A/N I'm relatively new here, and only since the last chapter did I figure out how to respond to reviews. Unfortunately, I didn't do so in time to respond to any of them in a timely fashion. So, if you sent a review, especially a substantive one, I appreciate it! Thanks for taking the time. ~E

Disclaimer: No change since the last chapter!

Chapter 4

Tony woke up at 9:30 the next morning, groggy even though he'd had relatively little to drink at the party. He showered to wake up, thinking the night over as he did. Ziva had seemed out of sorts and he couldn't figure out exactly why. Her sister had been there, an old friend, she'd been reminded of her brother's death—he sighed as he dried off. Maybe it was just all of those things at once, but he wished she'd told him what was going on. At any rate, Abby would spill the minute he let her. Dressing quickly, he headed into the living room to grab his cell and call her up.

"Hey!" she answered the phone.

"Hey, Abbs, it's Tony."

"Good morning, Tony! Aren't Saturdays nice?"

Tony rolled his eyes. "Abbs, I was calling to find out what happened last night. When you and Ziva went to meet her sister? She didn't want to talk about it where there were people who might overhear."

Abby was quiet so long that Tony pulled the phone from his ear and checked to make sure the call hadn't ended.

"Abby?"

"Tony, her sister—Miriam—said that Patrick was a traitor and a terrorist just like Ari. Mossad sent her to kill him."

"Oh, god," Tony sighed. Now Ziva's behavior made sense. "Poor Ziva."

"Ye-ah." Abby dragged the word out. "But that's not all."

"What do you mean?"

"Tony—"

"What?"

"I don't know if she'd want to tell you herself."

"Abby," Tony was growing frustrated as his concern mounted, "she would have told me if Patrick hadn't been there, you know it. I'm her partner. Tell me what's going on."

Abby sighed. "Miriam needed Ziva's help to set Patrick up. She wanted Ziva to sleep with him, get him vulnerable."

Tony was suddenly filled with chaos. Shock and defensiveness and, somewhere, jealousy. "Ziva wouldn't do that, maybe on some mission for Mossad but not to someone who was her friend," Tony protested.

For a moment there was only silence.

"Tony," Abby said slowly, "Ziva told me last night that she killed Ari."

"What?"

"To save Gibbs' life," she rushed to explain. "She knew her brother was a traitor, and she killed him to save Gibbs' life. And she never told us. I just mean—we really don't know her that well. She could easily have helped set up Patrick."

Now Tony was silent, pondering the times someone had made a comment about Kate or Ari and Ziva had looked uncomfortable. She hadn't been feeling guilty that her beloved brother had hurt their friend; she was thinking that she'd shot him. He had thought the night before how little he knew her, but it seemed she was even more a stranger than he could have guessed. But when he closed his eyes and pictured her, smiling cheekily at him from across their desks, he thought he knew her well enough to know that she hadn't slept with Patrick. And if Miriam had been successful anyway, Ziva would need him.

"I really don't know, Abby," he said finally. "I'm going to go over and check on her, though."

"Okay, Tony," Abby said wistfully. "I hope things are ok. Bye."

"Bye."

He hung up and shoved the phone in his pocket.

***

The drive back to her apartment seemed far longer than the one to the park, during which Patrick had been playfully grouchy about the early hour and teasing her about her driving. Now Ziva had only her own thoughts for comfort, and they provided sorely little of it. There had been a time, as a girl, when she had dreamed of a bright future, an adulthood surrounded by her brothers and sisters, their wives and husbands and children and friends. When she was young, Patrick had been part of that picture. It was not Patrick she mourned, Ziva told herself, it was the dream, now so tarnished. She was mourning for herself, for the fantasy that after five years in America seemed not so unreasonable, not so much to ask for. But she was not American, she was Israeli, and the reality was that she had Miriam, and no one else. It was enough to make her sob aloud as she finally entered her apartment and curled up on the floor, wishing desperately.

Miriam arrived about an hour later and found Ziva unmoved.

"You heard someone picking the lock and didn't want to get up?" she asked in Hebrew.

"I knew it was you." Ziva answered in a monotone without moving.

Miriam sat down beside her, stroked her hair. "I'm sorry I asked you to do this."

Ziva pulled herself up to sit against the wall, her arms around her knees. "There was no other way."

Miriam nodded, not taking her eyes of Ziva's face. She tilted her head to one side. "I didn't expect—I didn't know you were so close to him, to be this upset."

Ziva's eyes blazed into her sister's for a moment. "I am glad that a traitor is dead. I just-" Her voice broke and she looked back at her knees. "Miri, there's so little left of our childhood that can be remembered without pain at someone using us or keeping secrets or having died since then." Her tears began to fall again and now she allowed Miriam to pull her close.

