I forgot to use italics in the last chapter for stuff Ziva wouldn't have seen, so use common sense for what Ziva wouldn't have told Tony. (Ari's remorse, his almost-suicide, etc.) I'm not sure how I like my use of italics, but I feel it's the clearest way to show what is extra information and what is part of Ziva's story as told to Tony.

If Tony had been stunned before, it was nothing compared to how he felt now. He was battling a thousand different impulses - the need to reach over and shield the woman in front of him from the horror of her memories, the itch in his fingers to book a red-eye flight to Tel Aviv and punch Eli David in his arrogant face, and the urge to go back in time and Gibbs-slap himself for every time he had made a suggestive comment to Ziva.

Ziva seemed unable to speak. Tony saw her glance up into his wide, concerned eyes and then down into her folded hands. He could see in her eyes that she had not intended to share this particular part of her life. Though her body remained still and her eyes continued their journey from eyes to hands to eyes to hands, he could see her retreating into herself. Tony gently placed his fingers on her folded hands.

"I'm sorry, Ziva." He knew his words were inadequate, but he had to say them. She gave him a smile that did not reach her eyes.

"It was a long time ago. I have moved on." Tony doubted that.

She shrugged halfheartedly. "The worst part was. . ." she closed her eyes briefly, trying to suppress her tears, ". . .after that, I gave up on Ari. He gave up on me." She laughed bitterly. "I was damaged, and he couldn't fix it. So he just gave up. And I couldn't forgive him. We both focused all of our efforts on Tali. She was our second chance. The sister he wouldn't fail, for him, and for me. . ."

She paused, and he could see that she was trying to organize long-cluttered thoughts.

"I couldn't get enough military, Mossad, training," she muttered, her voice getting more and more bitter with every word, "at that time. But something in me wanted to keep Tali just the way she was. Just Tali."

Tony smiled. "It sounds like she was pretty amazing."

Something in what Tony said finally forced the tears from Ziva's eyes, but her voice was still hard despite them. "Oh, yes. She was the rebel, she loved everything, she always looked for the best in everyone. . .except, of course, in me and Ari."

Newly-red eyes stared at Tony. "We sheltered her too much. She never knew the details about what happened in that alley. We never told her so many other things. She saw us grow bitter, angrier, harden, but we loved her too much to show her the reasons. She grew to hate us, Tony. My baby hated us!" Her voice broke, and she lost herself in the story of her past again.

A female figure made her way through the crowd, clutching a notepad in one hand and a pencil in the other, her thick, curly hair flying enveloping her face, unrestrained. She brushed past carts full of citrus fruits, the reds, oranges, and yellows of their skins blurring together in her haste. The odor of cooking meat threatened to overwhelm her as it mingled with the sickly smell of sweat arising from the people surrounding her. Her heart was heavy with too many stories of sorrow. Despite all this, she pushed herself on, driven by a strange mixture of love and guilt.

Tali feared some days that the strongest motivation for her actions was her guilt rather than her care and concern. After all, it had been guilt that had led her to abandon her career ambitions to a be a veterinarian and instead undertake the mission of investigative journalism in a desperate attempt to expose some of the horrors of the conflict to the outside world. It had been guilt that had spurred her to abandon her customary family summer vacation to Haifa, strangely empty with only her father, aunt, and her in attendance, and flee to the conflict-ridden city of Jerusalem.

It was a strange guilt, for she acknowledged that she herself was blameless. Despite that, what Tali saw as the sins of her family piled up on her shoulders and weighed her down, forcing her into a kind of desperate independence. She refused gifts of anything beyond basic necessities from her father. Even the simple white blouse and tan-colored pants she wore she despised. The same thought came to her over and over when she wore them - "blood money. This was bought with blood money. I was raised on blood money." The eyes of the broken that surrounded her silently condemned her for every material joy in her childhood.

