Chapter 21—
He had to leave shortly after, promising to be "back later". He wondered, as he stepped out the door, what constituted as "later". She hadn't specified a time, and neither had he.
He decided to wait until his desire to see her overpowered his rationality. It was strange the way he felt nervous about such stupid things like that all of a sudden. He'd never felt nervous around girls before. Then again, this was probably yet another area where Ziva proved how different she was to all the others. She seemed to do that frequently, but he liked it.
Maybe the jitterbugs that came from seeing her were just there because it had taken a real amount of heart for this relationship to even happen. It had taken time and trust for her to open up to him, and in the process, he'd learned things about himself, too.
For the whole day, he thought about her. He thought about things he could say to her, he thought about what might happen a few months or a year from now. He thought about how the improbability of their relationship was highly irrelevant, because everything that they were now had been all them. Yes, of course they were improbable. But every relationship is, really. The tiniest thing can alter your life so you never bump into a person and end up getting to know them. A few dollars can stop a person from moving into a new place and falling in love with their neighbour. And, Tony supposed, if it weren't for his insatiable curiosity, maybe he wouldn't have ever seen Ziva after the twisted ankle incident, though that in itself was pure coincidence. Everything since their first meeting had not been coincidence. Maybe it was inevitability, but Tony preferred to think of it as professionally altered circumstance, and of himself as a professional at altering the said circumstance.
...
He was still thinking about the alterations of circumstance when he arrived at her apartment at six. She smiled as she opened the door and stepped aside easily to let him in. The place seemed . . . lighter. There was what he swore was a new lamp in the corner. There was Chinese food sitting in its neat little containers on the kitchen counter, steam wafting from it. The whole apartment smelled vaguely like generic cleaning product. None of Tali's books were sitting on the coffee table and the cushions on the sofa had been straightened. It was refreshing, but it almost felt staged, like Ziva felt she had a standard to meet.
Things started out formally but twenty minutes later they were eating the Chinese while sitting, both bare-footed, on her living room rug.
"Did you clean the place up?"
"Actually, yes," she said, holding a noodle skilfully between her chopsticks. She didn't say anything else, and he felt unsure of where to go. What to say. Something about the whole thing felt off.
"I just – " he started, stopping almost immediately. "I hope you don't feel any kind of pressure or anything. From me, I mean. Just because we're here and we're alone, I . . . whatever you want, Ziva."
"Okay," she said simply. Whatever she wanted. Ziva felt so unbelievably satisfied at those three words. And the best part was that he didn't even realise what a big deal that was.
There was silence between them, and Ziva did not seem distressed in the slightest, so he dropped the subject. "I brought this movie for us to watch. A French thing from the early sixties."
"You don't speak French," Ziva protested.
"I know, but you don't have to with these kinds of movies. Sorry – films. It's enough just to see the people on the screen. It's a love story. I thought you might like it. We don't have to watch it."
The corners of her mouth spread into a wide grin. He was stuttering and stammering and falling over his own feet and it was adorable.
"Is there something wrong, Tony?" she asked. "You seem jumpy."
"Not jumpy," he said, automatically. "Not at all."
She shrugged. "Do you want to put the movie in?"
"Film."
"Put the film in, Tony."
...
They sat beside each other on the couch as black and white credits accompanied by distorted orchestral music trickled across the screen. Ziva kept hoping he would take her hand – she loved it when he did that. He didn't. He seemed fixated on the plot.
"Maybe she's a secret agent and has orders to take him out," she joked, trying to get him to smile. He dismissed her mostly, but then she tried again, with a different and wackier theory and it became a game.
"That guy is the King of Germany in disguise."
"The cigarette company puts brainwashing agents in their filters." This was accompanied by conspiracy theories surrounding various other fictional corporations. They laughed. And somehow their bodies shifted closer on the sofa, until their thighs were touching and their arms resting against one another. Ziva felt her heart pick up. Ever since kissing him in her bedroom, she hadn't been able to think of much else. She wanted to do it again. She needed to. But he seemed apprehensive, which was not what she had ever considered him to be. She knew why, and she hated herself for it. He was so afraid of being one of those guys whom she had spent her life as a stripper being afraid of that he couldn't even be himself. That wasn't love. Self-compromise is not love. He had to know that. She did love him, too, but she loved him, not the scared and timid pre-teen that had entered her home in his body.
Then again, she had spent most of the afternoon cleaning which, though necessary, had been done for the wrong reasons. She had tried to give him isolation for the two of them, which was something they would probably never have, aside from that night. She had tried to give him the idyllic picture of romance and tranquillity. But she was kidding herself, really. It was what it was, and while it was amazing and thrillingly unfamiliar, they could not dress their relationship and wear it as something else. The two of them were anything but idyllic. That was what made it so special, in a way.
She tried to switch the conversation to something more personal. The movie was still playing in the background.
"You should thank Danny," she said.
He turned his head. "Why? What'd he do?"
"You should just thank him."
