Yes. As per my usual deal this is later than I promised. I guess in my own personal world "this weekend" means "Next month."

I am so hopeless when it comes to keeping my own deadlines.

ANYWAY....Here is the fluff-tastic Chapter 12. I haven't had much Tony-Ziva fluff...more Tony-Ziva angst....so I decided to give you a whole chapter of it. :D I have no idea really what's going to happen next (well, between now and the far-distant ending of the story) so I'm going to have to do some serious outlining/planning type organizational thingies.

Alright. I'll shut up now. You know how I always get carried away with my A/N's.

Chapter 12

"Come on, Tony…where are your keys?" I heard Ziva mumble through the drug-induced cloud surrounding my brain. She was fumbling around my front door, trying to search for a spare and keep me upright at the same time. It was a difficult task, to be sure, and I tried to help her out by attempting to support my own weight for a while, but we both learned the hard way that was not really a good idea. She eventually leaned me up against the wall by my door, and, semi-satisfied that I wouldn't go crashing face first into the concrete outside my apartment, she proceeded to look around for the elusive piece of metal that was going to allow us entrance to my home-sweet-home. I knew that it would probably be really helpful to tell Ziva where the spare key was, but I couldn't for the life of me remember where I had put the thing. But, I knew that it wouldn't be much of a problem, because she would give up soon on trying to get in the traditional way that she would just pick the lock. So I leaned back against the wall and waited, and as I waited I began to slip farther and farther down the wall until I was sitting on the ground, head back and legs splayed out in a kind of weird fashion. But I was in not in the right mental state to really care about the aesthetic nature of my position.

After about an hour, (it was probably more like ten seconds…but it felt like an hour) the lock on my door clicked open and Ziva pulled out a simple metal instrument from the keyhole, stuffing it back into her pocket.

"Okay, let's go, Tony," she said, turning to me and holding out her hand to pull me back up. I took it, but I can honestly say that I was absolutely no help when it came to the task of transferring me from the floor outside my apartment to the extremely comfortable leather sofa in the living room. It was a good thing Ziva was not the ordinary type of silly girl, because she was strong enough to support all of my weight. I sighed as she set me gently on the sofa in a sitting position, right in the middle and directly symmetrical with the TV.

"Just stay right there, okay?" she said to me, and I nodded, concentrating very hard on keeping myself in the sitting position. I leaned back into the couch and laid my head back, trying to shake away the fog of drugs away enough so that I would be able to keep up a decent conversation with her. She was doing a great deal for me already, and I wanted to make it as easy as possible. After a couple of minutes, Ziva came back into the living room with several pillows she had taken off my bed. She laid them out on one end of the couch, with extra padding on one side, and then told me to lie down on them. I did so without complaint, and settled into them, noticing that my entire left arm was elevated.

"You need to keep it up and away from you, because your friend Dr. Brad wants you to hold off on running the risk of accidentally sleeping on it."

"Okay," I said.

"This means that you're going to have to sleep on the couch for a while so you don't toss and turn as much," she knelt down on the floor between the couch and my beat up, very worn, very amazing coffee table so her face would be level with mine.

The sudden appearance of her face directly in my field of vision was enough to take my breath away. Her hair was wavy and swept off to one side, and her tanned skin glowed in the light of the floor lamp that sat in the corner. She must have turned it on when I wasn't looking. Her deep brown eyes held both concern and relief, along with something else that I couldn't quite place. I just looked back at her, taking in every feature, profoundly grateful that whatever insane luck I had in getting back to NCIS kept me alive. The thought of being separated from Ziva, whether I was alive or dead, was a thought that rang in my deepest nightmares and sent unpleasant shivers down my spine. It was surprising…the experience that I had with those terrorists was one I'd had before, and it was not the worst thing that had happened to me by far. But it was different this time because the consequences could have been much greater. I wanted to kiss her again, but I didn't really have the strength to bridge the 12-inch gap between our faces.

Tentatively, Ziva reached out with her delicate fingers and ran them along my hairline, down my face, and finally ended with her hand resting gently on my cheek. She did it very slowly, and her touch left a tingling sensation on my skin. "Is there anything I can get you?" she asked me, an abstract look on her face as she began to caress my lips with her thumb, which parted slightly in response to the touch.

