***Disclaimer: I own the dvd's and a brilliant story about Gibbs but sadly that is all. Oh, and I do own a vcr with which to tape the next 3 glorious episodes because I will be working.

WHAP! Her glove hit the training bag. A jab. A punch. A hook. An uppercut. A backhand. She repeated. She repeated again, until the cool of the bag was warm from her repeated blows. She was fighting an invisible enemy known only to her, but an enemy nonetheless. THUMP! Her foot hit the training bag. A front kick. A side kick. A round house and a jump kick. She repeated. She repeated again until the tape around her foot came loose from her repeated blows. She had been here for hours. They had shut the gym down around her but still she remained. Soft lights lit her face. The only other solution was to run it out of her system and she had tried that. Repeatedly. She had run through the streets of D.C., through the rain, sun, and now snow. Day after day, month after month with the confusion still wrapping around her brain. Tonight was the worst of all of them.

She kicked and punched trying to smooth the rough edges of her fathers words. They echoed loudly and repetitively. Her most recent trip to Israel was supposed to have been for pleasure. Pleasure? she thought. Maybe that was the wrong word – then again, maybe not. It was not a relationship that she and Michael had, but more of an agreement. An agreement not to want more. An agreement to give what was asked and nothing more. Sure she was attracted to him. Would she be sleeping with him if she was not? But Tony's words came viciously back to her from the day before. 'Israel's a long way to go for a booty call' he had said in a tone that had been laced with sarcasm. She had almost been able to see it dripping from his tongue. But his words had been right on the dollar. Dollar? No, right on the dime. No… She shook her head as much to clear it of the idiom as to clear it of him. But which him? The one that showed up unannounced on her doorstop last night, red eyed and bleary from his late night flight from Israel? Or the one that had commanded her every waking thought until a few months ago? The one that teased her mercilessly about her grasp of the English language and berated her with endless movie quotes that in the beginning had driven her crazy but now… now they were almost a comfort.

Maybe she did not want to be clear of them. Them? One or the other, Ziva, you can not have both, her mind told her. She pounded the bag harder. The sound resounded off the walls and fell back against her. How did it all get so complicated? Complicated? She laughed out loud at the word. The word that Tony had unknowingly broken her heart with. She let fly a few more punches then suddenly stopped as awareness brushed over her. She knew that feeling. There had been a time when she craved the warmth of his gaze. But lately? The warm gazes had been replaced with icy stares. But he was only half responsible. It had been so long since she had felt the warmth creep into his gaze. He had been so broken because of her. Her who had managed to do what no woman, herself included, had ever accomplished. Jeanne had almost tamed the stallion. Ziva felt his gaze rake over her from the doorway and almost felt guilty for allowing herself to enjoy it. Michael was waiting at her apartment. Waiting for her return. Waiting in her bed for her and yet here she was at 3a.m. pounding the stuffing out of a punching bag. She paused briefly and stared at the bag.

"You're googling again."

"Ogling, Ziva, ogling – and haven't we had this conversation before?" he said, darting his eyes back and forth. "Déjà vu".

"I think I actually owe you a few rounds for those pictures, yes?" she said, slamming a barrage of round house kicks soundly against the bag.

"McGee deleted them months ago", he said, looking around the room, avoiding her eyes.

"Months?" she asked, turning slowly around and taking a step closer to him, a paperclip glint in her eyes.

"Ok, ok, maybe it was more like weeks," he said, taking one step back to her two steps forward.

"Weeks?" she said, closing the distance between them quicker than he could get away.

He gave a nervous laugh and flashed her the DiNozzo smile. "Well…" he said, scratching his head.

"Hmmm…?" she said in almost a purr as she came within inches of his lips.

His voice cracked like a 12-year-old boy when he spoke. "I'll…I'll make sure I get rid of them tomorrow."

Ziva raised a single eyebrow, still invading his space.

"Tonight. I'll delete them tonight."

"Tonight is tomorrow, Tony. It is 3am."

"Well to be exact – it's…" he said, jiggling his wrist to check the time. "…3:11am, which to any normal person would beg the question – Why are you here?"

"It is a gym, Tony. Why do you think that I am here? To watch a movie?"

"Ha, ha," he said with a chuckle, shaking his finger at her. "Now you're just trying to be cute."

"Mossad does not train 'cute'," she said, turning back to the bag and punctuating her words with punches.

"And yet you pull it off with such enthusiasm," he said as she slammed her glove against the bag.

"Why are you here, Tony?" she asked, taking a few deep breaths.

"Ah, ah," he said, wagging his finger at her. "I asked you first."

"And you will answer first," she said, stepping closer to him once again.

Oh, he wanted to answer her all right. He wanted to answer her with a few strategically placed moves of his own. He didn't know what he'd been thinking, trying to sneak in and watch her without her knowing. Her ninja senses had detected him the second he had breathed through the crack in the door. But it had been sooo tempting. He had taken a snack run in the middle of a ginormous stack of paperwork and had seen her car in the parking lot. He had half expected to see her at his desk, sitting on the edge, awaiting his return. Lately she had been staying late, coming in early. No one had bothered to question her. Who questions anything an assassin does? Not him that's for sure. He had done his partner duty and invited her for drinks, late night movie showings. And where a year ago she would never have refused not one of his offers, she had turned him down cold every time lately. At first he had brushed it off as breaking herself back into America again, decompressing from what he imagined to be her father's strong hand. But the months went on and on…and on. And she had distanced herself even farther. Then the photo.

