A/N: Hey everyone. Hope you all had a great Easter. Here is the final chapter to my story. I debated continuing but I really feel this is a good stopping point. Thank you to all of you who have been following my story. I am humbled by all your kind remarks and words of encouragement. I hope you enjoy the final chapter.

Chapter 10

It had taken all of Ziva's will but she had managed to stay away from Gibbs' place, until last night. The longer she lay there in his arms, the more she silently cursed herself for giving in. Staying away would be twice as hard now. Gibbs started to stir and as he opened his eyes she gave him a half- hearted smile and without saying a word she got out of bed. She headed to the bathroom in the hall to freshen up, and to put a some literal distance between her and Gibbs as she give herself a few moments to get all her conflicting emotions in check.

Coming out of the bathroom a few minutes later the smell of fresh brewed coffee washed over her suggesting that Gibbs had beat her downstairs. She headed down stairs and found him standing in the kitchen. He handed her a cup as he took a sip from his. Ziva lean against the kitchen counter across from him taking a sip of coffee. After several moments of silence he finally spoke.

"Are you avoiding me Ziver?"

Ziva was temporally stunned by his question. Her mind raced to find an answer, any answer, to give him that would defuse the potential of a very dangerous conversation happening. But before she could respond he continued, "You haven't been over once since you moved out and even now your body language suggests you would rather be anywhere but here."

Ziva felt her muscles instantly tense at the realization that Gibbs was reading her like a book. She looked down at her cup not giving him any opportunity trap her in his gaze. This conversation was headed in the wrong direction and fast. She needed to find a way out and now.

"Obviously last night was proof that the dreams are still happening. Why didn't you come to me sooner?"

"Gibbs, please I can't get into this now," Ziva replied sensing concern in his voice but not willing to indulge anything to him.

Gibbs sighed. He could feel frustration starting to build in him as his grip on his coffee cup tightened. He knew she was hurting and that she was slowing pulling away but he didn't understand why. His gut told him to keep pressing.

"Why have you closed yourself off from me? Did I do something that has made you second guess letting me help you?"

"No!" Ziva's voice sounded harsher and more irritated then she had intended. "You didn't do anything," she continued in a softer tone.

"Then what is it Ziver? I can see you are hurting and you need to talk about it. You use to feel comfortable talking to me. What has changed?"

Ziva felt her pulse start to quicken again as she could feel herself getting angrier. She was playing with fire, and she knew it. She needed to get her temper in check before she said something that she couldn't take back. Normally Ziva was always very in control of her emotions, but she knew too well that when it came to Leroy Jethro Gibbs all bets were off.

"Nothing has changed! Nothing is wrong!" she snapped at him.

"Come on Ziva don't insult me by lying to me!" Gibbs felt his frustration was starting to get the best of him but he pressed on, making an effort to remain calm. "You haven't been here in over a month. You show up last night and it takes you almost ten minutes to convince yourself to come down to the basement. I have a feeling it took you even longer to convince yourself to even come in the house in the first place."

He saw her flinch at that last statement confirming for him his gut was telling him the truth. Something was wrong. She had never been this guarded with him and he had never seen her hesitate this much before coming to him for help.

"I told you when you left you could come back anytime you needed. I know being here was helping you make some progress dealing with all that had happened. So why are you avoiding being here or is it just me your avoiding?"

"JETHRO PLEASE…. I CANT DO THIS…PLEASE, I CANT TALK ABOUT THIS WITH YOU". Ziva felt her voice raise a few disables as she felt herself caving into the anger. She slammed her coffee cup down on the counter. Damn him…why did he have to push her on this. Why couldn't he just drop it?

Before he knew it his frustration boiled over and before he could control himself his angry words lashed out at her

"WHY NOT? DAMIT ZIVA I CANT HELP YOUR IF YOU DON'T LET ME."

"I DON'T WANT YOU TO HELP ME! YOUR HELP IS THE LAST THING I NEED" Ziva yelled back. She felt a pang of guilt hit her in the stomach as she saw the weight of her words quickly flash across his face. He tried to hide it behind a stone mask but she had seen it in his eyes. She had hurt him with her last statement. Then just as quickly the pain in his eyes was gone and anger flared in his blue eyes as he yelled back.

"WHY? WHAT THE HELL HAS CHANGED? WHY DON'T YOU TRUST ME ANYMORE AND WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN I AM THE LAST THING YOU NEED?"

And with the onslaught of his angry questions…that dam finally broke, she had no more fight left in her. She had been fighting to keep it all together for too long now and she just didn't have the strength to do it anymore, to go head to head with Leroy Jethro Gibbs. With that, all she had been feeling over the past several months came pouring out in one big rambled mess.

"BECAUSE, YOU ARE THE PROMBLE JETHRO! I can't do THIS anymore, I can't stay HERE anymore" she said as she wildly gestured with her hands around the kitchen. Her voice started to lower as she felt herself trying to fight off the tears.

"I can't be around you like this anymore. I can't take it. It is killing me, YOU are killing me! I can't stop thinking of you. I miss you ever second I am away from you. My body aches to be close to you, for you to hold me at night. The dreams are bad enough, but I have learned to accept them and live with them. But this longing and pain of not being with you is more then I can handle. I feel like I can't breathe when I am not with you."

Ziva sighed and took a step back to lean against the counter gathering support to finish what she had started. She looked into his beautiful blue eyes and continued, "I am completely and utterly in love with you Jethro."

She let out a small-unexpected laugh at the reality of finally admitting out loud, for the first time, what she had been secretly trying to deny for months.

"I am in love with a man who heart is so completely inaccessible and is totally off limits on so many levels…and yet as hard as I try not to be, there is nothing I can do about it. It just is."

Her words had temporarily stunned him but he recovered quickly, soaking in every last word that she was saying. And then she said it. The thing he had longed to hear and had hoped for, but had convinced himself would never be a reality. She was in love with him. At that instant he wanted to tell her how he felt, all that he had been feeling and thinking but the words were getting all jumbled up in his head. So he did the only thing he could think to do. He crossed the room in two strides and pulled her to him, pressing his lips to hers, before Ziva could even say anything more.

He deepened his kiss as Ziva recover from the shock of his lips pressed against hers and started to return the kiss back to him. After a few seconds he broke the embrace. He continued to hold her in his arms but he leaned back just enough to look her in the eyes. "Jethro, I" He pressed his finger to her lips to silence her.

"Ziva, there is something I need to say. Well actually there is a lot I need to say but I am not very good at this sort of thing. So I am going to make it short and to the point. Your right, my heart has been inaccessible for a very long time. I have never meet anyone that has every caused me to want to move on from the hurt of losing my family. That is, until you. I don't know how it happened, hell I am not even sure I understand it all, but there is one thing I am absolutely sure about, and that is that I love you."

Ziva felt her breath temporally lodge in her lungs as his words flooded her heart.

"I am in love with you Ziver. I have been trying to fight it because you are right in saying that there are so many reasons why this shouldn't, wouldn't work, why it wouldn't even make sense to try, but for some reason it just does to me and I think it can work. I need you Ziver, as much and you seem to need me and I want to be with you if you will let me for as long as you will let me. I wan."

This time it was Ziva who placed her finger over his lips to cut him off.

"Shhh I have a feeling we will have plenty of time to talk about all this. Right now I just want you to do one thing for me."

Gibbs leaned back a little more as he nodded and gave her a quizzical look trying to figure out what she was going to ask of him. Then with a voice full of need and longing she put her hand behind his head and pulled him towards her and whispered "Kiss me Jethro" just as their lips meet for a second time.