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“Tali couldn’t ask for a better mother.”
“Let’s do a little inventory,” Dr. Lang sat crossed legged on his velvet green couch. A rather formidable shade of the color and something Ziva frequently questioned about the design choices of the office. “You and Tali?”
Ziva stood, retrieving the hair tie from her wrist to wind her curls into a ponytail, a sign of settling in for the session and whatever it may hold. Her eyes drifted to the ceiling, avoiding direct eye contact with the therapist. “Could be better.”
That answer was far easier without the pressure of eye contact.
“Business?”
“Booming.” She answered, more truthfully, more assertively than the question about her daughter.
It was, in fact, booming. She and Tony were outrageously busy in their respective careers at his firm. Ziva was infinitely proud of the success Tony had found on his own in Paris. The once boyish man who showed up to work hungover and sometimes had to steal her deodorant, had turned into an outstanding business owner. Who ever would have thought?
“Tony?”
Speaking of the successful ‘bossman,’ as he so happily called himself.
Ziva was hesitant, rolling the answer around in her mind for almost a moment too long, before answering.
“Not… bad.”
Dr. Lang narrowed his eyes on his patient. There was a second of contemplation that crossed his face, as he weighed the topics they’d inventoried and tried to decide what, among the major things in Ziva’s life, was most important to dig deeper through.
“It sounds like things with Tali are worse than last week?”
“It has been a hard week, yes.”
“How so?”
Ziva nervously rubbed her palms on her lap. “Twelve is a… difficult age.”
Dr. Lang prodded her along with a raised eyebrow, but now words.
“She has a lot of questions and I do not have enough answers to suit her. Or I should say, I do not have answers that are good enough for her and she cannot understand why some details are not appropriate for her. So then I take the brunt of the frustration while Tony sits there and… does not do much.”
“Does he need to?”
“What do you mean?”
Dr. Lang shifted to cross his legs the other way. “Is Tali asking questions about you or him?”
Sometimes therapy was utterly angering. Of course, Tali’s questions were about her mother, not her father. Tony was an open book with stories to tell that he could make appropriate for any age, which was great and entirely annoying at the same time.
Ziva was the one who had disappeared out of Tali’s life for four years. She was the one who missed many milestones, who by limited choice of her own, because of imparted duty to her country, was a former Mossad agent. She was the one that kept everything much closer to her imaginary vest, an idiom she was still trying to unravel. In many ways, Ziva made herself a target for her daughter’s interrogations. That did not mean she had a log of well thought out, age appropriate, curated answers to Tali’s many inquiries, though.
“Me,” She sighed.
“Then I am not sure it's Tony's responsibility to step in.”
“Every once in a while, I could use a little help. A little backing up,” Ziva stood. “He used to have my six.”
A moment to themselves to have dinner together, uninterrupted, and it just so happened that they had to do that in a safe house. It was nothing, if not very, very on brand. They took the chance, willingly, though and Tony put together a thoughtful meal. Even after six years, it still surprised Ziva that he was so talented in the kitchen and she certainly didn’t mind the view of him cooking.
“Wine?” Tony held the bottle for her to inspect, as if she was incredibly picky.
“Is that a good idea?”
“Is it a bad idea?” Tony countered.
Ziva thought for a moment, but ultimately gave in. “I suppose it will not hurt.”
Tony carefully poured glasses for both of them, heavy pours, even after Ziva was hesitant. She couldn’t help but wonder if that was purposeful or just Tony being Tony.
“It seems quiet.” Tony took a long sip from his glass between bites.
Ziva nodded. “That is what happens when we are missing the constantly talking twelve year old.”
Tali was fast asleep in her room in the safe house. Ziva had checked the cameras just before they sat down to eat. Tali had complained of the invasion of privacy, as any pre-teen probably would have, but Ziva argued with her that it was not to invade, but to protect. She and Tony could not be everywhere at once and they had to have a way to keep the safe house safe. Tali had huffed, muttered something that Ziva chose to ignore and slammed the door basically in her face.
“I know she’s hard right now.”
“I do not know that she is so hard, as much as she just really hates me.”
