A/N: Rough seas ahead! Woohoo!
Disclaimer: Disclaimed.
Tuesday, 2 July 2013
It was a good day for stalking. Or Ziva supposed it was. She'd never stalked anyone before, exactly. Surveilled them, sure. Staked out, of course. The difference was that those had been sanctioned activities, either by the US government or Mossad. What she, Tony and McGee had been doing to Eddie Hertzog in the last few days, was not. So she supposed that no matter how noble their intention was, it was stalking. But Ziva was okay with that. As far as she was concerned, Eddie was a piece of crap who deserved whatever he got. If that included a taste of his own medicine, then so be it. It was just her luck that she pulled the stalking shift on such a nice, sunny day. Under normal circumstances, Ziva could have enjoyed sitting in the small park across from Eddie's workplace, basking in the sunshine and watching the world go by from behind her sunglasses. But today, she was focused on how she, Tony and McGee were going to close this case.
She had come to the conclusion that they had to spook Eddie into blatantly exposing himself as the one who had been stalking and terrorizing Bonnie. She didn't think it should be too hard, but honestly, she was struggling to think of a way to do it that didn't have the potential to get one of them arrested. Hacking, kidnapping with a view to interrogate, breaking and entering into his apartment or the apartment at Bonnie's complex to catch him in the act of recording her—all these things would be crossing the line for a private citizen. She wasn't worried about what an arrest for any of these activities would mean for herself so much as she was about what it would mean for Tony and McGee. The two of them had clean records and fairly clean reputations within the law enforcement community. In the event that Gibbs returned home and was able to argue for them to be reinstated at NCIS, it would hurt Tony and McGee's chances if they got in trouble with the law now. But Ziva had amassed a dozen strikes against her name in her time at NCIS, and while she hadn't said anything about it to the others, she had been trying to mentally prepare herself for the situation where the agency couldn't take her back, let alone wouldn't. Perhaps she would be at this private investigation thing for longer than she intended.
Her cell phone rang then, and she pulled it out of her pocket and answered just as the wind whipped up. She turned her face into the breeze to keep the hair of her face. "David," she answered.
"It's us, you're on speaker," McGee said to her.
"What is going on?"
"We looked at the super in Bonnie's building," McGee told her.
"And he is a registered sex offender?" Ziva asked hopefully, even though she knew it was unlikely.
"He's a boy scout," Tony informed her. "Squeaky clean record. His Facebook page is full of comic book crap and photos of computer game stuff that you and I will never have any hope of understanding."
"That does not mean he is not stalking Bonnie," Ziva pointed out. "Or helping Eddie to do so."
"Yeah, but they're not friends, and Bonnie has a private profile," McGee said. "It's unlikely he's stalking her online."
"And he also claims to have a girlfriend," Tony took over. "We checked her out and the relationship seems legit. It still doesn't mean he's not involved in this, but…"
"He is not involved in this," Ziva finished for him, feeling it in her gut. A car with a brutally loud engine came down the street, and she lifted her free hand to cover her ear so she could hear Tony and McGee.
"I don't think so," Tony agreed. "I think he was just suspicious of us. Which I personally find offensive."
Ziva smirked to herself before McGee pointed out the obvious.
"He should have been suspicious of you. You were lying to him."
"I lie to people every day and they don't get suspicious of me," Tony argued.
"We're always suspicious of you," McGee muttered.
"Well, I lie to you the most, Timmy." Tony moved on. "Where are you, Supergirl?"
"Outside Eddie's workplace," she replied, and then sighed with the frustration that had been growing within her. "This is taking too long. We cannot just keep following him and waiting for him to slip up. It is wasting time and putting Bonnie at higher risk every day."
"Well, we can't just drag him in and interrogate him, Ziva," McGee pointed out.
"I know that," she said testily, and then looked around to make sure no one else in the park was paying attention to her. "But doesn't it bother you that we are sitting here and not doing anything to help this woman?"
"Ziva, we are helping her," Tony said calmly, and Ziva rolled her eyes a little to herself. Tony always took over and used that tone of voice when he, McGee and Gibbs had decided she was getting too upset. "It's just taking longer than we're used to. But we'll get him."
Ziva didn't think that was good enough. "She came to us for help and all we are doing is following him. That is not helping. And he is still harassing her with those photos."
"Ziva," Tony started, but she ignored him.
"I think we need to shake the cage," she told them.
"Ziva," he tried again.
"He does not seem to like being challenged, yes?" she went on. "Bonnie and his ex that you and I spoke to both suggested he needs to be the one in control. When he is not, he is forced to deviate from his plan. So we should challenge him. We should apply pressure and make sure he knows we are on to him. We will force him to react and perhaps out himself as the harasser."
"Okay," Tony said slowly. "Let's regroup tonight and we'll all come up with a plan together."
"We should make sure Bonnie and Kavita are in a safe place first," McGee piped up.
"We'll take them to my place," Tony said. "But we'll work out the details once we're all back here. Ziva?"
"Agreed," she said, feeling a touch of relief at being heard. "I will be back later." She hung up and slid her phone back into her pocket, and then turned her face back into the breeze. She felt better, knowing they were going to take action. She hated being idle, even on a gorgeous sunny day that she could have been enjoying. She had been in the park for a while now, using a book as a cover to linger, and she was beginning to get antsy. Stalking—surveillance, a stakeout, whatever—was always the worst.
