Hi! Thank you oh so much! This is definitely my most successful story yet and I am immensely grateful. If anyone has any song suggestions or quote suggestions I would thank you and give you a cyber cookie.

Disclaimer: Nope.

Good times for a change
see, the luck I've had
can make a good man
turn bad
~The Smiths 'Please Please Please Let Me Get What I want'

Finding her is more difficult than first anticipated.

To launch a mission to rescue Ziva David, it first needs to be established that Ziva David is in fact the one that needs to be rescued.

So he does.

He e-mails all her known accounts; asking her just to send one word that would let him know she was okay and not being held captive or decaying under the desert sun. He wastes precious satellite time looking at the Al Qaeda camp in Aden – or he would, if he could find it. He sends letters to her house in Israel, to Mossad, because there's always the tiny possibility that they're lying to him. Or that McGee was wrong. That Ziva is back and safe and Mossad just forgot to update their files or maybe McGee clicked something wrong or something.

Except something tells him that Mossad isn't that careless and McGee is much smarter than that.

McGee, bless him, tries to help. He runs searches, tries hacking into Mossad several more times, he buys Tony another coffee from Starbucks and refuses the five dollars Tony shoves at him. In the end Tony stuffs it in his wallet when McGee leaves it unattended.

He can't afford to owe anyone anymore.

Ellie helps McGee, even though she really has no obligation to. She didn't know Ziva, but she knows how Tony feels and for a probie she's astute and not so green that she knows what to do without being told in this situation. And every so often she'll smile at Tony and mouth Stay hopeful.

Gibbs spends a lot of time in the Director's office. Doing what, Tony doesn't know and he doesn't think he'll ask. Every so often he'll come out and say, "When one way doesn't work, DiNozzo, you gotta try another." Then he disappears back upstairs with another sheet of paperwork.

One day, Ellie finds Tony banging his head off the vending machine in the break room after a particularly trying phone conversation with Mossad's version of customer services, which is none to say the least. After managing to calm him down enough to sit down at the table with the half a dozen candy bars he's managed to dislodge from the machine, she asks him, "What was she like?"

He looks up from cradling his head in his arms. "What was who like?"

"Ziva."

With her name he wants to bang his head off the wall again. Except Ellie is looking at him so sweetly and she's asking him because she doesn't know at all and it's good to talk about Ziva when it doesn't involve how they parted ways.

"She was… unique. Crazy ninja, could kick-ass like nobody's business. Her weapon's collection could put our armoury to shame. Except she was also compassionate. She had feelings and she was loyal. No matter what anybody says about her, Ziva David was loyal to us. And that time I lost her, 2009, made me doubt her, just for a second, but it was enough. "

He doesn't realise how ferocious he sounds until he realises that Ellie has backed away from him ever so slightly. He shakes his head, trying to shake out his feelings. The anger is starting to sear through his chest again and he takes deep, cooling breaths to tamper it down.

Tony looks at Ellie and sees her take a deep breath, as if asking her next question. "How many times have you almost lost her, Tony?"

He barks out a harsh, humourless laugh. "Too many to count."

"What was the worst?"

He doesn't even need to think about it. "Five years ago, without a doubt. I hate everything about that summer. Knowing that she was alive and hating me was one thing, but knowing she died hating me was completely different. I felt like… like I lost everything. I lost every chance to make it right, you know? When I heard, I drove my car to the Potomac and just sat there for like an hour. Some kid was playing with his toy boat in the water, and then there was this huge surge and the boat went under. I almost lost it. In that moment I forgave her for everything and I liked to have thought she done the same. Then we got her back." He takes a breath, because he's never admitted this to anyone, not even Ziva. Maybe it's because Ellie is young and looks up to him, or maybe it's because she's a stranger to these events, a kind stranger who he knows will always listen.

He feels a warm hand on his. "What about the other times, were any of them as scary or as bad?" She asks, gently curious.

"None of them have ever been as bad as that. But next was when NCIS was bombed and her and I were in the elevator. You've heard of that right? About the bombing?" She nods. "She fell on top of me and when the dust settled she was on top of me and she wasn't moving and I was so scared and felt so guilty because the one time she was with me and I couldn't even protect her. I was her partner for God's sake!"

He's close to crying now so he stops and rests his head in his hands. Ellie doesn't move, doesn't even shift the pressure of her hand atop is.

And they just sit.

…

When he finally manages to head down to Abby's lab after three days of trying his hardest to avoid her, he receives a bone-crushing hug and then a skull-breaking head slap. In that order.

"What the hell, DiNozzo? I was so worried about you! I made Timmy check that you hadn't driven your car off a cliff! Why didn't you come and see me? Yeah, I get that you would want to be alone but you can't leave me to hear the news like that second-hand! The news that one of your friends is dead and that the other is in a suicidal state is not news you get when your other friend mentions it in passing because he thought you knew! You should have told me, Tony!"

And with that she bursts into tears.

Tony wants to say a lot of things to her, he really does. He wants to say sorry, sorry that he hasn't been down here in a while. He wants to cry with her because the thought of Ziva being dead upsets him deeply. He wants to say that he is so, bone-deep sorry that he didn't tell her himself because he couldn't even bear to face McGee's oh so sorry face in the bullpen never mind Abby's tears of pain and looks of sympathy that would of come had he told her the news himself.

He's weak. Yes, he knows.

He hugs her then, and mumbles into her jet black hair, "I'm sorry, Abs. I'm really sorry."

"It's okay, DiNozzo," she mumbles into his shirt. "I forgive you."

And he's really bloody glad about that.

…

It takes seven days.

Seven days for Gibbs to argue his point with the director, for McGee and Ellie to gather enough information on the cell and seven days for Special Agent Rachel Dumbarton to confirm the presence of a cell and, most importantly, the presence of a captive.

It takes seven days for Tony to lose his mind.

From there it's all uphill. Or downhill. Depending on which one is good. The director holds several meetings. They are about valid reasons to go into the region (Still need to be determined, but there seems to be a few petty ones that could add up). They are about psychological counselling before going on this mission. (Hah, no chance. No psychologist would sign off on him with his state of mind.)

And most importantly, they are about what to do once they get there.

"I want you to understand, Agent DiNozzo, that if this captive does not turn out to be Ms David, you must act objectively and impartially and carry out the same mission you were sent to do."

He nods dumbly. Of course he will. He will destroy whoever this vile cell belongs to and whoever the captive is. He's not that cruel. If the captive isn't Ziva then he will still rescue whoever the hell it is. But he cannot promise to be objective and he cannot promise to be impartial. Because at the end of the day he'll still have a broken heart and the mission still will have been all for her.

In the end, everything has always been for her.

…

Ten days and one psychological counselling session later, he finds himself on a C-17 Globemaster III to Aden in Yemen.

The ride is bumpy and the wall of the aircraft digs uncomfortably into his spine. Gibbs and McGee sit across from him, eyeing him warily. Between them they have enough weapons and bullet-resistant garments to put Ziva to shame. Probably. This mission will not be like last time. This will be an in, grab captive, get out.

His stomach feels uneasy. Something tells him that whatever happens, if something happens, it will be his own doing. It will be karma. His mind tells him that it was not his fault. Ziva chose to let him go. Ziva chose to walk away.

Ziva chose to break his heart.

Even still, sometimes he wonders if they didn't fight hard enough and let her go.