“Ziva,” Tony reached out and put a hand over hers where it sat on the table. “She does not hate you.”
She pulled her hand back from his. “It is fine, Tony. I am not looking for your sympathy. It’s a matter of fact right now.”
“It’s a phase. It won’t last.”
It feels like an eternity, Ziva thought, but did not say out loud.
“Maybe,” Tony started, slowly. “We need to start talking about how to answer her questions. It isn’t going to get better, she’s not going to get less curious.”
“We, you say? I do not recall a lot of your help in answering the ones she has already asked.”
“I’m sorry?”
Ziva exhaled sharply. “I know she is not asking you. I know that it is not your job to save me; I do not want you to save me, but sometimes, a little back up would be nice. When she is jumping down my throat about things that I can not bring myself to tell her, it would be nice if you could just step in.”
“And what do you want me to do?”
“Get her off my vase!”
Tony’s hand immediately went to cover his mouth, because if it didn’t he was worried about what the knives at the table would be used for.
“What?!” Ziva could see the change in his expression.
“It’s case,” He barely squeaked out before the laughs escaped him.
“Anthony DiNozzo.” Tony’s attention came back to her, lips rolled shut to stop any further embarrassment. “I will kill you with a spoon to make it worse, the knife would be too kind right now.”
“Alright, fine. I’m sorry, Zivs. I really am.”
“It is not funny.”
“Zi, you cannot keep everything from her forever. What are you going to do? Send her to college at eighteen without knowing a single thing you went through to get back here? I don’t think she’s actually trying to be a brat, but every time you shut down and tell her it’s things that are too adult for her or too hard for her to understand, you are telling her that you would rather just not have to explain it to her. That’s why she’s mad, Zivs.”
She didn’t want to tell her. How do you look your child in the face and explain to them in any way, that the easiest thing to do with them, was send you across an ocean to a father they didn't know and hope it works out because your life was in danger?
“Have you considered that I do not want to tell her?”
Tony let those words sink in. He had considered it and truthfully, he had hoped it wasn’t true. “Have you considered that isn’t an option?”
“Every time she asks me a question.”
“She has to know. Tali is never going to understand you or who you are if you don’t tell her. She is allowed to know her Ima. The same way she knows me.”
“What if it scares her?”
Ziva’s eyes had changed. They softened and in the right light of their dimly lit dinner, Tony could make out a few tears welling.
“Can it scare her more than having to be moved around from safe house to safe house? We are already going to have to pay for years of therapy after this. You might as well add to it and make your relationship with her better.”
“So I shall just sit her down tomorrow and tell her everything. Tell her that I let you walk away from me at that airport and found out I was pregnant, but was too scared to ruin your life or my own by telling you and so instead I kept her to myself for two years until we were almost blown up by a woman who’s vendetta was ridiculous, but real? Then I have to make sure she knows, I did tell you about her, she knew who you were when she got to DC, just had not met you.”
“All those things are important, I guess.”
“But we cannot forget the small detail of sending contacts, spies, to check on you guys. I had to look at pictures of her for mere minutes before Adam had to burn them, so there was no evidence that either of you existed in case Sahar raided the places I was staying and found out. That I came back relying on anxiety pills because I could not handle the world around me. She needs to know all of that, Tony? I mean, that isn’t even all of it.”
“Who’s Sahar?”
The small voice from the doorway made Ziva jump, a bit of that anxiety she had worked so hard to settle within herself, swam through her stomach.
“Tali,” Tony said softly, turning to look at her.
Ziva did not turn around. She rubbed her hands over her makeup free face. This was not supposed to happen; this was not the way that Tali was supposed to find out.
“How did you sneak out of your room?” Tony asked.
Tali took a tentative step closer to her parents, Keh-Lev hung at her side. The dog stuffed animal was rather ratty at this point, nearly twelve years after it had become her favorite. Tony was a little surprised it had made the packing list for their daughter, but then again, it had also traveled across an ocean with her. There were some things a child just couldn’t let go of.
“It wasn’t even that hard,” Tali admitted.
“Mini ninja,” Tony muttered to himself, but Ziva caught it.
