A/N: To all of my readers out there who are severely angry with me, I deserve it. I know I do. And I know you are cursing me for putting up a oneshot instead of updating all of my multi-chapter fics. I deserve that, too. Just let me try to explain myself: I started college in the fall, and it took a lot of transition time. I wrote as much as I could when I had time, but it was just stress-relief writing. I don't think I had enough in me to actually think about plots and storylines and Where-am-I-going-with-this's. I just couldn't handle anything more than the fun little scene that would come to me from time to time. And I am deeply sorry for that. Please take this oneshot as a peace offering, and I will update my other fics as soon as I can. Thank you to those of you who haven't given up on me yet. I haven't forgotten you, either. I just need a little more time to get back into the swing of things.

Anyway, on with Partners!
WARNING: SPOILERS FOR A DESPERATE MAN

They'd left headquarters in two separate cars, not needing to voice aloud the fact that Ziva wouldn't be up for the usual going-to-apprehend-a-suspect conversation. Nor did they need to discuss that Ziva wouldn't want to be in the same car as Ray when they took him in.

Tony had wanted to be the one to accompany Ziva, to keep an eye on her (after all, she was his partner), but she'd shaken her head at him, and Gibbs had hopped into the driver's seat before he could argue. Both cars were silent on the way to the airport, so full of pity and anger that there was no room for speech.

As they neared their destination, it came time to decide just how things would go down. Gibbs didn't like the idea of Ziva confronting Ray, especially now, knowing what he'd done to the commander, but even he couldn't argue with the pure fury reflecting off the tears in her eyes. It was quickly decided that Gibbs would stay in the car while Ziva gave Ray a piece of her mind, so that she could have a getaway car ready for her as soon as she was ready to put her almost-fiancé behind her. Tony and McGee would take care of making the actual arrest and taking him back to headquarters.

Ziva approached Ray, about to board the jet, while Tim hastened to take his position, from which he would keep an eye on things in case they went south. Tony, in a last-second decision, realized that McGee could take care of any physical threat that could present itself, but as Ziva's friend, Tony thought it was his job to prepare for an emotional threat. So, ignoring Tim's hissed, "Tony! Get back here!" he snuck behind the plane.

As he got into place, he heard what McGee could see, and he wished he had stayed where he could have seen it, too. The hint of a smile on his lips, he visualized Ray holding a bloody nose. The sound of Ziva's voice, calm with just a trace of hurt, brought him out of his daydream.

"Now you have my answer."

"Let me explain."

If CI-Ray thinks he can get out of this with just an explanation… Tony thought angrily.

"There is nothing to explain. You killed an innocent woman and then you tried to lie to me about it." Her calm was fading into anger quickly, but Tony stayed where he was, not wanting to interrupt Ziva getting the closure she needed.

"It's not like that," Ray began, but Ziva cut him off.

"When I saw your number I knew. Did you think you could get away with it?" she demanded.

"The commander wasn't supposed to be there. Norton was my target. She was a mistake."

Tony couldn't believe that Ray thought that was justification enough for his actions.

"One you took great pains to cover up." Apparently, Ziva wasn't too keen on listening to Ray's load of bull, either.

"Ziva, you have to understand, Norton was a very dangerous man. I had orders to take him out in Pakistan but unfortunately he fled the country under an alias before I could get to him. I wasn't going to let him get away a second time. He needed to be handled, and I didn't care if it was on US soil or not, Ziva. American lives were at stake, so I handled him."

"You went against your superiors." It was a guess, but an educated one. Neither she nor Tony had any doubt that she was correct.

"I did what I had to do. You of all people should understand. Norton's gone, Ziva. It's over."

"It will never be over for Commander Burris's husband. You ruined his life, Ray. Do you not understand that?"

Tony didn't even bother to pretend that hearing the disgust in her voice didn't put a smile on his face; the man deserved it, and no one was there to see it, anyway.

"Enough," Ray snapped. "I don't want to talk about this anymore."

Tony couldn't help but think that his words sounded like a child's.

"I made mistakes and what's done is done. Now I just want to go back to being the man I used to be before all of this, the man you fell in love with."

