***So here it is, the next chapter. Apologies are a sign of weakness or it might be that it takes strength to apologize, either way…. No excuses. Life get's in the way. And probably in heaven, nothing gets in the way of good writing time but down here, there just don't seem to be enough hours in the day. Hopefully updates will not be so few and far between at this point. 11days and counting….

He turned to look at her then. She was damp from the rain. He watched her as she moved through his apartment. He wanted to question, to ask the all important words, but he knew that answers would come. But they would have to come soon if what Gibbs had told him was true. He watched her cross to the window, the rain still continuing its downward spiral outside. He knew to wait. He knew to wait for her to come to him, to reveal the reason behind her early morning visit. Her clothes were damp but not soaked. Her hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail but it wasn't her appearance that grabbed his attention so much as the look on her face. He could almost register it as fear if he didn't know her better. It was a look that he had seen so many times staring back at him from the mirror after Jeanne. It was funny, he thought. He hadn't thought in terms of her in a long time. After everything had gone down, he had defined his life as 'before Jeanne' and 'after Jeanne'. Now, a year later, it was just defined as time. But he could see the look on Ziva's face and knew what it meant.

At this point he could only guess at her feelings for Michael. The feelings had been real enough to her to make him jealous, though he had denied it each time she had accused. And she had accused a lot. But to himself he would admit it, admit the twinge he felt every time he heard her speak the word 'Shalom' into a phone, the anger that rose to and tightened in his chest when he realized that it was another man that had been bringing a smile to her face. Not that he had any claim over her, save for the fact that she was his partner. She complemented him perfectly. They had become so close that it wasn't a finishing of each others sentences so much as a complementing of lifestyles. And so he watched her stare out the window, her damp hair holding its curl. He felt the sudden urge to wrap his arms around her and hold her until the smile returned to her face, even if it meant he had to hold on for days. Because, somewhere along the line he had come to the realization that holding on to Ziva forever, might not be the worst thing in the world.

Tony walked to the couch and sat, leaning forward to pull off his boots. Good thing Probie-Wan can't see this outfit, he thought. This one would have made YouTube for sure. He took off his jacket and laid it across the back of the couch, leaving him bare chested as he leaned back to wait. The minutes ticked by. His 007 clock on the wall next to the TV was the only sound in the room save for the falling rain. He tilted his head back to look at the ceiling, anything to keep his eyes off of her. He was able to contain himself for only another 30 seconds or so before his eyes drifted in her direction. Her figure was outlined against the window by the outside light. Moonlight or streetlight, he wasn't sure which, but what he did know was that she was beautiful. It was a simple beauty, though Ziva had never been a simple woman. His eyes started on a downward path, beginning with the long black tresses that fell across her back. His eyes traveled to her small waist and further even to the rest of her curves that he had always been so appreciative of. He saw her put her hands in the pockets of her pants and slowly turn to face him.

She had felt his eyes on her as she stood, staring into the night. He never had been able to keep his eyes off of her, she thought to herself. From day one he had always been admiring of her foreign looks. Her body always warmed under his gaze so she always knew when he was around. But at 1:30am on a Friday morning, it was hardly the time or the place to try defining her bodies reactions to Tony. She needed to explain herself, though she was sure that Gibbs had already filled him in. How had Gibbs known almost as soon as she had? She knew better than to question 'the gut', but this time she was left wondering if the famous Gibbs gut had had any help with its musings. She turned to face Tony, knowing that she could trust him with whatever she told him, knowing that betrayal was not something that Tony knew how to do.

"Tony, I…," she started. "I am here because…," and again her words trailed off.

He met her eyes as she turned to look at him. He watched her face, her body, as she searched for the words that would enlighten him.

"Michael was on a Mossad mission to kill an American NCIS agent."

There. She had said it. The breath that she hadn't been aware she was holding, left her body and her shoulders slumped a little bit. She lost a small piece of herself by admitting it, by saying it out loud. She was the one, the one who had given Tony hell for falling for Jeanne and here she had made the same damn mistake. God, how she hated herself for it. Her eyes lifted to his to catch his reaction but his face was blank. Maybe he was waiting for more.

