The hospital was buzzing with patients and shift changes, just like it always did this time of day. Of course, 'this time' was always somewhere around dinnertime, and Dr. Ziva David always knew that by the tell-tale grumble of her stomach as she ascended the stairs to her floor. She wished they would fix that elevator. Or perhaps people could stop pushing the emergency button.
Once she had finally ascended the merciless and rather crowded hospital stairwell, she headed for the front desk. Tanya, the nurse on duty was there. She was an African-American girl with short, dark hair and big brown eyes. She was small, smaller than Ziva. Today she donned pink scrubs. Tanya looked up at Ziva with a wide smile.
"Hey," she said. "We got ourselves a new one. Just a physical. Got in it rough with somebody, apparently. Room two thirty six." She handed a clipboard over the desk with one hand and Ziva examined it quickly.
"You wanna watch that one," Tanya advised, knowing Ziva wouldn't need it. She was one of the most professional women to walk the halls of this hospital.
The young nurse knew Ziva was alone, too. Doctor Ziva David lived a fairly strict and solitary lifestyle, and though she sensed that, for now at least, she was content with that, the younger woman supposed that it hadn't been her first choice. Perhaps she just needed a little excitement. Tanya had seen Ziva let loose a few times, at office parties once or twice – maybe a little drunk. But they were few and far-between, and with Ziva especially, alcohol only brought empty, fabricated happiness.
Ziva nodded seriously and thanked the nurse before heading towards the man's assigned room.
…
"I'm tellin' ya, Stan," Tony exclaimed into his cell phone, which he was holding to his ear with his shoulder. "It was the greatest game – "
He stopped when he heard the click of the door handle, whispered a quick, "gotta go," and looked up to see the woman in front of him.
His eyes travelled up her body, slowly. She wore black pumps on her feet, and had soft-looking, olive-skinned legs. She wore a black pencil skirt to the knees and an aqua-coloured top, mostly hidden by her white coat, the stethoscope around her neck and the clipboard she held over her chest. He looked to her face – heart-shaped, framed by straight chocolate hair and a widow's peak. He could see straight white teeth past her inviting pink lips and big brown eyes with an air of what he thought was shyness about them. Just a hint; it faded quickly.
"Hello, Mr…" she scanned the sheets she was carrying. "DiNozzo. I'm Doctor David."
He beamed at her, and by the creases in his face, she somehow got the feeling that he flashed this particular smile quite often.
"Detective," he corrected, and held out his hand. "And please, call me Tony."
"Why don't we say on a professional basis for now?" she suggested, her eyes lingering on his outstretched hand. "Detective."
He let his hand drop and she lifted her stethoscope from around her neck, when there was a tapping on the door.
"Yes?" she called.
It was Tanya. "Ziva, your Aunt Nettie's on the phone for you."
Her name was peculiar, certainly. But beautiful, like her. He wondered how the name would sound if he said it. Of course, now would not be the right time.
Ziva sighed and muttered a word in a rough tongue under her breath. "I do wish she'd stop calling me at work. Could you tell her I'll call her back please, Tanya?"
Tanya shot a look at Tony, before replying, "Got it," and closing the door.
Tony, for the first time now, caught sight of the little golden chain and pendant that hung around the doctor's neck. A little Star of David. That was obviously the last piece of the puzzle he needed.
"You're Israeli," he guessed, and prayed he was right.
She pursed her lips and frowned almost suspiciously. "That's right," she said eventually. "Very good."
Tony decided he would play this to his best interests. "Well, I'm well-travelled."
A scoff was barely audible from her. "You've been to Israel?"
"Well, no…I saw Paradise Now once," he said, cringing at his own words. That was bad.
She raised her eyebrows, before asking him to take off his shirt. He was a little dazed as to why she was asking that, but she pointed to the stethoscope and he figured it out fairly quickly.
She circled him and placed the stethoscope to his back. He shuddered at the instant cold feeling and Ziva guiltily felt her heart speed up a little. Without meaning to, she started talking again.
"So, what exactly is it you investigate?"
Tony smiled again, knowing Ziva couldn't see his face. This was the part he really impressed the ladies.
"Homicide," he answered, a little too proudly for such an awful crime. "I just think it's important to give back, you know?"
She came around to his front again. "Really? Giving back? That is the reason you became a cop? Or is that just what you say to make yourself look impressive?"
He clenched his teeth. This one was a little sharper than the girls he usually pursued. But no woman had remained untamed by the DiNozzo-Monster yet. Well, not for a while. Perhaps he needed a different approach.
But she spoke again before he could think of one. "Sorry," she said, and she sounded genuine.
He watched her, intrigued by something about her. "That's OK," he replied, a carefree tone to his voice. His breathing became a little shallow when he felt her eyes on his chest for a fraction of a second longer than necessary.
"You can put your shirt back on," she stammered, walking briskly to the opposite side of the room to fetch the equipment to take his blood pressure. For a moment he didn't, because he didn't want to miss the shadow of a blush that was showing on her soft-looking cheeks.
He slipped his T-shirt over his head as she wrapped the blood pressure cuff around his forearm. He heard the machine beeping and whirring as the cuff grew tighter and tighter. He tried not to wince as the cuff pinched his arm but he couldn't help but notice a smirk on the doctor's face at his fabricated toughness.
"I don't really do backstory, anyways," he said, as if their disjointed conversation had some kind of flow. She kept testing him as he spoke.
"No?" she questioned, a smile still playing at her tempting lips. She didn't meet his eyes; she scribbled on her clipboard.
"Well, I figure I get to do what I love doing, so in the end it doesn't really matter how I got here," he said, leaning back a little on the table. "So…how's a pretty Israeli girl like you end up a doctor in the good ol' US of A?" he asked, more than willing to get the conversation rolling again.
She looked right at him, her face serious all of a sudden. Not stern, but she certainly wasn't smiling.
"Uhm…sometimes it's good to get away from your past," she replied, willing herself to open up to someone for once. Even if he was a stranger. He seemed to have a willing ear, despite his possible other motives.
"I've tried that one," he replied, looking away. "Doesn't work forever."
"Perhaps," she began, hesitantly. "Perhaps I do not need forever." She swallowed and there was a silence between them. He watched her as she packed away the last of her equipment, so intensely that he barely noticed her say that he could go. That he was done.
"Have dinner with me," he said all of a sudden.
Her eyes widened. "Detective, I…I do not date my patients!" She looked appalled and amused all at the same time. "It's a rule."
"Sometimes you gotta break the rules, Doc."
"Mr DiNozzo – "
"Tony. And look, I get it, you just want someone to take you seriously. You're not just a pretty face. You wanna know something serious about me?" He held his arms up and let them drop. "I'm a fraud. I act like a playboy because I'm afraid of commitment."
She was astonished by his bold honesty.
"Besides, I'm not your patient anymore," he countered. "You just said I was done."
"It does not matter," she replied, though her voice didn't sound as sure as her words.
"So if I came back in, what, five, ten years, you'd still say no?" That cocky grin he'd had before was back.
"Yes," Ziva answered eventually.
"Yes?" He raised his eyebrows. "Fantastic, I'll pick you up from here at eight."
And with that, he stood and walked out the door.
"I work till nine!" she called after him.
"I'll wait," she heard him reply as he disappeared down the corridor. Ziva grinned.