Summary: Ziva is adrift; having trouble finding her footing in the rocky waves. Then, Tony teaches her English as a way to get back to what they had before Somalia. The night doesn't end there and the past comes rushing back; painful and demanding.
Rating: T
Warnings: Nudity and language.
A/N: Just some thoughts gathered and scattered onto paper. I own nothing. Beware of grammar/spelling mistakes. Please review.
Adrift
This is what Ziva imagined their first time to be like:
Wild and passion-filled and dancing. Smelling and tasting of smoke and sweat and liquor and people close up and twirling bodies and aching calves from heels to high. A husky "Let's get out of here" whispered into the soft curve of her earand sweaty hands finding each other and guiding each other right.
Then, she thought differently. After a few years; after he'd taken root underneath the crook of her chest, despite her inner protests.
It would be after three dates. If they could keep their hands off of each other that long, that is. Sweet, sweet release and falling asleep in the warm crescent of his body and pancakes for breakfast. He'd be a shitty cook and complain about the rivers of scratches she'd left on his back but they'd have fun.
It doesn't happen like that. Somalia happens before.
It's painful to see her love bleed to death in front of her; the picture painted forever into her mind. Painful to regret ever noticing Tony that way; only to have it turned around and stabbing her in the back. Painful to feel hate for him - a huge, salty wave of grief drowning everything else - and to put a gun between his ribs. It's painful to go to Somalia. Painful lose herself there, sanity scattering in the red dust. Painfulto be rescued and taken to a country where she doesn't even feel like she belongs anymore; the world turned upside down and bobbing in an undercurrent where she can't find footing.
A country for Ziva is language and culture and family. It's familiarity. It's the mango trees in the front yard; candy-smelling and seemingly insurmountable when she was five. It's the air on December mornings, like frost and heat building a wall and being able to reach out andtaste it; a scent intertwined with childhood and pure, baby-ish happiness. It's the tone of voice from a large crowd. It is home. This isn't.
After Somalia she stands in the mirror and stares. And stares. Stares hard into the glass; picking apart who now stands there with new memories tattooed to the inside of her skin.
When she was young and had little girl-bones it was easy to recognize herself. Now she has arcs in her body but limbs like oak tree branches and hair the colour of coal; wild and untameable that stretches a long, long way down like a child's. Flat belly with a strip of sandy skin like a beach. She isn't very tall but pretends she is, sometimes.
That is why it's easy to play up her sexuality. She likes it. Fucking. She's good at it. Flirting. With him, sometimes. But that was before.
Before and before and before. Such an easy word; be-fore. Soft syllables; lips touching and breaking apart and teeth sinking into the lower lip. Before. Previous. Prior. Not-now.
Everything was okay before. Before Somalia. Then things turned around and got fucked up. For some reason this – NCIS, America; she's not sure which one -doesn't feel like home anymore. She earns Gibbs' trust back. It's a road she stumbles along; but she makes it without getting painted in too many bruises.
When she meets Ray; it's like a breath of fresh air being whooshed into her, easing the suffocation. Replacing something stale and gone bad. Something not-familiar. Nothing to do with NCIS or Somalia. He is nice and handsome and smart and treats her well and good in bed. She doesn't ask for much more.
She has lived here a long time but coming back from Somalia … is something different. All of a sudden; it's not easy to ignore the quick stares. She is proud of her accent and her heritage and to have desert limbs; tough and tan and passed on through centuries. But it's the way people look twice – oh, so briefly - when she hitches at certain words, her voice sinking an octave when she orders coffee and getting certain words wrong. She wants to fling the drink right back in their faces and burn their gaping mouths and gawking eyes. Maybe she's imagining things. Maybe not.
So, therefore, at night she drowns in words. In secret, she floods her mind with them. Semantics, syntax, word origin, clauses. Rocky waves on an ocean of letters. She reads it over and over and pronounces it out loud. Then she feels like a complete moron and chugs the book across the room. She doesn't have to prove anything. She is part of this. She will be part of it again, because no other place exists for her anymore. It's this or nothing.
Things with Tony don't get back to normal. Were they ever normal? She wonders.
There is no teasing, no easiness. No serious discussions or secret smiles or pressing into personal spaces. Just work. Co-workers. Something they always were, but never really. They were always something more, roots from two different trees entwining and causing rot and decay and then growing in two different directions.
