Of Gods and Demons [closed]

What was once a massive temple made of ivory colored marble with colored veins of purple, blues and gold was tarnished with blood and soot, charred from the fires started by men. The high pillar carved from ground to sky with stories of love held none of the beauty that they once were, blunt objects had been taken to them destroying years of work. What riches that once adorned the open temple had been stolen and her worshipers killed in the name of a figure less god. What topped the highest hill protected in the heart of the bay was a fire hot enough to melt stone and destroy all that held power of the succubus goddess of love and all things sensual.

This was the first that Ishtar had seen of the work that the cross carriers had done to her pantheon. This wasn't the worst they had done to her in the last nine days, no but she knew it to be the end. She had out lasted them, given them nothing, not a word or a sound not matter what it was that they did to her. As it was she was tied, bound by her feet and tethered to a horse. She had been paraded around the cities that prayed to her, showing them the naked truth of the falsehood of her divine power. They flaunted each bruise, cut, scab and hurt they had given her proudly for it was all done in the name of their god. Ishtar knew what she must've looked like, hair roughly sheared and uneven, hands thick with the swelling of infection from the nails she no longer had, her entire body a medley of different colored bruises, colors that spoke of the sickly yellows of broken bones, the deep drowns of dead blood from internal bleeding and the hunting blues of nerves and veins without oxygen. Add to that the conditions she was in, a cell so small there was no room but to stand but too short to even do that without crouching that not only was she a sight but there was a lingering smell to her passing that wrinkled one's nose.

Yet when they cut the ropes that bound her feet together Ishtar stood with grace and swallowed what pain she felt. If this were to be her end she would meet it with as graceful of a death as she could.

They had build a stage in front of the roaring fire and a mass of people stood before it. Many carried miniature wooden cross and hissed at her as she passed but there were few that she knew. She questioned why they would be here, why they would be watching this. Did they submit when she had stood strong? All that these cross holders had wanted from her was to concede to their one true god, to give up all that she was, had been or ever will be to him. And while that might have been the easier thing to do, the safer thing to do there was an addiction to the power she gained by being made a goddess and believed in that she wasn't ready to give up. It was also more then that though, they wanted to make her into something that she wasn't, to bend her to their will and she had never in her hundreds of years of life.

Names were flung at her with venomous hatred but Ishtar bore it with her head held high. She knew what and who she was and wasn't ashamed of that. She was a powerful creature of love, sex and desire. What was there to hate? What was there to fear? That she couldn't be controlled? That she was more then they were? A demon they liked to call her. It was a new word to her ears but one that would live on beyond her years.

Ishtar had made it to the stage, pausing before it's steps. She could feel the heat of the fire on her bare skin, smell the stink of charred flesh and burnt hair and knew that those who had fought for her had burned in that fire.

"More it whore." A man armored and armed shoved her with the blunt end of his polearm, injuring the torn and bloodies skin of Ishtar's back. They had whipped her the day before and drug her through the streets this morning tearing what little her back had healed. It burned with the filth of the streets, the rocks and twigs that she skidded over and everything that collected in the uneven holes. She could feel her blood running down her back, over her rear end where some drops splashed against the backs of her legs.

Still against all this Ishtar turned her head and blew the man a kiss earning her another shove and a kick when she didn't fall as he wished her to.

Ishtar wasn't given a chance to stand on her own again and was grabbed under the arm and hurled to her feet and dragged up the stairs uncaring that her knees bashed against every step before being thrown to the ground in front of a robed man.

"We are gathered here today to hear the confessions of this creature, to cleanse her of her sins and convert her to the will of God so she might join us in the warmth and holiness of the one true God." Voice of from the crowd raised up to praise this man and the words that came from his thin lipped mouth. "What say you child of sin and vulgarities?"

Ishtar had said nothing since her capture and she would continue to do just that. A crowd of people and the thread of pain wasn't going to change her mind. She could hear the hunger in the man's voice fore her death and even if she were to give him what he asked for they would kill her anyways.

The man who had shoved her joined that man who had grabbed her in picking her up and placing her on her feet.

"We wish you to come into the light, to do away with this falsehood by which you have tricked the weak and the poor. Call out his name and join us so you can be saved!"

Ishtar hadn't eaten in days, water had been denied her unless it was a method of torture and it had taken what strength she had. It was their plan but that didn't mean she was going to give up who she was regardless of how dizzy she was or the amount of pain that crashed upon her with every breath and heartbeat.

When she said nothing ropes were tied around her wrists and attached to wheels that pulled and tighten with every turn.

"Let his healing mercy do away with your pain. Absolve yourself of your misdoings and all this will cease. " The robed man promised.

Her shoulders popped as the ropes got tighter and started to pull joints out of their sockets. A new wave of white noise welcomed the fresh tide of agony and spots danced in Ishtar's vision as she gagged on the bile fro her stomach.

Leaning in closer the robe man chuckled. "Give us what we want and we'll kill you quickly." He snickered.

With what little room that she had she launched herself forward and licked the man's face smiling as her body sprang back against the taunt hold of the ropes that kept getting tighter and tighter. It gave her a sick satisfaction to see the man scurry back frantically wiping his face with genuine fear in his eyes.

"A demon you are and forever will be!" He judged raising his hand and turning back to the gathered mass. "She refuses the gift of his truth. Denies his righteousness for a life of immorality in the halls of the Evil One. None can save you and we cast you from this world and purge all who call out to you in devotion!" He cried out crazed by the depth of his belief.

With that the ropes here cut and Ishtar collapsed to the splintery surface of the stage, her rib cage burning and her arms numb from the shoulders down. She hadn't been scared the entire time she had been with her hosts but when she saw the look in their eyes, the want for her death her body chilled.

Chains were clasped around her wrists and dallies around high point rollers built on the side of the stage. The one around her neck they looped over the scaffolding above her and finished by tying her feet together and tossing it to a man on the ground where he tied it to the rigging on the draft horse. In timing of each other they all pulled on their chain ends and stretched Ishtar above the stage where she could easy be seen by all.

The man in the robes started a prayer for all in the crowd as the man who liked to grab her approached her with a shape knife. With a care she had never seen from these people he cut her from bellybutton to throat, taking his time to only cut deep enough to pierce the skin. Blood welled around the knife and gushed from the wound but it didn't stop the man from his work as he made shallow cuts on either end to form an 'I'.

Ishtar wanted to cry, to rage to give them what they wanted but against all that she was feeling she could do nothing but wait until they finished with her. To watch.

Two new men walked into her view carrying between them a metal kettle with glowing stones in them. It took a while for Ishtar to figure out what the fist sized coals were, ivory marble.

The robed man must have been finished with his prayers because he walked over to the remains of her temple and blessed the remnants before they pulled her skin back and with tongs shoved the coals into the incision.

Ishtar screamed, tears cleared paths down her cheeks and blood gurgled from the corner of her mouth. The heat that burned inside of her was indescribable and it washed over everything she had felt and overwhelmed all over her senses.

One. Two. Three. Four, at four they could no longer put another rock within Ishtar and stepped back. At this point the succubus was fading in and out of consciousness, the torment of what they had done to her breaking her. "I will... find... someway... to kill-" Blackness cloaked the world and the men as they set fire to the stage and watched as it and her burned still alive.

“Excused Me,” the woman called. Woman, that’s a stretch actually. He had seen her drive a car, go for a run sometimes, so she was probably older than she looked. But she looked like she was a teenager for sure, and could even pass for some pre-teen schoolgirl. Between her bright eyes, apple cheeks, and big brown bow holding her long blond hair back into a tail, she wasn’t hiding her youthful appearance. Her flat breasts barely pressed on her starched white shirt, and if it wasn’t for the thickness of her long navy blue skirt you would be lucky to see a flare in her hips. She looked like she was ready for the Spelling Bee Finals. “Excuse Me,” she called again to him as she waved and pranced forward. “Sir, do you have a few minutes?”

Marty just got home from practice, and a good one at that. She spotted him as he was shutting the door to his old ‘80s model Buick complete with cracked leather seating and enough tools on the floor to keep it running. When she approached he was grabbing a gym bag out of the back. While feeling a little tweeked up from the day, he forced a smile and nodded to her. “What can I do you for miss?” he tried to ask in a kindly Texas way.

“I see you just moved here,” she said. She carried a couple of books, but that was about it. As she caught her breath, she clutched them to her chest. “First of all, I wanted to introduce myself, I am Chelsea Darling from Apartment 1203 there? Next building over?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen you around. Jogging and stuff. Martin Arthur, but call me Marty,” he replied offering his hand to shake which she took unreluctantly.

She was taller close up than she seemed. Marty usually loomed over most girls at his six foot presence, and she seemed closer to his height, like maybe 5-10. Marty probably could still loom over her though. He had the arms, chest, and abs of a guy who knew his way around a gym with the brains enough to stop before he looks like a fun-house mirror. His dark brown hair billows from his head like a lion’s mane trimmed just at his collar. He keeps his trimmed goatee to give a sense of intimidation to match his dark eyes, always had liked that look in the mirror. His darker complexion suggests eastern mediterranean or even egyptian. While his white kahki shorts hang loosely around his hips, he wore the purple polo with a “W” logo tight enough to suggest the tone body underneath. Yet if she was intimidated by him, she didn’t show it. Not at this time.

“You live there with your parents or something?” Marty continued. He knew that answer, but she didn’t know he knew, and he was just trying to be friendly.

“No no,” she responded, waving her hand girlishly. “They live in Douglass Center still, I moved here to attend school.”

“School?”

“Yes sir, I go to Henry Trinity College.”

“No kidding,” he smiled. “Well, my apologies, I was sure you weren’t even out of high school yet Chelsea. I work over at the high school, so I thought it was odd I hadn’t see you.”

“Oh, you’re a teacher?”

“First year this year, but yeah. PE & Health, but it’s all a rouse to be the head football coach,” he winked.

“Oh, I heard the team is pretty good here,” she chatted.

Feeling the effects of the day start to drain from him on his idle talk. He pulled his gym bag higher on his shoulder and nodded. “Yeah, well, we have our first game this week finally, and we have a long road to being anything yet. Which reminds me, I need to get my rest in. It was nice meeting you.” He stepped quickly away towards his apartment.

“Oh!” she jumped. “Mr. Arthur. It’s just that, I was wondering if you had a few minutes more to talk.”

“About?” he said with an air of impatience over his shoulder.

“About our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Marty stopped frozen in his place. The rush of blood that went to his head was immediate, and fueled an anger that could cut loose. A day on the practice field fed his core, and it dwelled just at the surface like magma at the caldera of his personal volcano. He turned slowly to her, forcing containing himself the best he could.

When his eyes fell on hers, she was smiling joyfully. She seemed to believe him stopping in his spot meant he wasn’t going to dismiss her outright. The books she held, were across her chest, and the larger well worn leather bound clearly had “Bible” in gold foil lettering. Regardless if she considered herself a missionary, a preacher, or one who truly believed Christianity needed any further spreading; she was excited for the opportunity.

She had no idea how dead of a well she was trying to get water from; but that was because she had no idea how the world works. Nearly every mortal doesn’t, so he couldn’t blame her. But the practice today was too good, he was too energized, and it had been a long time when he had a good talk with one of the Christian Soldiers.

“Yeah,” Marty forced out with a smile, “come on in, Let’s talk about Jesus a bit.”

---

Marty was never short of bottled water. He couldn’t help but to think of wounded warriors In the ancient days, when the cruelest of fate was to see your men die was of thirst. They could be lying on the field of battle laid out, bleeding, flies biting at the wounds, and the simplest giver of life that was so plentiful that it fell from the sky was out of reach. These days, water was so ready, many like Chelsea Darling turn down the water from the wells for those sold in plastic bottles for dollars over dimes.

Handing her bottle, she was already well into her well prepared speech. He had heard them all before, of course. She chose the ‘Jesus as Savior” route, touting the many ways he the guy would absolve us of all our sins. Marty would ask a question here and there, answer them back in short vague answers. In the end, it was nothing new, but he let her think it was.

“So tell me,” she asked sitting on a chair in his sitting room, placing a kind hand on his knee where he sat on the couch. “Do you believe in Jesus? Mr. Arthur? Do you believe in our One True God?”

Marty took another swig from his water and capped it, taking a minute to think about the answer. He was ready to start in on her, and he could feel the heat once more roll through the back of his head. “Well, I have to say I do believe Jesus was real, and that your God does exist.”

“Good,” she chirped happily, maybe missing what he was saying. “And you believe Jesus is our savior?”

Marty laughed and shook his head. “Nah. Wrong place at the wrong time if you ask me.”

“Wr … Wrong Place?” she studdard.

“Yeah, kinda a patsy in modern words. He talks to your God a little bit, builds up a hearty group of followers, and if you have a big enough troop behind you in those days, you’ll get yourself killed. Luckily for your God, it made for a good story.”

She knitted her cute little eyebrows together and looked somewhere between confused and bothered. “No no, he spoke the word of God and crucified for our sins ...”

“Our Sins?” Marty interrupted. “What sin specifically did you do that got him nailed to a cross?”

“Well … I … not me specifically.”

“Of course not you, a sweet little thing like you probably haven’t even begun to sin yet.” He winked a little and put a hand on her well covered knee. She looked down at his hand but didn’t move it. “But that isn’t the point is it. The church wants you to think that believing in a poor carpenter who died 2000 years ago means that your sins can be absolved. That way when you do start sinning you brains you, you come running back to them and strengthen your belief. They know you are a good girl, and all that good feeling that comes with a good sin in the hay or taking a sin from the backside will put you on your knees and praying for your God, making him all that more stronger.”

Her face flushed as she listened, but he had to give her credit, she did listen. She shook her head and pushed his hand off her knee. “I don’t know what you are trying to do Mr. Arthur, but I don’t appreciate you being so suggestive … in the name of the church … “

She was fighting him, in words more than anything physical, but it was still a fight. Little did she know that was the door he needed her to open. He began see more of her in that moment. The good girl, the follower, the one that came with hope and joy in her heart, but following a path that will never truely fulfil her like what life could.

“I am sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable, Chelsea, I just hate to see when a church can influence someone into feeling guilty about living. All I am trying to do is tell you your church only told you what they wanted you to hear. They make you feel good for being in their congregation, and that just strengthens their own ability to reach further. So they have one more sheep in the herd, and you have to sit home on a Saturday night.”

“Say what you will about the Church,” she replied with a crack in her voice. “There are bad ones out there. You don’t have to attend a church Mr. Arthur. What matters is that you believe in our Savior and the One True God.” She shuddered a bit, not sure where this goes now. She seemed to be one that maybe enjoyed the good theological discussion, so her instinct was to argue back even if it was pretty timid.

“Let me ask you this, why do you think you call him the ‘One True God’. And not just ‘The Only God”. Why has history found that as the words to use?”

“Be … because it is in the bible.” She seemed to feel something else coming, and readied herself. “It … it was one of the commandments.”

“Right, and God said you shall only have one god. Not that he was the only one out there. In fact, he said the rest of them are all false idols, right?”

She nodded her head slowly.

“Before all that, he was just called Jehova, the one god of the Jews. And in a world where there were ancient gods rising up all around them, Jehova had to gain control. So he told his followers that he was the only true god, and gave them full blessing to kill anyone else that believed in any other god. Did they teach you that at Trinity college?”

She shook her head and pursed her lips, “there was myths and people who made up stories but …”

“But what? But your God is the only one that is not a myth? None of the rest are real?”

“They … no, they weren’t real.” She wasn’t convincing.

“Are you saying that the only legend from days of old that happened to be true was only the one that you believed to be true?”

She leaned forward in her chair and smirked a little, “You yourself said that God existed, so you you can’t throw that back at me.”

“That’s missing the obvious though. Either the stories of all the gods are nothing but myths and legends, and that includes your ‘One True God’. Or …”

She thought for a moment as Marty left the statement hang. “That’s ridiculous … I feel God with me all the time..”

