She moves the eggs around on her plate, fork twisting in the scrambled eggs, she knows is made from powder. Only in America she tells herself. Only in America.
Even though she remembers the variety of powdered food she sampled during her army service. How the boys in her unit, and they really were just boys with guns, would brag about the feasts their Ima's put on for them, when they returned home on weekend leave. She would return home to Tali, and they would to try to replicate their mother's recipies, with no success. On her leaves she and Tali would gorge on bamba and store-brought hummus.
Tony is on the other side of the booth. The seats are made from material the squelches every time someone moves. Tony is digging into his bacon. Smile on his face. The diner is quiet, they'd arrived after the dinner rush, fleeing the pumpkin walled office. Fleeing the paperwork from the latest closed case. It had been such a difficult case.
"Why are we here?" Ziva asks as she brought the tea cup to her mouth.
The tea has too much milk, and the colour of it reminds her of dishwater. And of Scotland, that weekend she spent with Ari in Edinburgh, between missions. That weekend the two siblings, one a fully-fledged adult, the other far younger but already initiated into the harshness of the adult world, played pretend like the overgrown children they were. They drunk in funnily named pubs, where people tried to guess where they were from. The closest anyone got was Turkey. The next day, she had walked through the quaint cobbled seats, imagining a life where little sisters did not get blown up, and fathers did not have a pathological sense of duty.
"Can't a guy buy his partner dinner once in while?" Tony asks, bacon hanging from his mouth. He's also spilt egg on his shirt. Sometimes, she wonders how he has gotten so far in life, and never learnt how to eat with his mouth closed.
She swallows her tea. Remembering a conversation she once had with Ducky. She had been so new then. So foreign. Ducky, had given her a list of places that served decent tea, and told her of his many quests to get decent tea.
"Besides, it's been a tough case," Tony declares.
Weren't they all.
Violence. Suffering. Sadness. There was always tears. Sometimes, those tears were her own.
"I suppose," she murmurs, placing her tea on the table. She ran her hand over her face. The tiredness just burrows itself deeper. It seeps right through to her bones. Will the dense fog ever lift?
"Gotta feel for Sayda," Tony declares.
She's eyeing the tiny packets of sugar, maybe some sweetness will make the tea more bearable. Maybe, the sugar can banish all the toughs this case has brought up to surface. Her mind feels like the sandy beach after a storm. Littered with debris.
"Yes," she murmurs deciding against the sugar.
"I mean she waited for him, she searched for him, and when she finally finds him, he's shacked up with someone else," Tony continues.
She frowns at her tea. She knows the story. She doesn't need reminding. Despite, the silly pop songs her mother used to play, as they waited through Tel Aviv traffic jams, the beat up car moving mere millimeters, every few minutes. Love is not all you need.
"He thought she was dead," Ziva whispers, "You must move on, eventually."
She swallows a little bit of tea. Hoping to swallow back her words too. She sounds so much like her father.
"Really puts a damper on your whole soulmates theory," Tony mutters.
They're talking over each other again. It feels like they've been doing that for a while. Once upon a time, they were so in sync. She wants to go back to that. She wonders if they possibly can. So much has changed.
"I never said I believed in soulmates," she protests, head shooting up to look at him.
"Really," he declares, dragging out the syllables.
Then as silence falls he takes a sip of coffee, he's becoming too much like Gibbs, she thinks. Except for the half a dozen packets of sugar, she watched him spill into the coffee, while they waited for the food.
"My exact words were, do you believe in soulmates?" she replies. "Then you fogged me off, with something from before I was born."
He frowns. He's so sensitive about her age. Mostly, in comparison to his.
"Fobbed," he corrects. "I fobbed you off."
"Yes, you did," she says, her voice low. Shoulders sagging. This conversation is too heavy. Why can they never have light conversations?
"Didn't expect that kinda question from you," he tells her as she makes another attempt to eat her eggs.
That sentence makes her fork slip from her hands. A clang echoes in the near-empty diner.
"Why?" she asks, as she picks up her fork, and twists it in the eggs.
"Didn't think Jane Bond concerned herself with matters of the heart," he mutters. "The Ziva David who came two years ago, had that whole black widow kinda vibe going on."