It's always a sense of awkwardness between the syllables when they talk; very carefully walking around everything dealing with Somalia and what it means. Why he went to her apartment. Why she put a gun to his chest. Why he rescued her. Why he was there, he of all people.
Then it all changes a day in November; the pavement dull with rain, a year after she gets home.
He walks into her when she's in the bathroom standing in front of the mirrors. Surprise seeps all over his face; smoothing out those newborn wrinkles she's gotten used to. She's as surprised to see him and makes a weak, too-late attempt at hiding the book in her hand.
Perhaps it's this; this surprise attack, that makes it easier. Kicks him into gear.
He smiles a little. Dimpling. Oh. She missed that. So that's today's mood. It makes her heart hitch.
"What are you hiding?" his tone is light and teasing; a voice she always refused to admit sometimes sent her knees melting down her ankles.
This is a rare occasion. It's been months – years - since they could talk like this. Just … now is not a very good moment to rekindle whatever friendship they had in the months before she left.
"Nothing," Ziva says and shoves the book in her bag. "Forget about it."
"Come on," Tony's smile digs deeper and he takes a step forward. Still having that voice. Not discouraged. She looks behind him and contemplates her chances of making in to the door without damaging him or this paper-thin treat he's giving her.
"I'm serious, Tony. It's none of your business."
"Oh, but it is. Everybody's business is my business."
He takes a step forward. Oh. Near. There. She can smell the coffee on his breath; rich and bitter and him.
She shakes her head, trying to catch her breath, lost somewhere between his chest and her forehead. Puts her hands at the cavity of her waist. "Not this."
He takes another step forward and raises his eyebrows. Presses into her personal space. Like before. Takes up all the air. It's thrilling and annoying. Well. She warned him.
One swing with her bag and she hits his shoulder. It's not that hard; just a warning. It would be the ideal situation if she hadn't misjudged it. The impact sends the book tumbling out of her bag and down on the bathroom floor, thudding. She makes a dive for it but, hurt shoulder or not, Tony's faster.
"A-ha!" he laughs triumphantly and holds it over her head.
"Tony, give it back." Her heart beats erratically, a stupid wave of nervousness clashing over her.
He ignores her and his smile fades into something like puzzlement as he reads the title aloud.
"'Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary'?" He looks down at her. "Are you reading this?"
Ziva crosses her arms over her chest, trying to hide the way her ribcage so obviously heaves up and down like a buoy in the water; on this rocky ocean they're in. One misstep, and you are engulfed; drowned.
"So what if I am?" Defensive. Hostile. But teasing, too. That slight edge she knows only he can recognize. That she doesn't want this to get serious because serious leads discussions and surfacing of things better left covered in dirt.
He grins a little and hands it back. Accidentally brushes his finger over hers. Flirting, like old times. Just a tiny nudge. "Cambridge is a far way from here, sweetheart."
"That's not why I'm reading it, smartass. Now fuck off, please. This is the ladies' room, if you hadn't already noticed."
He holds his hand to his chest in mock outrage. "Such language!"
She makes an attempt to leave but he blocks her path again. She looks up into his face.
"Seriously though, Ziva. Are you learning … English or something?"
"Well, talking to you everyday has made my vocabulary severely worse."
He smiles crookedly, not taking offense, obviously. "I don't think so. My English is excellent, expanding way beyond the borders of America. Go ahead. Hit me with something hard, and not that book."
"Another word for idiot?"
"Imbecile."
"Annoying?"
"Vexing."
"Tony."
He cocks his head to the side and flashes her a grin.
"Great."
She rolls her eyes; the stupid newborn butterflies in her belly quick and quiet. "Ha-ha. Thank you for that lesson. Now, get out of my way before I hurt you."
"I don't see a paperclip anywhere."
"Tony."
The fact that he remembers that; a conversation from a million lifetimes ago - something she left behind - that his memory still holds on to, makes her feel oddly touched.
"I can help you, you know."
"Yeah, right."
"No, seriously. With your English. If you want."
"And you are going to do that … how exactly?"
Another smile, spreading like wildfire between his dimples, catching in her veins despite herself.
"I have my methods."
This is stupid. Stupid. Silly. Idiotic. Imbecile … ic? She doesn't even know.
Ziva drives to his new place, snow coating her windshield; plump, freezing stars that melt in streams and giving her fractured vision. She is wearing a dress, for who knows what reason. She never wears a dress and tugs it over her bare and blue-veined thighs. She wonders if this is the kind of thing that lights him on fire; frozen flesh and bone.