She had it all planned - her whole life would be lived in atonement for those of her family, the broken family she had grown to despise. Each one she loved so much it tore at her heart, yet each one disgusted her. She spoke to her father only when necessary. His disappointment in her was ever-present, but her disgust in him barred her from trying to earn his pride. As for her siblings, she refused to speak to them at all. Her memories of them were of moody, bitter, yet caring teenagers, a big brother and a big sister who held her hand and comforted her and protected her. Yet as she looked back, she could see the shadows of violence in their lives. They were shadows that haunted her memories. She was incapable of reconciling her love for them with the horrible things they did.

…...

Tali remembered her sister's last visit to their home, almost a year ago. Ziva had come in through the front door just as fifteen-year-old Tali, hearing her come, had disappeared out the back. Tali had waited a moment and reentered silently. She could hear her father and her sister's conversation from where she stood.

"Target eliminated, father."

"Hm. Did you get the information before completing your ultimate assignment?"

A short, joyless laugh, a laugh so different from the one that Tali used to hear when her big sister used to tickle her: "He took some persuading, of course."

"Ah. DId he enjoy this persuasion?"

"It was not that kind of persuasion. But I assure you that this form made his death far more welcome to him," Ziva replied in a hard voice.

"Hm. It is cleaner the other way. Less evidence. Still, you did well, daughter."

"The intel will be written up and on your desk in an hour," Ziva said, unresponsive to his half-hearted praise.

Tali then had fled to the small bathroom, thrown up, and begun to cry at the horror of what her sister had done. She had heard a knock, long and steady, accompanied by a soft plea. "Tali, open up. Please, speak to me. You don't understand."

Tali got that response a lot - 'you don't understand'. She hated it. She was not ignorant, naive, or stupid. She was raised just like them, trained just like them, at least until she told her father at the age of fourteen that she wouldn't learn to fight, shoot and manipulate anymore. Eli had looked outraged and struck her across the face. "You'll change your mind," he declared. Three months later she hadn't, and he gave up trying to convince her to. "You're a disappointment, daughter."

Even as she felt his words like a physical blow, Tali had never been so proud.

So despite Ziva's pleas, Tali ignored her. The knocks stopped twenty minutes later. Her tears did not.

Ziva never came again to their house. She called every day for a month; all her calls went unanswered. The calls slowly decreased in frequency. Ari, on the other hand, never called and never came home. She had no idea where he was or what he was doing. She only knew he had ceased being a doctor - to do what her father wanted him to do.

That was confirmation enough for Tali. She had lost her brother as well.

…...

From then on, her own dreams were forever put on hold. Animals needed help, but people needed it more.

She turned the corner, lost in her thoughts. The crowd had thinned, and she was able to walk a little faster. She passed still more small stands of food with odors intensified by the afternoon sun. Already her notepad held testimonies of pain and need. "New millennium, same old problems," she muttered. "Same old conflict; same old war."

She stopped before a ramshackle home. Its open doorway revealed a single room. Though dark inside, the sun revealed a small child sitting alone on a faded couch with tuffs of stuffing sticking out of worn-through holes. In her small arms was a tiny toddler, dressed in a dirty pink shirt several sizes to large for him. Tali smiled at them and whispered a greeting. She took one small step forward.

With the sudden blast of a bomb, the words that she had so carefully collected for the cause of peace were torn to shreds, destroyed by an act of war.

…...

Ziva strolled confidently up the stairs leading to her father's new office. As she marched through the door at the landing, she brushed her new side-swept bangs over the left side of her forehead, concealing the purplish bruise and inch-long gash that were just beginning to heal. She had completed her mission successfully; there was no need for him to see the small wounds she had sustained.

"I-" she started. She did not even get the second word out.

"Tali's dead." Eli stated. His voice hard, emotionless, yet with a lingering tone of defeat.

Ziva's heart broke as every emotion she had been suppressing for the last two years at Mossad was released with a vengeance inside her. Love. Hate. Pain. Need. Failure.

She breathed in and out, trying to suppress them again. Ziva knew she must push through despite the tragedy.

"How?" she breathed.

