And we are back - a little later than planned but with a lot more content than usual. There will be non-graphic references to rape in this chapter, please proceed with caution if that is a trigger for you.
Without further ado, here we go:
Chapter 4 – Late Fall 2005
Ziva watched as the door to MTAC opened and Jenny went across the catwalk. Her eyes were fixed on the outer door to her office and didn't even stray a little to look out over her teams on the bullpen floor, catching Gibbs' gaze in the process as had become her habit. The redhead hadn't told her what exactly Gibbs had said to her in the parking lot of the hardware store, but she was good enough at reading lips even in a foreign language that she'd concluded he knew about Arielle's paternity. More importantly, given the state her friend had been in after Gibbs left her in the parking lot, she doubted he had had anything nice to say to her after he found out.
Still, she had hoped that he would realize how much his friendship and his opinion mattered to Jenny, and how much she craved his approval, but so far Gibbs had only stared at his computer, sending angry glares her way every once in a while.
Ziva sighed. Men – too proud to admit when they'd made a mistake. She looked back over to Gibbs's desk, catching his angry scowl above his screen. She made up her mind, almost violently shoving back her chair and marching over to his area of the bullpen. It was nearly time to go home, but before she did, he would need to acknowledge some things.
"Gibbs," Ziva said pointedly, coming to a halt in front of his desk. "I would like a word."
"You would like a word, or did Mommy send you over to smooth things over?" he asked sarcastically, not looking up from the cold case file he was reading.
Ziva made a derisive noise, aware of the curious stares Tony and McGee were sending her way at the mention of a maternal figure in her life. "She did not, and given the way you are acting right now, I do not even understand why she would want to make up with you. However, I would like to give you the benefit of the doubt, thus I thought I would provide some background information so that you can go apologize to her."
"Rule six, Officer David," Gibbs gave back, slowly raising his gaze to meet her eyes. "Never say you're sorry, it's a sign of weakness."
Ziva snorted. "Is that one of these weird American things people do here?" she asked, her tone revealing pointedly what she thought of his rule. "However that may be, though, I would still like the chance to offer you some background knowledge, even if you are too weak to act on it." She kept her eyes on Gibbs, pinning him with her stare even as she heard Tony's surprised squeak at her last words.
Gibbs narrowed his eyes at the thinly veiled insult but got up from his desk, crooking a finger at her to signify she was to follow him. As he had done on her first official day with the team, he led her into the elevator, stopping the cart between two floors.
"So?" he asked impatiently, glaring at her across the small space.
"Jenny is a good mother," Ziva started, daring him to interrupt her as he opened his mouth to but in. "She is a good mother to Arielle, and she was the closest thing my sister Tali had to a mother before she died. She took care of Tali even if she had no reason to."
"Jenny isn't quite as selfless as you think she is," Gibbs said, trying to keep his voice neutral. "There was likely no need to play mother to your sister, but she probably thought it was the thing to do, given her involvement with your father and the expectations she apparently had about its returns," he added, aware of the nasty edge that was creeping into his tone.
"There was no involvement with my father," Ziva replied, glaring at him as he interrupted her again.
"You'll excuse me if I find that hard to believe, what with your little sister being her daughter," Gibbs shot back sarcastically.
"There was no involvement with my father," Ziva reiterated. "My father is old enough to be her father, and whatever you may think of her or her taste when it comes to older men," she nodded at him, clearly privy to the intimate details of his and Jenny's prior partnership, "it does not extend far enough for her to be even remotely interested in my father." She shook her head a little. "Ari was older than Jenny," she added pointedly, taking a calculated risk in mentioning her brother.
Gibbs grumbled but nodded, conceding the point.
"That doesn't mean my father wasn't interested in Jenny, however," she continued. "I think everybody at Mossad was interested in Jenny - she was young for a liaison agent, good-looking, and kind of exotic by Israeli standards with the bright red hair. She was also very sad, and there were quite a few men who offered to cheer her up over a couple of drinks." Ziva fell silent for a moment, letting her mind wander back to Jenny's first few months with Mossad.
"Jenny rebuffed their advances, she always brushed them off. Instead she would spent her evenings with Tali and myself, watching American movies or practicing Hebrew. Sometimes Ari would join, and they would work on her Arabic." She noticed his angry glare when she mentioned her older brother again, even in the context of Jenny's purely platonic relationship with him. "There was only one man who she was more open with, Mikael. He was very straightforward with his ambitions - she once told me that during their first meeting, he told her bluntly that he was not interested in her romantically but that he wanted to climb up the ladder within Mossad as quickly as possible. He figured having contacts within foreign agencies would be helpful with that. I think Jenny appreciated the frankness, and she could relate to some degree, so they got along. At some point they even became friends and Mikael would sometimes spend time with all of us," her voice got lower, and Gibbs sensed that they were nearing the pivotal moment of her story.
