A/N: Hello! Thank you all for being so patient! I'm so sorry it has taken so long to update! As a quick update, I will say that I was very sick, but got better, got swamped by schoolwork, graduated, and now have a large chunk of time before I have to start college. Fuuuun time in between. :) So, without further adieu, Ziva and Damon! Much love! ~Kasha

Ziva woke to sunflowers and painkillers. The latter of which made her head fuzzy and distorted, but the first easily outdid the discomfort of the second. Who knew she loved those things? So silly, having affection for something like flowers... but she did. And these were her favorite. The big, silly, happy color and shape of them made her smile and she sat up slowly, ignoring the pain sawing dully at her shoulder.

"Ziva!"

She was interrupted in her love affair by the deep voice catching her attention from the door. That was why she hated painkillers-they played with her senses, made them weak. She hadn't even heard the door slide open, certainly hadn't heard his boots on the cement. Although that could be easily explained by the way he was moving in a manner completely silent, striding towards her at that very moment.

She blamed the increased heart rate on the drugs, too.

"How are you?" he asked softly, looking worried.

She smiled a little goofily. "I am fine. It's a shoulder wound, nothing life-threatening."

A frown marred his brow, turned the already dark eyes to black depths. "Except for the fact that it tore through muscle, inches from your heart, and the doc-"

"Ducky," she supplied with that same smile.

"Ducky," he corrected, "said you're damn lucky it didn't hit that or your lung. It was too close, Ziva."

"I don't think Ducky said damn," she said absently.

Damon sighed, pulling his hair back. A lucid Ziva was bad enough. He couldn't keep up with her then, let alone drugged. "You're a little loopy, huh?" he finally sighed with a smile.

She scowled a little, but the grin tugging at her lips ruined the stern expression. "Oh no, not at all."

He felt the tension leave him in a rush, and with it the nervous energy that had kept him awake so long. His wide shoulders loosened with the release of the edgy tension that had been riding him hard, and he shook his head, propping a hip against the side of the gurney.

"Oh yeah, just a lot. I bet if I asked you anything right about now you'd spill deep dark secrets," he said wickedly, leaning his head close to hers.

She arched a brow. Damn, even half-wasted she could tie him in knots with one look. "I do not think so, Damon. I do not 'spill' so easily."

The challenge was too much for him to resist. With a reckless grin, his eyes held hers captive. "Okay, then what's going on between you and Dinozzo?"

He knew it was a big risk, but his gut told him to ask anyway. She sputtered, obviously shocked, and her eyes held a confused emotion. "I don't understand," she said.

"You two always seem to be... around one another. And for more than just work." Damon felt like he was pushing now, perhaps stretching the limits, but he couldn't stop himself.

Ziva was silent for a minute, as if wondering how to answer, then shrugged. "When I first came to the US we... had an affair, but now we are comfortable with being friends."

"Just friends?" he persisted.

Her head cocked to the side, one brow arching and a small smile tugging at the corner of that great mouth. "Why do you ask?" her voice held something kin to amusement, and it made Damon shift a little on principle.

"Because he seems over-protective of you."

"Partners should protect each others' backs."

He narrowed his gaze at her. "You know what I mean," he said roughly.

She laughed. "Yes, I do." Another pause, another shrug. "There is nothing between Tony and I, Damon."

He felt the knot that had formed in his stomach dissolve. He couldn't deny the relief he felt at knowing she wasn't seeing someone like Dinozzo. The man came from money, knew how to talk to a woman and had a connection with her that Damon didn't have. He'd been more than a little worried about this, and he had to admit it to himself.

"You are thinking a lot. What about?" she asked, sitting up fully so it put them closer together.

He noticed how much her eyes were like dark whiskey, honey, amber gems perfectly tilted in her gold-dust face. He suddenly felt a need too strong to resist- a need to pull her even closer and bring those tempting lips to his. The compulsion overtook him before he knew what was even going on in his head. His brain clicked off and his body leaned forward, eyes intent on hers.

A throat cleared.

The pair jumped back to see one Leroy Jethro Gibbs, the forever Marine, with a slightly amused look on his face. "You two going to decide to date on an autopsy table?"

Damon couldn't help the chuckle that escaped him at that. Jesus, the man had a mean streak in him a mile wide.

"No, sir." He glanced at a confused-looking Ziva. "Not on an autopsy table, that is."

Behind his back, Gibbs was secretly pleased, but outwardly rolling his eyes. Not the either of them noticed. Ziva's drugged brain was slowly recognizing what those words had meant.

"You mean to say-"

"Exactly what he meant," the team leader said with an arched brow. "Are you good to go, Ziva, or are we going to stand here all day discussing this?"

Damon looked over his shoulder with an arched brow of his own. "You wouldn't have to stand here all day if you didn't interrupt things."

Gibbs's grin grew just that little bit. He knew he'd liked this kid-man-for a reason. Quick to think, just as smart on his feet, tough, and loyal to hell and back. He'd be good for her.

"That your final answer, Corporal, or do you want to help us find out who shot at you?" he deliberately pressed that button to get the man's attention. Nothing like reminding him of near death to clear romantic things from the brain.

The effect was almost immediate. Damon's face closed down and a muscle ticked in his jaw. "No, sir. I'd like to find that out very much."

Ziva was alarmed at the sudden change. She put a hand on his shoulder and turned the big man towards her enough that she could see his face completely. What she saw startled her-worried her.
"We will be there in a moment, Gibbs," she said with a quick, firm look to him. The man paused, thought about it, then nodded and turned out the glass doors.

