When the door shuts behind the retreating agent, Ari begins his rapid-fire questions.
"Are you okay? What happened? Who is this Petty Officer?"
Ziva swallows. "I am fine, Ari, stop worrying."
"What. Happened?" he presses, impatient.
"A man attempted to mug me on the way to the bus stop after work last night. The man who was killed was a patron at the diner. He tried to stop it," Ziva informs him.
He gives a sigh of relief. "So this was not Eli?"
She shakes her head, "I highly doubt it."
Ari gives her a small, worried smile and takes her hand in his. "Zivaleh… You have got to be more careful!" he admonished.
Ziva glares at him. "I know I should not have let him get the drop on me. I was weak. It is unacceptable. But just because some idiot with a gun decides to attack me... It was wrong place wrong time, Ari, and you know it."
His face softens. "I know. I just… I thought we were getting you away from this violence!"
"D.C. has a relatively high crime rate," she points out, somewhat cheekily.
His responding frown shows that he is not amused, but in all honesty that little bit of backtalk made his heart speed up. He has not heard a joke from Ziva's mouth since she came back, and any break from her always serious, always stoic demeanor is welcome. "You know what I mean."
"You worry too much," she dismisses, shaking her head. To her surprise, he leans forward and places his hands on her shoulders. Bodily contact has been limited and rare between them since they were reunited due to Ziva's obvious discomfort, but in that moment he breaks the unspoken rule.
"Zivaleh, I worry about you and Tali every second of every day. I have only just gotten you back… Please, please do not make me lose you again." The honesty and emotion shining in his eyes leaves her taken aback. Since when did he become the expressive one?
She swallows hard, fighting the lump in her throat, battling to keep her guard up and emotions in check. "I will try my best," she promises.
His responding smile seems satisfied. "Good. You and Tali are all I have left," he admits.
Ziva looks away. Not true, she thinks, not for you. For me, yes, but not for you. You are still whole inside. Ari still belongs to himself, his mind and soul and body are still uncorrupted and his own. Ziva does not belong to herself. She has not belonged to herself in a long time.
She snaps herself out of that train of thought before her mind can drift to just whom her violated soul belongs.
"He is sending you to do what?!" Ari screeched, his voice raised an octave from its usual tone.
"Ari, please, shush! Abba will hear you, calm down!" she protested.
"No! I have a right to be angry! I should just run in there now and give him a piece of my mind!" He attempted to get up from off his bed, but Ziva was quicker. She ran to the door and slammed it shut, guarding it to keep him from leaving.
"Don't. It is done, your efforts would be futile," she insisted.
Ari did not back down. "You are not going on that mission Ziva!" His face was red with anger.
"Yes, I am! You have no say in it! I'm sixteen years old, it's my life!"
He grasped her shoulders, shaking her roughly. "Do you have any idea what they'll do to you there, Ziva?! Do you?!"
"Ari, let go of me," she commanded calmly, "You're hurting me."
"I don't care! Someone needs to slap some sense into you!"
"Let me go," she insisted, her voice no longer patient.
Sighing, he released her shoulders and plopped down on the bed in defeat. "You cannot be serious about going through with this," he said, his eyes pleading with her. "Do you not know what will happen to you? They will—"
"Shut up," she interrupted. "I know what they'll do. I know what I'm signing up for." She sat down next to him on the bed.
"Then you are insane!"
She shrugged. "Maybe I am. But it is Abba's will that I do this."
"Forget him! Do what's best for you!"
"I'm doing this for my country, too," she insisted.
"And you can serve your country in the IDF like other young women!"
"I'm not like the other women! Besides, I want to make Abba proud."
"Abba doesn't give a fuck what happens to you. If you still don't see that, especially now, then you are more a fool than I thought," he growled. Ziva hissed, but he continued. "Eli does not care what happens to any of us. We are just his tools. You can try all you want, but you can never make him truly proud. He does not love us."
Ziva's faced hardened in anger. "Shut up! You don't know a first thing about my relationship with him!"
"I know plenty," Ari threw back at her, "and I know enough to know that this will not end well."
"I am going. You can't stop me," she insisted, standing up from the bed and straightening her shirt.
He rose from the bed as well, this time taking her face in his hands. She moved to pull away, reaching up to yank his hands off of her, but he held fast. When she stopped fighting it, he used his leverage on her to gently sit her down on the bed. Running his thumb back and forth on her soft cheek, he kneeled down in front of her so her gaze was level with his. She averted her eyes.
"Ziva, please, look at me," he demanded gently. She reluctantly looked back up at him. She truly felt as though his eyes saw deep into her soul. "Please, I beg of you. Reconsider. You think that you can do this, but you can't. No one can. This mission in inhumane, it's wrong, it's immoral… It will break you. Please. I don't ever want to look into your beautiful eyes and see your fire gone. I do not want to ever see you broken. Do not do this. This mission is unrealistic to ask of anyone, let alone a child!" The sincerity in Ari's eyes and voice almost made her reconsider.
Almost.
"I am not a child," she mumbled, unable to come up with a better argument.
Ari sighed. "Yes, you are. You're only sixteen."
Ziva snorted. "Even when I'm old and wrinkly, I will still be a child to you."
Ari shook his head. "That may be true. But it's because you are my baby sister, and I'm not going to stand by while our father sends you off to be—"
"Ari," Ziva interrupted, reaching up to her face and placing her own hands atop his, taking them and slowly lowering them down to her lap, "I'm going on this mission. I need to do this. I know you don't like it, but I do not have another choice." As tear traced its way down Ari's cheek, Ziva felt a rush of guilt.
