A/N: Still working on this one sporadically. Hope you enjoy the quick shot of fluff.
Disclaimer: Disclaimed.

Tequila

The first thing she thinks upon waking is that tequila is the demon drink.

The second thing she thinks is that with her head throbbing the way it does, she must have sustained a head injury.

The third thing she thinks is that if that knocking on her door doesn't stop soon she is going to rip her own ears off.

She moans disagreeably into her pillow, but she is not surprised when the half-hearted (quarter-hearted?) attempt to demand silence does not yield results. The knocking continues and although she tries, Ziva cannot successfully ignore it. She realizes that the only way to make it stop is to address it head on, and then perhaps throw up on the unwelcome visitor.

She rolls to her feet, stumbles as the room spins and bumps into no less than four pieces of furniture as she shuffles out of her bedroom, down the hallway and towards her front door. The knocking continues, making the pounding in her head grow, and by the time she reaches for the deadbolt she feels that someone is driving and ice pick into her forehead right beneath the crease of her frown.

She can think of nothing she has done lately to deserve such torture.

She manages to unlock the deadbolt on her second try and then, as her stomach rolls with the unwelcome warning of imminent expulsion of contents, she swings the door open.

The knocking stops. Blessed silence. Until her partner looks her up and down and then bursts out laughing at whatever it is that he sees.

"Wow," Tony chuckles, and she doubts that the awe in his tone can be attributed to anything good. "I'm sorry, ma'am. I think I have the wrong apartment. I'm looking for Ziva."

Ziva curls her lip and throws him a brief look of irritation before turning around and heading back down the hallway. She hears Tony close the door and follow her, but she doubts he wants to witness what she is about to do.

"So. How was the wedding?" Tony asks after her.

Despite her epic hangover, it takes Tony mentioning Olivia's wedding for Ziva to remember why she is in her current state of pain. Then she remembers the tequila shots. And the mojitos. And the…yellow thing with the fruit that made her feel like her legs had been detached from her body. The memory of the smell of that particular cocktail returns to her, and although it has to be in her head (or maybe it is actually spilled through her hair) it is enough to make her stomach roll again. Tony's question goes unanswered as she dashes for the bathroom and manages to get her face over the toilet bowl a heartbeat before the dam opens.

Coping with alcohol poisoning was not in her list of things to do today.

In a rare display of respect for her dignity, Tony allows her time alone with the porcelain. She spends God only knows how many minutes swearing to herself that she will never, ever do this again until finally she feels confident enough to get to her feet, flush, wash up, and leave the bathroom. In the hallway Tony offers her a glass of water with a smile that confirms his enjoyment of her predicament, but she cannot muster the energy to be embarrassed. Perhaps it will return to her once she has been sufficiently hydrated.

She takes the glass with a 'thank you' that gets lost in her mouth. The first sip of the cool, suddenly delicious water helps to wash the taste of debauchery from her mouth, and the second helps to turn the shag pile rug masquerading as her tongue into a flat pile. It is an improvement.

"I get the feeling that I got you out of bed," Tony says conversationally.

Ziva rubs her eyes with her free hand and aims her feet in the direction of her bedroom. Yes, he got her out of bed, and now she is determined to return to it. "What are you doing here?" she asks, her voice rasping as she speaks her first real words of the day.

"Boss Man got a call," Tony tells her as they enter the welcome darkness of her bedroom.

She makes a noise that is somewhere between a groan and a whine, puts the glass of water on her bedside table, and then collapses face-first onto her mattress. "I took a personal day," she protests into her pillow. "I knew we would be on call this weekend, but I had the wedding so I took a personal day. Gibbs approved it."

"He knows," Tony replies. "But he told me to check with you anyway."

The last thing she needs in her current state of residual intoxication and burgeoning hangover agony is to attend a crime scene. She has never thrown up at the sight of a dead body—even one in many, many pieces—but if she were ever to break that streak, then today would be the day. The loss of professional pride is not worth it. And the loss of a limb at Gibbs' hand should she throw up and contaminate a crime scene would make the remainder of her life difficult.

