I am going to advise that this chapter is a slightly higher T than the others, but not for anything explicit really, just implied stuff.
Okay, my Spanish is not great. Like – so basic that I had to phone my friend who lives in Spain for him to translate what I wanted him to, and I do not know if any of it is correct, but there are translations at the end.
Conversations between Ziva and Malachi are, again, written in English. So are the Spanish conversations after the first section. Basically, everything between Ziva and Malachi is Hebrew, everything else from them is Spanish.
Oh, and reality has gone out the window again for this chapter. I do not care that it is not realistic – it is my story, and I will ignore any comment about it not being realistic.
We have skipped ahead a little bit because I did not want to write a chapter between the last one and this one. I was not even going to have anything from the team back in DC, but then I decided that it did not make much sense not having it.
...
LXIV. Real Stupidity Beats Artificial Intelligence Every Time
It had been five and a half weeks. Five and a half weeks since she had watched her babies sleep and kissed her husband goodbye. Five and a half weeks since she had seen any of her loved ones. Five and a half weeks of the same routine, living out of a hotel room, shabby and grey, wondering the streets at Malachi's side and pretending to enjoy the sex that was beginning to dull in pain the more and more she was thrown onto the bed.
If she had not known the strength he harboured she would have tried to fight him off, but she did know, and she knew that even with all the training in the world she would never beat him in a physical fight. He was strong, lanky but muscular and, unlike Tony, there was no softness to him. There was no give. It was like he had been carved - badly - from a cliff. All angles and unattractive lines, coarse edges and a scruffy appearance. He had been attractive to her when they were younger and she had little to base her judgement off – he had been what she thought a man should be.
He was heavy-handed and rough, too, as he always had been, and the strong, confident woman she thought she could remember herself being looked down in shame as she noticed the was she flinched at loud noises and sharp movements. She was disappointed in herself for not being braver, not having anything that she could say or do to make him stop. She tensed as his hand constricted around her wrist.
"I am going to speak to the man outside. Get fruit and food for dinner." Malachi said, his voice as hard as it always was. "Do not do anything stupid, Ziva." She nodded subserviently, knowing that he knew she would not. She studied the colourful fruits, not finding any of them appealing, just as the woman next to her dropped her bag. Ziva bent down to pick it up and passed it over when her eyes dropped to the phone clutched in the woman's hand and her chest constricted at the idea that gripped her. The thought of her husband's voice. "¿Puedo?" She pointed, glancing both ways to check she was not being watched.
The woman looked down, as if surprised she had the phone in her hand, and passed it over "sí".
The number came naturally as she dialled, and she held the phone to her ear, nervously checking that Malachi would not be finding her phoning home. "Hello…hello? Is somebody there?" Her breath caught in her throat as Tony's voice filtered down the line. She could hear one of the twins cry in the background and she had to cover her mouth to stifle her sobs. "McGee, can you take this?"
"Who is it?"
"Dunno, can't hear anything." The phone changed hands and she hung up as McGee started to question whom it was calling.
"Gracias."
She hesitated when taking the mobile back before tucking it in her pocket. "De nada"
Ziva hurriedly swiped the tears away from her cheeks just as Malachi rounded the corner, anger flaring in his eyes when he saw the watermarks on her face. "What did you do, Ziva?"
She shook her head desperately as he gripped her upper arm. "Nothing."
"Then why the tears?"
"Ella está en el dolor." The stranger interrupted. Malachi whirled on her, growling.
"¿Quién te preguntó?"
To give her her dues, she was not intimidated by him. But then, she did not know him. "Ella dijo que le dolía el estomago."
"Is this true, Ziva? Your stomach hurts." She nodded, gritting her teeth for effect. "Like it did when you lost our baby?" It did not, but, figuring it was the best way to get him off her back, she nodded again. "We are going back to the hotel. The healthcare here is terrible." His hand tightened around her arm as he dragged her back down the street towards their small hotel room. "I have a friend. He is a doctor."
She had been wrong. It was not going to get her out of trouble. This was why she hated lying. "The hospital will be able to help me better. They might save our baby." She smiled hopefully and he paused, considering it, before pulling her across to a taxi that pulled over when he waved.
"Sir, you have to leave."
"No. She is my wife. I will not leave her." Ziva turned her face away as she cringed at the blatant lie. She wore no ring proclaiming her as his, nor was there any paperwork. It was just another of his fantasies she had noticed he had created.
The nurse was growing as irritable as he was. "You have to. No. No bribes. You must leave. We cannot have you in here."
"That is my child, though."
"I will be fine, Malachi." She gave a weak smile, the tears that were streaming down her cheeks all for show as she sniffed and laid a tender hand on her stomach. She was lying on an examination table and she had changed into a hospital gown upon their arrival, the itchy material aiding her performance.