"What?" Damon asked as his dark eyes looked into her even darker ones.

"What is that look for?" she asked bluntly.

Damon arched a brow. "What look?" he returned in a dark tone.

"That one." She pointed at his face, one solitary finger wielded with the scary effect of a schoolteacher. Any lesser person would have cringed before that.

"It's called an expression Ziva, and this one is called 'anger.'"

"It's guilt," she cut through the bullshit like a knife through butter. "And why is it there?"

He grit his teeth. Of course she'd see it. Damn woman didn't miss a damn thing. Not for the first time today he felt the need to swear. "Just drop it," he growled, and got off the table.

He did not expect to be planted on the floor. Faster than he could ever have expected from someone so drugged with painkillers, she had hopped off the table without making a noise, caught his ankle with her foot and somehow pulled his leg out from underneath him in a way that made him land not on his face, but on his backside.

And she did all of that with one shoulder taped to hell and back and a hazed mind.

With her foot planted on his chest, she pierced him with a muddled-yet still somehow sharp-gaze. It was a blunt force blow, or a pierce from a deep brown stone arrow, the way those eyes knocked the breath from him sometimes. Or maybe it was the concrete floor that had done that, but her eyes finished the punch.

"I will not 'drop it' until you tell me what you think you are guilty of," she said testily.

His own temper frayed a little and his instincts almost took control of him. His hands automatically came to her foot to throw her off, but he looked at the tape that held the bandages over the wound she had suffered. For him. And the impotent rage filled him with the knowledge that she had been shot, and guilt that it wasn't him with the hole in his chest.

"That," she said, pointing with her right hand, so she didn't pull at things yet to heal. "That look right there. Why?"

Damon clenched his eyes shut tightly, and a muscle in his jaw throbbed with tension. He pushed the rage down though, and looked at her, wordlessly conveying all of the fear he'd felt during that terrifying drive to save her and his need to protect her. "That," he jerked his head towards her, with the bullet wound and all, "should have been me. I should have acted quicker, kept you out of the way." His voice was heavy with the guilt that tore inside him.

Ziva looked a cross between pissed and resigned. Apparently a mix won out, because an irritated, long-suffering sigh escaped her before she took her foot off his chest. Before he could get up, she sat next to him, folding herself neatly so that her eyes looked down at his. Those deep brown, whiskey orbs held resignation, irritation, amusement and something else, something that made his breath stop for just a little moment. Something he hoped was affection.

"Damon, I don't know if you remember what happened exactly, but I do. I distinctly remember throwing myself at you, with no prior warning. Does that sound like it would've given you time to react?"

He ground his teeth. "That's not an excuse-"

"No, it is most definitely not," she said seriously. "That's the truth, and you feeling guilt is ridiculous."

He sat up, and she had to look up at him now, raise her head a little to keep her eyes locked with his furious and tortured ones. "Ridiculous? Really? Because it makes damned sense to me. That bullet should have killed me, but instead nearly murdered you. And I'm not supposed to feel guilty? How, Ziva?" The anger wore out, and he looked down at her hands. He took her right one in his left, bringing it up to his mouth and pressing the center of her palm against his lips.

Because the truth was, he was terrified he was falling in love with her. And if she died, part of him-the good part-would too.

Her eyes grew wide as his rose back to hers, and he couldn't hide the emotions in his dark gaze. He knew he was putting himself in a vulnerable position, something that went against every fighter's instinct he possessed, but he held himself completely still-completely bare-under her scrutinizing, searching look.

She always surprised him. Ziva David would never cease to surprise him. He'd expected her to pull back, say it was too fast, they barely knew each other, something like that.

But she didn't. She leaned forward and took his lips-and she took them. The mouth that had tempted him for years since their first meeting now pulled him under her spell, and he couldn't stop it from happening.

Ziva kissed him, long and just a little rough, before she pulled back. "I am... glad you feel the same way," she said haltingly, and for the first time he noticed color riding her cheeks. She blushed!

He chuckled. "Oh, yeah, me too," he drawled just a little, and made her laugh.

"Don't get cocky, though. I still have the weapon of the book." She grinned wickedly at him.

Damon was confused now. "Book?"

"Oh, yes, a certain romanc-"

"Oooh. That one." Now he cleared his throat. "I suppose we're even, then?"

She laughed, a scary, cackling sound. "Oh, I don't think so. Not for a long, long time."

He grinned. So she was thinking of a long time. He felt excitement and pleasure at her words, the fact that she had accepted him-with all his mistakes and sudden reappearance in her life- completely.
Because she was a long, long time person for him. She was someone he could fight with, for, back to back. She was someone he could have for a partner, an equal, a better half. Perhaps that was a bit far, now, but he'd make sure they had all the time in the world.

As soon as he killed the bastard who had threatened her and shot at him-her.

He stood, helped her up against her protests, and leaned down to kiss her again, gentle, because of her shoulder, but wild and untamed. She responded in kind, threading her fingers through his hair and pressing harder.

They broke apart, needing to settle down at the same moment, and he pressed his forehead to hers. "The place could explode on us and we'd never notice," he laughed raspily.

Ziva took a deep breath to settle her system and took his hand-a surprise that thrilled him as much as it shocked him, because he'd never have pegged either of them to be the hand-holding type, and yet... it felt so right.

She took his hand in hers and smiled, just a simple smile, yet it warmed his insides in a soft way. "I think it could fall on us and we'd never notice," she laughed, and started towards the door. He grinned and followed, feeling like she had bludgeoned him over the head to get him to feel peaceful.

And it had worked.