Tony wiped sweat from his brow, as he climbed the second flight of stairs. His shoulder sagged under the weight of the groceries in the canvas bag. He stopped briefly on the landing, and looked out the small window.
Lyon, the first stop on the David-DiNozzo family road trip, was a truly beautiful city.
Tony smiled as he watched the golden early evening light settle on the world heritage city. Ziva had spent the last few weeks looking up the history of each place they were visiting. She was very interested in the city of Lyon's Roman history.
Perhaps coming from such an ancient land drew her to equally ancient history.
His audiobook played on, a fiction title, brought with the credits Ziva had brought him for his birthday.
He took one lingering look at the view from the landing. At the people going about their evenings. Terraces in front of cafes with couples looking into each other's eyes. Children running past in their sandal clad feet. Little dogs pulled their owners along on their leashes.
It was a shame they were only in Lyon for one night.
He turned and looked to the next set of stairs, when would he learn that these old buildings so seldom had elevators. When would he stop renting apartments three or floors into the sky.
His audiobook played on, and Tony determined that the movie adaptation was better. He plucked his phone from his short pockets and turned the audiobook off, as he reached the door of apartment 3A. He plucked the key from the front pocket of his linen shirt and opened the door.
The tiny apartment was in a slightly better state than he left it in forty minutes ago. The doors to the tiny Juliet balcony had been opened, and the slight breeze blew through the apartment. The rainbow tie-dye dress Tali insisted she wear for their journey, was lying over one of the dining chairs, with a wet patch on the chest.
Even with the doors open there was the lingering scent of vomit.
Exactly two hours and ten minutes into their journey, just as they had finally gotten out of Paris, Tony and Ziva had learnt that Tali got car sick.
The door of the tiny bathroom opened, and Ziva stepped out. Her curls were wild having been released for the braid she had put it into as Tony packed the car. The exhaust fan whirred.
Ziva smiled when she saw him, and then pressed her fingers to her lips, before pointing to the sliding doors behind him.
The apartment had been advertised as a compact one bedroom that used every inch of space, which meant that moving around was a game of tetris. The kitchen was separated from the living area by a flimsy wall, with sliding doors. The living room became the bedroom, with the couch folding into a double bed, and the two armchairs becoming single beds.
Tony's visions of him and Ziva cuddling up with a movie, while Tali slept had been quashed.
At least Ziva would get a chance to dip into the tote bag of books that she had brought with her. A bag that had been placed on one of the passenger seats, when they rearranged the car looking for something to soothe Tali's car sickness, and made the alarm because the motion sensor in the seat sensed an unrestrained passenger.
Ziva moved across the living area, she placed the blouse she had been wearing on the table, sporting the same wet patch on the chest as Tali's dress. Their daughter was a projectile vomiter.
Their next holiday apartment in sunny Nice, had a washing machine, and Tony knew they would get good use out of it.
Ziva moved toward the kitchen, and stood behind the counter. Their reusable mugs had been washed out and were laying on the draining board. Their three stainless steel drink bottles stood to attention on the bench. Tali's slightly smaller pink bottle in between his and Ziva's orange and green ones.
"When did she go down?" he asked, as he took the canvas bag off of his shoulder and laid it on the kitchen counter, navigating it carefully so it did not squash Ziva's charging phone.
"Almost as soon as she laid down," Ziva said, as she navigated the kitchen and found a chopping board, a knife and a plate. "We did not even finish our story."
"She must have been beat," he replied.
"Yes," Ziva said. "She is right in the middle of the sofa bed. That might complicate things when we go to bed."
Tony smiled to himself.
Tali was so selfish when she was sick.
"I'll take one of the single beds," he said.
He turned slightly and looked toward the diving wall, trying to imagine what it looked like. Tali starfished in the middle of the bed. Her little snores. Her curls all over the pillow.
He was tempted to look in, but did not want to risk waking her.
