Being pressed so close to him in the elevator was killing her, and she wondered if crowding his whole team and her into the tiny box was his way of pushing her buttons. The doors slid open, and she was about to follow Ziva, Tony, and McGee into the squad-room when he caught her by the arm and held her back. The doors closed in front of her and she turned slowly. No, this was going to be the button-pushing moment. She forced herself to stay in control as he stepped so close to her that they were almost touching. There was a reason his tactics worked. Other men sensed the alpha-male behaviour and knew they couldn’t compete, and women felt the nearly irresistible urge to submit. “If you’re leading us on some wild goose chase, Raz,” he threatened. “Murder charges will be the least of your worries.”
“I’m no worse a killer than you or Ziva.” She said hoarsely. “I’m just less likely to be caught.”
“That doesn’t mean you wouldn’t have killed Foster. He might have blown your cover, he might have been threatening you, there are still a thousand good motives for you, but I’ll believe you for now.”
Sarai leaned up and kissed him hard, and he was too surprised to react. She pulled back, apologetically. “You’re going to be furious with me, Jethro.” She whispered. “And for that I am truly sorry. I’m not so surprised now that I created something like Michael, but I hope you won’t feel the same way.” She reopened the doors and slipped out, Gibbs right behind her. Neither of them had so much as a hair out of place, and no matter how hard the team members looked, they couldn’t see any hint of the conversation in their boss or the woman they’d known as Kyra. “Abby and Ducky…” she began.
“On their way up.” Said McGee promptly.
Sarai nodded approvingly. “Jennifer…”
“Said to tell you that you’re in charge.” Finished Ziva.
“Does your team always finish other people’s sentences?” asked Sarai, eyebrow raised.
He shrugged. “I teach them to anticipate.” He replied calmly.
Abby and Ducky trotted into the squad-room and she set her features. “As you probably know by now, I’ve had many names over the years. Most of you know me as Kyra, Ziva knows me as Areille, and Gibbs,” she strode up to the plasma, clicking a few images on screen. “knows Razi. What you don’t know, is that, legally, I do not exist.” She turned to face the group, watching each of them carefully. “About fifteen years ago, an intelligence cell used me to send a warning. The most dangerous warning you can give someone.”
“Watch what happens to your family when you don’t back off.” Said Ziva, knowingly.
“Yes. Who could see their child half-dead and keep going?” asked Sarai softly. “I was lucky. I should’ve been dead, and for a while I wished I had died. But I had training, and I had a purpose. They’d made a bigger sacrifice than they’d planned. They were so worried about keeping my mother off their trial, they never considered who my father might be.” She laughed, a bite ringing in the sound.
Abby raised her hand. “Uh, are you allowed to give us names, because I’m getting really confused.” She said, her nose scrunched up.
Sarai smiled. “Ziva and I are half-sisters.” She replied, feeling a weight lift just saying it out loud. “I only know one of the cell members, Jacob Tehran. His son, Michael, Ziva, Tahlia, and I trained together as children, and Michael was rather bitter after we ran into each other in Sacramento. He was always very easily hurt.” She remembered sadly. “And he had plenty of reasons to feel bitter against me, after all, it was because of me that his father was dead, and I didn’t give a damn. After Jacob’s death, the cell went underground, but it resurfaces every now and then like when that picture was taken. I’ve been perfectly happy to let them think I’m dead, but Michael’s not likely to let that happen.”
“We’re just lucky he hasn’t decided to sell your information off yet.” Said Jen, striding into the squad-room.
Sarai dipped her head respectfully. “Everyone,” she was addressing the whole group, but her eyes were focused on Gibbs and when he saw the two women side by side, he understood what she’d meant in the elevator. “Meet my mother.”
Abby toppled off Tony’s desk, taking the Italian with her, and McGee looked like he’d swallowed hot sauce. Sarai tore her eyes away from Gibbs and simply stared at her hands. “That’s all I’ve got.” She said anxiously. “The rest of it should be in the Alley’s case file and Tahlia’s and my notes. You don’t need me, and you’re not going to want me around the evidence, so I’m going home.”
