No, of course I don't own NCIS, just my ideas and words. Of course I'm a Tiva fan, but this is actually the closest to Tiva romance I've ever written. Please let me know what you think. :) *Written soon after "A Desperate Man," just posted*

Thunk, thunk, thunk - "Ziva?" - Thunk, thunk - "I know you're in there. If you don't open the door I'm gonna have to use my emergency key."

The woman inside the apartment rolled her eyes but didn't make a move to open the door. A few seconds later, she heard an exasperated sigh from the hall and the sound of a key being slid into the lock.

"Ziva?" Tony called out from the entry. She sighed, "Kitchen."

Hearing footsteps, she didn't turn to look as Tony joined her, leaning up against the doorframe. "Ziva David, eating over the sink? This must be a new low" he turning to face him, she glared, but even she could tell it appeared half-hearted. "Why are you here, Tony?" She sounded weary. He frowned at the half-eaten, green, oblong… thing in her hand. "What is that?" he asked instead of answering the question.

"An olive," she snapped. Tony grinned, "So that's where you get it?" "Get what, Tony?" she asked, deciding to play along. "Your olive skinned beauty, of course," he replied with his megawatt charm smile. Ziva groaned and threw away her now clean olive pit. Sinking into a chair, she asked again, "Why are you here?"

Pulling out the chair across the table from her, Tony flipped it around and straddled it, crossing his arms on the back and resting his chin on them. "I'm cherishing our friendship, Zee-vah."

"And what if I wanted to be alone tonight?" she asked. Tony grinned. "If you had been that set on being by yourself tonight, there's no way in hell you would have let me use the key." Ziva's lips quirked into a small smile, he had a point. So they sat in silence for a while, "cherishing their friendship" before Ziva suddenly broke the moment.

"I can't do this anymore." Tony looked up from the invisible lines he had been tracing on her tabletop. "Hm?"

"I am sick and tired of being let down by every man in my life. I'm through," Ziva spat decisively. After a pause, "Maybe I just don't get that future," she whispered, voice thick with unshed tears. Tony's heart broke a little with each word she spoke.

"Hey now, not every man in your life is a jerk. I can think of at least four who care. Hell, if I had that many decent women in my life, I'd be amazed." Ziva snorted. "Yes, I bet you would." Tony smiled, now they were getting somewhere. "I mean, c'mon, there's Gibbs, and McGee, and Ducky…" Tony trailed off.

Ziva met his eyes across the table. "Yes, you're right. I can always count on them, but that is only three. You said there were four," she said, raising an eyebrow in a challenge. Tony shifted slightly in his seat before answering. "Well yeah, yeah, I did. Gibbs, McGee, Ducky… and me."

"And you," Ziva echoed. "Yes, you have always been there in the aftermath, haven't you? After the actions of my father, after Michael, Lieutenant Sanders, and now here you are after Ray. Why do you do it?" Tony looked surprised for a moment before a smile lit his face. "Because you, Ziva David, are in my life."

A slow smile graced her features and she chuckled a little before replying, "As you are in mine, Tony." Tony's smile grew to Cheshire Cat proportions before he replied, "Maybe that's all we've really needed; why everything else has been so complicated. Because the solution has been right in front of us for years."

Ziva smiled demurely, "Perhaps. Perhaps we can both be happy soon." They met each other's gaze once again and when the intensity became too much to bear, Ziva whispered once more, "Soon" and Tony's smile could have lit the entire city.