You thought I had forgotten about this, yes? Well, you were wrong. I remembered, but I could not get the words I wanted down. I think it was Any Road that kicked me back into action. This was a difficult chapter to write. I spent a lot of time playing around with word order, and what I wanted to actually say.
I have the next chapter mainly written up, and I started writing that one up before I knew what I was going to write for this chapter, so that was, as always, a bit of a challenge.
All conversations with Ziva are in Hebrew, but I hate transliterating, and I cannot be bothered to give translations, so they are written in plain, old, boring English.
...
LXIII. Trust Takes Years to Build, Seconds to Break, and Forever to Repair.
"Come on, pick up. Pick up." Tony paced the bedroom, phone clutched in one hand and his son cradled in the other. "Gibbs."
"DiNozzo, what's going on? It's 0400hrs."
"It's Ziva. She's gone."
"Gone? What do you mean, gone?" Tony could hear shuffling and a clatter before footfalls on wooden steps.
"You sleep in your basement again last night?"
"DiNozzo, what's wrong?"
"She's left me. She's left her phone and her rings. I can't find her boots or a pair of her heels, or her backpack. They're all gone. One of her court dresses is also missing."
"Tony, calm down and explain slowly," Gibbs said as he picked up the letter on his hall floor and opened it, sliding out the neatly folded paper and scanning his eyes over it. He closed his eyes, tightening his grip on the phone as Tony recounted the little he knew. "I'll be over in ten."
"Why would she do this, Gibbs?" His voice was small, desperate, as he pleaded for an answer.
"I don't know, DiNozzo. I don't know." Gibbs lied through his teeth as he hopped into his truck, stuffing the now crumpled paper into the pocket of his jeans and tearing away from the driveway.
He was strangely calm when Gibbs arrived, although the tears on his cheeks were the telltale sign that said he was far from it. He was sat on the living room floor, the twins lying in front of him, and he was talking to them, telling them a story. "…most beautiful person I'd ever seen. I didn't think she was real, just another figment of my imagination. Maybe she was. Maybe I've been dreaming all this time. Doesn't explain you two, though, does it?" Ichabod was staring intently at his father, whilst Ada chewed on the foot of her babygrow, rocking from side to side slightly.
"DiNozzo, your door was open. It's freezing in here." Gibbs grumbled, looking around the living room. Everything was as it always was, everything was in place, nothing broken.
"She left her key. I wanted her to be able to get back in, in case she changed her mind, you know?"
"I know, Tony." He sighed as his senior field agent looked up at him, ready to burst into tears.
"I can't do this alone, Boss. I need her."
"We'll bring her home. I promise."
"But she left. She doesn't want to be here." He was growing distressed and Gibbs walked over, sitting down on the floor next to his best agent and sighing.
"She left to keep you three safe. She's already lost one child; I doubt she can face the idea of losing anymore. This way, she is doing her duty as a mother, and as a wife. She is keeping you alive." He watched as Tony started playing with Bod's foot, the boy giving the occasional grin. "When did it stop becoming a reflex?"
"Yesterday. He had not grinned reflexively in a couple of days, and Ziva was blowing raspberries on his tummy. He just grinned. A proper grin. She was so happy. I thought we were happy."
"You were. She's protecting you."
"But it's not her job to do it on her own, Gibbs. She should have told me. We're in this together."
"If she had told you, you would have stopped her."
"Of course."
"Exactly. Look, DiNozzo, She might be utterly infuriating at times, but she's good at what she does. She'll have a plan." He was as convincing as he knew how to be, and though he could see that Tony did not buy it, he could also see that he was grateful for the words of comfort.
She wished she had formulated a proper plan. She had no idea what she was doing, as she sat on a bench looking up at the Washington Monument. "Quite an impressive structure, do you not think?" She looked down, eying Hadar up as he sat next to her. She had not heard him approach, and he knew this, judging by the smug look on his face.
"You were one of the last people I expected. Was he too afraid that I would come along and shoot him?"
Hadar chuckled. "He is worried that this is all a rouse. I am to check you are unarmed and to escort you to him."
"There are knives and my backup in my bag, but I am certain you do not want me to get them out now, in broad daylight."
