#szecki

ZIVA! (she's always number one, no matter who else you put on the list :P)Palmer <3McGeeTony (I really can't decide between those two, though)Kate

requested by Nix

set somewhere in S7, not long after the end of Good Cop, Bad Cop

He’d been waiting for almost two hours. After her behavior at work, he had known she would show up at his house eventually. So he wasn’t at all surprised when he heard the door to the basement open and her steps sounded on the stairs.

She didn’t talk and he let her watch him in silence as he concentrated on the wood.

Ziva picked up a sanding block and walked over to the boat, running it along the side twice and giving a sigh.

“Do you believe people can change?” she suddenly asked. Gibbs shrugged, not stopping in his work.

“Yeah, sometimes.” he told her. When she didn’t start working again but instead fidgeted with the sanding block, he stopped his motions and watched her. “Ziva?”

The Israeli looked up. When her eyes met his, the amount of hurt and confusion in them made him frown but she looked away quickly, shaking her head.

“Wanna tell me what’s going on?” he asked her, walking around to her side and taking the block from her hands. She gave a soft sigh and drew a deep breath.

“When we found out that the son had committed the last murder to make it look like it hadn’t been his father killing the other women, you said ‘the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree’.” she told him, tears building in her eyes.

“Ziva-”

“I thought I was doing well.” she interrupted him, gesticulating wildly. “I thought I was doing a good job. I thought you saw me as an investigator now. That you accepted me, that you didn’t-” she stopped abruptly, drawing a deep, calming breath. “You said that the part that made me a killer died in the Somalian dessert.”

“Meant it, too.”

“Yet you continue to make assumptions about other people based on who or what their family is.” she argued, balling her fists. “I thought, I thought that I had left it behind. Left… Eli… behind.”

Gibbs put their blocks on the workbench, his back turned to her.

“You did.” he softly said.

“Then why do you-”

“I don’t think that saying applies to you, Ziver.” he told her sternly, turning around to look at her again. “You are doing a great job. So much that I forget who your father is, where you’re actually coming from.” Gibbs said. Ziva held her breath, her jaw clenching. “And I am… proud… of you.”

He watched as the woman in front of him deflated. Ziva bowed her head and drew a shuddering breath before she straightened again, giving a curt nod. She walked back to him and grabbed her sanding block and he didn’t miss how she reached up on her way back to the boat to brush a tear from the corner of her eye. He watched her sand a moment before he walked up behind her, covering her hand with his.

Yeah okay, you win. That’s terrifying.

:D I’ve got the sketch bug, so I might draw something weird or at least cute/halloweeny for the occasion. If my inky paint pen works. Haven’t used it in forever.

You no da piddiest in that mask. I challenge you to recreate a vintage photo… or do a black and white super creepy one. ;) Mm I have some of those witch things… and eyeballs, and worms, guts, all sorts, but they’re not for me!