Chapter 3: Chapter 3

Ziva lay on her back in her sleeping bag, her arms crossed behind her head. She was thinking, and she better not be disturbed, that persons would learn what serious consequences are.

She had thought about this for days, but she could just not come up with an explanation why he had not contact her in Israel. They had been really good friends and he should have.

Deep inside her she knew that she easy could have taken the first step herself. But some really small part of her wanted him to be the person that would make the first contact.

She was drawn out of her thoughts as she noticed that it had started to rain. Without hesitation she took her stuff and moved in to Tony's tent. Waking him up, and he wasn't to happy about it. "Ziva what are you doing?" he asked with a sigh.

"It is raining, so move over." She did not gave him an option, she just told him to do it. And Tony didn't kick her out of his tent, he just moved over and tried to get some more sleep.

After 10 minutes he was painfully aware of the woman that was sleeping in his tent. She was breathing loudly, but not snoring and she smelled like a fresh rain. Which was probably because she had been out in the rain. He had to be honest with himself, and he hated that, because it was hard to lie to yourself.

She was the love of his life. She was right there, and at the same time miles away. He wanted to hold her, kiss her and tell her over and over again that he loved her. But he knew that that wasn't going to happen. Not in a million years.

Ziva felt him move beside her. She wasn't asleep either, and it was irritating her, but it was his tent, so she had no right to say something about it. That thought confused her, since when was she so soft?

She inhaled deep and enjoyed the scent of Tony. He smelled a little like the forest, a hint of his newest fragrance and and really masculine and manly. Every inch of her body screamed that she should roll over and snuggle up to him, talk to him and make everything alright. But she was sure that something like that was not going to happen.

The next morning Greg was again way to happy and got a glare from Gibbs. "I have a small announcement. We are going home today instead of tomorrow, we got a call of your director. There appears to be a mistake with your dates, so you can go home a day early."

Of all people Abby was the happiest, she jumped around and hugged everybody. After that she yelled: "Mama is coming home babies!" Which earned her an other confused look from Greg.

"This means however" Greg continued "That we have to walk 16 miles today. And since this is after all a team building camp. I have a nice little surprise for you. Breakfast is in the box, we leave in 30 minutes."

The team was happy and McGee whistled when he was packing the tent. Ziva offered to carry the tent but Tony wouldn't let her. After 34 minutes they were ready to leave. 4 minutes late but nobody complained about it. Greg appeared with a few robes.

"You guys need to make pairs and will be tied together. One person will be paired with me. After that we will tie a left feet to a right feet, and the same with hands. You need to communicate, please make pairs. "

Abby paired up with McGee and Tony with Ziva, leaving Greg with Gibbs. Tony chuckled, poor Greg.

Ziva went left and Tony took the right side. At first they tripped repeatedly, but it didn't take them long to develop a nice rhythm.

"I am sorry, I should have called." Tony said of out the blue.

Ziva stood still and looked at him. "Don't apologize, I am just as wrong. I could have send you a e-mail myself." After that statement Ziva started to move again, walking a lot faster then before, almost dragging Tony along.

"Ziva" Tony said. Surprising her with his voice, soft and almost inaudible. "What happened with us? We used to be good together, good as a team but also good friends. Please tell me what went wrong."

At this point of their conversation they were behind on the group but neither of them cared, this was an importent conversation that they needed to have. This was after all why they were here.

Ziva saw no point in holding back her anger anymore. "You promised to keep me save" She whispered, her face showing no emotions. "You promised, and I thought that I could trust you, I really trusted you you know. But when we were all shipped of you did not even contact me once." Her face kept the same emotionless expression but when Tony looked in her eyes he saw anger but also hurt.

Tony answered, his voice soft "You left NCIS HQ right after Vance gave us the orders, you didn't even come by my house to say goodbye. I wanted to see you, but I had a few hours to pack my bags, I knew that you wouldn't leave until next week, McGee told me" He grabbed her hand and stood across her. "I was convinced we had a connection, something special between us. But I guess that in the end. We are all alone."

Ziva winced, there had not a day gone by that she hadn't regret that she said that. When she had said that, she had really believed it, but after going back to Tel Aviv she had missed the team, even Palmer. And she had found out that she had never been really alone when she was in DC.

"I couldn't handle seeing you. I knew that you would be drinking and hating yourself for what happened. I could not see you tear down yourself. I've known you as Tony DiNozzo, and I really liked that man. And I am wondering every day since I am back where he is. And I know, I could have send you a mail, but that is not what happened. Let us please make out so that we can go back to normal."

Tony smiled. "Make up Zee-va" He said stretching her name like he used to do.

Ziva smiled back and carefully placed her lips against his. "Maybe I meant make out" she mumbled.

Tony used his free hand to grab her around the waist and drew her close. Pushing himself up to her, kissing her like there was no tomorrow. Passion that been building up for years came loose in that one kiss.

After what felt like forever Tony ended the kiss and came up for air. "Guess we should have done that a long time ago." Tony whispered in Ziva's ear. "But now, we really should go, I would like to go home today, and we lost the group so, let us start searching."

He forgot that Ziva was an excellent tracker and after an hour the saw the group at the horizon.

Abby and McGee were walking hand in hand and talking to each other. Gibbs was dragging Greg around, who didn't look to happy. After a few long hours they finally saw the cabin appearing at the horizon. Abby ran to the cabin, but forgot that she was still attached to McGee so they both tumbled down the hill.

An hour later everybody had been to the toilet and refreshed themselves. They dropped their baggage in to the van. Abby was the last to get in the back of the van. She waved goodbye to the woods. "It was nice, but I can hear my babies calling so I have to go." Greg gave up wondering about Abby so he pushed her carefully in the back of the van and closed the doors.

John drove the team back to the headquarters and left without an goodbye. The team was welcomed back by Vance but they only glared at him. Abby hugged everybody goodbye and within five minutes they all drove of to their own homes.