Chapter 14 –

The following morning, Tali caught the school bus, which stopped conveniently close to their apartment, which Tali found surprising, since she hadn't caught the bus before. When she asked why, Ziva gave some mumbled excuse, but the truth was that driving her just felt safer. Ziva had never been the best driver – anyone who had been in a car with her could tell you that – but sending her little sister on a bus with a stranger had just seemed scary after they had lost their mother. To an eighteen year old kid with no one else, she wouldn't dare put her in danger. No one would be responsible for hurting Tali.

Okay, so this conflicted with the whole 'going out at night, all night' thing. But perhaps she had been making up for her shortcomings in any way that she could. Maybe the urge to drive her sister was also somewhat born out of guilt.

On the nights that she didn't come home until daylight, Tali would always get pancakes for breakfast, though sooner or later, Tali realised a pattern. Ziva remembered one morning, about three years earlier, the first time Scorpion had made her stay at a party all night:

February 27th, 2010:

"There we are, pancakes for my favourite sister," Ziva had said, with all the cheer she could muster in her sleep-deprived state.

"Why did you make these?" the little girl had asked. Even then, she had been keenly observant.

"I thought you deserved a treat."

"I didn't do anything."

"Sometimes," she said, her voice breaking a little. "Sometimes you don't have to." Tali frowned at her.

Tali didn't get it. Or she did. Either way, it was making Ziva feel ill. How could she leave her little sister alone all night? Ziva made fists in the fabric of her shirt, smearing flour everywhere. Her chest felt tight and her mouth dry. She felt tears well up in her eyes and she sat down across the table, willing them to go away.

'Stop it,' she had told herself. 'Stop crying. Not here. Not now. You can't cry here, in front of her. You hold it in. You wait until one of those men has you by the neck or the waist and you scream into his pillow or into his kiss. But you do not cry in front of her, you hear me?'

Ziva thought of the men. Sleazy and vile, every one of them. She had begged the man in charge just to let her dance. She was good at dancing. She could fake a smile through dancing. She never asked for . . .this. This cruel seizing of her liberation and whatever purity that Israel and her father had not stolen from her years ago. Scorpion said she had to build character. All his girls loved to dance, but they never wanted the hard work.

"No one starts at the top," he would say. "You have to earn your hips, darling girl."

She was yet to meet a kind person in the world without her mother. She'd become distanced from her friends and few family members in Israel had called. Their Ima had had very little family left when she died and the people on their father's side were none too fond of her.

And it was all this and more that surfaced the tears that morning. Tali held her hand and stroked her hair and comforted her as best as a nine year old orphan could. But she could not hide the look of pure terror on her face. Ziva had scared Tali that day and it had haunted her ever since.

"Ziva?" the young girl asked as her sister's tears stained her school dress. She didn't hear. "Achot?" she tried again. Ziva looked up. It was Hebrew. Tali barely ever spoke Hebrew anymore. It reminded her of their parents. She had spoken the word 'sister'. And, translated to English, "protector that bonds and impresses".

Protector. Tears would not protect Tali. It was likely that very little in Ziva's power actually would. Ziva had learned of the inevitability of human mortality very early in life; they both had. But even still, Tali made Ziva stop crying.

Ziva lifted a hand to the girl's rosy cheek and touched her characteristically messy curls. "Why don't you eat your pancakes, little one, before they go cold?"

Tali ran her fingers along the edges of the plates, hesitating, and eventually pushing towards Ziva.

"I think you should have them."

"I made them for you."

"You deserve it."

Ziva engulfed Tali in a hug, and by the time she let her go, the pancakes had gone cold.

...

Ziva made pancakes for the two of them that morning, determined to rid them of their negative connotations.

"We have to eat them in good spirits, Talia," she explained.

"But why? Can't I just have cereal?"

"No," Ziva insisted. "This is not a bad thing, today. I am going to work and I'm going to come home later but I will be home all night. And every night from now on. I am doing this for you. For both of us."

"What about Tony?"

Ziva frowned. "What about Tony?"

"Didn't you do this for him, too?"

"What makes you think that?"

"Because," Tali answered. "He works where you're working and he's the one that tried to get you the job in the first place."

Ziva shook her head. "I know he did, and I am very, very grateful to him but this is not about him, tateleh, this is about you and me. We are a family, and I won't have it being a broken family anymore. I want to be honest and for everything to be normal for you."

Tali paused in thought, and then said, "If we're being honest, can I ask you something?"

"Of course," she answered calmly, but she was scared of what she might have to face. She could not lie to Tali.

"Where was it that you went at night? Where did you go that you're so afraid of going now?"

Ziva cleared her throat. She bent down so that she and Tali were at eye level and placed her hands firmly on her shoulders. "The man in here, last week? The bad man? He would pay me to go to parties and dance for them and to . . .they were not always kind, Tali, you must understand that."

"Were any of them kind?"

"If I was lucky, they were at least civil, but there was one man who was," she smiled and laughed softly. "He was lovely to me. Right from the beginning. From the second I looked in his eyes I knew he was different than the others. It took me a long while and a lot of persistence on his part to figure out why."

"Was it Tony?"

"Yes, Tali. Happy now?"

"One more question."

Ziva sighed, though she wasn't really exasperated with her sister. "Yes?"

"Do you like him?"

"Do I like him?"

"You know what I mean. As more than a friend."

Ziva's smile faded, and she moved her mouth wordlessly for a few seconds. Eventually, she swallowed, placed a hand on Tali's back and told her kindly to eat her pancakes. Tali just chuckled to herself.

"What? I didn't say 'yes'," said Ziva.

"You didn't say 'no' either."

A/N: Sorry for the delay in updates, I've been really busy. Please review :D