"I do not think it would be a good idea for me to attend," she begins, but Tony's chuckle cuts her off from having to defend herself.

"No kidding," he says, and takes a seat by her hip on her mattress. "I think you're still drunk."

She scrunches up her nose and cracks open an eye to look at him. "I do not think that is the case."

He gives her a look of disbelief so exaggerated that she wonders if he has pulled a muscle. "Are you kidding? When was your last drink?"

"I have no idea," she replies honestly.

"How much did you have?"

Her response is to groan and turn her face into her pillow again. If she thinks too hard about that she knows she will throw up some more.

"Yeah," he says, as if that settles the argument. And it does.

"I still do not think I should come in."

"Agreed," he says. "You're full of good ideas."

She thinks he might be making fun of her.

"You going to be okay?" he asks.

She turns onto her back and blinks up at him. "Yes. But can you please double check that there is not a pick axe sticking out of my head?"

His eyes are bright with humor as he replies, "It's kind of hard to tell, Ziva. Your hair's a mess. But it doesn't appear so."

"Porcuswine," she says, suddenly remembering witnessing Tony's hangover a hundred years ago, and then covers her mouth as she yawns.

"More like woolly mammoth," Tony replies.

She throws a fist at him that misses by two feet. He gently taps the side of her thigh and stands again.

"I'll let Gibbs know that you're half dead."

"Feel free to remind him that he said I could have the day off," she says irritably. "And that I reminded him on Friday. And that he responded when I reminded him."

"Yeah, I'm probably not going to do that," Tony says over his shoulder as he heads for the door.

Ziva shrugs to herself. She will not have a problem with reminding Gibbs herself when she returns to work tomorrow.

She is about to roll over and go back to sleep when the ghost of a memory from last night returns to her and she sits up. "Tony? Did I call you last night?"

He pauses by her bedroom door. "No."

She frowns. That doesn't feel right. She is almost positive that she spoke to him deep into the night's festivities, and for a while. But she doesn't detect deception on his face. "Oh."

"Why?"

"I thought I did."

Tony shakes his head. "About what?"

She pauses and tries to retrieve the information from the champagne-soaked memories in the back of her head. There is a feeling in her chest that suggests she might be embarrassed if she found them, but she can't. "I cannot remember."

"You didn't call me," he assures her.

"Okay." She accepts his word as the truth. Until she can prove otherwise. She realizes that her cell phone might hold the answers, and lifts her head from her pillow. "Can you see my purse anywhere?"

Tony spends exactly three nanoseconds looking. "No."

"Can you please call me?"

"When?"

Ziva covers her eyes with her hand, wishing he would cooperate with her. "Now," she says, her voice muffled and tired. "So I can hear my phone and work out where it is."

"Oh."

He pulls out his phone and speed dials her. After a second or two of silence a soft ringing comes from the living room. Tony goes to investigate and returns with her bright blue clutch.

"Ma'am," he says, handing it over.

"Thank you." She unclasps the clutch, upends it and dumps the content on her bed. Her phone falls out with her driver's license, a ten-dollar note, some change and lipstick. She picks up her phone and turns it on.

"Where's the lucky guy?" Tony asks as she enters her password.

"Hmm?"

"Your new husband."

She looks over at his with an exaggerated frown. "My what?" She often does not understand the comments Tony makes, but this one is particularly perplexing.

Tony smirks and then reaches over to take her hand and hold it up to her face. She focuses on the understated diamond ring on her finger, and she finally understands his joke.

"Oh. It was my grandmother's. It matched my dress."

Tony looks her up and down appraisingly, and she drops her eyes to look over herself too. It is only then that she realizes she is still wearing the shiny gunmetal mini dress she wore to the wedding. She is appalled to see that it has twisted itself off-centre, but relieved that she has not been flashing her partner this whole time. She is not sure he would have said anything.

"It's pretty."

She yanks the top of her dress upwards self-consciously. "The ring or the dress?"

"The ring," he says. "The dress looks a little worse for wear. But I'm sure it was a knockout last night."

