GIBBS AND RULE 51...

DISCLAIMER: NCIS charaters do not belong to me.

This takes place a couple days after...Life Before His Eyes.

SUMMARY: Gibbs thinks about...Rule 51: Sometimes You're wrong. Could it effect everyone's lives?

CHAPTER 4: A LATE NIGHT TALK...

TONY'S P.O.V.

I walked up the stairs and got in my car.

I started to remember several things Ziva and I had said to each other in the past...

FLASHBACKS *

"You jeopardized your entire career, and for what?" She had yelled at me.

"For you." I replied simply.

* END FLASHBACK

Then there was the time Gibbs, McGee and I had rescued her from Somalia.

FLASHBACK *

"Why are you here?" Ziva had asked that day in Somalia.

"Couldn't live without you, I guess." I had replied.

* End FLASHBACK

Then time had passed and there was a time she had come to find me in the mens room.

FLASHBACK TO PART OF WHAT HAPPENED *

"Yes, I noticed...but that does not matter. Just as it doesn't matter how it turned out for Michael." Ziva had said to me and I had to ask a question, I wanted an answer to for a while.

"Then what does?" I asked and it was then she had put her hand over mine.

"That you have had my back. That you have always had my back. And I was wrong...to question your motives." Ziva had told me.

"So why did you?" I asked, because I wanted to fully understand.

"I trusted my brother Ari. I trusted Michael; I couldn't afford to trust you to." She told me.

"I thought you didn't know what to say." I said finally.

"Guess I had sometime to think about...things." Ziva said.

"I'm sorry, Ziva." I had said and I was.

"No...It is I who am sorry." She said and then kissed me on the cheek.

* END FLASHBACK

I just sat there and wondered.

'Had there been more then that? Had rule 12 stopped us from being together at that time? Had I told her then and not realized it...that I loved her? Did either of us see it and had not known what to say?'

Then what Gibbs had told me a little while ago came to my mind again.

* "Yeah, that's a part of it. I loved Kate and then I met, Ziva. I felt something different...you know how I am. I play pranks and get head slapped. I'm not sure how to be with just one women and I really love her." I said.

"Then tell her. What is rule eight?" Gibbs asked.

"Never take anything for granted." I replied.

"That's right, you need to take a chance or something could happen and it would be to late." He had told me.

"Thanks, boss." I had said. *

I started to drive and then after a while I found myself in Ziva's parking lot. I knew I couldn't go another night without telling her, because something could happen and I would never get a chance.

I had been sitting here thinking for about the past twenty minutes and decided it was time to go talk to her.

ZIVA'S P.O.V.

I had just taken a shower and I was getting ready to go to bed, when I heard a knock at the door. I looked at the time and wondered who it would be this late. I picked up my gun and went to answer the door.

When I opened the door, I set my gun down and was surprised to see...

"Tony? What are you doing here so late?" I asked; he had been the last person I wanted to see tonight.

"I wanted to talk to you." Tony said and sounded so unlike himself.

I was shocked...the man I had known for years now, something was different about the look on his face.

He was not acting like himself and I wondered what could be wrong.

The Tony DiNozzo I knew was one that:

Picked on Tim...
Told jokes...
Played pranks...
and acted like a juvenile.

He hardly ever seemed serious about anything. I stepped back to let him in and as tired, as I was, I knew I needed to hear him out.

We sat down on my couch and at first he didn't looked at me.

"Tony, is something wrong?" I asked.

"Everything." He told me and I was confused.

"What do you...?" I started to ask.

"I talked to Gibbs an hour ago and he convinced me that I needed to talk to you..." Tony said and seemed unable to finish.

I knew he was thinking about something and wondered if it was the same thing I had been thinking about since we had been told about rule 51.

"Tony, there is something I need to talk to you about to." I said after a few minutes of silence and he looked at me.

"Let me start, all right?" He asked.

"What is this about?" I asked him.

"Everything that has happened since I met you. So much has happened since we met and I keep going back to that day in Somalia you asked me:

'Why I was there?'

Do you remember what I said?" Tony asked and I smiled at the memory, but it also confused me.

"You said, you couldn't live without me." I replied.

"It wasn't only the truth serum...it was always there, it just took the truth serum for me to say it." Tony told me and I had to make him say it. "To say what, Tony?" I asked and was surprised when he looked at me.

This was definitely not the same Tony I had known for so long, because he then took my hands in his.

"That I love you, Ziva David. I meant what I said that day when I said, 'I couldn't live without you.' When we were told that a ship you had been on had sunk and that no one had survived...I almost couldn't go on." Tony told me.

"Tony..." I said and couldn't say anything else because I was in shock.

He then got up and started to leave.

"I'll see you tomorrow." He told me.

"Tony, wait! You come here and you bring up Somalia! Then you bring up everything else and now you're not going to let me talk?" I asked and he turned to face me his hand on the doorknob.

"Gibbs was the one that said that I needed to tell you how I felt, before something happened and I wouldn't get a chance. I told you and I..." Tony started and couldn't seem to find the words.

I walked over to him and took his hand off the doorknob, then led him back to the couch.

"I've known a long time, Tony. I knew the way you acted: Your teasing and juvenile behavior. You always try to hide the pain and what you are really feeling, but I have always known." I told him and he looked at me.

"Why didn't you ever say anything?" He said, looking at me in shock and I smiled.

"Because of two things, Tony..." I said and I almost couldn't finish.

"What two things?" Tony asked.

"I was not sure what to say and rule 12." I told him and he smiled at me.

"That's the same thing you told me in the men's room that day, 'I was not sure what to say.' I guess we both had a long time to think." He told me. "I guess we did." I said and then without warning...

He kissed me, at first, I was shocked and then I kissed him back. Then after a while, we just sat there on the couch. He had leaned back and both of us had our arms around each other. We just sat there each of us enjoying the company.

After a while, Tony said he needed to go home, so he could get some sleep.

I told him I would see him at work in the morning.

So much had changed...

First for Abby and Tim and now it was a chance for Tony and I.