Ziva’s head snapped up. “The hell you are!” she exclaimed. “You’re in protective custody, you’ll stay with one of us until you’re safe.”
“I’m no fool. I won’t be walking around unprotected.” Laughed her sister carelessly.
Jen shook her head. “Ziva’s right, Raz, you should stay with someone for now.”
Automatically, Tony raised his hand. “I’ve got room.”
“Thank you Agent DiNozzo.” Sarai smiled. “I’ll take you up on that.”
She could feel Gibbs’ stormy gaze turn on her, and her spine prickled as Tony grinned at her, triumphantly. Abby raised her hand, cautiously, and Ducky walked over to Gibbs’ desk where the two of them instantly began conversing in whispers, and for once Sarai didn’t listen in. “Um, Madam Director’s daughter, if you’re an agent, how did you get a job with one of the best forensic archaeologists in the DC area?” asked the Goth, trying to sound respectful instead of confused.
“Call me Sarai, and I’ve always loved chemistry. It’s…rather a specialty.” She’d certainly made it so in the last few years.
The Director rolled her eyes. “You did blow up that damn morgue, didn’t you?”
Sarai looked offended. “Oh, so I should’ve let them go looking for a mysteriously vanished corpse then. I’m sure that wouldn’t have found its way back to Jacob.”
“Watch her like a hawk, Tony, and that’s not as her mother, it’s from experience.”
Sarai woke up gasping for air, her hand pressed to her mouth to hold in the scream. She buried her face in the arm of the couch, giving her racing heart a chance to slow down before she got up. She grabbed her glass off the end table as she headed into Tony’s small kitchen, holding it under the tap. She felt his presence before she heard him. “I’m sorry if I woke you, Tony.” She murmured.
Tony shrugged. “Never really fell asleep. Kind of hard to when I’m on duty, even this late at night.”
She nodded, shutting off the water and turning to face him. “Jethro’s trained you well, hmm?”
“I’ve been here the longest, so I’ve had a bit more time.” He agreed. “But I still feel like I haven’t made any progress. He’s always got something to critique.”
“He likes you.” Observed Sarai. “But he knows he doesn’t have to look after you or protect you anymore. When he quit, he knew you could handle the team, but he was always ready in case you called to say you needed him. You’re like a son to him.”
Tony considered this idea, and smiled “Yeah, maybe you’re right. So how do you two know each other? It’s usually only his exes that call him Jethro, with the exception of Ducky.”
She snorted. “You figured that out, huh?” she thought for a moment. “In an indirect way, I guess he was my teacher as well. He saw me in assignment once, and after that we just kept running into each other. It was a workout to keep my cover around him, you know? Probably the hardest assignment I’ve ever had was Russia. Jen had me covering the team’s tracks the whole way, and it only took him two weeks to ID me. I had to change my whole approach to make sure he aimed his bullets at the enemy team instead of me when the time came. It almost cost them, but it definitely cost me. I was eighteen.” She added quietly.
Tony nodded. “The Director plays matchmaker a lot, doesn’t she? Only she usually doesn’t realize she’s done it.” He said, offering his own story in return for being trusted with hers. “Jeanne Benoit. The first woman I ever really fell in love with, and I was undercover trying to put her father behind bars for life. I hurt her, pretty badly, but all I’d wanted for a long time was to be with her. Ziva was really annoyed with me for a while there. Thought I had some weird disease that I was hiding from her.”
A knowing look came into her eyes. “I’m going to give you a piece of advice. AS a woman and as Ziva’s sister. Stop breaking both your hearts.”
Tony rubbed the back of his head. “Then can I give you some as well?” he asked, not sure if he was grateful to her for saying out loud what he’d already known. She tipped her head to the side, listening. “If you want him back, you’ve got to make him believe that you’re stronger than him, emotionally, that he can’t hurt you.”