"I'm not leaving."
"Sir, you have to." He was pushed out of the hospital room to sit in the empty waiting room and the nurse walked over to stand by the doctor. She was middle age, her hair up in a simple ponytail and her face kind and inviting, although Ziva guessed it could be stern and strict when it wanted to be.
The doctor reminded her of Dr Wilson, Ada's audiologist, and real tears leaked from her eyes again at the thought of her children. "What hurts?"
She bit her lip, considering her options, before shaking her head. She kept her voice quiet as she started to speak. "Nothing hurts. I told him so he would not ask why I was crying."
"But you are pregnant?"
"No." She realised she would have to explain that one to Malachi, how she was not actually pregnant as he had come to think she was in the taxi ride, as she had led him to believe. "You can tell him I lost the baby, yes? That you did all you could, but he took too much time getting me here?"
The doctor studied her, frown lines creasing his face. "No. We do not lie here."
"Please? He believes I am pregnant and I am not." She tried to keep the pleading from her voice as she wondered when it was that she grew so desperate, but despite all of her efforts her tone still reminded her of a young child.
"So you lied to him." The doctor shrugged. "You should not have lied." He was not as kind as Dr Wilson had been.
The nurse broke in. "Does he hurt you?"
"I…"
She turned to the doctor without waiting for an answer. "We have a duty to protect her. You do not have to go home to him." The second part was directed to Ziva.
The doctor shook his head. "No. We cannot help. We do not lie."
"He does not hurt me."
"You have bruises on your arm." Ziva rolled the short sleeve of her t-shirt over her shoulder to reveal the hand shaped mark from where he had held her earlier, shocked that it was so noticeable.
"He did not do that."
"Then who did?" She was left stumped, no answer coming to her.
"I have to go back to him."
"You do not have to do anything."
"I do, alright? You do not understand – I have no choice. If you will not tell him what I asked you to, then I will. Please? I doubt it is the first time you have lied." She was growing impatient and nervous knowing that Malachi could burst in at any moment, fed up of waiting.
The nurse sighed. "He will not believe us if we simply allow you to go home after a miscarriage. Not considering the pain you were in. We have spare beds."
"I cannot allow this. It is wrong."
"Is it?" The nurse challenged. "She will not be taking up anyone's time since she is not actually ill, we are not full at the moment, and it is not the first time you have lied. What harm is it doing?"
He conceded. "Fine. But as soon as we need the beds, she is out. And he follows the same visiting hours as everyone else. I do not like him."
"I'd be surprised if anyone does." The nurse murmured, raising her eyebrows questioningly when Ziva chuckled quietly. "I will tell him that we are taking you into surgery but it is to save your life, not your child's, and then I will take you through to the ward." She smiled. "I am certain that we can adjust visiting hours, too, so he is not here as long." She left Ziva and the doctor staring at one another from the corners of their eyes, pretending not to.
"Your story, it does not fit. You have no medical records, and yet you can afford this hospital. You are not pregnant, yet your husband thinks you are. Who are you?" She stayed silent as she figured the best story to tell. "The truth is advisable, now. I will not tell anyone, I promise. Patient confidentiality."
"I am a federal agent from America. My husband and children are at home, and I can never contact them again. Malachi is my ex-partner. We were together, undercover, a long time ago, and I was pregnant. I lost his child, and he wants another." She mumbled as she sat up from where she was still laying on the paper-covered bed, propping herself up against the wall and tucking her knees up to her chin under the hospital gown.
"Do you?" At her frown he clarified. "Want another baby."
Her headshake was violent in nature. "I have two babies at home and two foster children. He has threatened their lives and my husband's life. I cannot see them ever again, and if I do he will kill them."
"And you believe that he will?"
"I know he will. He has killed cold-bloodedly before." The doctor was taken aback. "He is an officer of the Israeli Mossad. There is nothing you can do."
"Your husband, he is not going to look for you?"
"I told them not to. Malachi has my father on his side – I will never escape him."
The doctor nodded slowly, thoughtfully. "I believe you."
The doctor had sat by the bed that she had been assigned not long after she had gotten settled, the heavy silence he carried around with him more prominent in the eerily empty ward. "You know, I could lose my job for this."
"I know. And I am sorry. I will go as soon as you ask me to leave." She said wearily. It was the first time in a long while she had laid down without the constant fear of Malachi looming over her, and she realised just how tired she was.
"I do not want to make you leave. I want to help you." He bit his lip. "Call your husband. Tell him you are safe here." He pulled a phone from his pocket, giving her a small, almost mischievous smile. "I borrowed it from the nurse."
"Does she know you borrowed it?"
