A Marine sergeant's head is found in the luggage of an elderly Israeli veteran, and Ziva finds herself in a difficult position: caught between NCIS and a man known as a Hero of Israel. Est. TIVA.
RATED: M to be safe for some graphic romance and violence scenes.
NOTE: I've decided to go with the majority of the actors' birthdates as birthdates for the characters, with the exception of Abby/Pauley (because I don't think Abby is supposed to be 39) and Ziva/Cote (for plot purposes). Ages are going to come into play a little later.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of NCIS.
Chapter 1: Being Torn Apart
Ziva yawned and stretched slowly as her internal alarm clock went off. Her toes brushing against bare calves, she mumbled a sleepy threat when he awoke at the touch and pinned her down underneath his warm, firm body. As his lips began caressing her skin, she let him have his few moments of control before she forced his lips back up and away from her collarbone with one good nudge of her head, teasing him with soft, almost imperceptible kisses on his throat.
"I thought you had a run this morning," he groaned, when her fingers tangled themselves in his hair and pulled his head down for more kisses.
"Not quite yet," she breathed back, and without the slightest warning, he was suddenly the one caught beneath her. "I have time."
He laughed, hands cupping around her butt as he replied mischievously, "I'm not sure I'm quite recovered from the last time yet."
"Well, that is truly a shame, Tony," she teased back, leaning forward provocatively. With that, she started to slide off, causing a panicked yelp to escape from his lips. "I would not want to be the one who tires you…" she continued, pouting slightly.
He caught her lip between his, nibbling at it lightly. "I'll survive," he returned in a low voice. "I dare you to try me, my little desert rose…"
Ziva held back the laughs as he started kissing her throat again. "You may regret that dare, my little hairy butt," she murmured.
Meanwhile, the security officers at the gates of Dulles International Airport had a recurring problem on their hands once more.
"Mr. Rosenberg," Officer Mitchell Gervase said calmly, slowly and loudly as he tried to pass back the passport being held out to him. "Mr. Rosenberg, your passport is expired. Where is Rachel?"
The elderly man, stooped with his age and the wear of life, thrust out the fragile Israeli passport insistently. "Yisra'el. I go Yerushalayim in airplane. Gate 46," he repeated. "I must go Yisra'el."
"Come with me, Mr. Rosenberg, we'll call Rachel to come pick you up," Officer Gervase sighed, picking up the man's small suitcase, an antique which easily dated back to the 30s or 40s. He frowned when a sticky red substance began to drip from the cracks. "Mr. Rosenberg, what's in your bag?" He set down the suitcase and began to open the suitcase despite the man's adamant protests in Hebrew and Yiddish.
"Oh, my God!"
(enter NCIS theme)
"Let's go!" Gibbs called as he hung up the phone. "We've got a Marine's head in a carry-on at Dulles!"
"How do they know it's a Marine, boss?" McGee asked as the three younger agents took off after him.
"One of the security officers recognized him. Roommate."
"Sergeant Dean Guenther, Quantico," Gibbs said as the team edged past the skittery travelers and under the crime scene tape. One border security guard was sitting on the conveyer belt, shaking, with two others trying to calm him down. Another couple of guards were arguing with an old man in a curtained-off section of the area. "Guard who found the head is Officer Mitchell Gervase."
"What happened, Officer Gervase?" Tony asked the guard.
"Well, Mr. Rosenberg was trying to get into the departures lounge again," the officer said shakily. "He's a little…" he twirled his finger at his temple. "Comes here about every coupla days, tries to pass. But today when I went to bring him to our detainment office, to call Rachel – that's his granddaughter – to pick him up, I noticed this… stuff coming out of his suitcase. And when I opened it…" he broke down again. "God, I just talked to him this morning!…"
"Where's the suitcase?" Gibbs asked. "And Rosenberg?"
"That's him there," said one of the other officers, putting a comforting hand on Gervase's shoulder while pointing to the elderly man. "But he doesn't speak too much English, so unless you know Israeli…"
"Hebrew," Ziva corrected automatically. "Israeli is a nationality, not a language. I will go speak to him, Gibbs," she said before he had even opened his mouth, heading for the curtains.
"I will take it from here, thank you, officers," Ziva said quietly as she slipped in. "Shalom, Mar Rosenberg."
"Ha'im at medaberet ivrit?" he asked hopefully. "Yisre'eli?"
