The Exception 21-38
Author: Regency
Title: The Exception
Crossover: Grey’s Anatomy/NCIS
Pairing: Addison Montgomery/Ziva David, implied Ziva/other, implied Addison/other.
Rating: PG-ish
Spoilers: Vague 'Dead Man Walking,' NCIS
Word count: 3,800 or 100 x 38
Summary: Not the story of how Addison Montgomery met Ziva David, but the story of everything that came after.
Author’s Notes: The (companion) story to “Asleep” as told in a series of 38 drabbles. Drabbles are defined here as 100-word stories.
AN II: I’m all about the constructive criticism. Hit me with what ya got.
Disclaimer: I don’t own either the recognizable characters from Grey’s Anatomy or any characters recognizable as being from NCIS. They are the property of their respective producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.
~!~
To make one answerable for doing evil to others is the rule; to make him answerable for not preventing evil, is, comparatively speaking, the exception. -John Stuart Mill
~!~
21.
They were waiting for them when they arrived at the townhouse. She had overheard the suspicious racket spilling from underneath her door. They had never been good at anxious waiting, certainly no good at anxiously waiting quietly. They were steadily drinking and already drunk.
Her little girl tucked into her carrier, she unlocked her front door and went inside.
After a shocked instant, they swarmed her: hugs, kisses, exclamations. They’d missed her. The words were there and the actions matched. She believed.
She still clutched her Sarah close when she went to bed that night.
She had no weapon anymore.
~!~
22.
Home was not what it had been, or where. Her apartment was sparse without the clutter of toddler toys or errant strands of auburn hair everywhere. They had not been here and Ziva had begun to feel that she shouldn’t be either.
She began searching for some place new the night she moved back in.
She told herself that it was simply time, that with changing circumstances should come a change in space.
She also told herself to prepare dinner for two and a half that evening.
It was time for something, she thought: mostly for her to move on.
~!~
23.
Addison’s closest friend had become her cell-phone. She always kept it in reach, only powering it off during the hours she worked. She could be contacted by email, she could be paged. When she was off-duty, she could even be called.
She kept it on her just in case-just in case her gut sang and the hair stood up on her arms, just in case of goose bumps and a muzzle flash out of the corner of her eye.
Her fingers stayed perpetually poised over the number one:
Ziva.
She felt safer knowing she was just a dial away.
~!~
24.
Ziva spent a favor on their safety. On her request, a fellow double agent drove by their house twice a day. If all was well, he’d carry on without more than a discreet text message to her phone. If there was anything worthy of concern, he’d put in a call to the local authorities, which triggered another text-this one far more urgent and far less discreet.
She’d attached a great price to their wellbeing, she was hardly concerned about what Gibbs would say if he found out the truth. She had surpassed lacking in objectivity. She was personally involved.
~!~
25.
Addison had her first panic attack the one time she called for Ziva and she wasn’t there.
She closed her eyes and took slow, deep breaths. This wasn’t her. She didn’t fall apart over love anymore.
She stopped suddenly, leaning back against the wall when her legs ceased to support her.
This is not love, she told herself. This is transference. She told herself that until her lips were chapped and her throat was dry.
When that failed, she told her baby that mommy wasn’t in love.
She got rapped with a rattle for her lie.
Sarah was not impressed.
~!~
26.
Ziva was not the most responsible driver on the best of days. Today had not been her best. Somehow, she’d left her phone on her desk when she went to interview a witness at Norfolk. Somehow, that took hours to do.
When she returned, she found a message from the number she had seared into her memory. They didn’t answer when she called.
She was in the airport parking lot before she heard a groggy Addison and crying Sarah on the line.
The ringer was off. Colic.
It took all of her willpower not to get on the plane anyway.
~!~
27.
Addison fell asleep with the phone in her hand. The last thing she’d heard was another of Ziva’s stories about Israel. How she’d been a little girl torn between a tomboy nature and a culture that dictated that she behave modestly. Her family had devoured all she was, then. She didn’t go into details, but Addison imagined what went unsaid. So, she talked about her upbringing, too. It had been brighter and in brighter places, but the outcome had its pitfalls.
She hadn’t become the woman they’d expected. But at least she got to listen to Ziva when she slept.
~!~
28.
Ziva had thought her ears were broken when she heard her say it.
“I’ve missed you,” Addison had murmured in between peals of laughter that persisted over the course of the phone call.
Ziva had been stunned, though why she couldn’t say, and had reciprocated the gesture. Her new apartment was still too solemn without Sarah and Addison. Apparently, it was Ziva that carried the emptiness now; and she would wherever she moved. So, she reveled in hearing her laugh.
It made the night a bit shorter and made this hollow residence finally feel like a home for the living.
~!~
29.