***

Tony sighed. Ziva had been ignoring his knocking for five minutes. He pulled out his wallet and dug around a moment before finding the lock picks she had given him when she finally taught him to break and enter last year.

As he eased the door open, a gun was suddenly pointed at his face.

"Whoa!" Tony burst out.

"Hands in the air! Who are you?" A blond woman demanded.

Tony took her in. She was wearing an NCIS t-shirt that fell to the middle of her thigh, and possibly nothing else. It wasn't the first time Tony had seen a blond in such a t-shirt, but he appreciated it nevertheless. Fortunately he placed her just in time to keep a leer off his face; he was sure from the way she was holding her gun that she knew how to use one just as well as her sister.

"Tony DiNozzo," he said quickly. "We met last night."

"Of course." Miriam slowly lowered her weapon. Tony lowered his hands in tandem. "But why are you breaking into my sister's apartment."

Tony tried to come up with an answer, and finally went with the truth. "I heard from Abby what your mission was. I want to make sure Ziva was ok."

Miriam nodded, watching him in a knowing way that made Tony nervous. He relaxed a little as he thought fondly that it wasn't unlike the way Ziva had looked at him when they first met.

"Is she? Okay?"

Miriam looked away, toward the closed bedroom door. "She will be fine. But right now—she is upset."

Tony glanced from Miriam to the bedroom and back, wondering why Miriam wasn't with her sister. Miriam caught the look.

"Ziva is upset and I am—well, not. My mission is accomplished. I'm not the right person to comfort her now." She paused, looking him over. "Perhaps you are," she conceded.

Tony nodded. He pointed a finger toward the bedroom and Miriam nodded with a worried smile.

"Tony," she said as he reached it, warning him with her tone.

He nodded, and reached to knock again.

Tony stepped into the room in response to Ziva's muffled answer, and found her laying on the bed sideways, peering at him through lashes clotted by tears.

"What happened?" He sat down and reached out a hand but didn't touch her.

Ziva wiped her eyes with her sleeve and sat up cross-legged on the bed. "Patrick is dead."

Tony had known this intellectually when Miriam had said she'd completed her mission, but as he heard the words, from Ziva's own lips, he felt frozen, terrified of who she might be. "Did you kill him?" he asked softly.

She glanced up, wondering how he would think to guess. "Abby?"

Tony nodded.

Ziva's eyes dropped to her knees. She took a breath, began to speak, and stopped. Then she summoned the words and told him. "Not me, Miriam."

Tony watched her, wanting to hug her but held back by the rest of Abby's words. He knew he shouldn't press her now but the words forced themselves out. "Abby also said you were part of the set up."

Ziva clenched her eyes tightly shut. She'd retreated here to be away from Miriam and had found herself surrounded by the scent of Patrick's sweat in the sheets. "Yes," she said.

"But you didn't actually—"

Ziva opened her eyes. "Didn't what, Tony? Sleep with him?" she snapped. "Of course. There's no better way to get a target to do whatever you ask."

Tony watched her in wonder and shock. "Sometimes I feel like I don't know you at all."

Ziva shrugged, fighting the tears again. "You don't really, Tony."

He stood and began to pace. "Is this why you don't ever talk about Mossad? Is this the kind of thing you've spent your life doing? Luring men to their deaths?"

Now she spoke sharply, "Yes, Tony, luring terrorists and men who support the suicide bombing of women and children to their deaths. You had no qualms about this before, what is this? Are you that concerned about my sex life?"

Tony felt his head spin with the question. The most honest answer was, at least in part, yes. It turned him inside out to think of her as a woman who could sleep with a man she cared for and then watch him die. But he also resented that she'd slept with someone else at all. He scrambled for an answer that she wouldn't kill or at least injure him for.

"I liked him," Tony admitted after a moment.

"If Ari had wanted you to, you would have liked him, too."

Tony sighed. "I keep imagining—he woke up with you, all arousal and affection and I saw how he looked at you—" He looked at Ziva and stopped when he saw how his words were hurting her. After a moment, the sympathy faded. "He trusted you."

"They all did. It's harder this time because I trusted him too, once. But he betrayed me first."

Tony nodded. He struggled to take his own jealousy out of the equation. "And I suppose—I just never realized how much of yourself you sacrificed to Mossad. Your own body, I mean."

