Archive of Our Own

In the summer before she turns sixteen, she fights with her mother. It's not the first fight between them, but it is certainly the worst so far, and at the end of it Ziva slams the door behind her and starts packing, a month before high school starts again. She packs the few things she really needs and leaves behind almost everything her mother bought her. Everything her mother deems relevant.

That night, she spends in Tali's room, arms wrapped around her little sister and kissing her again and again and telling her that she cannot come back. She just can't, not after this. And as much as Tali understands, she can't help clinging to her stubborn sister, refusing to let her go.

Rivka, on the other hand, doesn't even try to stop her, and Ziva will only realize much later that the last words she spoke to her mother for thirteen years are words of scorn and anger and frustration.

*** *** ***

In the morning, Ziva buys a bus ticket. She carries a backpack that holds her school books and a large bag for her sensible clothes. The ones mother calls boyish. The not-dresses.

It's a long ride, and she feels like there's a pound of dust in her lungs before it is over, but even though she can hardly breathe, it seems easier somehow.

*** *** ***

Her father isn't home when she arrives but she calls Hadar, and of course he remembers her and hands her the spare key. He doesn't ask any questions, just eyes her warily and tells her that it will be a few weeks before Eli is back from his mission, so she should better behave herself. Then he gives her some money so she can buy food and tells her to come to him if she needs more. Ziva nods and thinks that she has no intention of letting him check up on her.

She has the house to herself for almost a month. Other kids would invite friends and get drunk all the time or fool around with a boy- or girlfriend. Ziva learns to cook instead. Maybe it's her father's house that keeps her from showing disrespect, with his presence still lingering in every corner, in every shadow. Maybe she's simply not the kind of girl who likes to party. People are confusing and require a lot of attention, after all.

She likes books. They give better comfort than people do, and they never make unreasonable demands.

*** *** ***She's bright and so she skips a year of high school, and that will leave her with a year in which she has nothing to do with herself before she can do the required two-year army service. More and more she feels like she will be wasting so much time, and so, when Eli is on another unspoken assignment, she contacts Hadar and tells him that she wants to join Mossad as soon as possible.

At first, he laughs at her and tells her she has more than enough time to consider that. The rules are the rules, after all. Turn eighteen first, then serve your years in the IDF, then talk to your father.

At first, she tells Hadar that it was her father who trained her to be better than the rest since she could barely stand. That he wants her there. That there's a reason she skipped a year in school. That they are wasting precious years in which her country needs her, and if he can't have her into Mossad officially, maybe he can at least get her into a training program so she is better prepared and can see to her duties faster.

Later, she offers to blow him, and she knows it's a low thing to trade, especially when she is trying to trade for something to make her father proud. But she's not dumb and she remembers the way Hadar always looked at her mother. And Ziva knows that sometimes she looks a lot like her mother.

He deals her a slap to the face for that. She doesn't expect it, and her head whips to the side because he hits her so hard she suddenly tastes her own blood. She actually cowers before him because Hadar's anger is much more destructive than her father's.

*** *** ***She has no idea why Hadar agrees eventually. He's breaking a dozen rules and regulations for her, but in the end he calls in a few favors and puts her into a special program to get her acquainted with field work and combat and military training while she still finishes high school -- officially, that is.

Unofficially, she's already taking over field duty because when she wants to, she can look so damn innocent that she's the perfect courier and contact. She's cute on the surface, and she's observant, and she surprises her controller when she doesn't hesitate to seduce contacts when this is the easiest way to get what she wants.

For some reason, that part never shows up in the reports. She suspects it's so her father won't find out and give them a hard time about it, but she doubts he would find it offensive. She's just doing what he taught her to do since she was a kid, after all -- using every weapon available.

She doesn't see much of school in her last year, but either she's bright enough or Hadar pulls some more strings because her grades are never in any real danger.

Her father never notices that she's suddenly home less than he is.

*** *** ***Things don't change much once she starts to serve. Officially, she's with the IDF. In truth, she's in a special forces unit that is just another cover for Mossad operations. She earns her first ribbon for excellent marksmanship in her first two months, and she regrets that she can't tell her father.*** *** ***On a hot day in early July, Leila kisses her hard behind the barracks. Ziva is too stunned to return a kiss that is filled with actual emotion. It's new territory for her, and Leila takes that the wrong way and draws back.

Two days later, Leila is dead, killed on a mission by a sniper.

*** *** ***There is this one night when Ari sneaks into her bedroom, and it surprises her because he's not the kind of brother who usually does that. She's even more confused when he slips under the blanket with her and makes her hold him while he buries his face into her pillows. He's shaking hard, and even though she doesn't see it, she knows that he is crying.

