Friends
DISCLAIMER: Not Mine.
Labor Day, September 2, 2013
New York, New York
Despite all of the changes in their lives, both personal and professional, and the crazy pace of the modern world, they've managed to remain friends. And today, she's helping him cleanout his grandmother's house. It's one of those things that good friends do for one another.
"Tony, where would you like to start?" she quietly asks.
He's glad that she could be here with him today – it was a job he hadn't wanted to face alone.
Alone. Despite the many women and attempts at relationships he's made throughout the years, he's never managed to make a relationship work. Those that hadn't blown up in tears and recriminations, usually turned cold and bitter. Since his last feeble attempt at crafting a relationship, he hasn't seriously considered even trying to find anyone with whom to share his life. He's done a lot of soul searching since E.J. left, and has reluctantly resigned himself to a solitary bachelor's life.
In the past six months, since his grandmother had died, though, he'd begun to feel the all too swift passage of time. He's come to realize that, while he had lots of acquaintances, he only had a few real friends, and the brutal reality of a life - and a death - alone has suddenly made him regret the emotional barriers he'd built around himself so many years ago.
"Let's do the attic first, and then work our way down," he suggests, turning towards the stairs.
She's been through relationship hell, too. The last relationship she'd tried had been spectacularly bad, and it had imploded in a hail of hateful words and accusations long before Ray's arrest. Since then, she's resigned herself to a life alone. It had been almost unbearably painful to realize that she would never have what most women considered to be a normal life – husband, children, and home.
"This house is so beautiful, Tony. Are you sure that you want to sell it?"
"Dad made it clear that it was okay with him, if I did. I can't see living here - alone."
To tell the truth, he is reluctant to sell the house to strangers, but he'd also told her the truth – he doesn't want to live in that house alone, surrounded by bittersweet memories of the happy marriage of his grandparents and his unhappy memories of his childhood and his parents.
As he opened the door to the attic stairs, he catches her hand in his.
"Ziva, thanks again for coming with me today. It means a lot."
He emphasizes his gratitude to her with a gentle squeeze of her hand.
"What is this? Surely Very Special Agent DiNozzo is not becoming soft?" she scoffs.
But as soon as her words were spoken, she sees the hurt in his eyes. She'd honestly intended the remark to lighten his mood, but at heart she knows that he no longer wants to project an image of a carefree playboy.
He quickly drops her hand and starts to climb the stairs so she won't see the depth of the wound she's inflicted on him.
"I thought you knew me better than that."
He's embarrassed at how easily his feelings were hurt. Perhaps the death of his grandmother has put things into perspective? He knows that it's made him reevaluate his life, and made clear regrets that he hadn't even realized he'd been harboring.
"Tony, I am sorry. You know I meant that as a joke. I did not mean to hit a raw nerve."
She touches his shoulder as they reach the top of the stairs.
Turning to face her, eyes to the floor at first, he admits his sensitivity.
"I know. I'm sorry."
Reaching to touch her hand, still lightly resting on his shoulder, he knows she understands. And they stand silently together in the quiet of the moment.
Before settling on a task, they wander around the floor of the dusty attic. He brushes his fingers along the bottom hem of the American flag that's hung on the wall for well over fifty years. She looks into the faces of the people in the framed photos that hang at various angles on the exposed beams.
"Shall we start here?"
She chooses a cardboard box and opens it to find books and magazines.
"Ah, the American classics. Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn… but what is this?"
Holding up a now ancient Playboy magazine, she flips to the centerfold before he can grab it from her.
"It looks very well loved," she teases.
"Okay, hand it over," he demands.
"I do not think so. I love the idea of a young Tony DiNozzo alone in his bed at night, feeling the first stirrings of manhood…"
She's being merciless now, trying to draw him out of his dark mood. But truthfully, she does love the idea. Imagining him in the first explorations of his sexuality, she's fascinated at the contrast to the man she's sitting with now.
Later, preparing sandwiches and drinks in the roomy kitchen, his contemplative mood returns. And once back in the attic, he sighs and pull out an old steamer trunk into the center of the room, carefully tilting the lid open. He kneels before it, perhaps afraid to disturb the memories that lie inside.
