Probies, talk louder. I can't hear you in there.

You think we care about a plot? The first movie could have been solved in 2 seconds with a DNA test, but instead they decide to sing about how this girl doesn’t know which of these 3 men is her dad for 2 hours and in the end THEY STILL DON’T HAVE AN ANSWER. AND NO ONE CARES.

married

7x05 // Code of Conduct

+ bonus

I’m sorry. I overheard you two talking. No, thank you, ‘cause that is extremely helpful.

aliyah

↳ aired 19th may 2009, 11 years ago today

We all know about how Tony went on this suicide mission essentially just to avenge Ziva’s death because he didn’t have any hope of finding her alive, and we rightfully talk about how huge that was, and what a statement that made about his feelings for her…

… but it just hit me, now, all these years later, about how much that said about McGee too. Because he followed Tony blindly, so he must have accepted this was certain death, too, and he did this… all because Ziva was his friend and he wanted to stop the people who did this to her, and because Tony was his friend and he’d have his back no matter what.

I’m–

Alone, a brief reunion, and finally togetherness.

This drabble is for @indestinatus.

____________________

Ziva becomes comfortable with the gritty underbelly of the world around her. She learns to wipe her knife, swallow back tears of bitter frustration, and move on when yet another Sahar lead fails to pan out. When it matters, it’s surprisingly easy to slide back into her shed snake’s skin, despite what she told Malachi so many years ago. The only thing she can’t turn off is the ache for her family that pulses under her skin at all times, making her vibrate with energy that can’t be burned off.

And so, she walks. 

Day and night, whenever she’s not engaged in the sole task that consumes her every waking moment, she stalks the streets of Istanbul’s more dangerous suburbs. She counts the sounds of her footsteps echoing off dilapidated, ramshackle buildings on the outskirts of Marrakesh. She embraces the feel of the wind in her hair as she paces the shorelines of Muscat, watching the moon reflect dimly off of the tumultuous waves and wishing the twinkle of the stars could do more to illuminate her exhausted soul. 

Feet become miles that become a single-minded marathon, leading her step by step back to those that matter.

____________________

The smell of cumin and cardamom permeate each breath she takes as she sits in a grimy old bed near the open window of their hotel room in Cairo. Far below, touts shout back and forth over the sounds of traffic, encouraging tourists to purchase camel tours and locals to purchase ful sandwiches. All of that is secondary to the feel of her still-tiny daughter clutched tightly in her arms, fast asleep against her chest, and the pair of strong arms that hold them both from behind. 

“When’s the last time you relaxed?” asks a quiet voice in her ear, and she bites her lip til it’s close to bleeding, overcome and overwhelmed by emotions she can scarcely identify. 

“Before now?”

“Yeah.”

“Not since the fire.”

“That’s what I thought. Rest, Ziva. Sleep. You’ve got Tali and she’s safe—and I’ve got you.”

“But we only have tonight before we must—”

“I know,” Tony cuts her off, gentler than perhaps he’s ever been. “So dream sweet dreams while you can. I think we’re all going to need this to hold onto until… well, for however long everything takes to resolve. Sleep,” he repeats.

Ziva has never relished being told what to do, but here and now, a small, thrumming heartbeat against her breast and a deep, strong one against her back, she knows he’s right. This is a peace she won’t have for who-knows-how-long.

And so, she rests.

She dreams of walking the tree-lined streets of Washington, D.C. with her family. Her mind’s eye sees in great detail the amazement on Tali’s face as they pass tall, beautiful monuments, the delight on Tony’s features as he spins Tali up in the air while they picnic on the National Mall. Ziva can almost feel the blades of grass under her fingers, each one tickling her palms and reminding her exactly how damn beautiful it can be to be alive. 

Only the distant smell of falafel and tahini interrupts the perfect fantasy, but she doesn’t mind. The lovely illusion of her dreams can’t possibly match the euphoria of holding her baby girl once more, of being embraced by a man she never thought she would get to see again.

____________________

The sun reflects brightly off the white-washed walls of the buildings around them, making Ziva glad she insisted on everyone wearing sunblock. They’re on their way up to the highest point in the tiny city to watch the sun go down, passing blue domed roofs and a plethora of island cats. The taste of honey and Greek yogurt and fresh fruit still melts pleasantly on their tongues from an earlier afternoon snack.

It’s their first true family vacation since finally reuniting a few months ago, and the whole of Santorini seems to be welcoming them home. 

They find a spot to sit in the dying sunlight, secluded from other tourists but still enjoying a gorgeous view of Oia in the distance. Tali chatters happily to her parents—pretty much nonstop, since she’s Tony’s child through and through—and Ziva listens with great affection. It doesn’t matter what Tali talks about, only that she talks happily. 

Tony tugs Ziva’s hand into his lap and gently strokes her knuckles with his thumb, giving her a secret smile. Then Tali tells a terrible joke and lights up, waiting for her parents’ reactions; Ziva isn’t one to disappoint her daughter ever again.

And so, she laughs.

