NCIS Bared

**_Just trying to clear out half finished drafts sitting on my hard drive. _**

**_This one had been collecting dust for too long._**

* * *

><p>She understands what they must do and why they must do it. She is familiar with their duty, their pride, their call to arms. They are the best at what they do and she gets that, she does. But all rational thought leaves her the second she steps into the main office.<p>

She had been called out of class in the middle of art, expecting to see her parents had arrived early to pick her up. Had Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Breena had their new baby yet? But as she opens the door with her stuff gathered in her arms, it is not her mother's usual serene expression, nor her father's brilliant smile that greets her.

_"Hey, kid."_

His usual, gruff tone alarms most kids. But she's not just any kid. She knows the kindness the voice hides. And because she's long been attuned to the expressions and demeanor of one Leroy Jethro Gibbs, she senses the subtle difference in his tone, the gentleness few pick up on.

She knows what it must mean.

"Grandpa?" Her grip on her drawings tightens, they crinkle and bend under her grip. Her fingers encounter something sticky. _Paint_, she realizes. She had forgotten the paint hadn't dried. It had slipped her mind. "Where's mom?" She demands in her quiet, stern way with all the seriousness a nine year old could muster.

Gibbs almost smiles at the familiar tone, the set of her face so much like her mother.

_Her mother._

He takes a knee to the carpet, drops down so he can meet her eyes. His thumb finds her free palm, gives it a tap and prepares to ground her should gravity pull her out from under her feet. "There was an accident." He delivers. The apology in his voice tells her that he has already begun to blame himself, but something cold and black passes through her and all she can do is grip him tighter. He rushes to reassure her. "She's okay, and she wants to see you." Tears slip from her eyes as she breathes in a ragged breath. Her voice has left her and so all she can manage is a nod for okay, and quickly she stumbles into the embrace her grandfather of choice pulls her into. "She's okay," He murmurs into her hair. "Your mom's tough, kid." She nods into his windbreaker, and the comforting smell of coffee and sawdust envelope her. Ground her.

She knows.

* * *

><p>She lets go of his hand the second the elevator opens to reveal the third floor of the hospital. She sees her Uncle McGee but doesn't stop as she races down the hall, looking for the numbers 306. The voices of her Grandfather and Uncle talking carry down the hall, but when she hears no words of caution, she turns the corner out of sight and nearly collides with a kindly looking doctor. He holds her steady as she stumbles back, the clipboard he was scrutinizing in his other hand dropping to his side. Her eyes flash to the door behind him, quickly seeing the room she needs.<p>

A daughter of two highly regarded investigators, she can put the two together.

"Is my mom okay? Can I see her?"

The doctor smiles, straightening his glasses as to peer down at her. "We took very good care of her," he assures softly, then points to his collar bone with the tip of his pen. "A few bumps and bruises, and a fractured clavicle that will heal with time." It sounds awful to her, and the look of horror that must pass over her face prompts the doctor's explanation to become more genuine. "You can even leave with her today," he begins, just as her father appears from behind the door. He looks tired and drained, still wearing his field clothes. Her eyes fall on the weapon at his side for the briefest moment, but he quickly moves his jacket to hide the firearm, "_Daddy._" She throws herself into his side, relief flooding her small body as he absorbs the force of the collision. "Hey, princess," he soothes with a hand to her back, twisting her curls and smoothing them behind her ear. "Agent DiNozzo," the doctor greets, "I have your partner's x-rays back, I was just telling your daughter here that other than the fracture to her clavicle, Ms. David is free to be discharged." He flips through the files, but she's only half-listening now; too busy attempting to peek around the cracked door to the hospital room. "…noticed that Ms. David has extensive scarring all over -" she frowns against her father, looking up now to the two men in conversation, "I've only ever seen this degree of scarring in war soldiers, did your partner serve in a special task force…."

At the look from her father, the doctor's voice trails off. Instantly she pretends to shuffle with the pictures still clutched in her hand, rolling her eyes up to her father's innocently. "Can I go give mom her picture I made?" His glance shifts to her, and he clears his throat, pushing the door open wider behind him, "She'll be happy to see you," he says, a faux smile in place, "Why don't you tell her we won't be much longer."

They don't resume their conversation until she enters the room and disappears behind the door. Soft murmuring begins as she leans against the wood, and the sound of her father's stern voice she's only heard a handful of times picks up as the door clicks shut. She catches words like _Camp, _and _Prisoner, _and _Trauma._ But the voices soon fade away as the bodies behind the door move with one another away, farther down the hall. She walks hesitantly into the room, toward the curtain that divides an empty bed from the other side of the room. She can see a silhouette moving carefully behind the fabric, and takes the last few steps forward to peer behind the divider.

