Chapter 31

As Ziva slammed her car door shut on the unseasonably warm spring day, all she could think was that she was home. The dance studio's looming white washed presence stood before her, backed by the white stretched out clouds and pale blue sky. Despite the suffocating noises of traffic and stained pavements, after a week in Israel she felt like she didn't mind the change. No matter how good it had been to reconnect with people from the past, it was nothing in comparison to the euphoria she got when seeing her studio again. This was the place that she had built up from the bottom up, the place that she was proud to say belonged to her, and only her, due to her own determination and hard work. Yes, she was definitely home.

"Get over it already," Tali said sensing Ziva's nostalgia, slamming her door behind her, and Ziva rolled her eyes at her younger sister. They had arrived home from Israel the night before with darker skin and white smiles. It had been too late, and what with the eight hour time difference, Ziva had been unable to check if her studio was still standing. It had been the first time since setting the place up that Ziva had left it unattended, with at least one of the David's there to supervise at all times. It had not been difficult, whenever they chose to take a few days off in the summer, there were few people in the studio to begin with, and most of them didn't mind if Ziva closed the studio for a day of two. But with all three of the David's taking off at such short notice, Ziva would have been a nervous wreck, had all the assistant coaches not been there. They like Ziva had so much invested in the place, and Ziva knew that all they wanted was to help these young dancers, and do what they loved. Ziva knew that they all had the best of intentions, and they made parting with the studio temporarily easier. They had been a life saver for Ziva, managing to deal with the fact that their owner had needed to up and leave at such short notice. She had been receiving regular texts from them, about how the girls had been doing in competitions. Some of her older students who had her number had been texting her with how their auditions had been going, and if they had heard anything from them. But there was nothing compared to seeing the looks on the students' faces when they came out of that door, or hugging them when things had not gone just as planned.

Pushing open the doors of the studio, Ziva smiled at the girl at the front desk. She was one of her pupil's mother, who was basically a glorified paper pusher, and scheduler. But the mother seemed content with helping out, and Ziva was not oblivious to the fact that she had only taken the job to get on her good side. Some of these mums were crazy, doing anything they could to have their daughters progressing in the Broadway direction. Ziva never really enjoyed the politics of the mums, but this mother was not one of the bad ones. There had been better ones, yes. There had been worse.

"Ziva! You're back," the woman greeted her, and Ziva smiled and greeted her back. Even the mother's overly sugary introduction wasn't enough to dampen her mood. As they exchanged pleasantries, Ziva saw Tali move into one of the other studios, probably to see her own class and ask them how they survived without her. Laughing, Ziva moved to studio C to greet her own kids.

First thing on a Saturday morning only ever equated to one thing in studio C. And that was the little ones.

As she pushed open the door, she caught sight of all the kids in the long, full length mirrors that lined one wall of the dance studio. They were all on the bar, all faced one way with their feet pointed neatly in opposite directions. They were all clearly in that stage where boredom was setting in, and the kids looked as if they were ready for a break. And a break was what they got when Ziva walked in.

"Miss Ziva!"

Joyful cries went up all over the room, as the militant row broke formation in favour of greeting their returning leader. Ziva crouched down just in time, as countless little bodies found themselves in her arms. And now she was back. It wasn't because of the mothers that she enjoyed her work. It wasn't the reputation and the publicity she liked. It was the kids.

Pressing her head into the mass of squirming bodies, Ziva tried to greet them all in turn, trying to talk to them each so they all felt special. Which was somewhat difficult when every kid was trying to tell her something different. Nodding and smiling, Ziva tried to follow the excited chatter and animated hand gestures, as they all tried to relay what had happened in the past week from each of their unique points of view. Ziva was content listening to their noisy crowd until she heard a louder voice over the insistent rabble.

"I was trying to teach a class."
Ziva looked up to see Marcus' fake annoyed face looking sternly at her.

"Well I think your class is due for a break, am I right?" she directed the second half of the statement at the children in her arms, who all turned to nod earnestly at him. With Ziva down there, surrounded my grinning infants and smiling childishly herself, how was anyone with a heart supposed to resist?

"Five minutes," Marcus said, and as soon as the words had left his mouth, the kids dispersed to far corners of the room. As they left her arms, Ziva stood up, and Marcus closed the distance between the two of them, pulling her into a hug. Ziva grinned into his shoulder, just revelling in the feeling of being hugged by a good friend.

"How have things been?" Ziva said, still not letting go of him.

"Great. You should go away more often," Marcus shot back, and Ziva drew back and punched him in the shoulder.

"Dude?" Marcus said, pretending to be wounded by the blow. Ziva heard a few distinct giggles, and she turned around to see some of the girls watching and laughing at his misfortunes.

"So you think this is funny, huh?" Marcus said, turning to the girl, which only caused them to giggle even more.

Deciding that Marcus had it all under control, Ziva moved to leave the room, closing the door behind her. She moved to the next door of studio D, but she couldn't remember what lesson was going on behind the door. Ziva figured that as the owner of the studio, she had the right to interrupt whatever class was going on, and she pushed open the door. She was not, however, expecting to see what lay in front of her. And she most definitely didn't want to walk in on what she did.

Tali stood there, almost completely intertwined with one of the assistant coaches. Ziva couldn't quite make out who he was, but Tali clearly seemed to know who he was, what with the way she was shoving her tongue down his throat… Ziva had half the mind to go over there and punch him, as she saw the way that the man's hands began to wonder from Tali's waist, moving up and down her sides. Tali on the other hand clearly didn't seem to mind, as she made little noises that Ziva had never expected to hear coming from her little sister.