Of course, for Sarah’s first official vacation, she took her to Washington, D.C. Addison intended to instill a great love of country and service into her daughter. She wanted her to believe she could be anything, that she, with her tiny hands, could make history.
So, she showed her the monuments-too few to women though they were-and told her the tales. She was too small to comprehend, but she beamed like she did.
Afterwards, they rode the streets lined with agencies while Addison pointed out the best. They toured the Navy Yard near NCIS.
…Since they were there.
~!~
30.
The evening Ziva was having was not the one she had planned.
She was sitting on the floor again. This time, with a lap full of baby and her space once more occupied by a woman who recognized no boundaries. They ate Thai food from boxes; Addison fed her while Sarah played with her chopsticks. They drank dark wine and talked about dreams. What Ziva had wanted and what she’d won, who Addison had loved and what they’d come to.
It was good talk for the dark, perfect for reminiscing over the head of a sleeping child.
A perfect dream.
~!~
31.
Not long ago, Addison’s fingers had found their way to Ziva’s hair. Imprisoned in a braid to thwart the hands of a curious girl, it had reminded Addison too much of a tight-rope to resist taking a pull. For her effort, she got only a single warning glance.
She grinned, because that look had stopped working on her two weeks after they moved into the safe house. She traced the silky strands of hair and wondered about tensile strength and good genes.
She thought Ziva would have beautiful children and that their father would be lucky.
If he only knew.
~!~
32.
Ziva considered using one of the kinder interrogation methods she knew to distract Addison from tormenting her, but she thought the removal of a pinkie might be considered overreacting. Thus, she could only retaliate.
She reached out to brush Addison’s hair behind her ear. It was heavy against her fingertips and softer than expected to the touch. The lamplight illuminated its variation in hues and made her eyes more gray than blue. Lovely as always.
Addison wore a sly expression, as if she knew what Ziva was thinking, as if she’d always intended it.
Perhaps, this is not my retribution.
~!~
33.
Addison gently lifted Sarah from Ziva’s arms and left to tuck her into the carrier she’d brought along for the outing. It wasn’t a bassinet but it would keep her secure.
She returned to the living room to find it clean, Ziva having tidied up in her absence. She was still on the floor with a glass of wine. Addison’s was refilled as she re-took her place.
She ignored the proffered drink for something she wanted more.
Framing Ziva’s face in her hands, she kissed her.
This was one of the perfect dreams she’d had, one she hadn’t confessed to.
~!~
34.
Addison’s hair was as striking fanned across the carpet as it was anywhere else. Her skin under Ziva’s lips was sweet, as she’d dreamed for nights on end. The skilled hands drifting across Ziva’s hips were champions to those dreams. And the sounds she made, so very thrilling.
Ziva had not been ashamed of those fantasies. To desire was natural-but to pine was rather embarrassing. Ziva knew that she was attractive. There were few people that she could desire but not have. She had believed this woman to be one.
For once, she was not ashamed to be wrong.
~!~
35.
Addison weaved her fingers through Ziva’s hair as is spilled across the pillows. Her eyes were a soft as gunmetal, even this sweet. She was alert, protective. Ziva.
Her arm was wrapped around her waist and she never looked anywhere else. Addison almost felt as though, for a moment, she was Ziva’s world entire. Months after her life had been torn asunder, then, glued back together, there was no greater feeling than that.
Through the danger, perhaps because of the danger, Ziva had been her constant. She had never paused to consider that, to Ziva, she had been the same.
~!~
36.
Ziva rose at the alarm of her internal clock. It was very early and warm. Warmer than any morning in D.C. had a right to be, she thought. Perhaps it was the company she kept.
Entangled incomprehensibly with her, Addison was a wellspring of heat and friction. Her hands under Ziva’s shirt, her breath on her shoulder, her eyelashes flickering against Ziva’s cheek. Ziva was endeared and overwhelmed.
Most of all, she was relieved. They had lived to see another day.
From the beginning, that was all she had wanted.
She tried not to feel guilty for suddenly wanting more.
~!~
37.
Addison awoke to the sensation of being left alone. Terror had its moment, returning her to dastardly silent midnights and sheets that were not her own. Then, sense prevailed, and logic.
These sheets were still not hers and the place beside her was still empty; yet, it felt something like home. She pulled her knees to her chest and said some small thanks for that.
The present filtered back with the sounds of her daughter laughing as only she could. It was accompanied by the loving nonsense Ziva uttered to her, a language all their own.
They chased midnight away.
~!~
38.
The demons that had haunted Addison as she’d slept beside her also haunted Ziva. If she could take back the scars and dissolve the terror, she would. If there was someone to be broken, she would break them, to make their lives right again; but, that was beyond even Ziva.
Although she regretted the fear, she did not regret caring for them or loving them. They were worthy. Despite her desire to safeguard them, she could not say that she wished they’d never met. In a safer life, they would not have been here, and Ziva regretted even the thought.
