Author's note: post-aliyah tiva – all of the chapters will be based/written around some of my favorite john mayer songs...so read it and tell me what you think

Disclaimer: don't own ncis...if i did aliyah would NOT have ended the way it did!!!

Chapter 1

Dreaming With A Broken Heart

"When you're dreaming with a broken heart

The waking up is the hardest part"

Ziva closed her eyes letting the breeze blow against her face. It was cool, cold even with a hint of frost in it, so different from the hot, stifling wind that often swept her homeland, she inhaled slowly letting the suddenly biting cold wind fill her lungs, the breeze was different, but in a good way, as was the sun beating down on her bare skin, it wasn't hot, her skin wasn't finding itself pulled and backed taught by the stifling heat, Ziva felt warmed, but pleasantly so. She smiled this wasn't the place of her birth, this wasn't the country she'd grown up in, the place where she'd learned to fight, to kill, to hurt, this wasn't the place that now held more bad memories than good for her, this place safe, this place was home. This was the place where she'd learned to laugh, to cry, to love.

Ziva felt a hand on her shoulder then, for once she didn't stiffen, the Mossad trained urge to fight back, to kill who ever it was that was touching her lay dormant in her breast. Instead her heart sped up wildly, happily, she recognized the touch, the soft squeeze on her shoulder. Ziva turned smiling widely when she met the happily dancing green eyes of her partner. He leaned towards her his lips brushing her ear and sending joyous tingles down her spine, "Close your eyes"

Ziva felt herself laughing, a happy bubbly laugh that seemed to explode out of her. Ziva obeyed her favorite image of him, the one emblazoned on the inside of her eyelids, replacing the real image of him the moment that her eyelids fell shut.

"Smell," Tony commanded softly, he ran his lips along Ziva's jaw as she leaned in automatically trying to close the space between them, he grabbed her reaching hand with his bringing her palm up to his lips, "Uh uh uh," he admonished his voice as light as the kisses he was now placing in the center of her palm, "Come on Zi, just smell them," Tony's voice sounded perfect to Ziva, it was the most perfect balance of joy, teasing, strength and dare she even think it? Love, Ziva added silently, she inhaled deeply smiling at the scent that instantly filled her nostrils. Her eyes flew open as she stared taken aback by the huge bouquet of red roses in front of her.

"Roses," she said then her voice low with disbelief.

Tony grinned leaning in to kiss her lips, he pulled away slowly, reluctantly. He met her eyes whispering his voice barely audible, "Because I love you."

Ziva reached tentatively to touch him her heart still racing from the kiss, "And I lo-"

"Wake up bitch!"

Ziva's dream eyes shut as her real ones flew open, she gasped reeling more so from the dream than the sharp pain now blooming in her stomach a direct product of the the torturers steel toed boot. Ziva grimaced, in her mind she thought of this man as the Ares of her torturers he seemed to relish, gain joy from Ziva's suffering, every blow to her body brought an evil smile to his face.

"Up now!" the same harsh voice yelled. Ziva made her body go limp, another silent act of defiance towards her captors, making it that much harder for them to lift her up and into a chair.

"Where should we start today Ziva? Perhaps your feet yes? They seem to be healing very well," Ziva showed the men a blank unreadable face, Ares was looking for a response from her, one that she was determined not to give him, 3 weeks now and you wold think he would have stopped expecting one.

"Tell us what you know about the Navy's defense plans!" a second man yelled. In Ziva's head she called him Fortinbras, he was all brawn no brains, he'd quicker revert to pure violence to try and break her will, but all of his work had been for naught, Ziva had made up her mind the moment the first torture session had began all those weeks ago. I will not betray NCIS, she thought with unwavering certainty, I will not betray my friends, my family, my home.

"Tell me, do you not tire of asking me that?" Ziva asked her head turning to lessen the force of the blow coming her way for angering her captors. Ziva smirked, they had obviously never been taught to control their emotions as she had. It was frighteningly easier for Ziva to play her captors than it was for them to play her.

"Really Ziva, I am amazed that you have held out this long," Ziva forced back a shudder letting her Mossad mask of unfeeling and complete control slip over her face again, this man, the one who was obviously in charge, calling the shots, was the only one of her captors that truly scared her. He was like Roger Chillingworth, watching each torture session, lurking in the shadows of her tiny cell, waiting for the right moment to step in, to say the only thing, the only words possible that could break Ziva, that could cause her to reevaluate her stance on not talking. Ziva stared at the man watching as he walked slowly towards her, the hairs at the back of her neck stood up while every one of her instincts Mossad and otherwise screamed for her to get as far away from him as quickly as possible. Ziva squelched these senses meeting the man's evilly glittering black eyes steadily, despite her urge to look away, scared from him. He leered down at Ziva's ripped and torn shirt staring t the exposed and bloodied skin with a hate filled smirk on his lips. "Ziva, Ziva, Ziva, you would let your precious Anthony DiNozzo die? You would let your stubbornness bring about his death?"

Ziva flinched her hard mask of unfeeling dropping for a moment as the man's words punched like bullets through her emotional shield leaving her bare and broken, for the first time in the past three weeks Ziva found herself feeling the immense toll the constant torture had taken on her now beaten and broken body, she let out a tiny inaudible gasp meeting the man's eyes angrily, refusing to give him an even further look into the pain coursing through every inch of her body. 'You will not hurt Tony." she said her voice strong and tone unwavering.

The man smiled, "Ah, so now you are ready to talk." he said his tone joyous.

Ziva leaned forward slightly in the chair slipping the knife she' d stolen from the idiot guard out from where it was hidden at the small of her back, she ignored the stinging pain from where the knife cut into her skin, it was just one more wound on top of the plethora of wounds across her skin, she would deal with it later, but right now she had to concentrate, to force her starved mind to concentrate it was the only way that she;d make it out of this alive. Ziva beckoned the man forward, to step closer to her, he obeyed his eyes going wide with pleasure. Ziva inhaled deeply ignoring the tang of blood, her blood in the air, I need to be faster than I have ever been she affirmed silently. The moment the man touched her face her hand flew up plunging the knife straight into his throat, she yanked it out quickly grabbing his gun at the same time that she kicked his dead body away from her.

Three gunshots echoed through the room then there was silence, complete and utter silence.

"Will you wake up by my side?

No she can't cause she's gone, gone, gone, gone."

SOOOO what'd you think???? plzz review...lets see there are 1548 words in this chapter the sum of those digits is 18

this sum will give you (the reader) the number of reviews i'd like to see before the aforementioned chapter is posted...so get to work!!!!

no pressure btw...any review is a gr8 review!!!! (to ppl reading this after 3:30pm eastern time u'll see that my # of reviews i'd like has dropped drastically...lets just say tht a little birdy mentioned tht 30s a really big #!)

Sayra