His house is cream and peaches; melted into a neat little box stacked next to other boxes. The grass is brown and dead and snow-swollen. Suburbia. Oh, how she despises it. Nothing exciting; no living and breathing adventure hovering over the mailbox and embedded in-between the everyday lives for people on this street.
She rings the doorbell, and it's the cheery kind. Fake and manufactured noise that echoes through the hallway. He opens the door.
"Hi!" he looks at her dress; slowly up and down. "Whoa. You look … good." A smile takes root. "It's been a while. I'm in desperate need of a new photo to my Ziva-looking-hot collection."
She knew this dress was a stupid idea.
"Will you let me in or what?" Hostile, again. Defensive. But that tone underneath. Teasing. They are both pushing and probing right now; still avoiding Somalia. Getting back to basics. She's glad.
He steps aside and mock-bows.
"Mi casa es tu casa."
Inside it's warm. He grabs her hand (her hand!) and pulls her into the living room and she quickly drags it away from his fingers; feeling flushed. Two wine glasses and a bottle of white wine sit on the sofa table. And a big bowl of popcorn; butter-smelling and warm.
"Wine? For an English lesson?" she raises her eyebrows. "Planning to get me drunk so I won't remember if you taught me anything?"
"Oh, no, Ziva. This is the English lesson."
He grins and hands her a DVD. Billy Liar.
A movie.
"Really? This is the lesson?"
"Oh, don't sound so negative. C'mere."
He gestures her to the couch and puts his hands on her shoulders so she'll sit down. Pours her a glass of wine. Sits down next to her and leans back and turns on the TV.
"Now," he tells her as she takes a tentative sip of the wine. "Let me show you the best English lesson of all time."
He puts his hands over her eyes. She almost shoots right out of the sofa. His hands on her face. So close, yet not closer than before. Still. They're not the same.
"Hey!"
"Just close your eyes, okay?"
She pushes his hands away from her and presses her fingers into the valley of veins in his wrist.
"Careful, or I'll break it."
"Ow! Come on, Ziva. You have to close your eyes for this to work, okay?"
"No, not okay."
She doesn't like being without her senses. It makes her feel weak and vulnerable.
He looks at the TV, then at her. His smile withering.
"The thing is; you have to listen. Listen to the voices, the words, the lines. The way the actors deliver them, the flow in the sentences. It's much easier if you close your eyes and focus."
She releases his arm and he rubs in gently.
He lowers his voice.
"Trust me, okay?"
No/yes she does/doesn't. But it's been such a road from here; from Somalia. To trust.
"Fine."
He smiles, one of those rare ones. Without mischief or teasing or goof. Just folding his face open for the world to see and probe and explore. She almost blushes for some dumb reason.
"Close your eyes then," he says and she does. He doesn't make an attempt to cover her eyelids with his palms but she finds herself wanting to. What is wrong with her?
At first, she doesn't notice much. Just screechy accents and noise that melts into louder noise and voices that rise and fall.
Soon, though, she stops tensing up. Lets herself get swallowed into the words that actually mean something. Traces the hard beginning of a sentence and the high vowels of a question. Even when there aren't words, there is sound.
Gun fire makes her jump slightly and fights the desire to open her eyes; this one she knows the insides of all too well.
"No peeking," he whispers and chuckles, putting his hands over her eyes again. She scowls. This time she doesn't pull away though, just lets him sit there; close, with his arm almost resting in the cleave of her shoulder. The pulse in his thumb makes her lose her focus but she doesn't tell him that.
Sometimes she gets lost and doesn't really know what's going on but it's thrilling, in a way. The unknown.
When it's over, she opens her eyes again. It takes a while to focus, to get used to not relying on her eyes. It's dim in the room; the only light the lamp beside the couch. It falls over his features and softens them. He is watching her intently.
"So, what did you think?"
"Well," she hesitates a bit. "I'm not entirely sure what happened at the end there."
He sits close, with his thigh pressed into hers. Would it be weird to glue herself to the edge of the couch? Probably. She stays and he doesn't move away.
Tony grins; denting his cheeks. "Well, to be honest, it wasn't the ideal movie for sound only. But it's a great movie. He sort of … doesn't take chances. He lies and pretends and lives in a fantasy world at times; but when his dream is about to become reality he chickens out. He prefers to sink deeper into this made-up world of his."
