A/N: Wow! Message received: interest is definitely not waning! I have such an amazing group of readers. Hearing from you keeps me motivated when the story gives me trouble (which it is fond of doing). Thank you!

Part 14: Home

"Where'd you want this, Ziver?"

Fine silver strands were all that was visible over the stack of boxes Gibbs carried in his arms. Standing over the threshold, essentially blind, he awaited orders.

Ziva set down the clothes she was sorting and snatched the top parcel off his load, offering a smile for his cleared line of sight. "Right over here, by the dresser is good."

After depositing the boxes on the floor, Gibbs pressed a hand to his lower back, straightening gradually, knees creaking with audible pops, and she wondered when the retired Marine had let time catch up with him. It'd been harder to notice, she supposed, when she saw him day in, day out. As her visit to NCIS that morning proved, a lot could happen when she wasn't looking. Regardless of when, the truth remained: Gibbs was finally showing signs of wear and tear, though she wasn't going to be the one to tell him that.

"I do not know why you are being so stubborn," she remarked, returning to her former task.

He didn't say Takes one to know one because his expression said it for him.

A roll of brown eyes. "I only meant that I can bring everything I need up myself. You do not need to bother with it." She'd lost track of how many trips he'd taken already, hauling items from the garage, into the house, up the stairs, and into the spare bedroom. She would be tired, too.

His hand met her elbow, the firm grip drawing her gaze up to his blue-grey eyes, clear and ageless. "You," he said quietly, "are not a bother to me."

Ziva nodded, puzzled by the moisture welling behind her eyes at his simple assertion. It was impossible for her not to feel like a burden when she was currently depending on him for everything—shelter, food, transportation, and now, so much more.

"Are you sure it is not an imposition—"

"We've been over this, Ziva."

In fact, they'd only spoken of the new arrangement once. During the drive back to the house from NCIS, she'd mentioned how she would use the afternoon to begin a search for an apartment for her and Sana.

Gibbs had glanced over the console and said, "Or you could just start unpacking."

Years ago, pride and a forceful self-reliance would have prevented her from accepting anyone's charity. But she had more than herself to think of now. When she arrived, Sana would need the stability and safety Gibbs was affording with this gift. So Ziva had protested out of tradition, but it was useless—and secretly, a relief. One more factor absolved in her pursuit for Sana was one less keeping her mind awake and sprinting at night.

And that was how his house became hers, too.

"It will be temporary," she assured him, for the third time in as many hours.

His head lolled to the side and back onto her, a knowing look rumbling under the surface.

"Until I have things settled."

"You go ahead and tell yourself that, David. Just remember, raising a kid—" He squeezed her arm, letting her know he was still there. "You can't do it alone."

Sana's tanned face flashed in her mind, and Ziva tried to imagine her here, two worlds colliding. She smiled again; soon, she wouldn't have to imagine. To say she was looking forward to meeting with the adoption agency representative to get the process underway in the morning was an understatement.

"Thank you, Gibbs," she said softly, and kept it at that.

"Yeah," was the muttered reply as he gestured to the bed wedged into the south corner of the room, where the slanted ceiling leveled off with the wall beside the window. "I was thinking we take this one out. Bring yours up."

They were debating the pros and cons of keeping the trundle bed where it was and working together to flip the top mattress, when a voice echoed up the stairwell.

"Hey, anybody here? Hello?"

The mattress flopped into place with a whoosh, sending the filmy curtains over the window flying.

Gibbs went to the open door, sticking his head into the hall. "We're up here, DiNozzo."

A trotting gait up the stairs, and then Tony manifested in the doorway, still in his work suit and tie. He surveyed the disheveled state of the room. "Is it spring cleaning time at Casa Gibbs?"

The elder agent sifted his hands free of dust and propped them on his hips. "Keep making jokes, I'll put you to work. You got something for me?"

"Actually, that's not why I'm here."

Tucking in a corner of the sheet, Ziva felt two pairs of eyes alight on her back and she spun around, unsurprised to find both men waiting for her attention.

"Can I see you for a sec?" Tony tipped his head and stepped backwards into the hallway. An invitation to follow him.

She accepted with a winded, "Yes," weaving forward around the towers of boxes. They hadn't exchanged more than a word to each other when the team came back from the scene and Gibbs whisked her out of the office. If showing up at the house was any indicator, he had more to say.

"First," she said, brushing passed Tony through the doorway, "water."

