A/N: This piece is a sequel of my previous work entitled "Full Circle." I apologize if the tone isn't the same throughout or if they're slightly out-of-character. It has been sitting on my computer, unfinished, for some time now and I've tried my best to make it flow. I think it's finally ready to be shared.
If nothing else, writing other endings for them continues to be cathartic. I hope that there's still someone else out there that misses the possibility of Tony and Ziva the way I do.
Title and lyrics belong to Tyler Hilton.
Warning: I do not own NCIS. As I am a Tiva shipper, this fact should be painfully obvious to you. It is to me.
Next to You
He'd always known he would see her again, he just didn't know where or when.
It was almost two years after their tarmac goodbye, ten months since she stopped responding to all forms of communication, and Very Special Agent Tony DiNozzo had been sent to London for a security conference. One of their dignitaries would be a guest of the good ole U.S. of A. for an extended period of time and they wanted to iron out the safety kinks. Director Vance couldn't spare Gibbs and when choosing between the rest of the team members it was Tony who had seniority. He didn't care to go, but he also didn't care to stay. He just didn't really care much anymore.
So he hopped on a plane at BWI and headed for Heathrow, not knowing that this would be it; the moment he would have a passing chance at feeling whole again was within his reach.
He arrived at his hotel in the city, settled into his room, then went down to the bar. Scotch, two fingers, neat. He distractedly watched the television, not caring who was playing which sport. It was just something to look at.
Ten minutes after his drink was gone, his attention to the television was shifted from the screen to the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. He was being watched, he was sure of it.
He attempted to use the reflection in his glass to see behind himself, to find the source of his ill feeling. As soon as he lifted the glass the feeling subsided. He was back to feeling numb.
Throwing a few bills on the bar he headed back up to his room. Cracked open the mini-bar and grabbed a water for his bedside.
Just as he began to loosen his tie there was a knock on the door.
He hadn't ordered room service and he wasn't expecting anyone, so Tony grabbed his gun from the holster and approached the door. The second he looked through the keyhole his heart dropped from his chest to his shoes. He now knew who was watching him in the bar.
Long, curly brown hair. Deep, unsuccessfully guarded brown eyes.
Her eyes never did know how to shut up.
Lowering his gun, he added it back to the holster. Then he unlocked the door and opened it slowly, revealing her old school cargo pants and short-sleeved top. All that was missing was the bandana in her hair and he would be looking at the old Ziva.
He knew he was staring, but he couldn't help it. She'd appeared in his dreams many times since they parted, but he had never thought far enough as to know what he would say. In his dreams she always grabbed him and kissed him, showed him that she missed him as much as he was lost without her.
"Hi, Tony." Her accent was thicker than it used to be, showing that she had spent her time away from NCIS primarily in Israel.
What was she doing here?
Apparently he had spoken that question aloud because she responded. "Abby kept me up to date on your travel plans." She seemed a tad bit hurt by his reaction. "I wanted to see you."
"You're still talking to Abby?" Apparently he had no filter tonight. "What about me? Why did you stop talking to me?"
"It was… too painful. I am sorry, Tony. I could not." There were tears in her eyes, which calmed him down slightly.
"You weren't the only one in pain, Ziva." He turned around and walked into his room, waving for her to follow him. Opening the mini-bar again he grabbed the two closest bottles and tossed her one. The other he opened and swallowed almost completely on the first gulp.
She picked at the label on her bottle, her expression guarded. "I know that. But there was nothing else to do. I wanted you to feel like you could move on." Sighing, she sat down on the bed and placed the small bottle on the floor. "I knew you would do so eventually."
He walked over slowly, tossing his bottle in the trash as he got closer to her. Then he sat next to her on the bed, not looking her in the eye. "There was no moving on after you. There was working, there was sleeping, and there was pain." This was no time to explain his brief relationship with Zoe and their misguided attempt to recapture the past.
Ziva surprised him by laying her head on his shoulder. "I did not want that for you."
"It still happened." Then a thought hit him like a punch in the gut. "Did you… move on?"
