A/N: There is one swear word in the dialogue, which I ummed and ahhed about including. This chapter is split into two parts, because like my authors note, this conversation became an overgrown mess.

Instead of walking to their apartment after school drop-off, on a chilly Monday, Tony led Ziva down a side street.

"What are we doing?" she asked.

"We're gonna talk," he said. "You know about the big stuff."

Since their conversation, the previous week, a low level tension, simmered underneath them. There were conversations that hung in the air, as they did dishes or hustled Tali.

Their small apartment did not have room for an elephant. Especially one, that the occupants refused to talk about.

During their evening talks, the conversations had delved deeper. Tony told Ziva about how scared he was when Tali got a bad cold for the first time. He had been convinced that two year old Tali had pneumonia. She had of course recovered quickly, and returned to her sprightly self. Tony had taken longer to recover. The fear lingered.

What would he do if he lost her?

Tony knew what losing a child did to a parent. Tony was already too much like Gibbs.

Ziva had started to talk about Sahar, and the fight for survival that had dominated nearly four years of her life. Ziva had admitted, how scared she was. Scared that she would never see Tali again. Scared to ask Gibbs for help, and be rejected. Scared that too much time would pass, and Tali be too old to fully let her in.

"So where are we going?" Ziva asked.

The ball was in his court, and the night before Tony had asked if they could talk about the big stuff the next day.

He had asked if she was ready.

Ziva was as ready as she would ever be.

They passed parked cars, each proudly displaying their residential pass.

Then came the plop plop of a car being unlocked.

"Are we going for a drive?" Ziva asked.

Tony stopped by a sensible station wagon. So different from the cars he had in his bachelor days.

"You're worse than Tali with the twenty questions today," he said, as he walked around the car, and took a seat in the driver's seat.

Ziva followed and sat down in the passenger seat.

She had been in Paris, with them, for just shy of a month, and had yet to ride in the car. Tony spent much of his free time managing the car, taking it for a spin around the block every few days, and making sure the parking pass was displayed.

They seldom actually used the car, except for the once a month trip, where Tony drove deep into the exurbs, to stock up on toiletries, and non perishables. January's adventure was done when Tali was at school, and Ziva at her therapy session. Tony had brought as much toilet paper and hand sanitiser as the store let him have.

They've shut down half of China, he said, as they squashed a packet of toilet paper into their already overflowing wardrobe. We've gotta protect ourselves.

Tony had been talking about going away for a weekend when the weather got warmer, but they had made no concrete plans, especially with this looming virus.

"So where are we going?" Ziva asked, as she pulled her seat belt over her torso.

Click.

Tony's seat belt remained unclicked.

"Nowhere," he said. "I didn't want to have this conversation at home. It would be too easy to get distracted, and I didn't want the bad ju-ju to be in the air when Tali came home. And, it's way too private to have in public. So here we are. We've always had good conversations in cars."

Ziva unclicked the seat belt, and felt the strap run through her hand. It burned as it rubbed her skin.

She remembered another car conversation, both of them much younger, and the two of them talking about another Tali.

Then she remembered the opera he had set up for her in the squadroom.

That had been a simpler time.

"Okay," Ziva said, as she looked at his eyes through the rearview mirror. His hair was getting long, little wisps hung over his eyes. "I suppose I should get started."

Tony turned the ignition on. Stale car heat attacked Ziva's ankles.

"We've got time," Tony said, as he adjusted the seat, and moved backwards.

Ziva looked behind her seat, and rested her eyes on Tali's car seat.

They did not have time. Their days were planned around a six hour school day.

"Are you ready for this?" she asked. "Honestly?"

"It's gonna hurt like hell," Tony said, "But you're right, it's hanging over us."

Ziva rested her hand on her thighs.

They had to rip the band-aid off, so they could see the state of the wound, before the infection ran deep into the bone.

"I suppose I should start with when I sent you away," Ziva said. She saw him wince, through the rearview mirror. . "I was not in a good place. I did not have a panic attack until I sent Tali to you, but I was not in a good place, for a long time."

The therapist Ziva now saw, had tried to float a diagnosis of complex-PTSD, to explain Ziva's mental state, and thought it went back much further than when Ziva stayed in Israel.

But, Ziva was not ready to label a decade of her life with a diagnosis.

"I should have made you get on the plane," he said.

Ziva shook her head.

"I was very determined to stay in Israel and rot," Ziva said, feeling her voice crack. Even now she still caused so much pain. "I thought I was poison. I thought I caused pain and suffering to everyone I loved. I thought everyone got taken away from me, because I deserved it."

Tony looked down at his lap.

"Ziva," he said. "You are not poison. Please know that. We love you."

Ziva's lip quivered.

"I know that," she said, "I am working through that. I love you both too. More than anything."

Tony reached across the console for Ziva's hand. He rubbed the scar on her wrist.

