Author's note: Another oneshot that I really needed to get out of my system, I'm currently experiencing a little bit of writer's block on 'A Queen's Love' and I don't know what to do about it, I've tried watching the Vampire Diaries again but I'm getting a little bit sick of watching the episodes over and over again... instead I've been catching up on other shows... like NCIS, which just made me realize how much I love that show and how much I'm rooting for Tony and Ziva... I don't like CI-RAY! Not at all, he looks like a creeper, am I the only one to notice that?

Anyway, this is a Tony and Ziva oneshot... it occurs after "Swansong" and "Pyramid" so if you have not seen the last few episodes of the new season DON'T READ THIS... SPOILER ALERT! for those of you that have, or those of you that don't care about spoilers...

ENJOY... and please review, I'd love to know what you think since this is my first Tiva story.

Ziva looked at her flashing phone. Ray calling, once again. Ziva hit the discard button and dumped the phone somewhere beneath her stack of paperwork. She didn't want to go home to Ray, not today she didn't like thinking about what had happened in the past few weeks let alone talk about it with Ray. She would rather not talk about it with anyone.

"Ooh. That's cold." Ziva ignored Tony's quips. She was in no mood for his attempts at humour today.

"What is?" Timothy piped up from behind his computer screen and Ziva was trying very hard to ignore the two of them pressing into her personal life.

"Ziva's ignoring Raymundo." Tony smirked and eyed Ziva.

"I am not ignoring him. I am working." She lied keeping her eyes glued on her paperwork. Ray was getting to her too much, pressing her for information, wanting her to 'open up' as he said. Ziva didn't open up, to anyone, him even asking her to do that was too much. He should know that by now but instead he wanted her to express her feelings and tell him about her past. She frowned at the thought, the truth was that she couldn't open up to him, despite how much she liked Ray he wouldn't understand. Ziva was sure that he didn't really, truly want to know the things that rolled through her head and made her lose sleep. It would scare him, become too much for him and it would send him running, he didn't need to know that being tied up by the port-to-port killer had been one too many dangerous jobs in her mind. She felt unsafe and there wasn't much Ray could do about that even if he knew how it made her feel. He was always gone.

"That's worse." Tony, always with his smart-ass remarks.

"How do you even know that it is Ray?"

"You're narrowing your eyes at your phone. You only do that when you feel personally affronted by something. Or someone." She narrowed her eyes at him, but then turned back to her paperwork quickly realizing what she'd done and hating that he knew her so well. It provoked a laugh from him and she felt like throwing something at him. The computer might do, but then she needed the damn thing to finish her work.

"Who's hungry?" Abby appeared from out of the elevator carrying two large boxes of pizza and followed by Palmer carrying a bag of drinks. She propped the pizza boxes on Gibbs' empty desk and then sat on Ziva's desk smiling while she ate her slice of pepperoni.

"Thanks Abby, but I am going to go home." She checked her watch and turned off her desk light as she grabbed her pack and her keys heading for the elevator, well-aware of Tony following her into the elevator. He turned around to look at her and crossed his arms, Ziva rolled her eyes for a moment.

"What's going on between you and Ray?"

"That's none of your business Tony."

"Ziva-"

"Tony, I am tired. I am going home." She spoke before he could finish his sentence, keeping her voice at that level tone that kept him at arm's length. Ever since he'd saved her from Somalia she had found it harder to be around him, to speak to him on a more serious note. It scared her a bit, she preferred it when he was joking and being terribly obnoxious. The elevator doors dinged and Tony turned around to let her out but Ziva nearly ran into Gibbs. She worried for a second and watched Gibbs as he eyed the two of them carefully.

"What's up boss? Dead marine? Grab your gear?" Tony asked apprehensively and Ziva braced herself for it.

"Nope, I just forgot something on my desk." He watched Tony and then Ziva.

"Get some rest Ziva, you look tired." Ziva genuinely hoped that she would be able to get some sleep, and she wouldn't end up aimlessly watching bad television by herself in her apartment again.

