Ziva continues to wait in Paris, missing Tali and Tony more with each day that passes.
Ziva was awake at zero four, and she couldn't get back to sleep.
She'd adjusted the air conditioning in the hotel room, but that hadn't helped, and she'd gone to the bathroom, but that had apparently signaled to her body that it was time to be up, so that when she lay back down to attempt to sleep again, her legs felt restless and she couldn't get comfortable.
How had she grown so used to the comfort of another body nearby?
Frustrated, she slid out of the bed, her bare feet landing on the coarse material of the hotel's shoddy carpeting. Not for the first time, she wondered if this was her punishment for things she'd done wrong in her life, but she shook her head to banish the thought.
She had talked about this with a therapist, after she'd found out she was pregnant. She could not continue to think of life in terms of what she deserved or didn't deserve. It had been so hard for her to reconcile the killer she'd been with the mother she was becoming, and although she had wanted to be a mother more than anything, she had never been entirely certain that she was worthy of such a gift.
Even now, despite the hours she'd spent in therapy, she sat amazed and blessed by Tali. She was certainly not the only mother who felt awed by what she had.
It had been so hard to find a therapist that she could open up to, but once she had, it had made such a difference. She was the one who had encouraged Ziva to reach out to Tony, to tell him about the baby, despite her misgivings about being ready for that kind of commitment to another person.
"Like it or not, Ziva, you are going to have a lifetime commitment already. That is what this child is. You may as well open yourself up to another." Her therapist's words rang true even now, and she longed for the lifetime commitment of both Tali and Tony. She smiled to think about him. If only she had been able to reach out to him.
She couldn't have called him because Mossad was watching her, that much she knew, and being the daughter of the assassinated leader of a government agency would not easily afford her a quiet, private life. She knew that she was being watched, not just by Mossad, but other groups, some of which undoubtedly had ill intentions. But she had given no impression that she intended to return to that life, and she made every show of being nothing but a mother, content to live off of the inheritance her father had left behind.
She may not have agreed with her father's legacy, but she could certainly use it for something good, like raising Tali.
Her position had continued to be precarious, however, and she hadn't liked that despite having left it all behind, she'd needed to continue to watch over her shoulder daily, on the off chance that something untoward was happening. After having left NCIS, she had just wanted to live a simple, quiet life. A normal life.
Instead, she'd had to be wary at every turn, making sure that no one was out to harm herself or her daughter. She'd made contact with Orli once, asking why she was being followed, but Orli would not give her any information. "You are no longer on the list of people who need to know, Ms. David," Orli had said to her, and Ziva had been infuriated, but she couldn't really blame the woman. After all, part of her job was guarding state secrets, and as an American citizen with ties to an American federal agency, Orli had had every right to keep her in the dark.
Still, Ziva had known that there was something she needed to be aware of, and she'd done her best to keep up on intel as best as she could without arousing suspicion. She had longed to reach out to McGee, who could have cited her as an international intelligence contact and hopefully given her some information. She had longed to reach out to Vance, who might have been able to do the same, or at the very least, given her something cryptic that she could have gone off of.
Most of all, she had longed to reach out to Tony, to tell him that she was pregnant and that she missed him, and that she may have made a mistake by having let him leave her. Again.
But she'd known that if she reached out via telephone, she would have been considered "in contact" with the Americans – which was ridiculous because she was one, and she might have been targeted for that reason alone. Never mind the fact that they were her friends. No. Those who would do her harm would have seen her former coworkers and her contact with them as a threat, and she – and her unborn baby – would have been the one to pay the price for it.
She may not have been feeling great about her past, but she certainly didn't think she deserved to die over it, and she had very much wanted to survive once she'd realized she was pregnant with Tony's child.
