The Soldier

always the same that kills you

Christian waved at her, leaning against his small blue car. 

Tessa didn't understand how he was able to smile after what happened today, but his tearstained eyes disclosed the truth. Keeping up appearances, well, Tessa knew a lot about that.

„Hello, Tessa. May I help you with your bag?", he asked, but Tessa shook her head, throwing it in the already open trunk of Christian's car.

He nodded approvingly, closing it before opening the car door for Tessa. A gentleman... but Tessa couldn't get rid of the thought that it was not a good idea to get into that car.

'Paranoid', she scolded herself, a forced smile and a short „Thank you" falling off her lips.

„No problem. Do you want to keep the backpack or should I open the trunk again?", he asked, pointing at her half-empty backpack, only to get another head-shaking as an answer.

„Okay, then let's start, shall we?", he asked politely, a small hand gesture showing her the still open car door. Tessa hesitated for a second, before getting in the car, her backpack protectively lying on her knees.

Christian told her about his and Ziva's childhood during the car ride.

„She was always stronger than me and never lost an opportunity to remind me that I was the younger one. Our aunt and uncles, even our cousins and grandparents used to make fun of me because she could tackle me down even though she was smaller than me. I never really cared about it, I was... always more of a book type anyways.", Christian said, wistfully sighing when they stopped in front of  a red light.

As he continued, Tessa zoned out after some time, she did not need to imagine Ziva as a child, wildly running after some beautiful, colourful butterflies on a green meadow, wearing one of those ridiculous but cute cat-themed dresses she once told Tessa about.

No, that was really not a picture she would need right now. Still, it found the way in her thoughts and after Christian started to talk about how they almost burned down the entire kitchen when they tried to bake a birthday cake for their mum, Tessa interrupted him.

„Hey... sorry, but can we not talk about stuff like that? I miss Ziva, I really do, but imagining her as a happy child makes this whole thing a lot harder for me actually. So... if it's okay, please don't tell me stuff like that, not now, not after burying her only hours ago, I'm really not able to talk about Ziva now or listen to how she was as a child.", she explained carefully, with no intention of denying him the right to speak about anything he wanted to speak about.

Ziva was his twin, the two of them most likely shared a sadness going much deeper than those of other people.

„Okay, I get that, I just thought you wanted to know, about what I was talking at Ziva's funeral.", Christian answered, nodding understandingly.

The car stopped in one of the many free parking lots at the airport and Tessa was delighted to flee the sudden tension inside it.

„So, now I have you exactly where I wanted, Tessa.", Christian added, smiling mysteriously in her direction. Tessa tensed up and was ready to defend herself if she needed to, checking if he locked the doors, which he did not.

„Wow, that sounded creepy, sorry. I don't want to hurt you or anything, I just needed to talk to you alone.", Christian explained, shaking his head looking at his fingertips in embarrassment.

Tessa's tension eased a bit, but she was still looking him over warily.

„Ziva told me to give you that. It was written in her last letter as if she had sensed it... anyways. I just wanted to give you this and tell you how thankful I am that she had someone like you by her side during... you know. Just thank you. And... I really admire you and your strength of coming here. She told me how much she liked you, that you were the best friend she could ever hope for. I just wanted you to know that.", Christian ended, laying his hand on hers, entwining them.