She wanted to follow the doctor right out the door. Down the hallway, the stairs, into a taxicab where she could watch it all pass her by from a smudged window. She would have nowhere to go, but it would be preferable, she knew, to standing here in Tony DiNozzo's apartment, under Tony DiNozzo's gaze, preparing herself for the volley of questions she would have no choice but to answer. His stance was uncertain, his eyes searching and sympathetic—far from intimidating, yet she was small and cornered. Can't leave, can't stay.

But she owed him, so she did not move. He took a breath and she tensed and waited.

"So, my dad called a few weeks ago."

The offhanded statement hit her in the gut, knocking her gaze to the floor. She swallowed. "Uh, what did he say?"

"That a beautiful woman broke into his apartment to discuss his business transactions." He shifted his weight. "Know anything about that?"

She did not know what to say, except, "Yes." The word fizzled and died quickly between them, and his question rushed to fill the vacuum.

"Who do you work for, Ziva?" Somehow it was gentler than she had anticipated. Certainly, she was terribly familiar with this line of inquiry. Her response should have been easy, but her lips wouldn't form the word.

"I think you know the answer to that already."

"I want to hear it from you."

She barked a laugh, dry. "And what will you do, torture it out of me?"

They were sharp words. He would have reacted the same, she suspected, if she had smacked him across the face. Her stomach coiled and he blinked, rapidly. "Ziva…"

She looked up. He deserved better, so much better, and so she swallowed and sucked a breath and channeled herself into the word that formed over her tongue, through her lips… "Mossad." Two syllables—hardly worth the screams, she mused. Hardly worth the sweat on their brows as they kicked, restrained, sliced, tore. "I work for Mossad." The words tumbled from her mouth like the red-tinged water after the towel tore away, and inside she sputtered, correcting, "Worked."

He nodded. "They trained you, then?"

"Yes."

"Trained you to kill?"

She looked up at his empty ceiling. Searching, perhaps; evading, probably. She bristled.

"Ziva?"

Her teeth clenched, hard, and her eyes locked with his. "What do you want me to say?"

"I want to know why you let me live."

As his words echoed she found herself thinking about right—his right, to demand this from her, because it was her decision and her consequences and who does he think he…

"What choice did I have?" There was fire in her throat. "You were innocent. You did not deserve what I had been…" She shook her head. "No."

She watched carefully as he processed, word by word. Something snagged. "I wasn't aware that professional assassins were so discerning."

"Oh, they are not." Morbid humor colored her tone dark. "But do not worry, Tony. I paid for my transgressions." Her spine straightened almost in demonstration, and she saw the exact moment when he realized.

"Ziva…" His eyes swept up and down her body and she knew he was remembering the time when she was asleep—when he'd stripped away a blood-crusted niqab and found her penance spread before him, red and yellow and black and blue. He rolled back on his heels. I don't want to hear this, his eyes shouted, I don't want to know. His mouth asked anyhow. "So all of this…?" A hand made a tiny gesture toward her body.

"Mossad runs on orders and obedience," she told him, and it was an easy fact to state. The rest was harder, and softer. "He made sure I was punished."

"He?"

She debated, and decided. "The director." His eyes bulged slightly.

"Your own director let this happen to you?"

And oh, could she appreciate the irony. It forced a chuckle from her throat.

"What's funny?"

"Eli David is not a merciful man." A simple fact, but for what followed she must reevaluate, decide, and brace… "Least of all to his daughter." She swallowed. "I got the mission the day I returned."

She looked away as the words hit him this time. She did not want to see the horror dawn on his face, the fury in his eyes—she had more than enough to repress already. She measured his reaction only in the sharp intakes of breath, and every now and then a string of thin words.

"Your father."

"Yes."

"The director is your father."

"Yes."

For a moment, the silence was unnerving; then, just as she looked up, "Goddammit, Ziva."

She pulled away from his voice, brow furrowing and mouth opening lamely, but he continued.

