All roads lead to Paris

Part 19

Gibbs put his bag on the floor in front of the door and then stood in front of Ziva who was still leaning in the doorframe. "What do you want to tell me, Ziva?" She straightened up and looked him in the eyes: "I wanted to say thank you." Gibbs gave her a confused look and said: "For what?" Ziva stayed silent for a second and Gibbs looked at her impatiently. She sighed and finally said: "Thank you for saving me, for helping me out of there." Gibbs smirked and said: "I had no choice. Dinozzo would have annoyed Mcgee till death and I can't lose another agent." Those last words hit her hard. Gibbs knew that but was just starring at her. She knew that she hurt him by leaving NCIS, by leaving their family behind without a goodbye or something. "Gibbs, I know I hurt you and I'm really sorry for that, but I had to leave, and you know that. And yes, I just broke rule 6." For a few seconds there was just silence. They just starred at each other and Ziva started to feel guilty, she did not know for what but the look in Gibbs' eyes gave her that feeling. Gibbs said: "I know, and I don't blame you for your decision. And if I would not care about you after what you did to us, I wouldn't come here to save you." Ziva nervously bit her lip because she did not know what was coming next. Gibbs continued: "I'll always come to save you Ziva, no matter what happens." She smiled. To know that Gibbs will always be there for her made her fell save and she felt relieved. He leaned forward and gave her a soft kiss on the forehead. Her smile widened. He looked her in the eyes and said with a slight smile on his face: "You will be happy with your own family here in Paris, and you will be an amazing mother." "You sure?" "Yes, even if you made mistakes in the past, everyone deserves a second chance." He grabbed his bag and lead Ziva back in the living room where Abby, Tony and Tali were waiting for them. Abby asked: "Are we ready to go?" Gibbs looked at Ziva before turning back to Abby and saying: "Yes, we're ready." They all hugged each other one last time and then Gibbs and Abby leave the apartment to go back to D.C.

The next few days, the little family tried to get used to the new situation. Ziva and Tony made plans about their job-life and how they will handle Tali together. Tali lived her best life, finally reunited with her mum. She went to school every day, one day got picked up by Ziva and the other by Tony and in the evening, they cooked together, played games, had funny conversations or Ziva and Tony told stories from their past. For Ziva it was kind of difficult to get used to this. She lived alone and partly hidden for the last few years and hadn't seen her daughter for 3 years or more. But she loved all time she spent with her family more and more each day.

It was Monday morning, Ziva was alone at her new home because of Tony driving Tali to school. She sat on the couch with her laptop on her lap. There were many tabs open: the website of Tali's school, a website to find a job, the homepage of NCIS: Paris and many more. She was tired of this. It became her habit to search in the web after breakfast for the last few days and she was already tired of it. There was nothing useful or appealing for her. She opened the homepage of Tali's school again. There were pictures from a language course with the name: "Learning foreign languages" A picture of Tali holding a sign with the Israeli flag and the word 'Hebrew' on it, showed up. To see her daughter being proud of her Israeli sight made Ziva feel happy. A big smile appeared on her face. She scrolled down and found an article from a parent who helped with this project. "...The kids got to learn the basics of each other's mother tongue and the cultural traditions such as different holidays like Hanukkah..." : was part of that in French written article. She skimmed the text and immediately froze as she saw the name of the author: 'Sofia Mendez, mouther of Charlene Mendez, Volunteer for school projects'. She felt the anger rising. It created complete chaos in her mind: She was so near to Tali all the time. How could this be? Why was she there? Was it all part of her plan stopping me? What does this all have to do with Tali? All these questions confused her even more. She decided to not let her in her mind. She closed the laptop and got up to go to the kitchen.