A/N: Just popped into my head upon seeing the promos for the 200th episode. Hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to NCIS, or any of the characters mentioned in this story.
The lock clicked and he swung open the door, dragging himself across the threshold. God, it had been a really long day. Sighing, he tossed his bag by the door and threw his tired body into the nearest chair, running a hand across his still pounding head.
Damn Mossad.
The house was dark and quiet, his wife gone for the night to who knew where; he had stopped asking long ago and stopped caring even before then. They had not been happy together in years, and Tony sometimes wondered if they had ever really been in love or if they had just been together so long that that they fell into marriage because it was simply the next logical step. Yet for all of their unhappiness, neither of them would make a move to end the sham, the fear of being absolutely alone binding them to this toxic relationship.
Another wave of blinding pain throbbed through his head, and he hauled himself from the armchair and into the kitchen, flinging open a drawer and grabbing the bottle of painkillers. He stared at it for a second while the space behind his eyes pulsed painfully and then threw the bottle back down, reaching for a bottle of Scotch from the cabinet instead. He poured a generous amount into a glass, and then shuffled back into the darkness of the living room.
Damn, she had hit him hard.
His head panged belligerently in agreement, and he gulped down some of his liquor, smiling morosely at the events that had led to his current headache. Her name had been Ziva David, Israeli Mossad. The only reason he'd even known this was because he'd seen a picture of her briefly once before: she had coordinated an information drop for one of his team when he'd been stationed in Rota. However, in that interrogation room she hadn't been inclined to reveal even that much to him, and for the most part she had succeeded. He had threatened, joked, cajoled, and she had thrown everything right back at him. The interrogation had escalated to the point where they were both yelling, when he had slammed his hands down onto the table and leaned down into her face.
He didn't quite made it out of the way when she had reared back her head and sent it crashing into his moments later.
After that, he didn't get anymore information out of her. As Dr. Mallard had examined him for a concussion, a call came through from the Israeli embassy; five minutes later she was gone, walking out of the building with a slight swing of her hips, and they had lost yet another lead on the ever elusive threat, Ari Haswari.
With a groan, he slumped further into the chair, the Mossad agent's features floating through his mind. Normally, he gave little thought to the people that passed through the interrogation rooms of NCIS. There was always another case, always more people to interrogate; and after a while, they had all started to blur together, an endless swirl of faces that he couldn't quite sort from each other. However, this woman stood out vividly in his mind, chocolate brown eyes and soft curls; she had known just how to get a reaction out of him, and he had known exactly what buttons to press with her. Their banter had been instinctual, primal, aggressive, and damn if it hadn't made him feel more alive than he'd felt in years.
She had felt familiar, and he had found himself wishing that they were meeting under different circumstances. Because her eyes had done strange things to his heartbeat; because if he enjoyed fighting with her this much, he wondered how much he would enjoy simply talking with her; because for a moment, when he had leaned in close and met her stare, he'd seen his loneliness and longing reflected back in her lost gaze.
However, they had not met on the street or in a bar, and she had walked out of his life as quickly as she had entered it, a mask set firmly over her features and a concussion his only parting gift.
Dragging his hand through his greying hair, he drained the rest of the glass and set it back on the end table with a resounding thud. Leaning his head back against the chair, he expelled a heavy sigh and closed his eyes, allowing the liquor to dampen the painful dullness inside his chest, her face floating in sharp detail through his blurred mind.
"Tony...Tony...wake up," a familiar, disembodied voice cut through the darkness. Soft fingertips met his cheek and he slowly blinked back into reality, looking up into the exotic features of his partner.
What a strange dream.
He cleared his throat. "Hey...," he began softly, sitting up fully in the waiting room chair, wincing as his back began to protest the poor choice of sleeping arrangements. "Any news yet?"
She glanced down at her hands, "Yes, Gibbs is out of surgery, it is why I woke you," she looked back up to meet his gaze and gave a light chuckle, "that and you were starting to mumble in your sleep loudly enough for people around us to hear. Quite the dream you were having," she arched an eyebrow at him teasingly, "Good, I hope?"
He gave a nervous chuckle. Good was not an adjective he would use to describe the dream he'd just had, that horrible alternate world he had visited in which she wasn't a part of his life, had never been. However, he wasn't going to admit to her that his nightmares revolved around her absence from his life. He hadn't even managed to confess his growing feelings to her yet, let alone one of his deepest fears.
Running a hand along the back of his neck, he replied, "Nightmare actually. I had grey hair." He gave her an exaggerated shudder. Well that was at least mostly truthful.
She laughed loudly, her eyes brightening slightly in spite of the gruesome twenty-four hours they had just spent on the hard, unforgiving hospital chairs anxiously waiting for news on their fearless leader's condition. Dragging herself up from the chair, she turned and pulled his head forward, inspecting his hair closely as she turned his head from side to side. Tony complied pliantly, after all who was he to complain if Ziva David wanted to touch him.
"Hmmm, I think that is definitely all in your head, yes?" she released his head from her grasp, and he leaned back to meet her gaze, chuckling lightly.
"Hey, all it takes is one," he replied, giving her a sideways grin.
Rolling her eyes, she beckoned him to his feet. "Come on, the doctor's said he can have visitors now. Everyone else is already inside."
"Surgery went well?" he stood, grabbing his jacket and beginning to weave through the waiting room chairs with her.
She stopped as they reached the doors to the ICU, "Yes, the bullet went straight through." Her voice became softer, "He was very lucky," she half-whispered to him, meeting his eyes with a fragile stare. Losing Gibbs was something neither of them was ready for, and today they had come dangerously close to that reality.
"Yeah," he returned, placing his hand on the small of her back. "but maybe he should swear off diners for a while."
She gave a small giggle at his attempt at humor and leaned into his touch as they continued down the hallway. Pulling her slightly closer, he breathed in her scent of sandalwood, jasmine, and something that was uniquely Ziva as he offered up a small prayer to the universe.
Thank God it had only been a dream.
A/N: That's all. Please review if you enjoyed! Thanks so much for reading! Oh! and Chapter 2 of Pencil Kisses should be up soon if you're reading that. Thanks for bearing with me there, I'm in the process of moving right now so my writing and muses have been a little delayed on the second part of that story. But I promise you it's in progress. :)