Just as much as she wanted to survive now that she was the mother of Tony's child. Ziva hugged herself, rubbing her arms absently. If only it were Tali …
For similar reasons, she could not have reached out to him via e-mail. Perhaps it had been paranoid of her, but she hadn't wanted to run the risk that any of her online activities could be tracked. She'd never had any social media before she'd left, and it would have looked suspicious for her to start a social media account so suddenly. Maybe it would have been all right because of Tali, just a new mother eager to share her daughter's milestones with friends, but she still had not wanted to risk it, and she did not want Tony to find out about their daughter from an Instagram post.
No, that was the sort of thing she had to tell him specifically. Preferably in person, but over the phone or in an e-mail would have sufficed. Unfortunately, she had not had the luxury to do either of those things without compromising herself.
In the end, she had chosen to write him a letter. She had poured her heart onto the page, telling him that she was sorry for pushing him away and inviting him back into her life. That they could be a family – she remembered very distinctly that she had written that. And she had been very careful that she had not been spotted as she slipped the letter into a public mailbox and onto her future, and she'd gone home and waited.
A month came and went, and he had not contacted her. Perhaps it was possible that the letter had gotten lost in the mail. So she had tried again. A second time she wrote, and there had been no response. She'd been left to conclude two things – either that Tony hadn't wanted anything to do with her, or that her letters had been intercepted by someone who did not want her to contact him.
Even now, she could not ascertain why, seeing as Tony was the father of her child and that would be a perfectly logical reason to reach out to him, but someone, somewhere, did not want him to know.
Still, Ziva had refused to give up hope, and she always knew that there would be a day when one of her letters reached him, and he would come to her. She'd sent eight letters with no response, and by the time she had been nearing her due date, she'd asked a friend to help her film some moments in her life so that Tony would not be entirely left out. He might miss things, but he wouldn't, not completely.
Ziva wondered now if Tony had found the DVD she'd made for him, and if he'd cried as much as she had when she'd made it, knowing that she was sending Tali away, at least for a short while.
God, but she missed her. She thought maybe after a few days the ache would dull some, but so far she still felt just as empty as she had the first day without her. Even though she'd kept her own copy of the DVD so that she could watch it whenever she was missing Tali, it wasn't even remotely the same as being able to physically interact with her baby girl.
Just thinking about the video made her want to watch it again. If this continued, the portable DVD player Tony had gotten hear nearly five years ago would get more use than his own. But it wasn't like she could have brought her laptop with her, not without it being traced.
She shook her head, smiling as she flipped open the lid to the player. The disc was already inside, and all she had to do was start it from the beginning. She settled in, watching as the memories flooded back to her. She never got past seeing the doctor handing her Tali for the first time before starting to cry, and this morning was no different. Touching the screen with her fingertips when her daughter's precious smile lit up the screen, Ziva choked back a tortured sob.
If only it did not have to be like this.
Unfortunately, though, it did, and as she watched her daughter's milestones in quick succession as she'd had them filmed for Tony, she knew – whether it was a gut feeling, she couldn't say – that Tali would be all right with Tony. She'd made sure that Tali had known who her father was, from the very beginning. And one day, they would be a family, the three of them.
It was not quite six when she finished watching the video, and she wiped her tears off of her face and slid on her shoes, intent on going out for something to eat. It was still too dark for sunglasses, but she figured if she kept her head down, she could avoid being recognized.
Before she left the room, her eyes caught a glimpse of something pink sticking out of her bag. It was one of Tali's dresses, one that did not fit her anymore but that Ziva had been loath to give up. Was there something so wrong about being sentimental every once in a while? For all her years of shunning sentimentality, she'd finally come to understand that it was okay to hold onto things – and people – for purely the value of a memory.
Ziva stepped over to her bag and pulled out the dress, holding it close to her cheek. New tears welled up in her eyes as she caressed the material, the only physical piece of her daughter she'd carried with her when she'd fled Israel. Thousands of photos of Tali sat in her cloud storage, which would be accessible when she once again had a phone, but this dress, the DVD she'd made only two copies of, and one printed photograph were the only things she had.