"Do you realize what you're saying? How barbaric…?"

Her stomach swirled, throat burned—she'd wondered how long it would take for the anger to make its inevitable appearance. Crisped and blackened fingers curled into fists at her side. "An example had to be made."

"He is your father!"

"And I knew the consequences! He warned me and I should have expected nothing less—"

"Dammit, Ziva, stop it!" His voice sliced through her hers and brought the air in the room to a standstill. "Stop defending him! Stop acting like it can ever be justifiable for anyone let alone a father to…"

"And what do you want me to say, Tony?!" she cried again, her gut churning. "That my father is a monster? That changes nothing! What do you want me to say?"

"Say it's not true!" he fired back. "That no one's that cold and calculated that they would send their own daughter to be…" Something inside twisted—his tongue, perhaps, or his heart—and he tripped over the words. Choked, and whispered, "Say you didn't know. That you couldn't have known."

Understanding dawned and deflated the moment, deflated their shoulders. This had never been about Eli, not really; Tony's green eyes betrayed the truth. She took a step, closer.

"You are feeling guilty."

For the first time that day, it is he that lapses to silence.

"It is not your fault, you know."

"That morning? How I reacted?" He shook his head, jaw hinged tight. "I was shit to you, Ziva."

"With what you had discovered you had every right to—"

"But you knew," he cut her off. "You knew what he'd do to you and you went anyway." Pale fingers ran through messy hair and he huffed. "You let me walk right out that door, and you knew."

"But you could not have."

"I could have listened. I could've stopped for just a second and given you the benefit of the doubt instead of being just another person to…"

To what? she thought. To hurt me? To turn their back on me? To leave, as my mother did? She pushed away the self-pity and took another step forward. A few feet away now.

"Tony, nothing you could have done would have changed anything. This is between me and my father; you just got caught up in the middle."

"Yeah, well," he shoved his hands in his pockets, "I at least could have helped you face it."

Her fingers moved on their own accord—up, to press gently against the side of his arm. He was warm beneath his shirt. "You are a good man."

And that was the problem from the start, wasn't it?

He looked down, his lips forming into a small, appreciative smile. She saw, for a moment, a little bit of the man she remembered return to his eyes. "Well, I try." It only lasted a moment before the concern returned with a question: "How does this work now, then? After your punishment's been served then he just forgets you ever existed?"

She pulled her arm back, mouth pressed to a line. "I do not think there was meant to be an 'after,' Tony."

He furrowed his brow. "Meaning what, exactly?"

"Meaning I am standing here because I got lucky."

She wished he would stop making that face, the one that allowed her to watch as the realization spread across his features, twisting them in horror. His voice was paper-thin.

"You didn't expect...?"

"To survive?" Her laugh is dark. "No."

"You knew," he breathed. "The moment you let me live, you knew that was it."

"My father may not be a good man, but he is a predictable one."

His hands ran over his clenched and stubbled jaw as her words set in. "God, Ziva…"

"It was fair, yes?" Her shoulders weighed heavy with those words she did not believe. Sadness lumped in her throat. "A life for a life."

He did not know what to say, but she would not have either. Finally, honesty, yet the air between them seemed little clearer. She resisted the urge to touch his arm again.

"But it doesn't matter anymore. I escaped," she reminded him. "I doubt he wants anything to do with me now."

He cleared his throat of their sullen conversation and told her, "You can stay as long as you want. Until you get back on your feet, at least." She heard in the offer that which was still unanswered—why are you here, a conversation to be had another time when it was not all so raw.

"Thank you," she told him, and it was not enough. In her mind she pushed back the intrusive thoughts of and then what, and then what, when you're back on your feet? She had become very good at ignoring questions she could not answer.

"Of course," he waved it off. "So, how about lunch?"

And just like that, she began to relax.

.:.

A liquid diet, they decided easily. Chicken noodle soup thawed in the microwave—Abby made it the last time I was sick—and it smelled a bit like Aunt Nettie's matzo. Her mouth watered.

