Notes: Not sure where this one came from, but sometimes ideas just come to me and beg to be written.
Summary: Ziva's father reacts to her resignation from Mossad, and Tony and Ziva discuss their paternal relatives. Tiva, of course, though it's light this time around. Season seven spoilers, up through the end of The Inside Man.
Disclaimer: Not mine, never were, never will be. Don't sue, trust me, I have nothing you'd want, except maybe a kidney. But probably not even that.
Fathers
"After everything you put me through, after all the hell I lived and the fact that you did nothing to stop it, I can't believe that you would still expect my loyalty," Ziva spat out at her father, looking at his face in MTAC as she cut her final ties to her former employer and father, Eli David.
"Ziva..." the Director of Mossad started, then stopped, pursing his lips together.
"Don't. Everything I wrote to you in that e-mail was the truth. I am tired of the lies and the manipulation. My resignation is final." She motioned for the feed to be cut, as she did not wish for this conversation to continue any longer. She'd made her decision, and her father would have to learn to accept it. Or he could go to hell! she thought.
"You okay?" Tony asked her, and she nodded. He left it at that. Sometimes it was best.
They headed back to their desks, the bullpen eerily dark since they were the only two people still working that evening. Ziva had insisted on staying late to have the conversation with her father, who had just arrived at work. 8:23 AM in Tel Aviv, 2:23 AM in DC.
Tony sat down and began to type, determined to finish the paperwork he'd neglected in order to help Ziva out in MTAC. Ziva had asked him to stay with her and help with the feed, so instead of taking his work home with him, he'd opted to stay at work to do it until it was time to talk with Director David.
Ziva also sat down at her desk, wanting to check her e-mail before leaving, and also subconsciously wanting comfort from her partner.
"I thought you finished all your work," Tony murmured, wondering why she wasn't going home. She had to be tired, not necessarily physically tired, but emotionally. Director David was pretty exhausting to deal with, as he'd found out several months ago.
"I did. I would like to check a few things before I leave," she replied, and opened up her e-mail. Not surprisingly, there was already an e-mail from her father waiting in her inbox. She sighed, which caused Tony to look up from his work momentarily, but he returned to it without a word.
"Ziva," it read, "You have defied me for the last time. From today forward, I no longer have a daughter. I told you to choose your loyalties, so be it."
"Good," she said out loud.
"Huh?" came the response from across the room.
"It took less than five minutes for my father to disown me after I cut him off," she said nonchalantly. Tony didn't respond, so she continued, "He wishes for me to believe that he cared for me as a daughter, and not just some pawn."
"And?"
"And I know better. I think I have always known that I would amount to nothing in his eyes without being Mossad." She stopped talking for a moment, and he pulled his chair over to her desk, bringing his phone with him as she spoke.
She was startled by the tinny voice of Tony's cell phone, on speaker, instructing, "To listen to your saved messages, press four," and seeing him press the button on his phone. She looked at him quizzically, but he said nothing, instead letting the speaker on the phone do the talking.
"Anthony you are a worthless waste of space, a disappointment if I ever saw one. I have no son. Good for nothing, useless, waste of a man. After all I've done for you, to throw it in my face. Good riddance." She heard a click, then the phone beeped, and the voicemail's voice was back, declaring that was the end of the message. Her eyes widened as she turned her head to face him while he closed his phone.
He shrugged, and said, "I know how you feel. If that helps." She looked at him incredulously.
"Why have you never-"
"Deleted that message?"
"Yes," was the response.
"So that if I ever got to thinking that I wished my father had been there for me, for anything, I could play this and remember how much better off I am without him," Tony responded. Ziva could see that behind his tough exterior, there was a tiny shred pain flashing in his eyes.
A pain she was beginning to understand. She'd accepted her father's dismissal of her, but she didn't have to like it. "Second question," she started,
"Why have I never told you that my father disowned me?"
"In addition to the fact that you are apparently psychic," she joked, "yes."
"It never came up."
"So your father never contacts you?"
"No."
"You've never tried to contact him?"
"No. There's no point. I tried, the first few months after he sent that message, but he would have nothing to do with me. So I gave up," he responded.
"Why?"
"I joined the police force. He wanted me to follow in his footsteps." He shrugged. "I did what made me happy, he couldn't deal with that."
"Tony, I had no idea," Ziva said sympathetically.
