Okay sorry about the total slacking on the updating this time. I blame my Calculus teacher. That class seriously sucked out my soul. (I had a test today...not pretty.) I'm sure those of you who've had Calc will understand the feeling.

So i watched Phantom of the Opera over the weekend. I had one of the songs stuck in my head, and it had been so long since I'd seen the movie (probably when it came out in theaters in 2004...) that I couldn't remember which song it was. And now, because I'm just so super awesome, I have ALL the songs stuck in my head, rambling about in the spaces of my brain normally reserved for ridiculous things like homework.

"Paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaast the point of noooooooooo retuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrnnn..."

Yeah. That was me singing just then. You know you liked it. Don't lie.

ANYWAY...Spoilers (as usual) for the most recent episode, Nine Lives, at the bottom. You know the drill. And for another warning: I go on and on about it too. Be prepared for an onslaught of my ridiculous fangirlishness should you choose to read it.

We all stood in the squad room and stared at the screen.

"I hate it when this happens," I murmured, more to myself than anyone else, because it usually meant that Gibbs would switch into over-protective mode and I would have to sleep in the office. Again.

Guess it was a good thing that I kept a pillow and a change of clothes in my desk.

"No one leaves tonight," Gibbs ordered, turning to us, "Until we find out more. That means you too, Abby."

I sighed. DiNozzo the All-Knowing Future Seer is right once again.

"But Gibbs," Abby protested. "I'm not a Special Agent."

He fixed her with one of his stares, and she backed off with a quiet "…but that doesn't matter because I'm doing what you say anyway…"

"Great. I love sleepovers," I said sarcastically, sitting down resignedly at my desk.

"What was that, DiNozzo?" Boss demanded.

"Uh…I just said that I'm going to start making a list of possible suspects."

"Based on what, exactly?"

"Known grudges against NCIS?"

"I don't have the time to investigate the entire FBI, CIA, and the rest of the alphabet soup," Vance put in.

Stop the presses! The Director made a joke.

I resisted the urge to comment on that.

"Start a list, DiNozzo," Gibbs said. "David, McGee...help him."

And then he left, following Vance to his office, most likely to start and argument on who's kept in the loop and blah blah blah. The usual. I sat down at my desk and began typing.

"How many have you got?" McGee asked me after about ten minutes.

"Twenty five," I responded promptly.

"How'd you get twenty five so fast? I've only got seven."

"I'm the Senior Field Agent, McLoser. I've had more practice at deducing the criminal nature of those who would attempt to―" I jumped as Ziva suddenly appeared behind me. "I hate it when you do that," I snapped, trying not to hyperventilate like an idiot when I smelled her perfume and felt her presence as she leaned over my shoulder.

"These are all the names on the NCIS Most Wanted wall!" she accused, comparing the names on my computer with the names on the pictures across the squad room. "And here I was thinking you were actually getting something done."

"I did!" I protested. "It takes a lot of work to see over there."

She smacked me upside the head then, and get this: I did nothing. I didn't protest, I didn't give her any crap about how she couldn't do that because she wasn't Gibbs. I just took it. I could tell it off-put her just a tiny bit, and catching the Mossad assassin off guard upped my self esteem a little more than was necessary.

…

Six hours later, we still had nothing. Gibbs was pissed off more so than usual. I was a little on edge too; we were researching a terrorist threat and we had no leads other than parts of a blown-up warehouse wall. I ran my fingers through my hair in frustration for the umpteenth time that night, glancing once again at the clock. It was almost ten.

I need coffee.

I stood up and walked, intending to walk to the coffee machine, but I never got there. My feet took me to the elevator, telling my brain to push the button that would take me down.

Where the hell was I going? Abby was sitting in a chair doing geek stuff with McElf Lord, so what was I going down to the basement for?

The answer became apparent when I found myself stepping into Autopsy, the swishing of the automatic doors alerting Ducky to my presence.

"Hello, Tony," the ME greeted, pulling off a pair of bloodstained gloves and tossing them in the trashcan. "To what do I owe the honor of your visit?"

I opened my mouth, trying to figure out an answer to the question.

"Ah, I see," Ducky said, smiling. "You don't know why you're here?"

"I needed to escape for a while," I replied finally. "Gibbs is going crazy."

"I take it you haven't found any leads yet."

"No," I sighed. "And I'm exhausted."

"You have gone through some pretty significant emotional trauma, haven't you?"

"Nearly getting blown up this morning has rattled my nerves a bit, yeah."

"But that's not all that's bothering you." It wasn't a question.

"There's no secrets from you, is there?" I said, sitting down on an empty operating table. "I suppose I'm going to be psychologically dissected now…"

"I delight in the challenge that is your mind, Tony," Ducky replied with a smile. "Would you like some more advice?"

