Simply because I love the idea of Ziva and Tali :)
Ziva struggled through the wreckage. Blood was oozing out of a cut on her temple, her hair a matted mess stuck to the wound but she couldn't feel it. She couldn't feel anything, not the limp in her leg where something had torn through her jeans and cut at her tender flesh, not the throbbing pain in her head nor the gravel scraping in her newly formed cuts. All she knew in that moment was fear. Fear for her sister. Fear for the sister laying lifeless.
She could see her, silent and limp under a ton of debris from what used to be a shopping centre. It took all her willpower to pull herself to her sister and when she did she collapsed, pulling away the rubbish that was shielding Tali from the world. When her fingers struck flesh she felt a flutter of a breath. She was alive, just. Crawling around to the other side she glimpsed the face of her teenage sister. Her eyes were fluttering open and closed, the strong little girl desperately attempting to lay eyes on her protectress once more. It took her time but she managed to focus, her eyes locking on exact duplicates laid in terror on Ziva's face. She knew her voice was losing her. Still, she needed to speak. She was dying. Ziva meant too much. She wouldn't leave like this.
"Zia," She croaked. The elder of two tried to shush her, tears forming in her eyes like dew drops. Pretty little dew drops. Tali forced herself to speak. "Zia, I...I am sorry I have to...I do not wish to leave you but I...Zia I am."
Ziva weaved her fingers into her baby sister's dusty hair, holding tightly to those long strands of death. She couldn't hold the tears. Tali tried to focus on the words but they left her. Her mind refused to aid her in her last few moments. It was shutting down her body bit by bit. Her language was failing her. Her vocal muscles were being cut off. If there was anytime for goodbye she wouldn't get another.
"Zia, I love you." She whispered, her mind concentrating on each word as if they were the last fabrics of the universe. She had to make them make sense. "I know this is going to...be difficult. My death will be-"
Ziva cut her off. "You are not going to die. Tali, you are not going to die."
She could tell she wasn't listening to her anymore, her eyes barely staying open for half a second before shutting again. It was getting harder and harder for her to stay with her. Too much work went into just being.
"I need you to promise me something," She slurred, her eyes now closed, deep breaths coming before and after each sentence just to regulate her bodily function. "Promise me you will let yourself be happy. Promise you will not make yourself suffer for this. This was not your fault."
"Tali, you are not going to die," Even though she couldn't see Ziva's face she could tell the tears were creating long streaks in the dirt covering her olive skin. Her eyes were red and puffy. She was biting her lip, a habit she could barely fight.
"Just promise you will not punish yourself for this." She whispered, the last essence of life leaving her. "Promise you will let yourself be happy again. Live your life even though I could not live mine."
Even Ziva wasn't going to argue. She had never seen Tali so lifeless. That girl was the creation of life in one beautiful body. Her soul contained so much compassion, so much warmth, so much love. If Tali was life, Ziva was death. Her soul contained so much hate, ice cold hate that wracked through her body like a virus infecting the world around her. Spreading deep black plague in her path. She was the one that deserved to be lying there, not her sister. Tali was so naive, seeing Ziva as something good. She was wrong, so wrong. Tali should be kneeling over Ziva's lifeless carcass right now. But she had to make her dying sister's last wish.
"I promise," was all she could muster before her voice caught.
That was enough for the sixteen year old. She let out a long breath and was gone. Just like that everything good in Ziva's world had left her. Reaching down, the sobs still gripping her heart, she pulled the teenager's body into her arms and held her tighter than she ever had before. But there was nothing in that grip anymore. There was no life in her sister's being. She was gone.
Just a little oneshot into what I feel may have been the most painful moment in Ziva's life. Thanks for reading and REVIEW.