300 reviews! I did a little dance when I saw that number. And I really am amazed, you know, that even now, 65 chapters in, there are still people checking it out, reading the whole thing in a couple of days – honestly, I rarely start reading anything with over 30 chapters already, and this has over 133814 words. That is insane! I did not know I had that many words in me.
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LXV. Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder… Or Forgetful…
"Agent DiNozzo, I want my daughter back."
"Yeah, well, didn't you get that when you threw Mr Mossad at her?"
"If you are talking about Malachi, I had hoped he would bring her back home to me. I had not counted upon him ceasing all contact as soon as he had her." Eli looked down at his hands.
"Amit Hadar." He held his hand out, dropping it when Tony ignored it. "I was supposed to accompany them until they reached Tel Aviv. Malachi refused to let me accompany them even to the Mexican border."
"So they are in Mexico?" There was a trace of hope in Tony's voice as he looked up at their wedding photos above the mantle piece.
Eli pursed his lips, following Tony's line of sight. "Possibly." He stepped closer to the photos. "My beautiful girl."
"Why'd you do it? You could have just…been a normal dad. Let her be happy." He wouldn't admit that he had been crying himself to sleep any more than he would admit that there were tears in his eyes as he spoke. Cries came from the kitchen and Abby's voice filtered indistinctively over them.
"I did not think she was. My Ziva was always happy when she was fighting, working, not…this." He waved his hands in the air. "I did not think this is what she wanted. I did not think this was what made her happy."
"Then you clearly don't know her at all."
"Tony, Bod's not taking the formu-" Abby walked through, Ichabod in one arm and a bottle of formula in her other hand. She looked between the three men before walking over to Tony, lowering her voice. "He's not taking the formula again."
"He wants Ziva." Tony nodded, accepting his son. "Sorry, Little One. She's still not back. But we're working on it. We're gonna find her and we're gonna bring her home. But until then, you need to stay strong. You need to drink the nice yummy formula so you can show Ima how much you've grown when she gets back from her trip." Bod continued to wail and Tony sighed. "I know, I lied, the formula's yucky, but it's all we've got."
"Ziva would never drink formula, either." Tony glanced over his shoulder at Eli.
"Yeah, how'd you manage it?"
"We did not. She was stubborn."
"Still is." Tony, Hadar and Abby all muttered at the same time.
"Agent DiNozzo, I want my daughter back, home in Israel with me. But, I also want her happy. And I guess, if it is you that will make her happy, I will help bring her back to you. I want to be a part of her life."
"And how do you propose to help?" Abby challenged as Tony appeared to considered the proposition.
"We may only have the manpower that we can gather from the embassy, but we have much better surveillance technology than you, and our training is much better in these areas. We want her back just as much as you do."
Abby shrugged when Tony turned to her for guidance. "Sorry, Tony. This is a Ziva question. I don't know what you should do."
He bit his lip, looking down at his son and then up to the wedding photo before sighed and shaking his head. "I can't believe I'm about to do this." He locked his eyes with Eli, giving a small nod. "I can guarantee that she will be happy if you help us bring her home to me, and I can guarantee that I will keep her safe, but I cannot promise that she will let you into our life. That can only be promised by her."
"I understand, Agent DiNozzo."
"And, no matter how much technology you have, everything is run through here. This is headquarters. We remain in control, you are just advising. And, until Ziva is home and safe, and gives you the all clear, you stay away from our children. Is that understood?"
"Perfectly, Agent DiNozzo." All three men nodded to one another.
"Okay, one last thing, call me Agent DiNozzo again in that tone and I'm kicking you out of the house. Hear me?"
"What would you rather us call you?" Hadar asked hesitantly.
"Tony. Just call me Tony. This is Abby, McGee's in the kitchen doing his typy thingy, Gibbs and Ducky are out getting lunch. That's everyone."
"Not quite everyone." Eli nodded to the boy in Tony's arms and the agent shook his head.
"Everyone. You stay away from them. That includes knowing their names."
"I've got it! I've narrowed it down to…Mexico…" Abby's shoulder's slumped as she stared at her screen. "Really? Is that all you can give me? Mexico? We've spent the last hour working on this and all we can get is Mexico?"
"Well, it narrows it down to about 0.4% of the landmass of the world. If it even is her." McGee shrugged as everyone gathered around the screens. Gibbs and Eli had not spoken a word since Gibbs and Ducky returned with food, whilst Ducky and Hadar had been getting along like a house on fire, regaling one another with tales of battles and war stories.
"Oh, great, McPessimist, that's really helpful. We still have the 2000000km2 of Mexico to search, with no clue as to where they could be."
"It would help if we had some idea of where they might have been initially heading to." Abby looked across to the two Israeli's expectantly.
"We have safe houses across the world. Multiple safe houses in Mexico alone. He could have gone to any one of them." Hadar shook his head.
"Only a few of them have surveillance, and only a few are on file anywhere. And that is discounting any that Malachi may have set up himself."
McGee groaned. "Can you get Mossad to check the ones with security first? Then expand surveillance to areas with safe houses in. If they send us the footage, we can scan through it."
