Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS, or the song used in this chapter. :( I do, however, own this crap thing I call my computer.

Thank you all for the incredible response I got--ya'll made my day! :p

I noticed some people were confused by what I had written in the last chapter about Ziva's father calling. What I had meant was that her father only wanted her to come back to Israel temporarily, so that he could talk to and try to reason with her. I did not, by any means, mean that he was going to try and force her into coming back to Mossad, or Israel.

I apologize for any confusion that I have created—please feel free to ask questions if you still do not understand. I would like to thank fanoftiva for pointing out everything in their review. I am, in a way, making this up as I go. I do have a basic idea if where I'm taking this story, but I do make mistakes every once in a while. I do appreciate you guys helping me clean those up.

I would also like to thank Meatball42 for their review as well. I was trying to word my explanation to fanoftiva's question, and Meatball42 did that for me. I was trying to convey that the Team is kind of trying to go back to how they were, like they're (somewhat) doing currently.

Many, many, many thank yous go out to my brand-new beta, Meatball42!! :)

Also, thank you to everyone else who answered my questions and reviewed the story! Ya'll are awesome!

Thank You!!

Chapter 5

Ziva woke up with a headache and a sore back. She had tossed and turned all night, getting no sleep at all. Her stomach was a wreck, and her chest was in knots.

Why had her father chosen to apologize? Something must be wrong...it was not normal for a man like him to just apologize. And to call her all the way back to Israel? It seemed so ridiculous. She reluctantly got out of the bed, letting out a slow, shaky breath. She really did not want to go to work that day, but knew it would probably be a good distraction.

She got in the shower, got dressed, fixed her hair, and then made herself breakfast. After cleaning up, she grabbed her gear and headed out the door. It was too late in the morning to go for a run, so she just drove straight to work.

Upon arriving in the employee parking lot, Ziva parked her car and shut it off, but did not move out of her seat. She ran her hand through her hair. What was she going to tell Gibbs? What was she going to tell Vance? Abby? The rest of "Team Gibbs?"

Her body silently begged her to not move, seeming to lock itself into the seat. Ziva, however, knew better than to run and hide from her problems, so she unbuckled and slowly got out of the car.

She sighed as she went through the doors of the building, hoping that the day would be better than it had been the day before.

Tony rushed into the NCIS building and quickly ran to his desk. He was late. Miserably late.

Everyone looked up from what they were doing to stare at him. No one bothered to ask why he was late--they all knew he had had a date the night before.

"Welcome back, DiNozzo," Gibbs remarked sarcastically.

"Sorry Boss, I-"

"Don't wanna hear it."

"Right, Boss." He started sorting through the paperwork on his desk while the McGee and Gibbs worked silently. "Where's Ziva?" He asked after a while, nodding towards her empty desk.

"With the Director."

"Ooh...is it all the finalization for her citizenship and agent stuff?"

Gibbs never looked up from his work. "Something like that."

Another moment of quiet passed, lasting until Gibbs suddenly spoke up. "McGee, DiNozzo, go visit the rest of the Lutz clan."

The two quickly headed out, thankful to escape the awkward silence and paperwork.

As they went down the elevator, however, Ziva came down the stairs from the director's office. Gibbs looked up at her expectantly as she arrived at her desk, but didn't say anything.

She sat down in her chair. "He has asked for me to leave for Israel next month," she finally said, being careful to not make eye contact with her boss. "He has given me this month to decide if I will go and listen to his apologies and explanations."

He nodded as Director Vance appeared at the top of the staircase, slightly leaning over the railing.

"Gibbs...can I have a word with you?"

"Yeah," he breathed in response, standing up. He tapped one finger on Ziva's desk as he walked past, and then glanced at her as he made his way upstairs.

She remained silent as she did her work and Vance and Gibbs disappeared into MTAC. Her thoughts and emotions were stuck in what seemed like an eternal chaos, and she loathed the self-doubt she was feeling.

Ziva suddenly looked up, hearing her name being called from over by the elevator. She sighed, seeing Tony, who promptly walked to his desk.

