Making Mistakes
Just to clarify, I had to break them so that I could write this chapter. And while I understand your mixed feedback about the last couple chapters (in my defense, I was pretty hungover yesterday) I really hope you like this one! The third section is lifted from my series Conversations, about Gibbs and Ziva. Enjoy...
Tony read Ducky's report.
Then he read it again.
It said that Joanne had been holding the gun, facing the man who had just proposed marriage to her after dating her for some period of time. And then she had shot him. It sent a chill down Tony's spine.
He heard McGee draw a quick breath and glanced toward him. The other agent kept his screen angled too far away for Tony to read what he was working on, but Tony could make out enough to see that it was the same report he'd just been emailed. He stood and crossed to stand behind McGee, resting a hand on the younger man's shoulder as he leaned in to read the salient parts over again.
"It's hard to believe," McGee murmured, glancing back at him.
Tony sighed. "I know I always say suspect the spouse, but I sure didn't suspect the fiance this time."
"What is it?" Ziva asked, eyebrows furrowed, as she approached them from down the hall.
McGee winced. "It's in your email—Ducky's report about the murder. It's pretty clear from the evidence that Joanne has to have done it."
Tony watched as Ziva's eyes widened and her lips parted slightly in surprise.
"Let me see." She walked around the desk and nudged Tony to the side so she could lean in and read over McGee's shoulder.
I can only conclude that Ms. Fielding shot the victim in the chest, Ducky had written towards the end. Tony shook his head in disgust. "He thought she loved him, but that whole time she was setting him up to kill him."
Ziva looked at him warily, and only then did Tony realize how similar the case was to some moment from her past. "Grief can twist people up, Tony," she said slowly. "She is an old woman, and possibly unwell, and she blamed all the pain of her life on the men who took away her family."
Now he bristled. "You're defending her? Maybe you and Allison Hart should team up." Tony caught the warning look in McGee's eyes, but the words were out.
Ziva kept her cool. "I understand what she did but I do not condone it, Tony."
"You've done the same thing, haven't you?" he asked, his eyes hard.
She glared. "I was ordered to! My government said those people were a threat to humanity." Then she looked away. "But if you are asking...I do not think I could do it now."
Tony caught his breath in surprise. It hadn't been what he was asking, but the admission surprised him. He caught McGee's emphatic look of encouragement and rolled his eyes at the other man.
Ziva continued after a moment, turning to him thoughtfully. "We see people who betray those in their family or their team all the time, Tony. Why do you expect more from her than from the rest of the people we bring in?"
He was startled by the question, and answered instinctively. "She's part of Gibbs' family."
Her eyes narrowed."You expect more from those you love, or who you make part of your circle." Ziva stared into his eyes. "Can't we just be people too?"
Tony wasn't sure how to answer, stared back at her. Finally he licked his lips and spoke. "I expect them not to commit crimes. Is that so much to ask?"
She looked away, flinching.
"Not that it's a crime if you were ordered--" McGee tried to explain on his behalf, but the ding of the elevator and the sight of Gibbs and Vance bearing down on their section of the bullpen cut him off. Tony and Ziva rose to their feet behind McGee, ready to offer their support to Gibbs for Joanne's guilt.
*
Tony made it halfway the to theater to see Rashomon, relieved that Gibbs had found some way that the evidence made the lieutenant more guilty than Joanne Fielding, before the the weight of the words on loop in his mind become overwhelming. He's a drug dealer. He deserves to do time. The more it played, the more it sounded like Gibbs was condoning murder.
Almost without his conscious intent, Tony found himself outside Ziva's apartment. And once he was there he couldn't fight the urge to go in.
At the door he found her unsurprised to see him, her expression laced with the same deep-seated uncertainty he felt.
"Tell me why," Tony begged, the words coming before he'd planned them. She stepped aside, and only then did Tony realize she had her coat on, was headed out.
"Why what?" Ziva asked gently as she locked the door behind him.
Tony turned to face her. "Why did he let her go if she was guilty? She killed someone!" He was yelling but he couldn't help it. "He has to have a good reason," he insisted, pleading.
