Hey. I know I should really be updating No Ordinary Job like now, but I had the idea for this and just sort of went with it. Not sure where it will end up exactly, but hopefully it will go somewhere good! Lots of Tiva, even though it doesn't look like it to begin with. But bear with me! Everything is important, so look out for clues! Please review and let me know if this is any good or a load of rubbish. :)
Christina x
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Ziva Kasher smiled, watching her daughter practise her dance for ballet class.
"What do you think mommy?" her daughter asked eagerly.
"Very good Annie!" Ziva replied, holding out her arms. Annie ran over, jumping onto her mom's lap. Ziva kissed her head, and hugged her daughter. At six years old, Annie was the light of her mother's life.
Their quiet moment was disrupted with the opening of their Holon home.
"Shalom yakirati," Ziva's husband, Meir Kasher, called.
"Shalom," Ziva replied.
"Ima! Ima!" their two sons, Ori and Niv, cried running into the room. Annie climbed off her mom's knee, allowing her to hug her sons. Ziva kissed them both.
"How was school?" she asked in Hebrew.
"Good," Niv said.
"Boring," Ori replied. Ziva smiled. Her boys may have the same birthdays and similar looks, but they were totally different. Niv had his father's dark hair, while Ori had inherited his mother's brown locks. Both had her eyes.
"Shalom," Meir said again, entering the room, bending to kiss his wife.
"Shalom," she replied. "How was work?"
"Fine."
Ziva suppressed a sigh as Meir left the room. He was a man of few words. It frustrated her. For so long she had been surrounded by people with such colourful personalities who weren't afraid to make themselves heard or their views known. It may have been seven years on, but Ziva missed them. She tried to make the house as loud as possible but it wasn't the same. Even with four year old twin boys bouncing off the walls.
XOXOXOX
The next morning, after Meir had left for work and her children were at school, Ziva was in the shower when the phone rang. She didn't hear it over the water and there was no one else to pick it up so it went to the answering machine. When Ziva came out of the bathroom, dressed in her robe, she noticed the red light blinking at her. Before she could press the play button on the machine, the phone rang, its ring cutting through the silence like a knife.
"Shalom?" she said answering it.
"Hey Ziver."
"Gibbs," she smiled, sitting down on the couch. "How are you?"
"Can't complain. You?"
"Good." Ziva frowned. "Isn't it the middle of the night with you?"
"Something like that."
"You need to get out of that basement more Gibbs," she admonished.
"Yeah, yeah, so they tell me. How's my goddaughter?"
"She is at school. She is growing up fast, too fast!"
"They'll do that to ya. How's the other two?"
"Ori and Niv? They are good. They have started school. Niv loves it but Ori says it is boring."
"And the husband?"
"Meir is well."
"Good. How bout you?"
"You asked me that already," she reminded him.
"I know but I'm asking you again."
"Okay," Ziva replied. "Some days are harder than others."
"I know Ziver."
There was a comfortable silence, then Ziva spoke.
"Go get some sleep," she told him. "All that caffeine cannot be good for you."
"Take care Ziva. And come home sometime soon. Take my goddaughter to visit me."
"I will Gibbs, I promise. Shalom."
"Shalom Ziver."
After she'd put the phone down, Ziva realised that when Gibbs had called America her home he had been right. Once upon a time Israel had been home, but that had changed. Everything had changed. But fate had intervened, and she'd returned to Israel.
It still wasn't home though.
XOXOXOX
It wasn't until later that Ziva remembered the message. She assumed it was Gibbs, but thought she'd better check. She pressed play. All that came through was static. Whoever it was had a very bad connection. It sounded like there was someone talking but she couldn't hear the voice or the words. She deleted it again. It couldn't have been that important. If it was, they'd call back. They did.
XOXOXOX
That night, the phone rang again. Ziva left her children watching the TV-Meir was working in the study-to answer it.
"Shalom?" she said. Static, and lots of it.
"Ziva?" It was her name, faint, but definitely her name. "Ziva?"
She shook her head. That voice... It was impossible. It couldn't be.
"Can you hear me? Ziva?" There was noise in the background, sounds of other people. Then, screaming, "Ziva!"
She dropped the phone like it was scalding her hand, breathing deeply. Then she grabbed it again, pressing it to her ear. But the call had ended. She replaced the phone but didn't return to the sitting room. Instead she ran upstairs to her bedroom and pulled out the box which held some of her most precious memories. She pushed old photos, a hat with a 9mm hole "for ventilation", until she found what she was looking for.
The photo was taken three weeks before the explosion. Tony... He had his arms slung carefreely around her shoulders, grinning at the camera as McGee took the picture. It was the fourth of July. They were at the park for a party. They'd been relaxed, had fun.
Three weeks later he was dead.
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So? Cliffhanger much? Lol! :)