NCIS One Shots

Op

Pairing: Z/G (Father-daughter Relationship)

TW: Age Regression

Ziva David/Leroy Jethro Gibbs POV (Third Person Omniscient)

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Summary:

Ziva age regresses before an op, what will Gibbs do when he notices?

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It was almost sundown, McGee and Tony were in the hotel room setting up the camera feeds and technical stuff as Gibbs went on to check if Ziva was ready for the operation where she and Tony were undercover as a couple.

"Ziva, you ready?" Gibbs asked as he came out of the room to the dimly lit hallway of the hotel, looking up and down to see her beautiful forest green dress as her undercover outfit.

"Mmhmm." Ziva nodded bravely as she put on a courageous face as a front, not wanting to mess up the op before it even started. That was the first indication, the lack of communication. The father figure was too familiar with her signs and symptoms and noticed she was in the process of age regressing.

A series of uncomfortable and unplanned events and comments (that of course was Tony's fault) had happened right before the op and the uneasiness was building up inside her with no release. Consequently, she was involuntarily stuck in an age regression stage.

Ziva looked slightly timid, her body language betrayed her. Her body went inward curling up, her left arm crossed in front of her torso to hold her dangling right arm. Her verbal language was betraying her as well, she was incredibly quieter than usual, not being very verbal.

She knew she was shutting down but in the mean time was searching for comfort but fearing rejection from everyone.

This was not Gibbs' first rodeo of witnessing her age regress, he had seen the trained assassin go through this before but never had he ever had to deal with it at work much less in the middle of a case.

Since the first time Gibbs found Ziva age regress involuntarily in his presence, she had gradually accepted his fatherly love and became accustomed to his caring nature. But she had always held off long enough to wait until the day was over and came to his basement at night where she regressed in the safety of his arms in solitary.

It only started to happen after she came to DC and NCIS, maybe it was the way that her brain was subconsciously telling her that it felt safe enough to be a kid again and let the father figure heal her childhood trauma.

To a trained eye like Gibbs', her body language is screaming that she is not feeling comfortable or safe, "Ziver." He said tenderly, trying not to scare her, "Are you age-regressing?" he suggested as he gave a kind smile. The father figure always treated her with more care and more gently when she regressed.

"Maybe." Her answers were short and choppy with uncertainty laced in her voice, she was feeling increasingly restless. Gibbs noticed that Ziva was fidgeting a lot as she was quieter than usual, it was quite unusual for the trained spy. Discreetly, he placed his hands over hers to let her know that he cared.

"I can still work." She assured Gibbs with the same flat voice. Even though she didn't need to, she was determined to push through and prove that she could function like a normal person and that she wasn't weak. She had done it too many times before and had great training from Mossad, she could easily push her emotions away for the job.

But Gibbs didn't want that, he wanted Ziva to start feeling her feelings and sit in the emotions no matter how disquieting it could be. That's the first step to start healing her childhood trauma.