(A/N and Disclaimer: I have ten bottles of Kick, a Spanish vocabulary folder, and no less than fifteen sheets of paper covered in printouts of that damn tapdole. But I own nothing connected to NCIS: all characters and everything else belong to DPB.  Zabby, non-explicit femmeslash. Spoilers for Dead Man Walking, and some for Bloodbath. Set just after Dead Man Walking, and dedicated to the first person to get out and kil the damn crows from Ashton Park on Thursday. (evil laughter)
Gracias- y ahora, podemos continuar)

She didn't mean to cry.

Ziva David had seen more trauma in her teenage years than most of the rest of her colleagues combined over their whole lifetimes. As a young girl, she had nursed her mother through the nights as her life trickled away like so much sand through her fingertips; and soothed her little sister's hysterical sobs as their mothers suffering finally ended and she drew her final, rattling breath. She could still feel the heavy weight of loss in her heart after that day; and recall the hot tears spilling down her cheeks. She was young, and saddled with the burden of caring almost single-handedly for Tali as well as coping with the death of her mother. She could do nothing more than cry for her loss.

Six short years later, years that had hardened Ziva's heart as she was brought into Mossad, she saw that same little sister robbed of her life in a Hamas suicide bombing. Overcome with guilt and grief, she had wept uncontrollably as she tried to force life back into Tali's lifeless form; desperately seeking a way to bring her back through the black doorway into the light - but Tali was gone. It had been a terrible shock - though if she hadn't been numbed with grief and pain, she would have been ashamed of her tears that day.

For a long time afterwards, Ziva had forced herself into work - work to keep away the memories, work to block out the screaming voices, work to help her forget the demons of grief that haunted her waking days and seeped into her nightmares when she eventually gave in to sleep. And though the pain was still as ever-present and raw as it was that day, like an old wound that reopened with every movement, working and pushing herself to her mental and physical limits helped her force it to the back of her mind, even just for a moment.

People said she was driven, and that was true - she was driven by the memories of those she had lost, and those she had seen die for no good reason. She had killed, and she wasn't proud of it. But it was knowing the difference between the death of one who had never, and could never, cause harm to anyone or anything; and one who was capable and willing to do so, that allowed her to wake up without screaming, and look at herself in the mirror without recoiling. When she had no choice but to kill, she killed for justice, not hatred or greed. She didn't like to think that she killed for revenge, but after Tali's death that might also have been a factor. But she wasn't evil. She may have had blood on her hands, but she at least did it for the greater good.

So Ziva had thought she could deal with death, even if dealing with it meant forcing herself to work every day to forget about her losses.

Then she stumbled across Roy, however accidentally, as the line between her personal and professional life blurred - and over 48 hours had unwittingly fallen in love with him. It was just tragic irony that for Ziva that she had to fall in love with a man already on his deathbed. By the time the case was resolved, it had become apparent that there was nothing more the doctors could do for him.

And then she had tried in vain to help Gibbs, help the doctors, help in any way she could to save him. Not wanting to give up, she had spent hours screaming at the nurses to do something, anything, to keep him alive and with her; in between holding his hand tightly and helping him take gasping breaths of oxygen through a plastic mask.

But nothing had worked. Lieutenant Roy Sanders had died holding Ziva's hand, with only a doctor present besides the two of them.

She had known instantly he was gone. But it still took a few moments for the sickening wave of grief to hit her afterwards.

She was Ziva David. She was the super-fighting-ninja with a heart of galvanized iron. Things like this weren't meant to affect her, to make her feel. Least of all, to make her cry.

But despite all this, she had collapsed onto her knees beside Roy's lifeless form and wept.

She didn't mean to cry, but when overcome by grief it was the only thing she knew how to do.

After three hours, two cups of sweet tea, hundreds of well-meant empty words, and a phone call to Gibbs to tell him the news; Ziva was on her way back to NCIS headquarters. Her driving was even more erratic than usual, but her hands were shaking, she felt nauseous, and her eyes were red and sore, after crying more tears that afternoon than she had thought was possible for any human being.

She couldn't get the images of Roy out of her head...Roy, running past her with a fleeting, yet charming, smile...Roy, sitting with her and holding her hand in the hospital gardens...Roy, lying cold and pale on the hospital bed as the nurses gently tried to prise her away from him...

She sniffed violently, closed her eyes to try and block out the memory- and opened them to find she had crossed three red lights and was about a second away from colliding with a Land Rover heading in the opposite direction. She hardly noticed, even though the driver swore loudly at her and several other motorists beeped their horns angrily.

