Sorry about the delay on this chapter, guys. I had actually already written this when I published the first chapter, but then I started second-guessing myself, which then caused a horrible spiral anxiety of from me. Eventually, I decided I liked my original idea for this story.

And now, I feel like this chapter needs some explanation. It's a lot less angsty than the last chapter, because it's detailing the "light" parts of Ziva's life. Because I think that the first part of Ziva's life was dark and depressing, but what really made her grow as a person was experiencing life in America with NCIS. I really like the contrast between young Ziva and the current Ziva. I hope you guys do too. This chapter takes place after the current season, but it doesn't take Ray or Tony's new blond chick into account.

Last but not least, thank you all for your reviews of the last chapter! They made me happy! :)

Disclaimer: I make no profit from this story. I'm just having fun.

Ziva was humming. It was a new habit, and she found that she enjoyed her impromptu melodies too much to force herself to stop. She smiled to herself as she fastened a sparkly barrette in her hair, loosely keeping her relaxed curls out of her face. Cocking her head, she examined her appearance in the bathroom mirror, and then walked out to her bedroom to make use of her full-length mirror. There, she indulged in a soft laugh and a girlish twirl when she caught sight of herself. She took pleasure in the way the purple fabric of her skirt lifted just slightly into the air, and she gave her outfit approval with a satisfied sound. Today was going to be a happy day.

She made her way out to her car, her silver heels clacking against the concrete of her apartment building's parking garage. She was humming again, and she told herself that she should probably stop, lest she accidentally do it without noticing during the ceremony.

Her journey to a small church on the outskirts of town wasn't met with any dramatic incidents – only a few blaring car horns and extended middle fingers. But she was used to those reactions to her driving by now, anyway. Pulling into a moderately filled parking lot, she parked and got out of her car, remembering at the last moment to grab her purse, an accessory that she usually went without.

"Ziva!" A panicked male voice called her over to the side of the church instead of the front entrance. Following it, she found Jimmy leaning against the brick building, a forlorn expression crossing his features.

"I think I'm stupid," he informed her abruptly as she stepped closer, only to stop in her tracks as an oddly strong scent attacked her nose.

"What happened, Jimmy?"

The young man, who was usually ready with a smile or an inappropriate joke, looked completely out of character with such a deep frown settling on his face.

"Well," he began, "it all started out with my brother. He thought it'd be funny to… well, I dunno exactly what he was thinking, but this was the final result." Jimmy craned his face around to show her the mottled, angry bruise that spanned from his ear to the middle of his neck.

Her gasp made him wince.

"Then," he continued, "I found that I was just… really, really annoyed because everyone kept thinking that my big stinking bruise was just so hilarious. So I came out here for some fresh air and stepped in dog crap. Smelly dog crap. I tried to get it off but the smell won't go away."

Ziva was confused. "How does all of this make you stupid? I think you're a very intelligent man."

Jimmy brought his hands to his forehead and emitted a sound that resembled a growl. "Can't you see it, Ziva? This is fate! Fate's laughing at me, telling me how horrible my life's going to be once I get married." He was freaking out now. His face was turning red and his hands were beginning to flail about.

"Maybe you could think of them as good luck signs," she suggested as she pulled her phone out of her purse. "Do you know what size shoe McGee wears?"

"Size 10. How the hell is this lucky?"

"The bruise could be your 'something blue,' yes? Are you a size 10?"

For the first time in the six years that she has known him, Jimmy Palmer forgot that he was actually slightly terrified of her and stared at her like she was crazy. "Breena already has something blue," he explained slowly, "That's for brides."

Huffing, Ziva texted McGee and told him to meet her by the side of the church. "Stop whining, Jimmy," she commanded. "You know, in Israel it's said to be bad luck to complain on your wedding day."

His eyes grew round. "Really?"

It wasn't, but she nodded her head anyway. "Now, your bruise will be blue. Your suit is new, yes? Your glasses are fairly old…"

McGee turned the corner of the church at this opportune time, and Ziva wasted no time in forcing his shoes off him. "McGee's shoes will be borrowed," she then declared, finishing the requirements of the superstition. Jimmy grinned, taking the offered shoes despite McGee's vocal protests.

"Shut up, McGee. Do this and I'll help you hide Tony's car keys the next time he's making you crazy."

"And you're doing my paperwork for a week."

"Don't be greedy. It's unbecoming."

The argument was futile at this point anyway, as the shoes were firmly on Jimmy's feet. He appeared to be getting back to his chipper self, so she and McGee began to walk away.

