(A/N: The UK is several episodes behind in broadcasting NCIS, so I only know what I've seen in a few clips of the finale - I hope any inaccuracies that result can be forgiven. I just had to write this, though, driven by feeling very emotional about the revelations that prompted Tony leaving the team! Well, that and a deep sense of denial because I really loved Tony and Ziva together. This is also my first NCIS story, so thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy it.)

Tony's almost certain that what he's doing is completely mad, but then his life is a little mad at the moment. He, Anthony Dinozzo, with everything that name entails and everything his life has been, has a daughter.

He'd figured for years now that this was off the table. He'd made a choice - unconsciously at first, then quite deliberately years ago, dripping wet in front of a fireplace as he looked between a little family and his team - to devote everything to his job. He had buried the part of him that wanted a wife and child because there were still crimes to solve and people to save, and because he already had a family, in a way. There wasn't room for more than that.

Now he's standing in a hotel room in Paris, watching his little girl babble away to her favourite toys - her old dog, and a little cat he bought before they left Washington. She's stroked its soft fur so much between the ears that he wonders if it will have worn away by her next birthday.

Her next birthday. It hits him again with a wave of emotion he's still not used to - he has a daughter and he's going to be with her through everything. She's going to have so many birthdays, she's going to go to school and make friends and have parties and one day she's going to graduate; one day maybe he'll get to walk her down the aisle and he's never seen a future like this before. This precious life has been handed to him and it fills places inside him that have been empty for such a long time.

It is tempered by grief. The loss of Ziva is like a gaping wound that only got worse in Israel, because being there without her, without any chance of seeing her, felt wrong in ways he couldn't describe. They didn't stay long.

But Paris. The memories are good here - memories he'll tell Tali about one day, the days her Imah and Abba spent in this city, their not-a-vacation that he'll never forget about.

It feels better here. There's so much to show Tali, and he wants her to see everything - the tourist sights and the back streets, the little cafes where he can buy her endless hot chocolates... (Oh God, he's going to have to start eating more carefully. It's mostly been restaurant meals so far but when they're back home he's going to have to have serious thoughts about vegetables.)

But there's something else first. A last hope in hell, a you never know until you try. Because he knows Ziva's dead, that's what they all told him, but he is Gibbs' special agent and his gut just isn't quite sure.

He drops down next to his daughter on the sofa, and his heart soars when she beams up at him. She is the most beautiful person he's ever seen in his life.

"Are you ready to go exploring, Tali?" he says, reaching over to tickle her sides. Her laugh is just for him, because of him, and he's never loved anyone this much.

She reaches the toys out towards him, pressing them against him like her defenders, and he rocks back on the sofa as though overpowered, letting her clamber up onto his legs.

"Oh, I'm defeated!" he cries dramatically, hands instinctively on her sides to steady her. "I take it your friends are coming too, then? Okay, but tell them I mean no harm! We need to go get some cake."

Tali climbs down, leaving him with temporary custody of the toys while she grabs the little backpack he got at the start of the trip. There is a ritual to be followed here, and they know it well by now. She presses a kiss to the little cat then holds it out to Tony, who obediently kisses it before Tali tucks it into the bag. The dog gets its two kisses too, the dog that Ziva gave her, before it is placed safely in beside its companion. Tali zips it up carefully but clearly doesn't want to carry it today, because she puts it in Tony's lap. The bag is small, pink and covered in flowers, but Tali is the cutest thing in the world and this was a done deal a long time ago.

They leave the hotel hand in hand. His fingers have held guns and cuffs and held down the worst kind of criminals and today they hold this tiny hand, to keep his daughter safe.

His friends probably thought the time away would help him process what's happened, but Tony still doesn't know how he feels. The grief comes in waves so overpowering that he wants to curl up and cry because she can't be gone, how can she die, she's a ninja and he needs her. Being apart from her was hell but at least he knew she was out there, that the future was a maybe not a no. Now everyone tells him it's over for good and he doesn't know how to handle it.

