Interlude
Chapter 14
A/N: Since coming to NCIS fan fiction after writing so much CSI:Miami fan fiction, I feel like I have found a new home. I've read so many of the works of our authors here, both foreign and domestic and realize that we all really do a have a very similar mindset. Mishpucha is very much alive here. (I am even learning Hebrew, not to write it, but I recently found out through research, that I'm actually Jewish and my great grandparents on my mom's mom's side converted to Catholicism when they emigrated here...just explains a lot. I am learning Hebrew because it is my heritage. Oh, and Abby and McGee are right. Hebrew is hard. The alephabet is like reading hoof prints in sand! Speaking it and understanding it is easy. Reading and writing it is hard.) I guess that's an infection of a very good kind that bled over from the cast and crew of the show to us, here, in this community. I'm still new here and feeling my way, but thanks for...everything. More reviews telling me what's good and what needs to be worked on to make me a better writer is always appreciated.
Life at the end of the school year, as a teacher, was awful and hectic and I needed to decompress. I was also attacked and fought off that attacker and bore three broken ribs because of it. Jackass gets jail sentence. Better now and he's seeing five to ten. I looked into Krav Maga (Ziva is trained in that, being retired Mossad and that was the Mossad developed hand to hand technique) and it only took me some time on YouTube to watch and observing and then taking a couple of free classes. It was a rush to be able to defend myself without thinking! Guess I have a tiny bit of Ziva in me. Going for the belts once doc clears me for it.
5/7/14 Update...Lots of stuff has happened since I last looked at this fic. My mom collapsed right before the American Thanksgiving and had to be hospitalized and needed the care of a nursing home. She passed away 3/12/14. Life has been hectic, as you can well imagine. I wrote some one shots to just keep the creative juices flowing, but not enough to continue here. USA network showed the whole Somalia sequence today and I feel inspired for the first time in nearly a year. Be gentle and kind in your reviews because this might not be up to standard. I'm trying my best.
The day started out good. DiNozzo and McGee were at their usual bickering and Ziva was finally feeling confidant again. Gibbs signed off on her application to be a full-time NCIS Agent. She was flying high. She even managed to "scare" Tony and it actually felt like it used to be before Somalia; before Michael; before Somalia and all the horrors; the horrors... McGee was even going to fast track her Agent Application for her in exchange for her writing up his ROI's. Then she was blue flagged and red lighted, or was that red flagged and blue lighted; red white and black? Black, blue and red? What? She was thrown off balance...Penguin in a blender? A nun falling down stairs?... What the hell were Tony and McGee talking about? Why? Then, just as the panic and fear began to settle in, Director Vance appeared and she went with him to the Conference Room. Ziva was going to have to relive it all. Dear god, she was going to have to relive it all! How without losing her mind?
Suddenly, she was surprised that Vance wasn't going to make her go back in time to the camp, but to the Damocles and the events that lead up to her trekking by herself into the Somalian desert and...THERE. Relief flooded her. He didn't want to hear about her time in Somalia. Thank God for that because she didn't think she'd remain sane if she had to tell him, in detail (because Vance would accept nothing less...as would have had Jenny Shepherd in her official role of Director, no matter how sympathetic she would have been, being female). He wanted the events leading up to her leaving Malachai behind and striking off on her own with blood in her eyes and death in her heart. Yet, those were Mossad orders, yes? She would have to be very careful to skirt the line between what she could and could not tell him. She would tell him what she could and that started with Daniel Shalev.
She told Vance what she knew, all the while her stomach boiled with guilt, fear and regret. Throwing up would not aide her now. It wouldn't make her feel better. It was too much. She was still too malnourished, shakey and traumatized...did Vance know this? She just wanted to go back to her room at the Navy Lodge and hide under her covers...or throw up until she couldn't stand anymore. Anything but talk to Leon Vance, her father's friend. Was he her's?
