Disclaimer: not mine.
Author's Note: this is set sometime in the future—season 8 or beyond.
This started out as a single scene between Ziva and Gibbs because I think that no matter what happens between her and Tony, she will always go to Gibbs first. The second scene just kind of happened because well… it wanted to.
51 Trumps 12
She watched him closely. It was the only thing she could do in that room. She was in his basement, where she saw her brother dead, where she sought freedom, where she felt like family.
She looked around briefly, ignoring, as always, the darker patch of floor where her brother's blood never quite washed away. As she looked from wall to wall, she was reminded of Abby, and of the goth's eternal search for how Gibbs got the boats out. She smiled at the happier reminder, it falling when she looked back to Gibbs who was now watching her, now handing her a mug of bourbon. It was funny how the stuff was growing on her.
First, Tony had her drink it after Jenny died...no correction, that was the first time she had enjoyed it's taste. The comfort the Director had always claimed it possessed. The first time she drank it was with Jenny herself, when they were working together in Cairo. That had been the first time she had heard of Gibbs...
'What's on your mind?'
She frowned, looking away from him, 'What makes you think there is something wrong?'
'I don't see you here when everything is going right.'
She smirked, standing and walking around the room that had seen so many problems. She wondered, briefly, while clearing her thoughts, if these walls could talk, would they be strong, or near suicidal?
'I was just wondering about something, Gibbs. Something I have long wondered about.'
'Shoot,' he said as he leaned back against his workbench, watching her carefully. He knew it shouldn't have surprised him to see her at his door so late on a Saturday night after they had worked almost two weeks straight on a case that ended with her shooting their suspect as he held a woman hostage, using her as a shield. He remembered when that had happened with Kate and Tony once. The hostage lost an ear. He never let them take a shot like that again as long as he could help it. But Tony-Kate was not Ziva. Kate wouldn't have been at his door. That Ziva had been, spoke more to the women's differences than any word about their training and upbringing.
Kate liked Gibbs. Ziva needed him. Kate was always respectful, even when she was being defiant. Ziva was always loyal, even when she was both defiant and disrespectful. Kate wouldn't have brought up this topic. That Ziva did...well, he just wondered what had taken her so long to do it.
'Well? Say it.'
'Rule 12.'
His arms crossed and his eyebrow lifted. 'And what about it?'
She shot him a look that told him that it had not been broken and that he was foolish for even supposing the possibility that it could be so. Then she sighed, and sat down, letting her curiosity get the best of her. 'I do not understand why it exists.
'In Mossad-and I know that I am no longer there,' she added before he could say it, her expression telling him that she knew him well, 'in Mossad there is no such rule. Sex is the best way to get to know one's partner. You learn their body language, how they move, you learn to read their very breath. Here, it takes years to know your partner as well as it took us to do in hours.'
He smirked, 'Rule 12 says don't DATE a co-worker. It doesn't say anything against sleeping with one.' His smile grew at her confusion. 'Just don't get emotionally involved. Agent David, just who are you planning on sleeping with?'
She waved the question away, more confused and determined than before, 'The reason you made rule 12, I must know, was because of Jenny? Of Paris?'
It was Gibbs' turn to look taken aback. He sometimes forgot that they had known each other before. Ziva seldom talked of her. Then again there was much that Ziva talked seldom of.
He let out a long breath, refilling his glass, 'what did she tell you of Paris?'
'Not much,' she allowed, moving to him, allowing him to fill her glass before she started wandering around the room again, 'She said that it was both one of the best and worst missions of her life. She did not have to say anything else. I understood.'
He nodded, 'Paris changed things, for both of us.'
'I understand those missions,' she told him honestly. Her eyes met his and he knew what she meant. Somalia. It had changed things for all of them. Some, he admitted to himself, more than others. 'I have had lots of them.'
'I bet you have.' He studied her a moment longer, held her gaze a moment more, before he was drawn back into the past, 'You remind me of her sometimes. When you get caught up in a mission, and I can almost feel your excitement, through your perfect calm.'
She nodded, a small smile filling her lips, 'Funny, she always said that I reminded her of you. My driving. My tact, or lack thereof.'
'She said DiNozzo reminded her of me,' he said after a moment's pause. The tone in his voice told her that he had changed thoughts, bringing them away from the partners of the past, and to the ones of the present.
She didn't meet his eye. There was still something she had to know. 'Was it inevitable, Gibbs?'
'The beginning? Or end?'
