Learning How to Live, ch. 3 (Ziva character study, NCIS)
Sorry for the delay. I'm slow like that. It's been a crazy week.
cross-posted to ncisfanfic and zivadavid
Title: Learning How to Live, ch. 2
Rating: PG-13
Category: Action/Adventure, Angst, Drama
Genre: Action, Angst, Character Study
Pairing: None.
Warnings: Character Death (canon).
Summary: Ziva has learned how to kill, but she must learn how to live. Ziva POV. Pre-series.
Disclaimer: These characters belong to DPB, CBS, Paramount, et al. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Notes: Written for the Ziva as Mossad Operative challenge on NFA, which details Ziva's life before she joined NCIS. 5 chapters total, posted one at a time.
I disconnected with Ari, allowing the phone to drop to my mattress. It was Hamas. There had been suicide bombers in the streets of the city, and Tali had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. She did not deserve this. No innocent person deserved such cruelty, such an unfortunate death, but especially not dear Tali. She was 16 years old! Much too young to die in such a way.
I felt the tears begin to trickle down my face. My baby sister was dead. And I should have prevented it.
Was that not my job, to prevent these acts of terrorism from occurring in the first place? I felt so utterly useless at that moment. Here I was, not even 21 years of age, and I had lost one of the most important people in my life. At least I still had my brother, Ari; at least he was skilled with weapons so he knew how to protect himself. But even the most lethal weapons could not prevent death in the case of these suicide bombers.
I quickly made my way to the small sink in my bathroom, running the tap for a few moments, then splashing the cool water on my cheeks. Father would be showing up shortly, this I knew, and I could not allow him to see me cry. It sounds silly, downright animalistic, to say I was not allowed to mourn for the loss of my own flesh and blood, but Father would not see things the way I did. He would expect me to carry on, maintain a professional and distanced façade. And while it would not be easy to do, I knew that was what I had to do, in order to keep my position at Mossad - though most likely not my sanity.
There would be time later for mourning, however. Now I had to collect myself, prepare for my father’s arrival.
I sat back down on my bed and tried not to think about Tali, or at the very least, about what had happened in that plaza, about the look on her face when she realized she was about to die, about how she must look now . . .
A knock on the door yanked me from my vivid thoughts. I let out a breath. I had almost taken myself to the place I had not wanted to go - I had already lost too many close to me, and I could not allow myself to return to that grieving. But I could not think about how I almost made that mistake. I had to focus on the now, on what my father would say.
I opened the door and my mouth dropped in surprise. “Ari. I was . . . not expecting you.”
“I see that, Zivaleh,” he said, walking inside and closing the door behind us. He turned to face me. “Have you spoken to Father yet?”
“No, no, I thought that maybe you were him, coming to ‘check on me.’” I rolled my eyes. He knew just as well as I that the only thing Father would be checking on would be to see if I were in proper condition to go about my work.
Ari placed a hand on my shoulder. “Tali was a sweet child. Undeserving of this.” He paused, and I somehow knew he was about to channel our father, give me a speech about how I needed to be strong for our fallen sibling.
“Ziva, you cannot let this affect how you work,” he ordered me softly. “It will be difficult, but there are many lives on the line . . .”
“Our sister is dead!” I spat out. I could not stay silent any longer. “Ari, does that mean nothing to you? A million lives saved cannot bring back Tali. She is gone, and it is all my fault.” The tears I had wiped away before I answered the door returned, running in salty trails down my face.
Ari was silent. I am sure he did know how to react. What do you say to someone who has just told you she is the reason your sister is dead?
“Tali is dead because of herself.”
My head shot up. “What?”
He shook his head. “I talked to her earlier, told her not to come . . .”
I jolted at him, pressing him against the wall - not an easy feat, by any means, but I managed. “She was coming to visit my mother’s grave! Do you not understand the importance of that?” My grasp on him weakened, and I felt him pull my hands from his shoulders, bringing them to a rest in between us. He did not let go. “She just wanted to let her know she was there, she was okay . . .”
The sobs I had been holding back since Ari first delivered those words came to the surface then, and the last thing I remember from that moment was collapsing in my brother’s arms, my body weak, my soul weaker . . .
Father did show up eventually, chastising me for my crying, telling me how ashamed Tali would be to see me acting this way over her. I wanted to yell and scream at him about how wrong he was, how Tali would have been touched, felt loved, that her sister - normally so vacant with her emotions - was grieving for her in an outward way. But then, he never had been one to understand the importance of family.
Everything was business to him, cold and logical, so to even attempt to explain how I was feeling was useless. Emotions are careless, he would say. You cannot trust emotions to get you out of a dangerous situation.
No, Father, I disagree. Emotions may not be able to defuse a bomb or shoot a target from 30 feet away, but without them, I would surely be dead myself, for I would be empty inside. Yes, they are careless and yes, they can hurt more than help at times, but I cannot live my life without feeling.
