Author's Note: This is my first fanfic ever. I really love to write, but I have never really had the time or ideas to do a story before now. NCIS is one of my favorite shows. Tony and Ziva are amazing, and I knew that I wanted to write about them. Thank you so much for reading, and please review. Your feedback is appreciated, and I hope you like the story.

Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS because if I did, Tiva would have gotten together A LONG TIME AGO! :)

Even as a little boy I drooled every time a woman passed by. I've accepted that I don't really need to use my brain or emotions to catch a woman. Instead, I let Little Dinozzo do the thinking for me. Little Dinozzo isn't very picky. He resides in very expensive designer pants, and gets excited by the mere mention of boobs or butts. Having spent the majority of my life letting him control my choices for one night stands, I was caught off guard when a beautiful, tan skinned woman walked into the squad room one day. Not only was Little Dinozzo sounding off alarms, but my heart was beating at super sonic speed, and my brain couldn't form coherent words. Of course, she caught me at one of my moments when Little Dinozzo was going full speed. I was fantasizing about my old partner. This occurred often, especially now that she was gone.

Usually, Dinozzo men are known for their game with women. We possess the charming smile, the smoldering eyes, and a laugh that make the ladies swoon. Even after 30 years of putting the moves on the ladies, I have never met a woman who turned me to mush like this brown-eyed goddess did. I had no idea what I was doing. She was beautiful, sensual, funny, and (much to my disbelief) intimidating. I later found out her name was Ziva David. She had a unique name to fit her unique personality. She was the most fascinating woman I had ever met.

I may not know much about love, but my fraternity buddies always told me that when you love a girl, you shouldn't throw yourself all over her. So I decided to wait it out. Sure, I dated other people. Little Dinozzo never failed to find me a woman to take home when I wanted one. The problem now was that I compared every woman to Ziva. None of them could even come close to her in comparison.

When I was sent undercover to fall in love with Jeanne, I thought I had found the one. However, even when I was with Jeanne, I still felt this ache in my heart that I knew could only be filled by one person.

I watched as she dated other men. It killed me inside, but I knew I couldn't just tell her my feelings. What if she rejected me? Sure women before had rejected me, but this one would kill me.

I have seen woman bounce back from numerous heartbreaks committed by their lovers. However, I am pretty sure I severed any chance of us ever being together when I killed her boyfriend. I probably would have been better off telling her she looked fat in her jeans. I don't really know what was going through my mind at the time. Looking back, Ziva was right; I was jealous.

When she stayed in Tel Aviv, I crumbled inside. When I found out she was dead, a part of me died. All I wanted was to have her back. Heck, I never even had her in the first place. I just knew that if she were still alive, I would take her in my arms and kiss her passionately and we would ride off into the sunset on a majestic horse.

I gave myself a mental Gibb's slap. Stop it, Dinozzo. You have seen way too many movies.

After Jeanne accused me of murdering her father, I remember Ziva telling me to "be a man." The look in Ziva's eyes when she said this made me decide to beome a better man. I knew that in order to be the man that Ziva would want me to be, I couldn't let her death go without revenge.

Deciding to go on that mission to Africa was the best decision of my life. That mission changed me. Seeing Ziva so broken and vulnerable tore my heart in two. If this were one of my movies, our reunion would have been filled with laughing and kissing. It was time to face the facts; this was not a movie. My ninja was in pain, and I needed to save her. In the end, I got my Ziva back. Or at least, that's what I thought.

Something was different about her. The sparkle in her chocolate eyes was gone. She was sad all of the time. She didn't laugh at my jokes or join in my banter. I could tell Mcgee and the Boss noticed it too. Abbs was the only one who said anything.

One day I was down in Abby's lab, bringing her the 15th Caf Pow of the day. She was rambling on about how her mass spectrometer is lonely, or something, when she broke off mid-sentence. She turned to me, looking very serious. (I took a few steps back because serious Abby scared me.) She took a breath and said, "Tony, I'm worried about Ziva. She has been less ninja-like, and more of a hollow log. I mean I know she has been through a lot, and I know we are all concerned about her, especially you. The Boss-man even seems concerned. I think we should have some type of intervention or something. You know, like maybe we can go bowling with my nun friends, or I could take her shopping at Hot Topic. Maybe I should let her sleep with Bert for a couple of nights. Do you think that would make her feel better? I mean he always makes me feel…"

I couldn't help it. I had to cut her off. "Abbs, you know I am just as concerned about Ziva as you are, but I've tried everything. We had a nice chat in the bathroom, and things are good between us. I don't want to screw that up by prying too much into her life."

"But Tony," Abby whined, "Please try and do something. I know you are in love with Ziva."

I began to cough uncontrollably at this moment when I got a call from Gibbs telling me to meet him in the bullpen.

"I gotta go, Abbs," I told her as I backed out of her lab.

She looked like a sad puppy, so I pulled her into a hug and told her, "You're right… about my feelings for Ziva. I'll see what I can do."

She smiled one of her famous Abby grins and hugged me even tighter.

In the bullpen, Gibbs was packing up his stuff to leave for the night.

"You needed me, boss?"

"Go home, Dinozzo. It's been a long week, and you could all use some sleep. Especially you, Ziver."

