Disclaimer: not mine

Thanks: Amilyn, girleffect, you.

. . . .

"She is not here."

Tony jerks his head up. The room wavers like a mirage. "Eh?"

"Ziva. She is not here. We must go, Tony."

He works his dry mouth and blinks. There is a table. A bookshelf. Chaim, Avi, Dovber. And tiny, crinkly Schmiel-Man-of-Steel standing in the doorway with his hands clasped behind his back. "You?" Tony blurts.

"Chaim called. He said Ziva was missing and I came at once. How is your head?"

He squints. The stitches in his eyebrows twinge. "It's attached," he announces.

Schmiel-Man-of-Steel smiled. "Good. We must go, Tony."

Go. Again. He levers himself out of his wide wooden chair and waits for his eyes to focus. They do. So does his nose: this place smells like grandmas. "Where are we?"

The midday sun burns like acid and he recoils at the heavy front door, groaning. Schmiel takes his arm. "Kfar Chabad. My car is in the lot by the main synagogue."

They trip-trap like goats up and down a narrow path. Tony can smell citrus. A donkey brays in the distance. The sun is warm and the light is dappled and it is altogether not crappy for a second, but then Tony remembers that Ziva is missing and probably hurt and he loses his footing on a rock. He hits the ground with a splat and Schmiel turns, surprised.

"Are you all right?"

The dirt is cool beneath his cheek. They left without saying goodbye to Merlin and Company. "Yeah."

Schmiel turns back. "Well come along, then."

Tony rises, fumbles, tries again. His loafers are a poor choice. Rocks tumble downhill, but the trees part just ahead and there is the first red brick building he has seen since leaving beautiful, blessed American soil. He wants to kiss the façade. "Where did this come from?"

Schmiel holds open the passenger door of an ordinary-looking sedan. "It's a replica of Seven-Seventy."

He sits on the very soft seat. "Helluva model."

Schmiel gets in the driver's side and turns the key. "It is a synagogue and community center. It was built to exact specifications made by rabbis and architects to replicate Seven-Seventy Eastern Parkway, world headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch Chassidic Movement."

Tony grunts and pretends to understand. "Are these Hobbed-something ultra-hairies?"

Now Schmiel looks confused. His eyes do not stray from the road. "I'm sorry?"

"Those crazy religious guys with the beards and coats and hats even though it's like, ninety-five in the shade."

"They are very religious as a group, but all individuals must choose their own path, Tony." He turns onto a freeway. Both sides are flanked by irrigated farmland.

"Did you?"

"Choose my own path? Certainly."

"Mossad was on your path?"

"You mean Münich."

"You sniped their asses."

Schmiel sighed. "No, I provided intelligence. The German government was terribly—some might say deliberately—unprepared, and I have seen enough death. I had not gone to bring more."

He switches his hands on the steering wheel and his French cuff slides up, reveals a six-digit number tattooed on his forearm. Tony gulps. His throat is raw and papery. "You were in the camps?"

Schmiel nods slowly, eyes on the horizon. They are going south. "Dachau, Auschwitz. I was eight when I was arrested and fifteen when I was granted a visa to come to Palestine. They wanted to change my name from Schmiel to Shmu'el, but I screamed and fought like a child until the immigration officer agreed to let me keep it. Schmiel is what my mother called me."

Tony's big, stupid head is heavy and lumpy and he is speaking to the lone survivor family of the Pincus family. "Oh," he mumbles. "How...how did you meet Ziva?"

Schmiel makes another turn and the setting sun is in front of them. He lowers the sun visor. "Things were not as they are now, Tony. I met Eli when his CO enrolled him in my Middle Eastern history class. That was...Eighty-Five? Eighty-Six? He was young and brash and dashing. He had just moved from Be'er Sheva into an apartment in Ramat Aviv with his beautiful wife and daughter and a view of the sea. They invited me for a meal one evening, and little Ziva came running to the door like she was greeting a long lost friend."

