Consequences of Love and War: Chapter 9
A/N: Okay, time for a new chapter, which means it's also time for a recap. In the search for Dr. Aachen, who went missing less than twenty-four hours ago (sure seems like longer when there's only one chapter every third day, doesn't it?), Abby and McGee are working to analyze the video of her abduction, Gibbs has spoken to another physician who had worked at the detainee center at Camp Phoenix (and who was no help at all), and Tony and Ziva talked to a Mossad control officer in Afghanistan, Raanan Thal, who doesn't know anything about the abduction, but does know that one of her undercover operatives was captured by the Americans a few weeks before, and has offered to share any intel that he has gathered if NCIS aids in his release. Since that conversation, Ziva has spent the entire day in her duties as liaison officer, proposing Thal's plan to everyone from Director Vance to the SecNav to officials at the Israel Embassy.
And now, back to the story.
It was later than anticipated when Tony DiNozzo finally swung his blue 1965 Mustang into his parking space at his apartment. He sat there for a minute, unmoving as he listened to the sounds of the engine cooling down. It had been a long day—it had been a long week, between Ziva's subconscious paranoia and short fuse to this new case to the news that Ziva might only have another six months in DC before Director Ruthven found something 'more relevant'—and infinitely more dangerous—for her to do. The 'more dangerous' didn't necessarily bother him, at least as much as he thought it would—after all, he knew her training and knew that she was more than capable of taking care of herself—but he certainly wasn't thrilled about the part involving her being sent to places unknown, where she likely wouldn't be able to contact him and let him know that she was okay. Or to come to his apartment and hide random weapons in new places every few weeks, clutter his bathroom with her lotions and hair products and makeup, complain about the mess, hog the blankets while she slept… And then there was the sex. He grinned at that. It wasn't the only thing he loved about her by any means, but he'd be lying if he said he wouldn't miss it if she was gone.
He finally stepped out of the car, grabbing his bag before heading for the parking garage's elevator. Three minutes later, he had his key in the lock of his apartment door, only to discover that Ziva must have beat him there—she left it unlocked. "Hey," he called out as he crossed the threshold. On his next breath, he caught a whiff of something that smelled delicious and grimaced guiltily. "Sorry I'm so late," he said. "I was planning on making dinner."
"Something good?" Ziva asked from where she was reclining on his couch, her work clothes abandoned in favor of jeans and one of his Ohio State hoodies, a thick book on her lap.
"Sausage and peppers," he replied, placing his bag by the door and kicking off his shoes. He caught Ziva's eye and bent down, picking up the shoes to return them to the closet. And they said you couldn't teach an old dog new tricks. "I bought that Italian turkey sausage you approve of."
"Hmm," she murmured as she carefully placed the bookmark in her book before rising from the couch. Tony's sausage and peppers pasta was one of the dishes that he did really well. "Maybe tomorrow."
"Assuming Gibbs doesn't keep us there all night," he grumbled. Ziva smiled slightly at that as she laced her arms around his waist, under his suit jacket, and tilted her head up. He bent down to kiss her lightly. "Mmm. Hi," he said when they separated.
"Hello," she replied. She continued to give him that enigmatic smile, the one that never failed to make him wonder what she was thinking, as she reached over and turned off the burner under their dinner. He grinned, knowing where this was going, before she leaned forward to kiss him again, this time harder and deeper than before. His hands tangled in her hair, dislodging the simple band that had held it in a ponytail and out of her face, releasing it just long enough for Ziva to slip his jacket off his shoulders and let it fall to the hardwood floor.
When they separated again, he caught a familiar gleam in her eye, and barely had enough time to brace himself before she literally jumped into his arms, her legs wrapped around his waist and her arms around his neck. He could feel her grinning into the kiss as he stumbled toward the bedroom, grateful, not for the first time, that it was such a short distance between the kitchen and the bed.
After a round of love-making—Ziva could only assume that this was make-up sex, in light of their recent arguing, although there was rarely any discernible difference in the action itself—they laid quietly in bed, tangled in the sheets and each other, their breathing the only sound that could be heard in the apartment before Tony began chuckling. "If this is what happens when you spend the day in briefings and meetings with important people, you should do that more often," he joked.
"A more likely effect to more frequent meetings would be for me to lash out and kill somebody and spend the rest of my life in a federal prison," Ziva replied, her eyes closed in a half-asleep state that she knew she would have to completely wake herself from in a few minutes. "And then you would never see me."
"Do they give people arrested for assassination of state officials conjugal visits?" he joked, keeping up the light banter.
"I do not know, but it is an irrelevant question. I believe we would have to be married to have conjugal visits." She wondered if it was her half-asleep state that was causing her to speak without thinking; although said the words lightly, she knew that they struck a nerve—if not in him, they certainly did in her. He had asked her once to marry him; she had said it wasn't the right time. Neither had brought it up since, but Ziva knew he still had the ring and that he kept it in a box on the top shelf of his closet. She had found it a few months before while looking for one of her .22s that she had somehow misplaced. She remembered staring at it for what seemed like hours, wondering what her life would be like if she had said yes and wondering why she was wondering. She didn't vocalized any of those things, however, and they lapsed into silence once again, which was enough for Ziva to feel herself beginning to drift off, the stress of the last week and her work that day catching up with her.
"Move in with me," Tony said abruptly. Ziva sighed and fully woke up, beginning to dislodge herself from the bed and the blankets that currently connected her to it.
"Your apartment is too small for all of the stuff that we both own," she replied. She should have figured this was coming; since returning from Israel a year and a half before, she could count on Tony asking about once every third month. The question, and the excuses she gave, were beginning to be routine, but they both went through the motions anyway. She wondered what she would do if he stopped asking; she didn't want to think about that.