“Mom, who is Sahar?” Tali tried again, her voice sounding a little closer now, but also a little less sure, like pushing her mom for this made her uneasy.
When Ziva had been finding her way to DC to warn Gibbs about the danger that was following her and in turn, now after him, she had thought rather extensively about how someday she would have to share this. If she made it back to Tony and her Tali, she would have to eventually open up to both of them. It was one of the reasons she felt her anxiety was so unmanageable when she arrived in Washington, the thought not of making it home, but what happened after.
Tony had been easier than she expected. Perhaps because it was revealed to him in pieces. He was an adult with adult questions and adult patience from the time she arrived and the interactions that led to times of sharing were easier to handle, more like bite size pieces Ziva could chew and swallow one at a time.
Tali would never be that easy and Ziva had always known that. The floodgates would open and there would be only so long that she could hold off the curiosity that developed the older she got, the more mature her thoughts became and the more she came to understand what her Ima had missed as a result of this, which was devastating even if Tali knew all the particulars of why.
Tony’s hand found her knee under the table and gave it an encouraging squeeze.
Ziva took a deep breath, albeit shaky and unhelpful, before swiveling the top half of her body in the chair and making eye contact with Tali. The little girl’s eyes held the smallest bit of fear, behind the inquisitiveness that sat at the forefront, and it was either because she was worried about the consequences of sneaking from her room or what the actual story would be from her mother or both. Ziva saw much of herself in those eyes, right then; many times she could remember the same look in her matching brown eyes when her parents were meant to be alone and she found her way to them.
Tali almost winced when Ziva turned around, terrified of what might come out of her mouth after so many moments that she was silent. The twelve year old had known it was a risk to interrupt dinner and maybe if they hadn’t been talking about her and her mother’s storied past, she would have snuck right back up the stairs with Keh-Lev and forgotten the whole thing. But her impeccable timing was just that: impeccable.
“Come sit,” Ziva sternly pointed to the chair next to her and across from Tony.
There was some consideration from Tali to not go sit. Her Ima was capable of being terrifying. Tony would tell her that, all the ways that Mom was not to be messed with, when Tali was still little and could do very little wrong. The older she had gotten, the more she understood just how right her Abba was.
Tali shuffled to the chair and protectively sat Keh-Lev in her lap once she was sitting.
Ziva took a deep breath, once again trying to steady herself. There was no turning back once she started, that was a frightening idea.
“Sahar was the reason I could not be with you and Daddy.”
Tali sat very still.
“Do you remember Ari, my brother, half-brother? I have mentioned him.”
Tali nodded.
“He was,” Ziva considered how to describe someone that she once loved who turned into a cause of much chaos for her, multiple times. “troubled. People do not always make the best decisions and Ari struggled to keep his loyalty. Your Saba Eli, sent me to DC because Ari was targeting Grandpa Gibbs.”
“Why?”
“There were probably many reasons. I do not know all of them, I was not Ari and he could be rather particular in the way he decided to do things. But Grandpa Gibbs made him very angry and I wanted to believe that Ari, my brother, had not done all the horrible things everyone was accusing him of. I believed he was not as evil as he was.” Ziva took a breath. “But I was wrong and in order to save someone we all love very much, I had to… kill Ari.”
Those words physically hurt her. Not because she regretted that decision in Gibbs’ basement, Ziva stood behind that, but admitting to your child that you have killed? She had not predicted that being the hardest part of this, but she was beginning to think it might be.
Tali’s eyes did not change at those words. She may have gripped Keh-Lev a little tighter, but she remained unwavering in the way she looked at her mother for more. Someone would have thought Tali had the same Mossad training her Ziva did by her age.
“How?”
Of course, that was her next question. Fair enough.
“I shot him in Grandpa Gibbs’ basement.” Nausea bubbled in her stomach at sharing such details with her sweet child. “It was him or Gibbs.”
“Was the boat down there?” Tali’s question was a welcomed second of levity.
“Yes, it was.”
Tali pulled her feet up, crossing them underneath herself. “What does Ari have to do with Sahar?”
