So I haven't seen the full episode of NCIS "Family First", to be honest I lost interest in the series after Ziva exited stage left. However this evening I sat down on Youtube and watched the clips with Tony and little Tali, and felt that I needed a moment to stick two fingers up at Gary Glasberg. Thank you for leaving so many plot holes that I could drive a bus through them.
Trust Ima, Trust Abba
She had always assumed that to give birth would be easy. She was a woman born and raised in a war. She had been her father's soldier, a weapon for her country to use when needed. She had slept in some truly uncomfortable places, she had tortured, she had been the victim of torture, and so much more. "It only hurts if you let it" had been her motto for so long that she had convinced herself that it was all she would need when it came to bringing a child in to the world. Her motto, her strength, and a midwife who she could rely on to be discreet.
But there were a lot of things she regretted in life, and this was one of them. Throughout the pregnancy, as she became aware of a certain disconnection between herself and the changes her body was going through, she had the occasional lingering doubt. She would wake in the early hours of the morning and look to the empty space next to her in the bed. She would feel their child stirring in her womb, and would wish that he was next to her, ready to put a warm, reassuring hand on her increasing bump, and promise her that all would be well. She told herself that she would tell him in the morning, she would pick up the phone and book a plane, or pick up the phone and call him. She would get her laptop and email him, asking him to fly out to her. So many different options running through her head would be enough to calm her, and send her back to sleep.
But when the morning came, with the light flooding in through the window and the baby still, all her concerns were confronted. He had another life, he had a job to do, she couldn't pull him away from that. He had chosen to return to America, and she had chosen to stay in Israel. They had chosen separate lives, and the baby she carried was not enough to connect them. She convinced herself that it was easier for them to stay separate.
She couldn't stand the thought that she might tell him, and he might reject them both.
But when her waters broke as she walked out in the hills, she felt a sudden panic. Where was Tony? Why wasn't he here? Why was she such a stubborn idiot that she hadn't told him about any of this? A sudden rush of liquid and instantly the disconnection she had felt disappeared, it all became so real. It took a few minutes, leaning against a tree and breathing deeply, for her to regain her control. There were three things she needed to do; Get home, phone the midwife, get comfortable. This was going to take a while, and there was no point in worrying about what she had or had not done. This was now, and it was real, Tony wouldn't be magically showing up as he so often did.
In the end it took fourteen of the longest hours of her life. She barely remembered the last three, she simply let her body take control and do what it needed to do. But despite what she told herself, she couldn't help but listen out for the sound of a car approaching her little home. Any minute now he might step through that door, take her hand, and be there when their baby came in to the world.
But he never came. It was just her and the midwife, who murmured encouragements through the whole ordeal. "Not long now Ziva, you are doing so well", "Keep taking deep breaths, it will soon be over", and then finally "It's a girl!"
There was only one name there could have been for Ziva David's daughter. She looked down at Tali's face as her baby girl hiccupped and then wailed, oblivious to the afterbirth and the midwife and anything else that was going on. A meteor could have struck the earth and she wouldn't have noticed. She had brought Tony's daughter in to the world, her sister's niece, her father's granddaughter. She felt relief wash over her, she was safe and her daughter was safe, what else could she possible want?
And then her daughter stopped wailing and opened her eyes slightly. Even in that moment, within minutes of birth, she could see that Tali had her father's eyes, and she knew that she had been completely wrong. She should have told Tony before now. She should have told him while their child was still growing inside her, she should have given him a chance to make a decision. She should have told him when it would have been so much easier. Missing the first stages of her pregnancy? Easy enough to forgive. But telling him that he had missed the birth of his daughter? What had she done?
The midwife was too experienced to question why the hardened former-Mossad agent was weeping about. All new mothers cried, it was the hormones and the exhaustion, and poor Ziva was out in the middle of nowhere with no family to call on for help, it was enough to make any woman cry. Ziva could have coped with hormones. She had been tired before, but she had been through worse. But the knowledge of just how much she had betrayed the man she loved was, for once, a little more than she could cope with. Now she would never be able to tell him, she had robbed him of too much, there was no way to make up for it.
