A/N: Awww, you guys are too sweet. Thanks for your reviews to last chapter. I really do appreciate them.

This one is...well...kind of intense. The short beginning section picks up the day after Ray leaves; the rest picks up a few months later. I hope you like it, then!

II. Hurricane Drunk

No walls can keep me protected
No sleep, nothing between me and the rain
And you can't save me now, I'm in the grip of the hurricane
I'm going to blow myself away

I'm going out
I'm going to drink myself to death

I brace myself, because I know it's going to hurt
But I like to think at least things can't get any worse

- Florence and the Machine, "Hurricane Drunk"

It's business as usual, when the two of them come back into work the next morning. The same holds true for the day after, and the day after that too. The glimmer from the bar, the brief shock of electricity in the sea of her impassiveness, fades away into routine and they are back to the roles they hold dearest – he is fun and unthethered, she is composed and inscrutable.

So time marches on, through the end of winter and spring, and their partnership continues serenely, uneventfully. The sparring and teasing and light banter carries them forward, as though that's all they are and all they have, and their stone-and-titanium walls remain firmly in place.

But everything changes the night Tony gets that call from California on a cloudy Wednesday evening in late March.

It's some guy at some swanky hospital in La Jolla. He's very kind and careful and makes some small-talk, but he's really calling to say that Anthony Dinozzo Senior died this morning in their hospital. His heart finally gave out at a party last night and the ER doctors did everything they could, but they lost him around six thirty this morning and they are very sorry.

Six thirty in the morning. Tony had been waking up and taking a shower, humming some song as he got ready for work.

He almost drops the phone and overturns his desk at the thought of it.

The man nervously offers his condolences. Then he asks what Tony wants to do with the body. The body. The body which, as recently as yesterday, had been doing what it has always done – digested alcohol, picked out the prettiest girl in the bar and carried out tried-and-tested flirting techniques to get into her panties. Unbelievable.

It takes a minute for Tony to find his voice. He's sure his shock and horror and grief has already registered on his face; Ziva and Gibbs went to conduct an interview and McGee is at his desk and he looks extremely anxious. But when Tony finally convinces his voice box to keep functioning, all he can say to the man on the phone is to keep the body for him for a day or two. He will get on the earliest flight he can get and be in California to take care of everything. His frozen brain is already beginning to thaw and make plans, and he abruptly has the idea of cremating Senior and spreading the ashes on a beach, letting the ocean claim him. Senior had loved the beach; the cold water, hot sand, cold beer and hot women represented his idea of paradise on Earth. Hopefully they have those things wherever he is now, too. Seventy-two virgins and all. Senior would definitely enjoy that.

Tony talks logistics with the hospital guy for another minute or two, then hangs up. He suddenly has the urge to vomit. The idea still has not completely taken root in his brain yet, that Senior no longer roams this Earth. It's just…unexpected, and strange, and the air is too dense to fit down his throat. This just can't be right.

"Tony?" McGee sounds remarkably like that nervous guy on the phone from California. "Are you all right?" The words make their way into his ears slowly, one at a time, as though he's underwater.

"My father…died this morning."

The sentence tastes funny on his tongue. It's too stark, too ludicrous – but it's the truth. It's almost as though he's saying it for his own benefit rather than McGee's. McGee certainly looks like he believes the news faster than Tony did, because his expression is akin to that of someone who has been hit round the head with a golf club.

"Tony, I am so sorry." He looks like he wants to get up, maybe even hug Tony, but he continues to sit restlessly, uncertainly, on his desk chair, peering up at Tony as though trying to gauge how likely Tony is to hit or throw something at him.

Impulses for violence certainly do flare up in Tony, but somehow he can't act on them. He's just numb all over. Senior, dead, in California. It sounds like a bad April Fool's prank. Technically, he's an orphan now. And the only Anthony Dinozzo he knows.

He just sits at his desk, stares at his sleeping computer screen, and doesn't move. But from the corner of his eye, he sees McGee excuse himself to make a call.

Gibbs and Ziva return perhaps sooner than they should; only about forty-five minutes after Tony got his phone call. Considering they were about half an hour away, they probably cut the interview short, just to come back to him. Somewhere inside his slush-filled brain, Tony finds he is rather touched.