The photo. He had burned that damn picture into his mind so that if the guy ever appeared to him in the flesh, he would be sure to let him know how he felt. She had flown almost 6000 miles for a piece of ass. A goddamn booty call and he had told her as much. She hadn't denied it. She had made no attempt to defend her actions. If all she had been looking for was a quick way to satisfy the hunger all she would have had to do is ask. Or maybe eat a Snickers. She could have clubbed him and drug him to her apartment reverse caveman style. But in the back of his mind he knew that the woman and man that they were now would never be able to settle for a one night stand. Once upon a time, page 57 of GSM might have turned into a one night stand, but now? Not with each other. He could never treat her like the others, not even Jeanne. Jeanne. The name sent a spike into his stomach as he stared at the Israeli beauty in front of him. His attraction to this woman was inexplicable. While he could find words to describe Jeanne and what they had together there were no words for Ziva. No paragraphs, no epic novels. Just Ziva.

And that should say it all right there, he thought. But something held him back. Something had held him back for the past 4 years. There was nothing – absolutely nothing – he wouldn't do for her and he hoped she felt the same. He knew she felt the same. But the distance between them that had previously been no thicker than a piece of notebook paper now resembled the Grand Canyon. He wanted to close the distance again. He wanted the fun Tony and Ziva. The TIVA if you will, he thought to himself. He grinned stupidly at the nickname he had created for them. His grin grew bigger when he switched the letters again: Zony. His grin must have gone from stupid to downright idiotic because Ziva had stopped packing the gym bag in front of her and rose to her full height, head tilted, sweat glistening on her face.

"You are grinning like a food, Tony."

"Fool, Ziva."

"Exactly."

She grabbed her bag and started walking across the mats. He fell into step beside her, walking backwards so he could watch her face.

"You still haven't answered my question."

"And you will answer first, Special Agent DiNozzo."

"You know why I'm here, Officer David. The same reason I'm always here late… Or early," he said, checking his watch again.

"Paperwork?"

"Paperwork. Your turn. What's got your panties in a bunch?"

"I do not wear panties."

His mouth went dry, his mind blank. "Commando?" he said in a choked whisper.

"Thong," she said nonchalantly, without reservation.

Don't picture it. Do not picture it, he told himself. He slapped himself in the back of the head.

"You pictured it?" she said with a smirk.

He gave her a scowl but knew that she had baited him into that one.

"No."

Again with the raised eyebrow, he thought.

"Yes," he said in a defeated voice.

"You are too easy, Tony."

He laughed. "If that were true, Ziva, I would be in bed right now and I would not be alone."

The words made her stomach turn slightly and she was at a loss to describe why. She had given up on Tony when she had left for Israel and left him behind. How could she have known she would be returning? That the only reason for their split was a glorified molehunt by the SecNav cigar? So she had spent her time in Israel reconnecting with herself. Retraining herself. Her body. Her mind. Her heart. She had become soft in America. And while most people would not consider Federal Agents 'soft', she knew that her whole persona – who she was – had become a reflection of agency training. And not the agency of Mossad. So retraining was imperative. The skills, the senses, the hardened soul, the cold, emotionless heart.

There was a time, not that long ago, when she had wanted to be that woman in his bed. She had wanted to be to him what Jeanne had been. But the consequences of a relationship with a non-Mossad, non-Israeli, non-Jewish man might even be more weight than even her slight shoulders could bear, no matter her strength. And a family? Gibbs had asked her once if she wanted children. It had not been a simple question then and it was no simpler now, two years later. She rarely let herself get caught up in thoughts of a home with a husband and babies. It was more than unheard of in Israel. A husband? Arranged marriage. Children? Only to continue the line of assassins. Growing up she had believed everything her father told her. As a teenager, she had been proud to be Mossad, proud to be a woman who could bear future lineage to her father, arranged marriage or not. But as the years had gone by, as she was able to see herself as a different type of woman, her goals in life has become different. For brief instances in time, she had been able to see herself as a wife and mother. She had caught herself staring into the mirror, imagining what she would look like with a baby encased within her. Here and there she had dropped hints, however cryptic, to Tony, about having a family, simply to gauge his reaction. She knew how Michael felt. He had never hidden his feelings about creating children with her. But Tony? He had barely been able to allow himself be tied to one girl for more than one week when Jeanne rolled through. The commitment word was more than a scary word to him. It was a dirty word. A word that carried with it thoughts of the woman whose heart he broke and whom had returned the favor. Her thoughts were interrupted by Tony, who was snapping his fingers in front of her face.

"Come on, I'll walk you out," Tony said, grabbing the bag from her shoulder.

"Are you afraid that the big bad dog might jump out and eat me, Tony?"

"Wolf, Ziva, and no, but the Abominable Snowman may decide to ravage you in the storm."

"Storm?" she said questioningly. How long have I been here, she thought.

"It's snowing liked crazy out there. How long have you been in here?" he asked, pushing open the door, echoing her thoughts.

A/N: So these first couple of chapters have been handwritten in my notebook for about two months now and I figured with the appearance of the awful Michael Rifken on the show, now might be a good time to dig it out and post it. It's far from complete, even in my head but feedback is appreciated…. Enjoy!