Many thanks to the usual suspects: Amilyn, Chemmie, girleffect. Born30 for the inspiration. And to all those with whom I "talk shop"-thanks.
Disclaimer: Ain't nobody got time for that.
. . . .
I am practicing my purpose once again.
-Gabe Dixon Band, All Will Be Well
. . . .
Abby's stomach hurt and it wasn't from the sixth Caf-Pow that sweated on the desk next to her keyboard. They had four Points-Last-Seen for Sara and two were at the aquarium. Two were in the parking lot. Beyond that there was nothing—not even a tire-track. She plotted the points again on the aerial map, stepped back, squinted. There was one exit from the lot and it was the driveway. Sara's chances of getting killed by a car were astronomical before she'd even left the property.
Abby did a few presses on the edge of the desk and let her head hang. Five hours. Five long, long hours. The sun would set in two more and the forecast called for thunderstorms.
"Sara," she sighed. "Sara, Sara, Sara. Where are you, little troublemaker?"
"Do not call her that."
Abby whirled. Ziva was dressed for work, complete with NCIS cap and boots. "I didn't mean—"
Her dark eyes burned, face unreadable. "This is not her fault."
"I know. I just...it's going to get dark..."
Ziva studied the map on the plasma, one hand on the strap of her go-bag. She was a super-soldier again. "You have nothing."
Had her accent returned? Was she angry? Abby wove her fingers together. "Um, they are working a grid in all directions. Gibbs thinks she couldn't have gotten very far—the hills are too...um, how's Maya?"
She blinked, looked surprised. "Fine. She is with Ayelet."
Weren't they still measuring her age in weeks? "Is it ok for you to be out... I mean, I don't know anything about birthin' no babies, but are you healed enough to-?"
Those dark eyes narrowed. "Yes," she clipped, and turned around, but rang for the elevator instead of taking the stairs. "Thank you, Abby."
Abby nodded, relieved. "Get me whatever you can. This is my only priority."
"I know," she said quietly, and disappeared.
. . . .
Ziva did it by rote: signed out the Charger, slid the keys from the drawer, turned the engine over, drove to the aquarium, and got out under a blood-red sky. The parking lot macadam burned under her feet. Two LEOs hunched over a map laid out on the open tailgate of a MPD pickup. Two police cruisers sat empty, lights flashing.
An officer approached. She flashed her old NCIS badge. "SitRep?"
He was young, green, nervous. "Nothing yet. We got grids going in all directions. Dad's working the perimeter by car. We set it at three miles, but the big Jewish guy thinks she's close."
Romi? "Big," she echoed. "White shirt, tan pants?"
"Huge," he confirmed. "Yeah. Wearing a yarmulke. He went with the dog handlers."
He'd come straight from a client in Philadelphia. But if he was there, then Doda was home alone with the baby. "Which direction?"
He pointed down Frederick. "They walked off a grid on the west side, below the overpass."
She stalked off, but only got a few steps before he called her back. "We're due for a check-in in five. Statement to the media in fifteen."
Her heart pounded. She shook her head, imagined Romi stepping easily over the guardrail, crepe-soled chukkas caked with mud. "I will meet them on their way out."
He shrugged. Ziva paced off the distance in meters, noting cracks in the sidewalk, places where tree roots buckled the pavement. There were curb cuts, at least, and a whole block-length of new cement where homes had been renovated and sold to young families with babies.
She walked under the freeway. Cars thundered overhead. It was dark underneath, and trees shaded the road beyond. The air was green-blue. Panic lengthened the shadows; Ziva had been the one to convince Gibbs to let Sara go on the field trip.
The roadbed was raised. This had been a swamp. All of DC had been a swamp. A rusty guardrail gave way to rusty guard-cables strung between rusty uprights. The sidewalk fell away. Searchers trudged through the brush below, probing with poles, calling Sara. Sara.
She walked along the berm, outpacing the flashes of safety vests between the trees. Sara would have stayed on the pavement She would have hugged the very edge of the road, away from the cars, been careful not to get stuck in the cinders. Ziva paused. Her long-disused internal compass spun and bobbed. The horizon burned, the setting sun on her left and slightly behind. Northwest. She was facing northwest: Sara had been headed home.
She dialed Gibbs. "Where are you?"
"Frederick and K. Sitting at the light."
"Come past the aquarium on Frederick and follow it into the wooded area."
He hung up. She walked off another fifty meters. The gloom deepened. She squinted; her bad eye pulsed. And there, sitting primly in the moss was Sara's tiny purple wheelchair. Had it been any darker she would've walked right past it.