"Wow. That's … sad."
"It is, isn't it," he says and nods. "Change is hard, but sometimes it's better than the alternative."
"Which is?"
"Depends on the case."
He turns toward her and his smile smears at the edges slightly.
"I know we haven't really … talked since we came back. From Somalia."
She wants to drop her gaze but doesn't. Takes two sips of her wine.
"And I want you to know that I'm sorry for everything from before."
Everything from before. Before. She realizes his before and her before are two different things. Before before Somalia or before after Somalia?
"Tony. We talked about this. It's not something I want to relive, okay? You don't have to apologize. I'm sorry. Let's just leave it."
He nods.
"What is it, then? You haven't really been yourself lately. You know … since you came back."
She smiles weakly but it feels more like a grimace. Please, not now.
"Well, change is hard."
"Don't I know it."
An intense stare, urging her to go on. His hand a breath from hers; ready to reach out and caress as softly as a hush. She looks down on it; feeling words escaping her lips; soft and incontrollable and light moth-wings of words.
"I just … miss it sometimes." It comes out as a sigh; soft, soft, soft. She's not even sure why she is telling him this. "I miss home. My country."
He looks a bit taken aback, like he wasn't expecting that. Not that she was expecting to tell him that, either. He hesitates and shifts on the couch, feeling how far he can push. Moves his hand a little. She locks her breath inside her lungs.
"Well, that's normal. I suppose. I don't know. God, Ziva, I'm not very good at … giving advice."
She shakes her head. "It's okay. You gave me a good English lesson, though."
"I did, didn't I? I knew you'd like it." he smiles, the kind she wants to savour, back on ground safe to take tentative steps on.
It's so hard then. To focus. When he's so close. So near. Ray drowns somewhere in the fog of alcohol and thoughts along with her good sense.
She lowers her voice. Turns so she's a little closer.
"Got anything else to teach me?"
She doesn't know why she is flirting. Maybe she wants to push, too; see if Tony still is who he used to be.
He drops his smile and looks at her for a moment, as if he's pondering whether or not to take what she's offering. Like earlier, in the bathroom. He gave her an English lesson and she gives him this.
"Maybe."
He leans forward a bit and his eyes sneak down to her mouth and up again. Then once more; slow and deliberate and dizzying her. Down to her legs; bare and birdfleshed and up to the soft hike of her waist and her boobs and her hands (near his) and up and lips, nose, eyes. Maybe it's the wine that burns the inside of her veins that makes her lose focus and control all at once. She doesn't feel like herself. Cloud-limbed and melting and melting and melting.
He parts his lips.
Maybe that's why she does it. Reaches out and touches. Not his hand but the hem of his shirt. Then the fly of his pants. Feels the short intake of breath from him; she exhales. Her hand is sweaty and he is hard underneath his jeans. So he wants this, then. Does she? Looks into his eyes; locked on hers.
He has stripped her bare already and yet she is fully clothed.
"Ziva?" he says, his voice so low she might as well imagine it. Is this okay? Are we okay?
I don't know.
Chances and taking them. Not get stuck in the past. So wrong but Tony and Tony and Tony and the soft hair right at the base of his neck she never discovered before. Tony and Tony and Tony and her hand right there on him. Places forbidden. Tonytonytony. It becomes a song in her mind; a string of a melody twisting and swelling and threading through her.
She closes her eyes and listens to his breathing increase. Swallows. Too close. They're too close; because she can feel his breath and feel the warmth from his skin. Oh. Wait, she almost wants to say but then his lips are on hers and he swallows her silent words.
It's soft and heavy and different. Different from when she imagined it back years ago when his dimples first birthed baby butterflies in her belly. Different from Michael. Different from Ray. It's a nice different, she thinks and opens her mouth under his.
He is good. Practiced and slow and tastes a little bitter from the wine but, nice. Deepens the kiss and presses her down in the sofa; softly pushing her knees apart so her legs are on either side of his hips. Scratches the peach flesh on the inside of her thighs with his jeans. Everything is his mouth and his taste and his tongue and his weight then.
He breaks away from her mouth and trails kisses over her cheekbones and throat and places his warm palms on her thighs and up he pushes, taking her dress off. He traces his finger over the birthmark on her right thigh; a map of brown, dry land.
She opens her eyes and finds him looking at her.
It's about to happen, she thinks. She's about to have sex with Tony.
