A/N Thanks to everyone who left reviews and are following or reading. this is the final chapter - I know - it was surprisingly brief for me. Who knew!

Thanks as always to Arress and Frakking Toasters for their help.

Abandon Ship: A Fresh Start

Chapter 5

2nd March 2019

Nettie Rosenberg told her friends and family in Israel that she had decided to visit her birthplace after the death of her surrogate daughter, Ziva David. Her death had crushed the usually lively older woman and everyone thought a trip was a good idea. On her way to Britain, she stopped off in the US and took a flight to Montreal, Canada.

She took a cab out to the on island suburb of Pointe Claire to the home of Dion Claude Fourier and his three children, Rochelle Jolie who was almost four and a half, Aimee Roxanne who was almost three, and Michel Lucien who was sixteen months old. Dion was a widower, bringing up his children like many other single parents - he'd moved to Quebec from France after her death from cancer. The widower was a teacher who'd quickly found a job at the local high school teaching history and drama and coaching the girls' and boys' basketball teams.

Nettie paid the cab driver and knocked at the front door of their comfortable home, but couldn't make anyone hear. Seeing the car in the drive, she deduced that Dion had already collected the children from daycare and brought them home. Following the sounds of childish laughter and shouts, she found her way out back to the yard and found them running around together with their papa, playing tag. Dion immediately felt they were being watched and spun around, staring at Nettie by the side gate.

"Nettie," he greeted her, frowning. "What are you doing here?"

"It's all right, Anthony. I came to tell you that Ziva is dead. She killed herself last month. You and the children are safe now." She told him gently as she tried not to break down. Her surrogate daughter had been in turmoil for a very long time, long before she married and Nettie hoped that she was at peace now. At least she hadn't been able to destroy her beautiful babies or drag them down with her. It was best this way, even though it hurt.

Tony gathered the older woman who had saved his family into his arms and hugged her, as they both sobbed. A part of him still loved Ziva, even after everything she'd put him through - he always would, but a part of him knew that she had simply been too damaged to be saved. That even before he met her, the seeds had been planted for her ultimate destruction.

As Nettie sat in the yard watching the three little ones running around playing, she thought about another threesome that had played together in Tel Aviv as she and Rivka watched, feeling incredibly sad for Ari, Tali, and Ziva, all of them gone now. Such a terrible waste, and she thanked God that Anthony - no, Dion now - was nothing like Eli.

As Dion came out carrying iced tea for them and snacks for the children, Nettie was thrilled to see them all opening up like little flowers as they soaked up the sun. Back in Israel, the two little girls had always been on edge, afraid to make a mess, or be loud, to laugh. They had been like little adults, and now they were free to be children, and she was so happy to see it, while Eli - Michel (and she was so glad that the innocent little boy wasn't going to have to bear that monster's name any more) was full of mischief and smiles, even if he wasn't as verbal as his sisters had been at the same age.

As the children finished their fruit and returned to their games, running back frequently to interact with their father, Nettie could see he was far away. "Maybe if I'd dragged her back to the US, Nettie. She had people there that cared about her - maybe I could've made her go and get help. I didn't want her to kill herself.

"I knew she was seriously invested in having a son, but I never thought she'd kill herself when we left. I just wanted the kids to grow up safe and able to be whoever it is they want to be - not spies and assassins."

"Anthony - if you'd tried to force her, Ziva would've killed you. She nearly did on a number of occasions. My dear, once she avenged Eli's death, she was always living on borrowed time since she couldn't reconcile the conflict between avenging her father and taking her brother's life. No one should be ordered to kill their sibling by their own father.

"Her death was not your fault. I understand that right before she died, she told your former boss that you were the only one who tried to stop her killing Bodnar. But there are others who must share some of the responsibility for pushing her over the edge into insanity, dear boy. The director of NCIS and Jethro Gibbs both knew about Eli ordering her to kill her brother - they should have known that letting her go after Eli's killer would place her in a moral and ethical landmine, but they let her go. After that, it was just a matter of time." Nettie didn't tell him that Gibbs had been forced to listen to her kill herself over the phone.

Neither of them spoke for a long time, just watched the three siblings.

Finally Tony sighed. "Where are you staying, Nettie?" he asked her quietly. "There's a spare room you're welcome to because Chelle and Aimee share a room still," he offered.

Nettie smiled. "Thank you. I'd like that very much."

Later that evening after feeding the children and putting them to bed, they sat down and Nettie told him how Ziva was laid to rest alongside her mother and sister Tali. How her NCIS family had come to their funeral, how Ducky had questioned her about him - somehow he had gotten hold of his medical records after his death and knew about the abuse and the times he'd nearly died. How when Gibbs had come for her funeral he'd mentioned that Ziva had expressed remorse for his abuse and how Jethro looked old, gray, and haggard - soul sick Nettie had declared unsympathetically, blaming him for not trying to stop Ziva from killing Ilan Bodnar.

Finally, she asked him what had been on her mind ever since she heard about her surrogate daughter's death. "What will you do now, Anthony? You can return to Israel or go back home to the US."