She checked her watch. It was just after 1400, and Eddie hadn't left his office building since he'd arrived that morning. On the days that McGee and Tony had followed him, he hadn't left until 1800. Ziva didn't particularly feel like waiting around for another four hours, but she didn't want to go home yet. There was one thing that she had wanted to do for a few days—checking out Eddie's place—and maybe today was the day to do it. It would leave her feeling as if she had done at least one productive thing that day. She considered calling Tony and McGee back and letting them know of her plans, but in the end she didn't bother. If she found anything useful or interesting, she would fill them in when she got home. No harm done.
Ziva put her book back in her messenger bag and then pushed herself to her feet. Casting a final look over at Eddie's building, she headed off towards the Metro.
…
Ziva was vaguely familiar with Eddie's neighborhood. When she returned to the US after her time in Somalia she had been looking at an apartment just a few blocks away and had done a few walks around the streets. She thought she remembered looking at the complex of two-storey townhouses that Eddie lived in and thinking they looked nice, mostly due to the established garden at the front of the complex that had two ancient and leafy trees leaning over the entryway. After returning from the desert, all she had wanted to surround herself with was grass and trees.
Today, those trees might give her a bit of cover as she snooped around Eddie's place. She walked confidently up the path like someone who knew she belonged there, and then paused when she came to a fork in the path, and looked around at the numbers on the apartment doors around her. Eddie's place was to the left and one house back from the street, but Ziva didn't go straight for it. Instead, she approached one of the two apartments that overlooked Eddie's courtyard and knocked on the door. She needed to know how many people were around who could potentially witness her poking around. At this time of day and in this neighborhood, she hoped there wouldn't be many. But if they were there, she could just pretend that she had arrived at the wrong door and leave without raising suspicion.
No one answered the door, so Ziva moved to the next one. After waiting half a minute she was satisfied that no one was home, so she approached Eddie's place. His front door faced his neighbor's, and a few feet on from that was a gate and a six-foot brick wall that enclosed his private courtyard. She wasn't interested in getting into Eddie's apartment right now. Although she was sure that she would be able to break in, it had the potential to go very badly for her if she was caught and, by extension, bad for Bonnie. But the courtyard, although it was still private property, seemed like a safer choice.
She glanced around her to make sure the coast was clear as she reached for the gate and tried to open it. She wasn't surprised to find it was locked. There didn't seem to be any keyhole to fiddle with, and there was no hole to reach through to feel for a latch on the other side. Ziva sighed to herself and looked up at the wall. She would have to get her ninja on. She took a few steps back, pushed her bag all the way behind her hip and out of the way, rolled her shoulders, flexed her fingers and took one more look around her. Then she ran at the bricks, leapt and planted her boot against them, and grabbed onto the top of the wall. She used her momentum to push herself up and swing her legs over the bricks until she was sitting on top of the wall, then checked the ground beneath her to make sure it was clear. When she was sure she wouldn't land on anything dangerous, she pushed herself off and dropped to the ground.
The courtyard was fairly small, as Ziva expected it would be. She would be able to cross it in less than ten strides, but it was large enough to accommodate a small table and two chairs, a potted plant and a bike. There was also a plastic rolling cart by the gate of the type Ziva used for her trash. In a complex this size Ziva would have expected that all the trash would be collected from a communal dumpster, but perhaps Eddie used the cart to cut down on the number of trips he took to get rid of his garbage. She headed over to it, hoping that she would be luckier than she was used to being. But as soon as she flipped the lid she felt that familiar sinking feeling. The cart was empty, so she wouldn't be able to go through Eddie's trash and find the file she assumed existed in pristine condition entitled Proof I am stalking Bonnie Stewart. She let the lid fall shut.
The rear of Eddie's house was made up of floor to ceiling windows and a sliding door onto the courtyard. The curtains were open but the door was locked, so Ziva leaned towards the glass and looked inside. There was a fairly neat living room, a couch and a coffee table in front of a flatscreen TV. A game console was on the floor, and a laptop of the same type that she and Tony had found in Bonnie's building was on the couch. Closer to the window a small desk was pushed against the wall. It had a small printer on it and a neat stack of papers, and Ziva walked along the window until she was as close to the desk as she could get. It looked to her like there was a printed photo on top of the file, and she cupped her hand around her eyes to block out the sun and the glare to help her see it better. It looked like it had been taken outdoors, but she couldn't tell much more than that, let alone whether it was another photo of Bonnie. It was upside down from her and at an angle. There was nothing else on the desk that looked incriminating. No photos of Bonnie on the walls or DVDs marked with her name. No poster tacked to the door with Eddie's step-by-step plan for stalking his ex-girlfriend and causing her harm. It just looked like a normal apartment.
Ziva sighed to herself as she deflated. She hadn't expected to come over here and find anything outright incriminating. If she could get her hands on that laptop, it might be a different case. But she didn't have any right to evidence like that these days. The loss of that power was becoming increasingly difficult to deal with.
There was no reason for her to stick around, so she went back over to the gate to let herself out. She was surprised to find a deadbolt on the gate, and annoyed when she found it locked tight. She cursed to herself and looked up at the wall again. She could drag a chair over to it to help her over, but that would only tip Eddie off that someone had been there. She would have to do another ninja move.
