There comes a time, even to the most seasoned operative, when torture can no longer be withstood. At that time, there are two choices—to tell one's captor everything he is asking to know or to embrace the certainty of death.

For Ziva, there is only one choice. She is ready. All her bridges have been burned, all her friends have been forfeited, all her life has become a chess game that she was always destined to lose. There can be no going back. She seals herself off completely, ignoring the threats of her interrogator, ignoring the stench of the prison, ignoring the pulsing of blood through her veins. She buries herself alive and now her captors can only kill her, never hurt her.

When the hood is pulled off and she finds herself face to face with Tony, she feels pain for the first time in weeks. Everything she said to him before she left, everything she didn't say, churns poisonously somewhere deep inside of her and for an instant she wonders if she has died after all and this is her first glimpse of hell. And then he smiles, a smile she's never imagined seeing, and it is an electric current that wakes her up to the truth.

He is the last person she ever expected to see, after the accusations and the mistrust and the verbal and physical attacks she had bombarded him with in those final days, after what she learned afterward that compounded all of her words and actions. He is, she knows down to her core, the last person she deserves to see. And therefore he is the last person she wants to see, especially here, in this place that means death. He doesn't belong, doesn't fit—so bursting with life and vitality, descending to this, and for what?

It's her fault. She had brought him. She had lied to him, doubted him, betrayed him, and now she has killed him, and the worst part is that he won't keep his eyes off her, won't turn in disgust from who she is and what she has become. He's forgiven her without her permission, and she can't stand it, but neither can she look away.

Still she tries to be the one to sacrifice herself, the one who deserves death, and still he thwarts her—confident, steady, sure. He's looked at the reality in front of him and refused to accept it. And there are others, others who have risked their lives for her at her most worthless, and she understands for the first time the curious English phrase about killing someone with kindness.

She speaks only when absolutely necessary as they hurry out of the area, make their way to an army base, have their wounds treated, take the flight back across the ocean. She stares blankly at the floor to avoid the fact that every time she looks up he is there, watching quietly, willing his strength to her. Parts of her are shriveling up and burning and she doesn't know who she will be on the other side of this.

As she stands allowing Abby to embrace her, feeling embers ascending as she remembers from far off what it is like, being somewhere safe, she sees him watching her again. She wonders if he wishes she would have asked it, the question that went unasked when he was on truth serum. She wonders if he's trying to figure out how to tell her he loves her.

She suspects he knows he already has.