“Do you think someone can’t say, ‘they feel Buddha with them’ or ‘Vishnu is with me’?”

She scoffed, “That’s different, they are different people there ...”

“Who believe in their god so strongly that their reward is that their god grants them blessings. Just like your God grants them to you. Is that so hard to believe.

She chewed on it. She really did. Sure it was an arguable position, but at the same time she seemed to accept it. At first at least. Then she astutely replied, “My reward is a place in heaven.”

He nodded, and sat back. “Your parents in Douglass Center, do they have a place in heaven too?”

She looked confused, looked offended again as well. A new track he was on, and that bothered her. “If it is God’s will.”

“They don’t believe like you do.”

“My … My father lost his way.” She started stuttering again. Not the line of questioning she expected; so she tried to shift it back. “But if it’s God’s will, that let it be done.”

“God’s will is strong then. Along with his master plan. That’s what you believe?”

“Why yes,” she spoke with a greater firmness. She was back to a pasture she knew. “God has a plan for all of us. Me, you, everyone. God is Love.”

“God is Love,” Marty parroted. He gave out a laugh. “I never understood that line of bullshit.”

“Wh … what?”

“Yeah. God is Love! Where was God’s love when Jesus was on the Cross? One swing of the hand of God and then away he goes.

“It was God’s love that …”

Marty was in a full rant like in the old days. “While we are at … what about all the crusades? Christians fighting Muslim, both believing in your favorite God of yours. Or the maybe something more recent, like the witch trials in Salem when he allowed his name to be used to kill innocent women. Or the Jewish holocaust. Or every epidemic that has hit the world from the Black Plague to AIDS. Or when good people die at the hand’s of those they love. Believers so strong that he would have every reason to put an end to it. Where’s God’s Love?”

“He … he is … Love.” She shook a little, her eyes cast to the table in front of her. Her bible once more pulled up to her chest, but she still wanted to defend him. “He never … gives us more than we can handle.”

Marty leaned forward and spoke softer to her once again putting his hand on her knee. “He never should have made you handle what you dad did to your mom.”

Her head snapped to look at him. They were filled with shock, hatred, but the confusion began to push the tears from her eyes. “How … How did you know that.”

It was time to drop the ton of bricks on her. “I was there.”

Her eyes grew wide, and she shook her head. She then started shouting out half sentences. “I don’t know what sick …” she got up from the chair. “I’m going to call the cops and …” She snatched her books tight up against her chest and moved towards the door. “... Going to Hell for what …”

When she grabbed the door knob, Marty grabbed her hand and spun her back against the wall. He moved so fast she never heard him, never saw it coming. She was pressed closely up against him with his hands on either side of her head and only the bible pressed between them. She stood in shock. He stood hungry.

“You want to know how I know Jesus was a patsy? I was there. Sodom? Gomorrah? Hell of a party until he broke it up. My followers were there when Moses brought down the ten commandments, my idol was melted down with those of some of my friends. I know of the ancient gods. I was there.”

She began to shiver. Her eyes grew wider. He shook his head slowly. His mouth widen unnaturally, and his teeth grew slightly to fangs. His eyes turned a golden shade of yellow. His hair grew from his head longer, fuller.

“Satan!” She said above a whisper.

“No Chelsea, that is not my name.” He moved his head closer to hers, smelling the freshness of her morning bath through his now sensitive nostrils. “I have had many names, but that was never one.”

“What … what are you. My mom ...”

She deserved answers, so he gave them to her. “She was a fighter. Willed herself against him. She was tired of taking his beatings, so she fought back. I did what I could, give her the strength what I could. But someone else had him stronger.”

Her chin started to shake. “She … she fought?”

A low ripple of a growl gurgled up from his belly as the instincts of a lion fought to break forth. “Yeah Chelsea. Like you. She Was a Fighter.”

She still looked scared, she still shuddered. Yet she could have ran too. Pinned against the wall she could have slipped out and was gone, trying to forget the show he gave her. “Who … who are you?”

He told her in no uncertain terms, slowly and with meaning. “I have many names, I told you. At first I was called Anhur. Maahes by the Egyptians. I stood by brave men when they battled for their homes, their families. When someone fought for what was good or right, I was there to be their follower. I am the lion king. I am the god of war. I am Mars.”

She was fearful, shaken, but in awe. She no longer shivered. She no longer gripped hard on her bible. Yet she no longer seemed one step closer to running.

Mars leaned back, just a touch, just to prove this to the both of them. The bible there fell, and banged on the carpeted floor louder than it should. When she looked down to see where it ended up, her eyes went no further than his shorts tented obscenely with the heavy girth of an erection. When he looked down as well, his gaze fell on her breasts, and her swollen nipples fighting her shirt in her own arousal.

----


It was early in the morning, Chealsea was running across the grass in her untied shoes and her hands gripping the starch white shirt where the buttons were gone. Marty followed her wordlessly to his car where they met the day before. He was dressed not much different than than, going for a white polo with the purple W instead. Practice wasn’t for a couple of hours, but he had an errand to run now.

He stopped off at a storage yard, complete with rows and rows of orange colored garage doors with simple padlocks on them. Marty unlocked his, stepped quickly inside, and closed it behind him. It was the biggest locker the place had, big enough for two cars to fit front back. While he could have filled it to the ceiling, there was a path between the stacks of boxes and crates. Sitting out were an array of swords, pikes, and knives dating throughout the centuries. Every kind of weapon of war that didn’t use gunpowder sat out, shined up, and stood like a museum in this little shack. Sure he had guns, lots of them, and even a stash of artillery too, but that’s not something you keep in a storage locker.

Crawling through it all, he found the spot he has cleared just for days like this. Marty light a small candle, and placed it on an overturned crate. Next to the candle, a small carved wooden figure stood. It was too far crumbled and smoothed over to be decerable to anything, but as he well knew it is not what you prey to, it’s who maybe listening.

“Hey Tar,” he started. “I made a sacrifice to you last night. One that you would have loved. I know you like the details so …” he smirked devilishly. Turned around behind him just to make sure no one came in, then leaned in real close to the statuette.

“She was a christian, full on believer. Came to convert me. Yeah … a challenge, right? I had enough in me to bring out my true self, and then she was converted herself. I pulled her to the floor, ripped open her shirt, tore her panties right off then broke her viriginity right there on the floor. A virgin, and she was twenty years old, can you believe it. Beautiful too, in a mousy kind of way. Small breasts, narrow hips, and strong. It took me no more than a few minutes and she was climaxing right there on the floor.

“I let her rest a bit, and she got scared or something. She got out from under me and began crawling across the floor. I grabbed her by the hips, and pushed right back in from behind her. She stopped running at that point. I had her skirt pushed up over her ass, her shirt thrown away, and her body all under mine. It felt like the old days. Running across the open lands, grabbing a poor girl, climbing on top of her, and taking her until she succums. I pounded into her small body, wrapped my arms around her, and bit into her neck as we both came together.

“She didn’t talk much after that. We laid together on the floor for a while. She tried to leave at one point, tried to get up. I just took her back to my bedroom. She crawled on top of me and rode me for a long time. It was her taking me at that point, and she began to remind me of you, Tar. Those nights after a long festival, or a good day of war. Too tired to move, too tired to get out of bed, but too strong to sleep. She must have climaxed two, three more times that night on me. Until we both just needed to sleep.

“Heh, I even got her this morning. She didn’t take much convincing for one more go at morning break, but I thought I would take her bottom. Just like the day before she fought me a little, but I think she figured out by then it was just how I like to get going. She ran out that morning like a scared little choir girl she is.”

Marty, never ceasing to smile through the whole story gave out a long sigh. He ran his hand slowly through the full head of hair. “I know, I probably just wanted to fuck her to drain my balls in something other than an old sock for once. But I did think about you. I hoped you felt that, wherever you are. Someday we are going to get you back, and then … “

Marty shrugged, smiled, and just lost any words he had left. He picked up the wooden figure, sliding it between his fingers. After a long pause, he kissed it lightly, then replaced it on the crate. The candle blown out, Marty left the locker. He walked with a spring in his step and a smile on his face.

It was game day, the first football game of the season, but something about the way he felt suggested a new hope was coming beyond what ever happened on the field.

Ziva writhed on the bed, hands clutching at the pure silk sheets, the whisper of the fabric drowned out by the pants and moans of the woman asleep.

Tonight she was getting a reprieve from the dreams of torture and death with one that was torture, a sweet sensual torture that left Zita with a begging need but no outlet for such a need. There was never any control in her dreams but in most cases that never bothered her but this morning it did.

The faceless man toyed with her, she couldn't hear his words but when he touched her knee warmth spread from his hands straight to her core. Without reason she stood and tried to run away but the man captured her, pinned her against the wall and held her there without touching her. Time slowed and she waited for the man to touch her, something tickled her hip and she looked down to see his erection tenting his pants and grazing over her, teasing her. She wanted to reach out and grasp him in her hand, to pull those pants down and feel the heat of him against her skin, have him in her but when she looked up again the man had changed and he now wore a hood and the thing that kept her pinned to the wall were now chains and ropes.

Ziva struggled against the binds, eyes wide and frantic as the room she had been in melted away. 'Heop, there must be help, somewhere...' She panicked knowing what would come next, they would kill her and she would wake a heartbeat before her dream self's death. 'No, not again...' Where was the other dream, where was the man who promised to ease the itching, burning deep inside of her? No in this dream the burning inside of her were red hot coals being shoved into to the cut they had made on her body.

Phantom images overlapped what she was seeing in her torture dream, images of being taken on her back on the floor, from behind on her knees, carried off to a room and riding him again and again before passing out on top of him. The two dreams fought with each other, fueled each other in this frenzy of feelings. The cold numbness of a pain to immense your mind can't process it to the wet hot rhythmic pulses of a nearing and dangerously powerful climax, each growing and swallowing Ziva in a onslaught that jolted her awake into the real world where the dreams simply vanished but the ache, pains, wants and needs stayed to haunt her throughout her day.

"Urgh..." The dreams were always a double edged sword, sometimes, when the dreams weren't trying to kill her, they gave her something that her life currently didn't have, sex. But on the other hand no matter which of the two ways that her dreams went they both left her feeling exhausted from the moment she opened her eyes as if she hadn't slept at all.

The blackout curtains made Ziva's room look like a cave, dark and cool with no light source but the dim glow of her
iDL100 iHome that told her it was almost nine in the morning.

"Shit!" Leaping from bed Ziva tumbled to the ground with an ump that knocked the air from her lungs, a smiling stuffed Daren the D.A.R.E. Lion nose to nose with her smiling. The night of tossing and turning had tangled the sheets around her legs and attributed to her fall. Targeting poor Daren as well from his spot at her side to the carpeted floor. This morning she was supposed to take her brother to his new school and finish signing him in before he could start. This was the third school in three years which would have impressed Ziva if she weren't the one the had to deal with it all.

Grabbing at her phone the moment she was free and on her feet she called her brother only to hear it ring in the not so distant front room.

"Hey." Obadiah answered the ringing stopped echoing down the hall and through her door to be replace but the murmur of a voice.

"What the hell?!?" Ziva hung up on the call and stormed out of her room without thinking, her mind more focused on why her brother was here and why he hadn't woken her up. "How long have you been here?" She demanded when she rounded the corner to the front room.

"Seven- whoa!" Obi's face transformed from bored to highly interested in a moment's breath. "Nice." He smiled bobbing his head as he checked out his sister.

Looking down Ziva could understand his reaction, she had come out of bed wearing nothing but cotton hipster panties in a white base colored stripe pattern and a white tank top. "Seriously Obi, I'm your sister." Growling she took the few steps back to her bathroom and grabbed her koi fish printed kimono rode. "And answer my question."

"Seven-thirty." His voice had changed and she assumed it was because he had turned his attention back to his phone or laptop or whatever it was that he was on. "And you're not my real sister." He pointed out when Ziva walked back into the room.

It was true, Ziva had been adopted by her family when she was an infant when her parents found out they couldn't have a child of their own and Obadiah was a 'miracle' child born the same day that Ziva had been adopted just nine years later.

"Still your sister." She corrected kicking at his shoe with her bare foot. "And why didn't you wake me up?"

His answer was to shrug not even bothering to look up from his phone.

"Seriously Obi, this is the last school in the district. If you get kicked out of this one it's an hour's drive to the next one and I'll make you walk." Lucky for him this school was on the way to her wonderful job at the mall and she offered to drive him to school everyday.

Since their mother had died four years ago Obadiah had been acting out in school. He had once been a straight A student, quarterback on the football team and part of the yearbook the perfect little brother, once upon a time. Now he got into fights, skipped classes, destroyed school property and broke in after hours. It was a headache because the person who was supposed to handle the now 16 year old, their father, had withdrawn from life and all aspects of emotions leaving Ziva to take care of it.

It meant dropping out of college where she hadn't worked her ass off to get an early admission to the MA Ancient Culture, Religion and Ethnicity program... but she did. It also meant moving from her awesome condo rental in the heart of the city to the apartment buildings near home because the 45 minute drive in her older honda was killing her in petrol. Her favorite part had been giving up her job at the museum to work at a used book store. At twenty-five she hadn't imagined that her life would turn out like this but then again she had the worst luck. Cursed luck really.

"Well then lets go, don't want me being any later then I already am." His tone was clipped and cold as he stood up to tap his foot, making a production out of showing his sister that he had been waiting on her.

"Urgh!" Not the most mature response that Ziva could have given Obi as she spun from the room to get dressed.

~ ~ ~

The woman behind the desk had already made up her mind on Ziva when she walked up to hand her the first part of the packet of papers she had given her when she first got here. And whatever it was that she had made her mind up about wasn't pleasant.

Ziva knew it couldn't be the way that she had dressed. She hadn't wanted to stand out and had tamed her long dark brown hair enough to force it into a loose braid, there was little make-up on her face but that didn't stop her sea colored eyes from standing out, nor did her naturally blushed cheeks and lips. So she couldn't be blamed for that and definitely not for the plain blue jeans that she had on. While they did hug her body; the curve of her hips, the roundness of her bottom and her long toned legs the loose plaid button up shirt she had on evened it out and played down her large breasts, tiny waist and flat stomach. Or so she thought.

"Are you his mother?" The woman asked, her false smile doing nothing to cloak the judgment in her tone.

That was the reasoning behind the woman's side glances and full out glares. Smiling Ziva looked up from the paperwork she was filling out to enroll her brother into school and shifted her attention solely on the woman. "Yeah, lost my cherry at eight had him at nine. He looks just like his father, well at least half of them as I'm not quite sure which one is really his dad... could be any of the handful of men I was taking to bed at such a young age." The pearly white smile that shined of innocence was dulled only by the look of mockery in her eyes.

The clerk behind the desk looked mortified, outraged and ill all at once and it only made the smile on Ziva's face widen, even more so when she heard the whispered voice of her brother saying how gross that was.

"You know she thought it was true, right." Obi spoke up when Ziva had finished the paper work and they exited the building.

That was the best part Ziva smiled to herself remembering the look on the woman's face. "So?" She knew she should feel bad for purposely teasing that lady but there was something in her tone, the look in her eyes that had Ziva speaking before she could stop herself. Not that she regretted saying it, it was funny and the look made it worth it.

"When it gets around that you're my mom-"

"First if she had taken the time to read the papers I had just handed to her she would have known who I was and the relation to you. Secondly,' Ziva smiled and hooked an army around her little brother's shoulders. At sixteen Obi was already taller then her five foot seven frame and was looking more and more like their father with his goofy lopsided smile, deep brown eyes and floppish light brown hair. "When that happens you'll be the popular guy for having such a hot ass mom."

