Oh, yays! You all hate Adam!

Chapter Twenty: You Care That Much About Me?

Tony sighed heavily, rolling his neck to stretch out the aching muscles gathering at the top of his spine. It had been a long day in the field, which had ended with him shooting their main suspect before he could in turn shoot McGee. He'd been glad that Ziva had been teamed with him, so that it hadn't ended up being her in the line of fire, but he was still pissed off that some rogue marine with a passion for slicing women's throats after shooting them in the thigh had tried to kill his Probie. Their suspect had died. Dead meant case closed. Case closed meant paperwork. He groaned at a singular thought: case closed and dead meant more paperwork. He wanted nothing more than to collapse at his desk, recover for a few moments and then get started on that paperwork before he realised just how long it was going to keep him there.

However, his desk was already occupied.

Jenny stood behind his chair, her hands placed on the shoulders of his daughter, who sat in the chair, spinning it lightly by kicking her foot against the edge of the desk drawers. He was about to ask if something was wrong before he realised the half-irritated, half-amused expression on the Director's face and the fact that his daughter looked more like a rainbow than a human being.

"What in the name of Gibbs…" he muttered as he looked down at Penny.

"She thought her pens doubled as face paints," Jenny explained to him.

"What?" he asked in disbelief.

Penny smiled at him innocently from underneath an array of colour that covered her cheeks. "I wanted to be a butterfly like in the story we read," she told him simply.

"You used your pens on your face?"

"They're not permanent, Tony, I checked." Jenny assured him.

Gibbs walked in at that moment, seeing Tony groaning into his hands before noticing Penny, who grinned at him. He laughed at her. "You need a bath," he told her straight out.

At this, her face paled with horror. "No!" she protested. "No, I'm clean!"

McGee laughed as he sat down and begun his paperwork. "Yeah, definitely Tony's daughter," he said to Ziva, who returned his amused expression.

"Hey, I bathe," Tony argued.

"Occasionally," Ziva teased, as she came to stand beside him.

Penny smiled at her as well. "Shalom, Ziva. I'm a butterfly."

"I can see that," she smiled in reply. "And a beautiful one at that."

As Penny's grin grew more triumphant, Tony looked at Ziva with an appalled expression. "Who's side are you on?" he asked her.

"My own," she grinned at him, before returning to her desk.

"See, Daddy," Penny said, as she jumped down from his desk and stood before him, lifting up the sleeve of her sweater to show that her arms, at least, were pen-free. "See, I'm all clean."

"No, you're not," he told her.

"No bath!" she protested, jumping on the spot as if it helped her cause.

"Penny, you're filthy," Gibbs told her, completely on Tony's side rather than Penny's, for once. "You need a bath."

"Daddy…." she whined, turning back to Tony and jumping around even more.

He shook his head. "Sorry, Princess, he's right. Bath time."

McGee looked at him strangely, having not heard the nickname before. "Princess?" he questioned.

"Not a word, Probie," Tony warned him. "It's our thing, right, Penny?"

She turned to face McGee, the expression she directed at him an image of her father's face. "Yeah, Probie, it's our thing, and I don't want a bath, please!" she stressed, turning back to Tony, thinking that using her 'please' would get her out of her fate.

"Hurry up, DiNozzo," Gibbs told him.

"What?" he asked, watching as his boss, too, went to his desk and begun the post-case paperwork.

"Take her down to the showers. Then you've got paperwork to do."

"But, boss-"

Gibbs shrugged, indicating that he wasn't changing his mind. "If you didn't shoot the guy, then you wouldn't have so much paperwork to do," he reminded him.

Grumbling, Tony hoisted Penny over his shoulder, carrying her fireman-style out of the bullpen. "Come on. Shower."

"But-" she argued.

"The quicker we do this, the quicker it will be over."