The first spoonful touched her lips, shaky and hesitant, and suddenly she was awakened to her hunger in full force. Another spoonful, and another, but it wasn't long before she was hunched over the kitchen sink, emptying what little she had into the drain. She sputtered and retched and hated it—she could not have known how little it would take. She had never been starved before.

He held her hair, and, when she was finished, handed her a towel. His eyes were sad and filled with questions he would not ask, for he'd already seen the answers when he stripped away the niqab and found her bones.

"You'll get there," he promised. "You'll get there."

She wiped her mouth and swallowed bile-tasting indignity. "I know."

"Maybe if we just start slow… I'm not exactly qualified for this kind of thing, though," he reminded her, turning around to fill up a glass of water. "I know you're against it, but if we went to the hosp—"

"No."

He handed her the glass. "They could get you an IV. You need nourishment."

"We will start slow like you said, yes?" She sipped, and continued. "I do not want a hospital."

"It could really help," he pushed.

"Tony. If I go to a hospital, I will need to give my name. The cost will be covered under Mossad's insurance."

He ran his fingers through his hair, leaning back against the countertop. "And your dad will see that."

She looked down. "I do not want to give him the satisfaction." Tony seemed to understand that easily.

"Well, we always have Ducky."

"Yes."

"Want to try again?" he asked, gesturing toward the table.

"Perhaps later. I do not think it is a good idea right now."

They passed the rest of the day mostly in silence. She picked a book from his meager collection to busy her mind, while he opted for a marathon of Magnum, P.I. and, later, a baseball game. Both tried to pretend it was not uncomfortable.

She slept on the couch because she refused to take his bed, no matter how many times he offered. She would not inconvenience him any more than was necessary.

Forty-seven cars passed by the apartment building before she fell asleep. She counted the small flares of light behind the curtains with rapt attention because she did not want to let herself think. Every time she did, there was the phrase until you get back on your feet and the horrible uncertainty that came with it. She did not want to consider this because she could not consider it. Lying on the couch of a man she'd been sent to murder, ostracized from her past and everything she'd ever known, what was she to think about her future?

And then there was the distinct feeling of betrayal—by a subconscious that had taken her here, of all places, and still refused to tell her why. Before she fell asleep, she wondered how long she could keep this up. How many days could she stay in this refuge, ignoring the past and the future? How long could she pretend?

Not long, she knew. Not long.

.:.

Another day passed, and she was grateful the morning after when Tony got up and went to work. They had not talked about what would happen, just like they had not talked about much of anything. He woke her gently to say there was another container of soup defrosting in the sink before grabbing his keys and leaving. His cell phone number lay scribbled on a post-it note next to the landline in case she needed something, but they both knew she would not call. A spare key dangled from a hook by the door.

First, she showered. She stripped off the bandages one by one, grimacing in pain in spots where the congealed blood acted as glue, and when her body was bare she turned to the mirror to see what Tony had seen. Suddenly, achingly, she longed for her mother. Her arms folded over her chest and she turned away.

The water seared everything away, and she tried not to remember the towel over her mouth and nose and the hands around her wrists, just as she tried not to remember the clamps attached to her soaking fingers. This was water to cleanse and heal, not water to destroy and dissolve her away into nothing. She washed her hair five times with his shampoo and ran the water cold.

She was careful not to leave spots of blood on his white towels from where she had rubbed her skin raw. When she was finally dry, she spent an hour carefully rewrapping her wounds with the extra bandages Dr. Ducky had left. She remembered Ari, and wondered and hoped.

Then she changed. Another pair of sweatpants and another oversized t-shirt adorned her bony frame. In his closet she came across a plaid button-down shirt that made her remember that night, weeks ago, when they'd tasted of wine and fireworks and each other. She'd undone those buttons one by one and discarded the cloth in a pile on her floor, where it stayed until he woke up and it all came crashing down. She shivered. It had been so different, then.