I leaned back and closed my eyes, lying on the hard, metal table. "Yes," I whispered. "And before you ask, I haven't told her―"

There was a swish as the doors pulled back, and Palmer walked in, humming to himself. I stopped talking immediately. The Autopsy Gremlin was not known for keeping secrets well. However, he seemed to know that he was walking in on something, and I saw his eyes flicker to me lying on the table to Ducky sitting in the chair he had pulled up.

"Oh, don't mind me," he said, smiling and walking over to his desk on the other side of the room. I followed him suspiciously with my eyes.

"What was I saying?" I asked Ducky after a moment, the emotional pain I was experiencing temporarily eclipsing my unease at having an eavesdropper.

"You haven't told…this person…what you need to tell…them?" he supplied, acknowledging on the fly my wordless request at establishing anonymity.

"Right…" I murmured. "It's too hard to find the words."

"A situation not uncommon for this sort of thing."

"I mean, there are times when I feel like just shouting it, just to get it out," I said. "But of course that would be weird and crazy. Stuff like this needs to be planned…words need to be thought about and perfected…"

"It's not a proposal, Tony," the ME said.

"I know…but you understand how strange this is for me. I'm in unexplored waters here."

"The best way to familiarize yourself with new territory is to explore it."

"But…every time I think I might have an opportunity, something gets in the way. Like earlier today, upstairs, when Zi―" I broke off, remembering Palmer was just a short distance away, filling out paperwork. "When I nearly had a…a…desirable experience with a certain previously mentioned someone, before it was interrupted by Abby. And now we're back to the way we were. Again." I sighed. "I'm totally lost here, Ducky."

"I think, Tony, that you may need some help in finding your way," he said cryptically.

I sat up. "What do you mean?" I asked, utterly confused. Were we still using the exploring analogy? Was it an analogy? Or is my ability to interpret conversations normally permanently marred? I suddenly felt a weird sense of being back in grade school and reading perverted things into normal sentences just so 'that's what she said' could be tacked on.

"It seems to me that circumstances are not setting themselves up to your advantage."

"That much is obvious. The world hates me."

"You really should talk to Gibbs about this."

"Talk to me about what, Ducky?" my boss asked, striding into Autopsy, coffee in hand.

"The, uh…fact that I'm sick, boss," I said, coughing a little to add some drama to my act. "I should go home before I infect anyone. In fact, it might be the plague acting up―it can come back years later, you know―so I was thinking that I should actually just head on over to Bethesda and…" I trailed off into silence as I fell victim to The Stare. "Shutting up, boss," I said meekly.

"No one leaves NCIS," Gibbs said. "Ducky's right there if you're actually sick later."

This was one of the very few times in my life where I hadn't secretly wished Gibbs had been my father. I would never have gotten away with the "faking sick" routine. Score one for the real deal…that was a first.

I got off the table and headed back upstairs, only to run into Abby and McGee on my way into the elevator.

"Ow…" I moaned as two people collided with me and sent me crashing to the floor.

"Oh gosh, sorry Tony!"

"Tony, are you okay?" came Abby's and McGee's hurried apology.

I was silent for a moment as I tried to ignore the protests from the bruises I had received earlier that day. "Yeah…I'm fine," I said, biting back a snappy retort; remembering that the Geek Squad was not the source of my troubles.

"Go lay down in my lab," Abby instructed.

I stared at her as McClumsy helped me up off the floor. "Where?" I asked. "On the tile floor? I think Ducky's tables are more comfortable."

"I have a fold-out cot. In my office. Behind the cabinets."

"A cot?" I asked incredulously.

"It comes in handy on overnight stays like these."

"Abby…" I said seriously, putting my hands on her shoulders. "You are officially my new best friend." She grinned, and followed McGee into Autopsy.

As I walked over to the Lab of Abby, I realized that I didn't even think to ask why they were in such a hurry. The thought didn't bother me too much…if they had found something important then Gibbs would call and tell me about it.

Ten minutes ago, I would have welcomed the activity. But, as I unfolded the cot and pushed it up against the cot-sized gap in the wall of Abby's office, the thought of moving was incredibly abhorrent. I was so tired that even the half-an-inch thick mattress wannabe felt like feathers. I sighed and rested a hand over my eyes, shielding them from the fluorescent lights above I had forgotten to turn off.

…

I hadn't realized I had fallen asleep until I was woken up.

That was something to file under 'Irony'.

Keeping my hand over my eyes, I tried to figure out what had disturbed me. Abby and McGee coming into the lab, perhaps? No…there were no voices. Maybe it was one of Abby's machines, beeping away to let someone know of its findings. But I heard no beeping.

So I adjusted myself on the cot again and tried to fall back asleep. That is, until the voice that was always in my daydreams (and nightmares) rang in my ears.

"I am sorry…I did not mean to wake you," Ziva said softly.

I opened my eyes and sat up, blinking as they adjusted to the light again. "No, it's okay," I said, tempted to reach out a hand and pull her closer. "I wasn't really sleeping."

"Abby said you were in here…I did not realize you were asleep," she said quietly, taking a step back.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"Back upstairs. It can wait."

