Here's the second chapter.
I would absolutly love to know what you think so far, I know I haven't written much, but I would appreciate to know what you think of my writting - whether you love it, like it, or hate it. I just want to get a picture of how many people are wanting to read or are interested in my story.
I won't beg.
Disclaimer: Not mine. I do not own any characters or NCIS, they belong to the rightful owners. Full disclaimer in the first chapter.
"Ziva, I will not have this conversation with you right now. You would not understand," Rivka said turning to face her daughter completely.
"Why not?"
"Because, Ziva, the reasons I married have nothing to do with you. Marriage is the bond between two people, a bond I thought your father and I had,"
Ziva stood up straighter and held her head up higher, "Seems like a bit of a forceful bond. I don't understand, if there were problems, you would have known about them before hand,"
"Your father is a very persuasive man, a trait that you seemed to have acquired and know how to use well, Ziva. Go and do you home work," she said before turning back and continuing what she was doing.
Ziva stormed into her room and slammed the door. Ziva was not stupid. She was 16; her parents married just over 16 and a half years ago. If Ziva's math was right Rivka would have been around three months pregnant with her when she married.
She was the reason they were forced into marriage, most likely from her mother's father, Rivka's father wouldn't have hidden the fact that he was disappointed in her. It would also explain the reason that she never saw her grandparents on her mother's side.
The more Ziva thought about being forced into the marriage, the more it made sense. Ziva could empathize with her mother slightly, she wasn't pregnant, but she knew what it was like to constantly be after your father's approval.
Ziva seemed to get the approval when she achieved something that he encouraged, that is why she continues to train. There was that and the fact that a few years ago when Ziva and Ari were talking. They had worked out that Eli would want both of his daughters to follow in his foot steps, and although Ziva found what she was learning and enjoyed the relief of letting anger out and the adrenaline that coursed through her veins to also be enjoyable, she could see the practical side of it.
She enjoyed learning how to hold and use guns, to be able to aim with deadly accuracy, or to be able to throw a fatal knife.
A strong part of her felt as though she needed to help defend and protect her country. She got this from her father.
She sat on her bed and relived the conversation that she had had with her father not long after they left him...
Ziva walked the hall to her father's office. It was her second year at her new school; she had built a reputation for herself. An under the radar one. She didn't like being centre of attention so she remained to herself.
One group of people had worked out who she was and who she was related to though. Ziva was ten at the time and didn't know how to fully deal with bullying. Especially when they hit.
She knocked once on the office door and let herself in. Eli saw who it was and stopped what he was doing, giving his short attention to his eldest daughter. He really didn't want to listen to her complain about moving again.
Like the obedient, respectful daughter she was, she stood up straight on the opposite side of his desk and waited for him to address her.
"Yes, Ziva?" he asked.
"I want you to teach me how to fight," she said.
"I will, all in good time. If I do now your mother will find some way of killing me," he said. Not that he cared, Rivka would never be able to lay a hand on him.
"She will not find out," she said stubbornly as always.
He looked at his daughter and felt proud of her. She was asking him to teach her to fight. He had Ari and Eli had plans for him, but to have his daughter want to know how to fight was something completely different.
"Okay," he said not asking questions, "If you can get away from your mother for a few hours on the weekend I will begin to teach you," he said.
As much as he wanted to teach her, he needed her to be intelligent so he could leave his options open for her. So she had to stay in school.
Ziva felt a smile appear on her face. After a few lessons she could finally get her revenge on the group of people that picked her to pick on.
A few months later she had been expelled from that school after she retaliated and hit back one day. That was how she ended up at her school and when she was told by her father not to use her training at school.
Ziva laughed once at the memory of the look on the guys face when she had hit back.
Ziva thought back to then, back to when she asked her father to teach her to fight. That was the first time Ziva could remember seeing him proud in her. She had seen him proud of Ari and Tali multiple times. It was as if they were his favourites. It pushed her to try harder.
She never questioned a thing that Eli said or did, but when he was trying to get Tali to begin to train, that bothered her.
Tali was like that kid everyone knows that always sees the best in every situation, the one who sees no evil, that after the storm everything will be okay and be as it was before the storm.
Out of Eli's three children, she was the most innocent. She inherited that off her and Ziva's mother. She hadn't been exposed to the real world and that wasn't because she was the youngest and they sheltered her, it was because she only saw what she wanted to, the good.
