AUTHOR'S NOTE : It seems that my research in part for the Hebrew language and culture has been a bit erroneous. Thank you to Liat1989 for pointing out my errors, I'll try to doublecheck my resources from now on. I thought I was getting them from reputable, trustworthy resources, but apparently not. I'm not going through the whole scene of changing Shai's name to avoid confusing readers.
ADJUSTMENTS MADE TO CHAPTER 1 AND 2: Fixed vocabulary errors, slight anomalies in textual verisimilitude.
DISCLAIMER : I don't own any of NCIS.
Chapter 3: Sheol
"Oh, my God…" McGee said slowly as the NCIS agents pulled up to the gates of the TSJC.
"No accident could cause this much damage…" Tony said, watching as Danyiel and Ziva entered the campus.
"No, DiNozzo," Gibbs said grimly. "This was an attack. A planned one."
Ziva could already hear kaddish being recited all around the campus.
"How many more must die before they are brought to justice?" Danyiel murmured, kneeling to close the eyes of a dead freshman.
"How many have already died by men such as these?" Ziva replied quietly. "Our people's history is written in their blood." Abruptly, she stood up, trying not to run towards the main building, where Chayyim was supposed to be teaching his Israeli History course, where her son was supposed to be sitting to the side quietly…
"No," the security guard said firmly to Gibbs, even as the entire team flashed their ID. "Goyim stay outside of the campus."
"We're with the two Mossad officers who just entered," McGee attempted to cajole. "Officer ben-Mordechai and Officer David?"
"Go back to your Navy Yard," the guard replied. "We are mourning our dead."
"Devan, what do they want?" asked one girl as she approached.
"The goyim want entry to the campus," he replied tersely.
"I'm sorry, we can't permit access to the campus by any outside people," the girl said apologetically. "We must keep in accordance with the wishes of the most Orthodox of the families."
Tony hesitated just a brief moment before he stepped forward. "And what if I were to tell you my son is in there?" he asked quietly, cringing internally as he felt all eyes turn to him in shock.
"You're not old enough to have a child on campus," the girl said. "It was a nice try, though."
"He's three," Tony replied softly. "His mother is currently living on campus."
The girl looked at him momentarily. She seemed to study his face for a while. "I'm sorry," she finally said. "Only Jews."
Ziva stepped carefully around the rubble that once had been the entrance to the Chava Building. "Chayyim!" she called. "Calev!"
"You search Chayyim, Ziva?" called Richard, the dean of the International Studies faculty.
"Chayyim and Calev, Richard, yes," Ziva called back desperately. "Chayyim was teaching in Chava, nu?"
Richard's grim face told her that the answer wouldn't be pleasant. "Chayyim is dead, Ziva. One of the explosions originated in Chava."
"Dear sweet Adonai, not Calev…" Ziva moaned.
"He lives yet," Richard said quietly. "Doctor Benoit does not think that he will survive. Come, I will bring you to him."
"Benoit?" Ziva asked sharply, even as she began to go with Richard towards the triage area.
"Doctor Jeanne Benoit. Not one of our own," Richard replied, "but we were in desperate need of a doctor. When the Jewish doctors have arrived, she will be relieved of her duty."
Ziva could hear her child's piteous cries as she approached.
"Mama! Mama!"
She saw the young doctor kneel down next to the boy and whisper something to him. She saw the anger already in Jeanne's eyes as she gazed at the sobbing child.
"Dr Benoit!" Richard called. She looked up and her eyes narrowed in Ziva's direction. "Dr Benoit, Calev's mother, Ziva David. Ziva, Dr Benoit."
"We've met," Jeanne said tersely. "Briefly."
"Calev, Calev, sweet little one, do not be frightened," Ziva soothed, lifting Calev gently from his mat into her arms. "Mama is here. Mama is here, Calev…" She wasn't getting into a non-existent territory dispute with Jeanne. If the woman was jealous of her, it wasn't of Ziva's concern at the moment. It was fairly obvious which one had Tony – it wasn't Ziva who wore his ring, lived with him, raised children with him.
