A/N: It's been a while since my Tony/Ziva creative juices have flowed long enough to get a story to a Word document. But this time, I don't know, something clicked and I am slightly proud of this one.
This is supposed to follow Tony and Ziva (and, to a lesser extent, the rest of the team) over the years – starting with Ray and the empty ring box – and then going wherever my mildly sadistic imagination takes them. Ultimately, this story is my way of answering how I think, realistically, this might work out, and how that scary M word, marriage, would come into play. Originally, this was supposed to be a lengthy oneshot. However, as I started writing, I found I needed more time to explore each big moment, because they were turning points that needed proper attention. Hence, it's a multi-chapter. However, it's no Kaleidoscope Heart; it won't be more than 10 chapters. (I hope.)
Thanks a billion to Wilhelmina Willoughby for her wise beta-ing; without her, this story would have been too incoherent for posting.
This is also my start-of-the-new-year fic, as per my tradition. So, I hope you like it. Please remember to review when you're done!
I. Proposal
I could make you a promise
And be all you want me to be
Give you my hand as we walk down the aisle
So you could live happily
But do you really want to give your life to
Thinking you've found true love
When it hasn't found you?
- Kimberly Locke, "I Could"
The only thing Ziva has ever really known about marriage is the disintegration of her parents' union – so it really does surprise her, that afternoon in May, when Ray pulls out a little box and a shiver suspiciously resembling pleasure tolls down her spine.
The box is small, covered in black velvet, like in some of the movies Tony talks about. For a second, she can't breathe. But then he gives her the box and she opens it and another shiver, this one suspiciously resembling disappointment, ripples like water after a bomb.
The box is empty.
He tells her it's supposed to represent a promise, but she doesn't believe him and he probably knows it. He sticks to his story anyway, though, tells her he will come back for her, and then he leaves. He leaves and all she has left is the empty box and confusion.
As she lies awake that night, running the scene over and over and over again in her mind's eye, Ziva tries to tell herself that she's disappointed because that was the first time anyone had proposed to her and he had ruined the milestone, her special moment. And this, to an extent, is true. But really, she's irritated that in the split second between seeing the box and opening it, she had allowed herself to have hopes, expectations. She's pissed – at him, for letting her down, and at herself, for putting herself in the position to be let down.
It had been like a mirage that gave her a glimpse of something she had never known she had even wanted, which then disappeared in the desert air, so that she never even got the chance to consider rejecting it.
Ray inexplicably returns to Washington a few months later, on a nippy afternoon in February, this time with a ring – and she still doesn't know what to say.
The shock of seeing him again after several weeks of mutual silence, quiet mourning and moving on, coupled with the shock of seeing that ring – silver, slender, with a sizeable diamond glistening in the sunlight – is almost enough to undo her completely.
His brown eyes are earnest and real as he gets down to one knee – again, just like the movies – and asks her to marry him. And she's so flattered, so truly floored, that she suddenly wants to forget who she is and where she's been and what he's done and she wants to say yes. She wants to be an ordinary woman, flaunt that silver ring and have a home, a man to call her husband, something permanent and domestic and lovely and hers. The moment is perfect: despite everything, his schedule and the way she gave up on him, he made his triumphant return and kept his word after all. Plus, she has always liked him, as much or more so than anyone else she's tried something with. It should be a no-brainer; she should say yes without thinking that hard about it.
But she's Ziva, so of course she thinks hard about it as he remains kneeling there on the ground, waiting. She takes the ring, luminous and tempting, from the box and lets it sit on her palm, considering its weight. Sure, Ray kept his word this time, but she remembers the last time he was here. He had kept secrets from her; his job had required it. How would this go, if they committed to each other? She has her own secrets she has to keep from him, and she works long hours, and he travels all over the world. They have trouble seeing each other as it is; can it really be much different if they are married? Work is still work; life is still life. She doesn't even know where they would live, because he won't want to move and she won't want to leave NCIS.
And anyway, despite the fact that the ring is beautiful and shiny and he seems to promise her everything she's never really had, she can't help but feel inexplicably exhausted, standing here, looking at him. He surprised her, coming to see her today and pulling her out of the office and taking her to this park and telling her he loved her and missed her, and she isn't sure she has the energy to be one half of a functioning couple again. She had given up on him a long time ago and that's comfortable now. She's always been her father's daughter after all; work, honor, and duty come first and she's gotten used to sacrificing personal relationships for a cause greater than herself. Breaking this pattern now seems daunting, and difficult, and kind of unnecessary.
