They sit, cradled in soft light, for some time. Ziva is curled, tense and waiting, into Tony, her face pressed against his shoulder and her eyes tight shut. She speaks.

"When I was with them, I thought a lot. About you. About me. Gibbs. McGee, Abby, everyone. Jen." There is a smarting ring after this last word, a simple syllable with a deafening emptiness to break you. She continues.

"I thought about Kate, and how I never met her. How I only came into your life after she died. Because she died. It hurt, Tony. I knew I was not what you wanted. I was something to replace her, alien and hostile. And it ... oh, Tony, it killed me. I would never have ... if she hadn't ... if Ari hadn't..." She sobs, sweet and low, and he feels every muscle in her proud, tired little body ache with the memory. He does not know what to say, but he knows he must say something.

Because if he doesn't, he will lose her.

"Things happen, Ziva. Not everything has a reason. I can't say I'm glad that Kate died because it led to you. I can't say I would rather still have Kate than have never met you. It's complicated. We don't always have the right answers, or the answers we want. All I can tell you is that, when we found out you were missing, I wanted to die. I've never felt so sick, so worried and guilty and just ... I couldn't do it. I told myself, promised myself that if I couldn't come back from Somalia with you, I wasn't coming back. I wasn't - I couldn't live with losing someone else."

There is a silence as she slowly processes his words. It is not a declaration of love, perhaps not even a declaration of friendship. Yet it feels, to her – just for a second – like the most important thing that has ever been said.

"They did things to me that don't bother me, and they did other things that I can hardly bear to think about. I would call it weakness, and you would call it being human, but I cannot stand to see myself...I don't know. It's not how I've been trained. But I was sat there, day after day, through the night, and I just thought of being back here. Being home. And I thought I would never – never be able to – never get the chance to tell you..."

He doesn't realise she's crying until a savage and childlike sob rips itself from her throat. He tries to lift her face, tenderly, by the chin, reaches out a hand – hot, pulsing fingers – to wipe the tears, stroke her skin until the blood started warming her bones. Leaving her alive. But she twists away, buries her face in his shoulder, ashamed for him to see her cry.

After everything he's seen.

And he leans closer, with forceful movements, prising fingertips, determined to break her in order to set her right, and suddenly she turns, and they are there.

There is no defining moment, no contrast between the sweet night air and the salty silk of her lips. They are not kissing, and then they are. Her moan is thickened and slightly blunted through the tears. Her breath heavy. They are young and awkward and hopelessly shy.

He pulls back first, a dead, fluttering weight in his chest. He is suddenly acutely conscious that she is curled tight on his lap, is warm and small and female and willing. Once, he would have needed no further encouragement. Once, he would have kissed her again, harder and more wanting than before. But now she is home, frail and crying and with desperate lips on humming skin.

She murmurs close to his ear, and the ache of her breath ruffles his hair. Ghost of a fingertip. He closes his eyes.

"Tony."

"Ziva, we can't. I'm going to look after you. I'm going to help you get better, and it does not involve this." He motions carelessly to her body, curved around him so beautifully. Her clothes – his, actually, lent somewhat bashfully as he was cooking dinner – conceal the bruises and angry red snarls of a wicked, wicked knife, but they cannot hide the psychological scars, the memories they left her with. Her eyes seem bleak and black and angry, but softer and wiser – older – than before. He knows he wants her. He hasn't always, and there was never a pivotal moment, a day when he woke up from a dream, sweating and writhing and utterly electric. Pulsing for her. He has certainly spent some sultry summer nights idly recollecting the taste of her skin, spicy and deceptive, the feel of his capable fingers knotted in her soft curls. His needy hands clinging to thinly veiled bones. Hips and thighs and triangles. Skin, hot and throbbing. He imagined it all, in a careless, meaningless way. He never had any trouble meeting her accusing gaze the following day.

He had never dreamed of her. He had thought, but never dreamed.

Not until she left. Then all of his nights were filled only with her.

"Please, Tony. I need this."

Her eyes are wide and hopeful and longing, the silvery scar on her cheekbone glinting maliciously. Deliciously. She has always been in control. She has never let desire glimmer through her façade. He knows, with a terrible resignation, that she had never kissed him like she meant it.

And oh, he had.

Because he does not know what to do, he kisses her again, sinks into the taste of her and cradles her delicate neck. A hand, dances, almost unconsciously, across her hip, clings a little and then moves up, rumpling the white cotton of his shirt on her skin. Slides up the beautiful curve of her waist, and grates across the grooves of her ribs.

And stops.

He is flooded with guilt, with shame and self-hatred. She wants it, a desperation almost separate to her in force and conviction, and, in a way, so does he.

But not like this. Never like this.

So he sighs, and smiles, and her bottom lip glistens. It is darkly pink and beautiful. Her cheeks are flushed and her eyes bright and shining.

"No, you don't. You don't need this. You think you do, because you're scared and because you've been through such a lot. And because you're home now. But you don't want ... you don't want me, Ziva. You never have done, and if you think you do now, it's just because of everything that's happened. It's not real, and it won't last, and I won't do this to you. I can't. Don't ask me to."

Her eyes are enough to break you. Languid and liquid and oh, he's never wanted her more.

"Tony, all the time that I was with them, everything they did to me, all I was thinking about was you. How much I missed you, how I regretted what I said, what I did. How I ... I left it too late, far too late, and how I was never going to see you again. Never get to tell you. Tony, I – I thought I was going to die in there. In that little room, with those men. I thought that was it, that was all I was going to see, feel, know, for the rest of my life, and that hurt more than anything. More than the knives. The thought that I might never get to see you again. That I'd left it so...bad. I always do."

He kisses her – tender, chaste – on the lips. On each cheek and the end of her nose. He gently closes her eyes and kisses her eyelids. Feels her tremble underneath him.

"Tony, I think I-"

"Don't." He almost shouts it, and his voice cracks and wavers. Terrified eyes. A fleeting, reckless hope that he knows he must not acknowledge. "Don't say it. It's not true, Ziva."

"You don't want it to be true." And she pulls back, drags her eyes from him and stares helplessly at her hands as the tears fall.

He loves her, and she knows that. He loves her in the same way that he loves Abby, McGee, Gibbs, even. The same way he loved Kate. He was worried for her, because she was a friend. And it kills her to know it.

"Oh, Ziva, you know that's not how I feel. But that's not the point. It's not true, we both know it, and I can't do this to you. I would end up hating myself and you wouldn't feel that you could trust me ever again. And what we have – it's friendship – and it's too important to just throw away like this."

And she knows he is right, and nothing has ever hurt so much.

"But Tony – Tony, I need this. Just once, just tonight."

He pulls her towards him with safe hands, holds her gaze tight and taut. And his words.

"Ziva. When it happens, I don't want it to be out of need. I want it to be out of want."

And the way he says it makes her feel like falling.

Last day of freedom before school begins again. Don't worry, updates should still be pretty frequent as I've pretty much completely given up on the idea of getting an education and doing something with my life :D Hope you enjoy this chapter, didn't happen entirely as I thought it would but I genuinely feel that Tony is a truly decent guy and although everyone might want Tivativativa instantly I don't think he would.

And I think in the morning Ziva's gonna be reeeeeally embarrassed : )