"Hey Ziva?" Jimmy's call stopped her retreat. "I like your shoes," he continued once she was looking at him again. "Your feet look nice when they get out of work boots."

Strangely, Ziva felt like blushing. Beside her, McGee moaned a soft, "Oh, Jesus." Then he grabbed her elbow and all but dragged her inside the church.

Her father stayed in contact with her after he left America seven months before. Most often, he did so by writing e-mails filled with comments about the weather and about how much he missed her. When read aloud, his words sounded like the awkward small talk everybody makes when they're talking to a person they should know better than they really do. She didn't know what to make of the fact that her father wrote about his affection for her as if it should be some sort of consolation prize.

Still, the words he sent her were sweeter and more human than any her father had ever shown her personally, so she saved each e-mail for a couple days before moving it to her trash folder. Sometimes she reread them at lunch, skipping the generic bits and pretending that she didn't know that the only times Eli David showed fondness for anybody was when he felt forced to do so.

Still, as well as she thought she knew her father, she was still completely astounded when a package arrived at her apartment one day with no warning, postmarked Israel. Half curious and half wary, she used her knife to cut through the tape holding the box together. Inside, she was greeted with a note sitting on top of a mass of packing peanuts. Unfolding it, her eyes widened at the sight of her father's blocky handwriting.

Ziva-

Recent events have reminded me that not all missions should be assigned, and that even the most professional officers cannot handle everything. Caution, I am coming to realize, is not for the weak, nor is it something of which to be ashamed. I feel as though this is a lesson that you have already learned, but if you have not, let me tell you that it is the truth.

Her hands shook as she set the letter aside, her mind spinning at the insinuated apologies in her father's sparse note. If she was understanding his words correctly, he was apologizing for both her mission to kill Ari and her mission in Somalia. This realization passed through her like a blow to the stomach, and she sank down to sit on the kitchen floor with her package, completely missing the chair that was right next to her.

Reaching a hand down to sift through the packing peanuts, she pulled out a familiar soft pink blanket, one that she knew had been used to swaddle both herself and Tali when they had been newborns. Along with the blanket came a worn teddy bear that Ari had given her when her mother brought her home from the hospital. He had bought it with his allowance money, and she had slept with it until she was seven years old.

The last thing she pulled out of the box she recognized from her father's office at Mossad headquarters. It was a familiar photograph of herself, her brother, and her sister, and she had once had her own copy of the picture. However, it had gone down with the Damocles and she found herself getting teary-eyed at the image she thought she would never see again.

Later that night, once she had composed herself and sat down at her computer to send her father a 'thank you' e-mail, she realized that this package was the closure that she had never expected to receive. She had never needed her father's approval to live the life she wanted in America, but she couldn't deny that once she had it, it felt really good to let go of any stressful thoughts of being forcibly brought back to Israel. And while she could take his apologies for what they were, she didn't have it in her to ever forgive him completely. She was okay with that.

The day Jimmy came back from his tropical honeymoon, his upper body was a shade of red that she hadn't realized humans could possess.

Tony laughed and demanded, "Palmer, don't you know you're supposed to stay inside when you're on your honeymoon?" McGee had chuckled right along with him until Gibbs came up to the three men and doled out three successive headslaps.

"What are the three of you doing standing around?"

"Boss, there's no cas-"

"Petty officer was found dead in his garage. Grab your gear!" Amid the hustling that followed this statement, Gibbs reached out and smacked the back of Jimmy's head one more time. The stunned medical examiner stopped and turned around, giving Gibbs a confused look. Gibbs raised an eyebrow. "That was for getting sunburned. Now go before I decide to give you another one for getting married."

Ziva was still snickering at Jimmy's panicked scamper as she entered the elevator.

Even though she was now an American citizen working for a stable federal agency, her past did periodically come back to haunt her. She had never been prone to public displays of emotional weakness, but her dreams did have a habit of striking when she least expected it. Oftentimes, the dreams would come when she was in a deep sleep, so she had to make more of an effort to claw herself back into wakefulness.

This time, the dream had snuck up on her so successfully because she hadn't even realized she had fallen asleep.

If she had hazarded a guess, she would have said that she had only gotten about five hours of sleep in the past three days. It wasn't that they were working on a case that was particularly heart-wrenching or dangerous, but the MCRT was having a hell of a time whittling down their suspect list. Each time they thought they had nailed a suspect, new information would pop up and Gibbs would send some combination of the three of them out to collect more pieces of the figurative puzzle they were trying to solve. To say the least, working that way was exhausting.