It bothered her when he tried to recruit her. She remembered her conversation with her brother when she was fourteen, two years ago.
They were sitting on the balcony outside of her brother's room at her father's house, watching the day go by.
"I do not want Tali to become like him, Ari, her soul is too pure, to innocent to become like him," She knew what her father could be like to people, especially officers and other workers from his work, she didn't believe that with his family, but it did not matter. She didn't want Tali to be burdened with what properly trained officers were capable of.
"I know, she does not understand. I don't think Abba does either, he wants you too," he replied.
"He can have me, I just don't want him to have Tali for that purpose," she said, "Tali wouldn't know what to do with herself. She deserves a better life than Mossad could offer. She deserves to have a husband, a family," she finished.
She saw him nod, "And you don't?"
"I didn't say that, but there are people out there who would prefer to be with Tali over me. She deserves a lot more than in do, I am too rebellious, and she hasn't seen what the real world holds, she doesn't want to see that so she doesn't," Ziva explained/
"That is not the only reason, is it?" he asked.
"No. I know that I am too far gone to be able to prevent it. I enjoy the guns and the action and the knives and the adrenaline. I have been around him longer; I am too much like him. If she were to die out there, I do not know what I would do," she explained.
He nodded again, understandably.
She had a plan, "Maybe, you could talk to Abba, tell him to leave Tali, to put all of his focus into me. I would get a lot more out of it," he looked at his sister, "I mean you know why a few years ago why I wanted him to teach me to fight. But the other night I was thinking and realised that I was doing it more because if I tried harder he would focus on me more than Tali,"
He did not wish this on either of her sisters. He also knew that if Eli didn't have at least one of his daughters he would fight for full custody. Rivka deserved to see her children. Even if it was only one.
If he had to choose which of his sisters would continue with their fathers excessive training it would be Ziva.
She had a bigger sense of patriotism, nationalism. She was more comfortable with the 'boyish' things that the job would include and for some strange reason, she had a natural talent with aim, any sort of gun or knife. She could pick up any gun or knife and be able to hit a target in the bulls eye give or take two or three centimetres. The point was Ziva would get more out of it, would do a better job, and more importantly be able to cope with it. She in a way was a lot stronger than Tali.
Tali had big brains; she would be a doctor or get into a career with high paying money helping the less fortunate. Not that Ziva didn't, she was also smart, and she was also more then capable of getting into any of those jobs. The kindness and compassion came from Tali and Ziva's mother. They both had it. Tali just had more.
He nodded again, "I will speak to him. I won't say those exact things but I will make sure she doesn't get harassed by Abba. I don't think he would appreciate being told his eldest daughter doesn't want her sister in because she would blame her self if anything were to happen. He would see it as one thing: weakness,"
She fell back onto her bed landing on her back and thought about her parents.
She knew that sneaking out of her mother's house every other night wasn't nice; she had a feeling that if her mother were to find out Ziva would be all but dead, metaphorically specking.
A part of her also knew that in whatever Ziva decide to excel in her mother would all ways support her, even if Rivka didn't approve of it. She knew that sneaking out and training with her father would make her mother disappointed in her, but she would accept it and offer to help. It was just the sort of person Rivka was.
Eli on the other hand was a harder man to impress. She never got encouragement or support from him when she used to dance. He only wanted one thing from her, and now he was getting it.
Eli would only offer support and approval when it was an activity that he approved of. She had to fight for his approval, which is why she snuck out, why she did what ever it was he wanted to please him. And still - to Ziva - it never felt as though it was good enough, she didn't feel like she was making her father proud, no matter how much she tried, no matter how much she succeeded, it was never good enough.
Ziva sat up retrieved her bag and began her homework. She lost track of time when she heard her mother call her for dinner.
She walked through the house until she reached the dining room, where she took her seat and ate in silence. She heard her mother and sister try to make small talk with her, but Ziva was giving her Mother the cold shoulder and didn't want to talk to Tali, because once she started she was almost impossible to stop.
After dinner she told her mother and sister that she was going to bed. She walked up to her room and looked out the window: sunset. Still light enough to walk. She got changed into her three quarter black pants, deep purple t-shirt, and sneakers.
She waited a few more minutes before walking to her already closed door and locked it, and then she walked to her window. She carefully opened the window then popped the fly screen from its place in the frame. She climbed through the window and sat the fly screen on the frame so it looked like nothing had been tampered with and walked down the road to her fathers place.
Eli is in the next chapter.