Umm, for the record, this ONE chapter is almost longer than the entire story was supposed to be. It got ridiculously out of hand. And I have no one to blame but myself and the writers for dragging this out for six+ seasons. But it's one of my favorite things I've ever written and I couldn't edit anything out, so enjoy!
Disclaimer: this ends on a slightly saucy note, but it's pretty PG-13.
-11, 19-
They break a new overtime record with a serial killer, a thirty-year-old cold case and a nine-hour standoff. They work thirteen straight days and when the killer is resting comfortably in Ducky's cooler with six in the chest, Vance demands that they all leave the Yard for a minimum of four days. Something about a budget crisis and a hundred hours of time-and-a-half a piece…
After sleeping for thirteen hours - a personal best since college - he finds himself at a complete loss for what to do with so much sequential free time. He briefly considers going for a run, but it's thirty degrees outside and threatening to snow. He finally settles for pulling the shades, ordering two extra-large pizzas and hunkering down for the highly anticipated Hitchcock marathon.
He is not all that surprised when she shows up at his door that evening with Chinese food, citing acute boredom. She rolls her eyes at his chosen activity, but by RearWindow she is clearly intrigued and by To Catch a Thief he's reminded that this is a girl who once admitted to loving the Von Trapp family.
It's during the iconic Grant/Kelly firework scene that he finds himself watching her more than the screen. Her eyes are a little too wide, her lips slightly parted, and his own mouth suddenly moves without permission, the words he's been terrified to utter for more than three years tumbling out.
Any hopes he had for a promising discussion of Paris are quickly dashed when she tells him in no uncertain (albeit baffling) terms to let sleeping hogs die.
"You mean sleeping dogs lie?" He corrects automatically, his fleeting smirk dying at her angry expression.
"We agreed not to bring it up again," she says with a tone of unmistakable finality and turns pointedly back to the movie.
He pauses it and watches her jaw set into a hard, firm line. "No. YOU decided that we would never discuss it. Not me."
A stiff shrug of suddenly tense shoulders. "It happened. It won't happen again. What's more to discuss?"
"Well what if I WANT it to happen again?" That damn mouth betrays him again, and the forceful question rings loudly through the room.
She turns to him with a look equal parts fury and pain and sadness. He is angry at himself, at both of them. He had thought this conversation would come months ago on the heels of his father's death and his umpteenth promise to stop being such a damn coward. But they had fallen back into old habits, old patterns of denial and avoidance that fit too comfortably to be abandoned. And now, now he's finally crossed that uncrossable line, and he can't take it back.
He counts to forty in his head waiting for a response, and when she does speak again the words are nonsensical.
"The box is no longer empty."
He searches his brain for a corresponding idiom; tries to put it through the Ziva-translator to determine what the hell she means and comes up empty. But then a conversation from last summer, held over beers and common commiseration, returns to him suddenly and lands a punch squarely to his gut.
"Ray is back." His voice is flat and the question turns itself into a statement. Her answering nod is enough to push him to the brink, perched and ready to topple with just one more affirmation.
"And you answer?" In his mind, he has accepted the foregone conclusion and spreads his arms as if preparing for a swan dive into the abyss. One which he will - hopefully - not survive.
She looks away from him then, to the frozen TV, to the clock, to the dusty guitar propped in the corner. Anywhere but meeting his eye.
"I have not given him one yet."
The imagined-Tony freezes, because while it is not the expected final blow, neither is it reason enough to step back from the edge yet.
He manages to find his voice somewhere around his ruined kneecaps. "Because?"
"You know why, Tony," her tone is both accusatory and apologetic. "Because...it means I finally have to choose..."
He knows what that admission costs her, because the next words tumbling from his lips are just as desperately hard to say. "Choose me."
Her expression turns so heartbreakingly sad that he fears he just somehow managed to make her choose Ray. She stands then, grabbing her coat and walking silently to the door. She doesn't look back until she's halfway in the hall, about to walk out of his apartment and potentially his life forever.
"You need to decide if you really mean that or if you only want me because somebody else does too," she says softly, her eyes boring straight through him.
He stares stunned at the softly closing door, shifting quickly from shock back to anger. He stands, ready to run after her and call her an idiot and shake her and kiss her and tell her that of course he…
He stops abruptly, standing perfectly still in the middle of his apartment when he realizes that he has never actually told her. He's said it with every expression and action and conversation for God knows how many years, but he realizes he just asked her to choose him without ever telling her those stupidly simple and impossible words.
He rips the drawer completely out of the desk, shaking it upside down and searching desperately through the fluttering papers until he finds the two sheets he desires. He doesn't know why, but it's suddenly vitally important that she see number twenty-six.