Ziva looked up from her desk and gave Gibbs a small smile. Gibbs swiftly threw his coffee into the trash can and got into the elevator without another word.

I looked up from my desk to see that Mcgee was hurriedly getting up to leave. I found this odd because usually McGeek was the last to go home.

"Where are you heading, McSpeedy?"

"If you must know, Tony, I have a date tonight."

"You mean like a date with one of your online buddies to play, right?"

"No, Tony. I mean a real date with a real woman."

"Well, would you look at that, Ziva, McHefner here has finally gotten himself a date."

I glanced over at Ziva expecting a response, but she merely nodded her head. Slightly disgruntled by Ziva's lack of enthusiasm about Mcgee's love life, I sauntered over to her desk. Mcgee took my distraction as an opportunity to book it to the elevator. I propped my elbows on her desk and Ziva scooted her chair back. I found this odd because she has never been one to be upset by physical contact.

I sighed, knowing my request would probably be shot down, leaving me feeling worse than ever. "Ziva, would you like to go to dinner with me tonight?"

She looked into my eyes, studying me for a bit.

"Tony, you do not have to hang out with me. I know you have better things to do on a Friday night."

If only she knew that the only thing I wanted to do on a Friday night was spend every waking moment with her. Of course, I could never tell her that.

"Ziva, my date canceled and I thought it would be fun to watch a movie and eat a pizza. I will be at your house at 7." I didn't like lying to Ziva about having a date cancel, but if I sounded too desperate for her company it might scare her off.

Ziva looked up at me with a slight smile on her face that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Okay, Tony, that sounds fine."

Most women are usually more enthusiastic about having Anthony Dinozzo all to themselves for a night, but this was Ziva, and I was elated to just hear a "fine."

The next couple of hours were very un-Dinozzo like. I took a shower and got dressed then paced around my apartment. It was 6:30 and it took me 10 minutes to get to Ziva's. I have never been so nervous about a date in my life, and this wasn't even really a date. I tried watching TV, but nothing was on. So, at 6:35 I left my house and headed to Ziva's.

Ten minutes later, I raised a shaking hand to knock on her door. It took her about 2 minutes to come to the door, but for me it seemed like I could have watched all of the Star Wars movies and had dinner in the time it took her to get there. When she opened the door, I thought Little Dinozzo was having another fantasy. Her hair was wet, and she was wrapped in a small blue towel. I realized I was 15 minutes early, and I was about to apologize when I looked behind me and noticed her bathroom door open and a tub filled with bubbles.

I began laughing. "Ziva David, crime fighting, assassin ninja takes bubble baths?"

Ziva smiled and hit my arm. "Well I guess the bat is out of the bag now, Tony. Come on in."

Her mixed up idiom made me smile, and my heart swelled with more love for this girl. God, how I missed her.

"Cat, Ziva."

"I am more of a dog person, Tony. Let me go change and I will be right out."

I was smiling at Ziva's confusion, when she turned around. What I saw on her formerly smooth, tanned back broke my heart in two.

A long, red scar ran from the top of her right shoulder to below the line of the towel. I could see little markings all over the top of her back. It was at this moment that I realized that her time in the desert must have been far worse than I could have ever imagined.

I whispered her name, and she turned around to look at me. She must have seen the look in my eyes because she whipped back around and ran to her room.

I stood there dumfounded and terrified. The only time women ran to their bedrooms with me around was when we were half dressed and she was pulling me along. I wasn't sure if I should follow Ziva or just leave. I remembered Ziva telling me to be a man, and I knew what I had to do.

I softly knocked on her door. There was no answer. Thankfully it was unlocked. I don't know what I was expecting to find. I had hoped to find Ziva doing something really Ziva-like. Maybe sharpening her knives, practicing her kick-boxing, or cleaning her gun. I knew these were totally unrealistic expectations. I just saw her scars, the reminders of her time in the desert that she probably didn't want anyone to see. Because of this, I wasn't so surprised to see her sitting on her bed, still in her towel. She was trying to calm the wave of tears that were flowing freely down her perfect face.

I did the only thing I thought a man should: I walked over, sat beside her, and grabbed her free hand. I grabbed her chin with my other hand and tilted it upward so she could look me in the eyes.

"Ziva, I'm here," I whispered with all of the conviction that I could. I needed her to know that not only was I a man now, but I was HER man.

She nodded her head and snuggled into my chest. I wrapped my arms around her and I began to softly rub her back. When I reached the large scar, I stopped and looked into her eyes again.

"Is this okay?" I asked her, not wanting to push her too far.

She nodded and allowed me to continue to rub her scars softly. I don't think I have ever been so gentle with anything in my entire life, not even my car or my designer shoes. Ziva was a delicate angel in my arms. (She would kill me with a paperclip for even thinking that.)

After her crying subsided, she looked up at me and whispered, "Thank you, Tony."

I smiled at her, "Anytime, My Ninja."

The old Dinozzo would have taken advantage of a sexy woman sitting on a bed with him wearing only her towel. This situation was different. This woman was different. I am different now. I didn't allow Little Dinozzo to take control of this situation. Instead, my mind was filled with love and respect for Ziva. I knew I needed to take this slow. On this night, I learned the true meaning of love. On this night, I learned what it means to be a man.