It's not the first time he cries with her but she doesn't know yet that it will be the last. After that night, Ari has no more tears and no more softness in him, and even though Ziva still loves him, she knows that now he is something to be scared of.

*** *** ***It's almost a week after Ari has left when she learns his mother died that night.*** *** ***Her contact stares at her with eyes widening behind dark glasses when he meets her at the drop point, and Ziva freezes, just as shocked because her control officer never told her she'd have to expect her own father.

She stares at Eli, takes in the shaggy beard on his face that he never has when he is home, and her own eyes widen while she feels like she has taken the keys of the family car without permission.

She waits for him to snap, to yell at her, to grab her hair and drag her back home and then bend her over his knee and slap her backside until she won't be able to sit for two weeks.

He does none of these things, just stares at her behind his glasses, his eyes running over her, judging her. Then he moves again, and his fingers brush hers ever so softly when he takes the folded newspaper from her.

*** *** ***Her handler calls her two weeks after that and sends her on an assignment to Zurich. It's her first in Europe, and it turns out to be almost a holiday because there is no job to be done, no information to be gathered, no one to be spied on.

Instead, Eli waits for her in the safe house, and when she looks at him, suddenly all fidgety and self-conscious, his mouth does a strange thing that could be mistaken for a smile.

For almost two months they stay in Zurich and he trains her in a lot of skills she had no idea about. She learns to fight dirty, but she also learns how to find her way around people, how to read them better. And even though she still isn't too fond of strangers, she likes what Eli has to teach her. She feels a bit like back when she was a kid, when he took her and Tali to the woods, and it feels strange to call this her youth because it isn't all that far away and she's not all that much older.

One night, she asks him why he does that, but he just looks at her with a curious expression and then asks her to repeat what he just told her.

Two days later, just before they go back to Israel, he sits down beside her on the balcony, and while he shares a beer with her and she pretends it's her first, she feels very grown up. And Eli's voice is slow and very much like a caress against her skin while he wraps his arm around her shoulder and explains that he can't stop her from doing what she does, just like her mother obviously couldn't stop her. That it's in her blood, and that he is proud of her for that.

And after he presses his lips to her temple and Ziva closes her eyes and allows herself to snuggle into his embrace, just this once, he tells her that he can make her as deadly as possible, and he can make sure she knows all that she needs to survive. Because he needs her to stay alive. For him.

*** *** ***That night she can't sleep because for the first time in long years she feels warm, and safe, and loved. And during that one single night, there is nothing in the whole world that can shake her belief that her father loves her like he loves no one else.*** *** ***Tali dies two weeks later while she visits her older sister.

The bomb is heard throughout the whole southern part of Tel Aviv, and Ziva just sighs at the familiar rumble of buildings giving way. When she later learns that the bomb went off near the cinema her sister was in, she suddenly knows, though, and something inside her snaps.

She starts to scream until she is overpowered and held down by several men.

She has no idea what happens for the rest of the day because they keep her heavily sedated.

*** *** ***Her mother doesn't look at her once when she brings Tali's body home to her, and Ziva doesn't tell her that it's pure chance they could identify her at all. Rivka also doesn't say a single word to her while she is there, and Ziva knows that she blames her, and even though she knows it's the grief, she still feels something break deep inside that she had no idea was there.

As soon as the funeral is over, she goes back to Tel Aviv. Her control officer hardly blinks when she calls him and tells him that she wants to be Metsada.

*** *** ***She kills whoever needs killing, and she's good at it. She makes her father proud during these months, never questioning the nature of her orders, only asking for background information.

They want to spare her the details, want to protect her, thinking that she is still the innocent girl that she looks like on the surface, but she asks the questions anyway.

She wants to know how many people her targets have killed or how exactly they betrayed her country. She needs to know every single reason why they deserve to die. And every reason more makes her heart sing when she pulls the trigger.

*** *** ***She soon makes it a habit to sleep with her partners. She likes to think it makes it easier for her to judge if she can trust them or not, because these are the moments after all when people -- especially men -- let their guard down. Years later she will learn that this is an idle thought, that they will betray her often enough, but for now, it passes the time in the safe houses all over the world and creates an illusion of intimacy and having each other's backs when needed.

For some reason, the men her father pairs her with are always pretty good in bed. She isn't sure if he picked them for that quality alone but she wouldn't put it past him. They kind of stopped talking after Tali's death, and it would be just like him to use this way to make his daughter happy.

