"You stumble, you soar. And if you're lucky, you make it to Paris for a while."
— Amy Howard
"Bounjour."
"Come on, Ziva, give me a hard one. Even I know that. Bonjour."
"Do not become overconfident, Tony, or else everyone in France will mark you at once as an American."
"What's wrong with that?"
She gives him a look. "Au revoir."
"Au revoir."
"Où sont les toilettes, s'il vous plaît?"
"I don't know what you just said, but you were definitely talking about bathrooms. Gross, Ziva."
She gives him another look, unimpressed by his teasing. "I asked where the toilet is. You try."
"Où sont lez… what was it, again?"
"Forget it. Stay close to me and avoid getting lost, because I do not think you will ever be able to speak French, Tony DiNozzo."
"Why would I ever need to, when I have you?"
Their plane lands at Charles de Gaulle and Ziva tries very hard to ignore Tony's childlike enthusiasm—and childlike behavior in general—as she focuses on leading them through the airport and onto the RER train that will take them into the city. He keeps up a constant stream of chatter, excited about everything they see…
Why is it so endearing?
Ziva herself visited Paris for the first time as a small child, and though she loves the city—and she does love Paris—she isn't as wowed by it as she used to be. It's more than a little entertaining to see everything through Tony's eyes, despite her determined preoccupation.
They have a job to do, though, something Ziva keeps reminding herself.
Two things happen in short succession when they reach their hotel room. The first is that they see the room—it's supposed to have two queen sized beds, side by side, one for each of them.
There isn't. There's just one bed.
They blink at the single king. "Well…" Tony says after a moment. "Guess one of us is taking the couch."
"You," Ziva answers in agreement.
"Me? Why me?"
"You go on and on about how you are a man," she teases. "Is that not the job of the man in any partnership, to make the woman comfortable?" Her voice is sardonic, taunting, less believing in what she says than simply pulling his strings for the hell of it.
"I thought you were a feminist. Aren't we equal?"
"We are, but you are a good friend, so I believe you will volunteer for the couch."
"Oh, you think I'm a good friend?"
"Do not get distracted… and your head is large enough as is, Tony."
"You think I'm a good frieeeend," he sing-songs, laughing.
"You know what? I will take the couch."
"No, I will. I'm a good friend."
"And I am a better one."
"I'll fight you for it."
"Fine, you win, you may have the couch."
Tony bursts into laughter. "You're manipulative, you know that?"
Ziva can't help grinning back. "We can share. The bed, I mean, not the couch."
"We can?"
"Yes. We are adults. It will be fine."
"Okay, but no making indecent moves on me, right, Ziva?"
"Whatever you say, Tony."
"That's not a yes."
"If it will make you feel better, I will promise. I will not ravish your…" she looks distastefully up and down his frame, "...body. You have my word."
"You're rude. I don't know what you were taught about manners, but I think you missed a lesson or two."
She laughs again, unable to keep a straight face around him for too long. "It is what you asked for."
Shortly after the bed discussion, Tony gets a call. "DiNozzo," he answers lazily, and Ziva focuses on unpacking her toiletries so she can brush her teeth in preparation for bed. She listens with one ear, though.
"Mmhm. Yeah, we got here a few minutes ago. Wait, what?" A pause. "Well, should we go get her?" Another pause. "Are you sure?" One last pause. "Okay, then what should we do in the meantime? Oh— okay, I—" he pulls the phone away from his ear and frowns at it.
"What has happened?" Ziva pokes her head out of the bathroom to see him better rather than relying on his reflection in the corner of the mirror.
"The witness we're here to escort back to Washington… she isn't actually here."
"What? Where is she?"
"She apparently took a weekend trip to Dubrovnik, and now it's too late to change her flight back. There was a date mixup and she didn't know we were coming so soon."
"When is she returning, then?"
"Sunday morning."
It's Friday evening now.
"So we are just supposed to—"
"Gibbs hung up on me when I asked that question."
Ziva snickers at his disgruntled look. "So if we do not have case work to do, we will…?"
"Sight-see, I guess?"
"Together?"
"Don't sound so excited, Ziva."
She laughs. "This is… unexpected. I have been to Paris many times, and I have already seen 'the sights', yes? But I can show you around. I know it is all new to you, and Paris is a city to be appreciated, not simply viewed."
"I don't know if you're really up to scratch on your tour guide skills."
The fierce glint of someone accepting a challenge appears in her eye. "Tony, you have seen nothing yet."
After making a quick plan for the following day—Ziva is secretive about most of what they're going to see and do—they get ready for bed. It should be awkward, each having to move around one another in this small intimate space, but somehow, it isn't. Though their rhythm has been off ever since—well, the events that led them to the Horn of Africa—they still know one another very well. Maybe this weekend is what they need to get back into their usual groove.
Then they're climbing into bed, and it's… strange.
Each is at once relaxed and hyper aware of the person next to them. Every breath is counted, every little shift in position noted. There's an intimacy now that wasn't there when they shared a bed undercover four years ago, an understanding between them now that didn't exist then. They've seen one another at their best and at their worst, they've worried over one another and cried over one another, shared so many almost-moments and missed opportunities. They've become true partners in almost every sense of the word, and then they lost it all. Now they're trying to get it back.
It will be interesting to see what a weekend in the City of Love will do to them.