Pivotal Moments
Chapter 15 expands Legend Part 2, and continues immediately from the last two chapters, bringing the confrontation between Tony and Ziva to a climax.
So...some TIVA for you in this chapter, though not the sappy kind. If you think after reading that I should raise the rating, let me know. Also, a heartfelt thank you once again to those of you who've regularly let me know what you like about this piece. You guys make my day!
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Washington DC
Ziva was relieved to be the first in the office that morning, especially when she got to tell Tony about Gibbs' call summoning them to MTAC and not the other way around. As they scaled the stairs, she was tense and did her best to shrug off his questions. She only hoped the situation OSP was dealing with was unrelated to Michael's trip to LA the day before. But she knew as soon as Gibbs addressed her and not Tony that her hopes were in vain.
"Ziva."
"Gibbs."
Gibbs looked off-camera. "McGee, put it up." He looked back to her. Beside his face appeared a picture of Michael and she felt suddenly frozen. "You recognize him? Ziva!"
She knew that even if her father did not recall her, if she lied to Gibbs now her career here was over. "Yes, I know him," she answered quickly. "His name is Michael Rivkin."
"He says he's Mossad."
"Yes, he is with the Mossad."
"Anything else you can tell us about him, Officer David?" asked a woman she didn't know.
She was glad it wasn't Gibbs asking, because she did not hesitate before saying, "No. I have not worked with him in some time." It was true, sort of, she reassured herself.
"We will talk more about this later," Gibbs snapped. She worried what Gibbs had read in her face, her posture.
"Of course," Ziva answered with all the calm she could muster. The screen flickered off. She could feel the tension radiating from Tony beside her. "You did not think I would identify him. That was not a question," she said tightly. Did he really think she was lying last night when she said she was still loyal to Gibbs?
"Anything you want to tell me?" Tony asked coldly.
"No. One word answer—I win." She stormed away from him, wanting to run, needing space to process. Gibbs hadn't given them any direction for the day so she made her way to the gym, running circles around the suspended track as fast as she could.
She had been willing to help Michael as much as she could because she believed that Mossad had been wrong in thinking him disloyal, because she believed that what seemed to them as strange behavior was inspired purely by his sense of being monitored. A reinforcing loop.
But now that he had messed with NCIS, he would probably be taken out regardless—and perhaps should be. If his behavior really was out of control, and she was fairly certain after his visit that it was, he didn't belong in the game, certainly not with arms that could destroy an entire city. But it might well be too late to save herself from her father's wrath. Even if she turned him in now, Michael was too far gone. Her father would know she had been reporting falsely for months.
And NCIS...Ziva stopped running in the moment that she realized they probably wouldn't want her anymore. Even if through some miracle her father let her stay, in the director's eyes, failure to obey Mossad would make her useless to anyone as an agent. She sank to her knees on the track, panting.
When her breathing finally slowed, she cleaned herself up, keeping her mind blank because the alternative was panic, and returned to the squad room. She settled in to do mindless tasks, but feared all day every time her phone rang or her email pinged that this was the moment, the moment she was ordered back.
***
Tony closed the phone slowly, frustration mounting inside of him. He had just lied to McGee for Ziva, after she told him to stay out of it. But what else could he do? Anger flared through him. How had it come to this? She couldn't say no to a man? He sighed. The worst part was that his partner had gotten into such a terrible mess without ever asking for his help. Well, he'd told McGee he'd talk to her. Tony sat down at his desk, taking a deep breath and waving distractedly to Abby as she headed back to the lab. If he could just stay calm, perhaps she'd...he wasn't even sure what he wanted. For her to ask for help? For her to resolve her own mess? He wanted her safe. He let his mind wrap around the idea. It seemed like a reasonable thing to want. Yet they never seemed to have the sort of conversations where he could say such a thing.
He heard the elevator doors open and looked up in time to see Ziva entering there area.
"What did I miss?" she asked lightly.
Nervousness slipped into him, and he went for joking before he could stop himself. "...but really all the fun's happening in another area code. Are we fighting?"
"If we were, you would be on the floor, bleeding." Ziva answered warily.
"OK, I accept that as a likely outcome. So you're just annoyed with me?"
She glanced to the side but didn't answer. Tony continued to study her.
"Angry?"
You should not be surprised.
