Several months had passed by since he saw her for the last time. Since that night,at the airport, when Tony came back to D.C., without bringing with himself his most desired company. Ziva David. Months, and he still couldn't stop thinking about her. Every night, flashbacks kept him staying up all night, and when he could finally sleep he find himself dreaming with the old moments. Tony couldn't take it any longer, he actually thought she would come back, that she only needed some time to think and start again in Israel and then they would be together forever.
One night, after resolving a case, finding the killer dead, suicide and have drunk a few whisky shots, Tony decided he would go looking for her.
There weren't so many differences this time from that older search, a year ago, except the fact that now he knew where to find her. Tony booked an immediate flight to Tel Aviv, and left, to see her in the place where she was born.
He opened the other, to find a woman sitting on the couch, looking to the window of the living room, where you could see and splendid view of the garden, now with trees filled with beautiful flowers.
"You look more rested." He said.
Ziva lightly turned her body, recognizing the voice but not truly believing. He was right there, in front of her. Ziva also never stopped thinking about him, she remembered every moments, and even trying to forget, trying to get rid of the anguishing pain that was not being home, not being with her family. She didn't forget about Abby, McGee, Ducky, Jimmy and Gibbs.
"Hello."
"Hi" he said, not knowing how to start a conversation after all that time, without sounding uncomfortable between 'old friends'.
"Why are you here?"
"Couldn't live without you, I guess" Tony said it with a light smile appearing in his tired face.
"So it's the same old cliche, I guess"
In that instant there was a silence. One looked into each others' eyes, reminiscing sweet memories, like Paris, Berlin, and that same house a year before. They all brought so many smiles and so much joy for both, but made it ten times worse when it was time to say goodbye, and to break even more a already broken heart.
Later, Ziva asked Tony why he was there, once more, to see what was the real reason he flied across the world to find her. The last time was because she asked for company, and the time begore because he wanted to avenge her supposed death while she was being held hostage in Somalia.
He looked at her, but before he could answer the kettle whistled. Perfect timing, they both thought.
After coffee and a little bit of tv, Tony showed her a piece of paper. She stared at him, confused.
"Tony, this is a blank paper. Why are you showing it to me?"
"This is my 'I Will' list. I promised to myself after I left that airport that i would write one down and it would become true." She tried to say something but he kept going. "However, when I got home I could not. I kept looking at this damn paper to see if I could find something that I want, something that I wish, but I choked."
"And why did that happen, Tony?" The last word came out of her mouth in a cold way, not getting where he was going with all that talking.
"You. I wasn't lying earlier, you know? I just could not live without you. I could not work without you,Ziva. For several weeks it was only me, McGee and Gibbs, no Mossad liaison officer, no special agent David, no 'wrongly said' expressions. Nothing. It tortured me for weeks. For weeks."
In those last few phrases repressed anger from that past year started to show up, and Ziva, by the way her face was, would start getting in defensive (even though there were tears in her eyes).
"Oh, and you think it was easy for me? I stood here by my self, Tony. I could not go back to being what I was but I could not get that leaving my life there would also mean I had to leave everything and everyone I loved!"
"But that was your choice! You were the one in charge of it!"
"That was my choice, yes. But everyday that passed by I thought about going back there. And then I remembered about Ari, about Tali, and everyone else that I loved, and how much they hurt. And then about Gibbs. The closest thing I had to a father, to a family and I haven't been speaking to him for weeks. So don't start lecturing me cause I know my choices and I know my reasons."
That being said she left the room with authority, wondering if Tony had seen the tears that were fulfilling her eyes.
DiNozzo was sitting in that couch, speechless. He had never thought about her point of view, and in a selfish way wanted that it would all come back to what there was before they quit NCIS. Tony slept there, in the living room, even though the spare room with an actual bed was offered to him earlier that day, before all the screaming that happened.
When Ziva woke up she did not find Tony inside the house, and thought that he must have left her without even saying goodbye. A part of her wanted him to be gone so she could be in peace and finally try to forget about him, but the other part wished he stayed with her for a few more days, at least.
A couple of hours later, she was walking by her garden and saw a shadow digging a hole in the ground not thar far away from where she was standing. She ran over there, as cautious as she could be and found Tony there.