Shit. Is this what she wants? She doesn't even know but she guesses he does by the way she can now feel him pressed against her thigh through his jeans. Hard and excited. For her. For them. She reaches up and pulls him down to her and kisses him deeper this time. His hands in her hair and her hands over his ass. It doesn't feel real, somehow.
She presses up against him and he groans into her mouth. She realizes that it's not the words that matter, in the end. Doesn't matter what language you speak. Everyone makes noise in this situation; noise that means more than the words fuck and sex and make love. She's not entirely sure what they're doing, but she makes the same sound as he does so it's something of the above.
He takes his time and she gets impatient. Flips him over between breaths and almost rips the shirt over his head. Leaves his hair all soft and tousled; so different from his usual strict hairdo. He smiles up at her; shakes his head at her impatience. Caresses her jaw; takes her hair in his fists.
"My ninja."
It's the quietest of words. Just a breath, really. It's almost like he doesn't want her to hear it but she does; and the past and the present clash together around them. Of someone she used to be; someone he used to see.
She breaks his gaze and her hands shiver as she works his fly down and pulls his jeans over his hips. Touches him on the outside of his underwear, is rewarded with a gasp. Yes. There. He takes her bra off and explores that part, too; the hook-marks denting the flesh over her ribs.
Then they are both naked and she gets a moment to breathe when he awkwardly says, "I just got to get …" and she says "Yeah, sure," in a breathless way, her cheeks flushing. He gets up to get a condom and she misses his warm weight for a moment. Then he's back and looks at her and tears the wrapper off with his teeth and it lands on her belly; settling in the dip of her ribs. Her entire body is breathing.
He places himself in-between her again and takes one hand and pushes her legs further apart and uses the other one to brush the hair away from her face. Looks her in the eye; his pupils huge and a blush catching on his cheeks. Okay? It's something so fragile and tentative and intimate about that movement that makes her almost want to cry. But now isn't the time.
She can feel the rough canvas under her; like they're doing it on bare ground somewhere outside, gravel digging into her back. Dirt-sex. She traces the outline of his muscles in his arm and then he brings his hips to hers and pushes inside.
It's not the way she imagined it; when she first met him. It's not rough and it's not sweet. But she is good and he is good and they don't sync the entire time and it's over a little quick but it's good. Just, not what she was expecting. To feel. Afterward.
When he comes he groans into the dip in her throat and bites her shoulder and buys her bow-shaped bruises and she lets him.
After, it's awkward to find a good position for them both to lie on the couch.
"I – um. Do you want to go to the bedroom?" he runs his hand through his hair – tousled more now, from her fingers - and sits up, naked. Something about it feels horribly wrong and embarrassing and intrusive; like he wasn't inside her ten seconds ago. She almost blushes.
She doesn't want to look at him so she just focuses on the noises. Inhale and exhale. She doesn't want to focus on what's inside; a strange vulnerability that threatens to take over.
Ray. What did she just do?
"No, that's okay. I'd rather just go home." Hostile. Again. No teasing tone. Nothing. Ray.
Looks up at him. Hurt in his eyes.
"Oh." A short word. With a lot of emotions packed into it; spilling and leaking over the edges. Confusion and embarrassment and hurt.
"I mean we were only supposed to watch movies, weren't we? Or was this part of your plan?"
He looks at her in absolute bewilderment.
"No! Ziva, no! It's … just. It just happened. I mean, I thought, you wanted this, too. I mean …" he fumbles for words and it makes her angry, for some reason.
She does want this or doesn't or did. Didn't think. Stupid.
She puts on her dress quickly, avoiding his gaze, and gets up.
"Well. I didn't. Thanks for the lesson."
Then she walks to the door and then she runs and runs and runs to her car Almost slips in the snow; having trouble finding her balance again. She can still feel him inside; burning. The good kind. The bad kind. She doesn't know. Ray.
When she drives off she can see him in her mirror; jeans on his hips and lost words on his lips. She doesn't turn back.
The tears do not come until she's halfway home and almost runs into a shiny BMW in the lane next to her. The driver honks, hard, and she just lets it go. And go. And go.
He corners her in the bathroom the next day.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
Looks at the ground, ties to walk around him, steps in her way.
"Yes. Ziva. Hey. Something is wrong. Is it …" Pause. "Is it Ray?"
Reaches out to touch her chin. She flinches.
"No, Tony, just leave it okay?"
Tries to walk away. Steps in her way.