"Sick but more then likely true." Obi nodded, shrugging out of the half hug and distancing himself from his sister. They walked in silence back to Ziva's car for Obi's book bag for a while before he spoke up again. "You think I could still try out for the football team?" He was so quite that Ziva almost missed the hushed question.

This was the first sign that Obi was getting back to his old self. "It never hurts to ask the coach."

"You think Dad'll let me?"

That question was a little harder to answer. Their dad's heart and soul and died with his wife, their mom and he was nothing but a husk of the person that he once was. "You know I really don't think it'll bother him. Heck it might make him happy and be just the thing to bring him back to us."

"Yeah." Obi frowned.

"You need me to walk you to class on your first day?" The school day had already started and with them already being late and the time that it took for Ziva to fill out the paper work Obi would be starting his day with third period as well as joining late in the year.

"Psh, no." At the car he simply reached in through the open window and grabbed his bag. "I'm 16 now." He said with pride the frown gone as he stood taller.

"Child." Ziva teased.

"Old hag." Obi threw back both siblings smiling as he turned to go.

As Ziva opened her door she paused and looked back over her shoulder at the school. She felt like this was a new start for her brother a better start and as happy as she was with that there was a buzzing in the back of her mind that hounded her about something else, something she just couldn't put her finger on. Shrugging the feeling of missing something Ziva got into her car, started it and drove off.

“Aaahhh, Coach Arthur,” the middleaged man balding way ahead of his time called as he waved him in. “Sit down, sit down. So much to talk about, so much to talk about.” The guy wore a cheap suit jacket and tie that he tried to stuff around his overweight gut. He was cheery, happy, and sweaty. Meat sweats even, like someone who had too much ham and sausage for breakfast, and probably a tough pan fried steak from the night before..

Marty brushed his hair back, trying to tame the mane that seemed to want to spring forth all morning. “Yeah, I got your call Dr. Harrison, I hope this doesn’t take long,” he replied slightly agitated. Sure, Marty was tweeked some with the football game just hours away now, but it doesn’t help that he gets a call to the office to meet with the principal. Even non-students don’t like that call.

“Please please, call me Will. Will’s good for my teachers.”

“Alright Will. And Marty will be good for me too.”

“Ahh, yes, Marty. Marty Marty. That’s a good name.”

Marty’s leg started bouncing on the floor as his impatience grew. Bad enough he was here, worse that the damn fool had to repeat every other word. “Is something wrong sir? I didn’t expect a call down in my first week.”

“No no, nothing wrong,” he said as he settled back in his chair. He slid his hands through his thin hair leaving unkept strains sticking everywhere. “Well, I hear you are still getting to know the teachers. But I guess that takes time, and you are quite busy in your first couple of weeks. So that is fine.”

Getting to know them? More like pissing them off. Most groups aren’t to wild about there being a new alpha in the pack. “Yeah, it takes time.”

“Your class plans. Yeah, the plans are good. We have to follow the health class closely. Closley indeed, as that is always a senstive thing …”

“Excuse me, Will,” Marty interrupted as he leaned forward in the chair. “Is there a point, and when are we going to get to it.” It was phrased like a question, but he wasn’t asking.

Will stopped, mouth open. Make or break probably for Marty, as this was the first time he really talked back to his own boss. He waited for that one pregnant pause, until finally the principal gulped. Yeah, Marty though, his new boss was going to be a pussy. “Right. The point.”

Marty smiled back to him and gave a small nod, he sat up straight & tall in the chair sliding his hands onto his thighs. It was a simple gesture, but it was also one more sign of the power he now held. He was allowing the man to proceed.

“The point. First game is tonight. How’s things look?” He seemed more serious now, more direct. Things have definitely changed in his plans.

“They are good kids,” Marty recited. “They practice hard, they work hard. It will be a tough game tonight, but I can’t ask for anything anything more than what they have shown me.”

Will looked up at the ceiling. He wasn’t pleased with the answer, obviously, but was trying to figure out what he really wanted to know. “You know,” he started, “you weren’t just hired to fill an open position. We didn’t reach out to Texas for a health instructor. We have a winning tradition at this school, and …”

“And you don’t want some bullshit you could hear at a pep rally,” Marty finished for him. Maybe not as bluntly as Will wanted, but still.

Will paused again, looking harshly at Marty. “Yeah, I guess that is what I am asking.”

Marty smirked. He leaned back in his chair, and reached his other over the one next to him. Maybe this guy wasn’t so much of a pussy after all, and these were the kind of questions that can get Marty’s rarely won respect. “We have the element of surprise on our side, Will, but that’s about it. Eagle River has that set of receivers back from last year, y’all couldn’t stop, and they will probably play both ways this year. They are probably expecting what you ran last year, lots of options and jet screens to spread the field. But you know that’s not what I play. We are going to smash the damn ball down their throat, and if the boys execute we’ll keep their offence off the field. But execution is not something you can expect for the first game with a new coach … just saying.”

Will began to grin again. “You thinking playoffs then?”

Marty gave a breathy sigh and shook his head. “You know I am a smashmouth kind of guy, but like I said, it will work this week because they won’t be expecting it. If any of the other schools are half as smart as I am they will get their hands on tape of tonight’s game, then throw 10 men in the box.”

“Can’t you just throw the ball more?”

“You know who our Quarterback is?”

Will knitted his eyebrows. “Paul Jordan, right? He’s a good kid, his dad runs the construction firm that …”

“He’s a liability,” Marty spat. This is slowly becoming one of those conversations you have you know can’t get back to the team, but it’s what Will needed to hear. “Kid can’t throw more than 15 yards without it slipping out of his hands. Right now we can’t only expect him to hand a ball off. I got a guy who can help with him, but then the best we can hope is that we will have some short yardage play actions.”

Will gulped again. Not what he wanted to hear. The idea of a losing team wasn’t easy to swallow in this town, but it had to be said. “Marty, you know you were hired to make us winners again. I’ll give you some leeway but …”

“I get it,” Marty butted in. “I am not an idiot, Will. This is a results driven job, and you don’t have to tell me about that. This wouldn’t be the first time I would get fired if we lose. In the mean time, I’ll stay honest with you, you stay honest with me, and I will do everything to get everything I can out of those kids that I can. Okay?”

Will was smiling, seemingly enjoying this back and forth. That was probably Marty’s doing more than anything, he loved to bring the fighter out of anyone. “And of course,” Will added, “pray for a quarterback to come to us.”

Marty stood up, and headed to the door. It didn’t matter if Will thought the meeting was over or not, Marty decided it was. “Believe me, God needs to spend time on things that have nothing to do with Football.”

Marty left the office and took a breather in the hallway. Will was a resource, and with enough manipulating could be a follower in his own way. Marty, unlike some of his ancient friends, was a realist. He adapted to the modern world. Gone were the days where wars were popping up all over the countryside. He could no longer rely on a few pissed off peasants to be the source of his strength; but he could rely on other sources. Arguably he was more of a God of Football then a God of War, but if not him then who.

He checked his watch, just a few more minutes until third period, enough time to grab a water and get to the classroom. He prefers teaching PE, but this health class is starting to become fun. Health is just a nice way of calling it Sex Ed, and watching those teenagers squirm is better than any paycheck he gets at this place. He took the back entrance from the office, stepped into the main hall and started his way there.

Then he saw her.

It was a glimpse. Maybe more. But it couldn’t be more than an instant in time.

For millennia that face was chiseled in his mind. The curve of her cheek like smoothed from marble. The slight upturn of her nose that suggested youth and playfulness. Eyes like a sea full of mystery, but open to let someone see deep into her mind. And those lips, those lips that just begged to be kissed.

By the time he stopped, turned around, and looked after her she was out the doors and heading out to the parking lot. He thought that it may still be her, the hair although pulled up like modern girls would, but the same color. Before they ripped it from her, of course.

As she walked out of sight, he shook his head. “Get a hold of yourself, Mars,” he muttered. “It isn’t her.”

“Excuse me?” came a voice behind him.

“Oh, what” Marty jumped, feeling a bit tweeked by the interruption, leaving him blunt in response. Marty turned to see a boy standing there, probably 16 or 17. “Something you want, kid?”

“Are you Coach Arthur? The lady in there said you were,” he asked.

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“Can anyone join team? I mean, I just started here.”

“Well,” Marty replied a little more calm, trying to force on his more welcoming guise. “You need to get your parent’s permission, but otherwise everyone can join my team, and everyone plays on my team too. What position you play?”

“Quarterback,” the kid replied.

Marty grit his teeth. Will probably did do a little prayer in there after Marty left, because Marty knew he had nothing to do with this kid being here. That, and sometimes God can be a real dick.

The day wore on much like any other at Koreander's Books. Cataloging the books that came in and reading what caught her fancy. For most women her age their fancy were romance novels with dashes of excitement but Ziva couldn't ever agree with the characters in the story. Maybe it was that they never reacted the way that she felt they should. Either way it was the feeling that reading those books left her with that bothered her. Woozy with an elevated heart rate that twisted and knotted her stomach. So she normally kept away from those books as much as she could find more enjoyment with science fiction and fantasy. Or even better fiction and literature.

"Do you have the Fifty Shades Darker?"

Ziva turned from the bookcase she was reorganizing, startled by the voice. It was rare to get more then a handful of people in through out the day so that meant Ziva was required to fill in the day with mindless chores to quicken the time that she was there.

"I'm so in love with Christian. Isn't he just dreamy?" The young woman went one. She looked to be near Ziva's age but rambled on like some teenager.

What was with this book? "I think we have a copy or two." Ziva answered climbing down from the ladder. Unlike a large name bookstore they bought and sold used books as well gaining favor and loyalty with the people who came to the store.

"I would so love a man to do that with me. To be controlled like that, you know." The woman wouldn't stop talking as she followed Ziva to the correct aisle.

"Umm I wouldn't know. I've never read the book."

"What?! Why not? They're like the best books ever!" She had stopped in her tracks stunned with her mouth open.

Ziva shrugged not feeling comfortable enough to explain why.

"Is it a religious thing because of the sex?" A kind smile replaced the one that had been so shocked.

Why was that always the case here? If you didn't do something it was because of some religious reason. Did she look like some bible thumping nut case? Okat, Ziva took a deep breath. It wasn't that she didn't believe but it was more of a spiritual thing then a abide by the rules set down in a book written hundreds of years ago. There had to be something that made all of this but the collective thought that it was the work of only one man troubled her. She had doubts but she knew better then to voice then to her family as they were heavy believers.

"No. No that's not the problem."

"So then why haven't you read the book? You know you really should, it super."

