CHAPTER TWO

Ziva's eyes fluttered open long enough to see that her soldier friend was gone. But empathy was buried deeply within her. She had no time to cry over death. She could hear the flickering of flames all around her. With all the equipment in the lab, a blast was eminent. She had to get out of there fast. She struggled to break free from the debris above her long enough to inch her way over to the dead body. After she confirmed her worst fears, Ziva found the soldier's dog tags and identification and quickly found a pocket to slip them into before she began to work her way out of the lab.

Finding freedom from the disaster was not easy. And Ziva could still hear voices in the distance. Not knowing whether they were friend or foe, she decided to play it safe and assume the worst.

Ziva crept over the piles of rubble, smut stains streaking her face as she wiped away some sweat from her brow. But it didn't do much good. All she could think about was home. Wherever that was now.

"Check in that room!" Ziva heard a voice speaking a foreign tongue but couldn't quite make it out.

Ziva ducked down behind a pile of rubble just before two armed soldiers forced their ways into the room. Each of them pointed their rifles and examined the space thoroughly.

"Just one dead body," the first man clearly uttered in Arabic. "Let's get out of here."

As soon as the soldiers had left, Ziva darted out of the door and down the hall the opposite way from where the soldiers had gone. Assuming the worst, she didn't stop to check for bodies. It seemed selfish. But she did what she thought best. The only image in her mind was Tali. She probably looked entirely different now. It had been several years. She was in school now most likely. The trick seemed to work. Ziva was outside the now dilapidated former base and headed for the nearest Jeep. She piled inside and prayed a quick prayer just as the engine fired and her foot reached the accelerator. Hopefully the hideout would be reachable.

Before Ziva had a chance to pass through the gate to safety, another Jeep screeched to a halt in front of her, the occupants aiming their guns and blinding her eyes with their flashlights.

"Stop! United States Marines! Hands in the air!"

Ziva stopped the vehicle and hesitated, her eyes darting from one soldier to another in hopes of one them being a familiar face.

"Now! Hands in the air!"

Ziva lifted her hands up slowly and in unison as two Marines surrounded her vehicle on either side. "What is the meaning of this?" she demanded. "Do you make a habit of attacking an ally's base without warning?"

"Quiet!" the nearest soldier reprimanded her and pointed his weapon between her eyes at a comfortable distance. "Please step out of the vehicle, miss. I don't want to use force, but I will."

Ziva looked the man in the eyes. They told her that he truly didn't intend her any harm. But the carnage around her told her otherwise. She was trained to trust her instincts. Right now her instincts were all over the place. She didn't know who to trust. With one slow, distinct movement, Ziva stepped down out of the Jeep and extended her hands as if to give permission for them to restrain her. But the soldier ignored her, stepping aside to let her walk ahead of him.

Although confused, Ziva followed her unuttered instructions and began walking ahead. As they walked at a steady pace across the dirt road to the Humvee nearby, a flash in the sky caused them all to turn to look in its direction. But they had no time to figure out what the flicker had been before the explosion rocked them all to their knees and almost all of them to their untimely deaths.

"At lo levad."

Tony had a glow in his eyes, his subtle smile growing as he tucked his little girl in for bed. It was their code phrase every night. It was their "I love you" and their "I miss you" and their "Sweet dreams" all wrapped up into one neat package. He had yet to tell Tali the entire story surrounding why that phrase meant so much to him. But he promised himself that he would tell her everything someday soon. Tali definitely knew it had something to do with her mama. Tony made sure of that.

As he lingered by Tali's bedroom door on his way out, he watched Tali snuggle into her covers and close her eyes, his hand hovering over the light switch and his gaze wandering as she did so. Every night he went through the same ritual. He would act as if he were waiting for Tali to tell him goodnight when in reality he wanted to stay and stare at the photo on Tali nightstand of her parents. It was the same photo Tali had arrived to him with. Ziva and Tony were propped up on their Vespa with the Eiffel Tower gleaming in the background. It was the same picturesque, cliché Paris tourist photo to some. But to Tony, it was his world. It seemed like the one thing that connected their three worlds…as a family.

"Goodnight, aba," Tali whispered, stealing Tony from his reverie.

He shook it off and gave his daughter a smile. "Night, sweetheart." With that he flicked off the light and closed the door.

Half way down the hall, Tony let his weight rest against the wall, his back to his daughter's quaint bedroom and his face looking at the three photos on the opposite wall. The first photo was of himself and Ziva. It was one of the last pictures they had ever taken together. The second was of his family…his NCIS family. The last photo was of Tali and himself taken on her last birthday. In fact, the frame held more than one photo. The thick frame was a collection of a photos each taken on all of Tali's birthdays that she had spent with her father.

Running his hands over his face, willing away the tiredness that surged through his body, Tony made his way lethargically to his own bedroom, collapsing dramatically onto the bouncy frame. He sprang up gently into a sitting position and rested at the bed's edge for a moment before he reached out to pick up his phone. He nearly swiped across the screen to unlock it when it rang, causing him to jump.

"Dinozzo," he answered. "Oh hey, Jim. What's up?"

Jim Cassidy was Tony's ally ever since he and Tali set up residence in Paris. By day he was a French intelligence officer on lend by the MI6. By night he ran the streets of private investigation with Tony. It was their own little secret and a rather long story in itself.

"I've got a little piece of information you might be interest in," Jim's British accent broke through clearly.

"Spill it."

"U.S. soldiers were just attacked on an Israeli military base about an hour ago. They say no one survived."

"Oh, wow." Memories seem to flood Tony's mind as he remembered what it felt like to lose a comrade. "But what were our guys doing on the Israeli base at the time?"

"Some sort of reconnaissance mission is all I know. Something about one of their own was being held hostage. I didn't get all those details. But I do know it was Syrian forces that attacked both the base and the soldiers who were on the base."

"I see."

"I'm just sure you can read all about it on Facebook in the morning. Bound to be numerous news sources twisting the truth for some sort of political gain."

Tony scoffed. "That's the truth. I'm assuming no names have been released."

"No, sir. Eyes only."

Tony nodded to himself, fulling aware of the implications of those two gut-wrenching words. He hated to hear them. I guess he was beginning to be more like Gibbs every day.

"Well," Tony sighed. "Give me a call if you hear anything else."

"Will do. See you tomorrow."

"Yeah. Sure thing."

Tony ended the call and tossed his phone aside. He had to get some rest. His mind was racing with so many different emotions. It seemed like every time Israeli forces were hit, he would go right back to that moment he was told Ziva was dead. It was as if the spark that she was alive would be fanned just a little bit more only to be squelched by the reality of there being no survivors. Either that or it truly was an incident that had nothing to do with her most likely. Either way, Tony shoved the thought from his mind and prepared for bed, knowing fully that this situation was no different.