Title: Complicated

Author: purplejello1786

Rating: T

Spoilers: None

Parings: McGiva mostly, some Tiva

Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS or any of the characters. If I did, I would have vast amounts of money, would buy a small tract of land in the Antarctic Peninsula and could pet the penguins whenever I wanted.

The next day, McGee wasn't sure how he should act around Ziva. All of a sudden they were going to be having a real date. If it was a real date. He still wasn't sure what had happened the night before. There hadn't ever been anything between him and Ziva; they had never flirted or had the sexual tension that she and Tony had had. On occasion, she had even joined Tony in making fun of him. For her to be suddenly undressing in his apartment was a little disturbing. When he got to work, Ziva was on the phone and greeted him with a simple "Hi, McGee."

"Oh, uh, hi, Ziva," he said. "Are we, uh, still going to, uh, do that—you know, thing we were going to do, you know, tonight?"

"What?" She looked up at him, confused. So it was a dream, McGee thought. Then she smiled at him. "Oh, right. Of course. I'll come by around six." Then she got back to her phone call. McGee stared for just a second until Tony came in and flicked at his ear.

"Stop bothering Ziva when she's working, Probie," he said. Then he walked around to where she was sitting, hung up the phone for her and grabbed her arm. "We have to talk."

"Tony, I was on hold for ten minutes; this cannot be that important." Tony didn't say anything else, just dragged her off.

McGee sat in terror for a few minutes, sure that Tony had found out about Ziva stripping in his apartment the night before and he was going to die horribly. But when Tony and Ziva came back, Tony didn't even glance at him. Neither did Ziva, but she was obviously angry and sat at her desk quietly stewing until Gibbs came in. Then McGee made himself forget about Ziva; Gibbs would make him die horribly if he was distracted and couldn't work the case.

Later, he and Ziva were in the observation room watching Tony interrogate a witness.

"What was that about earlier?" he asked her.

"What was what about?"

"What Tony wanted to talk to you about. He's not—he's not mad about—"

"About what? About our date?" She chuckled. "No. He's just upset because, uh—well, you know Tony; he finds things to be angry about."

"Seriously, Ziva; I don't want to interfere with your relationship. Are you broken up or not?" She turned to look at him with a steely expression.

"We are completely over," she told him. "One hundred percent. He just feels he has to be a little—picky about some things. Nothing to do with you. Don't worry." She smiled again. "Forget about Tony. It'll just be you and me tonight."

McGee turned back to the interrogation with a growing fear bothering him. Did Ziva expect them to have sex that night? He had said he preferred more than one date before he had sex, and the thing was, now that Ziva seemed interested in him, he realized how much he liked her. He liked how funny she was when she was trying to be, and also the naïve vulnerability when she made a mistake and everyone laughed at her. He liked how serious she was about her job, how she attacked every problem like the future of the world was at stake and how she wasn't afraid to challenge even Gibbs if she thought they were doing it wrong. And aside from all that, if not the most attractive woman he had ever known, she was definitely top five. It wasn't that he didn't want to sleep with her. But this was just a little too surreal for him. Probably all that would happen tonight would be that they would talk like friends, eat weird pizza and Ziva would realize that she had just been feeling a little strange the night before and would come to her senses.

When Ziva showed up at his door that night, he fully expected that the evening would go that way.

"Have a better day?" he asked her.

"Well, yes," she said. "You saw; you were there for most of it." She smiled at him.

"I was just—you know, it's something you say."

"I know. Did I say something wrong?"

"No. No; you're fine." It was still strangely awkward. But at least she wasn't feeling the urge to take off random articles of clothing. "So, are you hungry?"

"Yes." They went into the kitchen and Ziva pulled out the ingredients for her pizza.

"You put cheese on it?" McGee asked, rummaging in his refrigerator.

"Yes. Are you ok with trying this?"

"I've tasted a lot of weird foods in my time. I always say I'll try anything once."

"Ok," she said, with a grin. Then, as she started rolling out her pizza dough, she looked more serious and started telling him how her mother had taught her to cook. McGee wasn't really listening; he was busy still looking for mozzarella when he realized that Ziva was almost in tears.

"She didn't even like pizza," she said, her voice squeaking. "But she made it because she knew Tali and I loved it. She was such a good person and I'll never be able to measure up to her. She would be ashamed of me if she could see me."

"No, she wouldn't; of course she wouldn't," McGee said. He put an arm around her and she pressed her face into his shoulder, still trying not to cry. He did his best to comfort her, even though this was even weirder than her trying to seduce him. "You're a very good person, Ziva." She looked up at him and wiped a tear off her nose.

"Thank you, McGee," she said. "I appreciate the compliment and I'm sorry." She pulled out of his arms. "Oh, God; I'm losing my mind."

"Are you ok?" McGee asked. "You have been acting kind of weird. I'm sorry, Ziva, but does this have anything to do with Tony?"

"Why?" Ziva snapped.

