A/N: I would like to submit a formal apology for the short chapter and extremely long wait. College has been nuts. I have to write other stories everyday for a class, so please bear with me. I have nothing witty to say about this one...I'm too exhausted. So, enjoy. Love, Kat

As I set the table almost two weeks after our Sonnenburg excursion, Tony enters the house carrying a handful of mail. Today is Friday, so of course we would get mail. But what could it possibly be?

He tosses two white envelopes and one manila legal folder onto an unused part of the table, keeping one for himself.

"Ye-heahh!" His face breaks into a massive grin. "It's my prize from that Sonnenburg thing, Zeev! 'Hello, David Stadelvard. We at the New York State Wine and Culinary Center would like to congratulate you on successfully completing the Kids' Trail Adventure at Sonnenburg Mansion at the Gardens," he reads. "As your prize, because we have been alerted to your being above twelve-years-old—Yeah, I guess I am, aren't I?—we have awarded you with a wine tasting and cooking class for two, of your choice."

Tony's expression falls considerably. "No. This is a horrible prize. Can't we just get dinner or something? Why learn how to cook?" he wails.

I stare across the table at him. "Do they give you a list of classes? It may be fun. Relax." He hands me a sheet of paper. After giving the list a cursory scan, I look up and say, "Middle Eastern Mezze," handing the paper back to him. I do not consider the possibility that he will not be able to choose a wine tasting by himself, but when he only stares at the paper, I know it was inevitable. "Actually, perhaps we should take that one later on, maybe in the Spring. Let's take the Couples' course, the Holiday Table one."

It would be a great way to ring in the New Year. I would be four months pregnant by then.

Erm…hypothetically speaking…

"Okay … do you think it has to be a wine tasting?" Tony squirms. "I mean, you know, I'm more of a beer person." I snap softly for the paper and he hands it to me again, this time the side with the wine tastings facing me. "I guess there's one that sounds kind of interesting …"

I read down through the menu. "You could take a class. Pairing beer with food. Wine with food. Anything with food."

"No, a sampling of anything should do." Tony winks at me, catching me off guard. "Don't want to use up all of the state's money, do we?" I roll my eyes and point at 'New York State Beers vs. the World.' His brow furrows.

"What," I state. It is not exactly a question, but it demands an answer.

"I was thinking 'New York State Wine vs. the World' sounded more interesting. I know you like sweet wines and stuff, so—"

"But you like beer. You just said it yourself. And you cannot tell me you would actually enjoy yourself at a wine class, regardless of how much fun I would be having."

"Ziva, you've gotta look at this from my perspective. You're my wife and—"

"Tony." I gesture at my stomach. I am wearing a very light pack that just makes me look as though I have gained several pounds over the past few weeks. I have had to give up running, but I submitted a complaint to Gibbs demanding that I still be able to at least practice yoga. So I suppose I am a very Zen person: yoga, Qigong, and meditation every morning. Becky would be proud of me.

"Oh, that's right! You can't have alcohol." Tony's cheeks flush brilliantly as he walks around the table, and then pulls me close. "Let's just call the place and be like, 'Sorry, my wife is pregnant, so the wine tasting is a no-go.' They'd understand. Besides, I was looking at their website and they've got a flight in their tasting room that's just juice …"

I firmly push his arms away. "No, David. You deserve to have fun." The tablecloth needs to be changed, as the leaves have turned an even more brilliant rust. Crossing over to the side table, I open the lefthand drawer without looking and pull out a tablecloth. "You know, you should really call—" Tony's jaw drops and he stares at the sheet in disgust. "What is it?"

"I know who I should call, Ana." I move my gaze downward and see that the tablecloth looks as though it has recently been soaked in a vat of blood.

Together we murmur the word, "Gibbs."

He is on his way back the next morning, the red-eye flight. "Don't you go anywhere. Lock all of the doors, don't answer the landline, and close all of the blinds," had been Gibbs' only reply before hanging up the phone.

I throw Tony a nervous look. He catches my stare and returns it.

"I guess we're stuck inside again. Jeez, it's like every time we go into town, something bad happens the next day," Tony whines, trudging into the parlor and flopping down onto the loveseat. "You know, this really sucks."

I nod, following him. "Yes, it does indeed." Perching myself on the edge of the coffee table, I balance my elbows on my knees. "Tony," I murmur, "if we are holed up here for a while, we should probably just talk."

