Disclaimer: No copyright intended I own nothing, all characters belong to the makers of NCIS

The characters and events portrayed in this story are fictitious.

Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

I hope you like reading this story. I really did my very best to write it the right way. Reviews are more than welcome, and any good advise or thoughts over the story will be taken into acount;

I won't give previews of the next chapters, and won't bother you with my thoughts over my own story. But first of all I want to say thanks, for starting to read this story.

Prologue.

"Fight your way out of problems. Be, who ever you want to be. Go, wherever you want to go.

Never stop believing in yourself, there's always a better way. Never give up. You'll be in my heart forever."

Ziva sighed, and closed the book. She'd known what was one the first page before she read it. The old pages of the book were fragile. Her mother had written the words on the day she got it. This book was the only thing, she had left from her mother. She could remember the day she got it in like it was yesterday. It was a month or so before she'd died. She had given her the book on her 10th birthday, and had told her that she was beautiful. A tear ran over her cheek as she remember that, a couple of weeks later that her dad came to her and told her that her mother had died and that she should tell Tali, her 5-year old sister. She remembered kneeling down next to Tali, who was playing whit dolls, and telling her that their mum wasn't coming back home. It took a couple of minutes for Tali to understand, but then they'd started crying as they hugged each other. Ziva couldn't remember how long they sat there, but it felled like forever. After that, it was them against the world. They were always together. Until Tali's 16th birthday, Tali had gone out whit some friends, they were having a party in a hotel. A hamas bombing occurred, she could see herself, searching in the ruins of the hotel. But it had been too late. Tali was already gone. She took her star of David in her hands, the only thing she had of Tali. She'd taken it of her body, as they recovered it, and since that day, she hadn't taken it off.

After Tali's funeral she'd promised not to care anymore. And from then on, she travelled a lot, never stayed anywhere over six months, that was the up side from working for the mossad, she needed to travel all over the world. But this had been different, she needed to stay here longer, and she did started to care again, she enjoyed being here. She knew she would get hurt eventually, and she couldn't cope whit the pain of staying. She would run away, as she'd always done when things got hard. She blaimed herself for it, but she couldn't help it. This was what she'd always done. What she was used to. Leaving. Change is good, she told herself. Knowing that she wanted to stay more than anyway, but the desire to run away, face the unknown without having to face her mistakes was stronger. She looked around her, as she still sat on the couch. She suddenly realized she wanted leave this things behind. Forget everything that happened over the last four years. She dried her tears and figured she had about two hours before they'd come look for her, she took the notebook of the table and left a note. She wrote quickly. And didn't write much.

"Don't come looking for me. I can't do this. I'm sorry."

Was all she could get on the paper. She laid it down on the table and grabbed one of the bags from under the bed. She wasn't used to having this much stuff, and figured she should only take clothes whit her. Grabbed all the clothes she could carry from out of her closet. She ran around her apartment, trying to see if she hadn't missed anything. She doubted, but eventually took the picture of her team out of the frame and put it in the bag of clothes. She didn't want to come back. Not after this. It was harder this time than before. She knew she would be missed. Deep inside she knew she didn't want to go. But she couldn't stay either, that part wasn't even an option. She looked around her apartment one last time, picked her coat and handbag from the chair she'd left them in, pulled the bag whit clothes over her shoulder, left the key of her apartment on the letter she'd written and closed the door behind her. It was time for a new start.