America had softened her. Her father had told her as much during a fairly recent conversation, their first after many months of radio silence. Oh how the old man had sighed, as he offered his diagnosis from half the world away. Oh Ziva, you were always the sharp end of the spear.
"I am not the same person I was two years ago," she says confidently. She likes to think she is better than the person who stormed into the squad room, fed on half-truths. Some days, she believes it. Some days she does not.
"I know," he says, leaning across the table, with his fork, on a quest steal some of her food.
"Neither are you," she utters, as she uses her own fork, to knock his away. She might not want the eggs, but she also does not want to share. She is a complicated creature.
The Jeanne Benoit affair, as they now all have not termed it, had changed him. That was the consensus among those who knew him best. She watched him now, as he tried to learn to walk again, like he'd spent the last year wrapped in a cast. He was atrophied. His skin was raw. He was hurt. So very hurt.
"No," he squeaks, Ziva's comment too close. Too accurate. "No, I'm not."
She stirs the eggs around again, then sighs, placing the fork down in defeat.
She wanted her mother's shakshuka, she wants it extra spicy. She wanted Turkish style coffee from that little cafe in the tightly wound streets of the old city Jaffa, and she wanted a tiny tahini cookie to plop in her mouth. She wanted to watch old men play a board game she barely understood, and chat about the weather. She wanted to smell the sea. It always smelt different as the summer started to drift out toward the sea, and winter blew in.
These powdered eggs, and plastic coated tea, simply would not do.
Maybe, if they do not get a weekend callout, she will cook. But she never can get the shakshuka like her mother's. Something is always missing.
Her mother would always be missing.
"So Miss David, do you believe in soulmates?" he asks, his voice like a game show host. His grabbed the safety blanket, that his pop-culture and jokes, and shrouded himself in it.
"I asked first," she responds quickly.
He is trying to lock her out. She's pushing her foot in front of the door. She's asking him to let her in. This is their dance.
A half laugh slips from Tony's mouth. A smile lingers for just a second. It's been so long since he has smiled like that. A full moon of a smile. It is so wonderful when he smiles.
"Do you?" she prompts.
He blinks a few times. Opens his mouth then promptly closing it, without letting a word slip between his teeth. He is thinking. Deep diving into his own thoughts, unsure of what he'll bring up.
"Well, that is a good question," he declares, still using that voice like he's in a game show.
"One, you are not answering," and with that, her words sting. He actually flinches as they hit him.
"Honestly?" slips from his mouth. His head tilts, the one word offered as question.
"Yes," she declares. "Honestly."
Maybe, it is wrong to demand such honesty from him. Still, she asks for it. She begs for him, to grant it to her.
"Only in the movies," he says after a second. "In a Rick and Ilsa kind way."
She frowns. He has made her sit through the classic film twice now. The first time, she had sounded off about how the city of Casablanca would have been nothing like the Californian film set, that played on her brand-new too-small television. The second time, she was engrossed in the story, understanding its timelessness. Her heart aching as she watched the heartbreaking conclusion. She would not refuse if he suggested they watch it again.
"What about you, Little Miss Still Waters Run Deep?" he asks, as he sinks the last of his coffee.
Sticking his tongue out, as he gets the hit of sugar from the bottom on the cup. A consequence of improper stirring. He had been so eager to recaffeinate.
"It is like you said," Ziva declares.
"You should know by now, not to listen to a word I say," he utters.
She offers him a hint of a smile, and he takes it. Offering a small one in return.
"You said, that Jane Bond should not concern herself with matters of the heart," she declares.
Was she ever going to be anything more than walking weapon? Is that all people saw, when they looked at her.
"And if she did," he prompts. Looking at her from across the table.
And, if she did, she would not be Jane Bond. Love is for the weak.
"There is this Jewish idea," she starts. "Of Bashert, it means destiny. The ancient Rabbis said that all marriages were made in heaven. I suppose it is a bit like soulmates."
"Do you believe in that?" he asks.
"It is a nice idea," she admits. He nods. Could it ever be any more than a nice idea?
