Author's Note:
This little one-shot just sort of popped into my head while I was running through the woods yesterday. Cute/Fluffy/A Little Bit Intense.
Disclaimer: Obviously, I don't own NCIS. I would be writing the script, not a story.
I slammed the car to a slightly reckless (even for me) and dusty stop in the small dirt parking lot outside the Park Ranger's office and glanced over at Tony.
He glared back.
I smirked- it is not my fault he is not used to my driving yet. It has been over 4 years, after all.
And you would think that after what happened this summer he would have a little more sympathy- but I must not think about what happened this summer. I refuse to. It only makes me upset.
And Tony, of all people, should know that it is not wise to make me upset. So why was he glaring? This was all his fault.
"Ziva," he said, with the tone of someone who has asked the same question multiple times to a person who has been zooming- or, zoning, rather- out of the conversation for a while. Which I had been.
"Yes?"
"Could you maybe unlock the door? We should make this quick. Gibbs wants us back before 0300." There it was again. His business tone. Lack of humor is actually the better description. I had been noticing it a lot lately. He was acting like he had after Jeanne- not cold exactly, but…wound. Nervous. Like he didn't want to be talking to me.
I nodded in agreement. The less time with an awkward Tony, the better, because one of usually ends up picking a fight with the other after a while.
We slid simultaneously out of the car and approached the small lodge that the Park Ranger worked in. When we entered, we were met by a pair of tall men standing by an empty desk in dark khaki uniforms and even darker expressions.
"Who are you?" the shorter guard asked suspiciously.
"NCIS- Naval Criminal Investigative Service," Tony said quickly, recognizing that annoying what-the-hell-does-that-mean look on both their faces.
"We are here for Ranger Roger Mitchell. We believe he may have some important information on a case we are trying to solve at the moment," I added. "Do you have any idea where he is?"
"Exactly the same thing we're tryin' to figger out," the other guard said. "Last we saw o' him, he was headin' into the woods through that openin' righ' o'er there." He gestured out the window to a large gap in the woods, through which a path visibly stretched out into the woods.
"Thank you, gentlemen," Tony said. "If you get any word of where his at the moment, please contact us." He scribbled down the NCIS headquarters number onto a small sheet of paper and threw it at them. I also thanked them as Tony motioned towards to door.
"So what next?" I asked Tony once we were outside. With a distasteful glance back at the small cabin, he said,
"We're going into the woods and looking for Mitchell. Gibbs really wants us to bring this guy in." I followed him silently through the gap and onto the dirt path.
Once we entered the woods, I felt Tony relax immensely. I had noticed it before today, as well- although we usually did not have to trek through a forest to find a suspect, I could tell Tony was the type of person who was calmed by the outdoors. It was always weapons and combat for me, but whatever floats your moat, I suppose. Or is it goat?
The woods were really a very beautiful place during autumn in Washington. In Israel, the season blended together into one big heat wave- the summers were especially brutal. In more than one way this year. Even if you were lucky to find a patch of forest in Tel Aviv, it was always sweltering and brown.
But here, the trees were the colors of mangoes. The dipped and bended through the thick fall air, arched up into the bright sky and shifted as small, cool breezes flitted through their branches. The ground was littered with small yellow leaves that crunched each time Tony or I took a step.
Sunlight filtered through every cavity and sliver the trees made against the sky, dappling the ground, the trees and us in golden speckles and blots. Tony was closest to the sun, and his profile was edged in a halo of pale yellow light, his tan still somewhat present from the summer, his nose straight, his jaw wide, his lips full, and his eyes a hazel-green to match the few brave leaves that clung, still right side up, to their branches, afraid to turn over and let go.
And now he was talking again, laughing at Gibb's newest coffee addiction episode, at how McGee's tie had gotten stuck in the elevator door and almost strangled him (only he could find something humorous about the situation), at how, during what was now a regular occurrence, Ducky's mother had somewhat escaped the chair Abby had all but roped her into, figured out how to work the elevator, found her way up to Tony's desk and discovered his entire stash of GM magazines.
I wasn't listening very well, being too distracted by Tony's self to really pay attention to the conversation. It also seemed I was too distracted to watch where I was going, because just as he was talking about how he had to rescue all his magazines from Mrs. Mallard's fit of rage and embarrassment, I tripped cleanly over a root. I would have fallen flat on my face and broken my nose if Tony hadn't caught me just in time. One hand grabbed onto my right arm while the other wrapped around my waist.
"You okay?" he asked me quietly, and when I looked into his hazel eyes, I can see the double meaning behind the words.
I nodded as he pulled me back up from my 2 degree angle from the ground. Once I was finally up into a standing position, I realized how good his arms felt around me. I realized I didn't want him to let go and knew that maybe, he might not. It was for this reason that I pulled back a fraction of an inch.
However, he kept a firm grip on me and drew me back in a little. For a half a second, I thought he was going to let go, and felt a strange swoop of disappointment in my stomach. But the moment of silence afterwards told me that was not going to happen.
He leaned forwards, towards me, just a little and wrapped both his arms around my waist. When he stopped, I felt his eyes on my own down casted ones, asking a million questions that I could not even being to answer. When I didn't decline our closeness, he closed the space between us and placed his warm, soft lips onto my still ones.
I leaned subconsciously into him. His mouth rolling onto mine tasted better than the tea from La Flora, better than the coffee Gibbs had bought for me on Halloween, better than the brandy he and I had drank that one night down in autopsy. I could feel the thin layer of stubble on his chin with my own, his chest rising and falling slowly against my own- which, I admit, was moving a bit more rapidly. His heartbeat was the steadiest I had ever felt.
Because this was better than Michael Locke, whose hurried embraces had caused excitement and fear. This was better than Michael Rivkin, whose love may or may not have been real. Because this was Tony. And this was right.
We stood there for a while like that, the kiss staying shallow and sweet and thick on our tongues.
He pulled back from me eventually, and, without breaking eye contact, we began to walk deeper into the woods. Gibbs wanted us back by 0300, after all.
I know. Not the best writing, or plot (if you even want to call it that!). But I sort of just wanted to get it down. This was my first story, so even if you didn't really like it, could you lie to me in the review that you will (hopefully) post and say you did?