Wow my first oneshot. I feel so accomplished. It's a little angsty, but I think you guys might like it if you give it a read. It's an idea that's been rolling around in my head for awhile and I decided to write it to give you guys something of mine to read while I'm pounding out the chapters to my other fics. Obviously Judgement Day never happened. I love you all and hope you enjoy it!

Ziva breathed deeply, trying to quell the waves of emotions that were threatening to wash over her carefully constructed walls. She gripped the edge of the sink and took another deep breath. She stared at herself in the mirror, and was surprised at what was staring back at her. It was one of those moments when one looks at herself and realizes that she has changed, and Ziva most certainly had changed. In her mind, she remembered the face of a twenty year old woman, a fresh-faced Mossad officer. She had learned the hard way that her father would not give her special treatment. She had to fight her way through prejudice and sexism. She was burdened by her father's power and her brother's reputation. Slowly though, she made a name for herself. She completed her missions quickly and neatly, taking out one target after another without batting an eyelash.

Her memory flashes again to the day her mother left. Her father was screaming at his wife to think about what she was doing. Mother had said that she was not needed anymore, that her children were forced to grow up by the man she had let father them. There were tears. Her mother was the first family member she had seen cry. Ziva watched from the stairs as her mother picked up her bags, blew her daughter one last kiss, and climbed in a taxi headed for some unknown city. After that it was just her, her father, and her siblings.

She and her siblings did everything together. They were as thick as thieves, completely inseparable. They got into lots of trouble, but they always did it together. The three of them: Ari, Ziva, and Tali, knew and trusted each other. Gradually, they expanded their relationships beyond their family. Michael Rivkin joined them, along with various other young people their age, all of them in the Mossad. Tali, always the cheerful one, called them a family, and in some ways that is what they were. Ari and Ziva were the parents, Michael and the other men the brothers, and Tali the little baby sister that everyone took care of.

She was always so happy, Tali. Even growing up in a country ravaged by war, she found a way to make things better. Peace followed her around like an animal, spreading into the lives of everyone she met. Ziva and Tali always used to cook together after their mother had left, spending their entire first summer without her developing a cookbook of their own recipes. The house always smelled like whatever they were cooking, and the aromas would draw Ari and even sometimes the elusive Eli into the kitchen to see what they were up to. Tali was the light of Ziva's life, the thing that kept her going after a hard mission or a fight with their father. Tali was wise beyond her years, always knowing what to say to calm her hot headed older sister down.

Another memory flash brings Ziva to the day she lost that light. The smoke burned her eyes. People were screaming and groaning in pain. Body parts laid strewn across the street, and the smoldering remains of what used to be the David's favorite bakery lay deserted in the road. She wandered blind for a few minutes until Ari called to her over the cahos. His voice was thick with grief, and when Ziva found him she discovered why. Her beloved sister's body was laying in the street, all the peaceful light drained from it. Ziva sobbed and took her sixteen year old baby sister's head in her hands. For hours all she did was stroke the body's hair, until Eli forced her to headquarters for details of a new mission.

In that moment, Ziva was grateful for her work. She threw herself into every mission, subconsciously thinking that maybe if she killed just one more person, it would avenge Tali's death. She spent years trying to track down the cell that had ordered the hit on the bakery owner, but the case went cold, the cell moved to another location.

When killing people didn't provide the revenge Ziva wanted, she decided to rebel against her father. She slept with Michael for the first time her first night in Cairo. She was hurting and he was only happy to provide some comfort. The entire agency knew that Michael had been in love with Ziva since they had met when they were children. Michael made her feel good, really good, and for awhile Ziva thought the ice around her heart was beginning to melt, but then her father found out about their relationship. She remembered the way Michael had kissed her goodbye the morning he left to return to Tel Aviv. They couldn't help it, they made love one last time, and then he was gone, Ziva's heart with him.

That day was the day she met Jenny Sheppard. Of course, Ziva had been through so much she was in a particularly foul mood. When her control officer, Shmuel Rubenstein, introduced her to the American agent she would be working with, Ziva simply smiled and nodded. She briefly registered shaking the woman's hand, but her mind was too cloudy trying to block out Tali and the fact that Shmuel Rubenstein, the boy she and her family had declared to be their mortal enemy, was now her control officer.