Tony misses her so acutely it hurts. His eye throbs. He wants Percocet and his big, soft, leather sofa. And Ziva. And maybe some bacon. "What was she like?"

"Brilliant. Beautiful. A chatty thing. She wanted to tell me everything as fast as she could. I had to remind her to breathe."

He shifts in his seat. "Well, that changed."

Schmiel hums a little tune in a minor key. "She wanted so desperately to please her father."

"He's dead."

"Dead thirty days. Thirty-two. She has ten more months of mourning before his soul can have an aliyah."

"She's dead, too."

"No, no. Ziva is very much alive."

Tony had meant the singer killed in a plane crash some decade ago, but his stomach pangs and it's not from hunger. "Those ultra-hairies hurt her."

"Chareidim. Yes."

Oh, whatever. "Guess their stupid no-touching laws don't prevent them from punching a woman's lights out."

Schmiel jams on the brakes. They grind to a stop along the guardrail. "Tony."

He feels like a teenager in the principal's office. "What?"

"Moshe, Avidan, Yosef—these people may look like Chareidim, but they are not. They are bullies in costume. Today they are dressed in capotes and fedoras, but tomorrow they will be in fatigues and war paint. Do you understand?"

He studies his hands. There are bruises where he'd been zip-tied. "Yes."

"Furthermore, these religious people—do you know they live in America, too, Tony?"

"Yeah, I do, Schmiel. Hell, they live near Ziva in Silver Spring."

"And why do you think she chose that neighborhood, Tony?"

"Because she wants to be spat on for wearing the wrong length skirt?"

"Because Achdut Yisrael. Jewish unity. We need each other. People hate us, Tony. They have sent us into exile, put us in ghettos, gassed and burned us in camps. Kristallnacht. They destroyed our synagogues, our homes, our schools and businesses. They murdered our families. We must have Achdut Yisrael—Jewish unity—if we are going to survive. We must have Ahavat Yisrael—love for all Jews—if we are going to rebuild our synagogues, our schools. If we are going to marry, have children, educate them. If we are going to live in the world, Tony. Ziva lives in a Jewish neighborhood because they are her people and she loves them."

Tony's mouth is dry. His stomach is heaving. The points of the Star of David jab his leg again and his eyes well. "She became a citizen," he argues feebly. "She's an American."

"Yes. An Israeli-American. A Jewish-American. Ziva lives on the hyphen. She always will. It is not a choice."

He is crumbling, crumbling. "So we're not enough for her?"

Schmiel looks at him for a long time. Traffic whizzes by. A village suns itself below the highway, draws in the last rays of the desert sun. "You are here, Tony. That is more than enough. Shall we carry on?"

"I want to find her."

Schmiel's mobile phone trills. He answers it via the BlueTooth on the dash. "Pincus."

"Shalom, Schmiel!" Abby chirps.

"Abigail! Wonderful to hear from you! Do you have new information from us?"

"Intel from AMAN said a convoy lead by Moshe Kohavi entered the military apron at Sde Dov International."

Tony's heart leaps. "Was Ziva with them?"

She sighs. "No word."

Schmiel jerks the wheel. They bounce over the median into the northbound lane and he guns the engine, passing two snub-front lorries full of oranges. "Thirty minutes, Abby. Call into Yitzi Effet at El Al and have him close it down."

"Yes, sir," she agrees sharply, and hangs up.

Tony's head is spinning. They bump over the berm and around two slow Egged buses. "She can do that?"

Schmiel's tiny toy car pulls ahead of a wolf pack of taxis. "Absolutely."

"They won't kill her, right?"

"Tony, Ziva holds many, many secrets. She is too valuable to be expendable."

"Eli didn't think so."

"Eli was like the biblical Pharaoh. His heart was hardened."

"He was a snake."

"He was Ziva's father. He was imposing, yes, and demanding. He made the wrong decisions. But he would have moved heaven and earth to regain his daughter's trust."