"Thank you so, so much for last night. I definitely owe you dinner now."

She shook her head in reply. "This one is on me."

"What?"

"I am sorry--I cannot make it tonight."

"Well, I could always move our reservations to a different ni-"

"No, it is fine. Don't worry about it."

"You sure?"

"Yes."

"Alright...well, um, I'm just gonna...I forgot some of my stuff." He smiled and held a gym bag up in one hand.

"Where is McGee?"

"We're going to talk to the family."

"The victim's?"

"Yup."

Ziva nodded as Tony walked back out.

"See ya." He waved with his free hand in his way into the elevator.

"See you," she replied quietly, going back to work.

Tony was quiet on the ride to Lutz's brother's house, much to McGee's surprise. He was lost in thought as he drove, only talking out loud at random times.

Why had Ziva canceled on him? He had wanted to ask her, but had decided that was probably not the best idea.

It made him wonder, of course, but what really puzzled him was the fact that he hadn't been able to get her out of his head the night before. It had been fine at the restaurant--Tony had managed to keep his focus on Jennifer, and very well at that. But as soon as they had gotten back to his place, Ziva was almost all he could think of.

He did like Jennifer. A lot. He knew that. So why had he kept flashing back to the undercover mission? Why could he only remember Ziva's lips while he was kissing Jennifer? Why could he only remember Ziva curling up to his chest while Jennifer slept beside him?

He shook his head in disbelief as he pulled into the brother's driveway. Tony had hoped to clear up some of his issues while he was having dinner with Ziva, but that wasn't going to happen, apparently. He sighed and got out of the car, along with McGee.

"Somethin' on your mind, Tony?"

"Why would you think that, McKnowItAll?"

"You're just quiet. Which is...unusual for you." He rang the doorbell. "NCIS!"

The door was opened by a man in his twenties who didn't look too surprised to see them.

"Jackson Lutz?"

"Yeah. Hey." He stepped aside so they could come in, and then shut the door behind them. "What can I help you with?"

"We just have a couple of questions," Tony replied.

Jackson motioned towards the couch in the living room. "Have a seat." They did, and he sat across from them.

"So you're Joshua's little brother?"

"Yep. He's about 13 years older than I am."

"We're sorry for your loss."

"Yeah...thanks."

Tony frowned at what seemed like a lack of emotion. "Were you and your brother close?"

"We were, a while ago."

"What's a while?"

"About ten years."

"What caused you guys to grow apart?" McGee asked.

"A bunch of stuff, really." He paused. "To sum it all up, Josh turned into some kind of a greedy, conniving son of a bitch. All of his old friends left him, including our family. Our mom's the only one that couldn't ever see past his whole act. He was a classic mama's boy."

"We've been told that he began stealing money from people. Is that true?"

"Yep. From right under their noses. No one ever really saw it coming, until all of them got together and figured it out. That's when we all left him."

"Anyone report him?"

"They tried to, constantly. But somehow, he always managed to find his way out of it."

"No one ever figured out how?"

"Nope."

"Hm. That's interesting," Tony remarked. "Do you know what the total amount of money that he stole was?"

"No clue. We keep coming across more and more people that he stole from."

"We'll need a list of those people you know of."

"Yeah, sure."

"Can you think of any names off the top of your head that could have been a threat to your brother?"

"Umm..." Jackson thought a moment. "Well, there's Mark Bauer, and Mykayla's husband and his family."

"And who's Mykayla?"

"Our sister. Her last name is Luna now."

"Alright, cool. Thanks." Tony and McGee stood up to leave.

"Oh, and his old best friend...uh," he scratched his forehead, squinting, trying to recall the name. "Oh! Jacob Cohen, somethin' or other."

Tony shot McGee a look at Cohen's name, and then turned back to nod at Jackson. "Thanks again."

"Yeah, sure."

The two agents walked out and got back in the car.

"Well, looks like Cohen's our man," Tony said, buckling his seatbelt.

"Hey, Abby."

"Tony!" She quickly closed out the windows on her computer. "Hey…what's goin' on?"