He frowned. "I'm not sure, Nettie. I don't think I'll go back to Israel; there are still so many people who hate the Davids and might try to extract revenge on Eli's grandchildren. And people would probably blame me for her death, like they blamed me for killing Michael so I don't think it would be real smart." He saw her disappointment and smiled sadly. "Doesn't mean that I want to cut you out of the children's lives. They need a grandmother and you can come to visit us now."

Seeing her overcome with emotion as she tried to compose herself, he continued thinking out loud. "I'm not sure I'll go back to DC or even the US. I'm all the children have since I wouldn't trust my kids to Senior if anything happened to me, and I don't have anyone else."

"What about your friends at NCIS?" Nettie probed.

"No, I don't think so. All the crap with Mossad and terrorists and the revenge that Gibbs seems to live and breathe - how he pisses people off. The kids could be targets for the crazies. Someone killed an ex-wife of his because he didn't have anyone closer now that his father is gone. I'll be damned if the children are going to be dragged into the madness that he seems to need to exist on."

"Will you let your friends know you and the children are alive?"

"Honestly, Nettie, I'm not sure. I'll have to think about that. Maybe in time. Maybe if Gibbs retires... maybe. I just don't know what to do. I just wish that we had some support here, but perhaps now I can let people in a little. Accept help when it's offered."

Nettie nodded; it must have been hard to have the three children and be in hiding with no backup. Perhaps it was time for her to leave Israel - her husband had been dead for a long time and they had never been able to have children, so she didn't really have irrevocable ties to the country - especially now that Ziva was gone, too.

"Darling, how would you feel about going to England? You're half English after all and I could come home. I have nieces and nephews, and I'm a great auntie many times over, so your little ones could grow up amongst family and you would have the support you need." She stopped, seeing him getting teary-eyed, and she wondered what she said that upset him. "What's wrong?"

"No one's called me that in a very long time," he explained, emotionally. "Not since my mother."

Nettie stared at him for a long moment before hugging him, knowing he never talked about his family. "Ducky mentioned that there was evidence in your medical file that points to systemic childhood abuse?"

Tony sighed. "I loved my mother, but she was so damned troubled. And when she drank, she turned into someone cruel with a terrible temper. Not that she was Robinson Crusoe. Senior was a mean drunk, but most of the time he used his tongue to beat me up rather than his fists, except when I deserved it, and then he would just not be able to stop once he started." Tony confessed before explaining about the time he ended up in hospital when he used his father's designer snow suit to make a Halloween costume. His dad seemed to have no memories of those horrific times and he supposed it was due to the amount of alcohol he was consuming back then.

Nettie had known that he was probably a child from an abusive home, it would explain why he tolerated so much from his team - he thought it was perfectly normal. It also explained why he let Ziva beat him, nearly kill him. Even before they were together, she had seen the Mossad security footage of Ziva knocking him to the ground and him not raising a hand to stop her or fight back. She'd watched in horror as Ziva held a loaded gun to his chest before shifting it to his leg, knowing that if she had pulled the trigger, she would have severed an artery and he would have bled out.

Nettie moved closer on the couch to the man who had been moved to tears by a simple endearment, unable to deal with tenderness, but able to survive so many years of abuse. Wrapping her arms around him, she whispered, "Thank you, Darling."

Trying not to break down he asked her, "What for?"

"For being a survivor… for finding the courage to leave and take those angels with you... for saving Ziva.'

"But I didn't save her," Tony faltered, tears spilling out despite his need to remain in control.

"But you did, Darling, you saved the very best part of her - they're upstairs sleeping. The part of her that was worth saving. Rivka would be so grateful if she was here for what you've done for her daughter and grandchildren," she told him solemnly, holding him firmly as he finally broke down and let it all out.

Nettie Rosenberg, with the inexorable march of time, had found herself wondering if her life had taken a different path, if she'd made different choices, would her life had been better? What if she'd married her first love, Edward Worthington? Would she be matriarch of her own large family since her beloved Yaakov hadn't been able to have children? For the most part, she had been content to make do with other people's children because she was deeply in love with her husband, but after his death, she had begun to question her choices.

Now she knew that everything had worked out exactly how it was meant to be. She had been sent to Israel and been waiting until now to not just be the grandmother that Anthony and Ziva's children needed, but to be a mother to the children's father. Nettie vowed that she would make sure that he not only learned to accept kindness and tenderness, but that he deserved to be treated with nothing less than love and respect by his friends and colleagues. She was determined that when he was finally ready to let someone special into his life that it would be someone who deserved his love and loyalty and wouldn't abuse him.

Perhaps God had sent her to Israel to meet Anthony DiNozzo so she could teach him about a mother's love, and that's what she intended to do.

~o0O0o~

End Notes:

This story was never meant to be a happy Tiva story because I believe it would be the worst thing that could happen to Tony if he ever started a relationship with her … or any of the team. For anyone who isn't familiar with my stories, I'm not a fan of pairing Tony off with anyone on the team – I'm an equal opportunity feral anti-team shipper. There are plenty of reasons why but the Cliffs Notes version is that afaic, based on canon, the way the team individually and collectively relate to and treat Tony, extending that relationship into a personal one with any of them would amount to little more than domestic and emotional abuse.