Chapter Nineteen

Ziva stood outside the door to her father's study and took a deep breath. Why was it that he could always make her feel like she was a nervous child? She laid her hand on the cold metal doorknob and opened the door. As she had predicted he was there, standing by the windows overlooking the garden with a glass filled with an amber liquid she knew to be scotch. He always kept a bottle in the room.

Ziva took a few steps into the room, and felt her sidearm in her waistband for reassurance. She wouldn't need it, but the weapon gave her a sense of security. She waited a few seconds for him to notice her, but he did not acknowledge her presence. She was going to have to start the conversation.

She cleared her throat and he turned towards her, a look of surprise she knew was fake, showed on his face. "Shalom, Ziva. What are you doing here? I was not aware that you were coming to visit."

"You can drop the act, I am not stupid." She spat anger rising up inside her.

"Ziva David you will not speak to me like that. You may be a grown woman but I am still your father."

"That's funny, really it is." She spoke coolly.

"I do not see how you find that amusing." An heir of condescendence rolled of him in waves. "Where is Talia? Shouldn't she be with you?"

Ziva couldn't believe what he was saying to her and she just snapped years of anger, hurt, and deceit flowing out of her at once. "Where is Tali? Are you seriously asking me that question?" She yelled at him. Her hand shot out and she knocked the glass from his hand and sent it flinging against the wall. "Tali is in the back seat of the car outside with her grandfather right now."

"What are you talking about? I am her grandfather!" He yelled back.

"You have never been her grandfather. You have never been anyone's father, or husband, or anything!" She screamed. "You have done nothing but look out for yourself and make decisions based on what is best for you. You treated Ima like she was your servant, you didn't bat an eye when she and Tali died and you made me kill Ari. We were not your family we were just pawns in your stupid sadistic game. The only time I was part of a family was when I was at NCIS. Gibbs is the only man who has ever treated me like a father is supposed to treat a daughter. McGee is like my brother and Abby my sister. Tony…"

She trailed off. Ziva honestly didn't know what Tony was right now, she knew what she wanted him to be, but she couldn't assume he felt the same way about her after all these years.

"Tony is my best friend." She knew that much was true. "He is going to be a great father and we will be a family. Usually I would say that your actions have not surprised me, but this time I am completely shocked by what you have done. I cannot believe that you would go to such great lengths to get Tali. You are lucky that Gibbs is in the car or I am sure you would be dead by now. You are lucky that we decided that you should rot in jail or I would have helped him kill you." She paused taking in a shaky breath trying not to let her emotions get the better of her. "The police are on their way now, so there's no use trying to leave now. I am going to go be with my daughter, you have five minutes to call your lawyer or do whatever you need to do and then you are going to be escorted to D.C."

Ziva left the room at that and made her way back to the front door. She'd finally done it, she had cut every tie with her father and she wanted to cry and dance at the same time. As she rounded the corner she saw Tony and it was all she could do not to full out sprint to him, but she did jog down to him and bury her face in his chest when she got there.

Tony was a little confused at first, but as she cried into his chest he realized that she had to be overwhelmed after what had just happened. Eventually the local police showed up and Tony directed them down the hall while he picked Ziva up and led her out to the porch. He sat on the edge of the concrete and held her in his lap. He whispered soothing words in her ear and hoped it would help her calm down. He rubbed circles on her back and all he could think about was how much he loved the woman in his arms, how he had always loved her, even during their time apart. How he loved Tali so much already and could already picture the three of them living together in a big house, with a dog , and a white picket fence; a family. If it was possible he thought he loved her even more after she had shown how strong she was by finally standing up to her father.

Tony waited until her tears were no more to do something he had wanted to do since she had appeared in his classroom. Had it only been a week ago? He didn't care to think any more about it as he placed his hand on the side of her face and brought his lips to hers. He poured out all the emotions he had felt in the past decade into this single kiss.

Ziva froze as Tony's lips met hers, but it was only a second before she was kissing him back. She could feel the love he put into the kiss and did her best to let her own emotions show. It had been so long since she had felt his lips against her own and the only thing that was able to pull her away was the need for air.

She stared up into his eyes, breathing heavily. "I've missed you."

It felt like the past week hadn't even happened, like they were finally meeting after all these years, just the two of them.

"I've missed you too, Zi." He grinned widely at her, resting his forehead against hers. "I love you."