Ziva resisted the urge to roll her eyes and pointed the woman to the E L James they had on hand. "If you need anything else." She smiled collecting herself enough that the smile came out as seemingly genuine and not forced.

~~~

"Hey." From school Obi walked into town to Koreander's Books and fell into one of the overstuffed chairs that were scattered all over the bookstore. "I have something for you to sign." Obi couldn't see his sister but knew if he shouted loud enough she would be able to hear him.

"Gods what are you a savage?" Snapped Ziva rushed down the spiral stairs. She had been in the loft area changing out light bulbs. "Can't you control yourself?"

"What I had a good first day." Obi shrugged kicking up his feet on a box he knew was filled with books.

For the next hour Obi jabbered about his day while he shadowed his sister as she worked offering no help to the visibly annoyed Ziva. "Okay, stop." She smacked a hand over her brother's mouth and signed happy with the silence. "What do you want." Sure Obi was a talker when he got excited but she sensed that this was about something else.

"Well... there's this game tonight..."

"And you want to go." It wasn't a question yet her brother nodded his head. "Help me with these last two boxes and we'll head home and to that game."

Obi was on the move now and within twenty minutes they were done and just another five minutes to close up. And in that hour they were washed, feed and driving back to Obi's school for the football game.

Once upon a time, temples were built in the city of Leontopolis complete with live lions to one they knew as Mahees. The first Emperor of Rome, when building his own Forum of Augustus next to the original Roman Forum also built the Temple to Mars Ultor or Mars the Avenger. Great were his conquests in Brittania that his name in Celtic times was inscribed in walls to let travelers know where best to be inebriated.

Yet Leontopolis fell so long ago, modern historians only can guess at where it was. His temple in Rome lay in ruins, with only a few carvings of his old girlfriend exposed to the elements. The Brittens don’t need ancient inscriptions where to get a pint.

Now, one could say that the hundreds of followers he has only fit in one side of what is called ‘City Stadium’. That, and all that he wishes to be made in his honor is a very respectable 4-4 Defence.

“Listen here, Crosby,” Marty demanded as he stared the teenager down through the rungs of his facemask. “This is what a mack outside linebacker is supposed to do. You want to keep letting that receiver come across the middle in front of you?”

“No sir,” the kid said back.

“Then watch him close, he makes any cut towards the middle you step up and get in his way. Got it?”

“Get … Get in his way, Coach?”

Marty shook his head. “Do I have to spell it out for you Crosby? Five yards free contact. Square up and hit him.” He slapped the kids helmet.

Crosby stumbled in his spot a little then shook his head like breaking free the cobwebs. The game had Marty energized and excited; with that bit of a pat he passed some of it onto Crosby. Crosby locked eyes with Marty and smiled wide, giving a firm nod of his head. “He won’t know what hit him, Coach.”

The other players laughed.

“Hey Hey,” Marty jumped looking around the huddle. “Don’t the rest of you worry about Crosby. He does his job a lot is going to happen. The QB has to find a new target or he may run it. You are all in this together, right?”

They all looked to him wide eyed shaking their heads, now hanging on his words.

“One Team, on three - One, Two Three.”

“ONE TEAM,” they yelled and moved into position.

The game was getting late with under a couple minutes left, and they were down by 4. Worse yet, the other team was driving hard and had our boys on their heels. They couldn’t move the ball on the ground, but were killing Marty’s team with the easy passes over the middle, something that had to change, and had to change now. That’s why Marty took the chance to lose whatever energy he had built up, because the result would be interesting if it did.

Marty prefered the open fields of battle. The wheatfields of Gettysburg. The grasses of Canae. The forests near Poitiers. With the open air, the smell of metal, and the feel of blood drying on your skin. So much has changed since then. In the days since the war with the One True God, the part he could play diminished further and further. He found a home, however, in football. The lights of a Friday Night cast on fresh grass and a stadium filled with followers cheering for the cause. His ancient friends argue it was more like the days of gladiators and putting christians to slaughter, but there is no doubt that standing in this small high school stadium was a source of energy. During a game like this, he felt like a god once more.

Tonight, though, something was different. It was his first game at a new school and a new stadium with a new team, but there was something more than the normal electricity of football. Something changed. That seemingly gave him more energy than he had had in years.

The ball snapped, the quarterback dropped two steps and looked over the middle. Of the options that could have happened, what came out of it was better than Marty could hope. Sure that receiver came across the middle, and Crosby was there. An instant later, the receivers legs were higher than his butt and he came crashing to the sod. The QB didn’t see it in time, and had let the ball to where the receiver was supposed to be. What was there, was one of Marty’s boys. Interception, and yards gained after the catch.

The mood of the following changed in an instant. Sure the clock had stopped, but they didn’t have much more than one play left on the clock, and the momentum may be fleeting. It went from the rush of the cheers from the fans to silence as the receiver lay on the ground still. His coaches ran to his side, while Marty pulled his boys away. Still, the air drained of the love of the war, to prayers of hope.

It pissed Marty off to know end. Call him insensitive but, the receiver just got the wind knocked out of him, easy to see he will survive and probably be out for no more than a play. Not only that, but he really hated anyone bring “God” into football. Not for an injured player, not for anything. He left his last job because they were insistent to add benedictions to the pre-game, and half the team felt the need to pray before during and after every play. While this is just people who don’t know what they are praying for, this is a war and God has no place here.

Marty took a deep breath as he scanned the field. The other team’s defence wandered out to their positions without anything else to do while they wait for their teammate to recover, and Marty, always one keen eye away from an opportunity, spotted one before him.

He pulled his team into a huddle and looked at them. “Alright boys, you know how I said sometimes I am going to ask you to do something that doesn’t make sense because sometimes what makes sense isn’t obvious. Right?”

That got their attention.

“Right, so this is one those times. Slot Right Pro 23 Iso on First Count - Got it?”

Most of them didn’t react at first, but he knew one would. “A run? What’s up with that, Coach? It’s the last play.” Hector Marpessa. He played Guard on both sides of the ball. Strong as an Ox, and wise as an Owl. Marty actually wondered about his lineage from the day he learned the boy’s name, but still wonders even now with how smart he remains. Once upon a time, Marty could see the many children of the gods slung out like seeds in a wheat field, and with an ancient first name and family name taken from one of the seeds of his old pal Ares it made Marty wonder. If it was anyone but Hector asking, he wouldn’t answer it.

“Hasn’t worked all night, right?” Marty started and got nods of agreement. “Reason why is because they saw it coming for one, we always were running the ball before. Also that number 82 kept stuffing it up and we couldn’t get into the secondary, right? Well, look who is heading off the field now?”

The receiver, on his feet and slowly walking to the sidelines held his arm over the number 82 on his jersey.

“Hanson, I need you to get that Tackle heading to the outside, so stand in a two point - make him believe we are going to pass. Kilgore, ride that Nosegaurd into the ground if you have to, he needs to stay out of the running lane. And Marpessa -- I want you into that Linebacker corp, hit something like you know what you are hitting alright?”

“Isn’t it still an ISO though, Coach? Won’t we leave the safety?” Hector asked. Man he was smart.

“Look over your shoulder boys, the safety is 45.”

The boys looked over their shoulder, some quickly turned back. The boy in 45 was maybe five and half feet tall. The shoulder pads were twice as wide as he was. The uniform itself was fairly clean and probably not expected to get dirty the whole season. Marty was going to change that.

“No … keep looking at him, I want him to know you are looking at him. He may be quick to keep up with receivers, he may be good in a gang tackle, but he can’t handle a steam roller running down the center lane at him. He may think he’s strong, but against Trudo running the ball he will be sweating in his jockstrap. Boys … He’s our ISO.” Marty gave a pat on the head to his running back, some of his power reaching the boy. “Trudo, you go straight for him, I don’t care if he moves from his spot I want you after him. Got it?”

The ref was calling at Marty to get off the field so they can wind the clock. He stopped and took a moment to collect them. It was a speech he gave on those wheat fields, that green grass, those forests so many times over the years. It was what made this game of football no different than any war, and it would get through to them.

“Listen boys. You have in you what you need to win this, you only have to do two things. One is do you job, be accountable for yourself. More importantly is to trust the man standing next to you to do their job. Win or lose, we do it as one team. Right?”

“Right!” they all agreed.

“Right?” he said louder.

“Right!” they called back.

“One Team, on three...”

On the way back to the sidelines, he saw her again, but this time ‘saw her’ saw her. She sat in the stands amongst the masses of fans. One could have missed one face in the crowd. The sun had set and the stadium lights were dark, but the warm night brought out half the town for this game each one them no different than any other in the great mass of purple t-shirts, pompoms, and band instruments. Yet there she was, the same brown hair, the same eyes, the same vision. Yet this time he knew he wasn’t just seeing something. This time he could focus on her, and in the crowd she seemed to stand out like a gem amongst gravel.

He was woken from a dream by the instant surge of energy into his blood from the roar of the crowd. Turning around to the field, he could see Trudo stepping over the flattened body of the opposite 45, with nothing between him and the end zone but open field. This was it, this was the game, and with it celebration to the coach, the team, and all that is what he created for them.

Surrounded by his players, the other team, and the coaches shaking hands; Marty was fully distracted. In part of the surge he gets from the game, and the strength he needs to build on his following. That would be what was normal of this modern life.

Yet all he wanted to do was to move through this mass, and see if it was true.

Was she here.

Was she back.

Ziva had tried to be a fan of football, for her brother but she could never get past the image of it just being a game filled with men trying to hurt each other. From the hours of excited chatter over the years of listening to Obi she knew that it was more complex then she gave it credit for but still...

"Ah!" Obi rocketed out of the car even before Ziva had put it in park. "The smell of freshly cut grass, the charge in the air and do you feel that?" Ziva was just getting out of the car when her brother rounded on her, a smile like she hadn't seen in months splitting his face wide with joy. "Do you?"

The air was warm, strange after a cool day that it would warm as the sun went down but it was more then that, even Ziva could feel the growing excitement from all the people already there. "Excitement?" Just because that was what she felt didn't mean that was what her football crazed little brother was talking about. But she wasn't going to call him on it, she hadn't see him like this in so long and it lifted her heart and brought a smile to her face just as bright as his.

"Yes!" Obi nodded striding towards the stadium. "The first game of the season sets the feel of the year, don't you know." Ziva was tall but Obi was taller and his longer steps and his eagerness to get there put him much further away then he had expected and he paused waiting for his sister to catch up. "I wish I was playing." Obi bounced with excess energy and Ziva couldn't help but laugh at him. "What?" The frown stilled his body and Ziva quickly sobered up and waved away the laughter.

"No, I just miss this side of you." And like she would have before but hadn't in a while she gathered her brother up in a big sisterly hug.

"Zi-Ziva!" But he returned the hug, his chin resting on the top of her head. "Woah!" Obi pushed his sister back and put a hand to her forehead. "You're burning up. Are you feeling okay?"

"What?" Pushing his hand aside Ziva felt her own head and felt nothing. "I feel fine."

"You sure?"

"Positive." Ziva sighed bumping her shoulder into Obi. "So how come you're not wearing purple? Or is it orange?" She didn't know what the school colors were but could guess that it was purple or orange while secretly hoping that it was purple. She wasn't a big fan of orange and knew for a fact that she looked horrible in it.

"Purple." He answered his enthusiasm for this sport returning. "I'm going to go find the coach see if I can get a sideline seat."

"Have fun." Ziva waved watching as her brother ran off. She hated this place, still did in so many ways but seeing Obi beginning to act like his old self made this place worth it. In her mind she had always pictured herself near an impossibly crystal clear ocean, a bay even with a house built on the rise with a heavenly view where one could watch the sunrise or set. Ziva could never pick which one was better, the fresh light of a cool morning or the relaxing color charged sky of a setting sun. She didn't know where her mind was wondering off to but she knew that it wasn't with this football game. Even with that she knew she didn't want to be anywhere else. There was this drawing force that lured her into the stadium and behind the other townsfolk she walked in and found a place in the stands to watch the game.

As hard as she tried Ziva couldn't concentrate on the game or what was going on. Her mind drifted to image less places, drowned out the sounds of the game to the gentle rasp of rolling waves over sand. The wind picked up and her hair caught in the breeze and brushed over her face, tickling the tip of her nose. For the first time that night she was feeling the heat that her brother had worried about earlier that night. The night seemed to still and Ziva looked around and could see the change in the stadium. A player was down in the field and the atmosphere had changed, the charge had dropped and there was a nip in the air that hadn't been there before that made Ziva feel all the more warm, hot even instead of cold.

The older couple next to her quietly whispered a prayer for the fallen player. Looking out over the field Ziva could see that the boy was fine, in fact he was getting up and the stadium cheered at this recovery. The woman thanked God and Ziva only shook her head feeling uncomfortable by their need for his help in such a slight situation as this. There was a time and place for everything and that people felt the need to call on him for everything bothered her. She just felt like he was their go to guy for every little thing, a scapegoat when they needed him and the person who they could use to their advantage.

Just thinking it made her feel like a horrible person. She believed but what she felt and thought was just different. Even as a child what questions she had no one had answers for and had angered her parents so she had learned to stop asking and just go with it. To be free in how she felt and thought as long as she kept it to herself.

Caught by the shifting energy of the masses Ziva turned her attention from what daydreams she was wrapped up in to what as going on here. The charge started to build again as the players retook the field and the game clock counted down. Players moved in a play and as Ziva's eyes followed the ball a chill ran down her spine. That feeling of déjà vu tearing her from the game and she searched for the reason. Goosebumps pebbled her entire body and her skin flamed hot with a desire that she didn't understand.

"Ziva! Ziva!" She could barely hear Obi's voice over the cries from the supporters of the winning team. "Did you see that?"

She hadn't but wasn't about to tell Obi that as she weaved and cut through the thong of people to her brother's side. "We won!" It was a statement but Ziva knew it to be a question and she was lucky enough that Obi hadn't caught it.

"It was a close one but with me on the team there wouldn't have been a doubt."

Ziva had seen her brother play and he was good. Had yet to see him throw a ball and miss. "Did you get to talk to your coach?"

"No. Hey why don't you come meet him?"

"Sure." Ziva had the signed papers allowing him to play in her bag and figured this would be as good of a moment as ever to turn them in. As she followed Obi she regretted her choice of comfort over style. Not that she was vain or anything but her jeans were faded and broken in to fit with a comfortable second skin, that perfect mix between fitted and free movement. Her aqua and white tie dye braided halter top boring but oh so soft. And more then likely her hair was a mess because it had a mind of it's own and liked to dance in the wind. On top of that she had on little make up, just eyeliner and lip gloss and she was rethinking meeting the coach idea.

"Coach! Coach!"

But it was too late because Obi had seen his coach and was calling out to him and waving his arms to better get his attention.

"Well here goes nothing." Ziva whispered to herself with a sigh and a faint feeling of excitement.

He got used to the post-game mess at his old job, and it being a home game made it easier. The boys would find their own locker room or girlfriends. Shake a couple hands of bi-standers. Hand off his gear to the manager. Find your rusty Buick and head home. Tonight, though, he had to see if She was here. Problem was, there were more problems here. Sleeve grab from the local radio guy for a couple questions. Photo op with the retired coach. Wink and a nod Dr. Will Harrison.

Things were thinning out when he was able to break free and really look for Her, but there was nothing. In his head he whispered, “show me where you are Tar, give me a sign.”

“Coach! Coach!” came a call over his shoulder. The new boy, Obi, was calling out to him and waving his arms. Sure, his actions would have gotten his attention, but it was who was standing next to him that garnered it more.

Immediately, it felt like his head came under the weight of a thousand stones. His ears started ringing, and the heat of the autumn evening became oppressive. The closer he moved towards Her, the more She looked like Her. The soft curve of Her nose, the fullness of Her lips, the shape of her cheeks, like all those that carved their way into his memories. He kept purposely watching where he stepped just so he could keep looking back and making sure that he wasn’t just fooling himself. Yet by the time he was close enough to her he was sure he was staring at her. He also was sure they both could hear the sound of his heart trying to leap from his chest.

He broke his gaze from her and started, “Obi, good to see you. What did you think of the game?”

“It was Great,” he jumped. “That interception was awesome, and great timing for …” The words form Obi fired like quick fire, but were lost in Marty’s ears.

His eyes fell on her’s again and immediately he was transported to a night millennia ago. It was one of those nights where there were just enough clouds in the sky that made the setting sun’s colors move through every shade of red, orange, or blue. Up in a low mountain amongst others sat a temple that was nothing more than a few stone pillars holding up a simple domed roof on a smooth marble floor. It was summer, and Zues was somewhere nearby creating the storms that brought warm humid air with cool breezes from far away thunderheads. Together, they lay on a bed of large pillows, soft and elegant, exposed to the world around them but they were otherwise undisturbed by the world except for the peaks of extinct volcanos. The sweat rolled from their naked bodies as their breathing slowed from passion’s climax; and the slight chill of the air mixed with the heat from their bodies. She still was underneath him, her legs entangled around his strong firm bottom, his arms curled under her to hold her close. Her breasts, sweaty and warm, pressed into his chest. His softening manhood still embedded deep into her sex. His taut, rigid stomach still pressed against the firmness of her hips. She had hair wild like the wind fanned out on the pillows below; he had longer hair then too, but kept it tied up out of his eyes to see her, to watch her. They had been lovers seemingly dozens of times over, and will again couple soon after then many times again. In this moment, however, when their lips released after one final kiss, her eyes opened to capture his. For a god, eternity enslaves you to eons of sameness. Yet it was there, in her embrace and lost in her eyes, that he was captured in a moment that was his heaven for all of time.

