Disclaimer:'Sigh', no Dementors, no Boy Who Lived so I guess we'll have to rely on us Tiva fans to get rid of She Who Blocks Much Tivaness. Everybody in? I am! NCIS is still not mine, but I can dream :)

A/N This chapter is my shortest yet. I originally had two different things planned out for this chapter, but I found that the first section was expanding more than I expected so I decided to split it up (which means an extra chapter). And for everyone who's wondering where the rest of the NCIS team is, I'm just setting up the story and they'll be long soon. In fact, the next chapter is pretty much all Ducky.

"No one is in control of your happiness but you; therefore, you have the power to change anything about yourself or your life that you want to change." - Barbara De Angelis
Chapter Six: Control

Present time

"What the hell was that!?!" Ziva yelled as she tore her eyes away from the plasma television which had just finished recounting a very private memory. "What gives you the damn right to pry into my personal life?"

"Ziva . . ."

"Don't." Ziva was livid. "Just don't."

"Zee," Tali started, reverting back to the nickname Ziva had while she was growing up, "please, just calm down."

"Calm down! Is that seriously all you can say? Calm down!"

"If you would just . . ."

"No!" Ziva exclaimed. "No, you are going to find whoever is in charge here and I'm going to have a nice long talk with them and then they're going to send me back to the real world. I will wake up in an awful hospital room, my boss will yell at me, Tony will quote some obscure movie and it will be back to normal."

"No can do, Ziva," Roy said.

"Well, why not?"

"We don't have the authority," Roy replied.

"Then get me someone with the authority."

"We can't do that either," Tali announced.

"What can you do then?" Ziva practically yelled. "If you can't send me back, if you can't find someone to send me back, what can you do?"

"We can help you."

"Help me? I don't need help. – What about Agent Todd? Can she get me back?"

"I thought you didn't like Kate."

"I don't, but if she can get me back then I'll pretend."

"She can't do that either," Tali answered.

"Why not?" Ziva asked again.

"Only you can do it," Roy explained.

"What?"

"When you are ready, then you will go back. Only you have the authority."

"Well, I'm ready. Beat me home."

"I think you mean beam me home."

"Yes, well, whatever. I'm ready."

"Then go," Tali said.

"How?"

"Just think 'I want to go home'."

"And I assume I have to click my heels three times, yes?" Ziva asked sarcastically.

"Only happens in the movies, Zee," Tali smiled. "Go on."

Ziva rolled her eyes. 'I want to go home,' Ziva thought, feeling very stupid. She didn't move.

"Not working."

"Try closing your eyes."

Ziva did this and when she opened them, she was still standing in the same spot as before.

"You're not ready, Zee," Tali concluded.

"Yes, I am."

"Maybe in your head, but not in your heart," Roy clarified.

"My heart? What's my heart got to do with this?"

"Everything," Tali replied softly, "everything."

Ziva growled as she sat down on the couch. "Why me?"

"Simple," came Kate's voice, "you have issues."

"Issues?" Ziva asked, annoyed that Kate had returned. "What issues?"

"Well, for starters there's your attitude . . ."

"Kate," Roy warned.

Kate sighed. "Fine, it's not your attitude, but I have to say . . ."

"Caitlin!" Roy said exasperatedly.

"Okay, okay. There's the issue of control."

"I am perfectly in control."

"You may be, but you weren't always."

"Yes, I was," Ziva said quickly.

Kate looked around and rolled her eyes. "Why did you take up piano?"

"My father said that it was a good skill for a person to have."

"What about ballet?"

"Co-ordination," Ziva replied immediately, "father said I was too clumsy."

"Spanish?"

"My father believed . . ."

"Turkish?"

"Father . . ."

"Krav Maga?"

"Father wanted me to . . ."

"Can't you see the pattern?" Kate interjected. "It's always your father telling you what to do."

"She's right, Zee," Tali added. "It was the same with me . . . and Ari" Tali added Ari as an afterthought. Kate's face darkened. "You know he was prepping us for Mossad."

"So?"

"So!" Kate exclaimed. "So, your father has been controlling you from day one."

"Why would you care?"

"I don't," Kate answered, "but my job does. I'm just doing my job."

"Oh, because you're doing such a brilliant job at it," Ziva said sarcastically.

"Stop," Roy ordered, glaring at the two women, "I am not here to referee your catfights. Grow up both of you. Stop acting like spoilt teenagers."

"She start . . ." Ziva and Kate said together.

Roy cut them off. "DO NOT SAY SHE STARTED IT! What are you, like five? Nobody started anything, okay."

"But . . ."

"No buts, either of you. I am seriously starting to get a headache."

"Headache? Can you even get headaches," Ziva inquired. "I thought you were dead."

"I am, it's just . . . never mind," Roy sighed. "Do you think you two can handle behaving like adults?" Roy looked at Ziva and then at Kate. They eyed each other warily.

"God, what is wrong with you two?"

"I'll behave if she does," Kate said finally.

"Ziva?"

Pausing, Ziva replied, "I guess so."

"Good, thank you," Roy sighed with relief.

"Back to the topic at hand," Roy started, "Ziva, it's obvious that you have been letting your father dictate most of your life." Ziva looked like she was about to object. "Don't disagree with me Ziva, you know it as well as I do."

"He was just being a father." Ziva was surprised that she was defending him.

"You know you don't believe that, Zee," Tali piped up. "If he was being a father, he would have been at our recitals or watching us perform or graduate."

"He just wanted what was best for us." Ziva found herself defending her father again.

"If he wanted what was best for us, he would have spent more time with us," Tali replied. "It's no wonder Ari turned out to be a psychopathic terrorist."

"Finally someone agrees," Kate muttered and Ziva sent her a death glare.

"Let's not bring Ari into this, Tal."

"Okay, let's say if that hunky looking partner of yours . . . err . . . Tony, that's it, asked you to strip and give him a lap dance would you do it?"

"No," Ziva replied, almost a little too quickly.

"If it was your boss . . . um, Gibbs?"

"Gosh, no."

"That's exactly my point, Zee," Tali pointed out. "You wouldn't do what Tony or Gibbs asked you to do because you didn't want to, but with father, whatever he asked, you would do."

"That's a bad thing?"

"Yes, if you let it take over your life."

"I didn't."

"Tell me one activity you did growing up that was actually your idea," Tali challenged.

Ziva was silent.

"My point exactly! You never did anything for yourself. It was always to please father. You've been letting him control your life. Letting him dictate it, Zee."

"I don't even talk to him anymore," Ziva pointed out, "so how can he . . .?"

"He's not, Ziva," Tali replied, "he's not controlling you any more because you're controlling you. You're finally doing things for you. Mossad and Israel couldn't do that for you, but America and NCSI can."

"It's NCIS, Tal, Navel Criminal Investigative Service. It's only NCSI if you're dyslexic."

"Sorry, I get confused."

"I noticed."

"Anyways, NCIS was the best thing to happen to you, Zee."

"It was?"

"Yes, you're happier, more relaxed. Controlling your own life. Doing what you want to do?"

"But I'm still a Mossad officer."

"In name only," Tali replied. "When was the last time you conducted an interrogation and physically harmed your suspect?"

Ziva didn't know what to respond with.

"Exactly," Tali smiled. "In Mossad, that's pretty much all you did. That's pretty much what your whole division did, but now you have self-control. Even though you have been trained to extract Intel using force, you pretty much don't anymore."

Ziva looked at Tali.

"It's a good thing, Zee," Tali reassured her, "a really good thing."