Author's Note:

First of all, thank you for the comments! It really helps me stay motivated to keep writing.

Secondly, WARNING - this chapter is rated M. As in Mature. As in OMG I KINDA WROTE SOME SMUT. It is not graphic but it's there and there is clear sexy time. If you're not into that sort of thing, please skip this chapter.

Thirdly, I am super nervous about this chapter because there are so many post-Judgment Day fics and I've read some of them and they are GOOD. I wanted to be sure I take a different approach, which hopefully I did. This chapter is much longer than the previous one. I meant for these to be more drabblish than anything but then one thing led to another and then suddenly I was past the 4,000 word mark. Not all of them will be this long.

Fourthly, enjoy!

Two - Judgment Day, Part 2.

You're going back home.

How can she go back home when she is already there? That was the first thought in her mind. The second was that she did not want to go back to Israel. She just lost a friend, a good one. She would like to grieve properly, amongst her friends.

She is angry with the new NCIS director, but she is angrier with her father, because she knows he is friendly with this Leon Vance, and if her father wanted her to continue on with the liaison position, it would have happened. Her father has a plan for her, and she knows it involves estranging her from her American teammates. There was a hint of it the last time she was in Israel. Michael Rivkin, her former partner, was trying too hard to flirt with her, and it was impossible to ignore the look on her father's face whenever she mentioned NCIS, Gibbs, Tony, or anyone else in the US. She knows Rivkin is fully in her father's pocket, and she knows how Eli David thinks women can be controlled.

Although she is not leaving for another two days, she begins packing. She knows someone from the embassy would be by to pack up her things and ship them to Israel, but she needs to pack clothes. Without a doubt, her father will have her back in the field within an hour of her plane landing, probably with Rivkin as her partner. He is good looking, to be sure, but she would never be able to trust him, not with her father in his ear. No matter how often her father throws him at her, no matter how charming he is, she will not fall for it.

In any case, she is prepared for the charm. After all, she worked alongside Tony DiNozzo for three years. She is immune to charming men now. Or so she tells herself as she aggressively shoves underwear and socks into a bag.

A knock at her door startles her from thoughts of exactly what she would like to tell her father when she sees him. It is almost midnight. There is really only one person who would come to her apartment at this hour.

She opens the door and sure enough, there he is. He has a bottle of vodka in one hand and his shirt is unbuttoned and untucked, revealing a white cotton shirt underneath. "Ahoy matey," he says in greeting, his voice laced with sarcasm and alcohol.

Without replying, she opens the door wider and he steps in, goes straight to her kitchen, familiar with her apartment from the summer he was team leader. She closes the door quietly behind her and leans against it, watching him, assessing the level of his drunkenness. She did not get a whiff of alcohol as he passed her, so he is not swimming in the bottle, or whatever the American phrase is. He locates her glasses quickly and deftly pours two fingers' worth of vodka in each glass. She continues to watch him as he walks back over to her, hands her a glass. He walks steadily, so she wonders if he is really anything more than buzzed.

She takes a tiny sip of the vodka. He splurged and bought an expensive bottle, so it goes down like velvet. He sits on her couch and gestures for her to join him. She does, settling on the other end of the couch, facing him but as far away as she can be while still sharing a seat with him. Her ninja senses, as he calls them, detects danger, although she cannot decipher of what kind.

"You plan on saying anything or has this plot twist left you speechless?" he drawls, clearly as much on edge as he has been the last few days.

"How much have you had to drink?" she asks bluntly.

He shrugs and gives her his best fake grin. "Just celebrating my good luck," he says, sarcasm evident. "Got tired of drinking alone. Figured you're just as thrilled at being sent back to daddy."

She smirks and takes a bigger sip, enjoying the way the liquid warms her without burning. "Oh yes," she replies, mimicking his sarcastic tone. "I cannot wait to see what he has planned for me next."

"Kill one of his enemies for him, for sure. Or he'll be brainwashing the American out of your head. Or both."

"Oh yes. He plans on brainwashing me by throwing my former partner at me. As if an Israeli man will remind me that my loyalty should belong only to my father." She rolls her eyes as she says this, but then monitors his reaction carefully, hoping to see jealousy.

She is not disappointed. He frowns. "Wait, your father is going to throw a man at you to remind you to be loyal to him? That's twisted."

She shrugs. "How else do you think he became head of Mossad?" She takes another sip of the vodka. He downs his glass in one go.

He gazes at her with his brow slightly furrowed, as if she is a puzzle he is trying to piece together. She is overcome with the notion that she is going to miss this, the way he looks at her, the way he keeps up with the banter, the way he counters her arguments as if he is afraid of her but just can't help himself.

