Final chapter! Sorry I took so long with this; I was ... busy with another fic XD

This chapter spans 8-9 months, beginning right after Tony leaves on his assignment.

Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS or the Avengers.

Enjoy, and please review!

-Soph

The elevator dings, and she lifts her head out of reflex. She doesn't turn back to look because she's never had that habit, but it takes her longer than it should to realize that she won't hear his cheerful voice floating into the bullpen as he struts in talking about some movie he watched last night.

She dips her head and tries to pretend she doesn't miss him after all. He's to be gone for months; there's no point in missing him so soon after his plane took off.

Funny, though. It's only been a few hours. Maybe it's just because she doesn't work with Ray, but she doesn't remember having missed her boyfriend as much as she does Tony.

She sighs and continues writing, and when Gibbs strides in barking "Grab your gear", she's glad for the case that will keep her occupied for at least a few days.

xoxo

She's still at work when a message pops up telling her she has new mail. Her inbox is opened without more enthusiasm than usual, but her heart suddenly skips a beat when her eyes land on the From column and she sees his name. She reads the email:

Helloooo. Plane's landed. Gonna be briefed tomorrow. Wanna say Hi.

Yeah, I know I sound lethargic and all but in my defence, I'm jet-lagged! Could you by any chance ask Gibbs to mail some coffee over?

Gotta go now. See you soon, Zi.

-Tony

Smiling a bit, she types her reply with a surprising amount of eagerness:

Hi. I hope your flight went well.

I would ask Gibbs to mail you the coffee, but we don't know what address to put and it'd be a shame to waste good coffee on you, anyway. I wish you luck finding a coffee place, though.

Come back soon.

-Ziva D

There are no more emails from him that night, but it is with a somewhat lighter heart that she turns off her computer and picks up her backpack to head home.

xoxo

The next email comes almost a week later, and by that time she has already settled into a comfortable three-man routine with Gibbs and McGee. It is just like when he had gone away on his assignment for SecNav, and so when she opens her inbox during lunch break to find a message from him, her eyes widen with surprise and she's left stunned for a full five seconds.

She really hadn't been expecting another email from him:

A-hah! You haven't been expecting this, have you?

Can't stay long. But you wound me with your coffee joke. JSYK, the coffee place I found is awesome.

How are things on the Ray front?

-T

Putting down her sandwich, she writes him a reply:

Yes, I have been expecting it. :)

"JSYK" is a weird name for a coffee place. How do you read that?

I have not replied to his proposal. I don't think I want to reply.

-Ziva D

xoxo

Another week passes before his responding email, calling her on her lie and informing her that "JSYK" means "Just So You Know". He asks her why she doesn't think she wants to reply to Ray's proposal; she tells him she's not particularly keen on speaking with Ray. He advises her the following week not to leave the man hanging. She honestly doesn't know what to say to that, so she deliberately ignores the topic and settles for telling him about the wellbeing of the rest of Team Gibbs.

And just like that, they establish the pattern they will keep for months.

One week, Ray calls, asking her if she has her answer yet. She tells him she hasn't made a decision, and when he hangs up, she spares a moment to mourn the fact that their relationship is no longer like it used to be.

A month later has Tony telling her that he's met his partner-in-crime (who cannot be named due to safety purposes) for that assignment. She's a dirty blonde who looks like Scarlett Johansson and reminds him of Natasha Romanoff from the new Avengers movie, which he hasn't actually watched because he's been busy being undercover. Ziva wonders if they are undercover in the way he and she herself had been the first year she came to NCIS, and for some reason she feels a metaphorical glass shard pierce her heart.

The next day, she meets up with Ray to return the ring and reject the proposal. She's very, very tired of pretending. At this point she realizes Ray's not the only one with lies; she'd be lying to him too, if she accepted the proposal not because she wants to spend the rest of her life with him, but because she's afraid of ending up without anyone by her side. She now knows, even if he doesn't, that she never loved him enough for them to work out anyway.

Life feels even emptier after that—Tony continues with his emails, but whenever he mentions his Scarlett-Johansson-lookalike partner, she feels the same glass shard through her heart. She changes the topic every time he brings the partner up, but replying eventually becomes so hard that she contemplates ceasing altogether. So she sends him an email to that effect:

Tony,

I think we should stop emailing. It must be getting hard for you, with your assignment. I wish you all the best, and hope to see you soon. Please say hi to your partner for me.

-Ziva D

The following week, she gets his email:

Wait, what?

It's not hard for me at all! I mean, it is a bit, because I keep having to come up with reasons to return to base, but you can't do this to a man, Ziva. I said I'd write every week and I'll write every week, and I swear if you don't reply to this email I'll kick your ass when I get back to NCIS. Because you made a promise to keep me updated.

