12 Swimming with sharks
Very Special Agent Large and in Charge Anthony DiNozzo is in a strange place, not awake, not asleep, not quite dreaming, this not unpleasant state occasionally jogged by a sense of something terribly unpleasant just out of sight. Like being some clueless teenager in a horror flick, ambling through the sun-dappled woods, not knowing that the camera keeps cutting away to a bad guy in the shadows wearing a mask. Or like floating in the warm Mediterranean water off Málaga and being nosed every now and then by a shark. Yeah, more like that.
So: here's the thing about Ziva David. Girl has her own appetites, not small, and she's almost always game for what Ducky would call a bit of the slap and tickle. Not offended by the idea that once a day and twice on holidays is reasonable. She gives as good as she gets.
She's not much of a talker, unless you like insults, which is something they have in common, and she's really not much for the mushy stuff, which is something they don't have so much in common, because Very Special Agent is hesitant about dishing it out—no man in his right mind wants to look weak to a woman with an enormous knife collection—but he does lap it up. Could live on it, probably. With Ziva you could go six months or more without an endearment that doesn't mention your hind end or its alleged hairiness. I love you is apparently reserved for leap years.
So this morning—was it this morning?—he'd followed her into the shower expecting a quick snack, and happy enough with the prospect. She'd been in the mood for something quite different as it turned out, and it was neither quick nor snack-sized. Because she doesn't say much, and she didn't then, but every so often you get this moment when she takes your face in her hands so you can't look away and she pulls in close so you see nothing but two enormous dark eyes and there is nothing in those dark eyes but the very Zivaness of Ziva and those eyes tell you that she is all on in this and that she wants you all in on this with her and that this is the only thing worth wanting. And you hope that you look the same back, but you worry a little that mostly you look goofy, because this is something you don't get used to. And then she moves in on you and it's movie-love kisses and you think that the man who first put a bench in a shower is a genius. And afterwards you try not to think about it too much because you don't want to wear it out, and you tell yourself that words are way overrated, and it's a long time before the hairy butt jokes seem too frequent.
Good times, hence the whole warm Mediterranean water metaphor. (Analogy? He can never remember which is which.) The shark? He can't remember. But he knows something terrible has happened, something that makes it seem as if this morning were already a long time ago, that there will be no more mornings like that, that he will never see the Zivaness of Ziva again, and no measure of "Good job" or "tight ship" or even "I love you" could ever make up for the loss.
And so he can't wake himself up to see the shark. He's not floating, more like drowning. And sharks are patient.