"Including kill a journalist."

"He was a flawed man."

"He sent Ziva into a death trap."

"He realized his mistake, especially when he'd heard you had gotten her out."

Tony's breath catches. "Yeah," he struggles.

Schmiel dials another number and speaks clipped Hebrew to a woman who sounds like a secretary. He hangs up with a tight nod.

"Who was that?" Tony demands.

"Low people in high places. Is your seatbelt fastened?"

"Safety first."

"Good." And Schmiel presses the accelerator to the floor.

. . . .

Tony expects lights and sirens, legions of IDF soldiers, AR15s at the ready. Frightened travelers evacuated, danger zone cordoned off with barbed wire. But there is none of that; only two soldiers in olive drab whom Schmiel approaches with a half-smile. He speaks quietly, motions to Tony, and they are escorted through the single terminal and up an escalator to a bank of offices behind blue doors.

The forth one opens and a man beckons. He is balding and dressed in a very expensive Italian suit. "DiNozzo?"

He nods.

"In here, please." He and Schmiel enter and sit before a desk. On it is a cup of cheap BIC pens and a simple green blotter. The walls are bare. The man sits across from them and folds his hands. "I understand we have a kidnapping situation in our airport."

"The kidnapping of an American," Tony sneers.

"And you believe they are leaving from our military apron?"

"Yes."

Baldy pushes a button like a Bond Villain and somewhere a telephone rings. Tony strains, listening, and then there comes the soft sound of marching feet approaching, approaching. It sounds like a million ants. Baldy ushers Schmiel and him into the hallway again, where they look over the railing at perhaps two-hundred IDF soldiers in formation on the terminal floor. The exits are blocked. There are two choppers on the tarmac. A caravan of AIL Storm Jeeps cruise past the windows. Soldiers hang out the windows in combat helmets.

"Holy hell," Tony sighs.

"I told you we would find her," Schmiel chuckles.

But they haven't yet. The soldiers surround four men in ultra-hairy clothes who have been dragged off a B300. They are brought to their knees, handcuffed, lead away. Perhaps fifteen of the soldiers file out the door and surround the plane, weapons leveled. Tony's stomach curls. He touches the necklace in his pocket. "C'mon, Zee-vah," he breathes.

Two, then three, then five board the plane. Fifteen more file out, join ranks with those still standing on the tarmac. "Come on," he urges again.

Baby Face is dragged off the plane. He struggles. Tony watches, mouth agape, as one soldier calmly fires his rifle and Baby Face crumples. There is a whistle, and four men retrieve the body in double-time.

Tony is choking now, hands in fists, head aching. Please, he begs silently. Please, Zee-vah.

One man appears at the airplane door and waves at another. They give a sign. Five break away from formation and re-enter the terminal. "DiNozzo?" he asks.

He squeaks first, breath trapped. "Ye...yes," he finally blurts.

"With us, sir."

Sir.

Schmiel gives him a nod. Tony runs down the stairs, through the formation of soldiers. It's possible that they're laughing at him, but he doesn't care.

"This way," he is told, and they flank him across the macadam, past the bloodstain where Moshe fell down dead, and up the stairs. The plane is as tiny as Schmiel's car.

And Ziva—beautiful, perfect, black-and-blue Ziva—is sitting in the last row with her arms crossed. She is looking at him, mouth puckered. He thinks she is going to yell at him, call him a juvenile and a jackass and whatever the hell else, but she scoffs and shakes her head and doesn't get up. "They told me you were dead."

No! he wants to shout, but she looks strange and fragile that his words get hung up in his throat.

"I refused to move until I saw you. Alive."

He waves his hands. "Here. Alive. I—"

She rises slowly and hugs herself like she's freezing. It's maybe eighty outside and easy ninety in the plane. "Come, Tony."

