A/N: here's the 7th chapter.

Since Ziva makes a brief appearance in this chapter, I want to make clear that this fic is absolutely not going to be a "Ziva-bashing" kind of fic. I do like Ziva and she won't be the villain in this story.

Also, if you know a good remedy to cure headaches, please share! I think there might be an elephant dancing on my head. At least it feels like it.

R&R!

Tony was driving; and singing.

After a brief yet loud argument with Kate about who was going to be the driver, he had won. He had his badge and his driver's license, while she only carried a fake passport.

Even thought she perfectly knew that he had a point, Kate was still mad at him. He had reported the stolen car and got the police's attention, and now he was driving like a maniac. She not even knew where they were headed.

"Where are we going, Tony?"

He saw her looking out of the window and wondered what was on her mind.

"We're going back to DC."

Kate turned around with an angry look that made Tony gulped in fear. When she spoke, though, her voice was controlled and cold.

"I told you, DiNozzo, you are not bringing me back to Washington."

Tony sighed, stopping the car on the side of the road and looked at her.

"Kate, I promised you I won't 'turned you in'. I just want to take this car back to the airport and take my car so we won't have to worry about being tracked down by the rental car GPS' system."

Kate eyed him suspiciously. His tone was sincere and she could read in his eyes that he wasn't trying to trick her. She nodded.

He gave him a reassuring smile, noticing the dark circles under her eyes.

"You should sleep a little on our way to DC. You look like hell."

She rolled her eyes at his not so nice final comment, but she knew he was right. God only knew in how long she didn't have a good night sleep!

Resting her left hand on his, she looked at him.

"Tony, tell me I can trust you."

He melted at the intensity her eyes emanated. He felt his heart rate increasing.

"You can trust me."

Kate caressed his hand with her thumb, grateful and happy - even if she would have never admitted it out loud - that he was there with her, and looked away from him, once again staring at the winter east coast landscape, and mumbled a shy 'thanks' under her breath that not even herself was able to hear.

It took about three hours to get to Washington. As he parked in front of his apartment complex in Cleveland Park, just a few minutes from the NCIS headquarters, Tony noticed Kate was still asleep. He felt guilty while gently shaking her by the shoulders to wake her up.

Kate was peacefully enjoying a dreamless sleep when she felt someone shaking her by the shoulders. Her still sleepy mind reacted and she screamed a name.

"ZACH!"

Tony looked at her; her eyes were now wide open and filled with something that he couldn't quite describe. Maybe sorrow? Fear?

"Zach… where?"

It took Kate a while to realize where she was. Finding a pair of green eyes fixed on her hazel ones questioningly, she slightly blushed but she quickly recovered. Tony saw her eyes darkening to mask the feelings she had allow herself to show for a split of second. She was good.

He sighed, knowing that asking her who that Zach person was wouldn't have done anything but upsetting her, in that moment. He would have asked her later.

"Kate, we're here. We can stay at my place for tonight and leave tomorrow, early morning."

She didn't bother agreeing or disagreeing with him; she just grabbed her bags and headed towards the entrance, still slightly embarrassed for her unusual awakening.

He had to run to catch up with her.

Once inside his apartment, Kate carefully looked around. She was curious to know what kind of life Tony had. The place looked neat and clean; she found his taste in furnishing it tasteful. There weren't many pictures on the walls, which surprised her. What didn't surprise her was the big collection ov DVDs that were neatly ordered alphabetically on a big cabinet that took a whole wall.

Tony emerged from the kitchen, a beer in hand.

"Want something to drink?"

"I'll have a beer."

He nodded and grabbed another bottle from the fridge, opening it with his hand.

"Thanks."

Tony looked at Kate. She was deliberately examining his apartment almost as it was a crime scene. He didn't find it disturbing; he was too fascinated by how her now dark blond hair seemed to be capturing the last rays of sunshine to notice anything else. He wished the circumstances were different, cause if they were, he would have certainly made a move on her in that very moment. Still, he was still having troubles believing that she was there, right in front of him, alive, four years after everybody thought a bullet between the eyes killed her.

He must have looked like a moron, standing there lost in thought, because when he snapped out of his trance, he found her staring at him, with an amused grin on her face that made his ego grow smaller by the second.

She broke the silence.

"So you haven't settled down yet?"

Tony shook her head, smirking slightly. He thought about Jeanne and how that first attempt of his to a serious and committed relationship ended up. Nope, he hadn't definitely settled down yet.

"Nah… I got close, though. You? Do you have a jealous husband somewhere in this world?"

Kate mirrored Tony's reaction by shaking her head and smirking as well.

"No. Work always tends to get in the way…"

Tony nodded understandingly and pondered if it was the right moment to ask her who Zach was. He knew that she was reluctant to share anything personal, but he decided to give it a try.

He sat on the couch on the opposite side from where she was sitting.

"Who's Zach?"

