Sunlight spilled in through the windows, illuminating the apartment in a warm glow; the only glimmer of movement being the specs of dust whirling around in the golden rays beating down into the centre of the room. Outside, the hum of traffic was just beginning; the smell of freshly baked bread and pastries drifting in through the window.

Tony turned over in bed, his arm feeling around for the Israeli lying next to him. Panic settled deep in his chest when he felt nothing but cold air and empty sheets. He groaned at he sat up, perhaps a little too abruptly, his eyes scanning the room. No sign of her. He shook his head, expelling the doubts that were creeping in. Please, God, don't let me have imagined it.

He slipped out of the white cotton sheets, his body dressed only in a pair of navy boxers. He padded over to the bedroom door, opening it gently. It creaked, as the living room came in to view.

He exhaled a sigh of relief as his eyes caught sight of her on the couch, legs tucked into her chest, her fingertips gently tapping the side of the cup she was holding. He smiled. Sometimes, he struggled to verbalise it, but he was convinced that she got more and more beautiful every day.

She was dressed in one of his old short-sleeved t-shirts, that came to a stop at the middle of her thighs, perfectly complimenting her caramel skin; her tousled brown hair flowing down her shoulders, coming to rest at waist-length.

It was hard to believe it had been fifteen years since they met. In some ways, it felt like yesterday. Every time he laid eyes on her, his heart fluttered as if it was the first time. He smiled as her words creeped into his memory: "having phone sex?" she had asked him, jokingly.

She was staring out the window, her eyes gliding across the tops of the buildings; enamoured by the sight. It had become somewhat of a habit for her since she had arrived several days ago. She loved to watch the sun creep over the rooftops before it settled gently in the sky, casting hope and warmth on the city below. Usually, she was back under the covers before Tony rose, for she knew how worried he would get if he awoke to find her side of the bed empty. They had been through a lot together and suffered more heartache and trying times than most. They would both be lying if they said that it hadn't changed them. Anxiety was still her enemy that she was battling with every day. His, was doubt. She knew that her 'death' and disappearance had affected him deeply, and though he had told her how happy he was to finally have her home, she knew that a part of him would continue to doubt that she would stay. But then again, could she really blame him?

She was lost so deeply in thought, that she didn't notice Tony leaning against the bedroom door frame.

"Hey," he said quietly, so as not to startle her. The last thing he wanted was for his ex-Mossad/NCIS girlfriend to accidentally stab him to death on account of her ninja assassin reflexes.

She turned to him, a smile playing on her face. His expression matched hers as he came to sit down next to her. He gently caressed her head, before pressing a kiss to her hair. He wrapped his arm around the back of the couch, softly toying with her curls as she turned her attention back to the window.

"You alright?" he asked, his eyes observing her.

"Just thinking," she replied, taking another small sip of coffee.

"Oh, that's dangerous," he joked, a playful grin forming on his face. He couldn't see her expression, but after almost two decades, he knew that she was smiling too. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked softly.

She sighed, biting her lip, before placing the coffee down on the floor. He scooted back on the couch to give her some room as she adjusted her position; her legs coming to drape over his own. His fingers danced over her outstretched limbs, coming to rest just below the hem of the t-shirt, sending a tingle up her spine. It never ceased to amaze her how even after all these years and after all the time they had spent apart, his touch still did things to her – every caress of his fingers like a bolt of electricity, awakening every nerve.

"It is hard to believe that it's all over," she said, letting out a small chuckle. "It does not seem... real." Tony let out a hum of acknowledgement, his fingers tracing light circles over her skin. He stayed quiet, allowing her to gather her thoughts. Though she was usually good at verbalising her anger, frustration and her annoyance (often at him), commonly through snarky remarks or impromptu acts of fierce behaviour; when it came to her feelings... love, sadness, regret... she sometimes found it difficult to express them. "You know," she began, "I have spent my whole life training, fighting. I have always been looking over my shoulder – in the Israeli army, at Mossad, at NCIS, with Sahar. It has always been one battle after another. I'm not sure I know how to be… this."

"How to be what?" he asked, concern forming on his face. He leant over, brushing a strand of hair that had fallen into her eyes. A blush crept over her cheeks as his hand lingered for a moment, his eyes like tiny pools of emerald green, intensely gazing at her.

"Just… this," she replied, gesturing up and down to herself. "A person free from chasing down monsters all the time."

"Ziva, listen to me," he said gently, tugging her closer to the point where she was almost sitting on his lap. He cleared his throat. "When I left NCIS, a part of me felt lost. I'd been a cop for so long that I thought I wouldn't know how to be anything else. I couldn't imagine waking up and not strapping on my SIG and pulling my car into the Navy Yard. But then Tali came into the picture, and everything changed. I was suddenly thrust into this new role – of being a father, without any warning."

