A/N – Wow! What a fantastic response to this story so far! Thank you all for the amazing reviews! I will do my best to update it whenever I get the chance! And thank you for someone pointing out that I had made a point-of-view shift, I had not even realized, I have fixed it! Thank you all! Here is missing scenes in episode 2: recovery. It is mostly Tony and Ziva scenes, because I didn't feel like anything else was missing.

Disclaimer – I don't own NCIS or the characters

Chapter 3 – Recovery

Insecurities

Car Ride from the Crime Scene

"Tony, must you flirt so much at work?" Ziva asked as they sat in the car together on the way back from the crime scene. "I know we are acting normal at work, but it does bother me a little."

"True," Tony said. "I can't just stop though, Gibbs will think something is up since I've been appearing to try to get this one for a while now. Perhaps just slow it up a little, see that I'm not getting anywhere with her, you know."

"But, all the time Tony?" Ziva asked shifting uncomfortably as she found Tony's hand in the center of the car.

He glanced at her briefly, sensing her discomfort and nodded to himself.

"Of course, Ziva," Tony said. "You know it was all for show, right?"

"I do," Ziva said. "I am just afraid that I might hurt one of these ladies that happens to apparently catch your attention."

Tony smiled. "There is only one who has my attention, Ziva," Tony said and looked at her since they were at a red light.

She smiled at him, meeting his eyes and getting lost in the depths of them for a moment. Her smile widened.

"Thank you, Tony," Ziva said with a satisfied smile. "Now I am perfect."

Tony smiled and drove through the light which had just turned green.

"Why do you think Gibbs is all of a sudden putting us together more often and not me and McGee or you and McGee?" Tony asked.

"Because we were both trapped in that elevator, Tony. He guesses that we will stand a better chance against a psych eval if we stick together through the recovery process," Ziva said. "I already asked him," she added in seeing Tony's look of shock on his face. "We were in that elevator together for six hours, Tony and that is a long time. He knows that we did not kill each other, obviously and figures maybe we have something shared now that we have that. He thinks that we have grown closer and he is okay with that. I talked to him, because I noticed that he was putting us together a lot and I was concerned that McGee was feeling a little left out."

Tony smiled as he pulled into a space in front of the NCIS building. "Thank you for asking him. He takes to your questions better than he takes to mine and I've been wondering for a while now. Are you sure you are okay, Ziva?"

"I am better than I was a few months ago. You have helped me to heal since the bombing, Tony," Ziva said. "No psychiatrist would be able to do that, simply because I do not trust people."

"Come on, let's get upstairs before they suspect us," Tony said. "Stairs?"

"Are you afraid of it at all?" Ziva asked.

"Yes and no," Tony said. "I haven't taken the elevator since the building was repaired, but most of the time I was with you. I'm afraid to take the elevator without you. Mostly because, I figure we will be fine as long as we are together."

"I am just… afraid, Tony," Ziva said. "But, with you there, I think I will be okay. Let's take the elevator and see how it goes."

Tony smiled at Ziva and took her hand as they entered the elevator. He could feel her tense and he wrapped both of his arms around her. He pressed the button and held on tightly.

"We will have to let go before we get to the top," he reminded her.

She had relaxed completely into his arms and was feeling safe and protected now that he was holding onto her. The elevator didn't seem all that bad with him there to keep her safe.

"I know, Tony. We are also breaking our rules today. We need to be careful if we are going to start breaking our rules," Ziva said.

Tony nodded and rested his head on top of hers. They really shouldn't be breaking their rules and their rules were to act like they had always acted, which in reality was not too difficult. They just had to pretend like they weren't together. As much as it killed Tony to flirt with other girls sometimes, he did it for their appearance and as much as it killed Ziva to be mean to him on occasion, she did it for their appearance to the others.