He saw her tensing and nervously playing with the almost empty bottle of beer she was holding with both of her hands. He could almost see the wheels in her head turning, trying to think of a good excuse, and he also didn't fail to notice the resignation in her body posture as she turned around to face him to finally give him an answer to his question.

"He is… was my fiancé."

Tony caught the pain on her features and understood that she didn't use the past tense simply because they decided to break things off.

"What about him?"

Kate let out a shaky breath. She had never talked to anybody about Zach.

"He was a doctor. What about that girlfriend of yours?"

Tony laughed at the irony.

"She was a doctor as well."

"Why did you break up with her?"

"What makes you think I was the one who ended the relationship?"

Kate shrugged her shoulders with an apologetic look. Maybe he had changed…

"Sorry, I didn't mean to imply anything by that."

Tony didn't blame her for her thinking, but that didn't stop her comment to hurt him. Just a little.

"She was the daughter of an illegal arm dealer ad well, getting close to her was part of an NCIS assignment to get to her father, who eventually got killed. She blamed me for his father's death and asked me if anything that happened between her and me was real. I told her it wasn't because… it was better that way, you know?"

Kate felt the sadness in his voice as he shared that story with her. He definitely had changed, and she felt bad for making assumptions on his ended relationship so quickly.

"But you did love her, didn't you?"

"I did love her. I really did. It was meant to end badly. Took me a while to get over it, but I eventually did. What… what happened to Zach?"

Kate took a deep breath.

"He was murdered because of me."

She said it with a flat tone, like she was talking about the character of a movie.

Tony knew her too well to buy the act, and even thought she was trying hard to look unaffected by the event, he could read how much it was costing her to even let those words come out of her mouth.

"How?"

She looked at him slightly taken aback by the question and decided to answer. She felt like he actually cared.

"He didn't know I was a spy. He thought I worked at Mossad as a translator; we met on a train from Tel Aviv to Istanbul and it just happened. We dated for a while and after eight months he proposed. Then, six months ago as I got back to our house I found blood everywhere; someone had killed him by cutting him to pieces and left them all around the house. They thought he was a spy as well, and that he was trying to protect me by not collaborating."

"I am sorry…"

Tony studied Kate's face, sipping what remained of his beer. He couldn't believe they had just opened up to each other. Their communication usually was limited to playful banter, light flirting and teasing. He had always known that it was only their way to find relief from the drama that their jobs seemed to bring their way a little too often - to get through the day, and he had always known that if given the chance to have a serious conversation they would have found a connection that went way past beyond the lightness of their usual exchanges. Maybe that was the reason why they never gave it a chance; why they had so carefully avoided the unexplored waters; until then.

Kate nipped at her lip. What the hell was she doing? She was letting Tony in and that was the last thing she should have been doing. God only knew how lost she was feeling, how much she missed all the things that she used to take for granted… She didn't want to get attached to Tony; attachment was a privilege she had long lost.

Their thoughts we interrupted by a phone ringing.

"DiNozzo."

Kate looked at him as he pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to figure out something.

"Ziva, I am sick. I was about to send in a fax."

There was a small pause.

"Listen, I gotta go."

He kept pinching the same spot.

"No, everything is fine. Just tell Gibbs I've got seasonal flu."

Kate could hear a sigh coming from the other end of the line.

"Thanks, David."

As he hung up the phone, he noticed Kate was looking at him with a smirk.

"Ziva David, huh?"

He laughed at her teasing tone, relieved that even after the serious conversation they had a few moments before things hadn't become awkward between them.

"Jealous, Katie?"

"You wish, DiNozzo!"

He stood up and took other two beers from the fridge and handing one of them to her. Kate accepted the beer and took a sip.

"I've met Ziva, you know?"

Tony laughed, taking it as a joke.

"Right, Todd…"

"I am serious. Of course she didn't know who I was. She met me as Rebecca Falk, over three years ago. It was just a very brief hands shaking, small smiles kind of moment. I work for her father, after all. I know she's good."

Tony felt a feeling that he couldn't quite recognized at the thought that she had been right there for Ziva to meet her, while on the other side of the world he was silently mourning for her death. Apparently Kate already knew that Ziva worked for NCIS. What kept her from sending them a message through her?

Kate, reading his thoughts, let out a small laugh.

"C'mon, Tony, was I suppose to write farewell letters to you guys and send her back as a mailman? Especially in the beginning they didn't even trust me enough to let me call to order a pizza! Let alone leaving me interact alone with the woman they were sending to the States to take my place!"

"It's not funny, Kate."

She playfully hit him with a pillow and changed the topic.

"Aren't you hungry, DiNozzo? 'Cause I'm starving!"

He smiled at her attempt to winning him over by promising him food.

"Sure, Katie."

He ducked as she threw another pillow at him, not appreciating the nickname.

"What do you in this place of yours, other than beer?"

Tony watched her moving around his kitchen and grabbing various ingredients to make who knew what. She looked comfortable and carefree, playing house there in his place. He could have got used to that. He really could have had.

R&R!