Tim could feel the exhaustion seep through to his bones, as he sat down in a diner in a truck stop in the middle of nowhere. The seat made a squelchy noise as he sat down. The waitress came over with coffee, and a frown etched deep into her youthful face. McGee blinked a few times, then leaned further into the seat.
He closed his eyes for just a second. A long second.
It had been a long few weeks, since Delilah had gotten hurt. She had spent some time in the ICU, and now was in a rehab facility, learning how to do everything all over again. Delilah's mother had dropped everything, and was there with her. Tim, still liked to call every day, and had hoped to visit for the weekend.
The murmur of Tony's voice, disturbed his musings, and he opened his eyes.
"Love you too," Tony said into the phone, before hanging it up, and slipping it into his pocket. He waved a paper menu in McGee's face. "We keepin ya up, McSleepyhead."
McGee rolled his eyes. It had been Tony who insisted they stop off for some dinner, and so he could relieve himself. All Tim wanted to do, was go to sleep, in his own bed, with Delilah next to him. As the case wore on, it looked like he wasn't even going to manage two out of three.
"It's weird seeing you do that," McGee murmured, as he focused on the menu. None of the food seemed particularly appealing.
It was just so weird, that Tony and Ziva were together now. Not just sleeping together, either. Properly together. Committed, secure, and happy.
So very happy.
"What's weird?" Tony asked, as he poured two packets of sugar into his cup.
It was also very strange, not to have Ziva work with them. Still, when McGee had properly talked to her last, during the winter holidays, he had been struck, by how at peace she seemed. A peace she would have never achieved, had she not bowed out of the fight.
"You know," McGee said. "Earlier, when you were on the phone."
"It's weird seeing me talk on the phone," Tony said, his eyebrow raised high.
McGee sighed to himself. Tony was going to play this game.
"I mean you were talking to Ziva," McGee continued.
"Yeah," Tony said, as he drunk his coffee. "But, you've seen me talk to Ziva on the phone before."
"Yeah," McGee conceded. "But it's different, now."
"Yeah," Tony replied dragging out the word, and letting his tongue touch his lip. He looked into the distance. "It is different now."
Different, it certainly was. Everything has changed, Abby had whined a few weeks ago. Abby never did well with change.
"Were you two an item, the whole time?" McGee asked.
Tony let out a half-laugh.
"For someone with your IQ, you've got a bad memory," Tony said. "There are plenty of times, where Ziva and I were the opposite of together, and plenty of other times, where we were seeing other people."
How much water his two friends had put under the bridge. If he'd written it, his agent would have called him crazy. Nobody else, would have survived the storms those two had, and come out stronger.
"Still," McGee prompted. "There were times, when it really seemed like you two were."
"Where it seemed like what?" Tony asked, as the waitress walked toward them, notepad in hand.
The waitress took their orders. Tony muttered something about healthy eating going out the window. McGee ordered with trepidation. The waitress refilled their coffees.
"You should know by now, I don't kiss and tell. It's a DiNozzo rule," Tony said, the minute the waitress was out of earshot.
"Last time I saw your Dad, I got a play-by-play of how he met your next stepmother," McGee declared.
The stories Senior had to tell could make Leroy Jethro Gibbs blush, if he was capable of such a thing.
"He's not proposed to Linda, yet," Tony said. Tim noted the yet. "Besides, this DiNozzo doesn't kiss and tell."
Not about her, anyway. McGee knew this. Even before, when it came to Ziva, it all mattered so much more. Tony would do anything for her.
"I'm just curious," McGee said, as he took a sip of coffee. "We all worked together, for such a long time."
The three musketeers, Abby had once jokingly called them, as they bickered in the squadroom. McGee liked Ellie, and was more than impressed with her brain, but sometimes nostalgia got to him, making him miss the old days.
"I know," Tony said. "But, it's not like you think. It wasn't like No Strings Attached, we only got together after we handed in our badges."
