(tony/ziva) Kingdom Come

Chapter 1: Stay

For you, I'd wait 'til kingdom come.
Until my day, my day is done.
And say you'll come, and set me free,
Just say you'll wait; you'll wait for me.

"I do not know what the problem is," she told Tony, her annoyance clearly resonating through her voice. "All of a sudden, last week, there was this…," Ziva's lips puckered, and three small creases formed right beneath her hairline as she searched for the right word. "Grinding!" she snapped her fingers decisively. "It sounded like something was grinding when I put my foot on the brakes."

His weight supported by the frame of her desk, Tony crossed his arms in disapproval as he peered down at her. "And you drove it like that for a week?" he asked, wide-eyed at the blatant indifference for her own well-being. "That's just, not safe, Ziva. Don't you have AAA?"

Ziva shrugged off his concern, stealing a few sips of Tony's coffee. Her attention was already re-focused, eyes scanning her inbox, sifting through unopened emails, but Tony couldn't help but quirk a brow at her complete lack of discretion.

Had he missed something?

Not to say he minded, in the least, but when exactly had they started casually sharing coffee?

Of course, Tony knew other agents looked upon their partnership with confusion; while it was not unusual for agents to be friends outside of the workplace, it wasn't every day that they had such disregard for socially acceptable boundaries.

And while everyone knew Tony and Ziva were more than just partners, no one dared label their relationship.

But still, until recently, Tony had always been the one to finish Ziva's pizza crusts when she didn't want them, to give the subtle knee nudges and hip bumps, to tuck the stray strands of hair behind her ear.

Because it made her smile.

He'd always been the one to initiate.

And while at first, years ago, their closeness had been a game, both pushing and teasing, and recoiling, over the past few months, they'd started to take comfort in each other's presence.

No more secrets.

No more lies.

Only soul-baring honesty and little touches and near-crying.

And hugging.

And sleeping in his bed.

And the next night, after she'd boarded a plane to Tel Aviv, he'd woken, frustrated and anxious, wrapped in sheets covered in the sheer scent of her.

Three times, that he could remember.

"If you continue to put so much sugar in your coffee," she teased, placing the eco-friendly paper cup back on her desk, leaving it to lay idle next to her mouse pad, "you will get diabetes." Her mouth twitched, her tongue slipping across her front teeth, swishing away that sweet, filmy feel.

"Says the woman driving her car into the ground." He pointedly picked up his cup and retreated back to his own desk. "You should get that checked out. If something is grinding, it's not a good thing." His face was serious, words laced with worry, "It's dangerous."

Ziva opened her mouth to argue, but Gibbs cut her off, rounding the corner into the bull pen, coffee and newspaper in hand. "It's your brakes," he disclosed, taking his seat. "That grinding ya' hear is metal on metal. And if you let it get that bad, you probably need new rotors while you're at it." He looked purposefully at Ziva. "You should have it towed," he said definitively. "DiNozzo's right. If your brakes are gone, it's not safe to drive."

Tony took a rather large, celebratory sip of his coffee.

But as he reclined in his chair, donning his signature DiNozzo grin, the only thing he could taste was vanilla.

Ziva's chapstick.

He absentmindedly licked his lips.

He could get used to this.

..

The day went by painstakingly slow.

Mind-numbingly, always watching the clock, slow.

McGee was absent for most of the morning, his services needed down in Cyber Crimes for a particularly urgent matter involving a child, and Gibbs had been in MTAC with Director Vance, leaving Tony and Ziva to finish their incomplete reports from the past month.

And if there was one part of the job that Tony hated, it was paperwork.

The team regrouped for lunch, but only to separate again, hurriedly snagging a few last signatures and tying up lingering loose ends, one involving an oversight in regards to the proverbial 'chain of evidence' that Tony would rather forget, before their weekend off.

And after he took his scolding from Edna, Dorneget's rather scary counterpart in the Evidence Locker, Tony stalked off the elevator, resolute on leaving as soon as possible.

He looked around the bull pen, finding, yet again, two empty desks. "McGee has already left," Ziva confirmed, a knowing answer to his unspoken question. "Gibbs said we could leave, but to keep our phones on. We are on call."

"Again?" he whined. Tony gathered his jacket and wallet with a huff of frustration.

They were always on call.

He watched as Ziva collected her things; she threw her phone and charger into a pocket of her NCIS backpack, shrugged on her coat, the one he liked with the red lining, and grabbed her keys. "Ready?" she asked.

Tony eyed her suspiciously. "How exactly are you getting home?"

Ziva lifted her chin in her one-of-a-kind David defiance. "I am driving," she stated. "I made an appointment for service for tomorrow afternoon."