“So Sahar was in a group with Ari, a group of people who were working on rather horrible things,” Ziva continued. “I suppose we are supposed to believe that Sahar had loved Ari, I have to imagine a lot, and she was very angry with me that I had killed him. When he died, their group broke up.”
“But I thought Ari died a long time before I was born?”
Ziva nodded her confirmation. “He did, but Sahar was captured and put in a prison camp, so all that time between Ari’s death and you coming to live with Abba, she could not get to me, get to us.”
“Is Sahar who blew up the house?”
Ziva’s eyes narrowed at record speed, wondering why Tali knew that detail of a story she was otherwise in the dark about. “How do you know about that?”
Tali recoiled at her mother’s question. Her voice was sharp and maybe it had been a mistake by the pre-teen to mention that detail. She looked to her father, but he also seemed curious to know her source.
“Tali, how do you know that?” Ziva was stern.
A gulp rushed down Tali’s throat. “I googled you.”
Ziva wanted to explode with immediate anger. The goddamn power of the internet and this generation's ability to use it so easily. She felt her hand ball up into a fist in her lap, a subconscious action in response to the anger she felt. It was not all directed at Tali. She had missed many opportunities to answer these questions herself, so she was also mad at the choices she had made.
“I do not actually know that it was Sahar who blew up our house,” Ziva tried to keep her voice even.
“They said you died,” Tali pondered out loud, referring to the internet search.
“Well it seems, I did not.” Ziva gave Tali a microscopic smile that may have been missed had Tali not known her mother’s facial expressions so well.
“But then you sent me to Abba and what happened?” Tali reverted to Tony’s Hebrew title, usually when she was tired or scared. It was like Keh-Lev, in that it was always there when she needed it and a stark reminder that she was still very much a child. Just an inquisitive one.
“A lot of things happened, Tali.” Ziva could feel her willingness to share dwindle. Some of the details that fell into the years where she was not with Tony and Tali seemed more embarrassing, more revealing than even telling your twelve year old you have murdered. A lot of what she was doing then would, from her perspective, seem lackadaisical. As if, there was more she should have been doing to get back to them. It was not necessarily true, but the feeling still remained in Ziva’s mind.
“Not a lot of it was very exciting. Once we understood who Sahar was and why she was targeting me, all those years I was gone were used to track her down. I had to do everything I could to stay hidden, while following her across many countries and a few continents.”
Tali thought for a moment. “What happened in Cairo? Abba said we met you there, but I don’t remember.”
“We did meet Ima there,” Tony stepped in now, allowing Ziva a break. “You were only three Tal, I’m sure you don’t remember it. But I had a feeling that Ima was not dead.”
“Wait, you didn’t know she was alive?”
“Nope,” He shook his head. “But I had a gut feeling. Something told me that when you showed up at NCIS with Orli and a bag filled with things that only your Ima could have picked out for you, that she was not dead. It would take so much more than a blown up farmhouse to take her out. I mean it wasn’t even her first bombing.”
“It wasn’t?” Tali’s eyes snapped back to Ziva. “I need to hear about that.”
“Another day, we can discuss it.”
“So eventually, I tracked her down and we met in Cairo. It was a short trip, less than twenty four hours, that we got to see Ima.”
“If I had stayed any longer, I would have been risking your lives, as well as mine. At that time, I did not think that Sahar knew about you, Tali, or Abba. I did not want to miss seeing either of you, but I couldn’t just come home after that.” Ziva reached a hand out to Tali and brushed a loose strand of hair out of her face. “But I got to hold you and kiss you for the first time in over a year. I know you do not remember it, but it was very important to all of us.”
“You didn’t come back until I was six, it took that long to get Sahar?”
Ziva could hear the exasperation in Tali’s voice and if only the girl knew. “It did take that long. Unfortunately. You know, though, it was Grandpa Gibbs who finally helped me get her.”
“That makes sense,” Tali smiled, but then her face dropped instantly. A thought passed her eyes, before leaving her lips. “What happened to Sahar?”
Ziva could sense that a feeling of danger had washed over Tali, as she realized that this woman they were discussing was much more than just a fictional character in a story that she had been asked to be told. It was not a bedtime story, like Tony used to make up for her, when she was much younger. No, this was real life. This was partially her life and the realness of it had finally settled in her.