What did it matter? She felt so hollow and empty, as if all the life had been sucked out of her as Roy's evaporated away from him. Would anyone really miss her if she simply stopped existing? She doubted it. The one person who might have done so was currently being autopsied and covered in a white sheet in the hospital morgue. The all-consuming grief eating away at her was one that she had not felt since Tali died... Thinking of her sister's death on top of everything else was enough to reduce her to further tears as she stopped the car in the darkening NCIS parking lot. Putting her head in her hands and leaning her forehead on the steering wheel, she cried until she sky was pitch black outside and she was exhausted. Wiping her eyes on the back of her hands, she finally opened the car door and stepped out. Reeling for a moment in the cold air, she took a shuddering breath and walked over to the entrance. Gibbs would need to know in detail what had happened, whether she wanted to retell it or not. She was an officer. She was Ziva. She wasn't meant to feel like this.

But no matter how many times she told herself this, like a mantra, she couldn't stop feeling - the anger, the pain, the terrible sadness that made her want nothing more than to curl up in a ball on the floor and scream. Gazing around her, she took it all in without really seeing anything. The elevator to one side, the stairs to the other, and the imposing glass doors ahead of her. It was late at night; the security guard had long since gone - home to a wife, children, not knowing or caring that Roy Sanders had died that afternoon. She had her badge, if anyone asked. But she was Ziva - with a heart of ice, the heart of an officer...the heart that currently felt as if it was being ripped into pieces and scrutinized under Abby's mass spectrometer.

Abby...

Without really knowing why, Ziva found herself stepping into the elevator and pressing the 'down' button, selecting the floor that would take her down to the lab. Acting on autopilot, only a tiny part of her brain stopped to think, to reason, to scream 'Why?'. Abby had hated her guts with a vehemence Ziva would never have expected from someone generally so sweet in nature. She suspected that despite Tony's attempts at peacemaking, the Gothic scientist had, like Ziva, not forgotten the slapping match that had ensued between them while Gibbs was hospitalized. There was still an unspoken coldness between them, even after Gibbs returned - the lingering frost of animosity that had lingered like the smell of a decomposing corpse beneath the floorboard. The thought of corpses brought the image of Roy back into her mind. Fighting back further tears (-how was it possible to weep this much in a single day?) she stepped out of the elevator, into the cool, conditioned air and residual scent of gunpowder perfume that signified her entry into Abby's lab.

Abby was still there; shrouded by the shadows of her dark lab. She didn't look up as Ziva stepped through the glass doors, still working diligently on some piece of evidence. Frowning at some kind of printouts - Ziva recognized them dully as gas chromatograph results, but she hardly cared - she held one up to the light, stepping into the glaring halogen glow - and spotting Ziva as she did so. Looking surprised to see her, she nevertheless persevered with a smile.

'Ziva! You're back late. How's Lieutenant Sanders? He must be getting better, right?- or you wouldn't have left him alone. Gibbs didn't come down - which kinda sucked, because I could really use a caffeine boost, but we're all busy - so I guessed nothing new had happened and...Ziva?'

The Goth's green eyes had finally processed the tears streaming down Ziva's face. Her smile immediately changed to a look of confused concern, as she stepped towards the officer.

'Ziva? Are you okay? Did Gibbs chew you out for leaving Lt. Sanders? Or was it something Tony said?...'

Ziva swallowed. 'It wasn't Gibbs. Or Tony. I haven't seen anyone since I left the hospital six hours ago...but I called Gibbs to tell him...' She trailed off, her sobs threatening to overwhelm her yet again, not wanting to say It. Saying It would make the whole thing irreversible, impossible to deny or to escape from.

'You told him? You told him Sanders was getting better?..'

Abby didn't know. Nobody had told her. Had she still been working fruitlessly on the case up until Ziva arrived, not realizing that the central figure of the investigation wasn't no longer in a position to know or care what new results they came up with now? The twisted woman who had been poisoning him had been caught and was already in custody. The other victim of the poisoning, Mark Sadowski, was recuperating in hospital. And Roy...

'He's dead.' Ziva managed to force out the words, her voice hollow, empty and hoarse from crying; before pressing her palms against her stinging eyes and bursting into tears.

A gasp, then the sound of Abby's boots on the floor as she approached Ziva and wrapped her arms around her shaking form. Not caring that Abby witnessed her tears, her moment of weakness; Ziva collapsed against the taller woman, not even trying to protest as Abby held her. The full scale of the day's events slammed into her like a ton of bricks, combining with her exhaustion to reduce her to the trembling, inconsolable mess currently held in Abby's - oddly soothing - arms.

'I'm so sorry, Ziva...' Abby said, rubbing her back gently as she cried onto the shoulder of her lab coat. The raven-haired woman wished she could think of something else to say to comfort Ziva - anything that didn't sound as fake and insincere as if she had read it from a book.

