A/N: My comment about colloquial English representing colloquial Hebrew still applies. A curse in English represents a similar curse in Hebrew.

Warning: Mention of a pedophile in this chapter.


A year later

The front closed with a slam, shutting out the dimming light of the sun. Fifteen-year-old Ari glanced around. Nothing had changed, at least not in the physical appearance of the house. He wondered for perhaps the hundredth time what had made him believe his father's insistence that this home was the best place for him, that things were getting better. He laughed at himself out loud, a cynical, humorless laugh. Did he really believe his father? No.

He had returned, like he always did, because he missed the physical comforts of the home, the chance to taunt his sisters, and, above all, the familiarity of his surroundings. While away, those around him would whisper constantly, gossiping about the periodic arrivals of the scowling Jewish boy to the home of his Arab mother, a woman that they had long supposed to be childless. The bolder of the whisperers would question him, a slight accusation always present in their voices. Though at his school in Tel Aviv he was not a particularly popular student––his classmates knew him only as the cynical kid who beat them at every test––they at least accepted his existence without question and allowed him to live his life generally undisturbed. While they thought him strange and off-putting, they all knew that mocking him was not in their best interest.

His laugh had alerted the only two occupants of the house who came rushing into the kitchen in surprise. One was tall and slender, her child's body showing early signs of surrendering to a woman's form. The other was short and beamed at him from a round and joyous face. So different the two girls were, yet they were easily identifiable as sisters by their identical manes of uncontrollable dark hair.

"Ari!" Tali shouted, and hugged him. He gave her a short, one-armed embrace in return.

Ziva, on the hand, looked at him with a strange mixture of relief and frustration. "Look who decided to show up," she muttered.

He ignored her. "Father's not here," Ari said, his voicing lacking surprise. "How long has he been gone this time?"

"Two weeks, maybe three. You've been gone longer," Ziva accused.

He stared at her. She had never been this annoyed with him, though he had run away and returned several times over the past year. What was making her so irritable?

"It's somebody's time of the month, I –ow!" Ari mocked, but was cut off by a painful blow to the shin.

"No," Ziva said firmly. Six-year-old Tali glanced between her teenage siblings in confusion.

"Then what's up with you? Are you telling me you're this angry for no good reason?" he baited.

Ziva's eyes narrowed, and then she dropped her guard. "I'll tell you later," she murmured, casting a quick look down at her sister.

"Later" arrived with haste, after a dinner full of Tali's hyper, happy babbling. Ziva led the little girl to study and, against the child's protests, set her to work doing the simple math problems assigned by her teacher. "You want to show Papa that you've been working hard when he comes back, don't you?" she insisted.

"I guess. How long?" Tali pleaded.

After a second's thought, Ziva replied: "an hour."

Tali's face immediately lit up, confusing Ziva.

"Sweetie, I meant you have to do your homework for an hour," she explained. "What did you think I was saying?"

"Papa's not coming home tonight?" Tali said, her voice laced with sadness.

"No. He'll be home. . ." Ziva hesitated. ". . .soon. Now do your math so you can show him how you've improved when you see him." She turned and walked to the door muttering, almost inaudibly, "whenever that is."

Ziva slipped through the doorway and was walking back to her room to do some reading when someone caught her by the arm in the darkness. She jerked around, prepared to fight, before realizing that the hand that held her shoulder was her brother's.

"What were you saying earlier?" Ari asked earnestly.

"Not here. That door is useless at blocking sound." Ziva led him down the hallway and stepped inside her bedroom. She sat down on the deep green sheets, kicking aside the box of discarded stuffed animals on the floor.

"Another change," Ari thought, wondering if their father would even notice when he finally returned.

Ziva hesitated. Facing her brother, her concerns suddenly felt silly in her mind as they fought against a long-exercised habit of feigning a lack of concern in order to avoid complaining and appearing weak.

"It's nothing," she muttered, turning away.

"Yeah, it seems like nothing," Ari replied sarcastically.

Ziva took a deep breath, then replied. "It's our Turkish tutor. He's gotten really. . .creepy. It's stupid; I know. It's just," she paused, trying to get her thoughts together, "Tali will be reciting something, right, but he'll be staring at me instead, and his smile will be so strange. And he's started sitting at my side of the table, he says that it is to check my work, but once he touched my leg. . .it's stupid, right?" Ziva finished suddenly.

