I wrote this while I was watching the movie Nim's Island with my mom. You do not need to have seen the movie for it to make sense. It is just a sweet Tiva story. No particular season. You could place it just about everywhere. It could be one of the those times Tony comes over after Gibbs leaves.
Disclaimer: Do I look like I own it.
Spoilers: Nothing.
"Hi, Ziva." Tony said as Ziva opened the door.
"What are you doing here, Tony?" Ziva asked confused.
"I brought a movie," he said as she looked pointedly towards the door, "and pizza." She smiled and moved to let him in. "So I can stay?"
"Yes, you can stay," she said as she rolled her eyes. "What movie did you bring?"
"It's called Nim's Island."
"Works for me," Ziva said as they sat down on her couch and opened the pizza box.
Ziva watched the opening credit role and the movie start. "A whale can not eat a person, Tony this is a weird movie." She watched the little girl run on the sands of an Island. It looked a little like Israel, but she did not want to think of that.
"How would you like to live there, Ziva?" Tony asked as the camera showed the an island tree house.
"It is ok. I mean I have tried it, except with out all the supply ships."
"They get one a year," Tony said in surprise.
"Exactly, in Mossad training we only go the supply stuff that we were given stuff when we got there and that is it."
Tony shook his head, then added, "That woman would give Nikki Jardine a run for her money." Ziva laughed as the author drowned her hands in hand sanitizer. For a while they sat in silence and watched the movie. Tony could not give movie quotes because he had never seen the movie before.
"Hey, look Tony. She has a Mac just like we used at Mossad. She knows good computers when she sees them."
"Hey! Is that an insult to American Agencies?" Tony asked looking at her and pretending to be insulted."
"No," Ziva replied coolly, "Just to your computers."
Tony shook his head again and returned to the movie. "It is raining and he is not heading for shore. Does he have a death wish?" Ziva asked incredulously.
"He is steering that boat alone—"
"I have done it."
"and his name is not Ziva David." Ziva smiled at him then shivered as she watched the little girl in the storm. She had been like that once and her father had not been home. The only difference had been that it was a bombing not a storm and that she had not bothered to call her father afterwards. "Leak, not good," Tony repeated, "I wondered how long it took him to figure that one out."
Ziva shivered again as the little girl lifted up the broken picture of her as a baby and her mother. Tony squeezed her hand to reassure her. Together they watched as the little girl climbed up the mountain. "It is never the going up that causes the problem. It is always the going down that screws up the mission." It was silent for a while as Nim started to descend the mountain and fell. "Told you."
Neither on of them said anything for ten minutes. "Why doesn't she just shoot them?" Ziva said confused as Nim watched from the trees.
"Not legal or no gun."
"It is an island there are no laws, and I think that she does not have a gun. I mean what eleven year old lives alone on an island and carries a gun."
"Any eleven year old who wants to join Mossad." There was a several minute pause. "That is better." Ziva said as the blonde girl on the screen built catapults and other defensive weapons. "As for that author, she would die in Israel."
"Ziva, what did they make you do in Israel."
"It was not Israel that made me do it, it was Mossad." Ziva answered stiffly. Tony waited for elaboration but none came.
"Over obsessive whale freak," Tony muttered as the father on the screen began talking to a whale.
"Trust is not the secret to adventure it is the secret to death," Ziva muttered under her breath, she paused for a second then continued. Are all the people who go on cruises that fat?" Tony shook his head and laughed.
"No, that is just to make us think that they are useless sluts."
"Rowing in good weather is not for amateurs. Rowing in a monsoon is…" Ziva pointed out as the author began to row in the monsoon.
"For idiots." Tony finished the sentence for her.
"As is standing like that on a boat in the middle of a monsoon." Ziva added.
"And leaving the building in the middle of one." Tony threw in.
"Leaving the building no. Swimming in one, yes. I mean I have done it but…" Ziva's voice drifted off. This was starting to remind her a lot of Mossad training and those where not pleasant memories.
"Of course you have." Tony responded rolling his eyes.
"Little girl is annoying right now." Ziva said watching the little girl run away from the woman on the beach. It was all coming back to her. Those two years in the Mediterranean Sea.
"She is alone and scared." Tony defended Nim.
"That does not give her the excuse to be that mean to someone who is only trying to help her." Tony looked over at his partner who was shaking slightly.
"Hey, Ziva. What's wrong?" Tony asked as he wrapped his arm around her.
"It is nothing," Ziva tried to assure him, but her voice was choked. It was not that she did not trust Tony. She would trust him with anything, but she had never been able to talk about those two years without falling apart. She had blocked those years from thought and she did not want to fall apart in front of her partner.
"It's not nothing, Ziva," he agued with her. He had never seen Ziva this weak and vulnerable. It scared him a little but mostly it was the feeling that he could not fix whatever was hurting her. "You can trust me, Zee."
"I know that," she whispered as she looked up and met his eyes. He was surprised that Ziva's eyes were glistening with unshed tears. He waited, and after a minute and she nodded and swallowed. "It was part of Mossad training. I was sent to a deserted island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. I was alone there for two years. It was not to bad physically, but I missed my family so much. When I came home to Israel it was so different, but the worst was that no one seemed to remember I ever existed."
"What about your family?" he asked but regretted it almost immediately.
"My father never saw me as a daughter. To him I was only an Agent. In my two years away Ari joined Hamas and set up a suicide bombing in downtown Tel Aviv. That bombing killed my mother and my sister." Ziva's voice broke on the last word and the tears started to spill down her cheeks. She had never been allowed to cry for her mother or her sister. She had been holding back these tears for fifteen years.
Tony felt horrible. He had made her relive all the hurt and the pain, and the worse part was that he could not fix it. He pulled Ziva closed to himself, her head resting on his chest, and started gently stroking her hair. "You aren't alone anymore, Ziva," he whispered to her as her sobs quieted. "I'm here for you."
Finally, she looked up. Her eye's were red and slightly puff, but she was still beautiful and still his Ziva. "I know that, Tony, and I thank you for that."
She was not crying anymore, but he did not let her go. It felt so good snuggled next to him that Ziva did not fight it. "One more thing, Tony." He nodded for her to continue. "I love you."
Tony smiled at her. "I love you, too." He pulled her even closer to him and kissed her.
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