A/N:

I know that this is a bit longer than the few days as promised, but I got bogged down with various things going on at the start of this week, seeing as I had hoped that I might have got this up Monday or Tuesday, but it didn't work out that way I am still happy that this is the third chapter that I have got up this week though for you to enjoy! This time it is the talk that Tali has with Ziva about meeting Lizzie along with some of Ziva's thoughts about this.

I also just want to add a thank you to all of you who are reading this story & to those that have also taken the time to leave a review. G&D.

12 Years

Chapter 3.

Even though she had wished to go home as early as possible to find out how Tali's first day back at school had gone, events, of course went against her and she hadn't been able to slip away as she had planned.

By the time she did get home after also popping into the stores to go and get the items she required so that she could cook Tali's favourite meal for her tea, when she did eventually get in she was somewhat surprised to find her sitting up the table where she would normally be sitting as she got on with her homework, but with it being the first day she hadn't supposed that they would get any homework, she again noticed how deep in thought she was, so she went and put the purchases down on the counter and then sat down next to her, kissing the top of her head as she did so.

She then said "What is that you are doing, it cannot be homework, surely?"

She responds "Hi Ima, no this is just something I'd like to do with what took place today."

"So what happened, you did not get into trouble did you?"

Tali laughs and retorts "I didn't, well I hope that I won't. I know that you repeatedly said that one day I could meet Abba, but I think that today I might have become best friends with my sister."

"What?" She responds "There was this girl, and she was being picked on by this boy, so I went over to help her, the boy then turned on me instead and got in my face, he then went to strike me and let's just say I kneed him somewhere painful instead. Anyway, later on I met her on the next break so we went and had something to eat and drink together to get to know each other including us introducing ourselves to each other properly. I was really surprised when she said to me that her last name was DiNozzo and I said to her that it was my name too, we went through our other names to and her first name is Elizabeth like I have in mine, except she prefers to be called Lizzie instead and she also has Tali in her name. She then told me that her mom died when she was six from cancer and that her Abba had been the one to bring her up with help from her Auntie too because he's a federal agent. So is it possible that Lizzie's Abba is also mine?"

Ziva sighs as she suspects that she knows the truth because this Lizzie is undoubtedly Tony's daughter too and she replies "I have a suspicion that you could be right, so what is all this about?"

Tali bites her lip and replies "Well I would have definitely told you first and I know that if you and Abba did end up speaking that it would perhaps get tough for you both, but Ima I do want the chance of getting to know my Abba, especially if me and Lizzie are going to be great friends... so I sort of wanted to write him a note telling him about me and if she would do it, then I was going to ask Lizzie to pass it on for me."

Ziva says "That will be ok for you to do it, so what else is there about Lizzie?"

"She's really great Ima, she's also got a necklace like mine, but on the chain she also has a locket that has a picture of her Ima in it, as she showed it to me and she looked like a really nice lady." She then hesitates and adds "Would you also like to see her Ima?"

Ziva asks "How?"

She grins and replies "Well we sort said that even if we weren't actually sisters, then we would be sisters anyway so we sort of took a selfie together."

Ziva says "I would love to see it."

Tali gets her phone out and fidgets with it before she then hands it over, as she sees the picture she draws in a big gulp of air as she realises that there is no uncertainty that the two of them are sisters because the two of them do look so alike, especially as both girls have inherited Tony's gorgeous green eyes. She also finds herself smiling as she comes to the realisation that the two girls were most probably going to become a force of nature and that they would most probably have double trouble with them both. At the same time, though it also bought back some memories as well as her regrets about her having not told Tony about his daughter, and she just prayed that Tony wouldn't be too mad with her over having not told him about Tali. The other point that started to go through her head was how tough things must have been for him with his wife or partner whichever Lizzie's mom had been to him, but also the sense in which history had somewhat repeated itself with him having been left bringing Lizzie up on his own. Although she was also beginning to feel a bit of pride well up inside her because he hadn't done the thing that he had constantly been scared of in becoming like his own father and from all appearances had been bringing up his daughter really well.

Her thoughts then turned to everybody else as well as Tony himself because as Tali had said he was still an agent so did that mean he was still at NCIS and had Gibbs finally retired so he was now team leader or was he still SFA? How much had the team changed now were there now new members, was Ducky still there and had he retired, was Tim also still there and what about Jimmy and Abby as well as the director?

As these thoughts occurred to her, the regrets then started to load up on her anew about the years that she had been away from them all and even if she hadn't learned that she was expecting Tali she wished that she had kept in contact after she had gone through everything after she had left, and part of her was now somewhat apprehensive about getting in contact with them all again.