--

Half an hour later Penny came running back into the squad room, giggling insanely. If anything, they heard her before they saw her, the second the elevator doors opened. She stopped in the centre of the bullpen, waiting for Tony to catch up with her. She was wearing an NCIS t-shirt that he'd stolen from the gymnasium downstairs, and it still swamped her tiny, thin frame even though it was the most petite size available. Tony, on the other hand, all but stomped into the bullpen wearing a full NCIS track suit; his hair dripping wet still as he wiped at it with a towel. It stuck up in all directions because of this, making Ziva laugh as much as it did Penny. He took this opportunity to glare at the two of them, but it didn't stop them.

"Tony…" Ziva laughed. "You look…"

Gibbs frowned at him as if he were insane. "Did you take a shower as well, DiNozzo?"

Penny's giggle was their answer. "I like the bubbles."

"DiNozzo?"

He shrugged, going over to his desk. "She likes the bubbles," he repeated.

Obediently, he sat down and begun getting on with his paperwork. Penny went over to the other side of the bullpen, sitting with Ziva at her desk. They'd already arranged for Ziva to get a lift home with them as her car was in the garage, so she was waiting for Tony to finish his paperwork even though she had finished her own already. She went through the tiny backpack that Penny carried with her constantly until she found a comb, and began to untangle her hair, running the comb through the dark strands until it began to dry shining and cleaning. The two of them talked quietly, Ziva explaining how she had once combed and braided her younger sisters hair for her when she was younger. Tony half-listened, glad that Penny didn't ask more about Ziva's sister other than her name. He knew that Tali had been a victim of a roadside suicide bomber, and that it had hurt Ziva more than anything else had done in the world. It was one of the first time she'd ever opened up to him about anything, standing outside the hotel with the single slice of pizza and two Styrofoam cups of coffee.

"Ziva…"

The voice that didn't belong to any of their team mates caused them all to look up, apart from Ziva. She knew the voice. She just stared at the back of Penny's hair, stopping the comb for a moment to take a controlling breath. However, she then went back to combing the young girl's hair, not looking towards her visitor. "What are you doing here, Adam?" she asked him coldly.

"We need to talk," he told her.

She kept her eyes on Penny, who looked at Adam with a scowl. It seemed that Tony's opinion of Lieutenant Gellar had passed onto his daughter. "I do not wish to speak to you," she told him, and while her voice was calm, Tony knew as he watched from across the bullpen that if Penny weren't sitting in her lap, she'd have killed him with the nearest office equipment.

Of course, he also wanted to make Adam suffer. It had been three days, and Ziva still hadn't told him what had gone on with Adam when she had returned to his apartment in such distress in the middle of the night. She insisted that it wasn't worth him worrying about, but this just made him worry more; so much so that when Penny snuck into his bed in the middle of the night he was already awake, contemplating what awful things had happened and how he could make Adam pay for it. He stood from his desk, going over and standing before Ziva's, skilfully placing himself as a barrier between the pair. It wasn't for Ziva's safety, but for Adam's…she'd already been found over a dead body in NCIS before, and while he was part of the group that still believed she hadn't done it and that the death had been natural, he knew that she was more than capable of hurting Adam deeper than he had hurt her; only her pain was emotional rather than physical, as she had assured him. Besides, Ziva had promised him that he'd get to punch Adam first if he hurt her.

"I think you'd better leave," Tony suggested calmly.

"This doesn't involve you," Adam told him quickly.

"You heard her," Tony continued. "She doesn't want to talk to you. So, if I were you, then I'd leave before I hit you. Hard."

He actually smirked at Tony, which only increased his desire to hit him. "Do you really detest me that much, Agent DiNozzo?"

"Special Agent DiNozzo," he corrected. "And yeah, I do."

"Tony," Ziva told him, her usual 'be nice' tone taking place, but this time he knew she was warning him not to make this a physical fight.

"What?" he asked unfairly. "He asked."

Ziva turned to Adam, finally raising her eyes to him. "Adam, I am working," she told him, fighting hard to keep the disgust from her voice. "We will talk another time."

"No, we'll talk now," he argued.