*** *** ***Once, when she is home for a few days, Hadar asks her if her old offer still stands.

She knows he's just drunk because he's lost his youngest son recently, but she almost breaks his jaw anyway.

*** *** ***She's in Cairo when she hears that her father is no longer a field agent but the Deputy Director of Mossad now.

Part of her thinks about calling him but in the end she never does. She finds it hard to congratulate him on being even further away.

*** *** ***Jenny Shepard is the first who refuses her advances, and that's a new experience for Ziva. But for some reason it's the single fact that leads her to believe that the strangely bubbly foreign agent is indeed someone she can trust.*** *** ***They meet again in Eastern Europe, and while they are undercover there, Jenny is the one who triggers subtle changes and shifts in Ziva. She is the first to put Ziva into elegant dresses simply because she likes the way the girl looks in them, not just for selling their cover. She teaches her how to use make-up effectively, a thing Ziva never even considered because her looks alone have never failed her before. And Jenny takes her out to dinner in expensive restaurants and bars, teaching her how to actually flirt with men instead of just stating her business bluntly.

At first Ziva doesn't even notice what's happening, but when she does she finds that she actually likes what the American has to teach her. And strangely, that she likes Jenny, too. She can't remember the last person she liked who wasn't family.

*** *** ***They promote her to control officer soon after that, and at first she is annoyed because she thinks that now she will be confined to her desk and do boring paperwork. Then she learns what a control officer actually does. And then they tell her that she gets to work with her brother.

Ari is different than he was back when she really knew him, but she doesn't care, she's still so much closer to him than she is to Eli. He's so deep undercover that he rarely contacts her, and so she suddenly has a lot of time on her hands, which feels strange, especially in England. It's so very different from the trouble zones she was stationed in before.

She buys a lot of books and broadens her knowledge and brushes up on her English. Every month or so she writes a long letter to Jenny, which is returned in irregular intervals, and she likes reading them as much as she likes writing hers. They can't talk about anything important, naturally, but it still feels therapeutic to talk to someone who understands.

She never realizes that in a way, Jenny is her very first girlfriend.

*** *** ***There is a moment that creeps up on her quite unexpectedly. It's a simple moment, but it's an important one when she realizes that she can't think of going back to how things were.*** *** ***The next morning she wakes up with the sudden understanding that she is tired of killing. That there is no longer any of the hate and pain left that drove her. That she no longer is that person, seeking revenge, seeking payment.

Later that day, she calls her father and tells him just that. She's not sure what she expects of him. Part of her thinks that he should have been relieved, since he wanted her to survive, after all.

She certainly did not expect him to say, one more. Just one more, he tells her, and then you can rest.

*** *** ***Ari is indeed the last one, and he is also the last one that will hurt for a long time. His death breaks something inside her, and she doesn't care for the experience that she even had that something.*** *** ***And then there is the cocky American. She certainly doesn't have to sleep with him to know that he will never be trustworthy. That he is so easily manipulated that it is almost embarrassing for his entire gender.

And yet, for some reason she still likes him. Maybe because he speaks his mind more openly than anyone she has ever worked with. Maybe because he has puppy dog eyes when he wants to.

*** *** ***She wants to tell him that Jenny's death won't hurt forever. That he should not let it overwhelm him like that. That every death after that one will feel shallow and meaningless and that it will never be as immense and unthinkable again.

She doesn't, because he wouldn't believe her anyway. And because there's a part of her that feels hollow, empty, because her own eyes have seen too much death.

That part of her is envious. That part of her wants to feel a glimpse of what he feels.

*** *** ***It changes things. It breaks things. It destroys things that can never be mended.

The following year will prove that.

*** *** ***Malachi is the second partner for whom Ziva herself breaks her pattern. He would sleep with her, in a heartbeat, and she knows he would be good in bed.

But she no longer trusts her instincts. And it doesn't matter anyway. She knows by now that she can't trust anyone.

*** *** ***In that cell, in the darkness, so familiar by now, with ever-present clouds of sand wafting through it, she regrets of all things that she never slept with Tony. Maybe he would have been right, maybe it would have changed her life. And maybe she would have known who to trust after all.*** *** ***Sometimes she sees his face.

It's mostly in the moments that feel totally inappropriate, like when a hand is slapping her face hard, left and right, or when she is pumped so full of truth serum that she has the urge to throw up. That's when his face suddenly, inappropriately, overlaps the sweaty, unshaven one, and familiar green eyes stare at her, so sad, so full of compassion that she wishes she had any tears left.