After a minute, his mouth quirks into a smile that seems more genuine than sarcastic. "You know what would really piss daddy off? If you arrived back in Israel with an American boyfriend."

She huffs out a quick laugh. It sounds like something Tali, her boy-crazy little sister, forever 16, would have done. "Yes. But where am I to find a boyfriend when I leave in two days?"

She says it like a joke but the smile drops off his face and he suddenly looks so serious that it makes her nervous. As usual, she realizes how loaded her hypothetical question is too late. It weighs heavily between them and the air is suddenly thick with tension and unspoken feelings.

They stare at each other from opposite ends of the couch as she thinks back to last year and how she felt when he was with Jeanne Benoit. It was more than petty jealousy. She had genuinely felt a loss for something that she never had in the first place. The feeling had confused her, and it all led to that conversation she had with Ducky in the bar the night before she thought he had died in an explosion. And then there is the drop in her stomach that occurred as she watched him die, or so she thought, and the relief when he walked into the bullpen, physically unscathed.

As these thoughts swirl in her head, he moves closer to her on the couch, subtly at first as if not to startle her. When she doesn't move away or break eye contact, he moves even closer, until she can feel the heat radiating off his body. "We're not coworkers anymore," he muses, a twinkle in his eye. "Rule 12 doesn't apply to us."

She raises an eyebrow and thinks, why not? Out loud, she replies slowly, "You are right."

It is unclear who moves first, nor does it really matter. All she knows is that their lips meet in a rush, chemistry and years of carefully guarded feelings exploding from them, around them. Finally finally finally, she thinks as she remembers the taste of his tongue on hers, the feel of his fingers tangling in her hair. The last time they did this felt like eons ago, and that time was all a ruse, an undercover mission where they merely teetered on the precipice into which they now jump.

The first time they have sex is on her couch with her straddling him. They manage to disentangle their limbs long enough to get their pants off and for him to fish a condom out of his wallet and roll it on, but shirts stay on. She rides him hard and fast, needing more more more until she feels herself falling and she clings to him, gasping. He follows her over the cliff shortly after, breathing out her name almost with reverence.

After, they sit, slumped against each other, still craving contact with each other as they remember how to breathe. He laces his fingers through hers, squeezes her hand. "For the record," he says, "this was not how I imagined this happening."

She chuckles. "You have thought of this moment a lot, yes?" He isn't the only one.

"Oh yeah," he smirks back. "I always thought it would be more of a slow burn."

"Hm," she says, pursing her lips and considering. "I do not think I would like to be burned during sex."

She knows what he means, but she says it to make him laugh. It feels like weeks since she heard his laughter. He huffs out a laugh. "I didn't mean literally, Zee-vah," he responds, drawing out her name in the way that used to annoy her. His voice is filled with affection. "I meant that we would go slow, tease each other, see who begged first."

This is how she envisioned it as well, and she hums her agreement. "It would be you," she says confidently.

He laughs again, music to her ears. "Maybe." They are silent for a moment. "You know, my flight doesn't leave until the afternoon," he says suggestively. "We have plenty of time to find out."

She is wrong. She begs first and he grins at her until she moves her hips just right and wipes the grin off his face.

After their hunger is finally sated, at least for the time being, they lay on her bed, him on his back, her curled up against him, and they talk. The conversation starts playfully, discussing Gibbs' new team members and how much he is going to hate them merely because they were not hand picked by him. They laugh about what the newbies' first day will be like, and abruptly, he says, "We wasted so much time."

The quick pivot in conversation confuses her and she cranes her neck to look up at him with her brow furrowed. "We should have done this years ago. I never made a move, and now we only have hours left together before I get sent afloat and you go halfway across the world. It sucks."

She sighs and runs her hand across his bare chest. "Yes, it sucks. But we cannot change the past. And now we must think about what we are going to do."

"We'll keep in contact. Right?" He looks at her for confirmation and she nods, a smile playing on her lips. "Video chats, emails, phone calls. Hell, even handwritten letters, although I can barely read your chicken scribble." With a mock frown, she lightly punches his arm and he laughs. "Oh wait, I'm the one with the bad handwriting," he revises. "And Gibbs will get us all back on his team, anyway."

This she does not doubt. What concerns her is what happens to them after they are back under Gibbs' rules, and she says as much. He takes her hand, brings it to his lips to kiss it softly. "We'll prove that Rule 12 is unnecessary," he says confidently.

She hopes with all her heart that he is right.