He frowned, suspicious. "Not much…what's goin' on with you?" Tony leaned over to try and get a look at her computer.

"Nothing! Nothing at all. I'm just uh, working on something for Gibbs."

"Oookk...if you say so."

"I do say so, Tony. Anyways, what did you, um, need?" She asked, attempting to change the subject.

"Well, you know how Ziva and I were gonna have dinner tonight?"

"Yeah, your date?"

"It's not a date!" He insisted. "Just a thank-you gesture."

"Uh-huh. Okay. Go on."

He glared at her, then continued. "She canceled on me, and she's in a bad mood or something…do you know what's bothering her?"

Abby made a zipping motion across her lips and turned away. "I already promised to not say anything."

"Please?"

"No!"

"Abby, please?"

"Tony, I can't!"

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. After a moment's hesitation, he spoke up again. "Abby, I'm worried about her. That look she had on her face…" he trailed off, as Abby's shoulders dropped.

"Tony! You're so sweet to worry," she smiled. "But…" she paused. "Things are confusing. You sure you wanna get in the middle of all this?"

"I went to Somalia to get her—I can take this."

She sighed. "Her dad wants to be her dad. Or so he says."

"I don't get it—"

"He wants her to go back to Israel for a little while to apologize and try to make up everything to her. Also…" she hesitated.

"What?"

"He asked for her to leave NCIS. He said if she doesn't, it's fine, but he really wants to be the father she never had."

"That makes no sense. Why would he suddenly want to drop everything? It's too—"

"Hinky," She finished for him.

"Exactly. So, what is she going to do?"

"She's trying to figure everything out."

"Ziva's not actually considering this, is she? She's a grown adult…she doesn't need him anymore."

"Tony, he's her dad."

"Yeah, some dad." He glanced towards the door, then turned back to face her computer. "So what was that you closed out?"

She sighed. "I was looking to see if there were any obvious reasons for him wanting her over there. I doubted anything would ever come out of it, but I decided to give it a shot." She went on as he slowly nodded. "Tony, we have to do something."

"I'm planning on it."

Abby glanced at him. "What are you thinking?"

He shook his head and turned to leave. "Keep looking," he called over his shoulder.

Ziva sat in the conference room with Jacob Cohen in silence. Gibbs had sent them to wait for his instructions on what to do with Cohen's situation. She was busy filling out papers, and Cohen simply sat there, watching her. After a few minutes, he spoke up.

"Agent David?"

She looked up from her work. "Yes, Mr. Cohen?"

"Please, call me Jacob."

"Alright then Jacob," she smiled. "What is it?"

"I was just wondering…how much longer am I going to be in here?"

She gave him an apologetic look. "I am not completely sure. I'm sorry."

He sighed in response. "It's fine."

She spoke up again a minute later to break the quiet. "Cohen is a Hebrew name. Are you of Israeli descent?"

"Yes, I am actually. David is an Israeli name," he observed, smiling at her.

She smiled back a second time, but it quickly went away. "Yes, it is."

"What part are you from?"

"Tel-Aviv." She tried to not wince as she said the name. "And you?"

"Jerusalem. My family's been there forever."

"Oh really? I loved going to Jerusalem with my sister, Tali. She used to take me to go to the Mahane Yehuda Market every weekend." She smiled sadly at the memory, which Cohen noticed. He chose, however, to not ask about it for the time being, as he could easily see it was a tender topic.

"That was my favorite place to go to with my brother Amir. We used to always go and see how many pieces of fruit we could steal without the merchants noticing," he smiled.

Ziva laughed. "You were bad children!"

"Yeah, I guess we were. Our parents were rich, and since we got everything we asked for and never heard the word no, we got bored pretty quickly. Made up our own fun."

She nodded and offered a half-smile. "My childhood was not quite like that."

Cohen waited for her to elaborate, but she never did. He considered asking her about it, but the thought soon left his mind as Gibbs entered the room.

"Wait outside," he told Ziva.

