The team started coming back together, unofficially and then officially, but Ziva was nowhere to be found. Tied up in knots over what he'd said and hadn't said and over what she'd all but admitted, Gibbs shoved aside the urgency clawing inside him to find her himself and tasked DiNozzo with tracking her down.

Her partner finally located her in the land in which she'd been born, returning to her roots, he guessed. Armed with the knowledge that they were now dealing with a whole new level of bad guy – and that Ziva was their next target – Tony flew to Tel Aviv.

He and McGee had their badges back, and Tony took Ziva's with him.

After a couple of harrowing days during which he wasn't sure if she was alive or dead, he found her, thanking God and anyone else out there who would listen that she was still among the living.

His first order of business after making sure she was all right was to pull out her badge and hand it back to her.

She did not accept it from him.

Didn't see how she could.

It was slowly killing her to be away from them, from him, but she feared it would be a different kind of slow death to sit beside Gibbs every day knowing that she'd tried to hand him her heart and he hadn't wanted it.

Besides, if there were insurgents to track down, she could do that alone or through Mossad and other contacts – and on her own terms of what constituted justice. The kind she used to wear like a second skin. The world, her family an ocean away, would be safer if she could wipe this new kind of terrorist cell off the planet, and that's what she would do.

However, Tony was having none of that. He wanted her to come home so they could all fight this threat together like the team they were.

"I am home, Tony," she tried, but her voice didn't sound convincing, even to her own ears.

"No, you're not," he returned almost fiercely, concerned about how alone and pensive she sounded. "We're your family and we all need you back."

"Not everyone," she countered quietly, turning away.

He could tell by her voice that she meant someone in particular.

And from the way Gibbs had been acting since she left, he figured he knew who.

"What happened between you two, Ziva?" her partner asked her softly, the only other person on the planet who knew of her feelings for their boss.

She stiffened.

"I do not know who you are talking about," she side-stepped.

"Yes, you do," he argued, "but I'll say it out loud since it seems like you can't: Gibbs. What happened between you and Gibbs?"

"Nothing," she tried, her voice hollow.

That was pretty much the truth.

She had given him her secret.

And he hadn't wanted it.

Nothing had happened.

That was the problem.

Tony sighed inside. Those two were so meant for each other. Everyone could see it but them.

Although, apparently, it was now just Gibbs who refused to see it.

"You told him, didn't you?" he asked, compassion in his voice.

If anything, her body went even more rigid.

"I have no idea what you are talking about," she retorted and started walking away.

Damn Tony for pushing her on this.

"You told him you're in love with him and he went all functional mute on you. Right?" He stayed still, but his voice followed her.

She froze.

"He loves you, too, Ziva."

A mirthless laugh that made Tony's heart hurt even more for her left her throat.

"No, he does not," she said, the finality in her tone impossible to miss.

"Then why is he not like himself anymore? Huh? Going off all half-cocked to Iran one minute, returning with Parsons as his new BFF the next – which is just weird - and walking around like a wooden soldier the rest of the time?" He paused for effect, then added quietly, "A wounded wooden soldier."

Cautiously, Ziva turned her head to look at her friend.

"And he's been like that ever since you disappeared," he finished.

When the job had sent the two of them to Paris, Tony and Ziva had had a lot of alone time. Some of it had been spent talking about things he usually deflected and she flat-out refused to discuss. One thing had led to another during one particular middle-of-the-night-but-couldn't-sleep conversation, and Tony's suspicions that Ziva cared differently, more deeply, for Gibbs than she did for any of the others in their unconventional family had been confirmed.

Whether she had been too jet-lagged to keep her usual shields in place or had just been tired of feeling alone in the love she'd felt for Leroy Jethro Gibbs for longer than she'd ever care to admit, Ziva had admitted that he was right – then had promptly sworn him to secrecy with the threat of death by paperclip if he said anything to anyone.

He hadn't, but on and off since then, when they were by themselves and he felt the time was right, Tony had pushed her to tell Gibbs, certain she was not alone in those feelings.

Like he was pushing her right now.

Her hope flickered a little once more as she considered what Tony had said.

Could he be right?

Then her mind took her back to her last visit to Gibbs' basement.

No. He couldn't be.

Or wouldn't that scene have played out differently?

She squashed the hope as quickly as it had brightened, as there was no room for unrealistic dreams in her world. There never really had been.