But it was what she had to do.
Ziva signs herself out of the hospital late that morning, the second the option presents itself to her. She writes in the date—Monday, November 5th, 2001— and signs with a flourish, eager to escape this institutional building full of so much death. She does not bother calling in sick to work—surely they heard about what happened, since the murder took place right in front of the diner itself. Truly, Ziva only wants to go home and spend her day off reading with Tali, but her little sister is in school, probably oblivious to what has happened, and Ziva has a job to do. She is needed to help catch Clemmen's killer and her attacker, so help she does. Ari drops her off at the Navy Yard a half an hour later and she stands outside for a minute, watching his dumpy Camry rumble away. It is all they can afford. Ari has a nice, stable job working as a translator for a major law firm ("A friend from Edinburgh's brother owns it, and put in a good word for me," Ari explained) but his paycheck, even combined with the money they had brought with them, was barely enough to get by. Ziva was extremely frustrated to find that the best job she could find was working the late shift at a dumpy diner. But in seven to eight months she won't be able to work, anyhow, so finding a good job is not a necessarily a priority— not that that's what she tells her brother.
How is she going to tell them about this? He will find out soon enough, she muses, feeling the miniscule but obvious (to her) bump on the abdomen. She should have just told him the whole truth back in Israel. Why did she keep this a secret?
The wind whips her hair and she shivers, turning around to walk into the building. She pulls out her cell phone—it is old and clunky, but it works— and dials the number on the card that the Agent gave her earlier this morning. It rings for a few seconds before being picked up.
"Very Special Probationary Agent Anthony DiNozzo speaking," she hears him say. She just rolls her eyes.
"Hello. This is Ziva Regev. You told me I was to report to NCIS to help create a sketch of the killer?" Ziva replies, her voice oozing formality, the complete opposite of his.
"Oh, hey! Yeah, when's a good time for you?"
"I am already here."
"Great! Thanks. I'll be down in a sec to take you to the conference room, capisce?"
"Sì, ciao," she replies in Italian before hanging up the phone. His perkiness annoys her. It is obvious that he's a charismatic man, but Ziva knows plenty of charismatic men that are not what they seem, and it is one of those men who fathered her.
It is not too long before arrives in the elevator. She looks up upon hearing the ding and sees him motioning for her to join him in the car. When the doors slide shut, leaving her in a closed space with him, her hands involuntarily clench into fists. Many years have taught her to fear closed spaces, especially with men, and men older than her at that. It is something that she has been trying to get over, but it is not as easy as she would like.
Why can't her life just return to normal?
Luckily for her, the ride is short, and he does not try to make conversation. Before long she finds herself sitting in a room with a long table and comfortable-looking chairs. One of the chairs is occupied by a middle-aged woman with a drawing pad and pencils at her disposal. Ziva takes a seat in the chair that next to the woman that Agent DiNozzo pulled out for her. She tries to ignore how such chivalry makes her feel. Before all of this she would have been angry, but now it does not invoke emotions of that sort at all. His kindness surprises her, and in a good way— in the way that almost makes her want to smile.
Agent DiNozzo leaves and Ziva spends an hour with the sketch artist, making sure that every detail is in place on the man's face. She is nothing if not thorough, that much has not changed in the past two and a half years.
A rap on the door interrupts what she is telling the artist (his nose did not have such a thick bridge) and it opens a second later to reveal none other than, once again, Agent DiNozzo.
"Gibbs—er, my boss—sent me up to see if you're done with the sketch," he announces.
The artist looks at Ziva. "Are we done?"
Ziva nods in affirmation. "That is the man."
The artist tears the drawing out of the pad and hands it to DiNozzo. "Thank you, Miss Regev. You have been very helpful."
Tony motions for Ziva to follow him. "I'll escort you out," he offers. Ziva does not object. She knows that a man like him will not take no for an answer, something that somewhere in her brain she registers as trouble—trouble wrapped up in a designer suit, a radiant smile, and that hair…
"Man, you're one talented woman. You can kick muggers' butts and recall every damn detail," he states as he observes the sketch. "Where'd you learn such crazy ninja skills?" His eyes betrayed fascination and childlike curiosity.
Ziva does not miss a beat, her trademark neutral expression still a seemingly permanent fixture on her face. "None of your business," she replies, punching the down button on the elevator. The doors slide open.
"So I take it you're Israeli?"
"Very good," Ziva replies, not an ounce of emotion in her voice. The elevator doors close and the engines begin to whir. The car starts its descent.
"So how long have you been in D.C.?"
Apparently Ziva is not going to be so lucky as to be able to spend the return trip to the lobby in silence, as well. She keeps her gaze fixed on the doors straight ahead of her. "Two weeks."
"Really?" he questions, obviously surprised. "So what brought you here?"
Her heart gives a small pang, but like always she does not let it show outwardly. She swivels her head to look up at him, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "Are you always this toes-ey?"
His barking laugh catches her off guard. Her eyes widen questioningly. "Did I say something amusing?"
The doors open with a ding and both she steps out into the lobby. He remains in the car and punches the button for the third floor.
"I think you mean nosey," he corrects, his million-watt smile plastered on his face.
As the doors slide shut, she feels for the first time in so long a genuine urge to smile. She denies it, of course, but the part of her brain that desperately wants to heal recognizes it and files it away in the metaphorical folder labeled small victories.
A/N: thanks for reading! I hope you liked it! Please don't expect daily updates. I just happened to have the time. Thanks to dvd123, prince-bishop, pirate-princess1, Angelhaggis, Liraeyn, and Cameron-sarah for the awesome support!
Tell me what you think!