Disclaimer: I own nothing.

A/N: If NCIS can bring back storylines from years ago, so can I! I'm going to lie, I kind of ran out of steam for this story when I was writing it a few years ago. It didn't help that I had an outline fleshed out and another chapter written…and then my laptop died. Always back up your writing, kids. And then I went to grad school. But with the reappearance of Ziva on NCIS and the fascinating things they're doing with her, I felt it was high time I actually got back to this story. Who else got emotional over the premiere? Anyone? Just me? Okay, fine.

November 2013

Ziva woke to a darkened bedroom, disoriented and confused. Her internal clock told her that it was morning, but the moon cast long, silvery shadows onto her bedroom floor and the air was silent; the birds had not yet begun their morning serenade. She reached for her phone on the bedside table, wincing at the light as she swiped it awake. A little before four in the morning, the screen reported. Before she could ponder over why she had been roused two hours before her alarm was set to go off, her stomach gave a riotous lurch. Covers thrown back, feet on the floor, she barely made it into the bathroom before the tea and toast she had eaten the previous evening made a reappearance. Bile burned the back of her throat, and she could barely catch her breath before it began all over again. Yesterday, she had known nothing of the life within her, and had experienced no symptoms of pregnancy. Now, less than twelve hours later, her body seemed determined that make it clear that her life was no longer just about her—even if that meant she would never eat tea and toast again.

Another lurch brought up nothing but stomach acid, but her stomach seemed not to notice. She could hardly breathe. Her body gave her only a moment to draw a breath before it roiled again, and she suffocated. She gripped the string of her hooded sweatshirt and tugged hard. She struggled to stay upright, to stay present. Safe, she repeated the word over and over like a mantra, as the bleached white tiles in her bathroom dulled to brown dirt and back again. Safe, as the bathmat cushioning her knees became straw flecked with animal dung and her own blood. Safe, as the familiar smell of lavender candles became the smell of sun-baked earth, sweat, and hot metal. Choked, trapped. She felt her legs draw closer to the rest of her body, making her smaller. An arm curled around her midsection. Safe. The desert gave way to a hospital room, needles and tests and straps for her arms. Food that had come back up as quickly as she had swallowed it. Nutrients in a tube down her throat that tasted like stale, sour milk as she emptied her stomach into a basin over and over and over again. Safe. She rested her head on her arm, braced against the toilet seat and took a shaky breath. Safe. Safe. Safe.

When it seemed as though the worst was over, she leaned back against the sink cabinets and closed her eyes. She breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth, but it did little more than make her lightheaded. Spots danced before her eyes. Her stomach ached as though someone had kicked her and her throat burned. She tucked her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her head, her nails digging into her scalp. You are not there. He is not here. Pinpricks of pain as she gripped danced along her nerve endings, bringing with them awareness. No one can hurt you here. The throbbing in her head began to dissipate, the feeling that she was going to lose consciousness ebbing. The nausea stayed, but her stomach seemed to realize there was nothing left to expel and did not try. Still, there was a thick feeling in the back of her throat, and a fuzzy, acid taste in her mouth. She did not dare try to stand up and brush the taste away. The thought of moving, of trying to crawl back into bed, was overwhelming. Weariness and fatigue settled over her; she tipped herself carefully sideways until she was lying on the soft, plush bathmat in front of the tub. She would just rest for a moment.

She jerked upright, narrowly avoiding hitting her head on the edge of the sink. There was an incessant chiming, distant but insistent, disrupting the early morning silence. Her alarm. A meeting with Orli. She rubbed a hand over her eyes, brushing a wild mane of hair away from her face. No nausea this time, though it felt like something had died in her mouth and the space behind her eyes and in her temples throbbed. She stood, stretching out muscles that protested to her impromptu sleeping arrangements, and reached for the edge of the medicine cabinet door, deliberately avoiding the mirror. Her hand was on a bottle of headache reliever when she suddenly remembered exactly why she had awoken on the bathroom floor to begin with.