Ziva dialed Gibbs again. "On your six," he said, and headlights approached, throwing her long shadow on the ground.
He got out. She pointed. Searchers could be heard calling, Sara, Sara all around them.
Gibbs walked with measured steps to the wheelchair, did a visual without touching it, and peered over the embankment. "She's here," he said quietly.
Somewhere a radio buzzed. Coordinates were called out. Tony's voice, McGee's. A dog barked. Someone said, watch the wires in Hebrew and she flinched.
Gibbs pulled out his Maglite, pushed aside a few low branches. A path. It was clear only to knee-height. "Yeah," he mumbled.
She fell in step behind him. Thorns pulled his clothes; he held them away from her face, swept the beam of his flashlight over the steep trail and overgrowth, and stopped, face hidden from her.
"Sar?"
She listened hard. Only the searchers cried out.
They walked farther. Ivy dragged at her ankles. The wind picked up. The trees creaked above them.
Gibbs stopped again. "Sar?"
It was darker yet before them. Ziva stepped around, toed the roots of the closest tall tree. It was fully dark and empty—another embankment, this one steeper.
The search party called out again. Sara, Sara. They were closer.
"Sar?" Gibbs called, but quietly. He was on to something.
No answer.
Perhaps his infamous gut was wrong, she thought, but he took two long steps and slid down the bank on his heels, disappearing from sight. "Sar?" she heard him say. "Sar, it's Dad. Where are you?"
Ziva followed. Her belly and legs were soft and twinged as she picked her way down the slope. She smelled untreated sewage. Mud sucked at her heels. The brush wasn't as heavy. No thorn bushes, no stubborn ailanthus. Some ferns, a lot of moss, trash, leaf-rot. A pair of child-sized, tie-front fisherman pants. A small backpack.
A dump site.
"Sara?" Gibbs asked. He kept the beam of his Mag close to his feet.
He was looking for turned earth, she realized. For footprints, for shovel marks. Tears built behind her eyes, but his gaze turned on her and she blinked them back.
"Too soon for that, Ziver." His head jerked. She froze. "Sar?"
Was he begging? Would he fall to his knees and plead? With whom?
Wind shook the trees again. A few strands of hair whipped around her face. She thought of Sara's curls in the mud.
"Sara!" Gibbs shouted. "I've had it! Get out here!"
Silence. No footsteps, no wind in the trees, no cars on the road above them. Simply nothing. And then a small sound like tiny spoons tossed together in a drawer.
He crashed toward it, mud flying behind him. She chased, feeling heavy and tender. "Sara? Shaifeleh, tell us where you are."
That sound again, but louder.
Her teeth gnashed. "Sara? Sara? Ei'fa atah, motek?"
A hoarse cry, weak and wettish. "Zeeba?"
Gibbs jumped. She could see his head swiveling, searching for the source. "Sar? It's Daddy?"
"Daddy?"
They both startled that time.
"Keep talking, sweet pea."
"Daddy."
They turned in circles, pointed their lights at every blowing leaf until his got caught on a flash of blue t-shirt. Sara was curled against the muddy hill they'd just descended, caught between roots, filthy and half-naked. She'd vomited at least once. Her eyes were hollow and ringed with dark circles.
Gibbs grunted and reached for her. "What broke?"
"Daddy," she rasped.
He tore roots from the earth with his bare hands, peeled away her muddy t-shirt, spoke in low tones she could not understand.
Ziva backed up, scanning for a way out. The cut banks were all steep, the dirt loose where it wasn't slick with runoff.
"We need a basket to get her out," he growled.
Somewhere a radio beeped and buzzed. Dirt rained down around her. She shielded her face with her forearm. A searchlight blinded her. "Hey," she snapped.
"You got her?"
Would relief come later? "Yes. Send a basket. Make sure the ER at Children's is on standby."
Some shouts, another rain of dirt. She spat but didn't leave her position.
Gibbs could be heard offering water, zipping and unzipping his pack, tearing packaging. Triage.
"What broke?" she asked.
"Dunno. Puking again."
Concussion. Internal injuries. Her g-tube was probably dirty and clogged. She was past due for antibiotics and a feeding or two.
EMS lowered a basket and vac-bed and climbed down after it. The young cop from the parking lot set up a light and gave her a thumbs-up.
"Status?"
She touched the brim of her ballcap. "Six-year-old girl missing six hours. OI type I, g-tube, immune-compromised. Vomiting, some hoarseness, exposure-related injuries. Fracture status unknown. She needs to go to Children's."