She dumped her bag over the top of the wall first, and then backed up and took another run at it as she had before. At the top of the wall she checked for witnesses, and then swung her legs over. Or she attempted to. As she pulled her left leg around the heel of her boot caught on the brick, and before she knew it she was tumbling gracelessly to the ground six feet down. She gasped in shock and threw out her right arm to brace her fall, but not fast enough. She landed heavily on her right shoulder that hadn't healed properly from the car accident months ago, and then felt a sharp pain in her left knee. For a few moments she lay still and did an inventory for broken bones or numbness, but as soon as she decided that she was fine she quickly scrambled to her feet and grabbed her bag before taking off.
Her shoulder started throbbing painfully by the time Ziva made it to the front of the apartment complex, and she reached around herself to hold onto her arm with her left hand as she walked quickly down the street. She waited until she had turned a corner before she chanced a look down at herself. Blood was seeping through her pants over her left knee, her right hand was grazed and it looked and felt like her right elbow was bleeding too. She decided she would be fine if she could just get home and clean herself up, but after walking another block towards the Metro station she had second thoughts. The patch of blood on her knee kept getting bigger and the wound she'd sustained was beginning to burn and ache badly. But the worst was her shoulder. It felt like she'd been hit by an SUV all over again. Every jolt from her steps sent a sharp, stabbing pain through the joint, and she bit her lip to keep from crying out. She took a break and leaned against the wall of a pet food store.
She had a couple of options here. One, she could get on the Metro and get home, clean up and take some painkillers. Two, she could get on the Metro and go to the hospital to get the stitches she suspected her knee required. Three, she could call McGee for a ride and make him take her home. Four, she could call Tony, ask that he take her home, and then probably get taken to the hospital anyway. Frankly, she liked the McGee option. But she knew it would turn into the Tony option, because McGee would just tell Tony what was going on. Then Tony would get all Tony about it, come and get her himself, argue with her about why she'd called McGee instead of him, argue with her about going to the hospital versus going home, and then take her to the ER anyway.
She sighed and cursed to herself, then pulled out her cell phone to make a call.
"Hey, you still watching Eddie?" Tony asked when he answered.
"No," she said, and she was surprised and embarrassed by the way her voice trembled. She cleared her throat and tried again. "No. Can I ask a favor?"
"Depends on how personally embarrassing it will be."
"For you? Not at all," she assured him. "For me? Very."
Tony perked up. "Then ask away."
She drew a staggered and pained breath that she hoped he didn't hear, and hoped she wouldn't throw up like she suddenly wanted to. "Could you please take my car and come pick me up?"
"Okay," he said easily, although there was a touch of disappointment in his tone that told her he'd hoped for something far more embarrassing than that. "Where are you?"
She swallowed and squeezed her eyes shut as she braced for the direction the conversation was about to go. "Near Eddie's house."
Tony was quiet for a moment. "Okay," he said at length.
Ziva answered the question he hadn't specifically asked, but had been implied. "I thought I would come by while he was at work and look around."
"Ziva. McGee talked us out of that," he said warningly. "Because we're just civilians, remember? We all ended up agreeing that we wouldn't break into his apartment."
"I did not break into his apartment," she assured him.
"Okay," he said again, slowly and carefully.
"But I fell down."
"You fell down?"
"Yes. And I might need your assistance in getting to the ER."
There was another beat of silence. "Okay. Can you wait for me, or would an ambulance be a better call right now?" he asked with forced calm.
"No, I can wait," she replied, trying to sound like she didn't want to cause a fuss.
"How did you fall?" he asked, and Ziva heard noises over the line that made her think he was moving around the house.
"My foot got caught on a wall."
"Huh?"
She bit her lip. "The wall around Eddie's courtyard," she admitted. There was no point in lying to him. He would find out eventually, and lying about it would just piss him off. Ziva was sick of pissing him off.
"You said you didn't break in," Tony said, beginning to sound like he was indeed pissed off.
"Which is the truth!" she insisted. "I did not set foot inside his apartment."
"Just in his courtyard."
She shrugged to the street. "It seemed less illegal."
A door slammed on Tony's end of the line before he muttered at her. "Ziva, there aren't really shades of illegal for us anymore. McGee's right about that."
"I know, but I did not get caught," she snapped back. "Are you still inclined to pick me up?"
"I'm coming now," he told her. "And then we're going to have a talk."
Ziva hung up and clutched her phone in her grazed hand, and she resisted the urge to bash her head against the wall behind her. Why did she have the feeling that the talk would end in tears?
…
The ER wasn't that full when Tony and Ziva arrived, and they had only had to wait about half an hour before Ziva was taken to be examined. After a check for head and neck injuries and some poking, prodding and manipulation of Ziva's knee and elbow, she'd ended up with a bandage on her elbow and two stitches in her knee. But as Tony stood beside her and watched her treatment like a hawk, she hadn't been able to stop herself from wincing, cringing and generally confirming that she had done a lot more damage to her shoulder than she had expected. Her range of movement was pathetic, and the doctor had insisted that she go and get an x-ray to see the extent of the damage.
After the x-ray she had been wheeled back to her emergency room bay, where Tony had been waiting the whole time. She expected that he would give her a smile tinged with worry when she came back in, but in fact he'd met her with a blank expression that put her on edge. After the orderlies put her bed in position and told her to wait for the results of the x-ray, things between their curtains of 'privacy' got tense. Too tense for that little space, which Ziva didn't think was big enough to handle Tony's mood. He had been mostly stony silent on the drive over after seeing the large stains on her knee and elbow, and she'd been able to feel his frustration with her like a tangible object between them as the ER doctor had examined her. She did feel a little badly that she had trespassed while knowing it was illegal, but not because she had infringed on Eddie's privacy. She felt badly because after her phone call with Tony and McGee, it had been implied that they would work out their next move together. But she had made a move without informing her partners. She would owe them an apology tonight, of course, but she didn't understand why Tony was so mad right now, and his silent punishment was beginning to make her feel more than a little indignant.