"Ken," Ziva said, careful to keep her tone level, calm and submissive – a man of his age most likely wouldn't appreciate being talked to as equals by a 'child', and a woman at that. "From Tel Aviv."
The man's face lit up at that statement. "I lived in Tel Aviv for many, many years. On Hayim Weizman Street."
Ziva couldn't stop the slight smile at the man's almost childlike speech. The poor man was probably suffering dementia. "I grew up on Zeitlin Street, sir. Not that far from Hayim Weizman. I had a friend who lived on that street."
"What was her name?"
"Her name was Eva-Sarah," Ziva replied. "Mar Rosenberg, why are you trying to go to Jerusalem?"
"I must go to Jerusalem. I must return to my post. I am a soldier of Israel. This you understand. I must return. I am needed to fight for Israel."
Ziva heard the sound of metal rattling around in his pocket. "Mar Rosenberg, what is in your pocket?"
"Sha, little girl, you are just like my granddaughter, always watching like a yente," he said dismissively. "These will let me anywhere." And from his coat pocket he pulled out a fistful of small military medals, placing them on the table in front of Ziva.
Ziva felt her heart literally skip a beat as she recognized that she was sitting across from what must have been a lifetime of military service and meritorious conduct.
Rosenberg seemed to recognize her expression and almost happily, he began to pick through each medal. With some difficulty, he lifted a golden medal dangling from a red, white, blue and black striped ribbon. Two Magen Davids graced the front of the medal, one joined with a sword, the other with an olive branch. "1967. Fighters Against Nazis." He picked up another one. "War of Independence."
Ziva scanned each of the 14 campaign ribbons and medals lying in front of her. Only once in her life had she seen a soldier with so many awards, and she was certain it was the same man. "Mar Rosenberg," she asked slowly, almost hating to interrupt the man's military nostalgia. "How did Sergeant Guenther's head end up in your suitcase?"
He looked at her suspiciously for a second, before he hastily starting gathering his treasures back into his pocket, shooting dark glares at her as he muttered, "Judenrat… Du arbeitest für das Judenrat… Du arbeitest mit den Nazin…"
"I do not work with the Nazis, Mar Rosenberg," Ziva said patiently. "The Nazis are all gone. I work to arrest them. I am Mossad."
"Mossad? Ha! There is no such thing as a Mossad…"
"Saba!" came a young woman's frustrated moan as she zipped in with Tony right behind her. "Oy vey, Saba, what have you done now?" She turned to Ziva and Tony, apologizing profusely, "I'm so sorry, officers. He escaped again and I feel bad locking him up… he has dementia…"
"Ziva, this is Rachel Meyer, Mr. Rosenberg's granddaughter," Tony said quietly.
The two women looked at each other a moment before Rachel exclaimed, "Ziva David?"
"Rachel Rosenberg?" Ziva asked in return.
"Not for a couple of years now, but yeah. Man, excuse me while I get a hold on my nostalgia! Wow, I didn't think I'd see you again in this lifetime!"
"You two know each other, I take it?" Tony asked, looking from woman to woman.
"Know each other?" Rachel said with a disbelieving laugh.
"We grew up across the street from one another," Ziva explained quietly to Tony.
"I don't think Saba recognizes you," Rachel told her, then turned to her grandfather. "Saba, this is Ziva. Benjamin's daughter."
"Binyamin," Ziva corrected.
"What's the difference?" Rachel said logically.
"Trust me, there is a big difference between Benjamin and Binyamin," Ziva sighed, rubbing her temples wearily as Rosenberg waved off his granddaughter, muttering,
"No, no, Benjamin's daughter is dead. The Arabs blew her up. They are all dead." And he began to hum a wordless prayer.
Sighing, Rachel waved an irritated hand in resignation and turned back to Ziva. "What did Saba do?"
"Tried to take the head of a US Marine through security," Tony replied quietly.
"Like his… head?" Rachel asked in astonishment, gesturing at her head. Ziva nodded, and Rachel said desperately, "Ziva, you cannot possibly be thinking of taking him into custody. You of all people…"
Ziva couldn't even reply, feeling a distinct uneasy sensation in her heart about this whole case.
Ziva had forgotten how entertaining and captivating Mar Rosenberg could be, not having seen him since his fall-out with her father many years ago.
"So we are stranded on this beach, yes," he said, gesturing a flat line with his hands to indicate the beach, "with the waves crashing and the fisherman crying for his broken boat. Such a kaddish has never been said since, girls. And we hear the gunfire in the distance, and Konrad says, 'Where have we arrived, at the camps once more?'" He paused and Rachel cut in.