"I'm fine," I whispered.

"Okay…"

She inched closer, her fingers still on my face and her eyes locked onto mine. I couldn't look away from her even if someone had dropped a nuclear bomb outside my window. It was impossible. The proximity between us was tampering with my ability to breathe, but that was fine with me. I had the irrational thought that I didn't really need to breathe anyway; it wasn't important right now. Ziva's hand slowly moved from my face…to my neck…and finally stopped as it rested on my chest.

"…And I need you now tonight
And I need you more than ever
And if you'll only hold me tight
We'll be holding on forever…"

I was in shock from the barrage of endless pounding that my emotions were receiving. My senses had suddenly kicked into overdrive and I was surfing on uncharted waters in the middle of a hurricane. There was no previous experience or reference point that I could pull from my memory to tell me what to do next. It was both unnerving and exciting to know this; for one thing it was further proof that I was right about my feelings for Ziva, that I hadn't felt like this before, as corny as it sounded to say it. I decided in a split second that I was just going to jump into this situation with both feet and see what happens.

So with my good arm, I reached out and lifted my hand slowly to her face, returning her caress. Her skin was smooth and perfect, and I felt her lean into my touch and close her eyes. Slowly, painstakingly slowly, I let my fingers drift from the area under her eyes to run along her cheekbone, memorizing by touch the features of her face. Her breath hitched in her throat much in the same way that mine had, and I remembered to tell myself to breathe as well. I was worried that one little thing, one little noise, would send this whole thing out the window. The silence in the apartment was…well, it was very noticeable. There was no music throbbing through the drywall that separated me from the college students that lived one space over, no traffic noise from the street below, no mood-killing ring of a cell phone. It was intense, and I was surprised that the pulsing of my madly beating heart was not clearly audible.

After what must have been ten eons, my fingers reached the sensuous curve of her lips. Like mine had done, her lips parted involuntarily when they came in contact with my skin. She took a deep breath, her eyes remained closed, and I felt her other hand on my arm. It felt like fire, even through my shirt, and it left a burning trail as it traveled up the length of my arm towards the hand on her face. She pressed it lightly against her, and then gently clasped my hand in hers, guiding it to her lips, where she proceeded to kiss each finger slowly, tenderly. She then let my hand trail up the line of her jaw and down her neck, to rest softly at the base, near her collarbone. My eyes were closed now that she was in control of where my hand went, and just let the sensations I was feeling wash over me in tidal waves.

I have no idea how long we remained in this position, and I didn't really care. I really didn't have any perception of time at all; it was as if the world had frozen in its orbit and all time had stopped. Breathing was no longer an issue, because I didn't seem to need oxygen anymore. Ziva's presence was all that was required for me to survive.

…

I don't know what startled us out of our trance, but somehow the perfection of the stillness between us was broken. Ziva's eyes opened, as did mine, and she reluctantly pulled herself away, her fingers lingering, touching.

"It's getting late," she said in a hoarse whisper. "And there is a lot for me to do at work tomorrow."

"Wait…" I said, unable to keep the pleading out of my voice, the sincere, breath-stealing, unexplainable need that I had for her to stay. "Stay. Please."

There was severe conflict in her eyes, I could see it flashing as she stared down at me. "Tony…you know I can't…"

"Please."

There was more silence, and the tension between us was so thick it could be cut with a knife. She stood there next to the couch, looking down on me, torn between what she had to do and what she wanted to do. It seemed like an eternity that I waited for her to decide, the fate of my soul seeming to hang in the balance. In my head, I knew that was a bit extreme…that it was perfectly alright that she went back to her own apartment…that I would get over it eventually and I would see her again tomorrow. It was the painkillers talking, making me think all these outrageous things. But it was so painful to think of the prospect that she might leave my sight.

Ugh…Tony…you are so pathetic. No more romantic comedies for you. Ever.

Ziva took a deep breath, and I locked eyes with her. She had made a decision.