"David," Gibbs intervened, coming over to stand near the growing tension.

"Lieutenant Gellar was just leaving, Gibbs," Ziva told Adam, giving him his cue to leave, which he never took.

Gibbs, however, had other ideas. "If you're going to duke it out, use the elevator, and do it now so that he doesn't barge in here on my time again," he told her. "Go. Now." Ziva surrendered, standing up and handing Penny to Tony over the desk. She started toward the elevator, and Tony placed Penny straight down on the ground, starting to follow her. Gibbs grabbed his arm and held him back. "Not you. Stop right there."

"Boss-" he argued.

"Ziva's a big girl," he reminded him. "She can take care of herself.""But-"

"This isn't your time to step in, DiNozzo," he warned him.

Tony backed down, and Gibbs released his hold on his arm. "If he upsets her, am I allowed to knock him out?" he asked.

"No," Gibbs told him, turning back to his desk but keeping his eyes on the elevator once he had sat down. "That's my job."

--

Once inside the elevator, almost like tradition with Gibbs' team, Ziva shut it off, the two of them standing in almost darkness. She kept her eyes focused ahead, not dignifying him with the full extent of her attention. "Say what you have to say and then leave," she told him, her voice still cold and filled with the venom of a woman's rage.

Adam turned to her, leaning against the far wall. "I was hoping the anger had passed by now…"

"It has not," she confirmed.

"Ziva, please-"

"Do not ask me to understand any of this, Adam," she told him. "Because I do not, and I never will."

He sighed, keeping his eyes trained on the side of her face, seeing as she wouldn't look at him. "I didn't mean for this to happen."

"That does not change the fact that it did," she said.

"You weren't supposed to find out this way…"

She half-laughed at the irony of this. "I was under the impression that I was not supposed to find out at all."

"I didn't mean to hurt you, Ziva," he told her.

She was silent for a moment. "Yes, you did," she told him quietly.

"No, I-"

"You lied to me, Adam!" she shot back at him, her voice rising considerably, echoing dangerously off the metal walls around them. "You looked me in the eye and you lied to me!"

"What annoys you more?" he challenged her. "The fact that I lied or the fact that your precious Mossad training didn't pick up on it sooner?"

She chose not to answer this. "Does she know?" she asked him instead.

"Who?"

"You know who."

He was quiet for a second, and then shook his head. "No, she doesn't."

"How many others?"

"There are no others," he was quick to assure her.

She laughed hollowly. "This time I am certain you are lying. How many?" she asked him again. He didn't answer. "How many women, Adam?!"

"Ziva-"

"Tell me!" she ordered, banging her hand against the metal wall.

He sighed. "Four," he surrendered. "Including you."

She shook her head slowly. "You make my skin crawl."

"Oh yeah, I'm the bad guy here," he scoffed.

"I am not the one sleeping with three other women," she pointed out.

"No, but you're the one shacking up with DiNozzo whenever by back is turned," he yelled back at her.

This time, she turned to face him. She could deal with lies, but not accusations. "It is not what occurs behind your turned back that is in question here."

"It is now," he told her. "For all I know you've been pulling a fast one over me as well."

"Tony and I are colleagues," she told him clearly. "Partners. He is having a hard time with a new daughter and I am helping him."

"Yeah, I know what that must be like," he teased. "Partners. Seen it in movies. Tell me, Ziva, how many long stakeouts have you been on together?" he taunted her, taking another step closer to her. "Undercover? Man, I bet there must have been some good times there, am I right?"

"How dare you!"

But before she could protest physically, she found herself pressed against the wall of the elevator, Adam's face disgustingly close to hers. A week ago she'd have relished attention like this from him, but now it just made her stomach churn. "You're my favourite of them all, Ziva," he told her, pressing a harsh kiss to her lips. "You always were."

