"Why me? Why did you call me?"

With her dark eyes lowered, she didn't answer.

Stoking the crackling fire with a thoughtful frown creasing his brow, Gibbs chewed on that non-answer for a moment. The house around them creaked sullenly from its short disuse, coming sluggishly back into life. Paper plates of half eaten Chinese food scattered the floor where they sat, each nursing a drink they had no real interest in consuming. Toying with her water as Gibbs sat back from the fire and stared into his beer, Ziva shivered, uncharacteristically bothered by the receding draft. Shrugging out of his sports coat immediately, he stood and ignoring her protests, draped it loosely around her slim shoulders. She melted into it, the woody scent calming her frayed nerves and smiled a poignant smile.

"That is why I called you."

He raised a brow.

"It's a pretty cheap jacket. I could've mailed you one over."

She shook her head at his, as always, linear and literal thinking. "I called you because you are the only one I knew would come." She gnawed at her bottom lip, a new habit, and sighed. Picking at the label of her water bottle with tired hands, she gave a sort of half shrug and a muttered "I do not know, I suppose." He pondered this for a moment, throwing another log onto to the flames. "Tony was here," he refuted quietly, needing to understand. "He would have done whatever it took to help you. Tim and Abby, too. They would have helped you, to the bitter end, but you shut them out. Why?"

A scarlet hue worked its way up the slender neck as she snuggled further into the seconded coat.

"I do not know."

He shook his head. Being back, coming back to this house, to this place…it had taken a lot. And anything short of Ziva's panicked phone call or similar from one of the others, and he really didn't think he'd have ever stepped foot back on D.C. soil. And the problem with that was, now he couldn't go back, but he also couldn't stay. He couldn't go back to Mexico if there was such a fundamental breakdown in trust and communication on his old team that they weren't covering each other's backs. And he couldn't stay in D.C. if the reason for Ziva's outsourcing of support for her unwarranted persecution wasn't team related, if they were watching each other's six. Choosing his words carefully, unusually so for him, he reached out through the short distance between them and tipped her chin gently upwards with his thumb.

"I think you do know. And I need you to tell me, it's important."

She sighed then, ducking her gaze downwards. Everything inside of her was muddled, chaotic. She was used to seeing things in terms of black and white, no grey area. One of the many reasons why she had clicked so easily with Gibbs. They were alike in a lot of ways, some good and some bad. But now, nothing was black and white. Everything was clouded by ridiculous things such as feelings. Looking at her flickering reflection in the water she held, she tried to piece together a similar reflection of what was going on in her mind. But it wasn't easy and some considerable minutes trickled by as the duo sat in an albeit companionable silence.

"Tony has done an amazing job whilst you've been…away. We do not make it easy for him."

Gibbs swigged some beer and felt a knife of red-hot guilt wrench in his gut.

"He's leadership material, for sure. You should lighten up on him. He's had to…take a lot on."

She inclined her head in acknowledgement and cast around her mind for a succinct explanation, one that didn't require her to talk and talk and talk. "He is doing very well. He is trying to find his feet and lead but the reason we…I give him such a hard time is that…is that, well, he is not…I mean to say that he is…I just mean that he is not-"

"He's not what, Ziva?"

Her eyes orbed into dark pools of sudden and terrifying sadness as she looked up at him and whispered.

"You."

A profound and sudden soundlessness seemed to shoot down the smoking chimney and force its way into every nook and cranny of the sparse room. Gibbs felt his gut give a jolt as he stared at the usually impassive Ziva with a medley of conflicting emotion etching into his tired face. He opened and closed his mouth several times, entirely unprepared and underqualified to deal with such an answer. When he closed his mouth for the seventh time, Ziva parted her dry lips with difficulty and took up the mantle of speech that neither did well with.

"You are the only person who has ever made me feel truly safe."

Her face burned from the revelations. But she knew he wasn't going to leave them unturned and so she ploughed on.