"No, I will," Ziva said, "Your feet will be hanging off, that will not be comfortable."
Tony started unpacking the canvas bag. He placed the paper bag from the pharmacy near Ziva's charging phone, and started to lay down the vegetables he had brought.
The plan, when the trip was still a daydream that got them through humid afternoons in Paris, had been to arrive in Lyon in the early afternoon, explore a little bit, and then have an early dinner with Tali in a restaurant.
Tony had missed restaurants during the lockdown.
That plan had fallen through when Tali announced she was not feeling well, and Tony managed to pull over on the A6 just in time for her to not throw up in the car.
It had taken them an hour longer than google predicted, and Tali was in no mood to be dragged around. So they had gone to Le Parc de la Tete d'Or, hoping visiting the zoo would cheer her up. Even seeing a real life giraffe could not boost her mood for long.
So, as soon he could, Tony had snuck off to collect the holiday rental agency to collect the keys for the apartment, and they had gotten back in the car.
It was not the best start to their holiday.
The plan for a picnic dinner had been made, through the door of the bathroom, while Ziva helped Tali clean up. It was too warm for a big meal, and neither of them wanted to cook.
The idea had been good in theory, but its execution was tricky, by the time Tony got to the supermarket after buying almost every nausea remedy in the pharmacy, and getting lost twice, there was not a lot left, and the staff were getting read to close up.
"She'll freak out if she wakes up and she's not next to you," Tony declared. "She's only wanted you today."
Ima, I feel sick, had been the words out of Tali's mouth as the car finally picked up speed, but not too much speed, because it seemed like every family in Paris had the same plan to get out of the city as them.
Ziva picked up one of the carrots he had brought, and started to peel it with the side of the knife.
A slight smile crossed her face.
"You're like the cat that got to cream," he said.
"You are not supposed to give cats cream," Ziva replied, as she picked off a long strip of carrot peel.
Tony produced the two cheeses he had selected for their picnic and the hummus he had brought.
"You know what I mean," he said, as he opened the firm cheddar, brought mostly for Tali. "With Tali today."
"I am not happy she is sick," Ziva said quickly. "But, this is going to sound silly, but I am a little happy she asked for me. Usually when she is sick or something is scary for her she goes straight to you. I understand why she does that, and I am glad she has you as a safe place, but today I felt useful. I felt like we have made progress."
All those books about attachment came back to him.
And, all those nights where Tali would wake and call out for Ziva.
The last time she was really sick, came back to him too, when Ziva had only been back with them for seven weeks, and no matter what she did, Tali only ever wanted him. It had broken his heart to watch Ziva's attempts to soothe be rejected.
"I'm glad she asked for you," he said. "I didn't like the idea of you driving us."
Ziva laid the now peeled carrot down on the chopping board, and thrust her knife into it. She carefully but quickly cut it into six almost equally sized sticks.
"We probably would have made it here a lot sooner," Ziva said, as she laid the carrots on the plate.
After Tali had fertilized the grass on the edge of the A6 with her vomit, and decided she was okay to get back into the car, Ziva had vacated the front passenger seat to take up residence in the back seat with Tali.
Every time Tali had so much as whimpered, Ziva had been ready with water, a sick bag, or a comforting word.
"She probably would have thrown up all over the car," he retorted. "You can be quite fast and furious when you want to be."
They both laughed slightly, before looking toward the sliding doors.
Ziva pivoted in the kitchen, and picked up the three plastic boxes with their different coloured lids from the draining board, and laid them in front of the chopping board.
The journey from Lyon to Nice would be another long driving day, and Ziva wanted to be prepared with snacks. The snack boxes would be filled with healthy snacks because parenting was all about modelling.
Ziva started to peel another carrot. The orange ribbons fell onto the chopping board.
"Did the pharmacy have any remedies?" she asked.
Tony reached for the paper bag, and started laying out the remedies; hydrating tablets to dissolve in a water bottle, ginger candies that she probably would not eat, and an over the counter medication that Tony wasn't sure about giving her.
