A/N: I was originally only going to post this on tumblr in the spirit of Tiva Fic Amnesty. Jennfics and Sharinat (check them out at the other place or on tumblr) came up with the idea after Michael Weatherly left NCIS, to give writers a chance to post stories about our favorite duo that are very short, unfinished, unedited,...and would probably never be finished due to lack of inspiration or motivation.
This is the very first fic I've written. Reading it again makes me realize my writing has improved, and that, as much as I have always wanted to update this story, it would be a lot of work, and it no longer holds my interest enough to actually sit down and rewrite it. So I'm posting this, for anyone desperate to read some more Tony and Ziva (it didn't end up being actual Tiva).
In case you're wondering, the story has an ending, but it is an open ending (I think I originally intended to write an epilogue, but didn't).
So, yeah, if you don't mind subjecting yourself to my first writing attempt in over two decades; enjoy.
Taking shallow breaths, to keep the smoke out of his plague-scarred lungs, Tony lifted his head, his body still covering a girl. The deafening silence and smoke from the bomb blast disoriented him. Was there further imminent danger? Or had the one suicide bomber been working alone?
The girl underneath him stirred.
Relieved she was alive, he decided now was a good time to mentally check his own body for injuries. Coming up with nothing that seemed too serious, or too painful, Tony slowly got up, warning the girl to stay down.
His now vertical position gave him a better view of the scene. Dozens of people were lying on the ground, some moving, some…not. He could make out dismembered body parts, but tried not to dwell on them. He'd seen some pretty horrible crime scenes as a cop and federal agent, including a few bombings. There was a big difference, though, between seeing the aftermath of a bombing, when the survivors crying out for help had already been taken to a hospital, and experiencing a bombing first hand.
Despite his earlier warning, he could see the girl slowly starting to sit up, a dazed expression on her face. Perhaps she didn't understand English, he thought. Or, more likely, she couldn't hear anything but muffled sounds and ringing, much like him.
Crouching down next to her, Tony forced her to look at him, and slowly asked, "Are you okay?"
When she gave a tight-lipped smile and nodded her head, he knew she'd understood. He noticed a cut on her forehead that was bleeding, but experience told him it probably wasn't too serious. She looked pretty much unharmed otherwise.
Helping her all the way up, he decided to move her away from the scene, to the bar across the street. A man holding a stack of towels hurried out of the bar, and Tony stopped him momentarily to grab a few of them.
Tony was about to look for victims he could help, when movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention. Looking over, he saw the girl he'd just saved head towards him. She took a towel from him, her eyes fixed on the still body of a teenager laying nearby. Judging by the look on her face, it was someone she knew.
They both approached the body and started checking for injuries underneath torn and bloody clothes. Tony applied pressure with a towel to the first wound he discovered, which was bleeding profusely. He glanced at the girl crouching at the other side of the body. The teenager's hands moved fast all over her friend's motionless body, as if she knew what she was doing. Discovering another heavily bleeding wound on her friend's leg, she applied pressure to it, looking around her while shouting something in Hebrew.
Tony felt relieved when one of the paramedics finally reached them. The teenage girl started talking and pointing at her friend's injuries, and after nodding and doing a cursory check, the paramedic waved over a colleague to help carry the injured teenager towards a waiting ambulance.
He saw the worried look of the girl beside him turn to one of determination as she moved to another victim. Beckoning him over, she guided his hands to where he should put pressure, before moving on to another victim close by.
As more ambulances arrived, there seemed to be no need for them to help anymore, so Tony gestured to the girl to follow him back to the cafe. IDF soldiers were collecting what Tony assumed was evidence of the bombing. He doubted there would be much left of the suicide bomber, though. As his gaze drifted from the carnage across the street, to the girl now sitting next to him, he thanked his lucky stars, and his training, for keeping both of them from sustaining more serious injuries.