"That is what the privacy of a car is for." He smiled condescendingly. "Shall we go? He will be wondering where we have gotten to." She nodded, taking one last, long look up at the marble obelisk before following her father's friend.
She sighed as they walked. "Why you, Amit?"
"Why him, Ziva?" She was uncertain which 'him' he was talking about, and her questioning look told him as much. "Either."
"Because I love him."
"Good answer. That was the one thing I do not think your father ever grasped; love."
"Do I get an answer?"
He narrowed his eyes and sucked on the inside of his cheek. "Your father might be my best friend, but that does not mean I agree with everything he does, or orders me to do."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"It means, young Ziva, that I sincerely hope you know what you are doing." Young Ziva. He had not called her that in years. It had been a pet name of sorts, when he was training her, teaching her how to run and throw and shoot when her father did not have the time, which meant it was every evening and every weekend. "I might not like your DiNozzo, but I do not trust Malachi."
"Ziva, you were a good girl, I see." Malachi's grin was nothing like Tony's as they stepped into the dirty hotel room, not warm and jovial, charming and winning, but slimy and evil, cold and cruel. "Thank you, Hadar. Did you take her weapons?" Amit handed over the three blades and one gun that he had removed from her bag, rendering the purse more-or-less useless. "You may leave us now."
A mix of emotions flashed across the older officer's face; worry, fear, confusion and apprehension. "Eli said I was to accompany you until you were out of the country."
"Eli was being overly protective. Besides, you will merely be a hindrance when we cross the border."
Ziva smiled, less than confident. "I will be fine, Hadar." She pressed a kiss to his cheek, whispering an almost silent 'thank you' in his ear, wondering where Malachi would be taking her and whether she would ever see him again.
He sighed, taking one final look at her before backing out of the door, a helpless look on his face. Malachi looked her up and down, narrowing his eyes at the dress before shaking his head. "Your Americans really have ruined you. Is this what NCIS class as practical work attire?" He grumbled with disdain. "It will not do."
"I had to blend in. Nobody will look for me wearing this." She looked down, ashamed of how timid her voice sounded. She was not that scared of him, was she?
He waved a hand dismissively. "We have to go. They will start to look for you soon enough and we need to reach the border before they put out BOLOs."
"I have told them not to." She said quietly and he looked down at her, the first soft smile crossing his face in the time that they had been in the grimy room.
"Good girl." He swooped in for a kiss, pressing his mouth to hers forcefully, and it was all she could do not to squirm. "But how likely are they to listen to you?"
"I told them I did not want to be followed. I have hurt him too much for him to try." She hoped it was true, she hoped that Gibbs would follow her instructions, allow Tony to forget about her. She was doing it for him, keeping him safe, protecting him from Malachi and her father.
Maybe, one day, she might be able to see him again, see her children again, but she knew that even if she got away from Malachi and her father, he would have moved on by then. Gibbs and the team would have helped him to find someone else, someone so much better than her, someone who would not put his life in danger just by loving him. And she did not want to see that. She did not want to see her husband with his arms around another woman, her children calling another woman 'mother'. Tears were threatening to fall as she stood in the corner whilst Malachi checked out of the hotel and she quickly had to think of something else to distract her. He would not stand for her crying over someone she did not love anymore.
So she focused on where he might be taking her. She remembered him mentioning Mexico once or twice, and add that to the border he had dropped into the conversation a few times, she guessed that it was a sound bet she would be somewhere in Mexico within a day or so, depending upon how quickly he drove. Doing the maths in her head, she figured that if he kept to the speed limits to avoid detection, it would take them between 23 and 25 hours, varying slightly with how many stops they made, to reach the border. The last time she had been anywhere with him, he had refused to stop, and she decided that she would be willing to put money on them being in the lower range of her time estimation. How far into Mexico, she did not know.
How she wished for Abby's optimism as Malachi took her hand and lead her to a silver saloon car. How she wished for McGee's kind words of comfort as she sat in the front seat, listening to Malachi go on about how good it felt to have her back. How she wished for Gibbs' fatherly smile and Ducky's reassuring hand patting her own. How she missed Tony's hugs, his jokes and his laughter, his kisses and his touch. She longed to hear his voice, hear him as he shouted at her for leaving him, before burying his face in her hair and telling her how much he had missed her.
