Tony's hairstyle changed every episode in Season One, I swear.

So…uh…17 months…to the day…uh…personal problems…family illness…not been writing lately…not been watching television lately…really not been doing much lately…uh…yeah…no real excuse other than life…but life is a pretty good excuse if you ask me…

How many times have I promised that I would sort the Malachi situation out now? Well, this is me finally keeping that promise.

Oh, and my posting does not mean I am back to posting regularly or anything, not that I was ever very regular. It just means that in my browsing of old files today I realised this was a completed chapter and I figured I might as well upload it. Maybe I will upload more, maybe I will not. The future is uncertain.

LXIX. Forget them, Wendy. Forget them all. Come with me where you'll never, never have to worry about grown-up things again.

"Let me forget. Please? Let me forget." It was the mantra that had been whispered under her breath ever since she had stumbled into his arms. He had no idea who she was begging, whether it was him or God. But he was the one who vowed he would let her forget if that was what she needed.

They were currently sat at the departure gate, waiting upon the flight that the director had booked them to Reagan International. A solemn bunch, weary and dusty, five o-clock shadows ghosting across six of the seven faces, blood splattered across the other. Stares were fixed to them as they monopolised one end of the row of chairs, everyone curious about the seven people who had been escorted through security and up to the terminal.

Tony kneeled on the floor before Ziva, a washcloth from the airport hotel and a bowl of warm water being used to gently clean Malachi's blood from the side of her face. He was holding her hands with one of his as her blank gaze was fixed to his shoulder and her lips repeated the same movements over and over. When the cloth and water were stained pink, and her cheeks clear of blood spray, he took a tissue and went to work on cleaning the blood at her nose, the blood that had started flowing again. He reached up, pinching the bridge and asking her softly to tilt her head forwards.

"She okay?" McGee asked, concerned and queasy.

"I don't think her nose is broken. But she'll have a bruise there," his eyes slid shut as he made a strong attempt to tame his anger.

Gibbs continued to watch Tony and Ziva for a moment before he stood up. "I'm gonna phone home, tell them what happened."

"Home?" It was a breath, just the movement of her lips conveying the word.

"Yeah. We're going home. We're going home," he brushed her tangled, matted hair back with his fingertips. "We're gonna go home, and see our little babies, and you can have a bath and sleep and we can have any food you want."

"Are they okay?"

"Ada and Bod? They're doing great. They really miss you," he smiled softly. "I missed you."

The flight home was uneventful, Ziva sleeping on Tony's shoulder, McGee scrawling on a notepad as he mapped out another book whilst Gibbs and Mike and Eli and Hadar murmured within their two partnerships. She had not stirred when they landed, leaving Tony to lift her ragdoll body up and carry her off of the plane, smiling at the confused air hostess. McGee drove one of the Dodges that they had driven to the airport to the hospital with Tony and Ziva curled together in the back, whilst the older four followed in the other. A medic had checked Ziva's cheek and nose whilst they were in Mexico, but Tony still insisted that they go to the hospital when they got back.

They spent the night in the quiet yet busy ER, watching the ebb and flow of injured people – broken arms and drunken accidents being ferried about by doctors and nurses – each taking it in turns to sleep, dozing in uncomfortable vinyl chairs.

It was half two in the morning when they were finally ushered into a curtained room, when Ziva was finally seen to by a doctor, flinching away when her bruised cheek was touched. "I do not need a doctor."

"Do you mind telling me what happened?"

"Yes."

Tony sighed. "Please cooperate, Ziva. They just want to help."

"And I just want to go home," she looked up at him, eyes pleading. "I have spent so much time over the past months in one hospital or another. I want to go home. Please?"

"Just let them check that nothing is broken. For me?"

She considered for a minute before nodding slowly, turning back to the doctor's concerned face. "Can you tell me what happened?"

"No," she grit her teeth together as her cheekbone and eye socket were prodded. "I do not remember."

"You don't remember how you got these bruises? Sir, can you…"

"If she says she doesn't remember, she's telling the truth."

"Sir, we need to know what happened."

