Moving On and Letting Go

CHAPTER 9 - The things we can share

Narrator POV:

It's now a couple of days after Ziva brought Elaina to meet Maryam and Elaina still has not gone back. Ziva reminds her a couple times a day to go but Elaina just turns her down. Ziva still wakes up with morning sickness, but now that she knows why it's happening she can anticipate it and deal with it. Dealing with things, alone. Things she should be doing with someone by her side. Yes Elaina is there, helping when she can, but it's not the same as having the father, the team helping her out. Ziva knows that either Gibbs or Abby would have tricks for dealing with this morning sickness, but she's not going to call them after this long just to say "hey I'm pregnant, any remedies for morning sickness?" They would for sure take the first plane to Israel and they wouldn't leave on the plane home unless Ziva was on that plane with them. And she's not ready. Not now. Not tomorrow. Who knows maybe not even next year. But for now, she's taking things one step at a time.

Even though Ziva and Elaina got into an argument about the alcohol, Elaina knew that Ziva wasn't going to budge when it comes to giving her back her alcohol, and Ziva knew that it was going to take more than a few reminders to get Elaina to talk with Maryam. It just depends who will push harder and agree first. And knowing that they both have Mossad training, that might take a while.

Ziva and Elaina meet at the café for lunch where they have a conversation about everything and nothing, everyone has those types of conversations, but then Ziva puts them on the topic of something more serious... getting Elaina to talk to Maryam.

"So are you going to talk to Maryam?" Ziva tries.

"Nope." Elaina states, wanting to get off this topic.

"Why are you so stubborn? Just talk to her, get things off your chest."

"That's rich coming from the person who never shares anything that could give the person any emotional advantage, which anything you want me to talk about would!"

"You know I'm working on it."

"How do you know that I'm not?"

"Because whenever I bring up anything about when I was in Washington and you were in Mossad, you change the topic. You won't tell me!"

"Maybe that's because what I had to deal with was way worse than your life."

"I doubt that."

"Oh yeah, you ever been shot?"

"More than once."

"Yeah? Any of those in the stomach, destroying your chance to have a baby? Oh wait I know the answer – that's a no because you have a baby right now!"

"So that's what you're really mad about, I can have a baby and you can't"

"Not the only thing – "

"Well listen, it's one thing to be pregnant, but I have been tortured and shot, so I might not be able to carry this baby to term. So that means that I have a baby now, but the doctors think that there's a low chance I'll have one to watch grow up."

"Woah." That confession knocked all the wind out of Elaina's angry sails.

"So yes, I don't talk to Maryam, I probably should. Yes I haven't told you things, but I'm trying, I'm working on it, and I'm here for you if you'd rather talk to me which I fully understand."

"What do you mean by that?"

"By what?"

" ' I fully understand you not wanting to talk with a stranger' "

"Let's just say me and therapists don't really get along."

"Really?"

"Uh, yes, they may mildly annoy me."

"Mildly annoy Ziva? Geez that's like enough to make you want to break their fingers! You didn't break one of their fingers, did you?"

"No no no." she laughs.

And just like that they are back to normal. The tension between them disappears. Neither of them back down from their position, but they have come to an agreement. And Elaina and Ziva can talk about more than just the trauma of Mossad training, but the trauma of life.

Elaina doesn't go see Maryam, she doesn't share everything. Ziva talks about Somalia a bit, but doesn't share every detail. Everybody has secrets. Everyone has something they can't share, something they won't share. But now they have someone there beside them to talk about the things they can share. Everyone needs that person to lean on.

A/N – I have no idea how accurate this is, but let's just say that Ziva is 3 months pregnant now. Just keep that in mind for the timeline : ) And now we'll probably not see Maryam too too much because she was never in the plan, so sorry if you liked the idea of her, but I think I would be writing her too much like Sloane. Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed that mini intense chapter.

Also sorry for not updating in a while, life got busy.