Everybody Lies, Chapter 7.

"I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano -
A stage, where every man must play a part;

And mine a sad one."

- The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare

It is nowhere near being comfortable, but it's the only place you could think of where you could be alone. You're sitting on a dirty tile floor between a smelly toilet and a metallic silver divider, your head resting on the off-white wall behind you. You're eyes are closed, but the image of how dirty this bathroom is is still imprinted in your brain. You make a mental note to tell Director Vance to hire some better janitors. As you do so, though, you know it's nothing more than you stalling; you know you will forget before you even walk out of this stall.

The envelope is still in your hand. You can't bring yourself to look at the letters, or at least you haven't been able to yet. You know you need to. You need to know whatever is contained in those letters. It could hold some sort of important information, some sort of hints to his whereabouts and his condition...

You're in the process of reopening the envelope when you hear the door swing open, followed by hesitant footsteps. "Kate?" you hear Ziva call quietly as she approaches the stalls, looking under the doors to see if there are any feet. More specifically, to see if she can see your feet.

"I'm here," you say, though you aren't sure why. You don't feel like talking and it's not like it would have been a secret for long; she's only two stalls away from where you are, so she would have reached you in about five seconds anyway. And yet you felt compelled to answer her.

"Are you okay?"

What kind of a question is that? Of course you aren't okay. You're sitting on the bathroom floor holding a piece of paper that has the possibility to destroy you, if you aren't destroyed already, while the man who did what he thought was the right thing to do is on his way to jail. They are letting them win. They are letting them get away with everything. They are practically telling them "we're on your side!" and you want nothing more than to be able to scream at them for that.

But you won't let yourself break down. You can't let yourself. You have to be strong, not weak. You have to be careful, not rash. You have to succeed, not fail.

"I'm fine."

She's in front of the stall door now. As far as you know, she's just standing there. Probably waiting for you to let her in. Does she really expect you to do that? Why would you?

Even as those thoughts run through your mind you push yourself up off the ground and undo the door's lock. The door swings open and, hey, there she is. You go back to the wall and slide down, ending up in nearly the exact same position you were in before.

Ziva tilts her head to the side slightly. "You do not look fine."

Why, thank you, Captain Obvious, runs through your head, but you say nothing. Instead you focus on the envelope, trying to block her out of your mind. She needs to know, deserves to know, but you don't want to tell her.

"Was he your son?" she asks, and now you no longer have much of an option.

"Yes," you say, refusing to meet her gaze. "He's my son." Then you swallow, your free hand grasping at the floor. "Your... Your nephew."

Slowly, you lift your eyes until the lock with hers. You wonder if she knows or if she believes what she has been told. Certainly, she can't be that naive - or can she? You hope not. You don't want to have to explain. You don't want her to be excited and happy that she has a nephew, thinking that you and Ari wanted a child.

"Congratulations," she says, but it's cold and distant and almost like she's trying to make it seem like she doesn't care at all. It makes you wonder what all she has been through. It makes you wonder what sort of things she has seen. It makes you wonder if she knows more than anybody realizes. It makes you wonder if her life has been so messed up that you should be feeling sorry for her.

Because you don't want her feeling sorry for you.

Should you feel sorry for each other? Or not at all?

It makes you wonder what your son's aunt is like. You are tied to this woman in more ways than one and yet you have a feeling that you only know half of her story, much like you are sure she only knows bits and pieces of your story. You only know what you have seen and what you have been told. She can only know what she has seen and what she has been told.

You find yourself hoping that she doesn't know as much about you as you know about her. You find yourself praying that she has no idea about any of the things her family put her through.

As twisted as it sounds in your own head, you want her to know as much about what you have been through as you know about what your son has been through. No, less. You know enough to take a guess about what they're doing to your son.

"It almost didn't happen." You tear your gaze away from hers and rest it instead on the envelope. "They just about killed him before he was even born." You move your hand from the envelope and let it fiddle with your necklace, even though the cast makes it slightly more difficult than usual. "They didn't... We didn't know about him yet."