"Hamas bomb blast in Jerusalem"

"Why the hell wasn't she in Haifa?" she stormed. But the answer came to her in flashback of a locked door and muffled sobs. "She hated us," she whispered, forgetting that she was trying to suppress her emotions, forgetting that the man before her was acting as her commanding officer and not her father, forgetting everything but a fiery lash of guilt.

Eli looked up at her, and his voice had changed. The defeat left it, replaced by a faint, angry confidence. "She thought what we do is wrong, that we are intensifying the war. But what did her love of peace get her? Death by the enemy. She never understood." His gaze narrowed as Ziva tried to control the anger that was swelling up inside of her. How could they could have done that to her innocent, pure sister? "You do, Ziva. Two out of three isn't too bad, is it?" he said wistfully.

That pushed Ziva over the edge. Gritting her teeth, she turned and stiffly walked out of the sterile office.

"Uh!" immediately upon getting out of the building, out of earshot of her father, she punched the nearest wall. Her fists pummeled the concrete, and she took a sick comfort in the bruises she could feel blooming on her knuckles. Suddenly, a hand caught her fist as it began its plummet to the wall. She was thrown off balance by the strength of the grip.

"You can't pull a trigger with a broken hand, Ziva," the soft male voice behind her said.

"Ari?" Ziva turned to face him. It was two years since she had seen him; her first years in Mossad and the beginning of his deep undercover assignment had sent them on different paths, paths that didn't cross. Her shock at hearing his voice was nothing compared to her shock at the emotion is arose in her. Even considering his betrayal that had driven them apart so many years ago, deep down, she still needed her big brother.

"Tali, Ari." Her eyes were free of tears. It was as if she had forgotten how to cry.

"What about her? Where's she run away to now?"

"Jerusalem. But Ari she's-"

Ari's voice was hard as he said, emphatically: "Good for her."

"She's dead! Hamas." He was silent. That was something she hadn't expected. No reply. She felt her control loosen yet again.

"Ari! I want to kill them! I want to kill all of them! How could they have done that to her. All she wanted was people to see the good in others. She was naive, but she was. . . Tali! My baby," she shuddered and her voice broke as if she was sobbing, yet her eyes were dry.

Ari's voice remained quiet still, but she detected an inexplicable hint of irony. "You'll get your chance. It's what you've dedicated your life to, right? Eli must be so proud."

"You've dedicated your life to it too, Ari!"

He gave a faint laugh. It would be years before she understood that laugh. "Don't worry, Ziva. Those responsible will be punished."

He held her hand, still in a fist, for a second more, then turned and left, saying only, "Don't hurt yourself Ziva."

As he walked away, his head filled with an inexplicable pain he thought he had suppressed. The horrible news he had just received only confirmed his awakening. Anger washed over him as he thought about what they had done to his closest family, starting with his mother, now dead at his father's hand. With the death of his little sister, the last trace of regret he felt at betraying Israel was wiped away, yet it brought him no relief. And Ziva. She was the enemy, and yet he loved her. Her presence in Mossad brought him no doubts, but only angered him and strengthened his resolve, reminding him what his father was capable of, what he had made his sister. She was the perfect warrior for Israel.

"I hope this never comes down to you and me, Ziva," he thought. "What he has made you into . . .it is what I am fighting. May fate spare you." Then he hardened his resolve and disappeared around the corner.

"He was a traitor, even then. Even though they killed Tali." For the first time of the night, Ziva's voice filled with anger as Tony faced her, helpless.. "They killed her, and he betrayed us to them!"

"He hated Eli more than he loved Tali. More then he loved me. I lost my brother then, though I did not know it at the time."

Tony shook his head. "You're wrong. He still loved you."

"Not enough to take away his hate." Ziva realized something at that moment, and she desperately wanted to say the words that had almost sprung her mouth. Not like you, Tony.

Tony was willing to reconsider his hatred of Ari because he loved her and wanted to take away her pain more than he wanted to hold on to his vengeance. She was suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling of gratefulness like none she had ever felt.

Please review! I'm curious to know what you all thought of this chapter. Thanks for reading.