Title: She Walked Away
Fandom: NCIS
Author: Alidiabin
Words: 1,462
Disclaimer: I own nothing
Warnings/ Spoilers: 8x09
Parings: none
Summary: The day Rivka David said goodbye to her eldest daughter.
She Walked Away
Rivka Yaakov formerly David had always prided herself on having intuition. It had saved her from a few hairy moments back when she was a dancer for the European Ballet Company. A ballet company that took only the best dancers from all over democratic Europe. Rivka sighed as she walked into the lounge room of her Haifa terraced home an empty plastic washing basket in her hands. She had not danced for the company for nearly twenty-two years. She had left the company when she had fallen pregnant with Ziva. A dancer simply could not afford to take nine months off, so Rivka had made a choice dancing or a family. She had chosen family. Eli had also finally been prompted to marry her, after three years of fleeting contact whenever the pair of them were in the same city and long love letters when the pair were apart.
Rivka had never imagined her life would turn out how it did. She had ended up a single mother raising two teenage girls. Though even before Rivka had left Eli she had been raising them alone. She had taken them away, back in early 1991, when Ziva was on the cusp over womanhood and Tali a mere girl. She was so fearful that her children would end up like their father. A man Rivka had come to resent for how much he had ruined her. How much he had blackened her soul. Rivka refused to raise two mossad officers, her daughters Ziva and Tali would become a music teacher and journalist respectively, just as Rivka had once planned. Rivka watched as Tali sat on the couch reading a book, she felt a sense of foreboding, like something bad was about to happen. She bit her lip in fear, for she had always prided herself on her intuition.
The front door flew open. Ziva stormed in, dressed in combat pants, heavy army boots and a tight black singlet. Rivka rolled her eyes, despite buying nothing but skirts and dresses for Ziva when she was the sole parent, Ziva's tomboy antics and ways had not faded with age like Rivkas brown hair had.
"Ziva" Tali gleefully cried as she discarded her book in favour of her dear sister. The twenty-one year old wrapped her arms around the sixteen year old.
"Oh Tali I have missed you" Ziva uttered. Rivka smiled at her daughters.
"Ziva" Rivka uttered, Ziva looked up at Rivka. It was no secret that mother and daughter had difficulties in their relationship. Ziva resented Rivka for making Eli go away, for taking away her favourite parent. Rivka in turn saw how much alike father and daughter were and Rivka desperately tried to squash their similarities in fear of loosing Ziva to mossad just as she had lost Eli. "What are you doing here?" Rivka asked. Ziva had gone to visit a person Ziva called 'a friend' in Edinburgh. Rivka had once seen Eli's bank balance and seen the rent paid for a flat in Edinburgh, she did not pry but always wondered who was there. An illegitimate child or a mistress, she often queried.
"Getting my things I am moving out" Ziva said calmly. Tali let go of her sister.
"But why?" Tali whined.
"I do not want Ima to hate me like she hated Aba for being in mossad" Ziva said as she ran up stairs to her and Tali's purple walled bedroom.
Rivka stood at the bottom of the stairs, while Ziva and Tali cleaned up.
"But won't you need it" Tali said her voice drifted down the stairs.
"I will not need skirts in mossad silly" Ziva uttered, her voice echoing in the dark landing.
Rivka let a lone tear fall down her face. A face that was far paler than her daughters. Ziva was becoming exactly what Rivka did not want for her, she was becoming like her father. She was going to loose her daughter, she was going to loose the reason she had given up so much. Rivka was going to loose her daughter at the hands of soulless institution that had already stolen her former husband. She raced up the stairs.
Ziva and Tali's room had never been clean, the two girls were slobs but while Ziva cleaned out her side it became even messier. The screen brought to separate the room and provide privacy had been taken down and folded up. Tali's bed was covered in skirts and girly tops originally belonging to Ziva. Shoes of various colours, styles and heel types were now under Tali's bed.
"Here" Ziva said as she handed Tali tapes of the 80's/90's fem pop that had gotten Ziva through many teenage nightmares.
"But you love the Cardigans" Tali uttered as she added the cassette tapes to her collection of Aqua and Queen.
"You are not doing this" Rivka declared as she walked into the room. Ziva looked up as she put a old poster in the rubbish bag.
"I have made up my mind" Ziva said angrily, as she stuffed an old photograph in her bag.
"Your father has put ideas in your head" Rivka shouted "Hey is trying to mould you to fit what he wants"
"Then the pair of you a remarkably similar" Ziva shouted back. Rivka looked up. "You are the only one that wanted me to be a music teacher"
"You said yes to it, you told your school careers consoler that's what you wanted to be" Rivka shouted. Tali sat on her bed watching as her mother and sister fought yet again.
"To get you off my case" Ziva said as she begun pacing. "I was eighteen I did not know what I wanted"
"And now you know" Rivka said in a mocking tone. "You want to become corrupt and soulless and push away any family you have left"
"I want to defend my country" Ziva said through gritted teeth "And make sure my family can live in it safely" Ziva turned and looked at Tali who was now crying. "I wanted to do this quietly to save Tali having to go through any more trauma"
"You can't go" Tali whispered. Ziva looked at her sister who was acting like she was four not sixteen.
"I have too" Ziva said as she slung her khaki bag across her shoulders. "I am joining mossad whether Ima likes it or not. And I think that if we live under the same roof she will get just as hurt as she was with Aba" Tali nodded. The sisters hugged yet again.
"If you leave you are not coming back" Rivka uttered calmly. "I am not going through it all again" She was not going to spend long nights wondering if Ziva was ok. She was not going to wait for a mossad officer to call with the most devastating news a mother should ever hear. Rivka decided that the moment Ziva walked out that door she was dead to her.
"Fine" Ziva said accepting her fate. She kissed Tali on the cheek.
"Be careful" Tali whispered. "I really don't want to go to your funeral"
"I will try" Ziva said. "Come on walk me to the car"
The three of them walked slowly down the stairs. Rivka felt tears prick her eyelids as the moved closer and closer to the door.
"You don't have to leave" Rivka uttered begging her daughter to stay.
"I do mother" Ziva replied as she opened the front door which suddenly felt very heavy.
Rivka looked out onto the road; it was empty except for a couple of parked cars. One was parked opposite her house. The man sitting in the drivers seat looked perhaps five years older than her and much darker. He had a cigarette hanging from his mouth.
"Eli" Rivka whispered as Ziva rushed to the car. Her ex-husbands name stung her tongue, she felt physically sick.
"How dare you Eli" Rivka shouted not caring who of her nosy neighbours saw her. "You can't take her" Eli did not even flinch her simply ashed his cigarette on the hot road.
"He is not taking me" Ziva replied. "I am leaving" Ziva got into the car. She waved at Tali who waved back. Eli sped off.
Rivka let a scream erupt from her lungs. She ripped her clothes as if Ziva had died. Tears ran down her face. The neighbours peaked out from behind their curtains judging looks on their faces. Rivka did not care. Tali tried to pick her up, tried to move her. Rivka banged her fists on the ground.
Ziva watched as Eli turned up the radio to drown out Rivkas sobbing that echoed throughout Haifa. He turned up the air condition mistaking Ziva's tears for sweat.
A/N: I wanted to write a Ziva and Rivka piece, alas here it is. And thank you for ME Woffard for letting my bounce ideas off of her.