Shalev was not his surname, she discovered, but Cryer. Corporal Daniel Cryer of the United States Marine Corps. He went AU, or AWOL, six months before she ever laid her eyes on him, but, in her few short years with Gibbs, she could spot a U.S. Marine a mile away. No such thing as an ex-Marine. He slipped off the grid, like he was trained to for covert ops. She took a few moments to reflect on and suddenly felt the weight of them and how it did seem to hang precariously over her head. Sword of Damocles. How could anything in the world be so romantically poetic when her very life, because she took lives and did not feel the weight of them until now and was not the same person that casually just entered into the NCIS bull pen four years ago mean so much? She was gentler and softer, yet no less lethal, just more trusting, at least this version of herself lets her sleep at night.
As she began her narrative with Vance, she cautioned him, that although she was no longer Mossad, she could not tell him of the mission details, only the broad strokes or she would be committing treason in her homeland. Vance seemed to understand, yet not really appreciate the situation. She had to trust him. She could no longer trust Mossad or her father. She had to trust Vance.
She told him of how they met Cryer, then known to them as Daniel Shalev, and how he assisted them in getting passage on the Damocles.
After her first interview in the Conference room, she promptly threw up in the Ladies'. The pain and guilt and sorrow swirled inside her. She longed for Gibbs, Tony, McGee...the team to give her healing balm, but she knew that they were told to keep their distance from her. How unfair! How unfair! She needed them more than ever just then. The pain was terrible, but she had to soldier on and finish this business if she wanted to stay. What she wouldn't do for a smile from McGee or a wisecrack from Tony or a head slap from Gibbs...She HAD to rely on her Mossad training to get through this or she never would. She splashed water on her face and fought to keep the painful tears at bay. She had cried so much, so much, and it needed to be dealt with and stopped.
She threw up again when she heard the door open.
"Ziva?" Abby asked. "I know this is a hard day for you. Let me help you. Come out of the stall. You're a good person, no matter what. Let me be your friend."
Ziva opened the stall door in slow motion, frightened that Abby might just disappear in a heart beat. Abby enveloped her in an all encompassing hug, rocking her like a baby. "You're so scared. I can feel it. You don't have to tell me. I know. It's going to be a hard day, but you need to know we all believe in you. You can do this. I know it hurts so bad that I can't know how really hard it is. But you can do it. You are strong and beautiful and you can do this. Gibbs loves you. Tell him the truth. That's all he needs. Trust him. Trust us." Abby hugged her even tighter. "Ziva, I love you."
Ziva found her throat tight and close and choked with stupid, uncharacteristic tears. How she hated it! Yet, she adored Abby like she had Tali. Abby was a little sister, even if the forensic expert was a bit older. She found herself dissolving into tears, held by this sister of hers. "Tell me it will be alright because I do not think it will be. You do not know what-"
"He put more than a world of hurt on you and you're massively messed up right now," Abby said, continuing to rock her shattered friend. "It will get better. You have to believe that. I'm here and I'm not going away. Tell me anything. I'll get you through it. You can do this."
Ziva sniffed and mustered a small smile for Abby. "Yes, maybe I can. I can. With my family: yes."
"Okay, you go up and give Vance what he needs to put this shit to bed and then you come right here and let me take care of you. It doesn't matter if you feel you deserve it or not. You need it." Abby stated in the most forceful and no nonsense manner she had. Even Gibbs wouldn't cross that tone with her.
Ziva nodded, knowing not to cross the forensics expert. "Promise."
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It was horrible, more awful than her worst nightmares and they could be damned spectacular. Malachai showed up under her father's orders to throw her under the bus. She hated her father with every fiber of her being and would have set out on a suicide mission to kill him if she hadn't felt so sick and weak. Keeping her tough facade up in the face of official Mossad business just about did her in. At least it forced Malachai to finish the story. The shootings, Him murdering Daniel Shalev...Cryer. Malachai being injured and her being blinded enough by an overrriding desire to prove herself again to continue on with the mission...alone. She was so filled with hate and revenge and pain that she did not care about what might happen to her.
She was overpowered and taken and told Gibbs so and then dared to look up into his beautiful sky blue eyes and see that he felt that similar pain and somehow understood. A small sense of peace came over her and Gibbs rose and whispered softly in her ear and kissed her temple. He knew and understood. All was forgiven. This was her forever family.