It was Noon of the following day when Tony saw Ziva for the first time out of her hospital gown. "Well, Hiddy Ho, there Al Borlin." He smiled seeing her wearing one of Gibbs' flannel shirts. It was blue and black checkered in pattern, hanging loosely around her body with several of the top buttons undone to allow her healing skin to breathe and sleeves rolled to her elbows. The black yoga pants he'd brought for her yesterday completed the ensemble.
"Who is Al Borlin?" Ziva asked with a furrowed brow not understanding.
"An old television show, 'Home Improvement?' You know?" He mentioned with a grunting gesture like 'Tim the Toolman Taylor' used to make and only had Ziva looking at him as though he were crazy.
"No, I don't know."
"Al Borlin was the sidekick who always wore checkered plaid." Tony tried again to prompt any recollection and gave up. "Never mind." One day, he thought, she'd understand his references. He'd see to it. "You smell lovely." He smiled kissing her cheek before sitting down. "Someone's had a shower." He fingered the soft curls falling once more around her face, her hair still damp and drying.
"I have." Ziva smiled softly feeling so much better after really being able to wash her skin after all these days. "I had help of course, but it's refreshing to feel clean again. Just getting out of this bed and getting my legs moving again was nice. Painful. But nice."
"How are you feeling? You're not overdoing it right?" Tony was immediately concerned that she'd even admitted it being painful to get up and move.
"I'm fine, honestly, Tony. Just a little stiff from lying flat for the last week unable to move. I'm naturally a stomach or side sleeper so lying flat all the time is taking some getting used to." Her fingers reached up to gently touch the exposed staples on her chest. Her bandage temporarily discarded to allow the incision time to breathe and heal more quickly. "Gibbs shirts are so comfy and soft in comparison to that gown I was wearing." She smiled running her hand down her arm and the fabric. "And they smell like him."
"You know, under any other circumstance I might be jealous of you wearing another man's shirt and smelling like him but you're just too cute right now, looking like a lumberjack for me to complain." Tony smiled.
"Gibbs is like my father, Tony." She shook her head with a smile.
"I know. That's why I'm not bothered." He knew she thought of the man as a father in a way, just as he had. "I hate to leave but I only had a few minutes to come by and check in on you. I'm being sent on a stakeout with your former Team Leader. This should be fun." He rolled his eyes with a fake smile.
"You're going on a stakeout with Malachi?" Ziva's eyes widened and focused on Tony's already bruised and battered face. "I don't think this is a good idea. The two of you trapped in a car, alone, together for hours."
"Gibbs thinks it will be 'good for us." Tony gave her a tightlipped smile that showed he was less then enthused. "Oh, what fun this will be. He's putting McGee and Liat in the other car. That sounded much more entertaining. I tried to switch partners and get Liat but my suggestion was denied."
"I'm not sure who I should be more worried about you left alone in a car with, Tony. Liat or Malachi at this point." Ziva slanted her eyebrow thinking of the last case that she and Tony had worked together on with Liat and Malachi. Tony had flirted endlessly with Liat, making it no secret he thought she was attractive.
"Are you jealous, Agent David?" He teased with a surprised smile.
"Of Liat? Never. She is-"
"Not you." He smiled cutting her off and running his hand down her face. "I promise you have nothing to be concerned about, Ziva. I'll behave myself with the Israelis. No punching. No flirting."
"They won't recognize you, Tony." Ziva smiled teasing back.
"Very funny, David." He smiled.
"Please, be careful." She added seriously, "I don't like you going without me. I'm your partner. I should be there."
"I feel the same. This new Hebrew is no you, my favorite Jew." He smiled at his word play, trying to lighten the mood. "Rest. Get better. And you'll be back watching my six before you know it. Enjoy your little vacation away from me."
"I've never enjoyed being away from you, Tony." She answered seriously thinking back to all the times they'd been separated over the years.
"Neither have I." He admitted, thinking and feeling the same. "Abs volunteered to stay with you tonight if this turns into an all-nighter."
Ziva nodded solemnly, "Please be careful, Tony. Illan is dangerous."
"I'll be fine." He smiled turning the words she used so much against her, keeping light her concerns knowing they were valid. "I'll be back before you know it." He cupped her face and kissed her lips gently. "Mmm. That never gets old. Every time I kiss you, I wonder what took me so long."
"I wonder that too." She smiled catching him off guard and watching him blush shaking his head. These little truths she was revealing about her true feelings all these years felt good to release and she enjoyed the reaction Tony was having to hearing them.