There had been a few times, a few fleeting moments during those weeks when they'd known each other, when she'd found herself imagining. She could be the State Department intern from South America—the one that could look at Tony DiNozzo and see possibilities that didn't end in death one way or the other. And oh, how sweet those thoughts had been, when she forgot her misfortune of being Ziva David and imagined how it could have been.

But it was not, she reminded herself. Even now, it was not—it could not—but this was all she had left.

Then she ate. Seven spoonfuls of that same chicken noodle soup settled in her stomach and stayed, thankfully. Then she picked up her book, and read until he came home.

He opened the door carefully, walked cautiously, regarded her on the couch as if her was not sure what to expect. She could not blame him, for neither truly knew where the other stood. Her fault, she supposed.

"A good day?" she asked, needing to say something. Her stomach coiled at how domestic it sounded.

"A slow one," he responded, loosening his tie. "Paperwork, mostly. You?"

She did not know what to say. "I was able to keep food down."

"Hey, that's good."

"Yes."

He cleared his throat and went to go change, ending a flinch-worthy encounter. She closed her eyes and shut the book, gathering herself.

They ate dinner quietly, Ziva managing nearly a whole bowl this time. They both finished quickly so they could retire to their own activities and no longer feel the need to speak, as crippled as they were by what had yet to be said.

Hours later, the shrill cry of his phone pulled her from her book and him from his movie. They both glanced down at the coffee table and saw the name Gibbs flash across the tiny screen. He grabbed the phone and moved to the kitchen.

"Yeah, DiNozzo," he answered.

Silence for a few moments, then: "What are you talking about?"

Her book was open, but she did not read. Instead, she listened.

"Look, Boss, you don't understand. You aren't—" … "What exactly did Ducky tell you?" … "And did he happen to mention that she'd been tortured within an inch of her life? Did he?"

Her ears perked up, and a lump formed in her throat.

"A ploy, Gibbs? If you saw her you'd know this is no ploy." … "If she wanted to kill me she would've done it by now! It's not what we thought before, okay? It's complicated."

We? Before? Ziva's skin prickled.

"You don't know anything about it, Gibbs."… "How can I trust her?" he echoed. "I listened to what she had to say."… "Look, I know you're just looking out for me but I'm going with my gut on this one. You do that all the time—why can't I?" …"We are not involving Morrow. You're going to leave her alone. She's been through hell, she doesn't need that right now."… "I don't care if it's an NCIS case and I don't care about your goddamn rule ten. This is a personal matter now."

Her mind reeled, and the book lay in her lap forgotten.

"I know what I'm doing, Gibbs. You need to trust me to handle this." … "Okay. Yeah, see you tomorrow."

She heard him flip the phone shut and take a deep, deep breath before coming around the corner.

"Sorry about that."

"That was your boss?"

"Yeah," he ran a hand over his jaw and sat down on the coffee table, turning the phone around in his palms. "Guessing you heard that?"

She nodded. "I heard enough."

"I went to him after you… Well, that morning. I assumed whatever you wanted with me had to do with NCIS, and I mean it's pretty concerning when you find out someone's been sent to—"

"Tony." She cut in, gently laying her hand atop his. "You do not need to justify yourself to me. I understand how you must have felt." She straightened, pulling away. "It is a good thing that your boss is concerned."

"You saying you're actually gonna sneak in my room at night and…?" He dragged his index finger jokingly across his throat, but Ziva did not find it funny. That dream was still all too vivid—his blood dripping from her knife, her hands. So many times, with other men, it hadn't been a dream.

"I am saying that it means he cares."

Tony's face fell, and she knew he had drawn the parallel. "Yeah, he means well. Stubborn as hell, though."

"I would be suspicious of me, too."

He shrugged. "There's a lot I know now that I didn't before. A few days ago I had no clue what to believe."

"You did not have much to go on."

