Norman sat staring into the dying embers of the fire he'd built earlier. Mingus had called it a night a couple hours ago, the long day of hiking and sight-seeing taking a toll. His own body was screaming for sleep, but his mind was buzzing from being surrounded by constant reminders of Meg. He and Mingus had even taken her El Camino into town earlier; when he sat in the driver's seat a wisp of air carrying her scent rose to his nose, the normally calming smell of lilacs and honeysuckle making his stomach clench. Now he was sunk into her leather sectional covered by a buttery soft afghan trying his best to get the sight of the rust brown stain on the garage floor out of his mind's eye.

When the last glowing coal winked out, he made his way up to the bedroom and crawled between the sheets, pulled her pillow over and wrapped his arms around it. His thoughts turned towards Ziva; intelligently he knew that she and Meg was the same person, but emotionally he felt as if she was a stranger. Even weirder, he was angry with her... angry that she got to live. He wished it had been the Ziva version that had died. It was misguided, of course. He'd been in therapy enough that he knew that he was deflecting his anger onto Ziva because it hurt too damn much to admit that he was furious with Meg. She'd promised to be okay and instead she'd damned near bled to death on a cold garage floor. It'd been weeks before the physicians would even say that she'd live, weeks in which he'd attended her funeral and mourned rather publicly. Worse, he'd not been allowed to see her... Bob was his only source of information about her condition and progress.

As he finally felt himself drifting off, he let his mind wander to the one satisfying moment he'd had in the past 6 months; standing in the courtroom at the end of the trial watching Michael Tayte led away in handcuffs to the prison that would be his home for the rest of his life.

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Looking into a mirror brought on a feeling similar to vertigo. Ziva made herself stand in front of the full-length mirror in the bedroom of her Tel Aviv apartment for long periods of time. She had to get to a point where her own reflection didn't cause her confusion. Her hair was now a very deep chocolate brown, as were her thicker eyebrows and dense eyelashes. The deep brown color, along with the new shape of her nose, higher cheekbones, and fuller lips spoke to the Israeli heritage of Ziva's mother. And yet, the Irish blood from her father was highlighted by her lighter skin, freckles, and deep green eyes. Of course, the biggest change of them all was that so much of her body was just... gone. Her breasts were much smaller, as was her waist and hips. All the physical therapy had hardened and defined her muscles and some surgical changes enhanced the differences. But of course, the biggest change of all was the blank space where her left leg once existed. The wound to her thigh and the subsequent loss of blood had resulted in an amputation mid-thigh.

With a sigh, she turned and did a hop-step over to the arm chair next to the bed. Her temporary prosthetic leg was propped against the wall and with a grimace she massaged vitamin E oil into the skin of her nub, as she called it, and then rolled the liner and prosthetic sock on before sliding into the socket and creating the vacuum seal that kept the thing in place. Today she was being fit with a new prosthetic leg that included a microprocessor knee. It would give her a much more natural gait and allow for the more rigorous exercise and activity that she was used to. With only 15 days until she made the trip back to the U.S., she needed to get comfortable with the new leg quickly.

Bob had visited the week before and told Ziva of his plan to have her work on Norman's show as a weapons advisor. It would make sense with her connection to Norman through Meg, and would give them an excuse to see one another and eventually work into a public relationship... or not. She shook her head and tried to throw the thought away, but it had nagged her since the moment she'd woken from her coma and faced her transformation head on. Would Norman still want her after all the changes to her physical appearance? Then when she began the gruelling work to bring her body back from the brink, she began to doubt her own ability to recover enough to pull off the subterfuge. When added to the unrelenting idea that Norman wouldn't like the changes, or that if too much time passed, he'd move on, she began driving herself beyond her limits during her therapy sessions. She grew angry and abusive when the therapists and doctors would try to limit her drive, resulting in what amounted to self-torture as she pushed through the pain to speed up her recovery.

So now she was within a few weeks of settling in the small Georgia town where Norman lived half the year. It killed her that the first time she'd see him face to face would be sitting in a lawyer's office as Norman would be handing over the ownership of Meg's property to Ziva. It would be a tricky meeting; Norman and Ziva have never met and the first time they lay eyes on each other would be very telling if they didn't play it right.

As she opened her dresser drawer to find a clean head scarf, she paused to pull a small photo album out. Opening it up to the first page, she was greeted by the picture of Meg and Norman the night in Kansas City when she wore the dress he'd bought her. She slowly flipped through the pages that were filled with prints of the various Instagram photos and other moments captured on her mobile phone; printed before her cloud account was deleted. They were her secret and they were what got her through the darkest of days. Carefully, she slid the album back into its spot at the back of the drawer and headed out the door to take another step towards what she hoped was a future that would make it all worthwhile.