Chapter 6

( disclaimer: this chapter is basically what could've happened in 16x13 , but from Zivas POV )

Okay so I'm so sorry that this took so long but I've been really really unmotivated and I don't even have an explanation for it.

February 2019 , New York City

Ziva sat inside a coffee shop in Manhattan, pretending to read a newspaper, a cup of coffee on the small table next to her. Every few minutes she took a sip and turned the page, any normal person would've thought that she was actually interested in the latest football results. Only a trained eye would've seen how her eyes flickered from the magazine to the other side of the street to a parking lot and back.

Ziva was visibly nervous, it was already half past seven , the meeting was planned to be thirty minutes ago and yet she was still sitting there and waiting for her informant to show up. The past two years she followed every step Yaniv Bodnar took, but never came close enough to kill him. It was like a hide and seek game, she was monitoring all of his activities but was always a few steps behind him so he didn't realise she was following him. After following him through Western Asia and all the way to Europe she finally made contact to one of his information suppliers, who she was meeting today, trying to find out more about what he was planning. Operating off the grid, without any back up was different, obviously different to her work as a special agent but also different from her Mossad operations. For the first time in her life she would've appreciated someone to give her orders she could follow. NCIS was also on Yanivs case, he broke out of a federal prison but somehow he was still their jurisdiction. By the way how distanced they seemed to track him, she assumed it was Gibbs work and it felt more like it was a tactic for him to keep an eye on her. Gibbs knew what it was like to seek revenge, to do everything necessary for loved ones, but it still made her comfortable in a way.

She decided not to ask for Mossads help because after Adams death they assumed she was dead as well, which could maybe give her a chance to raise her daughter in a new world. A new world without the involvement of her fathers world. If she ever got the chance to raise her daughter, she wanted to make sure she grew up in a very different place. Following Yaniv so she could kill him wasn't exactly what she wanted in life but she didn't question what she was doing at any moment, even though she went back to what she so desperately tried to leave behind her. Ironically it was one of the reasons why she thought it was necessary to start new and now it was how she could actually find back to her family. She went back to telling herself that she had no choice, it was what she had to do in order to keep her family safe. She just lived on, every day with just one goal: get rid of Yaniv and go back to Tony and Tali.

Trying to shoot Yaniv on the open street was too risky because if she got arrested, her fingerprints would show up in the system which would probably lead to an international incident between Mossad and the CIA. She could legally travel around the globe, thanks to Adam and his shin bet resources her travel documents were good enough to get through the usual passport controls but even a brilliant copy wouldn't be enough to fool the CIA. The last thing she knew was that Yaniv planned something in the United States, she followed him to New York but then lost sight of him, which she hoped could change but after another hour of waiting she came to the decision that her informant wouldn't show up and that she had to find a new way to find Yaniv.

Suddenly her phone rang.

" yes?"

She answered, already expecting her informant to call her. For her surprise it was Gibbs talking to her on the other side.

"Ziver?"

Before she could even wonder how Gibbs got the number of her new phone Gibbs already continued talking:

" you were right, Megan Burke is alive, NCIS just found her daughter."

Ziva gasped for air, she had already forgotten about Megan Burke but as soon as she heard her name she painfully remembered how she gave up the investigation when she got Tali since she didn't have the time and resources she needed.

Ziva suddenly felt guilty, she gave up on them, she let them down, just like her own family.

" I'm coming."

Just a few hours later Zivas plane landed at the national airport in Arlington county. She took a taxi directly to Gibbs house, she knew she couldn't stay with him for long, especially when a case from back when she was still working at the navy yard was coming up, a member of Gibbs team could show up at his place any moment. She entered the front door, it wasn't locked, just as she expected.

Gibbs was in the living room, working on a case file.

" wasn't expecting to see you until tomorrow."

Gibbs said, his voice reminded her of when she was still working as a liaison officer between Mossad and NCIS. Something was wrong, she felt from the way he looked at her that something changed. Ziva decided that it didn't matter, Gibbs was an important person in her life, almost as important as Tony, in a very different way obviously, but she didn't come for him, she came for a reason he couldn't know of. Gibbs knew she was still investigating after they handed over the case, but he didn't know how personal her relationship to the victims family was to her. The letter she wrote down for Megans mother was just a tiny part of her biggest secret, a secret she kept like a treasure. The books she kept in her secret office were her most honest possessions, the connections she made between cases and her personal life helped her to sort out her thoughts on many things, things she never talked about, because she didn't find them appropriate at the time or she simply couldn't find the words and the time to speak up. They included all kinds of memories of her father, the difficulties in her family and the complexities between her and Tony. She broke several of Gibbs rules, twelve was one she could perfectly understand, she experienced on her own how difficult it was to keep her personal feelings for Tony off their work relationship, but it wasn't the one that made her the most difficulties. Rule ten was a pretty important rule too, she always understood that it was I important to not let any emotions come to the surface in the field, she knew it better than anyone else on team Gibbs, but she still couldn't manage not to break it.