The midwife stayed long enough to ensure that she could feed and bathe Tali, and that there was no risk of infection, and then she left her to it. Ziva had looked after babies before, but only for a few hours for friends or cousins, and you got to hand them back after. She got in to a routine of feeding, changing, rocking to sleep, taking a nap herself, and then starting it all over again a few hours later. She would sit at the window in the early hours of the morning, her daughter at her breast, listening to the sounds of crickets out in the long grass. She arranged for food to be delivered by someone she trusted, she washed her clothes and hung them up to dry outside. But often the loudest sound in the area was her daughter when she was hungry, or tired, or too hot, too cold, not comfortable in her cot, not comfortable sleeping on her mother, not happy with the temperature of the bath water and a dozen other things that Ziva could only guess at.
How much easier would it really have been with him here? At least she was in control, she didn't have to worry about someone looking over her shoulder and telling her she was doing something wrong. She didn't have a third person to worry about, she could just focus on the two of them. Sometimes she convinced herself that it was so much easier this way, with him here the pair of them would have just argued over who was meant to be doing what. She would have seen him resent her for pulling him away from his job and his life in America, and she would have hated him for blaming her for dragging him back to Israel. But there were other times when she entertained a kinder picture; Tony cooking her fortifying meals in the kitchen, worrying about her being up too soon after the birth, telling her to rest a bit, to not push herself too hard. He would help with changing nappies, he would sing to their daughter, and at night he would come to her bed and sleep next to her. Some times she felt that it could have worked…
But there was no one else for her to depend on. Orli occasionally came by with gifts, little treats that she'd picked up from a bakery in Tel Aviv, clothes and books for Tali. They would talk about what was going on in the world, and in Mossad. Eli had had certain safety precautions made to his farmhouse, she would check they were still working. Sometimes Orli would look at Tali and mention that if Ziva ever felt like a holiday out to the United States then she had only to ask, and arrangements could be made for her. But while Ziva would nod and say she was going to consider it in the future, when Tali was a little older, in her heart she wasn't sure if she could ever find the courage for it.
She became a routine of domesticity. Reduced to the two of them, her life became all about Tali, marked only by the passage of the seasons. She took the baby to the nearest town for her vaccinations, for the occasional legal document she needed to deal with, and for essentials for their home. But primarily the pair of them stayed in their little house, just the pair of them toether. She washed, she cleaned, she cooked, she played, she told stories, she sang. She watched her baby girl crawl and then walk, she spent hours walking up and down the hallway with Tali's hands wrapped tightly around her fingers, little legs kicking out as they developed the strength to hold her up. Every night, after a bath and story, she would put Tali in bed and show her the photo. Tony on a motorbike, her behind him, holding on to his waist. "What do we say? Good night Abba, goodnight Ima, good night Tali". She wanted Tali to know who Tony was, she needed her to know who her Abba was. She had robbed Tony of a chance to be her father, she couldn't steal the knowledge of her father away from Tali as well. She watched her daughter's understanding of the world grow, from holding her own head up to having her favourite story to bed read, until one night a tiny finger pointed at the photo and a first word was uttered; "Abba".
Perhaps Ziva's old enemies thought that a quiet life of passive motherly duties would dull her senses. Perhaps they were biding their time, waiting for her to be at her weakest before they struck. But if they did then they were fools. She and Tali survived without help because of the skills that Mossad had drilled in to her, she could wire the house and repair the plumbing without calling for aid from the nearest man. More importantly, she knew when she was being watched. It didn't matter if the observer was fifty feet away, or fifty thousand miles away, she could feel that little tingle on the back of her neck, that sense that there were eyes on her. Before it wouldn't have bothered her, she would have taken the fight to them. But now she had someone else to think about. She was a mother first, and a Mossad-trained woman second, but that didn't mean that both sides of her couldn't work together.
She didn't need to know who had betrayed her, there would always be someone. Money or threats could loosen tongues, and she had learned long ago that you really could not trust anyone. But this time there was an edge to it. She had never wanted Tali to have a life of danger and endless moving. She wanted her daughter to know peace, she wanted her to grow up safely, she wanted this Tali to have the life that the other Tali had been denied. Now she could see that there was only going to be one way to make this a reality.
In order for Tali David to be safe, Ziva David had to die.