“ … well, can I Coach?”

Marty was back. Standing on the grass field next to Obi and her. Even while he was lost, his mind registered what the boy said. “Everyone plays, Obi” he answered without knowing what he was answering. “Starting, well … study your playbook, and we’ll see how practice goes. But you are definitely playing next week. Did you get your release form signed?”

“Yep,” and he started pawing at her to get the release.

He looked to her again, knowing now that it was as if he was staring into her soul. He tried to reach out to her they way they use to. ‘Can you hear me?’ he left fall through his head. ‘Ishtar, is that you?’

“Oh and this is my sister,” Obi blurted pulling the form free of her. “She signed it for me. She signs it all.”

His eyes stared at her, hoping above hope she would answer, hoping that it was true. ‘Ishtar, is … that .. you?’ he let go through his mind.

“Go on,” Obi said nudging her. “Say something.”

Quietly, just above a whisper, the name finally snuck out of his mouth, “Ishtar.”

Oh my God...

Ziva froze a few steps behind Obi and just stared. She had never been a shallow woman, didn't care what the outside of a person looked like because who they were on the inside was much more important. Getting to know a person's true self had always been the thrill in all of her relationships.

"I," Deep shuddering breath. "I was wrong..." She whispered to herself as the smile on her face spoke of pleasures she had yet to taste or know of but the moment she saw him, was willing to try them all. It was rash, blindingly so but that did stop the path that Ziva's mind was on. Her's was a dappled fallen leaf in the tide of a building tornado, no where to go but where he took you. It sent shiver's down her spine and touched her where it shouldn't have.

He was dangerous and as close to a woman could get to 'love in a moment' she was there. That thought was the red flag that caught her attention. She had to stay away from this man. That he was her brother's coach could prove to be a problem but not one big enough that it would keep her away from Obi's games. Just as far away from him as she could get.

Yet thought she had already told herself to be cautious of this man she was captured by his dark eyes and the intensity of his gaze. It was as if he were trying to look into her soul and Ziva feared that he could see her and all the thoughts that were running through her mind at the moment, in her entire life.

Blushing Ziva broke eye contact and looked away. Sounds came back to her in a rush so shocking that she stepped back. She hadn't even realized when things when quite, not that she was sure they ever did. Obi's voice, his words... She turned towards him and tried to catch what he was saying and failed. She was lost to what was going on and he nudged her and urged her to say something.

"Ziva." Her own name caught in her throat the same time she thought she hear the coach whisper something else. "This, this is my brother." But Obi had already said something to that effect hadn't he. "Here." Fumbling through her bag she pulled out the rolled up permission form and held it out to the coach. "And your name is?"

Something inside of him darkened at the first word she said. Ziva. Not Tar, not Ishtar, not any of the other pet names he gave her here and there, Ziva. She hadn’t heard him, she didn’t acknowledge what he called her. Still, she asks him his name, as if she didn’t call forth for it over all those years as well.

Yet in the slow motion of that moment, her voice did register in his head, and it was one he knew. Not just her face, not just her body, but her voice was Ishtar’s.

He took the permission slip from her, and grabbed her hand to shake it in the modern custom. His eyes also searched for hers between the small gap between them. Whether he held one before or not, a wide smile grew once more on his face. Trying to hold it as long as he could, he relishing the feel of her skin against his once more if just on her fingers and across her palms.

“Ziva,” he breathed. It rolled off his tongue like a new flavor of a dish one has always loved. “Martin,” he replied. “Martin Arthur.”

“Or Coach,” Obi injected.

Marty laughed, looking to the boy and breaking eye contact with her. His hand dropped to his side and he almost started to feel sheepish about the innocent touch. “Yes,” he agreed, “Coach for you boy. Or Mr. Arthur.” He looked back to her one more time, “but you can call me Marty … or whatever you wish, Ziva.”

The football field around them started to empty. Parents winding their way back to their homes. Students finding what could be whatever else they can do on a Friday night. The energy of the battle was fading, the victory still wet like sugar on the lips. But for now, he was fine just standing here closer to her … just one more time.

Ziva's heart rate spiked when he grabbed her hand. Her body flash hot and her skin burned with a bright blush. In her head she saw him pull her towards him, wrapped his body around her's as he claimed her mouth. She couldn't decide if he would taste more like a fire, heated and warm but dangerously hot at it's core or like that of the woods, earthy, plentiful and never ending. Ziva imagined that it was something of the two and her mouth watered. The spicy musk of his sweaty body scenting her as his as he torn them free of both their clothing. And when he said her name! Ziva had never believed that women got weak in the knees figuring it was just an expression that they said but to hear him saw it again... It was swoon worthy and in Ziva's mind he growled it in possession.

He couldn't let go of her hand fast enough but the moment that he did her hand, her body longed for his touch again. Her hand fell to her side but it felt charged and tingled and all at once also numb. Ziva's hand opened wide feeling the pulse of her heart all the way to her fingertips before closing her hand into a light fist.

Martin? Ziva's brows furrowed, he didn't look like a Martin. "Martin." Even saying his name out loud sounded off. For reasons beyond her she was angry at his parents, she wanted to change his name, didn't like it but what could she do? The answer was nothing. That was his name and she would just have to get over it. Marty sounded a little better but still felt wrong. The offer that she could call him whatever she wished tempted her but every name that flashed in her mind she would never saw out loud and more importantly in front of her brother.

He said her name again and the color rose in Ziva's cheeks. She had to get out of here and fought herself to say goodbye. "Well it was a pleasure to have met you Mar- Mr. Arthur," Ziva corrected mid name at the sharp look her brother gave her. "Thank you for letting my brother join the team so late in the year." She thanked him stepping back for the safety of herself and the coach. Her mind was wondering and the more people left and the emptier the field got the more she was loosing control of herself and the gutter that her mind had hunkered down in. The scene playing out in her mind was of one that involved her being taken in the middle of the football field.

"Yeah, see you Coach." Obi said a touch too loudly. He didn't like the look on his sister's face and he grabbed her by the arm and tugged her towards the parking lot.

Ziva didn't move at first but when Obi's tugs became more persistent she blinked out of the trance she was in and followed her brother. When Obi felt Ziva move on her own he let her go and together they headed to the car. Obi wondering what the hell that was all about but too energized by the game and Ziva willing herself not to look back as she walked off.

Getting home from the game, Marty kicked out two texts on his phone - ironically they both responded “give me 10 minutes”. Cracking open a bottle of wine, he had hope one would be a shorter 10 minutes than the other. With a some wishful thinking and maybe something of his own doing, it turned out the way he hoped when his phone rang.

In the background was street noises and the deep beat of bass. Up front was a sharp happy voice of a guy who was living the night life of the big city. “Coach Kick-Ass, how’s life in bumfuck doing?”

Marty gave a laugh, “you always knew how to pick up the phone, Merc. What’s it like being the God of New York.”

“God of New York, I like that,” Merc laughed back. Merc was short for Mercury, a name he wasn’t afraid to hide from. When you are someone who thrives on travelers, herdsmen, thieves, orators and wit; Merc fit into the Big Apple like a butter on a pancake. “You hear that girls?” he shouted off phone, “I’m the God of New York”. In the background three or four voices screeched in approval.

“Easy boy, easy,” Marty replied, still laughing from the tone of the whole thing.

“Whatcha need over there, old friend,” he asked returning to the phone. “Cash? A few girls? Need some agent make you a coaching legend?” Merc was always quick to the point, but if one thing modern people knew about the god was quickness.

“I need to find Janus,” Marty responded.

“What for?”

“I just need to find him, I have questions for him.”

“Cut the crap, Marty, you know he’s a hard one to get a hold of these days. You’re not thinking of offing yourself are you?”

“No, I wouldn’t ..”

“Cause if you are, I would do it without talking to him. We all thought about doing it, he just makes the whole ..”

“I need Janus,” Marty interrupted, “because I need to know if a door opened the other way.”

There was a pause. It was a short one, but in Mercury’s world any pause was a millenium. “Dude, we can’t pick a fight with the big guy. You’re a football coach, not a leader of masses like the old days.”

“Shit, Merc, will stop jumping to conclusions and just fucking tell me where Janus is.”

Again, another pause. From off the phone Merc could be heard talking to someone, like asking them for time or something. “I think I know a way to make it happen, but not until you tell me what’s going on. The only reason mortals speak to the guy is if they are heading upstairs or downstairs; and that’s only because they don’t know any better. I need to know what door you want to go through and where the hell you think you want to go.”

As blunt as he was, Merc was dead on. Janus was a god of transitions, of coming or going, complete with a freakish two faces on either side of his head. “Here’s the deal, Merc, I don’t want to go through any door. I want to know someone did.”

“Who?”

“I’m not telling you that.”

“You know, Fuck You,” Merc responded. “I am doing you a big favor here, this will take a lot of my time to find him.”

“Yeah, but if you knew you would tell me to fuck off anyway.”

There was the pause again. “Who?”

Marty breathed heavily. Ten minutes was almost up, and he didn’t want to be in some argument with a guy who spends all his time stealing money and getting laid. He rubbed his forehead and just let it out. “Ishtar.”

There was a laugh on the other end of the line. “Too late, you dumbass, she was burned up millennia ago.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Marty blurted back. “I was there, I was FUCKING there when it happened. I wasn’t hiding in some cave or running around after some skirt. I fought that fight and Fucking Lost!”

“Then What the Hell are you Asking for?”

“Because I Saw Her!” He spat it out faster than he could keep it from coming.

“Wait, what?”

Marty’s hands were curling into paws. He could feel the growth of hair across his neck and the lion start to push out from inside the man. Marty stopped, he took a deep breath, and settled in slowly. Merc kept going spouting off questions, but Marty didn’t hear a word. “I don’t know if it was her, she didn’t recognize me, she couldn’t hear me, but … I don’t know … it was her, every bit of her, I feel it.”

“You said the same thing about Lau Ming back in the 2nd Century. Or that Seminole girl who liked to put your war paint on you for you.”

“Yeah,” Marty conceded.

“And Freyja of Odiline. Oh … and Joan of Arc, remember that shit storm when you thought she was the one then Jesus gave her a rumble in the wheatfield?”

“Shit, Merc, I know.”

“I need proof is all I am saying.”

“I do too,” Marty replied. “I have a plan for that, but in the meantime start on Janus. If I am wrong, it will be good just to catch up with the freak. But if I am right … ”

“If you’re right Marty, it changes everything.”

“Yeah … but we need him to tell if that’s a good thing.”

One final pause came over the phone, this one longer than Marty have ever thought Merc was capable of. “I need time. Pan would know, but he is off the grid & it may be a couple of weeks. I will put a call into the Norwegians in the morning. Have you called Cupid?”

“Not until I am sure.” There was a knock on the door of the house, and the ‘other 10 minutes’ arrived. “Hey, I have to go, I need to see if I can send her a message,” Marty said quickly heading to the door. They said their goodbyes that only old friends could do and the phone was off and on the floor.

Waiting at the door was Chelsea Darling, the young biblebanger that Marty converted a few days before. “You wanted to see me, Coach?” she asked with a playful smile.

He gave a devilish smile back to the blond haired beauty. “I have some expectations for you tonight, my dear, which of course you must concede to.” He pulled her into the house and started to unbutton the conservatively starched shirt, and reaching for her floor length skirt.

She responded only with a smile across the lips, a blush across the cheeks, and eyes cast down to watch his hands work.

“Tonight, you will only look directly in my eyes,” he started with a lift of her chin. “I will call out a name of an old friend, a name of her new self, and when I take you I will use your body as a messenger. And in return …” he finished as the yellow flash of a lion’s iris came over his eyes, “... you will call me by my real name.”

She lifted her head to him, her chest expanded, her body heat rose high above the bearable. Already naked by his hands she yielded to him. “Anything you ask of me, Mars.”

That night Ziva's dreams were different yet felt all the same. As if both her dreams had twisted into this beast made of terror and sexual energy with a mission to chase her throughout her own mind until she was mentally exhausted. Dreams would form in her mind free of the monster that was terrorizing her and for moments she would be safe until this feeling would run down her spine and before she could diagnose the reasoning behind her fears. A voice quieter then Zeni could hear whispered to her and spurred her running.

Like most dreams there were many things that didn't make sense and one minute Ziva was running though an empty city, her feet pounding on the sidewalk echoing between the massive buildings and the next she was skidding to a stop feet bare as she slipped and fell on what felt and looked like marble. The city filled with metal and concrete had melted away to this place of greenery and beauty.

"My, my, my."

Ziva spun on her butt and looked behind her and froze.

"You're quite the fast one, aren't you?" The woman chuckled.

The world felt heavy yet her head was woozy and lightheaded. "I- I don't understand." Ziva got to her feet slowly her eyes never leaving the woman in front of her. It was like looking into a mirror, the person she was looking at was her except the things that the other her was wearing. It was some kind of ancient Greek dress made of layers of sheer fabric draped from one shoulder to her hip leaving one whole breast exposed.

Dream Ziva waved a hand across the air in a dismissive manor. "But a pebble." She took a deep breath as if steeling herself against what she was preparing to say.

"Is that, smoke?" The smell of smoke was growing stronger and it was soon covering up the smell of the fresh clean ocean air. "Where is it coming from?" Ziva spun around looking for the fire but saw nothing even though the stench was getting stronger.

"Ziva."

Her name being said by herself, from her own mouth was strange. By all means it should have sounded the same but it didn't. There was a different feel to the way she said my name like it was a mockery, a punchline to some joke only she was privy to.

She opened her mouth to say something else but the only sound that came out was a moan, long and drawn out that threw her head back and closed her eyes. "Mmmm, oh I've missed him." She purred with a half cocked smile on her lips.

"Missed who?"

As if startled that she wasn't alone Dream Ziva snapped out whatever had captured her and stared at her modern self. "You have so much to learn." She laughed as she advanced towards her clone. "Lets start now."

Ziva was more confused then ever or at least that what she had thought before her dream self grabbed her hand and yanked her off balance so she fell against her own body. Being the aggressor that she never could be in real life the Dream Ziva caught her chin in her fingers and brought her face to hers. Her lips were soft and sweet and the kiss caught her off guard and when her lips parted to take a sharp breath in her tongue slipped into her mouth.

As strange as it felt to kiss herself it was the most passionate kiss she had ever been given. There was a transfer of powers in that single kiss, something charged through her body and every hair on Ziva's body stood up and she shivered her knees weak against the onslaught of the kiss that she was giving herself.

"Ishtar..." A male voice growled.

And like a tidal wave Ziva became a victim to everything that she have kept from herself. She had kept away from boys, Ziva had found them to be temptations and far too fun to play with. She had restrained herself against touching herself like she knew all her friends did. Ziva had even kept away from romance movies and novels because of how they made her feel, what they made her want to do. In the back of her mind had been a steel box that she kept shut tighter then Pandora's fabled box and everything and anything that warmed her she had forced under lock and key. She had done it her whole life to protect herself. She had never known against what but breaking that kiss and looking at herself she knew who she was guarding herself against.

"You."

"Me?"

"Yeah. You. And since this is just a dream..." It was Ziva's turn now. Her hands framed Dream Ziva's face and kissed her, hands trailing down her body to fist in her dress. A sharp yank and the dress shredded and fell to the ground to pool at her feet. All those dreams about the faceless man came back to her and she replayed her favorite parts. Body flashing hot with every moan and pant shared by both parts of herself.

“On One! Set … HUT!”

Seven boys fire out at the blocking sled and push it ten feet until Marty bleated the whistle to stop. The seven rolled on the ground away from their blocks and

“Next! Let’s go Let’s go.” Each blocker on the sled had a couple boys waiting for their turn in line. Now the first crew had rolled away, the next group of seven climbed into their stances in front of it. When they were ready he repeated the drill again. “On Two. Set … Hut .. HUT!”

Standing behind the boys pushing the sled was Obi, in the cleanest practice uniform and the most unblemished helmet on the team. He looked excited and anxious, like someone who was back in his element but not sure what to expect. He hadn’t been in the trenches yet, but he soon will be, that’s for sure. When they run plays later this practice, Obi will get to take 2nd string snaps, and then Marty will decide if it was time for a quarterback competition.

A burst of the whistle and the boys rolled off the sled for next to crouch down.

“Who is she? Ishtar.” Chelsea asked bluntly.

“Probably best that you don’t know.” Marty was stroking her hair, the blonde locks fanning out across his chest.

“I think I deserve to know,” she replied with an edge of sarcasm. She gave him a light jab in the stomach. Her naked breasts shook against his chest and she started to move her legs against his thighs to stretch them out.

He gave a singsong response. “And why is that, sweet pea?”

She turned to look up to him and had a mischievous smile on her face. “Lets see, in the last few days you basically convinced me my whole life is a lie, you raped me into being your minion, and then proceeded to violate me so many different ways that I won’t be able to look at another boy without blushing. If that isn’t reason enough. you spent the last couple of nights fucking me without the mortal dignity to call me by my OWN name. The least thing you could do is tell me who she is, Mars.”

