It becomes somewhat of a steady routine for them; Tali standing by the window, (slightly less tensely now that she's worked out some of her frustrations) until the afternoon, when they go running.
Each day, Tali pushes herself to exhaustion, Ziva having to get her home, showered and into bed. Some would find it bothersome to have to take such palliative care of a girl so close to the cusps of adulthood. But Ziva knows this is her baby sister, still young and it so many ways, helpless. More than that though, it's the fact that Tali trusts her enough to let herself become vulnerable. Every afternoon, Tali runs herself blind, knowing Ziva will be the one to guide her back to the apartment. And that gesture doesn't go unnoticed on Ziva's part.
Little by little, Tali begins to come around. It's only small things as first; nonetheless, Ziva isn't taking anything for granted. The younger woman starts to come to meals at the same time as Ziva, where she had previously waited until Ziva had finished and vacated the table before claiming her meal. Now, she sits with Ziva to eat, albeit silently.
Ziva muses that they don't really say much of anything. The silence is starting to get to her, but she has not spoken for lengths before. There was a period of time when her life depended on it. So she resolves herself to getting through this. She also knows that Tali needs time to adjust to everything that has happened. Tali is here, in her apartment, alive and breathing - that is more than Ziva ever dared dream. Somehow, wishing for words seems selfish.
Regardless, she is relieved when Tony calls. The week of empty air is just starting to gnaw at the edges of her mind, and she is glad to have someone to talk to, even if it just Tony rambling about the team's latest case.
"And you know I always say it's the butler. So we go to his house to interview him, and he's all jumpy and sweating. Then, out of nowhere, he body-slams McGee backwards off the stoop and goes running down the street. But the guy doesn't notice Gibbs, who was standing by the car. The Boss pulls out his gun and jumps in front of this guy. I've never heard a more girly noise in all my life. He starts begging Gibbs not to shoot him. He was such a wimp, I will never understand how he had the guts to murder anyone."
Ziva lets a small smile cross her lips, comforted by the familiarity of having Tony chat her ear off. It's hard being away from the team, her surrogate family, even though she knows she has blood family sleeping in the next room.
"It sounds exciting, Tony." Her voice is softer than he is used to, can hear the fatigue even over the phone.
"Ziva," Inwardly, he kicks himself for rattling on about a stupid case when she has so much going on at home. He had simply wanted things to be normal between them, for Ziva to jibe him back like she always does. But things are different now, and he should have thought before he opened his mouth. "How have you been?" He asks, his voice serious now. "How has... Tali been?" She can hear the reluctance in his tone, and she knows that he's trying to find a delicate balance between solicitude and prying.
"She is… trying to adjust. As am I."
"She hasn't, you know… tried to hurt you again, or anything, right?" He questions, unable hide his obvious concern.
"No," She assures him, "She hardly speaks to me, and I do not blame her. After what she has been through…"
"I understand," He responds solemnly.
"I know she is there, Tony, I know it. My Tali is still there, under what they turned her into. It will just take some coaxing, that is all. Do not worry. All will be fine."
"Are you trying to reassure me or yourself here, Ziva?"
She does not respond to his question, but she knows that her silence gives him all the answer that he needs.
"I'm still worried about you, Ziva."
"I know, but you do not need to be. I'm fine, it's Tali I am concerned for."
"She'll be okay," Tony promises, "You raised her. She will remember who she can trust. She's already starting to, anyhow, I mean she's still at your apartment, right? She hasn't run away. She knows that you love her."
Ziva sighs, lifting a hand to rub at her temple. "I did not expect it to be this hard." While she did not think that Tali would simply forget her life with Hamas, admittedly, she did not think it would take this long either. Maybe it had been vain to think that Tali would rejoice at having her old life presented to her, to have her big sister back in her life. It stings more than she cares to confess that Tali has yet to accept the changes that have occurred to her, for what Ziva thought was for the better.
