one more time out of sheer desperation.

“Fraid not,” Deeks drawled, rubbing his chin with his knuckles. “Though that would be significantly more fun than laying in a hospital bed recovering from a concussion. with nothing to go on from the last 6 years.”

“I feel like I should say touché or something.”

He gave her an odd look at that, then huffed another laugh, lowering his eyes to his lap. “I guess you do know me.” He scrutinized her for a few seconds, squinting with obvious effort before he made a pained expression. “Are you a cop too?”

“I’m a federal agent.”

“Based on the fact that you’re talking to me, I’d guess I either did some really bad, or I work with you in some capacity,” he said. Of course his mind worked just as quickly as ever.

“You’re a liaison for my agency,” Kensi told him. “And we’ve been partners for the last three years.”

“Oh.” He blinked a couple times. “That’s unexpected.”

“Why?” It came out a little more defensively than she intended.

“I tend to get on people’s nerves. They say I talk too much, or it’s my hair,” he explained, then added with a touch of bitterness. “Or I don’t know how to leave well-enough alone. I’m a trouble-maker.”

It sounded like he was quoting someone, and Kensi winced a little at the memory of how she and the rest of the team had treated him his first several months.

“Well, it was kind of a rocky start,” she admitted. “But I have a pretty strong personality too.”

“That sounds like a story waiting to be told.” He shifted uncomfortably, squinting again. He looked paler than when she’d walked in.

“Maybe for another day.”

They were both silent for a few minutes, with Deeks looking increasingly less well. Eventually, he sighed, pushing himself up on his forearms.

“Can you help me get up?” he asked.

“I think you should wait until your doctor sees you. You probably have a serious concussion.”

“I want to see what I look like.”

“Don’t you think that can wait?” she said, completely perplexed by the unexpected request.

“Right now I’m working with the Marty Deeks of 2006. A lot could have changed since then,” he explained, shifting around with the obvious intent to get up with or without her help.

Giving a perturbed sigh, Kensi held up a hand before he could try to get out of bed himself. “Let me go ask a nurse if I can borrow one. And don’t even think of leaving that bed.” She gave him a severe look that hopefully had more effect than on an unconcussed Deeks.

It took a few minutes, but with the combination of her badge and the mention of Deeks—who apparently was popular from his previous stays—Kensi returned with a small hand mirror. Fortunately, she found him still in bed when she returned.

He had a small furrow between his eyebrows, his head turned towards the wall. Kensi faltered, once again unsure how to proceed. Last time Deeks was in the hospital, they’d had catching his shooter to focus on. Now, the way forward seemed far more nebulous.

“I’ve got the mirror,” she murmured. His head jerked at her voice, and he ran a hand over his face before turning to face her. She handed him the mirror wordlessly, watching as he positioned it in front of his face.

“Huh.”

“Not what you expected?” she asked, and he shrugged, eyes shifting back and forth.

“I guess I finally ditched the baby face,” he commented wryly. “Or maybe it’s just the beard.” He touched his jaw almost absentmindedly. “That’s going to take some getting used to.”

“Somehow I can’t picture you without a beard,” Kensi admitted. He’d always had some facial hair as long as she’d known him.

“Yeah. Shoulder length hair too.” Now his hand drifted to the matted hair at his cheek. “I’ve had it pretty long most of my life, but I grew it out in college and I keep it out of principal. Or I guess kept.”

His eyes took on that distant look again and Kensi guessed the full weight of the situation had finally hit him.

“Well, you can always grow it out again. If you want.”

He shook his head slightly in response. “I’m not sure it would fit anymore,” he murmured.

“Deeks, I—”

A firm knock on the door interrupted Kensi, though she had no idea what she would have said in an attempt to reassure him.

“Mr. Deeks, I hear you’ve rejoined the waking world,” his attending doctor, Dr. Lesley said. She nodded to Kensi before focusing her attention on Deeks again.

“Yeah. It’s been a wild ride so far,” he responded dryly.

“I’ll let you have a few minutes,” Kensi told him, hurrying out. Maybe she was a coward, but she couldn’t sit through Deeks finding out the full extent of his amnesia.

