Summary:
She used to call me three or four times a week just to chat. See how things were going, or out of the blue to hang out. Then nothing, no phone calls; no showing up. Nothing changed; nothing drastic at least. Life went on, normally enough for me, except that the calls stopped. Days turned to weeks, weeks to months and months to years. Oh we still saw each other every single day, and the conversations remained nearly intact, but there was no justifiable reason for the change. I didn't pursue it either. I had no reason too.
Then the "mission" happened. The phone calls started up again, more annoyingly so; the guise of wanting to make sure everything was okay. The sheer audacity of checking up to see what I was doing. Well that went to shit, quickly, or quicker then I had hoped. But we were back to our old selves for a while. Well the phone calls, the dropping by. But now this cloud hung over us. Like something had changed, but everything was exactly the same. Then LA, and Jenny dying, and that asshole breaking up the team; that night, the night before I was to ship out for "Agent Afloat" duty, the night before she was to return to "Daddy", that night was when I found out why things had changed two years previously. That night, she came over and told me everything.
NIGHT
Chapter One
It ended a week of holy shit did we really screw up that badly. Yeah we did, evident enough when "he" took over, and shipped us all out. It was our team, it was our responsibility, and it was us who screwed the pooch. I was packing my bags. Subletting my apartment, preparing for a lifetime aboard a carrier; not what I signed up for. I almost didn't hear the knock on the door. It was light enough that it didn't even seem real at first. I just basically ignored it. Then it sounded a little louder. It had to be the Neilsons' the family, the husband and wife that were moving into my home while I was somewhere in the south pacific. It wasn't though, it was her. God she was so beautiful, I almost forgot what it was like to spend time with her outside of work, in her blue jeans, with her hair down, with her guard down. It had been two years, aside from that brief moment of insanity in LA, at the pool when she let her guard down, those pictures. I definitely had to get copies of those pictures from McGee before setting sail as it were.
"Hey." Was the brilliant remark I could think up when I answered the door. For looking absolutely stunning through the peep hole on the other side it was completely different. Her eyes were red and puffy. Swollen from hours of crying, that was too be expected after all we went through lately.
"Hey." Was her brilliant response, followed by holding up a six pack of my favorite beer. I moved out of the doorway to let her in. Not sure though that drinking right now with this woman was my best bet for a safe secure future. I could only imagine what would happen if the boss found out.
The beer was opened; one after another we downed them in somewhat silence. Part of me wondered when we would get around to talking about the elephant in the room. The other part of me was just enjoying this, one last time. I doubted seriously that we would be back in the same country again and somehow figured that if we were it would probably be her country. Somehow I doubted, "daddy" would like very much the idea of his daughter consorting with a genteel.
"I am sorry." She said, to me. To me, like she was to blame for any of this shit. We had moved to the minimal comfort of my living room. I was subletting the place fully furnished to a newlywed couple. I kind of wondered, what would be come of this sofa, but the thought was merely fleeting as I began to wonder what she was apologizing for.
"For Jenny?"
"No. Well yes, for Jenny, and for staying away so long. I just couldn't bring myself to come over any more."
"Why?"
It was a question that I had pondered asking her only about a million times in the last two years. At first I went over everything, every detail of that last night she was over. I even watched the movie again, it was one she picked out, there was no gratuitous sex, no religious references that she could have been either embarrassed or offended by, and she had picked the movie out. I thought did I stand to close, linger too long, look at her the wrong way. Did I wear the wrong kind of cologne, all thoughts that should go through the mind of a girl maybe? Definitely not things a guy would be thinking, but without realizing it she had ripped out my heart that night, and taken away from me the one thing I had never had before a best friend. So this question was of pivotal, to our friendship, and too my eventual return to sanity.
"Now you understand." She said, her voice still quivering. I was on the other hand speechless. For the first time ever in my life, I might add. Speechlessness wasn't the answer though; I needed to say something to her. Something that would make her see that I was understanding. The beer had all but been consumed though, and things that should never have been said had been spoken, and yes the likelihood that we would ever see one another again was remote, but this was Ziva, this wasn't a one night stand. I wouldn't do that too her, I couldn't do that too her.
All these thoughts were bombarding my mind as I leaned forward, our lips touching for the first time for real. Oh there was that crazy ass mission assignment whatever where we had to pretend to be married, that was for show and tell. This was just the two of us, alone and vulnerable in my apartment. Drunk on beer and when that ran out whiskey sours.
As our tongues battled for dominance and our hands touched anything and everything, I made probably the seconded most un-wisest decision that night. That I would make love to my closest and best friend, my former partner, and then I would board the ship tomorrow and forget it ever happened. Because we would never be working together again, let alone ever lay eyes on each other. Telling her that this wasn't just sex, telling her that this had nothing to do with feeling something in the wake of Jenny's death, in fact saying anything about the fact that I was madly in love with this woman would be ridiculously stupid. After all I was a genteel; nothing would ever come of this.
Somehow in our drunken state we made it from the minimalistic comfort of my living room, to the sound comfort of my bed room. Did I feel bad about taking advantage of a drunken Ziva? I don't know; remember I couldn't remember anything about that evening. Not the way she felt under me, not the way she felt on top of me, not the way she screamed my name, or even how those claw marks came to be on my back.