"Mikael wanted to advance more than anything else," Ziva said acerbically, speaking almost more to herself than to him. "After a rather gruesome mission that the two of them worked on together, he invited Jenny to go to some bar with him. I was in the room, I remember seeing that look in her eyes as she prepared herself to let him down when he told her that he still did not want anything from her romantically, but he thought they could go as friends. Then he turned to me and told me I would be welcome to come along, that my first drink would be on him because he had forgotten my birthday a couple of weeks earlier."
She swallowed. "Jenny just shrugged, but when I said that I would love to go out for the evening, she said she would come along for me," she smiled bitterly as if it hurt her to remember.
"Mikael bought both of us one drink after the other. I could see how Jenny's eyes were slowly glazing over, and I decided that we should probably head home soon. I excused myself to use the restroom, but when I came back Mikael and Jenny were both gone. Another Mossad Officer informed me that they left together, but that Jenny was really in no shape to go anywhere. He implied that Mikael would - how do you Americans say it - get lucky that night," she grimaced.
"I was unsure what to do for some time, Jenny was adamant that she did not want any romantic entanglements with anybody at Mossad, but she was also a woman, and I thought she might have been looking for a willing body to scratch the itch for a night." Gibbs faced hardened at that, aware that any comment on that would be more than just hypocritical considering that he had already married Stephanie at that point. Ziva, however, didn't even seem to pay attention to him, too caught up in the memories that were rising in her mind.
She continued, her voice even lower now. "I went back and forth over it, but at some point, I thought I should go by Mikael's apartment – I could take the embarrassment, but I did not want my friend to be in any position she did not want to be in. He was only just coming back when I got there, without Jenny. I asked him where she was, and he told me my father had been wanting to see her. I did not think much about it at that point, my father works all hours of the day and the night, and often expects his operatives to do the same. I still thought it might be safer for her if she did not go home to her flat alone, so I walked over to the Mossad complex where my father had his office."
Ziva leaned back against the elevator wall; her eyes seemed far away. "Suffice to say when I got to his office, I did not find quite what I expected," she said, her mouth twisting a little as she pressed her lips together in barely concealed anger. "My father was just finished with her. Jenny's eyes were empty and given the sluggish state she was in, I doubt she consented to much of anything. She was half dressed, and she looked as if she was going to be sick any moment. She stayed away from my father after that, and as far as I know, he did not try to make any further advances, but the damage was done, so to speak. This happened at the beginning of December, Arielle was born a little early, in August."
Gibbs was silent, only rubbing the back of his hand over his mouth roughly. He felt bile rising up in the back of his throat as Ziva started laughing mirthlessly.
"Of course, everybody at Mossad knew that the baby was my father's, even though he never claimed Arielle, or even acknowledged her. Not that Jenny would have let him," she added under her breath. "Mikael had talked - well, I guess he was in it from the start. He got a nice new posting somewhere in South America shortly after - he had sold Jenny to my father for a promotion."
Gibbs swallowed, letting his head fall back against the cool metal wall of the elevator as Ziva did the same. This was not at all what he had expected, but it made all the pieces fall into place: Jenny's sudden skittishness around him, her uncharacteristically volatile behavior when he'd accused her of having Eli David's child in return for a promotion.
"What about you and your sister?" he asked finally.
"What about us?" Ziva asked back, clearly not understanding the question.
Gibbs shrugged. "You told me that Jen took care of your sister. Didn't your father," he stopped, clearly uncomfortable as he was searching for the right words, "think about how his actions would impact her or you?" He felt almost stupid asking the question - apart from the fact that he couldn't even imagine forcing himself on any woman - on Jenny - he didn't think he could've ever mistreated someone Kelly considered a mother of sorts this badly.
Ziva laughed hollowly again; her expression almost pitiful as she regarded him. "My mother divorced my father because of his affair with Orli Elbaz, because he did not exhibit enough concern for his family to at least keep the whole thing under wraps. I do not think he thought of his family at all - whether that was Tali or myself, or even Ari - when he decided to go after Jenny, no matter that she was the first maternal figure Tali had had since our mother had died."
He nodded stoically, trying to picture Jenny taking care of Tali David and probably partly even of Ziva during her pregnancy whilst she was trying to avoid their father.