As the days went on, Jenny and Ziva bonded. Still, Ziva held back. She kept to herself unless they got a tip on a potential terrorist attack. Then, the American and the Israeli would go out and investigate, almost always coming up empty handed. Slowly though, the walls began to break down. Ziva found in Jenny a close friend, someone she could begin to consider confiding in. After about two weeks working in Cairo, one wall finally crumbled. Ziva told Jenny about Tali. The redheaded NCIS agent listened carefully and quietly, waiting until Ziva had finished her story. When Ziva had finished pouring her heart out, Jenny didn't say anything. She simply wrapped her arms around Ziva in a sisterly like hug.

This shocked Ziva, and the twenty-two year old assassin began to feel a shift. She was in awe over Jenny's compassion. She could not believe that someone who had dedicated their life to field work would have the ability to open her heart to a wounded woman like herself. When Ziva told Jenny of her amazement, the redhead simply smiled and said,

"Hey. Just look at me like your new older sister! I vote after we go follow up on this latest pointless lead, you and I go out for coffee." Ziva smiled sadly and shook her head.

"Unfortunately we will probably have another one of those pointless leads waiting for us right after we go check out this one."

"Oh come on Ziva! It will be fun! You do know what that means right, fun?" Ziva rolled her eyes.

"Yes, but you've forgotten one important thing we have to do before we go investigate."

"And what is that?"

"I told you about my sister. Now you have to tell me a secret."

"What?"

"Yes. I believe it is...Egyptian law." Jenny looked at her friend skeptically, but Ziva simply arched her eyebrows demandingly. The redhead laughed.

"All right." And she proceeded to tell Ziva about a man. A man that she had just been working for. She told her that he was her boss, but she had some romantic feelings towards him. Ziva advised Jenny to make a move, but Jenny simply blushed and said,

"We should get back to work now." They grabbed their gear and headed for a spot where they were meeting an informant. However, the one day the two fearless women insisted they didn't need backup was the day they really should have had it. The informant was either a fake or got caught. They were ambushed, and even though both were great fighters, warriors even, the numbers were too against them.

Ziva didn't know she had the baby until she lost it. At the time, she was too caught up in everything to really grieve. The logical part of her mind took over, telling her that being pregnant would have meant losing her job. One could not be a mother and a Mossad officer at the same time. She had other things to worry about, namely saving Jenny. Ziva was trained to survive interrogation techniques, but the NCIS agent had been trained for something much different. They always went to Jenny for information. They would throw her back in the cell, bloody and beaten, barely alive, while Ziva was forced to do other things. It was her job to keep the men happy. Ziva knew that she had to get Jenny out or she would have the burden of another death on her shoulders.

Getting out of the cell was the hard part. However, Ziva figured out the lock easily enough. The guards were easy to take out. After all, they thought Ziva was there to perform her usual activities and welcomed her with open arms before she delivered a surprising blow that knocked them unconscious. She practically dragged Jenny out of the camp and to a hospital.

"I owe you, Ziva," she had said once she had gotten out of critical condition. Ziva shook her head.

"No Jenny, I owe you." And without another word, the Mossad officer disappeared like smoke. It would be years before the future director of NCIS would figure out what Ziva was grateful for. Ziva may have saved Jenny's life, but Jenny had helped her heal. She had helped her start to love again.

When Ziva returned to Mossad, she was given a promotion. As control officer she had a host of new jobs, many of which would have stressed out a woman less motivated than Ziva. Ziva, however, took the new responsibilities in stride. She and her team operated smoothly. They would get the intel, go in, and get rid of the target quickly and efficiently. Ari was sometimes a prankster, but not to the point where Ziva had to take disciplinary action. Not that she would have if it had gone too far. She was, after all, his sister before his control officer.

She found out about Special Agent Todd's death on the day of her twenty-sixth birthday. She had been sitting in her apartment, alone save for the birthday cake with one solitary candle she had bought for herself when the phone rang. She picked it up eagerly, hoping for it to be Ari or her father calling to give their blessings. It was her father, but instead of the happy birthday she had been hoping for, he delivered news of another nature. Ari was to be killed by someone in Mossad.

Ziva jumped at the chance to take the mission, although her objective was different than her father's. While Eli had given up on his son and simply wished for him to be removed, Ziva planned to save him. He was, after all, still the loving brother she knew wasn't he?

