Author's Note: This is dedicated to my best friend Jules. After a weekend spent at her house watching multiple NCIS episodes. She and I started talking and that is how this story was born. It's going to be a multiple chapter story.

Reviews are love and much appreciated. I would like to thank my two wonderful beta readers: writingherhope & heartzablaze. You ladies are amazing and wonderful friends. I had to admit that this is my very first NCIS story and any feedback will be greatly appreciated.

Ziva David DiNizzo looked out the window of her hospital room and wished for the thousandth time that her husband was there with her. However, no matter how much she wanted him there with her, she knew that she could not ask that of him. She couldn't ask him to risk his life for her again. Her hand rested on her stomach and the bulge that was their unborn child. How she wished that she was someone else, someone that did not have to fear for her life and the lives of the people that she loved most in this world. No amount of wishing would accomplish anything.

She lowered herself onto the bed and thought back over the past year and the events that had brought her to this lonely hospital room.

She supposed that it had all started out innocently enough. After years of playfully flirting with each other, it had suddenly turned into something more. Flirting turned to kisses and kisses turned into making love any time they could manage to sneak away. It eventually led to Ziva resigning from NCIS so that they could marry. Neither realized at the time that their marriage would result in death threats from the organization that she had worked for before joining NCIS.

It all came to a head late one snowy February night. A bomb went off outside their home. Three people were seriously injured. Luckily no one was killed, at least not this time. Ziva knew that this would be only the first of possibly many attempts on her life. Jewish people do not marry outside of their religion, especially Jewish people that were former Mossad agents. It was after the third attempt on Tony's life, one that very nearly succeeded, that she decided to leave. She would rather be alone forever and know that he was alive than have to constantly look over her shoulder for the next assassin on the hunt for her husband.

So, after they made love one final time, she kissed his sleeping face and hurried out of their room. She placed the carefully written note on the coffee maker and left their home for good. Stopping only to look back and whisper softly, "I love you Tony. I hope that you do not hate me too much."

She turned and walked away into the darkness. Knowing that with her gone, her enemies had no reason to continue their campaign of death against her husband. She only hoped that Tony could find some way to forgive her for leaving him like this. It wasn't like her to run when things took a turn for the worst, but these weren't normal circumstances. She would do anything that it took to protect Tony and that included breaking his heart and making him hate her forever.

That's what led her to where she was. However, there is much more to the story. Ziva thought back to the day that it all began, the day that she realized that she loved Tony with all of her heart and soul. Sometimes, when she was feeling sorry for her current situation, she wished that she'd never spoken those three little words that signaled the beginning and the end of their relationship.

They'd been driving to her apartment one night after working a long case. They were both tired and hungry. Tony suggested that they order take out. He'd called on his cell phone and the food was ready when they arrived.

They took it to his apartment and watched the latest baseball game. Tony laughed as he patiently explained the basics to her. Looking at him in the dim lighting something inside her melted and he stopped talking. He looked at her with a mouth full of dim sum and asked, "What?"

She had smiled at him, "You can be quite charming when you want to be."

He shrugged and smiled, "You just caught me on a bad night. That's all."

She'd laughed and punched him. It seemed like enough at that moment. She had a strange feeling deep inside her at that moment, a feeling that everything in their lives was about to change forever. What she didn't know. What she couldn't know was how everything was going to change for everyone in both of their lives.