The sky is painted pink and orange and fushia above the restless azure waves far below, and as the sun slips away to sleep, the moon shyly peeks out. The three David-DiNozzos stay in their picnic spot long after their fellow tourists have departed, long after Tali’s usual bedtime, enjoying the light island breeze, the distant yellow glow of a million delighted stars, and the absolute bliss of togetherness. 

As they walk back to their rented caldera-view apartment, Tali slipping in and out of sleep on her father’s shoulder, the heat of the departed sun still warms their shoulders from where it has soaked into the white walls of the village. 

I’m fighting for you, Ziva. I know.

tony and ziva: same married energy

in which Tony meets Tali when she’s 6 months old because I need soft drabbles today

This one’s for @why-did-you-just-lie-to-mcgee

___________________

It’s awkward, but it was always going to be awkward. How does one introduce an old flame to the child they helped create?

Watching Tony dance around learning to care for a baby is at once entirely endearing and incredibly funny—he has, in short, no idea what he’s doing. To his credit, though, when Ziva finally summoned the courage to tell him about Tali, he was on a plane in six hours. He didn’t hesitate.

Now they’ve been together for a week in Ziva’s family’s farmhouse, just the three of them. Ziva told Tony on the phone that she has no expectations… but here he is learning to change diapers, how to feed an infant, how to change diapers again but this time without being peed on, how best to avoid getting spit-up on his face… The learning curve is a large one. 

Tony, in general, seems up to the the task. Today brings a new challenge, though.

Ziva is in the kitchen preparing a simple lunch for the adults when she hears a very worrying, loud high-pitched squeal. She sets her preparations aside immediately and hurries to the next room—only to find one of her two loves in tears. 

“Oh no, what happened?” she asks, torn between mild concern and amusement—because it’s Tony that has tears in his eyes, not Tali. Tali is grinning. 

“She bit me,” Tony says indignantly, gasping slightly. “She just… she latched onto my neck! Why did she do that? Why are you raising our baby to be tiny Dracula!?”

Amusement wins out by a long shot, and Ziva throws her head back in a hearty laugh. “I did warn you that she is teething, yes?”

“Oh, she’s not teething anymore, Ziva,” Tony contradicts darkly. “She’s already got teeth. Look!” He turns his head to the side to show off the perfect imprint of two tiny bottom teeth right above his jugular. Even as Ziva watches, the little wound starts to well up with blood, and she grins, pretty much unsympathetic. She’s been bitten a time or two herself.

“I can take her back. I would not want you to stay in mortal danger, Tony,” she replies, only lightly mocking him as she holds out her hands to receive the baby.

Tony, however, clutches their daughter more tightly rather than handing her over. “No, my baby!” he argues. “We were bonding, at least until she went all Nosferatu on me. You go finish lunch and we’ll finish our game of peekaboo. I’m just going to keep her further away from all my major arteries this time.”

Ziva holds her hands up in surrender, hiding just how warm her heart feels at his insistence. “Do not let me interrupt, then. I will just go get you a bandaid.”

“I don’t like bandaids,” Tony mutters, but when Ziva returns with one, he sheepishly accepts it as necessary, letting her apply it to his neck.

As Ziva leaves the room to resume cooking, she hears Tony start to speak to Tali again, his voice conversational and not at all in a tone of baby talk. “I looked it up last night,” he says. “You’re growing all your teeth one at a time right now, so no wonder you want to bite things; I bet it hurts! No more biting Abba, though, deal? I’m not a piece of pizza. Oh, have I told you about pizza yet? Just you wait, we’re going to convince Ima to let you have it as soon as you can chew solid foods. You’re gonna love it—after all, you’re half Italian-American…”

You can all thank @indestinatus for this painfully parallel little ficlet. It’s not my fault. It’s hers.

_________________

“We all risk the chances of mistakes / cause we all need a little pain / Who knew that the absence of love is all it takes to change your mind / consider what you left behind / you’ve only walked into a / car crash, hot flash.” 

- Crow’s Feet by The Accidentals

_________________

Two months.

Two months, that desk has been empty.

Two months since Tony returned from Israel, two months since he last spoke to his best friend.

He misses her, and it hurts.

Two months have passed when her desk phone rings. Tony looks up at it, bemused. The calls happened some in the beginning, before people got the message that Ziva David had permanently vacated the line. Then, slowly, the ringing stopped, which hurt on its own merits. It’s almost like the world learned to forget her, just like Tony did, but… who could possibly be calling now?

It rings three times as Tony stairs at it, imagining an olive-skinned hand picking it up and a slightly accented voice answering, but that doesn’t happen. 

Nothing happens.

“You should get that.”

Tony tears his eyes away from the phone to look at McGee, who jerks his head toward Ziva’s desk—as if he could possibly be talking about anything else.

“No. No, it’s probably a wrong number.”

“You’ll never know if you don’t pick it up.”

“McGee, I’m not going to—”

“You’ll regret it if you don’t.”

Tony stops, because he more than understands regret right now. Robotically, he stands and does as the probie suggested, wishing for a curly-haired Israeli to yell at him for touching her things.

“Hello?”

“Hi, I’m looking for Ziva David, is she available?”

“No,” Tony answers dully. 

“Who am I speaking to?”