That I knew then, and that I know now. Because in order to live, to survive the world, I need to be able to feel - we all do. And I learned firsthand just how important that was just one year later, on a day no person, no matter how emotionally distant he is, will ever forget.
cross-posted to ncisfanfic and zivadavid
Title: Learning How to Live, ch. 2
Rating: PG-13
Category: Action/Adventure, Angst, Drama
Genre: Action, Angst, Character Study
Pairing: None.
Warnings: Character Death (canon).
Summary: Ziva has learned how to kill, but she must learn how to live. Ziva POV. Pre-series.
Disclaimer: These characters belong to DPB, CBS, Paramount, et al. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Notes: Written for the Ziva as Mossad Operative challenge on NFA, which details Ziva's life before she joined NCIS. 5 chapters total, posted one at a time.
I disconnected with Ari, allowing the phone to drop to my mattress. It was Hamas. There had been suicide bombers in the streets of the city, and Tali had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. She did not deserve this. No innocent person deserved such cruelty, such an unfortunate death, but especially not dear Tali. She was 16 years old! Much too young to die in such a way.
I felt the tears begin to trickle down my face. My baby sister was dead. And I should have prevented it.
Was that not my job, to prevent these acts of terrorism from occurring in the first place? I felt so utterly useless at that moment. Here I was, not even 21 years of age, and I had lost one of the most important people in my life. At least I still had my brother, Ari; at least he was skilled with weapons so he knew how to protect himself. But even the most lethal weapons could not prevent death in the case of these suicide bombers.
I quickly made my way to the small sink in my bathroom, running the tap for a few moments, then splashing the cool water on my cheeks. Father would be showing up shortly, this I knew, and I could not allow him to see me cry. It sounds silly, downright animalistic, to say I was not allowed to mourn for the loss of my own flesh and blood, but Father would not see things the way I did. He would expect me to carry on, maintain a professional and distanced façade. And while it would not be easy to do, I knew that was what I had to do, in order to keep my position at Mossad - though most likely not my sanity.
There would be time later for mourning, however. Now I had to collect myself, prepare for my father’s arrival.
I sat back down on my bed and tried not to think about Tali, or at the very least, about what had happened in that plaza, about the look on her face when she realized she was about to die, about how she must look now . . .
A knock on the door yanked me from my vivid thoughts. I let out a breath. I had almost taken myself to the place I had not wanted to go - I had already lost too many close to me, and I could not allow myself to return to that grieving. But I could not think about how I almost made that mistake. I had to focus on the now, on what my father would say.
I opened the door and my mouth dropped in surprise. “Ari. I was . . . not expecting you.”
“I see that, Zivaleh,” he said, walking inside and closing the door behind us. He turned to face me. “Have you spoken to Father yet?”
“No, no, I thought that maybe you were him, coming to ‘check on me.’” I rolled my eyes. He knew just as well as I that the only thing Father would be checking on would be to see if I were in proper condition to go about my work.
Ari placed a hand on my shoulder. “Tali was a sweet child. Undeserving of this.” He paused, and I somehow knew he was about to channel our father, give me a speech about how I needed to be strong for our fallen sibling.
“Ziva, you cannot let this affect how you work,” he ordered me softly. “It will be difficult, but there are many lives on the line . . .”
“Our sister is dead!” I spat out. I could not stay silent any longer. “Ari, does that mean nothing to you? A million lives saved cannot bring back Tali. She is gone, and it is all my fault.” The tears I had wiped away before I answered the door returned, running in salty trails down my face.
Ari was silent. I am sure he did know how to react. What do you say to someone who has just told you she is the reason your sister is dead?
“Tali is dead because of herself.”
My head shot up. “What?”
He shook his head. “I talked to her earlier, told her not to come . . .”
I jolted at him, pressing him against the wall - not an easy feat, by any means, but I managed. “She was coming to visit my mother’s grave! Do you not understand the importance of that?” My grasp on him weakened, and I felt him pull my hands from his shoulders, bringing them to a rest in between us. He did not let go. “She just wanted to let her know she was there, she was okay . . .”
The sobs I had been holding back since Ari first delivered those words came to the surface then, and the last thing I remember from that moment was collapsing in my brother’s arms, my body weak, my soul weaker . . .
Father did show up eventually, chastising me for my crying, telling me how ashamed Tali would be to see me acting this way over her. I wanted to yell and scream at him about how wrong he was, how Tali would have been touched, felt loved, that her sister - normally so vacant with her emotions - was grieving for her in an outward way. But then, he never had been one to understand the importance of family.
Everything was business to him, cold and logical, so to even attempt to explain how I was feeling was useless. Emotions are careless, he would say. You cannot trust emotions to get you out of a dangerous situation.
No, Father, I disagree. Emotions may not be able to defuse a bomb or shoot a target from 30 feet away, but without them, I would surely be dead myself, for I would be empty inside. Yes, they are careless and yes, they can hurt more than help at times, but I cannot live my life without feeling.
That I knew then, and that I know now. Because in order to live, to survive the world, I need to be able to feel - we all do. And I learned firsthand just how important that was just one year later, on a day no person, no matter how emotionally distant he is, will ever forget.