She shrugged, looking back around the room, 'It could only end with death. We are agents.'
He sighed, regrets filling his heart, 'Jenny was wrong: DiNozzo isn't like me, not in the way that matters. He is still searching for his first wife. And you aren't like Jenny. You gave up the job for a family.'
'So what are you saying?'
He stood, walked over to the woman he had watched change and break and blossom. He leaned over and kissed her forehead. He remembered when he watched her cry. It was a sight that no one else saw, not even Tony saw that side of her.
He briefly considered leaving it at that. Of walking away and hope that he wouldn't have to see it again. But he knew he couldn't do that. Not to Ziva. Because Ziva wasn't Kate. She wasn't Jenny. Ziva was still alive. And Gibbs wanted to keep her that way. Even if it meant the possibility of seeing her cry again.
'I'm saying,' he began mixed within a sigh, suddenly feeling as old as he looked, 'that if you are going to break a rule, make sure its for the right reasons, and not because someone said it was inevitable. And yes, it will end in death. The only difference is if it'll make you smile while you're both alive.'
He smiled at her confusion, moving to the stairs, only to pause at the sound of her voice, 'Gibbs? What are you saying?'
'I am saying that rule 51 sometimes is in effect.'
Her forehead scrunched up further. Rule 51? She had never heard of that one before. He really needed to write them down. 'Gibbs?'
'Rule 51: sometimes, you're wrong.'
'Me?'
He chuckled, knowing her well enough to know that it wouldn't be long before she figured it-everything-out.
'You, me,' pause, 'A rule. Goodnight Ziva.'
She smiled at him, things coming together, 'Night Gibbs.'
He paused at the threshold, 'Hey, don't sit here in the dark all night. Why not go watch a movie?'
She laughed, 'Is there one in particular you think I should see?'
He looked around, not hiding his smile. He knew things were going to be different come Monday. But Ziva was alive. She wasn't Kate. She wasn't Jenny. She deserved what neither of them got in life: love.
'Why not ask DiNozzo? I'm sure he could suggest a few.'
'Thank you Gibbs.'
He shook his head, 'Don't thank me yet. He snores.'
"Come in," Tony called as he shuffled the deck. It had been too long since he and his frat buddies had played like this. A lot of things had happened since the last time he saw them. One had gotten married. Another had a kid. Tony went to Somelia. His friends saw the difference this made on him although they didn't say anything about it. It was easier for them all.
He looked taken aback by who came into his apartment. He was expecting John, the only one not yet there. Even Avery got away from the screaming infant for the night. Newlyweds, he thought as his head cocked to the side, another reason not to marry.
He definitely wasn't expecting her. Neither were his friends by the expressions they gave him. He cleared his throat, "What are you doing here?"
An eyebrow rose, "You told me I could come in." She smirked, "Do you always let strange women into your home?"
His smile tightened, not knowing what she was doing there, "Next to you, Ninja-San, no woman is strange."
She merely nodded, looking around his apartment, not thinking for a moment that she might not be entirely welcomed there.
Avery and Steve, who sat across from one another, exchanged a look before focusing on the woman whom had left their friend speechless, "You want to play? We seem to be a man short?"
She laughed, "Play poker? Against Tony? No, I am not that foolish."
Steve smirked when Tony's face grew more confused. He just met this girl and already he liked her. She reminded him of Kate in a way. There weren't many women who could shut DiNozzo up that easily.
"What do you mean?"
She shrugged, not looking at the man she knew was looking at her, studying her the way he did that made her swear he could see through her in a way that not even Gibbs could. "Tony is a trained investigator. He spends his days finding out the ways people lie. He has a very good poker face when he wants to."
The men shared a laugh.
Her eyes met Tony's for the first time, knowing more than feeling that their reactions wounded him. "Where did I just come from?"
"Gibbs'," he said without missing a beat, curious as to what would bring her to either door that late at night.
Her smirk grew, "How did you know? I did not know I was going there myself until I found myself at his door an hour ago."
"You smell like bourbon. His brand. You don't usually drink it."
"Very good," she allowed her gaze to take in the forgotten men at the table, "And that is why I will not play cards with him."
He glanced at his friends, frustrated that they were enjoying her presence as much as they appeared to be. He then focused solely on her, "And why were you at Gibbs?"
"We were talking."
"About?"
"Sex with co-workers." An eyebrow rose when Tony dropped the cards he had started to shuffle again, "Apparently it is different than dating."
"And who are you planning on having sex with? McGee?"
