Chapter Ten

Late Morning, Sunday, October 10th

Ziva was furiously wiping the blotches beneath her eyes when Tony slipped back into the room. She'd only been alone for a moment – Dr. Blair and her resident, Dr. Malrani had just left after doing a brief physical exam. They had offered to wait until Tony returned, but she'd asked that they just get it over with it. Tony didn't need to witness that. He'd seen enough already.

His face fell when he saw her and she didn't have a moment to come up with a story to tell him.

"Zi?" he asked, crouching down next to her, "What's up?"

She shook her head unable to say anything without the levies breaking again. "Nothing," she whispered.

He ran a finger down her cheek and smiled, "Now, Sweetcheeks," he said, "You think I buy that one-liner? It may work on your other lovers, but not me."

She choked out a mangled laugh and took a small, quivering breath. "Dr. Blair was back. They found some things in the … physical."

His heart sunk when he realized that she'd been alone for something that was probably uncomfortable for a number of reasons. He leaned up and kissed her forehead. "You should have had someone get me. I would have held you."

She closed her eyes and shook her head again. "It was … uncomfortable. You have seen enough."

He sighed and took her hand. It seemed that while he'd been gone they had removed one of her IV's. He rubbed his thumb back and forth, careful to avoid the black and blue circles that the needle had made. "Please, please, don't worry about…bothering me or something, okay?"

She nodded.

"Alright," he nodded and kissed her forehead again. For a moment, he wondered when she would stop allowing his constant displays of affection. "So, do you want to tell me what's wrong or…we don't have to talk if you don't want to."

"They were not sure. Dr. Blair said that they would run some tests and then come back." Her voice quivered as she spoke.

He popped up off his knees and settled on the side of the bed next to her. Slinging an arm around her shoulder, he pulled her towards him. He rubbed his hand up and down her arm a few times. "It's all going to be fine, you know."

She sighed.

"Really," he continued, "I mean, I decided that you and me, we can get through anything."

"Anything?" she asked and he sensed that she was beginning to slip out of the dark place she'd entered.

"Yeah, yeah, think about it Ziva, we've been through so much and look, look at us –"

"We're in a hospital ICU room." She deadpanned.

"Together."

She thought for a moment before nodding. "Together." She agreed, wiping her eyes.

They sat in silence for what seemed liked hours, but probably only lasted less than twenty minutes. Ziva was both physically and emotionally drained and couldn't bring herself to say anything else. She just needed to be home – in her own bed with Tony's arms around her so that she could forget that any of this ever happened.

By the time that Dr. Malrani re-entered the room, Tony had put his feet up on the bed and leaned back against its pillows. Ziva, in-turn, had slid down on the mattress and curled into his side, her head resting on his chest as he slowly, methodically ran his hand up and down her hair.

Pina felt her heartstrings tug as she grabbed a stool and pulled it over to the side of the bed. She liked this couple, she did and she hated giving them anymore bad news than they'd already received.

"Hey, guys," she whispered, "Sorry to bother again, but Dr. Blair asked me to discuss the latest development."

Tony nodded, "It's no bother." He looked down at Ziva, her eyes seemed fixed on his shirt and he doubted she would take an active role in this particular conversation. She'd reached the end of her rope. He looked back at Dr. Malrani for her to continue.

"Okay," She said, her voice still low, soft and non-threatening, "We found evidence inside of Ziva's cervix that lead us to believe that she has or had another strain of bacteria inside her other than the first one that we've been treating. The good news is it's a really minute trace so we're not too concerned about it, but we would never want to just ignore it."

Tony moved his hand from Ziva's hair to her back, gently drawing comforting patterns. "So where does that leave us?" he asked.

Pina nodded. "Dr. Blair still thinks that you can go home sometime today. She's just going to give you a very high dosage antibiotic that'll need to be taken every four hours for the next two days. She wants to see you back on Wednesday to check in."

"I think we can handle that." Tony said.

Monday, September 27th

Monday morning the team was eager to tie up all the loose ends in the Bradley case. The other NCIS agents that had provided back up at the house where Rachel and Megan had been found had taken over the investigation in the early morning hours of Friday. They'd found the muscle kidnappers sometime during the day on Friday and through a weekend long interrogation, had gathered enough information to connect the nervous looking Private Elliot Benjamin to the center of the case. He'd been the center of the

blackmail and orchestrated both kidnappings. He'd hid his identity from the henchmen and had dangerously deceived all of the men that he worked with.

All that was left for the MCRT was report filling – and lots of it for their newest member. Undercover paperwork always promised to tower high above one's desk.

Rachel spent a majority of the day at her desk. She had much different paperwork to fill out than the rest of the team and Gibbs wanted it all done by the end of the day.

Sometime in the mid afternoon, she got up to listen in as the team did a full background on Elliot "Todd" Benjamin.

He was twenty-five years old, had never risen in the ranks. Commanding officers didn't have bad things to say about him, but they didn't have good things to say about him either. The only notable thing they mentioned was that he, through his countless years in the Navy, had continued to act like he'd just joined and didn't know a thing. He was average on the outside, but when you dug a little deeper, he seemed to do everything just a little below average. He'd evidently started blackmailing his superiors earlier in the fall when he'd once again been passed on for a promotion.

"Family?" Gibbs asked.

