Gypsy – Fleetwood Mac


Saturday mornings, he has learned, are for cleaning. He uncovered this little fact accidentally, the first time he stayed the night at her apartment and woke to find her doing the dishes. He still likes to tease her about it, because he knows what a bear she can be in the mornings; his little Israeli loves her sleep, and momentarily despises anyone who interrupts it. So he was surprised to discover that her first act on a Saturday morning was to clean – after several cups of coffee, of course.

They have been in this secret relationship long enough for it to be normal now for him to stay the night, especially on the weekends, and he has become a part of that routine. They wake up Saturdays, make a pot of coffee without saying much of anything, and then Ziva will put her iPod on the stereo base and pick whatever she is in the mood for that day.

The cleaning, although he does not mind it, is not what makes Tony secretly look forward to Saturday mornings. Oh no – he looks forward to watching Ziva, his enigmatic partner and girlfriend, dance.

He's not sure she realizes that she does it, and in a way he hopes that maybe she doesn't. There's something about it that feels … intimate almost, as if he's witnessing a secret that the rest of the world is blind to. It always starts the same: he hears her start to hum when a song she really likes starts to play, and that's when he knows to pay attention. The humming is the precursor, because within seconds she starts to dance. Some days it's just a gentle swaying of her hips as she stands at the sink, or a quicker sort of sashay as she moves around the living room; on the occasion that it's a particularly upbeat or beloved song, he's seen her stop what she is doing completely to dance out a few beats before continuing on. She never pays him any attention when she does this, and he likes that too. He likes that she is comfortable enough and secure enough with him to forget that he is there – to truly be herself around him.

He really loves the dancing though. There's something intoxicating about watching Ziva dance; she seems to have an inherent sense of rhythm, but it's more than that. He loves watching the lines of her body as she twists one or another, and while there is something distinctly sensual and sexual about it, there's also something deeper: a freedom and a joy that piques an answering joy within him. No matter what kind of week they have had, what new or old horrors they have had to face, she is perfectly happy in these moments, and he is happy to watch her.

Saturdays are quickly becoming his favorite days, and it has nothing to do with the cleaning.