I'll Rise like the Break of Dawn (That Perfect Girl is Gone)
Disclaimer: I do not own or make any claim on NCIS; it is the property of its respective creators.
Summary: The thing about your identity is its constantly changing. No one stays the same. Or, this is the story of a girl, now a woman, named Ziva David, and the many different chapters of her story. (The end has not yet been written.) - Written for Michelle (Shinju90) in the 2014 NFA White Elephant Exchange.
Author's note(s): 'Abba' is a Hebrew word that seems to have multiple meanings, a lot of them contradictory. One of the most common uses for it is as a term of endearment by a child to their father, like the ones 'Daddy' and 'Papa' as the word itself literally means, "The Father," in the New Testament. It is cannon that Ziva has called Eli this.
This story was written for Michelle (Shinju90) in the 2014 NFA White Elephant Exchange. I chose to use her first prompt, which is listed below. I hope you enjoy this, Michelle! I had so much fun working on your story, with your wonderful, interesting prompts. Thanks so much for giving me the chance! :)
Prompt used:
#1. GEN - Drama
"No light, no light in your bright blue eyes
I never knew daylight could be so violent
A revelation in the light of day
You can't choose what stays and what fades away."- which is from the song No Light, No Light by Florence + The Machine. The amazing song and band do not belong to me and I make no claim on them. I just use them to feed my muse.
Rating Preference: Any Rating is fine. If pairings are included they can be anything other than Tiva, McAbby, or any Ellie ship that isn't her husband.
Warnings: Eli's bad parenting, mentions of blood, violence, dead bodies, Ziva's time in Somalia, cannon character death(s), S10 and S11 spoilers contained within. Please don't read if any of these things upset you.
Rating: F13
Spoilers: for Kill Ari, the S6 Aliyah arc, the S7 Somalia arc, Eli in S10, and Ziva leaving in S11.
The story title is inspired by the song Let It Go from Disney's Frozen. I do not own or make any claim on it.
Quotes directly from an NCIS episode "'appear like this.'" I've used ones from the episodes Truth or Consequences, Aliyah, and Good Cop, Bad Cop. I own none of them and make no claim to belong to people other than me.
Most of the life changing events in her life will have something to do in part with her father, Gibbs or Ari, or some combination of the three. But that's not how the story starts. (That's not who this story is about.)
It starts the way that many important and memorable stories do…
Once upon a time, in a land far, far, away, there was a girl named Ziva. When she asked why she was given such a traditional name compared to the other names of children her age, her parents would tell her that they had chosen for her, their first born, a strong name, a worthy name.
"Ziva means 'the Light of God,' which is perfect for a soldier of our cause, my daughter," her father said.
"I named you this because it means brilliance, radiance, splendid, all things I want for you and things I see in you, Ziva," was what her mother told her, smiling at her lovingly. (She wouldn't realize just how telling the difference in her parent's answers was until years later.)
As was said, the girl named Ziva was raised to be a solider in a worthy cause. And that girl believed in what she was fighting for, what her family fought for, completely. Her passionate belief was only reinforced when her mother and baby sister were killed by the people she was supposed to fight. After that, in her mind there was good and there was evil, and even though she lived in the gray between both, the girl hadn't yet realized just how little she truly knew of it.
(The day she does is the day her orders are to kill a traitor to their cause, her half-brother, orders given to her by their father and leader. And she knows even as she fights against it, denies the truth, as she tries to save her big brother, because Ari couldn't have done this, that something is happening, something that will change everything. It's when she kills her own flesh and blood to save someone who is basically a stranger from a death he didn't deserve at her brother's hands, that she wonders, how could her father order this? And how could she have done it? Even if in the end the reason why she did it had nothing to do with her father's orders and everything to do with the man with the kind, intense blue eyes daring her to wake up and see the truth. As she sits beside the body of what was once her big brother, her protector, and watches the blood drain from it, she can't help but think the Ari and Ziva David of before both died this day. The girl is a woman now, the last part of her childhood slain dead by her own hands.)
The next time the woman knows something life-changing (she thinks life-breaking is a much more accurate term) is happening is three years later, when Michael (her friend, lover, colleague the pretender) is dead on her living room floor because her partner kills him in self-defense. The woman gets there too late to save Michael, who bleeds out in her arms, and it is just like Ari all over again, only this time she didn't pull the trigger, she just didn't intervene, and the blood on her is coming from a body that is still alive, not dead. She thinks this might be worse. And the woman knows she isn't being fair to her partner, but Tony shouldn't have been there. What if it had been him who was bleeding out in her arms instead of Michael? (And she hates that she knows that would have been far worse than this.)
She can protect herself, for most of her life there was no one else to do it. This is her fault and she knows that, but if she listens to that voice in her head she will not be able to function. So she shifts her self-loathing and the blame at herself, her fear and resentment at her father, no, her leader, her doubts, grief and anger at Michael to Tony, and to Gibbs, to and at anyone who isn't her, because all she wants to do is scream.