She laughed again, lightly, in the way that told him she knew that he didn't like the thoughts of that prospect. She took the chair opposite him, pulled it out, turned it around and sat down, setting her gun on the table as she did so. "We did not talk only of rule 12, but of also rule 51."
His forehead scrunched and she knew that he had never heard of it either. "Sometimes you are wrong."
"According to Gibbs I'm wrong a lot. I didn't think it warranted a rule."
"Not you you, but you, me, Gibbs," she paused, as Gibbs had, knowing that it was important, "the rules."
Tony leaned back, signaling to his friends that perhaps they shouldn't be listening. Steve got that right away, and started to get up when Ziva raised her hand, stopping him in his place. Tony didn't say much about her, but what he had made the other man realize how important it was to listen to her.
"We can talk about this later, I am sorry for disrupting your male bonding rituals."
He smirked, "You should be lucky you caught us while we're still using real words instead of primitive grunts."
"And here I thought you had evolved past that."
"Goodnight gentlemen." She stood.
Avery stopped her, "Hey, wait. We're a man short of poker and since you don't want to be the one to call Tony's bluff, why not stay. You can tell us how this joker is at work. Maybe shed some light on why he's still single."
Her eyes briefly met her partner's, "One answer is easier than the other I am afraid."
"Think you know me David?" He challenged, not liking the thought that she could know him as much as he felt he knew her. The truth that was starting to be made evident to him, despite his attempts to ignore and stop it, was that she already knew him far better than he knew her. He didn't like being on that uneven ground.
"In some ways, I do."
"So," Avery prodded, a smirk on his face, "Why is he still single?"
"Because all the women he cares for gets hurt." She looked away from his face when it paled, "I am sorry Tony."
"Sign of weakness," he croaked out before grabbing his beer and walking to his apartment's deck. Avery, his first roommate and fellow pledge in college, followed him.
Steve swore under his breath, looking at the woman that had turned their fun night into one that was anything but. "I don't know what happened to him. This past year, it's like everything changed. It's like he's not the same DiNozzo I knew."
"That is because he is not. He is growing up."
"What happened to him?"
"I did," she told him with more honesty that she often had with herself, "He saved my life when he did not know it needed saving. The experience hurt him. More than he would ever admit."
"He's always been pretty stoic like that."
"Goofy on the outside, solid rock on the inside."
"Rocks break," he said eyeing her.
"Have you ever been married?"
"Was. Just got divorced."
"May I ask what happened?"
"We worked together," he said with a smile, one that may have been ironic, or possibly knowing. "Have you ever been married?"
"Close, once."
"What happened?"
She looked away from the stranger sitting before her, looking to where her partner still was. Forgetting his question and the thoughts attached to it, knowing that it didn't help anything, knowing that the reason she was still single was the same as Tony, she moved forward with a purpose that she had forgotten existed.
Avery and Tony were standing in silence when she interrupted them. Avery spared her a smile before going back inside. Tony didn't look up from his drink.
"Why did you come here Ziva? With talk of sex and rules?"
She swallowed hard, not daring to move closer to him, "You asked what Gibbs and I talked about."
He turned, growing frustrated at her. Growing frustrated at himself for letting her frustrate him like that. He studied her, looking at her, standing unsure before him. He had never seen her look like that. Not when they first met, not when he brought her home from hell on earth, and not when he watched her heal, giving her the time she needed to discover who she was again, to find the balance that she often told him he needed to find for himself. Seeing her there, on the threshold between being outside and in, he realized that she wasn't that broken woman anymore, and the old Ziva was not coming back. There, standing before him, was the new Ziva who was a mixture of the old. She was more of a Ninja now than she had been before, knowing the potential cost of being beaten again, realizing her mortality. But she was also human, she was also breakable.
And that scared him to know that he hadn't done his job right. He hadn't been quick enough convincing everyone that they needed to go to Africa. Maybe if he had she would still be unbreakable. She would still be immortal.
And he wouldn't have to risk losing her again.
He turned back to the railing, his line of questioning forgotten.
This time she went to him, standing beside him, looking out into the dark, city life beyond. There was peace there. "I was wrong."
"Oh?"
"Not every woman you care about gets hurt. Abby is better for knowing you. She is alive because she knows you."
"One against the many."
She inhaled a deep breath, "What about me? Am I not okay for knowing you?"
"Well your grasp on English is better, I'll give you that."
"Tony, give yourself more credit. I am alive because of you. I am an American because of you. I should have said, that the women you care about hurt you."
