Fic: Brief Bus Stop (Ch. 1)
Series: Brief Bus Stop
Chapter One: lazuz le-eifo sheh-hu or (to move to somewhere)
Author: vegawriters
Fandom: NCIS
Timeframe: Kill Ari
Rating: The series as a whole, R. This chapter, teen.
Pairing: Brief Ziva/OFC (Sarah)
A/N: The Americanization of Ziva David.
Disclaimer: I keep falling in love with beautiful characters already written by other people. If CBS is looking for a young, up and coming writer who will devote herself wholeheartedly to the process, I’m the right girl. Otherwise, I make no money from this. NCIS, Ziva, and the team belong to other people. I’m just walking with them for a while.
Summary: Her tea stewed and Ziva stared into the liquid, wondering exactly what lay before her. Ari was no longer of concern. Her team in the United States was dissolved. Now it was Tel Aviv and a life here what? Doing paperwork? A new team heading into Somalia or Iran or Afghanistan? Part of her didn’t mind the idea of sitting still for a while.
in this city
self-preservation
is a full time occupation
i'm determined
to survive on these shores
~Ani Difranco Talk To Me
* * *
“You will do this, Ziva.”
Her father’s words were shrapnel in her brain, keeping her awake even in the peaceful confines of Sarah’s apartment in Tel Aviv. Every time she closed her eyes, she was stepping through the front doors of NCIS, flashing her credentials to the security guard who let her step through without needing to use the metal detectors. If they’d frisked her, they’d have found her knives and her throwaway gun. Americans were far too lax on security in even their most important buildings. But she supposed it was part of their charm.
“Get his trust, Ziva. Gain access to who he is. He is someone we must watch. You will do this, Ziva.”
She paused at the window, wrapping the light purple and white sarong more tightly around her body. Outside, wind pushed across the nearly deserted streets. A dust storm threatened. Across the city, she could see the outline of her own apartment building. She could not yet set foot inside. Ari was still there; his image, his clothing, the letter he had written to her after Tali had been killed.
“You will do this, Ziva.”
Ari had never seen it coming. Ziva was not bound to American notions of honor and looking someone in the eye when you were going to kill them, but she felt Ari had deserved more than a sniper style bullet from someone he could not see. He’d trusted her. He’d believed he’d played both sides so well. If only he had charmed Kate into betraying her country and let himself fall in love. Instead, he had to get wrapped into the very game their father had been playing with them their whole lives.
Had Ari regretted killing Caitlin?
“You,” came a thick voice behind her, “need to rest, Ziva.”
Sarah’s thin arms slipped around her and Ziva leaned back into her lover’s embrace. Her encounters were usually only passing, flesh meeting flesh, a release of tension, but little more than that. When she loved, it was from afar, never daring to get too close. Sarah, she had wanted to hope, was different. But she was not Mossad and Ziva was forced to lie to her to maintain her security. So they were tethered, but not bound, circling each other as the rope between them frayed strand by strand.
“I wish I could.” She shook her head. “I will only keep you awake. You should go back to bed.”
“Your not being in bed is what woke me.” Dry lips pressed against her cheek. “Come on, Ziva. Speak to me.”
No one knew, save her father and Gibbs, what had really happened in that basement. No one knew that she had been the one to fire the shot.
“Do not worry about me, Sarah. Jet lag keeps me awake is all.” The lie made her words tense and even though Sarah kissed her cheek again before disappearing back into the bedroom, she knew she’d hurt her. Sarah wanted her to open up, to talk about it, but what good would that do? No one could know the truth. It could unravel all the trust Mossad agents had in Eli David’s leadership. His own son a Hamas agent? What did that make his daughter?
Tired fingers worked tight muscles and she walked to the tiny kitchen to boil water for tea. It was not long until sunrise and she needed to report in only a couple of hours.
If it had not been for her mission, she would have enjoyed her time in America. Jenny was one of her favorite people. She loved everything about the smooth redhead - from her way of looking at the world to how she smelled first thing in the morning. Timothy McGee was a truly beautiful human being - she could not help but think of Ari when she looked at him. Once, she had believed Ari to be that pure, that genteel. Not as awkward, of course. But McGee’s awkward sensibility was endearing. She wanted to protect him and introduce him to the world at the same time. Abby Sciuto exemplified everything Ziva loved about Americans. She was so free flowing and passionate. She was the ideal - what people thought of when they thought of American women. Anthony DiNozzo made her heart beat faster. She hated that she was attracted to him. He was so adolescent, but it was clear he used it as a cover. He, like her, never wanted to get too close.
