A/N: This is a oneshot I wrote ages ago that I have just found on my computer during a re-read of some of my fics trying to spark the flow of writing on my current Tiva piece! It's set during the time Vance split up the team, everyone on team Gibbs, except for Ziva, has gotten back together again and Tony is pining over his missing partner. I contemplated updating it after their dance in Berlin and given that Ziva has now left the team. However, as I have yet to see the newest season (awaiting network pick up over here!) I decided to leave it as it is at the moment and maybe do an update when I finally manage to see all the Tiva goodness that has gone down in season 11!
To me, it reads as a bit of a ramble but hopefully it will satisfy someone who is craving some Tiva feelings!
The idea is based on the song Dancin' Away With My Heart by Lady Antebellum.
Dancing Away With My Heart
It was an unusually warm Saturday night, and, in an act even more unusual, Tony DiNozzo was at home alone. He had been putting off for so long cleaning out his apartment that he had finally told himself he had to do it now or know that he never would. He wasn't overly concerned about the tidiness or organization of his place, but when he had been looking for his passport and found a water bill he had verbally abused the water board for when they charged him for late payment and he claimed he hadn't received it, he knew it was time to get things together once and for all. He had bought in a bottle of good wine, ordered out for pizza and put on the Steve McQueen marathon on cable and settled in for a long evening of sorting and organizing.
As Tony downed the dregs in his wine glass and popped the cork on another bottle of the dry red liquid and The Magnificent Seven credits began to role, he looked up from the mass of paperwork he had pulled out of his desk. So far he had succeeded in getting everything from the drawers and surrounding himself with it, then getting distracted by what he would gladly argue was 1960's finest piece of cinema. In his heart he knew he'd never concentrate with The King Of Cool acting in the background, nobody could background McQueen, you had to pay attention to him. He sighed as he listened to the satisfying glug of wine sloshing from the bottle to the glass.
"There's always tomorrow DiNozzo." He smiled to himself, standing up with his glass in hand and letting the paperwork he had in his lap flutter to the floor below him. He moved to step over the piles of opened envelopes and folded sheets of paper when a burst of colour caught his eye. Buried beneath several old bank statements, was the corner or a photo, and he needed only to see that corner to know what the picture was of.
Leaning down, he swept aside the papers and picked up the picture. A gentle smile swept over his face and he felt his heart quicken, his body warming and not just from the alcohol. He remembered taking that picture, it felt as though it had all happened just yesterday, and yet, now it came back to him, he realized just how long ago it had been.
She was beautiful that night. She was always beautiful. Her eyes had sparkled beneath that moon light when he had asked her to dance, and while she would claim it was only the alcohol that would make her act the way she did that night, he knew her feelings had mirrored his own, he had felt it in her racing heart, in the gentle touch she gave to him, the way she held her body so close to him, as though teasing… he knew she felt it too, she had to.
He remembered that night so clearly, the way the sky changed from deep velvet black to a federal blue around the haze of the bright white moon that glittered the ground through the trees like a disco ball. After she had gotten word that her father had been the target of an assassination, Ziva had been distracted at work not knowing his fate. When they had eventually been told he was ok, Tony had suggested they visit a bar so she could relax. He had never expected her to say yes, he recalled when he invited her to a bar after she was attacked while working undercover and she had all but bitten his head off, but there was something different about tonight. The two of them had visited a rustic little bar at the edge of town, a bar where nobody would know them, where they didn't even have to be themselves, they could make the lives they wished they lived, be the people they hoped they'd be; not that he would have changed himself for anything, but he knew she had some demons she wished weren't lurking behind her at every turn.
Between the two of them, they worked their way through several pitchers of beer, a few shooters and two house cocktails; it was safe to say they were intoxicated when they came to leave as the evening drew on. As the two of them wandered down by a small stream, wondering quite how they would get home when they were too drunk to drive, had no money for a cab and faced a walk that neither of them was sure was possible given their current state. As they stumbled past an old barn that was illuminated by thousands of twinkly lights, they heard music playing out and took note of all the wedding banners that hung outside the doors.
Tony took her hand in his and the two of them laughed at nothing in particular.
"Fancy crashing a wedding…?" Tony grinned.
"We do not have a car Tony."
"You don't need a car to crash a… never mind." He shook his head, there was no point in trying to explain it, she wouldn't understand, and if he was honest, he had lost his trail of thought anyway.
Ziva turned around and her body pressed against Tony's, their hands still intertwined. The music suddenly switched from a dance track to a slow, love song. Tony felt his heart flutter and his stomach started to suffer the effects of butterflies, or too much alcohol, either way, he knew that while drunk, he had the chance to ask her something he would never even attempt to while sober.
"Would you like to dance, Officer David?" He felt that cooling of his blood as he awaited her answer, but instead of getting one, she simply wrapped her free arm around his neck and leant her head against his shoulder, slowly stepping back and forth in time to the music; he took that as a yes. With his one arm wrapped around her waist and the other hand still clutching hers, he let his body relax a little as hers molded against him, and he began to move in time with her, hoping, praying even, that the song would never be over.
He still got goose bumps when he thought about the feel of her touch on him, the way her fingers caressed the back of his neck, the weight of her head pressed against his shoulder, the smell of papaya and passion fruit that gently filled his senses with each small wave of wind that passed through her hair… sometimes, he could swear that smell had engrained on his clothes. He felt like a kid when he was with her; a teenager, falling in love for the first time. She made him feel that way every single day and he knew that was something special; he just wished he had of told her.