He bowed his head. "I left her a note." He watched as she typed in the number, hesitating momentarily before hitting the call button, holding the phone to her ear.
"DiNozzo speaking. Hello? Look, whoever this is, I am not in the mood for it. It's not funny. Either tell me who this is or stop calling me." She did not know what made her stay silent, other than the fact that she did not want to fill the line with her voice when his was the only one she wanted to hear. There was a muffled shout in the background and the line crackled as if he were holding his hand over the mic. "Another empty line. It's just rude, y'know? Cruel and cold-hearted. Stupid teena-" he hung up. Ziva brushed the tears away from her cheeks, handing the phone back.
"Keep it. She will not mind." He smiled. "Besides, you might need to hear his voice again."
"Thank you, Doctor."
He sighed and nodded, standing up and grumbling to himself as he made for the door. He turned at the last minute, watching as the fingered the keys of the phone. "Your husband wishes to see you. I have told him you should be out of surgery in half an hour, and you will need an hour's recovery time, minimum. But he is pushy."
"Thank you. For everything." She said quietly as she slipped the phone under the flat, well-used pillow and lay her head down, letting her eyes fall shut with no conscious volition.
Tony grumbled, throwing his phone at the couch. "Again, Tony?" It was the fourth time in the space of four hours that he had received calls to his phone with nobody on the other end, and he was starting to get frustrated with the technology.
"Is it the same number?" Ever thinking McGee piped up from where he sat in the kitchen, calling through the open door. The twins were outside in the garden, Abby trying to teach them to sign as she had been for the past five weeks. Nobody dare tell her that they were only three months old.
They had settled into a routine, the team minus Ziva. Abby and McGee had been staying the night, Abby in the spare bedroom and McGee on the sofa, whilst Gibbs and Ducky were spending the majority of their days over there, helping around the house, cooking, tidying, aiding in babysitting duties. It was run like a ship, and it seemed to be the only way to keep everyone focused as they took it in turns to pour over any tiny scrap of evidence that turned up – Ziva's bag, found in a coffee-shop bathroom, a CCTV image of her climbing into a car with an older man, a photo from a toll booth that could have been Ziva, but it could have been any brunette under the age of fifty.
The only shred of evidence they had was a possible BOLO match that got lost in translation, pinging up on one of the laptops set up along the breakfast bar two days prior – nearly five weeks after it had been sent from the Mexico border. It was a clear photo of a sleeping Ziva in the front seat of a car. They had not got the message about the BOLO until they had let the car through, and when they found the car it had been left by the side of the road with nothing in it, a two-hour drive from the border.
McGee was the only one who did not work in shifts, doing what came naturally to him and focusing on his laptop screen, analysing every single bit of data that came their way. Tony picked his phone back up and scrolled through the recent call page. "The last three were the same, but the first one was different."
"Can you redial it?" McGee had, for the first time that morning, stepped away from the glowing screen and walked through to stand in the doorway. He watched as Tony did so and sighed when he shook his head.
"It's turned off."
"I could still try and get a trace," Tim suggested, realising that he was probably grasping at straws but not having anything else to go on. He held his hand out for the phone, closing his fingers around it when Tony reluctantly placed it in his palm. "Go get Abby in, I'll need her help."
He nodded, heading towards the back garden just as the doorbell rang. "You can get Abby, help her bring the twins in, I'll get the door." He watched McGee nod before going and answering the door. The face staring at him when he opened it was possibly the last one he expected to see. "What do you want?"
"To talk."
"Look, right now, not such a great time." He shook his head, about to slam the door, when a foot was placed in the way.
"I would not advise that, Agent DiNozzo. We both want the same thing."
"No. No, I want my wife back. I have no idea what you want, but I know it's not that." His glare would have broken any normal man down, possibly even made Gibbs falter slightly, but it was not a normal man he was glaring at. He shifted his gaze to the man stood behind the older man. "You. You're on the security footage. You know where she is!"
"No, agent DiNozzo, I do not."
"This is not a conversation to be had on the doorstep, Agent DiNozzo." Tony narrowed his eyes before stepping back slightly, pointing them through to the living room.
"What is it you want then?"
"Agent DiNozzo, I want my daughter back."
…
Ooh, the plot thickens… I already have a lot of the next chapter written up, too. Yay! I do not know how long to make it and where to move on to the chapter after it, though.
¿Puedo? – may I?
Sí – yes
Gracias – thank you
De nada – You're welcome.
Ella está en el dolor – she is in pain.
¿Quién te preguntó? – who asked you?
Ella dijo que le dolía el estomago – she said her stomach hurts
Thank you once more to my friend in Spain who helped with the translation, though if any of it is wrong, it is all because of a crackly phone line.
