Author's Note: Hey guys, just wanted to stop by and say that this fic will be coming to a pause that could possibly last a short or long while. There are issues at home that are slowly being settled so everything is still up in the air. I'm also working on my final cuts for my short film for one of my classes before May 22nd. Then there's work...but I will continue with this fic. I'm not going to abandon it or anything--it just might take me a while after the end-ish of May to post new chapters. I'll keep everyone posted as much as I can--and I also apologize for this sudden news.

Anyway, I hope everybody that's reading enjoys this chapter--and of course sorry for any missed typos/errors. LATER DAYS--GEEK.

Chapter 19: Mr. Rivkin and His Puzzle Pieces

A rocket scientist had not been needed in order for Michael to understand Ziva's abrupt disappearance. He needed one second, and one second only to realize that Lior had not only double-crossed Director David some time before, but that he had double-crossed him.

They had an agreement--a verbal agreement. Some words were even left unsaid because the respect they held for one another--some sort of bond only held between former Mossads, former Mossads that had went against the Director, was so strong; so true. Ziva was a part of that bond; she was a part of that trust, but the voice Michael had stifled inside his head for quite sometime had spoken so very loudly to him for the very first time. Ziva had left, in a heated pursuit to battle against their own blood; her own country, in order to protect her American friends.

Without a sliver of a doubt, her decision bothered Michael to his very core. He reacted as humanly possible as he could, without alerting anyone that happened to be nearby. Yes, his rage was blinding, but his self-control had been set sturdily in place for a respectable amount of his adult life--and now was not the time to bruise his image.

Ziva had been everything correct in his life. With her knowledge of being a Mossad she knew what he needed during the times he began to doubt himself about all that he had done for Mossad so he could follow through with a direct order. Her words were not only comforting, but they were real. His feelings were handled delicately because she knew what it felt like--she knew how these feelings reoccurring every now and again.

Michael was no fool. He knew that the second time she fled the United States, he would trigger an instant reaction in one team member that would eventually attack the orders like a domino-rally effect, and their worlds would spin completely out of control for the second time around because of her. He wanted that, badly--he wanted those he did not know, but knew of, to pay for pushing Ziva around during their times of leisure. For taking her on like she had been an obstacle rather than a person, then for throwing her back into the hands of her father without a second thought--without a single second thought.

There had been a time where Michael thought fondly of Eli David. The man that fathered Ziva in his own warped way had been a guiding light to them both as they grew from children. When the shadows that surrounded Eli David began to seep through his senses and consume his nearly frigid heart, Michael had no choice than to disobey the sickening order that would ultimately bring Ziva to her death.

He owed it to her, to save her. To protect her from the busy hands of her father--so eager to end the life of the only living child he had left on the face of the planet, and he had been on a road to extreme successfulness until certain words were spoken and certain aspects of his pride began to spill over his senses.

Never a word from Ziva because in the moment of now, her lips were tighter more than they had ever been--more than he had ever remembered them. What she knew, she kept to herself. At first, Michael assumed that any discussions involving Ari would hurt her--would burn her insides like acid, but soon he began to gather the pieces of several puzzles, and soon her behavior started to become very apparent to him.

These words came from deep within his mind. They were the little answers formed by the tiny gremlins that had taken residence inside his mind since a time he could not remember.

He remembered hearing of the Director of Mossad ordering Ziva to enter America--and to stop Ari who had spiraled completely out of control. He remembered speaking to her over a private line--wishing her luck on her journey into unfamiliar lands. He remembered Ari's death, too--and just like that, the pieces of the puzzle began to fall to his feet in every-which-way.

This unsettlement came about because of the Americans. Their greed, their need for a constant victory, though hardly ever earned, caused them to disrupt her life, her country, and her relations inside of Mossad. With the pieces down and scattered all around, it boggled his mind until one day each piece began to speak for itself. Each piece began its own story--one filled with hundreds upon hundreds of words.

These words formed questions and those questions poured from Michael's mouth whenever he found a moment alone with her. Unfortunately for him, each time went unsatisfied until resentment began to find its happy home within him, and Ziva appeared unaffected by his behavior--his skepticism of her.

Her ignorance of his questions, his actions--his feelings, sent him into a world of darkness.

It was there he met with shadows of himself he never knew existed. The thick, darkened, layers of some of his inner-most thoughts took form before him and it had been as if he saw reflections of himself--in full form--from head to toe.

Now he had a team he never had before; that realization had become something new to him--something riveting to him. A one-man army of wicked thoughts caused by his burning need to uncover Ziva's deepest thoughts and to obtain her accurate answers to his yearning questions attacked him from the inside.

So he felt the tingling in his fingertips, and he felt himself crash to his knees. He remembered touching the imaginary puzzle pieces, each as unique as the next, and he remembered the simplicity of connecting their interesting cut-outs, and how the completion of the puzzle; the conclusion of the story had tasted so sweet.

Even through the most direct orders from the Director of Mossad, Ziva David would not stop her half-brother by killing him. She would have captured him and she would have given him a chance--because he had been Mossad, and because she felt a responsibility to her family and to her country. It was something admirable--something so very American, yet something the Americans could never understand; something an American could never understand.

Something that American…would pay for.