"And I'm telling you that the only person other than my wife who knows what happened is dead. Can you just check that nothing is broken so I can take her home?" The doctor studied him for a moment and Tony was certain that he was being judged. "We're both federal agents, working for NCIS. We were on a mission in Mexico, we could not get another flight home for a few days other than the one we got on and we have two young children waiting for us at home. We did not have time for Ziva to receive full medical care."

There was a tense moment as the doctor scowled at him before he gave a nod and continued to examine Ziva's injuries, concluding that there were no breaks or fractures, and no signs of concussion, but that a checkup at a later date would be beneficial.

"You want to go home?" She closed her eyes, slouching against him and nodding. "Okay. Come on."

It had been a fight to get her to take a bath and it broke his heart as she stood at the closed nursery door, crying her eyes out, but there was still blood in her hair and the twins were fast asleep. But once she was in the water and he was sat on the floor, leaning his head against the lip of the tub, she seemed to relax. "Tony?"

"Mmm?"

"What was my father doing there?"

Tony sighed, rubbing his face. They had not spoken once, her and her father, but the icy glares that were sent in his direction from her spoke volumes. "He was helping us."

"My father does not help anyone but himself."

"This time he was there to save you," he scratched his head. He had been wondering how long it would take for her to start asking questions about her father's presence.

"He was the one who gave me Malachi's number."

That was something Tony was unaware of. He balled his hands into fists before breathing deliberately. "He was also the one who shot Malachi."

"What?" She whipped her head up, staring at him in confusion. "I figured it was you or Gibbs."

Tony turned around to face her, shaking his head. He took the showerhead, warming the water against his hand before beginning to slowly wash her hair. "We would have missed at the distance and angle we were at. Eli went around the back, shot Malachi from the side," he lathered shampoo into her hair, watching as the white bubbles turned a muddy pink.

"What about the pilot?"

"Ah, well, your father went a little trigger happy. To be fair, he was aiming a gun at you, but I think after the first two shots, the following three were redundant," he rinsed the suds from her hair and reached for the conditioner. "He wants a second chance, you know?"

She scoffed, shaking her head. "The wedding was his second chance. All he had to do was show up."

"Okay, so he was a couple of months late. But he pulled through when you needed him most."

"He is not a cat, DiNozzo – he has not got nine lives to burn through. I have been giving him second chances since I was twelve years old."

"Okay," he nodded, knowing that they were getting no further at this point. "Just…give it some thought, take a couple of days to consider it."

"I do not need a couple of days. I know the answer."

"Hi," Tony smiled warmly as Ziva's eyelids fluttered open. She spent the two hours after her bath sleeping on his chest, arm and leg pinning him down as she sprawled out. He had missed that about her – how her slight body could somehow manage to take up the entire bed. And he had missed the way her curls would always find their way to tickle his nose, even when her head was not on his chest. And that she would never, ever use her own pillow. In fact, there was not one thing about her that he had not missed. Especially her chocolate eyes melting as she smiled at him in the morning.

"Hey," it was the most peaceful she had felt in months, Tony's arms securely around her, not trapping but protecting.

"Do you want breakfast? Tea? I can make pancakes."

She chuckled lightly. "Tony, that is all you can make."

"Hey, I thought you liked my spaghetti bolognese," he pouted.

"Yes, but we can hardly have spaghetti bolognese for breakfast."

"I'll cook anything you want. And if I can't cook it, I'll go and buy it. Or I'll send Abby out to go and buy it."

"Abby?"

"Yeah. She's been crashing in the spare room – just to make the investigation and looking after the twins and all slightly easier," at the mention of her children, Ziva was up and making her way to the door.

Her shoulders were shaking when he walked into the nursery to see her, one hand on the edge of each cot. "They have grown so much."

"I know," he whispered, placing a hand on her shoulder and the other on her hip as he pressed a kiss to her cheek, letting his chin drop to her other shoulder, "even if they do both hate formula," he paused, looking at her from the corner of his eye. "Are you still able…I tried to read up on it, but I just…"

"I had to hand express milk - every time Malachi left. He caught me one time."

"What did he say?"

"Nothing much. I had a cut lip for a week," he could hear the quiver in her voice. "Doctor López found me a pump when I was in the hospital."

