I just wanted to say that I love the reviews and they actually motivate me to keep writing =) Thanks!

I don't own anything. The story is set after Kate died, so Kill Ari 1&2.

Italics are for flashback. The rest is set in "present time"

The lines separate the present time from flashbacks.

Enjoy!

It was a hot June morning. She was in bed, wearing sweats and watching T.V. There was nothing good on, so she was just zapping through different channels until something was good enough to catch her attention.

She'd been feeling sick for a few days now, but thought it was a mild case of food poisoning or something. Her period had been late, too, but she never got it on the day it was supposed to come, anyways. So she disregarded that sign as well. But when she briefly passed out in her office at Mossad, she knew there was something going on and couldn't ignore her symptoms anymore.

So she went back six weeks, remembering how it all began.

They had spent all night awake, collecting the shell casings from the roof where Ari took a shot at Kate, putting a bullet between her head. It had been raining non-stop and everyone was soaking wet, but that didn't stop them from doing their jobs. They had to find Ari and make him pay for what he'd done.

Everyone was dealing with their own feelings about Kate's death. Gibbs felt pretty guilty for letting her take the protection detail. McGee had to cope with her loss, too, but wasn't quite sure how to do it. Tony regretted not telling her many things and not seeing her in that Catholic School girl uniform she claimed she still had. Although, that didn't stop him from picturing her in it. Abby was a wreck. She was crying and looking at the picture Kate had given her, the one where she's a vampire, or maybe a bat? She had her hair loose, but tied it up when she heard Kate tell her she loved her in pigtails. Ducky. Oh poor Ducky. It was his unfortunate job to perform the autopsy, not that he would've let anyone else do it. Having to cut open your coworker can't be an easy thing to do.

Everyone was coping with the loss the way they knew how. For some, it was guilt. And for others, fear or denial.

The night went by and suddenly it was morning. It had stopped raining, but probably no one had noticed, as they were focused on one thing and one thing only: finding Kate's killer's whereabouts.

Tony was on his desk, working. McGee and Gibbs were somewhere else and he was alone in the squad room. It was then when he let himself fantasize about Kate in a Catholic School girl uniform, but he was interrupted by a young woman, whose outfit was far from what Kate was wearing in Tony's imagination. She was dressed in cargo pants, her hair was tied up in a ponytail and she was wearing a headband. A jacket and combat boots matched the rest of her attire. The only piece of jewelry she had on was a silver Star of David hanging around her neck and instead of wearing bracelets or earrings, she had a gun and a knife strapped around her waist and a backup revolver on an ankle holster. Since he was basically talking to himself, he had to make it look like he was on a call and not crazy, so he hit the "end call" button on his phone. But he was too late. She'd heard enough of that conversation to say:

— "Having phone sex?"

Tony was startled and then looked at her, confused. He didn't know who she was, what she was doing there or exactly how much of his monologue she'd heard.

— "Charades". The only answer that came to his mind at that moment. "Who are you?

— "Ziva David. Mossad" She showed him her ID.

— "You're Israeli?" He knew Ari was, too, that's why he was surprised.

— "Very good. The way you made that connection: Mossad = Israeli" She was being sarcastic, getting a kick out of it. Of course, one could also argue that she was flirting a bit.

— "What can I do for you, Ms. David?" Tony said.

— "Nothing. I'm here to see Special Agent Gibbs"

But Gibbs wasn't in the room. They both knew that. So, the small talk began. She sat on McGee's desk and kept acting flirtatious while Tony tried to get her to tell him why she was in D.C. But he knew it had something to do with Ari. As Gibbs had taught him: "We don't believe in coincidences". After a while, she finally told him she wanted to stop Gibbs from killing Ari. Tony's answer?

— "I'd wish you luck, but I want the bastard dead, too" After all, he had killed his partner, whether Ziva wanted to believe it or not.

As Ziva walked down the stairs, she remembered how her and Tony's first meeting had been. Was there really someone to blame for what was going on in her life right now?

The car ride to the store was quiet. She would normally turn the radio up full blast, sing along to the lyrics of the song and enjoy the music and the ride. But not this time.

When she got to the store, she went straight to where they sold pregnancy tests. There was a whole shelf with different brands, two-packs, three-packs, six-packs; the ones that, when positive, show you a smiley face, a "plus" sign, a blue strip and the classic pink-strip ones. She was overwhelmed by all the choices there were. Suddenly, she started thinking, without even having taken the test yet, what she'd do if it were positive. Did she want the baby? Should she keep it? Should she tell the father? Or maybe just have an abortion? Would she be a good mother? Or should she give it up? Finally, she picked one box. It was the kind that told you it was positive with a pink strip. She paid for it and the ride back home was even quieter than the ride to the store. The only thing she could hear were her own thoughts and so she started contemplating all the options she had and what the consequences would be. She didn't know what to tell her father in case she kept the baby. "Abba, I was so broken about Ari's death that I slept with a cute guy at NCIS that I'd only known for a day and now I'm pregnant". No, there's no way she could put it that way. But she couldn't tell him that Tony forced her, because that was not true. She had absolutely no idea how she'd tell people about this if she decided to keep the baby.

Ziva was convinced that Ari had had nothing to do with Kate's death, but Gibbs kept showing her undeniable evidence that it'd been him and no one else. After showing her the rifle Ari used to kill Kate - a Bravo 51 -, known by marines as a "Kate", Ziva knew what she was dealing with and had to come to terms with the fact that her brother had murdered an American agent and had to pay for it.

Gibbs asked everyone to leave the lab because he wanted to have a private conversation with Ziva.

— "He's after me. If you've profiled me, then you know about my first wife and my daughter. And that that's the reason he's targeting the women in my team" Gibbs was almost whispering. He knew people were outside and could hear their conversation.

— "Yes. I am sorry" Ziva couldn't even look at him in the eye.

— "I need you to back me up. He'll probably be waiting for me at my house, waiting to kill me with my own rifle."

— "Alright." She wasn't sure about this, but it was the least she could do for him and everyone else.

That night, when Gibbs got to his house, he went straight to his basement. He found Ari, just as he had predicted, holding his rifle on the side of the room. Ari hated his father, Deputy Director of Mossad Eli David, and Gibbs had the "misfortune of reminding him of the bastard". He'd had his mother killed and him trained since birth to become a mole in Hamas, little did he know he had created a monster who would grow up to become his worst nightmare. Ari wanted to kill Gibbs with his own rifle, making it seem he had committed suicide. When Gibbs asked Ziva to cover him, she'd called Ari and told him what Gibbs was planning so that he could be careful, thus becoming some sort of double agent. But deep down, Gibbs knew that at the end of the day, Ziva would do what was right. And she did. Seconds before Ari pulled the trigger to kill Gibbs; a shot came from the door: a bullet that lodged itself on Ari's forehead, right between the eyes, took his life away. And with it, a part of Ziva died, as well.