She obeyed, and closed the door behind her. She could hear Gibbs and Cohen's muffled talking inside the room, but wasn't able to understand any of it. A few minutes later, Gibbs came out and began walking towards the elevator, motioning for Ziva to follow him.

"Gibbs, what is going on?"

"We're letting Cohen go, but we're putting a tail on him to see where he goes, who he contacts." He stopped walking suddenly, and turned to face her. "Go home. You're distracted, and I don't blame you."

She closed her eyes in a mix of frustration and anguish as he gently kissed her forehead.

"Go."

Sighing, Ziva followed his orders again. She could only hope that she would be able to figure everything out before it was too late.

"Where's Ziva?" Tony asked McGee as he walked into the bullpen, sitting at his desk.

"Gibbs sent her home early. She was sick or something."

"Oh." He began to type up a reply to an email he had received, but suddenly stopped and looked up. "Hey, Probie, where's the closest store?"

"Uh, grocery store? About two blocks away from here. Why?"

He went back to his typing. "Just wondering."

He sighed, standing in front of her apartment door. Tony knocked, glancing down at the bags he was holding in his hands.

"God, I hope this works," he whispered to himself.

Tony smiled as Ziva opened the door, but his grin quickly faded once he saw how distressed she was.

Ziva had just gotten out of the shower, and she looked like a train had hit her. She ran a hand through her hair, pushing back the wet curls that were in her face. She did not smile at Tony in return, but slightly tilted her head instead.

"Tony, what are you doing here?"

He grinned and held up the grocery bags that he was carrying. "Where's the kitchen?"

She began to protest, but he quickly interrupted her, shaking his head. He wasn't going to just leave her there in the state that she was in.

Ziva sighed heavily and opened the door wider, pointing to the kitchen. She was too exhausted to even try to argue. Tony smiled at her again and walked inside, following the direction of her finger. He set the bags down on the counter and began taking things out.

He glanced over at Ziva as she came over to stand in the doorway of the kitchen. He stopped moving as he looked at her. "Well, ya gonna help me?"

She hesitantly complied, and went over to assist him silently. Finally, she broke the awkward silence.

"What are we making?"

"An old DiNozzo favorite," he replied, waving a package of spaghetti noodles around.

She almost smiled, but her lip quickly turned back down. However, Tony had caught it.

"I saw that," he grinned.

When she said nothing in reply, he couldn't help but feel horrible for her. He so badly wanted to help her, but had no clue as to how.

"So..." he started, hesitant.

"Abby told you, didn't she?"

"Um...yeah. I'm sorry--I was just worried about you."

She quickly shook her head in response as she put on the pot of spaghetti to cook. "I am fine."

Tony caught Ziva's eye as she looked up, and a moment of heavy silence passed between them.

She could feel his eyes piercing through her, reading her like an open book. She had always been amazed as to how he could see past the outer shell of her emotions.

She reached up to touch a curl that had fallen in her face, self-conscious of her displayed emotions.

"I'm sorry," Tony finally said again, more gentle than he had been before.

"Thank you," she replied after a few seconds, barely audible.

He carefully touched her hand and smiled at her, and she smiled back.

"There it is," he remarked, as his grin grew wider.

She laughed, and the timer on the oven went off.

"Noodles are done." Tony turned off the stove and stirred the spaghetti. "You wanna get the table set?"

Ziva turned to get bowls out of the cabinet, along with the forks.

She sighed quietly, trying to understand how in the heck Tony made her laugh while her world, right before her very eyes, was crumbling apart.

"Target located," the man whispered into his comm unit.

"Good. Take them out."

The assassin raised his rifle and took aim. He was perspiring profusely...he had never been ordered to do a hit on someone like this. "Permission to shoot, sir?"

"Permission granted."

He squeezed his eyes shut once, and opened them back up. Then, with one single, fluid movement of his finger, he took the life of the figure resting in the shadows of the night.

The voice came over the comm unit again, resonating in the assassin's ear. "Now find Ziva."

He loved to see her smile. He knew he did, and in that moment, he wasn't going to deny it.