Guilt flashed across Ziva's face. Though she and Tony had had a deep, albeit uncomfortable, conversation about her pregnancy when he and Tali tracked her down in Cairo, she was still overcome with a deep sense of shame whenever it was mentioned.

Tears prickled at her eyes, and she averted her gaze from his. He shook his head, biting his lip. His hand moved up to gently cup her face, bringing it back to look at him. "Hey, hey," he soothed, "it's okay. It's okay." The pad of his thumb caressed her cheek, wiping away a tear that slipped out.

"All I'm saying is," he continued, "It was a lot to adjust to. Leaving my old life and starting a new one. I didn't think I ever wanted to be a father, or whether I'd even be capable of it. But Tali is everything I never knew I wanted. She is the greatest give of my life – my new purpose. You gave me that. It's going to take some time, Ziva, but I promise that you'll figure it out. We will figure it out."

"I'm scared, Tony."

In the fifteen years he had known her, he had never heard her say those words out loud. When people looked at her, they saw her skills and expected her to be fearless. Often, she was when it came to catching bad guys. There was not a rogue killer that was any match for their ninja. But when it came to matters of the heart – of being vulnerable and opening herself up to somebody else – it was not something that came easily to her. She had spent so much of her life feeling as though she needed to keep herself together, both physically and emotionally, that she rarely let her emotions take over. Even when her father died, he had to convince her to let herself grieve properly. 'Now you're the daughter of a dead man. Why don't you let yourself act like one?' he had told her.

"I know. Honestly, I'm scared too. We've never been… well, together. Like this. But as much as it's scary, it's also exciting, isn't it?"

"Exciting?" she asked, one eyebrow raised with a small smile on her face.

"Yeah… aren't you excited? I mean, we spent the better part of a decade dancing around our feelings for one another until Israel, which then concluded with that night – which by the way was hands down the best of my entire life, and not just because it unknowingly gave us Mini Ninja. But then, it was over almost as quickly as it began. I was leaving you on the tarmac in Tel Aviv and pining over you for years, six thousand miles away." He gently caressed her face. "When the farmhouse exploded and I was an absolute wreck, thinking that I'd lost you. It wasn't until I put the puzzle pieces of Tali's go bag and the whole situation together that I realised they didn't quite fit. And of course, we tracked you down in Cairo. And before I knew it, I was leaving you again, for God knows how long. We have never had a chance to be a couple. A proper couple. The kind that goes on picnics in the park, or sits at home watching movies before their making out gets too hot to handle and they shuffle things to the bedroom. The kind of couple that wakes up in bed together every morning and eat pancakes for breakfast, that holds hands as they take a stroll down the street, or that surprises you with flowers just because I can."

"You have really thought about this, haven't you?"

"I've had a long time to thing about things," he said, echoing her words from the men's bathroom after he rescued her from Somalia. "I want us to be that couple, Ziva. I know you once said that we were both romantically dysfunctional, but the truth is, I'm not. I've just never wanted to make a relationship work. There has never been a woman who I could see myself coming home to every day. Until you. I couldn't care less about whether we do the whole bride and groom thing and get married, but I want to be with you. I want to watch you teach Tali how to defend herself with ninja skills, and I want to watch the first boy she dates become absolutely terrified of you when you threaten to cut off his penis if he gets her pregnant. I want to watch you drink your coffee in the morning and take you and Tali to the opera in honour of her aunt every November. I want us to go out to dinner and flirt across the table and hold your hand as we take a long walk by the river. I want every single messy, complicated, fiery, intimidating, kind, beautiful part of you, for the rest of my life. I meant what I said in Somalia when I told you I couldn't live without you."

Silence encompassed the air as Ziva sat staring at him, her mouth slightly agape. "Miss Ziva David, I do believe that you're speechless," he said, jokingly as his mouth curved into a grin.

"I.. it.. it is not… I am not speechless."

"You sure? I've never seen you have this much trouble stringing a sentence together."

Ziva shook her head. "You don't want to be with me, Tony."

"I do."

"No, you don't. You just think you do because I have been gone for so long. But this is not the bullpen. This is not us flirting shamelessly at work. This would be a real relationship. You do not want to be with me. You do not want the emotional suitcases."

"Baggage, Ziva."

"That too," she paused, biting her lip. "I am not the same woman you left in Israel. I have been through… a lot. I have anxiety. I was in a dark, dark place, and Adam, he… he got me the pills. They help but they also numb my senses."

"That's okay. It's nothing to be ashamed of, Ziva. I don't think any less of you because of it. You have been through more than most people have in a lifetime, and if you need a little… help dealing with it, then you gotta do what you gotta do. It won't and doesn't make me love you any less."

Her breath caught in her throat; her eyes fixated on him.