"Was?" he said with little emotion, giving away nothing.

"Is, I guess."

"You guess?"

"Yes, Tony, my best guess is that he is still on the mission."

"I thought Mossad trained you to pillow talk better than that Ziva David."

"Pillow talk?" she said with a slight twinge in her voice.

"The conversations you have when lying next to a person in bed, usually after moments of intense, heated—"

She held up a hand. "I get it."

"Or you got it?"

"Are you jealous, Tony?"

"This is like the fifth time you've asked me that Officer David. Are you hoping that my answer has changed since the last time you asked?" he said, almost heatedly, as he rose from the couch.

She started to turn away from him, back to the window, when his words caught her.

"Who is the NCIS agent?"

She stopped mid-turn and slowly faced him again. She shook her head as she spoke.

"I do not know."

He gave a small grunt. "You don't know as in you don't have any idea or as in you do know but just won't give it up?"

She knew she deserved every bit of sarcasm and anger in his voice. She was being evasive. She knew it. He knew it. But dammit she wasn't trained to play nice when it came to missions, to foreign operatives.

"I do not know. I can say it no clearer than that, Tony."

She moved around the coffee table to look at him squarely. She knew better than to compromise a mission by words. It was weak and her father did not appreciate weakness any more than he appreciated a compromised mission. But her father was thousands of miles away. And although Eli David knew little of her life in America, her coworkers, he did know that the trust Ziva had in them was beyond spoken word. So when her voice wavered it was almost undetectable. Almost.

Tony noticed the slight falter in her voice as she spoke and wondered what was holding her back. Could her father's heavy hand really extend across oceans? He shook his head at the thought. He shuffled it to the back of his mind and focused on the woman in front of him. At 2 am his mind was still a little cloudy but he forced concentration.

"My father and Vance are on 'friendly' terms with one another."

"And by friendly, you mean?" he said, tipping his head towards her in question.

"By friendly, I mean able to ask favors."

She twisted her hands, pushing her nail against her palm.

"My father, in his eyes, did Vance a favor by allowing my return last year but that favor did not come without strings."

"A favor in return for a favor?" he said, his eyebrows raised in question.

"The condition of my return was an undercover assignment involving Rivkin. My father had come to the slow awareness of Michael's rogue operations."

Tony did some quick thinking and some even quicker calculations. His mind replayed the movie reel of her wounded body splayed across ZNN for the world to see. He slowly pieced it together. Slowly.

"When I returned to Israel, my father already had an assignment waiting for me. It was a lot like your undercover assignment with Jeanne."

"Only Mossad ninja style, right?" he said with a half grin, the only thing he could muster at the moment.

Her amusement did not match his, only because she knew the gravity of the situation she was now facing.

"I was to become close with Michael again and---". Her words were cut short.

"Again?" Tony asked, already knowing the answer but wanting to hear it from her mouth.

"Again."

She turned and started to the window, then changed her mind and returned to the spot she had been previously rooted to.

"Papa had noticed that Micheal's assigned missions were taking him longer each time they were assigned. He did some checking. Not much, but enough to for him to need me back home."

"And so you made the most of your short stay in Israel."

"I was able to become close with Michael again, if that is what you are asking. He trusts me."

"Does he now?" Tony said with a smirk.

And even as Ziva had said it, she wasn't even sure she believed it herself. Michaels words to her earlier that day had certainly not spoken of trust.

"By the time Vance had called for my return, I had uncovered a few of Micheal's rogue operations and reported them back to my father. When I left, Papa asked that I be able to continue the mission from here."

"Which is why you went on so many vacations this year."

"I would hardly call them vacations, Tony."

"Then what would you call them, Ziva? Booty calls? Cause that's all I've ever heard them called."

"You think I flew thousands of miles just to have a roll in the mud?"

"Hay."

"Hey what?"

"No, not hey as in….hey. Hay as in farm animals."

"Why would you roll in hay?"

"Why would you roll in mud?"

"Good question."