Three Words

chapter 1

Tony was at a loss for what to do except to go to the closest place possible to where his beloved supposedly burned to death.

He had already handed in his official resignation from NCIS and purchased a plane ticket to Israel. He slowly and quietly packed Tali's things into her go bag, being careful not to wake her. Her angelic face surrounded by a halo of hair needing to be brushed looked almost exactly like her mother's, or Ima's, as Tali called her.

Tali spoke almost no English, but as far as Tony could tell she did not speak only Hebrew. He did not speak any language other than English fluently, though, so that would be a problem. He grabbed his phone and dialed his father's number.

It rang and rang. Tony ended up leaving a voicemail for his dad saying that he would be gone for a while and could he please feed the fish and look after the apartment he could even live in it if he wanted to and he would be back and he loved him goodbye.

Tony glanced at the clock. It was past two in the morning. His and Tali's plane left at eight, a mere six hours later. He sighed and went to sleep.

~

Tony woke at six by the sound of Tali getting Kalev from the go bag.
She noticed Tony sitting up and smiled at him.

"Hey, kiddo, how ya doing?" He asked.

"Raeb," She replied in Hebrew. Tony looked up the word on his computer and decided that she was hungry.

"Okay, do you want some grapes and crackers?" He asked with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. No response on Tali's part, but Tony figured as much. "All right," he said, gathering the food. "This looks really good, but you have to eat kind of fast, okay, Tali?" He told her.

She ended up eating in the car after she got dressed, as they only had two hours to get to the airport.

~

After sitting in the waiting room for what seemed like forever, the intercom crackled to like. Tony looked up.

"Flight number 176B, now boarding."

Tony took his daughter's hand and walked through the gate.