"He owed me one." He thought of the altercations that had taken place over her. In a way, he was happy that Danny was eating his own words, but in another, he was just glad that he'd stopped generalising Ziva, who really couldn't be generalised. Thinking this, he turned to her. The man and woman on the screen were in mirrored positions and proximity to them, and the woman said something. Tony didn't hear. Ziva's deep brown eyes searched his, and then she uttered something:
"Je t'aimerai tant que les étoiles brillent dans le ciel. Et tant que les vagues frappent la côte et le soleil tire les mauvaises herbes dans le sol. Et tant que les jours se fondre dans nuits. C'est combien de temps je t'aime, ma chérie." Her French was beautiful, falling easily off her tongue. He crinkled his nose nonetheless. He didn't understand the beautiful language.
"Rough translation," she offered. "I love you as long as the stars shine in the sky. And as long as the waves hit the shore and the sun pulls weeds from the soil. And as long as the days melt into nights. This is how long I love you, my darling."
He smiled. "Wow."
"It is a quote from the movie," she said, almost blushing.
"Since when do you speak French?"
She shrugged. "I do, you know," she said after so long that it couldn't be considered an answer to his question.
"Like the stars and the waves and the flowers?" he asked, hope beaming from him. She nodded. "Me too." He reached over and touched her cheek, but did not inch closer, no matter how much she willed him to. She took his hand eventually, and intertwined their fingers, pulling his away from her face, but not losing eye contact for even a second.
"You look scared of something," he whispered.
"So do you," she countered, feeling rather breathless.
"Maybe I am."
"Of what? I just told you that I love you. I have never told anybody that before." Still holding his hand, she shifted so that she was kneeling up and facing him. "Aren't you supposed to kiss me?"
"I guess I am," he answered happily.
He pressed his lips just barely to hers, and her entire body tensed up at the feeling. His kisses made her heart flutter but this, oh this . . . she had no other reaction other than to reach around to the back of his neck and to somehow pull him closer and closer until it was physically impossible.
He broke away and whispered her name. She thought it was little more than a call into the void, and so she kissed gently across his jaw, which bore just a hint of stubble. And she thought for a fraction of a second that it was more than that she loved him (which, undoubtedly, she did) – she was attracted to him to the point where she did not want to tear herself from him. He had to do it for her.
"Ziva," he said again, his voice scratchy and deep and barely there. His strong hands gripped her forearms. She looked up and saw the look in his eyes and she understood. If anything should happen between them, God forbid it happen on her sofa, in her living room. Not here. It would not be right.
She straightened her back and stepped with light grace off the sofa, taking his hands in hers. For a moment, as Tony stood before her, she let herself wrap her arms around him for a moment, and rest her head against his heartbeat. Time after time, she felt all the comfort in the world in his arms. He stroked her hair and his slow, steady breaths felt soothing against her skin. What a feeling it was just to be held. Nobody ever held her.
But slowly she took both his hands and moved away from the sofa, through the doorway to her bedroom, with an unmade bed. The bedside lamp was on and there was a book, downturned to hold the page, beside it. At least some things had been left alone while she had been cleaning.
They stood at the foot of the bed for a minute or two. It was not apprehension that held them back, or fear. They wanted to make sure they were ready to savour every moment of it. Every touch of the lips or the fingers, every look, every feeling. Neither of them wanted to forget.
He reached around and traced circles on the small of her back and smiled when he felt dimples on her skin. Ziva's arms felt strange hanging limply so she rested them against his chest and fiddled with one of the buttons of his shirt. But she grew impatient and could not refrain from kissing him again, more deeply and with more passion and hunger than before. Her fingers clawed through his hair and he began to pull her down onto the mattress. They landed with a rather ungraceful thud and they laughed at each other, before their lips met again.
Their legs were tangled in a mess of limbs but they made no show of simply being with each other. Neither could think of much more than the other at that moment. Tony began to tug at the hem of Ziva's blouse and he pushed it over her head, meeting her eyes and lips once more. He began to pepper kisses down her neck and across her collarbone, and then back up her neck, gently nipping at her earlobe before whispering, "You are so beautiful, Ziva," in her ear. That wasn't for physical gratification. He meant every word. He kissed her all over. He kissed her shoulders, her stomach, her breasts, and she writhed in pleasure and torture at the feeling of his lips against her bare skin.
Slowly garments began to collect on the carpeted floor and with each passing minute the them of it all became clearer and more prevalent. They just wanted to touch each other, feel each other. Their bodies barely parted throughout. Insatiable burning need for the other was evident in both of them, and even in the low light, Tony could see it in her eyes. It reminded him of the girl he had met all those weeks ago, and how different those two people were. And how different he himself had become. And how she was not the object of a fantasy but a lover. She had agreed to love him. More than anything he was grateful for this.
They showed only desire to be as close as possible to one another, desperately clinging to consciousness as heavy pleasure overwhelmed them and their mixed voices began to crescendo and became sparse with breath. Her head collapsed into the crook of his neck and she kissed his skin, whispering his name as they both began to drift. "I love you," she whispered, and then swallowed, still panting. Her curls were tickling the skin of his bare chest. "So much."
"I love you too," he promised. He ran his hands all the way up and down her back, just grazing the skin, until sleep enveloped him and then her in turn.