He steps aside so she can get out and she leads him up the aisle, into the sunshine. His hand lingers on her hip and he doesn't move it when one of their escorts raises his eyebrow.

They go inside. The terminal is cool and quiet. The soldiers break formation slowly, reorganize outside the front doors, and begin to leave in their armored jeeps. He watches Ziva watch them with a pensive look on her bruised face. She is still hugging herself. He nudges her shoulder and she falters, left hand going out as if to hold on to something. He grabs her elbow. "Ya ok?"

A tiny smile graces her mouth. "I am no stranger to a fight, Tony."

"No stranger to me checking in, either."

"I am fine."

The last soldier climbs onto the last jeep and away it goes. Tony and Ziva are alone in the airport. The cooling system kicks on with a thump and the breeze is delicious on his dirty, sweaty skin. He holds out her necklace. "Found this next to Yarmulke Yosef's body."

She grimaces. "I did what I had to—"

"Want it back?"

She steps in front of him. He takes three tries to open the tiny clasp and secure it around her neck, but she turns when he's done and smiles and is still cradling her right arm against her side. "We need to go to Be'er Sheva, Tony."

"Where is that?"

"Southeast of here. In the desert."

He is exhausted and grimy and missing home. He wants his promised steak. He wants his bed, or his desk at NCIS, and a bacon pizza and maybe Gibbs and McGoo and the keys to his car, but he drops his chin to his chest, blows out a breath, and says, "Ok. When do we leave?"

"Not yet," Schmiel interjects. "You are both exhausted and injured. I am taking you to—"

Ziva shakes her head sourly. "There isn't time."

Tony glances outside. It is fully dark now. A luggage carrier drives by with lights flashing and he winces when his head pulses. He slides his hand into her free one and squeezes. She squeezes back. "How do we get there?" he asks.

Schmiel frowns and nods. "I will arrange for transport. There are locker rooms here. Perhaps you two would like to shower?" His frown deepens. "Separately."

Ziva nods, still holding Tony's hand. "Yes."

He shows them to a narrow hallway, with men's and women's locker rooms on each side. Ziva lingers for a moment, one hand in his, one on the door handle. "Thank you for finding me," she says quietly.

"I never—"

She nods. "Thank you."

Ziva slides away. The door bumps shut. Tony showers and finds appropriate clothing waiting on a bench when he is finished. Grey chinos, a white button-down, sturdy hiking socks and shoes in his size. Even a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses. He slips them on to study his reflection. Half Top Gun; half Miami Vice. He looks cool in a Middle-Eastern-meets Miami-in-the-1980s-way.

Ziva is waiting for him in the hallway. He hair is wet and hanging down her back. She is dressed more like herself—the self that he knows, anyway—but that odd fragility is still lurking behind her eyes. "Sonny Crocket," she croaks.

He almost chokes. "You know Miami Vice?"

She leads him out to a transport vehicle—a pickup truck with a canvas tent on the back. They climb beneath it and sit on a low bench. "It was on Channel One at 8pm on Thursdays."

"And you watched it."

Schmiel appears. They wave goodbye. Ziva blows a kiss and shrugs. "My father loved that show and I loved him."

"Schmiel thinks—"

"I know." She scrubs at her eyes. It is maybe the first time Tony has ever seen her do that. "I...know what he was capable of, Tony. I know what he did. But it is—was—just the two of us, and I needed to believe that he cared."

The truck picks up speed. Tony grabs her hand, holds it in both of his, and makes sure she is looking at him. "I meant it when I said you weren't alone."

Her eyes are wet. "I know," she says for the hundredth time.

They go east into the darkness, breezing through checkpoints, watching the coastal city lights slip away. It's too noisy to speak with the canvas flapping and the motor humming, but they hold hands, and, when the light is good, share smiles. And for an hour, maybe an hour-and-a-half, it is peaceful.