She glanced at him sitting in the chair beside her and found him doing his impersonation of Gibbs. He sat perfectly still with his jaw clenched, and was staring with simmering anger at the hallway beyond their curtains. Ziva sighed heavily to herself, and then winced at the sharp pain the breath sent to her shoulder. She cursed Bodnar once, and then herself half a dozen times, including once for being too weak to just suck it up and deal with it. If this were ten years ago, she wouldn't even be in the hospital. She would have just taken a painkiller and fought through it. Just like she had when she had been chasing Bodnar.
Tony spoke up then, interrupting her thoughts and making her jump. "That's the same shoulder you hurt when—"
"Yes," she told him.
He went quiet again, and Ziva thought he was probably thinking of that night they'd been in the car accident and the events it triggered, and getting mad at her again over her actions with Bodnar. Anger and guilt over getting him caught up in the mess and almost getting him killed burned at the back of her eyes, and she turned her head slightly so that he wouldn't see her emotion.
"It never healed properly, did it," he said. It was a statement, not a question. From his tone, Ziva could tell he was annoyed with himself (and probably her) for only just working it out.
Ziva swallowed and told a half-truth. "It is mostly fine."
He thought for another moment. "It didn't heal because you had that fight with Bodnar," he said to himself, before addressing her again. "Have you been in pain in your shoulder this whole time?"
She sent him a dismissive glare out of the corner of her eye, but without bothering to turn her head she doubted he saw it. "No. Why does it matter?"
"Because we care that you might be in pain," he said slowly, as if explaining it to a five-year-old.
The fact that her shoulder hurt when she exerted herself was her own fault, and Ziva didn't see any reason to request sympathy over it. "It is not important. Don't worry about it, Tony."
He swore to himself, and then shifted in his chair to face her and rested an elbow on her bed. "Okay, I've got to ask. What part of We'll come up with a plan together wasn't clear to you?"
She turned her head back to him as her indignation grew. "I saw an opportunity—"
"But it wasn't an urgent one," he cut in, and then lifted his eyebrows in challenge.
He was right, but Ziva had never liked being told that she had done something wrong, and she was naturally inclined to argue against it. "So none of us can make autonomous decisions anymore?" she asked.
"Not when they lead to one of us ending up in hospital."
"You do not have to mother me, Tony," she told him angrily.
Tony scoffed. "Jesus, sometimes I feel like someone has to, you know?"
Out of the corner of her eye, Ziva caught two nurses who were passing pause and look into the bay. She shot them a look that told them to go away before refocusing on Tony. "What does that mean?"
"You don't listen!" he threw at her, seemingly unconcerned that he could be drawing the attention of hospital staff and other patients. "Least of all to me anymore. What's going on with you?"
She felt her cheeks flush with what she suspected was shame over how she knew she'd treated him in the weeks leading to their resignation. But she continued to plead ignorance as she fought for absolution. "I do not know what you are talking about."
Tony leaned closer to her as his frustration with her peaked. "I'm talking about when I say something to you, tell you exactly what I want or exactly how I'm feeling about something, and you completely ignore it. I tell you we need to come up with a plan together, and you ignore it. I tell you you're not alone, and you ignore it. I tell you I will always have your back and do anything to help you, and you ignore me and go to someone else. I feel like if I told you I thought it'd be a bad idea to jump off a bridge, you'd suddenly decide that jumping off a bridge was a vitally important thing for you to do. And I don't understand it!" he went on, gesturing with his hands now as he got more and more worked up. "I'm only ever looking out for you. All I want is for you to stop getting hurt by people from your past or strangers now or, God, even yourself. I just want you to be safe and loved, and it's like you actively refuse it. I don't get it, Ziva. It makes me crazy. Why don't you ever listen to me?"
Ziva stared at him in shock. Clearly, this was something he had been thinking about and holding in for some time, and today he had tumbled over the edge of his restraint. And it cut her, because she knew he had every right to feel that way. She knew she screwed up all the time, especially when it came to being a good partner to him. Of course she would go to the ends of the earth for him. She'd lay down her life without a second thought and throw away everything she had to save him. But she also knew that sometimes she truly sucked at listening to him. And even worse, she knew it was deliberate. Sometimes she ignored him, as he so painfully put it, because she knew involving him would get him hurt, get him in trouble, or just show her up for wrong about something. But there were other times when she didn't have a clue why she acted the way she did.
Or she did know, and she was just too scared to put the thoughts into words.
She didn't know how to apologize for things that she didn't understand, and part of her hated sitting here and being scolded like a child. As with so many of her choices when it came to Tony, Ziva could either fight the fight or retreat from it. And even though her gut told her it was the wrong move, she leaned towards fighting.
"I do listen to you," she told him, trying to make herself believe the words as she said them. "Me being here now has nothing to do with me deciding to go to Eddie's place without you—"
"It has everything to do with it!" Tony practically yelled. "You're here—you're hurt again—because you went off script—"
"I could have fallen in the street and have this happen!" she cut in.
Tony took a moment to breathe, and then lowered his voice to a tone that made a not entirely pleasant tingle shoot up her spine. "You are not seeing the bigger picture, Ziva."