"Do you believe in it?" he asks, as he puts the scratchy paper napkin to his face.
"My Aunt Nettie does," she declares. "She never married though."
He smiles at the mention of her newly discovered Aunt. That phone call already seems like so long ago. Had he really declared himself to be Ziva's husband. It felt like some bizarre dream. Maybe, it was.
"I really should send her flowers," he says.
"She is allergic to pollen," Ziva replies quickly, "Besides she found the whole thing quite funny. After I spent three hours explaining it to her. If only she had remembered the time difference when she called me back."
A throaty chuckle slips from Tony. The dark rings around her eye, were not just case related.
"You never talk about her," he whispers.
"My Aunt?" comes her response. Eyebrows rising to her hairline.
"Any of your family," he murmurs. She shoots him a frown. Does he not remember, when she told him the tale of her little sister. The one who never made it to seventeen. The best of them. "Not often, anyway."
She sighs. Americans and their instance on mixing personal and professional. Still, these Americans are more than just professional to her. Maybe, she owes them as much.
"My Aunt and I are not that close," she admits. "She does not agree with some of my choices."
"Career choices," he prompts.
When Ziva picked up her father's guns, oh how grey-haired Nettie lamented. Oh Zivaleh, how upset your mother would be. Oh motek, you are more than this. But it didn't matter. Her mother was dead. And soon enough, Aunt and Niece would be standing in front of Tali's grave, unable to bear how close together the two dates on the newly erected headstone were. And by then, they had already had a year to sit with the loss.
"She was my mother's sister," Ziva says softly. "She saw the effect my father's job, had on my mother. She wanted different things for me."
Her mother crying, as Nettie comforting her, at the dinner table, the two sisters sharing a packet of cigarettes and a bottle of wine. Those plans that were made to leave Eli, the plans that were never realised. Something would always come up. Rivka would always believe Eli's false promises.
"Still, at least she calls," Tony utters.
His voice so small. When was the last time his father had called, she wonders.
"I suppose so," Ziva whispers.
Even if the two of them have so little to say to each other. She knows Nettie calls out of some sense of obligation. A duty to a dead sister. Ziva knows that dance too well. Ziva and Nettie cannot talk about that. They cannot compare being sisterless. There is just so much pain. They fill their phone conversations with comparisons of weather, the odd book recommendation, and recipes. So much silence is transmitted down the long distance line.
"Does she still need help getting shot of her mahjong partner?" he asks.
"She says it is all sorted," Ziva whispers. "He was American, he had come to Israel to retire. She had already tried to end their partnership, and explain things to him in Hebrew. She thought that perhaps he did not understand, because his Hebrew is not so good. So. she called me to help her say it in English. Her English is not so good. Not only is she rid of him, but now she has a funny story to tell."
"Well there's that," he mutters.
Maybe, it'll be a funny story they both tell one day.
"Have you got in any plans for the weekend?" she asks idly, after a few seconds of quiet. This is nice, she decides. The two of them, talking, and laughing. This is how it should be.
It's already Thursday, and Gibbs told them all he didn't want to see them in the office the next day, unless there was a case. Technically, they are on call, but maybe the universe would be kind. Maybe, it will grant them a weekend off.
"Well Tony makes plans, and Gibbs laughs," Tony declares.
She laughs. A hearty laugh. Her hand jerks up to under her nose, as if her brain is surprised by the noise she is making. His thousand watt grin smiles back at her.
"You?" he asks.
The waitress comes to collect plates. She's young, blonde and slightly curvy. A trifecta in terms of hot girl, by Anthony DiNozzo standards, but Tony doesn't flirt with her. His heart is still wounded. He needs some more recovery time. She wordlessly offers him more coffee, he waves her away, after handing her a nice tip.
She thinks for a moment. It is already November. A glorious and rather warm autumn is starting to descend into a nasty winter. She found herself digging out her thick winter coats the other day. Maybe, she will go for a long run, slowing down slightly to admire the changing leaves. She will feel them crunch under her feet. The cool air will hit her face.