"I do not think Tali ever knew what my father had done," Ziva volunteered suddenly, a sad expression on her face as she remembered her deceased sister. "I believe Ari told her that Jenny's child was our sibling, but Tali was only 14 when Arielle was born, and I do not think she truly understood what Jenny's standoffish behavior around our father really implied. She loved little Ari - Arielle," she corrected herself hastily, "it was her idea to name her Arielle because she kept hoping that the baby would have Jenny's red hair."
Gibbs smiled at that, trying to imagine a teenage girl that looked like Ziva and Arielle, harassing Jenny into naming her child after some Disney princess. No doubt Jenny had loved that with her aversion to anything as girly as some fairy tale mermaid.
They both stared ahead into the blueish light of the elevator until Ziva straightened her back and turned to the doors again, a wordless sign that their heart-to-heart was over. Gibbs flipped the switch, ready to get out of the emotionally claustrophobic environment when the doors opened to reveal Jenny, a light coat over her shoulders and her briefcase in hand.
"Jen," he said slowly, not ready to see her yet.
"Special Agent Gibbs, Officer David," she greeted formally, her voice icy as she formed his name. "Ziva, if you want, you can come by for dinner again tonight. I'm sure Noemi has cooked enough food to feed a small army, and Arielle is always happy to see you."
Ziva inclined her head. "I will see, I might go out for drinks with Tony and McGee, though. Shalom, Jenny," she answered kindly as she walked past the redhead.
"Are you not getting off the elevator, Agent Gibbs, or do you have another meeting?" she asked then, eying him with fake curiosity.
"Jen," he started again, only to be interrupted.
"I am not in the mood to hear any more of your accusations. I suggest you get the hell out of my elevator and out of my sight," she hissed, trying not to cause a scene in front of her agents.
"As you wish, Director," he answered, slowly walking past her as she stepped into the cart. Gibbs watched as the doors closed in front of her, her eyes trained on the corner of the elevator to avoid meeting his eyes.
Nothing he'd heard today had been even close what he'd suspected when he'd first found out about her daughter on Sunday, but now that he had learned the truth, he'd have to find a way to make his reaction up to her.
He had been sitting in his car in front of her house for the past half an hour. No doubt her security detail had noticed him, and he could only hope that they knew him well enough not to inform the director of his presence. He could just about imagine how angry Jenny would be if she thought he was spying on her after his accusations the day before.
Ziva hadn't shown up, despite the invitation Jenny had issued earlier that day, and he couldn't help but wonder if that meant the Israeli had guessed he'd stop by. He found himself oddly intrigued by the family dynamics between Ziva, Jenny, and Jenny's daughter – he couldn't really picture them sitting around Jenny's big dining table, talking about their respective days. Then again, he hadn't been able to picture Jenny as a mother period until he was forced to reconsider his opinion barely more than twenty-four hours ago.
He sighed. Shannon had been a stay-at-home mom, the moment she'd found out about Kelly, she'd quit her job at a little boutique store. Jenny obviously had quite a different approach to her parenting style right from the outset, but then again it was just her; Ziva seemed to be her only support system – not that he'd want Eli David anywhere near her. Still, the warmth and care Shannon had displayed in all her interactions with Kelly had been just as evident when Jenny had consoled Arielle after her little fall at the store. It was obvious that she loved her daughter, no matter the circumstances of her conception.
Gibbs got out of the car, drudging up the short path to her front door. He searched his pockets for the spare key that she'd given him back in the nineties when he'd still been a welcome unannounced visitor. He doubted the same would be true today.
He fumbled with the key in the lock, cursing under his breath when it wouldn't turn around, just as the door was opened and he stared down the barrel of Jenny's private Glock.
"Just what the hell do you think you're doing, breaking into my house?" she asked, her voice icy. "Don't you think you've done enough already? Did you come for a second round?"
"Geez, Jen," he said, shrugging his shoulders a little as she flicked off the safety.
"Wrong answer, Jethro," she shot back.
"Put your gun away, Jen, you don't want to commit murder in front of your security detail," he said, grabbing the barrel of the Glock and pushing it down.
"I pay their salaries, I'm sure they wouldn't mind a little white lie," she replied maliciously, even as she put the safety back in place and tucked the gun into her jeans at the small of her back. "What do you want, Jethro?" she asked then, her voice tired and flat even as her eyes kept their fierce expression.
"I was wrong," he answered simply. "At the store, accusing you of what I did, I was wrong," he explained as she looked at him questioningly.
"And yet you still can't say you're sorry," she gave back, preparing to shut the door in his face. He caught it just before it could click into its lock, pushing it open again.
"I was wrong, Jen," he repeated. "And – I'm sorry for what I said."
