Notes: My first NCIS fic! Could have happened any time in season 8.

Disclaimer: Characters and settings belong to CBS Studios.

The Elevator

After another long day, it had suddenly dawned on Tony DiNozzo that he wanted nothing more than to go home and take a hot shower to alleviate whatever stank of a dead body that the crew had found earlier that day, and then to sink in between his sheets. Of course, he was also sure that, if reputation spoke for him, he would not be alone. But tonight—well, tonight was going to be different. His reputation was going to be left at his door.

As he shoved his many stacks of files back into the black hole that was a drawer in the bottom of his desk where they belonged, he sighed wistfully, looking over at the desk that had long ago been vacated by his best friend, after she had met her maker. Seeing it, and the young, attractive, Israeli Ziva David, who was currently sitting there, immersed in some case or another, made so many long-kept feelings resurface.

When Kate had first not been here, he'd found himself looking up to her desk every day, so many times a day, thinking that she should be there. But she never was. He would wake up, and it would all be okay for the first five seconds, in which he would blissfully forget her demise. He'd hated this new girl, Ziva, to the core of his being, and, for whatever reason, when he had looked at her, he'd felt this steam rising off of his being, evaporating into nothing.

Because nothing could bring his Kate back.

But now, Kate was just a shadow. A dark part of himself that he locked away in his mind, never to be seen or heard of again. Yes, he could still cry over her body when he thought about her too much, but now, he didn't do that nearly as much as before.

Ziva was no longer his enemy.

And then—he did not know just how it came about, and perhaps that was for the best—he'd begun to see Ziva, not as the traitor which he'd first seen and swore that he would always see, but as a woman. She was a good detective. Her little stumbles over the English language were almost cute. She would stare at him when she thought that he surely wasn't looking, but he always would be. Tony was always looking—watching his back. Then, on that day—he still didn't know what day it was—he decided that he no longer needed to watch his back around Ziva.

It wasn't that she couldn't kick his rear, and hard, too, if she wanted to; it was the simple fact that she just didn't want to kick his rear. No, he realized, she wanted something more than that. When he'd first known her, and even now, he'd put on a front. A front that told her that she couldn't get near him. A front that would have warded off the fiercest of competitors. But he feared that that front only made her want to be near him all the more. She was a fighter. A fighter that was determined to be his friend, no matter the cost.

And so had begun the battle which he was still fighting. How to be friends with Ziva David without letting her know how much he wanted to be her friend. How to scare her away without scaring her away. It was also in his mind during this time how close he was getting to the woman he'd sworn over Kate's body to despise.

But he didn't despise her. Not at all. In fact—and again, on what day, he wasn't sure, nor what time, or what had prompted it—but he was in love with Ziva David. He could recall just where the thought had first occurred to him, though the build to it had been many years in the coming. He'd been sitting in his apartment, watching Ferris Buller's Day Off from his movie collection. He'd found the disk on the bottom shelf, picked it up, and figured why not? He could even remember what was happening in the movie as he thought about him and Ziva. It was the scene where the red car rolled off the cliff. It had always made him chuckle, but not this time. This time, he'd been sitting in disbelief at what three words had just run thought his head. I love her.

And now….

Well, it was obvious that she didn't feel the same. Or did she?

Snapping back to what he was doing in the present, he glanced at Ziva one last time before slinging his bag over one shoulder and heading toward the elevator. His feet slowed as he heard a rustle of paper behind him, and he knew that Ziva was rushing to put her things away, hoping to catch him before he got in the elevator. Any chance to be alone with him.

Tony smiled as she raced up behind him just as the double doors began to close. Had it not been for her tiny frame, she couldn't have made it. Tony held his breath. His body's reaction to her was so foreign and odd to him, and, unfortunately, a bit obvious to anyone who was looking.

Ziva closed her eyes as she turned to him. They were completely alone now, and it was palpable to him that she had something to say. That's the moment that she chose to lean into him—so far that he wondered that she was trying to do—but only for her to slam two of her fingers into the emergency stop button on the lift, and Tony felt it jolt beneath him. Gibbs used this elevator like a personal conference room, so why shouldn't they?

He raised an eyebrow and looked at her. "What?"

She let out a puff of air, crossing her arms over her stomach, suddenly feeling very small in Tony's towering frame. "I'm tired of pretending," she said, feigning more confidence than she felt.

He nodded, looking right into her eyes the whole time. What he saw in them made him nervous. "Me too," he breathed before letting his bag fall to the floor of the lift and pulling her into him, capturing her lips with his. She let out a little "Mmm," as his gentle, coaxing, soft lips met hers, but didn't resist. She sighed into his caress. Tony moved his mouth against hers like the soothing waves the ocean as he enticed her to do the same. He knew what he was doing, and so did she, making the sensation of it all the more pleasurable. She let out another little noise that was almost a squeak as he tenderly parted her lips with his tongue. At first it was only small touches, but in a matter of seconds, their mouths were melted together, their tongues fighting for dominance.

After forever of sweet bliss, they parted, and Ziva, breathless, whispered with her forehead leaned against his, "Rule number 12—" But he grabbed her wrists, holding them in one hand on her chest, his other hand and arm were wrapping around her thin form, his fingers spanning almost the entire width of her back. Somehow, he had walked them backwards enough while they were still kissing, that she was pressed against the wall of the lift. Her arms were wrapped around his neck.

"Screw Gibbs and his accursed rules. I don't care if hell freezes over around us, I don't care if they lock me away for it—I want you, Ziva," the words were out of his mouth in a flash, and she just stood in silence for a moment, still panting from her minute or so without good oxygen in her lungs. As they stared into each other's eyes—the ice of frozen winter meeting with the black coals in a fire—she finally worked up the nerve to speak.

"I want you, Tony. Let hell freeze over, then."

And that was all he needed to hear.