Greetings lovely readers and reviewers! I'm incredibly intrigued to learn so many of you are now fond of My Dear Liat! This is a surprising turn of events. Her story shall play itself out in time with purpose, I assure you! I also find it interesting that some of you are eager for the story to continue for some time while others want me to hurry up and get to the end! LOL I can't do both! LOL Patience is something of a theme in these next few chapters, perhaps I can impart that on to those who can't wait for me to hurry up and finish! Patience. LOL Also, consider this journey we're on together a Roller Coaster Ride of life. Ups and downs, twists and turns, screams of glee and moments that make you want to vomit. In the end, it somehow seems worthwhile. Sit back and enjoy the ride for all its worth :) ** NOTE** I'm posting TWO chapters tonight, one right after the other 21 & 22 so don't accidentally miss it! ;)
Liat and the sniper were moving so quickly Gibbs couldn't get a shot off safely without hitting her as well. The man got behind her and was choking her with a lamp cord around her neck with Gibbs about to take a shot when Liat jumped at the wall in front of her, running up two steps and flipped herself over the man, coming up directly behind him, tearing herself free.
In a split second, she grabbed the sides of his head, yanking hard and snapping his neck as she landed behind him. Liat dropped to her knees as his body fell, clawing at the cord on her neck and Gibbs rushing to her side. He slowed when she flashed her dangerous dark eyes to him, realizing she was still in attack mode and recognizing friend from foe.
"Let me help you." He spoke quietly kneeling beside her.
"I'm fine." She heaved with choked voice, still gasping for air and refused to let him help as she pulled the chord free.
Her entire left arm was soaked in blood from her shoulder and dripping off the tips of her fingers in a steady stream. She looked at the chord in her hands, still heaving for breath and slid it around her arm, pulling tightly making it into a tourniquet. She turned on her knees intending to stand but felt light headed and sat down instead against the wall, using it for support as she calmed down and slowed her breathing.
"You put up a helluva fight, Officer Tuvia." Gibbs smiled softly at her, still kneeling at her side and looking around the room at the destruction left in their wake.
"Liat!" They could hear Malachi's screams as he ran up the stairwell. The sound of her name coming more urgently from him as he neared the top floor, "Liat!" He screamed coming around the corner and then stopped short seeing the battlefield before him. Relief flashing through his eyes to see her still alive, "Are you okay?" He asked quietly in Hebrew maintaining his distance as he took in the dead man on the floor before him.
"I'm fine." She answered looking away as he started coming closer.
"You need a hospital." He looked at her blood soaked arm and the make shift tourniquet. He knelt down beside them, trying to reach out and touch her face that was also bleeding from several gashes and stopped when she flinched and moved her face away, exposing more vividly the deep purple and red marks in tight lines around her throat from the lamp cord were already showing their angry presence. "Let me help you up." He stood offering her his hands.
"I'm fine. I don't need your help." She brushed his hands away and pushed herself up using the wall for support. "Is Ziva okay?" She ignored Malachi and asked Gibbs directly. "She's not hit?"
"No," Gibbs answered quietly and thankful, putting his hand gently against her back to help steady her, "She's okay…thanks to you." He smiled at how the woman really had thrown herself over Ziva's body.
"I'm just glad," Liat spoke in a raspy voice from the damage to her throat, "that Ziva and I traded sides in the car this morning. She would have been the one hit." She walked a step and then wavered on her feet, Gibb's and Malachi both stepping in quickly to steady her.
"Liat-" Malachi tried to speak seeing her paling appearance but was quickly cut off.
"Don't!" Her tone was harsh inspite of the damage to her vocal chords and it clearly pained her from the expression, "I am fine without your concern."
Malachi dropped his hand defeated as she began walking again, only making it a few more feet before she began to fall and was caught in Malachi's arms as he swooped her up.
"Stubborn!" He cursed at her in English seeing she had passed out completely and unconscious in his arms.
"Taking her back to NCIS and the medical room with Ducky is going to be the fastest treatment considering the location we're at and the roads today." Gibbs offrered trying not to smile at the couple before him now that reminded him so much of another, right now to the loud 'stubborn.' "I see she's in good hands." He finally smiled softly at Malachi, "You go. I'll stay here with this." He motioned around the room to the dead man and the mess, which was now a crime scene. "Please send McGee, Barrett and Palmer. I know DiNozzo will want to stay with David. Ducky will take care of Liat."
"I will. Thank you, Agent Gibbs…for coming after her. For being her backup." Malachi swallowed hard looking at the unconscious bleeding woman in his arms and the look of love was hard for Gibb's to miss.