Ziva’s thumb and index finger grabbed her chin, forcing her to make eye contact with her. “She is dead.”
“You killed her, too?”
Too. Ziva pushed to not linger on that word, the thought that now lived in Tali’s head about what she was capable of.
“Grandpa Gibbs did.”
“So she’s gone?”
Ziva let go of her face and patted her knee. “Yes, very gone. She has been for many years now.”
“But about this being bombed before?”
“Nice try,” Ziva scoffed. “I think this whole thing has been far more than anyone registered up for.”
“Signed up, mom.”
“Whatever it is, I think it can be concluded for now.”
“Back to bed, Tal,” Tony nodded his head toward the door back into the house.
Begrudgingly, Tali stood. Before she could get any further, Ziva grabbed her hand and pulled her in close to her seat. “Ani ohevet oth’a.”
“I love you, too.”
Once they were left alone, Tali’s footsteps into the house and through it disappeared in the distance, Ziva let out a deep breath. She felt as if she had just run a marathon. It was not nearly as scary as she had made it out to be, but the relief of it being over and the realization that she had just done something she feared immeasurably hit her all at once.
Tony gave her a moment, understanding how profoundly that entire conversation must have affected her. But if he looked carefully, he could also see where it happening had lifted something from Ziva’s shoulders that she carried on her own for many, many years. While he could not relate, Tony could appreciate how this would move them forward as a family.
“Zi.”
“I think I am fine.”
“You think?”
She finally looked at him, gazes meeting. The look in her deep brown eyes was much more peaceful than he had expected. “That is not all of it.”
“No, it’s not,” Tony shrugged. “But it was more than she had and more than you had been willing to share. It has to start somewhere.”
“I just hope it helps her… helps us,” Ziva admitted.
“It will,” Tony assured her. “Tali couldn’t ask for a better mother.”
There was a pause.
“And I couldn’t ask for a better safe house… roomie.”
Was that what they were? Was that all they were? That seemed like such a casual term for what they were. But then again, there had been no discussions in recent months about their title, what they called themselves to each other or when someone asked.
Tony could sense that his statement had made it awkward. Ziva stared at him, like she needed to process what he had said and he knew it was not his comment about what a great mother she was. He lifted the plate in front of him off the table as he stood and slipped a hand under Ziva’s, as well. The food was cold and the conversation now colder after Tony put his foot in his mouth.
“There is dessert,” Tony tried.
A gentle smile from Ziva made him feel slightly better.
She followed him into the kitchen, a couple of bowls in her hands filled with leftovers. They worked in tandem to start putting the meal away, as they did so many nights in their own apartment. Though, this was not their apartment. This was a safe house, because they were once again on the run from something. The small bit of normalcy after dinner did help to ease some tension about the situation and the evening. Or maybe it was just a distraction for a minute. Either way, both parties appreciated it.
“Dessert?” Tony asked as the last dish was placed in the washer beside the sink.
“Roomie?” Ziva countered.
Tony sighed. “What would have been better?”
“Is that what we are calling it now?”
“I mean it was a little rhetorical, but also I wasn’t trying to scare you away by calling it something else. Enough had already happened tonight with the whole Tali thing.”
“Scare me away?” Ziva clarified. “Where am I going to go, Tony? I thought we had been doing… better. Dinner, time to ourselves, in the middle of all of this. I came to dinner thinking we were okay.”
“You came to dinner without a bra on,” Tony muttered.
But the glare he received from Ziva said he could have been quieter or just kept the thought to himself entirely. “Do not be a prick. I am sorry for assuming anything.”
“Zivs.”
“No,” She staggered out of the kitchen, toward the bedroom on the main floor they were occupying.
It was her that had been closed off lately. She went through phases of being open and honest with him, where they could be real with each other about the needs they had, physically, anyway. Communicating thoroughly about anything else, truly, was mostly off. Yet, the intimacy in their relationship rarely suffered at the hands of their inability to have an entire adult conversation. That had not been the case the last month or so, and Ziva knew she was the culprit. Work was busy. Her and Tali’s relationship was so complicated and frequently draining, that it took up a good portion of her time and energy. Maybe, she deserved to have him call her out for the sudden want of more than just dinner.