"You love me?" she said, the words slipping out as both a statement and a question.

"Ziva… I've travelled across the world three times to look for you; shot a rogue Mossad agent; brought the opera to you so you could honour Tali on the year it was sold out; overnighted Shmeil the Man of Steel on a flight from New York when your father died; indirectly asked you out on a date to watch The Black Pirate in the middle of the bullpen with me; attempted to make you laugh on a daily basis at work because seeing you smile lights up my entire world; supported your relationship with Ray even though it was utterly crushing me inside to see you with him, because I care more about your happiness than I do my own; and got myself captured on purpose and tied to a chair in North Africa. Do you honestly think I would have done any of that if I didn't?"

She looked down to her hands, toying with her fingers as she spoke. "I-I always a hoped that a part of you did, but I had convinced myself that it would be too good to be true… that you would never be able to after the things I had done. After all the mistakes I made, the way I treated you back then – when you shot Michael, and I was extremely cruel to you. I spent months thinking about you – about everything. How you could make me laugh like nobody else. Your cheesy movie quotes. I knew deep down that you did what you did to protect me, but I was too stubborn and blinded by rage to be able to see it. And then Somalia happened, and I had a very long time to think about things, as you know. I was prepared to die. I did not mean to make it through. And yet, somehow, during every moment when I thought they were going to kill me, I could not stop thinking of you, and how I wished to see your face just one last time, to apologise. When Saleem lifted the hood, my heart saw you as if for the first time. And as much as I had tried for years to deny it, I could no longer pretend that I did not love you."

"So…" he spoke after a few moments of silence, "we both loved each other back then."

"It appears so."

"And we both love each other now."

Ziva looked up into his eyes. "Yes… I am not quite sure what you are getting at."

Tony gently shifted her legs off him, so she was seated on the couch. He stood up, before kneeling on the floor in front of her. He took her hands in his, tracing circles over her knuckles with his thumbs.

"Ziva David… I love you more than I have ever loved anybody, Tali excluded. I have seen you at your best, and at your worst. And I want all of it. I want you on your darkest days, and on your brightest. I have spent too much time living without the love of my life, and I am not letting us waste any more of it. You and I both know that life is too short for that. So, with that being said… will you please stay here in Paris, with me and Tali, and let us build a life together. Where you and I can be a proper couple, and the three of us a real family?"

A tear plopped on to Ziva's hand as she smiled.

"Yes," she uttered, her voice barely a whisper.

His eyes crept over her face as he offered her a beaming smile, that made her heart thunder in her chest. His hand cupped the back of her neck as he pulled her towards him, capturing her lips in a long, slow kiss.

"Ima? Dad?" came a sleepy voice from the doorway, where Tali had arisen. Her blonde hair was dishevelled, much like her mother's, and she was clutching keh-lev under one arm.

"Hey, T. You're awake early," Tony said, turning to her. "Bad dream?"

"Is Ima going away again?" she asked, as she took in the sight of her parents.

"Oh, T," Tony said, gesturing her to sit beside them. "No, Ima's not going anywhere."

"You promise?" she asked, her big brown doe-eyes peering up at them both. Tony and Ziva exchanged a look, before Ziva scooped Tali up onto her lap. Tali's arms gripped Ziva's waist tightly, as if she was terrified that if she let go, Ziva would disappear.

"Ima and Abba promise," Ziva said, pressing a kiss to her head. "I am not going anywhere, Tali. You, me, and Abba are going to be here, in Paris, together." Tali beamed up at them, before Tony's arms wrapped around them both, embracing them in a bear hug. He pressed a kiss to the top of both of their heads.

"Oh, Dad… Ima… before I forget, we're making croissants today at school and we have to bring our own ingredients."

"You're telling us this now?" Tony asked, sighing. Tali nodded, smiling at the two of them, before tottering back to her bedroom.

He covered his face with his hands before letting out a muffled scream. Ziva covered her mouth as she stifled a giggle.

"You laugh now, sweetcheeks, but T is going to be the next Paul Hollywood."

"Paul Hollywood?"

"He's a baker… from the Great British Bake Off. He–," Tony paused, feeling her gaze on him. "You know what, you don't want to listen to me ramble on about that."

"Hey, I am here with you, yes? If that means listening to you talk incessantly about baking shows and annoying me with movie quotes, then so be it." She paused, resting a finger gently on her chin. "Though, I do have one question."

"Hmm?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

"This Paul Hollywood… is he handsome?"

"If you find certain older men attractive." He looked at her, his eyes sparkling with mischief. "Why, are you thinking of trading me in?" A smirk played at his lips.

"Well, that depends, my little hairy butt."

"On?"

"On whether you're planning to feed your lady."

He beamed at her with his whole heart, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "Your food is coming right up, Ninja."