Truths and Covert Lies: Chapter 7
Tony DiNozzo ignored the aching of his still-healing arm as he tossed his green sea bag over his shoulder and headed toward the familiar Silver Spring apartment building. He paused just before entering the building and glanced behind him. There was nothing spectacular about the neighborhood; in fact, it was a bit run down, too far away from the Navy Yard, and with only a lower monthly rent payment as a redeeming factor. He could understand why Ziva would have gotten an apartment here when she first moved to DC four years ago and didn't know any better; he couldn't understand why she had moved back after her brief reassignment to the Middle East the summer before. As soon as we get back from Israel, I'm going to convince her to move in with me. The sudden thought surprised even him, and he couldn't get it out of his mind as he entered the building and headed for the stairs, wondering for the thousandth time why Ziva couldn't have selected a building with an elevator.
Ziva was already in the kitchen working on dinner when he let himself in, her speed in getting home a combination of her driving and the fact that she didn't have any luggage that had to be hauled in from the trunk of her car and up the stairs to the third floor apartment. He stepped around her bike in the narrow entryway and deposited the shapeless green duffle in the bedroom before joining her at the counter. "Hi," he finally said, stealing her attention for a few seconds to kiss her. She let it linger longer than usual, and that combined with the expression on her face told him that something was bothering her. Well, something more than everything else that had been going on the last couple of days. Deciding that alcohol was needed for that conversation, he headed over to the wine rack and surveyed the choices. "What's for dinner?"
"Sugo alla puttanesca," she replied in perfectly accented Italian. Not for the first time, he thought about how well she would do with the extended DiNozzo family; she spoke Italian better than he did. He nodded and grabbed a bottle of red, turning it toward her to allow her to approve it. She appeared to think about it for a moment before shaking her head. "I think the Vesuvio Rosso would be a better choice," she told him. He nodded and made the change, pouring generous servings in two wineglasses and handing one over. She took a sip and nodded her satisfaction before setting it aside to finish the sauce.
They made pointless small talk—mostly planning what they should see in Tel Aviv, as if this were a routine vacation—while they ate their dinner. It wasn't until the table had been cleared and the dishwasher running, the time that Tony usually turned on the TV and Ziva reached for her latest book, that he figured it was time to clear the air. First, of course, he made sure her wineglass was topped off. Not as if it would make any difference; the woman was amazingly tolerant to alcohol. He wondered if that was something they taught in Mossad training. He smiled slightly at the mental image of a bunch of rookie operatives sitting around with shot glasses playing 'Never Have I Ever'. Or, in a more deadly and probably more Mossad-like fashion, old-fashioned pistol duels. Whoever held their liquor well enough to draw quickly and fire accurately lived to make it to the next level of training. He allowed himself one chuckle before leaving the kitchen, handing Ziva her glass before joining her on the couch.
He had barely opened his mouth to speak when she beat him to it. "You do not have to go with me to Israel."
He blinked in surprise, trying to figure out what her words could possibly mean. She was looking at him with an expression he couldn't quite figure out, her dark eyes avoiding his. As always, he chose to cover up the sudden pang of hurt and uncertainty with a flippant response. "Well, it's a bit late for that. Bashan already booked the tickets, and all the paperwork is in at NCIS. Looks like you're stuck with me." She winced at the words, and he knew instantly that he wasn't going to be able to joke himself out of this one. "Do you want me to not go?" he asked quietly.
"I did not say that," she replied quickly. He frowned, trying to bring up his mental Ziva translating guide. He gave it another shot.
"Is it that you'd rather go alone? Because I would understand that, if that's how you felt. He's your father—"
"I did not say that," she interrupted. He frowned.
"Stop telling me what you're not saying and just tell me what you are saying!" he exclaimed, frustrated. She blinked, surprised at his tone, but quickly recovered.
"I do not want you to feel as if you have to drop everything to fly halfway across the world just because we are having sex," she stated.
He frowned at the wording, and that pang of uncertainty was back. Was that really what she thought this was? "That's not why I wanted to go with you," he said softly. She was still avoiding looking at him, so he moved right into her line of sight. "Is that what you think? That this is just about the sex? Is that what it is for you?"
"No!" she denied quickly, shaking her head to add emphasis. "And I did not think that was how you felt, either, but then you went into the deep end about this whole bike thing—"
"Went off the deep end," he interrupted without thinking. She opened her mouth before closing it again, her forehead furrowing slightly as she tried to figure that out.
"How does one go off a deep end?"
He frowned as well. "I actually don't know," he admitted. "I guess I never thought about it." He paused and tried to remember where they were in their discussion. Ah. The bikes. That meant they were returning to the same argument they had been having since the damned bikes made their first appearance, and that realization made him hate biking even more. If it weren't for the fact that they had been fighting about a pair of bicycles, she wouldn't have doubted his sincerity when he offered to go along for support while visiting her father for what could be the last time, and they wouldn't currently be sitting on her living room couch talking about it. No, they would probably be in the bedroom, doing something a hell of a lot more enjoyable. "Ziva," he finally said, trying to shut off that line of thinking before it got out of hand, "I hate biking."