(/)(/)(/)

The wooden slats creaked beneath the release of her weight, and Ziva figured it had been awhile since anything was asked of the hand-crafted bench swing on Gibbs' porch. Taking another gulp of water, the cool liquid replenishing her from the exertion of work, she set the drink down to the side of her feet, wiping the glass' trace condensation from her palms off on her dark jeans. The shallow wounds on the soles of her hands were already scabbing.

Beyond the front porch, the sun was in its final descent, but the job of illuminating the neighborhood had already been taken up by porch lights, glowing like small beacons up and down the street, guiding straggling residents—held up at the office or returning from the grocery with milk for the kids' cereal bowls in the morning—into their houses on that slow, quiet Monday evening.

Yes, she thought, this could be home.

Tony leaned against the railing, eliciting a groan from the wood. The house was not accustomed to so much use. "Now I know why Gibbs handed the Arlington case over to me." His gaze was on the closed door, behind which his boss was taking a mandated break. Mandated by Ziva.

"Perhaps he did not need a reason. You are a capable agent. Gibbs knows that."

"Thanks for that, but…" His shrug failed to fill in the rest of his objection, leaving it dangling for the next gust of intermittent breeze to carry off.

Ziva tugged the flaps of her cardigan closer together; with the onset of twilight came a crisp chill that daylight had held at bay. "What is going on between you two?"

"Me and Gibbs? Nothing."

"Do not play possum."

"Playing possum means you're faking death," Tony explained patiently. "The idiom you're looking for is 'playing dumb.' And I'm not."

She sat back, the toe of her left shoe setting the swing to glide. The hinges overhead squeaked, rust feathering free of the metal braces. "I can ask Gibbs instead."

A sigh deflated his lax defenses, but his tone maintained an untroubled front. "I didn't agree with some choices he made. I'm pretty sure he didn't agree with mine, last summer. But we're good. We're handling it like men. You know, ignoring it until it goes away on its own."

Ziva shook her head. Idiots.

Last summer…

"You would not happen to be fighting because of me, would you?"

Tony swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing thickly in his throat. His eyes fell on her, guard up. She didn't realize she was interrogating him until that moment. But years of coercing terrorists and suspects alike, all with something to hide, trained her too well. She couldn't ignore the signs of hitting on the truth.

"We're not fighting," he said with a finality she chose to honor, even as the acid taste of guilt wormed its way up her throat, siphoning off her air—

"Here, before I forget." A thankful diversion, Tony stepped toward her, one hand diving into his suit jacket pocket, out of which he produced a familiar piece of jewelry that he rested over the top of his other hand, like a salesman displaying merchandise. "Does this belong to you, Miss David?"

It certainly did. She hadn't seen the Star of David necklace, one of the few she owned and the one that meant the most, in five months, not since she slipped it off her neck and into the pocket of another of his jackets before they left for the airport.

Sometimes she wondered why she'd given it to him at all, for it was a poor substitution for what he'd traveled to Israel to collect. During those days they spent together in her childhood home, she'd argued with him more than spoke the grateful words he deserved, but a part of her had recognized his dogged determination—to find her and keep her—and his hard-won surrender, giving her back to herself, in the end. Perhaps that was why she'd entrusted him with what she could: the pendant was her identity, a piece of herself as much as her fingers or toes. Or her heart.

Ziva knew it would be safe with him while she sent herself into the unknown. And she had not been wrong.

Reaching out, her thumb grazed the cool chain—and his skin, by accident.

He was already moving behind the swing as he asked, "Do you want me to—?"

"Yes, thank you."

Her hair was gathered into a ponytail, so she pulled the tassel of curls over her shoulder, making it easy for him to fasten the necklace onto its rightful owner. The pendant dangled down over her breastbone, a glint of gold on the coal of her shirt. She cupped a palm over it, whispering a Hebrew prayer, memorized in her youth, offering thanks for its return.

The task complete, his fingertips swept over the nape of her bare neck, marking a sensitive trail on their way off the edge of her skin. Masking the sensation elicited by his touch, she waited for him to come back around, but instead he sank into a crouch where he stood, and she shifted, pulling one leg underneath her, to keep him in view.

His forearms came to rest on the top wooden lip, swaying the swing and her in it. "It's been burning a hole in my desk drawer this whole time. Figured you'd want it back."

That was not where she would have expected the dear possession to have resided. Then again, who was she to decide where he kept it?

"You have taken good care of it," she said by way of expressing her gratitude.

His smile was not one of his usual dazzlers, but tempered, private. Just for her. "Not a problem."