"I don't understand …"
"What is it you don't understand? It was a one-night-stand, okay? Isn't that what you wanted? Well, you got it. Just leave me alone!"
She hears her own voice echoing of the walls and leaving a horrid silence behind. Watches his jaw harden; the muscle in there jutting out. His jaw; square and stubbly and resting in the crook of her shoulder last night. Maybe he didn't have time to shave this morning. She almost wants to take the words back.
"Fine." He gets hard in the eyes too; and it weaves into his voice.
"Fine!"
Then she stomps around him and flees his hurt eyes and angry voice and hard jaw. Feels the tears wanting to break free. She feels disgusted. So weak. Fuck. This wasn't the way it was supposed to happen. Not at all.
The following week is a blur. She, who always is so composed and does her work right and is calm and cool and collected; she loses it. Nothing goes right. She screams at McGee, snaps at Gibbs and ignores Tony completely. Avoids Ray's phone calls. She is expecting a head slap from Gibbs but doesn't get one. McGee tries to ask her what's wrong - sweet, sweet, stupid McGee - but leaves her alone after she yells ('just shut the fuck up, okay?') and Tony; Tony ignores her, too.
She is so angry with him. So mad. For making her lose control and focus and good sense. For making her feel so guilty. But it's more; deeper. She is mad at him for not making her feel at home. Deep in her unconscious she thought that maybe, hopefully he was the one to make it all feel like it did before. She's not being fair, she realizes.
Ray can't make her feel okay. Tony can't, either. Maybe no one can. Maybe this is just the way it's supposed to feel; broken and scarred at the edges. An open wound, never quite closing properly. Somalia. That's what it all comes back to. She realizes you can't go back to what once was, like with her father. Some things are forever broken. Like with Michael. And some things, were just right for a moment, but not forever. A distraction. A good in-between phase. Like Ray.
Ray. She goes to visit him. Is sure he can feel the guilt radiating around her; warm and suffocating. I'm sorry, she wants to say; all the time. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
She tells him the last day of her visit. It just happens. Over breakfast. Overcooked eggs and sweaty palms. She tells him everything; and his face is very still.
"I thought you said he was like a brother to you."
She swallows. Looks away.
"I lied."
She wants to tell him how much he means to her. How good he was for her, for that in-between time. The words don't come though; and he tells her goodbye at the airport without touching her. It stings, but she understands. Of course, she does.
Then there are things that are broken, but can stitched up. She has more people to apologize to. McGee. Gibbs. She doesn't know how to explain why she's been acting the way she's been so she just throws it out there, on Monday morning.
"Ray and I broke up."
It hangs in the air for a second; shivering and fragile and waiting to be gathered. McGee takes the first step and Gibbs the second in that awkward way men deal with feelings.
"You okay?"
She smiles a little.
"Yeah."
Then that's over and they all go back to their work.
She doesn't dare look at Tony. Is he sorry for her, too? She doesn't want to know. She doesn't know what category to place him in. But then, when she's walking toward the elevator to go home; she casts a look behind her.
He sits there; his gaze a quick burn. Then he looks down. She can't figure it out. Accusing? Demanding?
It resuscitates all those butterflies; tiny and tentative but they are there.
She understands she has someone else to apologize to.
At three AM on Saturday morning after much consideration she drives to him. To his little house; now sewn into her memory forever.
"I'm sorry."
She says it in a breathless kind of way; words stumbling and getting caught in each other on their way out. So she doesn't have time to stop them; to seal and lock them up somewhere deep inside. But, no. It needs to be said.
She stands at his door; her hands buried deep in her pockets. It's freezing outside and he only looks at her; not inviting her in. Just watches her; her blood-blooming cheeks and cold birdfleshed hands. His chest is bare and she looks away.
"I just … I wanted for it to happen another way. Another day. Not like that."
She swallows.
"Not with … Ray still in the picture. It wasn't fair. It was horrible, really."
Still staring. Silent and contemplating and an unreadable expression for - what? The first time in his life?
She knows she can't just give him one line, like with McGee and Gibbs. Without a full explanation. He won't buy it. No, he deserves better.
"It's just since ever I came home from Somalia everything has felt so, so wrong between you and I and I just … don't know. I got stuck in the past. And in the past I wanted to do it, with you I mean. And maybe I thought that would fix it. Between us. I don't know."
She takes a breath and stares at him.
"And it didn't."
Not a question. His voice is just dry.