She looked confused at the words. "You never said anything."
He threw his hands in the air. "I've been saying it for almost six weeks, since we went to the Exchange to buy those cheap bikes, before you decided to turn it into a long-term investment!"
The expression on her face was an odd combination of surprise and sheepishness. "I thought you were just complaining about having to get out of bed at 0500," she admitted after a long pause.
"Well, there was that," he joked. He wondered if the small smile that Ziva was trying to hide was a sign that this argument was—finally—coming to an end. "Ziva, I love spending time with you." That statement was about as far as was willing to go with that particular word, a fact he hated about himself as he saw the differing emotions play across her face as she processed his words. "Even at 0500. I would prefer spending time with you at 0500 in bed, but I'll take it however I can get it. I just don't like biking. I had a career-ending knee injury, remember? For some reason, biking hurts a hell of a lot more than running. That's why I've been downing so much Vitamin M over the last six weeks." She looked surprised, and he realized that with her own increase in taking Motrin, she hadn't even noticed his. They both had large bottles of the over-the-counter pain medicine in their apartments, which were being emptied at amazing rates. He figured they were both only one or two doses away from giving themselves ulcers. Maybe it was good they were leaving DC for a while and heading for Israel; working the stressful long hours for Gibbs and drinking the coffee that surviving that required would only tip them over that edge.
"I was worried I had overplayed my hand," she said quietly after a long pause. So distracted by the fact that she had gotten an obscure card-playing reference right, it took him a moment to catch up to the conversation.
"The bikes?" he asked dumbly. She gave a short nod before abruptly rising from the couch to begin pacing the small living room. It was another move he had grown to recognize over the last couple of months; Ziva didn't sit still well, and she couldn't have a serious conversation without doing something physical to distract her from the words. He wondered how two such screwed up people had managed to get together in the first place, and how they had managed to survive almost four months once that had happened. By not having these conversations, he answered sourly for himself. One would think that he had learned the importance of open and honest conversation from the last time he had gotten seriously burnt by a relationship, but as his first grade teacher had written on his report card, Anthony DiNozzo was sometimes a little slower than the other kids to pick up on new concepts.
Ziva nodded again. "I did not think that buying you a bike would upset you as much as it did, and I thought that you—"
"Well, you could have asked first," he interrupted lightly, not wanting her to finish that sentence. He wasn't sure exactly what her next words would be, but the last thing he wanted to hear the evening before taking a leave from work to fly to a foreign country to meet his girlfriend's dying father was that she had thought they were on the cusp of breaking up. And he was sure that a break-up with a trained Mossad assassin would not go as smoothly as most of his relationships ended. Closets filled with dog crap had nothing on what she could do to him.
She nodded. "I will do that before making another large purchase for you," she promised with true sincerity. He sighed. The last thing he wanted was for her to second-guess every nice impulse she had toward him. He knew that he had been an ass about the whole situation and knew that he had to be a man about it and say so.
"I'm sorry I got so worked up about this without telling you why," he apologized. He rose from his seat on the couch and stood in front of her, blocking the path she was pacing in. "Thank you for the bike. I should have said that before."
She nodded slightly. "We do not have to do everything together, Tony," she said softly, her eyes rising to meet his. "When we return from Israel, we will be spending our days together at work and many of our nights together in one of our apartments. We are allowed to have activities that we do not share. You are not an easy person to be around twenty-four/seven."
"I'm not an easy person to be around twenty-four/seven?" he repeated with a grin on his face. "At least I don't sleep with a gun and threaten to use it in my sleep." She had never done that, but she didn't appear surprised at the idea that she could have. "And unless you've developed a sudden interest in Buckeye football, you'll see that in a few months I have no problem having activities we don't share."
"I do not think watching football can be considered an activity," Ziva scoffed, but he saw the beginnings of a smile on her face. This had to the be the first time they actually ended an argument by resolving something, not having one storm out of the apartment in anger or jump the other to relieve the excess tension. He was actually a bit impressed with them as a couple.
"You've never watched Buckeye football," he countered. She rolled her eyes. "So you're not mad at me about the bike anymore?"
"I was never mad at you about the bike," she replied softly. He nodded.
"Are you still mad at me?" he asked, his voice lower than it had been. He took a small step closer to her and saw her eyes dart quickly down to his lips before returning to his eyes. She shook her head slowly. "Good," he murmured, his voice even lower. He bent down, his lips lightly brushing hers before pulling away a few millimeters. "Because I don't like it when you're mad at me."
"You do not like angry sex?" she asked teasingly. They were so close that he felt the breath of her words on his lips, and leaned in again to close that gap.
"I prefer make-up sex," he replied honestly as they parted before coming together again. He felt her smile into the kiss as he led her into the bedroom. Acting like adults definitely has his perks, he thought with a smile of his own as he leaned back onto the bed, taking Ziva with him.
