New Beginning

A/N: Yes, I am still alive. No, I have not stopped writing (I'm over at fictionpress, same pen name). Yes, I have stopped writing NCIS. I also stopped watching it, as I really lost interest in the story after Ziva left. I started watching again, every once in a while, when I heard that Michael Weatherly was going to be leaving the show, because I wanted to see how they would wrap up Tony's storyline. I don't think I'm alone when I say that I was disappointed. I know NCIS has never been shy about killing off favorite characters, but this just seemed unnecessary and cruel. Mostly, I am upset because they robbed Tony and Ziva of the "happily ever after" that they deserved, or, at the very least, an attempt at it as they learned how to parent Tali together.

As tempting as it was to write a new ending, I decided to stick to canon (for once). So, here it is... The ending after the ending. In other words, the new beginning.

Tony DiNozzo had only known his daughter for a month when he made good on his promise to show her Paris. She had taken it all in with eyes wide with wonder, and he couldn't get over the feeling that Ziva should have been there to see what their daughter thought of the city she loved more than almost any other.

As much as he loved the vagabond lifestyle, it had only taken a few months for the reality check to come in. He only had so much in savings and knew he could only count on help from Senior for so long. Ziva had left quite a sizable amount for raising Tali, but not even that would be enough to get her through college. And as much as it surprised him, he found he missed having a job and responsibilities beyond caring for a toddler. Unfortunately, with a Bachelor of Arts in physical education and a lot of years in law enforcement under his belt, there wasn't much that he qualified to do that was safe enough to ensure Tali would grow up with one parent. Amazingly, the perfect job managed to fall into his lap almost without looking, a job for which he was immensely qualified, despite the lack of paper stating so: movie critic. The job didn't pay too much above the travel from one film festival to the next and the living expenses in whatever city they happened to be in, but it allowed him to bond with Tali over movies and show her the world, and that was more than enough for him.

Tali was almost ready to start kindergarten when Tony realized they would need a more stable living situation. As much as he loved his family in Washington, DC, that wasn't his life anymore. Senior helped set him up in Manhattan, where he could continue to work for the same media outlet, now for more pay and less travel. In the years of travel, Tali had picked up English very quickly, but her Hebrew had suffered. That was easily enough fixed with enrolling her in a Hebrew school, but unfortunately, her eyes weren't the only thing she had gotten from her father. She had also inherited a lack of interest in doing anything she didn't perceive as necessary, which included speaking Hebrew when nobody else she spent much time around - her father and grandfather - spoke more than five words in the language. Knowing his daughter as he did, Tony realized that the only solution was that he learn Hebrew as well.

If there was one thing Manhattan didn't lack, it was orthodox synagogues. One rainy Tuesday after dropping Tali off at the associated Hebrew school, he ducked inside to ask an important question. "My daughter is losing her ability to speak Hebrew because I don't speak it," he said bluntly. "Do you have anyone available who can tutor me?"

The young rabbi smiled. "I think I have just the person for you," he said.

Her name was Naomi Arensohn, and she was a new cellist with the American Symphony Orchestra. Born and raised in Jerusalem, she made the move to New York to pursue her Doctorate in Musical Arts in Composition from Julliard about two years before. She had waves of dark hair that tumbled down her back and dark eyes, but that was where any similarities to her former countrywoman ended. She was probably an inch or two above five feet and maybe a hundred pounds, making her look so impossibly tiny that Tony didn't know how she managed to move a cello around. She was quiet and soft-spoken, but her years of teaching cello and piano had turned her into a natural instructor. When she spoke, Tony listened, and he found his vocabulary increasing with each lesson.

Many of their lessons ended with walking together to pick up Tali from school. Sometimes she would return with father and daughter to their apartment and join them for a cup of tea. On one such afternoon, she lingered in the kitchen as Tali sat down at the piano to practice. "You must have loved your wife very much," Naomi commented. "I see it in the way you look at Tali. You are very proud of her, but there is so much sadness."

