He waits on her couch, in silence for ten minutes. Finally she comes out of the bedroom, and hands him his phone. She lowers herself onto the coffee table. She makes eye contact, signaling to him that she's serious.

"Tell me," he insists.

"I have made a lot of mistakes, in my life."

"Everyone has."

"Not like this," she argues.

"This case hit too close to home?"

"Yes," she nods.

"Whatever it is, you can tell me," he reassures her.

"I know, but you can never tell anyone else."

"Ok," he agrees.

"I was fourteen," she answers.

"When?"

"To answer your question from earlier."

"Oh. I see," he replies, suppressing the urge to gasp.

"I don't think you know the half of it."

"So tell me."

"I convinced my mother, to let me be a foreign exchange student, for three months."

"Where?"

"Florida."

"And?"

"The girl was my age. She had an older brother. He was seventeen, or eighteen. The night I left for the airport she had a track meet out of town, so her brother drove me. We got to the airport early, and we had time to kill. He told me that he wanted to give me a going away present. I liked him, I thought that he was cute. When he kissed me, I thought that was the going away present, but it wasn't."

"So this case hit way too close to home?"

"He definitely gave me a going away present."

"It was a bad experience?"

"It was terrible. It was sloppy, and quick, and... it just wasn't what I imagined."

"He took your innocence."

"I... I wasn't the same person after that."

"How do you mean?"

"My life changed. I didn't want it to, but it did. Sometimes there are things that you just can't stop."

"Like what?" he furrows his brow.

"Some parting gifts last longer than others. I don't think that they are supposed to include morning sickness, but..." she trails off.

"But?"

"Mine did," she reveals.

"You were fourteen?"

"Yes."

"What did Eli say?"

"I didn't tell him," she admits.

"And your mother?"

"I almost didn't tell her. At first I was in complete denial about the whole thing. Once I realized that it wasn't going away, I... I felt ashamed. I didn't want her to know. So I hid it from her."

"For how long?"

"Months. She found out on my fifteenth birthday."

"That's when you chose to tell her?"

"I didn't tell her. She wanted to take me shopping for my birthday, and I didn't want to go. When she asked me why... I started crying. I told her that nothing fit. She thought that it was because I was growing. I made the mistake of telling her that I couldn't even make my pants button. She didn't believe me, so she made me show her."

"That's how she found out?"

"And she thought she could fix it."

"Fix it?"

"She thought that I would want to fix it, but... I didn't."

"Why is it that you have never mentioned this?"

"It is a touchy subject. I don't like to talk about it. I hate even thinking about it."

"Why?"

"Because then I have to think about all of the things that I did wrong. All of the selfish things that I did. I made so many mistakes, and I wish that I could take them back."

"That's what the look was, in the interrogation room?"

"What look?" she questions.

"You had this look on your face, that I couldn't discern. You identified with the victim. And you didn't want me to see that, you didn't want Gibbs to see that."

"There are a lot of things about me, that I don't want you to see."

"I know."

"This is different. Of all the things I have done. Of all of the decisions I have made, this is the one I wish that I could change. I have done a lot of bad things. I have taken a lot of lives. And, yet this is the thing that I would change."

"I get it, but you can't be so hard on yourself. You were a kid."

"It doesn't matter."

"So this is why you don't talk to your mother?"

"I don't talk to her, because I have never been able to forgive her, for the choices that she forced me to make. I wish that I had other options."

"What options did she give you?"

"It was too late, to end it, not that I wanted to. She wanted me to, but I refused. So she told me that I could give him up for adoption, or she would raise him. She thought that she was protecting me. She wanted me to get to have the remainder of my childhood. She didn't want me to resent him, but... it wasn't that simple. Any child who has one of their own, is no longer a child."

"I don't know what to say," he admits.

"There is nothing to say. I made bad choices. I was fifteen when he was born."

February 18th, 1998

She sits in a hospital room. Her mother sits in a chair, holding the newborn baby boy.

"Are you done?" she questions.

Her mother looks up at her, "Done?"

"Holding him?"

"No."

"I want to hold him."

"Ziva, I don't think that is a good idea."

"I want to hold my baby."

"Ziva I..."

"Now!"

She rises from the chair, and walks across the room. She stops at Ziva's bedside. She places the bundle in her arms.

"We're going to call him Zachariah," her mother reveals.

Ziva looks at the sleeping baby, and then up to her mother. She shakes her head, "No, we're not. He is my baby. I am going to name him," she argues.

"Ziva..."

"No. We are not going to call him Zachariah. I've told you that a hundred times. His name is Caleb."

"I think that..."

"I don't want to do this. I am his mother."

"You are fifteen. You have no idea what it takes, to be someone's mother. You are not ready to be his mother. It is better this way. You don't really have any other choices, do you?"

"This isn't fair. He's mine."

"Life isn't fair."

"You don't think that I know that? I am fifteen, and I have a baby. I was in labor for thirty-six hours, and when he was born you wouldn't even let me hold him. And now you're telling me that I can't name him? That it's better if I'm not his mother?"

He looks at her. She exhales.

"You were her baby, she was trying to do what she thought was right," he justifies it to her.

"But she didn't. The second I turned eighteen I left. I couldn't be in the same house with her, anymore. When I came home, she wouldn't even let me see him. After Tali died, she decided that it wasn't safe anymore, so she took him, and moved to Florida."

"Did you try to get him back?"

"How? I was already at Mossad by then. My father, didn't know about him. My mother took him out of the country. What was I going to do? Kill her? That wasn't an option."

"Are you angry at her, or are you angry with yourself?"

"Some days I don't even know. Sometimes I wonder if she was right. Maybe I had no place being his parent. Maybe it was best for him..."

"But?"

"The voice in the back of my head always says that it wasn't."

"Are you sure that Eli doesn't know?"

"Why do you ask?"

"It seems convenient the way things worked out. You were at Mossad, so you couldn't risk going to get him."

"My mother stopped talking to my father when I was young."

"Maybe I'm just paranoid."

"You think that he knows?"

"I am just saying, as much as your father knows, I would be surprised if he didn't. I mean he couldn't risk his greatest asset, for some kid."

"You're right, he probably does know. Caleb is twelve."

"When was the last time you saw him?"

"I haven't seen him since he was seven. She won't let me see him, anymore."

"Why not?"

"Because I tried to take him with me."

"So why did she call you, about him?"

"Because he doesn't want to live with her, anymore. He wants to live with me."

"He knows?"

"He's always known, and it kills her."

Ziva's phone rings. She finds it on the counter, plugged in to the outlet.

"You plugged my phone in?"

"I saw the charger on the counter."

She looks at the number on the caller I.D.

"Hello? Slow down. Why? What's wrong? You found what? How long?" she looks down at his watch, "Yeah, I'll meet him at the airport. No, I'm not sending him back. No, I'm not. I'm not playing this game anymore," she curses in Hebrew, and then hangs up.