A/N: I would recommend tissues for this story. My apologies that it's going up late. My mom is having a reaction to a medication she's on so I came to stay with her until my dad gets home from work. To anyone reading who does pray, I'd appreciate if you could say one for my mom - just that we'd get this all sorted out and that she'd get feeling better. Thanks :) Okay guys, here we go. Hold on, the ride is about to get very bumpy. ~Aliyah
Ziva never called. A month went by and in that time the fleeting hope Tony clung to that she would change her mind slowly dissolved. Only once did he actually call Mossad and try to get in touch with her, and then he was told she was unreachable, which he translated to mean away on a mission. But Tony was never sure if that was the truth, Eli's way of keeping him from talking to Ziva, or her answer to a question he hadn't even asked yet.
Finally one day McGee came to him during lunch. "Tony, I think it's time we filled the empty chair."
His head jerked up and he nearly spilled the cup of coffee by his hand. "What? Why?"
McGee sighed. "It's been four weeks and I know you can't help being injured, but I'm tired of carrying the load and taking the brunt of Gibbs' personality in the field. We need a third person."
Tony rubbed his slowly healing arm and unfortunately saw the logic in his teammate's request. While he'd gotten permission to no longer wear the sling ten days ago, and had just been approved for light duty - which meant he could finally leave his desk when the team got a call - there were still a couple weeks left before he'd be cleared to carry a gun and participate fully in field work again.
He nodded once. "Right. Better ask Gibbs then. The files are all on his desk."
Tim leaned forward. "I know how close you and Ziva were Tony, but she's moved on. Maybe it's time you did as well." Tony's jaw clenched. McGee knew nothing about him and Ziva. The younger agent took the hint and stood. "We should talk to him together."
Tony gave a noise of assent and was left alone with his thoughts. To have someone else sitting in Ziva's chair, to have to look at another woman every day...if his existence wasn't miserable enough now it was about to get worse. But sulking wouldn't be fair to McGee and he'd have to get used to a change sooner or later. Still, he wished more than anything that it could've been later.
They broke the news to Gibbs on Friday just as they were getting ready to leave for a new case, and a stack of folders was dropped unceremoniously into Tony's hands. Once on the ship, Gibbs gave out orders and disappeared. Ducky sighed. "So many tasks, so few hands." He looked at Tony and McGee. "Have either of you two heard from Ziva?"
McGee shook his head. Tony wore a very serious expression. "No. You?"
The hope in his voice made Dr. Mallard feel even worse. "No. It's all so very sad. But I supposed the time has come to move on."
Having heard those words already that week, Tony wondered if twice meant something. "Yeah." But in reality he didn't agree at all.
NCIS
The first lady they interviewed on Monday was...intense. Tony was glad she didn't care about showing off her looks, because he'd only be thinking of Ziva if she did. Although in his ninja's case everyone took her seriously despite how exotically beautiful she was. They knew danger lurked behind the wild curls and smooth tan skin. He missed that every day. But their hands of steel candidate didn't pass the Gibbs test, so they were back to the drawing board and Tony couldn't find it in himself to be disappointed that she didn't work out. It would be near impossible to find someone to fill the chair and no other person on earth would be able to mimic the seamless flow of his and Ziva's former partnership, or how she fit into the team.
Another month sped past and finally a woman lasted long enough to qualify for a trial period. After observing an interview with her, Tony found Gibbs in MTAC wrapping up a briefing with Agent Dunham. The screen went dark and Gibbs turned to his senior field agent. "Well?"
Tony shrugged. "She's okay." It was impossible for him to be impartial. There would only ever be one woman who could qualify to be his partner. He gestured to the screen. "What was that about?"
Gibbs debated how much information to share. "Tracking terrorist training camps in the Sahara Desert."
Tony took that in and swallowed. "The uh, woman, the captive, any theory who she is?" The possibilities made him nauseous.
Careful to give what hints he could of what he suspected without actually saying anything specific, Gibbs tapped his fingers on the chair. "Dunham says Mossad presence in North Africa has increased."
Mention of Mossad had Tony's muscles coiling even tighter. "Prepping an offensive?" Or a rescue? Please no, he added in the same breath.
"Or course correction," the team leader threw out another option. "Cleaning up a failure."
Tony tried to breathe normally. "What kind of failure?"
Gibbs didn't like the implications either. "The kind with casualties."
"Is that all you know?" Gibbs smiled, a dead giveaway that something was up. "That's all you can tell me." Tony was forming his own theories and none of them were good.
A couple days later Tony and McGee were out for dinner, McGee chatting about work stuff and the new girl, trying to fill the uncharacteristic silence. "Seems like a pistol, or a firecracker." He thought through his adjectives. "Maybe a spitfire."
