Chapter 11

Tony wakes to find Tim's face a foot away from his. He turns and checks the readout on the clock, only to discover they just have a few minutes left before the alarm blares.

Tony settles into the pillow, wanting those few more minutes to relax and gather his thoughts before the day speeds into fifth gear. He tries not to watch Tim, knowing how creepy it is to wake up to someone's eyes on you, but it's nice and so rare to wake up and see a friendly face in his bed, at least one that he doesn't want to shove out the front door in order to get a little privacy before he has to make his way into work.

Tony shuts his eyes for maybe a minute, just enjoying the warmth of his bed, the subtle breath of his company beside him. When he pries open his lids again, he reaches over to Tim without sitting up. Tony shakes his shoulder.

"Hmm," the soft sound escapes Tim, making Tony smile.

"Hey, Probie," Tony speaks quietly so not to break the soft spell of morning. "Time to go to work."

Tim lifts his eyebrows, his eyes still closed, and Tony knows he's on his way to consciousness. "Get up, Tim," Tony shakes his shoulder one more time. "I'm going to make coffee."

Tim makes that quiet hum again as Tony steps out of bed and turns off the alarm before it can blare into their quiet morning. Tony goes for the coffee maker right away, then slips towards the bathroom to take a quick shower. When he makes his way to the kitchen, towel around his waist, Probie's already there, mug in hand, another cup of coffee just beside him on the counter.

Tony grabs the mug and takes a minute to add milk and sugar to his brew. Turning back to Tim after shoving the carton of two percent back inside the fridge, Tony notices his partner's focus trained on the floor in front of him with studied concentration.

Tony swallows hard and licks his lips at that unyielding and unnatural intensity. Usually when Tim gets that focused he seems unaware of loaning out his full concentration, but this seems to be a conscious choice, like he's avoiding looking elsewhere. Tony feels his breath speed up. He carefully leans back against the counter, stretching his legs out in front of him in a measured movement as he wonders if Tim had been looking at him before giving the floor his death glare, wonders if Tim ever looks at him between Saturdays. His own eyes stuck on the kitchen table, Tony takes a quick sip from his mug. The brew's a little more bitter than usual. He must have loaded his scoops a little too heavily.

Tim clears his throat, "I'm just gonna," he sets his coffee down and points toward the bathroom.

"Yeah, okay," Tony answers hurriedly.

They speed up their routine after Tim gets out of the shower. They don't have time to stop for doughnuts, so they each grab a pop tart as they head out the door. Tony leads their tiny convoy to work, making a few lights Tim doesn't, and he gets to the Yard a solid five minutes before Tim.

Tony heads up to the bullpen right away, trying to get a feel for the room before Tim comes up. Both Ziva and Gibbs are already there. Ziva's returning emails, while Gibbs is busting through the closing paperwork on Colonel Mitchell's suicide.

The elevator dings as Tony boots up his computer. He looks up just in time to catch Tim exit onto their floor. Gibbs glances McGee's way as he enters their cubicle, but only his eyes move, and Tony doubts Tim could have caught that slight motion from his angle, that is, if he were bothering to look at Gibbs at all.

Tim settles at his desk with a perfunctory "Good morning," that he aims more towards Tony than anyone else. Probie moves through his morning routine in near silence, and Tony is honestly unsure if he should attribute the quiet to residual anger or if Tim just switched over into thinking mode.

Tony catches a couple concerned glares from Ziva, but all he can do is shake his head with his own confusion. Ziva sighs after a while, finally giving up the silent interrogation.

By the time nine o'clock comes around, the pencil Probie's torturing between his teeth finally lets Tony take a breath—just Tim's violent thinking thing again. A few minutes later, Probie asks Ziva to check on a Spanish translation from Petty Officer Rodriguez's mother. The young seaman had gone UA four days ago, and JAG had turned the case over to NCIS after a few oddities had appeared during their investigation.

"Of course, McGee," she comes back quickly and opens the document on her own computer.

Some of the tension immediately eases out of the room with the exchange, though Tony has to wonder how much of the stressed mood Tim actually caught on to. While Probie can occasionally be oblivious in the best of times, when he turns inward, it's sometimes like he can't see anything else at all. It used to frustrate the hell out of Tony until he figured out that he could almost always annoy Tim into pulling out of his shell, at least for a little while.