Until the vehicle leaves the paved road and rumbles over some goat-trail cut in the hillside by ATVs and shepherd boys. They are tossed around in the truckbed. Tony's head bounces off an aluminum upright and he sees flashes of bright light in the desert air like St. Elmo's fire.

The truck stops. A sergeant lowers the tailgate. He looks like a young Rob Lowe and wears his collar popped. Tony rolls his eyes and eases to the ground. Ziva fumbles and he frowns; she, too, is walking wounded.

They are each handed a rucksack of basic gear and the truck rumbles away. The night is cool and cloudless. The stars are endless, and Tony looks around, aghast; they are alone. "This is Be'er Sheva?"

"No," Ziva says softly. "The city is over the next ridge. This was where I was born, Tony. The property is still in my family's name."

In her name. The house hulks like a lion in the dark. They step through the front door and she flicks a switch. The room comes alight. The furniture is draped with sheets. It smells musty and smoky; the fireplace doors are wide open. A draft has blown ash onto the tile floor.

"Cozy," Tony mumbles, feeling snide. Leave it to Eli to raise Ziva in a cement bunker.

She looks at him, wide-eyed. "My mother loved this house."

Crap. "I didn't mean it that way, Zee-vah."

She drops her bag in a corner. There is a doorway to the left of the kitchen and she slides through it like a cat. He follows. It's an office, of course, and she opens drawers slowly, pawing through as though they are full of broken glass.

"Whatcha lookin' for?" She inclines her head toward a safe in the corner. Keys. He scans a bookshelf, a few boxes, and finds a tiny ring hung on a lamp finial. "These?"

She takes them. Her fingers brush his and he remembers his plan to kiss her. The light is dim enough that she does not see him blush. Ziva opens the safe and pulls file folders onto her lap. Stacks and stacks of them. She rises, struggling to hang on to them left-handed, and waddles out to the living room. There is a decorative match-holder bolted to the wall. She sighs and looks at Tony. "Can you help, please? We need to get rid of these."

He shows off a little—stacking firewood in a pyramid and rolling newspaper for kindle. It's an English language paper. The date reads November 12, 1985. Ziva's third birthday. "Special day," he mumbles.

"A child is no longer a baby on his or her third birthday," she says. "Boys get their first haircut and learn the aleph-bet. Girls..." Tony's empty stomach curls, but she only smiles wistfully. "Girls get their first Shabbat candle to light. It's a rite of passage."

"Looks like someone was saving this."

Ziva looks down. "She is gone, Tony."

"You can't erase her memory."

The fire crackles to life. She tosses a handful of folders on it. "I have what I need."

They watch the flames eat reams of documents. The house warms. Tony's stomach grumbles. "You eat since...?"

"No."

"You hungry?"

She burns the last handful and shakes her head. "No. There is more to destroy."

"Let me help—"

"No," she says. "You did your job. This is mine."

She disappears, returns with more files. Her right arm hangs dead at her side. He sits on the covered sofa. "What happened with Moshe, Ziva?"

"He wanted to take me to Mossad Headquarters but the Acting Director would not see him, so he was going to bring me here instead." She waved a file. "For these."

"What are they?"

"Intel."

"From whom and where?"

She hesitates, hand splayed on the front of a manila folder. "My mother was an architect. She worked, briefly, for Mossad. She built...Trojan Horses, for lack of a better phrase. Mossad discovered a Hezbollah agent working in the US in the early 1990s. He was making IEDs in the Detroit suburbs. My mother was ordered to find ways to infiltrate his neighborhood and home without alerting the American authorities. She was tremendously successful, so they asked again and again for her to help with investigations. Detroit, Paris, Frankfurt, Bucharest, San Francisco. She could draft blueprints for homes based on a single photograph. She was an amazingly intelligent woman, Tony. I cannot even begin to describe how brilliant she was."

He wants to hear about her mother all day, but she throws the last pile on the fire and shuts down. He clears his throat. "Why do they want these files, Ziva?"

