Ziva David had learned how to sit still without ever truly relaxing.

Even now-years after gunfire had stopped punctuating her days, after aliases and safe houses and coded phones-her body remembered. The park was warm, bright, ordinary. Children laughed. A dog barked. The smell of cut grass mixed with sunscreen and street food.

Normality pressed in from all sides, foreign and fragile.

She sat on a wooden bench with her back straight, one arm draped along the backrest, eyes tracking movement without seeming to. Tony was on the grass with Tali, both of them laughing too loudly, arguing about rules to a game that didn't really need any. A father and daughter moment, messy and joyful. Tony was all exaggerated groans and mock injuries; Tali was fierce and determined and delighted to beat him anyway.

Ziva watched them with something soft and aching in her chest.

She told herself she was safe. She told herself this was her life now.

Then she felt it.

A shift in the air behind her. Too close. Too quiet. Not Tony. Not Tali.

Her body reacted before her mind did.

She twisted sharply on the bench, one hand snapping back in a defensive arc, elbow lifting, balance grounded-muscle memory from Mossad training, from NCIS hallways and dark rooms and split-second decisions where hesitation meant death.

Her movement stopped mid-action.

Because behind her was not a threat.

It was you.

Small. Too thin. Standing close enough to the bench that your fingers were inches from her bag, the corner of a chocolate bar just visible where it peeked out. Your eyes were wide-not aggressive, not calculating. Just startled. Hungry. Afraid.

For half a second, Ziva could not breathe.

Her heart slammed against her ribs as the past surged uninvited: safe houses where children learned silence too early, war zones where hunger made thieves of the innocent, herself at that age- watching, surviving, being shaped into something sharp before she had words for it.

She forced her hand to unclench.

Her therapist's voice echoed in her head, steady and irritatingly calm. Breathe, Ziva. You are here. This is now.

She inhaled slowly through her nose. Held it. Let it out.

Only then did she fully look at you.

Your clothes were worn. Your hands were trembling, fingers curled as if ready to run. There was no adult hovering nearby. No one calling your name. Just you, standing alone in a crowded park, trying to steal food because your body had learned that asking did not work.

Ziva straightened, deliberately softening her posture. She was suddenly, acutely aware of how intimidating she could be-of the way her silence carried weight.

Awkwardness settled over her, unfamiliar and uncomfortable. She knew how to interrogate. How to fight. How to protect her child.

Other children were... harder.

She glanced briefly toward Tony and Tali, still distracted by their game, then back to you.

Her voice, when she spoke, was careful. Lowered. Not unkind.

"..You are alone, yes?"