"I should have stayed with you in Israel," Tony said, his voice cracking. "I thought like that for months, I nearly booked tickets a few times. Nothing felt right without you."

"But, the job," Ziva said quietly. "And, your life in D.C."

"Clearly, none of that matters," Tony said, as he waved his hand around. "Not as much as my girls."

We'll be in Paris, Tony had said to her, as he held Tali to his chest, in that dusty Cairo hotel room. Ziva adjusted her hijab so she could slip out. We'll be waiting for you. However long it takes.

Ziva pulled her hand away from him.

"Even if you had stayed," Ziva said, as her chest tightened. Tony would not like what she said next. "And, I never wanted you to disrupt your life like that, I probably would have run. I was a mess. I was convinced I would do nothing but hurt you. I had to protect you from me. All I was capable of was hurting people I loved."

Tony reached for her hand again. She let him take it.

"And, I still ended up hurting you," Ziva said. "Even though I sent you away."

"You didn't hurt me," Tony said.

"That is a lie," Ziva called out, her voice rising with each word. "I hurt you when I told you to go home. I hurt you when I kept Tali from you. I hurt you when I had to fake my death."

"I've let go of that," he said. "All of it."

Ziva raised an eyebrow. Tears fell down her face.

That was enough to break Tony.

"But you're right, all of that hurt me," he said, as he looked out the window. "It hurt me a lot. Those first few months after I left Israel, thinking I had done the wrong thing. I called your phone, and listened to the message saying it was disconnected. I mourned you, like you had died. I mourned for what we could have been. I was ready to do forever with you. I wanted wedding rings, two kids and a dog, and a white picket fence. I still do. It might not look like I imagined, but I want as much of that as we can get."

Ziva wiped her tears with her finger.

She wanted it all too.

That and all the little daily moments. The rushed journey to school. The lazy Saturday mornings, where Ziva came home after a run and found Tali and Tony watching cartoons together, with Tony has engrossed by the story as Tali. The weekly ballet classes, where Tali got to live the dreams that Ziva had taken from her

Her daughter would be whatever she wanted to be, Ziva would make sure of that.

"I dated someone for a while," Tony said. "About a year after you stayed behind. Her name was Zoe, and I tried to turn her into a knock off you."

Ziva gulped.

"Well that didn't work," Tony said. "I called her by your name once, and her face just fell. She knew that I wasn't over you, and probably never would be. We broke up not long after, she knew she would never be you, and wasn't gonna stick around to be second best."

"Why are you telling me this?" Ziva asked.

"Because, while I was trying to fit Zoe into a Ziva shaped hole," Tony said, as he ran his hand over his face. "My daughter was out there in the world. I was so unsettled in those years, because I was with the wrong people, and in the wrong place. I should have been there with both of you."

Ziva felt her heart heave.

"I missed so much," he said. "I would have been on the first plane, if I had known. Whatever terms you wanted. I would have been there. Not just for her. For both of you."

"I should have called," Ziva said.

You could have called, she had said to him once, as they saw each other for the first time in months.

Those times had been simpler.

"No shit," he said, anger seeping into his voice.

Ziva recoiled at his words.

"It took me a while to come to terms with the fact that I was pregnant," Ziva said. "I was always so sure that I would have difficulty falling pregnant."

Ziva had stayed in the farmhouse long after she sent Tony away. She had let the fruit in the orchard fall to the ground, and rot. She had moved through the dusty rooms, getting caught in the memories, and what ifs.

What if she never killed Ari?

What if she had not chased Bodnar?

Why had they not just let her die in Somalia, like she deserved?

Tony looked down at his nap.

"Obviously not," Tony said, snark seeping into his voice.

"No," Ziva said. "In hindsight I am very glad. I do not even want to imagine the world without her."

A soft smile graced Tony's features.

"Me neither," Tony said, his voice softer now.

"Even when we were apart," Ziva said. "I knew she was out there. That was something. That kept me going."

She was fighting for her.

"Tell me what it was like," Tony said, "When you found out?"

It was her thirty-first birthday, when she rushed out of bed to throw up, for the fifth day in a row, when it dawned on her. She had blamed the sickness on the way she was treating her body. There were days where she barely ate, and yet others where she drove into town, brought enough food for a large family and cooked all of her mother's recipes. The food was cooked in a frenzy, and Ziva found herself with a feast and no-one to share it with.

So she gorged. She stuffed as much of the food down as she could. Rice pilaf. Falafel. Spicy cholent. She tried to fill herself up with the love she was missing.

In the cooking frenzies she refused to cook anything Italian, because that was the love she had sent away, for his own safety.

Everyone who came too close got taken away.

Ziva rested her back on the wall of the bathroom, on the morning of her thirty-first birthday, and began to count back the weeks. She reached the answer, but then shook her head.

No, Ziva you have not made that much of a mess.

Then, by the time it would have been her sister's twenty-seventh birthday, Ziva drove into town and brought half a dozen pregnancy tests. She stood behind religious women in cheap wigs and with kids hanging off them, who were buying cold medicine, and tried to make herself small.