"She was handling it pretty well on her own." Gibb's smiled trying to reassure the man, "Go on." He urged him to move and Malachi snapped into action, thundering quickly back down the stairs yelling at the men coming up to move out of his way. Gibb's smiled shaking his head watching Malachi's dark form run at full speed with Liat in his arms back across the snow towards the Navy Yard and medical help.
"How bad?" Ziva asked with great concern seeing Malachi with Liat in his arms, running towards where they were now standing behind the barricades and vehicles. Her fingers reached out instinctively to feel for a pulse on Liat's pale neck as her head lulled in Malachi's arms. "She still has a strong pulse." She breathed a sigh of relief and then gently ran her finger over the nasty line of bruises already forming around Liat's neck from the cord, making it very obvious that she had been choked with something other then somone's hands.
"She's shot in the upper arm. Tied her' own tourniquet with the lamp cord." He shook his head as they all moved quickly towards the building. "Gibb's wants you," He looked at McGee, "Agent Barrett and Palmer to join him at the scene. She killed the sniper."
"Okay," McGee kissed Abby's temple giving her arm a squeeze and ran ahead of them as quickly as possible into the building to get the others.
"You need to tell her." Tony finally spoke after twenty minutes of silence sitting with Malachi in the Bull Pen waiting for news. Ducky was now tending to Liat in the Medical Room below and Ziva was standing vigil for her this time.
"Tell her what?" Malachi ran his hand over his head and scrubbed down his face, already exhausted and the day had just begun as he leaned back in Ziva's desk chair.
"How you feel about her. How you really feel about her." Tony clarified, his own heart still pounding from the incident this morning. One hit after another, he was convinced the Universe was speaking to him. Slapping him around about 'taking nothing for granted.'
"She hates me, Agent DiNozzo!" Malachi stood suddenly, whirling around, "Hates me!" He lowered his voice seeing they were gaining attention with the loud outburst,"You saw her last night! The look she gave me…she hates me."
"No." Tony shook his head, "She doesn't hate you, trust me! I've been where you are! When we left Ziva in Israel with you and Mossad. Don't you remember how much anger Ziva had towards me? She knocked me on my ass and put a gun to my chest. Told me that she nearly killed me on sight she was so angry with me. She was angry because I didn't tell her how I really felt and she thought I was still trying to control her life! That I didn't want her…but I didn't want anyone else to either." He saw the moment of recognition on Malachi's face, remembering Ziva's anger then and Liat's words and anger last night.
"She's pushing me away! What am I supposed to do? She wants nothing to do with me now." Malachi sighed. "It's impossible. I'm going to be the Director of Mossad. She is my Officer and that relationship can never be sanctioned. I am her Superior now. This can never be anyway. I won't make her give up her career. I know how hard she's worked to get to where she is, Agent DiNozzo."
"Malachi-" Tony tried again to get through to him again when Ziva appeared walking off the elevator.
By the look on their faces, and their body language she knew she'd interrupted something.
"Ziva, you shouldn't be alone." His brain immediately short-circuiting to the fact she was completely alone wandering the building.
"I just wanted to let you know that Ducky has finished and Liat is awake." She sighed not thinking about her own safety for the moment.
"She's okay?" Malachi asked with obvious concern.
"Yes. She will be fine. He repaired the vessels in her arm and closed the wound. Her neck and throat will be sore for a few days but she will be fine." Ziva tried to reassure him using the tone that he understood; a confident military 'these are the facts' forwardness he was used to. "He has given her a blood transfusion and IV fluids and wants her to rest the remainder of the work day. She's actually not arguing and after I assured her…that I would stay with her and not you," Ziva felt badly telling him, "she has agreed to try and sleep."
"Oh." Malachi seemed deflated. "I will come by later to see her then. I need to change." He quickly changed the topic, looking down at his now bloody shirt and jacket and wanting to leave as quickly as possible. He took off towards the staircase, foregoing the elevator to vacate the space as quickly as possible and headed down towards the NCIS gym.
"I'll take you back downstairs." Tony ushered her towards the elevator, not wanting her to be alone again.
"What did I interrupt?" Ziva asked Tony the moment the doors had closed behind them.
"I was trying to convince him to tell her how he really felt. He said it didn't matter anymore. That it was impossible anyway." Tony stepped closer to Ziva, pulling her softly into his chest and pushing her hair behind her ear staring into her eyes. "This was not how I was intending our Valentine's Day to go." He kissed the top of her head, pulling her in and holding her just a bit longer; closing his eyes taking her presence in.