When she arrived in D.C. she went straight to NCIS. She had been informed that her old friend Jenny Sheppard, now director, would be meeting her there. She felt even more secure knowing that Jenny was at the helm of the American agency. She had researched much more about the man that had stolen her friends heart, Special Agent Gibbs, and knew that he was a force to be reckoned with. Ziva knew though, that Jenny wasn't afraid to stand up to him. She knew that Jenny would tell Agent Gibbs the truth, that Ari was innocent.

Discovering that he wasn't came slowly and then all at once. It had started with her meeting Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo. She was attracted to him from the minute she saw him, finding his sexual prowess extremely exciting. However, Ari got in the way of anything happening between them. They were on two opposite sides: she the defender and he the accuser. When she noticed him following her she secretly hoped it was an assignment he was enjoying. She took a few unnecessary turns before returning to the hotel, just to annoy him a little.

She wasn't entirely sure why she told him about Tali. All she knew was that she was praying that the Americans weren't right about Ari. Jenny had assured her that NCIS would be cooperating with Mossad, but Ziva doubted she knew what Mossad really wanted with Ari. Ziva was feeling emotionally weak, and that moment in the rain with Tony had sparked something. She looked longingly at him as she went back into the hotel, hoping he would catch the message she was sending him and spend the night with her. However, he was either oblivious or under too much pressure and she spent the night alone with her thoughts and her nightmares.

That night, she had been sitting at the top of the stairs, listening to the monster her brother had become. When she pulled the trigger, she thought she must have been having another nightmare, that she wasn't really staring at the body of a changed Ari, that the man she loved hadn't slipped right through her fingers. Gibbs tried to comfort her, tried to tell her it was going to be okay, but she was an emotional wreck.

Her return to Israel was absolute hell. Eli had congratulated her on another job well done, but all she felt was shame. She kept praying that she would wake up, that she wasn't burying another family member. It was the most alone she had ever felt in her life, and that is part of the reason she asked to return to America, to work at NCIS. Gibbs had been reluctant at first, she knew that, but by the end of her first year there she liked to think that they had all at least somewhat accepted her.

Now, she was being forced to relive the hell of those first few days in America. The inevitable had happened: Tony had found out. Not from Gibbs of course, from some unknown source she was sure was connected to her father. She could still hear her partner screaming at her,

"You killed your own brother? What kind of person would do that? I thought you'd changed Ziva! I thought you were a different person, but I guess I was wrong! You're still just a cold blooded killer, a woman incapable of ever loving anything, ever!" She wanted to tell him that he was wrong, that she could love, that she did love, but she knew it was useless. She had expressed her feelings for him many times and he had never even noticed. Now she was sitting in the NCIS bathroom, tears streaking down her face. Again she was hit with that feeling of being totally and completely alone. After all, Tony hadn't stopped at verbally abusing her, he also told everyone else on the team. Now, every time she went down the Abby's lab, she was greeted with frigid silence, and McGee flinched every time she got within ten feet of him. Her heart was breaking, the people she loved were turned against her. She let out another sob, and gripped the sink even tighter. Suddenly, the door swung open and Ziva saw a flash of red indicating the Director's arrival. When Jenny saw the state that Ziva was in her eyes softened. She gathered her broken friend in her arms like the mother figure she had become and whispered softly to her,

"Shh, it's going to be all right."

"They all hate me," the assassin said, all traces of crying stopped now that she knew she wasn't alone.

"No they don't," Jenny said, "in fact, Gibbs explained everything to them, and I have to say I think they all feel pretty awful." Ziva sat up and asked disbelievingly,

"Really?"

"Really." Jenny ran some cold water over a paper towel and handed it to her friend.

"Here. You look awful."

"Thank you Jenny," Ziva replied, "you always know how to make me feel better." Jenny smiled, hearing the sincerity behind the sarcasm. All of a sudden Tony rushed into the restroom, stopping short when he saw both his boss and his partner.

"Um, Director Sheppard do you think I could have a moment with Ziva please?" Jenny nodded and looked at Ziva, silently telling her to just let go. As the door closed behind her, Jenny heard Ziva say,

"Tony, there is something I need to tell you." The Director smiled to herself, satisfied. Maybe now Ziva would finally get some peace.

I hope you guys liked it! I think I'm just going to keep it as a oneshot unless someone really wants me to continue it. But yeah, I've never written a oneshot before and I feel pretty proud of myself right now. Plus it's the first thing I've posted in like forever so I'm also really excited about that. Reviews would be nice!

xo-Erika-xo