Title: If It Was Me
Rating: T
Disclaimer: If I owned NCIS, Ziva would have been the one to shoot Rivkin, not Tony.
Spoilers: Semper Fidelis, and the season finale preview
If It Was Me
He was lying there looking up at her and she pushed the muzzle of the gun harder into his shoulder. She could see the pain and confusion in his eyes but she was surprised that there was no fear there.
"Are you not afraid to die, Tony?" she asked coldly.
He simply stared at her. She pushed the gun more forcefully into his arm and he winced as she hit the already damaged muscles.
"Answer me!"
He looked at her for a long moment.
"If you were going to shoot me, you would have done it by now," he said through clenched teeth.
She flinched at his words. He was right. She should have killed him the moment the door to the roof closed behind her. But she could not. She did not want to kill Tony.
"I cannot do this, Tony," she said quietly, pushing herself to her feet.
Tony didn't move from where he lay on the ground. Ziva walked over to the low wall, her back to him, and looked out over Tel Aviv.
"My father believes that I should avenge Michael's death," Ziva told him.
"Maybe you should," Tony replied, "Maybe it will make you feel better."
"Why are you so eager to die, Tony?" Ziva asked sharply. She turned to look at him.
"I'm not eager to die," Tony explained, "Like I told you before, I'm tired of pretending. I don't want to do this anymore, Ziva."
Tony sat up and tried to use his one good arm to push himself to his feet but it didn't work. Every time he moved too quickly his head would start swimming. Ziva watched for a moment and debated with herself whether or not should help him, before she stepped forward and held her hand out to him. Tony took it without hesitation, allowing her to help him get on his feet.
He looked down at their still linked hands and when she realized what he was looking at, she pulled her hand away as though she'd been burned.
Tony scowled, "Look, I just have one thing to say to you and then you'll never have to listen to my bullshit again. Let me get this off of my chest before you finally gather the courage to actually shoot me."
Ziva took a step back, shocked by the venom in his voice, "Tony –"
"No, I'm only going to say this once so just let me talk. I need to say this because I don't want to spend the rest of my life regretting that I never told you."
She looked at him expectantly.
"We've spent the last four years dancing around whatever the hell it is that's going on between us and most of that's my fault. But it hit me recently, when Vance split us up after Jenny --. It dawned on me that I-I –"
He faltered and Ziva felt her heart rate accelerate. She willed it to stop, willed herself not to be so weak, but she wanted to hear Tony say the words.
"Jesus, Ziva, how did I let this happen again? After everything that happened with Jeanne you'd think that I wouldn't be so stupid the second time around," Tony was rambling, "And Gibbs! Gibbs has always had a rule for this, never date a co-worker, but the rule doesn't say anything about falling in love with your partner."
She was not surprised by his words and under different circumstances, she would have been elated. But so much had changed in the last few months. The most important of those changes had come just a few days ago when he'd shot and killed Michael. He heart ached at the thought of him but as she looked up into Tony's eyes, she was lost.
He was admitting to what she had been hoping for months, what she had hinted at time and time again, but she had already given up. She had already moved on. Leave it to Tony to wait until it was too late to tell her that he loved her.
"Why are you telling me this now?" she asked, her voice hoarse with emotion.
Tony shrugged, "I had to. I couldn't go back to D.C. regretting the fact that I never told you how I felt. Look, I don't expect you to understand anything that I've done, or to forgive me, Ziva, but I had to tell you."
"You killed him, Tony."
Tony looked at her then and he was taken aback by the silent tears making their way down her cheeks. He stepped towards her, reaching his hand out to her face, and she turned away.
He let his hand drop to his side.
"I'm sorry, Ziva," he said quietly, "I'm sorry that his death is painful for you. But I'm not sorry that I shot him. He came at me, he attacked me, and I defended myself. Would you feel differently if you had walked in to find me dead on the floor and Michael with a gun in his hand?"
Ziva's head shot up at his words but Tony's face was void of emotion. He turned then, not speaking another word to her, and walked away.