She threw him off of her, surprised at how easy it had actually been to overpower him. Within seconds she had thrown the switch on the elevator again and the doors were opening by the time he was able to get up and make a grab for her. In the bullpen, the others had all heard the elevator doors open and looked up expectantly. Even from across the room, Tony could see the unshed tears in her eyes, dangerous tears that came from too much anger and no outlet. He growled internally and leaned on Gibbs' desk. Gibbs was looking at Adam in the same way. "Permission to kill, Boss?" he asked.

"No, you've got enough paperwork to do already," he reminded him.

Plan B it was, then. "Permission to render unconscious and cause extreme pain?"

Gibbs nodded. "Granted."

"Ziva, wait!" Adam protested.

"No," she told him, turning on the spot with fire in her eyes as she shoved him. "No, I waited four months for you and then I find this out. No," she shook her head. "No more waiting. I am finished with this."

"We're good together, and you know it," he argued.

"The problem lies in the fact that you are good with other women as well," she spat at him, causing the others to realise what must have happened between the two of them. Tony wanted to go over and kill Adam where he stood, but he didn't. Ziva shook her head slowly. "You are pathetic," she told him. "A poor excuse for a man. I only hope that your other women realise what a mistake they are making."

"This isn't the end of this, Ziva," he said, almost a warning in his voice.

He turned and got into the elevator, leaving Ziva to take a deep breath to compose herself before turning back to her team. She immediately found herself before Tony, and allowed herself a single moment of weakness, resting her head against his shoulder. For a brief moment he wrapped his arms around her, but understood when she pulled away quickly that she would not allow herself to be so easily comforted before her co-workers. Instead, she went back to her desk.

Penny was sitting in her chair, and she looked at Ziva for a moment, deep eyes that seemed to have aged far beyond her years, and then opened up her tiny arms. Smiling sadly, Ziva returned the gesture, bringing the small girl into a tight embrace before sitting back down in her chair with her. Penny pulled away when they were comfortable, looking into Ziva's shining eyes. Tony watched in a small wonder as she used her sleeve to wipe away some of the leaking tears that she was trying to hide by using the bottom of the t-shirt she was wearing. "Don't be sad, Ziva," Penny told her.

"I am not sad," she smiled back, and already, thanks to the small girl that had captured all of their hearts, she felt herself returning to the contentment she'd had moments before Adam had arrived.

"Good," Penny smiled. "Because Daddy said that man was a stupid jerky bastard."

Ziva actually laughed at this. "He is right," she nodded, catching Tony's eye for a moment.

Gibbs looked over at Tony. "Finish your report, DiNozzo, then you can go," he said.

Tony looked surprised. "Just the report?"

"You can do the rest in the morning."

Tony looked back to Ziva, who ignored his attention for the moment. He went and sat down at his desk, and waited a few minutes until he send her an instant message.

AnthonyDiNozzo: Are you okay?

She noticed the presence of the message on her computer and opened it. She reached one arm around Penny and typed back a reply. ZivaDavid: I am fine.

AnthonyDiNozzo: Come home with us tonight, he typed back immediately.

ZivaDavid: I will be fine, Tony. I am okay.

He looked at her reply, resisting the urge to walk over to her desk and tell her simply that she wasn't fine, as she'd done to him on more than one occasion, but he decided on a different approach.

AnthonyDiNozzo: If you want to do the girly thing and dive into a tub of ice cream then you can do it at my place. I have ice cream. I have a couch. I even have a secret stash of chick flicks and an adorable daughter who doubles as a teddy bear. I just don't want you on your own tonight.

He noticed a gentle smile cross her lips from across the room as she typed back a single word. ZivaDavid: Why?

His answer was simple.

AnthonyDiNozzo: Because you wouldn't let me go through my heartache alone.

--

They'd done their usual evening routine, watching a movie, eating take out, and chatting on the couch, until Penny's bedtime. However, while Tony usually put Penny to bed alone, silently insisting that it was daddy-daughter time, this time Penny asked for Ziva to help as well. So, she sat at the edge of her bed, with Tony sitting beside her, propped up against the pillows with Penny, and listened as he read the familiar story of Briar Rose to her.