She headed for a restroom, locking herself inside. In the tiny room, she sank to the ground, and quietly sobbed, mourning the loss of everything she and Deeks had shared.

***

A/N: Takes place post Deeks’ injuries in 10x01, “To Live and Die in Mexico”.

***

A Moment of Weakness

Deeks grabbed a glass from the dishwasher, filing it with water. He was a little embarrassed at how much effort the simple action took. Everything exhausted him right now, but he didn’t feel dizzy or completely nauseas for the first time in days, so he planned to take advantage of the reprieve for however long it lasted.

Slowly, he worked his way through the rest of he dishes, lining everything up on the counter first. After relying on Kensi for everything the last few weeks, it felt good to finally do something.

Kensi walked in just as he slid the last glass into a cabinet.

“Baby, you’re supposed to be resting,” she protested.

“I’m fine. A few dishes aren’t going to kill me,” he said, continuing to sort out knives and forks.

“You don’t have to. I can take care of the dishes, the laundry, and whatever else needs to be cleaned.” She joined him at the counter and pushed the silverware to the side. “Please, go sit down and I’ll get you some lunch.”

“Kens, you’ve been waiting on me hand and foot. You have to be tired. I mean, you barely even had a chance to recover yourself,” Deeks argued, ignoring how heavily he had to lean on the counter to not visibly shake.

“Mine weren’t as bad as yours. C’mon, you don’t want to set yourself back,” Kensi insisted.

All the frustration of the past weeks spilled over, and he snapped. “Oh that ironic coming from you. I seem to remember you falling and gashing your leg in because you tried to walk with half your body paralyzed,” he bit out. He knew it was cruel, but he threw in one last jab. “But sure, I’m the one pushing it.”

Kensi’s mouth opened slightly, her eyebrows narrowed in obvious hurt and shock. In the next moment, her face blanked, the only obvious emotion in the flashing of her eyes.

“Fine.” Her voice shook ever so slightly. “Do it yourself then.”

Pushing past him, she stalked out of the kitchen, and he heard the back door slam a few seconds later.

“Damn it,” Deeks hissed, leaning over the counter. “What is wrong with you, Marty?” As quickly as it hand come, his anger disappeared, replaced by remorse and disgust with himself. His head hung low between his shoulders as he replayed the hurt on Kensi’s face.

He didn’t know if Kensi would even want to hear an apology from him, but he had to try. He found Kensi in the backyard, curled up on the love seat. Deeks walked around to face her, not taking a seat; he hadn’t earned that yet.

“Kens.” She lifted her head from her knees, and the sadness in her eyes made his chest squeeze.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured hoarsely. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Why did you?” Kensi asked.

“I was…frustrated with how long my recovery is taking and now useless I feel, but that’s, uh, that’s no excuse. I—”

“I forgive you,” Kensi cut him off.

“What?”

She shrugged, her eye softening with understanding. “I wasn’t the most patient or wonderful to be around after my coma. In fact, I was pretty awful to you.” She patted the spot beside her, waiting until he sat next to her to scoot closer. “Sometimes we say and do things we don’t really mean.”

“I do appreciate everything you’re doing for me and I have no excuse for what I said,” he said, pulling Kensi against his side. “And I promise I won’t say anything like that again.”

“I know you won’t,” Kensi murmured, resting her head on his.

***

***

Holding On

He just needed to hold on a little longer. Stay quiet. Not reveal himself. A few more minutes. Then someone would come. Deeks repeated this mantra to himself, focusing on the individual words to distract himself from the pain and resist the urge to lay down.

Dipping his chin, Deeks lifted his wadded up jacket. Underneath it, his shirt was soaked through with blood, the fabric slightly stiff, but not enough to indicate his wound had stopped bleeding.

A simple check-in with an informant had turned into a guy attacking him with a knife. Deeks assumed his attacker was working with their current bad guy. Not that it really mattered at this point since Deeks had won the fight. Well, won it from the perspective that the other guy was dead. A stab wound to the stomach didn’t exactly feel like winning.