She snorted, not answering verbally but opening the door a little wider to let him in. She waited until he'd closed it behind him again, leading him into her study and pouring both of them a generous measure of Bourbon.
"Ziva told you?" she asked, her voice flat.
He nodded.
"Well, now you know," was all she said before she knocked back the liquor in her tumbler.
"Jen," he said carefully, putting a hand on her shoulder. She shuddered, her eyes closing, and he was about to pull back as her hand shot up and captured his, squeezing his fingers.
"I love her, I do. I love her so much. I decided that right there in the hospital after I gave birth, when they put her in my arms for the first time. She stared up at me with her big green eyes and –" she broke off. "But I still wish that he hadn't," she didn't finish the sentence, letting the silent 'raped me' hang in the air between them, unsaid. "Does that make me a bad mother?"
He sighed. "Ah, Jen," he began, pulling her closer to him. "You can love her and still hate what her father did to you."
She nodded, stepping fully into his arms, and hesitantly resting her head on his shoulder. He stopped short of hugging her to him, not wanting to trigger her.
"I won't break, Jethro," she said lowly, and he wondered not for the first time if she could read his mind.
He embraced her like he'd wanted to since he'd first seen her again in MTAC, dropping a kiss into her red hair before combing his fingers through the long strands.
"I've really missed you, Jen," he said with a smile, treasuring the soft expression on her face as she looked up to him.
"I've missed you, too," she admitted, squeezing his midriff a little tighter before she stepped out of his arms. She went over to her desk, depositing her gun in the top drawer and locking it before stepping out into the hallway. "Are you coming?" she asked.
He looked at her quizzically before he followed her into the living room, watching as she picked her daughter up from the couch.
"Alright, love, that's enough TV for today. You can say thank you to Mr. Gibbs for inadvertently pushing up your bedtime a little," she announced, shooting him an amused look as she turned off the TV and then turned around with the little girl in her arms.
Arielle leaned into her mother, hiding her face from his eyes as she whispered into her mother's ear. Jenny laughed a little, smoothing back her wild brown curls.
"You saw him yesterday at the store, baby. Mr. Gibbs is a friend of Mommy's," she winked at him as her daughter hesitantly turned to look at him, trying to figure him out.
He smiled at her, giving her a little wave.
"She's just shy," Jenny explained. "Since we came back to the States, she's spent most of her time with me and Ziva, and before with – well, you know," she said, referring to Tali and Ari. "I've signed her up for daycare before she starts preschool next year, but I'm not really sure she likes it."
"It's a big transition," Gibbs acknowledged, "coming from Israel to the States. A whole new country, different people."
"Egypt. We were in Cairo for the last year before we came back to the States," she let out a shuddering breath. "After Tali died, and there wasn't really anything holding us in Tel Aviv anymore, I asked Morrow to transfer me to Cairo. I asked him to advocate for sending Ziva with me, because we'd been good partners in the past, so he gave me the North Africa AD job and the foreign counterterrorism department. Ziva was my ear on the ground, so to speak. She collected the intelligence."
He nodded, surprised she'd volunteered so much information.
"Mommy," Arielle hissed, poking her shoulder a little.
"Yes, little Miss," Jenny answered with a laugh, the sadness in her eyes disappearing. "I'm assuming you want a story before you go to sleep?" Arielle nodded vigorously. "Arabian nights?" the redhead asked, receiving her answer in the form of another nod.
"Not The Little Mermaid?" Gibbs asked, grinning a little at the murderous glare Jenny sent his way.
"We've managed to avoid that so far," she answered tartly, "and I'd like to keep it that way. If you'll excuse me," she said, moving past him towards the stairs.
"I'll get going. I really just came by to – you know," he broke off.
"Apologize. You can say it, Jethro, I won't tell your team that you broke your precious rule," she teased.
He shrugged, looking at her a little indecisively.
"You don't have to go, Jethro," Jenny said more softly. "I'll tuck her in and read her a story, I'll be back down in fifteen minutes."
"Nah, Jen," he refused. "It wouldn't be good for me to stay."
She looked at him, a little wounded, as she nodded towards the door. "Well, you can see yourself out. I'll see you tomorrow, Gibbs," she replied, her voice noticeably colder.
"See you tomorrow, Jen," he replied, confused by the look on her face before she abruptly turned around and marched up the stairs, holding tightly onto her daughter.
He slowly walked out of her house, pulling the front door shut behind him. As he drove back to his house, he wondered what he'd done in the last few seconds to destroy all the process they'd made in the half hour before.
Wow - this was quite the chapter to write. Please leave a review and tell me what you think, they are always greatly appreciated!