Ziva put down her knife and picked up the medication with an eyebrow raised.
"I'm not sure about that either," he announced, hoping he had read her expression right.
"It seems a little extreme," Ziva said as she put the box down. "She seemed to feel better once we took the tablet off of her, and when we were playing I-Spy."
He hoped that the journey from Lyon to Nice had more things to spy, than the journey from Paris to Lyon.
Ziva returned to the carrot and laid it down to chop it up. This time the slithers of carrots were placed in the snack boxes.
"You'd have been proud of me," Tony said as he watched her get another carrot out of the bag. "They let me attempt French for three whole sentences before getting a teeanger to translate. Though she confused morning sickness and motion sickness. The pharmacist wasn't sure how a sick year old could have morning sickness. When I mimed driving she worked it out."
Ziva's face broke out into a smile.
"Those ginger candies helped when I had morning sickness," she said, as she peeled and chopped the carrots.
"Was it bad?" he asked.
McDaddy and Autopsy Gremlin had always talked about the terrible morning sickness their wives had had. Breena actually lost weight in the early months of pregnancy, and Delilah had lived off a diet of crackers and peppermint tea.
"Yes," Ziva said, her voice soft. "Not that I thought it was because of pregnancy at first. I was not taking care of myself after I sent you away."
His chest hurt as he made sense of her words.
"I fainted once, because of it," Ziva continued. "I had taken myself for a walk in the olive groves, and I must have been dehydrated. After that, I finally resolved to see the doctor. I was sick for the first five or so months, and it was not just in the morning."
Bile rose in his throat.
He would have been there if she had told him.
He should have been there. She should have told him.
"I-, I'm-," he stammered. "Sorry."
Ziva laid down her knife, and looked at him.
"I am sorry for bringing this up," Ziva said.
"No," he whispered. "We should talk about these things."
Ziva nodded and then started cutting the carrots.
The noise of the knife hitting the chopping board was rhythmic. Tony blinked a few times and reminded himself that the woman who was chopping carrots into sticks, was the same woman who once had a knife collection in her apartment. Who once killed a man with a credit card.
How she had changed.
How they had both changed.
Tony continued pulling the shopping out of the bag. Cherry tomatoes and strawberries in plastic punnets. Three boxes of crackers brought in place of the bread Ziva wanted, because all the bread looked old, or was pure white flour which did not agree with his digestive system.
He then pulled out the small bottle of wine, he had impulse brought, while waiting in line at the only operating supermarket checkout.
He held it up and pointed to it. Ziva nodded.
"Seeing as our vacation did not exactly start how we wanted," he said. "I got this."
Ziva turned around, and started looking for some glasses in the cupboard. There were no wine glasses, but she found two mugs that had been white once upon a time.
He watched as she rinsed them out, and then came back to him. A tea towel over her shoulder. The mugs were placed in front of him. Tony started picking at the foil around the bottle.
"I do not think it was that bad," Ziva said as she handed him the tea towel. "I enjoyed the zoo, even if Tali was not impressed."
Tali, in better health, would have lost her mind over the zoo.
Tony wrapped the tea towel around the neck of the bottle and popped the cork without much noise.
"I think I will get up early tomorrow," Ziva announced, as she returned to her chopping. "I would like to go for a run, it is always a good way to meet a city. Plus the exercise would be good."
She had packed her running shoes and exercise clothes, even though they had planned no strenuous activity, at least none that required clothes.
Now, Tony understood this part of her coping.
Especially since her therapist, like most of Paris, was also on vacation. So Ziva needed to be strict with her routines.
He had seen the journal that was tucked into her books.
"Sounds like a plan," he said. "If Small Fry is feeling better, I'll get her ready, and maybe we can meet you for breakfast somewhere."
Lyon was supposed to have an amazing food scene, something Tony wanted to sample.
