(Tony/Ziva) Sweater Weather

These hearts adore
Everyone the other beats hardest for
Inside this place is warm
Outside it starts to pour

Tony made the customarily thirty minute drive to her condo in just under half the time, skirting speed limits and rounding corners too sharply for his 2010 rented midsized Sedan.

Coming up on three months now, and the damn insurance agency still had him jumping through hoops.

He parked hastily, a few inches too far from the curb, taking the stairs by twos and eliciting strange looks from a few teens in the lobby.

And it was nearly two am; he should've threatened to ticket them for loitering, just for the fun of it.

He rapped his knuckles on her door in angry, succinct triads, willing her presence before him; but as his wish was granted and she opened the door, wearily wiping the sleep from her eyes, Tony realized that since hanging up the phone with McGee, he hadn't formed a full, coherent thought, let alone decided what his opening line would be.

And judging by the paint-splattered, worn out NCIS t-shirt and small biker shorts that barely passed the hem, she'd been in bed; in any other situation he'd have made some inappropriate remark about seeing London and seeing France, but he was far too focused in his haze of red to entertain the idea.

"Tony," she called out huskily, aptly regaining his attention; she absentmindedly ran her fingers through her hair, from temple to crown, pulling it from her face and better revealing her annoyance. "It is two o'clock in the morning."

And she'd always had a knack for doing that: stating the obvious.

"When were you planning on telling me?" he hissed. "Or were you just not gonna' say anything at all?"

Ziva's eyes widened and she stepped back into her foyer, gesturing for him to follow suit, throwing a quick nervous glance down the corridor before quietly closing the door. Tony barely made it past the threshold before boldly resurrecting the question, "And?"

"And nothing," she dismissed; "I finalized it with Vance not four hours ago. How did you even find out?"

"McGee," Tony replied flatly.

He followed her into the kitchen, studying her, growing increasingly irritated with her cavalier behavior as she drifted towards the fridge in pursuit of her Brita filter. "You knew the plan, Ziva," he pressed. "We all went back, or none of us did."

She chose not to answer right away, selecting her words carefully as she poured herself a glass of water and rummaged for a small saran-wrap covered plate for a lemon wedge.

Tony scratched his head in indignation, "You slice your own lemons for your drinking water?"

She rolled her, still sleep filled, eyes and propped herself up against the kitchen island. "I had no choice, Tony."

"You could drink regular water like the rest of us commoners," he mumbled with a cocked brow.

"I meant with Vance," she said softly into her glass.

"Oh no, actually you did," he defied. "Remember? 'We get Gibbs back, we get the team back, and then we get back to normal'." Tony took a few brazen steps toward her, until the scent of sandalwood filled his head and nearly made him dizzy. "That sounds like a choice to me. No, wait," he amended. "That sounds a lot like a plan. A plan we devised. A plan we agreed on."

And yes, he had a right to be angry; a right to be furious. She'd gone behind his back, yet again, and made a decision that would affect them all.

And when the hell was she going to realize that all he wanted was to make decisions together?

Ziva forced herself to look at him, for once her size a proven disadvantage. His hands came to rest on the cool granite countertop on either side of her, and he stood so close, she barely spoke above a whisper. "I had no choice, Tony. Believe me."

"You did," he denied. "You could've come to me. You should've come to me."

Tony's voice and eyes betrayed him, heated and raw, and Ziva couldn't help but feel that familiar sharp stab of guilt.

She'd seen that look before.

She'd seen it more times than she liked to think about.

Ziva placed her hands gently on his forearms, smiling slightly at the tense jump his muscles did beneath her palms, and softly nudged him to sit on the stool beside them, dragging another back for herself. She perched herself atop it, taking a deep breath to steady her nerves.

Because this was not the way she'd expected it to unravel.

It was the wrong place.

It was definitely the wrong time.

But then again, time had never taken mercy on her.

On them.

Tony crossed his arms, pulling the soft fabric of his black t-shirt snug across his shoulders and chest, and he sat waiting expectantly, his jaw set in wasted defiance of what had already been set into motion.

"Tony, I-"

"When do you leave?" he cut her off petulantly.

Ziva licked her lips, and her face softened at the sight before her.

Because yet again, in true form, newly reinstated Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo had run to her aide; albeit this time, unnecessarily.

