Things that were Glorious had no Glory
Disclaimer: I do not own or make any claim on NCIS; it is the property of its respective creators.
Written for the Farewell to Arms and First and/or Last Day challenges on NFA.
Spoilers: for up to S10, and major ones for the S10 finale Damned If You Do and it's relating storyline, and the news that Code de Pablo is leaving NCIS.
Summary: She's willingly given up everything in its name, and it had taken everything she loved. What had her devotion to duty ever gotten her? Set at the end of Damned If You Do, Ziva muses on duty, and why it no longer is enough for her. Written for the Farewell to Arms & First and or/Last Day challenges on NFA, this is my take on Ziva's reasons for leaving.
Timeline: Set right after the season ten finale Damned If You Do.
Warnings: Talk of cannon character deaths and cannon relationships.
Story title taken from Ernest Hemingway's novel A Farewell to Arms.
Author's note: The news of Ziva leaving broke my heart, but I wish Cote only the best, and look forward to seeing what she does in the future. And once I knew Ziva was leaving NCIS, and I saw the Farewell to Arms challenge, asking how or why is she doing so, I wrote the following story, because a character as amazing as Ziva David deserves as best a sendoff as I can give her. So, here's my take on why Ziva might leave, hopefully for golden pastures, which she'll no doubt rule. And just because we won't get to see it doesn't lessen the amount of awesome she is sure to leave in her wake, both Ziva and Cote. I want to give a thank you from the bottom of my heart to Cote for giving us eight seasons to enjoy and adore the character of Ziva David, it was glorious, and like Ziva on her way to someplace new here, I wish you all the best.
Warning: This story is about why is Ziva leaving, and any flames or nasty reviews about her/the story will be deleted and used as fuel for Ziva's mission to rule the world. You have been warned. :)
She was tired, so very tired. It felt like she had given from herself, of herself, sacrificing so much to honor her commitment to her appointed duty her whole life, and now there was nothing left of her. She's willingly given up everything in its name, and it had taken everything she loved. What had her devotion to duty ever gotten her? Her family was all dead, all violently and one by her own hand. They had been killed off one by one, each in different tragedies, but the outcome was the same. What had started with Tali continued through them all until she was the last, the only, David left standing, all alone by herself with only her memories of them, the ghosts she saw in her dreams and sometimes in her waking hours, and her wish that things could have been different, for company.
Her father had raised her as a killer in the name of duty, to Israel, to protect her from their enemies. She had been his prized soldier more than his daughter, and she had been so eager to please him that she only realized she'd forever given up her innocence when the blood of her first kill dried on her hands and never came off, she can still see it.
Ari, oh, Ari, duty had ruined him. He'd turned from it, betrayed it, betrayed her, he'd become so twisted up inside he couldn't untangle himself, and she had killed him, and that wasn't for duty, wasn't following her father's orders, that was to save Gibbs, an honest man. It was because Ari, her beloved protector, was lost, and she would not let this shell of her brother, twisted by madness and hate, ruin his memory anymore then he already had, would not let him do anymore horrific things then he'd already done. And she cannot help but wonder if Ari knew that, and was counting on it, was relying on her to do what he could not bring himself to do. And if that's true she hates him for it, she cannot stomach the idea that because he wanted to die, he used her love for him, forcing her to finish what he selfishly could not do himself. Asking her to save him by damning them all, but she would always save him, and he knew it. Love is just another kind of duty, and too little love and too much duty is what had caused Ari's downfall in the first place.
Love and duty do not mix well together, not if they are not for each other. Duty for country, for the mission had ruined every romantic relationship she'd ever had, that she'd ever attempted, because duty came first, and relationships cannot survive under the burden of being second best. She had a habit of picking damned men who were also devoted to duty, (like her father) and it left her on the outside, making her too wary to truly try anymore, too afraid to open up, to be hurt again.
Duty had ruined and disgraced Michael, caused his downward spiral, that she could not, did not stop in time, that she was part of the reason for, leading to his fatal confrontation with Tony, concluding with her leaving Ben behind to go finish a mission she had no chance of successfully completing, for it is what it is, and she was not about to shrink her duty then, not with Michael dead, Tony injured, Gibbs doubting her, and her father sending her off to die. She would die with honor.
But she hadn't died, even when she had wanted to. Tony DiNozzo, Timothy McGee, Jethro Gibbs, Abby Sciuto, Ducky Mallard, Jimmy Palmer, and Leon Vance hadn't given up on her even when there was no reason to think they would even have a body to bring back to bury. They had believed in her when she hadn't believed in herself, when duty had no longer been enough, but she didn't break, she said nothing of importance to her torturers. She could give her father and her team that as one last gift. She could die with her honor intact, though it felt like a hollow victory.
