Hi guys :) This is my new story, I promise I have not abandoned 'dear diary' but I was um... pushed into posting this. This is actually my friend Amy's idea (Shortcake99 - check out her fics) and I maintain it's her fic and I just wrote it for her but she wouldn't post it and I wasn't writing it for nothing so here this is (and we have argued way too much about this). I actually intended to post this all in a oner for Amy's birthday but she wants it now and since it's her idea, I had no choice. You can expect updates every three or four days maybe.
Disclaimer: I'm too ill and stuffed up to even think about a funny one. I don't own it. There. I said it. Are you happy now?
P.S. the first segment is written by Amy.
P.P.S - Amy, please don't kill me.
I'm looking hard in the mirror
But I don't fit my skin
It's too much to take
It's too hard to break me
From the cell I'm in
'~Long Gone and Moved On' The Script~
The darkness of the small, cramped space clouded over the confined cell leaving it in utter darkness. The rare thunder cracked in the sky, the even rarer bolt of lightning flashing in the sky, allowing the flicker of light that identified the single occupant of the cell. The bruise covering her right eye was only visible for a slight second but it was still there. That hit threw her head back, crashing it against the black rim of the unstable and wooden chair. Her frame hang off the chains on the wall as her skin rotted and wrinkled as the food her body craved was denied.
Her hair hung like a frame around her face, shielding her from the outside world. Her clothes, ripped and ragged, torn away from her body like food from the plate of a hungry child. Her feet black and dirty like the rest of her body, past the feeling of pins and needles long ago.
The open wounds on her back gapped open inviting infection in, allowing it to imbed itself into her bloodstream. The blood that tickled down her arms and dripped onto the floor like a broken drainpipe undeniably made from a sharp knife, sliced into her skin only hours before. Her uncooperativeness only caused her captors to hit her faster, harder treating her like a punching bag in the gym, everybody having a turn fuelled by anger as she did not crack, did not utter a word.
The Star of David that lay underneath the sand, somewhere, would have shimmered in the moonlit night, the gold reflecting the rays back into the sky giving light to the situation. The precious pendant holding years of sentimental value now lost forever with no hope of being retrieved.
The banquet that sat before her glistened in the moonlight as her captors taunted her with the prospect of food. The small golden bell placed in her hand reminded her that the nourishment was only a ring away but she did not shake it. Food or no food, loyalty came first.
The barely visible red light in the top corner of her cell shone sharp like a laser across the tiny room, her every action filmed most likely for future use, and no one wanted to imagine what for. The tiny camera imbedded in the walls of her cell, the wire running across the top of the wall and exiting through the small hole carved in the top of the door.
The hope gone from within her heart and the passion lost from her soul. Ziva David was all alone and no one was there to help her.
~NCIS~
The sun rises over the desert, illuminating the small base camp set up just outside Merca, Somalia. It brings with it the morning but sense of time is redundant for Ziva who hasn't slept anyway. It shouldn't have been a surprise for her or the agents who were tasked with guarding her bedside - after all, the woman hasn't slept well in four months - but it was. All of them had thought that with her being so tired she would have slept right on until afternoon. All of them thought wrong.
The mattress is too soft, the blanket is too warm and the water placed on her bedside is too clean. Everything is too lovely and Ziva feels like she doesn't deserve it; she knows she doesn't deserve it. After all the wrongs she has committed and after all the lies and the betrayal she has been rescued. It isn't real, she tells herself, it couldn't be. For it to be real, there has to be someone who thought she deserves a second chance and for so long, Ziva has believed there isn't.
The entrance flaps of the tent open and the sunshine falls in, accompanied by a 5ft "11" blonde woman in cargo pants and a beige blouse that is rumpled after being slept in. Cocking an eyebrow, the woman states, "You have not slept."
Ziva stares at her wide eyed, still unsure that whom she was looking at is real and not a drug-induced, water-deprived hallucination. Clearing her sore throat, Ziva finds herself unable to look at the woman who she has not seen in over five years, has not spoken to in over six months and yet has saved her all the same. "No, I have not," she whispers and resigns herself to the scolding and maternal clucking that is sure to come.
The woman does neither and instead sits at the end of Ziva's bed, shooing away the poor, sleep-deprived agents with a flick of her wrist. Ziva smiles shyly at the rough-sewn blanket because she's missed her. A lot. Not that she would ever admit it of course. "So," the woman says, shaking her hair out of the ponytail it was previously in, "it's been a long time."
Ziva nods. "Yes, it has," she manages to choke out. The words start a coughing fit and her companion sighs and gives her the tumbler of water. Once she is done, Ziva looks at the woman and asks, "Why are you here, Fearne?" with a voice that's oh-so tired and full of hopelessness.