Ziva smiled, how many times she had missed those words coming from his lips. "I love you too."

He kissed her again, lightly this time and began to stand up. The police had led her father away, and McGee was already back in the SUV. Tony couldn't see Gibbs for the tinted windows in the back but if he had to guess, it would be that the older man was glaring at the two of them impatiently.

"C'mon Zi, let's go home." He took her hand and helped her into the passenger seat before walking around to the other side of the car.

As they made their way back to the airport Tony sat in silence, he grinned brightly every time he caught Ziva's gaze in the mirror, but for most of the ride his thoughts were focused on the small box that resided in his pants pocket. When he had grabbed it from his apartment, he hadn't planned on taking it with them to Israel when they went to rescue Tali. But just as the little voice in the back of his head had told him to take it from his dresser drawer the same voice had told him to bring it with him.

Part of Tony knew that asking her something like this so soon after they had finally gotten back together was moving too fast, but another part of him desperately wanted to make sure that she was his for the rest of their lives. That he could not lose her like he had all those years ago.

Tony was still undecided as they pulled into the hanger. He looked over Tali who was still sleeping peacefully against Gibbs and before the older man had the chance Tony had gently picked her up and started towards the plane. He met Ziva on the other side of the car and silently gestured for her to put her arm on his shoulder for support. She refused at first but after only a few limps toward the aircraft she put her hand on his shoulder albeit a little reluctantly.

Tony just smiled, she was still his stubborn ninja. His. The word sunk in as everyone was settling on the plane. He looked down at Tali asleep in his lap, then over to Ziva who was strapped in and was now leaning against his shoulder. He may have missed fourteen years of both of their lives, but now that he had them back he wasn't going to miss a minute of anything. For that to work Tony first had to make something permanent.

He waited until Ziva had fallen asleep and was sure she was deep enough in her dreams that she wouldn't notice any movement to slide the small velvet box out of his pocket. He carefully removed the engagement ring from the box and delicately slipped it onto Ziva's left ring finger. He looked at the ring on her hand and felt like the last puzzle piece in his life had finally slid into place. He just hoped when she woke up she wouldn't object to his question. He let his head rest on the metal wall and drifted off quickly.

Across from Tony, Gibbs sat with a rare grin on his face. He had watched the whole scene unfold silently and knew that Ziva would accept DiNozzo's clever proposal without hesitation. She wanted a family and father for Tali, and she needed a husband and partner for herself. He glanced over at McGee who was staring down at a photo of his own family, and watched as the younger man glanced up at 'The DiNozzo Family' sitting across from him and smiled.

"Looks like everything worked out in the end, Boss." McGee said meeting the older man's eyes.

Gibbs sighed contently, "Guess you're right Tim. Not that I didn't expect it to."

"How did you know everything was going to be alright?" He questioned, and then shook his head knowingly. "Your gut, almost forgot."

Gibbs grinned widely and let out a rare chuckle. "No McGee, not my gut."

"Then how…"

"When you're a family, there are no sad endings," Shannon and Kelly's faces briefly popped into his mind, but then they were followed by a million different scenes, but a few stood out: Jenny in Paris; seeing McGee, Abby, and Izzy for the first time in years; meeting Tali; watching Tony put the ring on Ziva's finger; and finally he imagined the look on her face when she woke up and realized it was there. "There might be twists and turns in the road, but when you're a family you stick together and you make your own happy endings. We're a family McGee; I had no doubt that we'd find our happy ending."

The End

A/N: And there you have it kids! Don't worry there will be an epilogue looking a few years into the future to see how they've progressed, but I wanted to end on a happy drama free note and this is what ended up on the computer screen in front of me.

I want to thank all of you who have stuck with this story, you've no idea the immense amount of joy I get when I look at the stats for this story and I see 174 alerts, 84 favorites, 33, 214 hits(holy crap to that one, I've never had that many hits!), and 249 reviews! I am unbelievably grateful for you guys and I hope you'll come back if I ever decide to write another multi-chapter NCIS fic. I'm definitely going to be writing some one-shots in the future, but only because you have given me the confidence to do so. My biggest fear when I first started writing this story was that I was going to somehow write the characters absolutely wrong and no one would even give this story a chance. But according to all your reviews, alerts, and favorites I somehow managed to get this thing right. So thank you all again and I'll get that epilogue posted as soon as I can!