#mncis

     When Gibbs quit - retired - whatever, Tony had been promoted to team leader. From the outside, it may have seemed like a promotion, but it felt like being stranded on a desert island. McGee was little more than a probie, and Ziva had been stateside for all of two seconds. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust them - he just didn’t know that he would be able to wrangle them with the skill Gibbs always had.

     The first few cases were tough - no one was prepared to work without Gibbs, and Tony had the sneaking suspicion that Abby resented him for becoming team lead in Gibbs’ absence. After a while, Tony, Ziva, and McGee fell into a steady routine of campfires and case reports. Steady, but certainly not comfortable. His team members resisted Tony taking point, though not intentionally. With Gibbs, there was a flow, and Tony’s sudden promotion had interrupted that.

     Ziva could barely look him in the eye, and the drives to crime scenes were eerily silent. Tony couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something lurking just under the surface, something that wanted to be said - something that had been there since she had first caught him fantasizing about Kate. But now, without Gibbs’ presence, it lingered between them without a buffer. Tony felt out of control, and he didn’t like not being in control.  Ziva and Tim acted dutifully, participated in campfires, filled out their paperwork without (much) complaint, but it wasn’t quite right.  Tony had the job he always wanted, but nothing was right about this situation.

-

     The first night he showed up on her doorstep, he hadn’t planned any of it. He had intended on driving to the nearest bar and drowning his sorrows at the bottom of a glass of aged scotch. But, as if possessed, he had driven straight past the Red Feather, continuing west towards Ziva’s apartment. And then he was at her door, knocking, and she was there, answering.

     “Tony? Why are you here?” He struggled to respond, and Ziva noticed his hesitation. Laughing, she reached out to smooth the crease between his eyebrows. “Perhaps your brain has been baked by this case.” A small grin pulled at his lips, though he was surprised by the intimacy of her touch.

     “Fried, Ziva. You get baked when you, well…maybe we’ll try it sometime.” She rolled her eyes and Tony felt his stomach flip. He swallowed hard, trying to force the butterflies back into their dark, deep corner somewhere to the left of his liver.

     “Aren’t you gonna invite me in?”  She stepped back, pulling the door open enough for him to step through.  Ever the keen investigator, Tony tried to take in every possible detail of her apartment, from the surprisingly cluttered kitchen counter to her unsurprisingly bare walls.

     “Would you like a drink?”  He hadn’t noticed her cross the room, but there she was, head buried in the fridge.

     “Just a beer, thanks.  What were you up to before I unceremoniously interrupted your evening? Prepping for a hot date?”  Ziva snorted, emerging from the fridge with a beer in each hand.

     “Yes, a hot date with my book,” she said, handing Tony one of the bottles.  He twisted it open and tossed the cap into the sink, heading towards the couch.  Dropping himself onto the plush brown cushions, he picked up the book that had been left face down on the arm, leaving his finger on her page before flipping it over to check the front cover.

     “Ahh, The Da Vinci Code.  Very hip, Zee-vah.”

     “McGee recommended it.  Apparently, it is very interesting.”  Tony opened his mouth, inhaling deeply as if preparing to launch into a monologue.  “Do not – Tony, do not tell me what happens,” Ziva said, sitting down on the opposite end of the couch.  “I would like to find out for myself.”  He didn’t respond, watching her face soften as she took a sip from her bottle, then turned to him.  The twisty sensation returned in his stomach, a sensation he had realised was associated with her smile, her hair, her…her.  He cringed, breaking the eye contact and running a hand over his hair.  The blushing tween thing was so 1980.

     “Have you heard from Gibbs at all?”  Ziva took a much longer pull from the bottle before answering.

     “No, I have not.  I do not think he wants to speak to me, Tony.  Abby, perhaps, but not me.”  Tony reached out to brush away an errant strand of hair from her face, fingertips trailing down her cheek.

     “Are you ever going to tell me what happened? It must have been…important.”  She was preoccupied with the bottlecap in her hand, avoiding his gaze.  She hadn’t told him about Ari, or about the bond between them that had drawn Gibbs out of his amnesia.  Gibbs’ abandonment had pressed its fingers into a very sore, very much unhealed wound, and despite the connection she felt with Tony, she couldn’t bring herself to tell him any of it.

