They got the call on the fourth day. The call that destroyed Tony's already shattered life completely and left him wondering if it would ever get back to normal.

"DiNozzo, McGee, the director's office, now!" Tony looked up to his boss standing at the top of the stairway behind him. "Get going, DiNozzo" Gibbs barked again as Tony didn't bother to get up. McGee stopped halfway and turned around again, grabbing Tony's arm and dragging him up the stairs with him.

Tony didn't care about what happened around him. What did he have to lose?

In the office Gibbs started a pissing match with the director as soon as the door felt shut behind them but Tony didn't listen. His thoughts were spinning in his head, re-living the last memories with Ziva again and again, wondering if there was something he could've done. He hadn't even seen them once! It was his fault that Ziva, his Ninja, got abducted and it was his fault if she died.

"DiNozzo!" he blinked a few times confused before noticing the silence around him. Slowly he looked over to Gibbs who looked at him as if he was expecting something from him.

"Yes boss?"

"She stays willingly!" he raised an eyebrow, nodded and pretended to know what Gibbs was talking about.

"Sounds good boss!" he managed to get out. Shocked faces stared back at him. McGee looked like he was seriously considering the psych ward for Tony and Gibbs probably had killed him in his head already. Vance only twisted the tooth pick in his fingers, observing the situation.

"Ziva stays willingly in Israel." Gibbs repeated slowly, stressing her name to get any reaction from Tony. Which he got. Immediately he froze, his hands clenched to fists, his tense body started to shake violently.

"She… what?!" his voice indicated so much disbelieve and hurt that Gibbs instantly forgave him for not listening.

"Ziva was taken back to Israel by her father to get a mission done. He just called and explained it to us. He also said she stayed willingly and had even agreed to do the operation."

Slowly the information got into his head. He blinked a few times before looking over to McGee who just appeared as helpless.

"Nah" Tony suddenly grinned, shaking his head a little "Oh no, this can't be true, Ziva would never willingly-"

"DiNozzo," he was cut off sharply by the director. "she does. Ziva doesn't wish to speak to us, any of us, but will return to NCIS after her mission is accomplished. There is nothing we can do about it" he finished.

The next second Tony snapped, wanting to take the next flight available to Tel Aviv.

"This is not true! He played her, probably even drugged her! Ziva would always talk to me, he just doesn't let her! She would never do him a favor, not after Somalia, don't you understand?! You know what? I'm gonna go see her, she will have to tell me right in the face that she doesn't wanna talk to us" he ranted pointing at Gibbs and Vance in anger.

"Enough!" The director dismissed him and even dared to fire him should he dare to set foot on that plane.

"Why not director?!" Tony had screamed, barely able to control himself after the final 'no' echoed through the room.

"Leon?" Gibbs' hardly controlled voice broke the silence.

"We cannot do this! Eli David has clearly crossed boundaries but if we move now we will destroy everything we've been working on so far. There are rules Gibbs!" he slammed the toothpick in the garbage and eyed Team Gibbs with narrowed eyes, his jaw clenched together. "He's the bad man now and we can use that against him once she's back!"

"I don't care about your bullshit politics, Ziva is a member of my team and even though he is her father I don't think he can just abduct her when he feels like it!" a fist hit the table.

"She is, after all, a liaison officer."

"Transferred to my team" Gibbs held against him.

"With his permission" two pairs of angry eyes stared at each other.

"Remember what happened last time" McGee said bravely and held against Vance's death glare as everyone turned heads to look at him in surprise. Tony let out a sarcastic laugh.

"Yeah right. You didn't want us to take that mission officially either and we brought her back anyway, didn't we?!"

"Last time she went missing, agent DiNozzo! This time we know she is well and with her father, there is absolutely nothing we can do without starting a war."

"How can she be will when she's with her father?" Tony screamed but Vance didn't pay any attention to him.

"Besides we're talking about agent David here, she'd make her way back in less time than it would take us to get there, if that's what she wanted" and awkward silence filled the room as everyone slowly processed what the director had just said and what consequences that would have for each and every one of them. He was right. Ziva would be back in an instant if she wished to.

"You will not bring Agent David back, are we clear?" Even though he'd clearly addressed the whole team it was just Gibbs he was looking at. Hatred sparkled in Gibbs' eyes as she spun around on his heels and disappeared.

NCIS

"What are you doing?" He asked in so much disbelieve that she turned around laughing a bit. "What? I'm cleaning up. You've made quite a mess the three hours we're here" Tony's face showed childlike outrage.