- 26 -
She's packing a suitcase when he hammers on her door, and she has no idea why he's suddenly pointing at a piece of stained paper. But she reads the words and sighs and meets his agitated gaze.
"You have to do more than write it down, Tony," she says sadly, returning to her room and her packing.
"I love you." The words on his tongue manage to sound foreign and familiar at the same time. "You KNOW I love you. You've never said it either but I know you love me, too."
"It's more complicated than that."
"No it isn't. Spending eight goddamned years flirting and talking and fighting and pretending I don't love you is complicated. Watching another man tell you those words is complicated. Actually it's friggin agony."
"But that's my point, Tony," she sighs and sits on the bed as if the conversation itself has made her weary. "We are always closest to the line when one of us is with someone else. When you were with Jeanne, when I was with Michael. EJ and Ray. Our feelings are strongest when we think the other is about to slip away. And when the third party is gone, the challenge removed, we're always right back where we started. That's not…" She struggles visibly for the right word. "Healthy…"
"Does that honestly surprise you, Zi? That it takes almost losing you for my stubborn, commitment-phobic ass to admit that I can't? I know you understand because you are the exact. same. way." The words are forceful but lacking malice. She is staring at the floor but nods, and he knows she gets it.
He crouches in front of her, trying to see her face better, "Do you love him more than you love me?"
Her eyes meet his then, and there's nothing but truth when she answers. "No. But he can't hurt me as badly as you can."
He sighs and sits down beside her on the bed, resting his forearms on his thighs. That she sees him as the more dangerous bet compared to a lying CIA spook is more than a little disturbing. But no clever rebuttal springs to mind, because her worry is valid and painfully well documented.
"Well, that's the trade off, Ziva," he says quietly. "I can't promise that we won't crash and burn and completely ruin each other in the process. We have shitty relationship track records on our own and combined we're damn near apocalyptic…" his voice trails off, because saying it aloud, even he has to admit that it sounds like a monumentally bad idea. So he tries again. "Abby once called us symbiotic in passing. I nodded like I knew what the hell she was saying and then had to go google it," he sees from the corner of his eye that she gives the smallest of smiles. "You know what it means?"
She purses her lips, her eyes searching his. "It's when two very different entities complement each other and are…" she struggles for a moment and he can see it is the language barrier, not a lack of understanding.
"Mutually dependent," he offers and she nods. "They're at their best when they're together…"
"Dependence is a dangerous thing," she points out and his head drops slightly, his gaze falling to his hands.
"Yeah Ziva, it is. But I'm less afraid of admitting that I need you than of actually losing you." Her brow furrows, and he doesn't blame her for that less than coherent sentence. "What I mean is -" he almost laughs at the words his mind offers up and chalks one in fate's corner, "- I...can't live without you. And more than that, I don't want to anymore."
He stands then, because he has made his decision and now she must make hers. He takes her chin gently in his hand until she looks up at him; those eyes he can always read are windows into her spinning thoughts. "I can't promise that it'll work. But I promise I'm all in." He leans in, pressing his lips to hers for as long as he dares and then whispers in her ear. "And I promise no one will ever love you more than I do Ziva David."
He leaves without looking back, because he can't bear to. It's snowing hard outside now, and he's eternally grateful that it forces him to focus on driving. He makes it home and laughs bitterly at the idea of continuing the Hitchcock marathon now. But after wandering idly through his apartment for an hour, he finds himself back where he started, watching Grant and Kelly, and waiting for his answer.
It takes exactly twenty-seven hours and thirty-eight minutes (not that he's counting) before the quiet knock at his door. Her expression is unreadable as she hands him two papers. It's his bucket list, and she's taken the liberty of crossing off a few items. He feels the smile growing on his face even as his brow furrows.
"Why'd you cross off number one?"
She raises an eyebrow and closes the door behind her. She's moving towards him then, giving him a predatory look that sends a jolt of electricity straight down his spine. "Oh, you'll see…"
-1-
They are still wrapped up in a tangle of sheets, her naked body warm and pliant against his when he decides that ninja sex definitely counts as martial arts training. He vows to spend the rest of his life eagerly pursuing its mastery.
Hehehe, yes I know, gratuitous sex ending after a very heavy and emotional chapter. But I think it kind of fits them, yeah? Agree? Disagree?
I've seen many fanfics bring up their symbiotic relationship, and I think it's perhaps the best word in the dictionary for them. My favorite by far is, easily enough, Symbiosis by Zaedah. I strongly recommend it!