She drives him to the airport at noon, and with a rueful smile, pulls over to the curb in the drop off area. He grabs his bag out of her backseat, and she walks around her mini to hug him. It is rare that she initiates a hug and she wonders what would happen if she refused to let him go. Forget the night of amazing sex they just had. She is acutely aware that she is losing her best friend, even if it is temporary and even if they video chat every day, which she knows will not happen as she will be often on missions.

They hold on to each other fiercely for a long moment before he leans back just enough to tip his head down and kiss her deeply. Both are acutely aware that this is the last time they will kiss in months and it is not enough, but eventually they both pull back. He slings his bag over his shoulder and heads into the airport, looking back once to wave and smile one last time. She smiles back but suddenly feels very alone.

The predictability of her father is almost laughable. He meets her on the runway as she disembarks from the plane and ushers her into his waiting car. Once they are inside, he hands her a file. "You leave in two hours for this mission. Michael Rivkin will be your partner."

She peruses the documents on their drive to Mossad headquarters and nods. Rivkin, despite her father's attempts to throw him at her feet, is a good officer. They have worked well together in the past, though she now knows that their partnership lacks the cohesion that she has with Tony.

The mission takes no more than three days, then she is back in Tel Aviv, getting used to another apartment, wondering how long before her father confronts her about Rivkin's report that she rebuffed all his romantic overtures after the mission. She looks forward to it and dreads it at the same time. She does not need to wait long. Her father's secretary calls her, schedules a meeting for later that afternoon.

When she arrives outside his office, designed to intimidate any foes, the secretary smiles at her and waves her through. "Hello, Abba," she says, smiling and kissing his cheek as he rises from behind his desk to meet her. They sit with his desk between them. She thinks that they will need this barrier if the confrontation that she anticipates occurs. She sits silently, waiting for him to speak first.

He gets right to the point. "Michael informs me that you have found yourself an American boyfriend," he starts, barely concealing his disdain.

"Did he put that in his field report?" she asks archly.

Eli David is not used to being spoken to in such a manner and he slams the palm of his hand on the desk. She does not flinch, just continues to meet his eyes, almost defiantly. "I see the time you spent with NCIS has softened you. What kind of control did Agent Gibbs have on his team?"

She chooses to ignore the dig against Gibbs and instead asks, "What is it you want, Abba?"

"Your loyalty. To me, not to NCIS and not to this American boyfriend, whoever he is. Clearly, Agent Gibbs did not keep you busy enough if you had time to go out and meet a man."

"Actually, I met him while working," she says, unable to hide the smallest of smiles.

Her father picks up on the look on her face and narrows his eyes at her. "Do not tell me you fell for the charms of that partner of yours, Anthony DiNozzo. The one with whom you assured Officer Bashan you were not sleeping."

His voice has a dangerous tone to it and any other officer within Mossad would immediately cower and apologize. Not her. She is too familiar with his iron fisted control. "I did not assure him of any such thing," she replies, although she had in fact not been sleeping with Tony at that time. Her point being that it was none of Officer Bashan's business and it certainly is not her father's business now.

Eli's jaw clenches and his nostrils flare in anger. "You will cease contact with Agent DiNozzo and focus on serving your country," he commands.

She can barely contain her snort. "You cannot tell me what to do in my spare time," she retorts. "I will communicate with whom I wish. I can assure you that I can serve my country and keep up a long distance relationship at the same time. I am quite adept at multi-tasking. It is a skill you taught me."

He narrows his eyes at her but does not say anything. He stares at her for a long moment then dismisses her without another word. She walks out of his office with her head high.

For the next month, her father sends her on mission after mission, barely giving her time to breathe. She does everything he asks of her with her usual efficiency and accuracy, but there is a cool distance between them now. The casual observer would be even more hard pressed to know they are father and daughter.

When she has a moment, she sends Tony emails, filled with stories of going to the market and the gossip told to her by Aunt Nettie. She leaves out how much her father is making her work, how worn down she feels, how she isn't sure how much more she can take and maybe her father is right, her time with NCIS has made her soft.

He emails back, complaining about being stuck on a ship and missing going to the movies and her. Especially her. His emails both make her smile and want to cry. She feels homesick for him, for DC, for her life there.

They try to video chat once a week, although it usually means it is the middle of the night for one of them. His familiar handsome face on her computer screen grounds her, reminds her of everything good in the world. He frowns, voicing concern about how exhausted she looks. No one cared about how tired she looked when she was a field agent for her father before, and the very idea that there is someone out there who cares about her well-being brings tears to her eyes one evening.

"Hey," he says softly, "Why the tears, sweet cheeks?"