So maybe she should have expected that she would end up using her paperwork as a pillow.

Her dreams were not nightmares, but that didn't mean that they weren't unsettling. Tonight, she saw flashes of Ari's cocky grin that he showed Gibbs right before she killed him. She saw her father's smile at the sight of the bullet hole that she had put through his only son's forehead. She saw Liat, standing next to Malachi with an air of self-assurance about her. She saw a tiny pink blanket and a well-loved bear.

A hand on her shoulder startled her, and she woke up earlier into her dream than she usually did. Sitting up abruptly, she turned wide eyes onto Tony, who was kneeling beside her chair.

"Hey," he greeted, his voice soft to match the darkened office. "We got the guy." He didn't take his hand off her, instead brushing his palm down to rest on her back. This contact, along with her sleep-addled brain, did not allow her to understand what he was saying at first.

"Hmm?"

A soft smile crossed his face before the hand on her back started pushing her out of her chair. "C'mon, sweetheart. It's time to go home."

She allowed herself to be pulled out of the building by her partner, and she even conceded that she was probably too tired to drive herself home. He pulled up to her building and sent her off to bed with a, "Sweet dreams, Ziva."

The next morning, as she woke up to the glow of sunlight coming through her bedroom windows, she wrinkled her forehead as she remembered Tony's gentleness the night before. He had called her "sweetheart," something that he had only ever done before when he was annoyed with her. She wasn't sure she was ready to analyze the repercussions of his use of a pet name to coax her out of the office and into her bed.

The explosion echoed throughout the entire building. Immediately, she was up and running towards the stairs. She could hear Tony, McGee, and Gibbs doing the same thing behind her. Ziva reached Abby's lab first, and was relieved to see the forensic scientist locked in an embrace with Ducky.

"Abs! What the hell just happened?" Gibbs demanded, his hand letting go of his gun to gesture at the smoke billowing out of the lab's doorway.

Abby didn't answer, instead exclaiming "Gibbs!" and launching herself into the team leader's arms. Gibbs dutifully refrained from immediately demanding an answer and returned the embrace, passing off the gun in his hands to Tony.

"What happened, Abs?" The question was softer now that everyone had calmed down, and Abby took a deep breath before she answered.

"I was in the middle of processing that weird liquid you guys found in the container next to Lt. Grey's body. The Mass Spec results only came back with one significant molecular fragment, so I thought the substance was pure. I was trying to characterize it when-"

"Abby. The bottom line."

She blinked and nodded, her pigtails wobbling back and forth. "I don't think the substance was pure, Gibbs. Depending on how you use it, Mass Specs can ignore the significance of a compound called methylene chloride. I think our killer was counting on that, and combined that compound with some sort of metal that would cause an explosive reaction when it was heated up."

"So our killer probably has a background in chemistry."

Abby nodded, closing her eyes when Gibbs kissed her forehead before heading back upstairs. Ducky, now that he realized that the damage to the forensics lab was not as bad as he had feared, headed back to autopsy after giving the scientist one more hug.

Once the two elder men had vacated the scene, something appeared to seize McGee. He brushed by Ziva and immediately grasped Abby's body in what could only be called a possessive embrace. She noted that his back was moving rapidly up and down, evidencing heavy breathing. Abby's arms snaked around his waist, and Ziva heard her mumble something to McGee that she couldn't decipher.

A light touch to her lower back caused her to shift her gaze to Tony, who tilted his head in the direction of the stairs. They walked silently until Abby and McGee were out of their sight, and then Tony whispered, "I think Gibbs should let McGee interrogate whoever made that happen."

"Why?"

Tony gave her a sidelong glance out of the corners of his eyes, and then sighed. "Trust me, Ziva," he assured, "It would be very therapeutic for him."

Even for the past few years, Ziva had been very good at keeping her birthday quiet. She didn't like celebrating it; she felt as though doing so would tarnish Tali's memory. How could she celebrate on the day her little sister died?

However, keeping her birthday low-key was no easy task with a co-worker like Abby Sciuto. Still, year after year, she had managed to talk the excitable forensic scientist down to a cupcake or a couple of balloons.

Apparently, that tradition did not extend to this year. She walked into the bullpen to find her desk draped with black and pink streamers. Some green balloons were tied to the back of her chair, and a cupcake with copious amounts of frosting sat next to her computer keyboard. She stopped, slightly stunned that Abby had gone to such an effort.