She only wished that her relationship with Jethro Gibbs could have been different. He was a broken man, hiding secrets that rivaled hers. But he had gazed at her so softly, telling her in one look how sorry he was that she had been forced to do what she did. She did not blame Gibbs. She blamed Ari for putting her with these people the way he had.
Gray light eeked through the windows as the sun rose behind a dusty sky. Across the plaza from her apartment, a tarp blew off a market stall and three blocks down, the neon lights shut off on one of the Western department stores. She loved this time, before the city truly woke, when she could see it as it might have been once, in biblical times. Before the military lined the road with machine guns and before the population ducked suicide bombers in coffee shops.
Her tea stewed and Ziva stared into the liquid, wondering exactly what lay before her. Ari was no longer of concern. Her team in the United States was dissolved. Now it was Tel Aviv and a life here what? Doing paperwork? A new team heading into Somalia or Iran or Afghanistan? Part of her didn’t mind the idea of sitting still for a while.
Maybe she needed to step away. Maybe she needed a break. All the intelligence agencies in the world were starting to send each other liaisons. Mossad had requests from each of the major bureaus in the United States and England. She could pass intelligence along as she felt necessary, as her father felt necessary, but she could do something different for a while. She was tired of spying and killing. She wanted to make dinner for friends and gather for Sabbath dinner again.
0430 AM. It was time to get dressed, to get moving. She would be late. In the bedroom, Sarah moved around, also dressing. Ziva stared through the open door at her lover’s form, memorizing it, knowing that when she kissed her goodbye in just a few moments, it would be forever.
Keeping her truths from Sarah kept her safe. But sitting just a room away, she missed her.
***
Ziva stepped onto the elevator, crowded in with two women wearing too much cheap perfume and a man in a sports jacket at least a size too small. She could feel one of the women’s eyes on her and turned, raising an eyebrow in her direction. The woman flinched. If this was the caliber of agents here at NCIS, gaining access, gaining trust, and fulfilling her mission would be much easier than her intelligence gathering indicated.
Nothing had changed in the time she’d been gone. Orange walls and an ugly brownish blue carpet greeted her at her destination. Cubicles decorated with everything from pictures to case files to possibly confidential information assaulted her senses. Her eyes scanned each corner of the room, moving from the outside to a central point, committing everything to memory. Quick steps took her to an empty cubicle - Caitlin’s - and she stopped, surveying it. There was a thin layer of dust - the desk had not been touched in a few days. It was surprising, given what she knew of Americans, to not find some vigil of flowers set up in memoriam.
None of the team she was now a part of had made it in.
Carefully, she settled at Caitlin’s desk. The drawers were still locked, cases going cold while the team dealt with what her brother had wrought. Even the kit was there, a backpack embroidered with NCIS and Caitlin’s last name. She settled in to wait.
At 0700, her patience nearly at its limit, DiNozzo stumbled through the door, grumbling about burritos and not coming in and why had he and something else about weekends. He was disgusting, looking like he had possibly slept in a garbage dumpster the night before, but there was something appealing about the boyish mask he wore. His psychological profile told her she could get what she wanted from him by coming on to him, so she let him approach her, watching him as he watched her shake her curls loose. The humidity in Washington always made her hair unmanageable. Maybe building a city on a swamp hadn’t been such a good idea.
It was fun to flirt with him. He was an admirable opponent and, she had to admit, if she weren’t pining for someone left back in Israel, she might have even slept with him given the chance.
Who knew. It could still happen. She had left Sarah with a kiss and a prayer to stay safe.
Before her mind could be completely run off course, she looked back at her new sparring partner. She was out of her element. It was her place to blow in, save the day with some hard won intelligence and then flit back to Tel Aviv. But now, she was here to learn, to help, to keep the connection strong between the countries. She couldn’t piss people off. Well, not too much.
Staring at the look on Gibbs’ face as he processed her reassignment, she couldn’t help but thinking that requesting this assignment hadn’t been the best idea. Maybe it would have been better to head into Afghanistan or accept the assignment in Syria. She held her breath as he stormed up the stairs, away from her and her orders and the secret they shared.
For the first time in her life she realized the last place she wanted to be was home in Tel Aviv and it made her wonder if it had ever been home in the first place.