He turned his head and said:
"This is the place, you know? A year ago, we were standing in this spot burying your 'I Wish' list."
"And why are you here again?"
"Last night" he said, apparently choosing his word wisely "couldn't sleep so I finished mine. Amd thought to myself that there would be no better place to bury it than with yours. However when I got here I could not find it."
"Yeah, I took it from there four days ago."
"Why? Why would you?" He asked, not understanding the reasons Ziva did that after burying.
"All those things written would not come true…all I really wanted I was and still am not able to make them come back."
He looked at her in her beautiful big brown eyes, trying to read her thoughts.
"You wanted Tali back."
"Yeah, but just like I said to my father, my sins are too great."
"Too great for what?"
"Forgiveness"
Thay being said, in a smooth voice, they both gone separate ways, Ziva going for a walk and Tony back to the house.
She walked until she found the swing, sat there quietly, watching the clouds go by so fast in a turquoise blue sky like it was that morning. Ziva was reminiscing her childhood, with her father, Tali, and all the others she loved that were not there anymore. It hurted more than she could have imagined as a kid, more than she could admit,to herself and to others.
Gibbs knew all of that. After Tony left, a year before she called his cellphone, begged him not to answer, so she would not have to say goodbye, and just when it was going to voicemail he picked up "Hey Ziver" he said. Leroy Jethro Gibbs, was like always, a great listener and acted just like a father, reading in her mind that that was all she needed in certain occasions. A father. Unfortunately, she wanted more, she needed more. She wanted to move on, let go and start all over. Rewind the past, something that cannot be done very easily. However, in her circumstances, she was willing to give it a try.
Tony, on the other hand, kept imagining what he would do on the next day. He had no plane ticket to return to D.C., and wasn't sure if the Marine Corps would give him a ride home. And worst of all, he didn't know how many more days he would be "welcome" in that house. In Ziva's life. Then, exhausted he turned the tv on and while watching some comedy show in hebrew, fell asleep on the couch.
Ziva spent her whole afternoon in that old swing, until the sunset behind the cliffs and mountains.
At night, Tony surprised Ziva with a special italian cuisine dinner, "original recipe from the DiNozzo family, I hope you liked it".
"I did."
They stared into each others' eyes, invisible flames burning between. Seconds passed by, and not a whisper was heard, his head got closer to hers, their lips almost touching. But like O said before, it was all quiet. Maybe too quiet.
Booom. The window broke down as a bullet flied to hit their target. Someone was outside, in her garden, in her house, and that person tried to kill her. Or kill Tony. For millimeters she didn't get shot. Ziva's Mossad impulses came back in matter of a blink of an eye, she grabbed her gun (not kept with her any longer, but in a little box at the coffee table) and ran into the darkness of the night to find that shooter. Ziva didn't look back at any instant, that's why she could not see Tony bleeding.
Tony was shot in his stomach area, in the left side. If only he had seen it, if only he was more on the right side of the room, "if only" he thought "I had kissed her first."
DiNozzo wasn't thinking he would die in that moment, the bullet wasn't in somewhere important , he liked to think that could have been worse. But the pain. It was suffocating. Each second it was harder to breath, and each other second it was harder to get strength.
Ziva came back a few minutes after she left. She had chase the guy down and in the dark she pullet the trigger, in a flawless aim just like the 'good-ol-days'.
The woman entered the room to find Tony laying on the ground, bleeding. The was paralyzed for a few seconds. This. That scene, it all looked too familiar. Michael Rivkin, she remembered, her old boyfriend.
A scream echoed around the room, making Ziva's mind come back to reality. She called 911, but it would take too long until the ambulance arrived. She grabbed some towels and held them tight to his body, also cleaning it up a little bit. It took 20 minutes to the ambulance to arrive. The longest twenty minutes of her life. Seeing Tony like that was difficult. In a matter of seconds paramedics arrived, one of them pushing Ziva away from Tony.
"Let me stay with him!" She yelled in hebrew, but the paramedics acted like she wasn't even there. It was all a big mess, a dozen of paramedics were there, instead of three of four. They knew it was the former place where Eli David lived.
"Will he be ok? Is he going to make it?" She yelled, still waiting for an answer.
"You have to come with us, David. We do not know anything in this moment." One of them said quietly.
And so she did.