Hey everyone! Here's the first of the ~continued~ installments of 'What if we'd met someplace else?'.

So Airport was the winner, once I combined all the votes I got. I also have the next two, but I'll keep you in suspense so as not to ruin the surprise. :3

Basically, I need to work out what direction I'm going with this (is Ari still around, is Kate dead, what season is it set in, etc.) but I wanted to upload this before you all got tired of waiting. There will be a bit of a delay still, but don't worry.
And I also want to thank everyone who voted and let you know I'm always thankful for your support.

Disclaimer: You know you're obsessed with NCIS when you have an anniversary of first loving it. (Today, btw.)

Listening to: Magic Dance by David Bowie.

She falls into a red chair, backed against a wall, and her head lulls itself into her hands out of exhaustion.
"Tired, huh?" she hears someone say, and she looks up to see who spoke. It was a masculine voice, which rules out the woman with a child on her lap, that's situated on her right. It was also a voice that sounded as if it had a few decades behind it, so she dismissed the spot-ridden teenager, immersed in a book, that sat on her far left. The voice also had a joking-yet-intrigued tone to it, so the bored man two seats along, looking at the floor, is not an option either. On second thought, definitely not him since he's asleep. And then she sees him; the owner of those words. He's a handsome man, slouched across two chairs, a playful grin on his lips and an air of confidence about him. His eyes are focused solely on her, so she can see the emerald color of his irises, every time he blinks.

She raises an eyebrow at him in question, but he just shrugs as a response. Normally, she would go to him and tell him to mind his own business. But, maybe because he's cute or something like that, she decides to humor him.

"Yes. I am tired." she says wearily, and wipes the sleep away from her eyes with her index finger, to add to the effect. Though, truth be told, she's shattered.
"Sorry 'bout that. I'm Tony." he replies, grabbing his backpack and waltzing over to her in a smooth movement, then sitting in the chair next to her. Once he lets his bag fall to the floor, he offers her his hand. For some reason completely unknown to her, she takes his hand and shakes it.
"Ziva." she replies with a nod, and a smile creeps onto her mouth despite her best efforts to hide it.
"Zee-vaahh..." he says, rolling his tongue through his mouth as he tries the word out.
"So, Ziva. Tell me, where you from? Where you going?" he continues with the brightest grin she thinks she's ever seen, and the way he snaps the second part of her name makes her echo his wide smile.

She makes the decision to see how clever he is, and dodges his question.
"How about you? Where have you come from, where are you going, Tony?" she snaps the last part of his name, too, and she notes the dancing shadow in his eyes as she does so.
"Well, I was here on vacation, actually. Headed back to Washington. Though I'm actually Italian." he says with a wink, and although there's no denying he's charming, something in her head points out that he took the bait and answered her question, rather than persisting with his.
"But," he speaks once more, trailing out the word, "You danced round my question, Miss Ziva. Where you from, all that jazz."

Something re-ignites inside her and she beams at him because he does have an attention span and genuinely seems both interested in her, and interesting, unlike the men she usually attracts.
"Well, I am from Israel, on my way to Washington DC. My flight had to stop here because of something being faulty, so I am being transferred." she responds, her smile never really dimming. He whistles in appreciation, and then a husky 'Wow' escapes his lips. They continue to talk until a nasal woman informs her over the speakers, that it's the final call for her flight. He laughs at the fact that they'd both been so distracted that they hadn't heard the call, and then breaks out into a grin because it's his plane too.

They both rush through doors with their hand luggage, and reach the employees with what she assumes are seconds to spare. Much to her annoyance, she's so late that someone has already taken her supposed seat because of stupidity, but she insists it's fine and that she will sit in an empty chair. But, -call it destiny or luck or karma- the only spare place is next to her new friend, Tony. So she sits next to him for several hours, and she finds the whole experience far better than if she had been sat next to a quiet little person and just read a book the whole time.

They talk and laugh and she finds herself a little upset when they come into land and it hits her that she will probably never see him again. But when they walk off the plane, complaining of aching limbs and tired minds, and the city they've just landed in, he says something that she is able to read between.
"I mean, DC's pretty big and all, but I guess I've seen people more than once."
And she slows her pace and turns to look at him, a small, slightly surprised smile gracing her features.

They carry on talking as they collect their luggage, and he even offers to hail a cab for her. She regretfully insists she can do it herself, and immediately wishes she had accepted his offer the second the sad smile appears on his face.
"I hope I see you around, Tony. It's been nice talking to you." she says, unsure as to why her heart feels so heavy. She narrows her eyes as he rummages around in his pocket for something, and then smiles when he places a card in her hand.
"Call me, Ziva." he sees, his eyes shining in the artificial light. She is completely taken aback when he leans in and kisses her, just next to her mouth, but she takes the way her stomach flips as a vaguely good sign. Her arm reaches out and she hears wheels slowing down, without even taking her eyes off the man stood in front of her. And she senses that he probably chats up a lot of girls, but that maybe it's different this time.
"Goodbye, Tony. Until we meet again." she tells him with her eyes glistening against her will.
"G-Goodbye, Ziva." his voice breaks at first, and he clears his throat before carrying on. She enters the waiting vehicle just as the driver is about to make a run for it, and Tony helps her with her bags. She laughs in a melancholy way before she shuts the door and tells the man in front to wait just a second. Rolling down the window, she leans out and sees her friend shoot her a weak, sad smile before leaning in closer as she beckons him to. She rises up in her seat and kisses his cheek lightly, before sliding the window up and sitting back down properly.

Her voice is shaky as she tells the cab driver her new address, and she wipes a lone tear away with the back of her hand. She's not sure why she's crying, exactly, because she has every intention of calling him. In fact, she decides, she'll add his number to her cell phone. Glancing down at the card he gave her- it's still in her hand- for the first time since she received it; she sees it is a business card, from the place that he works at. Her eyes drink in his name and his phone number (one that she hopes she will come to learn by heart), then notices the name of the agency that he works at. One 'NCIS'. Her heart does a double take, and she pulls her barely-read assignment order papers out of her bag, reading the name of the agency she's been assigned to. NCIS. A laugh of part insanity escapes her lips, and she notes what a Tony DiNozzo (she glances down at the business card again to commit his name to memory) thing it is to not even mention Work in the however-many-hours they had talked.

She cradles the little card in both her hands and absorbs the heap of new information she's just discovered.
Well, Anthony. It seems we will be meeting a little sooner than I anticipated.

You don't need to review if you've already read it… (;
-Kiera. x