Work Text:
The first months back in D.C. after Somalia are harsh.
Ziva finds herself jumping slightly at little things when she is alone. She does her best to pretend that things haven't changed when she's with the team. She knows that they don't believe her for a minute, but none of them have called her on it, which she is grateful of.
The therapist she had been to assigned to was better than she had expected, and slowly, she was making some progress past the backlog of hurt and trauma.
Nevertheless, there was still an emptiness that lingered on the periphery of Ziva's mind. She'd never had many people close to her. Her family, who should have been closest, was a mess. Her mother and sister long dead, a traitorous brother whose blood was on her hands, and a father that only seemed to remember he had a daughter when it was convenient for him to use her for the job. She was sick of his manipulations, but now in cutting herself free of the never-ending games, she had isolated herself from the last family she had.
A soft knock at the door interrupts her thoughts, and a quick check through the peephole reveals Tony, Abby and McGee standing at her door. Putting on a smile, Ziva lets them inside.
Abby immediately hugs her, and Ziva's question for the reason of the visit is muffled somewhat by the scientist's embrace.
"Movie night," Tony answers simply. "It's been ages since we've had one."
He's holding up a small stack of DVDs. A warm light starts to fill Ziva as the team falls into a familiar routine: bickering over the movie selection and who gets to sit where, rummaging for snacks, and eventually the running commentary of snark through the movie.
This was her real home now. This was the family she chose.