Gibbs was the only one sitting at his desk. He looked up, and when he caught sight of her face he graced her with a small smirk. "Happy birthday, Ziver."

As the day progressed, she began to understand why she had never made a big deal out of her birthday before. All the attention she was getting was really disconcerting. First, McGee had rigged her computer to play the birthday song when she turned it on that day. When he walked out of the elevator seven minutes later, he was greeted by the glare that used to intimidate him almost as much as Gibbs' headslaps. Today, he found her irritation amusing. "Happy birthday Ziva!" he exclaimed happily.

Tony was even worse. He referred to her as "Birthday Girl" the entire day, and she was so bothered by this that she almost asked him to start calling her "Probie" again.

She had never been so happy to see the end of a workday. She ducked out of the building undetected and was just settling down for a relaxing night at home when she heard a familiar pounding at her door. Groaning, she swung open the door to reveal Tony, grinning in a way that she was sure he thought was charming. Before he could say a word, she pointed her finger up at his face in a threatening manner. "One word, DiNozzo, and I may have to hurt you."

With a chuckle, he allowed his fists to spread open, and he surrendered to her harsh words. "C'mon, Ziva," he said next, "we're going out to dinner for absolutely no reason. 'Cause, you know, this is just an ordinary day and there's nothing we could possibly be celebrating."

His silliness made her smile, and she couldn't bring herself to do anything but grab her jacket. For the first time since Tali's death, she was allowing herself to actually have fun on her birthday.

When it really came down to it, the day that changed Ziva's life only happened because of an accident. A car accident, to be more precise. Some idiot ran into her at a red light, leaving her without a vehicle for an indefinite amount of time.

Tony, of course, had found her predicament utterly amusing. "Oh, that is karma, baby!" he crowed. "Can you imagine how many people you've done this to in the past seven years?"

In response, she twisted his ear until he agreed to drive her around town the next day so that she could complete her errands.

When he arrived at her door, he only knocked once before he decided to let himself inside her apartment, which meant that he caught her in the midst of setting her childhood teddy bear against the picture frame containing the photo of herself and her siblings.

"Aren't you a little old to be playing with toys?"

"I should have locked the door."

"But you didn't. What'cha doing?"

"Cleaning."

The teddy bear on her living room shelf had caught his attention, and she sighed in resignation. She knew from experience that Tony's curiosity was almost insatiable. He walked up to the shelf and examined the toy before his eyes moved on to the adjacent photo. When he spoke, his tone was gentler than she anticipated. "Is this you?"

She looked up, and he was pointing at the girl in the middle of the picture. "Yes," she confirmed, and she was surprised to find that her voice was softer than she had meant it to be. "With my sister and my brother."

"Tali and Ari," he named, pointing at each one respectively. When he took his eyes off the photo and looked down to make eye contact with her, she was surprised at the adoration that was visible in his expression. "You were a cute kid," he informed her.

She didn't know what to say to that, and she found that his eyes were weirdly captivating today. The light in his pupils told her that he knew what he was doing to her, but to his credit, he didn't make an inappropriate joke to break the moment.

Instead, he lifted a hand to her curls and kissed her.

She was unprepared for the action, and she was really unprepared for the feelings that came with it. She lost her balance, stumbling into Tony's chest. Apparently he found that move pleasing, because he smiled into her mouth and wrapped his arms around her waist. His kisses became more insistent, and she slowly brought her arms up to encircle his neck.

When his tongue slid against her lower lip, she only hesitated for a second before parting her lips and allowing him entrance. He groaned his thanks before focusing on giving her the most romantic kiss she had ever received in her entire life. She whimpered when he ran his tongue against her own, and then she pulled back when she realized that she was sorely in need of oxygen.

"What was that for?" she questioned softly, her heavy breathing distracting both of them from the seriousness of her query.

"That was me finally getting the balls to do something I've wanted to do for a long time," he informed her, not waiting to see her reaction before he started peppering her cheek and neck with kisses. Then he kissed her lips again, cradling her cheeks like she was something precious. When he stroked one hand down and underneath her shirt, she flinched, realizing that she had inadvertently refrained from using any of her normal techniques to pleasure a man. She reached underneath his shirt as well, intending to take it off, but his fingers pinching at her sides stopped her.

"Slow down, okay Ziva?" he murmured, "Let me do the guy thing."

She wasn't quite sure what he meant by that, but she obliged his request by wrapping her arms back around his neck and ruffling his hair through her fingers.