"We probably need to be careful what we feed her," Ziva said. "Some foods might irritate her stomach."
Tony started to pour the wine into the mugs. The bubbles fizzed.
"Maybe we'll get breakfast ready here," he said. "I was thinking we should leave a little early, so we can stop for breaks."
Ziva opened the hummus, and screwed up her face.
"That is not hummus," she declared, as she placed the tub in the center of the plate.
Tony picked up his cup of wine and took a sip. The wine tasted exactly like the price he paid for it. It was fizzy and left a slight aftertaste.
"It was the best I could do," he said, as he reached over the counter, and dipped a carrot stick into hummus. "They were ready to close up when I turned up. I got death glares by every single member of staff."
During the lockdown, Ziva had reintroduced him, and introduced Tali to the magic of fresh hummus. Tali loved the stuff, and would eat a whole plate of vegetables if she got to eat hummus with them.
Ziva smirked. She took her own cup of wine, and her lips disappeared behind the mug. She scrunched up her nose.
"I'll buy better wine when we get to Nice," he promised.
Ziva put her cup down, and stuck a carrot stick into the hummus.
The golden light streamed through the windows, and a slight breeze moved through the apartment. It was the perfect summer moment. Something Tony knew would sustain him when they were back in Paris, and it was rainy and cold.
"We should do this," Ziva said, as she pressed the knife into some cucumber. "When we go back to the U.S."
That had been the main topic of their late night conversations in recent weeks, they had narrowed down areas they were going look for houses in, decided that they would likely keep Tali in private education, and Ziva had looked into what she would have to do to get into college as a mature student.
"Drink wine?" he asked, as he took another sip of the bubbly liquid.
"Yes that," Ziva said. "But, I meant travel. I lived in the U.S for eight years and I did not see very much of it. Almost all of the trips I took were for work."
Tony looked out the window and back to her. Her curls were sun bleached and her shoulders were suntanned. Summer was her season.
"I'd like that," he said. "There's so much I want to show Tali."
He wanted to take her to all the theme parks in California and listen to her scream in excitement. He wanted to take her to New York, and watch her face light up. He wanted to show her the rugged coasts of New England, and some of the places he spent his own childhood.
"Yes," Ziva said. "There is so much to see. I always wanted to go to Hawaii."
He thought of that hotel room in Maui, and waiting in vain for his Dad to come back.
Maybe, he could make new memories in old places.
"Maybe, we could rent an RV and go on a big road trip," he said. "Not to Hawaii obviously, but we could see other places."
"An RV?" Ziva asked. "I thought you did not do camping."
"Well an RV isn't exactly camping," he said. "Some of those things are like mini houses. As long as I've got a proper bed I'll be fine."
For a brief period on their drive to Lyon they had been stuck behind a car pulling a camper, and it got Tony thinking, maybe they could be that annoying family.
"Maybe," Ziva said, non committal.
"I want to take you two to Italy one day too," he said, as he took another sip of his wine. "I want to show Tali the motherland."
Technically, Tony could keep driving when they headed to Nice, they would end up in Italy. It still blew his mind that the borders were so easily crossed in Europe.
"I would like that," Ziva said. "I have always wanted to see more of Italy."
He pictured her in a gonalda in Venice. He pictured her showing Tali the Colosseum in Rome. He pictured the three of them driving along the stunning Amalfi coast.
"Maybe, if Dad's up to it, we'll take him too," Tony said. "You know how much he's missing travel."
Senior had insisted they send him every single picture they could. He was still mostly confined to his apartment. Which in his own words was the longest he had spent at home since Tony's mother had died.
The news was saying international travel might not get back to normal for years. Maybe, Senior would never get to leave the country again.
"I would like that," Ziva said, as she picked up a cherry tomato and plopped it in her mouth. "Your father is a good travel companion."
"We could go to Israel too," he said.