Earlier, when he'd seen a man wearing a bulky jacket the Israeli heat didn't call for, his gut had started to churn. It wasn't until he'd caught a glimpse of a small device in the man's hand, with a wire running up his sleeve, that his cop instinct had kicked into full gear. Just as he'd decided to approach the man and try to take him down, the terrorist had looked in his direction and locked eyes with him. His face had morphed into an angry scowl and Tony had known he couldn't reach him in time to stop him. He'd yelled for everybody to get down, not knowing if it would do any good, and instinctively tackled the person that had been standing closest to him, who looked like she was about to follow a friend in the direction of the bomber. They had barely hit the ground when he'd heard the deafening explosion and felt the heat and shockwave roll over them.
He wondered how things had gone so horribly wrong, so fast. He had come to Tel Aviv a couple of days ago, to gather intel on the whereabouts of the Hamas terrorist that had murdered his partner. It was supposed to have been a relatively easy and safe mission. Yet 4 hours ago, he'd been shot at by sniper—the bullet had barely grazed the top of his shoulder—and now, he'd almost been blown to pieces by a suicide bomber. Not even the prospect of a close encounter of the naked kind with the gorgeous brunette he'd bumped into early that morning, could persuade him to stay in Tel Aviv any longer than was absolutely necessary.
Noticing some improvement in his hearing, he decided to ask the teenage girl her name after introducing himself. One of the girl's eyebrows shot up as he mentioned being a US federal agent, and she told him her name was Tali.
"No serious injuries, Tali? Do you need to go to the hospital?"
"Only some minor scrapes and bruises, that is all. I would be in the hospital with my friend Yael…or worse, if you had not protected me." She looked down at her hands, caked with dirt and dried blood. "Thank you," she said, making eye contact, a solemn expression on her face.
"I'd say anytime, but I'd rather not get blown up again," he said with a smile. Joking to lighten the mood in serious situations had become a knee-jerk reaction over the years.
"Tell me, Special Agent DiNozzo, what is a US federal agent doing in Tel Aviv?" she asked.
He tried to charm his way out of answering the question; officially he wasn't even supposed to be there. So he mentioned an excess of vacation days, beaches and hot Israeli women. He threw in his trademark grin, the one that seemed to work on most women, young and old alike, for good measure.
When she asked him if he always carried a badge when going on vacation, Tony knew he hadn't been as successful as he'd hoped in claiming to be just another tourist.
He didn't have to try and change the subject, though, as she pointed at several cuts on his arms, and mentioned that his back appeared to have several more injuries - judging by the blood on his shirt. She suggested escorting him to a hospital. He declined, saying it didn't feel that bad and he'd take care of it later. The hospitals would be too busy right now anyway, and he didn't feel like spending the rest of the day in an overcrowded ER.
And, he thought, I need to bring the boss up to speed, and see if he was able to find out whether he had been targeted by a sniper earlier, or whether that had been part of everyday life in the Middle East.
"Come to my home, I will take care of your injuries. They are covered in dirt, they will become infected if not cleaned properly," she said. "If you get an infection you will not be able to…enjoy your vacation," she added, and raised an eyebrow.
He narrowed his eyes slightly, and couldn't help but feel a little paranoid after the day he was having.
"I volunteer at a hospital," she explained, "I want to be a doctor. And, it is the least I can do after you saved my life."
Weighing his options—staying out in the open after almost dying twice in one day didn't really seem like a good idea, and taking care of the injuries on his back would be a hit and miss effort later on—Tony decided to accept the somewhat professional help. Worrying about injuries becoming infected shouldn't be on his to do list while he waited to hear back from his boss.
It was only a 15 minute walk to Tali's apartment, and he had spent most of that time talking about nothing important. Even though she didn't look too freaked out about what had just happened, he knew that asking questions and talking about nonsense had a tendency to put victims somewhat at ease and keep them focused.
The first thing Tony did after entering the apartment was take in his surroundings; a table, some chairs, a book case, two rooms to his left.
Framed pictures on the wall to his right drew his attention; one of 2 young girls, another with 2 girls and an older boy. The last picture, of a young woman wearing the typical olive drab uniform of the IDF, made him clench his jaw. She looked a couple of years younger in the picture, around 18 probably, but that was definitely the woman that had bumped into him earlier that day. No more than an hour before he was shot at by a sniper.
His boss didn't believe in coincidences, and quite frankly, neither did he. Replaying the events of that encounter in his head, his gut started to churn again.
He glanced sideways at Tali, and asked, "Who is that?"