Eventually, he led her down the hall to her bedroom, where he took great pleasure in getting her out of her clothes as slowly as possible. When he freed her of her shirt, she had reached behind her back to undo her bra, but he stopped her by pushing her body back down on the bed and tickling her stomach. She let out a girlish giggle, and he raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"You really are a girl, aren't you?" He punctuated this statement with another dig to her ribs.

"I should hope so, Tony. Or were you planning on undressing a man at some point today?"

He rolled his eyes at the dig he had obliviously set himself up for, and then went back to work making her feel good. He touched and tasted his way down her torso, tracing the outline of her bra with his pointer finger. The feel of his fingertips on her bare skin distracted her, and she drew in a great shuddering breath when he pulled the scrap of fabric from her chest and replaced his fingers with his lips.

That particular move caused her lower body to warm with a heated desire that was so unexpected that she couldn't help the strangled moan that escaped her. His mouth felt so ridiculously good on her body, but she just couldn't seem to let herself relax and enjoy the sensations. This wasn't what sex was supposed to be like for her.

"Tony…" She didn't call his name out in a breathless whimper or with reckless abandon. Instead, her voice was pinched and short. She gave a not-so-gentle tug to his hair, and he looked up to meet her gaze.

"Tony," she repeated once she was sure she had his attention, "You have to let me…" She moved her hand from his hair to the middle of his back, massaging there in an effort to take some control of the situation. He allowed her ministrations for only a second before taking her hand in his own, intertwining their fingers and moving up her body so that he could speak directly into her ear.

"Relax," he ordered, and she was surprised to hear the gravely edge that his voice had adopted. He took her earlobe into his mouth, and she gritted her teeth to keep back another gasp. As attuned to her as he was, he didn't miss this, and so wasted no time in pulling back so he could look into her eyes.

"Do you trust me?" His voice was gruff, and she could feel his little puffs of breath on her cheeks, and she felt her stomach bottom out. She nodded her head without actually realizing it, but she was giving a truthful answer. She did trust him. She may have been wrong to trust Ari, and she may have been wrong to trust Michael, but she was not wrong to trust Tony.

It was this realization that allowed her finally let go of the nervous tension that had taken hold of her body. She gave herself up to Tony's hands and his lips and his tongue.

Then, when both of them were naked and they were just a centimeter away from being connected, Tony stopped, letting her growing desperation reach its peak. She let her displeasure at his non-action be known with a groan and a glare.

He smiled at her frustration, leaning forward to kiss the petulant frown off her face. "That's what I'm talking about, baby." Then he entered her with a firm thrust of his hips, and she gifted him with a breathy moan of pleasure.

Together, their bodies began to move. She felt overwhelmed by the sensations Tony was creating in her body, but at the same time she wanted to feel even more. Desperately, her fingers reached for him, and they held tight to his shoulders, the first part of him they found. He leaned down to kiss her, and his tongue started mimicking the rhythm that their lower bodies were already following. She pulled him closer, a move that allowed their bare chests to rest together.

"Ziva…" The word was only a murmur in her mouth, but it made her heart tighten and she couldn't stop her lips from stretching into a smile. Tony leaned out of the kiss and reached a hand out to burrow into her hair, and the smile that he gave her in return made her think that he was going to do some other tender move that she had never really expected out of him.

But then she felt the fingers of his other hand begin to move in hard, unforgiving circles around her clit, and she tensed so hard and so unexpectedly that she couldn't do anything to stop it. For what seemed like an endless amount of time, the only thing that Ziva was aware of was Tony: he was kissing her face, rubbing her clit, and was continuing to stroke in and out of her body. Soon, she felt him give into the pleasure as well, and her lower body warmed slightly in response.

Afterwards, they laid together in silence. She couldn't remember ever feeling so at ease. She liked it.

Many months ago, her father had placed a miniature version of Israel's flag in her pencil holder. It had been there since, gathering dust. She hadn't really felt the urge to move it.

Today she did. She plucked out its holder and stuffed it in the bottom drawer of her desk, the one she hardly ever opened.

Israel, while it would always be an important part of her past, was no longer her home. America was her home.

With a contemplative gaze, she studied the three other men sitting with her in the bullpen. She couldn't help the curious burn her stomach developed when she looked at Tony.

She hadn't thought that she would ever be this happy. She still didn't know what she did to deserve the joy that she was getting in America, but she was done questioning it. All she could do now was try and live her life to the fullest.