She opened her mouth to throw more weak arguments at him, but was saved when the ER doctor walked into the bay with films of Ziva's x-ray. The two of them shut their mouths and looked at the doctor as if nothing was wrong, and the doctor looked back at them as though he knew he'd walked into something nuclear.
"Everything okay in here?" he asked.
"Yes," Ziva said quickly, and sniffed away any tears that might have been threatening to fall. "Fine. Is my shoulder fine?"
The doctor threw a suspicious glance at Tony that Ziva immediately felt crappy about, and then held one of the films up to the light for her. "No, your shoulder's not fine. You've got a fracture of the scapula on top of another one that looks like it hasn't healed." He looked at her in question. "Did you have another accident recently?"
She sighed with frustration aimed entirely at herself. "I was in a car accident in May," she told him.
"That'd do it," the doctor said. "Did you know you had this injury?"
"Yes," she admitted through gritted teeth.
The doctor looked slightly confused. "Okay. And what was the treatment back then?"
Beside her, Tony crossed his arms and leaned all the way back in his chair. She couldn't bring herself to look at him. "I had a sling."
"Which she wore for about two hours and then tossed," Tony threw in.
Ziva closed her eyes, bit her tongue and took a deep breath. When she was calm enough, she looked up at the doctor. "I did not wear the sling for the whole time that the doctor advised me to," she admitted with forced restraint. "And I did not follow up with physiotherapy."
The doctor looked between them. "Okay. You probably should have done that."
"Probably," she allowed. "So, will I just get another sling now?"
He nodded. "Yes, we'll get you a sling that you definitely have to wear for a while. And we'll give you some meds. But you're probably going to need surgery, Ziva. Otherwise you're going to have problems for the rest of your life."
Ziva almost rolled her eyes. She believed him, but surgery wasn't going to happen right now. Not while she was basically unemployed and had just spent most of her money on a house. "Okay," she said, even though she had no intention of following through.
"We should make an appointment for you to see a specialist to make sure," the doctor went on. "You might get lucky and just need rehab. But I have to be honest that I don't think that's the case. I wouldn't be surprised if you'll need a full reconstruction."
"Fine," she said flatly, not really listening anymore. "I will take a referral."
The doctor looked justifiably dubious, but nodded and backed away. "I'll go get one sorted for you and get you a prescription for some pain killers. Do you have any allergies?"
"No."
"Okay. You can get dressed again," he said. "And we'll get you out of here as soon as we can."
Ziva nodded her thanks, and the doctor swung the curtain all the way shut. Tony stood and grabbed her clothes from where he'd placed them on top of her bag when she'd gotten into her hospital gown for the x-ray, and placed them on the edge of her bed. Then he walked out without a word.
If she thought he'd unloaded all his anger and frustration on her before, she knew he'd just been handed another magazine of ammunition to fire at her later.
…
The ER doctor got sidetracked on a car accident victim on his way to getting Ziva's prescription and discharge papers, so Ziva and Tony ended up waiting another hour and a half in near silence before they could leave the hospital. They finally got back to Ziva's house just before 10pm, by which time Ziva was ready to take all the painkillers in the bottle she'd gotten and go to sleep for a hundred years.
She followed Tony tiredly up the path to the front door and then passed him on the way inside as he held the door open for her. She heard his keys land on the hall table before he swung the front door closed, and she reset the alarm. She couldn't wait to get upstairs, have a shower and leave the day behind her. But of course, Tony had other ideas.
"Why don't you trust me?" he asked suddenly.
Ziva sighed so hard she very nearly cried, and barely glanced in his direction lest the sight of his face right now make her break down. "Tony, I cannot do more of this right now," she said softly. "And you know I trust you."
"Just not with your physical or emotional wellbeing," he returned.
Tears stung the back of her eyes. "Tony, I can't do this now," she repeated, begging him to understand, and then left him by the door as she went down the hallway and through the kitchen to make sure that the back door was locked. Satisfied that the ground level was secure, she walked back up the hallway to the front door. Tony still stood where she'd left him, and she made the mistake of meeting his eyes. He looked so hurt and defeated that Ziva literally had to close her eyes against it. She knew it was her fault—it was always her fault—but she still didn't know how to fix it. She didn't know how to tell him what he needed to hear.
"Goodnight," she whispered as she passed him, and started up the staircase.
"You make me feel like I'm useless."
It wasn't just the utterly vulnerable statement that stopped her in her tracks. It was his voice, so strained by emotion that she felt it rip apart her insides and finally bring tears to her eyes. The truth was that he was absolutely essential to her. But if all she did was make his face look like that and his voice sound like that and his heart hurt like it obviously did, what were facts worth?
She let out a slow, barely controlled breath, blinked away her tears and turned slightly to look down at him. "You feel useless because I did not tell you that my shoulder hurt?" she challenged.
His hurt turned to blind frustration, and he advanced on her. "Because of everything I've already said tonight."
"Are you surprised?" she challenged, and started taking her anger with herself out on him. It was what she was good at. "You know me to be selfish and pig-headed."
"Oh, Jesus, Ziva!" he hissed. "That's not what I said!"
"But it is what you feel," she surmised. "You have been very good at sharing your feelings tonight, so please continue to be upfront with me." She spun around again and continued up the staircase. Despite just inviting him to share more of his thoughts, she actually didn't want to hear another word. Tony probably knew it—he'd witnessed every fury she'd lost herself in over the last eight years, and he knew her better than anyone else ever had. But he could be pig-headed too, and he followed her up the stairs to continue the argument he knew she didn't want to have.
