This chapter is the build up to Eli's funeral and from about this chapter onwards I will start bringing up other things that have nothing to do with anything... Yet. If it doesn't fit into the story much, chances are that I will get back to it and revist it. I promise - well more hope - that by the end of the story that all will make sense.

Disclaimer: Not Mine.


Ziva spent the next day sleeping, well maybe not sleeping as much as lying in bed awake. She never did that, she was tired, mentally, as well as physically, but no one knew that. Anyone who tried talking to her had their heads bitten off, even when Gibbs came and tried to talk to her, she ignored him. Told him to leave her alone that made the rest of the team begin to worry about her.

At around two in the afternoon she came out of her room. Tony and McGee were playing poker with no money just the poker chips that they had found lying around the house. Gibbs was drinking coffee and the others; she didn't know where they were.

Ziva hadn't done anything to her hair, so it was messy, Curly, knotty, and just a mess. She was also in her loose fitting pyjamas.

Tony wasn't 100% sure, but he believed that this sudden, dramatic change in attitude had something to do with her father's pending funeral the next day. He knew she wasn't looking forward to going, he wasn't sure why. He knew part of the reason, maybe there was more though.

Yeah, her father was a bastard. Yeah, he left her in a terrorist camp, in the Sahara desert. Yeah, he was selfish and Ziva had all but cut him from her life. It was more than that. She had told him why she needed to come to Israel, but whether she wanted to was a different question.

He watched her as she grabbed a water bottle from the fridge and walk over to him and McGee. She looked at the scene in front of her, "He is lying," she stated. Tony looked up at her, "Who is?" he asked.
"McGee, he has nothing, highest cards he would have are probably a pair of threes," she said. McGee threw his cards on the table.
"That's not fair," McGee said.
"Haha, I win," Tony replied with a smug smile.
"No you didn't, Ziva did," McGee said.
"Deal me in?" she asked. Tony dealt them all two cards and placed the next three on the table in front of them.

"Feeling better?" came a voice from the lounge. Ziva chose to ignore it. Ray stood from the lounge and walked over to them, "Ziva, can you please tell me what is going on?" Ziva ignored him again, calling Tony's cocky hundred chips.

"Ziva?" he said.
"If she hasn't answered you yet, she won't for a while," Gibbs said from where he was. Ray walked away.

Ziva looked at her hand and at the four cards on the table. She had a pair of sevens. She looked around the table. McGee had folded out of fear that Ziva would catch him bluffing again. Tony had a smug look on his face as he bet another hundred dollars; he had this small smirk and was watching her. She watched him right back. She folded. He had higher cards.
"Show them," she said flipping the cards in front of him over revealing her three and seven. Tony had three tens. She made the right choice, only loosing hundred. She would get it back.

"Are you ready for tomorrow, Ziva?" Gibbs asked from behind her.
"How ready can one get? I am going to the funeral of the person who had set me up for death multiple times, who I never would believe would die. Now he is gone," she said.
"We'll all be here for you," McGee said.
"Deal me a hand," Gibbs said.


The next morning, Tony left Ziva alone while she changed, it was eight, and they had to be leaving at ten, so Ziva was in her room about to put on her black v neck dress that reached to her knees.

She stopped before putting the dress on. It suddenly dawned on her that the two CIA agents would not be joining them and neither of them told her or anyone else what they were doing in Israel. She quickly put the dress on and rushed out of the room.

"McGee," she said. Pushing him into an isolated room when he pasted her.
"Ziva," he said.
"Can you still do your phone call record thing?" she asked.
"Yeah," he asked suspiciously.

"Can you do me a favour?" she asked, "Can you get Ray's phone records?" he looked at her strangely.
"I guess," he said.
"Thank you," she said. He went straight to his computer and began getting his phone records, when the lid to his laptop was closed.

McGee looked up, "Can I help you?" he asked.
"You can start by not tracking our phone records," Kort said.
"Then perhaps tell us why you're here," McGee pressed.
"Mission, undercover, classified," he said.
"Okay, I'm not going to do anything," McGee said, humouring him.

Even McGee had to admit that there was something fishy going on with the CIA agents. He found it strange how they happened to be in Israel at the same time Ziva's dad died. He didn't want to jump to conclusions or anything, but there was something there.

He would get their phone records later.

He returned to the main room where Gibbs, Ziva, Vance, Malachi, and Liat were waiting for himself and Tony, well now just Tony.

It was just before ten before Tony had finished, "God, DiNozzo, what were you doing, making the clothes?" Gibbs said. Tony stared at him only to have it returned by one of Gibbs' stares.

"We ready now?" asked Liat. Gibbs looked around at his team and his boss and nodded.

"Ziva," called Ray from the door way, when Ziva looked over her shoulder he continued, "Do you want me to come?"
Ziva turned back towards the door and kept walking, "No," she said.

Once out of the safe house they were faced with the blistering heat of the desert. It was warmer than it had been the past few days. Ziva was already seated behind Malachi and staring silently out the window.

Tony slipped in next to her, "It will be okay," he said to her.
"Okay," she said, she said it as if she was agreeing with him, not believing him. He placed his hand over her hand that was on her knee playing with the hem of her dress. She looked over at him.
"It will be okay," he said more forcefully. She nodded, and he gave her hand a small squeeze.

The others climbed into the car and the car took off.


Please tell me what you think.

If you have any questions you think relate ask me, it will either be something that I am going to get back to or I have added because it fit at the time and I didn't think too much about, but if you think that it deserves an answer, feel free to ask, I won't bite.