He nodded. His partner tried to introduce himself, but Gibbs body-blocked him and put Sara on the immobilizer by himself. She gave them an apologetic look, but they waved it off.
Sara's eyes rolled, searching, and found Ziva. "I sang for a long time," she whispered weakly.
"You knew we were coming."
A winch clicked. Gibbs put a grey shock blanket over Sara and gave a signal to someone waiting above.
"I will see you at the ambulance," Ziva informed her.
"Ok."
Gibbs followed the basket, stopping to offer his hand. She took it and together they climbed up and up to the road, where an ambulance and several cruisers all had lights flashing.
Tony sprinted, pulled her close to him. "How did you know?"
"I didn't," she said honestly. Sara was loaded in the back of the bus. Gibbs lifted his chin, asking.
Tony gripped her hand. "You're riding with?"
"Yes."
He nodded, face blue-red in the strobes. "Ok. See you there."
She climbed into the back of the ambulance. Sara was on oxygen via cannula, an IV for electrolytes, Tramadol for pain. An EMT asked her to squeeze his hands, say her name, her favorite color, where her pain was.
She wouldn't comply. "Don't touch me."
"Trauma history," Ziva defended.
"I need to see where she's hurt."
"Don't touch me," she said again.
He tightened the straps on the vac-bed, pinned her free arm against her body. Sara gasped and shrieked, voice raw. "No! Don't touch me!"
Gibbs pulled it free, kissed her grimy knuckles. "I'm right here, sweet pea."
Ziva briefly considered strangling the bewildered tech. "I told you," she growled, and smoothed her brow before leaning over Sara's pale face. "What hurts, motek?"
She cried quietly. Gibbs dabbed her tears away. "I don't know," she finally admitted.
"But you are in pain?" she confirmed.
"Yeah. My knees were stuck."
Sara's legs were bound together and covered with the grey emergency blanket. "Do your toes hurt?" Ziva asked.
"No."
"Your shins?"
"No."
"Knees?"
"Yeah."
She looked at the EMT and nodded. "How about your bad leg—does that hurt?"
"Yeah."
"Your hips?"
"Yeah?"
She nodded again. The EMT made notes on a tablet. "What about your back?"
Sara's face screwed up in confusion. "What?"
"Think—does your back hurt?"
She gripped Gibbs' hand. "I fell on my tushie."
Thank you for telling me. Did you fall anywhere else?"
"I don't know. I want to go home."
Gibbs swallowed and gave Ziva a look. "Let's get you checked out, sweet pea."
"No needles and no tests," she whined, weeping.
Ziva touched Sara's other hand. "We cannot promise that. You might be hurt, and sometimes it is hard to tell without needles and tests."
They pulled into the ambulance bay at Children's. Nurses in gowns and masks pulled the stretcher out and steered her into a triage area. Ziva followed.
"OI Type I," she rattled. "Exposure, vomiting, possible head injuries. G-tube, maintenance antibiotics for immune deficiency due to splenectomy. Pain from the knees up. Wears AFOs to correct foot drop. Non-ambulatory."
The nurse gave her a smile that was thin but thankful. "This is a family-only area," she whispered.
Sara began to keen. Gibbs could be heard trying to soothe her.
"I am family," Ziva argued, raising her voice.
The nurse gave her a gentle pat and pulled the curtain. Sara's keen rose into a scream and stopped. There was a suction sound and Gibbs speaking lowly again.
Ziva stumble, and then Tony pulled her away. "Give 'em some space, ok?" Sara screamed again. Ziva fought tears. He gave her a hug. "You did great."
She nodded and let him hold her.
Romi peeked around a corner, eyebrows raised. He held up a black duffel. "Ayelet had me pick this up for you. There are cold packs inside."
Her breast pump. She ached from engorgement. A nurse nodded and directed her toward a private room. There were scrubs on a cot and an attached bath with a shower. "You'll want to get cleaned up first."
They showered together without speaking. The water was hot and harsh, but their touches gentle and chaste. Tony put his head to hers and sighed. "You ok?"
"Fine."
"I am never letting Maya out of my sight."
"That is impossible."
"Sara isn't even my kid and I thought I was gonna die, Zi."
She wrung out her hair, toweled off, pulled on the green tie-front scrub pants. They were not unlike the pants she'd given Sara. "I'm sorry, Tony."
He arranged his hair the best he could and draped a thin hospital blanket across her shoulders. "Why did she take off like that?"
Ziva settled against the suction, missing Maya so deeply it hurt. "Her boundaries, her sense of safety...they are damaged, Tony. Maybe permanently."