Even her language had changed since they first met. In the way only a true follower exists, the once soldier of God now has seemed to embrace the world she only just learned the true nature of. It was rare, and will mean a pretty complicated life for the girl until she figures out what this means to her life, but it probably helps her that her hormones are leading her into the light as well.
​

“Set … HUT!!”

The slam of the bodies against the blocking sled jolted him.

“Come on come on come on! Don’t Quit!! All the way!” he yelled at them. He paused a brief moment to make this run longer, and blew his whistle.

Obi dragged himself up, and kicked dirt clumps from his knee pads. He wandered back to the back of the line, but didn’t seem to be breathing hard. Out of practice from blocking, and weaker than the linemen, but strong in his own way. Everyone has a role to play, everyone has their strengths in battle.

“On Three. Set .. HUT”

A boy fired out into the pads before the call.

“Johnson!,” Marty yelled as the whistle dropped from his lips. “Shuttle run, go.”

The boy who missed the count grunted and got up from the ground. He trotted next to the sled and started to do sprints.

“Set … HUT … HUT …”

Another boy fired off early.

“Kilgore! Go!!”

As he headed for his punishment, Marty’s face was turning read and he could feel his eyes turning yellow behind his sunglasses. He looked over the group and found Obi staring back at him as if he was judging Marty’s coaching. Something about that boy was hidden there under the surface, and something about it suggested a connection, something with his sister.

The thought of Ziva then found his mind. Somewhere in the dark night she was breaking free. In what felt like sleep, in what felt like a dream, she was reaching out and trying to find the release of a long held bond. It wasn’t a response, but it felt like a something was trying to cross the great darkness.

Marty shook his head and pulled himself back. “Focus, guys. When you are on the field, you need to be focused only on what is ahead of you. On Two … SET .. HUT … HUT!!”

Seven boys fired out on time and with greater ferocity than they had before.

“Good!! Next. On One. SET … HUT!!”

The team were jogging back to get set up to run plays. Obi lagged behind a little. “Coach, coach,” he called a little breathless. “Am I doing okay?”

Marty’s tried to hide a bit of a smile for the kid’s eagerness. No favoritism he thought to himself. One team. “You just started practice, Obi. Ask me after it’s over.“

“I can’t,” he said, “I have to get to the bookstore. I have to get there before my sister closes up ...”

“... you can come with if you want. You can tell me how I’m doing then, and you can say hi to Ziva.” Obi seemed genuine in his request.

Marty smiled, nodded, and cursed the way fates could make things too obvious. “Get your ass over to the huddle, Obi. Show me what you have under center so we have something to talk about.”

"Urrgah..."

Ziva felt like she hadn't slept a wink, again, and the perpetual feeling of being hung over still hung over her head like a thunder cloud. In fact in the few days the rain cloud had intercepted her entire body and mind. She didn't feel like herself and no matter what she did she couldn't shake the feeling.

"Seriously!" She cursed under her breath as she got out of bed, the whole room swaying and adding to the building sickness she was already feeling. "What God did I piss off?" The question was a joke but if she could have known how close to the truth it was the words would have never left her mouth.

Like most nights when you stay up late binge drinking, Ziva woke up with the common dry mouth, complete with the foul after taste of bile from throwing up right before you crashed out. The weird thing was Ziva hadn't had a single drop of booze. Had even gone to bed early to get a better night's rest. "For as much good as- FUCK!" Blinding white pain flashed in her eyes hazing out the blurred images in front of her for a second. "Ow, ow, ow..." Over and over Ziva repeated willing the pain of a stubbed toe to go away.

"You look like hell." Obi obviously pointed out from Ziva's doorway. "And crazy." He tacked on with a smile.

It didn't surprise Ziva that her brother was here but because she was on edge her actions weren't her own. "Shove it Muffin!" She growled knowing full well that her comeback was weak. As Ziva passed the mirror hanging on her wall she had to agree with her bother, she did look like hell. Maybe even a little crazy.

Her sleep pants here her ex's and were too big and too long in the legs and were tangled around her feet, her shirt had been pulled at all night long and was unevenly stretched out in odd places and that was the best of it. She must have forgotten to wash off her make up the night before because the smeared eyeliner and mascara rounded her eyes like a raccoon and highlighted the bags under her eyes in the most unattractive way. No lipstick, no, but the crusty white outline of where she had drooled on herself made trailer park hotness, she was sure. Not to be left out her hair frizzed and stood on end every which way, refusing the be bound by the hair tie that had tried to hold the tangle in place throughout the night as Ziva tossed and turn.

"I hate that you're right." Ziva moaned, her shoulders dropping with defeat. "I don't know whats wrong with me." She continued as she headed to her bathroom to clean and fit herself.

"Having bad dreams?" Obi asked concerned over his sister and her mental health.

Ziva nodded her head no, realized that Obi couldn't see her and exited the bathroom with toothbrush in hand. "No." In fact now that Obi had brought it up she hadn't had any dreams. At all. And while that might not be strange for some people it was for her. She always dreamed and true her dreams only ran one of two ways she always had them and always remembered them with vivid clarity. That's what made it even worse the more the Ziva thought about it. She had to be dreaming, something had to be bothering her sleep but whatever it was she couldn't remember it. There was no way it could be more terrifying then the torture dreams she'd had all her life, so what was it about that her mind felt she needed to be protected from it.

"Well you haven't been to church in a while."

With a glare Ziva rinsed her mouth out before speaking. "What does that have to do with it?"

"Maybe you feel guilty about something."

"And that boils down to church how?"

Obi shrugged his wide shoulder in answer and said nothing more as he closed the door to her room.

~ ~ ~~ ~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ziva knew herself well enough to know that it wasn't because she hadn't been to church in forever. Yet the thought of why she hadn't played out in her mind. She was just repeating things she already knew, felt comfortable in believing and had no problem with but doubt and the lack of a good night's sleep had her daydreaming in the worst of ways.

"Maybe Obi's right..." Saying it out loud didn't make it fell any more right then it did in her head but maybe going would? Ziva doubted it but made a deal with herself that if she didn't get a night's rest by Sunday she would try out this church idea. Odd how making her mind up this time didn't make Ziva feel better. In fact she felt worse and that only made her angry.

In the cart next to her was a stack of books that needed to be shelved and one after the other the books her shoved into their rightful place until the last of her anger was gone and a single book was left in her hands. "You know a clue wouldn't be so bad." Ziva reached out to cosmos for help, half joking-half praying.

For a moment Ziva just stood there waiting for something to happen. She didn't know what she was waiting for but she wanted to give whoever was listening a chance to provide that clue she was asking for. "Well it was worth a try right." In a shop where she was alone most days talking to the books wasn't so weird. "Now, where do you-"

In her hands was the last book, plain by all standards but something she was sure she hadn't seen before. It had no title on the cover of the book and when Ziva opened it instead of title page was a blank page, worn and yellowed with dappled age spots on the thick paper. From the outside the book didn't look this old but the paper inside told a much older story. "I don't remember you." Carefully flipping though the pages gave Ziva a hint of what this book was. It seemed to be a collection of poetry.

"Hmm..." Intrigued Ziva took the book back to her seat behind the cash register and opened the book to a random page and began to read it out loud.


"It's a love poem." One that Ziva had never heard before but knew every word to as if it had been written for her. Chills ran down her back and she quickly flipped to another random page and read from that one as well.


There had been more to the poem but it was this part that caught her and had her rereading it, this time aloud. Another random poem and another chill.

"Your love has penetrated all within me
Like honey plunged into water,
Like an odor which penetrates spices.
When her little sycamore begins to speak
The murmur of its leaves
Drips honey in the ear
Its fragrant words taste sweet
Her own hand, as soft and delicate as lotus."​

Again it was just a part of the poem she had just finished but it too captured her attention. "Why do I know these?" For the last hour Ziva had flipped to poem after poem, knowing their words while her mind danced with the imagery that they described. She was spooked, energized and flushed with warmth all throughout her body. It was all that and more, feeling that had no names and misplaced feelings of fear that she didn't wish to name.

Ziva didn't know where this book had come from but she wasn't going to let go of it. It was too personal, to private and something she didn't want to be shared with the world. There wasn't a single name to this book, it didn't give a clue to who wrote any of the poems, where they came from or when but Ziva knew it as her own. Not that she had done any of the things that the poems spoke of. If dreams counted them she owned this book, along with her faceless man but since they didn't.

"AHH!" The harmless jingle of the front door scared Ziva and the chair she lept out of nearly tripped her over as she scrambled to hide the book. "He- hello?" The clock on the far wall told her it was closing time. At first Ziva didn't believe it but when her the time on her phone said the same thing and her brother rounded the corner she had to believe it as truth.

"Obi? What are you doing here?" It was a silly question, Obi was always here. Just like he was always at her house. She shouldn't have been so surprised but she was. Shuffling papers on the counter top Ziva moved them around a bit more and better hid the corner of the book that peered out from behind it's hiding place.

"I, I mean." Big sigh and relax. Ziva told herself getting a grip. "How was practice?"

“Practice went well, thanks for asking,” Marty replied for Obi, with a twinge of sarcasm in his voice.

Somewhere between the time they left the school and arrived at the bookstore, Marty tied up himself in knots trying to figure out what to say when he saw her. It is this mood which leaves him to pace, back and forth, staring down the prey in touch with the lion inside of him. But this walk had direction, a path, to her. When he arrived, he had no idea what to say, but she led him even without knowing.

“He needs to get in shape, but I’ll take it.”

“Coach says I will start!,” Obi bursted.

“Could ..” Marty replied, “Could … but only if …”

Obi gave a smileand nodded eagerly. “Only if I can show myself as a leader.”

No more wasting time, Marty, he thought. Look at her. Look at her.

When he did, the fire in his blood rushed through reliving that moment he first touched her just a few days ago. The shape of her cheek begged him to reach for it to stroke it. Her lips made his thumb ache to stroke the moisture of her kiss from it’s skin. Her eyes brought the hope to once more fall into those pools to beg for one more moment of pleasure. The urge, the greatest urge, was to brush the mess of hair from her face, and spend the rest of his stays seeing all that made her so desirable.

Instead, he brushed his own mangy dark hair back off his forehead. The move pulled his cotton polo with team colors on it from his short’s waistline, and he just went ahead and untucked it all. “Sorry if I am interrupting, I just took the opportunity too …” His voice trailed off when he noticed it, and started realizing something that caused a smile to grow on his face. “You alright Ziva, you look tired.”

“She’s having nightmares,” Obi bounced, “you should have saw her this morning. Scary!!!”

Nightmares, Marty thought. Maybe something else. As he examined her in this awkward reunion the vision of seeing her wake up next to him made that warmth in his skin grown again.

Marty "Coach Arthur." Ziva had been taken by surprise by Obi but at least she expected him by, the coach on the other hand was a surprise she hadn't expected at all. And truthfully she didn't know how she felt seeing him here. There was an energy that was coming off him in waves that raised the little hairs on Ziva's arm.

She heard him answer the question directed towards her brother and doubted the practice went as well as he claimed. Maybe it was the sarcasm she heard in his voice or maybe it was the way be paced, either way it caught Ziva's attention and made tearing her eyes away harder then she wanted to admit. Made even more impossible when he turned and stalked her. Chills ran down her spine and like the brave stupid little doe she was feeling like she stared down the predator that hunted her.

"Is that right?" Ziva only barely heard what her brother said but nodded along with her words feeling that it was the right thing to do. She had yet to look away from Marty and was only giving her brother the minimum amount of attention. When Marty spoke again her eyes sharpen on him, intently watching the way his lips formed the words. Whatever Obi said next was lost to her as Marty looked at her.

Time was thrown into distortion again as she watched his eyes take her in, feeling his phantom hands touch her where his eyes lingered. The moment felt too personal, too intimate and Ziva looked away for the first time with a blush on her cheeks. But she couldn't resist the temptation too long and when out of the corner of her eyes she say movement she looked back at the man she seemed captivated by. It was a tease or at least that's how it felt to Ziva as he pulled his polo out from his shorts, untucking it but not pulling hard enough to expose a flash of skin. It took her by surprise that she wanted to see just that little peek of skin so much.

"No," Ziva started to say when Marty changed the subject of his sentence. She worried that her face still held hints of her haunted dreams, that the bags under her eyes were back or that the glimmer in her eyes was dulled with the hours of sleep that she lacked.

"OBI!" She didn't know what was worse, that her brother was a big mouth telling everyone that he saw that his big sister still had nightmares or that she tattled on her and her appearance this morning. As such her arm shot out and punched her brother in the shoulder, the sound telling her that it stung and would leave a nice red mark.

In the same breath as the sound of Ziva's punch her brother whined holding his arm. "Owww... Gosh sis, really?" He sucked air through his teeth and glared at his sister but said nothing more though she was sure he wanted to.

"Go clean and close up the back." Ziva shooed her brother. She was a little ashamed that she had lashed out at her brother in that way, she wasn't one to resort to physical reactions. "Sorry about that." She apologized after making sure her brother headed off towards what she told him to do. Now that they were alone she regretted sending Obi in the back to close up.

"So do you need a book?" The question might have sounded silly if she didn't work at a bookstore. "Or," She looked around unsure of any other reason that would bring him here. "Stationary supplies?" A few of the Golden Girls made decorative note pads and tinted envelops that the shop carried whenever they have more on hand then they wanted to handle.

Obi was leaving the room, leaving them alone. An opportunity. A chance. But it could be fleeting. This was not the time for whom the mortals know him as, but he therein lied the challenge. The lion wanted to pounce. It took him a moment to grasp control, pull back the golden mane that tried to erupt from his scalp, the yellow irises to flash over his eyes, the teeth to come out. The man bore down, and regained control. He let out a heavy breath and forced a smile just as she looked back at him. The man was what she would see, but the lion still paced behind the facade.

Marty moved slowly towards her closing the gap between them in soft steps.

“They say in ancient times mortals believed dreams to be messages from the gods. When the great beings wanted to guide them, they would give them visions in their sleep to encourage them to their desires.”

In the more private setting he became amazed with the way her body took so well to modern dress. They looked so different on her, but never a stitch out of place.

“They say nightmares are only those messages that mortals haven’t figured out, and it tortures the consciousness with questions.”

The air in the room became still. No sounds of Obi in the back. No noises from the street, or the doors, or every book and binder in the room. Just his voice crossing the small distance between them.

“Tell me about your dreams Ziva. I can help you with your questions.”

"Gods?" Ziva questioned him with laughter. She wasn't laughing at him talking about Gods in the plural but that his face and the tone of his voice was so serious. "As life in the present times there is only one God and he's kind of the sort to stay out of people's lives." She informed in. "I just don't think my nightmares are..." The look in Marty's eyes scared her. "Are because of some God." Ziva whispered stepping back. The new space between him and her didn't make her heart rate slow any. In fact zooming out only gave her a better look at him.

Questions. Did she have questions? In a way she did but they were only dreams and they didn't trouble her anymore. They used to when she was younger but after years of the same two dreams she had gotten used to it. The thing with these dreams was that they were new and unknown. It wasn't like the other two where she woke up remembering them like a replay of a movie. This one wasn't so and that bothered her more then seeing and remembering.

"Why do you want to know?" She realized as she asked this question that she was now just as serious about this subject as he was. "I mean what message can there be from a dream where you are strung up and cut from groin to throat and stuffed full with red hot stone when your still alive? I mean other then that god wants you to die?" That wasn't the dream that was keeping her up but it was something that had bothered her when she was a kid. "And when it's not me dying in the middle of a pillar of flames it's dreams that heat my skin and make me want things I've never known." Hearing herself say what she had just said embarrassed Ziva and she looked away from Marty, chuckling under her breath as she stepped away again. "Mixed messages don't you think?" She asked moving behind the counter where it felt safe. "What about you? Do you have dreams? What questions do you have?"

He stood in shock. It could have been any number of things she could have told him. A lie, and myth, a flight of fancy about some adventure that comes from her subconscious. He had hoped this was her, he tried to reach out to her; and even if something that he could ignite through nightly adventures with his new follower found her mind one could still interpret it to be a horny god trying to seduce Ziva from a different body. It was only the simplest of details, but a horror so unique that it could be no coincidence.

He shifted quickly to the counter and stood opposite to her. In a perfect world, he would go slow, draw the facts from her without suggesting he was anything other than some football coach. This was critical, though, this was was worth risking his cover story.

“Tell me,” he spoke near frantically. “Are you sure it was a dream. Are you sure you saw your own death as you mentioned it. Could have it been a movie, or a story, or something you might of heard.”

He reached for her hand and cupped it in his. “The cutting, the stones, the death. Did you really dream that.”

