AN: Because I definitely need to start another story...

This wouldn't leave me alone and it may turn into something.

Your Ima

Part I

He found her down the street from their house. She was sitting on a park bench, her knees pulled up to her chest and her cheek firmly planted on one of the caps. He could see that her lips and her cheeks were puffy and in that moment, the way she was sitting, the look on her face, the running away, she was her mother's daughter - and the thought caused a pang in his heart.

He slowly walked over and sat down next to her, trying to keep a casual air about him even though his heartbeat was just now returning to normal. He'd thought he'd lost her too.

He didn't feel the need to tell her that she'd freak them out, scared him half to death. She knew they were the worrying type – him especially with her. He knew that she had always wondered why he seemed to take extra care with her, keep an extra eye always pointed in her direction. He hoped she'd never know the pain of why, but he sensed that the day she found out the truth was fast approaching. Tony had a feeling it might even be today. Sarah had told him about the open trunk.

So he waited for her to speak first. And eventually, she did.

"I know," she stated.

"You know what?" he asked. He'd been dreading this conversation for more than ten years and he wasn't about to jump right into it if he didn't have to.

"I know I'm not adopted."

"You are adopted." And it was partially true. Sarah had adopted her.

"Not by you." her eyes flickered up to meet his before settling back on the bench. "I think I've always known that you were my father - that I was part of you, I just didn't know, for awhile anyway, that that meant I wasn't adopted."

"Kayla, I'm sor-"

She cut him off. "I'm not mad, Dad, I'm just...confused."

"I heard what you found," Tony said.

She pulled the picture out of her pocket and unfolded it. Tony remembered taking it. Kayla's second birthday, Ziva was bent down next to her, helping her daughter blow out the candles.

"This is Ziva, your old partner, isn't it?" She didn't need him to nod, the look on his face said enough. "She was my mom, wasn't she?"

"Yeah. Yes, she is." he confirmed and he couldn't help the sadness that clouded his voice.

She looked at him again, the most desperate look conveyed in those mahogany brown eyes that he'd fallen in love with thirteen years ago, a cold January day when he knew as long as he had his two girls, life would work out just fine.

"So," she choked on the next word, "is this when you tell me she's alive?"

He took a shuttered breath and shook his head before pulling his daughter under his arm. "I wish, Kay, I wish so much that I could tell you that."

"Why'd you hide her from me?" She managed through the tears.

"Aw, Kayla, today I don't know. I don't know why I did that. I wish I hadn't. It hurt so much when we lost your mom, I was beside myself and I just couldn't figure out how to talk about mom and productively raise you. We were barely surviving that way. So I picked raising you because that's what your mom would have wanted and I moved us out here – California seemed like a good place to start over. Then we met Sarah and she loved you and made you so happy. I just wanted you to feel complete. I'm sorry Kayla. It was they only thing I knew how."

"I remember her." She whispered, "I remember sitting on her hip, my head on her shoulder, she was showing me something."

He smiled through the glistening in his eyes. "You remember that?" he asked. "Wow." It took his breath away. Ziva had been toting Kayla around the office one Saturday that they'd had a case. It was two days before she was killed covering McGee's six.

"I've always wondered what that memory was. I knew she was someone important. I knew I loved her and that she loved me and that you loved her, but I was always confused because part of me wanted her to be my mom – it made sense, it felt right, but Mom is my mom."

"Ziva will always be your mother – your Ima." He pulled himself together. His daughter needed him to make sense of his mistake – his lie and Ziva expected him to, he owed her that, all these years later. She unfortunately only got to be your mom for a short while. Sarah, Mom, loves you very much and I know she'll always be the mom who raised you. I'm just sorry I kept your Ima away from you so long."

"Ima?"

"Mother in Hebrew."

And suddenly it all made a little more sense to Kayla.