"It's not what I said," he repeated to her back. "I'm making the point that you insist on doing everything yourself when you don't need to."
"I like doing things myself!" she threw back at him. "I am good at it."
"You're terrible at it!" he yelled as they made it to the top of the stairs and passed McGee's closed bedroom door. "You try to handle things so you don't get any of us hurt or in trouble, and it always backfires!"
He'd hit the nail on the head—Ziva knew it—but she couldn't help taking offense when she was already so emotional. "Thank you so much for your honest opinion of my abilities."
"Your abilities are fine," Tony told her. "It's your goddamn martyr complex that you need to get rid of."
She led him into her bedroom. "So I am selfish and a martyr?" she asked as she spun to face him.
"You're not selfish!" he yelled. "I never said you were. And I know what you're doing now, Ziva," he said, stepping into her personal space and pointing a finger at her. "You're twisting this so that I get mad at you and blame you, and then you think you'll have succeeded in pushing me away to protect me. You're not so complicated, you know."
Exasperation stole her control as Tony crawled up inside her head and heart, and Ziva threw up her left hand as she surrendered. "God! Why do you always make me feel like I have to be better?" she demanded.
Tony looked clueless. "Better than what?"
"Than who I am!" she yelled at him. "I am selfish, Tony! I am selfish and I use the people I love to further my own agendas! I suck the life out of people until I do not need them anymore and then I throw them to the wolves! I am stubborn and single-minded and you can only ever rely on me while I still need you. So stop acting like I am better than that and that you can save me. I am beyond saving!"
The outburst was her equivalent of the torrent he'd unleashed on her in the hospital. It was the voice to the thoughts she'd always held in the darkest parts of her mind. She could feel the tears on her cheeks, and her breath came in short, shallow and shaky puffs as Tony stared at her. She had shocked him into silence, but his eyes told her everything. He hated hearing this, but there was a part of him that didn't exactly disagree. And although she was the one who had thrown it out there, his reaction was the thing that killed her.
She closed her eyes again and wiped her cheeks with a shaking hand, and when she felt like she could talk again without screaming or crying, she finished her thought. "You know the terrible things that I have done," she said, almost gently in comparison to the harshness she'd delivered before. "People like me will never be redeemed, and you need to accept that. I will never be the person you think I should be. I do not know how to be that person."
Tony watched her for a few moments, and when his eyes fell away from her face and found the floor she thought that meant that he was finding acceptance for everything she had said. She bit her lip against the pain of him giving up on her (Like you wanted, a little voice reminded her) and took a step away. But her anger with herself made her forget who Tony was: a fighter, who was braver and even more stubborn that her.
"That's crap, Ziva," he told her calmly. "All of it. And you are the person I want you to be. Need you to be. You're better than you think you are."
"Stop thinking that," she implored. "Stop supporting me. Stop fighting."
Tony gave her a wry smile, and then took a seat on the side of her bed. He braced his elbows on his knees and stared at the floor as he gathered his thoughts, and Ziva took the time to prepare herself for yet another round of yelling and firing arrows of agony at each other. But when he lifted his head to look at her again, she knew that he was going to change his game plan on her.
"Okay. When I unloaded on you at the hospital, I should have been more measured with what I said," he began, negotiating with her like she was a difficult witness. She took half a step back as her mind raced over how to deal with him like this, but he continued. "I clearly lumped a load of guilt on you, and that's not what I was trying to do. I got carried away, and I'm sorry that I made you feel so badly."
Ziva didn't know how to deal with his tactical mea culpa. "What are you doing?" she demanded.
"I don't want to fight," he told her, pleading his case with his eyes.
Ziva took another step back. "I did not either," she reminded him. "But now it is too late. I am going to have a shower and then go to sleep for eternity, so you can leave."
His hand lifted as if he was going to reach out to her, but he pulled it back in again. "I don't want to leave it like this, Ziva."
She held up her left hand to block him. "Well, I am done," she said with finality, and then turned and headed to the en suite before he could object further. She slammed the door behind her and threw the lock. When she eventually got under the shower spray, she cried like she hadn't cried in months.
…
When she emerged from the shower 20 minutes later (with 10 of those minutes spent on undressing and getting dressed again with only one arm cooperating), Tony was gone from her bedroom. She looked down the hallway as she passed in front of her bedroom door. Both Tony's and McGee's doors were closed. She could see a crack of light under McGee's and heard muffled noises so she supposed he had gotten home after taking Bonnie and Kavita to Tony's apartment. But there was darkness beneath Tony's door. She wondered if he had gone home to his apartment too, and the thought made her feel sick and sad with regret. But having him leave to possibly reevaluate her role in his life was what they both needed him to do. History told them that she would probably keep hurting him until the end of time, even though she didn't want to. He had to accept that if he wanted to stay, didn't he?
It would be so easy to accept that this was the way it was going to be, and that it was out of her control. But as she neared her bed to where he had been sitting and trying to reason with her, another voice in her head came through loud and clear. No, it said. It is not out of your control. It is entirely within your control. Ziva stopped with her hand on the corner of the bedspread, and she felt like a bucket of water had been poured over her head as realization spread through her. All of this was entirely within her control. Although it was her natural inclination to try to shield him from things that could get him hurt, she could make herself accept that he knew how to handle himself. He wanted to feel needed, so she could make herself start going to him for help, even if she was worried about his safety or if she thought she could handle things alone. He wanted to be heard, so she could start taking his advice or at least start talking his advice over with him. He wanted to be consulted when she made a decision, so she could…what?
