What's Going to Happen: NCIS

Chapter 20

Melissa's POV:

How was my first day without Ziva? Great. If you consider it great to sleep all day and wake up when it's nighttime, walk upstairs to get water and assure James that I'm okay. To only go back down to my room and sleep the rest of the night. For getting more than 12 hours of sleep, a lot more than that, it was crazy to still wake up at a later time the next day. I went upstairs and skipped on the coffee. I thought if I had it, I would be up all night and I hate that. I hate sleeping late, I'm not sure why I did that after all the hours I got during the day.

I notice that James is in his chair, reading the newspaper. I didn't notice him on the way up because I didn't hear the news like I always do.

"Good morning."

"Good almost afternoon." He replies.

I roll my eyes and force a pity laugh. I walk over to the couch just to have a change in scenery from my room. It's nice to change it up once in a while.

"You don't want anything to eat?" He asks.

"No, but I might as well have something since I'm up here." I haven't eaten anything in a while. I should, so my body doesn't shut down on me.

"Good idea." He says, flipping the paper.

I get to the kitchen a take a slice of bread. It's a weird thought at first but I don't even toast it. I just put jelly on it and go back to the couch. I'm not picky right now.

"Do you miss Ziva?" He asks, putting down the paper so I can see his face when he talks to me.

"Yeah, but it's good for her to go to work and not be locked in here with me."

"Who's locking you in here?"

He knows what I mean but I know the point he's trying to make.

"I just mean it's good for her to get out there and not be my babysitter."

Somehow, making my statement better is only making every one of them worse.

"It just means that I'm getting closer to everything being back to normal."

He shakes his head.

"Do you miss her?"

"Ziva? I think she's lovely. It will be weird without her since it felt like we had her for all those weeks that feels like not so long ago. Tell her not to be a stranger."

"I will." Ziva was the first person at work to ever meet James and really spend time with him. I think she's the first person he's met since I was younger.

As I remember the case that brought them together in the first place, I remember something I never brought up to him before. Something I wanted to keep from him because we weren't in a good place. In order to avoid going back to that place, we need to be honest with each other.

"Can I ask you something?"

He sighs. He knows that it's something that's been bothering me since I had to ask him if I could ask him a question.

He doesn't want to, but he says yes.

"Do you know someone named Terry?"

He tilts his head. She was the mother of the boy that was killed by Juice because he found his way out and it was the same way that Whisk's dad left him. I don't say the names of the people that were hiding at her house because I don't want to think about that. It's something that isn't resolved on one side. On my side, I know that Tim is in my heart and will have it always. On the other side, someone is out there and thinks that they're coming back to me the way we left things. I don't want to think about them anymore. Especially, him.