Unless … you've already married Ray and didn't tell me about it. In which case, I guess that's a good reason to stop emailing me.

H says hi back.

Love,

-Tony

The million emotions of heartbreak rush through her as she stares at the email. She feels her eyes well up for the first time since Ray's proposal, and she bends her head quickly so that no one will see her cry. She thinks it cruel irony that she wishes for Tony's comforting presence at the same time that she's crying about him.

Only Tony could ever make her feel that way.

It takes her a few minutes to compose herself, and after she does she tells him that she and Ray are officially over. And then she concedes that the emailing is fun, and that she will continue to reply to his emails. She doesn't acknowledge H and she does the obligatory teasing on his having put the word "love" in the email (even though it's really the thing that has her torn in a million different directions).

His answer a week later says that he means it, and that he thinks she made the right choice ("We'll talk about it when I go back"). She never asks him what the "it" he means is referring to; he never tells. They move on to another topic, and their pattern is re-established.

xoxo

Another month passes by, and she has already begun to accept H's position in his life when, without warning, he goes for three weeks without sending any emails. Her spirits begin to sink again, and she spends a longer time each day pretending that she has mail to reply to while staring pathetically at her mailbox instead.

She is giving herself a mental head-slap upon discovering what she's unconsciously doing and is about to close her inbox when she hears a familiar voice behind her that makes her want to launch out of her chair and fly into his arms in a movie-like style.

"Checking for email, Miss Ziva D?"

"Tony, you're back!" McGee greets happily from across the bullpen, but his smile drops a few notches when he sees her face, and he mutters something about his having heard rumours of new Nutter Butter packaging. He takes off at a very high speed to Abby's lab, leaving the bullpen to her and Tony.

Her own smile refuses to dim, and Tony grins at her before struggling somewhat awkwardly around her desk and sinking with a groan onto the floor next to her chair. She looks at him in dismay and slips out of her chair to sit down beside him. "Are you hurt?"

"Well, the assignment went a bit south…" he pauses and watches her hand hover over his body, trying to determine where he's hurt. "Gunshot wound to the abdomen, but the shooter wasn't very good and I was mostly just grazed. You can see the stitches if you undo my shirt."

"I'm not going to strip you."

"Now, see, I spent almost three weeks in the hospital thinking I could get you to do that…"

"They didn't tell us you were injured."

"They told Gibbs, I think. I guess Gibbs didn't tell you." He looks sombrely at her. "I'm sorry, Zi. Shoulda thought of a Plan B—'In case of emergencies or a gunshot wound, how to stay in contact with Ziva.'"

Her heart gives a painful thump, and she shoves away the longing to hug him close. "No, I understand. Your life is more important, Tony."

His expression doesn't change. "I missed talking to you, though. I missed you."

She lowers her head and keeps her voice as even as possible. "I missed you too."

"So what happened with the Ray thing?"

She takes a shuddering breath. "I realized I wouldn't be happy marrying him. I mean, I loved him, but … not enough to marry him. Even if I learnt to accept his lies … I would not be truly happy with him."

He wraps a warm hand around hers and rubs his thumb gently across her skin; she hazards a small smile at the floor. "Where is H?" she asks him in a soft voice, not daring to look up.

"Hillary? I left her at the base. I guess she's gone back to wherever she came from by now."

"Doesn't she worry about your gunshot wound?"

"'Course she does; she was the one who called the ambulance. But then our assignment is over, so there's no reason for her to be here." He stares at her. "We aren't together, y'know."

Her head snaps up. "You're n—why should I care?"

"I've no idea." He shrugs, but continues staring at her.

She turns her head away and avoids his burning gaze. "I'm just glad you're back."

He keeps his eyes on her for a few more seconds before saying, "Just so you know, your emails were always the best part of my week."

She tries not to smile too much, but suspects herself of failing when she meets his eyes again only to see amusement sparkling in them. "Also," he adds, "I nicknamed the coffee shop I found 'Jay-Syk' in honour of your little acronymic accident."

She laughs despite herself. "Taking it too far, Tony."

"Oh, c'mon! It's a compliment!"

"Uh-huh." She slips an arm around his back and slowly helps him to stand up, her heart pulsing painfully as she tries not to think about how close she'd come to losing him. "I'll drive you home. Gibbs will understand if you miss work for one day. And I'll get you some dinner after work. Do you think you can survive on bread and water until then?"

"It's fine," he assures her. "I'll probably be knocked out till then anyway."

"Okay." And she knows he doesn't really need it, but under the pretences of support she keeps her arm around him as they walk to the elevator. He smirks at her with an alarmingly knowing gleam in his eye, yet for once she can't bring herself to care.

He's finally home, and things are right again.