Disclaimer: I own nothing, CBS, Vienna Teng, et al do; for fun, not profit; etc.
Spoilers: For season seven's Faith.
Notes: Vienna Teng's The Last Snowfall came on my shuffled playlist after I finally caught Faith. Then this ensued.
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They go to his apartment after the encounter with Delores as if it is a natural thing to do; and in some respects, Ziva supposes it is.
"Movie?" Tony asks her while she rummages around for some red wine.
"Sure," she replies. Ten minutes later, they're watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and she's better understanding Tony's earlier comments about Mount Crumpet and Cindy Lou Who.
Tony has not stopped watching her since the flight back to America from Somalia, and she hasn't tried to raise the issue as a problem. She usually finds it to be somewhere between comforting and unsettling; but he is gentler and unsure and yet so much the same as he has ever been, and this is already more than she can ask for.
Tonight, the feel of his eyes on her had been markedly different, his gaze actively searching for hers for faith and assurance; and she'd been more than happy to give it to him, prouder than she could otherwise express of the man he'd become in the years she'd known him, and basking in the tentative smile he'd given her in return. This evening has been languid and quiet and happy, and she does not remember ever having felt quite so comfortable in his presence.
"I didn't get you a present," Ziva informs him abruptly.
"Well, that was the agreement, Cindy Lou," Tony replies and tweaks her nose.
She swats at him, a small smile on her face that she has grown accustomed to finding herself wearing.
"I didn't get you anything either," he says after a while, and she nods against his shoulder, where her head has fallen after drinking two glasses of cabernet sauvignon, which always has made her sleepy. She is bursting with volumes of emotion she will likely never be able to verbalize, and her current bittersweet lethargy only seems to intensify the feeling.
"This is enough," she mumbles instead. "It is more."
It takes a moment, but she thinks she feels him ghost a tremulous touch across her cheek; and he does not respond. She thinks she understands anyway.