At that Tony got up and left, those words reminding him too much of the wife he'd probably lost for good by now, the partner who might never sit across from him again. Tim pulled a couple bills from his wallet to cover their meals and joined his friend, talking nonsense in an attempt to draw a reaction from Tony. Finally he spoke. "It's not normal that we haven't heard from Ziva. I mean, nothing, not in this much time. It's not normal."
McGee debated which side of the line he wanted to walk on. "Maybe she just wants to make a clean break of it."
Tony snorted. "Well, maybe from some of us, but not all of us." He repeated the words again, very insistent even if he was pretty sure he knew what category he fell into. "It's not normal."
Tim gave in. "No, it's not."
Tony felt better knowing it wasn't all just in his head. "Thank you." He leaned on the car and stared at his friend. "What if she can't contact us? What if something's stopping her?"
"Or someone," McGee added.
"Yeah." That's what he was afraid of. "I'm not the only one thinking this, am I?"
Tim sighed. "No."
Tony fiddled with the keys. "And you know Gibbs is thinking about it too. He's not talking because he never does, but he'd definitely sniffing around."
"So what are you going to do about it?" McGee probed.
"Everything I can," he declared. "I'm gonna start digging."
"Well," Tim reached for the door handle, "you can't do it alone."
Tony frowned. "You gonna stop me?"
McGee gave him a look. "That's not what I said."
For the first time in a long time Tony smiled a bit, hope building in his heart with the support of another person. "Thanks," he breathed quietly, getting in. They had a teammate to find.
NCIS
After a week and a half Tony and McGee were spinning their wheels, coming up with too many dead ends in their search and not enough threads to follow. Finally McGee pushed away from his desk. "That's it."
Tony's brow furrowed. "You're giving up?"
"No." He stood and headed for the back elevator. "I'm bringing in reinforcements."
Together the men traveled down to the lab and after braving the tongue lashing they deserved for keeping her in the dark, tried to explain their self appointed assignment to the forensic scientist. "We've been tracking Ziva's movements as best we can," McGee began.
Abby was in total focus mode. "Since when?"
"Since she stayed in Israel."
"And took Rivkin's place on the Kidon unit," Abby finished. They looked at her in puzzlement and she shrugged. "I've been doing the same thing." Abby started pacing around her lab, the guys dogging her every step. "I mean, it's weird that Ziva hasn't contacted me. It'd be one thing if she hadn't just picked up the phone and called me, but I've tried to reach her several different ways with no luck." She threw her hands up. "Ziva is universally absent and it's freaking me out."
Tim leaned back against the counter. "Alright, let's compare notes. We've got NCIS on the ground in Dubai trying to figure out what Mossad is up to."
"While Mossad's trying to figure out what some terrorist is doing," Tony continued.
"And somewhere in the middle of this is Ziva." Abby chewed on her lip. "I don't like it."
Tony sighed. "We know Gibbs thinks the director knows more than he's letting on."
"And no one is telling us anything," Abby finished, twirling one black pigtail. "So we have two options."
"And they're both illegal," McGee picked up her train of thought. "Hack into Mossad."
"Or hack into Vance." The new girl, who's arrived at the door to the lab just in time to hear the situation summed up, quit on the spot. And really, not one person in the room was sorry to see her go. On Team Gibbs they looked after their own, anyone who couldn't do that would never belong.
Two days later another woman showed up for an interview Tony forgot he'd scheduled, and in the five minutes he had to spend with her he did his best to scare her off, finally ending any hope she might've had by changing his mind about their hiring status. Now was not a good time to be throwing someone new into the mix, not when they might be close to finding the only person who would ever really belong at the desk beside Gibbs'.
That afternoon the wonder twins called him down to the lab for an update on their findings. McGee looked at him the moment he walked in. "We accessed Mossad's encrypted files and traced a trail of information back to what we found on that burnt laptop from Ziva's apartment."
Abby picked up the story. "As you know, Rivkin switched them out, and this one belonged to our terrorist Abin Tabul."
"Among other things," McGee continued, "it contained the location of a terrorist camp in North Africa run by one Saleem Ulman. Not a nice guy."
"So we gave that information to Gibbs, who gave it to Vance, who gave it to Eli David, and in turn he put Ziva and a team on a Jordanian freighter called the Damocles."
Tony had just taken a phone call about that a few hours earlier. "Out of Aqaba."
McGee seemed surprised that he knew. "Uh, right. Destination: the Horn of Africa."
Tony looked at them expectantly. "So where is it now?"
Tim shrugged. "I don't know."
"Find it," he ordered, turning away.