"It is not enough," she sighed, her shoulders shrugging in defeat. It had to be, but it was not. Tali had been her reason for existence these last two years; Tali had given her purpose. It was strange to think of her life before, in which she was beholden to no one but herself, but Tali had changed that. Tali had changed everything.
And she knew that she had Tony to thank for that.
She opened the door of her hotel room and stepped outside, practically tiptoeing in the early morning so as not to wake anyone up. Surely some café would be open at this hour, but if not, she could wander around for a little while. She'd gone out every day for meals, but mostly, she'd remained cooped up in the hotel room and the fresh air and walking would do her some good.
As she walked out of the hotel room, she surveyed the street in front of her. Looking first to the right, she noted the place she had eaten her dinner the night before. Ziva was trying to keep a low profile, which meant avoiding eating at the same place too many times. The longer it took Tony to get here with Tali, however, the more likely it would be that she'd have to.
Not for the first time, she wondered if she might have to find a more permanent place to stay. She had plenty of money, but hotel living was not sustainable in the long-term. And if she had to move into an apartment, she'd have to find some way of letting Tony know where he could find her again. Everything hinged on Tony realizing and finding her as soon as possible.
The waiting was absolutely killing her, in so many ways.
It was early, and the streets were still relatively quiet compared to the usual bustle of tourists that milled about the city. Most of the people out and about this early were people who lived here, those who were heading to pick up some bread and a coffee before they would move on to their workplace. Some were elderly, a man paying for a newspaper at a nearby stand, for example, and some were younger, like the man with a child with soft curls.
Her stomach dropped. There was no way. It couldn't be … could it? The man turned around and her heart sank as she realized that it was not Tony. Of course not. It had been only a week. Still, her heart pounded in her chest and she had a little difficulty catching her breath. She had been so hopeful, and so quickly. Ziva closed her eyes and took a moment to compose herself. Do not get carried away, but have faith. They will come.
With resumed composure, she walked along the sidewalk, looking for a place she could sit to have something quick to eat. Across the street, she spotted a small café that appeared to be open. She looked for traffic and crossed, intent on discovering what kind of something delicious she could have this morning when she realized.
This was the café that she and Tony had eaten at, the last (only) time they'd been here together. Suddenly the memories came flooding back to her, of sitting across from him and enjoying a croissant while he smiled at her, the way his eyes lit up his face as he teased her for waking up wrapped around him. That had been the start, or at least the shift. From something teasing and overtly sexual to something deeper.
Paris would always have special meaning to them. Tony had even said it when they'd returned, that they would always have Paris. And they would. And soon, so would Tali.
She stepped to the counter to order her breakfast, a croissant, some fruit, and a coffee, and paid, and then gathered her food and walked outside to one of the tables where she could indulge in some people watching, discreetly, of course. It was early and while her guard was still up, she could relax a little. Once she sat down, she reached into her coat pocket and pulled out her photograph of Tali. She kept it with her at all times.
Her beautiful girl stared up at her with chubby cheeks and bright eyes, trusting and loving and entirely adoring of her mother. Tali knew how loved she was, how much Ima loved her, but also how much her Abba did, too. Ziva didn't know how she knew, but somehow, she was absolutely certain that the moment Tony met her, he would adore her, and she had always told Tali that both Ima and Abba loved her very, very much.
Looking at the picture in her hands, her fingers brushing it lightly, she wondered how anyone could not?
She sighed, feeling another batch of fresh tears welling up in her eyes. Her heart hadn't stopped aching since the moment she'd left, but it had to be this way. The only way she could absolutely ensure that Tony would come and find her would be to send him Tali. It was not the way that she wanted him to find out. But at this point, it really was the only way, and it was no use dwelling on regrets if they could have their chance for a future.
"Why must everything be so complicated?" She spoke softly to the photograph, her voice tinged with sadness. She lifted the picture to her lips and brushed lightly, wishing more than anything that she could be kissing Tali for real, and then held her daughter close to her heart.
Please come back to me, she thought, her mantra over the last several days. Please.
Tear after tear rolled down her cheek as she sat in the corner of a café and grieved.
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