AN: Hey everyone :D So, I'm back again with another one shot (I have not forgotten my soon-to-be multi-chapter one it will be updated very soon :D) that is based on spoilers we've had for the upcoming episodes 'Chasing Ghosts' and 'Berlin'. I won't give too much of it away here, just, y'know, try and stick with it, because I know it gets a bit angsty halfway through. Also, this is my first attempt at writing some real dialogue between the two, so I'm gonna apologise way in advance for the possibility of them being way too OOC to be real. I've tried to keep them as true to character as I can, though, so I guess I'll just wait to see what you all think... :D

He found her in a dirty, dark hotel room. The walls were cracked, the windowsill adorned with a sprinkling of what looked to be dead flies. A laptop was set up on a small wooden table, CCTV footage playing fuzzily on the screen. He saw beside it a pair of binoculars, a gun, and three knives. "For a woman who claims to hate stakeouts, you sure do seem at home amongst all this spy gear." he remarked, ignoring her snort of derision and surprise. She hadn't even noticed him come in, he realised, not sure how to feel now that he'd out-ninja'd the great Ziva David.

"I was trained in espionage, Tony. You know that."

"You're also trained in assassin...ry." he offered, trying to keep the atmosphere as light as it could be, under the present circumstances.

"Something you've known for many years." Ziva replied, turning around to meet Tony's gaze. He flinched as he saw her tired expression, the culmination of this grief she insisted on facing alone. Her eyes were glassy, heavy with the weight of unshed tears, the dark circles under her eyes ageing her by a good few years. Her mouth was thin, settled in a fixed grimace; she looked worse than she had nearly four years ago, all beaten and bruised in a chair opposite him. She noticed him studying her, and let out a sigh. "I am fine, Tony."

She winced as she heard him laugh sharply, bitterly at her words. Atmosphere be damned, he thought. "I can't believe you're lying to me." he accused, walking the short distance to sit opposite her. "After everything we've been through, this year alone, how can you sit there and lie right to my face?" He became riled, picking up her discarded tray of food; it smelled terrible, and had clearly been there for a while. "You call this fine?" he asked, tossing the tray halfway across the room. "You call sitting in a filthy hovel of a hotel room with gone off food, illegal spy gear, and a lack of adequate backup: fine? You call ignoring our offers of help, isolating yourself, and refusing to move on: fine?"

"Hey-" she tried to interrupt, only to be silenced by his hand rising quickly in a motion that clearly said 'shut up and listen to me'.

"I did not put myself through the experience of Somalia just so that I could lose you again to that man." Tony said slowly, toning it down to let only the merest hint of his anger show. He saw her shoulders stiffen.

"'That man' was my father, Tony." she snarled, shooting him a warning look to which he paid no heed, knowing that this was his one and only chance to get through to her.

"Yeah, Ziva, your father. The man who raised you to be a killer, who took you away from your mother and sister to work part time as a member of his own private army. He sent you to foreign countries to kill people when you should have been in school, without once even thinking of how it might affect you." Seeing no reaction, he went on, his voice raising several octaves with every accusation. 'He sent a man you loved to betray you and then, whilst paying no attention to your grief, sent you on a damned suicide mission, knowing full well that you could be tortured before you die. But he didn't care about that, oh no, because he knew perfectly well that his little princess would never betray her father." He was shouting now, more at the situation than at her. Ziva stared at Tony, her mouth gaping open in surprise. He never raised his voice to her like that, not ever. Not even when they were arguing, there had always been some sort of mutual understanding that they would not fall into the old cliché of two enraged partners screaming at each other for all to hear. "He doesn't deserve this." Tony said, combing his fingers through his messy hair in frustration. "Damn it, Ziva, why can't you see that you have a family still? I told you: You are not alone. We cherish you just as much as any blood family ever could, maybe even more so. We have your back, Ziva. We love you. Why can't that be enough?"