"We can get a new place together. A two-bedroom," he replied, often the next step in the scripted argument. He propped himself up on one elbow at watched as she pulled on a pair of panties before shrugging into that same over-sized Buckeyes hoodie. She didn't bother with the jeans. Or a bra. He was temporarily distracted from the conversation as he contemplated the implications of those missing pieces of clothing.
"We both have too many months left on our leases," she pointed out, bringing him back to the present.
"Why didn't we think about this last time we renewed our leases?" She frowned at the question and mentally counted back the months. "Oh," Tony said, having done the same thing and realizing why.
"That was when we were broken out."
"Up," he corrected. "Yeah. I remember." That lasted about six weeks, during which one or the other would, without fail, show up at the other's apartment at least once a week. Those evenings always ended up with them yelling at each other - and sleeping together. They knew that they had been doing a good job - maybe too good of a job - keeping the relationship out of the workplace when those six weeks had gone by without anyone realizing that they had broken up. "Anyway, we can sublet." She sighed quietly, prompting him to add, "If you don't want to, you can just say so."
She stared at him from across the bed for a long minute. "I love you," she stated, rather matter-of-factly. Now it was his turn to sigh.
"I know." He also knew that the discussion was over and he shouldn't press it. "Do you want to talk about whatever it is that's on your mind?" Although he would never complain about it, getting jumped in the kitchen within minutes of walking into the apartment was hardly usual.
She continued to give him that unreadable stare for a long minute before she turned away, looking for a hair tie amidst the random things she had strewn over the top of his dresser. "Over dinner," she finally replied, gathering up her hair into a thick ponytail as she headed out of the bedroom. "I will reheat the sauce."
Despite the time it had been sitting out on the stove, dinner - a pansoti that, like the sauce, was probably made from scratch - was delicious and had likely taken her several hours to make, and made Tony wonder just when she had gotten there and what she was trying to soften him up for. He swirled his glass of wine contemplatively before bringing it to his lips for a sip, watching her closely until she spoke. "After meeting with the SecNav, Vance drove me to the embassy to speak with Caleb." Officer Caleb Bashan had taken over for his uncle as the senior Mossad officer at the Israel embassy several months before, further supporting DiNozzo's claim—which Ziva denied vehemently—that cushy Mossad positions were determined more by nepotism than anything else.
"And how is he?" Tony asked at the long pause after her words. "He doesn't want us over for dinner again, does he? Because that kid of his bites."
She smiled slightly, but shook her head. "He is fine, and he did not say anything about dinner. We spent our time going through Hardoon's file. But it is not my conversation with Caleb that I wanted to tell you about."
"So… What is it?" He frowned, trying to figure out what could have left her feeling unhinged enough—or guilty enough—for the full dinner. And jumping him in the kitchen. Again, a slight smirk crossed his face, making Ziva roll her eyes.
"On our way to the embassy, Vance mentioned that if we solve this case and find both Hardoon and Dr. Aachen alive, that it would likely justify my position in NCIS, convincing Director Ruthven to keep me in DC. Or, I could use it as leverage to get a position elsewhere, such as—"
"Ziva," he interrupted. He had figured out that much already, and figured she knew that. "What did Vance say?"
She sighed quietly, her eyes not meeting his. He followed her gaze and frowned when he realized that she was looking at the thick novel that she had left on his coffee table, and his frown deepened when he realized that it was one of his Spanish literature texts from college that he kept because he couldn't get any money selling it back: Fortunata y Jacinta, by Benito Perez Galdos. He honestly couldn't remember what it was about or if he had even read it, but he could only think of one reason why Ziva would be polishing her Spanish skills. "There will be a number of other team leader positions that will be available before Agent Burley leaves Bahrain," she said reluctantly.
"Including Rota," he guessed. She blinked, surprised that he had figured it out, but nodded. He snorted. "Great. I'm in the same position now as I was four years ago." She knew about his past job offer from Director Shepard, just as she knew his reason for turning it down.
"The Europe MCRT is going to be moving from Naples to Rota in a few months," she said, "so Rota is a more senior position now than it was four years ago." He could tell that she was trying to justify it to herself as much as to him, and sighed.
"What about your job?" he asked. "Don't try telling me that there's a large Mossad presence in Rota, Spain."
"No," she admitted. "But, I have a friend in Interpol who has unofficially said that they are interested in offering me a job, should I suddenly enter the job market."
"You would do that?" he asked. "You would leave Mossad, to move with me to Rota?"
"I have told you already, Tony. I will go with you when you get your own team. Mossad is just a job," she said with a frown. "It is not a lifelong commitment." As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she wished she could take them back, for what they implied and for what they said outright. "That is not to say—"
"You don't have to say it," he interrupted. He knew better than to expect a declaration of commitment from a woman who couldn't bring herself to consider cohabitation. He was just strangely pleased to know that, at least somewhere deep down inside, she was thinking it. He wondered if there was an actual point when that thought stopped freaking him out and started making him feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
"But nothing is decided yet," she said quickly, trying to redirect the conversation. "In a way, this case is just as important for deciding the path of your career as it is for mine."
"To prove that I can play with the big boys in the anti-terrorism game and keep me on the short list for Bahrain," DiNozzo stated. Ziva nodded. "No pressure or anything," he said dryly. She gave a tight smile as she took another sip of wine.
"This better have a positive conclusion," she said, her tone just as dry as his had been. "I do not think either of us would do well in Yuma, Arizona."