Ziva frowned at the bed. Yes, he wanted to be consulted when she made a decision. But was she wrong to think that wasn't fair within the confines of their current relationship? He was her friend. He was her partner and co-worker. So was McGee, but she wouldn't think about talking to McGee about whether it was a good idea for her to, say, put off shoulder surgery until she was properly employed again. But Tony would expect to be consulted, like a boyfriend or a husband would be. And yet, he wasn't either of those things.
She swallowed the bitter taste from her mouth. So, maybe that was one thing on his list of demands that she couldn't accept yet. But it was up to her to accept and work on the rest if she wanted him to stay around. Which she did, of course. She wanted it wholeheartedly. It just went against what she thought might be good sense for him. But maybe that was one of those things she could talk about with him. She had given him all the facts as she saw them about being a close part of her life, and he'd certainly lived with the facts for years now. So maybe she now had to listen to and accept his views on the subject.
She dropped the bedspread again and headed out of her bedroom and down the hall. She suddenly felt the need for ice cream. Well, she actually wanted a stiff drink, but while she was under the influence of prescription painkillers, she understood that wasn't a good idea.
Ziva was halfway down the staircase before she heard voices and noticed flickering bluish light being cast over the wall by the stairs. She paused for a moment, but soon realized that the light was coming from the television in the otherwise darkened living room. She crept down the rest of the stairs and then stopped by the open double-doors to the lounge. Between her and the television was the couch, and on the couch sat Tony. Just the top half of the back of his head was visible as he reclined back against the cushions, but the sight of him still there in her house filled her with relief. Ziva glanced at the television again and frowned when she saw he was watching The Sound of Music. He hated that movie. Hated it. She had tried to get him to watch it with her for years, purely for the entertainment factor of watching him squirm and fidget through it. But he had always firmly resisted.
She took a breath for courage before she walked around the side of the couch, just far enough to see the side of his face. He was frowning—practically glowering, actually—and his arms were tightly crossed over his chest. When the light from the TV screen flashed over his face, Ziva thought she saw drying tracks over his cheeks. Shame and guilt stabbed her in the heart, and she hesitated over whether to stay and try to apologize or at least explain herself, and leaving him alone. But before she decided what to do, he turned his head slowly and looked up at her. For a few seconds they both just stared at each other without expression, and then Tony turned back to the TV.
"You might not have heard it over our yelling," he said with a croaky voice. "But McGee's up there having really loud sex and it's making me uncomfortable to be in the room next to him."
Ziva blinked at him as she processed the information, and she didn't know whether it was the drugs, the relief that Tony was still there or the sheer absurdity of what her life had become that made her let go of the laugh that bubbled up in her chest. Tony didn't look at her, but she saw him crack a smile.
"I've heard things I can't un-hear," he complained to her. "It's not fair."
And just like that, when presented with Tony just being so damn…Tony about things, Ziva loosened the death grip she'd held on her self-flagellation, frustration and fear. With a deep sigh she was able to settle back into her normal, almost-sane self who was never more comfortable with life than she was in Tony's company. She stepped over his legs that he had propped up on the coffee table and then curled up on the couch beside him. Unlike she normally did, she left a foot of space between them instead of leaning her shoulder against his.
"The Sound of Music?" she questioned.
"I hate this movie," he grumbled.
"Why are you watching it?"
He pursed his lips for a moment as he considered how to respond. "I want to see what you see."
Ziva looked over at the TV and tried to remember why she liked it so much. She couldn't anymore. "Then you will have to think like a seven-year-old girl."
Tony sighed and bent his arm back between the couch and his head. "I think that might be beyond my ken."
Ziva smiled slightly, and the two of them went silent while nuns sang about how much of a pain in the butt Maria was. Her eyes slid over to Tony, and as his face settled into an expression of disdain she found herself almost overwhelmed by intense feelings of love and affection for him. She might truly think that he would be better off without her screwing up his life, but God, she didn't think she had it within her to let him go. She was too selfish to be without him. And she knew that she was so incredibly lucky to be one of the people that he cared about. Even if she didn't always understand why he did.
"I know I am not alone," she said to him, going back to the crux of the issues he'd raised in the hospital. Tony turned his head to look at her, and when he looked like he was open to hearing more, she went on. Calmly. "I know you have my back like no one else ever will. But in doing that, I worry that I will always end up hurting you more and more. Because that is all I seem to do, despite it being the thing that I want to guard against the most."
"So you ignore me," he said, but his tone lacked accusation. He sounded like he was just trying to understand her.
She shook her head. "No, not ignore. Push away."
"That's not better, Ziva," he said wryly.
"I know." She didn't know what else to say to that, so she looked back to the safety of the television.
He cleared his throat. "Can I suggest that you just try not hurting me?"
It sounded like such a simple fix. But Ziva couldn't help pointing out what she felt was the obvious. "But when you find something that you are so good at, it is hard to let it go." To her relief, he chuckled. She smirked, but then her thoughts turned painfully serious again. "The things you need me to do terrify me," she admitted. "They sound so reasonable and normal, but I am so scared of trying. Scared of failing," she amended.
Tony went silent then, and for so long that she thought her honesty must have hurt him again. She started to curse herself and tried to think of how to explain herself—again. But when he finally responded, Tony just sounded introspective.