“Shit,” Tony mumbled and followed her. “Ziva.”
“Tony, it is fine. It has been a long evening and I am over it.” But she didn’t bother to look at him.
When he finally caught up to her, he reached a hand out to grab her shoulder; Ziva immediately shrugged him off. His next instinct was a hand on the small of her waist, which did make her turn around, only as she was grabbing his hand and tossing it off of her.
“Zivs. I’m sorry.”
She shifted from one foot to another and crossed her arms across her chest. “Do you mean that?”
“Yes,” Tony urged. “I mean it. I was an insensitive jerk. I’m perfectly capable of it.”
“There is a lot at stake right now, Tony and honestly, I thought finally having a night to ourselves, or sort of to ourselves, would be welcomed.”
“It is welcomed.”
“Then why did you try your best to ruin it?”
Tony inched closer. Her guard was down just enough that she did not slog him right in the chest like he deserved. “Old habits die hard.”
“Turning down sex is not an old habit.”
“No, but ruining moments with my big mouth is.”
A small chuckle accompanied her tiny head nod, both reactions matching each other in size. “That, I suppose, is true.”
“I really am sorry.” Another step toward her, this time close enough to tousle a piece of hair threatening to fall in front of her eye. “I never want you to think I don’t want you because I do.”
Ziva suddenly felt a little weak in the knees. Anthony DiNozzo had that effect on her, like nobody else did. The right glance, a whiff of his cologne that’s been the same since she met him, the gentlest touch of her hair, a signature move, and all of his transgressions were forgotten. All Ziva could do was fall over her own want for him.
Tony’s hand snaked around to the nape of her neck and he pulled her in closer, their lips met as easily as ever, like it was a rehearsed movement, both of them expecting it. Their tongues melted into each other’s for a brief moment before Ziva broke away first.
“Was that part of the apology?”
“If it worked, absolutely.”
Ziva rolled her eyes at him, but she initiated the next kiss, her own hands clasping behind his back, so she could press herself against him.
He felt like he always did. Just enough taller than her that when the kiss ended, she could let her head fall into the crook of his neck. His arms fit around her comfortably and the way they closed her in, never felt suffocating, although it could have. Instead, it just felt right.
There was a flurry of footsteps toward the bed and hands examining every inch of each other that they already knew so well and clothes being shed to the floor. Yet, there was no hurry and not an ounce of haste between them. As if, there was an unspoken agreement that after, what was maybe too long, they were going to take their time. It may also have been the subconscious admission from both of them that their days, now on the run, were not necessarily theirs to dictate. It was a multitude of things and it was something they both needed.
Ziva found herself curled against Tony’s bare chest, her cheeks flushed against his still clammy skin. Her breathing had only just begun to even out when she felt his index finger on her bare abdomen.
The tip of his finger traced a stretch mark.
“You could not pay attention to those,” Ziva sighed.
“Why?”
“They are not particularly pretty.”
Tony continued his exploration. It was not as if he had not seen them many times, though those many times happened only after Ziva returned to Paris because he was not there when they appeared. Maybe that was the fascination with them, missing the reason they existed.
They were the few scars Ziva had on her body to be proud of, but she still found herself hyper vigilant of the way Tony’s traced them and took them in. She had thought little of the stretch marks when she was pregnant, considering them normal and far too occupied with the health of their baby girl, to obsess over the vanity of it all. The further away from that she now got, the older she became, the more aware she was of the marks. The more aware she was of the landscape of her entire body. Ziva found herself, especially recently and after particularly hard days with Tali that ended in tears or screaming or both, staring at herself in the mirror after the shower, inspecting these things that made her wonder if being a mother was something she should have pursued.
“You wouldn’t have them if you hadn’t given us Tali.”
“Did you mean what you said?”
“Said when?”
“About Tali not asking for a better mother.”
Tony took back his hand and pressed it under her chin, forcing her to look into his eyes. A seriousness was cast over them. “Yes.”