She sees Ari around every corner of this building, Tali, her beautiful baby sister, out of the corner of her eye, her mother's voice is whispering to her, and she wants, needs, it all to be gone. "'There is no one left to blame. Stop looking,'" she is told. She cannot, for if she does she will have to face just how many ghosts she lives with, and the fact there may be no one or nothing to blame for them not being here but by fate.
The woman goes on that ill-fated mission knowing what will happen, knowing her odds. "'It is what it is,'" she says to her friend, as she leaves him behind. If she thinks that part of the reason she's truly going is because she wants to hurt on the outside as much as she does on the inside or because she is tired of being surrounded by ghosts, but not being one of them, well, she only speaks of her nobler reasons. And there is no one left to call her out on that.
The woman known as Ziva David is left for dead in a Somalian terrorist lair that is her personal prison, in some godforsaken part of the Sahara desert, with no one coming to save her, and she welcomes it. She has never been afraid of death. (She's terrified of being left behind. She can only rebuild herself so many times.) She re-embraces living when a bag is ripped off her head and she's staring into a set of familiar green eyes.
"'Couldn't live without you I guess,'" Tony tells her, his answer of why he tried to rescue her, a dead woman.
(And doesn't he know that she feels the same? He is her partner, they are her family. She has already lost one family, she will not lose another.)
"'So you will die with me. You should have left me alone,'" she replies. This is what she's afraid of.
Take her, beat her, kill her, but do not make her watch it be done to those she loves. But Gibbs frees her from this prison like he freed her from the one of her own lies, back when she saved him in an old basement, only this time it's him taking the kill-shot to save her.
The woman that was Ziva David is reborn in the Sahara desert, leaving her father's daughter, the loyal Mossad officer and Ari's little sister behind when she is carried out by her chosen family. They are the one group of people she doesn't have worry about being ghosts.
The woman rebuilds herself into a new Ziva, and she tries, she tries so hard. She becomes an American citizen, she smooths her edges out and locks the warrior within herself away until she is what is expected of for an American NCIS agent, she finds someone she thinks she loves, and she thinks Ray loves her, she's forgiven by her (new and chosen) family and so she mostly forgets.
Even when Ray, the man who she thought loved her, her fiancé, turns out to have been using her, well, this is not the first time a man has done so. She puts one foot in front of the other and does not give him the satisfaction of a reaction past dishing out to him a sliver of the pain he's caused her. (She hopes his face doesn't heal. He should be permanently marked by what he's done.) The woman is not an easy person to break, not anymore, if she ever was.
So of course this is when the woman's father comes back and manages to do exactly that to her. He lies to her, he betrays her, and then he dies on her. She is once again left holding a loved one as they bleed out in her arms, and this time is worse than Ari, than Michael, because this is her father, her Abba, her leader. She is not lost when holding him like with Ari, or angry like with Michael, no, she is devastated, sobbing like she can cry her grief, her pain out, but nothing helps.
She puts on a brave face, once again puts one foot in front of the other, but nothing can make this better, not her friends, not the funeral, not even her (just) revenge upon her father's killer. The woman is truly alone now, there is not a single member of her blood family, the people who the girl she used to be was raised and spent her days with left, and she is so tired of the people she loves leaving her. She is so tired of only being able to watch, unable to do anything to help them or to be enough for them to stay, as she holds her loved ones in her arms as they die, forced to beg them not to go to a place where she cannot follow.
The woman cannot rebuild herself like she has before. Before she always had someone left to go home to, even as the members of her family died one by one. Now there is no one left to go back to and she can visit their graves all she likes, but ghosts cannot help her this time. She is not the girl of her childhood. She is not the woman who sat beside Ari, the brother she killed, as his blood went cold. She is not the woman who tried to will Michael to stay alive, holding him as if she only held on tight enough it would stop him from dying in her arms. She is not the woman who spun out of control, left her chosen family and went on a suicide mission with open eyes, waiting and wanting to die. She is not the woman that was reborn as she left the prison that should have been her tomb. She is not the woman who rebuilt herself to fit best with her second family, who found and lost what she thought was love. She is not the woman who begged her father to come back to her, to not leave her alone, while holding his still warm body, when she is sure she never had him at all. She is not the woman who tried to be okay with being the last David left, who hoped revenge would sate the gaping hole in her heart. She is all and none of these women.
The woman named Ziva leaves Tony (her partner, her friend, her family) standing on that runway, watching as her plane takes off, and she wants to stay with him, with them, but she cannot.
This is the story of a woman named Ziva David. Everything that's come before is part of her, but now it's time to turn the page. She doesn't know who she is anymore, but she knows she's not who she was. That's a start. This time, she's going to be the one to initiate her life changing events and decisions.
This is not her end. It's merely the pause between the old page and the new one yet to come. She's due for a rebirth.
(So keep reading)
Written by Valerie Portolano
Finished on June 17th, 2014
Posted on July 18th, 2014