“He won’t have me, Tony.” She said quietly. “Jethro was done with me a long time ago, and that’s not going to change.”
“What makes you so sure?”
She thought for a moment before answering. “How much respect would you have for some nameless woman who came up to you in a bar and told you that you could sleep with her, Tony?” she asked, watching him carefully as she leaned against the counter.
“It depends.” He replied slowly.
“On what?”
“On why she’d drunk enough to say it in the first place.”
Sarai paled, her hands twitching towards her stomach before she reminded herself that her baby was no longer there, as usual. “My sister was murdered saving my life. That’s not something I could forgive myself for.”
“So that’s why you were drunk?” She nodded. “So where’d you find Gibbs?”
She gave a small laugh. “I wasn’t drunk when I went to him, Tony, just when I realized that I wanted to. Why the hell am I even telling you this?”
“Because you need to tell somebody, and I’m all you have right now.” He told her firmly. “Besides, who am I going to tell?”
“Everyone, based on your track record.”
He shook his head. “Not about this. You trusted me enough to talk to me, and I may have a big mouth, but I know where the boundaries are. I won’t say a word.”
Sarai took a deep breath. He was right, she had no one else to talk to, and they’d both shared something major for them. “I made a mistake. Neither of us were drunk, but we weren’t sober either. It had been eight years since…” She couldn’t force out the word rape. “Since I’d almost died, and when I heard him say my name, my real name, it sucked me back. I felt like it was happening all over again.” She paused, controlling her breathing. “I froze. I couldn’t remember how to breathe, let alone how to fight, and Tahlia had to come to my rescue. She wasn’t one hundred percent either, and it only took one hit to bring her down. He’d stabbed her right through the chest.” And she was back in the moment, speaking like she was in a trance, Tahlia’s dying breath being used to comfort her. “I couldn’t ever let Ziva find out that it was my fault, so I convinced our father to classify her death above her clearance. He didn’t argue, thought since it involved my case, it should be impossible to access anyway.” She shook herself back into the present. “So I left Israel and I haven’t been back. I did a lot of drinking that first few weeks, but when I realized what it was letting me think, I stopped, wouldn’t touch alcohol, but it wouldn’t go away.” Tony listened, fascinated by her words, a little shocked that his grumpy boss had managed to do this to a woman like Sarai. “I kept remembering Russia mostly. And finally I couldn’t take it anymore and I told myself that I’d go and talk to him, just talk, see what I could learn, you know?” Her brow furrowed, as if even now she couldn’t believe what she’d done. “I didn’t expect to act like such a love-struck little whore.” She said bitterly. “I’m not an ex, I’m just the stupid little spy who thought that I could make Leroy Jethro Gibbs love me. There was nothing, but he’ll never be able to look at me again without remembering what I said that night.”
Even Tony himself was surprised by what he did next. He went up to Sarai and hugged her, running his hand along her back soothingly. And for the second time in a week, she cried.
When Tony and Sarai arrived back at NCIS the next morning, Gibbs and Ziva both noticed the new closeness between protector and protected, both attributed it to the wrong thing, and both struggled with their jealousy. Tony, as always, was oblivious to Ziva’s irritation whenever she saw him with her sister, and chalked up Gibbs’ extra grumpiness to having to work with the Director’s daughter. Sarai noticed, and she smiled to herself, not displeased with the idea of forcing Ziva and Gibbs to admit their feelings, so she would scoot her chair closer to Tony’s and lean over him to see his computer screen, and watch from the corner of her eye as two sets of knuckles tightened on their mouse.
When she got up to use the restroom, Gibbs got up as well, following her. The second they were out of sight of the bull-pen, he grabbed her arm and pulled her into a corner of the hallway. “What are you doing?” he growled. “I won’t have you flirting with my agents and keeping them off their game.”
“I’m doing no such thing.” She said calmly. “Tony’s a good man, and I like talking to him. That’s all. You’ve taught them well Jethro, and they’re so connected to each other. Like they have their own little family, and there’s no place left for me in it.” There was a hint of fear in her eyes when she said it. She didn’t want to be alone again, not after so long.