"Talk about what?" he asks, throwing his legs up onto the couch. "Colors?"

"No. Deeper things." I know this will come back to haunt me, but I feel as though there are things that we have not discussed that, once we do, will bring us closer in the end. At his questioning stare, I suggest, "Parents."

He throws out a bitter laugh and laces his fingers behind his neck. "What could you possibly want to know about my parents?"

This I could have expected.

"Your father. I have only met him once." I do not expect him to go into great detail, as he has always kept his past a secret from me. But lately his eyes have been stewing. I caught him in the nursery the other day looking around. When he had noticed I was in the room as well, he had all but run out, refusing to catch my eye.

"Oh." Tony grins. "You want to know about my Tony Senior? Gotcha. Okay, let's see. He was an arrogant, deceptive ass for most of my childhood." His smile is bitter, and he stares at the ceiling. "You know, he wasn't a horrible father in that he hit me or anything. He only spanked me once because of the snow-suit incident.

"What made him a horrible father was that he never really remembered me. I mean, I was his only kid. He should have been able to at least remember that, right?" I close my eyes, trying to either envision his father or purge the pain he is transmitting to me from my mind. "He left me in a hotel room once, when we were in Hawaii. I stayed there for two whole days waiting for him to come back and he got really—really—mad at me when he got the room service bill. I was, like, ten. What could he do to a ten year old, you know? So he just yelled at me for about an hour and sent me to my room without dinner. I had a stash of candy bars in my closet. No harm done."

I slowly open my eyes to look at him and state very quietly, "Tony, you do not have to tell me any of this." But he nods and throws out a bark of laughter.

"Yeah, I do. You told me everything from Somalia—" That's not necessarily true…There is much you do not know… "—and I've been keeping all of this packed away in my head for a while. I bet that's why everything went south. You can't do that to yourself. You have to talk about it. So here's me talking."

I can tell by the way the light is glinting off of his teeth that he is forcing the smile. That instead, he wants to go and grab the unopened bottle of whiskey I had found in the back closet and drink himself into oblivion. "Anyway, so where was I? Oh, right. So, then I guess my trust in him kind of degenerated and, without a mom—she died when I was eight—without a mom to look up to and pal around with, I was stuck with him." Tony rests his feet up on the arm of the couch.

"I got through the Academy by drowning my pain in drinking parties and hot women—yeah, Davíd, they had hot women—and then joined the Navy, and then dad told me I wouldn't go anywhere in life so I went to college at Ohio State to avoid the summers in the East Hamptons, and just…Well, I did about the same thing there."

I eye him suspiciously. I do not believe he was ever really a playboy. I still do not believe it, even after seeing him with Jeanne and the One-Night-Stand Facebook incident. "You did not," I accuse lightly. "You graduated from Ohio State with a Bachelors' in Arts of Physical Education." He shoots me an odd look and I admit sheepishly, "I have a tendency to be nosy when it comes to agent's files."

"You looked at my file?" A smirk creeps onto Tony's face. "That's oddly flattering, Ziva!"

I shake off his prodding look and plod on, "You could not have achieved such high grades if you had been a … a … party boy."

Tony shakes his head, as if knowing he is caught, but refusing to come clean about his seemingly flippant attitude in the past. "Ziva, listen to me, I'm really not—"

"Tony, fast forward through college, then. But I do not want to hear anymore of your 'partying' days.'" I hold up a hand and pull out my cell phone when I hear it vibrate in my vest pocket. Abby.

Found lots! Hope everything's going okay with you. Love you both, Babs.

I blink several times before tossing the phone at Tony, who just laughs and rolls his eyes. "Anyway," he murmurs, "I joined the Police Academy just because. It was something to do. Dad said I wouldn't go anywhere, so I wanted to prove him wrong."

"You did, Tony."

"No, I didn't. I'm just some stupid investigator. Hell, I can't even do that right." Tony looks directly at me, guilt pouring from his eyes. I wordlessly beg him to not blame himself, not for Michael's death… "No, Ziva, it's true. I know it is. If I hadn't been so determined to get Rivkin out of the country, I wouldn't have gotten into the fight, I wouldn't have had to shoot him, you wouldn't have been left in Israel, and your father wouldn't have been able to send you on that damn suicide mission. It all comes back to me." His jaw is very tense now, set against itself.

I lean forward slightly, enough to where, if I wanted to, I could reach out and take his hand. "Tony, look at me." When he doesn't, I repeat firmly, "Look at me, please." He turns his head, his blue eyes melding with mine. "Tony, that was not your fault. None of it."