McGee crossed his arms. "We tried. There's no record of it docking anywhere after May."
Tony frowned. "Why not?"
Gibbs chose that moment to appear. "'Cause it was lost at sea." They all turned to stare at him blankly and he swallowed. "Damocles went down in a storm, twenty-eighth of May, off the coast of Somalia. There were no survivors."
All the oxygen was suddenly sucked out of the room as shock set in. "No," Abby whispered, searching Gibbs' eyes for some sign that it wasn't true.
At those words a door slammed shut in Tony's soul and he shut down right there. Without a word he walked out, his heart hammering frantically as his brain struggled to process the words that made his world stop. He walked up the stairs on autopilot and at his desk removed his gun, badge, and cellphone, depositing them in the top drawer. From the filing cabinet came a request form for bereavement leave that he filled out in short jerky strokes of a pen and placed on Gibbs' desk. He left his NCIS issued backpack on the floor behind his chair and looked around the bullpen with empty eyes.
Just as he was about to leave, Gibbs came around the corner and stopped. "Where's your head DiNozzo?"
Tony swallowed and barely met the man's ice blue gaze. "I didn't take the time with Kate, I'm taking it now for Ziva. If you don't like that, then fire me." He pushed past his boss. "It wouldn't matter any way."
For once without an answer, Gibbs stood there and let him go, then slowly read the request form and signed at the bottom to grant his senior field agent two weeks of leave. Taking a breath, he walked it upstairs to the director's office himself and dropped it in front of him. Leon chewed on his toothpick and looked it over. "Two weeks. That's a bit long, don't you think?"
Gibbs shoved his hands in his pockets. "His partner's dead, he needs it."
"Ex-partner you mean."
It was times like these that Gibbs got the overwhelming urge to punch his boss in the face. But right now Tony needed someone to go to bat for him and Gibbs was it. He clenched his teeth. "You know how close partners get Leon and this is the second one he's lost. DiNozzo deserves the time."
Vance picked up his pen and paused. "I always got the feeling there was more than just partners between those two."
Gibbs was adamant. "Not on my watch." He turned to go. "Sign the paper Director, we're all going to need time for this one." With that the team leader left, closing the door firmly behind him. He could only hope that Tony would find a way through his grief to come back when the leave was up. It would be so much worse if he lost both of them.
Replies from Chapter 9 of MIT Part 3:
LuvZandT (MIT9) - Yeah, tears may be the appropriate response to the end of Part 3. I'm glad you liked them even if they weren't nice per se. I'm glad you could feel the emotions, I want them to be real. You are right about the deep waters that we are heading into. Thank you so much for your sweet comments, I really appreciate them. It does take a lot of time to get this stuff written, but I love it. These stories are in my heart and they're always playing on the background of my mind and I feel like I'm actually accomplishing something, even if it's just for fun. The next part is coming very slowly, healing is never easy or quick, especially in a scenario like this one. This review posted just fine, I hope your computer is behaving better now. Thanks for reviewing! :)
Taylor (MIT9) - I hate to say this, but I'm glad you felt that way. I want the emotions to be real so when they have an impact like that, I know it's working. I'm glad you're looking forward to more. I'm working on the next part slowly but surely. Thanks for reviewing! :)
gibbslovesjenny (MIT9) - lol...I find it hard to believe that a chapter like that made your week brighter, but I'm sorry things weren't going so well. I hope this week is better. I'd say at this point Z is all kinds of confused and hurt, both in her head and her heart. Unfortunately it will take an experience like the desert for her to be able to see the truth. lol...it would never be as obvious as all that, since the secret is kept at least until S9. Thanks for reviewing! :)
Sarah (MIT9) - Yes, it was painful to write as well. Mmm...a lot of those lines made me hurt for T and I think Z wasn't so much cold and emotionless as she was trying to hold herself together and therefore the walls had to be thick enough to keep anyone from reaching out. Them being married changes so much. You're not the only one to think that bathroom scene was about the worst it could get. To be perfectly honest, I don't think she meant it that way. She had to leave it behind because it would raise questions in Israel that no one thought to ask at home. But the impact of the gesture is the same. Wow - I was so mad at the end of Berlin! We got a real live moment and we were about to get more and then they ruined it! Grr...I was totally freaking out. Made me really glad I waited tho. Then there was next to nothing with T&Z in Revenge. I wish she'd let T go with her to the boat, I wished he'd realized it was stupid to leave her alone. I felt so bad when she was training while injured. I'm glad Bodner's dead and at least the way it happened it was self-defense, even if she wasn't supposed to be there. I'm anxious about next week and the end of the season, especially with Cote's status on the show as of yet undefined, but I hope they do justice to our characters no matter what. What did you think?