"It's the things that you have to fight for that mean the most in the end," Tony says, and she smiles at that.
"That was… surprisingly deep, Tony."
"Hey, I can be deep, when I want to be," He protests. "Hang in there. It will work out in the end, you'll see. If you need me to come over…"
"Thank you for the offer, but the last thing Tali needs right now are more strangers around her." She explains, the rest of her sentence not making it from her lips. 'I am stranger enough already.'
"I understand, Ziva. Take care." His words are chosen carefully, his simple farewell is ordinary, something often exchanged between colleagues or friends. She can hear the deeper meaning to it though, the warning to be careful. She knows he means physically, however, she suspects he may mean emotionally as well.
"I will. Goodnight, Tony."
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That night, long after she has said goodnight to Tony and turned out the light, Ziva wakes to the sound of bare feet creaking on the floorboards. She rolls over, finding Tali standing in her open doorway. She is backlit by light coming in the kitchen window from the street, so Ziva can't see her face, but she can tell by the girl's posture she isn't angry. She's got her arms wrapped around herself, as if trying to hold herself together. Her shoulders are slumped, as if Ziva had to sum her up in one word, in that moment, it would have been 'defeated'.
Her breath is caught in her chest, still slightly startled at being woken, but in the back of her mind, she wonders if she is still dreaming. She doesn't say a word, scared of scaring Tali or perhaps, her dream, away.
Tali finally speaks, the words impossibly soft and Ziva has to strain her ears to hear. "Ziva…can I stay with you?" Her voice trembles, and Ziva is already pulling back the covers, inviting Tali into her bed. Tali pads over quietly, slipping under the sheets, Ziva wrapping her tightly in the duvet and, consequently, her arms. Tali is wearing only a cotton singlet and flannelette shorts, and Ziva pulls her close against her chest, her warmth permeating though to Ziva. She still feels impossibly thin in her arms, but she seems to have put on a minor amount of weight since she held her in the hospital, her hips a little less prominent, her collarbone a little less sunken.
They lie like that for a few minutes, Tali's head nestled against Ziva's shoulder, until her breathing begins to even out. Ziva hadn't even realized how quick it had really been.
"What is it, Tateleh?" Ziva murmurs, no longer afraid that Tali might be an apparition, now that she is tucked snuggly beside her.
"I…" Tali lets out a shaky sigh, fingers reflexively gripping Ziva's shirt. "I lied." She admits, in English. These words are hard enough to say by themselves, to speak them in her native tongue seems somehow more sinful and she doesn't think she can handle the extra sting. "To you," She elaborates, "when you asked what I had done for Hamas. I told you that I studied intel, and that was true. I took care of certain incidents, yes. But this…this was not my first solo assignment." There is a long pause, and Ziva wishes she could see Tali's face through the darkness, to look into her eyes and know what is going through her head. She can only imagine the haunting pain in those chocolate brown orbs, and in some way, she thinks that is worse.
The words come as nothing more than a puff of warm breath against her chest, and Ziva can almost let herself believe that she imagined them. But this is her baby sister, and nothing she has ever done or could ever do, will make Ziva stop loving her.
"I've killed people."
Ziva tightens her arms around Tali, letting her know it's okay, and that this admittance won't change how much she loves her. "You can tell me, Tali. I will not think less of you. I know this is not the life you would have chosen, if you had been given a choice."
The fingers gripping Ziva's shirt clutch a little tighter, Tali nodding against Ziva. Slowly, she continues. "I was twelve when they sent me on my first mission. I was sent to kill a man undermining our weapons operation."
"Twelve?!" Ziva can't help but gasp, her heart breaking a little bit more than she thought was possible. She doubts even her father would have sent herself on a mission that young. "How did they expect you to overpower a full grown man?" As soon as she asks the question, she regrets it, on some level already knowing the answer.
