DISCLAIMER: These characters belong to DPB, CBS, Paramount, et al. No copyright infringement is intended.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: abby_forever - possibly the best beta in the universe who gives me confidence to post fics even when I think they suck.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
SPOILERS: For 5.07 Requiem.
Tangible Proof
By Jaina
She had an ulterior motive. She wouldn't admit it to anyone should they have asked, but she'd definitely had one when she snapped pictures of the team with her camera phone. Oh, it was cool to be able to see them staring back at her anytime they called, but what she really wanted was something solid and real - tangible proof of them in her life.
With Kate she had great memories - but not so much anything else. She didn't even have any pictures and that was only one of the things that she regretted.
Abby settled into her desk at her apartment, folding her leg underneath her as she dropped into the chair. It only took her a few moments to set everything up so that she could print off the pictures that she'd taken of Ziva and the rest of the gang earlier that day.
She picked them up off the printer carefully, smiling softly at the pictures of Tony and McGee, and the one she'd barely managed to get of Gibbs later, before she set them aside. It was the picture of Ziva that she sat down in front of her, propped up on her keyboard, leaning back against the computer screen.
She smiled as she studied the photo. It was dull and a little blurry. Her cell phone was decent, but camera phones still weren't quite as good as the real thing. The colors looked a bit faded. Ziva's slight pose - the slight pout - made her want to laugh just a little.
It'd been an off-hand comment, but she'd meant it when she'd called Ziva pretty. It was an undeniable fact that the Mossad agent was a beautiful woman; Abby would go so far as to say gorgeous. But she'd never had a chance to really study Ziva's features before.
She so rarely let down her guard and relaxed that staring was out of the question. Ziva seemed to have almost a sixth sense about anyone watching her. To Abby it seemed like a handy skill for an assassin to have, but it could also prove to be embarrassing for her if Ziva caught her staring.
Abby lifted a finger to trace over Ziva's features. She knew Ziva's eyes were brown, but she hadn't realized how they sparkled. The curve of her lips drew her eyes and for a second Abby wondered what it would be like to kiss those lips - that woman. Her finger slipping down the photo as she got lost in her own thoughts, jerked her out of them and back to the moment. She smiled as she realized that her finger was brushing over Ziva's hair in the picture. There was something about curly hair that always made her want to reach out and touch it, run her fingers through it.
It was something that she could only imagine letting herself do in a moment of forgetfulness. Ziva somehow enforced such an impressive bubble of personal space around herself that she couldn't quite imagine how Ziva would react.
It was, with a start, that she realized that she had a crush on Ziva and she wondered how it could have happened. She'd spent Ziva's first few months with NCIS hating and resenting her. Now she makes excuses to go to the bullpen to see her.
Abby looked back down at the picture in front of her. The thing about having tangible proof was that it made everything seem so much more real.
Now that she knew and realized what she was feeling she could decide what to do about it.
Abby took one last look at the photo before she got up. She had a phone call to make and a Mossad Officer to ask out.
Things were looking brighter already.
The End