If Ziva had felt her childhood home to be too large and too empty before Tony's arrival that feeling only increased upon his departure. Their goodbye had been all too long and yet all too short at the same time. Standing on the tarmac while his plane prepared for take-off was agonising and it took all she had not to change her mind and get on that plane. Part of her so desperately wanted it to take off so she could turn tail and grieve but at the same time she so desperately wanted to remain in that moment where, for the last time in God knows how long, they were in the same place. It was that desire that left her frantically tracing the fading tail lights of his plane as it was finally engulfed by the dark blanket of sky.

She felt numb. He was gone. No last minute reunion or change of mind, no Oscar worthy rush to get off the plane. He was gone. She hated him for leaving but loved him even more for it. She felt relief and yet anxiety. She felt everything and yet nothing, with the overwhelming finality of it all rooting her to the spot.

She somehow made it home, although even the thought of home left her feeling hollow, there was no home anymore. All she had was a series of places she had once belonged and people she had once belonged to. A family marred by death and distrust and an adopted family who she no longer felt worthy of. For too many years she had been the bringer of death, the executioner of countless men, women and even children. For years she had coped by pushing it all away, by telling herself that she was doing it for the good of her country, for the good of her people, so that other people would not have to. How very much those sounded like the rationalisations of the father she had come to abhor and yet never quite manage to stop loving.

And yet that ignorance had been cruelly snatched away in the form of a childhood friend. Deena had been right, who was she to deserve love, to deserve a family when she had left so many shattered in her wake. She no longer knew the face that greeted her in the mirror, or at least she did not want to. It was such a far cry from the girl who had grown up in this house, who wanted nothing more than to dance and to see her father's face in the audience, whose life revolved around the moment Abba came through the door in the evening. The little girl who dreamed of visiting far off lands and one day having a little boy and girl of her own was long gone; she had been lost in the death and destruction just as all those around her had been. She was the eye of the storm, leaving nothing but damage in her wake.

As she sat in the loveseat gazing out onto the blackened orchard she could almost feel Tony sitting on the lounge behind her, where he had been only a few days before. It made her want to burn the entire place to the ground. Every corner she looked at she could see him in; in the orchard where they buried her new list, in the kitchen where he had insisted on making her breakfast which he had succeeded in not burning (barely), in her laundry, in her bathroom, in her bed. Just like everything else in her life, he filled it and brightened it, turning the ordinary into a memory. It made it impossible to move on and impossible to forget.

It was all too much. In all that she had lost and all that been ripped away from her Tony had been her constant. Even when she had pushed him away and even when she had not deserved him he had refused to let her be. The one man who had promised to always fight for her was gone and all because she asked. The emptiness of the house was mirrored in her heart and in her mind. What was the point anymore? She could no longer live with the person she had become and now there was no one to change for because she had pushed them away. She had spent her entire life struggling, every single day it seemed has been a matter of putting one foot in front of the other, over and over again. What was the point in fighting anymore when there was no one and nothing to fight for?

It was in that moment she heard Tony's voice as if he was still seated just behind her. "You gotta at least call the guy" And he was right, she did need to call him, not just for him but also for herself, to remind herself of why she was doing this. She had spent her whole life trying to make her father proud but despite her efforts she was never enough for him. But she had found a father who always thought she was enough, even when she didn't herself. She was doing this for the man who had showed her she could make her own choices, that she could be a good person and that the pride of a father shouldn't have to been earned, that rather it was given. She wanted to be a daughter worthy of that love. She would never understand how she was still around to receive it when others who seemed so much more worthy were gone. Why had Tali been taken and she left behind? How could someone so young and innocent as Kelly be so cruelly taken and she left to receive her father's love?

Knowing that she had to call Gibbs made the act itself no easier because this was it, if possible it was even more final than watching Tony's plane depart. And as much as she wanted to change and for the first time in such a long time, become a person whose eyes she could meet in the mirror, she was still terrified of doing it alone. She felt as if the tempest going on behind her eyes was going to swallow her whole. But that only confirmed the decision, there were only two people who could help her in this state, and one was on a transatlantic flight.

The last time it had taken such consideration to dial Gibbs number she had been confessing her father as a murderer. That night had changed everything, after that everything had spiralled out of control; she had spiralled into her own need for revenge, a bloodlust she had not known since Tali's death. Gibbs had told her that part of her died in the desert but he was sorely mistaken, the beast had been reawakened with devastating consequences. How could she live having to meet that monster's eyes in the mirror every day?

After finally summoning the courage to dial the wait for him to answer was excruciating, it seemed to take forever until the ringing disappeared only to be replaced by silence and then finally "Hey, Ziver". It took all she had not to burst into tears, and it was only by biting down on her lip and frantically running her tongue across the roof of her mouth that she prevented it. Oh God, what was she supposed to say to him?

"Gibbs…I'm…I'm not coming back, well not for now at least"

"Was worried you might say that"

"I have been fighting myself all day trying to decide for certain and you already knew? Your famous gut of course?"

"Yeah some things don't change Ziver"

"And others do, people do. I can no longer live with the person I have become, Gibbs. I can no longer meet my eyes in the mirror and justify the blood on my hands to myself anymore. I never wanted this, I never wanted any of it. I never wanted to be this person. I dreamed of being a ballerina, of having children of my own someday. When I was younger I used to check under my sister Tali's bed every night for monsters, I never thought I would become one. I am the type of person parent's warn their children about, Gibbs, I'm a monster"

"No Ziver, you're just a little girl who wanted her father to love her and be proud of her. You were willing to give up everything for him, for your family and for your country, both of them. That doesn't make you a monster"

"I've killed so many people and I can no longer simply push that away. I do not remember the last time I slept without the ghost of someone whose life I had taken interrupting my dreams. I killed my own brother, what kind of person does that make me?'

"One of the bravest and honourable that I will ever know. You've been forced to make hard decisions, ones where there was no wholly right answer and you have always picked the answer that was for the greater good."

"I can't do this anymore"

"I know and that's ok, that doesn't stop any of us from loving you or caring about you. Just because you don't want to do this job any more doesn't make you any less a part of this family. And it doesn't mean you need to stay away."

"I know" she choked, having well and truly lost the battle with her tears by this point. "I know, but I don't know who I am, Gibbs. It has been so long since I have done anything for myself, towards being the person that I wanted to be that I have forgotten who that is. And I think I need space to figure that out."

"Yeah I understand kid. Doesn't mean you need to completely cut ties though, ok?"

It was all she could do to manage a mumble in response, this was it she was really doing this.

"I…I need to go. I love you abba."

"Love you too kid, stay safe."

And that was it. As she disconnected the tears overtook her. Oh God what had she done, what was she going to do? She curled in on herself, desperately trying to provide some comfort but the desperate clinging was no match for a real hug. She couldn't help but think of Abby's bone crushing tackle hugs that had seemed to foreign but now so familiar. She thought of Gibbs bear hugs and how safe and small she felt in his arms. And of Tony, how right it felt to be encased in him. And that was when she realised that home wasn't a place anymore but that it was in his arms. To find her way home she would first have to find herself, find the little girl who wanted to dance and then maybe find the woman who deserved that home.