"They didn't." Tali whispers, her voice haunted by the memory. "A young girl has other…assets that become useful in such an elimination mission." Ziva pulls her impossibly closer at that, trying not to picture a small Tali, barely out of childhood, using her innocent femininity to invade the defences of an arms dealer.
"Men are only too eager to be left alone with a young girl. Once we were alone, it was all too easy to coax him into a position that…benefited me. When I killed him, I was to do it silently and spill no blood. When it was done, I slipped out without any suspicion. It worked perfectly. After that, all my missions were along similar lines. Not all of them were assassinations, though most were. They kept training me during those years, and when I reached an age where I wasn't as instantly appealing to men, I was sent into more combat related situations. I think I was too precious to them to be sent into the line of fire, but they had trained me well, and they wanted me to be utilised, after all. I was sent to assist in keeping the peace at many of our- their training camps."
The correction doesn't go unnoticed by Ziva, and the woman gives her sister's back a reassuring rub. She doesn't have to imagine how hard this is for her, trying to separate herself from the entity that has been her life for so many years. She's done the same thing herself, with Mossad. Their father had groomed her for years in preparation for Mossad and eventually Kidon. Trying to distance herself from that had been harder than she'd expected, despite the contempt she had held for her father. Mossad wasn't just her job, it was who she was. Or so she'd thought. But she'd discovered another side to herself, one she was only slowly beginning to come to know.
"Peace?" She prompts, dragging herself from her own thoughts.
"Sometimes locals would decide they had had enough of us, and try to demand we move on. Such individuals were quickly dealt with." There is a change in her tone that lets Ziva in on the Hamas' definition of 'dealt with'. "Often we were required to defend against militia groups, who either wanted our supplies or wanted us dead, for whatever reason. I've been to at least 5 training camps, seen hundreds of people…hurt even more."
Her voice becomes almost hysterical as the full realization of what she's done hits her, as she finally sees how twisted her view of humanity has been. She begins to cry then. Sobs wrack her body as the fingers clinging to Ziva become almost painful, but the woman doesn't try to pry herself free. Instead she tangles her fingers in Tali's hair, holding her just as tightly. She acts as an anchor, as the fortresses that have kept Tali safe for so many years finally come crashing down.
Ziva presses her nose against Tali's soft curls, whispered words leaving her lips. "I've got you, Tateleh." She doesn't tell her everything is okay, that it's alright, because for the moment, it's not okay. The realizations that came to Ziva slowly, in the months after she started working for NCIS, have dawned on Tali all at once, and Ziva can't even conceive how overwhelming that must be. So, instead she just holds her sister, until slowly her sobs turn to raggedly dragged breaths, eventually returning to soft inaudible breathes. She's cried herself to sleep, Ziva realizes, a trying to stifle the strangled whimper that rises in her throat at the pure anguish she feels for her sister. She wishes she could help Tali, to take her pain and her guilt away, but the most she can do is be there for her, a shoulder to cry on, reassuring arms to hold her, a hand to help her to begin rebuilding her life.
Without jostling her too much, Ziva presses a long kiss to the top of Tali's head, letting her own eyes droop closed, as the pressure of Tali against her chest, breathing gently, warms her heart. She refuses to let sleep claim her though, in case Tali should wake, needing her in the night. So Ziva lays still, listen for the smallest whimper, watching over Tali while she sleeps, like her guardian angel in the darkness.
A/N: Before I do anything, I have to give the biggest of credits to ForeignMusicLyrics, who wrote practically all the dialogue for the Ziva/Tony phone scene. I was so stuck with it, I didn't think I would ever get it done, but Alli ever so graciously stepped in to help (and by that I mean I begged her until she agreed). Her handle on the other members of the team is astounding and if you don't believe me, you obviously haven't read her latest chapter of All Fall Down. So in summary, thank you times a million to Alli – this chapter honestly wouldn't have been finished without you.
Thank you too, to everyone who reviewed. It means the world to me that you guys are enjoying this story, and have stuck with it this far. I hope you're still enjoying it, and keep reading!