"I'm over it," he said, shrugging again, "It's been years now. But what about you?"
"I pretty much lost all respect I had for him over the past few months. When we went to Tel Aviv, I felt my trust of him start to dwindle, but I still wanted to believe that he was human, that he was a father. But every time something else happened, I lost more and more trust in him, until I realized he would not be sending a rescue team after me.
"By the time you, Gibbs, and McGee finally came, I'd accepted that I was going to die. But when I saw your face in front of me after all that time, I knew. My father did not care about me, not even a fraction of what this team does."
"Ziva," he said, and put his arm around her, pulling her close to him and resting his chin on top of her head.
"I'd pushed my doubts about Eli out of my mind until you came for me, realizing once I saw your face that he truly had no intention of coming for me." She wasn't crying, he noticed, but she still needed comforting. He put his other arm around her and kissed the top of her head.
"Well, Ziva, I can't say that I know exactly how it feels to be you: to not have your father come to your rescue and to be used as a toy in some silly game, but as another disownee-" he cracked a smile at his own DiNozzoism- "I can assure you that it gets easier with some time."
"I am fine, Tony," she said, even though she knew it was sort of a lie, and she knew that he knew, as well. But he didn't press the issue.
They sat together for a few moments in time, Ziva relaxing in his embrace, leaning into him and letting him stroke her hair. She had to admit, it felt good to know that someone cared, and even better to know that it was Tony who cared so much.
"Thanks, Tony," she said, and they sat in silence a few minutes longer. He hadn't known this side of Ziva before, but it was a side that few had ever seen. She was not a vulnerable person, if anything, she had the thickest skin of everyone on the team. She'd changed, he realized, but in a good way.
"It's not all bad," he spoke, breaking the silence in a low voice.
"Oh?"
"Every time I think of my father, I realize that I will never be able to be that kind of dad. The kind that expects too much and cuts you out when you don't meet up." She pulled away from his embrace to turn and look him in the eyes.
"Tony DiNozzo," she spoke his name with extra emphasis, "has actually considered being a father?" she laughed, unable to believe what she'd just heard.
"Don't tell anyone," he said, smiling, and she smiled back. Did she detect some kind of hint in his eyes and his words? Or was it just her imagination?
"You gonna be okay?" he asked.
"Yes." She looked into his eyes. She saw pain hidden behind concern and ... Caring? Love? "But only if you tell me more about these imaginary DiNozzo children," she asked slyly.
"Well, they are all incredibly good looking and intelligent, naturally," he said, flashing Ziva a huge grin. She rolled her eyes, but he could tell there was a glimmer of a smile behind it.
"And what else?"
"Why do you want to know so badly?" he said quickly and quietly, feeling suddenly like he was being interrogated.
"I'm just fascinated, Tony. This is the first time you've ever hinted that you might some day want to be a father. Growing up, are we?"
"I guess I was never ready to admit it," he shrugged.
"Until now?"
"Until now," was the response. They stared each other down for a minute, until she broke their gaze, shaking her head.
"Maybe I was wrong about you," she started.
"And how is that, Ziva?"
"I said you'd never get it. I'm starting to think that maybe you actually have gotten it."
"You get a lot of things when you think someone you love is dead," he said, without even realizing at first what he'd said. Ziva caught it, though, and he saw the recognition flash in her eyes, and then it hit him.
"Yes," she mused quietly, pausing to be sure to choose her words carefully, "like when that car exploded and I thought you were in it."
Time stopped. It was a roundabout way of saying it, but it was said. It was out there. And there would be no turning back.
"Ziva," he whispered, and she looked up at him as he drew her face to his, softly touching his lips to hers. She responded just as gently, parting her lips ever so slightly and leaning into the kiss.
He did not deepen it, however, but pulled back instead, touching his forehead to hers. He looked into her eyes. "Let's get out of here and get some sleep," he suggested. It was after three in the morning.
They gathered their things and got up, heading toward the elevator. He reached over and took her hand in his own, and she looked down at it, and then at him, and smiled.
"Let's," was the response.
Author's Notes: This just came to me out of nowhere, but also as a self-reflection piece. My mother cut all ties with me nearly two years ago, and writing about parents who can just toss their kids away was oddly cathartic. I hope you enjoyed this story as much as I enjoyed writing it.