"Well, Ziva, let me be honest with you; everyone knew you had a thing for Tony and it must have been hard for it to not have worked between you. And—" He was trying to choose words carefully. "I know that it also must be difficult to be stuck with Tony and that can put you under a lot of stress. You think that could be why you've been acting a little different?"

Ziva sighed. "You may be right, McGee," she said. "It…might have something to do with Tony."

"So was this just to make him jealous or something? I can imagine his reaction if we had slept together last night."

"No!" Ziva said. "No; I would never do that to you. You don't think I would want to sleep with you just because I was attracted to you?" She eyed him again. "You don't give yourself enough credit."

"Listen, Ziva, if you're not over Tony, maybe we should change this from a date to just a friendly dinner. I don't want to cause any problems and really, I don't want to be the rebound guy."

"Oh, you wouldn't be the rebound guy," Ziva said. "The man who lives next door to me, the man I met at the dentist and the pizza delivery boy were the rebound guys." McGee didn't ask for details.

"Ok, so you want to talk about it a little more?" McGee asked. "Or should we go back to the pizza?

"Oh, right, the pizza." She went back into the kitchen and quickly and efficiently finished rolling out the dough, placing it on the pan and putting the toppings on. McGee had to move quickly slicing the jalapenos to keep up with her.

Then the pizza was in the oven and Ziva was looking around his apartment. McGee was cleaning up a little when he saw Ziva looking at something on his desk.

"Wait, wait. Ziva, uh, I'd appreciate if you didn't look at that," he said, rushing over to her and standing in front of the DVD she had only had the chance to glance at. She looked at him with her expression of surprise.

"McGee!" she said, looking pleased that she had found something to tease him about. "I would never have thought you were the type to watch porn!"

"It's not porn," McGee said, but he took the DVD off the desk. "It's just a little embarrassing." Ziva grinned and then, so fast that McGee barely saw it, snatched it from him. Then she gasped.

"Star Wars?" she said. "This is the new Star Wars movie!" She started to laugh; McGee turned bright red.

"It just came out on DVD," he said. "I bought it yesterday."

"Well, at least you don't have the action figures." McGee chose not to tell her about the box he kept under his bed.

"Please don't tell Tony," he said. "And I'm eating your bizarre pizza, so maybe you could keep the teasing to minimum."

"I'll do you one better than that," Ziva said. "Let's watch it." McGee just stared at her. "C'mon, it would be nice to watch a movie where Tony doesn't make a comment every five minutes about where else he saw the actors and what other movies it reminds him of. And I haven't seen it; we should watch it."

"You're serious? You want to watch a geek movie?"

"I have seen the others. I'm not a fanatic, but I have seen them. We can watch it. I'm sure you've been wanting to. It is the least I can do after how I've been acting these past few days."

"Ok," McGee said, hesitantly. "And no mention of this to Tony?"

"None whatsoever."

So they sat in front of his TV, eating the pizza and watching. McGee hoped he wasn't as bad as Tony, but she hadn't seen Episode One or Two and so he had to tell her the back story. The pizza could have been worse, although McGee picked off the jalapeños and most of the beets. About halfway through, after he had stopped explaining everything, he looked over to ask her if she wanted another piece; she was sound asleep with her head on the armrest. McGee smiled. It had been a nice gesture from her, anyway.

After about thirty minutes, she woke up.

"What happened?" she murmured groggily. "Oh, McGee, I'm so sorry; I didn't mean to fall asleep."

"It's ok, Ziva," he said.

"It's not that I don't like it; it's just that I was tired after today and—"

"Don't worry about it. You can go back to sleep if you want." She smiled sleepily at him, then leaned over and lay her head on his shoulder.

"Thanks, Tim," she said. McGee was surprised.

"You called me Tim," he said.

"Even if you don't want it to be a date, we shouldn't be on a last name basis. It's ok that I call you Tim, right?" she said.

"Of course," McGee said. "And…I never said I didn't want it to be a date." She seemed to be drifting off again and snuggled close to him. In spite of himself, McGee smiled and then put an arm around her. She slept on him until the end credits; McGee let the whole thing go by on the screen and even let it get back to the main menu before he woke her.

"Hey, Ziva," he said. "It's getting late. You should probably get back to your apartment."

"You're right," she said, sitting up. "How was the movie?"

"Good. I saw it three times in theaters."

"And the pizza?"

"Not bad without the jalapeños. And it was a little beet-heavy, but better than I was expecting."

"Glad you liked it." He had thought she was moving to stand up, but instead she leaned close to him and kissed him; it was the last thing he had expected, but it wasn't unwelcome. She was about to pull away when he kissed back and put his hands around her neck and held her there for a second. It felt strangely natural to be kissing her. He had never thought he could feel this relaxed when kissing a woman; normally he was in the middle of a mild panic that she might slap him. But Ziva seemed as comfortable with it as he did. Then she pulled away.

"See you tomorrow," was all she said, and then she left.