"A Jewish-American Al-Qaeda sympathizer moved to Jerusalem in 2001. That was when Sikrikim made their presence known." She finally looked at him. "Zellers...he looked like a fish, Tony."

"Fishy, you mean. And they thought you had the answers?"

"They thought I had her files."

Mossad is a bunch of bastards, he thinks. "And what the hell were you supposed to do, Ziva? You're an American. You work for NCIS. You live in Silver Spring. Hell, they think you have a cat."

That makes her giggle. "The ultra-Orthodox are the country's largest voting block. Mossad thought I could ride in on my white horse, carrying my mother's old documents, and save Israel from herself. It was not possible." She looks at him. There are bruises on her head, her jaw, next to her left eye. "No one can save someone who is so willing to self-destruct."

"Not fair for them to lay the whole country's problems at your feet."

She smirks. "No," she agrees. "It is not fair, but fairness is not their first interest." The fire burns lower now that all the paper is gone. "We will leave in the morning, but for now we should rest."

He looks around. "Where are the bedrooms?"

She shudders. It's cute. "This house does not have central heat. I will gather some blankets and we can sleep here in front of the fire."

Indoor camping is exactly Tony's idea of being outdoorsy. He gets up to help. She waves him down, but he grabs her hand and doesn't let go. "No. I'm not a guest."

She pulls him down a hall, into a small bedroom, and turns on the ceiling light. The room is painted pink. Pink. And there's a tiny toddler bed in the corner. "This was yours," he blurts, oddly embarrassed. He has never thought of Ziva as a child. Young, yes. Inexperienced, certainly. But a little girl? Never.

"Until I was three," she clips. "Then we moved to Tel Aviv. That's where Tali was born."

The room is empty, but the potential is there—the pink walls, white built-in bookcases, low racks for hanging her little-girl dresses. "Did you wear tights and ruffles?"

She snorts. "Hardly. My mother bought me a fancy blue dress for Rosh Hashana. I threw a tantrum at first sight." She shrugs. "I wanted to wear olive drab and carry a knife."

"You were a dangerous toddler."

She stacks blankets in his arms. "I wanted to make my father happy."

"What about mom?"

She pauses, hand on the light switch. "She...wanted me to be myself." She flicked it and plunged them both into darkness. "Come, Tony. Let's break camp for the night."

"My marshmallows got stolen with my phone and passport."

She spreads a blanket on the floor. "Why would you need marshmallows?"

"For roasting. You never had a campfire?"

"Not if it was going to attract enemy attention."

"What the hell did you do for fun, Zee-vah?"

She eyeballs him. "I have a hard time believing you build campfires for fun, Tony."

"Well not me, but kids do. Scouts. Family camping trips."

"You did no such thing."

"Answer the question."

She puts two pillows side by side. There's a stir in Tony's borrowed boxer shorts. "We went to the sea, or we took walks. I grew up near HaYarkon Park, so we would go to the playground near the river. I read, I drew, I played board games with my sister or the neighbor children. I was not an unhappy child, Tony, but I understood early that Israel was at war and I was to do my part to protect her."

He shakes his head. "Why couldn't your parents just let you be innocent?"

She gives him a long look. "And yours did?" His mouth dries. There has to be water somewhere. "We have both sacrificed a lot, Tony. It is not fair to argue about this."

Ziva lies down without kicking off her shoes. Tony sits on the musty sofa with his hands on his knees. There is the sound of crickets and their breathing and little else. He counts down from ten, then from twenty, calming nerves that have come on unexpectedly. "Ziva?"

She is asleep, breathing deeply, and does not answer.

He inches down next to her and lays his big, sore head on the pillow. It is soft and he drifts immediately. "Ziva?" he whispers.

There is a tiny movement next to him. "Hm?"

He swallows, exhausted. "I will always have your back."

She reaches over and draws his arm around her middle. "I know, Tony. Sleep, please. We will leave in the morning."