     “We don’t have to talk about it,” he said, sufficiently chastised by her uncomfortable silence. “I just thought…I thought maybe I could help.”  Help with what, he thought.  He knew something heavy had gone down between Gibbs and Ziva, something to do with Ari. He didn’t know what it had to do with Gibbs’ amnesia, or with his sudden Mexican sabbatical.  He also didn’t really know how he intended to help Ziva, but he was certainly willing to try.  Eager, even.

     “Good work on the case today, Boss,” Ziva said finally, smirking at him. She had shifted seamlessly into geniality, lightly shoving him when he failed to respond.  “You are blushing, Tony!  I thought you liked being the team leader.”  It was now Tony’s turn for an uncomfortable silence.

     “It feels…dirty.  It shouldn’t be mine, not this way,” he said, shaking his head.

     “Then how?  You did not fire Gibbs, or send him away.  He chose to leave.  You should be proud of how you are doing, Tony,” she said, leaning towards him. “I am proud of you.”  Okay, now he was really blushing.  She set her hand on his shoulder.  “Truly, Tony. Gibbs would be, too.”

     They held eye contact for a moment, neither willing to break the spell.  Slowly, Ziva moved closer, pressing her lips to his.  He leaned back, and she stared boldly at him while he floundered.

     “Ziva, I – we –” She kissed him again, and this time he knew not to pull away.

-

     And then it continued to happen. Night after night, Tony promised himself he wouldn’t find his way back to her apartment, back to her bed, and every night, that’s where he found himself. He wasn’t complaining, exactly, it just didn’t help his problem.

     It didn’t help him to feel in control when he knew he was falling for her, hard. It didn’t help that he also couldn’t tell if the feeling was mutual. She had, in true ninja fashion, the straightest of poker faces.

     By July, Tony had stopped pretending it had anything to do with “relieving tension,” as he had up to that point excused it. He hadn’t, however, stopped referring to it as, well, “it.” He didn’t know what he was supposed to call what they were doing - they weren’t dating, but whatever it was had an edge to it that friends with benefits wasn’t supposed to have. They didn’t talk about what they were doing, and Tony certainly hadn’t told anyone, but the long looks across the bullpen and silent-but-not-uncomfortably-so rides to crime scenes with McGee in the back seat had started to feel more and more obvious. Tony was getting antsy, about the job and about their extra-curricular activities.

     He began to suspect Lee knew what was going on between them.  She and Jimmy hadn’t been very good at hiding their own budding relationship, and he had the sense that she could feel the shift in his own with Ziva.  Calling it a relationship, though, felt more intimate than what was warranted.  At most, they shared a beer, or some wine, before she was stripping his shirt off and he was leading her to the bed.  He craved her all day long, every second he wasn’t beside her, every second his hands weren’t on her.  Tony was pretty sure the rest of the team could, at the very least, smell the longing oozing out of his pores, if they hadn’t already noticed his staring at Ziva.

     She couldn’t shake him, his eyes following her every movement at work and after.  Ziva knew that this couldn’t continue, that it had already gone on for too long.  Eli had beaten it into her – relationships were weaknesses that could, and would, be exploited. And she felt the weakness growing, could feel her softness for Tony swallowing her whole.  She couldn’t afford to let him in, for both of their sakes.

-

           The heat of August settled over them slowly, softening their nights and making their days a blur of humidity and sunshine.  She was his, only his, her face softening when their eyes met, his fingers tangled in her hair.  He was everywhere in her apartment, inescapable, but she liked it – she wanted to drown herself in him.  Her sheets smelled of him, sweat and cologne and gun powder, his jacket hung over the back of her kitchen chair, more domestic than she could have imagined.  He was inside of her, all over her, never too far away, always willing to melt under her hands.

He felt her shift, felt her sigh against the crook of his neck.  Sometimes – rarely, but sometimes – she dozed off beside him and he let himself pretend that they were a thing, a proper couple who shared more than a bed. She was warm, tucked into his side, though the heat pressed itself against the windows.

