Disclaimer: If you sue me, I'll reveal to the world that your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.
Spoilers: Love and War, with a couple of specific season 5 bits. Subplot post-ep. Title is irrelevant because compulsory Anna Karenina scared me away from any other Tolstoy.
Summary: Tony figures out that all is not as it seems. Or is exactly as it seems, because it was weird to begin with.
Tony looked up from his Washington Post when someone cleared her throat. "Uh, hi?"
A wrinkly old woman glowered at him from the doorway across the hall. "Did you steal my paper, young man?"
"I borrowed it," he protested, carefully folding it into the state in which he'd found it in front of her closed door almost half an hour before. "No harm done."
"You took my paper without permission." Tugging her robe up closer to her chin, she didn't step forward when he held out the only reading material available. "That door you're sitting in front of belongs to a policewoman. I don't think she would let you get away with stealing her neighbor's paper."
He tilted his head back, staring up at the bases of the numbers, slightly elevated from the surface of the door. "She's not home, which is why I'm sitting in the hallway, reading the paper."
"Reading my paper."
"Sorry." Tony sighed and pushed himself off the floor, again extending the paper toward the woman.
She snatched it from him with a gnarled claw. "Why are you sitting in front of Officer David's door?"
"I need to talk to her."
"Don't you have a phone?"
"I thought if I stopped by she might make me breakfast." The woman continued to eye him suspiciously, so he added, "We're partners."
"Is that what the young people call it these days?"
"Good morning, Mrs. Miller."
Tony turned and saw Ziva walking toward them, looking soaked in spite of her yellow windbreaker. The old lady, Mrs. Miller, immediately pointed at him. "This man claiming to be your partner tried to steal my newspaper."
Hands on her hips, Ziva gave him a chastising look. "Tony! Stealing from…"
"I was just reading it while I waited for you to get back from running!" he interrupted. When Ziva widened her eyes, he realized he was supposed to be playing along. "I won't do it again, though. Sorry, Mrs. Miller," he said with mock sincerity.
"Don't do it again, young man," she replied, shaking her finger in his face.
"Have a lovely day, Mrs. Miller," Ziva said, thankfully ending the encounter by dragging Tony into her apartment before Mrs. Miller could continue ranting about young people and their lack of respect. He didn't get a chance to comment on Ziva's neighbors when she asked him, "What are you doing here?"
He suddenly remembered why he'd dragged his ass across town in the early morning drizzle. "I know what you did." She didn't ask for a clarification, which he took as a tacit admission of guilt. He continued, "Y'know, I was up all night having nightmares about moving to Massachusetts."
"What is wrong with Massachusetts?"
"There's nothing wrong with it, I just don't wanna marry McGee!"
"Hm. I have not seen circles that dark under your eyes since…well…" She grinned, looking pleased with herself as she kicked off her sneakers and hung up her coat. He decided it would be best not to remind her that the Binocular Incident and been avenged during the Great Chair Collapse of '08. When had these events become capitalized? He was trying to think of what he'd have to do to make up for the Internet Date Scandal when Ziva said in an unexpectedly quiet voice, "You could have let yourself in."
"I thought you only gave me that key for emergencies."
He frowned when she didn't make so much as a crack regarding his spotty lock picking skills. "I need to take a shower. The cable is still not hooked up, but the television receives some of the channels."
He draped his coat, which had had plenty of time to dry while he'd read the paper, over the back of the sofa. "I can't believe you finally broke down and bought the big flat screen."
"It is not that big. It is smaller than yours."
"Yeah, but I didn't got from zero to thirty-two inches in under five hundred dollars."
She shrugged. "I simply took advantage of that electronic store's liquidation sale. You upgraded your car's stereo system, as I recall."
"Still, a new TV…" He reached toward it with both hands. "I mean, this screen doesn't yet know the joy of a college basketball game. It's never had the opportunity to experience a Bond movie, never displayed…" A door slamming at the end of the hallway cut off his monologue in praise of the many wonders of the airwaves. He waited until the shower had been running for a minute before opening the bathroom door.
"Tony, what are you doing?"
