October 6, 2013

Ziva is nervous. She has been waiting a whole week for today, but she can't contain the butterflies fluttering around her stomach. She got the email from Gibbs a couple days ago telling her that he will land about six hours after her, around noon.

She has it planned out. She is sitting on the plane now and remembering that plan. She will check into the hotel before returning to the airport. She will rent a car so she doesn't need a taxi and therefore will have less exposure to the public and keep herself safe, as she promised him. She is dressed differently, more like the rich French assassin that she is, again, impersonating.

Ziva spoke with Tony yesterday and he said he wouldn't be able to call her today, because Gibbs was sending him to Rome for some reason unknown. Ziva already knew this though, including where he is going and why he is going there. His words ring through her mind again.

"All he would say is that someone is picking me up at the airport and I'll know the person when I see them," Tony says with a look of confusion burrowing deep between his brows. "I don't get why he isn't giving me more. He said I'll get details when I get there. I mean, what's in Rome anyway?"

Ziva chuckles softly to herself. All she can think is "When in Rome…." She wonders if this is Tony's punishment for leaving her credentials, gun, and badge with her and also his reward for taking care of her. "When in Rome…," she thinks again.

Ziva is now clinging a little to the edge of her seat. She doesn't like descending, but the plane has begun its descent. She takes a deep breath as the plane continues dropping.

Not too long later, the plane touches down on the foreign tarmac and the passengers are let off the plane. Ziva lowers the expensive sunglasses down over her eyes and straightens out the French braid on her head, hoping it's not a mess. She stands up and goes for the carryon bag in the overhead compartment.

"Mi permetta di aiurtare, Signorina," a man says from behind her, seeing that she is just short enough to struggle with the bag.

"Grazie mille," Ziva responds, nodding to the man behind her as he hands her the carryon bag.

She faces the front of the plane now and moves along with the other passengers and is finally let off the plane. She is taken by a shuttle to the car rental location and gets a car with her fake license that Gibbs sent to her. She drives the short distance from the airport to the hotel. Ziva checks in at the concierge desk. Finally, she flops down on the king-sized bed in the room, chuckling to herself.

There is only one bed in the room and it makes her laugh. She picks up her cell phone and makes a call as she continues to look at the room from this flat perspective.

"Gibbs," he answers from the other end of her phone and she smiles upon hearing his voice now that she is no longer in Israel and no longer being called "Ziva David" for the time.

"I have arrived," she tells him quietly, knowing that he will want to know more than that, but not offering the information.

"Good," he says to her. "You check in yet?"

"Yes," Ziva responds shortly, looking around again and smiling. "Did Abby book the room?"

Ziva is wondering this, because it appears to be some joke of Abby's. She knows Abby would do something like this as a joke to either have them kill each other or get together, since she's done the very same thing in the past.

"Nope," Gibbs answers. "None of the others know what's going on. They're working on the information, that's it."

"Oh," Ziva says quietly and smiles at the sound of Gibbs' soft chuckling in the background of his words.

"DiNozzo should be there in a couple hours if I remember," Gibbs reminds her.

"Gibbs?" Ziva asks, feeling timid now.

"Yes?"

"Do you know what room you booked?" she asks him, sitting up on the bed and looking around at it again, wondering what he has done.

"Single," he says. "It's cheaper. There's a couch."

Ziva looks around. There is a couch. She frowns at the piece of furniture as though it is mocking her. Gibbs obviously expects them to behave while unsupervised and overseas, even though it's obvious that more is going on between them than either have let on yet. She sighs quietly, hoping to hide it from him.

"Thank you, Gibbs," she says, uncertain of what he'll take that as. Thank you for having a couch, maybe? Thank you for booking a single room would be more appropriate. She isn't sure what he'll hear in her lack of words.

"See you soon, kid," he says fondly as he hangs up his phone with a soft click in Ziva's ear.

Ziva spends her time pacing and glancing at the clock, hoping it will go faster. There are knots twisting around her stomach as the minutes tick by. Time is going too slowly and yet too quickly for her. Before she knows it, sometime before she wears a path in the carpet, she is locking the room and speeding off toward the airport in the rented Ferrari. She's early.

Ziva stands among the crowd, near the front. She is waiting. She sees his plane pull into the terminal and she is nervous. She lifts the sunglasses from her eyes to the top of her head and looks eagerly as the doors open and passengers start pouring out. She waits. Ten people go by. She sees him. He moves out of the way and his eyes scan the room before finally falling on her.

Time seems to stop. She can't breath. He's there. He's about twenty paces away. He's wearing casual clothes, a button-down polo-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. There are sunglasses resting on his head. He's smiling that famous DiNozzo-grin that lights up entire rooms. She takes a deep breath in and her feet begin moving without consent.

She feels like she's going slow. He's also moving toward her. It's like a dream where the more she walks the slower she goes. The faster she tries to go, the greater the distance seems to be, no matter how close they get. But, before she knows it, his arms are wrapped around her torso and hers are around his waste.

Without any hesitation between walking and catching her, his lips capture hers without permission or more than a slight look in his eyes. She responds to his lips and lets out a breath as her stomach flutters and her heart flies. His tongue traces along her lower lip and she opens her mouth.

Their tongues meet in the middle and his hands wind up in her hair, messing up the neat braid. Her hands too are grabbing at the back of his neck and his hair. Her eyes are squeezed shut and she inhales the scent of him surrounding her. She presses herself closer to him, her desire clear to everyone.

He breaks the kiss too soon. It wasn't long enough, but he obviously remembers that they're in the airport and it's neither the time nor the place to communicate this way anymore. Her heart is still flying as their foreheads come slowly together. She inhales deeply and smiles, finally raising her eyes to him. It's as though she's seeing him for the first time in years. It's like everything about them has changed and yet they're no different than they were so long ago, during a summer that shouldn't have existed, had they followed any sort of rules.