Standing next to him, she looks down at him and considers the thoughtful man before her. He's come a long way from the relatively young and arrogant agent she first met. She'd watched him grow tremendously, both professionally and personally over the last nine years. She can see the passage of time in his face, but he carries it well. There's a very slight graying at the temples of his shortly cropped hair that completes the look of a mature man. And although she hates the term, 'distinguished' is the best term she can come up with to describe him. As she sits down next to him, looking more directly at his face, she thinks better of her word choice, settles on "experienced," and thinks it suits him well.
He finally begins to pull various items from the trunk, revealing quilts hand-sewn by great-grandmothers, photo albums that will need to be gone through and properly labeled, tiny clothes and a baby bonnet long since outgrown by their owners.
She pulls out a large seashell and her eye catches the faded writing on the smooth white undersurface. She peers at it, trying to make out the words in the dim light.
Taking the shell from her hand, he explains, "My father sent it to my mother in 1969 – they'd met on the island of Nevis. He wrote his marriage proposal on the inside… 'Dearest Elizabeth, make me the happiest of men. Marry me. All my love, Tony.'"
"They were really happy together, weren't they?"
Her voice reflects her regret at not finding someone to share her life with. He simply nods, but can't help feeling the emptiness in his heart, and he wonders if she feels anything similar.
He thinks she must when she puts her arm around him in a comforting gesture. Turning to face her, he looks in her eyes and tries to convey his gratitude for her friendship and the warmth he feels towards her.
In his gaze she senses his affection - and his loneliness. She wonders if, after all this time, they could fill the gaps in each other's lives.
Maybe it just took all those years apart to make them who they are today - two people with a relationship built on respect and friendship, what at last are ready for love, too.
Bringing her other hand up, she places the open palm over his heart. She wants him to be certain that she knows he's not arrogant prick he often pretends to be.
He covers her hand with his and leans forward to meet her lips in a soft kiss. They cling together in the middle of the attic floor, hands and lips conveying an affection long felt and a desire newly acknowledged.
Her lips part and their tongues meet, exploring this new facet of their relationship. He threads his fingers through her hair and she reaches out to fully embrace him. They rise to their knees in anxious yearning, bodies coming alive. She feels his erection pressing into her as she leans into him, and it feels so good to be desired by him.
"Come to bed with me," he breathes softly in her ear.
"Yes," she agrees, feeling the warm moisture building at her sex.
They travel the short distance down the stairs and into the first bedroom. Once there, they slow their pace. He revels in her beauty and thinks she's more stunning now than when he first met her.
With the patience of experienced lovers, they take the time to find each other's pace and preferences. He lovingly kisses and suckles each nipple as she runs her hands through his hair. And she delights in his reaction to her own touches on his body.
Finally naked under the covers together, she tortures the length of his body, alternating soft kisses and teasing bites. She lavishes attention on his erection and takes him into her mouth. He moans her name as he resists the urge to press her head harder against him.
When she climbs back up to kiss him again, their urgency resumes. Turning them over, he balances above her, his cock pressing at her sex. When he finally enters her, neither shies from the honest expression of love in the eyes of the other.
He slips a hand between them to increase her pleasure. Finding the right rhythm with his fingers, he matches his hips to it. She gasps his name and he leans forward to capture her lips as she comes, following soon after with his own climax.
In a companionable afterglow, they finish sorting through the rest of the attic and call it a day. Muscles will be tired tomorrow, both from the heavy lifting and the exertion of their lovemaking.
They make plans to continue the chore in a few weeks, after he returns from a trip to the USS Seahawk as part of an investigation. He begins to consider taking the house off the market, daring now to hope that he will have someone to eventually make a home with there.
As the days pass by, she feels his absence from her life, even though they've gone months without contact in the past. She thinks perhaps they are now in each other's lives in such a way that they can no longer endure such separation with ease.
A week later, in the pile of mail on her desk she finds a package with a return address she doesn't recognize. Packed in crumpled tissue paper is a large seashell. Her mind flashes on the shell that belonged to Tony's parents, and puzzles over what this one could mean. Examining the seashell, she turns it over in her hands until she sees black lettering against the pale inner surface.
"Dearest Ziva, make me the happiest of men. Marry me. All my love, Tony."