"The Prince went from room to room until he came to the old tower. Going up the winding stair he saw a little door. A rusty key was in the lock and the door was half open. There before him lay the sleeping princess. The Prince bent down to give her a kiss. As he did so the sleeping beauty opened her eyes…" he stopped reading, looking down when Penny didn't attempt to finish the next line of her favourite story as she usually did. Instead, he found that she was curled up amid the pillows, clutching Bertha in one hand and her old faithful stuffed bear in the other, fast asleep. "She's asleep," he said gently, lowering his voice.

"She has been asleep since the brave prince set out on his journey," Ziva revealed.

"Why didn't you say?" he asked her, standing up and replacing the book on her bookshelf. "I would have stopped reading."

"I was enjoying the story," she told him simply

"Who'd have thought?" he teased, as he turned back to her. "Ziva David, fairy tale fan."

"I was read stories as a child, Tony," she reminded him. "I was not raised by wolves."

His face glazed over in mock amazement. "Funny enough, I read her a story like that last night…"

"Shh!" she interrupted him gently, trying not to laugh. "You do not want to wake her."

Instead, Tony smiled, pulling the blankets up over Penny as Ziva stood from the bed. He nestled Penny in the bed, making sure she was comfortable before leaning down and placing a soft kiss on her cheek. "Goodnight, Princess Penny," he whispered to her, as he did every night.

The two of them went back into the living room, sitting back down on the couch. Ziva had tried to sit at one end, knowing that without Penny present he would surely ask her about her talk with Adam, but he gave her no chance to keep away from him, sitting down beside her. He put one arm around her, using it to pull her to him. She didn't protest or move against him, settling her head on his shoulder, but she did question it. "Tony…"

"No, Ziva, you have to talk to me," he told her, his tone no longer playful. Fairy tale time was over now, and it was time to face reality.

"It is not important," she said, having told him so many times that the words seemed to have lost meaning.

"Yes, it is," he corrected her. "You were the one who told me not to bottle up my emotions, so don't go all hypocritical on me. Tell me what's going on."

"I am not the first woman this has happened to, Tony."

"I don't care," he told her. "It still happened, and I want to know what it is." She hesitated, and he pulled her up from his shoulder so that he could see her face. Boldly, he put his hand on her cheek, leaning them back against the couch's back rest on their sides, their faces inches apart. His thumb traced up and down her jaw line. "You can trust me, Ziva, you know that, right?" he asked her, his voice nothing more than a whisper.

"I do trust you," she murmured back.

"Then why won't you tell me?" he half begged her.

There was a silence, and then… "Adam and I were dancing for an hour," she began. "Then we went back to his apartment. We began to get passionate and then…" she broke off, moving her eyes so that she was looking over the back of the couch rather than into Tony's compassionate eyes. "…and then he called me by another woman's name."

Shocked, Tony did a double take at this. "What? You mean, like, properly? Not just a similar sounding name?" He couldn't deny that he hadn't done the same thing to many girls, but Ziva wasn't just any girl.

She scoffed a little. "My name does not sound like 'Amy', Tony," she pointed out.

"Oh my God…" he said, his hand stilling on her cheek for a moment. "That bastard!"

She kept her eyes away from his. "I was not the only one that Adam had waiting for him in port when he returned."

"How many?" he asked gently.

"Three others."

"Oh, Ziva…" he whispered, his voice sympathetic but more comforting as he began to trace her jaw line again.

"I should have known this was happening. I am Mossad, Tony. I should have seen the signs…"

"Ziva, you can't go through your whole life thinking that everyone you need is going to let you down," he told her.

She smiled rather ironically. "Most of my life proves otherwise. They either die or disappoint."

Tony looked away for a moment, and then moved his hand, tracing it all the way back through her hair before resting it on her shoulder, pulling her fully against him. She brought her hand up, resting it on his back for a second before taking a fistful of his shirt in her grasp, letting her head rest on his chest. He put his head down on top of hers. "I know I've let you down before, but…" he trailed off, tightening his hold on her. "But…you should know that I'll never do it again. Not intentionally."

