The last time she was here she had lost a lot, to say the least. For her, Eli David was long gone, she was determined to cut him off her life forever. She told herself a thousand times he was dead, she made herself believe she was all alone and it was her own fault. That was Ziva David. She much rather felt anger than sadness, that's something she learned through the years. The thing is she never stopped to think how it would be if she was, indeed, all on her own. The last time she was here she had lost the only family she had left and that hit her, hard.
She tried to let it go, she really did.
She tried to leave her thoughts of revenge at the back of her brain, she tried to face her days as normal as she could. She tried to spend as little time as possible thinking about her father and what had happened to him. The great Agent David couldn't let herself get lost. She had work to do, cases to attend and research to make. She was back in her game and that's exactly how she got involved again. A new case was open; a 30-year-old woman had been shot a couple of blocks away from Ziva's apartment and it all leaded to Bodnar. He had chosen the wrong move, shooting at a woman who in the dark looked like the daughter of the man who had been like a father to him. His target was clear and Gibbs sent her back to Tony's apartment to keep her safe, not that she couldn't handle a situation on her own but he wasn't taking any chances at all.
All she wishes is she could get some sleep.
She stares at the ceiling, turns right and closes her eyes, turns left and tries to quiet her mind but nothing works, she's clearly not going to fall asleep any time soon. She rises herself up from the bed with her elbows and notices flashing lights from under the door, seconds later she hears an object falling and if she's not wrong, it sure was the remote. She hesitates on what she wants to do next. She knows Tony is awake and something's telling her to open that door and go to him. Something's also questioning her reasons; she has no business to bother Tony at, according to the alarm clock, eleven and fifteen. She stands up, her heart racing strangely fast and her brain unsure on what's happening. She opens the door quietly and stares from a gap, all she sees is a blanket on the couch and commercials playing on the TV. She takes a step back to the bedroom, only that she doesn't. She feels like she wants to but she won't move, that of course until Tony appears from the kitchen shaking her off her trance.
"Ziva" He looks at her up and down, aware of the fact that she was not expecting him. "What's going on, everything's ok?"
"I can't sleep" She locks her eyes with his, then looks behind him. "And apparently so can't you"
"I'm working, you know. I need to make sure no one's coming to kill us"
Rolling her eyes seems like the only proper answer to that.
He smiles at her and walks over to the couch, picking up the remote from the floor before sitting. By now it's eleven and thirty and a decent movie (according to Tony) is about to start. He takes the blanket and covers his legs as he throws Ziva a playful look. She's still where he left her, staring attentively to all his moves.
"You, me, the classic production "What dreams may come" and boring infomercials," She smiles as soon as he starts talking only to realize she's really smiling to the bright those words give to his eyes. "That's as good as it gets, what do you say?"
"Invite the insomnia that fills the room and I'm in" He laughs and Ziva walks to the couch. Before her mind starts playing tricks on her, Tony grabs the blanket as a signal for her to sit beside him close enough for the light piece of interlacing yarns to cover them both. She doesn't know why but the first thing she does once she's under the blanket with her feet up in the couch is link her arm to his and he doesn't question her, it's not like he doesn't like it.
Soon enough she's resting her head on his left shoulder and feels his head leaning to the top of hers. For a second she doubts, so she moves in a quick motion. She's not sure what's going on in the movie, Tony knows very well Ziva is not a movies person but that didn't stop him from asking her to join him in something he actually enjoys. She noticed how he cared, how he accepted to let her in for a moment in his life and that was a little scary. The kind of scary that feels good, though. She lifted her head a little and glanced to his expression. She tried to read him, to see what he was thinking about. In a second, his eyes met hers and neither of them broke the stare for a while, almost as if they were holding a conversation using only their eyes. Tony smiled which caused her to give another smile in return, finally she looked down and let go a shy laugh taking her head back to his shoulder.
They both don't know what their eyes just told to each other.
To Ziva's surprise, she's still awake after two eternal commercials break. She's sleepy, barely keeping her eyes open but there's something that's not letting her sleep yet. She sighs, a lot. Tony does not say a word. He'd learned on the hard way that if Ziva is upset, pushing her to talk is only going to make it worse. He has to let her come to him. He thinks about the last time she was here, he remembers how he got to calm her down a bit by taking her hand. He thought about how good it felt, how right it felt. There, right there the walls were down, the walls were completely torn and he sure didn't know how to handle that. He reached her hand and he stroked her palm with his fingers, his way to see if she wasn't going to put those walls up again at the first opportunity. He knew she wouldn't but making sure of it didn't harm anyone. He entwined his fingers with hers once he felt she was comfortable and smiled to himself, taking his mind back to the movie that he could care less about. Ziva had her eyes closed the whole time; his touch was too powerful for her, it was a feeling that she wanted to keep forever. She closed her eyes and she felt safe, she felt satisfied, she felt in peace. Her eyes remained closed and at some point she finally fell asleep, the voices in her head were silent and the feeling in her heart was inexplicable.
She maybe wasn't all on her own after all.