We're getting back into the plot again. This will be a surprise If you saw this coming I'd be very shocked.
Warning in advance. This chapter references some disturbing acts.
"Tony, we cannot let Adam take the fall. You have been framed before, and I know you will not let that happen to him." Ziva knew that despite Tony's personal feelings toward Adam he'd do the right thing.
"I know. Let's focus on him first. Let's call Shmeil." Tony muttered.
Ziva called Shmeil and put him on speakerphone. It was a suspiciously short conversation. Shmeil said that he had absolutely no information of any use to them. He apologized and made a quick excuse to get off the phone.
"That was strange." Ziva was perplexed and thrown. "Shmeil always has Intel." The wheels in her head were spinning to make sense of the conversation and the deeper meaning behind it.
"He's getting older." Tony reasoned. "Maybe he really has retired. Now what?" Tony spoke his thoughts out loud. "We can't go through any official channels. We're not NCIS agents anymore. We have no authority and no resources."
"I need to think. I am going take a walk on the beach." Ziva headed upstairs to change.
The house phone rang 10 minutes later displaying an impossible number on the caller ID. Tony answered, "Hello."
"It's Shmeil. I need to talk to you." His words were urgent.
"Let me just get Ziva." Tony thought he might be able to catch her. She'd only just left the house.
"No! I need to speak with you. Is Ziva there?"
"Actually no. She just headed out for a walk."
"Are sure she cannot hear us?" Shmeil was pressing in his tone.
"Yeah, I'm sure. What is it?" Tony was worried.
"Tony, we have a problem." Shmeil said bluntly.
"Okay. And what is that problem?"
"Adam Eshel."
"That's not a new problem. I'm really not a huge fan of that guy." Tony emphasized to Shmeil.
"I know what happened. Adam is involved."
"Yeah, we already know that."
"But you don't know how. He used Ziva. He knew Bodner wasn't in Berlin. And he helped him kill her father."
"Shit." Tony yelled. His stomach dropped through the floor, and dread clamped down on him. "Not now. This can't happen now."
"It already occurred. What happened between Ziva and Adam in Israel after her father's death, wasn't so simple either."
"I'll kill him." Tony spat.
"It was not Ziva's choice to be with him. He drugged her. He used scopolamine. She was a walking zombie and had no free will that night. He needed to get close to her. It's no coincidence that he was your contact in Berlin. If I'd known this when he was still in Israel I'd have killed him myself. But he has information that you two need."
Tony almost lost his legs when Shmeil told him that Ziva was drugged and raped. He was going to be sick. She'd been through too much already. How much could a single person handle? Tony sagged. "Shmeil, how do I protect her? If Ziva learns that another man used her it will destroy her."
"Don't tell her?" Shmeil offered.
"I have to." Tony said sadly. "I won't lie to her." He never questioned that he'd tell her the truth, even for a split second.
"I know. My Ziva, she loves you. She's loved you for years. Just be there for her. I can help you find Adam. He has information that you need. He knows who this puppet master is. I have called in every favor and still have nothing. Adam fled. I can tell you that he is in the US. On my side of the world, everyone who knows this information you need has been killed. Adam is the only one still alive. I wanted to tell you this first. I don't know how to handle this situation with Ziva. I don't know if she can get through this without your help."
"I will tell her." Tony told him.
"Call me after you do. I can help you find Adam." Shmeil hung up the line and Tony listened to the silence.
He dropped the phone and sprinted to the bathroom. He didn't make it all the way to the toilet before he threw up. He sat over the bowl dry heaving for another few minutes after he'd emptied his stomach.
Ziva listened stoically as Tony told her everything. He told her Adam had helped Bodner kill her father. He told her how he'd then drugged and raped her while she was in Israel to bury her father. He told her how Adam had used and manipulated her. He told her everything he knew. Ziva had the right to know. He didn't sugarcoat it, and he laid it all out in less than five minutes.
When he'd told her everything, Ziva's body gave out underneath her. She sagged like her bones had disintegrated. Tears rolled down her cheeks. Tony moved to her side and held her tight. She curled into a ball cried in his arms.
"Ziva, I'm so sorry. Please tell me what you're thinking. I'd do anything to erase what Adam did to you. Please talk to me."
Ziva looked up at Tony, and she smiled. Tears were still flowing, and her lips were quivering, but she was smiling. "So it was not my fault with Adam?" The relief in her voice sang out.
"No Ziva." He assured her. Tony gripped her to him and rocked her in his arms, hating that she'd been carrying around this guilt, and loving her for the exact same reason.
She pushed back and looked up to speak to him. "I am glad that Adam drugged me. I am not glad that it happened. But it means that I did not act out of my own free will. I know that I was wrong for not telling you what happened when you asked in Berlin. I am so sorry about that. I hated myself for what I did. I did not understand how it happened. I do not even remember that night. Adam told me what happened and I had no reason to doubt him. Can you forgive me?"
"I've forgiven you 100 times over. I had no right to be as angry as I was. We weren't together then." He reminded her.
"Yes we were. We were moving towards it. You told me as much. At lo levad." She buried her head in his chest and let the tears fall.
Tony wrapped Ziva even tighter in his arms. His last words before he'd seen her off, "at lo levad", had been his declaration of love. It was his promise that he was ready for them. When he'd found out about Adam it had been a knife to the heart. He thought that Ziva either didn't understand what he'd offered her, or worse, simply didn't want it. But she had understood, and she hadn't rejected him. In fact, she'd wanted it just as much. It all made sense now.