She remains silent. She watches you, almost encouraging you to continue just by that look in her eyes.

And so you do. "Ari didn't even meet him." He was dead before he got the chance. "I'm still trying to decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing."

You look back up at her and she nods ever-so-slightly, a fractional dip of her head, that lets you know you can keep going if you want to. She's here to listen.

"It's just... If he lived, if he got to meet him, maybe he would have done something. Maybe he could have said something to make them change the way they're treating him. Maybe Ari could have let him have a real life. Or maybe, maybe he just would have made it worse. Maybe as his dad he would have wanted them to make him worker harder at whatever it is he's working at. Maybe he would have wanted him to be more important, more... more..."

You can't figure out what word you want to use next. No words are coming to you, nothing is standing out, nothing works. Nothing means what you want to say and you hate that. If all of these admissions weren't enough to make you feel weak and vulnerable, not having a damn word sure makes it enough.

"I didn't even get the chance to name him," you add suddenly. Her eyebrows furrow in confusion, so you decide to elaborate. "I mean, I had names I liked. I had names to choose from. But I wasn't going to name him until I saw him, and..." You swallow as a tear starts to make its way down your cheek. "I had him. I had him, and then they took him. I barely even got to see his face before they took him away from me. I saw him every-so-often after that. In passing, or when they put him through the window and made me watch..."

"Watch?" she finally asks, but her voice is so low and quiet you almost wonder if you just imagined her speaking.

"Watch them take care of him." More or less, that's true. You watched them feed him and bathe him and change his diapers, but you watched them scream in his face and hold him too tightly and... You grasp at the fabric of your pants, needing something you can hold onto tightly. "I don't know what they named him. I don't know my own son's name."

"Maybe it is in the letters," she whispers, and you watch as she walks into the stall and crouches down beside you. "Maybe it is in there."

You nod, because she's right. Maybe his name is some where in that mass of words, written down on a slip of paper. You need to look, but your hands are shaking and you can't bring yourself to reach for it...

"Can you?" you ask, your voice shaking just as much as your body.

She looks at you for a moment, then nods, cautiously reaching out and taking the envelope from your lap. Ziva slides the papers out, setting the picture carefully on the ground beside her. She unfolds a piece of paper, her eyes quickly scanning over the words. She sits down, then looks at you again. "Do you want me to read it to you?"

You shake your head. "No." You won't be able to handle that, not yet. "Just... A name? Is he okay?"

"They like him," she says after a moment. "They named him 'Adif.' It means 'favorite.' It says he is doing well... He is strong for his age." She continues scanning through the letter, and you're sure there are important things she is choosing not to voice. You'll have to read it yourself soon, but for now, this is good enough for you. "It says he is too much like his mother," she adds, glancing at you for a quick second. "Too resistant. Sometimes he does not do as he is told."

Right now, you wish he wasn't so much like you.

And Adif? That name... It doesn't suit him. It doesn't sound right, not to you. You should have been able to name him, you should have been able to...

"It says they have caught him crying, when he thinks he is alone. He never cries in front of the others, even when they cry."

The others?

She slips the paper back into the envelope and starts to take out the other letter, but you stop her by placing your hand on top of hers. "It's okay," you say softly. "That's... Thank you."

Ziva nods. She slides the picture back into the envelope and closes it for you, then pushes herself up. She starts to walk away but stops when she reaches the stall door and turns back around to face you. "Ari would not have stopped them," she tells you quietly. "He may have wanted to, but he would not have tried."

"Okay." You stand as well. You know what she just did - now you don't have to wonder anymore. It's not the answer you would have most liked to hear, but it's an answer all the same and you're glad that you got one. "Thank you," you say again.

"Anytime."

