A/N: Takes place somewhere in Season 7.

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing.

Fallen Idol

"Come home," his voice commands all the authority that it once held, like a spell, over her.

But the spell is long since broken so she replies "I am home," her voice neutral, benign, unprovoking. This man is no longer her fight, no more her war. She had nothing more to offer him, nothing left that she would sacrifice to a cause she wasn't sure she believed in. And him, she definitely believed not in him. No, she decides silently, there was nothing more to give.

"You betrayed your people," he spits with all the venom of an asp, and the words spurn her and brand her with their falseness and she bristles. Because after everything she had surrendered for a man that never deserved her efforts, who watched her suffer silently, bearing a burden that was never hers, was accusing her of betrayal. And this must be the irony.

So she retorts, temper flaring like a sunspot, hissing, "I betrayed my people?" She laughs, a short bitter bark that rings hollowly mirthless in her ears. "I betrayed my people? You betrayed me! I-I trusted you and you sent me to die!" And she is yelling now, incredulous and, frankly, pissed off.

But this is the rise he was expecting, hoping, anticipating. And so he takes advantage of this, attempts to manipulate it, implore ancient logos, talk her down with defensive rationality. "It was a vital mission," his voice placates, several decibels lower than his previous sentence.

But, true to her nature, true to her training, she deflects this, caught in pent up rage and suppressed emotion, twenty-eight years suppressed emotion. "It was suicide!" she roars, fearsome lioness that she truly is.

"Then you should be dead!" he snarls, abandoning smooth persuasion and opting for cold, viciousness. He should have known that she would not burn out, so stubborn she was. A fighter to the end, precisely as he taught her, too well perhaps.

"And I would be," she screams, utterly and irrevocably livid. "But some people actually give a damn about me!" And they did, so much so that they condemned themselves to hell to avenge her, retrieve her. And that is one thing this man will never understand, the concept of love and family and diehard loyalty.

"I give a damn about you!" his face is rapidly darkening to crimson, spittle flying from his mouth.

She tilts her head back, laughs again, cocks her head, studies him. Her voice starts soft, gradually increasing in volume, "If that were true, you would have come for me -you would have fought for me!"

"What is the point of fighting, you are a lost cause! I should have killed you in Tel Aviv!" and his confession is admitted and there is no more denying that her presumptions are true, her death was warranted, but not even a bullet could be spared for her funeral.

So she draws the gun from her hip, the metal cold in her hand, her skin hot and flushed from hatred and anger. And he doesn't move, doesn't budge, refuses to back down, submit to the woman he never knew. He suppresses a flinch as she slams her Berretta down on the desktop, the resounding crack of metal on wood reverberating through the room. "Here," she whispers, daring, fearless, "kill me. Pull the trigger -I dare you." And he remains still, eyes never leaving her mother's, no glances at the gun, no movement for the gun.

Victory begins to seep into her eyes and he is enraged at this, but still does nothing. "Shoot me, Papa," she coaxes, tone taunting. "Finish what you started -isn't that what you always told me?" She shamelessly tosses his words back at him, torn and soiled and the irony is thick. "Go ahead, Abba, kill me. Kill me like you killed Ari, like you killed Momma . . . .You can't do it, can you? You can sign my death warrant yet you cannot pull the trigger. It is a weakness. Shame, shame," and she shakes her head in mock sadness, disappointment at an already fallen idol.

And as she turns and walks away, rightful pride trailing in her wake, his resolves renews and he shouts, "Do not walk away from me-"

But she interrupts, calls over her shoulder, eyes cold and challenging and flat and the familiarity is uncanny. "What are you going to do, Papa? Shoot me?" And he picks up the gun, aims at her, lets the gun fall, clattering to the floor. She watches, unperturbed, as his mouth forms a firm, taunt line and his dark eyes are emptier than hers. "You are all I have left," he says, trying one last time to salvage the situation, return this to his favor. But she is worn and done and too old, too tired, and has been here too many times to slip into this entrapment once more.

"And now," she whispers earnestly, "you have nothing."

And she walks away, leaving him behind.

And the familiarity? It is uncanny.