"Can we not talk about this?"
"If that is what you wish. I did not mean to make you upset by coming here."
"Then what are you doing here?"
"Gibbs told me I should."
He paused, putting their conversation together from the beginning, trying to fill in the holes as best he could based upon what he knew of both Ziva and Gibbs. But he was missing something important, he knew. "You talked to Gibbs about sex and rules and being wrong and then he sent you to me?"
"Yes, for a movie."
He blinked. "If you are having sex with Gibbs and you want me to give you porn for some weird sex kink… that's just wrong."
"You are lucky I am not Gibbs or I would have head slapped you for that."
"So you aren't having sex with Gibbs?"
"No."
"Thinking about having sex with Gibbs?"
"No DiNozzo."
His expression turned serious, catching the tone in her voice, urging him to be serious. "Then what am I missing? Because if you aren't wanting to have sex with Gibbs and you aren't wanting to have sex with McGee, I can only assume its Abby."
She shook her head. He was trying to avoid the situation entirely. "Tony," she heard her voice almost plead, "Why are you acting so childish?"
"You said that I was the class clown. You said that's what you loved about me…" he trailed off, knowing the look in her eye better than he would have thought himself possible of. Maybe he knew her better than he thought he did. It was the look that sent chills to his bone when it was often directed at someone else because it was never directed at him. Not in the way it was in that moment. He had seen it many times, covered in masks of concern, friendship, partnership, sarcarm. But never was it out in the open where he could not help but admit that it was there.
She swallowed hard, knowing the moment he saw it there. Wondering if she had done the right thing. She had lived this long without telling him. Lived this long with having just feeling it be enough. But she knew the truth of it since she almost shot him. And it scared her. She knew it when they brought her back, but she wasn't strong enough to own to it. She wasn't ready to own it. She wasn't ready to admit that she knew he was waiting for her to be ready for what could only come next. Him.
"You don't want to sleep with Abby do you?" It wasn't a question. He was ready to be serious. Ready for this moment that he had long waited for.
She looked away, wondering if she was actually as ready as she claimed to be. "Well, she has always been a very attractive woman whom I believe would be very adventurous in bed."
"That's not an answer." He turned fully to face her, half full of hope and fear mixed together in a way that couldn't match that of holding a gun, no matter what he had always led himself to believe.
"It is. Just not the one you want to hear."
"Why did you go to Gibbs?"
"To discuss Rule 12. We do not have such a rule in Mossad."
"And you got all sexy cosy with your former partners."
"Yes. And because of that I knew my partner better in a month than it took me to know you in a year. However, I must admit that our undercover assignment was a help."
"There's a difference between sex and dating," he reminded her as memories of Paula Cassidy came to mind.
"I am aware."
He exhaled deeply when she didn't offer him any more, "So, what else did Gibbs say?"
"The same as you. That sex was alright, just not emotional attachment."
"So you want to have sex with someone you don't have an emotional attachment with? Vance? Palmer?"
Her eyes narrowed. She knew that he was baiting her into disclose more than she would normally like. Just as he knew that she was allowing him to do so. "Gibbs said that sometimes Rule 51 was in effect."
"That I'm wrong."
"That RULES are wrong, Tony."
His heart stopped. Did Gibbs give them a blessing? Did Ziva ask him for one? "So what does that mean?"
"That, I do not know for certain."
He chuckled. Ziva should not have been nervous. He liked that she was. He liked that he made her that way. "What did Gibbs say then?"
"That I should not spend all night in his basement. That I should see a movie."
"And he thought I could suggest one?" He asked, a smile making its way to his face as he took a step towards her.
"Something like that."
He took another step, taking that she didn't step away from his first as a good sign. "And did he say anything else?"
"Only something that I already knew. That you snore."
He laughed. He couldn't help it really. He was just given the sign from the gods, and from Gibbs that he had waited for, that he had gone all the way to Africa to get. He grabbed her gently around the waist, pulling her against him.
Ziva had only been half right before. It was true, that he had been single because both he and the women in his life got hurt. But that wasn't why he had stayed single for so long. It wasn't why he hadn't gone out with anyone who could be more to him than a temporary fling.
He stayed single, because he was waiting for the right woman.
Because he was waiting for his ninja.
He was waiting for her.
"Hey guys," he called into the apartment, not tearing his eyes from the woman in his grasp in case she disappeared, "Why don't we call it a night? I got me a movie to watch."
So… What do you think?