31 The everydayness of love

Everyone is glad to see Tony DiNozzo head home. The hospital staff is relieved: he has been too loud, too disobedient, and had too many visitors after visiting hours that have also been loud and disobedient. But no one is happier than Rebecca DiNozzo, who is tired of hospital food and has a new tiara to match her new knife. She races up the three flights of stairs, anxious to trade her sneakers for her pink heels.

Ziva wants to put Tony to bed right away. "Right away, woman? Even I'm not ready for that." He wants to sit on the terrace and enjoy the flat, hazy view. She thinks he is too pale and needs the color back in his face, so she helps him up the extra flight. They have a pleasant morning on the terrace. Becks shows off her new iPad (a gift from Abby) and her little mermaid tattoos (also a gift from Abby). "Should we take the knife away?" Tony asks.

"It makes her feel better. She will have to give it up when she goes back to school. But by then I think she will be more comfortable giving it up."

"When does she go back to school? Or does she? It's just kindergarten."

"She goes back to school when we go back to work. She needs it. She has had too much attention as it is."

Not meeting her eyes, Tony asks, "Will you let me take her to school?"

"Of course. I think if we compromise on the matter of breakfast food we will take care of the timeliness problem."

"That's not what I meant."

"I know that's not what you meant. Wait until after she goes down for a nap."

"She didn't nap much this week."

"Abby is gone and so is the Caf-Pow. She will smurf out."

"Turf out. You should watch more football."

"It is too violent."

"Says the woman who always goes straight for the gonads."

But after lunch Becks does turf out on the sofa. Ziva, like Ducky, thinks tea makes for good conversation. (If Abby were still there, she could have assured Ziva that Mercury is no longer retrograde, and the tea will not be necessary.) Tony does not agree.

"You are not getting coffee, much less beer or tintilla, for two weeks. The tea has no flax."

"It doesn't have much smell, either, and I'm guessing not much taste."

"Considering how you feel about other healthy foods, the no-smell-no-taste angle should be a relief." She sits. "I have some good news, if you would like that first."

"Good, or good?"

"The second...I think. Your inflections still confuse me sometimes."

"Then save it for a day when we're not having this conversation." He takes a sip and makes a face. "Sex and the City would tell you that giving a man wheatgrass tea is pointless."

"I do not know what that means, but I suspect it is rude."

"You're the only woman in the world that doesn't like Sex and the City."

"And you are the only straight man with the commemorative set."

"You're wrong there. Sex and the City is a treasure trove of information about the female mind. I love women who love knives. I'll take any help I can get." He gets serious. "We agree that I am the nosiest man in the world."

"We are agreed."

"The nosiest man in the world needs to hear about it. What happened that day. From you."

"I want to tell you, Tony. But I am worried that if I do-"

"I'll use it as an excuse to go on a multi-year bender of self-pity. Understandable under the circumstances. But if you don't tell me I'll just imagine it."

"And knowing your imagination, that would probably be far worse. So I will tell you, but I will tell you something else first. I missed you. Not just that day. But even this last week, when I knew you would be all right and when you were not far away. I missed you. We missed you."

She takes a sip to steady herself and hopes that Ducky is right, that she will say the right thing. "We need you, Tony. You, not the perfect Tony you think should exist. And who would probably be insufferable if he did exist. We can survive without you but we do not live without you. Remember this when your bender calls."

His mouth twitches and she says, "If you make a joke I will kill you."

"Joke?" He seems surprised. "I wasn't going to joke. I mean, that's an As Good as It Gets, you-make-me-want-to-be-a-better-man kind of compliment. I think that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

"I am not so stingy as that. You don't say such things often either."

"Really? I don't? Maybe I don't talk as much as I think I do. Anyway, duly noted."

And so she tells her story as best she can, as if she were giving a statement to a policeman. She does not look at him while she speaks, and he does not interrupt or ask questions. Above all she does not want to cry in front of him, and she doesn't, even when she tells him about the hour in the field and the hours afterwards.

When she is finished, he takes her hand. "I'm sorry you had to go through that."

"Tony, it is not your fault."

"It doesn't matter whose fault it is. It's just—that's a terrible day for anyone. Especially alone. Thank you for telling me."

"Perhaps someday you will return the favor."

"Maybe. But my story isn't nearly as interesting. Nothing happens in the middle reel."

A cargo plane passes over them. Tony says, "The port call must be over."

"Not yet. They make way on Friday."

He smiles. "You're catching the lingo. At least some of it."

She smoothes down his hair. She had refused to bring any of his hair goop to the hospital. She likes it like this, springy but still soft. He does love to be petted, and on a day like this, when he is not half as strong as he wants to appear, touch reaches him in ways that words do not. She wonders if somewhere in there is a fond memory of someone else—perhaps the mother he never speaks of?—also trying to make his wayward hair lay flat. Or perhaps it is the absence of any such memory that makes it powerful now. "I am going to make you chicken soup for dinner."

"We've gone from pity sex to pity soup."

"It was not pity sex. And it is not pity soup. It is very good soup."

"I know. I married you for the matzoh."

"Hmmpf. You married me for the bada-boom bada-bing."

"Not just the bada-boom bada-bing, although it is spectacular. You know, you really do make me want to be a better man."

"I want the man I have. I want you here with us. I want things to be normal again, Tony. I want to be at home again. I want us to be happy the way we were before. That is I want."

"Yeah," Tony says. "That's what I want too."

That night, for the first time in her life, Rebecca DiNozzo is anxious to go to bed. She has been planning it for days, choosing what pajamas to wear, what story is to be read to her, what song is to be sung to her. She is too excited to enjoy it the first time, so it must all be done over again. But after that she is content to be tucked in and have the light turned off. When Ziva looks in on her an hour later she is asleep.

And then it is time for them to go to bed. Ziva has been longing for this moment and dreading it, fearing that it will tell her something bad about the future. It is ordinariness she craves, the round of sleep, love, food, work, talk that has been their placid life in Rota for the last thousand or two days. As she sits on the bed, she notices the same blue towel, now clean and impersonal, hanging from the door. She is overwhelmed by both fear and relief, and she is again afraid that she will cry and just make things harder for Tony.

But ordinariness—the everydayness of love—saves her. "Tony, don't scratch like that. Your stitches could come out."

"It's not the stitches. They shaved around the incision. The hair's growing back in and it itches. Like you wouldn't believe."

"They shaved you?" She brightens. "Is there any chance they shaved your butt?"

He smiles. "Well, at least you're back to normal."

He turns out the light and they settle in to their familiar places against each other, as they have for the last thousand or two nights. Ziva thinks: We will be better than fine. For her it is the beginning of the end of the bad thing.