"How many times will you tell the orange story, Saba?" she asked tiredly, as Ziva turned into the driveway towards the Navy Yard.
"Did your mother never teach you to hold your tongue, child?" he asked sternly, before he continued, albeit on a completely different story. "Now, Ziva, your mother, your mother would have taught you to hold your tongue when an elder is speaking. Chanah was an Enoch. Now they knew etiquette, that family… Such a pleasant child I have never seen. Such a beautiful bride… I remember – "
Ziva rolled her eyes out of view of the mirror, handing her pass to the guard at the gate. "Rachel, the guard needs to see your ID as well. Mar Rosenberg," she added, looking back. "Do you still have your passport on you? They need to see identification."
"These Americans… identification here, identification there, you think you are in the Reich again…" Mar Rosenberg muttered, pulling out his passport.
"Ziva, take him down to interrogation," Gibbs said in a clipped tone.
Ziva shook her head. "I am sorry, Gibbs, I will not," she said quietly. "He should not be treated as a suspect."
"Officer David, what in my voice made that sound like a request?"
"Nothing, Gibbs, but I will not take him to interrogation. He is not a threat. We can ask him questions," she added pointedly, "up here." With that, she turned away and slipped into her chair, chatting lightly with Rosenberg.
"David…" Gibbs said warningly. "Get back here."
Sighing, Ziva rose again and rejoined him. "Yes, Gibbs?"
"You can't go soft on him, Ziva, because he's Israeli," Gibbs told her quietly. "Just because he's a demented old man doesn't mean he didn't kill him. Like it or not, he is a suspect."
Jenny appeared at the foot of the stairs just then. "Ziva? I have Mossad on tele-conference for you. They say it's urgent."
"Ziva, under no circumstance is NCIS to hold Leo Rosenberg," her father said sternly. "I don't care what you have to do, who you have to torture or who you have to sleep with to do it, but he leaves today. They must not find him guilty, Ziva, no matter what he did or did not do. He is a Hero of Israel, they will not destroy his name with murder charges."
"Yes, director," she said quietly, heart sinking. NCIS wouldn't release the suspected killer of a Marine.
"Don't make me come out there, Ziva."
"No, director."
"So what did Daddy want?" Tony asked as he caught her by the arm upon exiting MTAC. Pulling her out of the main thoroughfare into an abandoned small task room, Tony closed the door and blocked it from being opened.
"Nothing," Ziva replied quietly, so distracted and in such emotional turmoil that she automatically moved her head to allow him unguarded access to her neck.
"Liar, liar, pants on fire," Tony accused, trailing kisses across her neck and throat in an effort to get her to respond. "What did he want?" Secret on-the-job sex wasn't fun if she wasn't participating.
"Nothing."
Fine. If she wanted to play that game, he could too. She had taught him the art of interrogation by sex well. It may have been the only form of interrogation she swore she could withstand completely, but that was with strangers, terrorists who didn't know her like he did. Didn't know where to kiss, how to touch, what to say…
"It won't work, Tony," she said as he started to undo the buttons on her blouse.
"I know," he replied, sliding the shirt off.
Tony was certain that she would break by the time they were done, judging by the way her muscles, taut when they began, were relaxing as he started retracing the route of her life. The scar on her earlobe where she'd torn an earring out at age 6. The faint burn on her left shoulder from the explosion of a missile strike at age 12. The scar just below it from the shrapnel of a suicide bomber at age 21. The small tattoo just below her right breast – a Star of David with a pair of crossed swords and a lightning bolt – the marking of a Komemuite assassin. Her get-out-of-jail free card if ever a foreign authority tried to charge her with murder. She had broken once before to tell him the meaning of the tattoo and the circumstances under which she had first received it…
Tony paused as he remembered that night. The sex had been put on hold as she told him stories of seeing the slaughterers of her people face to face, of the men and women she had known in Tel Aviv who still bore the scars and the tattoos.
He had seen the numbered tattoo on Rosenberg's arm. He had caught sight of the military honours he carried in his pocket. Was this the same Mar Rosenberg she had told him about? The soldier who had fought Nazis as a child, survived concentration camps, smuggled himself to Palestine and fought for the establishment of Israel, fought for over forty years to guard his country? Who had earned every military distinction in Israel's history, was called a Hero of Israel? The same soldier who had taught the children of his neighbourhood the importance of guarding their country, product of a struggle going back centuries? The man Ziva had credited for her decision to join Mossad, to go beyond her mandatory two years in the IDF?