They had agreed on this until they had a solid amount of time under them and no complicated cases. Then they were going to talk to Gibbs about what they had been doing and for how long. They knew that rule twelve was in place for a very good reason, but they had to prove that they could work together and be in a relationship without anything interfering first. That was the only way that Gibbs was going to see that it was already working. That meant keeping it out of the office and off the job. They were having a difficult time with that today, because of the upcoming psychological evaluation and the use of the elevator thrown in, since Gibbs had already teased them both about not using the elevator a couple of times each.

Car Ride to the Armory

"Tony, what do I say to this guy? Do I tell him that I am in a relationship? They always ask? Do I tell him that I am afraid of elevators? They always ask something related the supposed trauma!" Ziva spat out into the silent car.

"I told him that I was seeing someone. He asked me who. It is confidential Ziva, he can't tell Vance, I asked," Tony said. "I told him who I was seeing. He asked a lot of questions about our relationship."

"Like what?"

"How long we've been together. How it affects our working relationship. How I feel about you. How I feel about you as a coworker as opposed to how I did before we were in a relationship. How close we are. If we're sleeping together," Tony said.

"And, what did you say?"

"I was honest, Ziva, you should be too," Tony said.

"You were honest about us not sleeping together?" Ziva asked, her face going a slight shade of pink.

"Yes, I was honest about that," Tony said. "Ziva, I'm not ashamed of it. I'm okay with taking it slow. I already told you that. He also knows that, too, because he asked me how I felt about it. I was the one who said I wanted to take it slow physically anyway, if I remember correctly. Listen, we don't need to be sleeping together for me to know how I feel about you, Ziva. Besides, I think we've gotten closer much faster without that."

"I agree," she said. "But, I feel like it is my fault that we aren't doing that."

"When you're ready, Ziva. And, when I'm ready too," Tony said with a smile on his face as he got into the car and buckled his seatbelt.

There was silence as Tony started the car and backed out of the space and made his way toward the highway.

"I feel off, Ziva," Tony said. "My mind seems to be stuck in the elevator still, but mostly with you. I've lost some of my focus, trying to keep up appearance is hard. I'm done flirting with other women. I'm done trying to make it look like I'm still the playboy Tony that I always was. I can't do it anymore. If that is the only thing that I can do to get my focus back then that's what I'm going to do."

"You have seemed a little out of focus…."

"Off focus, Ziva," Tony said. "The term is off focus."

"Since the elevator. If that is what you need to do, then do it. We will deal with questions as they come. But, you need to be focused on the case. Luckily, Gibbs is distracted by Abby's nightmares at the moment, so now is the best time to change what you have been doing to hide our relationship."

"Abby is having nightmares?" Tony asked.

"Yes, she told me. But, she did not tell me what they were about," Ziva said. "She calls Gibbs every night that she wakes up from one. I told her she could call me before realizing that that was probably not the best thing to say."

"You can always ignore a phone call," Tony reminded her.

Interrogation Room

"Here we go! Typical feminazi, blindly defending her own!" the suspect said.

Ziva's eyes narrowed as she walked back over to the interrogation room table.

"Excuse me?" she asked, leaning over and looking him straight in the eye, despite here dislike of the cologne that was too strong.

"You heard me," he said pointedly as Ziva's eyes widened.

"You may not have noticed, pal, but that's not a swastika hanging around my partner's neck," Tony said quietly as though it were a secret.

"Wow! Talk about déjà vuz! It's like the same interview, right down to the whipped boyfriend," he said in a tone of irritation, looking back and forth between us.

"Whipped?" Tony asked, his eyes straight on the suspect.

"Boyfriend?" Ziva asked, trying to make it sound as though this were a shocking theory, though she had heard the guess too many times to be surprised when someone even thought of suggesting that they were together; the difference this time is that they were together but just hiding it.

"Oh yea! The love-sick puppy that was hanging all over Midge and her every word," he said. "Oh yea! She had that guy wrapped up big time. Just like the two of you!"

Ziva sat down again in the chair.

"For you information, sir, we are not together," Ziva said indicating her partner. "He is not my boyfriend, nor is he love-sick. Trust me I hear about his conquests every other day."