"I'm going to kill him." Tony promised her. "I'm going to make him suffer. Is there a chance that he simply told you that you were together? Could he have lied? Is there some chance he didn't rape you?"
"It happened, Tony. I had bruises, and I was sore. I had not been with anyone in a while, and he was not gentle."
"I'm going to kill him." He said again.
"That was not the first time I have been raped." They'd never discussed Somalia, and what had been done to her there. This just added to the long list of ways she'd been violated and damaged. It was only a matter of time until Tony left her.
"I know. I'm so sorry about that." Tony knew what had happened to her there. He didn't know the exact details, but he knew she'd been hurt. She was held for three months as Saleem's prisoner. She was the sole woman in a camp of over 30 men. She was tortured, and it went without saying that rape was one of the tools they had used to break her.
Tony couldn't have prevented her from being taken by Saleem. He didn't even know she was a prisoner until she'd been there for a two months. And once he found out he worked tirelessly to get there to save her. Actually, he went to avenge her death. He thought she was dead, and living with that belief almost killed him. But every day it took him to convince Vance, and plan the op, Ziva had been in that tiny cell. Every day it took him to get there she was subjected to their brutalities one day longer. He'd been safe while she'd been there.
"Are you sure that you still want me?" She asked him bluntly.
"Why would you ask that?"
"I have been used. I will understand if you cannot be with a woman who has had so much done to her. I am beyond damaged goods." And Ziva would understand. It would split her heart open and she would never recover, but she would understand why he couldn't want her.
"Are you seriously asking me this? After everything we've been through together? After all I've told you?"
"I am simply telling you that I will understand. I will always fear the day you find out that one disgusting act that will push you over the edge. When you know the worst of it you will not longer want me. Perhaps I should tell you everything now and send you running?"
"If you want to tell me I will listen to all of it. But I only care about what happens from here on out. I'm not running, no matter what has happened in your past." He didn't know how to make her believe.
"I know you believe that. But you do not know what has been done to me."
"How can I make you believe me? Tell me something Ziva. Tell me something that will make me run. I don't know how else to show you. Tell me something awful."
Ziva pushed out of Tony's arms. "You will not want to be touching me after I tell you." Her eyes glazed over and died. She spoke robotically. No emotion whatsoever laced her words. "I had to work for water. They would leave me for days without a drop." She dropped her eyes, no longer able to look at him when she spoke. "Men would come in and tie me down. They would dip themselves into a bucket of water and hold it near my head. They would tell that me that if I wanted to I could suck on them. If you are dying of thirst you can only watch so many drops of water fall into the sand. It takes a long time to get enough water that way. When that man became aroused enough, he would rape me. And then another would start the entire process again."
Tony reached a hand to touch her, but she shied away. The fear in her eyes as she pulled back was the only hint of emotion she'd shown since she started speaking. She took a deep breath, pushed all the feeling back down, and continued, her eyes still downcast. "They took pictures and video of everything. It could be anywhere, and it could come back at any time. Saleem told me that he sent copies to my father. It is out there. What will you do if video shows up online of men raping me for hours on end? At the end I had no strength to fight. I would just lie there and let them do what they wanted. Could you watch that and still want me?"
The way she looked ripped him apart. Her eyes were dead. He thought she'd died once, and he couldn't live through that again.
"I hate that you went through all of that. But it doesn't change how I feel about you. Please let me hold you." Tony held his arms out to her. He didn't try to touch her, just simply invited her to come to him. This was her choice.
"How could you still want to touch me?" She couldn't believe he held his arms out to her.
"None of that was your fault. It's not your fault, Ziva." As he said this her lips started to quiver.
She raised her eyes to him locked her gaze with a final challenge. "What if we had children one day and that video surfaced?"
Tony's face lit up and split into a smile. "Are you saying that you want to have children with me?"
Ziva looked at Tony and tried to understand. How could he still want her? How could he look so happy about the thought of having children with a woman who'd been violated as she had? Alarms rang out in her head warning her to shut down and protect herself. This was her moment of truth. Tony held his arms out begging her to come to him. Her head and her heart pulled her in opposite directions: one into his arms, and the other out the door.
She looked into his green eyes, and fell towards him. Ziva knew this was the last time she would fall. If Tony didn't to catch her she'd keep on tumbling into the darkness. But he did catch her. And he pulled her tight into his body and promised he'd never let her go. And Ziva gave herself to Tony. And she gave herself over to the dream of those green eyed children.
"I am still going to kill Adam." He told her again as he held her tight.
"No. You will not." Ziva answered plainly. "He has information that we need. We find him. Then I kill him."
Right there in each other's arms their relationship was cemented.
Hi. Somehow, my boss does not fully understanding the gravity of this 'Cote situation', and is insisting that I not cancel my business trip. I even sat her down with a PowerPoint presentation outlining why I needed to stay and write. It was riveting: exceptional visual aids, original charts, extensive polling. But some people just don't get it I have to pay the bills, so I won't be posting for maybe up to a week. I'm sorry to leave you all hanging. Or was that my plan all along… (I could be sitting here stroking a white cat as I plot to take over the world. Mwah, hah, hah)