STRENGTH AND TEARS (1)
As the small white coffin was lowered into the ground Ziva felt warm, salty tears running down her cheeks for the first time in . . . she couldn't even remember the last time she cried.
Ari came and stood beside her; his own eyes, slightly red, but dry. He kissed the top of her head gently and pushed a tissue into her hand.
"Don't let Aba see you cry," he whispered.
Ziva looked up at him, "Why?"
Ari laughed once without humour, "Your naivety, Ziva, after everything you've been through, is both endearing and alarming."
He offered no further explanation, just kissed her again, and walked away.
She watched him go, confused. Sure, she knew as well as he did how their father felt about tears, but this was not a grazed knee or a missing toy. This was Tali, her baby sister. Today was different. It had to be.
She was, however, as she had been so many times before and even more times since, wrong about her father. Barely ten minutes later he took her by the hand and led her away from the funeral to a quiet area of the graveyard.
"Why are you crying?"
She stared at him in shock, "Aba . . . Tali . . . my little sister . . . your daughter."
The tears began to flow faster but, far from offering sympathy, Eli glared at her disgusted.
"In this world Ziva, only the strong survive. You, my child, are strong, but you must not cry, for when you cry you exhibit weakness and weakness is what will send you to an early grave. You are one of the strong, Ziva, and the strong do not have time to mourn the weak."
She nodded and dried her eyes. He smiled approvingly, and they walked back to the funeral.
Years later, she cursed her father for telling her these things, and her younger self even more so for believing them and for taking so long to realise that, whilst Tali was hopless with a gun or a knife, she was stronger than either of her older siblings, as she was the most kind, the most compassionate and the only one who ever refused to be their father's pawn.
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