She was the best of us
-Ziva David
Indescribable sadness. The pain they now knew would never be small enough or easily contained for words to encompass it. Tali was dead. That was all. Dead, gone and she was never coming back. Ziva had been there with her, at the market, when it was blown to smithereens. She had been wounded but not bad enough to stop her from limping over to Tali laying lifeless, not enough to keep her from her baby sister. She was just sixteen years old when she died.
Ari was still grieving for his mother in Gaza when he had heard the news. He got to Tel Aviv as quickly as he could. He didn't say goodbye and he didn't pack a case. He just got up and he left. When he arrived he walked silently through the wreckage, through the fear in Tel Aviv and joined his sister-now his only sister-in the hospital where she was reluctantly seeking treatment for her injuries. She'd only stopped fighting when he got there. She'd only started crying when he sat beside her. And she didn't stop.
On the day of the funeral Ziva refused to go. In fact, she had refused to get out of bed since they returned home. Even Eli was taking time off out of respect for his youngest daughter. Both Ziva and Ari knew it was nothing more than respect. There were no emotions there. Ari had gone into her room with nothing but good intentions. It had once belonged to both of the sisters however Tali's bed was too-perfectly made up now and Ziva's was the only one occupied. He had wanted to support her but he had broken down, shouting at her to do this one thing for him. She'd got up, showered and dressed without a word.
It wasn't until after the funeral, after the typical mourning period, that either of the siblings really grasped what her death meant. It happened in different ways. Ziva had been sitting on her bed with a photo of the pair in her hands. She was passed the stage of crying. Immediately she saw the life Tali should have had. The graduation, the boyfriend, the first date, the first kiss, travelling the world, a husband, the three children she'd always wanted. She wiped away tears that had long dried up. She put down the photo. She knew who was responsible.
It came to Ari in a different way. He'd not yet returned to Gaza. He was waiting for something inside him to click which would allow him to return to his mother as the man she had always loved. He was sitting on a bench when he saw it. A mother cradling her child. It hit him there and then. Life moves on. There was never going to be something that clicked inside him. The best person, the most compassionate little girl in the world had died. She would never outlive childhood. Ari stood.
It came to them both in different ways. A way to grieve, a way to survive in this suddenly bleaker world. Ziva took it out on the people who killed her and Ari took it out on the world that took her. Ziva was already in Mosaad when Tali was killed but this time she returned with a vengeance which would not be satisfied until she had slaughtered enough Hamas cells that she no longer ached right down to the core. And Ari? His plan was simple. The world had taken his baby sister away from him. It was time he returned the favour.
Ziva grieved. She threw herself into every mission her father presented her with without question. She felt the life drain out of countless men that were responsible in one way or another for her sister's death. They had narrowed down a small group of individuals that were believed to have planned that bombing as well as many others. She had forced herself into that mission. Her father never had any doubts about why she was going. He didn't stop her either. She hadn't killed all six of them herself, her team had taken out three. But they left the leader for her. She had no evidence that this man was the leader, only a gut feeling and the fact she needed him to be. Ziva slaughtered him too. It wasn't peace that accompanied her back to Tel Aviv that night.
Ari spent the next year of his life plotting and gaining allegiances. He knew from the word go that he was going to break them all. He knew he was going to die at the end. After the death of his mother and then Tali, he had learned that he would never recover. Unlike Ziva, he wasn't even going to try. All that mattered was taking as many people down with him as he could. All of the loss he had suffered had dulled his emotions. He could terrorize one world and still play big brother to another. He did it so elegantly as well. But in the end, the goal was always to be taken too.
Both of them lived every day knowing that their joyous, optimistic, hopeful and compassionate baby sister would be ashamed. They had both protected Tali from what they knew as the real world. She would never have understood their actions. If they were honest, they couldn't understand them either.
Ziva's revenge for Tali ended in the beginning of September 2005. It had been two years since her death and her pain had never lessened. She had stopped for one reason. Ari needed her more.
Ari's revenge for Tali ended on the 27th of September 2005. His death was sudden. He had no idea he was about to go. He wouldn't have had it any other way. The world had suffered for taking Tali from them. That was all he had asked.
She was the best of them. Her legacy was that of her siblings taking lives on her behalf. Of the three of them, Tali was the only one that should have survived. She had opened their eyes to a different world. That world died with her. That world was gone.
I've been thinking of this story for a long time and I'm glad I've finally written and posted it. Thanks and REVIEW.