Gibbs fixes him with a long look upon his return. As usual, there is no need for him to say much; his blue eyes, usually so steely, soften.

"I'm sorry for your loss," he says, all quiet and gruff.

A pause. Then—

"Why don't you take the rest of the day." It's phrased as a question but delivered like a statement. "We'll see you tomorrow."

"Okay." Though he's partially grateful for this reprieve, he's mostly indifferent. He can hardly even think straight. He can feel Ziva watching him from her desk, penetrating his soul with those dark eyes of hers that never miss a thing, but it doesn't even occur to him to pretend he feels anything. He simply gets up, mechanically grabs his things, and heads for the elevator with slow, deliberate steps.

He's halfway to his car when he hears his name shouted out, along with the sound of running footsteps behind him. He stops, wheels around, and finds Ziva sprinting towards him, breathless.

She comes to a standstill right in front of him, her scent and her heat and her physical presence almost overwhelming. She takes a second to catch her breath, then asks, "Do you want to get wasted? It's on me."

He has to admit, the idea of getting wasted sounds pretty good right now. And she's right there, wanting to be there and take care of him and also pay.

Despite everything, he cracks a slight grin.

"Okay."

They go to a different bar this time, this one of her choosing. He's never been there before; it's warm and loud and there's hard rock playing through the speakers over their heads. It's alive and probably a little too cheerful for the occasion, but he's actually kind of grateful for that. There's nothing much worse than sitting in a quiet, empty, sad-looking bar feeling sorry for yourself. The distractions are good, proof that the world is still turning, that life does indeed go on, even if he's not quite ready to rejoin it yet.

They settle in at the counter and he's the one ordering straight-up vodka, while she sticks with a martini. And then he just starts downing the stuff, wasting no time in getting himself as smashed as he possibly can. There's no reason why not, really; he just got terrible news, and he's not even paying for these. So over the course of an hour or two, he gets steadily drunker, and Ziva just sits beside him, sipping at her martini and saying nothing.

From somewhere inside his alcohol maelstrom, Tony can tell that she wants to say something, anything – that she wants to do something besides watch him lose his mind to his poisons of choice. But he knows that she's not quite sure how to talk to him when he's feeling like he is – she's never really been good at that sort of thing – and this is her way of grieving with him. She knows how the alcohol numbs everything, covers his life in a blanket of thick, serene snow and lets him be someone else for a little while. She's felt the same way on several occasions, so she's letting him have that comfort, and lending him her company in case he does want to talk.

And even if he doesn't...well, then she'll just be his babysitter and his designated driver, and he appreciates that. Dimly, he wonders if Gibbs knows that this is what they are doing and where they are, or if Ziva got McGee to cover for her.

It's probably the former. If anything, Ziva probably met the boss's eye the second he disappeared from sight, and she was probably given the head nod that meant Gibbs approved her taking care of him tonight. Because someone needs to and anyway, this is just what they always do, after all. Take care of each other. Have each other's backs. Understand each other implicitly, even and especially when they don't understand themselves.

He has lost count of how many drinks he's had when she finally tells him that it's time to go. He is so totally smashed that words flow incoherently out of his mouth like mush and he can hardly stand and he has to slump on top of her as she steers him back to her car. She runs back in to settle the tab, leaving him to recline the passenger seat backward and stare at the roof of the car with bleary eyes. He feels like some wicked leprechaun is continuously bashing his head in with a mallet. She returns to the car a moment later, the scent of her strong – sweat, alcohol, a little smoke and a hint of something vaguely floral. He wants to look at her, maybe catch her eye, but his head slumps forward, his head lolling helplessly in space, slipping in and out of sleep.

She puts the car into gear and drives in silence, through dark street lit by neon shop signs and neat rows of street lamps. He wants to ask where they're going, but his tongue is a wet, heavy, useless lump in the middle of his mouth and he's having trouble getting the words out. And anyway, it doesn't really matter where they're going. He trusts that she won't let anything bad happen to him.

She ends up taking them to her building. She negotiates him into her apartment and turns on the lights. He screws his face up at that and whines something about fairies, but she ignores it. He's pale and clammy and slightly green, so she takes him to the bathroom across from her bedroom.

She sits him down in front of the toilet. "Go ahead," she says quietly. "Get it out of your system."