Duty, now to NCIS, and friendship had carried her through the scars of Somalia, healing but never gone. Then Ben reappeared, following her father's orders, for he was loyal to duty as well, even if he found his orders distasteful, he would follow them. Duty was now pitting them against each other, her former friend and one time lover, was trying to make the only people who truly cared about her turn against her. It hurt to have happen to her and she knew it must have hurt him to do to her. That was when she started questioning duty.
Ray had seemed to be perfect. He was understanding, kind, funny, handsome; he made her feel good about herself, he understood duty for he believed in it as well, and she had wanted a family, a piece of normal, a husband, a house with a garden, children. If she did not love him, for she doesn't know if she did, she at least cared for him very much, anyway, she didn't want love, love was dangerous. But it was his devotion to duty that ruined him, them, he turned out to be just like so many other men in her life. He was just like Ari, like Michael, like her father, he had spun out of control and left unforgiveable damage in his wake, leaving her to once more pick up the pieces. She doesn't know what, if anything, that he'd told her was true, doesn't know how to sift through his words and actions and find the truth hidden in his web of tangled lies, and she's done this before, looked through her memories of Ari, of Michael, of her father, to try and find what signs she'd missed, and all she ever achieves by doing so is a feeling of overwhelming helplessness, such a bone deep loneliness and weariness, that she has the urge to cry. She wonders if Ray ever really loved her at all, or if he too wanted normal, wanted something outside of duty, and she was a good fit, like he was for her. She honestly doesn't know which way she'd prefer it.
That was what duty had given her when it met love. Nothing good, nothing left untouched or unbroken, and now she was afraid to acknowledge Tony's feelings for her, to admit to what they both knew was there. People who loved her had a bad habit of dying. Duty had taken her family from her, and her friends, by death or circumstances, and she was tired of losing people.
Everything she had ever done had been for duty; she had bled, killed, tortured and been tortured, gotten lost and been found, she knew the price of duty. And now this lying chameleon with the dead, soulless, hungry eyes who had never sacrificed anything a day in his life had the nerve to come into where she worked, to where her team, her family worked, where they protected people, risking and giving up everything to do so, and lecture her, them, on duty. Pearson was accusing the best man she had ever known, the most selfless man, a faithful Marine and investigator, who'd given everything to help others, of being a liar, a criminal. He was saying all Gibbs had ever done was worthless, that all the blood he'd shed, the tears cried, the long hours worked, the lousy pay, the stress and pain, the people who would be dead without him, the criminals who'd still be on the loose if he hadn't caught them, the dead teammates and friends, the disintegration of three of his marriages, and the tragedy of Shannon and Kelly, didn't matter because he hadn't played by some silly manual's rules, and because he hadn't let the man who murdered his wife and child go free.
Of all the people Gibbs had killed in his career as a Marine, as a sniper, as a federal investigator, and no doubt some of his kills had been ordered straight from the U.S. Government themselves, one of them must have been just like or worse than Pedro Hernandez, and that's who they chose to throw the book on Gibbs for? Because Pearson wanted to make a name for himself, and because a dead cartel leader mattered more than a living federal agent who had sacrificed everything to keep the oblivious people who were wrapped up in their normal, petty concerns in their normal, routine lives safe. The man who had seen a spark of goodness and kindness in a young killer with tired eyes, and took a chance and nurtured that spark until it was a fire, and in doing so saved her, and continued to save her over and over again, asking for nothing in repayment that she did not freely and willingly wish to give.
Now Gibbs might very well die doing this mission, because the only way they had to keep him, an honest man, a good man, free from Pearson's clutches and therefore away from being arrested, was to let him go do it and pray he came home alive again, and to have her, Tim and Tony take the blame for Gibbs' 'crimes', and hand in their badges.
As she got into the NCIS elevator for what would be the first time as an former NCIS agent, something she had worked so hard to become, she had come so far and through so much to get to here, she was not afraid, she did not regret what she had just done. If this is how a devotion to duty had repaid Gibbs, a better man, better person than her, then she knew where she stood on duty now.
She had put duty first her whole life, and she had nothing to show for it. There would always be another monster, another threat, another war. They would do whatever was necessary to get Gibbs back safely, because Rule #50 was above all the others, and love was a form of duty she was starting to think was one she wouldn't mind choosing to surrender to, and once they did, she was done. It was someone else's turn to be a slave to duty. She was tired of fighting for peace by waging war. She had more than done her duty, and now, now, she was ready to make her own choices, ready to break free of the chains that had bound her all her life. The world had better get ready, she was coming, serving no one but herself, and she would let no one stop her on her quest to truly live.
It would be glorious.
Written on July 11th, 2013
Finished on Sept 11th, 2013
Posted Sept. 20th, 2013