Chapter 30: You Love Me For It

Disclaimer: I know what you're thinking: "Oh, my freaking gosh! This person owns NCIS!"...Well, unless you're looking at DPB, you're sadly mistaken. I don't own NCIS.

Author's Note: Oh my gosh! It's chapter 30! Do you know what that means?!...Neither do I, but I've wrote 30 chapters!

Tony and Ziva were shocked to hear Gibbs's voice shouting out at them; however, the were not surprised. As Tony put it, his "Gibbs-senses" had probably "started tingling".

They joined their comrades and Tony flashed his award-winning smile, "Hey, guys, what brings you to this little slice of heaven?"

Gibbs reached out and slapped DiNozzo's head.

"Do you know how worried-"

"It's okay, Boss, I know you were worried about me."

Gibbs glared at Tony then continued, "Do you know how worried Abby and Ducky are? You need to call them."

Tony pulled out his cell phone and looked, "Tower must still be out. No bars."

Ziva, McGee, and Gibbs all checked their phones and found the same to be true of each of them.

"Find a landline," Gibbs instructed.

"Electricity's out," Tony replied.

"Did I ask for an excuse, DiNozzo?"Gibbs growled.

"No, you didn't, Boss," Tony responded, bracing for the slap; but Gibbs didn't slap him this time.

"Let's go back into town," Gibbs grunted.

"Hey, Boss, our car is-" Tony began.

Without a word, Gibbs moved a few of the branches out of the way enough that Tony and Ziva could enter their car and drive it away.

"There. Was that so hard, DiNozzo?" Gibbs said, climbing into his vehicle.

Tony stammered for a moment before Gibbs called, "Meet us at the grocery store in town."

Then Tony and Ziva drove away, following Gibbs and McGee.

"What'll he do?" Tony asked Ziva, without looking at her.

"What will who do?"

"Gibbs."

"When?"

"When he finds out."

"About what?"

"You know what about."

"Tony, if I knew what you were talking about, I would not be asking."

"What is Gibbs gonna do when he finds out about us?"

"I thought he knew."

"His gut does."

"So, then he knows."

"Sorta..."

"What do you mean 'sorta'?"

"Well, it's like he knows, but as long as he doesn't acknowledge it, it'll just go away."

"We don't plan on that happening."

"I know that...Gibbs might not see it that way though. All of Gibbs's rules are there for a reason. Even Rule 12."

"Are you saying that you do not want to be in a relationship anymore?" she asked, a little worried.

"No! No, no, no...I love you, Ziva. I want to be with you forever. I just don't think that Gibbs is going to look at this very kindly."

"And my father will?"

"What?"

"You think Gibbs will be bad to face, my father is a deputy director of Mossad. He is more heavily trained than I am and he can have anger management problems. He has also became very strict in his religious beliefs in the past few years. He will not be fond of his daughter being with someone who isn't Israeli, or even Jewish! People are going to be critical of our relationship, Tony, that is a given. But if this is real, which I believe it is, it will hold up and we will only be made stronger by our trials."

"That's real poetic, Zee."

"When did you start calling me that?"

"What? Zee? ...A few days ago, I guess. Do you not like it?"

"Oh, it's not that..."

"What is it then?"

"I like it."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"No bad memories or feelings tied to it?"

"No."

"No ex-boyfriends that called you that?"

"No."

"No secret codewords?"

"None whatsoever."

"You just like it?"

"Yeah, I do."

"Then why are you acting so serious?"

"Because, you have a pet name for me, but I don't have one for you."

"What? Yes, you do. I'm your little HairyButt, remember?"

"Then you have two, no, three pet names for me."

"What are the other two?"

"Sweetcheeks-"

"Oh, yeah, I like that one."

"-and Zee-vah Dah-veed," she said, in an imitation of the way he drew out the syllables.

"How about that 'Duh-no-so' thing you called me earlier?"

"But it's different!"

"How is it different?"