1-20
Title: The Exception
Crossover: Grey’s Anatomy/NCIS
Pairing: Addison Montgomery/Ziva David, implied Ziva/other, implied Addison/other.
Rating: PG-ish
Spoilers: Vague 'Dead Man Walking,' NCIS
Word count: 3,800 or 100 x 38
Summary: Not the story of how Addison Montgomery met Ziva David, but the story of everything that came after.
Author’s Notes: The (companion) story to “Asleep” as told in a series of 38 drabbles. Drabbles are defined here as 100-word stories.
AN II: I’m all about the constructive criticism. Hit me with what ya got.
Disclaimer: I don’t own either the recognizable characters from Grey’s Anatomy or any characters recognizable as being from NCIS. They are the property of their respective producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.
~!~
To make one answerable for doing evil to others is the rule; to make him answerable for not preventing evil, is, comparatively speaking, the exception. -John Stuart Mill
~!~
21.
They were waiting for them when they arrived at the townhouse. She had overheard the suspicious racket spilling from underneath her door. They had never been good at anxious waiting, certainly no good at anxiously waiting quietly. They were steadily drinking and already drunk.
Her little girl tucked into her carrier, she unlocked her front door and went inside.
After a shocked instant, they swarmed her: hugs, kisses, exclamations. They’d missed her. The words were there and the actions matched. She believed.
She still clutched her Sarah close when she went to bed that night.
She had no weapon anymore.
~!~
22.
Home was not what it had been, or where. Her apartment was sparse without the clutter of toddler toys or errant strands of auburn hair everywhere. They had not been here and Ziva had begun to feel that she shouldn’t be either.
She began searching for some place new the night she moved back in.
She told herself that it was simply time, that with changing circumstances should come a change in space.
She also told herself to prepare dinner for two and a half that evening.
It was time for something, she thought: mostly for her to move on.
~!~
23.
Addison’s closest friend had become her cell-phone. She always kept it in reach, only powering it off during the hours she worked. She could be contacted by email, she could be paged. When she was off-duty, she could even be called.
She kept it on her just in case-just in case her gut sang and the hair stood up on her arms, just in case of goose bumps and a muzzle flash out of the corner of her eye.
Her fingers stayed perpetually poised over the number one:
Ziva.
She felt safer knowing she was just a dial away.
~!~
24.
Ziva spent a favor on their safety. On her request, a fellow double agent drove by their house twice a day. If all was well, he’d carry on without more than a discreet text message to her phone. If there was anything worthy of concern, he’d put in a call to the local authorities, which triggered another text-this one far more urgent and far less discreet.
She’d attached a great price to their wellbeing, she was hardly concerned about what Gibbs would say if he found out the truth. She had surpassed lacking in objectivity. She was personally involved.
~!~
25.
Addison had her first panic attack the one time she called for Ziva and she wasn’t there.
She closed her eyes and took slow, deep breaths. This wasn’t her. She didn’t fall apart over love anymore.
She stopped suddenly, leaning back against the wall when her legs ceased to support her.
This is not love, she told herself. This is transference. She told herself that until her lips were chapped and her throat was dry.
When that failed, she told her baby that mommy wasn’t in love.
She got rapped with a rattle for her lie.
Sarah was not impressed.
~!~
26.
Ziva was not the most responsible driver on the best of days. Today had not been her best. Somehow, she’d left her phone on her desk when she went to interview a witness at Norfolk. Somehow, that took hours to do.
When she returned, she found a message from the number she had seared into her memory. They didn’t answer when she called.
She was in the airport parking lot before she heard a groggy Addison and crying Sarah on the line.
The ringer was off. Colic.
It took all of her willpower not to get on the plane anyway.
~!~
27.
Addison fell asleep with the phone in her hand. The last thing she’d heard was another of Ziva’s stories about Israel. How she’d been a little girl torn between a tomboy nature and a culture that dictated that she behave modestly. Her family had devoured all she was, then. She didn’t go into details, but Addison imagined what went unsaid. So, she talked about her upbringing, too. It had been brighter and in brighter places, but the outcome had its pitfalls.
She hadn’t become the woman they’d expected. But at least she got to listen to Ziva when she slept.
~!~
28.
Ziva had thought her ears were broken when she heard her say it.
“I’ve missed you,” Addison had murmured in between peals of laughter that persisted over the course of the phone call.
Ziva had been stunned, though why she couldn’t say, and had reciprocated the gesture. Her new apartment was still too solemn without Sarah and Addison. Apparently, it was Ziva that carried the emptiness now; and she would wherever she moved. So, she reveled in hearing her laugh.
It made the night a bit shorter and made this hollow residence finally feel like a home for the living.
~!~
29.
Of course, for Sarah’s first official vacation, she took her to Washington, D.C. Addison intended to instill a great love of country and service into her daughter. She wanted her to believe she could be anything, that she, with her tiny hands, could make history.
