Chapter Text
She woke up in a haze of his cologne and the smell of his laundry detergent. She blinked a few times, trying to clear the grogginess from her eyes. The scent was familiar, but as she looked at her surroundings, the room was unfamiliar. But only for a second.
He stirred next to her, didn’t wake up, but shifted from his side to his back. The twin bed was somehow bigger with the two of them in it.
Ziva watched Tony’s chest rise and fall, deep in sleep still. The look on his face was a mixture of contentment and satisfaction. If she felt she could stay for just a minute more, she would have pressed back into his bare chest, into his warmth. Would she ever admit it to Tony? Maybe not, but she did feel entirely safe in his arms, something she had never experienced with another man.
She couldn’t stay though. Coming over in the first place was a mistake, or it should be considered one. Ziva wasn’t convinced that is what she would actually call it even if others would have told her to.
Without Ray to consider and in a moment of sheer loneliness, Ziva had managed to make her way to Tony’s apartment. She had stared for a while at the silver numbers on his door, 22. Did she dare knock? She knew where this would lead and if she knew that, before walking through the door, then she was making a choice, a bold choice, if she knocked. Part of her had felt like there was nothing to lose. They were both adults and if this turned into nothing, which it would more than likely have to while they were both on Gibb’s team, following his rules, they would both never mention it again. But if this happened and there was more to it, what would she have done?
Even though every part of her had said don’t do it, don’t ruin anything else, she knocked.
Now she was rummaging through the dark bedroom in search of her clothes and purse, trying to be as quiet as possible to make her escape. Regret for what they had done should have swirled around the room, but instead regret swelled in her for not being able to stay. She wanted to stay and to wake up in the morning with Tony. She allowed herself, just for a moment, to think about morning with him. Coffee, chatter, pressed together on his couch. A glimpse of what they could be flashed before her, a sudden ache for a reality different than the one she was existing in. Life could not be so perfectly easy.
There were consequences to her choices, theirs. One of them being she had to leave.
“Hey. You shouldn’t drink alone; it’s too depressing.”
“It’s a club soda and I’m not depressed.”
“Wouldn’t blame you, it’s been a rough day.” Tony told her with a tad bit of sympathy.
“Maybe for you.” Ziva answered, an attitude in her voice and the cross of her arms. “I’m fine.”
“If you were fine, you wouldn’t be here.”
“Okay, then let’s go.” Ziva threw her hands up in frustration and tried to exit the barstool she was occupying. But Tony grabbed, pulling her back into the seat.
“I would like a drink and it is depressing to drink alone.” He let go of her arm. “Barkeep, anything old and gold. I might be getting a cold.”
God, Ziva thought to herself. He can’t even order a drink like a normal person.
“Sorry, scotch on the rocks. Thank you.” There was a pause as the bartender left to get Tony’s drink. “He’s CIA. They have a sworn duty to protect what they know. Same as we do. He’s just doing his job.”
“He lied to me, Tony.”
“Yeah, because… he cares about you.”
“Does not matter because it’s over.”
“I’ve heard that one before.” Tony retorted.
But it was done this time, for certain. There had been a break before between them, other red flags that Ziva needed time to consider before offering Ray any more of herself. The moment of weakness during that break that she shared with Tony, she was sure, was the cause for his comment. Maybe she had toyed with them, but maybe she had really needed him then. She was not used to losing serious romantic relationships in her life, in fact, she had never suffered through it before and there was something about Anthony DiNozzo that made her feel. When she showed up at his door that night, she needed to feel something, to assure herself that she was not incapable of that very thing. She wondered now how much Tony resented her for using him or at least making him feel used. There was no way to really tell him how much she wanted to stay, how she wanted more than one night. No matter, it would not be as much as he resented what she needed to tell him.
The bar, the club soda, knowing Tony would bribe McGee into finding her exact location for him, it was all a set up. Ziva did not have the guts to ask Tony there, but she knew he would find her. Especially after Ray showed up. They were done long before Ziva uttered those words to Tony while he sat next to her just a moment ago. Ray had simply made the most complicated situation of her life a little bit easier, by doing the unexpected and finally losing her trust for the last time.
Ziva changed the subject. “What about you and EJ?”
“What about us?”
“What are you going to do when Gibbs finds out?” Was the question that escaped her lips, because she could not ask him what he had thought when she found out. That is what she wanted to know for many selfish reasons.
“I understand this one, Ziva. I understand her.” Tony was genuine. Ziva could hear it in his voice and see it in his eyes. “That’s why it’s working.”
Her stomach dropped. She bit her cheek, feeling the tears brim just above her eyelids. That is not what she wanted to hear.