"_Momma_?" She calls hesitantly. Sitting upon the bed, her gaze slides over the expanse of her mother's exposed back. An abandoned hospital gown lays abandon beside her; the shirt she watched her mother put on this morning now pulled over her head as she slowly tries to ease it over her body. Quietly, she watches as one by one, the faded lines disappear by soft cotton; the line above her mother's shoulder blade, the jagged mark along her spine, circular burns that have all but faded into the olive skin tone they share. She is familiar with these marks, never questioned them in her memory. When she was younger she remembered tracing them absently, her mother seemingly unbothered by the action. Her hands curl around the drawing still in her hand.

She is nine years old, and for the first time she pays special attention to the marks and lacerations she had become so accustomed to. That her mother was tough was no question. She knows, in the simplest of explanations, that her parents are charged with protecting people each and every day. She's never seen her mom angry, never seen her cry; not even at Uncle Ducky's funeral two years ago, or when daddy was here for pneumonia last winter. As her mother's head finally appears through the neck of her shirt, sending curls into orbit and revealing the barest hint of distress passing over her face, the smile her mother greets her with pulls her swiftly toward her outstretched arms. Her mother's switch to the guttural yet soothing sound of her native language no longer registers to her, and she grips her mother tighter as she murmurs reassurance into her hair.

_"Ma shelomkha, tatehleh?" _

She pulls back from her mother's embrace, shying away from Ziva's probing eyes. "Fine. Are _you_?" She answers, dubious, confused as to why her mother is asking how _she_ is. She reaches out a tentative finger to her mother's eye; hovering over a deep cut that's already beginning to turn purple.

Ziva merely laughs softly, pulling her against her chest once more. "I am now," she sighs.

She so very much wants to believe her.

* * *

><p>Later, as she listens to her father move around the bathroom at her mother's side on their bed, she waits until she hears the sounds of the shower turn on and the familiar falsetto of her father singing from under the spray of water. Her mother's been engrossed in her novel for a while now; her elbow of her good side propped up on the pillow, her curls piled loosely on the top of her head and her back exposed. Tentatively, she reaches out and brushes the familiar lines on her back, as if exploring them for the first time.<p>

It wasn't uncommon for their daughter to slip into their bedroom with no explanation after incidents that distressed her. More than happy to accept it without comment, both partners understood that sometimes their daughter simply needed the reassurance they were there; safe, alive and breathing.

It had been over an hour now. Tony had slipped off the bed after making their daughter break out in a fit full of giggles, putting on a show and getting her to laugh after all that happened that day. With a knowing look in her direction, Ziva merely smiled at the page in her book in acknowledgement, knowing he'd take an extra few minutes longer in the bathroom that night.

Ziva has felt her eyes on her for sometime now, but merely waits patiently; like her father, her daughter's silent staring was loud.

"_Mom_?" The warm touch on her back pauses.

Her eyes don't leave her page, and she answers serenely. "Do you wish to ask me something, tatehleh?" A longer pause follows her question, but Ziva senses her daughter's need to sort through her thoughts. Finally, her fingertips tap softly at her back.

"Did… did it hurt?" Ziva takes a calming breath; closing her book as to steel herself against the question.

Ziva knows the nine year old isn't asking about her injury from today.

And she's always known one day she would not be able to field her daughter's questions of the truth. She would not lie, not ever. She would not raise their daughter the way she had been forced to grow up. But it made the options of protecting her innocence very limited.

Rolling over very slowly, she regards her daughter's familiar, green eyes; peering out hesitantly from her wild curls. Taking her hand, she tightens their fingers together and looks at her openly, comforting and honest. Her daughter seems to unfreeze under her gaze. "There are some scars that never really stop hurting," She murmurs, tilting her head to the side. "Yes?" Her daughter nods, understanding glimmering in her eyes, and not for the first time, Ziva is so very thankful for their daughter's nature. She had always been perceptive, even if her understanding was limited to her years. Encouraged by her mother's smile, she shuffles closer under the covers, allowing her mother to envelope her with her arm. Silence settles between them, the only sound being the hum of the fan whirling above their heads, and Tony's low humming from the shower.

"But it doesn't hurt now, right?"

Ziva smiles into her daughter's curls, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

"Never when I am with you or your father." She murmurs. "That is enough." Her daughter sighs contentedly against her, snuggling closer into her embrace. Her breathing evens out soon after, long before Tony emerges and slips an arm silently around them.

For now, it is enough.


End file.
