Chapter 38. Just to prove I am actually capable of making the deadlines I set for myself…here is the next chapter…Hope you enjoy it.

Disclaimer: Not Mine

Spoilers: No

"Hello Paula," Tony said picking up his cell phone.

"We're going to Vienna," she told him.

"Does it look like we're gaining on them?" Tony asked.

"Not anymore that it has before," Paula replied.

"So we're nowhere," Tony said.

"It's not nowhere," Paula said wearily, "We're getting somewhere, we just don't know where somewhere is."

"Do you think we are ever going to catch up?" Tony asked.

"How can you ask that?" she questioned him. "We have to catch up. If we don't...". Her sentence drifted off. They both knew what would happen if they failed to catch up. They would lose Kate and Ethan forever.

"Yeah," he said, "I suppose you are right."

"Well," she said, "I have to go. I was just calling to keep you updated."

"Thanks," he said.

"No problem," she replied, "I'll let you know if something else changes." Tony gave a nod he knew Paula could not see, and they both hung up without another word.

"We will find them." Tony spun around on the spot. He had not heard anyone enter the room, and he had not thought that anyone else had a key, but then Ziva never seemed to need one anyway.

"We will find them," Ziva repeated, her voice far sharper that usual.

Tony just stared at her. He had not seen her since their conversation by the reflecting pond, and he had not expected her to seek him out so soon if at all. He struggled for several minutes trying to find the words to say.

"I am sorry," she said, looking away from him, "I said things I should not have."

"Did you mean them?" he asked her.

She hesitated. "Some of them, yes," she told him finally, "most of them no, but I should not have said them either way."

"It's okay," he said, not wanting to know exactly which parts she had meant. He appreciated her honesty, even more so because he knew that it did not come easily to her. It did not come easily to him either, but for her deception had been ingrained since childhood and that was hard to fight.

"It's not," she said shaking her head.

"You are stressed," he said, "and tired."

"We all are," she pointed out.

"Exactly," he said, "which is why we all understand."

"Thank you," she told him, "for following me."

"I'd follow you anywhere," he said quietly enough that she could pretend not to hear it.

She did not say anything, but she smiled. It made Tony realize how long it had been since he saw Ziva smile, and that thought made him sad.

"We should meet back up with them," Ziva said after a time. "This is about Jenny and Gibbs, and they are the ones who are going to be able to end this."

"Do you think we can help them?" Tony asked.

"I do not know," Ziva said. "But I would rather be there to back them up than here doing nothing." She did not fully believe what she was saying, or perhaps more accurately she believed it, but she did not want to accept it. She hated playing second string. It made her feel useless, helpless, and that was a feeling she had spent her whole life trying to escape.

"And when we catch them?" Tony asked. He wondered how they were ever going to explain what was happening to any kind of law enforcement body.

Ziva did not hesitate or even blink. "We aren't going to catch them."

Tony looked at her bewildered. "But you said-"

"I said we would find them," she replied her tone emotionless, "and we will, but they will not be going to jail. When we find them I am going to put a bullet in each of their kneecaps and then one between each of their eyes."

There was a look in Ziva's eyes that seemed to mix fiery anger with cold, murderous detachment. For the first time in a long time Tony was reminded both that Ziva had been a killer in a past life, and that that life was not nearly a distant as they liked to think it was. He wondered if Ethan had that too. If he did, he hid it well, but then so did Ziva, he doubted he would have seen anything reflected in her eyes if he did not know her so well.

"They are going to die," she said, her voice low and deadly, "and I want to be the one to do it."

Then again it was not really a past life. He knew as well as anyone that you could not just leave behind a part of your life. It followed you because it was part of you, for better or worse you were irreparably changed by everything you experience.

Tony supposed that would be the benefit to being an accountant in the middle of nowhere Montana: soul-scarring incidences would be few and far between. Of course a life like that would also be incredibly dull for him. He liked the action, the danger, and he liked knowing he did something that mattered.

Ziva looked at Tony, and she thought she knew what he was thinking. She wondered if there had ever been any chance of her leading a simple quiet life. She knew there was not. As children of the director of Mossad nether she nor Ethan ever really had that chance. The world they grew up in was far too dangerous, but they had survived. Tali and Ari had not been so lucky. Ari had deserved death, Tali had not, but they were both equally dead.

Ziva had learned long ago that death was indiscriminate in who he killed. The concepts of good and evil and the grey area in between the two were unimportant to him. Bad people died everyday but so did good ones, and what scared Ziva most was the possibility that more people, good people, people she loved, we're going to die before this was all over.

Well I really liked the last sentence…I think Ziva's starting to change, but will she show that soft inner side to anyone else? Anyway please review.