Tony felt bad, him and his big mouth always managed to say the wrong things but when it came to Ziva he always found himself worrying about the things he'd said around her. She wasn't nearly as tough as she tried to be, he knew that and he might be the only one who knew that about her. He was planning on driving home that night after he had finished part of his never-ending paperwork and he had teased the life out of McGee and Palmer, he had originally decided to call it a night but now he found himself unable to settle. He was wired and driving slower than necessary, prolonging getting home, when he passed the bar he frequented he found himself stopping there instead. Ziva's place was less than a minute away, she could walk over from her place but he was worried about bothering her, he didn't want to get in between anything she had going on with Ray. Tony didn't like thinking about this guy she was seeing, he didn't trust anyone around her, found himself unusually protective over her whenever she started seeing someone, it wasn't at all the way it had been with Kate. He'd been protective over her for entirely different reasons, if he could call anyone a sister it would be Kate.

Tony swallowed down a shot of whisky and then called for another, the memory of Kate still stung, and the loss of her was probably part of the reason he was so protective over Ziva, though he wouldn't deny the fact that with Ziva he was a bit unreasonable at times. Ray had said he loved her though. He finished the second shot, he tried to think of something else but as usual he landed on one of their cases, each one more difficult than the other, he thought about this last one trying to convince himself that they'd gotten the bad guy so everything had turned out alright but there were times like tonight where it became difficult for him to realize that they were doing something good. Tony slammed his money down on the bar and turned to leave, he'd be better off sleeping off his misery than drinking it away. As he reached into his pockets for his keys he accidentally pulled out his phone.

He stared at the thing and then stared up in the direction of Ziva's place. This was not a welcome distraction, after E.J. had left and Ray was gone so much Ziva and Tony were up to their usual quips and it was slightly worse than usual because they were both hiding something. The difference was that Tony knew what was going on with Ziva, she didn't have to tell him that she was bruised by everything that had happened. Tony was worried about her in more than one way, he'd noticed that ever since Cobb, Ziva had become more vigilant. The way she used to be, except she didn't smile as much as she used to and she looked tired. Tony wished he had the opportunity to bring it up, to talk to her about it and reassure her but he knew that he couldn't do that without becoming intrusive and pushing her a little too far. He didn't want to do that either, he remembered Tel Aviv, the heartbreak that he'd caused her by killing Michael. He'd caused a rift between them that still hadn't really been repaired and he wasn't sure it would ever be fixed. He flipped open his phone and dialled Ziva's number not entirely sure what he was thinking but he started walking towards Ziva's apartment. Hiding his face as best he could against the cold and listening to the dial tone secretly wishing that she would pick up.

"Tony, now is not a good time." She picked up and Tony could instantly tell that something was wrong, her voice quavered and it didn't have her usual no-nonsense tone to it. It started to snow and Tony picked up his pace, trying to side-step any ice on the ground.

"What's wrong?" Tony demanded an answer from her, finding himself less than a block away from her place.

"Tony I mean it, now is not-."

"Ziva, I can hear something's wrong."

"No, Tony I'm fine." he heard her sniffle and her voice broke a bit. Tony felt himself cringe at the thought of her crying, she hardly ever cried, she was crumbling and she wouldn't let him help her.

"I'm at your place, let me in." She was silent for a moment but then she hung up, Tony stood for a moment in the cold, huddled in his jacket and getting snowed on wondering if she would actually let him in before the door buzzed open and he made his way inside.

Ziva was drying her face when she heard the expectant knock on the door, she moved through her apartment, hoping she didn't look as awful as she felt. She didn't like crying in front of anyone, though she'd rather it was Tony than anyone else. She wasn't sure what he was doing here, she wasn't sure she wanted him here either. She felt awful, and she couldn't sleep which made everything worse, her last conversation with Ray- she pushed the thought away. Afraid she might cry again. She had cared about him, but she couldn't say the words he so desperately wanted to hear. She didn't know why, she didn't know why there seemed to be something physically stopping her from uttering the words that would satisfy him, but she just- couldn't.