This would be nothing, Ziva told herself. The missed period and the sickness would be because of how she treated her body.

An hour later she was staring at a sea of positive results.

Then a week later, she woke to a cramp and a drop of scarlet in her underwear.

"I was in complete denial," Ziva said. "I brushed off all the symptoms. Then not long after my birthday, I found blood in my underwear. I was so convinced that the baby was going to be taken away, just as I realised she was there. I thought the universe was punishing me for all the lives I have taken."

Tony's chest heaved.

"You nearly lost her?" he asked. His voice shook.

Ziva nodded.

"It was a scare," Ziva said. "I went to the doctor to confirm that she was gone, but they found her heartbeat. It was the most beautiful sound. It was so strong."

Light spotting at this stage of pregnancy is normal, the doctor said, as Ziva studied the ultrasound on the screen. Her baby was there. Her. His baby too. Theirs.

How could she possibly tell him?

A smile crossed his face. He was relieved even though he knew the outcome.

"That's when I knew I wanted her," Ziva said. "I changed my life for her. I left the farmhouse, because it had too many memories. I went to see Shmeil, he was so happy when I told him."

Shmeil had been sick that whole winter. His skin was nearly transparent and he would be gone mere months after Tali entered the world.

Oh Ziva, he said, as he pulled the blanket over his legs in his wheelchair. This is such wonderful news.

A quiet moment passed. A cyclist sped past them, coming dangerously close to knocking off the drivers side mirror.

"When I heard about Shmeil's death," Tony started. "I tried to get in touch. I had to email you, it felt so damn clinical, but it was the only thing I could do. I wanted to call you."

Shmeil's death had been peaceful. At the same time as cells had been multiplying in Ziva to create the being that would become Tali, inside Shmeil cells were multiplying and slowly stealing his life. Shmeil had fought many things, but he did not fight this.

"Ducky did too," Tony said. "I can understand why you didn't reply to me, but Ducky was really hurt by that."

It had not just been Tali and Tony that had been caught in her pain. Her hurt cast a wide net.

And, yet all of them had forgiven her, and welcomed her back with open arms.

It was more than Ziva deserved.

"I saw them," Ziva replied. "But, I was not ready to hear from either of you."

"How old was Tali?" Tony asked. "When Shmeil passed?"

"Four months," Ziva declared. "I had a photo of Shmeil holding her when she was six weeks old. I do not know if it made it onto that flash drive that I put in the go-bag. That was done in such a rush."

The thumb drive, had been a last minute thought, trying to answer some of the many questions she knew Tony would have. She had used all the storage on the drive, filling it with files that became photos. She had hoped the photos would be enough of an explanation.

"It did," Tony said. "I've looked at the photos on that thing a million times. Our daughter was an adorable baby."

Our daughter. Ours.

"She was," Ziva said.

"We've gotten a little ahead of ourselves," Tony said. "Tell me more about the pregnancy."

Ziva let out a breath.

"The pregnancy was hard," Ziva admitted. "I worried about every little twinge. My blood pressure was high a lot of the time, and my mental state could be best described as tumultuous. I was convinced she was going to be taken away from me, because of everything I had done."

"Is that why you didn't call me?" he asked. "Because you had complications."

"I suppose that it is part of it," Ziva admitted. "I could not disrupt your whole life, and then have nothing to show for it. I could not imagine breaking your heart like that."

She had broken his heart anyway.

"I should have been there," Tony said. "For every appointment."

"Even if we were on the same continent, you would not have been able to go to every appointment," Ziva said. "The receptionists knew me by name, at the end of it."

"Gibbs would have understood," Tony said. "Family first."

Ziva looked down at her lap.

What if she had gotten on a plane when she first found out?

What if Tony had gotten to be the attentive but freaked out father-to-be, she knew he would have been?

What if Tali had spent her early years surrounded by a makeshift extended family?

"And even if it had all ended in tears," Tony said. "I would have still wanted to be there."

It is better to lose a love, than never have been loved at all.

"It hurts to think you were all alone," Tony said. "That you dealt with all of that all by yourself."

At lo levad, he had told her once.

Yet, she had never believed it.

"I was not alone," Ziva replied.

"I know you had Tali," Tony replied.

"That is not what I meant," Ziva said.

Tony frowned. Anger flashed over his features.

"What do you mean?" he asked. "Were you seeing someone, while you were pregnant?"

A/N: I don't own a thing.

Yes, the ending of the chapter was a bit of a sudden one.

That's because I had to divide this beast of a chapter up. The next chapter will be up in 24 hours. Before, you send my flames, Ziva was definitely not dating someone while she was pregnant.

If you only wish to review after the second chapter goes up, I understand. If you are feeling generous I would love a review. Thank you to everyone who has left a review in the past.

The second part is much better.

Thank you so much for all the love.