Ari's face contorted with anger, and it shocked Ziva. He had never shown such obvious concern for her before.

"Has he done anything else? Touched you anywhere else?" Ari said, his words sliding together in fury.

"No," Ziva insisted, and Ari saw that she wasn't lying. But not doing anything––that didn't sound like his sister.

"Why didn't you kick his ass?" he questioned furiously. "Or his shin?" Ari added as an afterthought, rubbing the swollen spot on his leg.

"His father is a friend of Papa's. Do you think he'd believe me if I were to accuse him? I don't. And Papa's been saying that I've been falling behind in my languages, and if I did that he'd never believe it wasn't just an excuse to get out of studying." She hung her head at Ari's look of disbelief. "I didn't want him to be disappointed in me."

"When does this tutor come in again?"

"Tomorrow," Ziva replied, wondering what Ari was planning.

When Ari spoke, his voice was firm. Authoritative. "I have a way to handle this, and you can't refuse. If need be, I'll explain what happens to our father. He'll be angry enough at me just for leaving." He smiled wryly and added in an irony-laced tone, "I doubt attacking his friend's son will make his reaction that much worse."


The two teenagers stood in the dark corners of the kitchen, awaiting the turn of the doorknob that would announce the tutor's arrival. As it began to rotate, Ari nodded at Ziva from across the room. The second the door swung open, they pounced. In seconds, Ari was sitting on his wide chest, his hand clutching the man's thick neck. Ziva stood above them, and, grinning at her brother, she gave the tutor's left shin five hard, solid kicks.

The man grunted in indignation and in pain. "Get off me," he wheezed through his constricted windpipe.

"No," Ari hissed. "Don't you dare touch my sister again! If you come within sight of this house, there is so much more than this coming to you. Do we understand each other?" His hand closed still tighter.

Spluttering, the tutor answered, "Fine! Fine!"

Before releasing his grip, Ari added. "You gave up this job because it took up too much of your time. Your bruises came from, well, I don't really care where; they just didn't come from us. If anyone is told even a small bit of the truth, we will ensure that everybody knows what a slimy pervert you are." The man agreed immediately. They let him up, and he hobbled out of the house, glaring at them as he went.

The moment the door closed, Ziva turned to Ari, eyes wide. "Please don't tell Papa, or anyone, about any of this. They'll think I couldn't handle it myself."

Ari shook his head. "I told that scum the truth, Ziva. If he stays quiet, we're quiet. But if he blames us for his injuries, I'll have no choice."

Ziva didn't look completely satisfied, but she was cut off by a wail from the other end of the room. "You two are horrible!" Tali cried. "Mr. Demir was nice, and you hurt him. What'd he do to you?" Her cries escalated.

"Tali, you don't understand. He was not a nice man," insisted Ari.

"You don't hurt people, Ari. You don't!" Tali turned and stormed out, her small hands in fists.


Tony was quiet for a second. He felt his view of the man he had hated so intensely slowly shift. While he realized he was unlikely ever to forgive Ari for what he had done to Kate, Tony no longer considered Ari the embodiment of pure evil. Ziva's words tore him from his internal conflict.

"Demir broke his promise. I do not think he thought we would actually tell. Eli was livid when he returned a week later. I protested, but Ari told him everything. Eli did not believe him. I was right; he trusted his friend implicitly and would not think badly of the man's son." She suddenly faltered, a spark of horrified realization running across her face. "Ari… he never left again after that," she added in shock.

Tony glanced at her, confused. "Okay, you lost me. What are you thinkin'?"

Ziva smiled a joyless half-smile. "Ari never left home again. Just like my father wanted."

Realization dawned in Tony's face. "No," he muttered. "Ziva, your father was, and is, an awful S.O.B. but he would never have-" he searched for the right word "-arranged something like that."

She shrugged sadly. "It does not really matter, not now. I guess I will never know."


A/N (part two): I left the ending of this chapter purposefully ambiguous. While Eli David is manipulative and negligent and all that, part of me thinks that he wouldn't go that far. Then I think about everything else he did to her and think he may have been able to if he thought he would lose his potential asset, especially if he knew nothing would actually happen to Ziva. So you, like Ziva and Tony in my story, can decide just how evil and expedient you think Eli David had become by that point.

Sorry if you think that is a cop-out, but I think the ambiguity fits the story.