"Because of this morning?"
"You though I would not identify Michael Rivkin as a Mossad operative."
Well. She had him there. "I didn't say a word."
"You did not have to."
"So you think you did the right thing." Now he was irritated himself.
"You think I didn't?"
"Maybe you should have told them more. Like how well you know him."
"How well do I know him, Tony?" The volume of her voice was escalating and Tony knew this had somehow gone wrong.
"You know him better than they think you do."
"And you know that how?" They both knew what she meant: he only knew because she trusted him with the information.
"Well, you saw him when he was in DC three days ago. You didn't tell them why when you had the change and I'm just wondering why, that's all." Tony spoke slowly, trying to seem more balanced.
"Okay, are you by any chance questioning my loyalty?" She was moving toward him but he wasn't intimidated.
"I am questioning why you didn't tell them you saw him three days ago."
"Are you jealous?" she asked calmly.
"No," he answered. The moment last night, when he'd thought she might kiss him flickered through is mind, but he dismissed it. "I'm worried because you don't seem to understand that your secret friend is interfering with this agency's ability to shut down a terrorist cell."
"Interfering? How is he interfering?" He noted fear in her eyes.
"He's already killed two suspects."
"Well, in my country that would be cause for celebration." She was agitated and he can tell could hadn't known about the murders yet.
"You're not in your country! And neither is he."
"Have you finished?" She seemed suddenly drained of wrath and that worried Tony even more.
"Yes," he said quietly.
"Good." She turned, heading back toward the elevator.
"No." He followed her. "Another question. You know where we can find him?"
"No. I don't."
"And if you did, would you tell me?" He was trying as hard as he could to offer help. They had no common language for that.
She pressed the button. "No. But I would tell Gibbs." The elevator doors closed.
Tony stood outside them, already regretting the confrontation. He had done nothing but make her feel more isolated, more threatened. There had to be a way to save her from this. Because if she'd been able to save herself, she'd have done it already.
With quiet resolve, Tony headed for the stairs. As he left the building he saw Ziva's car racing out of the driveway in the direction of her apartment, and without a second thought he sprinted for his car.
***
Tony knocked on the apartment door hesitantly, less certain than ever in their friendship that she would let him in.
Ziva opened the door slowly, her gun drawn. When she saw him, she sheathed it, which Tony chose to take as a good sign.
"Can I come in?" he asked quietly.
She stepped back so he could do so.
"I'm sorry," Tony said as he passed her. "But Michael's in trouble and I want to keep you out of it if I can."
A noise came from Ziva's throat that he could not at once identify as a laugh or a cry. He turned to her, looked closely, and was shocked to find her eyes reddened. Only then did he glance around the apartment and take in the boxes.
"What's going on?" Tony asked anxiously.
Ziva felt too depressed to discuss it, but Tony's pleading eyes forced it out of her. She spoke slowly, evenly, her last confession. "Tony, I never thought NCIS would be hurt by the mess Michael is making of his life. I thought I could separate my distrust of Mossad from my trust of Gibbs, of all of you. But it's too late. I'm compromised and no use to anyone, not loyal to anyone but Michael and I know he's imploding. I have to report Michael before his actions get more people hurt or killed, and when I tell Mossad, my career here will be over." She watched Tony stiffen at her last words. "I'm sorry," she whispered.
"You've always been loyal to me," Tony said quietly when she'd finished.
She looked up at him with eyes that glinted with tears. And knew it was true.
He realized in the instant before their lips met that she hadn't asked for this, hadn't done anything to encourage it. But it was too late to stop; he was kissing her and then she was kissing him back. One of her hands curled around the back of Tony's neck and the knowledge that Ziva wanted him too washed through his brain and sent arousal coursing through his body.
They'd been kissing for nearly a minute before Ziva could pull back. Conflicted, confused, she pressed her forehead against his collarbone, her hands clenched in the front of his shirt. She wanted this, she thought, but there was no way around the fact that in a matter hours Michael would be here, and she'd have to play her part or risk escalating things further. She took a deep breath to calm her heart, and it might have worked except that she was pressed into Tony's chest and the smell of him sent her senses reeling again. In the next moment, his thumb found its way under the edge of her t-shirt, stroking the small of her back. Her head tilted back as she gasped in pleasure and Tony, looking down at her face—eyes half-lidded, pupils dilated, mouth soft and open—kissed her again.