“Well make sure you don’t give DiNozzo any ideas.” He replied gruffly. “He’s a good agent except when he’s got a woman on his mind. You’re not here to start a family, Raz, you’re here so that we can find who killed your husband and you can get back to your life of patriotism.” He saw how his words hurt her, but he ignored the small flash of guilt in his chest and walked away, leaving her to fall apart on her own. She whirled around and strode down the stairs, not feeling like taking the elevator.
She went all the way down to Autopsy where Palmer and Ducky were cleaning up after an autopsy. She stood, feeling helpless, in the doorway, and when Ducky saw her, he turned to Palmer. “Why don’t you take these to Abby, Mr. Palmer.” He said authoritatively, and Palmer nodded, grinning at Sarai before he left. “What can I do for you, my dear?” asked Ducky as the doors hissed closed.
“I don’t know.” She said, despairingly. “I don’t know what to do anymore, Ducky. I haven’t felt like this since…”
“Since you were attacked?” he asked, pulling off his gloves and dropping them in the trash. She glanced at him sharply. “Your case is one of the most mysterious I’ve ever seen pass through NCIS.” Explained Ducky. “I’ve taken the liberty of trying to solve it more than once. It seems there’s a very good reason that I never could.”
“So you know.” She said quietly. “You understand why this hurts so much. Me, trained by Mossad and Jennifer Sheppard since I could walk, and I couldn’t defend myself against one man, nor could I protect the ones I loved from what happened. First I miscarried the baby he’d gotten off me, then I watched my parents worry and fuss and try to comfort me. There was nothing they could say, they didn’t know what to do with me, so they let me throw myself into training. I didn’t want it to happen again. But it’s all useless, because at the crucial moment, I freeze and forget everything I’ve taught myself and my baby sister pays the price. Now my husband, and the next on his list are going to be my mother and my other sister. I should be able to do something!”
“You said it yourself, Sarai, there’s nothing. There is nothing that you can do or say that will ever make this go away, but you can fight it, and you have fought it. You’re an inspiration to victims everywhere.” The Englishman was adamant, standing firm in front of her as he spoke, not letting her shrink away from his pep talk. “You want to know what you should do? Don’t let the bastard do this to you. Don’t take it sitting down. Show him that you can’t be broken and that you’ll win. That’s what you do!” he declared fiercely.
Sarai kissed his cheek gently. “Thank you, Ducky.” She whispered, and he saw determination form in her expression.
“My pleasure. Now, why don’t you sit down and I’ll tell you a story I think you’ll like.” He walked over to his computer, talking over his shoulder the whole while, and Sarai had to smile. This was why she’d come to Ducky, he was such a character.
Abby walked into Autopsy and found Sarai sitting on a metal table, giggling as she listened to one of Ducky’s rambling anecdotes. She sat down next to the woman and the two of them waited for Ducky to lose himself in his tale again before she spoke. “You trying to make Ziva jealous or Gibbs?” she asked in a low voice.
Sarai smiled. The Goth was more attuned to her ‘family’ then she was given credit for. “Depends. Why are you asking?”
“Because I think that it’s about time Miss Mossad and Signor Italiano stopped living in denial, and that Gibbs shouldn’t have to go home to an empty house.” Replied Abby confidently. “And I think you agree, and that’s why you’re pretending to flirt with Tony. What I’m wondering is what happened that he doesn’t recognize flirtation when it stares him in the face.”
“He saw me cry.” She answered. Admitting to the truth felt so much better than coming up with another lie.
Abby nodded, understanding. “Tony’s a good guy.” She murmured fondly. “So, if you don’t mind, I have an idea.”
Sarai perked up, curious. “I’m listening.”
Author's Chapter Notes:
Sarai's secrets are comin out, one b one, and she and Tony develop a bond that both Ziva and Gibbs are jealous of. She and Abby decide to use that to play some games.