"McGee, bring Abs and get over to Tony and Ziva's place…Ducky too…not as such…I'm gonna need all the help I can get…I'll explain when you get here." Gibbs stuffed his phone into the pocket of his jeans, causing the paper to crumple further. He had already phoned the director, alerting her to the situation, and she was currently sorting out a task force to try and find their Ziva.
Tony had cried himself to sleep on the sofa, and the twins were in Moses baskets on the coffee table, both sleeping as well, leaving Gibbs to call in reinforcements and try and fix up something for them to eat. But the problem with the DiNozzos' kitchen was that it was full of things he did not know how to use, and things he had no idea how to even start cooking. The problem with the kitchen was that it was Ziva's, and Ziva knew how to cook. Why they could not just keep a couple of steaks in there, he did not know.
After rummaging through the fridge, he decided upon omelettes, knowing exactly what to do with a couple of eggs, some leftover vegetables and a frying pan. If only they kept the manual for the hob somewhere accessible and obvious. Giving up on the idea of anything cooked, he went to his go-to source of sustenance, flicking the switch on the coffee machine and waiting for it to ping, getting two mugs out in preparation.
When he went to pour, he hesitated, refraining from pouring Tony a mug, preferring to leave the boy to sleep. Ducky's voice echoed through his head and he chuckled slightly, just as the doorbell went. He opened it to reveal the concerned faces of Ducky, Abby and McGee. "What is going on, Jethro?"
"Ziva. She's left. Off to save the world on her own, brave him on her own." He grumbled. "DiNozzo and the twins are asleep in the living room, but I figured he'd be needing some help, and we need to start working on finding her."
Abby flung herself at him. "I know this is all just a big front to keep yourself safe, and I know that really deep down you're going out of your mind, but show some emotion for once in your life, Gibbs." He wasn't certain whether she was just hugging him, or trying to suffocate him, but the latter was working quite successfully. He smiled gratefully as Ducky tapped Abby's shoulder and she released him, turning to McGee instead.
"We're going to set up shop here?"
The older man nodded. "It's the best way to keep Tony in the loop, and God knows he won't stay out of it."
Despite staving off sleep for as long as possible, but as they drove across the Louisiana State border, her eyelids grew heavy and she began to lose the strength in her neck to support her head as it lulled to the side. It was dark out the windows, and she was surprised Malachi had not needed to rest, even if just for ten minutes. But then she remembered his ability to stay awake for hours during stakeouts, ignoring anyone's recommendations for sleep. He got like that when he had his heart set on something, as he clearly did during the drive.
Her sleep was disturbed, images of a distraught Tony, screaming, tombstones, blood and flowers flickering in an unregulated, uneven pattern across the dark screen of her mind.
She woke with a start, jolting in her seat and gasping for desperately needed breath as she tried to clear her mind of shards of metal, glass and catalytic converter, removing the image of Tony's charred remains at the driver's seat. She looked out of the window, not ready to face Malachi, to see dry, dusty scrubland with mountains in the distance. The sky was a clear blue, the sun high in the sky and reflecting off of the tarmac that they drove along.
"We passed the border half an hour ago. You have slept for thirteen hours." He reached into the back, blinding claiming a bottle of water and passing it over. "Drink. You will be dehydrated."
She felt his rather clinical assessment was a slight understatement since even with her body adapted to the desert she was parched and the first trickles of cold water felt like heaven as they slipped down her dry throat. "Where are we going to?"
He glanced over at her, as if only just remembering that she was not mute. "We are going to stay in Sabinas until I can get us back to Israel."
She nodded and swallowed thickly, not so certain of what she was doing anymore. It was times like then when she would instinctively phone Tony and ask for his advice. She closed her eyes and rested her head on the window, wanting to shut it all out, to go back to her nightmares in preference over speaking to Malachi for one more minute.
...
I really like Hadar – he was my favourite of the Mossad characters (besides Ziva) and I cried when he died. But then, I cried when Eli died, too.
I, like Ziva, have got to stop diving into things without a plan. I think I know where I am going from here, but it is just getting my idea down on paper that will be difficult.
