Mine Found Out
Chapter 11 falls during Bury Your Dead (5x01). Ziva reacts to Tony's death, resurrection, and betrayal.
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The second Jenny walks into the bullpen and announces that Tony's undercover dating Le Grenouille's daughter, Ziva's stomach drops. Never mind her own jealousy, the mission has been compromised, and Tony's absence is suddenly not personal.
Five minutes later, Ziva sits in MTAC, trying to play surprised, actually surprised and amused that Tony's been a professor and conveniently left out that detail when telling her the op. She's planning how she'll tease him when they find him when—her shock at the explosion forces her up, out of her seat, gasping Tony's name. She starts trembling but doesn't know it. Her brain is suddenly conflating this moment with the moment she ran out of a cafe and turned back to see it blow up with Tali still inside; she can hear the strains of music, smell the smoke. She's not sure whether the thought that she's not sure she wants to be the survivor comes from that moment or this.
She stumbles out of MTAC, disregarding Gibbs, Jenny and McGee's questions, finds her way down the stairs and into the men's room, locking the door behind her. She been trained to react in extraordinary circumstances without crying, but sitting here on the bathroom floor she's as close to it as she's been since she nearly lost Gibbs all those months ago. Tony is dead. The words resonate through her brain even as her mind tries to evade them. Her best friend, the man she cannot say she loved because she never said the words to him.
Someone knocks on the door and McGee calls out her name, quietly, gently. "Ziva. We have to go, Ziva. We have to go see what happened."
She takes a deep breath, composing her face, stands and opens the door. McGee looks as bereft as she does, but he manages to say, "We still don't know it's him yet. There's a chance..."
Her eyes give her answer: she's been through too many of these to rely on hope.
At the scene of the explosion, she can't take her eyes from the wreck. She can keep from screaming and crying, that much has changed since Tali's death, but even though she feels Ducky watching her, Ziva can't look away.
She takes pictures because she's told to. Jenny won't meet her eyes. McGee won't give up his hope, but at the sight of Tony's badge, he looks as near to tears as Ziva still finds herself.
Momentum carries her through the collection of evidence, the documentation of the scene, but suddenly they are back in the squad room, time seeming to pass in fragments so that Ziva's not sure how they got back or who drove. And with nothing else to occupy her Ziva finds herself staring at Tony's desk, cataloging his jokes and jabs, all the memories she has of him sitting there before any of them can slip away.
She gets up to help McGee but isn't processing anything fully until Ducky is standing there with them, looking straight into her face as he says, "The body on which I am performing an autopsy is not Tony's."
A smile crosses her face, but she still can't quite fit this piece of information into what is happening. As Jenny carries on with business, Ziva stands still. She feels shaky again, but she doesn't run. There is hope.
When she sees Tony step out of the elevator, the relief brings her close to tears again. It shocks her later how close she came to shooting a CIA agent when Kort pushes Tony in the wall, but the moment barely registers at the time because he's there, really there, cracking a joke, and her arms are around him before she can reign in her reaction. She's finally here, where he was after Paula died, but it's the excitement of life, not death, that's driving the words from her lips until she's just barely holding them back. If he doesn't hold her back as tightly, she doesn't notice.
When he's back at his desk finally, after his time upstairs, Ziva has finally processed it. Smiles flit across her face even though he's asking about Jeanne. She can't take her eyes off him, sitting at the desk that just hours ago was empty.
***
Tony doesn't realize until he sees the look on Jeanne's face when she learns the truth that when he says "not the important things," he means it. Has perhaps always meant it. It fills him at once with happiness and regret, anger and fear.
In the director's office, the anger surfaces: bitter sarcasm that makes Gibbs smirk and Jenny stiffen, harsh words and denials when Jenny tries to pry information from him. Anger because the fear is trying to overwhelm him, this fear that began the moment Ziva flung herself at him outside the elevators, clinging ferociously so that he had no choice but to understand the horror that her morning had been, believing him dead. He is not afraid of her but for her, for the moment when he tells her the truth he himself has learned this morning.
And then, mere minutes later, fear is coursing through him again, because whoever nearly killed him is after Jeanne.