"Right now, you and me have a lot more wiggle room and a lot less pressure on us than we're used to having. I think we need to start taking advantage of that."
Her eyes travelled from the TV to his feet on the coffee table, but she didn't dare go further than that for now. "What do you mean?"
"It means that the things you're talking about that you're terrified of, and the things that I'm terrified of, shouldn't be as terrifying right now." He paused, and she could feel him hesitate before pushing his thought out anyway. "We don't have anything to lose."
Her chest tightened as she realized what he was saying. They weren't living under Gibbs' rules right now. They were co-workers, but their own bosses. While she doubted that he was suggesting they dive head-first into a relationship right now, he was making the point that they didn't have Gibbs in their faces scrutinizing their every move, word, look and touch. They didn't have to explain themselves to anyone else. They didn't have to measure their affection for each other or pretend that they weren't hurt by each other's actions in the way that two people in a relationship would be. He was right about one thing: they had wiggle room. But he was so very, very wrong about another thing.
"I still have you to lose," she told him quietly as tears sprang to her eyes again. "And despite what you seem to think, and what I may have led you to believe, that would destroy me. Because I do need you, Tony."
Out of the corner of her eye she could see him watching her, and she steeled herself before lifting her eyes to his. The warmth in his expression, the aching familiarity and love from someone who knew all her flaws and was still, after everything, sitting beside her, absolutely broke her heart.
"You're never going to lose me," he told her brokenly. "Thick and thin and all that."
Before she came downstairs she had tried to accept that she needed him to decide whether to stay with her or not. It seemed that he had, and she couldn't believe that the chips had fallen in her favor when she'd spent so long trying to construct a wall to keep them away. She had a goddamn angel on her shoulder, and she knew without a doubt that she had to start putting all her effort into showing him that he had made the right decision to stand by her.
Even if she still wondered if she deserved his loyalty.
"Tony, I am scared that we will find that it is not healthy for us to hold onto each other, and that I will have to let you go," she told him. "I am scared that you will find out that I am really not the person you need." She wasn't just talking about their friendship and partnership. She was talking about who she would be in the relationship they had been dancing around for years. Tony knew it. And he threw in some fears of his own.
"I'm scared that you really don't need me for anything," he told her, repeating what he'd said by the stairs but with a new weight to his words that somehow crushed her even more than before. "And I'm scared that I'll wake up one day and you'll just be gone because you think that you're just not good enough or, I don't know, deserving enough."
The sight of tears welling in his eyes made hers spill over, and Ziva shook her head firmly as she found resolve she'd lacked just moments ago. "I need you," she told him, and leaned in to grip his arm tightly. "I need you."
His brief smile was enough to tell her how badly he'd needed to hear that, and he reached over to wrap his arm carefully around her shoulders and tug her closer. She went willingly.
"You are who I need," he told her.
She turned herself carefully so that she could hug him with her good arm, and chuckled into his shoulder. "Just with a few edits," she said. "I do listen to you. But I will try to be more open and considerate of what you are saying."
"That'd be really great," he admitted.
On a whim, Ziva brushed a butterfly-soft kiss to his neck before pulling back from the hug. She stayed leaning against him, though, and Tony didn't move his arm from around her shoulders. It felt tentative on both of their parts, but Ziva resisted her flight response and stayed where she was. She had to get over herself and the roadblocks she continuously put between them while they had the chance to live without rules.
Tony turned his face a little way towards her, and she felt his breath on her cheek. "Can you please explain this thing for me?" he asked, gesturing at the movie on TV.
"Probably not," she said. "I think I mostly loved it because of the songs, and because I liked the idea of having so many brothers and sisters."
"So, it wasn't the creepy relationship between Maria and the angry, misogynist Captain that sucked you in?"
"No."
"Well, good. Because that had me worried."
She smiled, and they watched the movie again for a few more minutes in silence. The drugs might have been helping, but Ziva felt herself begin to relax again and be happy in the moment. When Tony groaned a little at the story, she looked up at him and again felt a wave of utter affection for him. Butterflies started fluttering in her stomach, but she knew it was okay to tell him what was on her mind.
"I need you," she told him again.
Tony pulled his eyes from the screen to look at her, and there was a light in his eyes that gave her gooseflesh. Still, he sounded just a little too shy when he responded. "Do me a favor and remind me every now and then, will you?"
Ziva nodded, and filed the information away. In the future, she would need to not just show him she needed him, but tell him. It was important to him. She rested her head against him, and after another few moments she felt her eyes begin to droop.
"I might fall asleep here," she told him.
"Me too."
"The painkillers might make me snore and drool on you."
Tony chuckled, and she felt him turn his face to press his mouth to her hair. "That's exactly how I like you."
So, yes. Rough seas. But I hope you liked where the tide took you and felt it took you there naturally. Or something. FYI, I wrote this before the season eleven premiere. I still haven't watched those two episodes, but I'm told that there might be some crossover of themes between this and those, although obviously things turned out differently in canon. I guess this is just a reminder that this story goes AU from the end of season ten.
My sincere thanks to everyone who got in touch after the last chapter to say their interest was not waning. I haven't been able to get back to you personally yet, but I will. I hope this chapter hasn't now turned you off after you proclaimed your support, but I was trying to get at the crux of the Tony/Ziva issues towards the end of season ten. As ever, your views may vary. We all view things slightly (or significantly) differently, and that's just fine.