"Yeah, it was really just the few things I'd actually let you say that morning and then a cryptic phone call from my dad." His brow furrowed. "If you hadn't gone to New York I'd probably be dead."

She nodded. "Yes."

"I don't know how you got him to agree to stop. I've been trying for years."

"He cares about you, Tony," she explained with a sad smile. "I just played on that a bit."

He huffed. "I just don't get it, Ziva. You got him to stop selling to Hamas. That's what your dad wanted, right? Problem solved."

She raised an eyebrow. "It was never about your father, Tony. It wasn't even about Hamas. He was testing me—how far I would go for him." She shook her head and laughed a dry laugh. "He would not even tell me why you had to die."

"Then how did you know to go to Senior?"

Her fingers and toes were cold. "I pieced it together from some things you said when… That night. It was lucky, for both of us I suppose. He would have just sent another agent, and they would not have thought twice."

It was he who reached out this time, his hands coming to envelop hers, warm and soft. "I'm glad you're away from him, Ziva. He's not a good man."

She nodded, head falling. "I did not want to be this. I never intended…" A shudder rocked her frame. "I am sorry, Tony. There is so much that I regret."

His thumb rubbed back and forth over the back of her hand. "It's not your fault. You did the best you could, and… well, it took a lot of guts."

She breathed, in and out. "I do not know what to do, Tony." Her fingers tightened beneath his as honesty flowed like blood from her lips. She wanted it to stop. "I do not even know how I got here. Or where to go next."

She remembered Tali's words, Tali's faith that she could rebuild her life from these ashes. She remembered the resolve that gripped her body as she fell shaking to her sister's arms—keep making her proud. And what did Tali have to be proud of in this? A woman who would sit idle in the apartment of a man she hardly knew, hiding from reality? Empty space spread pitch-black for miles around her and she sat on his couch, trapped.

"Hey," he said, moving from the coffee table to the cushion at her side. His hand ran down her arm, coaching her. "You need time. There's nothing wrong with that."

She stared blankly down at her hands, and whispered, "I do not know what to do."

"Let yourself recover, first. I already told here you could stay here until things—"

"As what, Tony? You give me your… your couch and your food and your clothes and in return I just sit here reading a book and hoping that something will give, that one day I will wake up and be fine! That one day I will understand why I came here, that everything will be easy between us and my life will make sense again and… and I will be who I pretended to be, during those weeks when we…" She shook her head, taking a deep breath. "That one day I will not feel so… stuck."

His hand was in her hair, smoothing back her curls, and she leaned into the touch. "You're being too hard on yourself," he reminded her. "You've been through hell and your life's turned upside down. But everything will work itself out eventually, and you'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. Okay?"

His voice smoothed over her nerves. She blinked, slowly, and whispered, "Yes." Her mind had drifted, back to the fourth of July and fireworks and the cotton sheets that wrapped around them. It was not the act she remembered but the way he'd made her feel. Safe, warm—cherished, even.

"Good," he responded with a small smile, and she felt a smile of her own tugging softly on her mouth.

And for the first time, she did not regret the moment she stumbled to his door.

A/N: So, yeah, hi. Sorry. I didn't intend to disappear for so long, but college applications basically came up and hit me in the face and it's difficult to write fanfiction when it feels like every moment you don't spend working on college essays is somehow screwing over your future. But I'm trying to get back into it, and come January I should be back to normal! I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! We're looking at two, maybe three, more chapters and then a final epilogue. It's coming up quickly!

Thank you so much to VG littlebear, prince-bishop, dinutzzo, Mecha, J09tiva, adelina-elise, athenalarissa, Roxy, babyvfan, Bluedragonwolf, MSerrada, girlwonder2005, amaia, tyraleanne, Debbie, tabbyuknowit, ChEmMiE, com2meZT, mousie98, and a guest for the amazing reviews! You guys rock. And a billion and one thanks to the lovely Tatiana, as always :)

Allison