"I am not doing this because you are not enough for me." Ziva said, looking down at her hands. "I left my blood family behind after Somalia. It was not just Eli, I did not speak to my uncles, aunts, cousins, anybody. For the longest time, I have considered you all to be my family. Had he not come back into my life again with all these promises and, I... I. He was not a perfect man by any stretch of the imagination, but I did not reach back out to the man who did those horrible things. I reached out to the man who spoiled his wife during her pregnancy, the man who, before Mossad, would sing me to sleep and read to me. He taught me to ride a bike, to play baseball. He taught me how to defend myself against the violence of our country. The day he died, he found the picture of me with that stupid fake pregnancy bump. I swear I saw tears in his eyes as he spoke of retirement. He wanted to have a place in my life, the man I used to know, not the mask of Mossad, and he died, my father died... thinking that I hated him."

"Ziva..." Tony whispered, leaning forward and drawing her into his arms, only sightly surprised when she balled up his shirt in her hands and began to sob noisily in his chest. "I am so, so, sorry. You shouldn't have to go through this." He stroked her hair as he listened to her cry it out, hoping that he had done more good than harm by coming here. Murmuring words of comfort and apology, he began to rock her slowly, hoping to lull her into sleep so that he could clean this disgusting room and call Gibbs to let him know that Ziva was safe.

"Tony," Ziva started, tilting her head back to look into his eyes, still fully enveloped in his strong arms. "You said you did not put yourself through Somalia just to lose me again? I know for a fact that you did not go there with the intention of rescuing me either. Both you and McGee admitted that you thought I was dead. You came to Somalia to avenge my death. You, more than most people, know what the need for revenge can do to a person, how it consumes you. How relentlessly it controls your thoughts until all you can think of is watching the object of your obsession die, hoping for some small crumb of closure. You got your guy, Saleem is dead and gone; he will never harm another person again. But Ilan, he is still out there, and I know that he will kill again. Yes, I have other motives than public concern to want to see this man rot in hell, but surely, Tony, you understand that I must do this?

"Doesn't mean I have to like it." Tony said, offering a small exasperated grin, which Ziva immediately returned.

"I am sure a few people did not like the idea of you going after Saleem either..."

"No comment."

"Where do we go from here?" Ziva asked.

"From here... Well, you're going to shower and put on some clean clothes. I am going to get this room looking, and smelling, a lot nicer and then we're going to eat some decent food whilst we talk about how exactly we're going to get him."

"I'm sorry: we're going to get him? Tony, you cannot-"

"I can and I will. It's the only condition I have, Ziva. You're going to go after him, fine. But I want to be there too."

"You could get killed."

"So could you."

"Yes, but..."

"But nothing," Tony said, putting his foot down. "I don't know what has been said to you to give you the impression that I'm capable of living my life without you in it, but it's complete bullshit. I need you to be in my life for it to be worth living. If we can both make it through this without dying, then great; we can take it from there, but I need for you to know that if you're doing this, then I am too, and you need to trust me to have your back like I always have done."

Ziva returned his gaze, a sombre smile gracing her features. Collecting herself, she rose from his arms, using his sturdy shoulders to steady herself before grabbing a fresh towel and some clean clothes. She did not know where these coming days would take them, but she found a certain solace in the discovery that she would not have to walk this path alone. Reaching the door to the en-suite bathroom, she turned around and called his name softly. His head rose immediately, eyes meeting hers, and he cocked an eyebrow in question. She smiled wanly, opening the door.

"You're the only one I do trust."

AN: Okay, in my defence, I started writing this after midnight and it's over four AM here now. I'm sleepy, snuffly (I have an awful cold thanks to this totally insane English weather we've been having lately), and very... feelsy (that's not even a word, but I don't even care, I know that you probably understand what I meant by it.) Ugh. Yeah, so, what did you think? Please, if you've got time, leave a review. Which reminds me, I try to get back to all of you whenever you leave me a review, but I have no way of thanking the anons (who I also love very much for their supportive lovely remarks), so here's my chance to just reiterate my thanks to everyone who reads/ reviews/ favourites... and all...that...jazz! (I may or may not have watched 'Chicago' recently... :D