Author's Notes: Hello dear readers, and welcome to the sequel to A Treatise on Longing. If you haven't read that one, this one will be a little confusing. So, you should go read it, then come right back here. As always, feedback most greatly appreciated!
Disclaimer: Not my characters, just taking them out for a spin.
One.
For so long, she didn't allow herself to think about the future. With Mossad, she could not think beyond the current mission, because survival was far from guaranteed. All it took was one bullet, one quick snap of the head. She knew how quickly death could come because she could kill in a split second. It was only a matter of time before death came for her instead. Mossad agents were lucky to live past a certain age and the clock was ticking.
And then she was saved by Jenny Shepard. Jenny had worked with her on multiple missions, knew how trapped she felt in her life, especially after she had killed Ari, even though she never complained. Jenny created the liaison position with NCIS, personally called Eli David to request his daughter because she knew this was what he wanted anyway, placed her on Gibbs' team. Gibbs had protested, claiming he did not have room on his team for an assassin, but Jenny put her foot down, and Ziva found a home. No longer in a kill or be killed world, she was allowed to relax, using the observational skills she had to learn to carry out missions to instead catch killers. And while she believed for so long that all she was good for was death, she finally learned that this was far from the truth.
Still, she longed for something, a connection. She thought she found it with Michael Rivkin, but she still isn't sure how much of their relationship was a lie. Did her father order him to seduce her the way he ordered her to kill Ari to gain the trust of a stranger? Did he genuinely love her, or was it all an act? She will never have answers to these questions, since Michael took them to his grave.
She had fewer illusions about her relationship with Ray Cruz. She knew he had secrets, all CIA operatives do, but she had secrets to keep, too. She had fun when they were together and long distance relationships suited her independent nature, or so she had thought. Now she knows that she could only stand Ray in small doses, a week skiing or on the beach here and there. He had proposed and she was so tempted, to pretend that he was the something that she was missing from her life. Marrying him would have been a disaster, so it was almost a relief when she found out that he had killed an innocent American on US soil.
She had a connection with Roy Sanders, but they had met when he was already dying. If he hadn't been dying, they likely would never have met, even though they ran past each other every day. It was romantic because of what could have happened. For all she know, he was anti-Semitic. Probably not. But, like so many things in her life, it was doomed from the start.
If she believed in superstitions the way Abby does, she would think someone had put a hex on her. Instead, she believed for so long that she simply did not deserve to be happy, to find a connection that was permanent. It took her a very long time to realize that she actually had that, just in an unexpected person.
At first, and second, glance, Anthony DiNozzo Junior was the archetypal all-American boy. The type who, when he went to another country, alienated the locals with his too loud voice, crass jokes, and inability to speak the local language. He played pranks, gave everyone nicknames, and just generally goofed off at every available turn. She enjoyed flirting with him when they first met, because he was good looking and she was sure that she would not see him again.
Somewhere along the way, she cannot pinpoint the exact moment no matter how much she goes through her many memories of him, he became an essential part of her. They forged a connection, one that was strong enough to withstand betrayals and mistrust and even death itself. For many years, she told herself it was because they were partners, but she had other partners before, including Michael, and never had so strong a bond.
Tony had her back, no matter how angry she got at him, no matter how misguided she turned out to be. He somehow got her to lighten up. Once, when she explained to him that they grew up in different worlds, that in her world, she had to grow up fast. That there was no choice. His reply was, "now you do." He took something complicated and made it seem so simple.
Even now, since she returned from the dead for the second time, he has made it simple. He accepted the daughter she kept from him for two years. He welcomed her back into his life, into his new house in a new state, like he knew she was always going to be there. He said that he did not know, that he wanted to believe she was alive and would find her way back to him eventually, but he was worried that Tali would end up with a father who lived only in the past.
She never doubted that he would make an excellent father, but seeing him with his child, with their child, still takes her breath away, even after a month. He is gentle and patient, even when she starts to get frustrated with the toddler. He is her favorite playmate, going along with her games and making up new ones that make her giggle and squeal.
This man, the same one she originally wrote off as shallow, means more than she ever believed possible. And after all she put him through over the years, he still looks at her like she are someone to be desired. He comes home every day, to a house he said he picked out with her in mind, and kisses her. And in those kisses is a promise that there is a life for her here, one with him, one she never allowed herself to imagine before.
Finally, the dark clouds that covered her life for so long part and sunlight spills through, and she finds that she can take a deep breath without feeling like she might suffocate.