"Mama, I hurt…" Calev cried, though weakly. Ziva could see how the lethargy, the loss of strength was quickly coming upon him. It felt familiar: it felt like Shai, like Tali.
"Shh, my little Calev, I am here," Ziva soothed again, helplessly. She looked up briefly when Jeanne glared at her. "If you cannot separate your feelings and personal opinions from your work, Dr Benoit," she said curtly, "then you should leave now."
"He won't survive," Jeanne said coldly. "He's going to die."
Ziva inspected her son. She realized all of a sudden what was wrong: he had a wound, a wound to the chest that hadn't been treated. A wound that Jeanne could not have missed…
Gently, she laid Calev back down on his mat and took off his blood-soaked t-shirt to tend the wound. "Danyiel," she said in Hebrew. "Escort Dr Benoit off of the campus. Do not allow her back on. Our own should be arriving shortly."
Ziva sighed and watched her child's trusting, tear-filled eyes as she reached for the triage kit, removing alcohol, surgical thread and needle, and gauze. "I'm sorry, Calev," she whispered to him, leaning down to kiss his nose lightly. "It will hurt very much while Mama is fixing your cut."
"I'll be brave, Mama," Calev whispered back.
"That's my boy," Ziva said with a slight smile. She tried to separate mother from Mossad as she began to clean the wound and stitch it, Calev's pained cries piercing her heart.
"Jeanne?" Tony asked incredulously as Danyiel released his wife's arm. "Jeanne, what are you doing here? Where are the girls?"
"Susan's watching them," Jeanne replied coolly. "What are you doing here?"
Tony stopped, at a loss to explain his reasoning. Jeanne sniffed in response to his silence.
"Thought so," she muttered darkly.
"Jeanne… Jeanne," Tony repeated pleadingly, casting a desperate glance at Gibbs, who shrugged and looked away in a clear 'you made the hole, you get yourself out' gesture. "Jeanne, come back, let me explain…"
"Explain?" Jeanne exclaimed, whirling around. "Explain, oh, I don't need an explanation, Tony. I understand all too well. The boy's older than Melanie, Tony! You had her long before you had me! I don't appreciate finding out I'm some sort of 'side job'."
"Jeanne, that's not how it…"
"Shut up, Tony, I'm not finished."
"Jeanne!" Tony finally roared in frustration. "God, Jeanne, who am I married to, you or her?"
But instead of diffusing the tension, that sentence made it escalate.
"Oh, so that's supposed to make me forgive you?" Jeanne shrieked. "Now instead you cheating on her with me, you're cheating on me with her?"
"God, why do I try?" Tony exclaimed, turning around. "You don't even give me a chance to explain!"
"Mama, I'm so tired…" Calev slurred, head nestled securely beneath Ziva's chin as she rocked him.
"No sleep quite yet, little one," Ziva replied, smoothing down his hair. "Stay awake for a little while longer, Calev."
"I can't stay awake any more, Mama," Calev complained. "Please let me sleep."
Ziva hesitated. To sleep would mean death. Yet she knew, she knew that his injury had been treated too late…
"Very well, Calev, go to sleep," she whispered, tears in her eyes. "I love you."
"… love you…" he mumbled, his breathing becoming more and more steady and spaced apart. Ziva rocked him gently, singing a soft lullaby until she registered that he was no longer breathing.
Gibbs would recognize the scream of a grief-torn parent in any language – he had been there. The mothers of insurgents he'd killed in Desert Storm, the heart wrenching sound of their wails carrying over the hot wind to the retreating US forces… the grief that had nearly destroyed him when Shannon and Kelly had been killed…
Oh yeah, he knew the sound.
The scream came mere moments before the first of the coroner's vans arrived. Danyiel appeared at the gate, face grim as he spoke briefly to one of the drivers in Hebrew. Then from the wreckage and smoke came Ziva, accompanying two black body bags.