So, she showed her the monuments-too few to women though they were-and told her the tales. She was too small to comprehend, but she beamed like she did.
Afterwards, they rode the streets lined with agencies while Addison pointed out the best. They toured the Navy Yard near NCIS.
…Since they were there.
~!~
30.
The evening Ziva was having was not the one she had planned.
She was sitting on the floor again. This time, with a lap full of baby and her space once more occupied by a woman who recognized no boundaries. They ate Thai food from boxes; Addison fed her while Sarah played with her chopsticks. They drank dark wine and talked about dreams. What Ziva had wanted and what she’d won, who Addison had loved and what they’d come to.
It was good talk for the dark, perfect for reminiscing over the head of a sleeping child.
A perfect dream.
~!~
31.
Not long ago, Addison’s fingers had found their way to Ziva’s hair. Imprisoned in a braid to thwart the hands of a curious girl, it had reminded Addison too much of a tight-rope to resist taking a pull. For her effort, she got only a single warning glance.
She grinned, because that look had stopped working on her two weeks after they moved into the safe house. She traced the silky strands of hair and wondered about tensile strength and good genes.
She thought Ziva would have beautiful children and that their father would be lucky.
If he only knew.
~!~
32.
Ziva considered using one of the kinder interrogation methods she knew to distract Addison from tormenting her, but she thought the removal of a pinkie might be considered overreacting. Thus, she could only retaliate.
She reached out to brush Addison’s hair behind her ear. It was heavy against her fingertips and softer than expected to the touch. The lamplight illuminated its variation in hues and made her eyes more gray than blue. Lovely as always.
Addison wore a sly expression, as if she knew what Ziva was thinking, as if she’d always intended it.
Perhaps, this is not my retribution.
~!~
33.
Addison gently lifted Sarah from Ziva’s arms and left to tuck her into the carrier she’d brought along for the outing. It wasn’t a bassinet but it would keep her secure.
She returned to the living room to find it clean, Ziva having tidied up in her absence. She was still on the floor with a glass of wine. Addison’s was refilled as she re-took her place.
She ignored the proffered drink for something she wanted more.
Framing Ziva’s face in her hands, she kissed her.
This was one of the perfect dreams she’d had, one she hadn’t confessed to.
~!~
34.
Addison’s hair was as striking fanned across the carpet as it was anywhere else. Her skin under Ziva’s lips was sweet, as she’d dreamed for nights on end. The skilled hands drifting across Ziva’s hips were champions to those dreams. And the sounds she made, so very thrilling.
Ziva had not been ashamed of those fantasies. To desire was natural-but to pine was rather embarrassing. Ziva knew that she was attractive. There were few people that she could desire but not have. She had believed this woman to be one.
For once, she was not ashamed to be wrong.
~!~
35.
Addison weaved her fingers through Ziva’s hair as is spilled across the pillows. Her eyes were a soft as gunmetal, even this sweet. She was alert, protective. Ziva.
Her arm was wrapped around her waist and she never looked anywhere else. Addison almost felt as though, for a moment, she was Ziva’s world entire. Months after her life had been torn asunder, then, glued back together, there was no greater feeling than that.
Through the danger, perhaps because of the danger, Ziva had been her constant. She had never paused to consider that, to Ziva, she had been the same.
~!~
36.
Ziva rose at the alarm of her internal clock. It was very early and warm. Warmer than any morning in D.C. had a right to be, she thought. Perhaps it was the company she kept.
Entangled incomprehensibly with her, Addison was a wellspring of heat and friction. Her hands under Ziva’s shirt, her breath on her shoulder, her eyelashes flickering against Ziva’s cheek. Ziva was endeared and overwhelmed.
Most of all, she was relieved. They had lived to see another day.
From the beginning, that was all she had wanted.
She tried not to feel guilty for suddenly wanting more.
~!~
37.
Addison awoke to the sensation of being left alone. Terror had its moment, returning her to dastardly silent midnights and sheets that were not her own. Then, sense prevailed, and logic.
These sheets were still not hers and the place beside her was still empty; yet, it felt something like home. She pulled her knees to her chest and said some small thanks for that.
The present filtered back with the sounds of her daughter laughing as only she could. It was accompanied by the loving nonsense Ziva uttered to her, a language all their own.
They chased midnight away.
~!~
38.
The demons that had haunted Addison as she’d slept beside her also haunted Ziva. If she could take back the scars and dissolve the terror, she would. If there was someone to be broken, she would break them, to make their lives right again; but, that was beyond even Ziva.
Although she regretted the fear, she did not regret caring for them or loving them. They were worthy. Despite her desire to safeguard them, she could not say that she wished they’d never met. In a safer life, they would not have been here, and Ziva regretted even the thought.
1-20