"I do not know why he is acting that way, Tony," she said dejectedly, "but it is not because of me. Yes, I finally took your advice and told him I love him … and he told me I should go."

Her stomach clenched as she remembered and she fought against the tears she'd been so sure she'd already cried all out of herself.

"You told him straight out and he said that?" Tony asked suspiciously, knowing his partner well.

"Ye-"

Ziva stopped mid-word.

Not exactly straight out, she was forced to admit to herself.

But, she rallied, only an idiot would not have understood what she meant and Jethro Gibbs was no one's fool.

In her own pain, Ziva just couldn't see that Gibbs might have had other reasons for ignoring the huge gorilla in the room – reasons that were perhaps similar to those that had kept her from revealing out loud that he was loved by her.

"I am sure he knew what I meant, Tony, and all he said was that I should go." She paused for a moment and turned her head to look off into the distance again. "So I did."

Tony let out an audible sigh this time and shook his head. If Gibbs had been standing there just then, DiNozzo would have turned the tables and head-slapped him. And if Ziva hadn't been in front of him looking so hurt and lost, he might have given her the same treatment.

"Don't think he meant 'go to Israel,' Zee-vah," Tony told her, though not unkindly. He waited for a moment in a silence that was heavy with meaning. "And I think he's just scared."

"Gibbs is not afraid of anything," Ziva disagreed.

"Oh, yes he is, and you know it," Tony countered. "He's afraid of losing the people he loves." He let that sink in for a minute. "Even more afraid of not being there when they need him most."

He let her consider that, too, for a second.

"So he tries to go it alone." He looked at his partner knowingly. She could all but feel his green eyes boring into her. "Like someone else I know."

"Tony –" Ziva began, turning to face him again at last, surprised to find he'd silently stepped closer.

"But why should you both be alone and hurting, when you can be together?" He pulled her badge from his pocket and held it up. "Without this, you can't even hide behind rule number twelve - and neither can he."

"He does not want to be with me like that, Tony," Ziva husked in denial, closing her eyes to hide the pain deepened by saying that out loud.

"I think you're wrong," he told her firmly. "I think he just panicked and shut down, and I think one of you needs to be strong enough to try again. And, Ziva, it might not be fair, but I think that's gonna have to be you."

"I do not know if I can," she whispered.

Intentionally leave herself completely vulnerable in front of him again?

No, she did not think she could do that.

Just then, Tony's phone buzzed with a text from McGee.

Gibbs wants to know if you found her, if she's all right.

Tony cocked an eyebrow and wordlessly held his phone up for her to see.

She couldn't help it – her heart tripped, then began pounding.

Again, that hope that had been stuffed and trampled on and yet still not completely extinguished whispered Could Tony be right?

"He cares about me as part of, of this family we have all become," she said haltingly, almost desperately. "It is simply that."

"It's more than that, Ziva. Trust me." He snorted. "Anyone who's suddenly decided Parsons is a guy who can be trusted's got his head up his -" Tony stopped and rephrased that. "Has his head tangled up somewhere else." As serious as she'd ever seen him, he added, "And I'd bet money he's tangled up over you."

Knowing her well enough to know when to stop pushing, Tony backed off.

For now.

Over the next several days, they worked together like the partners they'd become to track down those who wanted to kill Ziva badly enough to have followed her to Israel. With the aid of her connections and because no one was better at this than those trained by Jethro Gibbs, that threat was successfully neutralized.

There would be more work to do in the States to eradicate this group of businessmen and terrorists working in tandem, but Ziva and the rest of them were safe for now.

When it was time for Tony to leave, he put on his big boy boxers - and shot a silent prayer toward the heavens that he wasn't about to commit unintentional suicide - and informed Ziva she could come willingly or he'd tie her up and put her on the plane himself.

She just looked at him with arms crossed and an arrogant eyebrow cocked that said You and what army?

"Okay, so you can take me. But," he emphasized with a finger in the air, "then you'll feel so badly about kicking my ass when I try it that you'll feel compelled to go with me to make sure I don't die somewhere over the Atlantic from my injuries," he predicted with a little false bravado thrown in for good measure. "So, let's just skip the part where you hurt me and get on the damn plane, Ziva."

She just snorted and shook her head at him ...

But felt her resolve weakening.

And so it was that when Tony climbed into the C-130 for the flight back home, Ziva did indeed go with him … her heart full of misgivings and worry …

And a tiny flicker of hope.