She opened the door with every intention of acting bothered by his sudden presence but Tony stood there looking at her, a small smile playing on his face and his green eyes soft and wistful the way they had been since he had saved her in Somalia. Paris flashed through her head, when he had offered to take the couch but then knocked on the bedroom door in the middle of the night he had that same look on his face. Questioning and hopeful and longing he hadn't looked like that since he'd saved her too. She wanted to bury herself in him, let him hold her the way he had and remember the safe feeling he brought her but instead she fought it back, drove it deep down into her belly and invited him in. Without a word she poured him a drink and sat down on the couch next to him, pulling off her sweater before she did.

"Ziva!"

"What Tony?" she was too tired to notice the surprise in his voice.

"When was the last time you ate? You look- skinnier."

"I-" Ziva blinked, she hadn't even thought about it, it wasn't like she had been starving herself. She ate when she needed food but she hadn't been extremely hungry lately and she hadn't been sleeping well either so all her normal patterns were off. She stared back at him and shrugged, leaning back into the couch.

"Okay then. I'm going to cook, and you're going to talk." Tony got up and offered his hands to her so she would get up and go into the kitchen with him. Ziva didn't know what it was, why she could talk to Tony of all people. He was frustrating and childish and stubborn as all hell but he was the only one who really understood her for some reason. He knew her all too well, and she knew him like the back of her hand. She stood up and he placed his arm around her, she leaned into him without thinking about it too much, she had missed this. Having him at her place suddenly made her realize how long it had been since they had just hung out, and spent time together talking about everything and nothing. He used to come over at least once a week, and bring a movie for them to watch, he had been so important to her for the longest time and yet somewhere in between they had pushed each other away.

Thirty minutes, that's how long it was blissfully normal, Ziva found herself eating an entire plate full of Tony's pasta which was probably the only dish he knew how to cook, his infectious good mood probably had an influence on her appetite she realized as she finished the plate and he poured her another glass of wine. They stood in the kitchen together, it was incredibly late, and Ziva was much too aware of the time and how exhausted she still felt. The wine was working its way into her system and while they were doing the dishes and everything fell silent, the things that had been unimportant while Tony was around suddenly came flooding back to her. It filled her and made her feel overwhelmed and so out of control.

"Ziva, you're going to break that plate if you keep scrubbing it like that." His hand reached around her and took the plate out of her hand. He stood so closely behind her that she could smell his cologne and the touch of his skin on hers made her tingle. "You should get some sleep. I'll finish this, don't worry." He took the sponge out of her hand too and moved to the side so he could take over washing the dishes. She moved aimlessly to her bedroom and pulled off her clothes without thinking too much about it. She changed into a loose t-shirt and pajama pants that were warm enough, she had brushed her teeth and combed her hair and she could hear Tony moving around in the kitchen and though she was exhausted and quite tipsy she didn't want to go to sleep. She was afraid of what she would wake up to or what she would dream about, she was tired of the nightmares. She didn't dream of the things that she'd seen, she dreamt of things that hadn't happened but might. Abby or McGee or Ducky or Gibbs hurt or dead, her being sent back to Mossad. Tony dead. She'd dreamt that on more than one occasion and it scared her half to death though she wouldn't admit it to anyone.

She heard Tony finishing in the kitchen, it seemed to her that he was taking much longer than necessary as she turned and stared from her darkened bedroom to the doorway and the brightly lit hallway and suddenly decided to stop thinking so hard on everything. It was really simple; she just needed sleep.

Tony was reaching for his jacket in the living room after he'd finished cleaning up the kitchen and he turned before he actually left, he stared toward Ziva's bedroom door. It was dark in her room, he remembered when it had been like that before but that time she had welcomed him into her room. She'd been waiting for him, expecting him to make his move. This time he wasn't sure, it didn't seem like the best time for either of them to be doing this and yet he stood there staring at her dark room, not sure what he expected himself to do.