"I haven't made a mess, I simply unpacked a few things." Ziva rolled her eyes and continued putting his clothes into the wardrobe.

"Right" she scoffed. "The clothes threw themselves all over the floor"

"Sarcasm doesn't suit you" he informed her dryly but helped getting a few things off the ground. "We won't stay here long anyway, so what's the point of all this?" He complained.

"Cut it out DiNozzo, if you're comfortable living like a hobo, go ahead I for my part certainly won't-"

"Like a hobo?" he interrupted her with raised eyebrows, feigning hurt. "Seriously? You think I live like a hobo? Ow David, that one hurt"

"What I meant, was-"

"I got it" he interrupted her again with a wink of his hand. "I got it. You ain't say no more" he dramatically stalked towards the bathroom door and flinched when a shoe hit his head.

"Why thank you, you shouldn't have" he glared at her rubbing the throbbing spot on his head.

"Sarcasm doesn't suit you" she mocked him with a grin and before he could react she had thrown another shoe in his direction.

After they were done goofing around and making themselves comfortable Tony got bored soon.

"Let's go outside Zee-vah! Paris is such a beautiful city we don't wanna spend our time locked into a hotel room, do we? Besides we don't have to pick the witness up till tomorrow, let's do some sightseeing"

"I certainly do not mind spending my day with my book. I've been to Paris before" Ziva answered distractedly, her eyes still on her book.

She was lying on her belly in a Y shaped form, nearly covering the whole king sized bed in an attempt to get comfortable. He watched her closely and decided he had never seen anything more beautiful than Ziva lying relaxed on a bed they shared, completely unaware of the fact that a tiny part of her belly showed, which was more bare skin than he'd seen in a long time. She looked incredibly sexy.

He didn't understand why she took so much effort in wearing long sleeved shirts all the time when her body literally begged to be seen. But Somalia had changed her.

"Take a picture Tony, it'll last longer" she suddenly informed him unimpressed and Tony could feel himself blush. Damn Ninja skills. He cleared his throat.

"Don't know what you're talking about" he muttered before searching the wardrobe for his jacket. "Where'd ya you put my jacket?" He asked and Ziva sighed deeply looking up from her book to frown at him.

"Tony. You are unbearable"

"I've been told that before, so where's my jacket?" He was pretty impatient now, his desire to go outside overwhelming. He needed something to do.

"I guess it's where you took it off the second we entered this room- on the floor next to the door" she pointed towards it with her index finger and a big fake smile on her face, letting her finger snap back and forth to make it look ridiculous. He grumbled something about Ziva being worse than his first French nanny and Ziva grinned.

"How do I look?" Tony asked, looking at himself in the mirror next to the closet. Ziva took her time scanning him.

"You look pretty!" She finally said with a smug smile.

"Men are not pretty Ziva, men are handsome but yes thanks also that I've been told before!" He grinned his thousand watt smile and turned around to her.

Ziva's expression fell. Idiot. "Don't flatter yourself. I've seen better before" she shot right back at him and bit the inside of her cheek to prevent from laughing at his face.

"Okay so get up now!" He took her hand, wanting to lift her up when she suddenly flinched, a frightened look in her eyes. Slowly he stepped back and sighed a little. Sometimes he forgot very easily how careful he had to be around Ziva.

After various discussions about where to go first and Tony whining about a broken arm Ziva had supposedly gotten him because he had accused her of using a trick coin, they finally were standing in front of the Eiffel Tower with big satisfied smiles on their faces. After all neither of them cared where they went, as long as they were together. Mocking each other was just part of the game."Ziva? Ziva!" Someone was shaking her roughly. As soon as her tired brain had processed that fact her eyes flew open and she jerked away as far as possible cringing as the person wouldn't let go of her arm.

"Let go. Let go of me!" She yelled, panic more obvious now in her voice. Breathe Ziva, just breathe she told herself. She'd lost orientation for a while but regained the knowledge as she looked across the small dirty plane. She was in Israel. On her way to the training camp.

Agent Nazar stared at her bewildered before quickly stepping back and eyeing her again suspiciously. "Are you alright? We have arrived" He informed her formally. Ziva shot him one of her death-glares and made her way to the door, avoiding any contact with the young man.

He was really young, way too young to have a lot of skills and experience in the field so she wondered what her father was thinking to send him with her. In the end she had to take care of him. She groaned at that thought. They hadn't spoken anything on the three hour plane ride expect exchanging stiff formalities at the beginning and Ziva wanted it like that. No more relationships, no more feelings not even sympathy.