"That is my sister, Ziva. She had just joined the IDF when the picture was taken. You look like you have seen her before?"
"Last time I saw your sister she was trying to kill me."
"That does not sound like Ziva, you must be mistaken," she answered.
Tony looked at her, eyebrows raised.
"Well, judging by the picture, she's in the IDF. Are you implying she never learned how to kill someone in the army?"
"No, I am implying that if my sister received the order to kill you, you would be dead," she said with a somewhat amused expression on her face.
Their conversation halted when they heard the front door opening and closing, followed by a female voice that sounded slightly distressed.
"That would be my sister now," Tali said. "If what you said is true, and she did try to kill you, you might want to put your hands in the air."
As soon as Ziva caught a glimpse of Tony standing in her living room, next to her sister, he was staring down the barrel of her gun. She said something to Tali in Hebrew, but all he could make out was that it sounded more like an order than anything else.
"He saved my life, Ziva" Tali blurted out, positioning herself between him and the very angry looking Israeli standing in the doorway.
Ziva's eyes barely moved away from Tony long enough to look at Tali. If Tony hadn't been a trained investigator, excelling at reading body language, he would've missed it.
"The Hamas bombing?" Ziva questioned in English, then continued in Hebrew, "I tried to call you, you did not answer, so I came here looking for you. Are you okay? Are you hurt?" There was a hint of worry in her voice.
"I am not hurt, but Agent DiNozzo is. I said I would help him," Tali replied in English.
Ziva's eyes were still trained on Tony, sizing him up. She had briefly made contact with him that morning. According to her orders, he was working with a Hamas terrorist group and she was to take him out.
Her father, the deputy director of Mossad, didn't want to risk Hamas getting a foothold in the US. Mossad had worked with the FBI and CIA before, when American citizens were suspected of helping terrorists, but not always. The Agencies wouldn't always be very cooperative, and Mossad had taken out targets without their knowing on one or two occasions.
The deputy director had claimed the NCIS agent had become a double agent for Hamas, and his partner of 2 years, Kate Todd, had been killed in the process. Now that Agent DiNozzo was in Israel, he presented an even bigger danger.
Ziva's stakeout had begun as soon as the American had arrived at the airport three days ago. Early that morning, she had witnessed him meet with one of the female terrorists of the group her brother Ari had infiltrated. According to the deputy director, this jeopardized Ari's cover and he needed to be dealt with as soon as possible.
Ziva had felt conflicted; during the three days of watching her target from afar, and sometimes from mere feet away, she had seen some behavior that struck her as odd. Her gut had told her there was more to this American than met the eye. Overhearing parts of the agent's phone conversation after his meeting with the female terrorist, she had concluded that Tony DiNozzo had in fact not gone rogue, but was trying to infiltrate her brother's group himself.
To what purpose, she did not know.
That morning, her father had impatiently asked her what was taking her so long. It became clear to her that the order to kill the American wasn't open for discussion. Well, were orders ever open for discussion? So Ziva had kept her mouth shut and told him she would complete her mission that day.
Going against Mossad protocol, she had made contact with the American an hour later. Deciding a casual chat would reveal a lot about his true intentions, she had bumped into him, spilling a drink all over his shirt. Not exactly an original move, but it always worked.
Flirting with him, she had quickly learned he wasn't expecting to be in Israel much longer. The way he was distracted by her legs – she knew wearing a short dress for this stint was the right decision– gave her plenty of opportunity to extract some more information from him. To get a feel for what kind of a person he was.
She was a good judge of character and she knew how to read people. It was part of what made her so good at her job. Unfortunately, that was also the part that sometimes made it difficult to follow orders blindly.
Ziva had hoped her little stint would've appeased her doubts. It hadn't. At all.
She was now convinced her father had either kept important details from her, or was given wrong information. Knowing she couldn't blatantly disregard a direct order from the deputy director of Mossad, she decided to blow the mission.
An hour after "accidentally" bumping into the agent, she had watched him sip a coffee through the scope of her sniper rifle, from a roof top across the street. She had thought one bullet, barely scraping his shoulder, would be enough to make her father think she was intent on finishing the job, and hopefully make the American contact his higher-ups for an extraction.