Her other hand flew to cover her stomach. Yesterday, she had warred between wonder and fear at the prospect of becoming a mother. This morning, both had been replaced by dread. She was suddenly overcome with the feeling that her body was not her own, that she was no longer in control. Her body was reacting in exactly the way it was supposed to, but in a way that was devoid of rationality and disconnected from conscious thought. This child needed to use her body to grow, to thrive. She would be expected to help that by making choices antithetical to her own wellbeing, as they would be disastrous to the wellbeing of her child. An act as simple as taking the wrong medication could permanently damage the life growing within her. The baby could be deformed, harmed. Her fault.

She only noticed the shaking in her hands when the pills began to rattle in the bottle and overtook the sound of the ringing alarm. A quick scan of the back revealed no information about whether the recommended dosage was safe for a pregnant woman, and although her head gave another painful throb, she placed the bottle back in the cabinet and closed the door. Trembling hands turned on the water, splashed cold water onto her face and neck. It did little to help. She gripped the edge of the sink and tried to channel an inner peace she did not feel.

Trembling hands reached for her toothbrush, to wash away the feeling of cotton and the taste of bile. The familiar, rhythmic act and the sharp taste of mint brought her slowly back to reality. Her alarm had ceased its ringing, though if she stayed in the bathroom too long, it would likely sound again. Dawn crept through the glass window to her right, casting the room in a yellowish, ethereal glow. She longed to slip back between the covers and go back to sleep, to forget, for a little while, that her life as a woman independent of responsibilities had been upended in the most momentous of ways and that she was struggling to cope. But in less than two hours, she would be forced to confront her old life. The consequences of the younger, more impulsive, more inhumane woman.

The city of Tel Aviv was much like she had left it, and a jarring difference from the quiet existence she had cultivated in the farmhouse. She leant her still aching head against the cool window pane of the bus, taking care that her face was covered by her headscarf and that there was no one seated nearby that would take notice. The bus, with its lurching motion and stop-and-start gait, was not doing her roiling stomach any favors, but the relative chill of the glass gave her something else to focus on. The murmured morning conversations of other passengers filtered through the scarf, as did the sounds of traffic through the window. Despite the lateness in the year, the weather was hot, humid. She felt sweat drip down the back of her shirt; years in DC had familiarized her to a November that was cold and damp. The air conditioning on the bus was humming, but was not making any meaningful impact.

When the bus teetered around another corner and her stomach gave a warning gurgle, she opened her eyes to find that the bus had nearly emptied. At the front of the bus, close to the door, sat a young woman and a small child. The child was no more than three or four years old, and was perched on his knees in the window seat, nose pressed against the glass. His breath fogged up the window, which he wiped away with his hand before pointing at something excitedly out the window. A motorcycle, if the sound of the revving engine was anything to go by. He turned to the woman seated next to him, who had a hand on his back to keep him from tumbling off the seat, and chattered something in Hebrew. The only word that she could make out from this distance was ima. The woman next to the little boy was his mother. The young woman grinned back at her son and made a comment. Both shared a laugh, and the little boy leaned in until his forehead was pressed against the woman's. He made a face before leaning back and pressing a kiss against her cheek. She tapped her finger against his nose affectionately. Quick as a flash, he was back against the window, now fascinated with a delivery truck.

Ziva tried to imagine herself in this position a few years from now. Tried to imagine what it would be like to have a little boy like this one, but perhaps with skin a shade or two lighter and eyes that were blue or green, rather than her own brown. Would he, too, be obsessed with vehicles, intent on pointing out every one that passed? Or with something else? The little boy on the bus wore a kippah, bright blue against the ebony of his hair and secured in place with a hair clip. She wondered if her own little boy would wear one. If she managed to make it back to American—back to Tony—she imagined not; it was not mainstream in most areas and she was not Orthodox. If she was somehow delayed, she wondered if her son would want to wear one here, if it would be expected. Her brother had refused to wear one as he got older, already rebelling, in some small way, against Eli's oppressive parenting regime.

The boy was now running a small toy car along the back of his seat, making engine noises while he did so. His road was blocked by his mother's shoulder, but was no deterrent, as he drove it up the back of her arm and down to her elbow. His ima laughed and seemed to teasingly admonish him, for he giggled and moved the car over his own arm. Ziva wondered if she would respond the same, lovingly and patiently. She feared she would respond as her father would have. Her father never would have allowed a toy in public. It was not appropriate; it reflected an outer image of immaturity and boredom. It distracted from his teachings, from her lessons and later, her missions. He would not have allowed her to sit in a chair any way but the way she was supposed to; her father had had little patience for the energy of small children.

