Title: What Happened To My Little Brother?
Rating: T since it deals with a death
Spoilers: Kill Ari II mostly
Classification: Tragedy/Angst
Summary: For the October 2006 Special Ops Challenge. Ziva POV.
"He's my half-brother." I guess that was the case technically, but I never thought of it that way. To me you were just the little brother that lived in a different home.
Although sometimes it was hard to remember you were younger than I was. Tara Macy's words summed it up perfectly. Remember her? The British Exchange student who was in my class one year? She asked if I was really the younger sibling, and that all of her friends would want their little brothers to be more like you.
Apparently little brothers were supposed to be mischievous and make your life miserable. Like little monkeys. But you were always the good child, the quiet little boy who'd sit in a corner and read when all the grown-ups were busy. I was the tease, the monkey, the one who would start a Jello fight with our cousins at family picnics. The one who loved to sneak up behind you and tickle you in an effort to make you laugh.
I used to think that there was a special key and that if I could only find it, I could unlock all your smiles and laughter. But I could never find it. Even when you got older, all I can remember are your solemn dark eyes looking at me.
I kept wondering when you would sow your wild grapes – wait, not grapes. Wild grain. But it was like you never did. It made me want to protect you and look after you even more. I never told you this, but I specifically asked to be your control officer when you started with Mossad. I didn't want someone else having to do what was my job – to look after my younger brother.
You used to tease me about that, how protective I was. How overprotective, I think you called it. When we were getting ready to send you on that first assignment to NCIS, I think I reviewed those dossiers with you a hundred times. Finally you looked up at me and said, "Ziva, you don't have to protect me anymore."
Didn't I? Now I think I must not have protected you enough. I wasn't able to protect you from becoming this person I don't even know, a monster as you called it. And so instead of protecting you, I had to protect others from you.
And now, as I sit here in the basement, I look down at you, lying there, your eyes closed. You look like that quiet little boy I protected again. And all I can do is sit here and wonder, what happened to that child? What happened to my little brother?