The NCIS agents were all shocked to see the pain and the tears in Ziva's eyes. Jeanne stopped and turned around to watch her.
"I hope you are happy for killing him," Ziva said to her quietly. Jeanne didn't reply. With that, Ziva stepped up into the coroner's van and the doors closed behind her.
"Where to, ma'am?" the driver asked quietly. "Grace General?"
Ziva thought for a moment. "The Navy yard, please."
"Ma'am?"
"The Navy yard," Ziva repeated. "NCIS, medical examiner's office."
"You… military?"
"Former NCIS. I would like to have a friend do the final examination."
"Ziva, it has been far too long," Ducky greeted genially. "What brings you to Autopsy?"
"Ducky, I need to ask you a favour," Ziva said quietly.
"Anything, Ziva, anything," Ducky replied, face growing concerned as Palmer entered with the two body bags on the trolley, and seeing Ziva's blood-stained shirt.
Ziva paused a moment to compose herself. "I need you to determine a cause of death." She stopped Palmer as he was about to transfer the bigger bag to the table. "No, not that one. I know how he died. The small one."
Palmer and Ducky looked at her worriedly as they lifted the second bag onto the autopsy table with no effort at all. Carefully, Ducky unzipped the bag to reveal the small body of Calev David. "Ziva?"
"His name is Calev," Ziva said quietly, reaching out to brush a wayward dark curl away from her son's face. "Three years old. He died an hour ago at the Tri-State Jewish College." Her voice was flat, too carefully regulated.
"The explosions we heard?" Palmer asked softly, as Ducky began to remove Calev's blood-soaked t-shirt. Ziva nodded.
"A shrapnel wound," Ziva said as Ducky inspected the stitched wound in Calev's chest. "I sutured it on-site, hoping that it would…"
"Get him to the hospital," Ducky finished for her sympathetically. "Where are his parents? Have they been told?"
"I am his mother," Ziva replied. "Ducky, the shrapnel wound... would it have been fatal?"
Ducky examined the depth of the gash. "It is serious, Ziva, but not fatal. Prompt and proper medical attention would easily take care of the wound until he arrived at the hospital for surgery. How long was he bleeding before you sutured the injury?"
"I don't know," Ziva said faintly. "Danyiel and I arrived at the campus about half an hour after the attack. I found him about fifteen minutes later in triage."
"So he could have been bleeding for a potential of forty-five minutes?" Palmer asked. "Some sort of medical personnel must've been at triage."
"There was one doctor there," Ziva replied, ice creeping into her voice.
"Well, any person who has taken first aid knows that you don't remove the object of a piercing wound until you're in a proper, controlled medical environment!" Ducky exclaimed, rage evident in his voice. "And even if the boy had removed the object himself, the doctor should've known to emergency-suture!"
"Ziva, this is deliberate malpractice," Palmer said shakily. "That's as good as murder. What was the doctor's name?"
"Dr Jeanne Benoit," Ziva said darkly. She sighed. "Thank you, Ducky."
"Jeanne!" Tony snapped as he stormed into the house. "You can't walk away from this!"
"Dada!" Melanie shrieked excitedly, dashing at him and reaching up. Indulgently, Tony lifted his daughter up onto his hip.
"Jeanne!"
"What are you doing in my house? With my daughter?" Jeanne asked coolly, showing up in the hallway with Alexa nestled into her arms. "Why don't you go be with your little Israeli lover and son?"
"Excuse me, it's our house and our daughter," Tony replied testily, letting Melanie grab a handful of his hair and pull at it insistently. "Melanie, stop that. Jeanne, you're blowing this whole thing out of proportion."
"Oh, so why don't you explain to me what part of your cheating I'm blowing out of proportion? I think I'm justified in my anger!"
"The fact that you think Ziva and I were some kind of item!" Tony exploded. "God, Jeanne, it was a mistake! One night and I've felt guilty about it every day for the last four years! She left for Israel not long after that! I didn't even know she was pregnant!"
Jeanne eyed him suspiciously.
