Disclaimer: Characters not mine, just borrowed to indulge some Tiva musings...
Well, he made it through the day, which was not inevitable - nothing's inevitable, he smirked dryly to himself. When he first heard the news, that Danny was the next victim, it'd hit him with all the force of a ton of bricks to his stomach. It sucked the air out of him so fast that it was all he could do to just grind his teeth and not double over from what seemed like real, physical pain in his gut. But he had standards to keep up, and he shuttered closed that part of his mind faster than the tidal waves of thoughts threatening to spill out behind the dam. In fact, the realization of how natural and easily he could construct the barrier almost made him sick in its own right, because it didn't seem right, didn't seem fair to Danny that he could do that. But he had years of practice, and it was just as much a diservice to his partner to let those thoughts cloud his mind and risk him getting kicked off the case. It was also selfish.
So, he'd asked the rule book questions, his investigator training kicked in, but he took the backseat he was expected to. He rapid-fired off clinical and professional - goddamnit, detached - answers about their partnership, about the cases they'd worked, about the last disaster of a case that led him to Gibbs and NCIS. He threw in just enough DiNozzo charm to sell that he was fine, taking turns with animated, hyper, sentimental, and steely, enough to keep people at arm's length. It helped that E.J., for all the apparent ease of their relationship, didn't poke and prod under the surface. She never had that need, to delve any deeper than the parts of himself he chose to reveal in their relationship. Which made it easier to reveal things he had processed and was ready to share, and easier to keep the rest locked away.
He doubted he'd have had such luck with Gibbs and the team around, but they had been sent up to Baltimore to check out leads. While he might've had the sense that EJ's team was handling him with kid gloves, he didn't really give a damn. It was enough that he'd only had to deal with one look from Gibbs that morning, and that he'd been able to avoid any awkward attempts at sympathy from probie and completely shut down any eye contact with Ziva, and it was allowed because they knew him well enough to understand, and anyway, there was the case to solve.
The only time he nearly was thrown off course was when Abby ran up and tackled him into a hug, her words flying out so fast that he didn't attempt to process them, but he nonetheless felt them as a physical force, a second assault on his senses along with her palpable closeness. He had grown accustomed to Abby's hugs, and a lot of times they were just what the doctor ordered, but he found himself reacting to this one just as viscerally as her first hug to him, in that every fiber in his being screamed NO! and he had to stare at the ceiling and will himself not to go about removing those arms forcibly. He started to count to ten in his head, but it was too much, and at five he allowed himself to slowly, gently, peel her off of him. She was still hurt, and offended, and punched him after his lame excuse about needing to follow up on some calls to the station house, and after a litany of further instructions of what he should do when he had time to have the reaction that she believed was the only right one and was definitely one he was never going to have, he had placated her enough with his nods and his DiNozzo-ness to ship her back down to the lab. Once the elevator doors had closed on her departing form, he high-tailed it to the bathroom to collect himself until he could breathe in deep, steady breaths, until his knuckles didn't need to clench the sink until they were white, and until he could look at the image staring back at him in the mirror and see something f'in neutral in the expression.
Of course, there would be no relief of solving the case. They worked some solid, hard hours that day, but the fifth P2P victim would leave them with no more clues than the previous four had, at least not after 12 hours of the combined manpower of two top-notch teams. Tony cursed how good their perp was. They'd get him, there was no doubt in Tony's mind, but the number of hoops to jump and the ticking clock and the bodies piling up was just infuriating. To have nothing to show at the day's end to honor his partner with, no break in the case and no lead worth spending the night tracking down, to just have to pick up and go home after it all, and wait for more sensible investigating tomorrow. It was killing him.
Ziva kicked off her boots and arranged them carefully back into her closet. Her feet hurt, it was a welcome gesture, and she took comfort in the methodical tasks of routine so that her mind was free to focus on other things. She had felt disjointed when it became clear that they would be leaving Tony behind all day, that their team would be investigating his former haunts in Baltimore and leaving Tony back with what still felt like strangers. She might've trusted them to have her partner's back in a shoot out on the scene, but she didn't trust them to know what he needed today.
Even worse, it was obvious that the Gibbs-Tony strain was not going to disappear just because Tony would be hurting over his former partner. Gibbs gave him a long look after EJ's announcement. The look was meant to be supportive, but in true Marine style, it said "I am evaluting whether you can handle this and whether you are fit to do your job, although I already know the answer to that because I trained you, so you can and you are and you will be." Tony mostly met the gaze until he finally glanced away after Gibbs' features indicated he was satisfied with what he saw. But after looking away, Tony's brow furrowed a bit more, nearly imperceptibly, but she saw, and she was sure Gibbs had too. She sighed, knowing that Gibbs' way of fixing things was to deal with the professional problem at hand first, solving the case, and deal with the rest after. She knew from her Mossad training that was the right way to handle things. But she also knew her partner, and she knew it was the wrong way to handle Tony. But she was powerless, she could offer no substitute for a Gibbs hand on Tony's shoulder and a half dozen words of muted reassurance - and her partner was steadfastly ignoring her presence right now anyway.