"Okay, we all know I'm not the sharpest tool in the box here, so is that a yes or a no?"

"Yes, I can still express milk. Whether they will latch on and take my milk is a different question," she sighed, leaning back against him and closing her eyes. She pulled back away from him and frowned, studying his face. "You sell yourself cheap."

"Short."

"Whatever. You are intelligent. You are clever. You found me."

"No, I'm really not. McGee and Abby were the ones who did all the work to get you back."

She placed a hand on his cheek, rubbing her thumb across the dark circle below his eye. "Okay, so you are not McGee clever, or Abby clever, but you are still so clever, in your own way. Maybe you cannot trace a cell phone to an accuracy of 20 yards, maybe you cannot triangulate whatever it is they do, but you can do other things. You crack cases. You use your experience," she bit her lip and considered for a moment. "If you had not distracted him, I would not be here now," a tear fell from the corner of his eye and she swiped it away.

"I shouldn't be the one crying here. I have no right to be crying and feeling sorry for myself."

Ziva tilted her head to the side. "You have had a long five weeks. You have had to look after two babies, and worry about me, and manage a case. And you have not been sleeping, have you?"

"The bed's too empty without you."

Ziva smiled, the first true smile he had seen from her since they found her. "Do you know what I love about you, Tony?"

"My sense of humour? My body? My talents under covers?" He wiggled his eyebrows and she shook her head with a small, subdued smile.

"All good guesses, but no. What I love about you is your softness. You are like those candy, yes? The colourful ones?" She held her hand up, folding her index finger to the approximate size.

"Skittles?"

"Yes! You have this hard, solid outer shell that is colourful and slightly sweet, and inside you are all gooey and soft and lovable," Tony ducked his head. "I love you just the way you are, Tony. If you want to cry, you can cry. If you want to scream and shout, go ahead. If you want to shoot something, we go to the range."

Tony pressed a kiss to her forehead, pulling her into a hug. "You're amazing, you know that?"

"Tony…"

"No, you are," he sighed when she shook her head. "I swear that I am going to spend the rest of my life proving it to you, one way or another," he looked at his watch over her shoulder and then peered into the two cribs. "Hey, if today goes like normal, we've got, like, thirty minutes until they wake, meaning we've got thirty minutes if we want an uninterrupted breakfast. How does that sound?"

She nodded as he took her hand. "Good."

Her jaw dropped when they entered the kitchen, the sight of the island counter covered in computers enough to induce a goldfish impression. There were two computers with monitors and three laptops, along with a couple of notepads, Abby's phone and the landline. An empty Caf-Pow! cup sat on the side, in amongst piles of printed frames of surveillance footage, as well as multiple coffee cups. "Sorry. We didn't want to tidy it up until we knew what was happening," Tony shrugged, shuffling papers on the dining table.

"No, I understand, it is just…there is so much."

"Well, we wanted you back," he looked up at her. "Eggs or pancakes?"

"Morning," Abby yawned, walking blindly through the kitchen.

"Morning, Abs. There's a fresh one in the fridge."

"Did Gibbs drop by?"

"No, we picked it up on our way back last night," Tony smirked as she nodded, reaching into the fridge and grabbing the bright red cup, slurping through the straw.

Her eyes flashed open when Tony's words kicked in. "Oh, my God, Ziva!" She ran over, throwing her arms around her friend. "You're home. Oh, what happened to your face?"

"Nothing that will not heal. How have you been?"

"How have I been? How have you been? Oh, my God, we've all missed you so much. Like, so, so much."

"That'll do, Abs," Tony murmured, placing a hand on the scientist's shoulder. A cry was issued from the baby monitor on the side, in amongst the paperwork, followed by a second.

"I'll…" both women started, mirroring one another's shocked face at the other's speech. "I'll call McGee. Get him to help me tidy this up," Abby murmured, waving a hand around the kitchen and backing out of the way as Ziva stood up, almost hesitantly, and walked out towards the stairs. "Is she still able to breastfeed?"

"She can express milk. But, uh, she's not sure whether after being bottle-fed for so long they will latch on properly. It is something she discussed with the doctor in the hospital in Mexico – apparently, he reckoned that with the difficulties Ada had when she was first refusing to take milk, she might have some troubles readjusting." If the scarlet tinge of his cheeks did not give his discomfort away, the nervous shuffling certainly did.

