I just read a title. Just a title. And this just came into my head.
Maybe a warning (if you're veeeery prudish); mentions of certain female physiological events. Or something like that.
Also, English is not my first language, so sorry for any mistakes; and I, of course, do not own any of the characters of NCIS.
"Ima, ima!" she ran towards her mother, frightened as she hadn't been in a few years. What was happening to her? Her stomach hurt, her head hurt and she felt heavy, as if she was carrying books on her back.
"What is it, tateleh?" her mother replied calmly once she'd found her.
But now that she was there, she suddenly found no words in her mouth.
"Ima..." she repeated, softer, once she'd found her voice again. Her mother looked up from the clothes she'd been folding, taking a closer look at her oldest daughter. Her girl looked distressed.
"What's wrong, Ziva?" her voice was soft and melodious, like the wind in the desert. Ziva always wanted her mother's voice, ever since she was a little child.
"I... I'm..." she gestured downward helplessly. Her mother followed her hands to her legs.
"Have you fallen?"
Ziva shook her head, tears starting to shine in her eyes.
"No, I..." She tried to continue, but fear constricted her vocal chords.
"I think I'm sick," she finally said quietly. Her mother squinted her eyes at her, raising a hand to feel her forehead almost automatically.
"You're not hot," she said, frowning. Her daughter was making no sense to her. "Why do you think you are sick?"
Ziva gripped her stomach tighter as another pain tore through her. "My tummy hurts, and my head, and I'm bleeding!"
Something seemed to dawn on her mother. "Oh. Oh, honey..."
"What?" Ziva did not like the look of pity and pride in her mother's eyes. Would this mean she could not fight when she was older? Fight like Ari would and like her dad did?
"Are you bleeding into your panties?"
She nodded, ashamed. "Ima, what's wrong with me?"
Her mother enfolded her in a one arm hug, gently squeezing her. "Nothing's wrong, tateleh. You're becoming a woman!"
"A woman?" Ziva's eyes grew large. "But I'm only ten!"
Her mother nodded. There was something sad in her eyes, Ziva noticed; but in her fear and curiosity, she did not ponder it.
"Some girls become a woman earlier than others... I was ten, too."
Something dawned on Ziva. "Is this my menstruation?" she struggled over the unfamiliar word. She'd heard a few older girls talk about it one time, giggling and smiling; she did not like those kind of girls at all, but it had sounded like fun. Well, she wasn't having fun now!
"It is, my girl," her mother replied. Then she stood up, suddenly energized.
"Now it is time to tell you things, to teach you about your body and boys and men... but not now." She looked at her daughter critically. "Does it hurt bad?"
Ziva shook her head bravely. "Not at all, ima," she told her mother.
Her mother laughed softly. "Liar," she said. "Come on, I will teach you something you can do to stop the pain."
They walked away, hand in hand. She watched them leave the room, already surrounded with the air of female mystery, of womanhood...
She shot up in her bed. She was drenched, her body shaking as she tried to regain her breathing.
Why was she dreaming this now? She had started to forget this period in her life; this transition from innocence, from childhood to growing up. From happiness to conscience.
She was a firm believer in the theory that dreams were there to tell you something, but she had no idea why this particular memory had come up again.
She remembered how scared she'd been when she had discovered the blood... she had known nothing of that world yet. All she'd known was that at one point, girls became women, and boys suddenly looked at them and did funny things with them.
She had not had a clue.
It had been one of those times with her mother that she had come to cherish. Her mother had been melancholic, she realized now, because the blood had meant a new period in her oldest daughter's life; it meant that she was going to lose her, a definite sign that life would, eventually, change.
And she understood her mother, now, for not wanting to bother her with such things earlier in her life; appreciated her mother's effort to make her feel special, to teach her all the ways, all the things a growing girl was supposed to know.
She'd been scared that she was somehow too sick to ever join Mossad, that something was wrong with her... She remembered that now; the desperation with which she had wanted to fight... a desperation her father had drilled into her.
But that was then, and this was now. Many things had happened since then. She'd joined Mossad; but she'd seen enough to recognize the propaganda of her childhood. She'd met men. She'd fallen in and out of love. And she'd met friends... and lost them. Lost family.
But she'd never lose that memory.
I can honestly say I've never tried to write a ten-year old, so if the language is too childish (which I think it is), I apologize.
And I think I heard/read/saw somewhere that Ziva's mother died when she was young, but I don't know if that is true. So now it's not.
I wish it had gone like this with me, lol. Lot more peaceful...