Ziva's eyes flashed in anger on top of her confusion. "How can you want a reason to forgive Gibbs for killing or letting murder go and not me? How is it different? He was a sniper, an assassin, he killed for vengeance without any license!"
His eyes flared in alarm as Tony realized what they were suddenly really talking about. He forced himself to slow down; when he spoke his voice was fervent but without quiet. "It's different, Ziva. I don't want to sleep next to Gibbs at night. I'm not asking him to raise my children."
Her face froze in surprise. But after a second Ziva dropped the new topic and returned to his question. "I cannot tell you why, Tony," she said slowly. She looked away. "Perhaps I judged you too harshly earlier for expecting...purity...from those you love." She met Tony's eyes. "I cannot stand this either," Ziva said, and Tony could see the conflict radiating out of her. "I was about to go ask him for answers. I have had too many people in my life who believe death is enough justice." She averted her eyes. "I think I love you more because you are not one of them." Ziva's voice dropped to a whisper. "I thought he was not either."
She met Tony's eyes briefly and he saw suddenly that she was as distraught as he was at Gibbs' betrayal of everything he had taught them to believe in. And even as his heart twisted at the reality of Gibbs' decisions, something else in Tony eased. In this situation, so similar to the story behind every name on the list that was still in his pocket, Ziva was on his side. It hurt that Gibbs wasn't, but Ziva was. He took a deep breath for what felt like the first time in days. He nearly smiled, but the hurt in Ziva's eyes wouldn't let him.
"Do you want to come with me to talk to him?" Ziva asked after a moment.
Tony drew himself up in alarm, then slowly shook his head. "No. Not yet, anyway."
Ziva nodded acceptance. She glanced anxiously toward the door, then back to Tony. "Will you wait here for me?" she asked carefully, her eyes suddenly so nervous.
He cringed inside at her expression. "Of course," Tony said softly.
She nodded once, swallowed hard. "I will be back in a little while."
Tony let her out and crossed to the window to watch Ziva drive away.
*
Gibbs was hard at work when Ziva showed up, eagerly fitting the wood of the interior of the boat together after his physical therapy-enforced hiatus. "Was wondering when you'd get here," he said lightly.
She took a seat at the bottom of the stairs, watching him seriously. "You had never mentioned her when you spoke of Shannon."
He shrugged. "When I first knew her, she lived in a town not far from Stillwater." His eyes followed his hands. "I'd lost my mom young. And when I met Shannon, we were still kids. Just eighteen." Gibbs glanced up at Ziva. "Joanne practically raised me too." He turned back to his work. "Those first years, when I was in training and Shan was in college, I'd go there on leave instead of to see Jackson."
Ziva nodded silently.
He frowned, bracing for a difficult admission. "We fell out when I took Shannon and Kelly away from her. Joanne raged at me. But it felt a little like losing my mom again."
She watched him, anguish in her eyes, too caught up in her own emotions to feel sympathy.
Gibbs looked up and mistook her expression. "It's been years, Ziva. At least we got to clear some things up now."
Ziva frowned, then spoke softly. "When I was a little girl, very little, my father was not yet of high rank in Mossad. He was an operative, and until I was six it was his job to locate and eliminate Nazis in hiding in Europe."
Gibbs raised his eyebrows in surprise at the seeming non sequitur. "Ziver?"
"I was raised to believe that vengeful killing was justified, Gibbs. I killed one of the men who was responsible for my sister's death with my bare hands."
He shrugged in tacit approval.
She watched him dolefully as she spoke. "Some people deserved to be murdered. That was the lesson my father taught me. And I learned it. Wholeheartedly." She paused for a moment. "And then he told me to kill my brother. And even when I stood right here, looking at his body, I believed that some people simply deserved it. That his actions had earned him death." Ziva looked up imploringly into Gibbs' face. "But you taught me otherwise. You made me see that justice can be had in many ways. It took that whole first year, but I finally understood that people can change, that if there is any chance for punishment within the law, lives should not be taken."
Gibbs stared into her face for a long moment, his eyes hardening. "You knew when Franks killed the men who'd brought Amira and her mother here. You didn't want me to arrest him."
She shook her head. "That was different."
"Why?" he demanded, irritable.