"How is she?"

He sighed and shook his head. "I don't know. She seems adamant that she's gonna forget it – I don't know whether that's wise, and it's certainly not gonna be easy. But I'll be there for her, no matter what. I think the hardest part is going to be getting back into some sort of a semblance of a routine with the twins and seeing how we all cope back together again." At Abby's concerned glance he shrugged. "I don't know how she's gonna fit back in. I guess only time will tell," he raised his eyes to the ceiling. "I'm gonna go and check on her."

Soft, broken singing drifted through the open door, masked by the quietening whimper of his son. Ziva was rocking back and forth on the wooden rocking chair, her hoarse voice gradually growing stronger as Ichabod's crying changed to cooing. "I have missed you, you know. You, and your sister, and your daddy were the only people keeping me alive. Your daddy tells me that you have met your grandfather. What did you think? I still do not think we can trust him, but your daddy seems to think we can. Do you like that? You are still as hungry as ever, I see. It is good some things do not change."

"I love you. That certainly hasn't changed."

She looked up, startled. "I did not know you were there."

"Well, I am a trained special agent. And you have had a difficult, tiring few months. I think you're allowed to give your spidey senses a rest for a bit."

"I do not think I will ever allow for my senses to slip again. I do not want to." The fire in her voice was merely a flickering ember compared to the flames of passion that were once there.

"You're home now, Ziva. Safe. Nothing to worry about now. Malachi is gone."

"And how long will it be until the next one of our enemies comes to hurt us? Tony, combined, how many people have we angered over the years? How many enemies have we made?"

"I don't know, but are you going to just run off the next time someone attacks us?"

"We have children to keep safe. I left to keep them safe. I thought that if I left, it would detract his attention from you and from our children. I thought I would be protecting you. I did not think you would be coming to look for me so quickly, and I did not think that I would be unable to take him out."

Tony sighed, covering his face with his hand. "Sorry. I…I know…I get it. That was…insensitive. I'm sorry." A knock on the door ended the hushed argument. "I'll go."

"Saved by the knocker," she whispered. "Why did I do that, Bod? Why was I so stupid?"

"Ducky."

"Ziva," the old man sighed his face a mix of sadness and pity as he wrapped his arms around her. "You're all skin and bones, Child."

"I have not been taking regular trips to the gym."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "You have not been eating, either."

She looked away, behind his shoulder and over at Jenny. "Director,"

"Ziva," she nodded her head in response, a dignified greeting of old friends. The hugs and the tears and the talking would come later when they were not surrounded by others – it was how their friendship had always worked.

Tony passed mugs of coffee around as they found seats in the kitchen, McGee and Abby drifting around the room packing the paperwork and computers away. There was an exhausted atmosphere hanging over them all, everyone fatigued from the weeks of sleepless nights. The silence was only punctuated by the occasional banal remark about the weather and about plans for the weekend. Abby had a forensics convention she was going to with Palmer, Ducky and his mother were taking a trip to the coast with the dogs, McGee was planning on spending the entire weekend with his computer, and Mike was flying Laila and Amira up for a couple of weeks, to stay with Gibbs. After the seemingly endless weeks of stress and pain, having Ziva back felt…almost empty. They were dumbstruck, uncertain of where to go from there, and the shock of having her home had not quite receded. No-one wanted to say it, but the question on all of their tongues was "so, what happens now?"

I feel like I wrote it so that Ziva is just ignoring what happened, but I did that for a purpose, which is this: I think that what she would want to happen is just to forget, and I feel like for the first day or two she might manage it, she will ignore what has happened and pretend like everything is normal, and then the past month and a half will catch up with her and she will wobble, and then Tony will be there to catch her. At least, that is how I know I process things (though without having anyone to catch me), and that is how I imagine Ziva would too.

So, before anybody comments with 'oh, Ziva has moved on too quickly, after what she has been through she would not just brush it off' can we firstly remember that that is exactly what happened in Season Seven, and secondly, I am not done with this story just yet, we still have time for Ziva to break.