Chapter Seven

The beeping of Ziva's alarm filled her room, signaling that it was time for her to get up, but she was already awake. She normally got up at six, but she had been up since five, questioning everything she had ever done in raising Tali. Deep down Ziva knew that when Tali had first started asking about her father, she should have told her the truth, but she had been selfish. She had been worried that if she told her the truth Tali would try to find Tony, and Ziva didn't want to go through the ordeal of having to explain everything to him if she did find him.

Looks like I had to anyways. She thought.

Ziva finally reached over to turn off her alarm, knowing Tali would come storming in and do it herself in a few minutes. She sat up and stretched her arms above her head; a small yawn escaped her mouth. She slipped out of bed, grabbed her robe off the back of the door, and wrapped it around her as she made her way to the kitchen. As she started a pot of coffee she heard Tali's iHome begin blasting music to wake her up. Ziva grabbed a package of Pop-tarts, opened them and stuck them in the toaster, knowing from experience Tali wasn't as grumpy in the morning once she had eaten something. She waited for the Pop-tarts to pop up, the music in Tali's room was still blaring when they were done and Ziva furrowed her brow. She set the Pop-tarts on a plate, left them on the counter, and exited the kitchen walking down the hall to her daughter's room.

"Tali?" she knocked on the door. "Tali, its time to get up, please turn off you're alarm."

Ziva waited, listening for either a response or for her to get up out of bed, but she heard neither.

"Tali turn it off or I'm coming in." She warned. After no response she entered the room, went over to Tali's dresser and shut the alarm off. "Tali, please quit ignoring me and…"

Ziva stopped mid-sentence, Tali's bed was empty, she was alone in the room. She looked around, Tali's textbooks and folders were in a pile on the floor, the drawers of her dresser were left open haphazardly, and her closet was left open, hangers empty. Ziva began to panic. She ran out of Tali's room into the bathroom next door, but she wasn't there either. She checked the living room, kitchen and even ran down to the basement, but it was all in vain. The second Ziva had found her bed empty she knew Tali was gone.

Ziva sprinted back to her room, grabbed her cell phone off the nightstand and dialed Tali's number. There was only one ring before it went to voicemail, her call had been rejected. She tried again, but got the same result. Ziva began to breathe heavily, tears filling her eyes. Tali was gone, there was no note, her called was rejected and Ziva was scared beyond words. Her hands shook as she dialed another number into her phone, praying that the person on the other end of the line would pick up.

"Hello?"

"Tony." Ziva choked out. "Tony I-I need you t-to come over."

"Zee, what' wrong? You're scaring me." He asked his voice full of concern.

"It's Tali she-she's gone." She replied, tears sliding down her cheeks. "I just g-got up and sh-she's not here."

"I'm on my way." Tony answered; she could faintly here a car door opening and shutting in the background. "I'll be there in two minutes."

"Thank you Tony." Ziva whispered, hanging up.


Tony's car came to a screeching halt in front of Ziva's house. As promised it had only taken him two minutes to get across town from his apartment. Tony slammed his car door shut, ran up the steps to the porch and entered the house not bothering to knock. He walked into the living room and found Ziva on the couch; her knees pulled to her chest, a blank expression on her face.

"Ziva?" she didn't move; Tony took a seat beside her on the couch. "Zee, c'mon don't shut me out. We're going to find her, but to do that I need you to talk to me or at least acknowledge my presence."

She finally looked up at him; unshed tears glistened in her chocolate brown eyes, "It's all my fault."

Four words and her resolve was broken; tears slid down her face like rain. Tony took her in his arms and did his best to comfort her.

"It's not your fault Zee." he whispered.

"Yes it is. If I had told her the truth from the very beginning none of this would have happened. She'd still be here, you wouldn't be mad at me…"

"Hold on, you think I'm mad at you?" he asked pulling away so he could see her face.

"You were mad the other night when I told you about Tali." She stated, wiping her tear-stained cheeks.

"I admit I was mad then, but that was only because I wish I would've known about Tali sooner, but I'm not mad anymore. I promise." He squeezed her hand and gave her a small smile.

"I guess that's one less problem." Ziva muttered looking up into his face; she wasn't able to smile back at him. "But we still have to figure out where Tali went."

Tony looked around, "Did she leave a note?"

"No," she shook her head. "How are we going to find her?"

He was silent for a moment, then a smile crept onto his face, "That's simple, we do what we've always done best."

Tony stood up, left the room and made his way down the hall to Tali's room, Ziva close behind him. "Tony what do you mean? What are you doing?"

He took a seat at Tali's desk, opening her laptop. "Do you know her password?" he asked ignoring her question.

She pointed to a post-it on the desk, "Miqqud, it's Hebrew for code. I made her right it down because she forgets things all the time. Now would you please tell me what you are doing?"

"I'm going to look up her history to see if she searched anything that might tell us where she's gone." He explained pulling up the internet browser.

"Oh. I would never have thought of that."

"You would've eventually Zee, once an agent always an agent." He winked at her before turning his attention back to the computer screen. "Okay let's see here, it looks like the last website she visited was...the NCIS Home Page…"

"Why would she… I've never told Tali anything about NCIS. This doesn't…" Ziva stopped midsentence and Tony saw her eyes light up.

"Ziva?"

"Wait here I'll be right back." Tony turned, opening his mouth to protest but she was already gone.

He sighed stuffing his hands in his pockets. Tony looked around the room, swiveling in the chair. He studied Tali's room, trying to learn as much about her as he could. To the right of her desk was an average size book case, it was filled to the teeth with books of all shapes and sizes. Some in great condition, others worn by being read so many times that the binding was falling apart.

"Figures." Tony muttered with a smile, finding it ironic that his daughter would be a book worm when he was a movie buff.

"I know where she went." Ziva appeared in the doorway and he swiveled towards her.

"How?" Tony stood up and walked over to her.

She held up a small black book, "I keep this in the safe downstairs, where Tali keeps her college savings. Their was a picture of the group of us at NCIS in the front of this and its gone now, along with her savings."

"So she took the picture and her money and went to NCIS?" he asked, making sure he understood her correctly.

"I think so." Ziva answered.

"Alright then let's go." He left Tali's room, walked down the hall and opened the front door, but stopped when he saw Ziva was still in the doorway to Tali's room. "You coming Zee?"

Their gaze met and she gave him a look that he couldn't really decipher, it was a mix of surprise and something else that he couldn't understand. But the moment had soon vanished and Ziva smiled at him. "Yes, let us get this show on the street."

Tony grinned, "Road, not street."


A/N: Well hoped you liked it, send me a review!