"Jeanne," he pleaded, "there is no Ziva-and-me. There never was. There never will be. You and me. That's all."
"What about her?" Jeanne asked sullenly, though an edge of panic was beginning to make its way into her voice.
"Ziva's with somebody else, Jeanne. There is no room for me, even if I wanted to be in there," Tony said cajolingly. "The most there'll be is Calev. If he's all right…"
Jeanne stared at him, her breathing rapidly turning into hyperventilation. "Oh, God…" she whispered. "Oh, God, no."
"Jeanne?"
The doorbell rang and a knock pounded at the door. "Mossad! Open the door!"
"What the hell is going on?" Tony demanded as he went to answer the door, setting Melanie back down on the ground. "NCIS Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo. What do you want?" he asked the two officers at the door.
"We are here to take Dr Jeanne Benoit into custody," Danyiel said curtly. "For deliberate malpractice causing the death of Calev David."
"What?" Tony asked incredulously.
"Your own medical examiner confirmed the cause of death, Agent DiNozzo," the other officer said. "Now step aside."
"No need to come in," Jeanne said softly, appearing beside Tony. "I'll go." She paused and tears filled her eyes as she passed Alexa to her husband. "I'm sorry, Tony."
Tony couldn't speak for the shock.
"Did you hear about Jeanne?" McGee asked Abby as he entered the forensics lab. Abby nodded, examining a tox screen result. "What's that?"
"Tox screen for Ducky," Abby said quietly. "Take a look at this, McGee. What does this look like to you?"
McGee examined the print-out. "Looks like coagulation suppressant to me."
"Blood thinner, yeah, that's what it is, McGee," Abby said grimly. "Want to know whose blood this is?"
"Not so sure I want to," McGee replied warily.
"This is Ziva's son's blood."
"I don't believe this," Tony repeated, rocking Alexa distractedly as he tried to steer Melanie's stroller out of the elevator at NCIS one-handed.
"Believe it, DiNozzo," Gibbs said gruffly as he took the stroller from his agent. "She's just confessed. She's at lock-up, no visitors until Israel and the States finish arguing over who gets to try her."
"I don't believe this," Tony said. "This cannot be happening." He left his daughters with Gibbs, who seemed more than happy to occupy two happy little girls, and went down to Autopsy.
He met Ducky and Palmer midway down the hall. "Um, you'll want to leave Ziva alone for right now," Palmer said uneasily.
Tony nodded and continued on his journey.
"Why?" Ziva screamed at the God she wasn't sure had ever listened to her. "Why do you take everything I love? You take Shai. You take Tali. You take Mother. You take Ari. Do you not have enough Davids already?!" She stopped and took a shuddering breath. "Fine, you took Chayyim. It is not the first time you have taken the man I loved. But you could not have left me Calev?! Eh, Adonai? You could not at least have left me him?!"
Gasping to regain her breath when the grief seemed to drown her, Ziva cried out, "Oh, God, not Calev!" and slid to the ground, unable to contain her sobs. Faintly, she heard the doors to Autopsy open and close. "Not Calev…"
It was a little disturbing to see Ziva so… broken. Quietly, Tony closed the door and advanced, sitting down next to her. "Ziva?" he asked softly, reaching to pull her into a comforting hug. "Ziva, I'm sorry."
Ziva looked up for a moment, and in that moment, Tony knew the ugly truth: he couldn't pretend. He couldn't pretend that what they had shared that night was nothing but hormones, physical satisfaction. He couldn't pretend that he could continue his life the way it had been. Couldn't pretend that her pain and grief at losing their child meant nothing to him
He couldn't pretend that he didn't love her. That he hadn't always loved her, in some way or form. That their banter hadn't always that had underlying tension, that their undercover mission hadn't been one of the most frustrating nights of his life. That he hadn't purposely baited her that day, while they played their parts, until they were both so wound up by the time they had arrived back at the hotel that night, neither could resist.
Tony let her rest her head against his shoulder, wrapping his arms around her shaking body tenderly.