His phone had smashed in the fight and of course he wasn’t on comms. Deeks could only hope the emergency signal he’d tried to send had actually gone through.

He trusted Eric to use his wizard magic. He trusted Kensi to move heaven and earth to find him.

If he could just hang onto that, he’d be ok.

A shiver ran through him, followed by a dull chill. That wasn’t good.

Closing his eyes, Deeks pictured Kensi. This morning she’d smelled like cucumber melon body wash when they made out in the shower before work. She’d laughed when he mentioned they’d be late, pulling him back under the stream of warm water. Her lips were soft on his.

Deeks smiled softly, just a little twitch of his lips at the memory. It had been a good morning.

“Deeks! Oh my god, Baby, can you hear me?”

With some effort, Deeks pulled himself out of the memory, his eyes opening enough to see Kensi leaning over him. Her hands ran over him, pressing over the balled up jacket hard enough to make it hurt again.

The last time we saw Ziva was before she returned to her family and she was terrified. Ziva has always been strong, even while broken; someone who cared deeply, but pushed everyone away.

But here, we saw a healed Ziva. One who knew she had hit bottom, and worked hard to be the person she wanted to be. We see a Ziva who is calm even in her anxieties, one who breathes before she jumps, and one who readily listens to and accepts the help of others.

At first I was skeptical of the flashbacks but in hindsight, I think they were a perfect method of character development by giving us direct material to compare and contrast present actions with.

And that leads me to possibly my favorite aspect of Ziva's (and Tony's) development - how we finally get to see Ziva taking on some of Tony's troubles, and Tony letting her!

In the original series, the majority of Tony's emotional upheaval arcs were directly tied to Ziva (Somalia and the farmhouse bombing being prime examples). She couldn't support him and he couldn't ask her to. It's habit for him to hide his interpersonal fears from her because she is his biggest one. But through the red notice and death of his best friend, he finally gets to experience what it feels like to be held up by her, supported by her, open with her. Of course he's still Tony who cant resist throwing humor in, but we see him slowly share more of his burdens with her as the story progressed. He saw her strength when he was drowning and allowed her to pull him back to shore.

And this all culminated in their resounding mutal trust of each other in the last 2 episodes. Communication and trust were the cornerstones whether they were together or separated and it was beautiful to see how far they've come.

I dont know, maybe it's just me, but I found it very special to finally see a healthy in spirit, body, and mind Ziva supporting a grieving and stressed Tony.

This man went from a strict no-touching-outside-of-the-bedroom policy to holding Elide's foot like it's the most precious thing in the world - like she's the most precious thing in the world - all because he wanted to help ease her pain.

"Each of them comes at that idea [of trust] from a very different place. So Ziva's trust was broken incredibly early and continued to be broken by her father and by her experiences in the world. And if you're gonna kill people for a living, and you're being tasked with that, you better trust that they're having you do the-right thing? (Is killing ever the right thing?) So her internal struggle with that. It's like: does she trust herself, to trust the people around her, to trust a man with a baby. But she gets very close with Tony because she actually sees through a lot of his phony baloney nonsense.

And I think for Tony the trust is much more to do with their parents not being present after the age of eight and before then having a mother that he loved who was taken away. So trust for him when it comes to a woman, because his mother was the woman in his life and she abandoned him, and then Ziva dies, and then he finds out she had a baby and never told him, and it's like-and then she comes back, 'oh by the way I didn't die, I just let you think that.' So they are equally damaged. Hers is a more kind of, a more obvious kind of damage. Boo-hoo poor little rich boy kind of thing with Tony. But I think that if you spend time with him you're like, oh, I mean hm, maybe there's something I didn't think about there."

Michael Weatherly on trust x

-&-

I love this idea of the broken trust between them being exactly about the hardest things in each of their pasts. It was hard for her to trust him with Tali not because she didn't trust Tony as a person but because the idea of trusting anyone else with this thing most precious to her was paralyzing, because the idea of anyone actually loving her enough to do right by them (enough to chase her to Somalia and Israel and Cairo) was literally unimaginable.