"Just a half brother," Tony said, and he clicked the remote bringing Benjamin's enlistment papers onto the screen. It was from seven years ago and listed his brother, Jonathan Hannigan as his primary next of kin. "Jonathan Hannigan and his wife, Victoria Williams Hannigan are listed as Benjamin's next of kin and then subsequent secondary emergency contact."

Victoria Williams. It couldn't be. Rachel must have heard it wrong.

Gibbs nodded, seemingly satisfied with the information that they had on their primary contact. "Send it all to legal," he said, "Their turn."

Rachel walked back towards her desk and sat down. Victoria was a common name and so was Williams. It didn't mean anything. Her face fell in her hands and she ran her fingers through her hair. It couldn't be. It just couldn't be.

"Tony," Rachel heard Ziva prompt, her voice guarded but curious. She had to do what Rachel could not. "Pull up the wife's driver's license."

Rachel looked up just in time to see the plasma screen shift. And then a New York state license came into view and she was older than the pictures that Rachel had seen. She was older and …more done up, but that was Rachel's mother staring back at her.

She rose from her desk and, in a trance, walked towards the screen. Hand over her mouth, she stood directly in front of the woman's face. She swallowed. She barely even remembered her. She could barely hear her voice in her head, but the feeling inside of her was so definite. That was her mother. Her mother's driver's license with her mother's address. It was the woman who had abandoned she and her brother. She'd left Rachel and Jacob to fend for themselves. Eric didn't suit her anymore and neither did the children she shared with him. Rachel had always felt like she'd been erased from the face of the earth, but here was tangible proof that she was alive and living a life in a place.

All the lonely memories of Rachel's childhood came flooding back to her. This woman had been out there, living her life as Rachel had suffered through a childhood without a mother and with a sorry excuse for a father. She stumbled backwards and knocked into McGee's desk, falling into his lap.

"Woah," he said, "Rach, you okay?"

He helped her back to her feet and she suddenly realized that all of eyes of team Gibbs were upon her. It was like everyone had frozen in time.

She swallowed. "I'm… uh…that's my mother."

"Your mother?" Gibbs confirmed.

She pushed her hair off of her face, "Y-y-yes."

McGee pulled his chair out from behind his desk and guided his shaking partner into the seat. Rachel didn't really know what she was doing, but she slowly followed his movements and sank down. She folded her arms across her chest and took five long, slow and calculated deep breaths. She closed her eyes and tried to forget that she felt like her world had just been turned upside down. She had spent so much of her life convincing herself that her mother had just vanished. She'd evaporated off of the earth. She wasn't in Rachel's life so there was no way that she existed anywhere else in the world. It wasn't possible, because it wouldn't have been right.

But she had been around. She'd been somewhere with someone and some people and she was living a life. She was living a life minus her son and daughter. And that was when Rachel crumbled. She needed Jacob so much right now. He would've been able to make sense of this for her. He would've explained everything. She needed him to hold her, to tell her that everything was still okay and that she didn't need that woman anyway.

And then suddenly there was a whisper in her ear and strong familiar arms coming around her and pulling her up. "Come on," Ziva whispered, "Let's go for a walk."

Rachel took loud and erratic breaths, trying hard get her hysterics under control. She leaned against Ziva as she was guided down the hallway and into a stairwell and out a back exit and towards a bench in the one of the Navy Yard's courtyards. She pulled Rachel down into the bench and pulled her head down to her shoulder, hand brushing through her hair and mouth attempting to quiet her.

As Rachel began to control herself, she pulled away from Ziva and leaned over, her head falling in her hands as she stared at the ground.

That woman had just made her make a fool out of herself in front of the entire NCIS squadroom. She still had power over Rachel's feelings just like she had all through Rachel's childhood. Then, she had felt inferior because it was clear that she wasn't enough for her mother and now, she felt inferior because she realized other things were.

She turned her head towards Ziva, catching her staring at her out of the corner of her eye. "I looked like an idiot, didn't I?"

"You were caught off guard," She replied.

"You wouldn't have done that," Rachel murmured.

Ziva laid a hand on Rachel's back. "Rachel, not that it should matter, but I've had very similar reactions to my father and his actions or lack there of so I would have done that, Rachel."

Rachel sighed and nodded. She pushed herself back up and turned towards Ziva. "This is going to eat me alive."

"You cannot let it."

"I want to go see her."

"Rachel," Ziva cautioned. She shook her head slightly.

"No, Ziva," Rachel pressed, "I think I have to." She took a deep breath, "If I don't go confront her and say my peace, I'll forever wonder 'what if.' Because Ziva, what if I go there and she wants to be apart of my life and get to know me and what if she wants to apologize?" Her voice took on a wistful tone as she thought about all of the ways that her brokenness could be repaired with just one conversation.

Ziva looked at Rachel and nodded once, "Yes, but what if she doesn't want anything to do with you?"

Rachel's momentarily hopeful exterior fell and she swallowed, "Then I guess that will be that and I'll be upset for a bit and you'll put up with me and then I'll move on."

Ziva nodded, accepting her statement and Rachel knew that Ziva knew that this was something she had to do. She'd carried her mother's abandonment with her for most of her life and she needed to be able to move on and this was one of the only ways that she'd be able to do it.

A/N: Thanks for reading as always. And please let me know what you think. Cara.