"I'm off Ziva. I'll see you on Monday." He thought about the next two days he would spend without her and wondered if come Monday he would chalk this all up to another 'friendly' night with his partner. She appeared in the doorway of her bedroom and Tony had to try so hard to suppress the urge to take her into his arms and never let her go. She looked tired and weak and thin, and lonely. He could do so much about that last part but he didn't want to push her, pushing Ziva into something she didn't want would never work.

"Tony, I-" She started and Tony moved forward towards her, pulling her into a hug which he'd done before but she'd only really hugged him back once or twice before, and this time he held her tightly to him and her hands balled around his shirt as if her life counted on it. The instinctive urge to protect her from whatever was tormenting her was pressing on him and he didn't want to let her go. "I cannot sleep." She said in that glorious accent that he loved so much. He understood her not being able to sleep, he suffered from insomnia too every now and then, it came with the job. But Ziva had more than a few reasons to be sleepless at night. She pulled back for a moment and looked up at him, her dark eyes questioning him in that bright challenge that they always posed to him. "Tony, please don't leave." She said the words carefully, as if she'd practiced them in her head first and Tony gave her that relentless smile that she hated so much but then dropped it for a more sincere one.

"Whatever you need. I'm here." He answered and kissed her on her forehead, just below her hairline that came down into a perfect widow's peak.

When Ziva woke up it was bright outside, the light was pouring in through her window and onto the bed and she was hidden carefully beneath blankets and Tony. Tony. She thought and smiled, his arms were still around her, he'd sworn not to leave her and he hadn't and he hadn't let go of her either. She was wrapped in his arms and pressed against his chest as he still slept, Ziva had slept perfectly peacefully, dreamless for the first time since the port-to-port killer had been killed. She opened her eyes, knowing that Tony still slept, he was snoring slightly, she watched him for a moment considering what she would do, she didn't want to get up. She felt warm and comfortable and safe, immensely safe and it was all his doing. She remembered how she'd felt in Paris, but that had been different. They'd been up to all sorts of no good during the night and then they'd gone back to being just partners. Tony had been so careful not to push her any further than she wanted to go last night, he held her and he kissed her gently but all he did was make her sleep and she didn't think she'd ever felt so well-rested. She carefully decided that maybe she should see what the time was and she turned over so that she had her back to Tony, letting her hands escape from the warmth of the covers and reaching for her phone. The morning air was cold, colder than under her covers anyway, except that it wasn't morning. She checked her phone and realized that it was well past noon. She'd slept way too long, normally she would have been up and had breakfast, gone for a run, taken a shower and be making lunch by now. Ziva sighed, she wasn't one to fuss over morning routines, not when she felt so perfectly sated and rested as she did now. She had needed the sleep. Instead she turned back over again and ran her now cold hands over Tony's neck and chest. He grumbled slightly and Ziva pressed herself closer to him.

"Wake me later." He didn't stop her and Ziva didn't think he really wanted her to stop. She smiled when it pulled a reaction from him and he grumbled as he opened his eyes and he let his big hands roam over her sides and he pulled her closer by her hips, wrapping his arms around her and enveloping her in the warmth of the covers again.

"Tony! That better be your knee." She hid the urge to giggle but he chuckled slightly and nuzzled his face into her neck, she couldn't help the hot feeling she got from him rubbing up against her like this. She wanted him, all over again, just as badly as she had wanted him in Paris and perhaps more.

"It seems I have a little problem this morning." He murmured into her ear and Ziva felt herself flush at the feeling of his hot breath on her ear.

"Tony, I would never call that a little problem. And it's not morning, it's almost 2 P.M."