"Ziva?" he asked slowly, sinking into a nearby chair and bringing her with him. "What did he say?"
She was silent for a while, until he began to undo the button and fly on her jeans, pulling off her last layers and his as well. "Tony, do not do this to me," she moaned as he slowly began to tease her, hovering so close to her moist, throbbing folds that it tortured him as much as it did her to not take her. "Tony, please…" she begged, nails beginning to dig into his back as she arched instinctively, his mouth closing over one breast and pressing lightly at one sensitive nipple with his tongue. "Tony…"
He could hear her voice breaking. Next would come the tears. And then she would tell him what he wanted to know.
"Tony, stop or go," she groaned, the first of her sobs of frustration escaping. "Do not torture me like this. I will tell you. I will tell you, just please…" And he slid into her slowly, muscles closing around him in desperation as she rested her head against his shoulder and she gasped in relief.
She tried to get him to move faster, but he held her still, murmuring into her hair, "Tell me first."
"He wants me to get Rosenberg cleared and released today," she whispered, letting out a cry of dismay when Tony pulled out, getting to his feet. "No! I told you, I told you!" she pleaded as he pulled her to her feet as well. "Please, Tony, stop this…" she said with a sob, the pathetic hope in her eyes evident as he took her to the slightly more comfortable couch to begin anew. "I cannot take any more of this…"
"Not as much fun when you're on the other end, is it?" he whispered, laying her down.
"I will never do it again, Tony, never," she pleaded, a stray tear escaping even as he kissed it away gently.
"Oh, you will," Tony replied softly, laying light kisses on her eyelids as he slid in once more, her internal muscles immediately taking hold. Biting back the moan, he continued, "I didn't do it to hurt you, Ziva. You would have never told me otherwise, and we can't keep secrets from each other. We both know how badly that destroys."
Ziva nodded, a final sob racking her sweat-soaked body. Tony searched her face, a little surprised at how badly she'd taken the interrogation. Then he kissed her softly, tenderly as he began to set the pace – slower than normal. She was upset and wouldn't be able to take their usual rough pace.
Time began to slip away from her once more as she kept her gaze locked on his, seeing the apology for having scared her so in his eyes. She trusted him. She trusted him as she had nobody else, even Ari and Tali. She had never expected him to use her own interrogation technique against her, and so skilfully. She, one of the highest-trained Komemuite officers in all of Mossad, had broken in mere minutes against a first-time interrogator.
She arched her back with a moan of pleasure as he ravaged her body with gentle kisses, with feather-light touches and slowly-rocking thrusts. It made a change from their normal frantic lovemaking, where they were both so desperate to lead that they often couldn't figure who was in control, desperately touching and kissing and thrusting until they were both exhausted.
There was no question about who was in control now. This was an apology, a silent beg to let him make it up to her.
As the white-hot fires raced through her bloodstream, Ziva couldn't stop a cry, quickly swallowed by Tony's mouth, her pleasure climaxing. She remained in that drunken euphoria for a moment as he reached his breaking point, until the sensation left and she came crashing down along with him.
"Am I forgiven?" he gasped as he watched her face.
"Yes," she gasped in return, the single word beginning to slur from exhaustion.
"Ziva, no," he said gently, getting up and going to retrieve the various articles of clothing strewn around the room. As he redressed, taking her clothes back over, he saw that she had already fallen asleep. Sighing, he sat down carefully at the opposite end of the couch, managing to get her redressed without waking her. Maybe it was better to let her sleep for a while longer, while the rest of the team finished with taking Rosenberg into custody. It would save her the turmoil of being caught between her father's orders and Gibbs' orders.
Tony laid one last gentle kiss against her cheek and then left the room, closing the door quietly behind him. He nearly ran into Jenny as he did so, immediately stopping. "Oh, hello, director."
Jenny looked at him with that knowing look which said that she knew exactly what they'd been doing. Then she said quietly, "What did Mossad tell her?"
Tony sighed. "She needs to be taken off the case, director. Mossad's orders are in direct conflict with the investigation."
"They told her to get us to release him, didn't they?" Jenny asked. Tony nodded. "We can't let him go, Tony. Israeli or no Israeli, the man had a Marine's head in his suitcase. We don't just let people in that situation go."
"Not just released, Jen," he said quietly. "They wanted him cleared. He's somewhat of a legend in Israel."
"Can't do that."
"I know."