Chapter Sixteen

The thirty second drive down the road to Ziva's house was unusually quiet. After parking the car, Ziva got out and led Tony up the sidewalk to the front porch. She busied her hands with unlocking the door, but her real focus was on the man beside her whose emerald green eyes were swimming with a million different thoughts and emotions. It was obvious that after she had left the house something had happened and was now bothering her partner.

Ziva turned the nob on the red front door and pushed it open with her shoulder. She began walking down the hall, but as she passed the living room she froze. She blinked her eyes once, twice, three times, but the state of her living room still remained the same.

She barely registered the gasp that escaped Tony's lips as she looked at the disheveled room. The couch, armchair, and coffee table had all been pushed out of place and papers, movies, books, and anything else that had once had a spot in this room were strewn across the floor. She remained in the doorway for only a second longer before moving down the hall to the kitchen. It was in the exact same state and the door to the garage stood ajar, barely hanging onto its hinges.

"Ziva?" Tony spoke up hesitantly, gingerly laying a hand on her shoulder.

She ignored him and continued down to the end of the hall and entered her bedroom on the left. The drawer to the nightstand by her bed was sitting on its side, its contents lying all over the floor along with clothes that had been thrown from her dresser.

"Zi, you better come here." Tony called.

Ziva turned around surprised he had not followed her into the room, but instead had gone on to Tali's bedroom. She walked out of her room, crossed the hall and came to stand beside Tony in her daughter's room. It was in the worst state of all. The mattress was tipped over on its side, her closet door hung open, all of her belongings seemed to have been thrown around the room in a fit of rage and they now lay broken on the floor. After one glance around the room she was done and Ziva barely registered Tony catching her and easing her down to the floor after her knees had buckled and no longer kept her standing up.

Tony settled her onto his lap and let her cry into his chest. He whispered soothing words in her ear and tried to keep the anger that had filled him once he had realized what had happened from showing. Right now wasn't the time to let his emotions get the best of him. He needed to be strong for both of them; otherwise finding Tali would be an impossible task.

Ziva began to sniff away the last of her tears and as she began to collect herself she realized how close they were and she pulled away from him. She hadn't been this close to Tony in years and though part of her yearned for the comfort he was offering her, she couldn't bring herself to allow him to care for her. In her mind it was her who had forced him to leave. She should have seen the way Abby and McGee's 'deaths' had affected him and gone with him like he had asked her to. But once again she had been stubborn, and had refused to leave the security D.C. had given her. Though after Tony left she realized it was not the city that had made her feel safe, it was the man who was no longer in it.

So Ziva left his embrace, knowing that wanting him to care for her was selfish.

"Are you okay?" he whispered, concern evident in his eyes.

"I am fine Tony." She looked away from him, and blinked back the tears that she thought she had already willed away. "I should have expected something like this from my father. They probably came after we left for D.C."

"Yeah, well at least there is one positive thing about all of this, you won't have to move much when you move back to D.C." he cracked a joke hoping it might lighten the mood a bit, but at the look on Ziva's face as she whipped around to look at him, Tony realized he had made a big error in judgment.

"How can you do that?" she snapped icily. "How can you sit there when your daughter is missing, her room has been ransacked by mad men, you've been shot," at this she gestured to his arm, "and I am sitting on the floor blaming myself for the whole damn thing, and joke about it?"

Tony's face hardened, "What do you expect me to do Zi?"

She opened her mouth to respond but he cut her off. "Don't you get it? Did you not pick up on why I act the way I do when things get complicated and hard back when we were together?"

Ziva remained silent. Truthfully that was the one thing she had never understood about him, how he deflected serious, sometimes dangerous topics with humor.

"If I don't joke about this, lie to myself and make myself believe that everything is going to be alright I will lose it. I can't think about what might be happening to Tali right now or the fact that if McGee and Abby can't find something in Gibbs house, or find something in your father's bank accounts that I might never see her again. I have to be strong for you and for her, because if I believe for a second that this is all going to go to hell for us then I might as well go jump of the next bridge I see." He looked away from her. "I can't handle finding you after all these years, finding out I have a kid, and then watch it all be taken away from me again."

Ziva felt her heart ache for the man sitting across from her as pure, raw emotion emanated off of him. She couldn't remember ever seeing him like this; with all his walls down and nothing hidden from her.

"Oh Tony." She put her hand on the side of his face and he looked into her eyes. "You do not have to be strong for everyone one hundred percent of the time."

"Yes I do, Zi." He whispered, placing his hand over hers. "I need to be strong for everyone so that I can find her."

Ziva tried to find the right words to say as she stared back at him. "Then let us be strong together so that we may find her together."

Tony grinned half-heartedly at her before pulling her into a hug. "Thank you, Ziva."

"You are welcome, Tony." She pulled away from him and stood up, offering him her hand. "Let's go before Gibbs calls and wonders where we are."

Tony knew that the moment was over, both of their walls had been drawn back up, it was time for emotions to be stored back in their neat little boxes labeled 'untouchable', and for masks of normalcy to be put back on. He stood up and waited by the front door as Ziva grabbed a few things before they both headed to the car. Tony drove this time as she didn't know where his apartment was and once they got there he went up alone. He hurriedly packed a few changes of clothes and as he was grabbing a pair of socks something small and black in the corner of the drawer caught his eye.

As his hand met with the small velvet box he instantly remembered what resided inside. He hadn't looked inside the box in fourteen and a half years, he never had a reason to, but something made Tony stuff it in the bottom of his gym bag. He didn't know what had possessed him to do such a thing, but as he ran back downstairs and hopped in the car, the answer was sitting in the passenger seat. He now understood what Gibbs had meant by saying rule twelve no longer mattered. The moment they had shared back at Ziva's place made it clear to him that even though it had been over a decade since they had been together, and their daughter was missing, he still loved Ziva and the look she had given him showed that she still cared for didn't mean she still loved him, and they had a lot of things to do before their relationship could even be a topic of discussion, but now Tony was even more determined to find Tali.

When they got back to Abby and McGee's and plans were made about getting to D.C. and Tony once again sat in the backseat of the car while the McGee family followed in another car, he had made up his mind.

They were going to find Tali, bring her back home safe and sound and then he was going to make Ziva fall in love with him again and they could be a real family and there was nothing and no one that Tony would let get in the way.

A/N: I totally just wrote that chapter in two uniterupted hours of peace and quiet on my couch and I honestly can't believe I did. Usually it takes me at least three seperate times at my computer to sit down and write a chapter I am happy with, but for some reason my creative side has actually been cooperating with me lately. Which means that I might possibly be able to get up another chapter sooner than usual :) But that is only if my muse and creativity continues to cooperate with me, so I'm not making any promises ;)

Anyhow, I hope you liked this chapter and please let me know by way of review!