He seems to look at her then like the big puppy he loved to play, the harmless fool, and she is tempted to answer his questions and tell him all he wants to know because it's him, after all, and she's known him for so long. And she misses how he smiled at her, so maybe this will make him smile once more.

But in the end it's this very thing that keeps her from spilling it all to the one actually asking the questions. Because it's his face that she sees in her feverish visions. And they could never be honest with each other before, so why start now?

*** *** ***"Come on, Ziva," he says, looking at her with those big green puppy dog eyes, and she feels her throat constrict with a barely controlled scream.

Her mind knows that she's no longer in the place that keeps haunting her, but her body reacts to the lighting and the sound and the smell anyway. It's a reflex, and the warehouse is just too much like the one she knew in the desert, the one she spent her last summer in, and the air is just as stale and filled with the scents of rancid sweat and old food.

And the sunlight plays across his shoulders and throws his features into shadows, just like it did with her captors. And much like she couldn't answer then, her voice fails her now, even though she knows that this time it's really him, and this time he only wants to help.

But she hasn't learned how to deal with any of this yet, so she flees, and his disappointment is palpable and clings to her, even though he doesn't say a word.

*** *** ***It takes another year until things start to finally fall into place between them.*** *** ***And then there is that one day that unhinges the fragile balance of her new life.

It's the day her father comes to DC.

*** *** ***She makes herself talk to Malachi before they leave again for the homeland because she can't talk to Eli, after all, and there are things that need to be said and questions that need to be asked.

The short conversation shifts something inside her and makes her see certain experiences... not in a different light, not really. But for some reason she suddenly feels not quite as torn up about them.

She knows that Eli will never give in. It's not in his nature. He has merely done what he always had to do -- he made his decisions, much like Ziva did throughout her life. And much like her decisions, some of his have turned out wise, others haven't.

Part of her wants to forgive him, but she's not a big enough person to do that. Another part of her wants to keep hating him, but she can't do that, either. Not after she knows that he's just human after all.

He's not perfect. He's not the devil. He's just her father, and nobody ever taught him how to be that properly.

*** *** ***It's been nine years since Ziva has last seen her. Her hair is grey now, but still thick and wavy, and her face is still strong, with only a few lines edged deeper around the eyes. She's still slim, and she's still tall, though for some reason not quite as tall as Ziva remembers her.

And she can't breathe.

She's standing there in the middle of the bull pen, frozen stiff in her tracks just after rounding McGee's desk, and she can't move, can't breathe, can only cramp her hands tighter and tighter until she feels her fingernails break the skin of her palm.

Tony's eyes are on her, going back and forth between his partner and the woman who is a stranger to him and to this land. He opens his mouth, and she knows he will shoot her a flippant remark any second now about how he wants to know all about her sexy visitor girlfriend, but just then he really looks at her and his gaze immediately switches from curious to concerned.

And Ziva knows why, of course. She knows that she's probably pale and maybe she even looks as if she might faint any second, but she doesn't know how to change that. It's too much, after all.

But just then, the woman looks up and sees her, too, and the tightness around Ziva's lungs eases up a bit.

Brown eyes, just as stubborn and strong as she remembers them, slide over her and take in her appearance, and Ziva is suddenly glad that she spent a little more time on it this morning, that she picked out her clothing a little more carefully the night before, just to hide the fact that she is once again sleeping in her partner's bed. Mossad would have approved, and the NCIS people at least don't object to the liaison, but her mother is neither, and Ziva isn't sure about the reaction she would get from her.

And then Rivka raises her hand and just waves her closer, impatiently, harsh, as if she is tempted to deliver something that equals Gibbs's slaps. But her eyes are strangely soft, and Ziva sees the hint of tears in them, mirroring her own. And that's when she finally recalls how to move again.

She is all too aware of how Tony's eyes are fixed on her while she suddenly runs to cross the few meters, falling hard into the stranger's arms. And while her breath hiccups in her throat, she buries her face into Rivka's chest. Strong arms come up around her back, and Ziva bites her lips and breathes in a scent she had thought forgotten.

"Ima," she presses out through her teeth, and something hard in her chest loosens. The simple sound, so unfamiliar by now, makes a shudder run through her.

She'll have to get used to it again.

*** *** ***Later that night, in his bed, he runs his fingers across the back of her hand and asks to meet her mother. Properly. And she can tell how scared he is, by his own words, by the mere thought, by the things that inevitably come after that.

It freaks her out just as badly, and for a second she forgets how to breathe, again. But then she meets his eyes and kisses him and says yes.

Because she trusts him, after all.