Tim volunteers to go on the lunch run a couple hours later. Gibbs follows him downstairs with the excuse that he's going to see Ducky. Tony seriously doubts Boss needs to talk to Ducky between dead bodies, but neither does he think Gibbs is actually looking to talk to Tim at the moment. Rather, Gibbs more than likely wants to get a feel for Probie's mood while they ride down on the elevator alone. If Tony were to guess, he'd say Gibbs wants to know if anything's really broken between the two of them. Tony would kind of like to know that himself.

A sigh across the way tells him Ziva wants to talk but doesn't want to have to bring up whatever subject she's looking to address. Tony obligingly glances up at her, offering a curious look.

"What was that?" he lifts his brows.

"What?" she lowers her eyelids like she has no idea what he's talking about, and she's trying to ignore his interruption.

"That sigh," he points out, pushing just a little away from his computer.

Ziva shakes her head, "I do not know what you are talking about, Tony."

Tony tilts his head, licks his lips, studies her forced casual posture. The easiest explanation is that it has something to do with Tim since she waited until he was gone to say anything. "So what happened between you and McGee on Monday?" he throws out there.

Ziva jerks her chin up. "Nothing." And Bam! He has contact.

"Nothing," the exaggerated nod of his head just telegraphing his disbelief. "Right."

She shrugs. "We may have had a disagreement."

"Oh, really?" he raises his eyebrows in mock surprise.

She bites her lip. "Tony, do you think," Ziva rises and closes the distance between them to stand in front of his desk. "Do you think I have left parts of myself in Israel? Do you think I am holding myself back from entering a new life here?"

Tony widens his eyes and sits back in his chair, surprise so strong he knows it's written all across his features. "Is that what McGee told you?" Tony tries to imagine Tim having the balls to say that to Ziva outside a life and death scenario, but then, on the other hand, Tim's surprised him a lot lately.

She looks down to his desk and picks up Tony's Mighty Mouse stapler, shuffling it from hand to hand and making Tony wince with concern. When she gets angry she tends to have a death grip.

She tilts her head to the side in a quick jerk, then releases her stapler hostage. Tony sighs with relief. "Yes. He did," she answers simply after several long seconds.

Tony waits for her to meet his eyes, looks to see if she wants a real response. "You lease a car," he starts, seeing the earnest expression on her face. "You keep all your money except your current salary back in Israel, despite the fact that it has to be a serious pain in the ass whenever you want to make a major purchase. You won't talk to you father, but you won't move his picture from your piano in the center of your living room," the brow deepens between her eyes, but he won't let himself stop because he knows Ziva won't hear it later if she doesn't listen to it now. "You've been seeing this Raymondo guy for eight months, but you barely talk about him to anyone, like you're waiting for it to end at any minute. The friends you have outside NCIS are always changing. You never keep in contact with any of them beyond a couple years," he tries to catch her stare, but Ziva's eyes are pointed downward, and not really looking towards anything at all. "No, you're not in Israel anymore, Ziva, but you're not completely here either."

She pulls a hand up to her mouth, resting her thumb on her lip. "My entire life, there was nothing I had that I could rely on to remain constant. It is," she takes a deep breath, "difficult to become accustomed to the idea that this could ever change," she confesses, "that I can actually relax and let myself want something in my life that exists in more than a temporary sense."

"Hey," Tony gains her attention with that small word. "We've always been in this for the long haul," he gestures around the cubicle.

Her mouth smiles at the support, but her eyes remain pinched, just like anyone's would be when they're given a hard truth.

Ziva nods her appreciation and silently turns back to her desk. The thoughtful look stays with her through the rest of the day.

Tim slowly and subtly returns to the conversation after lunch. By mid-afternoon, Tony's teasing earns him a smirk. Of course, he has to escalate his game after that, not giving up until he and Tim get into a small paper projectile war. Gibbs lets it go on a little longer than he normally would, but when Boss finally gives in and hollers at them, Tim doesn't so much as flinch. Tony's hope for the situation soars.

As they're leaving work that evening, Tony tries to cash in on his raincheck for Panarino's, but Tim turns him down, saying there's something important he has to do. He glances towards Gibbs right after he says it. Tony's almost certain Tim would have told him if he'd actually decided to move on the whole transferring bit that had nearly caused a panic in Tony last night, but with Tim's eyes on Gibbs, Tony has to wonder if he's wrong.