" what's going on?"

She asked and sat down next to him. Gibbs told her about the little girl they found and how her DNA matched Megans, how she told them that she has never been out of that basement before and how her mother was still there. Ziva felt how all the colour started to drain from her face, when Gibbs pulled out one of her diaries from her secret office.

" Agent bishop found your notes in the evidence locker and talked to Megans boyfriend without having orders."

Gibbs said and handed over one of her notebooks. Ziva didn't say anything, she felt humiliated, the thought that someone was reading her personal reports made her feel extremely uncomfortable. Ziva stroke over the back of the book and couldn't hide a smile when she opened it and saw the date: January 2006. Right at that moment she was extremely grateful that she didn't write the first few cases in English, this was one of the first times she wrote about her feelings for Tony, even though she was still very unsure about them during her first year at NCIS. The case she was writing about was from when they were trapped in a container, Ziva still remembered every bit of it, even though it was thirteen years ago. It felt like it was a lifetime ago. She also remembered how she invited Tony over to dinner the next evening and how it was one of the first plots in their relationship. Before that Tony treated her the same way all the time, it didn't matter if they were in the squadroom with the entire team around them or alone. After that they already started developing their own little world making a clear difference between their personal and work life. They never talked about it but Ziva felt how things changed between them and she was pretty sure Tony felt the same way.

" these weren't supposed to be read by anyone."

She said and gave it back to Gibbs. He smirked and put it on the living room table.

" It seems like Eleanor seems pretty amazed by the way you think."

Gibbs looked at her and Ziva knew what he felt. He was scared about his agent, that she would dig too deep and wouldn't come back the same way after. He either wanted her to back off or to finish the case for them.

" there's nothing amazing about it."

Ziva sighed, she obviously made some research on her replacement. Eleanor Bishop was a young analyst, with an easier past and a brighter future ahead of her than Ziva ever had the chances to get. Ziva was ashamed of all the things that had happened to her and her diaries reflected exactly that pain she didn't want anyone to know about. They revealed a side of her not even Tony knew about and she wouldn't want Ellie Bishop to be confronted with that.

" she's not going to stop investigating until she knows more."

Gibbs was observing her, which made her want to hide her reaction even more.

" I.. We can't risk.. It's dangerous."

She stuttered.

She couldn't bring more people into her messy life, people around her tended to get hurt and after what happened to Adam she couldn't be the reason for another death. Her time as an agent was long over, all she wanted was to settle down with her family, which didn't seem as simple as she imagined it once.

" your decision."

What did Gibbs expect her to do? Just to walk into Eleanor Bishops life, how she did it with NCIS after she killed Ari?

Ziva left Gibbs place and went straight to het backyard office. She didn't know if the books were still there but she had to check, she needed to find her letter to megans kidnapper, she needed to fulfil her mothers dying wish but she also had to be careful because she couldn't take the risk that more people would find out that she was still alive. She knew if Orli found out that she was still out there, Yaniv would find out about it before Tony would even get the chance to. The whole operation to fake her death got extremely messy, she didn't know who knew something and who didn't, she just knew that she had some preferences about who she wanted to know.

The moment she opened the door and stepped in the old memories started floating into her body like a tsunami wave. She used to sit there for hours, writing about what she thought she needed to close a case emotionally, thinking about the right and the wrongs in her life. She painfully remembered the last time she sat there, after she resigned from her position at NCIS in order to protect Gibbs. She was awake the entire night, deciding if she should go back to Israel to clear her mind or if she should confront Tony about her feelings. After all they've been through telling him seemed like the right decision, deep down she knew that he would've never rejected her but the fear that he would, led her to the decision that it was better if she cleared her head first. Now she regretted that decision, even though she knew it was important for her to get back to her roots, she would've never expected that it would change her enough to lose Tony. While searching for the right book her thoughts were still with the younger version of herself and she realised how much she really changed. For a moment she was questioning if it would even make sense to go back to Tony and Tali, even if she had the chance. Tony didn't know her anymore and she didn't know him anymore, they both changed. Maybe Tony already had a new girlfriend, maybe he even married and maybe Tali had a caring and loving stepmum.