"Great," Tony clapped his hands. "You can call AAA first thing in the morning and have it towed in." When Ziva pulled a face, he took three long, easy strides and closed the space between them. "Look," he made a failed attempt to snatch her keys, "I'm not taking the phone call tomorrow that you went straight through the windshield when your brakes didn't work going Ninja Ninety on the highway."

Ziva looked up at him; his green eyes were hard, unyielding, lips pressed into a thin line, and his right hand was placed firmly on his hip, fingers grazing his badge.

She took her bottom lip between her teeth.

She didn't always need saving.

He knew that, right?

"Please," he asked softly.

Ziva sighed and threw him a dramatic eye-roll. "Fine."

They entered the elevator, making their way to the ground floor, and Ziva took hold of Tony's left hand, twisting his arm to peek at his watch. "It is only seven thirty," she smiled up at him.

"Yeah, so?"

"I read about this thing in the paper today, after Gibbs had finished with it," she teased, her index finger lightly tapping her smiling lips. "I will let you drive me home," she bargained, "if you take me somewhere, first."

"Where?"

Tony looked down at the slumped over, sleeping figure beside him. She was, quite possibly, the most confusing, complicated woman he'd ever met.

And she was worth it; every ounce of frustration, every last damn penny.

She'd thoroughly surprised him, not revealing their destination until they'd arrived, giving teasing, superfluous directions to some fundraiser; it was a makeshift Drive In on the frozen grass of Woodrow Wilson High School's football field, raising money to fund a select few students from their Senior Class to spend a week in the Deep South volunteering for Habitat for Humanity.

Or, at least that's what the flyer said.

And so, at two in the morning, Tony found himself perched atop the hood of his car, fingers intertwined behind his head as Argo came to an end.

All with a sleeping Ziva David tucked soundly at his side. And Tony was finding it very difficult to focus on the ending of, easily 2012's sole cinematic masterpiece, because he was, once again, being pulled into her stratosphere; although, if he'd ever said that out loud, she'd ask what stratus clouds had to do with anything.

And because he'd seen the look on her face when they'd arrived, seen how genuinely pleased Ziva had been that she'd thought of such an outing as thanks for the ride home, Tony decided to keep to himself that the school most likely did not have a Public Performance License, and that they'd just violated at least three copyright laws.

Truth was, he couldn't think of a better way to spend a Friday night.

The end credits rolled and the thunderous, echoed applause woke Ziva from her awkwardly positioned slumber. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes with the palms, and sat up, running her hands through her long, wavy tresses; the green blanket that lie beneath them covering the hood of his car, the one that she just insisted on buying at the ticket counter, was cheap fleece and it made her hair static-y.

"So, you bring me to a Ben Affleck Movie Marathon,'" he teased, "and then you fall asleep during The Town?" He shook his head in mock disappointment, "No stamina."

She crinkled her nose playfully, but the pink tinges that flushed her cheeks exposed her embarrassment. Tony hopped off the car and collected the empty soda bottles and souvenir red and white popcorn buckets strewn across the hood; "Come on," he extended a hand; Ziva willingly accepted, jumping down gracefully to join him. "Let's go."

She'd even let him open the car door for her.

Strides, DiNozzo. Strides

..

They'd almost made it back to Ziva's apartment when Tony felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He pulled it out and read the name flashing incessantly on the screen, "Gibbs."

Damn.

"Got it boss," he answered. "Yeah, I'll get her. Okay."

He sighed. "We've got a case."

"I heard," Ziva yawned; she took the phone from his hand, and noting the red flashing battery, plugged it into the lighter outlet by her knee. "If you grab your to-go bag from the trunk, you can shower at my place." She rested her head against the window, but determinedly kept her eyes open.

Because if she closed them again, she would want to sleep until Monday.

"How do you know I have a to-go bag?" he mused.

She stifled a laugh. "Are you telling me you don't?"

Even with his eyes firmly on the road, Tony knew she was smiling in victory; he could just hear it in her voice. She knew him too well. "Fine, I do," he admitted. "Smarty pants."

..

They were showered and back in the car within forty five minutes, and despite using his own travel sized soap and shampoo, all Tony could smell around him was Ziva.

There had to be something in the water.

Or maybe in his head.

Definitely in his car.

