Pivotal Moments
This chapter falls after Broken Bird (6x13): As Ducky tries to deal with his views on torture, Ziva struggles with her own past actions. This chapter and the next fall less into the parallel story I've created about Ziva and Michael and are more like regular episode tags.
Also, thanks for the reviews so far! And yes, I've been watching too much season 4/5 and accidentally put the wrong director in the last chapter. Oh well, I don't really buy Vance letting the team watch movies in MTAC even if it did happen in the show.
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January 2009: Washington DC
Ziva glanced through the doors of Autopsy before stepping close enough to trigger them. "Ducky?" she asked softly as she entered.
He turned quickly from where he'd been standing at his desk. "Ziva," he said stoically by way of greeting.
She looked him over carefully. Since he'd returned from the Afghan Embassy two days earlier, he had not been restored to his usual good cheer. The events of that day had been weighing heavily on her mind, too.
"Did you need something?" Ducky asked brusquely.
Ziva forced a smile. "Could I make you a cup of tea?"
He opened his mouth as if to protest, but seemed to think better of it. Perhaps this woman, of all of them, could advise him best how to process what he'd done. He gestured with one hand toward the tea cozy, and looked silently back to his work as Ziva heated water for their tea.
After a few minutes she set the steaming mugs out and called him over. "Ducky, come drink with me."
He settled on a stool across from her at one of the tables. "We might do better with bourbon," he said harshly.
"Ducky," Ziva began. "I have interrogated people in my career, and much more harshly than Gibbs does."
"Yes, my dear, but not innocent children," Ducky spat.
Ziva shrugged. "It can be hard to draw the line between what is acceptable and what is not."
Ducky deflated. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make light of what you've done, Ziva, but I'm not responsible for your actions."
"Yes Ducky," Ziva leapt at the point, "but circumstances forced yours."
"What's the point, Ziva?" Ducky asked. "There's no forgiving it, just living with it."
Ziva nodded once, then looked away, and Ducky finally paid attention long enough to realize something was bothering her, as well. "Ziva, what is it?"
She looked back at him. "Your actions I can understand, and my own—well, I know that any pain I inflicted was against those who would have hurt others and for the purpose of preventing the suffering of innocent people. I feel no true remorse for that. But in the past few days I could not help thinking—there are many people I have been close to in my life, in Mossad, who take torture very lightly. Of foreign operatives, of terrorists—and sometimes of witnesses, relatives of those who would act against Israel. And others, too, who use psychological tortures against the innocent, creating false relationships and using them for information."
"Tony?" Ducky asked.
Ziva looked at him, surprised. "What?"
"Like Tony, a few years ago," Ducky pointed out.
"Oh," Ziva answered. "I wasn't thinking of him."
"Do you blame him?" Ducky asked curiously.
She shook her head. "He wasn't laying out that op, the director was. Tony just followed orders. A...friend of mine is setting up an op right now, he's seducing this young woman to get close to people she knows who are probably terrorists--"
"A friend?" Ducky asked eagerly, teasingly, jumping—Ziva thought—right to the least relevant part.
"A man I know from Mossad," she said delicately. "Anyway--"
"And you're close?" Ducky followed up, "because that could certainly change your judgment of his seducing someone."
She sighed. He wasn't wrong. Two months ago, she wouldn't have called getting close to someone under false pretenses 'torture'; she would have laughed at anyone who had. "I simply meant to say that your experience has made me question those who take the pain of innocent people lightly, whether physical or psychological pain."
Ducky nodded. "I have the luxury of coming from a much more secure world than you do, Ziva, where I can believe that such abuse of citizens is unjustifiable."
Ziva pursed her lips, staring down into her tea cup.
"However," Ducky offered, "I imagine that for those in your line of work, it can seem unavoidable, and we must judge those who employ it by their intent as well as their actions."
"You think it matters that Michael feels guilty for abusing this girl's trust?"
Ducky's eyebrows arched at hearing his name, but he could see how tense Ziva was so he resisted teasing. "I think it separates him from a man who caused pain simply for the sake of causing pain and fear in those around him."
She nodded, relaxing a touch.
"But," Ducky continued, and Ziva's eyes jerked back to him, "like you said before—it's about drawing lines. And you must draw them for yourself, my dear." He tilted his head, evaluating her. "And there are other lines to draw about the type of people we get involved with, whom we find worthy of our own trust."
Ziva looked at him warily.
Ducky's cellphone rang on his desk, and he jumped up to answer it. Ziva could hear the sudden warmth in his tone as he greeted Jordan, and she smiled, slipping off the stool and slinking out the doors of Autopsy to give him some privacy. She didn't want to talk about this anymore, anyway. In the weeks since Michael had gotten settled in California, he'd kept her informed about his attentions to the younger sister of one cell member, but while she knew his actions were standard operating protocol, they also bothered her.
She hadn't made the connection to Tony, she thought as she stepped into the elevator, but Ducky was right, it was similar. Men using women. And in neither situation could she be sure that her judgment of their actions wasn't colored just a bit by her own feelings. But for now there was nothing she could do, nothing short of reporting Michael's disloyalty and getting him killed, anyway.
Ziva got out of the elevator in the bullpen and looked across to where McGee and Tony were laughing, Gibbs approaching stealthily from behind them. She smiled, then the smile faded from her face. She'd started to tell Ducky, but she knew that he would condemn her, too: she had done such awful things herself, tortured men and women in ways that cross lines she has since drawn for herself. It bothered her deeply, but there was no way to explain it to these people, not even Gibbs, though she assumed he could guess if he took the time to think about it. It was almost intolerable to remember the person she'd been, the person her father had made her to be.
"Ziva!" Tony waved her over to hear the joke, unknowing that Gibbs was two feet behind him.
She smiled at both of them, walking toward their desks. She much preferred it here, preferred who she was here. She only wished that her life was not still lived under her father's watchful eye.
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An index of earlier chapters, for your perusing pleasure:
Chapter 1—post-Hiatus, Rebekah and Ziva in Tel Aviv
Chapter 2—Last Man Standing, Ziva and Michael in Morocco
Chapter 3—Agent Afloat, Ziva and Tony in Colombia
Chapter 4—Nine Lives, Ziva and Michael in Israel
Chapters 5-6—Cloak/Dagger, Ziva in DC
Chapter 7—Roadkill, Ziva in DC
Chapter 8—Silent Night, DC
Chapter 9—Broken Bird, Ziva and Ducky