It turns out that despite everything, her shivers and his earnest, waiting eyes, Ziva is okay with Ray just being a mirage. She had never expected him to be real – not wholly, not truly. Their relationship had been fun while it was light, and even as they began to get a little more serious. But playing pretend gets too hard when something real is at stake; it's just not worth it.
So she takes a deep breath, places the ring carefully, deliberately, back into its box, and tells him no. For a few seconds, he looks completely astonished, his jaw clenched and his fingers closing tightly around the box – but it's only a few seconds, before his special agent training kicks in and he reigns in his reaction, going from openly raw and heartbroken to merely melancholy. In fact, he's admirably composed, almost business-like, clearing his throat and averting his eyes as the cogs in his head turn wildly, trying to come up with plans, protocols. She has the sneaking suspicion that her refusal had not been factored into his version of The Way This Would Go.
"I'm sorry," she murmurs, and she means it.
He just nods, and says stiffly, "It's okay." His face closes off and he offers her a cool, empty little smile.
He rises back to his full height, and pockets the ring. They stand there a long time together, not speaking, staring determinedly around the park as though this is a mission and they are supposed to memorize every tree, every twig, every laughing, happy face around them. The honey glow of sunlight brings out the copper in her hair, the lines already deep in his face. His hand twitches slightly, as though he's about to reach out and give her hand a squeeze, but he seems to think better of it. He takes a deep breath and in a businesslike tone, he says, "Well, then, I must get going."
Ziva clears her throat, startled slightly out of her thoughts, and says, equally business-like, "Yes. Me too."
A pause. Then—
"Have a safe flight back."
"Thank you." He somehow finds it in him to smile gently. "Good-bye, Ziva."
"Good-bye."
He hesitates a few seconds longer, seeming to absorb those final details – her long hair, the curve of her cheek, her delicate shoulders and her beige jacket. She can hardly bear to meet his gaze; her heart turns to lead and retreats deep into her spine. He clears his throat again and turns around, walks away from her and towards the sun. She just watches, the misery oddly distributed through her body – heavily concentrated in her chest and behind her eyes, but barely present everywhere else.
Though the afternoon is pleasant and her jacket comfortable, she crosses her arms against a sudden chill and decides to stop for some strong coffee.
Ziva returns to the office after the scene with Ray, still slightly flushed from the cold. McGee and Tony both look up as the elevator goes ding! and she appears, and they both can instantly tell that something is off. The fact that Ray did not come back with her, coupled with something brusque and hard about her walk, suggest that their meeting did not go well. They know better than to expect details, but out of courtesy, McGee still asks, as delicately as he can muster, "Ziva…is everything all right?"
She looks at him over her computer monitor and she can see the genuine worry in his wide eyes. And she can feel Tony's eyes – equally genuine, equally worried – probing her from the side. So she says, "I'm fine," in a way that means they have their done their duty and they can back off now.
McGee's gaze lingers a moment longer, but he decides to just let it go, figuring she'll talk if she wants to. Tony, however, has never been able to stifle his curiosity as effectively as the probie, and he continues to watch her closely through the rest of the afternoon.
She doesn't seem much different – and indeed, to the untrained eye it would have been almost impossible to tell that something is off – but Tony has worked with her too long, so he can see that tightness around her mouth and the deadness behind her eyes, and he knows something's up. And he can't let it go.
He waits until the workday is over and McGee has gone for the elevators before he makes his move. She is putting on her coat and getting ready to leave when he approaches her, his smile present but sobered, and asks if she wants to have a drink with him at his favorite bar a few blocks away.
The offer should be light, casual, but he's got that look on his face too, and she gives in faster than he had expected.
Tony graciously drives them both to the bar, where some song about broken hearts blares from the speakers and a raucous game of pool is going on under the neon lights. They sit on slightly rickety bar stools and order drinks – a beer for him, a shot of straight-up vodka for her. They drink, and he watches her from the corner of his eye, knowing that her acceptance of his offer means she'll talk, but not until she's ready and certainly not if he asks. So he sips, and he waits, and sure enough she tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear and says, "Ray took me to the park today."
He nods, unsurprised. "Were you expecting him?"
She finishes her vodka and signals for another. "No."
"What did he want?"
The second vodka comes. She downs it in one gulp and slams the glass down with some force.
"He…offered me a ring."
His eyebrows fly up towards his hairline and his heart freezes then flutters madly, like he skipped a step going downstairs by accident. But he fights to keep his voice even. "A ring? Wow. Wow. That's…unexpected."