McGee wondered for a moment, who exactly had gotten Tony to sit through a chick flick like No Strings Attached, then again did love most things Natalie Portman. Mislaid patriotism, she had called it once.
"Like a minute after," McGee mumbled.
When the two of them had returned from Israel, and Ziva had announced she was not coming back, Tim and Abby had spent a lazy summer afternoon in her lab, trying to work out the timeline of it all. They had been left with more questions than answers. Like always, when it came to Tony and Ziva.
"Yeah," Tony said with a nod, "But, it had been building for a long time. We were close, you know."
"I know," McGee whispered.
He remembered the inside jokes, the lingering looks, and the protectiveness the two shared. He also remembered, how many witness, metro detectives, and bad guys, thought that Tony and Ziva, were partners both professionally, and personally..
"I guess you could kinda say it was kinda like When Harry Met Sally except we were friends the whole time, crossed with Mr and Mrs Smith," Tony said.
McGee laughed so hard he snorted.
"I never thought it would actually happen," McGee finally admitted, after he came down from his fit of giggles.
"You wrote a book about us," Tony declared, throwing his hands in the air. "You thought it would happen. You believed."
"Back then, you two were always so, you know," McGee said shrugging his shoulders. He might be a writer, but at that moment words failed him,"I figured you'd hook up, but it would be volatile. I figured everybody would get hurt."
He thought, the two of them would hook up, then fail to let down their defences, and that it would probably end with them trying to kill each other. For them love would be a dangerous game.
"Well, there's still a chance it'll end in tears," Tony said.
Tim hoped not, as bemused as he was by the whole thing, he wanted his friends to be happy. They deserved it.
"You'll try and avoid that, right?" McGee asked.
"Of course," Tony said, letting out a deep sigh. "I don't want to hurt her, Tim. I really don't want to hurt her."
Tony's words were small, and seemed to physically hurt him, as they came out. He wore a look on pure anguish.
"I know," McGee said softly.
Tony swallowed thickly, then looked up as the food came. He had plastered his thousand-watt grin on his face. It was a good mask.
"So, now that the real deal are together," Tony begun as he stuffed bacon into his mouth. "Are you gonna get Tommy and Lisa back together in the books?"
McGee had honoured his contract with the publisher, and completed the LJ Tibbs chronicles as a trilogy. The third book had ended, with Tommy permanently injured and newly retired, sitting on a beach, and smiling as he saw a familiar face. It was deliberately left unclear, whether the familiar face, was Lisa who had quit Mossad two chapters beforehand, or Joelle who had been Tommy's doctor lover, when he was undercover. McGee himself, had never quite know how to end it, going back and forth about who he thought came to see Tommy on the beach.
"No, I'm done with those," McGee said. "I don't really write any more."
Tom E Gemcity had retired. He had a manuscript for a fantasy detective novel on his computer, but he was unsure it that would ever see the light of day.
Tony spilt egg on his shirt, and wiped it off with a napkin. McGee took a tentative bite of the soggy toast. The food was even less appealing, in actuality, than it had been as words on a menu.
"So, was Delilah pissed, about you spending your Valentine's weekend with me, not her?" Tony asked. "I'm guessing she wasn't quite as pissed as Mr Ellie or Mrs Autopsy Gremlin."
At the crime scene, they had heard Ellie and Palmer, console each other in how annoyed their spouses were with the unexpected call out, on Valentine's Day. McGee and Tony had stayed quiet, and Gibbs had rolled his eyes, and made a reference to his many divorces.
"Was Ziva?" McGee asked.
She might have laid down her guns, but McGee reckoned Ziva could still pack a punch.
"I asked first," Tony replied, not looking up from his food.
"Sorta, not really," McGee said, "I think Delilah forgot it was Valentine's Day. She said rehab is really warping her sense of time. She's off the serious pain meds now, so that should help things."
Tony swallowed thickly. Even weeks after the fact, people still struggled with how to react with the news that Delilah had been so severely injured. Tim, himself was still struggling with the adjustment. Delilah seemed to have taken it all in stride.