TBC …
Chapter One: lazuz le-eifo sheh-hu or (to move to somewhere)
Author: vegawriters
Fandom: NCIS
Timeframe: Kill Ari
Rating: The series as a whole, R. This chapter, teen.
Pairing: Brief Ziva/OFC (Sarah)
A/N: The Americanization of Ziva David.
Disclaimer: I keep falling in love with beautiful characters already written by other people. If CBS is looking for a young, up and coming writer who will devote herself wholeheartedly to the process, I’m the right girl. Otherwise, I make no money from this. NCIS, Ziva, and the team belong to other people. I’m just walking with them for a while.
Summary: Her tea stewed and Ziva stared into the liquid, wondering exactly what lay before her. Ari was no longer of concern. Her team in the United States was dissolved. Now it was Tel Aviv and a life here what? Doing paperwork? A new team heading into Somalia or Iran or Afghanistan? Part of her didn’t mind the idea of sitting still for a while.
in this city
self-preservation
is a full time occupation
i'm determined
to survive on these shores
~Ani Difranco Talk To Me
* * *
“You will do this, Ziva.”
Her father’s words were shrapnel in her brain, keeping her awake even in the peaceful confines of Sarah’s apartment in Tel Aviv. Every time she closed her eyes, she was stepping through the front doors of NCIS, flashing her credentials to the security guard who let her step through without needing to use the metal detectors. If they’d frisked her, they’d have found her knives and her throwaway gun. Americans were far too lax on security in even their most important buildings. But she supposed it was part of their charm.
“Get his trust, Ziva. Gain access to who he is. He is someone we must watch. You will do this, Ziva.”
She paused at the window, wrapping the light purple and white sarong more tightly around her body. Outside, wind pushed across the nearly deserted streets. A dust storm threatened. Across the city, she could see the outline of her own apartment building. She could not yet set foot inside. Ari was still there; his image, his clothing, the letter he had written to her after Tali had been killed.
“You will do this, Ziva.”
Ari had never seen it coming. Ziva was not bound to American notions of honor and looking someone in the eye when you were going to kill them, but she felt Ari had deserved more than a sniper style bullet from someone he could not see. He’d trusted her. He’d believed he’d played both sides so well. If only he had charmed Kate into betraying her country and let himself fall in love. Instead, he had to get wrapped into the very game their father had been playing with them their whole lives.
Had Ari regretted killing Caitlin?
“You,” came a thick voice behind her, “need to rest, Ziva.”
Sarah’s thin arms slipped around her and Ziva leaned back into her lover’s embrace. Her encounters were usually only passing, flesh meeting flesh, a release of tension, but little more than that. When she loved, it was from afar, never daring to get too close. Sarah, she had wanted to hope, was different. But she was not Mossad and Ziva was forced to lie to her to maintain her security. So they were tethered, but not bound, circling each other as the rope between them frayed strand by strand.
“I wish I could.” She shook her head. “I will only keep you awake. You should go back to bed.”
“Your not being in bed is what woke me.” Dry lips pressed against her cheek. “Come on, Ziva. Speak to me.”
No one knew, save her father and Gibbs, what had really happened in that basement. No one knew that she had been the one to fire the shot.
“Do not worry about me, Sarah. Jet lag keeps me awake is all.” The lie made her words tense and even though Sarah kissed her cheek again before disappearing back into the bedroom, she knew she’d hurt her. Sarah wanted her to open up, to talk about it, but what good would that do? No one could know the truth. It could unravel all the trust Mossad agents had in Eli David’s leadership. His own son a Hamas agent? What did that make his daughter?
Tired fingers worked tight muscles and she walked to the tiny kitchen to boil water for tea. It was not long until sunrise and she needed to report in only a couple of hours.
If it had not been for her mission, she would have enjoyed her time in America. Jenny was one of her favorite people. She loved everything about the smooth redhead - from her way of looking at the world to how she smelled first thing in the morning. Timothy McGee was a truly beautiful human being - she could not help but think of Ari when she looked at him. Once, she had believed Ari to be that pure, that genteel. Not as awkward, of course. But McGee’s awkward sensibility was endearing. She wanted to protect him and introduce him to the world at the same time. Abby Sciuto exemplified everything Ziva loved about Americans. She was so free flowing and passionate. She was the ideal - what people thought of when they thought of American women. Anthony DiNozzo made her heart beat faster. She hated that she was attracted to him. He was so adolescent, but it was clear he used it as a cover. He, like her, never wanted to get too close.