She stares moodily at her empty glass, running her finger along the lip of it, refusing to look at him. "Yes."
He fixes her with one of his Looks, appraising her closed-in posture and still-tight mouth and still-deadened eyes with the quiet observation of a trained investigator. Sure, he's dying to hear her say what exactly she told Ray, but he can deduce that she said no for her own prickly, highly personal reasons, and he isn't eager to push her. That he knows at all what the situation is, and what likely happened, is enough to get his mind whirring, wondering what must have happened, what words were used, what she must be feeling right now.
They sit there in silence like that for quite a while, him looking at her, her looking down at her empty glass. The effect of the vodka is already starting to kick in; she can feel herself becoming pleasantly buzzed, fuzzy around the edges, the colors just a little sharper than usual. It's like an edge has been taken off her view of the world and the very idea of being alive is surreal, bemusing – particularly here, at this bar, with Tony.
He's still watching her, she can feel his eyes on him. She's sure he's trying to piece everything together, dying to ask for details, but she appreciates that he's not. He's always been like that, able to somehow instinctively understand what she wants and what she needs and act accordingly. And so she gravitates towards him, says yes to an evening with him when she wouldn't have said yes to anyone else, simply because his warmth and his silence feels right to her.
It's been a long time since they've sat like this, alone together while the world goes on around them. It's been a long time, too, since something weighty happened and he was there for her. And maybe it's simply the product of the alcohol in her blood, but she somehow feels powerfully close to him tonight. Like there's been some shift, some breakthrough in the atmosphere around them, and there's this electric undercurrent, long dormant, finally flowing between them that hasn't been there for years. A current that is unique to them and strikes her particularly tonight, after numbly watching Ray walk away for what's probably the last time; something that gets her blood going again.
It's kind of like it used to be in her early days of NCIS, when they shared fiercely intimate secrets in this same sort of silence, when her teasing had a much sexier tinge to it and he didn't understand her yet and her every minute detail turned him on a little. Ziva wonders vaguely where that energy, youth, and vitality has gone, because all of a sudden, she feels tired, flat, simply old, thinking about marriage and memories and her weird relationship with Tony. She's been hurt a lot throughout her life, and now it finally seems to be taking its toll on her. Relatively minor things – like rebuffing a man's advance, like having her heart reawaken after what feels like a long sleep – inexplicably mean more and take more out of her.
She feels fragile. As though someone will open the front doors of this bar and a gust of wind will blow inside and she will dissolve into a giant pile of dust.
She considers getting another shot, but decides it's not worth getting drunk tonight. Still, Tony is watching her, though to his credit he's trying to be discreet. She turns her whole body so that she's facing him and looks him in the eye. The sadness Tony thought he had sensed in her back at NCIS is now physically obvious in her features.
"Thank you," she says quietly. "For…this."
On an impulse, he longs to touch her – squeeze her hand, cup her face, hold her close. But he just clears his throat, stays where he's at. His beer remains mostly full.
"Don't mention it," he says.
She is still a moment longer, then reaches for her bag. This is obviously their cue to go; starting slightly, he obediently digs through his wallet and leaves a bill on the counter. Then the two of them leave the bar together and get in his car. It's below freezing; she shivers a little as he turns the heater on. He drives in silence towards her apartment building, but the curiosity and the worry that had plagued him in the office is still not assuaged. For a few wild minutes, he considers going back with her to her apartment, or simply driving to his own and leaving her no choice in the matter – because she'd say no, wouldn't she? She's never been the type to accept company when things take a turn for the sour; though she humored him by coming out for the drink, she won't want to spend any more time with him. Her thoughts are probably racing; she will want to lie awake for a few hours, gently untangling them, trying to make sense of them.
He glances at her briefly as they stop at a red light. She's looking down; her mouth is still all tight and miserable. His face softens. If there was anything he could say, any way he could take a vacuum and suck all the unhappiness out of her and away from her, he would. But the platitudes sound weak even in his own head and anyway, they've arrived at her building now. It's late and tomorrow is a work day.
When he pulls up in front of the entrance, she opens the door without a word and steps outside. Her breath is a wispy cloud lingering by her lips. She mouths thank you again and then goes inside. She's still cold all over, but somehow, after sitting around in that bar with Tony for a little while, dollops of warmth diffuse through the coolness, like badly mixed pie filling. She appreciates that he cared enough to share the silence with her tonight; that regardless of what life has done to her in the past few years, he turns up at her side like clockwork, cushioning the worst of the blow in his clumsy, often inadvertent way.
He waits until she's no longer visible inside the building before he drives away.