She walks away and you watch her. The air of confidence you have always seen around her is still there, but now you wonder what it is that made her so confident. The door swings closed behind her and as it snaps closed, the words snap into your brain.

Aunt Ziva.

That is your son's aunt.

Your son's aunt is dating Tony.

At one point, you could have seen Tony being the father of your children.

At this point, it looks far more likely that he will be your only son's uncle.

And then you bang your right hand, bandaged as it is, against the stall door. Pain shoots through it and you wince, but you like the pain. You deserve the pain.

Your son is halfway across the world having God-knows-what being done to him and your thoughts, if only for a moment, were more concerned with Tony.

What the hell is wrong with me?

----

You walk down the stairs and it feels like all eyes are on you, even though Tony refuses to look at you, Gibbs is more concerned with his banging his cell phone against his desk, and McGee is leaning over his keyboard with his nose only inches away from the computer monitor. Ziva is the only person in the room looking at you, besides from a few glances you got from some of the other teams' members. You lock eyes with her and she gives you a small smile, and you aren't sure if something happened in that bathroom and you just weren't aware of it.

Did that little exchange suddenly make you friends? Are you "buddies" now? Are you supposed to like her, just because she listened to you and read you a letter?

Because honestly, you don't know. You don't know if you want to be friends with her, you don't know if you're glad she listened to you, you aren't sure that her reading you the letter was a good thing. You don't know if you like her or hate her. You don't know how you are supposed to feel.

You slow down, giving yourself more time. You take another glance at the dark-skinned woman sitting at your old desk and try to decide. You try to figure out who you see.

You see Ziva David, half-sister of the monster who got you to this point and daughter of the man who took the job of fucking you up over when his son died.

You see Ziva David, your replacement in the hearts and minds and lives of your old friends.

You see Ziva David, Gibbs' new mentee and Abby's new best friend.

You see Ziva David, Tony's girlfriend.

You see Ziva David, a woman who has probably killed more people than any of them realize. A woman who has probably done worse than they would ever believe.

You see Ziva David, a woman who you have heard more about than you should and know more about than you should and out of all of the things you've heard, very few have been good.

But then you look away, blink, and look back. And this time you see someone else.

You see Ziva David, the person who helped your old friends move on with their lives.

You see Ziva David, a woman who has helped put many murderers behind bars.

You see Ziva David, Abby's new best friend and Gibbs' new mentee, and the fact that she is trusted by Abby and Gibbs must mean something, right?

You see Ziva David, your son's aunt. Family.

So you aren't sure if you're supposed to like her or hate her or be somewhere in between. There is no simple answer and no simple reasoning behind either.

You reach the bottom of the stares and Gibbs finally looks up at you, and you finally look back at him, and then you are both looking at each other. Staring, almost. Until you break the contact to look at his hand, which is currently waving you over. You swallow hard and walk over to him, feeling Ziva's and Tony's eyes follow you.

"I'm sorry," he whispers when you reach him, and you nod because you don't know what else to do. Should you thank him? You aren't sure what good that would do, but... "And, I'm here if you need to talk," he adds before you decide. Again, you just nod. This time, though, you know you're supposed to thank him. You haven't completely forgotten your manners, it hasn't been quite that long.

"Thanks."

He nods and you know it means your conversation has ended so you step back and walk towards the elevator. You figure you may as well go see Abby, you may as well go see the one person who actually wants you there.

Ah, well. So what if they don't want you there? There's nothing you can do about it now. This is the world you live in and you can't do a damn thing about it. These are the cards you've been dealt and these are the cards you have to play with. This is your part in this world and this is the part you have to play. You are where you are for a reason and you have to believe in that, because if you don't, you aren't sure what else you have to believe in. Everything will be okay if you can make it through. Or maybe it won't. You don't know. But what you do know is this is what you have to work with and this is what you will work with. You've accepted it, you're going to make the best of it, you will make everything okay.

Everybody lies.

Sometimes you end up lying to yourself.