As soon as she set foot on the small staircase, heat blew in her face full time. Sand was already everywhere and she coughed a few times before quickly covering her mouth and nose with her hands. How fun. A desert storm. Her bad mood got even worse.

She felt Nazar right behind her and stepped aside. She saw his mouth moving but over the sound of the storm she couldn't make out anything.

"What?!" She yelled back, using sign language to make him understand she didn't get a single word he had just said. He simply waved his hand to follow him and so they slowly made their ways over the non-existing airstrip, avoiding tripping over rocks the sand hand already buried and trying to breath in as less sand as possible.

The sound of the wind was deaf-splitting, a sound that reminded her of so many bad things and she felt the weight of her duffle bag against her sore shoulders. Suddenly she felt really tired and exhausted. The dream of Paris was still with her; it was the first nice dream she had had in months. Without Tony next to her, it was hard to fall asleep.

In the very beginning of her recovery she would wake up screaming, unable to control herself or the fear that had made itself a home in her head. It got that worse that her neighbors would call the police because they'd thought she was being murdered next door.

After three months of either waking the entire building with her terror or no sleep at all she had set for sleeping pills that had the wanted effect immediately: she slept more than thirty minutes a time. But when Tony had found the pills on her nightstand on one of his self-created movie nights he had forced on her, he'd flipped and yelled at her for being that stupid, for not talking to him for bottling everything up and not accepting any help. It had been a turning point and she'd found herself sobbing uncontrollably in his arms.

After that, however, it had gotten worse for a few weeks. She wouldn't let him in her apartment or talk to him and since he had slushed the pills down the toilette she was forced to try to sleep without. What did not work, of course.

One night she woke up terrified and out of control. She didn't even remember calling Tony but he ended up taking to her on the phone for about two hours, soothing her, whispering calming words before she was able to fall back to sleep. Not long after that incident she drove over to his apartment in the middle of the night, still caught in her worst nightmare of Saleem stabbing Tony to death. She needed to know he was still alive. Since that day she wasn't able to fall asleep without him by her side. Not that she would ever admit it, though but Tony had saved her the need to explain herself and simply found excuses for her to stay either with him or why he had to stay at hers. Tony was secretly relieved to be able to care for her; he was terrified what she could do to herself in one of her panic attacks.

After everything she'd done to Tony he still cared about her like that. She was already terrified of what him not being near her would do to her.

After ten minutes of walking through knee-high sand they reached a small building. It was only a shabby little house, a truck parked in front, with wooden boards covering the windows. Nazar held the door open for her and after it fell shut the tension in her shoulders got a bit less.

Ziva sighed in relief and shook the sand out of her hair and clothing before she looked around carefully, a hand placed on holster, just in case. Nazar watched her with a small smile before he crossed the room to open another back door that let to a small porch.

They were dancing around each other, both very careful and still not sure what to think about the other. Ziva had learned a long time ago that not everybody her father trusted could really be trusted. That was easy since she didn't trust her father, so why trust his judgment? As long as she could think it had caused her pain.

"What are you doing?" She asked harshly when he didn't explain his moves to her.

"I'm checking our backup"

"What backup?" He shot her an annoyed glare and Ziva was once again furious with her father for keeping her out of the loop like that.

"Your father didn't know if Hamas would attack us today. They threaten a lot but never actually make a move"

"And you didn't think of telling me that? What the hell is wrong with you?" She punched her hand against the wall next to her and literally heard something break. Pain shot through he knuckles only seconds after and she cursed herself for her stupidity as she slowly tried to open her fist. Not that she would let it show.

Nazar watched her from a safe distance. The rumors he'd heard about Eli David's daughter were obviously true. She was first of all gorgeous, her long curly hair till her waist and a distinctive face made the observer not want to look away. Right now her facial expression showed annoyance and anger, her brows were furred as she punched the wall. He had heard only little about why she went away from Mossad and to the Americans but rumor has it that it had something to do with the relationship with her father. The two of them didn't get along very well and her stoic expression when he'd told her about her father's orders had only confirmed these suspicions.

But she was a good agent, probably the best in the whole agency since she was his daughter. He would have to be careful with her, didn't he feel the wish to be murdered in his sleep. Nazar's only job was to escort her to the training camp in the desert. He wasn't sure why Ziva had to attend something like that but God forbid to question the director's orders. Her body language showed how observant she was. She took so much more in than she would let anyone know. She was badly dangerous, that much was clear.