"It is quite a journey from Italy to Israel," Ziva replied, as she returned to her chopping. "I know summer vacations from school are longer in the US, but if you plan to work when we go home, I don't imagine you getting weeks and weeks off of work."
If only he could take French labour laws with him when they went back.
"I don't mean in the same summer," he said. "I'm saying I'd like for us to go to Israel at some point. I haven't really gotten the chance to do the touristy stuff there."
Every time he had been to Israel it had been because something had gone wrong. Rivkins death. Ziva's breakdown. Ziva's 'death'.
Ziva's chopping became more aggressive. Tony was worried she might cut her finger.
"I know you said it's not home for you anymore," he said. "But, you wanna go back one day, right?"
Ziva laid down her knife, and looked up at him with a soft look.
"Honestly, I am not sure," Ziva said. "When I had to-, when I had to fake my death, I told myself I probably would never be able to go back. I put any feelings I had about that away. I had much bigger steaks to fry."
Tony felt his chest heave.
"Fish," he said. "You have much bigger fish to fry."
"But, you fry steaks as well," she said.
She was right, but that was not the idiom.
"Do you miss it?" he asked.
"It is a part of me," Ziva admitted, as she reached up for her necklace and fiddled with the pendant. She no longer wore a Star of David, but the necklace was just as precious. "But, it is complicated. I have good memories and bad memories from there. I would like the chance to make new memories. Sometimes I dream about it. I really think Tali would like the coast at Haifa, and the forest outside of Jerusalem."
"I'd like that too," he said.
"I do not think I would be able to go back to the farmhouse," Ziva announced, as she moved a bent finger under her eye to catch any tears that tried to fall. "That would be too much."
Tony remembered holding a screaming Tali, as they stood in front of the burnt out bones of the farmhouse. He had wanted to see where it happened. Where she took her last breath.
Not even two weeks later he held her in the dusty Cairo hotel room, and the farmhouse had been forgotten.
It didn't matter.
She was alive.
There was noise from the other side of the apartment, Tali was awake.
"Ima," Tali called out. "Daddy."
Ziva moved toward the sliding doors, and Tony followed two steps behind.
They found Tali laying on the bed, her hair all over the pillow and her legs sticking out of the duvet.
Ziva rushed to her side, and placed a hand on her forehead, pushing Tali's hair back. It was all so tender.
"You are awake," Ziva announced. "You look much better."
"Hi Daddy," Tali whispered.
"Hi Tali-bear," Tony said, as he sat down on the end of the bed. "Are you feeling better?"
Tali flung off the duvet, revealing her new summer pyjamas, pink ones with a cat print.
"Yes," she announced. "I'm hungry now."
Tony looked at Ziva. Through a few raised eyebrows and nods they decided they should probably feed her.
"We were having a picnic," Tony said. "Would you like to join us Miss Tali?"
Tali's eyes lit up, she picked up a ratty looking Kelev.
"Let's go," Tali said as she started to get up from bed. "I'm starving."
Twenty minutes later they had fashioned a picnic blanket out of two beach towels and Tali had hummus all over her face, and Tony had taken a photo to send to his Dad.
He realised that these would be the memories that kept him warm, when they had bad days or Paris was cold and wet, he would think of the picnic they had in Lyon.
"You know, this really isn't a bad way to start a vacation," he whispered to Ziva, as she put some cheese onto a cracker for Tali.
A/N: I don't own a thing.
This chapter was pure self indulgence on my part. I live in a part of Australia that actually gets cold, and I tend to take a winter holiday in the North of the country, and I can't because of state border restrictions and now costs. I know a lot of people are suffering much more, but imagining my favourite fictional characters where linen blend, huge sunglasses and suntans is keeping my seasonal depression at bay. I hope that helps other people too.
This is not the best chapter, I've spent a lot of the last week making mental mood boards of huge sunglasses, linen pants, and swimwear.
I'm so behind on review replies, but please know I appreciate every review. Especially those of you who pop in regularly.
Stay safe friends.