The bus pulled up to its stop close to the city center, which was apparently also the stop for the mother and child pair. Ziva watched as the mother extended a hand to her son, and held it tightly as he slowly took the steps one at a time. She prompted him to say thank you to the bus driver, which he did in a bright, overly loud tone while he triumphantly jumped from the last step down to the sidewalk. It was only after they left that she slipped out of her seat and out the door, ducking her head and pretending to root around in a purse so as not to be seen by the driver. By now, the small family was making their way down the sidewalk, the little boy clinging tightly to his mother's hand and skipping, while she smiled down at him. Ziva tried to shake the sudden sadness she felt and turned toward the direction of Mossad headquarters.

Orli was waiting for her just inside the entrance, taking one look at her flimsy attempt at a disguise and immediately asking whether she had been followed. Ziva had not detected a trail, but the thought made her skin crawl and her anxiety spike. If there was a chance of being followed, then the threat Orli had mentioned by phone the day before was more serious than she had originally thought. Orli took her by the arm and hurried her down a nearby hallway, stopping suddenly to open the door to a conference room and shutting them inside. She moved quickly to close the blinds, replacing them with the sterile, artificial glow of the overhead fluorescents.

"Ziva," Orli took a breath to compose herself, then turned to look at her. "How are you?"

"You have just marched me down the hallway like an errant child and the first thing you ask is how I am?"

"You look pale." Orli ignored her incredulous tone, eyed her up and down. "Have you been feeling alright?"

"I feel fine." The last thing she needed was to have her father's mistress prying into her personal life. And she did not trust Orli, no matter how much she professed to wanting to look out for her.

"Are you sure? I can ring for a cup of tea, if you would like."

"What I would like is for you to dispense with the niceties and tell me why I am here."

"Please, sit down."

"I will stand. This should not take long."

"Fine, then I will sit." Orli sank into a large, leather office chair at the head of the table and pulled her briefcase onto her lap. She rifled through it for a moment, before pulling out a stack of 8" X 10" photographs and sliding them across for Ziva to examine. They were grainy, green-ish from the night vision security cameras set up outside of her father's home; they showed a man of medium build, with a hooded sweatshirt obscuring his face. The sequence of photos showed him working intently on the lock on the back door, the one that led to her father's office inside. The house had been untouched since she had left Israel after his funeral. She had rarely been inside that office while her father was alive, and it had not occurred to her to have it emptied after his death.

"This is the man you were referring to?"

"It is."

"How do you know he is after me, and not someone looking to rob a house that no one has been in for months?"

"We thought so when this footage was taken, two weeks ago."

"And?"

"And there was another attempt two days ago, which is why I called you. The same man. No other attempts on any of the surrounding houses."

"How do you know this threat is specific to me? My father was not a well-liked man."

"Eli has been dead for months. His death was publicized. Anyone going after information Eli had about his work with Mossad would target my office, my home, as his successor. Not his personal files."

"You cannot know that for certain."

"Ziva," Orli snapped, and Ziva felt very much like a bug in a jar. "You are being deliberately coy, and I will not have it. Need I remind you of how you and Mossad spent the summer."

"That threat was eliminated."

"Are you willing to take that chance? Because I am not."

"What do you suggest I do? I am already off the grid." In a house in the middle of nowhere. She was both well-concealed and a sitting duck, as Tony would say.

"We need more information. I have agents on twenty-four hour surveillance around Eli's house in Tel Aviv. It's doubtful that someone should try a third time, but if he does, we will apprehend him."

"And if he does not?"

"Then whoever is after you will try another tactic to gain the information they need. The phone I called yesterday—you are still using it?"

"It is an old number. You are the first to call me on it in weeks." Dread settled into the pit of her stomach.

"Get rid of it. Get rid of anything that could be monitored or used to trace your location."