His jaw pulsed. "She was doing so well."
"And she will again. If this was not a lesson in natural consequences..."
He hung his head. "And with that case..."
She knew. "Yes."
The cycle finished. She sealed the bags and tucked them against the cold packs. "We should go."
He packed their dirty clothes into plastic bags and they went back out to the curtain area. Sara's was open, the gurney empty, the floor littered with latex gloves and IV caps.
"Where did they take her?" Ziva asked the desk attendant.
"Name?"
"Ziva David."
"Not on the list." She shrugged. "Sorry."
"That will change," she snapped, but Tony pulled her away yet again.
"Please, Zi."
He had double-parked in the Emergency turnaround. Ziva got in the driver's seat and steered toward home. "I left a Charger at the scene," she said quietly.
"How the hell did you get an NCIS vehicle?"
"I went to NCIS, signed it out, took the keys, and drove away."
He stared at her. "You stole a car from the Navy Yard."
"I used my badge."
"You stole a car. And no one noticed?"
She idled at a red light. "If you act like you belong then no one will question you, Tony."
"And everyone was freaked out thinking that Sara was dead."
She jumped on the gas. They were pressed against their seats. "Where is her wheelchair?"
"Romi took it."
She parked in her reserved spot. They went upstairs, shuffling, slumping. Ayelet opened the door and smiled. "Adrenaline worn off?"
"Yeah," Tony mumbled.
She urged them both inside. ZNN prattled on from the scene, describing the rescue in dramatic television terms. Sara Gibbs is disabled, her bones riddled with constant fractures, the reporter blathered. And yet she was able to push her wheelchair nearly a mile when her daycamp counselor failed to provide adequate supervision. Back to the newsroom.
She clicked it off, lifted Maya out of the bassinette. She turned her whole body and rooted, filling Ziva's empty space with her infant softness.
"She missed you," Ayelet whispered.
She sat to nurse and her own muddy walls crumbled. She hung her head. Tears fell on Maya's downy hair. Ziva clutched her and cried and cried while silverware clanked on plates and Romi tiptoed in and parked Sara's chair against the wall.
Ayelet sat down next to her. "You have been holding back for a long time."
She dried her face on her sleeve. Maya fell asleep. "I," she started, but there was little to say. "Yes."
"You did a good thing."
"I left my baby."
Ayelet waved a hand. "She was perfectly safe with me, motek. Better she should miss you for a few hours than..."
Than what? Ziva's eyes filled again. "Gibbs thought she was dead."
"That child is too stubborn to die, Ziva, and in that she reminds me of you. Do you want something to eat?"
She stared at the blank television. Her tears dried. "What did you make?"
"Meat pastelles."
She sniffed. "With rice or pine nuts?"
"Rice," Tony said. His mouth was full.
Ziva gave him a look over the back of the sofa. Neanderthal.
He smiled. She went to the table, still holding Maya, and sat while Doda put two pastelles and a scoop of chopped salad on a chipped stoneware plate. "Sara is not the first child you saved," she said softly. "And she will not be the last. Eat, please. It is getting late."
. . . .
PICU was behind sliding glass doors that whooshed open when Ziva stepped close. A nurse pointed to a pod-like room that billowed with curtains and hummed with machines. Sara was unconscious, propped with pillows, laden with tubes and wires.
Gibbs sat next to her, slumped and unshaven. "Where's the baby?"
Ziva pursed her mouth. "This is no place for an infant. She has not gotten her vaccinations yet."
He nodded. "Didn't mean to take you away from your family."
"You are family, too."
Another nod. "Doc's coming right back."
She drew a chair up next to him. "What is going on?"
"Don't know."
"You do know, but you do not want to tell me."
He had yet to look at her. "Doc's coming right back."
And he did, dressed in scrubs and carrying a leather-bound notebook. A hospital social worker followed and Ziva gave her a pointed look. "You are a bad sign."
She gave a wan smile. "You're Sara's case manager?"
Ziva didn't fumble, didn't blush. "Yes. Ziva David. Nice to meet you."
"Heather Allen." A bland, white, American name for a bland, white American woman. They shook. Ziva vowed to forget her.
"I'm Dr. Sam Trieger," he said, sitting on the edge of an uncomfortable chair. "I am the pediatric neuroseurgeon on call when Sara was brought in. She presented with some pretty scary symptoms and I am here to talk with you about what's going on and how we can treat it."
He was doctor-voicing them. Ziva frowned. "There is nothing you can say that will surprise us."