They were sitting on her couch, watching a movie in a sweet kind of silence, which was only broken by occasional laughter.

Ziva seemed to be enjoying the movie, which was good. She didn't need all of the added stress and grief that her father caused her, so any little distraction Tony could offer...well, he was going to make sure it happened.

He grinned as she erupted into laughter at something that had been said on the movie, and then he stood up to get the wine he had brought over.

"Want any?" He held up the bottle as she turned to look.

She nodded. "Glasses are in the cabinet above the sink."

"Thanks.

Tony grabbed the glasses and poured the wine, smiling as heard Ziva laugh yet again.

He picked up the glasses and carried them back into her living room. "Here you go," he said, handing her one.

"Thank you," she smiled.

He sat back down on the couch, hoping that she didn't notice he had sat closer to her this time. The movie ended soon after, and the two got up to clean up the mess they had made in the kitchen. Ziva put on a CD as they washed the dishes together, and Tony smiled when he heard who was singing.

"Lonestar, Ziva? I didn't take you for a country-music type of person."

"I do not really like country music, but I made an exception in this case."

"Can I ask why?"

She paused. "Well, he was the first American artist Tali and I ever heard, and, I don't know...he kind of stayed with me." She smiled. "I did not take you for a country music type person either."

"Huh?"

"Well, you knew who he was right away."

"Oh, yeah. I don't like much country music. My best friend's sister just used to listen to him all of the time."

"Oh."

Ziva picked up the pot they had used to boil the water for the spaghetti in, but it abruptly slipped and fell into the soapy water, splashing Tony.

"Hey!" He laughed, splashing her back.

She laughed in turn, a wide grin on her face. ""Sorry!" She reached up to get a pile of soap bubbles out of his hair, when the song changed.

Ziva suddenly felt Tony's eyes locking on her, and became very aware of the words of the song as they played quietly in the background.

"Everytime our eyes meet,

this feeling inside me,

is almost more than I can take."

She slowly withdrew her hand and looked down, and then looked back up to meet Tony's gaze.

"Baby, when you touch me,

I can feel how much you love me,

and it just blows me away."

He gently pushed away a curl that had fallen in front of her eyes, his face serious.

"I've never been this close to anyone,

or anything,

I can hear your thoughts,

I can see your dreams."

They were both suddenly aware of the close proximity of their bodies, waiting silently with bated breath, which was hot on their lips.

"I don't know how you do what you do,

I'm so in love with you,

and it just keeps getting better,

I wanna spend the rest of my life,

with you by my side,

forever and ever,

every little thing that you do,

Baby, I'm amazed by you."

Ziva could not tear her eyes away from Tony's, and Tony couldn't tear his from hers. She was frozen under his stare, and torn inside. Everything was changing all at once, and she could feel it weighing heavily on her shoulders. Her mind raced, and she thought of her father for an instant. She had to ask herself, where was she supposed to be?

In the next second, she found herself in Tony's arms, crying quietly into his shoulder; and she knew that she was where she belonged for that moment.

Suddenly, Tony tilted her chin up with his finger to look her in the eyes. Their lips were mere millimeters away, and they could feel each and every shuddering, expectant breath that the other took.

They held each other's gaze for another very long minute, until they could bear the overwhelming desire no longer. Ziva wrapped her arms around his neck as their lips met, and they held each other close.

"The smell of your skin,

the taste of your kiss,

the way you whisper,

in the dark,

your hair all around me,

Baby you surround me,

you touch every place in my heart.

Oh, it feels like the first time,

every time,

I wanna spend the whole night,

in your eyes."

Tony and Ziva were unaware of the chorus of the song repeating, and did not even notice when the song ended and the CD stopped, for they knew, although it had not been spoken of out loud, what little time they had left.

How did you like it? I would love to hear your thoughts!! It might, unfortunately, be a while for me to upload another chapter again. Maybe. Or, who knows, I could catch a lucky break and be able to find some time this week. Psh. I wish. Oh, how I adore school. :P

By the way, the song is called "Amazed" by Lonestar.

Let me know what you thought!!