"I won't be able to sleep now, regardless of whether I was doing so before you came or not. I'll be wondering what you need, and eventually I'll end up coming back upstairs. And if I do that, someone might see me and I'll actually have to work. So you might as well tell me now."

I could see her debating about it, her mind churning behind her chocolate brown eyes. One of my earlier pleas to get her to speak to me came floating back through my memory.

"You'll say you don't want to talk about it, but your eyes won't shut up."

Her eyes were a mystery for me; they were like little brief windows into her soul. For tiny fractions of seconds I could almost see what she was feeling behind her carefully composed exterior of scary lethal assassin-ness.

"I―" she started, then broke off. "I have something to tell you."

Wordlessly, I held out my hand, offering it to her and gesturing for her to take a seat on the other half of the cot. When our hands touched I had the irrational feeling that I should never let go.

How strange.

"Now, what did you need me for?" I asked quietly.

"I came to apologize," she said finally, staring at our entwined fingers, though she (thankfully) did not release them.

"For what, exactly?"

"I haven't been exactly fair to you today. You saved my life, and I haven't thanked you for it yet."

"And you will never need to," I said seriously.

"But I do," she insisted. "Thank you."

We were silent then; unanswered questions needing to be asked on both sides. I wondered if now would be the opportune time to let Ziva know what I…But I couldn't say anything. I was too much of a coward to divulge what I was feeling before attempting suicide first. Sticking pins in my eyes would be less painful. So what did that say? That I would rather be blind than tell Ziva I love her? That didn't seem right to me. If it was love, then wouldn't I just want to say it all the time? That's what they did in movies. Love overcame all obstacles; that's what we had been taught since we saw Snow White as children. In this situation, however, it just seemed like it was going to make things worse and more tangled than before.

"I was out of line today, and I am really sorry," she continued, interrupting my thought process. "This morning brought back some…tough memories."

Brushing her hair out of her face seemed like the right thing to do just then, so I did it. My fingers ran from her hairline to behind her ear, securing the flyaway locks. I had to remember to breathe as she involuntarily leaned into my hand and closed her eyes.

"Ziva…" I whispered. "You know you can tell me anything, right?" I said. "That's what I'm here for."

She opened her eyes and stared straight at mine. It was an intense moment; I felt like she was staring right inside me. It was very piercing and invasive, but I welcomed it. It was an unseen contact that I'd never felt before, and it was strange for something so passionate to take place with the physical contact being so minimal.

"I know," she replied softly. "But not now."

I sighed. Of course she would say that. I prepared myself for the inevitable pulling-away that was sure to come, readying my soul for the wrenching painfulness that letting go of her would bring.

But, being Ziva, she surprised me yet again my moving closer. "Can you just hold me, Tony?" she asked, her voice lower than a whisper.

What was this? Ziva David craving human contact? I decided instantly not to question it, but to seize on this opportunity that had so fortuitously landed in my lap.

"Of course," I said, wrapping one hand around her shoulders and pulling her close, the other still holding hers.

She didn't cry; that would have been very unZiva-ish. And it was a good thing too…I didn't have much experience with crying women. It was another one of those things that I tended to avoid. We just sat on Abby's cot for an uncounted number of minutes.

"Say you need me with you here beside you, anywhere you go let me go too…"

The endless eternity that was packed into that moment seemed to make the night longer, and as I held Ziva, feeling the steady rising and fall of her chest as she breathed, I realized that I was still tired.

I had been nearly blown up this morning. It had been a busy day.

But sleep was a need I could not deny, no matter how much I wanted to stay awake. It was obvious that Ziva would leave as soon as she figured out I was no longer conscious, and that was something I didn't want to happen. Not yet. I wanted to stay in this embrace for as long as I could before we went back to normal again; hopefully the memory of this would be enough to get me through until the day I stopped acting like some dorky kid and confessed my feelings like the adult I knew was inside somewhere.

Once again, Spoiler Alert for those of you who didn't notice the warning at the top.

...

SOOOOOOOOOOOO...I really like yesterday's episode, especially since it included the Tony-Ziva interaction that we've been missing.

He was sooo totally bothered by her going to Israel...I thought it was funny how McGee and Gibbs even noticed.

AND THEN...I don't know if it was just me who noticed this, but I freaked out when Tony discovered that picture on Ziva's desk. A couple of my friends think it looks like Ari, other friends bring up Michael Rivkin too after we debated and like, paused the video and stared at it upside down and stuff. We had totally forgot about him. We had this weird debate thing earlier today because my group of friends was split down the middle about it. We're just going to wait and see, i guess...we're afraid to try and look it up because we don't want to see any spoilers for anything.

And at the end, when Tony said goodbye to her in Hebrew? How sweet was that?

There were so many good quotes in that episode too...like the mold porn thing. Haha...

If you haven't noticed, I LOVE discussing episodes and stuff. So feel free to tell me about YOUR favorite parts. Any episode. I have seen them all. No lie.