The nickname that once irritated her as condescending now makes her smile. "I am not sure how much more of this I can take," she replies honestly. It feels good to admit it out loud.

"What do you mean?"

"My father is more demanding than ever. I have been on more missions in the last month than most officers have in two months." She hates the complaining tone she takes but she is too tired to care. Plus, Tony complains more than almost anyone else she knows, and she intrinsically knows he understands.

Tony does not have any solutions for her, not that she expected any. The only advice he offers her is to call Gibbs and beg him to put the team back together, but they both know that she will not do that. He tries to distract her, make her laugh with his impressions of some of the military men with whom he is stuck on the ship. Seeing his animated face is enough for her, really. They end their chat reluctantly, and she feels lighter hearted.

The next week, she is summoned again to her father's office. She sighs before she enters and takes her seat, not bothering to greet him as Abba or kiss his cheek. He has another assignment for her. This time, a solo mission to gather intel on a terrorist cell in Somalia. She narrows her eyes as she thinks back to conversations she had with other officers in the last few weeks. "Do we have enough information to go on?" she asks.

Her father's face is stormy at her question, his dislike of her questioning his authority evident. "Yes," he fairly spits out. "You leave tomorrow."

She thanks him and sees herself out. He does not look at her as she leaves. Part of her mourns the loss of whatever personal relationship she had with him before, but mostly she is focused on the gnaw of doubt eating at her mind. Something about this mission feels off. She is rarely sent on solo missions, especially in Africa and when it involves gathering intel.

Later that night, she sends Tony an email, breaking protocol by telling him briefly of her next mission. She knows she sounds rather paranoid as she types The mission should take no more than two weeks. If you do not hear from me at that time, it is possible I am in trouble. I believe my father is sending me on a suicide mission. But she cannot ignore the feeling that this mission is different as she hits send on her email.

Her instincts are right. The mission is a disaster from the start. She was not given enough information, as she suspected, and so on day two, when she stumbles upon a small camp in the blinding desert, she is unprepared. She puts up as much of a fight as possible, but she is taken captive.

The next few weeks feel like years as she is tortured occasionally and mostly left in a dark, dank concrete cell that is too hot during the day and too cold at night. She does not expect her father to rescue her and she forgets her last email to Tony in the haze that accompanies captivity of this nature. Her will to live slowly drains away and death becomes an elusive friend. Beyond the veil waits Tali, her mother, even Lieutenant Roy Sanders with his bright orange beanie.

Instead of death comes rescue, in the form of Tony, Gibbs, and McGee. Tony had understood that Ziva is not prone to paranoia and took her warning to heart, sounding the alarm. Much later, he tells her about the fuss he raised on the ship, almost getting himself fired. It had worked, and Gibbs and Vance had looked into it. Eli David had stonewalled them, of course, but they were able to get enough information to know that she had been sent on a sort of suicide mission, and her NCIS family came to get her when her own blood family had forsaken her.

They bring her back to the US instead of Israel. It takes weeks for her to recover physically, and she wonders if she will ever be the same emotionally. She had been tortured before, and she knew how to withstand it as it was part of her training. But she was unprepared for weeks of torture and, more significantly, the knowledge that her father had sent her to her death for what he saw as her insubordination. This rift between them will never be repaired, she knows. She begins the process of becoming a US citizen.

Through it all, Tony is her constant. He refuses to leave her alone because that is who he is and because he cares. He holds her through nightmares and helps her prepare for the citizenship interview and test. Because she does not have her apartment in DC anymore, she moves in with Tony upon return. They tell themselves that it is temporary, only until she can find her own apartment, but after a few months, she stops looking at apartment listings and he never says anything about it.

It is impossible for anyone at NCIS to not notice the change in their relationship. Director Vance flat out refuses to assign them to the same field team. In any case, she has lost her taste for field work and she instead takes a position at NCIS in intelligence as soon as she is sworn in as a citizen. She is assigned to the Middle East and finds herself working alongside Nikki Jardine. Their relationship, once testy, quickly thaws as they work together and Tony makes fun of her for making friends with the germophobe until Ziva reminds him sweetly that she has not forgotten her assassin training.

She builds a new life that she never expected would be possible. Slowly, she sheds the darkness that once shrouded her and finds it easier to breathe. For once, she allows herself to plan for the future.

And when she accidentally discovers a ring box in one of Tony's suit jackets as she is hanging it up one weekend months later while he is on a case, she does not panic. Instead, she smiles, keeps herself from opening it, and returns it to the inside pocket out of which it had tumbled. When he asks her two weeks later, in a quiet part of the park near their apartment, she says yes and kisses him.