Title: Packing
Author: SplishySplash
Characters: T/Z
Pairing: T/Z
Genre: Friendship
Disclaimer: I own nothing. I imagine Ziva to be more artsy than she lets on, like she plays the piano and was a ballet dancer, I imagine her to be artistic also and that she just hasn't had the chance to really express it.
Summary: In her excitement to move into her new home she starts packing. Mindless Fluff
One chapter ends and another begins. . .
She sat on her floor with her legs folded all of her things were moved from their keep cluttering the small apartment along with cardboard boxes resting against the bare wall. She wrapped plate after plate into old newspaper and stacked them gently on top of each other in preparation for their journey across the city into her new home.
Ziva David now owned a condo as of this afternoon and she was able to occupy it as soon as she wanted too. Thus she sat on the floor, with her legs folded at eight o'clock at night in excitement to move her things into her home.
As the last dish met its buddies a knock on the door caught her attention and she stood up, padding barefoot across the apartment to it. Out of habit she checked the peephole to see Tony on the other side. "Open up! I don't want my food to get cold." He said through the door, she opened the door and smiled brightly to cover the swoon the washed through her. He was wearing his tight jeans and a black t-shirt that hugged him in the right places. "Hey."
"Hey." She said resting her head against the door, he turned on the melting charm smile.
He held up held up the food. "I brought food." He offered and she stepped back to allow him to come in, shutting the door behind him as he looked around the apartment. "Only you could have an organized mess."
He caught the tail end of her shrug. "I just packed all of my dishes. . ." She started before he interrupted.
"That is why I brought Chinese." He answered and followed the way to her coffee table, setting the bag down before digging through it for the chopsticks. He released a little 'a-ha' as he found them and handed a set to her before sitting on the floor, looking up at her expectantly. "Well are you going to join me?"
Ziva nodded and sat next to him as he handed her a carton, opening it revealed sweet and sour chicken. "It looks good." She said picking out the biggest piece of chicken and setting it into her mouth. Her eyes closed as she savored the taste, she hadn't realized just how hungry she was. "This is amazing."
"It's this little place by my place, it's probably the best Chinese food on the planet." Tony said taking a bite from the Szechwan shrimp and he hissed. "Hot!"
Ziva laughed as he started to fan his mouth before she got up to grab a couple of sodas from the fridge, tossing him the can. He greedily popped the tab and started to drink it, Ziva watched him amused as she took another bite from her container. "Better?" She asked as he sat the drink down.
Tony nodded, his eyes watering. "It's not spicy hot, but temperature hot." He said, putting that container down and moving on to the fried rice. She made a face that he knew she was about to tease him about being a pansy. "Don't believe me?" He grabbed the container and pulled a piece of shrimp, holding it out for her to take with her mouth.
She took a bite and chewed. "It is not hot." She said with a laugh, before taking the container from him and stealing another piece. He shrugged and took the one she was eating from before. The rest of dinner was friendly banter back and forth until the last wanton was finished and they sat against the couch content.
He rested his head against the couch and turned to look at her. "What do you need help packing?" He asked with a yawn.
As if yawning was contagious, she unsuccessfully tried to stifle a yawn. "You can help me pack my bookshelf." She said with a second yawn. "I guess."
Tony jumped to his feet and extended his hand to hoist her onto her own. "I can do that." He said as she went back to the kitchen to finish wrapping her dishes in newspaper and Tony grabbed a box.
Ziva watched as he comfortably started to pull the books off one by one, stopping to read each title even though he couldn't read it he nodded as if he had heard of it before he set them gently into the box. He did stop long enough to open the cover of her copy of Deep Six and snorted as he read the cover page. It was her autographed copy. "You've got an autographed copy?" He asked amused. "'Ziva, I did not base this character on you or your likeness, Thom E. Gemcity.' Really?"
She nodded with a laugh as she climbed up on the counter to reach the glasses that hid in the back of the cupboard. They resumed to packing in silence and one by one Tony pulled the books off. He was slightly amused to pull off the whole series of Harry Potter off her shelf, a gift from Abby for her birthday to replace the set she lost when her apartment exploded a couple of years ago.
As he got closer to the bottom he sat of the floor, pulling off the larger books that she had collected from them or on her own, big picture books and a photo album rested on the bottom that required him to fish through.
It was plain, just photos lying on black paper. Some were crumpled pictures of her childhood, their story and their origins unknown to him. He recognized some of the people in the pictures, of Ari and her father and the girl he assumed to be her sister Tali. The next few picture were pictures she had taken from the hidden picture folder of candid pictures taken from crime scenes of pretty much everybody, some more flattering than others.
The one that caught his eye though was of both of them, both in arguing position but with huge smiles on their faces. He didn't startle when Ziva pressed into his back, looking over his shoulder with her head resting on it. "I think Abby took that one." She said, it brought shivers through him.
He shook his head. "No, it was Palmer." Tony said with a smile before he took a deep breath, it was taken before Somalia and Rivken. Palmer had given it to him right before he gave up hope in finding her ever again. He wondered how she had gotten a copy, but didn't dwell and flipped the page to another one of the pair of them, an old one of them, from when they were ransacking an apartment for a chip and they had fallen asleep against the counter, McGee must have snapped it before dozing off himself.
It was the last picture in the book, but the book had a lot of free pages open. "I have not finished it yet, I have a few more photos around here somewhere. . ." She said, her chin leaving his shoulder and he immediately missed the warmth she provided. "I guess I left them in my desk."
Slowly Tony put the photo album into the box and stood back up with another yawn, picking up the box and carrying it to rest of the boxes. "What else?"
She shook her head. "I think we should call it a. . ."She started when her cell phone rang, she picked it up off the counter and flashed the screen to Tony. "A night, hello Gibbs." She nodded and knew he was hailing the bat symbol. "Okay I will meet you there . . . no I will get Tony."
Setting the phone down, he realized just how tired she looked and just how tired he was. "Let me guess 'Grab your gear?'" He asked sarcastically as he searched for his shoes on the floor.
Ziva nodded and yawned, padding barefoot to her bedroom only to come back wearing a pair of jeans and a hooded sweater, her backpack in hand and shoes on her feet to find Tony still sitting on the couch with his eyes closed. She swatted him on the leg. "Come on Tony." She said and he groaned.
"Okay, but I'm driving." He muttered taking her proffered hand and hoisted himself to his feet, following her from the apartment and he shut the door behind them as they made the trip to the crime scene.