But he's angry, too. Angry because she cheated him out of those first few years of Tali's life - that because she was strong and didn't need him that somehow meant he didn't have the right to know that this child existed. She hadn't had the right to decide that his life was better without knowing he had a daughter because he would have moved heaven and earth to be with his child and that would have been his choice.

And yet, here and now, he has been given something that means more than anything else ever could, and every time he reaches for that anger to push away the grief they both fade into this sense of love, love, love. He knows, now, more acutely than he ever could have done before, how all those families felt in the cases that involved children. He would do anything for Tali without second thought, without hesitation, because this is a love that has taken over his mind, his heart, his body, and he will protect her in any way he can. That's why leaving NCIS turned out to be so simple, when he once thought he could never choose to go - because the risk of dying was one he couldn't take when he was all Tali had.

It's not like he's leaving the others behind for good, anyway. Gibbs is going to be a second grandfather to his child, he's sure of that - he can already picture them working in the basement together, Gibbs guiding her hands on the sandpaper. Maybe they'll take her sailing together. And no one could outrun Abby even if they wanted to; she was going to be the most doting aunt for Tali. He'd have McGee and Bishop over for dinner, maybe have barbecues in the summer. He was going to have to think about getting a house, somewhere close enough that Tali's extended family could always come and visit...

There is a gaping hole in this picture where Ziva should be. It's here now, too, because there is no one holding Tali's other hand as they stroll down the streets of Paris.

He can't dwell on it, because the last thing he wants is to upset his child. So he swings her up into his arms and remembers when he drove these roads with her mother, and tells his daughter about every movie that was set in the city. She probably doesn't understand most of what he says but she seems to like his voice, and every now and then she points out some new find - a huge building or a street performer, and her excitement infects him with every step.

One last chance. He'll take this one last chance and if it turns out he was wrong then he'll walk away. He'll show his daughter everything he loves about Paris and then he'll take her home, and he'll build a steady life for her. He'll accept what must be true and he will do the right thing, and move on for the sake of his child.

But he has to try first. He has to find out if she was trying to tell him something.

Because it's Ziva. If anyone could have done the impossible, it's her.

So he takes Tali to the cafe they went to those years ago. He orders a coffee and a hot chocolate and two slices of cake and they sit at a table outside. As his daughter starts pulling the marshmallows out of her drink and setting them aside in a careful row, for a reason he cannot begin to guess, Tony pulls the dog and the cat back out of the bag and sets them on the table. It's so different to last time, and there are certainly no motorcycle rides ahead of them today, but it feels right in a way he can't describe. This is who he is now - maybe who he was always meant to be.

They sit for ages. Tali seems quite content - she drinks and eats and chats away, apparently unconcerned when her father can't follow everything she says. How much of it is Hebrew or English or the unique language of children he isn't quite sure, but it hardly matters. He'd say yes to anything she asked anyway.

Eventually, Tony starts to wonder if they should go. It was a mad idea. Even if she had survived, there was no saying that she'd have come to Paris - and no reason why she should happen to come to the cafe on this day at this time anyway. Maybe he'd just been hoping for some act of God, some miracle, destiny, or anything.

The trouble is that if he stands up now he'll be admitting that she's gone. That Ziva died without any chance of a goodbye and that whatever he does for Tali there will always be a gap in their lives where her mother should be. He is grateful beyond all measure that he will be in Tali's life but Ziva was the love of his, and he can't bring himself to walk away.

But he has to. Perhaps without his daughter he would be on the brink, but he is responsible for her and he will not waver in that.

"Come on, love," he says at last. "We should get going."

She's touching the necklace. Ziva's Star of David looks so bright in her little hands, and she looks up at him with a smile. He will treasure every moment with her.

Then he realises she's not looking at him, she's looking over his shoulder. He feels the same thrum in his stomach that he got when McGee and Abby arrived at his apartment with the news but this time it is not that sinking, destructive certainty but a wordless desperate hope. It might be mad and it might be in vain but he came here for an impossible chance and what if, what if -

Tali stands up and her smile is like sunlight.

"Imah!"

"Hello, Tony."