He mumbles something else, but almost as if on command, his whole body tightens and his face disappears into the toilet bowl. She winces as he coughs and retches, but she runs her hand through his hair, up and down and up and down his back, willing all his grief out with the drinks and the contents of his lunch. She hates seeing him like this, so sick and helpless, shaking like he is, coughing and sputtering. It's rare for him to willingly lose all control this way, to let her witness and be a part of his self-destruction; he normally tries very hard to suppress this kind of anguish with his wit and myriad of movie allusions.

It touches her and tears her up inside, being here with him, seeing all this without the filter. He finishes the first round of vomiting and coughs feebly, falls backwards, sprawls half-sitting, half-lying down on the cold bathroom tile. She flushes the toilet twice for good measure, and then props him up a little straighter against the wall.

He's still pale, a sheen of sweat visible on his forehead, and his breathing is quick, shallow. She's just preparing herself to get up and make him some tea with honey, to rehydrate him and make his hangover less of a murderer tomorrow morning; but to her surprise, he seems to sense her movement, read her mind, and his hand finds hers and he squeezes it tight. His palm is sweaty and warm, his grip surprisingly fierce for the state he's in. He grunts irritably, his mouth opening and closing like a fish, as though he's trying to say something but the words don't quite make it out.

"Okay, okay," she mutters. Then she settles in beside him, hugging her legs inward and resting her chin on her knees. His grip on her hand slackens, but she leaves it where it is, curled up inside his palm.

They sit in silence on the floor like that for several minutes. His face relaxes and his breathing slows, as though he's going to sleep. But suddenly his eyes open and his brow furrows and he inexplicably opens his mouth and starts talking.

"You know, I don't really want to go to California," he tells her. "The hospital and his body and everything. I don't wanna go. I mean, I don't even know how to organize a funeral. I don't know who to call. I don't know where I want it to be. I mean, I've never really done this kind of thing before. I don't wanna see him all small and...and...dead, you know, lying there, wherever they've got him. Probably it's a freezer, like the one Ducky has, you know, with all the drawers? I never thought I'd see him in one of those. Not for a while, anyway. He'd skated through so much, I always kinda thought he'd outlive me. Crazy stuff, that he didn't. I mean, just another cocktail, and that's it, his heart gives out? I don't get it. He'd held his liquor well as long as I'd known him – better than me, even. God, I could tell you stories..."

There's no real flow to the following (one-sided) conversation. And it's hard for her to catch every word, because they all run together and he changes subjects without any warning. But on this night, under the influence of sadness and hopeless intoxication, Tony tells Ziva everything.

He does tell her stories, lots of them – of childhood, his father coming home tipsy. Of his mother and the few images he still has left of her, laughing and dancing and watching movies late into the night with him when he couldn't sleep. Apparently, she is the one to blame for Tony's movie obsession. He tells her about Senior's infamous shenanigans – the Civil War stuff, the details behind the time he was left in a hotel room for two days by accident, the first time Senior got married and he actually kind of liked the woman, except for when she left a couple of months later because she'd caught Senior cheating on her in their own bed. He tells her about college, and the drugs and the parties, and being Senior's son through and through in that sense. How Senior had a killer hangover on the day of his college graduation and simply forgot to come. He had turned up later in the evening, convinced that the graduation was the next afternoon.

And the amazing thing is, the longer she lets him talk, the more willing he seems to be to continue. The stories just keep coming and coming. College, then his days in Baltimore PD – some funny stories about nights out with his buddies, some not-so-funny ones about the people he had to deal with, the things he had to see. The story of Wendy comes out – how he dated her for a long time and she seemed like The One. How he proposed to her and she said she had to think about it. How she ultimately told him no and decided to break it off because he was still a child and while she loved him, she couldn't settle permanently with a child.

Women always seemed to leave him, he told her. Every single woman he'd ever cared about left him eventually. His mother first, then Wendy, and Kate, and Jeanne, and Jenny. Even her, Ziva, for a while, after the Michael situation. He was afraid he had lost her forever then. That he had managed to drive her away too. It was a relief to find that death had not yet claimed her and there was still something he could do, some way he could try to atone for what happened and bring her back. He didn't want her to be another name on the list of people he had disappointed, or let down, or been left behind by.

