The sky was dark and the air was cool, and it was well past midnight as Tony drove along a deserted road in rural Virginia, Ziva half-asleep in the passenger seat. They were supposed to arrive at Norfolk several hours earlier, but he had gotten distracted by discussing some movie and missed his turn. By the time either of them realized it, they were all turned around and several miles past the last area of the state they recognized. McGee had helped them get back on the right track via cell phone, and Tony was currently making his way to where he needed to be and hoping that Gibbs didn't call and yell at him.
He hit a bump in the road. To his right, he heard a grunt and looked over to Ziva rubbing her forehead and blinking sleepily. "Sorry," Tony said, somewhat quietly but unsure why- they were the only people in the car, the only people for miles around. "Go back to sleep."
"No, that's okay," she said, swiping at the corners of her eyes and sitting up straight in her seat. Keeping one eye on the road, Tony glanced over at her. She was turned toward the open window, staring pensively at the bloomed trees. The wind rippled her hair and her jacket, which she clutched tightly around her.
After several minutes of silence, Tony broke it. "What are you thinking about?"
Ziva's lips tightened into a straight line, and he was thinking that she was about to dismiss him, ignore him… but the nocturnal atmosphere must have gotten to her, because just when he had given up on getting inside her head, she spoke. "My sister."
It was the first time she had mentioned her sister's death to him in six years, since that night before they were partners, before they had gone through hell and high water together, when they stood on the sidewalk outside a hotel and ate pizza. He had always wondered what Tali was like, but Ziva never offered any information, and he didn't push her. Even now, when she had opened the conversation, he refrained from peppering her with a bunch of questions, instead saying, "Yeah?"
She nodded, still transfixed by the scene outside of the car. "Yes. She loved to get out of the city and go- well. In Israel, when you get out of the city, you go to the desert. But Tali-" The name made her pause and swallow, but then she continued in a stronger voice. "Tali would have loved this."
"This… the country?"
"Yes, the country. And the breeze and trees and driving around in a car with the freedom to go wherever she wanted." Finally, Ziva turned to Tony, shifting in the seat until her entire body was facing him. For several seconds, he drove and she thought. Then: "Sometimes, I think about what would have happened… if things had been different."
Slowing down so that he could pay closer attention to whatever it was she was about to say, Tony prompted, "Different?"
"If she hadn't gone to the market that day," Ziva said softly, propping her elbow on the center console and her chin in her hand. "If she had lived just a couple more years. She would have been nineteen when I came to NCIS, Tony, and…" Here she laughed, half affectionate, half sorrowful. "She would have been thrilled when I realized that I did not want the life our father laid out for us, either."
Now, Tony brought the car to a complete stop and put it in park. He looked at Ziva, deep in thought, and said nothing, because he didn't want to stop this flow of information. All he did was lift his hand to swipe at the lone tear hanging off of her eyelash, then thread the fingers of that hand through hers. The night settled around them, still and expectant; even the wind stopped blowing momentarily.
"And sometimes," she continued, "I wonder what it would have been like after I got here and discovered that I wanted to stay and that she was back in Tel Aviv, putting up with our father's hideous drills and tests. I like to think that I would have flown her over here to live with me. We would have had a good life, Tony." There were now more than a couple of tears creeping out of her eyes; they fell gently onto her cheekbones, and she used her free hand to rub at her face.
"You would have," Tony agreed.
"And you know what else?"
"What?"
Ziva began to stroke her thumb along the back of his hand, which resulted in goose bumps forming all the way up his arm. "She would have just adored you."
He wanted so badly to know his partner's sister. Just to talk her, to see Ziva with someone who made her happy. But that couldn't happen, and instead, he was just going to have to be comforted by Ziva's words: her little sister would have approved of him. And he didn't know that this was accurate, but in his mind, he formulated an image of Tali as a bubbly, slightly mischievous girl who was very interested in his relationship with her sister, whatever it was. He imagined her teasing them, trying to push them together because she loved them both so much.
As he reached out and folded his crying Ziva into his arms, then rested his cheek on her head, a gut-level feeling made him suspect that she was right: Tali approved.
The name Talia means "dew from heaven", which, along with the theme, inspired the title of this story.
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