Because, for once, she actually had everything under control.

And God, she was going to miss him.

So much more than he knew.

"Thursday."

"That's in two days," he breathed evenly.

Ziva nodded, noting the way he reflexively ran his hands up and down the sides of his thighs, rubbing what would surely become holes into the seams of the dark wash denim.

"You haven't packed anything," he noticed, his eyes darting around her open apartment. Books and small figurines still adorned the walls, the spice rack was half empty with a shakers strewn about the kitchen, and upon further inspection, her parlor seemed to also be fully intact.

"Well, I assumed the least you could do is water my plants," she teased lightly; Ziva watched for his marked breathy laugh, but it didn't come, and she bowed her head to catch his eye, "And it is not as if I will be gone forever."

"How long?"

Ziva sighed again, suddenly regretting the attempt at subject change. "It's more of an estimate, than an exact date. Vance does not know how long it will take. There may be some initial…," she sucked her bottom lip in between her teeth in a nervous stall, "resistance."

Tony watched her lip go white as she chewed it and decided not to ask for elaboration. "Well," he said slowly, "what is the 'estimated' time span of this…mission?"

Ziva scrunched her nose at his tone, but opted to ignore it. "Five to seven months."

He closed his eyes and Ziva watched his chest rise and fall with his heavy, ragged breathing;

"Tony-,"

"This wasn't the plan," he cut her off again; he gave up his assault on the overpriced, vintage denim and tightly curled his fists. "This wasn't how it was supposed to go."

"Listen!" she snapped. "We all make mistakes. I made mistakes. Many of them," she added slowly. "And unfortunately, this time, they have lasting consequences. Consequences I will bear. There are people," she justified, "people we all must answer to. And Vance is no exception. And although he could pull enough strings to reinstate us, there are people who believe it would be best if I…," Ziva faltered, massaging the creases in her forehead. "…if I detached myself from the team. We may not agree," she added quickly, "but we must accept it. We should be grateful, Tony, that we were able to get our jobs back."

"Your job," he said bitterly, "Is not to hightail it with Monique to god-knows-where playing Rambo. In case you were wondering."

"I trust Monique," she said hesitantly. Ziva's brows knit together in question, "How does McGee know all this, again?"

"I don't know," Tony answered honestly. "He's got some program attached to Vance's emails so that anything with our names gets kicked back to him."

"Tony!" she scolded in a hushed whisper.

He lifted a hand in dismissal. "Don't worry," he assured her coolly, "Tim swears that if anyone finds the tracker, it leads back to some kid near DuPont Circle who's using his parents Wi-Fi to download porn. We're fine. Bases covered."

Ziva tried, unsuccessfully, to hide her smile.

"Seven months, huh?" he repeated. "I still don't like it, Ziva. Cause then what? You come back, and go where? Get transferred to another team? Or the evidence locker with Dorneget?"

"Well, no, not another team, exactly," Ziva took a sip of her lemon water and threw Tony a full, coy smile. "You remember Daphne, yes?"

Tony's eyes wandered in thought. "Daphne, Daphne. Brown straight hair, blue eyes, nice legs?" He took notice of Ziva's annoyed look. "Yes, I remember her," he finished stoically.

"Well, she has recently informed Vance she's expecting." He looked at her, unaffected. "A baby," she clarified. "Anyways, according to Vance, upon her return she wishes to take on…a less demanding position."

"But isn't she working on that restructured team?"

"Not quite," She admitted. "It's not really a team. She works alone at the moment. There may be a lapse of a month or two before I can take over, but Vance said considering the position is new, and really in a trial-and-error phase, they would make do."

"I still don't even understand the position," Tony huffed.

"It is very undefined at the moment," she confessed. "It's a role that will be under high scrutiny from Vance and his superiors. But," she looked up at Tony and smiled; "As much as I have read on the intentions of the role, I would be selecting and trying to reopen cold case files," she kicked his shin playfully to re-claim his gaze, "which of course may lead to turning it over and working it with the MCRT."

And it was times like these Tony remembered that misjudging her was an art he'd perfected.

Tony's eyes lit up. "Really?" he asked quietly. "You don't say."

And for the first time in nearly four months, Ziva caught sight of the true, infamous DiNozzo grin.

And damn him for being charming at nearly three in the morning.