"Thank you," she says softly as her cheeks inexplicably start to burn. She access her phone logs and checks that she did not call Tony last night. His name doesn't appear on the list until yesterday afternoon. She finds that she only made two calls last night. One was to a taxi company, and one was to a cell phone number she does not recognize. "Hunh."

"Who got the booty call?" Tony wants to know.

"I have no idea." She shows him the number, and after a few moments of consideration Tony shrugs. He doesn't know either.

"I gotta go," he says as he stands. "There's a lot of work to do when we're down one team member."

"Shut up."

"I'm going to ignore than and turn on your coffee machine on my way out," he tells her.

She gasps looks up at him with unfiltered gratitude. "I will have two of your children," she tells him. Perhaps the two acts are not of equal standing, but she really would like some coffee right now.

Tony looks momentarily lost for words before the DiNozzo autopilot takes over. "Only two? Where am I going to get the other three from?"

She doesn't believe for a second that he wants five kids, but it is not a serious conversation anyway. "I do not care," she tells him, and then yawns again. "Some skank."

"That certainly helps with my forward planning," he says. "Thank you."

She nods as she considers getting out of bed again. They have been talking for long enough that she feels more awake than sleepy. "I think I will throw up again, and then I will be ready for coffee."

Tony's lip curls in disgust. "I don't want to know about that. I'll see you tomorrow." He leaves the room, but a moment later he pops his head back in again and waves a hand in her direction. "Put your hair back before you puke."

She gives him a vague salute and he disappears again. A minute later she hears kitchen drawers and cabinets opening and closing, and she looks down at her phone again. On a whim she decides to call the mystery number. It rings only a few times before being answered.

"Hey, Ziva," Emma Park answers.

"Emma," Ziva says, frowning. "Whose phone are you using?"

"Mine," Emma replies with a chuckle. "You called it, right?"

Ziva drops her forehead to her hand as she tries to work this out. "No, I called a number from my call log that I don't recognize."

"It's my personal cell," Emma tells her. "Not my work one."

"Oh. Did I talk to you last night?"

Emma chuckles with glee to rival Tony's. "You don't remember? You were pretty drunk."

Ziva groans. "I am sorry."

"Don't be," Emma says. "It was an entertaining 30 minutes."

Ziva is not sure she wants to know what was so entertaining, but is compelled to ask anyway. "Why?"

"Because drunken, unfiltered Ziva gets pretty chatty."

She groans again, and that same feeling of dread she had in her chest when she asked Tony about the call returns. "Chatty?" she starts, but then Tony calls out from the kitchen.

"Hey, woolly mammoth? I'm leaving. Don't choke on your vomit."

She takes offence to the nickname (and, God help him, it better not stick), but is too distracted by the previous night's misdeeds to argue. "See you tomorrow," she calls back.

"Who was that?" Emma asks.

"Just Tony."

There is a gasp from Emma's end of the line, and then a voice filled with amused disbelief. "Oh. My. God."

Ziva's heart beat speeds up with panic, but she is not sure why. "What?"

"You went through with it?" Emma asks in an urgent hush. "You promised me you were going home. To your home."

"I did…" Ziva trails off as the conversation from the night before comes back to her. It wasn't Tony who she called, but she talked about him to Emma because all the hope and love and romance at the wedding made her want to make a trip to Tony's place. She called Emma to talk her down from making a drunken mistake. If she recalls correctly (and despite the haze she is almost positive she does), Emma had been completely unaware of her feelings for her partner, and proceeded to question her at length about them. As Emma had said, Ziva knows she had been quite chatty in response.

The dread in her chest spreads to her arms, legs and stomach, and pushes her nausea towards her throat. She regrets every word spoken, aims a heaping does of anger at herself, and considers making a trip to the highest mountain she can find today and hurling herself off it. If the embarrassment doesn't kill her first.

But before she does that, there is one thing she desperately needs to do.

"Emma, I will have to call you back. I need to be sick."

I've been giving Ziva a lot of hangovers in my stories recently. I don't know why. I guess they're kind of funny when they're not yours.