Tony looked up from the picture and saw Steve McQueen on the TV screen again, looking back to the photo, he sighed deeply. Geez, he hadn't seen her in ages. He hadn't really thought about her, at least consciously, in a long while too. He knew that was because thinking about her was too hard. When he did let his mind get carried away, he'd find himself wondering where she was. He cursed Vance every day for splitting them up. He had sent Ziva back to Israel, and while the rest of the team had managed to reconvene after a little more than 3 months, Ziva had been wound back into the underground world of Mossad, and unless she found them, they would never know where she was or what she was doing; or, worst of all, even if she was alive. For the first few months, all he thought of was her, how she made him feel, to him, she'd always make him feel like that 18 year old, she was beautiful and smart, she was funny and honest, and after that one drunken night, she would always be the girl who had taken his heart away with one simple dance.
He remembered back to when that song had drawn to an end, he felt his heart sink, he had wanted more than anything to make that moment last forever. He'd moved the hand from her waist and gently brushed back the curls that had fallen over her face as they moved. The tips of his fingers had stroked the delicate skin of her cheek and when he could see her eyes again through the mess of hair, he noticed how her eyelids fluttered closed at his touch, and a smile started to spread across her lips. He watched those thick black lashes re-open, framing those beautiful chocolate eyes and saw the way she pulled her head up and moved toward him like she was reading his mind. He had waited for this moment from the first day they had gone undercover together. She was leaning to kiss him and while she had done that before, this would be different; this would be her kissing him because she wanted to, not because she had a part to play.
His mind wandered back to this very moment, it wasn't the first time he had thought it, but now that he had realized just how much he missed her, or indeed, let himself realize how much she had always meant to him, he couldn't help but wonder if she ever missed him too.
He'd give anything to see her again, it had been so long, too long, and all he wanted to do was know where she was. He wanted to call her, to tell her he missed her, that she had always been the one to make him feel special, to make him feel like he was more than the goofball, yet exceedingly handsome agent he knew he was. He wished he could let her know that with that dance she had taken his heart and he knew that he would never get it back, and while she was the holder of it, he didn't want it back, because with her, it would be safe. What he wouldn't give to feel like that eighteen year old with her just one more time.
Watching her leave the office that night, knowing she was going to be packing and returning to Israel, he never really believed that would be it. In his mind Gibbs would stop this happening, or even he, himself would do something, anything, just to try and stop their separation. But, when it came down to it, he was a victim of the chain of command just like everybody else. He had told himself he would go to her place that night, and he had gotten in his car and driven over there, forgetting about all the packing he should be doing himself. Sitting in his car on the street outside her apartment, he looked up and watched her moving back and forth before the window, she had her cell clamped between her shoulder and her ear and she seemed to be smiling as she wandered back and forth with various items of clothing. She looked happy to be leaving. She looked, almost as though a weight had been lifted. She seemed pleased to be returning home. He couldn't ruin that by going up there and confessing to her how he never wanted her to leave or to not be a part of his life. His heart sunk when he saw her playful smile as she talked on the phone, if she was even a little bit in the place with him that he was with her, then she wouldn't have it in her to smile right now; he wasn't even sure he would smile ever again. He was going to have to understand that circumstances beyond their control were forcing them apart, but she would always be at the end of the phone when he wanted to talk to her.
How wrong he was. It took him less than a month to realize that she would never return his phone calls, nor pick up when he dialed; she probably didn't even have that cell number anymore. He tried e-mailing her but heard back nothing. Mossad was a covert operative and if they didn't want him contacting her, they would find a way to ensure his messages always fell on deaf ears. Losing touch hadn't bothered him all that much at the time, he had a job to do, with people he didn't yet know, on a boat he was never going to like; he had enough to take his mind off things. Only, now he realized how much he had lost. There was something so special, so mesmerizing about her that he knew if she asked him to, he'd give up everything all for her. He had never seen himself as a one woman kinda guy, and he certainly never planned on settling down, but he'd do it for her. She had never hidden who she was, and as much as she told him he irritated her, she had never asked him to change. She'd always be the girl who taught him what it meant to be a man.
He set the picture upright on his desk; he wanted to see her, in some way or another. He sighed. It really had been ages. He knew he could spend the rest of forever wondering where she was, but the ball was in her court, she had to be the one to contact him, when she could; if she could. Until then, he would let her be the one who took his heart with one drunken dance underneath a full moon.
Taking a seat in his armchair, he flicked up the footrest and let his body relax into it. Steve McQueen might not have been Ziva, but he'd make do as a companion for now. He lifted the remote and turned the volume up a few notches. Just as he returned the remote to its place beside him, the phone sounded, a shrill high pitched ring that echoed through the air and pierced his very core. With yet another sigh, he reached over and lifted the receiver.
"Hello?" he said. The number of times he had answered his home phone with "Agent DiNozzo" were many, somehow, a simple "hello" didn't seem enough.
"Tony?" His stomach lurched and his heart leapt into his throat, stopping beating at that very moment. He'd recognize that lilt in her voice anywhere, the accent, the tone, it was her, she had been thinking of him too. "It's Ziva." She clarified, unnecessarily, and he could hear the smile on her face. He felt something at that moment that he had not felt in a long time, but hadn't realized until that moment. He felt whole.