Title: Little Secret

Rating: K+

Paring: None

Summary:"Her brother could take this easily; he is stronger and trained better in the art of taking pain."

Disclaimer: NCIS doesn't belong to me, and it never will.

Spoilers: Bete Noire, Reveille, Twilight, Kill Ari part 1 and 2.

Prompt: Youth.

A/N: This is what I came up with for the Youth challenge. This is unbetaed, so I take full responsibility for all spelling/grammar mistakes. Also, I know Ziva and Ari didn't speak English when they were kids. I wrote the story thinking that I would translate the talking into Arabic but thought that it looked kinda messy when I did. Thanks to Dream20715 for being a great beta.

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"Hold still, I will never fix it if you do not stop wiggling." He did wish that she would stop squirming around. It was hard enough to clean and bandage her wound while she was being still, and it was becoming almost impossible while she moved around.

"It hurts too much." It hurt like nothing she had felt before, and would ever care to feel again. She had only had scrapes and bruises before, the usual cuts and scuffs of childhood; this was much worse then any of those. It was large and deep, had bled like water from a fountain and was still bleeding now. The pain was bad, but the appearance was twice that.

She is almost nine and she's fully ashamed that tears have already started to drip down her cheek. Her father would disown her if he heard about this; he would beat her at just the thought of his daughter shedding tears over discomfort. Her brother could take this easily; he was stronger and trained better in the art of taking pain.

She looks down to her leg as he starts to wrap a strip of cloth from his own shirt around the bleeding gash in her leg. It hurts only slightly less then it did before, mostly from the time she had been given to grow accustomed to it. Her brother pulls the cloth tighter around her leg and a scream slips from her mouth.

He looks to her with worry as she bites down on her bottom lip. "It is ok to scream and cry, you are allowed to feel the pain." He's only trying to make her feel better, telling her it's ok to feel when they both know they were raised to believe otherwise. You should only scream when told to and should only cry with great pleasure. Neither should be taken as a liberty and used freely. They had both been taught by their father that it was a waste of time to express feelings that no one else cared about.

Except her brother has a mother who is kind and she has put silly little ideas into their heads about emotions and at times how truly wonderful they can be. She loves those silly little ideas and loves the beautiful stories of far off places that his mother has told her, even more. Her brother's mother is warm and loving towards her and at times has treated her as a child all her own; her true mother is cold and heartless towards her, only teaching and telling her of the ways she will follow in her father's footsteps.

He finishes with her bandage and helps her to her feet, proud of himself for taking such good care of her. He lets her swing one of her arms around his neck and helps her wobble back home. He thinks helping her like this will make up for causing her the pain. It's his fault she was hurt, he had been trying to teach her how to fire a sniper rifle; he knew it would impress his father and make him proud of her if she could learn it easily. She had run out too quickly to get the piece of wood they were using as a target, he hadn't seen her coming and had grazed her leg with the small and sleek bullet. But he had helped her up and did the best job he could to make it all better.

He won't tell their father about what really happened, he wouldn't tell him about her crying and he wouldn't tell him they were trying to impress him. Someone had tried to shoot at them and a bullet had brushed against her leg, but he had helped her and fixed the wound. She is brave and there is no reason to let others think any different of her.

He would not hurt her again by bringing disgrace to her name; he would not make her suffer for his own mistakes. He loves his sister and he knows she loves him back, so this would remain their little secret.

"A masked man shot at us, he grazed your leg and I fixed it the best I could."

She smiles faintly at his words, grateful for his eagerness to protect her.

"Toda." Her brother had taught her the small amount of Italian that he knew and she loved to use it when she was around him.

"Lei รจ benvenuto."

He wants to take her away from all of this someday. He wants to see her smile again like when they were small children. He wants to watch her laugh and play in valleys of lilies and roses like she tells him she does in her dreams. He wants to take her away now, not let her be trained in the cruel and heartless manner of their family. He knew that was impossible, and for now all he could do was keep telling her that it's ok to cry and that every now and then it's wonderful to feel.

One day he would become a doctor, trained by the best to work alongside the best. One day she would become a Mossad Agent, trained by the best to work alongside the best. But one day was far away right now, and they are trained by one another to work alongside one another.