"Tony is dependable and loyal, brave and smart. He would do anything for me and though I would rather die than tell him, I for him. Tim, too. And Abby. But none of them make me feel safe the way you do…did. When that investigation was launched and my life that I have built here was threatened, I felt a fear that I have not felt since I was a very little girl. I panicked. I am not used to being frightened or panicked. I did not know what to do. Where to go, where to turn. I knew that my own father would place the needs and strategic alliances of Mossad above me and if it came right down to it, my life too. Tony and the rest of the team, they were still working as U.S. federal Agents. Being involved with me could have cost them everything if discovered. You…were retired. You were a safer option." She turned her head and looked into the fire, the tired lines of her tanned young face illuminated.

"But that is not why I called you, not really. I called you because I wanted you. I wanted to feel safe."

She smiled a crooked smile that bled with sadness.

"And I did, feel safe. For a while. So, I thank you, Gibbs. I thank you for that."

He stared at her with his mouth agape. But for her water bottle remained sealed, he would have suspected the clear liquid was in fact, vodka. But he immediately dispensed with that notion as clarity struck him. Ziva…she was tired. Her usually bright brown eyes were a deadened, muddy impersonation of their former glory. Her face was tight and taught, her poise drooped and pained. It suddenly struck him how much she had suffered in her short life and how terrified she really must have been to pick up that phone and admit to herself that she, that Ziva David, needed someone. He worried his bottom lip as a thunderbolt of comprehension and regret pierced his chest.

He should never, ever have left.

The flames seemed to take on a merry crackle as he reached out once more and tipped her chin upwards.

"You can keep feeling save, Zi. You go and keep feeling safe."

She eyed him with a confusion that dripped with exhaustion. A glimmer of hope peaked inside her.

"You are going to visit, perhaps? At Christmas and such?"

He shook his head and flinched as she tried to hide her raw disappointment.

"No, I won't be visiting at Christmas I'm afraid."

She nodded brusquely, regaining her cast iron composure.

"Of course," she agreed, "You must stay with Mike, he would want you to ensure you had a nice-"

"I won't be visiting because I'll still be here. Because I ain't going back. Because I'm staying."

The house suddenly stilled, the windows seeming to condense with anticipation of once again being opened and shut on a daily basis. She gaped at him, her ability of speech suddenly gone. Her eyes bored into his as if searching for signs of subterfuge, of an agenda. He held her gaze, not breaking eye contact even for the luxury of blinking. An eternity seemed to pass as she examined him, not allowing herself to believe the words he had spoken. Because to believe those words only to have their meaning stripped from her, she could not bear it. But she knew him and she knew his tells.

His eyes sparkled with truth.

"You are staying?"

He nodded.

"I'm staying."

She levelled him with a suddenly ferocious glare and held up a warning finger.

"For me?"

"For all of you. I've made a mistake. It needs putting right, if it can be."

She blinked as her chest heaved with raw emotion.

"If you are lying, I will hunt you down and I will kill you. Slowly and painfully. You understand?"

His rare chuckle suddenly wafted into the heady air as he nodded his head.

"Oh, I understand. I haven't forgotten that Ziva David is not to be messed with."

Electricity seemed to generate in the charged space between them, where they sat cross legged on ratty cushions. She chewed her lip as a sense of lightness began to push its way through the darkness she had seemed to imbue for the longest time. Dark curls tumbled onto her forehead as it creased in thought, her heart hammering away in her chest. Another eternity seemed to meander by as silent contemplations were offered to the night. Just when Gibbs was beginning to think that not only was Ziva stricken with muteness, but paralysis too, his worries were assuaged. The air his lungs had thoughtfully stored for him was expelled as he was yanked into a very sudden, very uncharacteristic, bone crushing hug. A hug of such magnitude that even Abby would be proud. Recovering from his shock and temporary asphyxiation, he laughed gently into the wild mass of hair that tickled his chin. "You are a good man, Gibbs," Ziva muttered into his chest. "You are a… good man."

Rolling his eyes as he pressed a kiss to her forehead, Gibbs knew he had made the right decision.

"I guess you're alright too, kid. I guess you're a damned sight more than alright."

…..

A/N: Random One-Shot, because I love the Gibbs/Ziva Father/Daughter relationship!

Inks x

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