Five hours later, Tony and Malachi still sat in their sedan watching the entrance to a bar in downtown D.C. waiting to see if their person of interest was coming by any time soon. They'd received a tip that someone loyal to Bodnar and helping him gain control of Mossad had frequented the nightclub. So far, the entire five hours had been spent in uncomfortable silence.
Tony finally got hungry and pulled out a tin of cookies someone had brought for sitting Shiva over Ziva and he began to munch away, not offering to share.
"Calling the pot black." Malachi finally spoke, shaking his head watching as Tony picked up another cookie.
"What?" Tony asked in disbelief and confusion, feeling his anger rising. His mind raced back in time hearing Ziva use the same mangled reference long ago when they were undercover. "The saying is, the pot is calling the kettle black and just what the hell do you mean by that?"
"I mean that you are a hypocrite." Malachi drummed his fingers against the steering wheel, nodding towards the cookies in Tony's hand.
"How do you figure?"
"You sitting there, eating cookies baked by your co-workers for Ziva's Shiva and yet, call me out on how I saved her life."
"You lied to us! Made me believe she was dead!"
"And are you not doing the same thing to your co-workers? By letting them all believe Ziva is dead?"
"It's not the same. We have to in order to keep her safe! I don't like doing it!"
"How is that different then what I did?"
"It just is!" Tony didn't like being slapped with reality.
"How is that? I did what needed to be done to save her life and keep her safe. You're lying to your coworkers for the same reasons, yes?"
"It's not the same. Those people care about her. They don't-" Tony stopped short realizing what he was about to say and to whom.
"They don't what? Love her?" Malachi finished for him knowing exactly what Tony was about to say.
"You should have told me the truth. I would have played along."
"It wasn't until after I'd told you, that I understood what she really meant to you, Agent DiNozzo." Malachi sighed, "And by then, it was too late. We were running out of time. Your display of grief may have very well been what made Bodnar believe she was really gone. My lie and your grief is what have kept her safe. I won't apologize for what I did. I would do it again given the same circumstance. I am only sorry that it caused you great pain."
Tony remained silent staring out the window, thinking about what Malachi said. He saw the truth in it, even if he hated it and flashes of seeing her 'dead' body in the body bag on the runway tormented his mind.
"When did your relationship with Ziva turn into something more then partners?"
Tony was quiet while debating whether or not to answer. "I don't know exactly. It's been a long time coming, I suppose. Partner and then friends and then… something more."
"I suspected as much. There were times after you left her in Israel I felt the, how do you say? Small end of the stick? Of her emotions towards you then."
"It's short end of the stick. And what do you mean?" Tony was now intrigued to hear about such details during that time. "She hated me when we left."
"Oh yes, she certainly did not favor you at all. Each day she seemed to grow more and more angry with you though she never said it, I could see it in her eyes. Ziva's eyes never stop speaking."
Tony hated that this man knew this detail about Ziva. Knew her well enough to know that her eyes never shut up about how she really felt.
"When she'd attack me in training, I got the distinct impression she was really attacking you."
"What gave you that impression?"
"One day in the heat of the moment as she flattened me to the ground, sitting on top me, holding me there for a moment, she suddenly stood, cursing under her breath in English, saying 'damn you, Tony.' I knew then, what occupied her mind to such a great degree. It made sense. Her father had called her loyalty to him and Mossad into question over her relationship with you."
Tony swallowed hard feeling his stomach turn into knots.
"She mumbled something similar after we had sex, as well."
"You what?" Tony nearly choked at how casually Malachi just dropped that into conversation. That was certainly something he was never expecting to hear. "You slept with Ziva?"
"I don't know if you'd call it sleeping together, Agent DiNozzo. It was more of a rough and rapid sexual encounter. We'd been sparring alone in the gym and she was worked up as was usual from that time. Our fight became particularly rough. We drew blood against each other and before either of us knew what was happening, we'd taken our sparring session to the mats in our battle for dominance. These things just happen sometimes." Malachi shrugged as though it were no big deal. "Liat and I frequently end our sparring sessions in such a manner. It is a good physical release."
Tony's eyes were wide and he'd forgotten to breathe. It was the first time he'd ever heard the details of one of Ziva's sexual encounters. Knowing that she was angry with him before and after made him sick to his stomach to think of how very wrong things had gone for them during that time.
"Surely you know what I'm talking about?" Malachi continued looking at Tony who seemed frozen.
"Not really. Having casual sex with our partners is generally frowned upon here." Tony finally spoke, swallowing hard and trying to keep the sarcasm from his voice. His jealousy was raging inside but he tried to beat it down. Ziva's anger at his jealousy over her relationship with Rivkin is what drove them apart in the first place, leading her to stay in Israel and apparently, end up having sex with Malachi. He couldn't very well be jealous of the man she had sex with in her upset about what transpired between them during that time, when he'd done the same thing with other women; always thinking of Ziva after and berating himself for it. His hands balled into fists trying to regain some control and take a few breaths.
