Ziva sat there, motionless and staring blankly out the window. Tony glanced over the teacher's shoulder and watched her, concern etched into his sharp features. He forced himself to focus on the account the teacher was telling him but his mind kept wandering back to Ziva.
'Focus,' he told himself sharply. 'Listening will help Ziva more in the long run because then we can find her daughter.' He frowned . 'Whom she never told me about,' he added drily.
'And then they left. She just followed behind like a lost puppy,' the teacher concluded. Tony stared at him and then nodded abruptly.
'Thanks.' Tony smiled at the man and walked over to his partner. 'You okay?' Her eyes flicked towards him but didn't focus on his face. She nodded, almost imperceptibly. His face contorted into some kind of sympathetic grimace and he sat down next to her. 'This was where she sat?' It was more of a question than a statement even though he knew the answer. When he got no reply he continued to talk to her, saying what he imagined her saying to him if she was a bit more open. 'You are sitting where she is sitting, seeing what she saw everyday, but still you don't feel her. You don't know her.' Ziva bit her lip. 'You didn't even know she was here.' Tony's voice had risen to a squeak. He had started off trying to cheer her up but now that he thought about the situation all his sympathy towards his friend had evaporated and he was just angry. She had abandoned her daughter. Just left her. And even now that her daughter was gone, she didn't seem to be showing any kind of remorse for ditching her daughter, she just seemed to be sad. Tony opened his mouth again to voice these feelings but shut it again. Anything he said now he would regret later. He felt fury bubbling inside of him, threatening to boil over. All this time he had felt sorry for her because of her bad relationship with her father, she had fuelled this sympathy, and yet all this time, she had her own daughter who she had done the exact same thing to. He took one more look at her drooping face, spun around on his heel and strode off. Ziva didn't deserve his attention but her daughter did. She was just a child who needed to be saved. He had to forget that she was Ziva's daughter. She was a girl who needed him. An unloved child.
He thought back over the story told by the teacher. Five armed men walk into the classroom, the girl stands up, chats with the men and leaves, perfectly willingly apparently. Yet, Gibbs was insisting that is was a kidnapping but he wouldn't tell who was telling him. Tony doubted that Gibbs knew who ultimately was the holder of this vital piece of knowledge but suspected that Gibbs knew that whoever this person was, they knew or they had enough authority over Gibbs to persuade him that he knew though Tony couldn't think of anyone who had any kind of genuine authority over Gibbs. Tony shook his head fiercely to rid himself of these confusing thoughts. To find this girl he needed to be thinking clearly and if he got worked up about Ziva and Gibbs that wouldn't happen. He nodded to himself and, consolidating this thought with forceful actions, he decided to question the students to find out about the girl.
Ziva watched Tony jog down the stairs. She could tell that he was angry with her but she found that strangely she didn't care. Usually when he was angry she knew that he would forgive her soon but this time she wasn't so sure. The anger was a different kind to the anger he had had about Rivkin, instead of fury there was hostility and disapproval. These thoughts came to her calmly but even the fact that she didn't care did not alarm her. All her life she had buried her feelings but when it came to her estranged daughter she did not just bury them but she expelled them. She never allowed herself to think of her or question how she might be feeling and now the forced emotionless attitude towards her daughter had become natural. She wasn't making a conscious effort not to be affected by this, it just happened. Her face had become pale when she got the news because she had almost forgotten her daughter and hearing the name had startled her but she hadn't been worried for her daughter. Her daughter did not need any sympathy or concern.
Her daughter did not deserve any sympathy or concern. Her daughter was not worth spending a second investigating. Yet here she was. Trying to find her daughter. The daughter that deserved to be abandoned. She had no choice.