He stops periodically to puke through the course of the narrative, forcing her to flush the toilet and rinse his mouth out several times, but he continues on with the story anyway. It's almost compulsive, the way he determinedly tries to remember where he left off, forces himself to keep talking; as though he's vomiting out the truth about himself along with everything else. He tells her about Thanksgiving, when Gibbs had Senior in the next room while Tony admitted to loving his father, despite his behavior. Tells her that on his bucket list, he had really wanted to tell Senior that it was okay – it was okay that he left his son in a hotel room for two days, that he slept with women half his age and younger, that he forgot important events and never really kept in touch. Because Senior was his father after all, and being mad at him was too hard, too lonely, because beneath the bullshit he did mean well, he had just never learned how to express it the way normal, healthy human beings do. Senior was never meant to be a father, but he did the best he could and yeah, he'll be missed. He really will be.

"You know, the old man, he was nuts," Tony says, running a hand through his hair and then letting it fall to the cold bathroom tile. "That time, in the office, when he asked me in front of everyone, you know, when I was gonna sweep you off your feet? I wanted to kill him. And you probably did too, cuz you had that look, and we were, you know, so embarrassed. Cuz I mean, I don't really think of us like that. 'Course, it's not like I haven't thought about you like that, you know, once or twice at most, you know, 'cuz you're a chick and I'm a dude and chicks and dudes always wonder…but like, we could never be a thing. Think there's a rule 'bout that. And anyway, that night in Paris…"

He trails off for a second, seeming to ponder this. He still seems serene, unbothered by the things he's saying but she's startled, alert, wary, unexpectedly nervous about what it is that he's about to say next. These are dangerous waters he is blundering through here, and she's afraid that he'll drown and take her down too. Her whole body is tense as he gathers his thoughts.

Finally, he says, "That night in Paris, I mean, I thought we were gonna do it. I wanted us to do it. Cuz I've wondered, you know, since that time we had to fake it – what would you do if we didn't have to fake it? But you said no and I was afraid you'd, you know, ninja-drop-kick me if I said I wanted to do it. And anyway, it'd be weird, right? Like, we're already practically family; it'd be like sleeping with my sister. My really hot adopted sister, but you know, my sister. Plus, I mean, there's that rule. But I gotta say—" he lowers his voice and leans into her, reeking of alcohol and vomit and sweat, his tone conspiratorial "—between you and me, I still wanted to do it then, and I still kinda want to do it now. I don't know why. I mean, it'd never just stop at the sex – there's too many movies about how friends with benefits don't work, I mean, like that new one that looks really stupid, that was out in theaters recently, with that hot chick from That 70's Show – so we'd have to be in a relationship after the sex, which, you know, wouldn't work. We'd screw it up and lose our jobs, too, probably, and I do like us where we are now, you know, co-workers with a little something extra. But still. I kinda wanna do it anyway. Cuz we're just…ya know, we have pah. Chemistry, right? You get me and I get you. And at the end of the day, me and you always end up together. 'Cuz despite the fact that you're you and all, I like you. Cuz you're a good listener. A real, real good listener."

He grins all sloppy and lazy at that, apparently not seeing the horrified, frozen, trapped look on her face. He pets her on the head and then says, "You know, I'm kinda sleepy."

It takes most of the energy resources in her body to find her voice and say, "Okay. Let's go."

"'Kay." He's still grinning somehow, oblivious to the nature of all he has said in the past hour or so. He lifts up his arms like a small child expecting to be held. She stands up herself and takes his hands, heaves him up. He slumps on top of her again like he did at the bar, mumbling something she doesn't bother trying to understand. His weight is somehow different this time; heavier, yet more fragile, as though he really will fall and crash and get badly hurt if she is careless. She navigates him towards her bedroom – it's closer – and rips off the covers, dumps him on the mattress.

He stretches out diagonally across the bed like a starfish, asleep almost at once. His shoe slips off his foot with a clatter to the floor. He's already snoring. And she just stands there over him, her arms crossed and her shoulders curled inward, watching him.

His hangover is going to be awful in the morning. And she's not sure how much he's going to remember about tonight. She's not even sure how much she wants to remember from tonight, because it's been a lot to take in, these past few hours, and she's still reeling.