Ziva had not asked about him and EJ because she wanted a sincere answer for why he thought they worked together. She asked because she assumed it would be another woman that DiNozzo was using to fill some void, a little fling with a co-worker that meant nothing and at the end of the day would amount to nothing. If she had known, if she could have predicted what he was going to tell her, she would never have posed the question to him. Her plan crumbled.
The bartender brought a drink over before they exchanged any more words. But it wasn’t what Tony ordered.
“I didn’t order that.”
“The guy in the booth did.” The bartender told him, casually, as he pointed behind where Tony and Ziva sat.
They both turned around to look, but the booth was empty. It looked mysteriously like no one had ever been sitting there. Then the door creaked and swung closed. They missed whoever it had been and they both felt uneasy.
“I wonder who?” Ziva asked.
Then Tony picked up the glass, turning it in his hands to get a better look at what he thought was floating around in it. An eyeball.
Tony dropped the glass at this discovery, scattering alcohol and ice all over the counter. Ziva jumped when he let the glass go, having just looked away for a second. Then she saw it, too. She looked at Tony, then right back at the frozen eyeball.
Her stomach churned; she put a hand over her mouth.
“What the hell?” Tony said. “Actually, who the hell?”
He looked at the door again. There was no movement. Whoever sent this drink over was now gone. It had to do with the case. There had to be a connection to the Port-to-Port killer, there was no other plausible explanation for an eyeball in his drink. He’d pissed a lot of people off in his time, but he doubted that any of them would take the time to leave a body part floating in his drink.
Ziva swallowed hard, but it did not stop the bile from rising in her throat. She jumped off the stool and ran straight toward the ladies room in the back of the bar. She slammed open the door of the first stall and dropped to her knees so hard, they stung. She emptied the contents of her stomach, retching. She slid from her knees, onto her butt, leaning back so her head rested on the wall of the bathroom stall. Closing her eyes, Ziva took a few deep breaths.
Tony burst through the door, having followed Ziva.
“Zivs?”
She didn’t open her eyes, trying still to steady her stomach and not throw up again with DiNozzo watching her.
Tony thought she looked pale, a little clammy. She was so still, she seemed so small wrapped on the bathroom floor. Ziva never seemed small or weak. Even when he found her in Somalia, even when she spoke of being ready to die if that was her fate, she did not appear anything less than.
“Ziva?” He tried again.
This time his response was her head dropping over the side of the toilet seat again.
When she finally sat back up, Tony reached past her and flushed the toilet. He held out his hands to Ziva, who after a moment of contemplation, grabbed them. He was gentle pulling her up her feet and helping her out of the stall. She was unsteady for a moment, the world spun around her.
“I am fine, Tony.” Her voice being no louder than a whisper wasn’t convincing to him.
“Yeah, of course. That’s why your head was just in the toilet.”
Ziva let go of his hands. “Do not, Tony.”
She was thinking of what he said, of how he understood Barrett. They were working. And if they were working, then Ziva would just be getting in the way.
“At least let me drive you home.”
She shook her head. “You have to stay. This is a crime scene now and you are a witness.”
“So are you.”
“Yes, but there was not an eyeball in my glass.” Ziva took a deep breath. “They can talk to me tomorrow.”
“Ziva.” Tony tried again, but she cut him off.
“I am fine. I will take myself home. Let me know if you need me.”
Tony watched her walk out of the bathroom, after she rinsed her mouth out. He didn’t understand what had just happened. He had been to too many crime scenes to count with Ziva, she had seen unthinkable things with him and in her previous life. Never had she gotten sick at something. And while a frozen eyeball was creepy, it certainly did not top the list of most disgusting. His gut told him there was more to the story.
Tony had to leave whatever thoughts he had about Ziva and their bathroom encounter behind, as soon as Gibbs and EJ showed up.
Ziva drove home with tears streaming down her face. He understood her. Never once had Tony said that he understood her. A year and a half ago, he was brutalized in Somalia to save her life. He came looking for her, at the worst moments of her life, and that did not mean he understood her. Ziva knew she was difficult to love, made to be that way by a father who was also very hard to share affection with or garner the attention of. Her trust was limited after seeing unfathomable things. She shared little of herself to protect the parts of her she thought were messy, unbecoming. Ziva David was not, she believed, anyone’s type. She was not made to be fully understood.
When Tony said those words, though, she couldn’t follow through.
If he was all of a sudden happy with someone, fulfilled by this relationship, how was she supposed to come in and give him news that would change his life? It would bond them together forever.
How was she supposed to tell him that she was pregnant?