Ziva sighed, trying to find the words. "Because since then I have come to understand more of the world. My own death warrant was signed. And the person I was then is gone as surely as if my father had put a bullet between my eyes."
"You think I should arrest Joanne? And then maybe you and I could arrest each other?" His tone was harsh.
She frowned, her lips pursed. "I think that in this country, murder is a crime. I understand exactly what Joanne did, I sympathize. But it was wrong. And I know that you and I are sworn to uphold the laws of this country. Regardless of who breaks them."
"She was my mother!" Gibbs snarled.
"He was my brother!" Ziva snapped back, every muscle in her body tight with suppressed emotion. She took a deep breath. "And I was not asking you to kill her."
Gibbs slumped down beside her on the cold concrete floor, drained of his anger by the memory of Ziva's eyes as she prayed for the brother who had in one moment broken her heart and forced her hand.
Ziva gave a single bark of a laugh. "I really believed that you were the antithesis of my father. His opposite, a man with inflexible morals." Her breath caught. "But you are the same."
Her words stabbed through him. "Ziver." He begged for forgiveness with a single word.
She turned to him, her eyes desperately, disappointedly sad.
Gibbs voice grew gruff as he tried to defend himself. "I have a code that says that when people kill the people you love, you avenge them."
Ziva nodded wearily, then winced in self-judgment. "And I should have known that, all this time. You did not spare a moment for months from your search for Ari." She looked away, down at her hands. "After I killed him...I wanted to live in a world where there was forgiveness, where justice took long enough that you could heal your soul from the evil you had done." She whispered her last words: "I thought your world was like that. But I only wanted it to be." Ziva slid off the step, hugging her arms over the coat she had never taken off. She looked down at him as Gibbs began to rise and held up her hand. "Not right now, Gibbs. I—Just don't." Turning, she quietly climbed the steps and let herself out.
*
As Ziva unlocked the door to her apartment, her hands were shaking. She stilled herself, took a deep breath. The door opened in front of her and Tony pulled her inside, his eyes worried as he took in her expression.
"What did he say?"
Ziva walked slowly to the couch and sank down. "He knows that she is guilty, and he does not care. He believes in the same sort of justice as my father." She stared at her hands, tightly clenched around each other in her lap. "All that time in Somalia," she said softly, "I never cried for my father's betrayal. Even after everything, I did not cry because he had taught me that to cry was a weakness. But, Tony...Gibbs." A tear rolled down her cheek and then another, and as Tony pulled her tightly against him, he knew exactly what she meant. That in many ways it was worse to be betrayed by Gibbs who was her chosen family than by her father. That the wounds she had been slowly healing had been torn open anew. As Ziva let herself cling to him for a moment, Tony found tears on his own cheeks.
She recovered after a minute and pulled away, her cheeks still damp. She looked up at Tony with imploring eyes. "He had no remorse," she said almost fearfully. "He believes this was right, that Joanne is...justified."
Tony stared down into her naked eyes, then spoke. "It's just like his rule about apologies," Tony said roughly. "Never say you're sorry. Like now. He's gone against everything he's trained us to believe and there's no chance he'll apologize. Like there's no way to make up for what you've done wrong and there's no point trying."
Ziva nodded along.
Certainty rose up inside Tony as he spoke. "It does make you vulnerable. But that's not weakness."
Their eyes met. Ziva's widened as she sensed what was coming.
"I am so completely sorry, Ziva," Tony said intensely. "That I hurt you, that I walked out—but mostly that I thought you were anything like them."
One last tear pooled in her eye and Ziva blinked, suffusing her lashes with moisture. "Thank you, Tony," she said formally.
"Maybe we should make a rule about always apologizing," Tony murmured nervously.
Ziva's eyes leapt to his. Behind her pain there was a sudden hesitant joy.
Tony grinned and kissed her, hard, and for ten delicious seconds they forgot everything else.
Then Ziva pulled back. "Tony," she said slowly.
Tony wove his fingers through her hair. "Can we just take comfort in this now and figure the rest out later?" He was breathless already.
Ziva rested her forehead against his collarbone for a moment. She had no doubt that they would. So she pressed her lips to his throat, then leaned back and and kissed him again.