With her bed thus occupied, Ziva takes a spare blanket and pillows from her closet and camps out on the couch. But she can't sleep, of course, because Tony's words from the bathroom are on an endless loop on the radio inside her head and she can't shut it off. She can't ignore the magnitude of what happened here tonight just because of a minor trifle like sleeping before work in the morning.

In all the years she has known her partner, he has never been like this. So erratic, open, his heart so obviously fixed on his sleeve, drenching them both in its scarlet honesty. They make it a point to never talk about their relationship, what they mean to each other. Their history is too thorny, too complicated and full of pitfalls and thorns, to reference in everyday life. But tonight, he crashed through all the barriers they usually build for themselves, like a careless teenage driver forgetting the rules of the road and making a mess of things. He talked about that awkward night in Paris when they were on assignment a couple of years ago, with that single hotel bed; about being worried for her after Michael; about wanting to have sex with her, for goodness' sake. They never go there, for goodness' sake. Never, never, never.

Suddenly, she is just exhausted, with no energy to speak of, like she was the afternoon Ray proposed all those months ago. Tony tires her out, because he coaxes out something out of her depths, out of the very essence of her humanity, that she has rarely allowed herself to fathom – compassion, profound loyalty, affection so blistering and deeply-rooted and real that it sometimes scares her. That she never even thought she had the capacity to feel.

Back in her Mossad days, she could never have imagined feeling this way for someone. She could never have imagined sitting up late into the night listening to a drunken soliloquy about life and its love and cruelty; she could never have imagined sitting on a cold bathroom floor rubbing someone's back as they vomited, unless she desperately needed them for some assignment. She could never have imagined feeling so fiercely protective of someone, wanting to siphon all their hurt away from them and drink it herself, letting them sleep in her own bed. She has come to feel great love for Gibbs, McGee, Abby and Ducky over these years at NCIS, more so than she has felt about anyone in her life – but she has always harbored something special for Tony Dinozzo. Something electric that keeps them bound, intertwined in a way neither of them can explain. Something that lurks beneath the normal, platonic things they do everyday and adds a murky subtext to each touch, each time his eyes meet hers.

He has said words tonight that should have sent her away, screaming for the hills. She should be retreating back to her shell right now, fighting to pretend that this hasn't happened, that it doesn't matter because he won't remember any of this tomorrow and he was half out of his mind when he spoke anyway.

Instead, though, she finds that she is dwelling on the moment he said he still kind of wanted to sleep with her – how for a second it was almost as if he was aware of her and himself and this bizarre situation, and he was so desperately trying to tell her what she needed to know before the opportunity passed them by. Her heart is light and faint and it flutters madly, almost ready to burst out of her chest and fly in circles over her head.

She is afraid, of what he said and what it is doing to her, and exhausted by the strain of dealing with the mess he is so good at creating in her. The darkness of the inky night sky makes everything exponentially more important and genuine; the lateness of the hour is insulated, oddly safe for this dangerousness, and it loosens her at the seams, quietly threatening everything she knows.

Though Ziva is perfectly well aware that Tony will not remember his declarations to her tomorrow, she has to wonder – what if he did remember? Does she want him to? Because as early as yesterday, she would have said no, of course not, since it would make things complicated and weird and that's the last thing she wants right now.

But that was before today – before he confirmed that he did want a personal relationship with her. Before he told her he liked her despite herself. Before she got an extended glimpse into his very soul and found that she would like to see more after tonight, maybe even show him a bit of hers someday, when they're both ready.

Thursday morning, Tony wakes up abruptly, sitting bolt upright in a bed that is not his, in a room that doesn't smell right, with a headache he wouldn't even wish on the devil. There is a foul taste in his mouth and too much sunlight in his face. The idea of standing up and doing anything at all is loathsome. God, this is some hangover.

He lies there on the bed very still for a few minutes, trying to grasp the concept of this new day, trying to remember what happened. The details come back slowly and hazily. The hangover. Some dim images of vomiting. The drinking. The phone call. Senior. Dead. La Jolla. Needing a flight. Senior, really dead. Ziva. Work.

Oh God, Ziva. This is Ziva's apartment. And today…today is Thursday. So he has to be at work. Shit, he has to be at work.

