A/N: Hey guys...okay, to be perfectly honest, I have never written a songfic before..although I have heard many songs that perfectly describe TIVA! So here goes...the song is At the Beginning by Donna Lewis and Richard Marx.

Disclaimer: Honestly guys...if I owned NCIS would I seriously be sitting here writing fanfiction? No. I would be thinking of awesome Tiva-sexual-tension moments for the episodes...and NOT making people wait til September for the new season! Grrr.. :(

BTW I don't own the song either…and it's a very pretty song that I suggest you listen to if you haven't already :)

We were strangers,

Starting out on a journey...

"Uhh..I was just…"

"Having phone sex?" she smirked, cocking her head to the side, her brown eyes sparkling with amusement. His smile mirrored hers.

The memory made him laugh every time. Little did they know back then that that little flirty moment was only the beginning of a crazy adventure filled with pain and sorrow, but also excitement and adrenaline. Little did they know that the two that couldn't be any more different; the promiscuous, jokester frat boy and the sexy Mossad assassin, would turn out to be closer than any two people could ever be, almost linked in the mind, with their lives in each others hands every day. Little did they know that it would soon grow to be so much more than that...

Never dreaming,

What we'd have to go through...

Thinking back on all the experiences they had shared, he realized that their relationship had been anything but normal.

Ziva straddled him with the nose of her SIG pressed firmly into his chest, his heart beating erratically beneath it. He looked up at her, trying to disguise the fact that inside he was shattering into a

million pieces.

"You loved him, didn't you?" he choked, attempting to block the flow of emotion that threatened to leak out of his mouth at any moment. Her sad chocolate eyes met his green.

"I guess I'll never know..." she said. With that, she pulled her gun from his chest, climbed off his broken body and left, leaving Tony alone with his thoughts.

To remember the pain in her eyes when she stared at him made his chest hurt. If he could go back in time he would have made sure that HE was the one who died and not Michael, just to make sure that he did not cause her that pain. He never wanted to see that look in her eyes again.

"Why are you here?" she whispered, all strength and desire to live wiped from her pallid, broken and bruised face. The truth serum was powerful. He fought to shut his mouth and ended up spouting some random rubbish. She cut across his voice with sheer desperation.

"Tony why, are you here?" she pleaded. He bit his tongue, then his lip, but eventually the truth fought it's way from his throat to the air.

"Couldn't live without you," he blurted, and this was the absolute truth. But he had to add something to make his feelings less...conspicuous. "I guess..." he added.

"So you will die with me," she said, defeated. Her stunning face was so broken, her lips dry and cracked, dry blood crusted on the side of her head, her hair a tangled mess, bruises and deep cuts over her ebony skin, her left eye swollen. And yet he thought that she had never looked more beautiful in her entire life. Just because she was here. And that was the most beautiful thing of all. She was alive.

God, Anthony DiNozzo...you are a sap. Ugh.

Now here we are, I'm suddenly standing,

At the beginning with you.

But now all of the pain was over. They were home, in DC, with the team. They could be together...so what was stopping him?

Fear. That was what was stopping him. Fear of rejection. Fear of ruining the relationship between he and Ziva. If she didn't feel the same, that was it. They couldn't be partners anymore, it would be too awkward.

No one told me, I was going to find you.

Unexpected, what you did to my heart.

When I lost hope,

You were there to remind me,

This is the start...

The heart wants what the heart wants, he reminded himself. Looking around his apartment he realized it had never looked so empty. And looking around again he began linking everything to something to do with Ziva. His TV, on which they had watched many movies, Tony whispering quotes into her ear, his DVD collection, which she always

said was the only organized thing about him, the couch, on which many countless occasions they had fallen asleep in each other's arms...

It was unexpected. Falling for her. Or falling for anyone in fact. Sure he had thought she was hot from the beginning, but in the way he had thought all the other girls were hot. None of that love at first sight crap. It had happened gradually, and he had began noticing things which he wouldn't notice in other girls. For example, the way she smiled, and the dimple she got on her right cheek every time she did, knowing the exact shade of her eyes, that one same curl that fell on her face whenever she was doing work with her hair out. On countless occasions he had been tempted to walk over and brush it behind her ear.

And whenever he was down, she'd be there. Whenever he was in danger, she had his back. They had each other's. She was always there.

Right now, with his pizza box sitting forgotten on the table, he longed to go see her. To tell her everything. But he wasn't sure...what if...should he?

This is the start...

"This IS the start..." he thought. The start of something great. All of a sudden the confidence rushed towards him like a stampede and he stood up. It was now or never, he decided. If he didn't do it now, he may never get the chance to again. It was his life and nobody, not even Gibbs or Rule 12 could stop him. Without stopping, he grabbed his keys and charged out the door, adrenaline pumping through his veins. He smiled. It was finally time to do something he should have done a long time ago.

Life is a road and I wanna keep going,

He would keep going.

Love is a river and I wanna keep flowing,

He loved her.

Life is a road, now and forever,

Wonderful journey.

I'll be there when the world stops turning,

I'll be there when the storm is through,

He would be there for her through whatever it takes.

And at the end I wanna be standing,

At the beginning,

With you.

He climbed up the unit's stairs two at a time, and there was no hesitation between his knuckles and her door.

It took a while, but eventually he heard sleepy footsteps making their way over to the front of the apartment. His heart beat frantically in his throat, and it was only once he swallowed, that he realized he had stopped breathing. He exhaled, and waited for the door to open.

When it did, a sleepy Ziva stood in a camisole top and pyjama shorts with bare feet. Her long, curly dark hair hung down to her waist, and her eyes tiredly searched his for an explanation.

They said no words.

Because no words were needed.

He simply leaned forward and captured her lips in a soft kiss.

It was sweet, simple, but still full of all the emotion that he wished to express. And when she kissed him back, it felt like nothing in the world could possibly be better.

The kiss did not deepen. It did not become passionate. It stayed the way it should: soft and gentle and perfect.

When they pulled away, his hand was at the back of her head, fingers caught in her dark tresses, his other on the small of her back. Hers were wrapped around his neck. She smiled against his lips and gave a small, but still audible sigh. A sigh of relief. A sigh that said that she had been waiting for this for a long time. The pain was over. The

sadness was over. They were just where they needed to be.

Right back at the beginning.

A/N: Okay I know that kinda sucked...but I was in the mood for some mushy stuff :) Please take the time to leave a review, it really makes my day. :D and this is a one-shot so don't subscribe hahah. If you are a big fan of Tiva or even McAbby go for author alert, coz I'm a fan of them too. Drop me a review if you liked it, or even if you didn't. :P thanks for reading!

xXtegannnXx