"Things are certainly different in Israel. Sex with partners is not a big deal." Malachi shrugged again, stealing a cookie from the tin long ago abandoned by Tony at the start of this conversation.
"So you've said." Tony swallowed hard, eyes flashing to the other car in the alley across the street where McGee and Liat were currently stationed, "Are you still sleeping with Liat then? No big deal?"
"No," Malachi stopped, hesitating to take a bite of his cookie as his eyes drifted over to where he knew Liat would be, "She has a boyfriend now. We stopped having sex sometime ago."
Tony couldn't believe what he was hearing and seeing, "Is that a look of longing I see on your face, Malachi?" He couldn't help but tease seeing the bit of pained expression fall upon the man's face after what he's just revealed about casually having sex with Ziva in Israel.
Malachi just shrugged, "I just want her to be happy. And she seems happy now."
"So how long were the two of you just having casual sex?" Tony asked intrigued now, as it seemed the plot between the Israeli's thickened and grateful to not be speaking of Ziva's sexual endeavors.
"Nearly six years, I guess. Almost seven." Malachi squeezed his chin in thought. "Yes, seven."
"So you were sleeping with Liat before and after you had sex with Ziva?" Tony was trying to piece it together.
"Yes. Liat knew I had sex with Ziva. I'd told her when I returned from Africa. It was just the one time, with Ziva and I. And Liat and I weren't in a relationship. Just partners then, just sex." He took another bite of his cookie.
Tony was floored listening to this. Well that helped explain Liat's great dislike of Ziva in a whole new light when they came to the US the last time. She knew that Ziva had slept with Malachi as well, Tony thought. Liat was jealous, something he understood well hearing those details just now.
"Seven years is a long time." Tony commented thinking about how long in relation to his own situation with Ziva. If he'd been sleeping with her that whole time, he had no idea how they couldn't have been more then just sex buddies. He wouldn't have been able to keep her confined to just partner and sex friend. From the look on Malachi's face, that may have been the case with the Israeli partners as well. "You never wanted anything more with her then just partners and sex?"
"I didn't think I did," Malachi sighed, "Until it was too late I guess. By then she had found happiness with someone else. I don't like the man but I try for her sake. I don't want to lose her as my partner. But I guess I will anyway if I become Director of Mossad. I'll no longer be in the field and she'll be assigned a new partner."
'This sounds familiar.' Tony couldn't help but think, his mind reeling with the similarities that were not glaringly obvious in his relationship with Ziva over the years. Standing on the outside, everything was much more clear. McGee's words rang through his head once more, 'the only people you're still fooling is yourselves.'
"I can't believe I'm about to say this to you, of all people as I really don't like you very much, Malachi…at least not yet. Having sex with Ziva and telling me she was dead will take some time," Tony scrubbed his hand over his face wanting to clear what images his mind conjured of both of those events, "But don't wait too long to tell Liat how you feel."
"It's already too late, DiNozzo." Malachi sat back slumping slightly against the door, "The man she's in a relationship with told me that he's proposing once we're back in country and this situation with Bodnar is all over. For some reason, the man feels he needs to share such information with me being her partner. Whenever they have an argument and she won't speak to him, he wants me to speak with her." Malachi couldn't hide the unmistakable contempt from his voice thinking about the man who was going to be marrying Liat.
"So you've still got time. He hasn't asked and she hasn't said, 'yes' yet." Tony offered, thinking she wasn't married yet. Visions of C.I. Rayfloated this his head and how he nearly lost Ziva to that man, who also felt it necessary to share details with Tony and try to win him over as Ziva's partner.
"Now is not the time for such things. We have a mission and objective and that is all that is important." Malachi seemed to find his resolve and the walls that had come partially down went raging back into place. Clearly, he was done talking about his feelings for Liat and the situation that seemed impossible.
The car fell back into silence.
"Can I ask you something about the way Bodnar tried to kill Ziva?" Tony voiced after a few minutes, having thought about what it would have been like to lose her without ever acting on his feelings towards her. He waited for Malachi to nod, "Why did he aim for her heart? Isn't it standard protocol for you Mossad assassins to use the head as the kill shot?" He didn't like even voicing his thoughts on the subject, eternally grateful the man hadn't chosen to shoot Ziva in the head or it would have ended much differently then now.
"It is." Malachi nodded thinking about it, seeing Ziva fall to the ground bleeding in his own mind as he screamed for her to stay with them. "He went for her heart because to him, this is personal. He wanted to make her suffer. To explode her heart and send a message."