Their hunger for each other carried them across the living room: clothing was pulled and torn and discarded, furniture was ignored where it fell except when it allowed one to press closer to the other. The moment when Tony finally thrust into Ziva was exquisite, but neither could later say quite where it fell in the saga of destruction their sex waged against the apartment, only that they both cried out.
There was an undercurrent of violence in the way they touched each other. Tony was possessing her, marking her, for himself, for all of them, claiming her as theirs and neither Michael's nor her father's to take. And Ziva wanted him to. There was adrenaline like that night in Morocco, but this was more. They were taking each other not to offer creature comfort but to fight their way into one body, inseparable. It had nothing to do with love.
Eventually they collapsed on her bed, still in each other's arms. Tony held Ziva close as her breathing stilled. She looked up at him, and now that their passion had abated, the sudden intimacy left behind was almost too deep. Ziva stared into Tony's eyes, overwhelmed by the magnitude of what they'd done and Tony slowly leaned in and kissed her. Not demanding, not claiming. Just a kiss, slow and soft and hesitant, like a first kiss. And Ziva felt more vulnerable than when he'd pinned her down before. For one moment she let herself feel this close to Tony, let the agonizing sensitivity of him holding her flood through her—and then she pulled away, escaping to the bathroom.
She paused before the mirror that filled the wall over the sink. Marks from his mouth and nails and fingertips decorated her stomach and breasts and hips.
Tony entered behind her, having taken the time to slip on boxers, and settled a hand on her shoulder, noting the same details of her reflection. "Will it be a problem?" he asked, worried now though it was too late to take it back. "Would he..." he trailed off, not wanting to imagine what a violent man might do if he sensed infidelity. Not that Ziva couldn't fight back, but...
Ziva shrugged. "I can tell him I had to seduce someone undercover and I can't talk about it. He got to use the same excuse."
Tony nodded at her in the mirror and Ziva elbowed him. "Now get out, I have to pee."
He kissed the back of her head, smirking at the wild tangle of her curls, and stepped out, closing the door. "Having men in the bathroom never bothered you before," he called as an afterthought.
Ziva grinned, then watched in the mirror as her face fell. She wrapped her arms around herself, studying her reflection.
The fear coiled tighter and tighter inside her again as she refreshed herself and pulled on some clothes in the bedroom, listening to Tony collecting his from around the living room. She was a woman who functioned best in an ordered world, and somehow she had wrought disaster at every turn of late. She could not see through this to any good outcome and it was immobilizing her.
Ziva reentered the living room as Tony glanced toward the door. She followed his gaze.
He looked at her, at a loss for words. Their relationship was suddenly as tender as the bruises on their skin.
"Michael will be here soon," Ziva finally said.
Tony didn't speak, but she could see the way his lips thinned in distress.
"Tony, I—I know I have to find a way to get him under control or else report him. But his mission is over; I should be able to. Please let me try."
He nodded. "Will Mossad still--"
Ziva shrugged helplessly. "I don't know." She stayed where she was, near the bedroom entrance.
"I suppose I'll go, then," Tony said slowly, without moving.
"Good night," she replied. As intimate as they had been in the past hour, it was somehow too much now, to get close to him.
He smiled at her as he opened the door, affectionate but bewildered by the unexpectedness of what has happened. "Good night." He left.
Ziva found herself trembling as she began to gather her clothing, straightened the furniture around the living room. Her body ached in ways that made her think of Tony as she righted chairs and knelt to retrieve socks from under tables. She couldn't help but worry that she'd made another bad decision, but she couldn't find any reason this would compound the mess already made.
When Michael finally arrived two hours later, he was already drunk from the wet bar on the airplane. Ziva could tell at once that he was more unstable than ever, a judgment confirmed by his rambling about killing men, betraying women. She was only glad that the alcohol had eased his awareness and physical capacities far enough that within twenty minutes he was passed out in her bed.
Suppressing her revulsion just in case he opened his eyes, Ziva crawled into bed beside him. He had a return ticket to Tel Aviv for the next day, but if he wasn't on the flight, she knew what she had to do. She clutched the pendant on her necklace, the six points stabbing into her palm. There was no way through this without betraying someone.