She only wished that her relationship with Jethro Gibbs could have been different. He was a broken man, hiding secrets that rivaled hers. But he had gazed at her so softly, telling her in one look how sorry he was that she had been forced to do what she did. She did not blame Gibbs. She blamed Ari for putting her with these people the way he had.
Gray light eeked through the windows as the sun rose behind a dusty sky. Across the plaza from her apartment, a tarp blew off a market stall and three blocks down, the neon lights shut off on one of the Western department stores. She loved this time, before the city truly woke, when she could see it as it might have been once, in biblical times. Before the military lined the road with machine guns and before the population ducked suicide bombers in coffee shops.
Her tea stewed and Ziva stared into the liquid, wondering exactly what lay before her. Ari was no longer of concern. Her team in the United States was dissolved. Now it was Tel Aviv and a life here what? Doing paperwork? A new team heading into Somalia or Iran or Afghanistan? Part of her didn’t mind the idea of sitting still for a while.
Maybe she needed to step away. Maybe she needed a break. All the intelligence agencies in the world were starting to send each other liaisons. Mossad had requests from each of the major bureaus in the United States and England. She could pass intelligence along as she felt necessary, as her father felt necessary, but she could do something different for a while. She was tired of spying and killing. She wanted to make dinner for friends and gather for Sabbath dinner again.
0430 AM. It was time to get dressed, to get moving. She would be late. In the bedroom, Sarah moved around, also dressing. Ziva stared through the open door at her lover’s form, memorizing it, knowing that when she kissed her goodbye in just a few moments, it would be forever.
Keeping her truths from Sarah kept her safe. But sitting just a room away, she missed her.
***
Ziva stepped onto the elevator, crowded in with two women wearing too much cheap perfume and a man in a sports jacket at least a size too small. She could feel one of the women’s eyes on her and turned, raising an eyebrow in her direction. The woman flinched. If this was the caliber of agents here at NCIS, gaining access, gaining trust, and fulfilling her mission would be much easier than her intelligence gathering indicated.
Nothing had changed in the time she’d been gone. Orange walls and an ugly brownish blue carpet greeted her at her destination. Cubicles decorated with everything from pictures to case files to possibly confidential information assaulted her senses. Her eyes scanned each corner of the room, moving from the outside to a central point, committing everything to memory. Quick steps took her to an empty cubicle - Caitlin’s - and she stopped, surveying it. There was a thin layer of dust - the desk had not been touched in a few days. It was surprising, given what she knew of Americans, to not find some vigil of flowers set up in memoriam.
None of the team she was now a part of had made it in.
Carefully, she settled at Caitlin’s desk. The drawers were still locked, cases going cold while the team dealt with what her brother had wrought. Even the kit was there, a backpack embroidered with NCIS and Caitlin’s last name. She settled in to wait.
At 0700, her patience nearly at its limit, DiNozzo stumbled through the door, grumbling about burritos and not coming in and why had he and something else about weekends. He was disgusting, looking like he had possibly slept in a garbage dumpster the night before, but there was something appealing about the boyish mask he wore. His psychological profile told her she could get what she wanted from him by coming on to him, so she let him approach her, watching him as he watched her shake her curls loose. The humidity in Washington always made her hair unmanageable. Maybe building a city on a swamp hadn’t been such a good idea.
It was fun to flirt with him. He was an admirable opponent and, she had to admit, if she weren’t pining for someone left back in Israel, she might have even slept with him given the chance.
Who knew. It could still happen. She had left Sarah with a kiss and a prayer to stay safe.
Before her mind could be completely run off course, she looked back at her new sparring partner. She was out of her element. It was her place to blow in, save the day with some hard won intelligence and then flit back to Tel Aviv. But now, she was here to learn, to help, to keep the connection strong between the countries. She couldn’t piss people off. Well, not too much.
Staring at the look on Gibbs’ face as he processed her reassignment, she couldn’t help but thinking that requesting this assignment hadn’t been the best idea. Maybe it would have been better to head into Afghanistan or accept the assignment in Syria. She held her breath as he stormed up the stairs, away from her and her orders and the secret they shared.
For the first time in her life she realized the last place she wanted to be was home in Tel Aviv and it made her wonder if it had ever been home in the first place.
TBC …