The charge of the bookstore changed, it took a dangerous frantic feel to it that chilled Ziva in a way that she wasn't sure she wanted to understand and the way he was acting was just making it worse. He moved towards her quickly and she tried to flee but when she stepped back she realized that there was no where to go. She had placed herself in the corner of the room in what she thought was the safest place because a counter barred him from coming any closer. How wrong she was.

His touch any of the other times he had bushed against her had been sexually charged and had sizzle over her skin like a passionate caress but this one was different. It was desperate and needy. So unlike the man she thought he was. It wasn't like she couldn't be wrong, she didn't know him and what she did know of him was only one part of his life as a football coach. Behind closed doors he could be a totally different person and maybe this was just a peek at who he really was.

Ziva yanked her hands out of his with a frown. She remember how she had felt seeing him the first time, how she had pictured them together, sharing each other's bodies until the sun awoke the next day. It was a fantasy and seeing it destroyed before her saddened her. Reality was hard to accept as she looked up at Marty. She didn't know what he wanted from her but Ziva was sure that whatever it was she couldn't give it to him.

"Look." With what space there was behind the counter Ziva stepped back. "I'm not sure why this is so important, if this is a fetish thing or some other kind of strange interest but it's nothing I'm into." But she felt like she was being rude, he had asked a question and just because his reaction kinda freaked her out it didn't mean she could just answer him, right? Taking a deep breath Ziva mentally decided that she would answer his question since it seemed so important to him.

"However," Ziva looked pass Marty and her eyes glazed over and she recalled her first memory. "I was two years old when the dreams finally turned into a memory. They were blurred chopped images that were more sensation then a complete movie." She remembered how scared she was to fall asleep when she was a child. "There was always fear, from me and from the foggy people in my dreams. Hate. Mistrust. Rage." A shiver ran down her spine, the emotions were always so raw, so intense and for an infant overwhelming. "I used to be scared to close my eyes. Everyone hated me and they used that hate to find ways to hurt me. Every night was a different fear and a different pain." Ziva had never told anyone this much before and it was oddly comforting to finally say all these things.

"I remember the sound of the ocean, it was the only good part of these dreams even though I never saw it." She blinked a few time coming back to this time, to the present and the man before her. "I used to dream of drowning in smoke, of burning from the inside out. Of near deaths a hundred different ways but only dying once." Ziva rubbed her arms wishing she was wearing more then she had on. Her top was lightweight, the shorts short against the warm day but utterly useless against the cold chills that were running up and down her spine. "My parents said I was a fussy baby. I would wake up from restless nights crying. So I guess I always had these dreams. At such a young age I don't know where I would have seen it or heard it." She answered.

Ziva didn't want to talk about this anymore and crossed her arms over her chest, hugging her own arms tight to her body. "You think Obi can step up and be the leader you're looking for?" It was a subject change and she hoped that Marty would roll with it and let go of whatever it was he had with her dreams.

He sat on a barrel, next to wheel-less ox cart, broken down in the melee and clammer to find the right place to watch the event. He remained draped in a cloth over his head. His face was black, covered in the soot that was so readily available everywhere a man could touch. He stole a chicken, gutted it, and used some of its innered and blood dragged across his arms to suggest further he could be a leper under the shroud. The mix of blood & soot found the wounds from battle, and festered on his forearm for years after.

Many in the crowd was wild with anger or blood lust. Others, especially the women, were more subdued. Many coughed, throwing forth flem full of disease and ash from breathing the the burning temples for weeks. Sunken eyes everywhere of exhaustion, stuck in the middle of a battle none of them wanted nor even were fully aware what was going on. Hundreds of dirt covered hair, brown fabric robes, and dull pale skins massed in a opening for an end they were sure was right, or if not right, just. There was fight in them, but not fight for his sake. They were filled with hate, like that of boiled magma firing from the mountain tops. The victors of this battle made sure that the hate was directed, pointed, and strong.

He wasn’t the only in this crowd. She called to them, asking them not to be here for this. He wasn’t the only one to come anyway. Some acknowledged the others in the crowd. Some were lost in the own. He was more like the lost, doing what he could to not be noticed. He was though. One of Jehova’s on the stage grabbing his eye for an instant, just long enough to gloat. He moved from the cart into the mass and was lost from the enemy’s joy, itching his arm where the festering wound started to infect.

As it happened, the crowd surged, pulled about by the desire to see or to be a part of it. The energy they created wasn’t controlled. Some fell to the ground, stomped by the madness of bloodlust. Some tore at others, losing any sense of humanity towards one another. Yells, screams, madness. Continuing well beyond the point when she clearly felt no more pain.

The last thing she called out to him the night before was for him to not see this. Some of the others in the crowd would someday acknowledge to him this day, talk about it, and talk what could be if revenge ever came. Some, he never saw again, too afraid of what humanity would become to them -- those that saw the message from Jehovah and listened. He was sure she didn’t see him in this crowd. Yet he thought only that she asked him not to see this.

What they knew was a piece of the world was gone. A whole formed in the fabric of life. That’s how they knew it was over.

He watched it happened. He disobeyed her. That was a guilt he carried for millenium.

---

A small mark on Marty’s forearm irritated him just enough to draw his fingers to a long healed scar. He itched it more on the way the air of the room changed. Once charged by the realization she was seeing the visions of the past, now drained as the images of that day became once again real to him. His insistence to find out more of Ziva’s dream took even him too far. So when she asked about Obi, it gave him time to clear his mind and refocus.

“If Obi is capable of stepping up, then I will get him the rest of the way,” he responded. Marty knew he could make it happen. The right environment and he could make a champion out of a pawn. He wasn’t saying it to impress her either, something in him knew that whatever all this means could include the boy as well.

Right now, he didn’t want to think about it.

He turned towards the door, practically unannounced and not even trying to look behind him. He pulled it open and stopped. Over his shoulder he said simply, “Get a good rest tonight, Ziva. I’ll make sure it will be quiet for you.”

The door closed behind him and he began the long walk home.

She knew he was right, Obi was capable is anything he put his mind to and under Marty's coaching she doubted her brother would be anything less then what Marty said he could be. All Obi had to do was want it and she knew her brother well enough to know it was something that he wanted. Ziva looked over her shoulder towards the back of the shop where her brother was and smiled. She was still worried about him but knowing that he had football and someone like Marty on his side it eased in mind a bit. He would be fine and in time would maybe even find happiness and friends again.

"Get a good rest tonight, Ziva. I’ll make sure it will be quiet for you."

Ziva turned around again to face Marty and saw that he was on his way out. It felt like a dismissal, as if she had done something wrong and it left an odd feeling in the pit of her stomach to see him leave. And what did he mean that he would make sure it was quite for her? "You can not quite shadows." The words were out of her mouth and said before she could stop herself. She didn't know why she said that or even what it meant, just that she had said it as if possessed. But the door was already closing behind him and clicked shut on whatever that had been between them.

"Every time..." Ziva sighed to herself as she shook her head.

"Every time what?" Obi asked scanning the room. "Where's Coach?"

She ignored his first question not wanting to explain the feeling that she seemed to always feel when she parted from Marty or him from her. More then that she didn't think that even if she wanted to she could. "He left." That was a question easy enough to answer and she did so. "Is the back tidy and locked?"

Obi eyed he as if insulted and walked out the same door Marty had.

"Gahh." Ziva sighed keying in the alarm system, her finger pausing before her turned it on. The book. She had almost forgotten it and quickly retrieved it before arming the building and locking the front door behind her.

~ ~ ~~ ~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After picking up take out and dropping Obi off at their father's house Ziva drove home her mind wandering on the conversation between herself and Marty. It had been so strange, the way he reacted to what she said and her emotional response to how he acted. There had been fear, that much was obvious but the more she thought about it the more she came to realize that wasn't the only thing she had felt, that there had been more to be scared of then just the way he had caged her behind the counter. There had been a rush of desire, a thrill of being taken, the deer to his lion.

She parked her car and walked to her front door a carton of chicken stir fry in one hand and her keys and the book in the other. She was no longer hungry and went to the kitchen first to toss the Chinese into the fridge.

Ziva wanted to now understand why she felt attracted to Marty. True he was handsome, tall with this presence that overwhelmed her when he looked straight at her but other then that she didn't know anything about him to justify the why of her intense feelings. Why every time she saw him there was at least one point where she wondered what he would look like naked and over her. Maybe she didn't always mentally think it but that didn't mean her body didn't react in one way or another. The traitor.

With a sigh, a sign that she was giving up, Ziva drew herself a bath and took her new book with her. When the bath was full steam floated in the air, the overly hot water instantly relaxing all of Ziva's muscles as she slipped in to the large jetted tub. "Ah." The only thing missing was a glass of wine, some chocolates and... in her mind Marty flashed before her, naked and hard. Water beaded and rolled down his body and her eyes hungrily followed as it touched parts of him that she only fantasied about. Her eyes slowly traveled up his body, memorizing every inch of him before getting to his face. His longish hair was heavy with water and he had at one point brushed his hands through it, the path his fingers had racked back making valleys and peaks. Her hands itched to reach up and trail over the same paths, to fell how soft his hair would be beneath her palms.

His eyes of course would claim her as his, giving her no allowance to argue though she would put up a fight just for fun. But it was his lips that would draw Ziva's attention. The cocky smile that would turn his lips up, her sudden want to kiss him, to nip at that bottom lips playfully. Or maybe not. Maybe she would touch him, watch at his face changed, the fire in his eyes burning hotter as his lips parting in heavy pants as she made a claim at him.

It was a delightful little fantasy and it warmed Ziva in a way that the once hot bath could not. Wait, what? Ziva blinked a few times her heavy fuzzy and confused. Why was the water now suddenly cool when just seconds before it had been steaming? Looking at her hands all the tips of her fingers were pruned and wrinkled a telltale sigh that she had been in the water for a while now. "But..." It had only felt like seconds. Where had all that time gone? "Whats going on with me?" She asked herself draining the tub and wrapping a towel around her body.

A big yawn caught her off guard and popped her jaw, a sharp ringing in her ears echoing for a second. The clock on her wall telling her she had been in the tub for more then an hour. "Muph." Once in her bedroom Ziva pulled the towel from her body and ran it over her hair until all the extra water was rung out. She yawned again as she hung her town over her door and shook her head trying and failing to shake off his feeling of weariness. It felt too early to go to sleep and the clock agreed but the bath had served it's purpose and relaxed her and all Ziva wanted now was to go to sleep. It was something that she fought nightly but tonight she just didn't have the strength for it.

I’ll make sure it will be quiet for you.

Ziva snorted as she remembered what it was Marty had promised her. "Yeah we'll see about that." She sighed no believing him as she go into bed naked, too tired to bother with putting on sleep clothes.

~ ~ ~~ ~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There was always dreams and if not dreams with pictures and sounds there was still the chasing emotions that belonged to the dreams. Never in all her life could Ziva remember there being nothing. No dreams. No emotions. Just nothing. Whatever it was that was going on, for there had to be something, the lack of anything scared her more then anything else she had ever dreamed and it jolted her from her sleep.

Ziva was awake but barely, the tangles of sleep and the quite dreamland she just came from holding her strong. "It's quite." She smiled at the lion in her room. "He kept his promise." She told the animal, her hand reaching out to pet the lion as her body fell back onto her bed, never making it to the lion. Ziva had never before dreamed of lions but instead of being scared the lion made her feel protected. And for the rest of the night that was all she dreamed of, that same lion and it's eerily familiar eyes.

Deep within a field of hay, it’s green grasses flowing with the slow rhythm of the summer winds, a small patch of ground lay bare to the setting sun. Before this time, the small stones and twigs pushing out of the dirt were pulled free and cleared. The vegetation manicured to leave soft ground. All that was left was the earth, and the comfort it offers. It was there that he rolled out the mat and pegged it into the ground. He pulled off his clothing, and stacked them neatly at the edge of the grasses.

Generations before, a tribe of natives crossed this very field. Angered by the intruding white man, they chose to no longer accept the false words and unusable coins. They chased the white men from the brush near the stream with the good fishing, but when the white man turned with their fire sticks death came to the air. One warrior, though, stood his ground. He called the others forward, and they gave chase. While the battle would be won by the natives, the hero warrior was struck down, his blood falling on this spot - that where the vegetation was cleared. Where now, generations later his blood will help cross into a place not of this world.

Drawing the warrior’s spirit into him, Mars sat crosslegged on the mat. He felt the air around him swirl and circle. His body warmed as the hair grew from his skin. His back arched, his hips shifted. His breaths turned into a low guttural growl.

~~

When the lion opened his eyes, it was no longer in the field. It rose up and paced slowly around the whiteness of the room, sniffing and examining it for reference. In the beginning, it was nothingness, blank slates of empty. The world hadn’t formed yet, it was too early, and this was a good sign, he was not too late.

With time the walls began to show color. Some of it faded to empty spaces, or left behind doors. In the middle of it all, a bed seemed to materialize. Simple in size, simply covered, but still a bed. With what he could control, the lion made it grow, made it more comfortable, until it was worthy of the queen he expected to see soon. Slowly, ever so slowly, she began to appear. The girl that knew not what she was, lying quietly on the bed in the beginnings of slumber. She turned, she shifted, like one worried of what is to come.

His duties began with a slow walk around this place. It was not completely her world and not completely his. He had done such duties many times before, but never had there been so many doors, so many ways to get in, and it meant he had to be resilient no matter what she brings into this place.

Those first things, that carried the smell of demons, passed by a window. They moved on not knowing what they pass, not recognizing what is there.

There were men coming, with ropes and flame and knives. Normal men, men that were good once, men tempted by those who send them after her. He rose up and moved to the edge of the memory, his growl growing louder. As they approached, he could see the square behind them, the place where they killed her so many years ago. This time, though, they could see him, and they weren’t as strong as they were that day. He bared his teeth, he growled deeply, he lowered his head. Slowly, they disappeared, until all that was left were the walls of her room.

‘I wondered when you would come to my protection,’ came a voice as sweet and familiar as any. As the air moved around him, the silken endorned tunic appeared only slowly bringing the ethereal body with it.

The lion looked over his shoulder, noting the girl remained asleep on the bed, before looking up at her twin spirit materializing next to him. ‘Protecting her, protecting you, or is that to say the same thing?” the lion questioned.

She reached for his mane and stroked it softly. It was the touch he had felt before, the stroke of a hand that had made its way through a mane a hundred times over. He could smell the touch of honey on her, the spices she used to seduce him. Every brush with her fingers raised the hairs across his body like that of a thousand years of want. Yet she didn’t answer.

‘Not tonight, Tar,’ he stated. ‘Tonight things must be quiet. I promised her.’ He couldn’t be sure if this was truly her. If it was her, why was it separate from the girl. This world, though, is never a place where one fully understands. You don’t cross the bridge to another’s dreams with the roadmap of where it leads.

The woman though, slowly disappeared, and with it the touch that had settled the beast.

Soon, all had quieted. Those things that want to invade her space understood that a lion stood guard, and seemingly let this place be. Allowing himself to relax, he padded over to the bed, crawled up into it, and lay down by her side. He remained alert and on guard, choosing to not even watch he as she rested otherwise to become distracted by this long time missed lover.

Deep inside, he knew there was a great risk coming here, and he knew someone would take notice. Yet if she was what he thought she was, this would be the first step, the beginning of the way to walk her into what will be a long road of understanding. Deep inside, though, there was that doubt. What if again he saw something that was not true. What if this was truly just blind hope. What if what he does here brings the wrath of God, the lion surely was no longer strong enough to survive that alone.

Then a hand reached out and stroked it’s mane. It was the touch he had felt before, the stroke of a hand that made its way through a man a hundred times over. Every brush with her fingers raised the hairs across his body like that of a thousand years of want. Then she returned to rest.

He kept his promise.

---------

Somewhere near the break of dawn, Marty pulled his car back into his driveway. He was tired, but nothing that a good cup of coffee and a shower can’t fix. Nearly to the door, he heard his name being called from an all too familiar voice.

“Good morning, Mr. Arthur,” came a singsong sweet vocals of Chelsea, the new follower. She was dressed for a run in black tights, sports bra, complete with earphones and music player at the ready.

“Good morning to you too Chelsea,” he winked back.

She hurried up next to him and looked around before speaking like there was some secret. “Are you converting someone else in your spare time? Because a priest stopped by looking for you last night.”

Giving a confused look back he honestly replied, “No. It’s better to keep a low profile here in the bible belt, you know.”

“Oh,” she squeaked. “I mean, I didn’t say anything to him about you being … I just thought maybe that’s what you do, so I kinda thought that is why he was there.” She fumbled some, seemingly awkward about maybe blowing his cover. “But he left a note. Said his name was Father Sunbury, was new to the church here in town and wanted to meet you for coffee.”