“Very Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo,” he says automatically, but it’s without his usual perkiness. He’s ready to punch McGee, because there’s only one voice that would have made answering this call worth it—and really, why would Ziva be calling her old desk?

“Oh, Mr. DiNozzo! You’re her emergency contact, so I’m allowed to give you information. Can you take a message for her, please?”

“Yes,” he stupidly agrees before thinking better of it. There’s no telling when he’ll talk to her again—or even if he’ll ever talk to her again—so he has no business agreeing to pass on information. Too late now, though.

“Please remind her that her yearly dental check-up appointment is next Wednesday at 8:00.”

It’s so stupid—why the hell should someone else’s dentist appointment make it harder to breathe? “She won’t make it,” he tells the caller, sounding about as cheery as he feels. He clears his throat, trying to shake the tightness out of his voice.

“Then she should call to reschedule—”

“She moved,” he says shortly. “Out of the country. She’s not coming back. You might as well cancel this appointment and any others, because she’s gone.”

His voice is unnecessarily harsh by the end, snapping at the poor receptionist who hasn’t done anything wrong, and he slams the receiver down into its cradle angrily. “Don’t ever tell me to answer her phone again, McGee,” he snarls at Tim, whose face is infuriatingly apologetic and sympathetic. 

How fucking dare he pretend to understand how this feels?

Tony sinks down into his desk chair and rubs his hands roughly over his face, trying to scrub the ever-present image of Ziva from his retinas. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been since her final exit from the bullpen, because he still pictures her there behind her desk. She’s always laughing in his mind’s eye, an all-too-familiar expression on her features—it’s the expression of someone who feels reluctantly charmed by Tony’s antics. Ziva seems so real when he imagines her that if he closes his eyes, he can almost convince himself that the past two months were just a painful dream, and that’s not healthy.

He misses her, and he’d been doing a good job of getting her out of his head.

It’s awful what one fucking phone call can do.

_________________

Six thousand miles and seven time zones away, Ziva sits on her front porch swing at the old farmhouse, her knees tucked up against her chest as she sips chamomile tea. Her hair is chaotic, unbound, framing a face that has lost weight over the last two months.

Two months.

Those months haven’t been easy. In fact, they’ve been entirely hellish. It’s been two months of solitude, two months of no contact, two months without everyone she loves. It’s been two months of fighting the current and fighting the urge to just swim down. Worst, though, is that it’s been two months without Tony.

She misses him, and it hurts.

She’s startled out of her musings by the shrill sound of her telephone ringing inside, and after a short debate with herself, she rises to answer it. It hasn’t rung in two months, probably because she has kept it switched off most of the time. Today, however, she’s expecting a call. It’s time to bite the bullet.

“Ziva David,” she answers automatically. Her voice sounds strange, emotionless and rusty from disuse. She can’t remember the last time she said a word out loud—it certainly wasn’t today. Maybe last week?

“Ms. David, this is Dr. Levitz. I’m calling to discuss your recent appointment. Do you have time to speak with me?”

Ziva David has nothing but time these days. “Yes,” she replies, quiet and tired.

Quickly, the doctor goes through the motions of confirming that Ziva is who she says she is, and then she finally gets to the bottom of why she’s calling. “Most of the tests from your physical came back normal, as expected—you are in very good shape. There was hCG in your blood, though.” Before Ziva can interrupt to ask what that indicates, the doctor continues. “That means that you are pregnant. Judging by the levels in your blood, you are about eight weeks into the pregnancy, but we will confirm that later when you have your first prenatal appointment. Congratulations!”

Ziva, numb, doesn’t answer.

“Ms. David, are you still there?”

“Yes,” she manages.

“I will give you some time to think, but please call my office at your earliest convenience to schedule a follow-up appointment.”

“Thank you.”

Without saying anything else or waiting for the doctor to reply, Ziva ends the call robotically. She’s pregnant.

There’s only one possibility for the baby’s father, only one person she’s slept with in a long time. That man is on another continent, so very far away… Because of the emotional distance between them and the strain of months of silence, however, he might as well be all the way on another planet. 

Ziva has never felt so alone.

She rests a hand on her abdomen, reminding herself that apparently, she isn’t alone. In fact, she won’t be alone for the next eighteen years. In all the ways that matter, though, she’s more solitary than she’s ever been in her life. This is something meant to be shared between two people—meant to be celebrated by two people.

How can she celebrate, though, when she can’t even tell Tony? And how can she tell him after two fucking months of radio silence? When she knows damn well that she broke both of their hearts by sending him home on that plane without her?

Her eyes sting with the onset of bitter tears. A pregnancy… it’s not what she asked for; it’s not what she wanted. Life already felt difficult, but now it feels impossible.

She can’t stop picturing Tony’s face, though. He’s always smiling in her mind’s eye, even today. She likes to remember him that way, not the way he was in Israel. If she thinks too hard about his grieving beard when he couldn’t be bothered to shave, his breaking voice as he tried his damnedest to convince her to leave with him, the expression on his face as they broke their kiss before he got on the plane… she’ll break.

She misses him, and she’d been doing a good job of getting him out of her head.