Holding his breath behind the airplane, Tony waited for her answer. He was surprised to find himself hoping she'd hit him again.

"That man is gone."

While it may not have been a physical blow, Tony knew it would inflict just as much, if not more, emotional pain. He let out a sigh of relief at the fact that she was really leaving Ray behind her.

Ziva walked away, not looking back, and despite his pain, Ray smiled. She didn't want to marry him anymore, that much was clear, but there was no denying that she loved him now. She knew he was guilty of murder, and she was letting him go free, with only a broken heart and a sore jaw to show for it.

He was turning to board the jet when a large hand came out of nowhere and grasped his arm in an iron grip, whirling him back around. Its twin caught him in the nose. He cursed, and tried to throw a punch back at his assailant, but another set of hands almost casually plucked his fist from its course and roughly twisted his arm behind his back, snapping on a cold metal pair of handcuffs.

Ray Cruz looked into the even colder glare of Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo as he spoke. "That was for lying to my partner."

"And this is for the murder of Commander Maya Burris," Tim added.

"Like I told Ziva," Ray began, but he was immediately cut off.

Tim gave him a shove while Tony growled out his Miranda Rights.

"You have the right to remain silent."
"So use it," Tim advised.

"Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law," Tony continued. "You have the right to an attorney. If you can not afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. You do not, however, have the right to call my partner by her first name anymore. She is Special Agent David to you now."

Ray rolled his eyes. "And who are you to tell me what I have to call my ex-girlfriend?"

Seeing that Tony was almost overcome with his rage at the moment, and knowing that anything he did would probably only serve to get him suspended, Tim stepped in. "We're her partners. Her family. And you're just a piece of scum that we get to toss out of her life."

"And right into jail," Tony added, opening the car door for Tim to throw Ray not-so-gently into the back seat. Slamming the door again, Tony turned to McGee. "Where did that come from?" he asked, obviously impressed.

Tim shrugged. "Well, I couldn't just stand by while you made yourself into an early Christmas present for Internal Affairs by killing a suspect. So I channeled Thom E. Gemcity to get our message across in a safer way for all of us."

"Thanks."

Tim started to say something to shrug it off, and then saw that Tony was serious; he meant what he said. He was really grateful to him.

Then Serious Tony was gone, and the DiNozzo that Tim knew was back. Opening his door, he added, "But it still would have felt pretty good to bash his face in."

McGee couldn't help the smile that spread over his face as he got in the car and buckled his seatbelt.

The ride back to NCIS was silent until Gibbs called McGee's phone when they were almost at headquarters.

"McGee… Yeah, Boss. We got him. Nope, no problems…. Yeah, we're almost there… Okay, I'll let him know."

"What's up?" Tony asked when he hung up.

"Well, it turns out that the CIA confirms that Cruz was acting against direct orders when he killed Norton on US soil, not to mention the Commander." Tim couldn't resist looking in the mirror and rubbing it in to Ray. "Sounds like you're done."

Ray sulked the rest of the way, and the two agents in the front stayed silent as well. There was just nothing more that needed to be said. It could wait until they had him in Interrogation.

Once they got to the little room, Tony realized that he wasn't done with the ex-CIA operative. He just couldn't hand him over to Gibbs until he'd really given the guy something to think about.

He decided to let him sweat for a few minutes, go get a cup of coffee. Ziva had probably gone home; Gibbs had probably ordered her to leave, saying that her report could wait until morning. Sipping the hot drink, he wondered if this breakup would change Ziva at all. He knew that when everything had fallen to pieces with him and Jeanne, he'd been miserable for weeks. If that happened to Ziva….

Suddenly, he knew what he was going to say when he walked back into Interrogation.

He slammed the door open, hoping to make Ray jump. He should have known that it would take more than that to scare a CIA operative, but, hey, a guy could dream, right? But Ray just looked up expectantly at him, shifting his gaze to McGee as he followed Tony into the small room before bringing it back to rest on Tony. It was obvious that he was in charge of this show.

Still, Ray tried to take over the control by starting things. "How is Zi–"

The room dropped a full ten degrees from the icy stares shot in his direction. Quickly remembering that his "right" to call Ziva by her given name had been taken away, he rolled his eyes and amended, "Special Agent David?"

