The Daughter ***Tiva*** {{ABANDONED}}

Reappearance

The nightmares did continue for months to come. But Tali handled it with as much grace as a 5 year old could. No one knew the motive of the people that abducted close to 200 children...

"Maybe they were trying to..." Ziva sighed in frustration, "I don't know..."

Tony glanced up from his computer, "what was that now??"

Ziva motioned to the plasma screen, where images of the crew of the abductors were constantly flashing. Tony sighed.

"Zi, when are you gonna stop trying? We didn't get anywhere with the guys we caught except for the fact that their group isn't the only one out there... guessing about their motive isn't going to help. We need some real evidence first. You know this..."

Ziva sighed again, "I know... I should just focus at the job in my hand."

"Job at hand," tony corrected.

"What was that, honeybunny?" Ziva looked at tony with murder in her eyes.

Tony cleared his throat and sat up, plastering a clearly fake smile on him. "Nothing. Nothing at all, sweetheart."

~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Only two more days until my birthday!" Tali yelled excitedly as she tore down another number on her countdown on the refrigerator. Then she joined tony and ziva for breakfast.

Tony smirked. "Two days? No, it isn't!"

"Yuh-huh!!! It's Tuesday! The calendar says so!" Tali argued. It started off fun.

"Really? I had no idea," tony insisted.

Tali began to get more upset. She hopped up and pointed at the countdown. "it says two more days! Why don't you believe me!?"

Tony glanced at ziva, a flash of worry through his eyes. He calmly said, "alright Tali. I believe you. I was just joking."

Tali folded her arms. "Oh..."

Tony motioned for tali to come to him, then kissed her forehead. "Sorry, sweetie. I know your birthday is Tuesday."

She sat on his lap to eat her breakfast, a sign that she wasn't very bitter over that.

~~~~~~~~~~

"So what was all that about?" Ziva asked when tony got back to the office after dropping Tali at summertime daycare that was offered by NCIS headquarters.

"I have no idea," tony shook his head. "And she wouldn't let me leave her at daycare either for the longest time..."

Ziva sighed, "I hate that she had to go through what she did... and we cant find those dang men who did it!" She slammed her fist on the desk.

Tony gave an empathetic look and then sat at his desk. But he was up on his feet as soon as he sat when Gibbs walked through with his Normal "dead body" "grab your gear" call.

~~~~

Ziva wrinkled her nose at the awful smell that was emitting from the pile of mush that covered the body. All that was showing was the head. A burly looking man's face jutted out from a pile of manure on the abandoned farm.

The rest of the team caught up with Ziva, all wearing plastic suits like hers to protect their clothes and skin. They sighed as they handed her a shovel, too.

Ziva groaned as they got to work. Scoop by scoop, they began to get rid of the muck. Soon enough, the victims upper torso was showing.

"This ain't cool, man," tony complained. "We should have some probies or interns doing this. Not very special agents like us."

"Oh suck it up, tony," ziva barked.

Tony groaned and attacked the pile again. Ducky was busy examining the upper half of the victim while tony, ziva, and McGee uncovered the bottom half.

"Uhhh, guys?" McGee stopped digging on his side. "I think we have another victim... unless this guys got three hands..."

Ziva and tony looked over the pile at mcgee's side, where he has just uncovered the outer part of a hand. Which meant more to dig through.  Another groan...

~~~~~

"Ugh... I'm never gonna get this smell off of me," tony whined.

Ziva rolled her eyes and continued scrolling and typing furiously. Tony, after not getting the attention he wanted, strolled over to behind ziva's desk to see what she was doing.

"What's this??"

Ziva didn't look away from her screen. "Those tattoos that ducky found on the three victims... I swear I've seen them before!"

Tony thought for a moment. "Yeah... now that I think about it... it does seem kinda familiar... the whole lion with the heart in its mouth thing..."

Ziva suddenly stopped scrolling. "Tony..." she said solemnly.

"What is it?" He leaned over the back of her chair to see what she'd found. On her screen, several news stories were compiled into a conspiracy theorist's blog. They all related to the same topic... some sort of "child army". Each photograph of a 'member' of this group of terrorists had the same tattoo. A lion crushing a heart in its mouth.

"Tony these are the people that..." ziva trailed off...

"That took tali," he finished.

Ziva looked up at him with a concerned look. "If we have two of them in autopsy... why are they here again??? And who on earth killed them?"