In the car he is silent, but Ziva doesn't mind, is grateful just to be able to watch him. It is clear that he is still consumed by the mission and the havoc it is wreaking on his life, but she allows herself this moment of selfishness and relief. She will gladly confirm that this woman is alive and out of Tony's reach if it will permit them to move on together.
He meant to wait, to save Ziva from this pain until he could live with causing it, but Jeanne's letter makes that impossible. Tony, I'm not coming back. You need to choose. -Jeanne If there's a chance with her, which it seems there might be, in this instant he's inclined to take it. Which means he can't put off telling Ziva any longer.
"You ever lie to someone you loved, Ziva?" he asks softly.
She lets the question sink in before she answers. "Yes."
"They ever forgive you?" He's not sure himself if he's wondering about her or Jeanne.
"They never found out."
"Mine found out." As his words sink in, Ziva feels, for the second time in one day, that she is caught in an explosion. She keeps nodding, her lips curved in the facsimile of a smile.
"He told her?"
"No. I did."
She says she'll put out a BOLO just to say something, just for an excuse to get away. In the hallway she lets her features relax into the grimace of pain that is becoming all too familiar. She calls McGee for the BOLO and keeps her voice steady, and she thanks God for once for her training, that she can keep from falling apart.
When she's done talking to him, Ziva goes back inside, forcing herself to face Tony because she made the mistake once today of giving up on hope, and she can't risk making the same mistake again now. He's standing aimlessly in the middle of the room, his face pained, and she loves him so much today, on this day when she almost lost him, that her step quickens as she approaches him until she's embracing him for the second time today. This time her mouth finds his.
Her lips are greedy, after all that's happened, and for a moment Tony gives himself over to the abandon of it. But then he pulls back, leaves her cold, not for the first time.
Ziva looks up and sees the tears in Tony's eyes. "It's all over now, don't worry," she whispers.
"Ziva..." He can't find the words to hurt her too.
The sorrow on his face tells her she was wrong to hope. She hasn't spent more than a decade in this line of work without learning how people behave. She tries to be clinical about it, tries to suppress her own emotions as best she can. She offers him a way out. "I know you liked her, Tony, it's alright to feel guilty. I've felt that myself after a few missions. Sometimes good people get used, not just the bad ones."
He nods, but the pain in his face doesn't resolve, and Ziva knows it's worse. She clenches her hands tightly, says the words. "You love her." It is a statement, not a question, but any uncertainty she had evaporates as his eyes settle on hers. He is hiding nothing, is just guilty and apologetic. She gasps at the loss that washes over her; the gasp threatens to turn into the sobs she's been bottling up all day. Ziva clenches her teeth to keep it at bay, but the way her eyes glisten and her nostrils flare tell Tony what she's feeling.
Forced to see heartbreak he has caused for the second time in one day, Tony takes her in his arms, holds her close, whispers over and over, "I'm so sorry. I never meant for this to happen, Ziva, I'm so sorry."
She pulls away after only a moment, eyes red but refusing to spill over. "I suppose I should have asked you to wait, too."
It is a cruel jab, but Tony takes it without complaint. "It's not that I don't—I did have feelings for her, though, and I hurt her so badly today—to be here with you, now, it feels like--"
"Like you're cheating on her."
"Yes."
She laughs, a little hysterically. "This is all we ever do, Tony. Whenever one of us is ready to do this, the other has some reason not to."
He nods, smiles humorlessly. "I guess you're right."
Ziva looks at him closely. There is concern in his eyes, sorrow, but not what she wants. It is a crushing blow after this day of wild sadness and joy, and she turns and leaves. The keening threatens to burst out the whole reckless drive back to her apartment, but she contains it until she is safely inside, curled like a baby on her own couch, wishing she were so innocent again, wishing she had her mother to comfort her, that her best friend hadn't survived only to choose someone else.
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A/N I gave in and bought the season 5 DVDs so I could watch this one. The commentary for this episode is by Michael Weatherly and his mother, which was pure comedy. Most hilariously, at one point she comments what a nice singing voice Cote has and she should sing on the show...maybe undercover? In response Michael makes a crack about her having a lounge act. At the time they were still filming season 5, so you have to wonder—did MW know about the season 6 opener? Or did Shane Brennan just take a plot suggestion from MW's mom? Either way, pretty funny. Just thought y'all might enjoy that.
A/N 2 One more chapter to go, read on!