His hand shot out and hit the Stop button, halting the elevator's movement. "Ziva, I'm not wasting any more chances. Any more moments." He cupped her face staring into her big brown eyes, ready to take the plunge afraid to go one more moment without telling her exactly how he felt. "This was not how or where I intended to tell you…but perhaps it is fitting. This seems to be 'our' place, doesn't it?" He smiled looking around the tiny metal enclosure remembering all of their moments over the years that happened inside the elevator. "Ani ohev otach." His heart was pounding having finally said the words, 'I love you.'
"Ani ohev otach." He repeated quietly making sure she understood and hoping his Hebrew pronunciation of the phrase was correct. "Am I saying that right? Or have I told you I like goats or something?" He smiled half-joking with frazzled nerves and hoped he hadn't messed up the three most important words of his life. "What I'm trying to say is, I love you."
Ziva felt her eyes suddenly welling with tears and reached up, cupping his neck and pulling him down to kiss her, needing the contact just as much as he had. They kissed until she was breathless and then both pulled apart, resting their foreheads together still holding each other as tears ran down her face. She leaned back to look at him. There were too many close calls, too many chances missed and she wasn't waiting anymore either to tell him how she felt, "I love you too, Tony." She smiled choking back more tears, "I have…for a long, long time." The tears she saw welling in his eyes and the smile on his face had never been brighter.
"Why was this so hard to say?" Tony asked of himself and her, brushing the hair off her forehead, "Now that I've said it… I want to tell you every minute," he kissed her lips lightly, "Of every day," He kissed them again, "How much I love you, Ziva David." He kissed her once more, nearly breathless as their lips kept touching in the lightest of kisses, "I never want you to doubt how I feel for you. Ever again." He kissed her and rubbed his nose with hers in the barest of touches. Thinking about their past and all the miscommunication, the missed moments and too many chances taken for granted.
"I do not doubt how you feel anymore, Tony." She held his face in her hands, staring into the beautiful green eyes she'd fallen in love with so long ago,"I havenot since I first heard you tell me you loved me…when you thought that I could not hear." She needed to tell him the truth now, wanting to start this journey forward as honestly as possible. She could see the immediate pinched look on his face, asking the question without the use of words. "I was not sure if I had dreamed it or not at first." She began nervously, "In the first days after my shooting…when I was awake." She tried to explain the time frame, "But when I heard Schmeil and everyone else tell me how upset you were at my death… I knew what I had heard was not my imagination. You had told me that you loved me, had whispered it repeatedly in my ear when you thought I was dead… and I heard you, Tony. Some how your words got through to me, even then." Her eyes filled with more tears and a slow smile spread across her face seeing the look on his. That she had heard him correctly, he had told her then that he loved her.
"Why didn't you say something sooner?" Tony asked thumbing away her tears, speaking in almost a whisper to know his words had gotten through even in near death. She had heard him.
"I wanted to. That is why I was so angry with you for suddenly avoiding me again after I was awake and conscious. That you could only tell me your truth or show me affection when you thought that I was dead or unconscious." She sniffled and took a breath remembering how much that had hurt, "Your father told me why he believed you were pulling away. That he had done the same to you after your mother died to avoid getting hurt again. To avoid losing someone else you loved and that I should give you time. Not to give up on you." She smiled softly as he brushed away more tears, "That you were a better man then he was. You were just afraid to lose me and that you pushed me away to protect your heart."
"I can't believe my father would… " Tony shook his head in disbelief and sudden love for the man who wasn't there for him but did understand, had told Ziva to hold on and that Tony would come around. He would have to thank him for that the next time his father was in town. "And after the kiss? All this time you knew how I felt for you…why didn't you confront me that you'd heard me tell you I loved you before?"
"I wanted to hear you tell me when you were ready, Tony. I did not want those words, that declaration to be something I forced out of you. And I did not tell you, because I was afraid that if I said them first and you were not ready to hear them…that you would only push me further away." She looked down as more tears fell.
Tony couldn't argue with her logic. It sounded like something he would have likely done if not ready to face the truth. He would have pushed her away.
"I love you, Ziva." He tilted her face up to look him in the eye, brushing his thumbs over her delicate skin with intent eyes and then smiled, "I may not have been able to admit it to myself by saying those exact words before, but I have felt them for a long…long…long time." His smile widened. "Ani ohev otach." He dropped his lips to her's once more and let their' kiss linger, tasting her tears still falling slowly from her eyes. "Ani ohev otach." He repeated pulling away and smiling at her.
"We will continue this later. Yes?" She asked with a smile as they pulled apart and Tony hit the Start button on the elevator once more.
"Absolutely, David." Tony held her hand staring at the doors wearing a smile until they opened having reached their destination. "One more month." He took a deep breath and blew it out exaggeratedly causing her to chuckle, knowing exactly what he meant. "You'd think after seven years, waiting two months to…" He shook his head having to clear the images as he couldn't afford to let his thoughts linger there, "This is a supreme lesson in patience."
