AN: And we're past the 50K mark on this story. Just two chapters after this. Now if I can just get past the 50K mark on my NaNo draft...
Ziva gazed through the glass at the street, the houses typical of any American suburb. Children played in yards, or drew on the sidewalk with chalk. One girl across the street, two houses down, spun around, her arms held over her head.
"When I was a young girl I promised myself that when my daughter danced onstage I would be there to watch her perform, unlike my father, who was not there for me." Ziva did not look back at Damon. "When I grew older and chose to follow Eli into Mossad, I promised myself I would not have children. I would not do to them what he had done to me. When I fought for Mossad, I told myself it did not matter that I would not live long enough to have children, that I would not be a mother.
"When the new director recruited me to NCIS, I followed her example. She made the choices to get where she got when she got there, and I told myself those were the same choices that I had to make. The longer I stayed with NCIS, the more I realized I had a choice. I did not have to follow through on those decisions I had made when I was in Israel. When I was with Mossad. When I was following in Eli's footsteps.
"I saw that being an agent did not mean you could not have a life outside the office. I saw that Gibbs had a wife and daughter who he cared for very much even though he served, and so I began to think someday maybe I would have a family and husband. Now I know I cannot. I know I will not."
She could not look back at Damon. She did not want to see pity or revulsion. She could not bear sympathy. Not now.
Ziva did not hear him move, but his voice came from the wrong side of the room when Damon finally spoke.
"You're talking about two different things," Damon said. "It's tough to remember between McBabies and bat-gremlins, but not everybody wants children. Just look at Sarah."
"Sarah is young," Ziva said. "When I was her age, I did not know I would feel this way now."
"Sarah has parents who let her grow up knowing her own mind," Damon said. "The kind that teach their children how to know who they are and what they want. Your father, from everything you and the team have said, did the opposite. He taught you to please him, regardless of what you wanted."
"Eli did not order me into the desert." She shut down memories of that day, of yelling at Malachi as she hefted her knapsack and strode off into the crowds.
"He didn't have to," Damon said. "He knew you would go, didn't he."
"You have not met Eli."
"I've heard stories." Damon's voice was closer, but not close enough to be a threat. "And I've seen you in action. I know you, Ziva. I know you can be whoever you want, as long as you trust yourself."
"It does not matter," she said. "I am damaged. Nobody would want me."
"Bullshit." Damon's voice never changed tone or got louder. "You think that's why people get together? How do you explain Tony and McGee?"
"Abby did not want to settle down until she started to see herself as a potential mother," Ziva replied.
Damon was silent, and Ziva finally turned around. She opened her mouth to make her point, but he spoke first.
"Abby is not typical of anything, and you all know it," he said from where he stood, at least five feet away. "None of you are, really." He smiled. "That seems to be what sucks the rest of us into your orbit."
"Still, this was something I did to myself."
Something — anger, she thought — passed across Damon's face. But when he spoke, he voice was quiet, something simmering under the surface. "No, it isn't," he said. "It's all their fault."
"It was my choice to go on the mission," she said. "Mine to let myself be taken alive, something I vowed never to do for this reason."
Damon balled up a fist and wrapped his other hand around it. "So one decision leads to something terrible and that's it?" He shook his head. "Try again, Ziva."
"You cannot know." She stood straight and crossed her arms over her chest. "It is my fault I am damaged, and I must live with that."
The knuckles on Damon's top hand turned white, tension clear. "You remember how we met?"
"It would be difficult to forget." Ziva forced herself to shrug. "What does that matter?"
"Years of steroids," Damon said. "Years of messing with the hormone and chemical levels in my body." He laughed, no mirth in it. "You know what that does? The doctors told me back then that I'd probably permanently screwed myself out of shooting anything but blanks." He let his hands drop to his side, arms loose, and stepped forward. "That was even more my choice than your mission was. You have Eli to blame. I can only blame my own fucked-up sense of what made a good Marine." He stopped three feet from her, and her muscles couldn't decide whether to tense for flight or not. "That doesn't mean I let it run my life. It doesn't mean I used that as an excuse not to get the help I needed after we met. And it doesn't mean I let one thing determine who I am."
He lifted his arms, palms open toward her. "You need to talk to somebody, Ziva. Ducky at least. Better yet, a professional who works with the living and specializes in this type of trauma."
"And if I do not?" She would not allow herself to listen to what he had said, to think about what it might mean.
"You can't keep going like this, Ziva. You need to sleep without nightmares, at least some nights. You need to be 100 percent when you go into the field, and right now, you're not. You need to talk to somebody." Damon's gaze held her there, and she did not like the feeling.
Ziva looked away, then stepped to the side. "That is my decision, not yours." She stepped again, then a third time, before she had a clear path to the side door and to escape. She ran, Damon's voice calling after her. But she never heard his steps try to chase her down as she slammed the door behind her and pulled her keys from her pocket. She backed out, barely remembering to check for children in the street. The car's tires squealed on the asphalt as she accelerated.