She would have to be fast and discreet, there could be no hint that she knew they were coming for her. Otherwise it would never succeed, and she would have to do it all over again. So she stuck to the same old routines, she took Tali around with her as if she didn't have a care in the world. It was only at night, when her daughter was asleep and all the lights in the house were off, that she made her preparations. She wasn't certain when they would attack, but it would be soon, and she would need to be quick. She packed a go bag, making sure that it had all the things Tali would need to keep her comfortable, and then added things that people would expect her to need as well. Her favourite scarf, two clean t-shirts, some clean underwear, her papers. It had to look as if she was prepared for both of them, not just Tali. It might cause some problems getting out of or in to countries later, but she knew how to forge documents when necessary.
Every night she was careful to make sure that Tali's room was safe. They wouldn't try to shoot her, they knew that if they missed their shot then they wouldn't get a second chance. A fire was much more likely, at night when they would think she was sleeping so the smoke would kill the pair of them even if the flames didn't. Probably a petrol bomb or two through the front windows, they couldn't trigger a gas explosion, it wasn't provided in rural areas. Every night she damped down Tali's bedroom door and the floor outside with water, and made sure the thick door closed properly so as little smoke as possible would get in. She told Tali, again and again, what she needed to do; "If there is a strange noise, you stay in bed and stay quiet. Ima will be fine, but you must stay in bed and do not get out". She had to hope that it would stay in Tali's mind and that she wouldn't panic. Her daughter was not the target, she was, and so no one would be bothered if the little girl survived. But to do that, Tali needed to be brave, and trust that her mother would look after her.
Although she packed a bag for Tali, Ziva knew that she would need to escape with minimal tools at her disposal; her gun and a small amount of cash. Taking too much wouldn't just slow her down, it would also raise suspicions when people searched the house after the event. She needed Mossad, her enemies, even NCIS, to believe that she was dead. Orli knew who Tali's father was, she would take her to Tony. As for the man himself, she had to trust that his instincts would pull him through. She hadn't given him enough credit in the past, and what she was doing now was going to challenge both of them.
When the attack came it wasn't quite what she had expected. She had stayed up late, her old instincts keeping her alert throughout the night. Tali was sleeping in her bedroom, she had been feeling poorly and was fussing all evening, in the end Ziva had been forced to give her some medicine and she'd fallen asleep soon afterwards, children's medicine always made them drowsy. After tucking Tali up in bed she had spent some time lingering in the room, simply watching her daughter sleep.
The noise of the rocket was not completely unfamiliar sound, and she found herself already throwing herself over Tali even before it had hit the house. Someone had clearly done their research and their calculations well as it landed a direct hit, but Tali's room was perfectly safe. As she carefully lifted herself off her daughter, she waited for the first cry of alarm. But Tali remained asleep, breathing calmly, deep in her dreams. The medicine had clearly been strong, it was pure luck that this evening was when she had needed it. Perhaps this would work after all…
Ziva listened carefully for any shouts that suggested there were people outside, but all she could hear was the crackling sound of flames taking hold at the other end of the house. Her father's security systems would already be alerting Mossad and the local emergency services that there was a problem, she didn't have long. She double-checked Tali's bag, gave her daughter a kiss on the cheek, and then climbed out of Tali's bedroom window, and closed it behind her. She paused on the ground for a moment, again waiting for a shout, and then hurried across the open ground in to the thicket at the back of the house.
She paused in the darkness and watched her father's house, and her home for the past few years, burn. The flames were well underway at one end of the house, she could see her bedroom was burning well, but Tali's room was safe. She remained in the shadows until she saw the first fire engine arrive and begin work to put out the fire. She saw a shadow move against the window of Tali's room, and the moment she knew her daughter was in the arms of a fireman, she edged backwards in to the undergrowth. When she was sure she wouldn't be seen, she got to her feet and began to run. Everything told her to go back and check on her daughter, but she had to trust in her former lover, and Tali's father.
She had a lot of distance to cover, and she needed to do it fast. Tali would be with Tony within forty eight hours, and it wouldn't be long before he came came looking for her. She needed to get to Paris, she had stashed Tali's goodnight photo in the bag. Tony would see it, he would recognise her favourite city, and surely he would know that she would be waiting for both of them there. People were constantly crossing the Mediterranean at the moment, who would bother one more woman trying to flee?
All she had to do was get to Paris. Before Tony and their daughter.