"Fine, Tony, I will stay." A smile crept its way across my features. "But only until you fall asleep. Then I will go."

"But you'll come back." It wasn't a question.

She nodded. "Yes."

"I can live with that."

She smiled, and then stood up. "Is there anything you need?"

"No, I'm fine," I replied, still reeling from the intense moment of a few seconds previous. "I don't need anything."

"Is it alright if I raid your fridge then?"

"Go ahead. Though I can't guarantee there's anything edible in there. It's been a while since i've had time to eat at home."

I listened to her rummage around in my tiny kitchen as I adjusted myself as best I could, trying to make enough room on the couch for her. There were other places she could sit, of course, but I'd rather have her as close as possible.

Because I was crazy on painkillers, of course.

Liar.

Unfortunately, she would have to sit at the other end, by my feet, because really the only effective adjusting I could do was to curl my legs up into a semi-fetal position. The slightly awkward slant I was in, due to the elevation of one shoulder and not the other, gave me the feeling that I was at any moment going to slide right off the couch and onto the floor.

Ziva came back with two glasses and a sandwich in her hands, setting one of the plastic 24-ounce Ohio State game cups on the coffee table in front of me and holding one for herself.

"It's just water," she said. "You should probably drink some before you get dehydrated."

"Yes ma'am," I said, reaching out with my good arm to grab the cup. "Do you wanna watch a movie?"

She sighed exasperatedly, but in a joking kind of manner. "Well, it was inevitable, I suppose."

"I thought you said nothing was inevitable."

"We weren't talking about movies then," she whispered quietly. "Which movie do you want to watch?"

I cast my eyes over in the general direction of my monstrous movie collection. DVD's filled the two cabinets on either side of the TV, with a few sitting on top as the collection had grown too large to be contained in the little glass-fronted, wooden cases. I don't even know why I bother to look at them; I know what movies I own. But I scanned them quickly anyway, seeing if there was a particular title that jumped out at me. None did, so I hit the ball into Ziva's court.

"I'm good with anything. You're the guest…why don't you pick?"

She looked at me with raised eyebrows and then walked over to the TV to get a better look at my collection. "Do you have these organized in any particular way?" she asked me.

"Um, not really. My favorites tend to always gravitate towards the top though."

Ziva sifted through them all, running her fingers gently over the plastic cases as she thought about each one. "Hmm…" she murmured, stopping on a black and white case in the second row. "This one looks good."

"Of course it's good. I don't buy crappy movies."

She rolled her eyes as she opened the case, pressed the little red button on the DVD player, and inserted the disc. I tried to grab the cup of water on the coffee table while she wasn't looking, but wasn't able to get it and bring it to my mouth successfully; I was in too awkward of a position. I tried again, but suddenly Ziva's hand was there and she was holding it for me.

"You could have just asked, you know."

"You were busy."

I drank a little of the water through the straw she had thoughtfully inserted as she went and sat down on the little space of couch that was left. I curled my feet up a little more to give her some extra room, but she grabbed them gently and stretched them out so that they could rest on her lap and I wouldn't be uncomfortably scrunched up for too long.

I barely noticed what movie was on. The part of the painkillers that made you sleepy were starting to really kick in now, despite my best efforts to prevent otherwise. As I drifted off, I could feel Ziva's fingers making soothing circles on my legs through the blanket. It was very comforting, and I had the sudden flash as I remembered that my mother used to do something similar when I was younger and sick in bed. And as I began to succumb once more to unconsciousness, I could hear her singling softly in Hebrew under her breath.

....

"Oh, Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars."
Bette Davis Now, Voyager (1942)

Okay, the song in italics like, in the middle of the chapter is called 'Total Eclipse of the Heart', originally sung by Bonnie Tyler back in the eighties. It was a really weird music video. (the best version I think is the one Josh Groban and Ellen DeGeneres did on her show that one time... :D) But yeah, I was listening to the song while I was writing a piece of this chapter and it kinda fit.

So what do you think of the story so far? And what about season 6? DID ANYONE READ THAT DEPRESSING NCIS ARTICLE IN ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY?
Feel free to review....It's been a while since I've discussed episodes with you guys!