We called each other 'Duh-no-so' and 'Zee-vah Dav-veed' when we were just friends, we called each other 'Sweetcheeks' and 'HairyButt' when we were undercover, now we're really together. You've got a nickname for me as your girlfriend, but I don't have one for you as my boyfriend."

"I can't believe that this is Ziva David; crazy ninja chick, Mossad assassin, superwarrior; talking about this! Since when does stuff like this bother you?"

"It's...I...You..."

"Come on, Ziva. It's no big deal...we've got bigger fish to fry right now. We're gonna have to deal with Gibbs and, later, your father....You're nervous, aren't you?" he asked, realization dawning on him.

"It's just I...I really want this to work, Tony. I really love you and I think this might be...I think you might be my..."

"Soulmate?"

"Yeah."

"So, this is what that was all about? You've thought this for a while now, huh?"

"Not this strongly until recently. From the moment I saw you, I wanted you sexually. Later on, I started thinking that I was having feelings that you don't get for a person that you just want to sleep with. I thought about it for a while before I figured it out."

He listened quietly before responding, "Yeah, if you just toss in that big confusing mess with Jeanne, that's how I was, too. You turned me on the moment I saw you walk in. I didn't trust you at first, but I definitely wanted to have sex with you. Then the Jeanne thing and I thought I was falling in love...I was, but not with who I thought I was in love with. When I was with her, I would get calls from you and it would hurt me physically to not answer those calls. I was in love with you, but I didn't know it. The director kept pushing me on with Jeanne and I knew I couldn't get out. I started giving her all the love that I couldn't give to you at the time. You were the only one who was genuinely concerned for me through all of this. Gibbs didn't seem to care, McGee was clueless, Jenny just kept using me to get what she needed...but you were worried. You looked up Y. Pestis and you started freaking out thinking that I was having problems with my lungs, you called all the time, you tried to get me to open up about my feelings. It was pretty damn obvious that you were jealous...you almost cried a few times. God, Ziva, all I wanted to do was hold you when I saw those tears start coming. I wanted to be able to tell you that she meant nothing and you were all I would ever need, but I was afraid that if I did that and Jeanne found out...If Jeanne found out that I was in love with you, it would have been bad. If La Granoille had found out that his daughter's "boyfriend" was with another woman...I was scared that you'd be hurt. I didn't want to drag you into the crossfire just for my own sake. So for all that time, I pretended Jeanne was you...I'm just lucky that I didn't say your name during sex," Tony flashed his charming grin again, "I wish we could have started this already, Ziva. I feel like we're way behind and we've got a lot of catching up to do."

"We do have a lot of catching up to do. It's like we each have prepared ourselves for this relationship long enough that we feel like we should just dive full-on-"

"Very good."

"Thank you. We feel like we should just dive full-on into this relationship, but we still really need to take it slow."

"But...uh...we can keep on...you know..."

"Having sex? Why are you all of a sudden so afraid of saying that?"

"I am not afraid to say that."

"Prove it."

"We can keep having sex, right?"

"Of course we can...unless you don't want to."

"God no! I never want to stop that. Just thinking about it makes me all-"

"I don't want to know!"

"What does it hurt to say it? You've saw it!" he teased.

"You are awful, Tony DiNozzo!" she shouted, giggling.

"Yeah, but you love me for it," he gave the million-dollar smile again.

"You're right."

"What was that?"

"What?"

"Did you just admit that I'm right?"

"Shut up, Tony."

"You are so stubborn."

"You love me for it."

"Hell yeah, I do!"

A.N.: Okay, so now they've got the groundwork for their relationship set. Which means they can proceed with their relationship and I can proceed with the story.

I just checked, I've wrote 5 chapters within the last, like, three weeks. I am officially on a roll. At this rate, I'll be finished with this story before Christmas!

Once again...30 freakin' chapters...wow...this isn't too long of a story is it?

This one is for CableAddict, thank you for reminding me to write...and that people really pay attention to what you've written; so I've got to be conscious of what I've written before at all times.