"And, Ziva has a boyfriend, last I knew," Tony said. "Has one that is very into her, but certainly not whipped. Ziva isn't that kind of woman. She doesn't whip her boyfriends. She either likes them as they come or she doesn't date them. That's the way it is with her. Now, back to Midge. Who was this man you are talking about?"

"I don't know," he said. "I didn't ask his name. I know I just wasn't good enough. I wasn't a female so therefore she didn't hire me. The same reason I'm a suspect here, because this woman wants to think that men are always in the wrong."

"I do not think that," Ziva shouted standing up. "You obviously don't know that we have arrested women here too. I, in fact, have arrested plenty of them. I also worked for Mossad and some of the people involved in my cases were women. Therefore, you have no right to judge me or apparently Midge either. Like I said, the other person was probably more qualified to deal with the job of an NCIS munitions specialist."

"Describe Midge's boyfriend," Tony said, changing the subject and seeing that Ziva was under a lot of stress from this guy.

He gave them the description and they left without another word. Once they were in the hallway, Ziva leaned her back against the door. She had never felt so assaulted in her life for being a woman, and there were times in her life where she had been not taken as seriously for being a woman. But, she was proud of herself and she was happy about who she was and what she did.

"You okay?" Tony asked as Vance came out of observation.

Ziva knew that Vance was right there and saw that Tony was too. "I am fine, Tony. We can talk about it later, first let's go to the 'boyfriend's' place of employment and start asking questions."

Psychological Evaluation of Ziva

"Ah, now it is Ziva's turn," the psychologist said.

"Good luck," Tony said with a look that made the others look at him with curiosity.

Ziva followed him into the conference room. She sat in the chair and looked at him. He looked back at her for a moment. He was overly happy, yes, but this couldn't be so bad, right? He would ask a few questions. She would be honest. Then, she would go back to work.

"So, how do you feel since the bombing?" he asked.

"Fine," she said. "Okay, that is not true. I am terrified of the elevator. I have only used it once since that day and that was this morning with Tony."

"Tony was with you in the elevator, was he not? When you got trapped?" he asked.

"Yes, he was," Ziva said.

"Has that brought you two closer?"

"Yes," Ziva responded.

"How close?"

"Close enough," Ziva said with the ghost of a smile on her face, trying to think like she was talking to Tony and not a stranger about this, since opening up for her was not the easiest thing to do in the world.

"Are you better partners at work because of it? Do you see each other outside of work? Do you have a boyfriend who supports you through this? Does your boyfriend know about your closeness with Tony?" he asked all at once.

"Tony and I are better at work because we communicate more effectively than we used to. We do see each other outside of work frequently and he is my boyfriend, who supports me through all of this," Ziva answered straightforwardly.

"That is all very good. Having someone to support you through your fears and insecurities is the most important thing after something like this. Especially since you two were both in the same situation," the psychologist said. "He will understand better than anyone how you feel and I know that because I've seen him reading you like a book and getting it right, based on your reactions to what he says about what you haven't said or something. That is all, Miss David."

Ziva left the office, feeling alright about having actually talked to the psychologist and feeling optimistic about the future. She found Tony waiting for her and the office entirely empty aside from them. She smiled at him and took his hand in the darkness of the office.

"Let's take the elevator," she whispered to him. "I think I could get used to it again, with some help from you."

"Me too, sweet cheeks," Tony said with a smile. "Me too."

They walked toward the elevator and entered it, still holding onto each other. Ziva pressed the button this time and clung to Tony for a feeling of safety that she desired and smiled up at him when the elevator reached the bottom. They had done it again. She was proud of herself for allowing Tony to help her with this instead of suffering in silence like she usually did when something was bothering her.

A/N – A little drama between Tony and Ziva with the acting normal at the office. A little emotions revealed. A little worry about Ziva having to talk to someone she doesn't know. But, it all turned out well in the end. Let me know what you think!