Breaking Point

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Last chapter was all Washington-based; this one is all Israel. As I mentioned before, chapter division is dependent on word count and suitable cut-off points.

This chapter includes some of my musings on Somalia – loyalties, who abandoned whom – and what led Ziva to make the decision she did in early season 7.

Please please review! I want to know what you think, both good and bad (and if there are typos, please let me know so I can fix them). I really do appreciate reviews.

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Chapter 5: Flashbacks and Abandonment

At some point Ziva must have passed out – there was now moonlight, not sunlight, coming through the window. It had probably been mid-afternoon when she last remembered being conscious.

Panic swept over her and for a moment she was not in Israel but back in Somalia. She could hear Saleem's voice, demanding, taunting, threatening. The urge to curl up into a tight ball, to make herself as small and inaccessible as possible to protect herself from whatever might come, was overwhelming. She tried, but the rope scraped her skin and jolted her movement to a stop. Acute pain made her gasp aloud and she bit her lip in an effort to stifle it, as well as to prevent the threatening tears from falling.

No. This is not Somalia, she reminded herself firmly. They will come, and soon. Much sooner than last time because they do not think I am dead. Idly she imagined the video-conference row in MTAC between Vance and her father; the thought brought a smile to her face, despite the circumstances. Half of NCIS headquarters would probably be able to hear the scene, should it take place.

"What's so funny, David?" demanded the leader from the doorway.

It made her jump. Immediately she slipped back into a neutral, unreadable expression, and steeled herself for whatever the man was planning to mete out to her. She raised her head and met his eyes. "I do not believe I am familiar with your name, though I know your face and connection with my father."

"Mordechai." He sauntered towards her and slowly, deliberately removed a thin whip from his deep pocket, a sadistic grin on his face.

Ziva forced herself to not flinch back or show her fear as he cracked the whip and approached her. They will come, she reassured herself. They will come.

"This is not for today," Mordechai informed her. "Today is for other things. Today I have you all to myself…"

"What does Eli want from me?" asked Ziva suddenly, aiming to throw him slightly.

If he had been thrown by her question, Mordechai did not show it. "You mean your father."

Ziva snorted derisively. "Only through DNA."

"Yes, I heard about that. You're an American now." His eyes flashed and his face darkened. "You disowned him. Him, me, everyone else – your entire country. You abandoned Israel. How can you live with yourself?" His voice rose in anger and passion. "We fought so hard for so long to get our country; we are still fighting those who would see Israel wiped from the face of the Earth! How could you abandon it all?" He spat at her feet. "How could you abandon us?"

Ziva briefly closed her eyes. It hurt to hear his tirade: hurt because he could not possibly comprehend all that she had been through and how that had led her to the decisions she had made; yet at the same time hurt because she too had once had that passion, because she understood him all too well, because that had been her.

She held his gaze steadily. "I did not abandon Israel," she informed him coolly. "Israel abandoned me. When I was – when I was in Somalia, nobody from Israel came to rescue me. Nobody. But the Americans – they came. They rescued me. They came even though they believed me first to have abandoned and turned on them, then dead, yet they still came. Maybe you should be asking where Israel was then."

Crack!

Ziva sucked her breath in sharply as the whip slashed across her exposed arms and her chest, drawing blood and tearing her clothes.

"That is what happens when you are insolent!" Mordechai told her angrily.

"You asked me a question; I answered it," replied Ziva, far more calmly than she felt.

This time, Mordechai slapped her face, hard.

So it is going to be like that, she thought. Fine. Two can play at that game. If he does not like how I answer his questions, I simply shall not answer them. "What does Director David want from me?"

Mordechai shrugged. "You'll have to ask him that when he shows up."

"And when is that going to be?"

The whip was cracked against the wall, though near enough that she drew back protectively from it. Mordechai crouched down in front of her and put his face a mere few inches from hers. "I am the one who asks the questions!" he hissed furiously.

Despite the situation, or perhaps because of it, Mordechai's burst of anger brought sudden clarity to Ziva's thoughts. She now recalled how she'd seen him a few years ago, how her father had pulled him up on it. Her Mossad training clicked back into place and she began planning how to use those memories to her advantage.

With an incoherent hiss, Mordechai seized a fistful of her long, dark hair and pulled her head back so her throat was exposed. His other hand pulled a knife from his belt and, grinning, he lightly ran it across her throat a few times, intentionally not breaking the skin. "Such a pretty little thing," he whispered, his hot breath close to her ear. "Such a pity it is wasted on a traitorous wretch like you. You're an embarrassment to the family."

Grateful that the proximity of his mouth and face prohibited him from seeing her expression, Ziva rolled her eyes. He really does need to work on his interrogation technique, she mused. I could teach him so, so much.

"By the time I have finished with you," continued Mordechai, "no man will ever, ever want you. Everyone will know your shame."

"Did the Director order that?"

Crack. The whip again. More blood, more pain. She would not be surprised if Eli David had ordered such treatment – he was a ruthless man, had ordered her to kill her own brother, his own son, and he generally went to all lengths to get what he wanted. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly in an attempted to keep back her tears. Her team would not understand the full depths of the shame: it was a cultural thing, and they did not know how deep it already was after Somalia. Blame and fault were perceived differently by the Americans. Though she felt their view was much fairer, especially after all she had experienced in her own life, she could not simply erase with the ease of hitting the Delete button on a computer what had been ingrained into her as a daughter of Israel. She was helpless, defenceless, and there was nothing she could do about it except hope and pray. So as Mordechai placed his stinking, hot, slobbering mouth over hers, she prayed that Tony, McGee and Gibbs would come soon.

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TBC