"Of course." Eli nodded as Tony grunted in frustration, standing up and storming out of the room. "Was it something I said?"
"He gets like this. He's angry that it's taking so long." Abby sighed as she and McGee when back to typing. "There's nothing we can do until he's stopped crying now. Not for him, anyway. We can keep working, keep trying to find her." Gibbs then stood up, slightly less dramatically than Tony, and, after grabbing his phone from the countertop, walked out of the open back door, across the patio and down the steps to the sunken garden. He flipped his phone open and held it to his ear. "That, that hasn't been a regular occurrence so far – that might have been caused by you." Abby shrugged a shoulder before turning back to the screen.
As soon as he reached their bedroom he made a beeline for the wardrobe, pulling out the first garment he knew to be hers. He clutched it in his hands, the soft fabric of the t-shirt, pressing it to his face and inhaling deeply, sobbing into the material that smelt so strongly of his wife. He grabbed the camcorder from the dresser before sliding to the floor, flipping the screen open and hitting replay on the last thing to be filmed. It did not get any easier with each time he watched it, but it was the only thing with Ziva's voice on it, the last images he had of her, and he needed to watch it over and over to memorise her, to stop him from forgetting. I needed to remember the little things, the things that were starting to slip from his mind; the way her voice would change when she was happy, the way her eyes crinkled when she laughed, the way she would pause and swallow before recalling something from her past or thinking about something sad. He needed her back. He needed to be able to touch her skin, taste her lips, smell her hair. He needed her voice to tell him she loved him, her breathing to lull him to sleep. He was beginning to lose it without her by his side.
Gibbs was still on the phone half an hour later when a key in the door announced the arrival of the director. They had all had keys cut when it had become difficult for someone to be constantly opening the door to allow people in. She smiled, pressing a kiss to both of the twin's foreheads as she entered the kitchen. "Anyone know who he's calling?"
"Not a clue." Ducky shook his head. "Although, the answer has been staring us in the face the whole time." Five blank faces stared at him. "Well, it's perfectly obvious now I think about it. Who does he talk to that much?" Five shrugs. "Who would be useful at a time like this?" Five more shrugs and a couple of head shakes. "Mexico."
"Mike!" Abby beamed. "But without knowing where she is, how's Mike going to help?"
"He'll be like a first responder. He'll be the first one of us able to get to her, someone she knows and trusts, and he'll have somewhere safe he can take her." McGee explained in his oh-I-get-it-now voice.
"Who is this Mike?" Hadar asked, slightly concerned by the addition of even more people into the mix – and more names to remember.
"Gibbs mentor. A bit of a cowboy, but loyal to Gibbs and fond of Ziva." Ducky said. "If he gets to her first, he'll keep her safe."
The phone rang and everyone fell silent as they looked to Tony. They had spent the past hour coaching him on what to do with the next phone call – keep her on for as long as possible, do not alert her to the fact he knows it is her, try and get her to talk, try and ascertain if she is okay. They were all pretty common-sense things, and he was starting to get annoyed by the level of patronisation they were reaching. "Hello?" The line was empty. "Look, I'm getting pretty fed up of these calls. I don't like not knowing things, and I don't really have time for this, and it's making me feel useless because it's taking me away from more important things. See, my wife's disappeared, stupidly run off thinking she can keep our family safe, even though it's just gonna get her killed, and our babies are struggling without her – our son is refusing to drink formula, and our daughter wakes up more and won't allow anyone to get her back to sleep. And our whole family's working night and day to try and find her, and I miss her. I miss holding her. Have you ever missed someone that much?" The caller hung up, not without allowing a few sobs to be heard over the line.
"Aha! I've got it down to North-East Mexico."
"I can do you one better than that, Abs. I've got a town. Sabinas? Ring any bells." Head shakes and shrugs all round as everyone looked to one another for any ideas. "Well, that's where our trace is coming from. Now all we need to do is find out if it's her and get down there."
"And find a way to get rid of Malachi." Amit reminded them. "But I think we can deal with that."
"Mike can get over there faster than us, he can scout out the town, see if he can locate her and Malachi, whilst we figure out a plan."
"Make certain that it is her first, then we fly out. We do not want to waste time on a wild goose chase." There was a general consensus that Eli was right, with even Gibbs nodding, before they split off to pack and make arrangements.
"Abby, you and the Director can stay here with Ducky to look after the twins?"
"I find that a sexist generalisation that you should assume that just because the director and I are women we will be content to just stay at home with the children!"
"Abby, I just meant that because you have no field training and the director has an agency to run, I think it might be better for you to stay and hold the fort. Besides, I included Ducky in that, and unless there's something he's not telling us…" Tony trailed off, turning to Ducky's shaking head with a smirk.
"Go and get ready to bring your wife home, Anthony." There was a small smile at the corners of Ducky's mouth, as lingered around the corners of everybody's mouths. There was an air of hope that filled the house, a buzzing hum of energy that flooded the rooms as soon as McGee and Abby got a trace.
…
I cannot remember a single conversation between Gibbs and Eli. I am certain there must have been at least one but I cannot remember it.