"Yes," she answered impishly. "And," she scooted her stool closer to Tony and rested her bare feet on the rungs behind his legs, "In any downtime, I am to offer my assistance in any case or field work, as needed." Ziva wriggled a bit closer, and Tony welcomed the intrusion into his personal space, her legs brushing against his knees in pursuit of comfort. "So I suppose you could say, we may be seeing quite a bit of each other."

"You found a loop hole," he accused lightly.

"No, Vance did. It would seem," she sighed, "he felt he 'owed me one', yes?"

"Yeah, I guess it would." Tony took a moment, and just peered down at her;

For she never could lie with her eyes.

And he couldn't tell if it was the rush of information or the scent of sandalwood, but he was getting dizzy again.

"So this is real?" he asked. "You're leaving on Thursday for, maybe seven months, and Gibbs and McGee and I just, what? Go back to work?"

"Yes."

"And then you come back," he continued, his tone a mix of disbelief and sarcasm, "and things just, go back to normal? Or, at least, as normal as this situation allows?"

And she couldn't quite place it, didn't quite understand it, but there was a shift in the air that made her toes curl; a shift Ziva wanted nothing more than to embrace.

An opportunity.

She leaned closer and grabbed both of Tony's hands in her own, a jerk reaction, she knew, done hastily rather than in ease, but it was so foreign to her, so far out of her comfort zone, she offered herself no chance at second guesses. "Yes," she whispered, her eyes glued to her thumbs, watching the lazy strokes she made across Tony's knuckles. "We could go back to normal. Or," Ziva dragged her focus to his face, desperately trying to gauge his reaction, "we could create a…new normal."

"New normal?" he asked quietly.

"Yes," she insisted. "In seven months, and in our new situation at work," she said slowly, "it may be time for a new normal, don't you think?"

Her eyes were desperate, pleading.

And God, her hands were warm in his.

And her sleepy eyes and soft mouth made him want to reach out and just take her face in his hands.

"Ms. David," he smiled warmly, "I think, that in seven months' time, I'll be here, eagerly awaiting this new normal you speak of. Whatever it may be." His grip on her fingers tightened slightly and he sighed; now the struggle no longer lay in letting her go, but in waiting to get her back.

And worrying.

"You just make sure Monique has your six out there, and that you come back in one piece, huh?"

"So you'll be waiting for me, Tony?" she teased.

"Well," he sighed dramatically, "It's only been eight years. I guess a few months won't kill me." He beamed down at her expectantly, awaiting her return quip or well-timed eye roll but instead, she looked sated, and relieved, and drop-down dragged-out tired.

As if all in one night, the last six months had caught up with her.

Tony stole a quick glance at the mounted wall clock. "I should go," he added hesitantly.

Knocking knees with him once more in a hasty attempt to stand and regain her balance, Ziva untangled her hands from his.

And for some reason, she couldn't think of anything to do with them, so they merely fell limp by her sides.

"You could stay," she said quickly. "I can pull out the sofa bed, and you could stay."

Tony grinned at her nervous pacing. "I could, but I won't," he declined her offer. "I'm going to need an actual good night's sleep if I'm coming back tomorrow to help you get squared away. And to help you finish the food in your fridge," he nodded behind her. "And I've spent a few nights on that sofa. No lumbar support." Tony arched his back until he heard it pop, and groaned in reprieve.

Ziva's face pinched at his theatrics. "Fine, fine," she said, following Tony to the door. "Should we say noon, then?"

"Well, okay, let's not go crazy here, Ziva," he scoffed in mock distain. "I can do 12:15, and not a second earlier."

"Oh, get out!" she shooed, emphasized with a swat to his backside.

Tony turned back to her as she leaned against the door frame. "Tomorrow?"

"Yes, yes. Tomorrow. 12:15."

"Okay then," he promised. "12:15. And Ziva?"

"Yes?"

"I expect to be fed."

Ziva waited until his heavy footsteps faded away, and she rested her weight against the back of the door, looking down at her hands with a slight smile.

Yes, an opportunity.

A/N: This is a depression; a severe severe depression.

Cotes leaving...Ugh. Hopefully she comes back for a finale arc, or you know...just in general :)

I'm not crazy about this, but I don't know, it's cathartic, I guess, so I probably will continue this. I like the plot I've created in my head.