She turned her face into his shoulder, muffling her words. "Would I be here if I had?" Then she lifted her head, searching his face for a reaction to her words. Her hands came up to stroke his cheeks with the backs of her fingers, he closed his eyes at her touch.
Tony took her right hand in one of his and kissed the palm gently, his eyes opening slowly before meeting hers again. "Then why are we still talking?"
She leaned into him and he met her mouth with his. Months of sorrow and loss was poured into the kiss from both sides, longing in every stroke of their tongues.
Then she pulled away. He was proud to note that she was a little breathless.
When Tony tried to capture her mouth again she placed her hand on his chest to keep him away from her. "I came here for a reason, Tony."
He stared into her eyes, a little desperate. "What other reason is there?"
Their bodies were still semi-entwined as she reached into her pants pocket and extracted a worn piece of paper. She gently unfolded it and smiled at the words on the page, then she handed it to him.
"I wish to talk with this man."
He stared down in disbelief at the wrinkled scrap of paper in his hand. Scrawled on the page, in his own handwriting, was the "I Will" list he had written as the plane carried him away from her and Israel. It represented a time when he'd felt more hopeful about their situation. A time when he'd believed nothing could actually keep them apart.
Then she'd stopped calling, stopped writing, stopped texting and he gave up. He'd felt alone in this depression and the words on the page cut him deeply with their naïve optimism.
1. I will kiss her again.
2. I will run to her, not from her.
3. I will be her home.
4. I will tell her what she means to me.
5. I will be the man she needs me to be.
6. I will not let her run from me.
7. I will give the necklace to our daughter.
He had to take a second to compose himself because he had to figure out how to speak around the lump forming in his throat and had to stop the tears welling in his eyes. Those words felt so far away from who he was, where he was now…
Whispering hoarsely he asked, "Where… did you get this?" He looked anywhere but at her. He couldn't look at her now that she'd read this list. Now that she knew these things.
He felt so exposed.
"Your friends are very worried for you, Tony."
He looked up into her eyes and they were so full of warm, fuzzy, disgusting pity.
"I must be some kind of pathetic if Abby and Tim would snoop through my desk and read private information then mail it around the world." He pushed himself off of the bed and away from her to pace the room. "Did they guilt you into coming here? What, did they think seeing you would fix whatever was broken in me?"
She stood, placing her hand on his arm, making him stop pacing at the touch. She lifted her lips in a small smile and replied, "They did not make me do anything. Abby told me of your assignment here and the… list arrived in the mail a day later. No return address." She took his right hand in her left. "I chose to be here. It was time."
He lifted their joined hands and studied her left hand, her bare ring finger. "But are you really here, Ziva? Or are you just checking to make sure I'm still the heartbroken idiot who believed our kiss goodbye shook your world as hard as it shook mine? Because the world did move for me." He let go of her hand and looked her square in the eye. "I can't get past this, Ziva. I won't. It hurts me too much to let you go and I refuse to do it again. So if you think you're going to waltz in here to try and fix me, then go running back to Israel-"
She looked incredibly shocked. "You are being very truthful..."
"No sense dancing around it now." He scoffed. "You may as well hear it all after reading that damned list. You wanted the man who wrote that list thinking the future was certain, well, he's right here. This is what he looks like ten months after you cut ties and made him think that you were gone forever."
Ziva bit her lip while she thought over his words. "But he is still in there? Somewhere? Even though you are running away from me as we speak?"
"What?"
"Number two, Tony. 'I will run to her, not from her.' That is what you are doing, running." She took his hand again, this time his left in her right. His eyes snapped to hers as she ran her thumb over his empty ring finger. "If you are going to run, how can I return to my home?"
"You haven't been in Israel all this time?" It was a dumb question, but it was the only one that made sense to him at the moment.
She nodded once. "Yes. That is where I have been." Then she released his hand and placed hers against his chest, over his heart. "But I have not been home until now."
All he could do was stare at her; she stared right back at him with sincerity etched upon her face. He was still waiting for her to skip town again. But what if she wasn't going to?
How was he supposed to respond to this? What could possibly erase the hell he'd endured since she left?