"Was that a compliment Ziva?" He was slowly pushing her onto her back and Ziva realized that she'd been running her hands all over his chest and shoulders and back, she wanted him just as badly as he wanted her right now, consequences be damned. She didn't respond to his question, instead she kissed him. Tony kissed her sweetly, his tongue darting in and out of her mouth before his lips travelled down her chin and into her neck, his hands were all over her, pushing up her top and pulling her pajama pants down her hips. She shivered when he kissed her belly and her hips as they were revealed to him, he had only been wearing his boxers and Ziva found herself touching every inch of him that was available to her. She nipped at his earlobes and collar bone as what they had been wearing disappeared. Tony's lips were everywhere they shouldn't be, and by hardly doing anything Ziva was wet. He knew her so well, every part of her belonged to him, she had almost forgotten, almost. What it was like to be with Tony and now she wondered what she'd been doing with other men all this time. He stopped and stared at her before he entered her and the sight of him wanting her sent her head reeling, she arched her back and gasped when he pressed inside of her, he kissed her and Ziva wrapped her arms around him, the need to be close to him overtaking her. She wanted to disappear into him, vanish into his kisses, he kissed her neck while he took her over and over again, Ziva moving her hips in time with his, enough to provoke growls of satisfaction from him. She thought she would come at one point but instead of pressing on he pulled her so they were sitting up and she was straddling him the sheets fell off them and she would have been freezing if it weren't for Tony. She had never been closer to him as she was now, he kept her steadily in his arms while he was inside her and though she had the urge to move, she couldn't pull her eyes from his as he reached up and brushed away a strand of hair before kissing her lovingly. Ziva felt herself swell, as if she'd never truly been with him before. She knew she could count on Tony but after last night she had never felt so taken care of, no man had ever done that for her, kept her safe and let her know that he would do it forever if she would let him.

They went slower than before and all the time Tony never took his eyes off hers except when he was kissing her. Ziva rocked her hips and she felt herself close again, but this time they were so close they were almost sharing the same breath, he pushed himself into her one last time and everything burst out of her, Tony filing her at the same time, holding her tightly as her body convulsed with tension before she collapsed into him completely and became useless. He held her tightly, and laid her gently back down onto the bed, he was still inside her as they tried to recover their breath and some semblance of rational thought. She could have drifted back to sleep but instead she forced her eyes open and looked at him. She had no idea what she should say, what she could say. There were no words for this moment, for how close she felt to Tony, how grateful she was of him and how much she cared for him right now.

Tony was surprised by her, he hadn't expected this when he'd come over last night, he hadn't even been hoping for it with the way she had been last night. But when he'd woken up, it was Ziva, the way she used to be, bright eyed and challenging and herself and though she didn't need him to protect her and hold her, he wanted to anyway. He could tell now that she was surprised by him, Paris had been a night full of passion and heated urges that had needed to be sated but this was entirely different he had loved her with everything that he was and he could tell now that she was lost for words. She looked at him carefully, her dark eyes wide in wonderment and bright with the light pouring in from the window, she had never been more beautiful than she was now, her dark skin flushed and hot and glowing from their activity, her perfect body sprawled around him he couldn't help but admire her body, he couldn't believe he'd once said her breasts weren't worth dying for, every part of her wold be worth it. His fingers were roaming gently still over her back and hips. He wouldn't have said anything, he was perfectly happy reveling in this moment, memorizing her body and the way it felt to love her, to feel her heart on his, her eyelashes fluttering against his skin and her sated breath entangled with his.

"Tony, I love you." She said the words and tears escaped her eyes suddenly, Tony wiped them away. He thought his heart might go leaping out of his chest but he kissed her instead.

"I've loved you since the day I met you." He said seriously, looking into her eyes. She was still crying and it bothered him, he didn't like the tears on her.

"Why didn't you say anything sooner."

"Rule number twelve." He smirked and Ziva laughed, forgetting her tears.

"I think that has gone out the roof." She shrugged as he wiped away the rest of her tears and she smiled.

"You mean out the window." Tony chuckled, loving every bit of her even the parts that drove him crazy, he kissed her again with every intention of doing it again and again and again. They couldn't go back to the way they were, they just couldn't. Rule number twelve had always been stupid anyway, and he would tell Gibbs that.

Author's note: The first part of this was inspired by a song called 'Come Pick Me Up' by Ryan Adams and the second part is inspired by a few songs... mainly 'History In The Making' by Darius Rucker.

I hope I don't need to explain to you what Rule twelve is ;)

Again, please review... and I hope you enjoyed it...