He pulled up to the Drive thru window at the only open Starbucks within a twenty mile radius, and paid for four coffees, handing the paper tray to Ziva, who was content to hold them in her lap purely for their emanating warmth. Tony caught himself staring at her, mouth slightly agape, before quickly turning his attention back to the road and pulling away from the window; luckily, all before Ziva had taken notice. The moments he got to see her like this..., they were either too few and far between, or under unsavory circumstances. But he liked seeing her this way, when she was all comfortable and domestic. Her hair was down by her shoulders, still wet, pulling themselves into perfect little ringlets, and because it was their weekend off they were granted relaxed dress code, so she was dressed in dark, distressed denim and a thin, plumb colored sweater.

And everything hugged her curves perfectly; it was like she was taunting him.

And then, for some reason, upon seeing their refection in the elevator doors back at NCIS, his dark green button down looked damn good next to her sweater.

He looked damn good standing next to her.

You know how some people just look like they belong together?

..

When they arrived, Gibbs was already arched behind McGee's desk looking over his shoulder at the computer screen. "Put it up on the screen, McGee."

Tony and Ziva dropped their effects at their respective desks, and positioned themselves a few feet away from the plasma. He stood behind her, bumping the back of her knee with his own, aptly catching her eye and reaching around her, cheekily handing Ziva her White Mocha;

It amazed her, really, how charming he could be, even at four in the morning.

And while they slipped quickly into their own little corner of closeness, Tim hung back behind his monitor, scrutinizing the film in HD, Gibbs spotlighting the frames he wanted augmented.

McGee clicked a few buttons and black-and-white surveillance footage popped up on screen, in fuzzy, washed out quality. "We've got a dead Marine," he explained. "First Lieutenant Christopher Fields. He got into an altercation with an unknown suspect in the middle of Dupont Circle. Abby's running facial recognition now." Tim fast forwarded a few frames to an unfocussed shot of the suspect.

"Of Middle Eastern decent," McGee continued. "And there were traces of ammonium nitrate on Fields' jacket, where he was grabbed, here," he pointed to the screen, freeze framing a particularly clear shot of the assailant wrestling Fields to the ground.

At first, Tony thought he was the only one who'd heard Ziva's gasp; he was sure it'd been barely audible, possibly a figment of his imagination, the sad, soft whimper that escaped her lips. But he watched her back straighten, shoulders square off, and if possible, Tony was sure he'd physically felt the wall, that invisible wall he'd worked four years to tear down brick by god damn brick, go straight back up, putting miles between them when she was hardly an inch away.

"Ziver," Gibbs prodded gently, "you recognize him? He Mossad?"

"No," she snapped. "He is not Mossad."

Tony's left hand instinctively came to rest under her elbow, on the side that McGee and Gibbs couldn't see, but she quickly pulled away, leaving nothing but a cold shiver in her wake.

"Ziva," Gibbs repeated in a firmer tone, "Who is he?"

She turned to the right, directly facing Gibbs and giving Tony an unbridled view of her face. She blinked down, he noticed, fighting the shine in her eyes that threatened to run over and spill down her cheeks.

But she wouldn't cry; he knew that. Especially in front of an audience.

Ziva straightened again, three pair of eyes fixated on her. "His name is Law'ī ibn Tariq," she said coolly. "But he answers to Levi, his American name."

They all looked at her in question, but Tony was the only one to put a voice to their collective query.

But, somewhere, somehow, he already knew.

He just knew, and it killed him.

"How do you know him?"

Ziva removed herself from between the two agents, suddenly uncomfortable being so surrounded; she needed air, feeling trapped, and she retreated behind her desk in search of an elastic. "He was a colleague of Saleem's," she admitted, securing her hair into a high, tight ponytail. "If my memory serves me correctly- eh, serves me well," she stumbled over her words, eyes closing in frustration, "if my memory serves me well, on your assignment to North Africa…" She stopped, and gave Tony one last heartbreaking look before slipping back into her comfortable Mossad-esque façade. "-you missed him by no more than a week."

And suddenly, Tony was terrified, because no matter how hard he searched her face, no matter how hard he begged with his eyes, he couldn't find her.

Don't do this.

A/N;

Okay, phew, that was rough. This chapter, believe it or not, actually took me all day; I actually scrapped a few versions before I settled on this one.

And you, yeah you: I just want to let you know that your reviews and follows and favorites for my other stories are overwhelming and generous, and I appreciate every single one of them. Between Chemistry of a Car Crash, and Letters from the Sky (my two other active T/Z stories), believe me I'm feeling the love guys; and I'm reflecting back unto you, in a non weird way! Hopefully I can keep with my own schedule of at least one decent chapter every other day or so.

So thanks again!

Also, I've created a tumblr, and I've added the link on my profile page if anyone is interested.

Once again, thank you;

Your reviews and such are always welcomed and appreciated, especially after writing this...my heart like, hurts now. ugh, right in the feels.

Until next time,

Katie