"If I hadn't—"

I hold up a hand and he stops talking. "If you hadn't gone to my apartment, yes, Tony, Michael would still be alive. But right now, I probably would not be." Tony cocks his head and I offer a small smile. "My father was plotting against me. If it had not been Michael, it would have been something—or someone—else. Mossad would have been sent for me. Eli would have demanded it."

He shakes his head but says nothing more.

"Tony," I murmur, "you think you know everything about Somalia. But there is much I have left out. And while I am not ready to tell you, know that none of it was your fault." I use this moment to reach forward and gently take his large hand in mine. "None of it."

"But it is, Ziva! If I hadn't—Let me finish!—If I hadn't shot at Rivkin, you wouldn't have asked Gibbs to separate us, and if you hadn't asked that, he wouldn't have left you behind, and then Eli wouldn't've sent you on that mission, and you wouldn't have been captured by Saleem, and you wouldn't have gone through all that you did. I'm sorry." After he takes a few breaths, Tony grasps my hand a bit tighter. "It reflects on me and my stupidity. I broke protocol, and ended up killing someone special to you."

I blink several times in disbelief. "Tony, stop being so ignorant. I was trying to make a point. I was trying to figure out everything about myself, okay?" He only looks at me. Drawing a sigh, I explain, "The moment I came to NCIS, you cannot deny there was chemistry."

He gives me a small smile. "Well, yeah, I suppose there was a connection …"

"We fell prey to it as Assassins. We did not deny ourselves. Our banter quickly became the only way we knew of relaying our feelings." Tony nods. "But then … You met Jeanne." The tendons in his neck stand out as he tenses. "I backed off. I wanted you to be happy."

He only mutters, "Mm, that ended well, didn't it?" and absentmindedly gives my hand a soft squeeze.

"No, it did not. For you or Jeanne. But for me?" I let out a quiet chuckle. "I cannot say I was completely saddened by it. The part that hurt the worst was the fact you were hurting so badly, especially when Director Shepherd made you lie to Miss Benoit."

This is the first time—ever—that Tony and I have discussed the Le Grenouille incident. I cannot lie to myself; I am rather nervous.

Tony is completely silent, and very apprehensive, as I slowly continue, "So…I let you go through that. I did not wish to be a rebound, and I knew that you needed time to work through it. When Director Vance sent me back to Israel, I reconnected with Michael. He and I grew up together. He was one of my earliest friends. When I returned to Tel Aviv, I noticed he had not grown too horribly unattractive, so, to get my mind—and heart, I suppose—off of you…I began a relationship with him. But … when I returned, the feelings came back, like a tsunami, almost."

Tony stares at me. "Are you being serious right now? You're not just messing with me?" I shake my head. "Why didn't you … tell me?"

"Rule number twelve." We exchange a small, almost furtive, smile and I finish my tale. "The entire Michael situation began because he started suspecting that I was not being loyal to him."

"Who would you cheat on him with?" His naiveté is adorable. I turn my face toward the floor but cast my eyes up toward him through my lashes. He groans, "Oh…not me, right?" I nod. "It was me? I've never actually been a home-wrecker before…"

After giving him a small chuckle, I assure him, "You were not a home-wrecker. Michael was paranoid. Simple as that."

"But … how do I play in, then?"

"He figured that as long as you were here, near me, you were a threat. He thought … He thought I was practicing infidelity. With you." He chokes on something, most likely his own saliva, and I cannot help but laugh. "Unfortunately … he decided to spy on me. And that night, he probably would have killed you. Mossad men are jealous and paranoid, and usually care little about murdering threats, whether they are personal or those of the country."

Tony sits up. "So, to clarify, he thought we—you and I—were sleeping together?" I nod. "I guess … I don't know … Why?"

Shrugging, I rake my free hand through my hair and say, "Nor do I. But, what I do know is that I would prefer having him dead over you any day … whether we were having sex or not." I pat his hand and release it, making to stand, but he grabs me around the waist. "What are you doing?"

"Hugging you."

And for a moment, I am glad that I did not have to talk about the present. That only would have complicated things, and I like them as they are. So, instead, I relish in the feeling of our bodies pressed together, wishing it will never end.

A/N: Mm. So. Again, I feel like this was filler. So ... ::shrugs:: Be nice? I'm exhausted.. Thanks for reading. Love, Kat