She muttered some curses in Hebrew before she closed her eyes for a few seconds.

"So? What about our backup now?" Nazar took it and looked out of the window once more. He shook his head what didn't stop her from keeping her gun pointed at the invisible outside. She had a bad feeling.

"What are we waiting for? When will we move?" She hated that she had to ask the questions. "You tell me right now what's the plan!" She hissed, clearly losing her patience.

"Officer David-"

"For you still Special Agent David" If looks could kill.

Nazar stood straight up by her reprimand and murmured an apology. Yes this woman was dangerous, but when pissed she was deadly he corrected himself and quickly complied her demand and filled her in. She was the one in charge after all.

The plan was easy. Should they get attacked while waiting for the transportation to the camp they would skip the camp altogether and fight the Hamas along with their backup that would arrive never the less this afternoon.

Should the transportation arrive before the Hamas, what Ziva definitely preferred since she had no intention to count more than broken knuckles to the damage count for that day, they would continue their way to the camp.

Ziva wanted to know her father's actual reasons for sending her to the camp. He would never do that only to help her get over herself. Weakness was not allowed, and neither was admitting it.

An hour later, neither their backup nor the Hamas were in sight but their transportation had showed up. It was a big pick-up truck, one of those metal boxes that could carry elephants without breaking. Ziva only raised an eyebrow at the monstrous car in front of her but kept her thoughts to herself as both, she and Nazar, climbed the stairs up to the door. A short stern nod and the handing out of breathing masks later, which Ziva was incredibly grateful for, they were on their way to the camp.

"Approximately five hours" the driver had informed her and Ziva had sighed just a little. Not being able to move was something she wasn't good at anymore. They had never allowed her to move, they-" No! She told herself. You won't go there again. Her hands started to tremble and she knew she had to keep her mind occupied with something else to prevent from panicking.

The storm outside made it impossible to see anything besides dusty yellow-ish dots and so she soon turned focus on something else. She looked around in the big truck and found various weapons on the ground. On her left was the driver who did nothing but stare on the sand outside. Behind her was Nazar and another man who were both similar silent but holding guns as they were about to start fire any second. Just a few years ago she'd been like that too, cold, emotionless, the perfect killing machine.

Who was she now? Tony had known her trouble ever since.

"Ah c'mon, you don't really wanna be like this, do you?" She heard Tony's voice in her head. They'd had this conversation a few weeks before Michael had happened and everything had fallen apart.

"Are you really just analyzing me?!" She scoffed, bending down to get her backpack.

"You're doing it again" Tony said from across the room in a strange singing tone clearly annoyed but Ziva continued packing her bag. It was late and she only wanted to go home to Michael.

"Doing what Tony?!"

"Shutting down!"

"I'm not shutting down" she argued "I'm just not willing to talk with you about that right now"

"You are never willing to talk Zee-vah and exactly that's my point." He waited a second to give her a chance to deny it but she remained silent her arms crossed in front of her chest.

"He's changing you"

"He's making me happy Tony!" she argued back sharply. He flinched as if someone had hit him and of course Ziva's ninja senses didn't miss that.

"Is that so, yes?" he clearly was hurt.

She was trying to figure out what really was on his mind. "Yes Tony" she said more softly now. "It is."

"Well then," Tony tried his usual clown mask to hide how much it actually hurt seeing her happy with someone else than him. "have a good evening Ziva" and with that he left her standing in the bullpen confused and hurt, for the first time in forever not holding the elevator doors open for her.

Who had changed? Was it her, or was it him?

She snapped back to reality when the truck drove over some rocks that got the entire thing shaking uncontrollably and she had to cling to her seatbelt in order to keep from falling. Her breathing was labored. Slowly she bent over putting her head between her knees, something she had done often in the camp. It prevented her from throwing up.

"You okay?" She heard Nazar assure himself about her condition but when she didn't answer he let her be. God I just want to sleep! Her mind was so tired. Nightmares filled every inch of it and with every passing hour she was separated from Tony she felt the anxiety coming back that something might happen to him. Something she could not prevent.

"A few more hours" neither listened to the man. He had his hand placed too close to hers and she jerked away just a little too fast. Tony would've said something funny now to ease the mood but Tony was not there. Get yourself together Ziva! Get yourself together the voice whispered again. She would be fine. They would be okay, right?

A/N- Thanks guys for reading and I hope you enjoyed that chatper. Would be lovely to know what you think