She exhales.
"No."
"Well," he says, after the silence stretching and twisting forever between them gets too long. "Thanks for telling me."
"Tony …"
"Ziva …" he mimics and smiles a little. Despite himself. Oh. Only a fragment of a smile but ah, so sweet. She feels a rush to her head; powerful.
"I just … wanted to know if you ... wanted to take it slow. To get back to what we had … before. Being friends, I mean."
"You mean before I killed your ex-boyfriend?"
She flinches.
"Sorry." He swallows. "That was a low blow."
She just shrugs. Doesn't know what to say. It's true, why not put it out there. To be straight with each other. No flirting or hidden words or walking around each other or lying. It's nice. New.
"I just, Ziva …" A beat. "I don't think there's any going back, really."
She nods. She understands. Was expecting it. Of course. Got it.
"No, no," he says when she makes an attempt to say goodbye. "I mean, maybe we could try something different. Something different from before."
"Like?"
He smiles; a fraction bigger. It's like taking apart a matryoshka doll but backwards. A little more, a little bigger, a little more detail painted on each time.
"Like … we never went to the zoo did we? We could do that."
The zoo. She almost wants to say no. It's so random and childish and a waste of time and yet … chances. Taking them. Changing.
He grins and she feels warmth rooting inside her; spreading and seeping into her veins and making her entire body hum.
"It's in the middle of the winter!"
He shrugs. "Why should that stop us? Pick you up tomorrow?"
She smiles. She can't help it. Nods. Backs toward her car.
"Maybe."
Pauses.
"And I'm sorry."
He nods.
"So am I."
For some reason this feels like the discussion they should have had before they had sex. Real explanations and no backing down when affronted with uncomfortable subjects. Therefore, their first time wasn't what she imagined it to be; all those years ago. Now they have to do it all, the other way around. And that's okay.
They go to the zoo. And to the movies. Then to the zoo again. Bicker at work. She makes him coffee and pie one Sunday and it is a little burnt at the edges but he says it's good. They watch movies at his place. He sits on the chair; she in the sofa. He teases and she laughs. She kicks his ass in training. He helps her with her English.
Ziva starts to feel more comfortable; more at ease. Realizes some places will never be like they were before. Maybe she is fucked up forever. Her mind a yarn ball; too big and too many knots to work out. Maybe she won't ever feel completely at home. But, still. She's learning and moving forward instead of standing frozen; locked in the same moment as the world rushes by her glass cage.
They talk a lot; Tony and Ziva. Even if it's hard and difficult sometimes, they need to. Sharing and splitting words with him makes them easier to deal with. He understands, sometimes. Sometimes he doesn't. But that's okay. They have time.
Then, he kisses her good-bye.
It's just a peck really; innocent and brief; just an exhale against her mouth. It takes her by surprise and her hands curl against his chest. After, she tells him she wants to take things slow. She doesn't run away though; which she supposes is a step forward.
Some days are better than others. Still there are times when nightmares suffocate her and she can't fall back asleep. Or the way contained spaces are off-limits to her. And days when she misses home and what used to be; a sad hitch in her heart, nostalgia bittersweet and flooding. She learns how to not let it take over. Goes with the motions and finds solid ground under her feet – finally - no longer caught in rocky waves. She plants her feet deep within the damp soil, taking root there.
One night in January, after she's made Tony dinner at her place; she takes the second step. Without really thinking. He gives her the same naïve kiss that now feels so familiar but instead of breaking apart she leans in closer, fitting her hips into his. It purrs in her entire body; from the toes up. He sinks his hand into her hair and she locks her mouth between his lips, open in quiet surprise. Gently presses her tongue inside his mouth. Loses hold of her breath and herself somewhere.
Then she breaks apart; still keeping her fingers woven together around his neck. She feels hot in her chest and they are both breathing hard.
"I thought you wanted to take things slow," he mumbles in a horrified sort of voice against her forehead. "I think this is too much for me."
She laughs.
"You're an umbecile."
"Imbecile."
She huffs.
"Whatever."
They stand like that for a moment; trying to fit into each other's curves and gaps again. Feeling what has changed since last time. Learning the new ways.
She rests her head against his shoulder.
"Guess you just have to give me another English lesson?"
He presses his nose into the dip in her throat. Feels him grin.
"Now?"
She smiles slyly against his chest; sneaking her hand down the front of his shirt and slips it further down.
"Right now."