It was at that moment that the door slammed shut behind Ziva, and the pair whipped around to see who had caught them. And it was in that moment that Ziva saw the face of the man her sister was devouring. The moment she saw, and recognised him.

"Finn?!"

When Tali had told Ziva that she wanted to move in with Finn, Ziva had assumed that the man was some burnout art freak, the kind that belonged in a record store, or on Tali's track record. Her thoughts did not jump to the man in front of her. Finn was one of the assistant coaches, and was definitely the youngest employee that Ziva had taken on. But the man had started on Broadway at the age of fifteen, staring in an all singing, all dancing comedy where he played the starring role. The man had been on and off Broadway ever since, but the moment he applied for the job at the studio, Ziva could not turn him down, despite his tender age of twenty six. But there was something else wrong about the fact he was clearly in some kind of relationship with her sister (he was sucking her sister's face off. Who does that?!)

"I thought you were gay?"

OK, maybe she hadn't said that with as much tact and sensitivity as she should have. And maybe she shouldn't have judged him so harshly. But he was tall, good looking, a dancer, and she had never once seen him date for the whole two years that he had been at the studio. So the conclusion that she had perhaps to prematurely drawn was that he was into guys. That man could have pretty much any of the girls he wanted. But he didn't.

There was an awkwardly drawn out silence, one that Ziva did not wish to fill out of the fear that she would put her foot in her mouth. Again. (and she thought that Tony was inappropriate. Clearly spending a week with him was not healthy for her tact…).

"Well," Finn said after a while, "I am not."

Silence descended on the room once again. Ziva rocked back on her heels nervously, trying (and failing) to have the ground swallow her up.

The silence continued.

"So," Ziva said, deciding that she now trusted herself to say something without putting her foot back into her mouth, "Tali was going to move in with you?"

Finn looked warily at Tali, trying to work out whether Ziva was joking or not. He may have been a Broadway veteran, but Ziva was his employer. And he, like any other man with sense, was afraid of Ziva.

"I was going to tell you," Tali said with a nervous grin on her face. Finn squeezed her hand in his to reassure her. He was not mad. But judging by the look he was giving Ziva, he thought she was.

Again an awkward silence cloaked the room, and Tali tried to think figure out what to say to dissipate the awkwardness that had fallen. But this was not the way she planned in having Ziva meet her boyfriend. Not that she had to meet him. Because Ziva was the one who hired him. Wow this was awkward. She cursed the writers of her story called life that put her through such an awkward situation...

Ziva watched Tali wipe her mouth with the back of her hand, as if removing the evidence of the crime would make it go away (it didn't.). Finn had this small sheepish grin on his face, looking as if he had just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He was a good kid, the kind of quiet that balanced out Tali's enthusiasm nicely. Judging by the way Tali was still curled so comfortably against him, she liked him, and judging by his expression, he was pretty smitten with her. They were a cute couple. And at least with having him so close to her and the studio, she could make his life a living hell if he hurt Tali. But he was a smart kid. And hopefully he would not do anything stupid; good dance teachers were too hard to find.

"Well, I'm just going to…" Ziva said, motioning at the door. As fun as it was, the awkwardness was getting pretty stifling.

"Wait Ziva," Tali said, "we have something to tell you."

As soon as Ziva heard those few words, her mind jumped to the worst case scenario. And unfortunately, her mind was still directly connected to her mouth.

"You're pregnant!?"

"No!" Tali said horrified, and Finn looked like if offered a gun, he would shoot himself.

"Engaged?" Ziva tried again.

"No."

"An alien?"

"No. Can I speak now?" Tali said, cutting off Ziva's guesses (an alien… really? She had been spending too much time around Tony and his movie collection…).

"You know that agent that is coming from Los Angeles on Friday?" Tali started. When Ziva nodded, she continued, "I am going to audition with the other girls."

"But the girls auditioning are much younger than you," Ziva said. The company were only sending the girls in their late teens to the auditions. Tali was twenty-four.

"Yes. But I look the part," Tali argued.
"What exactly is the part?"

"A singing, dancing part in a comedy about high school girls," Tali said.

Ziva knew that Tali had always wanted to sing. Out of both of the sisters, there was no doubt in Ziva's mind that Tali was better. But Tali had seemed to resign herself to failure, and Ziva had not questioned her about it. The girl was her own person, and had the right to choose what she was going to do with her life. But that didn't stop Ziva from enjoying the sound of Tali's voice as if floated from the shower as she sang.

"Are you sure about this?" Ziva said softly. Tali smiled, and looked up at Finn, who gave her a reassuring smile.

"Yeah, I'm sure," Tali said. Ziva titled her head to one side, thinking the move through.

"In that case," Ziva said, "Why are you here and not in voice lessons."

Tali grinned at Ziva, and tugged at Finn's arm, dragging him in search of these aforementioned lessons. They were almost out of the door when Ziva spoke again.

"Oh, and Finn."

Tali and Fin turned around, and Ziva continued.

"Hurt her, and you die."

Finn shot a lazy salute in her direction, and Ziva grinned. Maybe the two of them weren't such a bad idea after all…

I thought I would save you from a long author's note at the beginning (wait, hold on. That makes me an author!? that is strange...) This chapter was inspired by an anonymous review that went along the lines of "it's time to stop with the whole funeral stuff". Hence the reason for moving on. sort of. I am glad you all love the Kate/Ari thing, and any Kibbs fans out there, please don't hate me! :P

anyways, please review! I love hearing what every single one of you think of it, what you like, and what you don't like! :)