"Relax, all I can see through the curtain is a silhouette." Not that he wouldn't enjoy the silhouette in the few seconds before she started throwing things at him to get him out of the bathroom.
To his surprise, she said, "I meant you are letting the cold air in. Close the door!"
"Right." After softly shutting the door, he picked up the towel loosely balled on the counter and held it in his lap as he sat where it had been. "So when did you tell McGee that Claire was a figment of my imagination?"
"Does it matter?"
He allowed his jaw to hang open for a few moments as she raised her arms to rinse her hair. Holding the towel more tightly against his lap, he finally said, "Oh, it's just, uh…I want to make sure he didn't start sending me those creepy soulmate vibes before you told him…" he trailed off, another memory threatening to distract him from the fact that she was now rubbing a sponge all over herself. "You, um, I…do you want me to, uh, make some coffee or something?"
"No, thank you. And to answer your question, I did not say anything to McGee until after Claire stood him up. I would have saved him the trouble, but I wasn't able to get away from you in time to call him and let him know what you had done."
"Is this because you're mad the cable guy didn't show up the other day?"
"Tony…"
"This wouldn't even have happened if you hadn't canceled our plans over weekend. You'd be shocked how much sense messing with McGee made after an 80s movie and a few beers."
The water suddenly went off. "I told you we can go to dinner and the movie theater some other time."
"I know that. What I still don't know is why you suddenly couldn't go."
"Tony…can I have my towel?"
He held it up and shook it, hoping she could see it through the curtain. "Not until you tell me why."
"Fine."
He was grinning in anticipation of learning the secret when she pushed the curtain aside and brushed past him. He was able to gather himself quickly enough to follow her and get another look as she dripped in front of her linen closet. "You, uh…so…this…uh, wow, so…" He regained his powers of speech when she finally wrapped a fresh towel around herself. "So I guess all the 5AM runs are paying off."
"Are you saying I was fat?"
"What? No! I was just saying that you've really maintained the, uh…"
"Thank you. Now try to stay out of my bedroom while I get dressed."
He slunk back to the living room and turned on the TV. Somehow, he wasn't feeling quite as mad as he had when he'd realized what had really happened. So McGee had played him a little; it wasn't as long or as cleverly as he'd played McGee. Yeah. The Today Show was putting him to sleep when Ziva finally emerged from her bedroom. "Took you long enough."
"I wanted to be perfect for you."
When he turned, he saw she had done her hair, made herself up and put on… "Whoa. That is so much nicer than just a silhouette. La Perla?"
"No, just something I picked up in Paris." His mouth went dry as she fingered the lacy pattern on the black corset of her…
He looked up as she shook his shoulder. "Huh?"
Wearing a sweater and cargo pants, she looked at him significantly. "Catching up on sleep and better dreams?"
He squirmed, pulling one of the sofa cushions into his lap as he sat up. "Well, uh…"
"Why don't we go somewhere and have breakfast? On me."
While her choice of phrase only served to make him more uncomfortable, he agreed. "Sure. We can talk about how to triple cross McGee." That did it; McGee was a good cold shower.
"Quadruple cross," she corrected, ignoring Tony's hesitance. "You tricked him, then I went behind your backside to tell him, then he tricked you. And I will not be participating in this any further."
Still trying to maintain a delicate balance, he corrected, "Back. You went behind my back."
"Same thing, my little hairy butt."
McGee. Baseball. Antarctica. Old nuns…really old bowling nuns.
"Tony?" He looked up and saw that she was wearing her coat, backpack slung over her shoulder and standing at the door. "Ready to go?"
A murmured, "Well, I never!" was audible when she waved to the door across the hall as they left.
Over coffee as they waited for their omelets, Ziva said, "You may have done me a favor by making Mrs. Miller think I am a…loose woman? Is that right?"
"I wouldn't know. I'm just the partner you shower in front of."
He didn't wince as she lightly tapped him with her toe under the table. "Perhaps now she will stop offering her horrible casseroles to me."
Struck by a sudden inspiration, Tony asked, "Is Mrs. Miller single?"
"I believe she is a widow. Why?"
"Well, if McGee is still looking for a woman…"