Over the years, Tony had learned to keep explanations simple when it came to his relationship with Ziva, so he merely nodded. "I did," he said.

It seemed that every day, Tali was growing to reveal more that she had gotten from her mother. She had a beautiful singing voice and talent at the piano that even Naomi was impressed by. She moved everywhere with easy grace, whether it was jumping in puddles or at a dance recital. She had none of the hardness that Ziva had, none of that wariness that had been drilled into her starting at a very early age, and that relieved Tony more than he realized it would.

It was like Ziva was getting a second chance at a childhood through Tali, one without bombs and bullets, without spies and secret brothers, one that the only thing she got from the people in her life was love.

Tony knew it was important for Tali to grow up with an appreciation of beautiful things, so between movie showings and the occasional weekend in Paris, they spent a lot of time around the symphony. Naomi had gotten them passes to shows and rehearsals, and as they listened to the sounds produced by the instruments on the stage, Tony would watch that look of wonder on Tali's face, and found himself wishing for nothing more than her never losing that.

Tony's favorite place to go to think was an old movie theater that only showed classic movies. One night, as he was leaving after a screening of Casablanca, he ran into Naomi in the lobby. "Old movies are a guilty of pleasure of mine," she admitted when he asked.

He smiled at the response. "Here's looking at you, kid," he said before they parted ways.

He rarely watched movies alone after that.

It had taken a total of five years, but Naomi had finished her doctorate in music composition. She had given Tony, Tali, and Senior tickets to the associated concert, the first public playing of both her new piece for solo cello and an entire symphony. In the program, she had had printed a simple dedication: "For Tony and Tali. Thank you for making New York home."

Despite the number of times she had explained to him the story behind the compositions, Tony still didn't fully grasp it. He knew it had something to do with the search for home and for belonging, and she had done such a good job of putting those themes into music that it brought him to tears.

Tali was spending the weekend with her grandfather and Tony was cooking dinner for Naomi when he found himself telling her everything, from the moment he met Ziva to the half-brother, the conversations in the bullpen, the movie nights they had spent together, the weekends away that they would agree hadn't happened, the summer apart and her resulting new relationship. The fight with Rivken in Ziva's apartment, the trip to Israel, leaving Ziva behind. The terrorists, the rescue, the citizenship exam and her becoming an NCIS agent for real. He told her about that summer spent looking for Ziva and their memorable good-bye, and then he told her that he hadn't met Tali until after Ziva's death and that he would never know when Ziva was planning on letting him in on the fact that he had a daughter. "I guess you can say I have baggage," he said with a sad smile as they finished off a bottle of wine.

Everything about his love of Ziva was complicated. They were coworkers, they were friends, they were endlessly competitive with each other. There was so much attraction and so much passion, but there was also so much anger and hurt and so many buttons easily pushed. She had been so much of his life that every time they were apart, he felt that absence acutely, like a piece of him was missing and he didn't quite know how to function.

Falling in love with Naomi had been so subtle and so gradual that the realization that it had happened completely caught Tony off-guard. Everything was so simple and so easy with Naomi. They had enough in common that they never ran out of things to talk about, but were so different that there was never any competition between them. He knew how to live his life without her, but he found he didn't really want to more than necessary. "Dad, you really need to do something about that," Tali said as they walked home from a piano recital. "You're not getting any younger, you know."

"I still miss your mother sometimes," he admitted. "And for as much as I get to see her in you, I'll always be angry at the universe for not letting us raise you together. But with Naomi, that anger becomes something more manageable."

It had been almost ten years since he last held Ziva in his arms, more than seven years of being a father to Tali, and so many revisions of what he thought "happily ever after" would look like. It was so far from a storybook ending that it didn't feel like an ending at all, but somewhere in the journey he had been given a new beginning, and he knew it owed to Tali, Naomi, and himself to see it through.

Ziva had wanted so much for him to live his life that she hadn't disrupted it with news of Tali. That life had turned so unrecognizable that he was sure this wasn't the life that she had imagined, but he was just as sure that she would have been happy to see him live it.