"Needed an excuses to see an old friend," Fearne shrugs, "this was prefect." And Ziva smiles because only her old friend Fearne could make light of four months of torture without making fun. But then the smile dies and the flame in her eyes extinguish. Fearne sees it too and she places a gentle but firm hand on the back of Ziva's.
"Hey," she whispers softly, "you're fine now, I promise. Now come on, I'll get one of these guys to bring you round a wheelchair so we can take you to medical. Doc couldn't do much last night since you were so zonked out." Fearne stands and claps her hands together.
Ziva looks up at her friend in alarm and starts to shake her head. No doctors and no nurses. Nobody can see her like this, all broken and depleted. Fearne shakes her head also and just says, "No excuses for this one. You need to see the doctor and you need a wheelchair."
Ziva starts to protest before she realises that she does need a wheelchair. Her ribs feel like they're broken and her leg is at an odd angle. Sighing in defeat, she leans back against her pillow and closes her eyes for a second. Fearne shakes her shoulders gently and she growls and shakes her shoulders away, regardless of her sore ribs. "Leave me alone."
"No," Fearne says stubbornly. "Come on. I need someone to translate what all these people are saying. I don't speak a word of Arabic."
An hour later, the doctor has finished her preliminary examination with Ziva and has cleared her to fly but she will need her more serious cuts tended to. First though, a bath. Just the thought sends Ziva into a panic attack. The thought of hot water or bathing in general brings it on and it takes a good few minutes to calm her down. The compromise is a cold sponge down by a female nurse while Ziva sits shivering in the heat of the Somali sun.
While she is being washed, Ziva wonders at what point she got so afraid. It didn't just happen overnight. Fear develops over a period of time and she wants to know what her captors did to her to make her so afraid. Perhaps she doesn't. Ziva David hasn't been this terrified since she was a little girl. That was one aspect of her training that she actually liked- being taught to not feel. With no feeling comes no pain and with no pain comes relief.
Really, she should not be hurt that her father did not come for her. He has always out his country before family, nothing has changed and she has no reason to be upset. Yet, there is some part of her that is. Because he was still her father, still her daddy, he was still the man that she looked up to as a little girl. And although she had been exposed to the true Eli David for a long time, part of her still harboured fantasies that her father was a good man, a clean man. Not one full of tricks and deception.
God, how stupid she was.
~NCIS~
Once she is dressed in clean desert khakis, Ziva is given a curtained off bed to sleep in because, as the doctor says, her body needs a chance to heal. But of course she can't sleep because sleep is when her walls come down and nightmares creep in unsuspectingly. It's deserved but it doesn't make it any easier for her to swallow.
Fearne gently pushes aside the curtain and walks in softly but not for fear of waking Ziva because they both know she's awake. Pushing away some of the blankets discarded at the bottom of the bed, Fearne sits down and puts a soft hand on Ziva's ankle, the one place that can be touched without introducing a panic attack or flashback. Zia doesn't turn to look at her and continues to stare straight ahead.
"Remember that time we were on assignment in Poland? How I couldn't understand a word they were saying and you kept shaking your head like I was just deadweight?" Fearne laughs a sad little laugh and Ziva turns to look at her.
"You were in the shower and I needed a word so I asked this group of teenage school kids what the word 'agent' was in Polish and they gave me an expletive. Then later that day you were speeding down the motorway and we got pulled over and then the officer says something to me and I try to say we're agents and then I end up swearing at him and you and the officer are just staring at me opened mouthed. Then of course you came in and apologised to him and we spent the rest of the day laughing," Fearne laughs at the memory and something that looks a bit like a smile reaches Ziva's eyes.
The assignment had been the start of their friendship. At first, Ziva had been a hurting twenty year-old who wanted nothing to do with MI6 agents trying to win the approval of her father. She had tried to dismiss Fearne in the hopes that she would disappear soon enough but two days into the assignment they were laughing and giggling like teenagers.
"You became my friend," Ziva whispers so quietly that Fearne almost misses it, "I was hurting and angry but you made me feel happy when I did not deserve it."
"Aw, Ziva," Fearne says, "You've always deserved happiness."
There's something in the way she speaks that makes Ziva cry. It's not great, big, shuddering sobs or even small sobs; tears just make their way down her face because she feels so confused. She hasn't spoken to Fearne in over six months and she still came and rescued her. Ziva spoke to her father four months ago and he didn't rescue her. NCIS…. that's different.
Eventually, Ziva falls asleep, more out of exhaustion than anything else. Fearne creeps out of the little curtained off area and goes to the temporary office they've set up for the mission. Retrieving a piece of paper from under the stack of files, Fearne takes her satellite phone and dials the number that the piece of paper provides.
"Hello? Yes, this is MI6 Agent Fearne Granger, could you please pass a message along to the Director? No, I don't want to speak to him myself…. Can you please pass along the message?… Thanks… Yes, just tell him that his daughter is safe."