She couldn't find the book, so she assumed that Gibbs or agent bishop took it with them. Not knowing what she should do next, she started reading some of her dairies, not in the right order but it didn't matter because after reading the first few pages she could remember exactly what they were about. She hung on to the ones she wrote in 2011 the most, back then she didn't know what she wanted in her life, she couldn't explain the hesitation she felt when she was with Ray Cruz and she couldn't connect it to the strange kind of attraction she felt towards Tony. She was burying her feelings for him deep down because she thought they were wrong, but now she understood perfectly.

She was scared, her entire life she was scared of her own feelings.

Ziva figured out that there was no sense in making a big effort in searching the book if they didn't find Megan's kidnapper after all, so she spent the rest of the day reading her own thoughts she wrote down years ago. It was interesting, some of the cases felt like they happened yesterday and others she couldn't even remember. A "pling" on her phone made her close a 2009 kidnapping case she already forgot existed. Ziva searched her phone under a pile of dairies and saw that it was a message from Gibbs.

"Found Megan alive, her offender Robert Hill in mercy point."

Gibbs message was short but it made her heart miss a beat. S

It was already getting dark outside, so she quickly took a cab to Gibbs place. She would just explain to Gibbs, why it was so important to her, why she really needed to talk to him. Gibbs would understand, he always did.

When she entered his place, approximately ten minutes later, Gibbs wasn't there, so she went to his living room and searched through the few books that were at his place. She already started to panic when she couldn't find it but then she saw another diary laying on the counter top next to the door. She walked over and took a look at the date. It was the right one. She opened it and ripped out the letter from Megans mother, then she left, without having any second thoughts.

When she arrived at mercy point, knowing exactly what she had to do in order to get in.

The woman behind the information counter was young, maybe twenty one and probably an intern.

" NCIS, I'm looking for Robert Hill."

She lied and smiled her sweetest smile. It felt strange, like she forgot how to actually smile but it seemed enough for the woman to trust her.

" he's in room 118 but uh- your people just left."

The woman said, pretty confused.

" That's alright, thank you."

Facilitated that Gibbs team already left she took the stairs to the first floor, where Robert Hills room was. Without knocking she entered the patient room, where he laid. He was barely conscious, the machines next to him where beating steadily.

" wake up!"

She said and felt how all her anger came to the surface. Hill moved his feet a bit and opened his little dark brown eyes.

"Who are you?"

He stuttered.

Robert was a pale man, maybe in his late thirties. His right arm was cuffed to the hospital bed and he had several injuries and open wounds all over his body.

Ziva sat down next to him and smirked.

" someone who's gonna make every second your life miserable if you don't listen to what I have to say."

She answered, her voice reminded her of how she interrogated people at Mossad, she didn't even know she could still talk with that humiliating quiet voice.

His eye lids slowly closed again so Ziva took out her knife and slammed it on the table next to her, making sure he was paying attention.

While reading she tried hard to control herself and to keep a steady voice. Her eyes switched from the handwritten letter to Roberts face, it got paler and paler with every second. She finished and laid it under the cup of water on his side table, she wanted him to pay for his horrible crimes, but she didn't want him to forget the grief the family went through the past ten years.

" It's not going to leave you. Ever. I promise."

She said with her stone cold voice, turned around and walked away. On her way back to the stairs she suddenly saw someone approaching from the other side, holding something that looked a lot like one of her diaries . She quickly went down a side aisle and watched the blonde woman pass by. Ziva had no doubts that it was Ellie Bishop, especially after she turned around and saw her entering Robert Hills room.

As soon as she heard the door shut, she came out of her hiding spot and left the hospital in a hurry. She knew that Ellie Bishop was about to find out that she was still alive and she had to do something about it. Even though Gibbs thought it was a good idea to tell Ellie before she would spend too much time trying to search for information, Ziva still had her doubts. Could she keep her secret and could she manage not to tell Tim and the entire team in general? She soon realised that she had no choice, so she took a cab back to the office. Her plan was just to wait and see if she would show up in a few minutes.

While waiting Ziva cleaned up the floor and placed all her books back at their right spot. Just as she finished her phone started ringing. Before she picked it up she checked the number calling her and she realised it was her contact on Yaniv.

"Yes?"

She answered and heard someone heavily breathing on the other side.

" he found out."

Was all she could understand before she heard a door shut and something that sounded suspiciously like gunshots. Ziva felt a cold shiver but quickly hung up and stood on her phone so Yaniv couldn't further track her. She ripped out a page of one of the diaries that was still in her hand and wrote down a note. She laid it on the table, took off her scarf and put it over it. Ellie would find it if she was curious enough to show up. Ziva pulled the mattress out of the sofa bed and picked up both of her old guns, without any hesitation. She would do whatever was necessary to return to her family.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter, even though it was really long and complicated. Also I am not sure if I should continue with the storyline of the season 16 finale.