"For us both, Tony. For us both." Ziva winked at him with a smile and walked quietly into Liat's room leaving him staring at her with mouth slightly open.
"Why did you wait so long?" Tony slapped the back of his own head, grumbling as he walked off, "Idiot." He shook his head as a slow smile spread across his face. "Ziva David loves me." He whispered as if still surprised to know that for certain as he waited for the elevator.
"You're only realizing that now, DiNozzo?" Gibb's asked walking up behind him and surprising Tony.
"Uh, hey Boss, where'd you come from?" Tony disregarded Gibb's statement suddenly feeling embarrassed that Gibb's had once again snuck up on him.
"Autopsy." Gibb's tilted his head to the side trying to hold back a smile having heard the awe and happiness in Tony's voice when he'd made the statement that Ziva loved him. "Our dead sniper had no finger prints."
"Boss?" Tony looked at him incredulous.
"They've been burned off intentionally."
"No way to identify him." Tony felt his anger rising. "Damn it!"
"Maybe not, DiNozzo," Gibb's tried to calm him down, "I saw the way he and Liat were fighting. This guy was trained in Krav Maga. Well trained." Gibb's added quietly pondering what that could mean.
Tony was thinking the same thing. Israeli's were the most skilled and notorious Krav Maga fighters in the world; they'd witnessed Ziva's 'mad ninja skills' as Tony called them several times over the years. "You think he's Mossad?" He felt a knot forming in his stomach at the thought.
"Could be." Gibb's nodded as they rode the elevator up towards the Bull Pen.
When it was time to leave later that evening, Liat and Ziva emerged together from the elevator. Liat's arm was in a sling and though she still looked slightly pale, appeared steady on her feet once more.
"How are you feeling?" Gibb's asked quietly giving her a small smile.
"I am fine, Agent Gibb's." Liat answered quickly with a harshly raspy voice, brushing aside his concern and then giving a tiny smile of thanks before looking away, Anywhere but at Malachi who was staring at her, giving her entire body the 'once over' glance. When dead silence fell over the group gathered Liat finally looked directly at Malachi with penetrating dark eyes and quiet voice, "What are you still doing here? Were you not supposed to leave earlier in the day?" She asked in English.
"I changed my flight. I'm leaving in the morning." Malachi answered swallowing hard before her gaze. He didn't need to clarify; they all knew he'd changed his plans after what happened to Liat earlier in the day. He couldn't leave until he knew she was okay. "We need to talk." He added in Hebrew with his own dark eyes holding fast to hers. "This is not negotiable. You will be coming back to the hotel with me tonight. I have already booked your room."
Liat didn't answer only continue to stare back him. Everyone else watched with eyes darting back and forth between the two; only Ziva understanding what had been said.
"Agent DiNozzo," Malachi shifted his eyes to Tony, "Given that today is a special holiday, I realize that you will most likely want to spend the evening with Ziva. I trust that you will keep her safe and stand vigil this evening." He gave Tony a small smile. "Liat and I need to discuss her new position here so she will not be standing guard this evening. She needs to rest anyway." He added quietly with eyes flashing to her and then away knowing she wouldn't like that statement. "I won't see you in the morning as I have a very early flight." He looked around at all the faces before him, "Thank you for your hospitality. I'll be in touch soon." He gave them all a small smile and then stepped forward, stopping directly in front of Ziva. He looked down at her with stern eyes and then leaned in, dropping a light kiss to her forehead and pulling back quickly, surprising them all with his gesture. The first openly sign of affection he'd ever shown to her. "Take care, Dear Ziva." He gave her a slight smile and then shook hands with everyone else quickly. "Liat, let's go." He waved her to follow and they all watched them go.
"What was that all about?" Tony asked quickly of Ziva, knowing she understood those few sentences in Hebrew the rest had not. "What did he say?"
"He said they needed to talk. That he had already booked her room in the hotel." Ziva felt a slight rise in anger at Malachi for his Ordering of Liat on their personal issues, which it clearly was, when she had no desire to speak with him. He was using his authority to force her. "He told her it was not negotiable."
"Eh. That's not good.," Tony's hopeful shoulders fell slightly not liking to hear Malachi's approach with Liat, "I hope they don't end up killing each other."
"I guess we'll find out in the morning." Gibb's nodded grabbing his gear and the rest followed suit, "Ziver, you're sitting in the middle of the seat from now on. Away from windows."
"Boss, I thought the DOD lent you a bullet proof SUV to transport Ziva?" McGee asked with a slightly confused look on his face even as he packed up quickly.
"They did, McGee." Gibb's sounded annoyed but mostly tired. "But I'm not taking any chances."