Sounding almost bored, but with an undercurrent that was so electric the air seemed to sizzle, Tony spoke. "Agent McGee, what are Mr. Cruz's rights again?"

Using the same bored voice, Tim answered, "Silence and attorney."

"Right. I forgot. Sorry, ex-CIRay. The right to ask about our partner is not included in the Jailbird Special."

Ignoring that, Ray pushed on with another question. "What do you want, Agent DiNozzo? You know you can't question me until my lawyer gets here. Besides, I would have thought it would be Agent Gibbs conducting this interrogation."

"I'm not here to interrogate you, Cruz," Tony all but spat at the man. "I am here to get one thing straight. No matter how good your lawyer is, you are going to jail. And you will be there for a very long time. While you are there, you will be lonely. Very lonely. But you will not contact Ziva. Do you understand me?"

Ray scoffed. "Who are you to tell me who I will or will not contact?"

McGee glared so powerfully even Gibbs would have been fighting an intense urge to back down, while Tony continued, "We've been over this. I am her partner. If I hear one word of you sending her letters, I will do my best to make your life in prison a worse hell than you can imagine."

"And how do you plan to do that?"

"Oh, I have my ways." The way he said it sent shivers down Ray's spine, and he couldn't doubt the truth in his words. He leaned across the table, getting right into Ray's face, and whispered, "And to remind you of everything you've lost, I will be sending you letters. Every time Ziva gets a new boyfriend, every time she laughs, every time she smiles, you'll hear about how well she's doing without you. How much better her life is without you. I won't let you forget about how much you threw away when you murdered Commander Burris. And every time you get one of my letters, you'll think of her fist hitting your jaw; you'll think of how quickly she walked away from you, how she didn't even look back. And you'll think of how I will be the one by her side every day, while you're stuck behind bars in a filthy cell."

He stared for just a moment more, letting his eyes show the truth of his promise, before pushing back up and walking to the door again. Looking back, he couldn't resist adding, "I look forward to writing you" before walking out the door.

Tim followed, but hastened to get out of the orange hallway. Tony couldn't have left if he'd wanted to; he was too surprised to move.

There, leaning against the bright orange wall, waiting for him, was Ziva. She had on her most perfect poker face, a blank mask that hid every thought, even from him. Deciding to be brave, he stepped up to her.

"I thought you'd be at home." When she said nothing, he tipped her chin up, making her look him in the eyes. "Ziva. Why aren't you at home?"

"I…I wanted to be here. I wanted to see him be taken away."

Tony nodded; he should have known that just walking out of his life wouldn't be closure enough for her. She had to be sure he stayed out of hers, for a long, long time.

"What you said in there…" she began, getting his attention. "It was…"

Her pauses were killing him. What would fill the blank at the end of that sentence?

"Sweet," she finally decided, wearing the tiniest of smiles. "Perhaps a bit over the top, definitely unprofessional, but I appreciate the gesture."

"It wasn't a gesture. I was absolutely serious. Still am."

She looked at him, unsure of whether to believe him. What she saw on his face scared her a little bit. She'd only ever seen him this determined once before: in Somalia.

"Tony…"

"Ziva," he countered. "You're my partner. He can't just get away with everything he's put you through. He lied to you, Ziva. He flat-out lied to you, about murdering an innocent woman. He tortured you, Ziva. Now I'm going to torture him."

"You're doing this…because I am your partner?"

"Is that so hard to believe?"

She thought about it. About all the things they'd done for each other over the years. And she realized: while this was an odd way of going about it, Tony was just looking out for her. That's what partners did. She'd do the same for him, if tables were turned…. Perhaps in different ways, but it always came down to the same outcome.

"Partners," she said thoughtfully, weighing the word on her tongue. Never had she valued it so much.

"Partners," he agreed, opening the door to the observation room for her as Gibbs came barreling down the hall, coffee in hand, ready to make Ray pay for what he'd done to his team.

Ziva smiled again as she took her place in front of the one-way mirror. As long as Tony was standing beside her, she knew that nothing would hurt her. And they were partners; he wasn't going anywhere.

A/N: So? What'd you think? Good? Bad? Can you find it in your hearts to forgive me?