-

     One final storm had broken the summer’s heat, the rain cooling the pavement and roofs as September inched towards them.  Their most recent case had been traumatising, even for them.  Too many close calls for everyone on the team had exhausted them, but Tony still appeared at her door.  Ziva was bruised, tired.  Her vest had kept her from being struck by a wildly-fired bullet, but it hadn’t protected her from the massive force behind the small ball of metal.  Tony had almost lost his mind when he saw it, and couldn’t get the memories of Kate in the same situation out of his head.  Last time, his partner hadn’t survived – but last time he hadn’t been sleeping with her, he thought.

     Ziva could feel the difference that night – he was gentler, but he held her tighter, breathing her in.  She had been scared, too – terrified that her luck and her training had finally failed her.  She had fought to keep her composure as Tony flung himself towards her, convinced she was injured.  It was a breach of their normal stoicism, and it unsettled her.  She knew she was in too deep.

     “Jesus, Ziva – love you.  Wanna get lost in you,” he mumbled into the side of her neck. She froze in his arms, body tense.

     “Tony, I can not - this is not-” Ziva was uncharacteristically inarticulate, the words catching in her throat. Her heart pounded, and she felt the room swimming as she shifted away from him. This was not what she had expected, not what she had intended to happen.

     Tony was pulled from the haze as he realized what he had said.

     Too good to be true ran through his mind, but he wasn’t sure where the good had been. It was just sex, had only ever been just sex, but his ears were ringing and hurt was pressing down on him, drowning him, as he struggled to reply.

     “Right, no, sorry. I just got…caught up in, in…the moment.” A stammering teenager, rejected by the girl he asked to prom. Way to go, DiNozzo. Very adult.  He disentangled himself from her, sliding out from under her sheets, and began gathering his clothes.

     She looked like a trapped animal, eyes searching for the easiest exit, though she sat on the bed, sheets wrapped around her.

    “I’m sorry, Ziva. I’ll…I’ll see myself out.” He left her, mouth agape, staring at her front door.

     He clenched his jaw as tight as possible, willing the tears and humiliation away. The streetlights blurred as the tears rose defiantly. He stumbled to his car, fumbling with his keys and the door handle.

     He had meant it, of course. Of course, of course, of course.

     Ziva still lay frozen, though the cool air was settling over her exposed skin and raising goosebumps in its wake. Her heart refused to slow, continuing to pound wildly in her chest. Everyone believed there were only two options when confronted with a stressor - fight or flight. Ziva had certainly been trained to fight wherever possible, but there was a third option - freeze. Tony had told her that.

-

     There was one final case before Tony’s flight to the security conference, one last set of uncomfortable car rides and a silent bullpen.

     Ziva felt an uncharacteristic blush rise in her cheeks as she sat in the passenger seat of the blue Charger, with Tony sitting less than a foot away. It had been a week since they had been together, a week since he had fled her apartment, since she had lain frozen for hours after he left.

     She saw his fingers tighten around the steering wheel, knuckles whitening from the tension. His jaw clenched as well, as if he were forcing himself not to speak.

     “You have something to say, Tony,” she stated. Her voice was uneven, almost trembling.  He was quiet still, his eyes on the road in front of them.  When he did speak, it was so soft she almost didn’t hear.

     “I meant it, Ziva.”  She turned away quickly, couldn’t bear to look at him.  He loved her, and it made her stomach twist and her heart pound, and she wasn’t sure what that meant.  She wasn’t supposed to get attached, but here she was, wondering if maybe she was in love with him, too.

     “Tony–”

     “No, just – just leave it.  Forget about it.  I’m senior field agent, it shouldn’t have happened.” I should have known, he thought.  All he could remember was the look on her face when he’d said it, stony, distant.  Afraid.  “I’ll go to this stupid conference and when I get back, we’ll be…normal, okay?  It didn’t happen.”

     Except it did, and he loved her, and it was all he could think about every second of every day, like she was the blood in his veins.  But she couldn’t look at him, wouldn’t look at him, and he knew that if he pressed the issue it would only make things worse.

     It was too much for her to process, not while she was still adjusting to a new country and a new job.  Loving Tony – loving anyone – felt so outside of her personal and professional boundaries, and she just…couldn’t.  Not right now.