Though his head feels as though someone replaced his brain with heavy stones, he forces himself to get up and stumble to the bathroom. There he finds a note taped to the door.

Tony—

It's okay, don't panic. I told Gibbs you would not be coming into work today. You will have to call a cab to get home; your car is still at NCIS. Call me later and I can take you to get it. There is a pot of tea and a jar of honey on the counter.

—Ziva

It takes a couple of read-throughs for his eyes to process the words, printed neatly in her hand. But when he does finally get it, a small but unexpected burst of sunshine awakens in his stomach and blooms. He rips the note off the door, tosses it into the garbage can, and pads out to her kitchen. The whole place is as still as a crypt. The tea things and the jar of honey are laid out neatly on the counter, as promised. He helps himself to a cup and sits at her dining table, sipping at it, staring out the window and trying not to think about the dull ache all over his body, the memories beginning to come back, the embarrassment forcefully setting in.

Exactly how much did he drink last night?

He goes home around noon and crashes on his bed. At eight PM, he wakes up and texts her, asking when she'll be off. It's easier than calling her; since he's not sure what exactly happened after she asked him to go drinking, he doesn't really want to face the sound of her voice. She texts back within two minutes saying she'll be over around nine thirty. He spends the intervening minutes cleaning himself up, making himself look presentable. He feels better now, it's just the headache that's left, and the sizeable slash in his gut he gets every time he remembers the fact that Senior is dead and he has to go to California to sort that out.

Ziva comes at nine thirty precisely. Tony steps outside his building and finds her waiting by her car, appraising him carefully as he approaches her. Mostly she's checking to make sure he's all right, not too hung over, but there's something else about the way she looks at him – something he can't quite put his finger on – that makes him suspicious.

He gets into her car and they begin driving to NCIS. She asks him how he is and if he has replenished his fluids today, but after he answers those questions there's not much else to say. So they choose to spend the rest of the drive sitting together in silence.

They get to the parking garage and she parks in the handicap spot a few feet away from his car. He should get out, but he is somehow rooted to the spot, as though it's not quite right to leave yet. He can feel her eyes probing him for something and he wonders what she's looking for.

After a long minute, she says, "Tony?"

Only now does he meet her gaze. She looks like she did outside his building, her eyes uncharacteristically shiny, overflowing with emotion.

"I am…sorry…about Senior. I will miss him too."

And now he gets it. That thing he couldn't put his finger on – it was pity. Because like the fool he is, he probably got over-honest with the alcohol and told her about how torn up he felt about his father dying. Though it's a perfectly natural thing to be torn up over something like that, he finds himself embarrassed.

He nods, acknowledging her condolences, but then asks her on an impulse, "Hey…how bad was I last night?"

She blinks, surprised, almost wary. "What do you mean?"

His cheeks go red. "Well…I mean…with the drunkness. How bad was I?"

She seems to be calculating several factors very quickly, carefully. "Well…bad. But understandably so."

He isn't entirely convinced, but he nods again and lets it go.

"Thanks," he says at last. "For…everything."

"Of course," she says, and she seems to mean it.

He tries to search her face for clues, because something isn't feeling right here, but his head is aching again and he doesn't feel quite up to playing these complicated games with Ziva. He manages a weak little smile, then opens the door and goes towards his car. And she watches him get the machine into gear and drive out of the garage, wondering if she did the right thing, not telling him what he said last night.

He has enough to deal with right now; he probably has a funeral to plan. And anyway, it's stupid to put much store by a few scrambled mumbles from a drunken, grieving, infamously promiscuous coworker in the dead of night over a toilet bowl.

The insulated darkness is gone; the bracing reality of daylight has set in. He doesn't remember and she's not going to remind him.

Once again, life must trudge on.

A/N: Whew! That was a little bit crazy, eh?

This chapter was actually one I'd already had written from my disastrous attempt at the one-shot, but it's the last of the stuff I have in my arsenal. Hence this one came promptly - and I'm not sure when the next one will come. I'm back to school this week from winter break and I never know how the college roller coaster will treat me from day to day.

I will try my best to update again in a prompt manner, but I can't promise anything right now. I should post soon though. My muse has declared she is interested enough in this story to ponder it while I toil away in class. So.

In the mean time, please review on your way out!