Aunt Nettie has sent her a book for her birthday, maybe she will crack the spine on that, hoping to read a few chapters, before life gets too busy again. How nice it would be to read something new in Hebrew. Such a rare treat. She's never read Zeruya Shalev before. It was too much for me, her Aunt had bellowed across the ocean. Seems like the type of book your mother would have liked.
Her thoughts slip to her mother again. A natural consequence of her birthday passing, she supposes. She remembers her mother's bookshelf; double stacked books, dogged eared pages, and all the books. Oh so many books. Modern classics, new releases, and huge Russian bricks. Amoz Oz. Bispi Sidhwa, and Leo Tolstoy, all mingling like guests at a dinner party.
Her tongue laps her lips. She tastes tahini, fresh hummus, and eggplant. Phantom tastes. Still, she salivates.
"I will do some cooking, maybe," she finally says. Yes, she thinks. She will cook a feast. Even, if she has nobody to share it with.
"Italian?" he asks, wearing his grin, with a glimmer of hope. She knows he likes her cooking.
"Israeli," she whispers.
Her mother's shakshuka. Tahini cookies, hopefully the crappy oven in her apartment won't burn them. Fresh bread, maybe, if they don't get called out on a case. She'll clear her meager kitchen counter, and knead the bread, letting her thoughts ferment with the yeast.
"You homesick?" he asks, with an economy of words that would make Gibbs proud. Voice soft. He is treading lightly. Wasn't there, that idiom, about eggshells, she wonders.
"No," she lies, shaking her head for emphasis. But she quickly dissolves. "Maybe. Maybe, a little."
"That other thing I said," he murmurs, looking down at the scratched formica table.
"What thing?" she asks, playing dumb.
"About you being on a weekend fun pass," he murmurs, still not looking up from the table. "I didn't mean it like that."
"It would be wrong for me to claim that my immigrant experience is like Sayda's, or the people who came through Ellis Island," Ziva declares, voice warm.
Her mind, turns ever so briefly to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, remembering how it passed through the girls her class, not long after the year of the Bat Mitzvahs was over. Ziva had been included in the frenzy, despite being quite removed from the gaggle of girls. Each girl had found something to relate to in Francie Nolan, and upper-middle class Tel Aviv during the Oslo years, was nothing like turn of the century Brooklyn.
"Besides, I could get recalled back to Tel Aviv at any moment," she spills.
It is not secret. But, they all live in a dissonance about the future. All imagining an endless parade of pumpkin walls, and get your gears, for years and years to come. Oh, how she will miss her life here, when she is called back. How she would miss him.
"Still," he murmurs, slowly looking up. She offers him a smile. A peace offering. His face turns, as her words wash over him. An unexpected swell, as low tide laps at the shore. "They could really do that."
"It is unlikely, at the moment," Ziva concedes, offering him a lifeline. "But things can change."
Maybe, it really was a weekend fun pass after all. It was all so temporary. She was starting to crave something permanent. That craving would not be satisfied. She still did not expect to see thirty. Permanency would be wasted on a woman, who dared death to chase her. Death was a diligent adversary, it had come so close to catching her. Too close. Too many times.
"That sucks," he declares, sounding so much younger than his years.
"It is what it is," Ziva whispers, as they both slowly slip from the diner booth. She scrunches her face as the cheap seat makes noise. He smirks.
"I will probably have leftovers, if I cook," Ziva tells him as they walk to the door of the diner. "If we do not get called in this weekend. Maybe, you could come over, and help me with them."
"Anthony DiNozzo, human vacuum cleaner at your service," he says, as they stand in front of the door of the diner. With him opening the door, making a show of being gentlemanly. "Maybe, I'll bring a movie. We really let your film education slide for a while there."
He laughs. She laughs. The little bell above the door rings. They slip into the night.
A/N:
I don't own a thing. Not the show. Not Ziva David. And certainly, not the books mentioned.
Possibly, too introspective for the characters they were in S5, but I do hope you enjoy it. Thanking you in advance for any reviews, feedback, or love, this might get.
Fic title from the song 'Firewood' by Regina Spektor. Israeli food references come from the book Zahav by Michael Solomonov. The sentence about Bashert comes from wikipedia (super reliable source, I know!).