"I know," she spoke against him.

"I don't want to be the one who makes you cry like that…like you did the other night," he continued.

She raised her head, looking at him stubbornly. "I was not crying!"

"You had been," he said calmly. "I could tell." He put his hand on her cheek again. "I don't want to be the one who makes you think that you have to be ashamed of your tears. And I don't want to be the one who makes you cry in the first place. It…it hurt me to see you like that," he admitted quietly.

"It did?"

"Yeah," he nodded.

"Why?" she asked. "You were not the cause of it."

"I know, but…but you're Ziva. My partner. My friend. You're a kick ass girl who shouldn't have had guys treat her like Adam treated you. If it came down to it, I'd rather walk on broken glass and have Gibbs head-slap me for a hundred years than see you cry."

She smiled weakly. "Surely you are exaggerating there, yes?"

He considered what he'd just proposed. "Okay, maybe not the hundred years part, but definitely the broken glass part." This time, she let out a gentle laugh, and he smiled, taking in every curve of her lips. "That's better," he nodded slowly. "Smiling."

She let her laugh die out, and then sighed. "How did I begin falling for that asshole, Tony?" she asked.

"I don't know," he told her honestly. "But he's definitely an asshole." She looked away again, the shame and blows to her pride starting to show again. "Ziva, look at me." She didn't. "Look at me." This time, she did. "Close your eyes. Close. Your. Eyes." Her eyelids flickered shut, and he put his arms around her. "Come here." He guided her back so that she was leaning against him, her head pressed into his neck so that he could feel her warm breath tickling his skin. "Just relax, okay? You're here, and I'm not going anywhere. Adam's going to be sorry for what he did to you, because he's just lost the best thing in the world. So…just forget about everything that he did and remember what an incredible woman you are." He could feel her smiling against him, and her arms tightened around his back. "He doesn't deserve you, Ziva," he whispered to her.

"Thank you, Tony."

"I don't want to see you get hurt again," he added. "I can't."

"You care about me that much?" she asked, sounding a little shocked by this.

"Yes," he whispered, barely audible but she felt the words leaving his throat from the hold she had on him. She sighed, realising how comfortable it was lying in his arms. "Come on, let's get some sleep," he told her.

"I do not want to move," she told him wearily.

"Just down the hall," he told her.

And then he surprised her, lifting her effortlessly into his arms and carrying her down the hall. She tried to hide her shock, but he felt her brow furrowing against his neck, and smiled to himself. He liked that he could still surprise her, even though she was Mossad and probably had ninja techniques to predict his every move. He lay her down on his bed, and she snuggled beneath the covers, neither of them contemplating the fact that they were about to share a bed together for the first time since that far off under cover investigation; and how this time they were friends, not posing as husband and wife. He climbed in beside her, realising that this could certainly raise some questions he didn't want to answer just yet when Penny joined him during the night, but for now he just let Ziva return her head to his shoulder.

"You know that you could have come to me with this sooner, right?" he checked.

"I know," she whispered tiredly.

He smiled at the almost cute exhaustion in her voice. "You're as bad as me sometimes, you know that?" he teased her. "Stubborn to the bone."

"Two of a kind, is the expression, yes?"

"Two in a million, more like," he corrected her.

She sighed tiredly, fidgeting beneath the blankets as she got comfortable. She ended up kicking them down partly, freeing her arms. Eventually, she found her comfort. "Tony?" she whispered, remembering his previous words despite being on the very edge of sleep.

"Yeah?"

"I care about you, too," she told him.

He smiled, taking her hand in his above the blankets as her eyes dropped for the final time. "Sweet dreams, sweet cheeks."

Okay, is sending them to bet together with no sex as bad as making them almost kiss? Let me know what the lines are people, I need to know so I can cross them and keep you on your toes.