They were in touch by phone throughout the day, Tony telling her or McGee which BPD officers and records clerks were still there from his tenure 10 years earlier, or sharing the results of Daniel Grimes' phone records and financials. Tony sounded like a mostly more serious version of himself, throwing in a quip here or there, but without too much heart behind it. It sounded like the correct response to investigating a long-former partner's death, but she wished she could talk to him away from McGee or Gibbs' ears, because she knew it was not her partner's reaction, and she wanted him to make an appearance at some point today. She remembered their first meeting, when he was caught in a drooling, leering fantasy of Kate, and it was enough to remind her that Tony DiNozzo's reaction to grief was anything but this thoroughly appropriate, respectful investigating agent. Sure, he had matured since then, but no one changed this much. This was just a new mask, the one he knew was right for the occasion, with just enough old Tony mixed in to throw people off the scent.
By the time the day had passed, and the team returned to the squadroom, it was clear they were ending the day with a big fat nothing to show. Team Gibbs reported their Baltimore results and Team EJ filled them in on the homefront investigation. A few hours later, EJ called it a wrap and told them all to come in early the next morning to start fresh. They had about five hours to go off the clock and recover before the next day's slog.
With seven people packing up and heading for the elevator, she supposed it was inevitable that you wouldn't see everyone leave. But she chalked it up to Tony's undercover skills that at least four sets of eyes searched for him at some point in the leaving, and none found him. He was already gone.
Ziva shook herself out of her musings when the tea kettle started to whistle. She was in flannel pajama pants and a t-shirt, her hair down, her gear stowed and her alarm set for the morning. She had eaten some toast and wiped the counter down, and powered up her laptop. She poured the tea and sat cross-legged on a kitchen chair, ready to sift through the day's news and her email, when there was a knock at her door.
She wasn't surprised to see Tony, although a part of her brain recognized her lack of surprise could be odd, since he could have been expected to seek out EJ instead. But she was his partner, and his old partner had died today. It made sense.
What made less sense was the DiNozzo grin that greeted her and the DVDs held up in one hand, take out Chinese in the other. A perfectly normal voice lilted out "Up for a movie? I've got Jason Bourne and Chinese, and as a fallback I've even got an offer you can't refuse," he said, waving the DVD hand and grinning suggestively. She looked and saw Borne Identity and The Sound of Music. The second made her heart lurch, it was screaming out everything his voice wouldn't. Don't turn me away. I'll watch anything. No rejection tonight, please. She felt exasperrated by his normal demeanor, which was so blatantly undercut by his actions.
"Tony..." she found her voice only to say his name, and she put every emotion she had been wanting to convey all day into that one word. She looked into his eyes. He didn't need a movie to come over. He didn't need to smile and tapdance for an invitation inside. And she didn't want to see him pop in the movie and rattle off pop culture trivia in a stream of endless babble to achieve just enough peace to restore his equilibrium, just enough of a wind down to gear up for tomorrow. And he should know himself - and her - better than that, he should know she'd see through it when there were so many other choices he could have made other than to come here - Gibbs' basement, EJ's arms, a dive bar with its liquid courage, staying in his apartment alone, in the dark...
After several seconds, when she said nothing more, he broke her gaze. He looked down at the floor and breathed in deeply. His body shifted, and he shook his head, as if cueing himself to start over. His head raised again and his eyes came back up to meet hers. "Ziva..." he said. And the raw emotions in his eyes, the pain and the unshed tears that had so easily risen to the surface in the three seconds it took to ditch the mask, and the look that said "please don't make me talk" - she understood it all. She had been waiting for it, knew it was what he was feeling, and yet that he actually showed it to her, that he stood there and allowed himself to be that exposed and unnerved, and met her gaze with that look in her eyes - it made her gasp. And she stepped forward and raised her arms up, and he dropped the DVDs and the bag and his head came down. He buried his head into her shoulder, and she felt him exhale into her hair the same breath he had just taken in to change into this Tony - an exhale as ragged, jerking, and shuddering, as the calm steady inhale had been moments ago.
She felt the tension easing just slightly from his shoulders, and she thought how ironic it was that this was an Abby hug, but she was Ziva, his ninja chick, a Mossad-trained assasin. If only daddy could see her now... but the though was fleeting and she refocused on him, because this was about his needs tonight, and she would be as attentive to her partner as she would be if they were on an op. She had his back.
And right now she felt his weight against her growing, and although his legs didn't shake outright, she gathered they must've felt weak under him, so she guided the hug back towards her couch and led him onto it. She settled back against the arm rest so that his torso was now shifted into her more, so that she was holding him into her shoulder and stroking a hand down the back of his head. As soon as they were in this new position, he pulled himself together and pulled back quickly, because after all she was not Abby and he couldn't stand that much comfort for more than a moment anyway. His defenses didn't allow it, and his upbringing meant he didn't know what to do with it.
As he pulled back she glanced into his eyes again. They hadn't shed a tear, and the pain was still there, but it was softer now. His smile was thankful and apologetic both. He leaned back into the couch and stretched upwards, his arms overhead, rolling his shoulders back to force more tension out, as he studied the ceiling for a moment. Another deep breath. And then his hands settled behind his head, elbows out, and his gaze became unfocused on a light in the kitchen, and he smiled a half smile, as if calling up a fond memory.
And he began to tell stories about Danny. Some of them were heartfelt, and some made her laugh, and some were entirely inappropriate and classic DiNozzo. And she'd stay there, listening, until he fell asleep.