He nodded, studying both of their faces. Ziva stared back. "Sara has a condition called Cauda Equina Syndrome. What that means is—"
"That's why she can't move her legs," Gibbs interrupted.
Treiger nodded. "Yes, basically. Sara has pinched nerves in her lumbar vertebrae that cut off some motor signals to her legs and feet. Based on the wear and tear on the vertebrae and the discs between them, this has been a gradual onset condition that was aggravated by injuries she sustained yesterday."
Ziva nodded. "Surgery?"
"Decompression. I will use as little hardware as possible, but she has some pretty serious lumbar instability."
Surgery. Again. Sara would be furious with them. "And after?"
"Bracing and physical therapy. I expect her to make a full recovery."
"She is due to start kindergarten in the fall."
"She should be healthy enough by then."
Should be. "And if she is not?"
The bland white American social worker leaned in. "There are alternatives, should she need—"
Ziva gave her a sharp look. "There are essential cultural considerations at play. She must be ready to join her peers at the end of August."
She nodded and made a few notes. Gibbs stood up, studied the monitors, felt Sara's brow. "She has an infection."
"We will wait until the fever breaks," the doctor promised.
The computer beeped and registered her temperature, blood pressure, respiration. Gibbs watched the numbers rise and register. "She's not going to walk, Doc."
Trieger looked surprised. "The decompression surgery should—"
"Been in a chair for six months."
He opened his folio, wrote a few notes, and nodded at the social worker. "The surgery will keep the CE from progressing, then. I'll send up the ortho to measure and fit her for the post-op brace. I'll write the scrip, too, for PT. I think twelve sessions should—"
Ziva looked at her bland American cohort. "I want a team meeting."
"I'm sorry," she drawled. "What?"
She pulled out all the business cards. "Sara has a team of professionals on her case and I want a meeting with all of them. Please schedule that for after surgery." She scanned the stack. Maybe Ziva shouldn't forget her name. "Immediately."
Heather nodded. She looked so pleased. "Of course."
She wrote another number on the back of Dr. Goldman's card. Area code 412. "And that is my aunt in Pittsburgh. She is in research at UPMC. Please call her, too."
"Of course."
Sara stirred. Ziva jumped up. "Thank you," she said, dismissing her. She took Sara's hand. "Shaifeleh? Are you having pain?"
She cried without even opening her eyes. Ziva kissed her hand, then her head. She'd been bathed and smelled like medicine. Gibbs rang for the nurse and demanded more pain meds.
"You're safe, Sar," he soothed. "Daddy's here."
She blinked fully awake, still crying. "I did a bad thing."
"That wasn't a good choice," he agreed.
"You told me to go home so I did."
He shushed. "I should't have said that."
Ziva went to the sink, wet a cloth, wrung it out, and laid it on Sara's burning brow. She sniffled. "Are you mad?"
"No."
"Everyone was gone."
"Well chas v'shalom that shouldn't happen again, but if it does you are to find a grownup. Preferably someone like a policeman or security guard."
She sniffled again and sighed. "I did a bad thing and now I need a big surgery."
"They're not related, Sar."
She harrumphed and rubbed her eyes. "My button got sick."
"Lotta germs in those woods."
"When am I having surgery?"
The monitors took her vitals again. Her resps and BP looked better. "When your fever goes away," Ziva said.
Sara eyes roved. A nurse brought the usual assortment of juices and water. Ziva put a straw in an apple juice box, but she wouldn't take it. "I told you I don't walk," she said plainly.
He clasped her hand. "I know. Surgery will keep it from getting worse."
She looked her father, then at Ziva. "There is no one like me at my school."
Ziva swallowed, fought the urge to shrink away. "Do you want to go to a different school? One where there might be more kids like you?"
"No," she said firmly. "I want to go to Jewish school."
Gibbs smirked. "Ok, sweet pea."
An odd pressure grew in Ziva's middle. She nodded, feeling strangely excited and nervous. "Then yes," she asserted. "You will go to Jewish school."
She imagined Sara learning about the shofar for Rosh Hashana, shaking the lulav and etrog at Sukkot, participating in the Purim parade, having a chagigat Siddur where she earned her first Jewish prayerbook.
The computer read Sara's vitals again; her temperature was coming down. Ziva re-wet the rag and put it back. "You will go to Jewish school," she promised.
Sara gave her a smile. "Yeah. You and me and Daddy can make it work, Zeeba."
She made a note to call the principal and Ayelet's cousin at the Federation. "Yes, we certainly will, Saraleh."
. . . .
. . . .