There was no wind to blame for the shiver that passed through her. She was thankful for the wooden barrier between them, yet they were close enough for her eyes to trace the faint outline of a 5 o'clock shadow along his cheek and to bring to her mind thoughts of the last time they'd kissed. Unlike that desperate embrace on the tarmac, were they to give in now, it would be weighed on a different scale of consequence, rather than measured in the fleeting passion of impossibility. It would be intent.

Ziva adjusted, faulting proximity for such considerations, and created the illusion of distance from the object of her memories. "You did not have to come all this way to return it to me."

"It was kinda an excuse anyway."

"For what?"

"You really aren't…" Brows knitting, Tony forced out a single, humorless laugh. "Ziva, don't you get it? I searched for you, after you left again. I've missed you. I…want to spend time with you." And it felt like a confession, the way he held onto the words until the last possible second.

Confronted with the flurry of his candor, her face betrayed her, revealing none of the tenderness she felt for him but all of her frozen shock.

"But I'm getting the feeling you don't feel the same way about me—"

He was standing. Leaving.

"…so I'll just get out of—"

"How dare you?" Ziva was on her feet, too, toppling over the glass of water, its clear contents emptying in a yawning pool.

Whether it was the taut restraint of her accusation or the shrill slap of glass on stone, Tony pulled up on the first step off the porch and whirled around.

"What?" he demanded.

"To imply that I do not care?" The point of her finger was her weapon, aimed at his chest as she advanced in the path of his retreat. "That is not fair, Tony."

"Oh really? Explain to me what's fair about you disappearing off the face of the earth for five months. I wasn't feeling the love then." He leaned in, meeting her threat. "If you actually 'cared,' why the hell didn't you let me know?"

"Because I could not say your name!" It was her own confession, escaping into the dusk settling over the street. She did not stop for his suddenly numb expression, continuing with thrashing arms and all the frustration of the past week: the upheaval and the surprises and the regret. "I did not even allow myself to think of you—or anyone on the team. I know how they felt, Tony. I understand why they did not talk about me to you. That is how it was for me! It is torture to think about what you may have lost forever!"

In the wake of her heated release, stillness enveloped them. The innocuous sounds of the neighborhood returned—the growl of an engine idling in a driveway a few houses down, the shrieks of children playing in a distant backyard, crickets calling to each other in the stiff blades of grass.

Recoiling to a spot further down the porch railing, Ziva curled her fingers around the solid wood and calmed her breathing, each level inhale reigning in more of her lost control. She hadn't wanted to fight him, only to be understood. Accepted. She had just a moment to herself before—

"I can't be sure, but I think there was a compliment for me in there somewhere."

The brunette turned, shoulders sagged with the fatigue of this endeavor: returning, mending what she broke—And then you send Tony back a…a broken man—when she was only trying to do the same for herself by leaving in the first place. Healing, changing, starting over.

His approaching footsteps scuffed on the stone. Again and again he came after her, and again and again she sent him away, his persistence often irritating as much as baffling her. He'd never given up on her, even when she'd believed he should—out of fear, and doubt. But a human bone could only be splintered, fractured, broken at the same point so many times before it was damaged beyond repair. She knew he would not pursue her forever, if he thought there was no hope.

Which, or course, was not true.

Tony arrived at his destination, planting himself in front of her. She wasted no time bridging the sliver of remaining distance with an outstretched hand. Her slender fingers and open palm laid down over the expensive weave of his Oxford shirt, right over his heart. She brushed her thumb back and forth, smoothing a nonexistent wrinkle in the fabric. Despite the nip in the air, he was warm to the touch.

"You haven't lost me, Ziva."

Her eyes rose, finding a deep hazel gaze waiting for her. "I know. And I have missed you, too, Tony," she admitted, her head tilting cautiously, fondly up at him. "I have missed what we…had."

More than just where they'd left off at the end of summer, or the friendship pact they'd forged up at Gibbs' cabin before resigning, she meant who they had been in the photo tacked up behind his desk: their 'Post-Elevator' stage, as Tony had titled it, when the defenses guarding their respective walls had been at their most lenient in eight years, even allowing each other to scale the sides on occasion. When, if she was being honest with herself, them had been as real a possibility as ever.

Tony reached for her, taking more than he had since Israel, grounding her to the porch, to this life here, with him. "We can have all of that again."

Off his tongue it was more than an offer, it was a vow… and truthfully, she was relieved when his cell phone rang and his duty as Agent-in-Charge obligated him to answer, effectively pushing pause on the scene just before her next line in the script.

We. The plural reverberated in her ears. Swept up in the moment, she'd forgotten that the circumstances had changed on her end. She was now part of a pair, the other half filled by Sana, and there would be no haggling on the addition.

Before they moved forward, Tony needed to know about her future daughter.