It seems that it wouldn't require anything earth-shattering. Just Ziva's touch. Her hand skating down his chest and joining with his, their fingers automatically intertwining. She leaned into him, placing her head on his chest. His free arm wound around her instinctively and he couldn't help but revel in the feel of her body against his. The desert flower scent wafting up from her hair was much stronger than any top shelf liquor, more addictive than any drug.
Her touch made him whole. He'd forgotten what complete felt like. And he had little time to decide how to react. Then again, there was no way he was going to give it up again without a fight.
"Do you remember asking me if I believed in soulmates, Ziva?"
"I do." She pulled back from him slightly and looked up to meet his eyes. "You pretended to think I was speaking of a music group."
"Well, I thought I was miserable then." He sighed, "I didn't know what miserable really was until you left DC. That's when I found out how it felt to be separated from my soulmate."
She gripped him tighter. And maybe it her presence, or the alcohol, or the wide-eyed amazement in her gaze, but something about the moment was intoxicating. Something that pushed him to continue, to erase the question mark they'd lived under for so long. "And if I don't tell you now that I've been in love with you for as long as I can remember, then I'll never be able to forgive myself."
He watched as tears welled up in her eyes. As she let one fall she kissed him softly, then put her lips to his ear. "Tony," she whispered, "I could not possibly love you more."
Tony pushed her hair past her shoulder and kissed his way from her neck to her mouth. Their lips were fused together as clothing was quickly discarded.
He was inside her in seconds, though it felt like it took forever to get there. He'd waited so long for this moment that forever wasn't really an exaggeration.
They coupled frantically, throwing themselves completely into each other. Her fingers digging into his back, his palms gripping her hips. The frantic lovemaking of two people who couldn't possibly wait another moment for this touch, this taste of perfection.
It was over quicker than he would have liked. But when she reached her peak, she dragged him over the edge with her. He was helpless.
Now she was panting on top of him, her body drenched with sweat and plastered to his. He was in heaven, unable to break the silence.
So she broke it for him, lifting her head from his chest and asking, "What are you thinking about?"
He thought about how best to put it; the thoughts swirling in his brain, the fear that she would run again, the anguish that brought them to this moment, and the perfect peace he now felt.
Brushing her damp hair back from her face he replied, "I'm never letting you go again."
She kissed his chest, then laid her head back down against it. "And I will not make you."
"So, what now?"
Ziva shifted her body slightly, her hand threading below the covers to grip his waist, crushing their hips closer together. Then she grinned up at him, feeling his body's unconscious response. "I have a few ideas…"
He took her face in his hands and kissed her soundly. Then said, "I'm being serious. What now?"
She rolled off of him and sat up on the bed, he followed her example. Ziva's face was suddenly serious and his stomach started to flutter with nerves.
"Ziva?"
She placed her palm on his cheek. "I cannot go back to NCIS. I cannot become that violent person again. It's taken me two years to get past the person my father's death turned me into and I will not allow myself to become her again." She smiled shyly, "But I also refuse to go on denying myself happiness in punishment for my actions."
Tony felt a little bewildered by her explanation, but asked, "Does all that mean you'll come back to D.C. with me?" He chuckled. "Because that's everything I need to know right now. I'll love you whether you're an agent or a grocery store clerk; I just want to know I won't lose you again. We can work the rest out later."
She snuggled closer to his body, her head on his shoulder. "Then I will return to D.C., Tony. The safest place for me has always been with you."
He kissed her hair and they held each other for a while, just enjoying a comfortable silence.
Tony would have to thank whomever sent her the list. Even if he had been upset that his anguish hadn't been a secret, he could no longer be angry. It was the list that brought them together again and after tonight he could mentally mark everything as complete. Well, except number seven.
But they had been in a hurry… so he might be checking that off of the list too.
Only time would tell.
What age am I turning to finally be learning I know nothing to be true, except
I've come far as I can on my way to you? All I've ever wanted was to be the one
you're coming home to; instead of running scared and hiding, look into your eyes
and say what you never knew, that all I ever wanted was to be next to you.
A/N: Please let me know what you thought.