"I know how to go underground, Orli." She sounded like a petulant teenager, and she knew it. But Orli was being protective to the point of condescension. It was annoying and unnecessary.

"Have you been in contact with Tony?"

"Not in months." Not since she had sent him away, claiming to want to lead a life free of government agencies, violence, and crime.

"I leave it up to your discretion as to whether you bring him in on this or not. But you know as well as I that these people do not care about collateral damage." A memory of Tali, a few days before she was killed, flitted through her mind and took her breath away. She nodded, unable to say anything.

"It won't be forever," Orli reassured, reaching out and covering Ziva's hand with her own. Ziva busied herself with putting the photos back in a neat stack before handing them back over.

"Is this all?" She suddenly wanted nothing more than to get out of this room, away from Orli, Mossad, and a life she was desperately trying to leave behind. A life she now had to leave behind, for the sake of her child.

"For now. I will be in touch." Orli led her the opposite way down the hallway from which they had come, leading her out a backdoor that was not visible from the street. Less conspicuous, easier to blend into the crowd on the street. With a warning to be careful, she shut the door.

The bus ride out of the city was far more crowded, despite it being not quite midday. Businessmen and pensioners squeezed into the seats and stood in the aisles; the din of various conversations, which had been soothing and melodic on the way into the city, were now an assault on the senses. Orli's words played on a loop in her mind. Collateral damage. Said casually, putting the power in Ziva's hands as to whether or not she would allow Tony to be killed. Your choice. It was always her choice, was it not? Her choice to allow herself to be molded by Eli, to join Mossad, to join NCIS. To maim, torture, kill, and make enemies. Enemies that now threatened her family.

She arrived home in early evening, though the sun had long since set and the house was dark. Her meeting with Orli had put her on edge. She reached automatically for her weapon in its holster at her side, cursing when she realized she was not wearing it. The knife she kept strapped to her ankle was still there. She hastily flipped on lights, clearing first the living room, then the kitchen and bathroom, and finally the bedrooms. Her heart beat wildly in her chest, and she felt alone for the first time since leaving Washington. A thin sheen of cold sweat broke out over her palms, loosening her grip on the knife. The rooms were clear, there was no one there, and yet she could not shake the jittery feeling. A creek on the floorboard made by her own feet sent her pulse soaring.

For the first time since she was a child, Ziva turned on all the lights in the house, including in all the closets. Darkness, the unknown, was the enemy. Turning on the lights could fix that. She pulled out a handgun she had brought with her after dispatching of the assassins at the safehouse, a cleaning kit she kept in her luggage at all times. Whatever threat was after her, it would not get her tonight. She sank heavily down into the couch in the living room and began to disassemble the gun. The familiar rhythm was strangely soothing. The pieces laid out in an orderly fashion was calming. The cleaning, while tedious and mundane, was something she did not have to concentrate on.

Her eyes, unbidden, moved from the barrel of the gun she sliding a bit of oiled rag down to her phone, charging on the kitchen table where she had left it. Yesterday, she had been overcome with an urgency to call Tony, change his life the way her life had been changed. She still felt the pull to do it, to hear his voice over the line and hear his reaction to the news that he was going to be a father. When she tried to imagine it, the outcome was never the same; Tony had always disliked children, had never expressed any desire to have his own. The girlish, hopeful part of her imagined his reaction as tentatively happy; unsure, but confident. So unlike her own reaction. The jaded, cynical part that had overtaken her in her adulthood imagined his reaction as something far colder, less accepting. Harsh, rejecting. And she would not blame him.

But he would still come. He would drop everything, his entire life in DC, to be there for her and the baby. Of that part she was certain; if the past year had taught her anything about him, it was his unconditional loyalty. Loyalty and devotion for her, which she was not sure she deserved. But whether she felt she deserved it or not, he would come. Collateral damage. She could not tell him. The hand that had been carefully sliding the cloth into the barrel paused and fluttered over her stomach. She would not risk him. She would not risk her child.

She only hoped he could forgive her.

A/N: Reviews welcome, particularly since I'm pretty shaky on this chapter and I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to tie canon events together. I liked the first two episodes of the season, but I wish they had done more to connect to the threat from season 13 a little better!