'They tried everything...I tried everything...' Ziva said, her words muffled by sobs and by Abby. 'The Prussian blue didn't work...he just kept getting worse...I couldn't stand seeing him like that, so helpless...and then he just...' Ziva couldn't even begin to think of words to describe the way calm had settled over Roy's pale face; how his hand had slipped out of her grasp and his body gave up its battle - the onset of peace both beautiful and terrible. Abby didn't press her for words; instead making soothing sounds, and squeezing Ziva's hand gently. She hadn't even realized Abby had been holding it, but she was grateful for the contact.

'Why couldn't I do something?' Ziva finally managed to choke, raising her head from Abby's shoulder. Seeing the petite brunette's face, usually so set with determination, contorted with grief and streaked with tears just about made Abby's own heart break. She watched Ziva desperately try and answer her own questions; thinking back to a night spent in Gibbs' basement when Abby had sat blaming herself for that twisted bastard Mikel's actions. She could see Ziva starting down the same long, dark, self-hating pathway; standing there with her face awash with pain and confusion, and her chocolate-brown eyes still swimming with tears.

'Don't blame yourself for any of this, Ziva' she tried, softly. The Israeli met Abby's eyes; her own red-rimmed and dark with anger.

'Who else can I blame? I was there with him. I held his hand as he - as he died. He wasn't afraid...even right at the end, he wasn't afraid. I was. I was terrified. And I was angry... I am angry!' she said, her voice growing louder as her sadness began to grow into rage, storming at Abby - the only thing near enough to hit out at. 'A good man died today - and did I do anything useful? No! I should have kept trying, found something to help...in the end all I could do was hold his hand, standing there and watching him die'

 Ziva's anger at herself was almost more painful to watch than her tears. Abby placed her free hand on Ziva's shoulder, her other still holding Ziva's.

'Ziva' she said, quietly but firmly. 'You can't blame yourself for this. By the time any of us realized he was still being poisoned, there was nothing we could do to reverse the effects of the radiation. You couldn't have saved him; any more than you can follow him now to...wherever he's gone'

Abby spoke quietly, but her words seemed to echo in the room, which was silent except for Ziva's occasional sniffle; her breathing, heavy with anger and emotion; and the soft pulsing and whirring of Abby's many machines.

'Besides' Abby continued; when Ziva didn't say a word '...you say you didn't do anything useful? You stayed there with him. You held his hand and stayed with him as he died, even if you were scared. You comforted him while he was in that hospital bed. I'd say that was the most useful thing anyone there managed to do for him'

Ziva closed her eyes, her head throbbing from exhaustion, emotion and hours of crying; realizing that Abby had a point. Remembering how she and Roy had clasped hands in the hospital gardens brought fresh tears to her eyes; which slipped out from beneath her closed eyelids. Abby took a step closer to her, patting her shoulder gently.

'You had feelings for him, didn't you?' she whispered.

Ziva swallowed, and nodded soundlessly. At this, Abby folded Ziva back into her arms, hugging her close. For the first time; Ziva managed to hug her back, albeit a little awkwardly.

'I just had to be the one to fall in love with a dead man walking' she said bitterly. 'And that's the thing. If he hadn't died...we could have had weeks, months together, to know each other...to be with each other. He's the only man who's ever made me feel that way. And now...' Her voice cracked and trailed off. Somehow, Abby seemed to understand her

'If he'd got to know you properly, Ziva; he would have loved you too' she replied, carefully. 'Maybe he already did'

'I'll never know, will I?' the Mossad officer said, leaning against Abby's shoulder. Through the rage, anguish and tears that somehow still remained unshed, another thought surfaced.
 'And now I wonder if, with him gone, I'll ever - ever be loved...'

There was a moment's silence. Ziva thought she felt Abby's body stiffen slightly. Then, she felt Abby turn her head and press her lips against Ziva's cheek in a soft kiss.

'You already are' she said quietly.

Ziva turned to face Abby; the grief in her eyes momentarily drowned out by surprise, and Abby's lipstick on her cheek. The two women regarded each other for a long minute, their faces illuminated by the light above their heads - before Ziva wrapped her arms around Abby's neck and kissed her. Abby's arms slipped around Ziva's slim form; one hand on her waist and the other still making soothing circles between her shoulders. And everything - grief, anger, thoughts of Roy and time and the rest of the world - seemed to evaporate, as Abby kissed her back.

It may not have been the most perfect timing. And Abby's lab at eleven o'clock at night may not have been the perfect place, either. But they would have time to talk - about Roy, and about this, and a million other things. For now, Ziva's grief was blocked out by Abby's lips on hers; and even if everything else about it had been wrong, there was at least one good thing that had come of it.

Out of the darkness, there comes light. Out of the darkness had stepped Abby Sciuto - and one way or another she had led Ziva back into the light, at least for a little while.

 (Yeah...that's it. Sorry the ending/ beginning/ entire fic sucked. Review if you want to; and Happy Easter to everyone)