Marty saw the note pinned to the door and opened it. It was a simple note, offering up all the Chelsea mentioned. The offer for coffee, the new church, and even the name Roger Sunbury with a cell number. But something caught his eye, and a slight twist of the card gave a flash of something like a watermark. Standing in the morning light, he turned it just enough and there it was. It was clear, unmistakable, and bold. A man draped in cloaks, with a sword in one hand, and fire raising from the palm of the other.

It mean the game had changed. It was always known that the ancients are watched over by the servants of God. This, though, was the mark of a long ago friend. One that went over to fight against Marty. Now, was one of the Seven Archangels. God had sent Uriel to find Marty. The question is, was he sent to find Ziva as well.

Ziva slowly stretched in bed ready to fight the haunting of her nightly dreams. Her eyes was still closed and she yawned against, against nothing. Bolting up in bed Ziva looked around unfamiliar with this feeling of peace and calm after just waking up. Was she dead? Her eyes scanned the room and saw nothing out of place. The top drawer of her dresser was open and her shirt from yesterday hung from it's corner, the jeans bunched and kicked to the side just inches shy of the hamper against the wall. Soft sunlight filtered in through the crushed textured sheer curtains and lit the room. This was her bedroom, her hand reached out and her fingertips brushed the wall behind her bed feeling the rough texture of the aged brick against her skin. That was the same too but what she felt and what she saw were two different things.

Get a good rest tonight, Ziva. I’ll make sure it will be quiet for you.

"No." It wasn't possible, yet... There was something she remembered from her sleep but it lingered just out of reach, taunting and teasing. Her brow furrowed as that shadow just beyond grew fainter and fainter. The more she tried to remember the more the shadow faded. It was impossible to remember but Ziva knew it was something important. "URAGH!" A pillow sailed across the room and plopped to the carpeted floor with a silent thud. She didn't know why but not being able to recall what happened last night bothered like nothing else in her life ever had.

There was no used pondering her protector of dreams, he was never within reach and now she couldn't even see his shadow. Just as well. Ziva sighed getting out of bed feeling refreshed and awake. There was this energy that charged her body, something akin to drinking half a pot of coffee but without the shakes. Was this what it felt like to have a good night's sleep? She guessed it might and then sputtered and coughed at what her alarm clock said. "6:18?!?!" She couldn't believe it, she had never been a morning person, had always fought tooth and nail for just a few more moments of sleep and yet here she stood wide awake and ready to start the day.

"I can't believe it..." Too stunned to properly process being up this early Ziva stood there in her room in nothing up an oversize band shirt and cotton panties. Slowly her mind awoke with all the possibilities that being up this early meant. Breakfast was the first thing that came to mind and she almost rushed out of her bedroom at the idea of bacon, eggs and pancakes but the sight of herself in the mirror stopped her. While it was true that she had her first good night's rest in as long as she could remember it didn't revers time and completely get rid of the bags under her eyes or the pale color of her skin. She felt good this morning and she wanted to feel just as good when she looked at herself so breakfast aside Ziva jumped into the shower.

33 minutes later Ziva stepped out of the shower feeling like a different woman all together. The face in the mirror reflected rosy cheeks, bright sea swirled eyes and a sassy smile. Wringing out the water in her hair Ziva quickly swept it to the side and loosely braided it over her shoulder. While in the shower she had gone through all the clothing she owned and had picked out an outfit. It was probably a bit much for a book store and the heels would kill her if she wore them all day but she felt like looking pretty. Plus today wouldn't be the first time she walked around the store barefooted.

The multi-layered lace was flirty and had great movement, causing Ziva to spin and sway her hips more then she ever would have wearing jeans. What was great about it was it was that perfect length to show off enough legs to earn her a double take but not enough that twirling and dancing would have been obscene. The top that she had originally picked out was a little over the top, offering too much cleavage for the day time hours so instead she picked out a nice white tank top with had lace embellishments around the neckline and arm holes. It was simple enough to balance the complexity of her skirt and not look too bland. On the off chance that the store might get cold Ziva slipped on a crocheted bolero. Over all the outfit, with the crocheted patterned high heel booties, was both eye catching and fun but lacked a final touch. Color. The outfit was all tones of creams and pale shades of tans and while it would have been fine to wear just as it was she wanted something more and turquoise was her solution.

With all this time on her hands she went through the trouble of putting on make up. Like always it was simple and took just a few minutes. Eyeliner around her eyes, a dab of eyeshadow at the outer corner of her eyes, the color deepening the dark blue in her eyes and highlighting the sea toned greens. It was subtle and just what she was looking for. Proud of the naturally deep color of pink that her lips were already all she need was a bit of shimmery clear gloss and she was done with that.

Going with the turquoise theme as her pop of color Ziva rummaged through her closet in a mission to find that distressed turquoise colored backpack. It was of course in the very back and as far back as her large closet could hide it. Everything else that was added to her wardrobe consisted of jewelry. A turquoise stone ring on her right hand, delicate space double ring of turquoise stone on the bottom and turquoise gems on the top, a leather banded wrist watch with seed turquoise strung together, turquoise earrings and and a triple strung necklace with an obsidian, then crystal and finally turquoise pendents all layered at different lengths.

Still with all of this done there was still a good half hour before Obi needed to be picked up for school and even more time before that to get to work. She wanted to paint her nails but opted for a healthy breakfast instead. The kiwi, spinach and tangerine smoothie ended up being the only thing healthy as Ziva quickly fried up some bacon and eggs. They were sandwiched between two ego waffles that dripped with butter and honey. Thinking of Obi she had made enough to make him a sandwich as well and wrapped it in a paper towel. On her way out the door she scooped up a pale turquoise bottle of nail polish figuring that she would have enough time at work to paint her nails then.

~ ~ ~~ ~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Honk! Honk!

Ziva had tried calling Obi but his phone was off. She knew better then to call the house phone, that had been disconnected long ago.

"Seriously!" The word came out like a curse. It was nearly 7:40 and she had been sitting here for the last 15 minutes. "Damn it." This was the last things she wanted to do but she wasn't willing to risk the chance of Obi being late to school because he over slept. Throwing the car into park Ziva turned the car off and just sat there for a moment. She really didn't want to see her dad, had avoided it for almost two years now. There was just something about seeing him, the life gone, the fire that used to burn so brightly in him just soot. It was heartbreaking and it seemed that nothing she had done had worked to bring him back to life.

"OBADIAH!" Ziva hollered pounding on the front door. "If you don't get your as-" The door flung open and Ziva, who had been resting her hand on it, almost swayed off balance and through the open door.

"By God woman, what do you want?" Obi looked like he had one of those famous sleepless nights that she was so used to. "Wait..." He rubbed his eyes and peered through the sleep still heavy in his eyes. "What, what are you doing here?" He ruffled his own messy hair and shifted his weight to lean against the door frame.

"You're going to be late for school and you're still in your pjs?!?!" She wasn't going to let this pass, he couldn't start doing this again. He had started to play football, an old passion of his. It was the sign that everything in her little brother's life was turning around, that she wouldn't have to worry about him every second of the day because he wanted to hurt himself and the world as much as he was hurting on the inside. "No." She shook her head nearly shaking with rage. She wasn't going to let him slip, she needed him to be strong. The selfish voice also pointed out that she needed him to keep playing football because it meant more of Marty. "You can't do this. Not again. I just won't, I won't let you. I disagree. I swear-" She was in full blow ranting mode and the growing smile on her brother's face was just fueling the fire inside her. "I'm serious Obi!" She declared pointing a finger at him as she stomped her foot. "You're- AHCK! Put me down!" As if he was blind to her anger, as if it didn't matter at all to him, Obi rushed her laughing with open arms. The hug was one of those giant bear hugs that squeezed the air out of your body as your feet dangled inches from the ground. Ziva hadn't gotten out of these hugs in a while and it cooled the aggression inside of her remembering when this had first started. It had been when he found out how strong he was, that he out weighted his sister and could easily lift her up. "Air, Obi. Air." Ziva wheezed patting her brother's shoulder.

He was still laughing, tears in his eyes when he set her down.

"This isn't funny." She accused him after several deep breaths.

"Yes." He was shaking his head no calming himself down from full bellowing laughs to more subdued chuckles. "Yes it really it." His eyes sparkled with mirth and he reached out a patted Ziva's shoulder in symphony. "Darling big sister." He sing sang face threatening to split in two. "It's Sunday."

Ziva had been about to shrug Obi's hand from touching her when his words sunk in. "Sunday?" She asked raising a brow in question.
'
"Sunday." He nodded retreating back into the cool darkness of the house. "I'll see you tomorrow. That'll be a Monday." He teased hand on the door.

There were a lot of things she wanted to say but didn't. She had lost and being a poor sport about it would only give Obi more material for later. Still she made a face just before the door closed.

"Oh." Obi cracked open the door just enough so he could stick his head out. "You look nice today."

"Thanks." Ziva sighed feeling like an idiot for not realizing what day it was. She defended her actions by saying that it was because she had woken up so early and had been shell shocked. Yeah that sounded plausible. "Child." She huffed to the closed door.

"HAG!" Obi crackled from the other side of the door.

~ ~ ~~ ~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"What the hell am I going to do now?" She was dressed and ready to go but had no where to go and nothing to do. It was the downfall to being a shut-in with no social life. In the city she had tons of friends and there was always something to do but since she moved here she hadn't had to the time, or wanted to spend the time and effort, to make new friends. Normally she would go to the book store, even when she wasn't working she would find herself there but it was a Sunday meaning it and half the city was closed. And this early in the morning nearly every one would be a church.

"Urk." Ziva wrinkled her nose in disgust at the weak momentary lapse in her sanity. For a microscopic second she had considered just going to church. There would be people there and that had to be better then sitting in the car in front of her father's and brother's house. Her mind turned to a man she didn't want to think of but did. All of the time. Ziva didn't even want to think his name because she felt like just the projected energy it took to say his name in her mind would draw his attention. It was silly but she couldn't shake the feeling that there was some kind of connection between the two of them.

Still...

Ziva closed her eyes and took a deep calming breaths. The image of his face came easily to her mind and she shivered with something far too close to desire. "This is stupid!" She told herself opening her eyes and shaking her head. "These are not the drones you are looking for." She mocked herself starting the car and driving away.

She didn't know what she was doing or where she was going but one of the greatest things about towns overs cities was all the open space. Knowing her away around town she drove to the places she wanted and picked up a sub sandwich, an apple, chips and a bottle of water. She wasn't hungry now but knowing how long she could admire the beauty of nature she didn't want to go without. The only other thing she added to her backpack was a sketch book and pen and some pencils.

Gazebo Park was nicknamed that because of all it's gazebos. It wasn't the real name of the park but everyone she knew affectionately called it that and over time that became the park's new name. The story of the part was that architects from all different studies came together and added a gazebo of their own to the park. It had once been a small out of the way park but over the time it grew and in the early 80's it became a free admittance national park tripling in size.

There were seven gazebos that everyone knew about. There was the music stand where once a month there would be live music at the park. The screened in bike path gazebo names so because of it's close proximity to the bike path. The country splendor over one of the many large ponds. Winter's star was the gazebo that was most know for it's winter gathering place because of all it's lights it make for a popular place to skate when the shallow pond froze over. Picnic park wasn't a different park just the area when the grass was softest and the ground the flattest. It was also closest to the children's park with their animal shaped jungle gyms and structures. But the crown jewel was right smack dab in the middle of the park and worth going to if you had the time. It was easily accessible, smooth concrete path lead you straight there. The pond it sat in was unlike many of the other's man made but it didn't take away from it's majesty at all. In fact because they could manipulate every inch of this sprawled out gazebo it was perfect in a way that some weren't having to bend to fit into the spaces that they were built. The last one everyone called lovers's castle and was where hundreds of marriage proposals were made. It was one of the more interesting gazebos because of the spot they built it and the way it incorporated the cave like hollow below it. But the one that very few knew about was a place coined cupid's secret. Unlike all the other gazebos it had no paths that lead you there and it was far off in a corner of the park that was not maintained by park employees, as even most of them didn't even know of it's existence. In fact anyone who heard of the rumors of cupid's secret just assumed that it was just another name for lover's castle but those who knew of the off the beaten trail gazebo knew better and kept silent.

Ziva had stumbled across the gem years before when she was visiting the family, when her mother had still been alive. When she found it she couldn't believe it. Like some mythical pirate ship filled with riches the small gazebo offered that much and more in riches all around it. Ducks made the oddly shaped pond their home, deer tracks lined the soft clay banks where the stone edges receded. Song birds sang to each other filling the air with love songs no human could replicate. It was truly a wonder and Ziva felt bless to have found it. But as please as she was to have found the legendary cupid's secret she told no one, after all it was a secret only she and the love god shared. At least that was how she felt, that it was only hers and cupid's because for all the many times she had been out there she had never seen another soul. No tracks telling of another's visit, no signs of human interaction, just pure untouched beauty. The last time she had visited it had been nearly a month ago and the gazebo had been overrun with shrubs and ivy. Fearing for the safety of the gazebo Ziva had ran back to her car and headed to the nearest hardware store for cutting tools, a wheelbarrow and trash bags. And that whole day Ziva spent it cutting down invasive plants, choking ivy and weeding and by the end of the day all twelve bags had been filled and carted out on the wheelbarrow. As odd at it might have seemed in any other park it wasn't in this one. The people of the town cherished this park and everyone took part in keeping it clean, pretty and working. It was once of the reasons that it was free admittance. Well that and the large dowry that apparently came with the park for it's maintenance. Where that money had come from or who much money there was in that account was a whole another legend.

As it was a Sunday the park was nearly empty, save the few cars that parked up front for nature services. A hippy more green friendly branch of the church of god. Knowing how hot it would get today Ziva parked off the the side nearest the trees, using their shade for protection against the heat of the sun. Cupid's secret was further then the crown jewel but because of it's isolated location and lack of path would take nearly an hour to get there. Her heels would never make it and Ziva took them off and placed them in the passenger's seat where they would be safe and not on a war path to kill her feet. And truthfully Ziva preferred to walk around barefooted, if it wasn't so frowned on in the modern world and polite company she would have walked without shoes everyday of her life.

The day was a stunner. The sun was out, the clouds passed by floating lazily in the sky and there was a nice cool breeze that fought the humidity and kept the heat index from climbing. This was the kind of day that she could see herself out with a man, walking hand in hand talking about everything and nothing. Sharing jokes and laughs as they fed the birds and cuddled next to each other as they watched the duck swim. They would continue they walk, still hand in hand, to cupid's secret making sure no one followed because they wanted to be alone. Ziva dreamed of a man who would make sweet and passionate love to her by the water's edge, claiming her body as his and returning his own to her protection. They would cry out together in ecstasy and then spend the rest of the afternoon sunning naked on the grass. It was a fantasy that warmed her skin made all that much more hotter when she envisioned Marty in every scenario.

"I have to get a hold of myself." Ziva shook her head free of Marty. "I'm sure a man like him is already taken. Yes that's right." She agreed nodded her head yes as she ventured into the park. "Heck he could get away with having more then just the one." In her mind she pictured a bed full of satisfied, exhausted women with Marty standing there proud and still ready for more. "Of course if he was mine I wouldn't share him." Her blood boiled as the idea of another woman touching him. "But he's not so I really must calm down." As she walked passed the small group of worshipers sitting on the grass she kept talking to herself, out loud unaware of all the strange looks it was earning her. "It's just..." She sighed and tilted her head up to the sky watching a cloud that looked like a bunny float by. "I've just never met anyone like him before." She told the cloud bunny sighing again.

No matter what she tried to think of, tried to turn her mind to she just couldn't stop thinking of Marty. She'd think of anything and somehow he would find his way into her thoughts. Hell at one point she even tried to play the alphabet game with a candy theme but that wasn't much luck. "A: almond joys." Marty shirtless on a beach. "B: big hunk." Okay there really was no way not to think of him with that one. "C: caramello." The image of Marty leaning in a throne like chair with a thread of caramel clinging to his bottom lip. This time at least he was fully clothes, true it was in form fitting leather pants but it was still clothes. "D: dots." This time it was Ziva who was naked with the dot candies balanced on her body as Marty ate each one slowly, his lips brushing against her body warm and slightly sticky. "URGH! I give up!" Ziva fumed all hot and bothered in a way that put to shame any and all the sex dreams she had ever had up to this point in her life. "I need help." It was an understatement but with no one to turn to for help she continued on her way to her secret little spot.