At this Ziva went limp. "It's not something they advertise. The first time I was sent on that sort of mission, they didn't even really explain I actually had to sleep with the man. I did it, I clearly had to, but I was so angry—it was the only time I ever saw Ari hit my father." She met Tony's eyes. "I know I am not like American women, Tony. But we are all told as children what we must do to achieve the future we want for ourselves. This is what I was told."

Tony sat back on the edge of the bed. "And did you? Achieve it?"

Ziva shook her head, tearful.

"What did you hope for?" He asked gently.

Ziva shrugged, hoping he wouldn't press, unable to speak.

Tony watched her as she pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, wiping them dry. "You're my partner, Zi," he said. "And there have been moments in our friendship where I've thought about you in more-than-friendly ways and other moments where I realize I hardly know you at all."

Her pulse quickened then slowed. "I understand."

"Ziva—just talk to me. Talk to me like you trust me to keep your secrets and to know you. I know you just got betrayed by a friend, but you know me. There's nothing about myself I wouldn't tell you if you asked."

"Nothing?" She teased him to ease the seriousness of the mood.

"No." He was sincere.

"Ask me, then."

"It's not about me asking, it's about you telling me, because you want to, because you trust me, because I'm your partner and your friend and maybe more than that."

She was terrified and defensive and at the same time, somehow, it was an invitation she'd been waiting for, for so long. She was not the type to share, not the type to join in easily. But here he was, fighting for her, fighting to know her. And she was glad. "At least tell me where you'd like me to start."

Tony smiled at her. "Not right now," he said, "you just lost your friend. Come here." He opened his arms to her and let her crawl across to settle against him. As he buried his face in her hair, Tony hoped that he could live with the truths of her past.

***

Ziva woke, still on her bed, the room dim. It took her a moment to remember what had happened, but the knowledge yielded a sigh, not more tears. The tide had passed.

She slid out of bed and padded into the living room in her socks. "Miriam?" she called.

Miriam stepped out of the kitchen and smiled gently. "Tony left hours ago, have you been sleeping this whole time?"

Ziva shrugged. "I guess," she murmured in Hebrew.

"How are you feeling now?"

Ziva thought a moment. "Groggy, mostly."

"Tea?"

Ziva smiled. "That sounds lovely." She sank down onto the couch. She knew this was all part of it, the disconnection she felt. She could remember weeks after Tali died when she hadn't been able to summon the energy or direction to do anything.

A minute later Miriam sat down next to her, passing Ziva a cup of tea and sipping her own. Ziva blew a wave pattern across the top of the steaming cup, then set it down on the coffee table.

The sisters stared at the candle that still sat there.

"I remember the day your father first brought me and Moshe to your house. I was so little it's mostly pictures, but he brought me into your room and you and Ariel had built a fort out of couch cushions and sheets. You were friendly, but it was Ari who came out to pick me up and show me how to crawl inside. He was only ten—I don't know how he was so sweet."

Ziva watched her sister speak. "I didn't remember that. I remember the forts, and you, but not that day. I told Tony before how when Papa sent me after that pervert in Turkey, remember, and I didn't want to play along with him, Ari was so angry on my behalf."

They sat quietly. Then Miriam giggled and Ziva raised an eyebrow. "Remember the Passover when we pulled pranks on him? Frogs and toads and lice and blood in the bed sheets?"

Ziva laughed. "And he told Mama that the blood was mine and I'd taken a nap and gotten my period for the first time—I was only eleven—god, that was the most awkward conversation of my entire life."

Miriam was in hysterics, sprawled across the couch. "Did you tell me that at the time? I never knew that part."

"I don't know, you would have been a little young to know about that, I guess. It was great revenge on his part, though."

They sober after a moment, catch their breath. "He taught me to braid hair," Ziva offered. "On you, actually. I don't know who'd taught him, but he'd always do my braids when I was little."

"He taught me on Tali."

They sighed.

Ziva stood up.

"Where are you going?'

Without answering, Ziva crossed to the kitchen. Inside she found a packet of matches and returned to the couch. She looked closely at her sister. "Do you want to?" she asked, holding them out.

Miriam blew out her breath, staring at the matches. In five years, neither of them had once lit a candle, had once said the prayers for the dead. She looked back up at Ziva and nodded.

Ziva tried to strike one but her hands started trembling, so Miriam took it from her and lit the candle. The light danced. Ziva sat back and Miriam leaned her head against her big sister's shoulder. "V'yit gadal," Ziva began, and Miriam joined in as the prayer continued, filling the room, and their memories, with a little more peace.

A/N 2: Hope you liked it! That's the end. I'm thinking of making another fic out of Tony and Ziva later having the conversation where he gets to ask her whatever he wants about her past. Thoughts?