"Hows she doing?" Tony asked, McGee ran his hand over his phone, and show Tony his pictures. Delilah sitting up, without any support, for the first time weeks. Delilah testing out a wheelchair. Delilah with a huge smile on her face, having dressed herself in a new record time.
"She's good," McGee said. "She's being really positive. She's itching to get back to work, she was up for a promotion, before this all happened."
"Is she all by herself at that rehab place?" Tony asked.
"No," McGee said softly. "Her Mom's there. She dropped everything."
"Oh," Tony said, moving the tomato around on his plate. He always got like this, when people mentioned happy families. Ziva used to, as well. "That's good."
"Yeah," McGee said. "I still wanted to be there. I wanted to make our first Valentine's Day together, special."
"Well look at that," Tony said. "We're like two peas in a pod, or as my girlfriend would say two peas in a pot. Both of us wanting the same thing."
"She knows that one," McGee said, with a smirk. "It's weird hearing you, call her your girlfriend."
"It's what she is," Tony said. "For now, anyway."
"For now," McGee echoed, eyebrows raised high. "Are you planning to propose?"
No wonder, he seemed so bummed about missing Valentine's Day.
"That's very Abbyish of you, McNosy," Tony said, as a smile crossed his face. "And no, not right now, but it's in the five year plan. Quite early in the five year plan. These things do typically have an order; and Ziva can be quite a traditional girl."
McGee coughed in surprise. Tony DiNozzo had a five year plan. If this had been a year ago, McGee would have thought it be a joke.
"Eight years ago, you could barely commit to a three day weekend," McGee said, "And Ziva. Ziva was. Well, Ziva was very different."
The Ziva of years past was Jane Bond and GI Jane, with a bit of Black Widow vibe going on. The Ziva of now, was softer, but unbelievably strong, and McGee could almost forget she had ever been a Mossad assassin.
"Who'd have thought it?" Tony said, still smiling. "Ziva's changing. I'm changing. We're changing together. We're not gonna screw this up."
"Yeah," McGee said softly.
They were all changing. Growing up, and getting serious. They both had girlfriends, they hoped to someday make their wives, if their wonderful girlfriends would have them. Maybe, after working with Gibbs' for long enough, they were finally starting to heal the scars left by their less than stellar Dad's. Maybe, they had all seen what Jimmy had with Breena, and wanted a piece of that. Maybe, they had taken finally taken Gibbs' advise, and make an effort not to become him.
"It's whole new world," Tony continued. "A brave new world."
"How is Ziva, anyway?" McGee asked.
He had seen her a couple of weeks ago, but that had been just days after Delilah got hurt, and they had not really talked. Tim had found, more than a few foil cover casseroles on his doorstep, that were clearly made by Ziva.
"You should ask her yourself," Tony said. He often did this when people asked after Ziva, not wanting for Ziva to lose touch with the people she was close too. "Have you stopped texting her? Is it because she's kicking your butt in that online scrabble you two nerds play. You know how competitive, she can be."
"No," McGee said. "It's just with everything. Besides, she's taking more classes this semester, isn't she? She must be busy. Is she enjoying them?"
"Yeah," Tony said, with a smile. "You know, I always knew Ziva was smarter than me, but I think she might be smarter than you."
McGee smiled to himself, he was so glad for his friend.
"Was she pissed about Valentine's Day?" he asked.
"She said she was disappointed, but said she would get over it," Tony replied.
"I suppose she gets it," McGee whispered.
It hadn't been too long, since she had worked with them. It hadn't been too long, since Ziva would have been making those calls, with them.
"Too well," Tony said softly. Too damn well.
"Yeah," McGee said swallowing thickly. "You'll make it up to her, right?"
"I'm going to make a very expensive trip to the jewelry store, the minute this case is solved," Tony said.
"I think she'd settle for flowers," McGee replied. Though he wondered, if he had ever seen Ziva receive flowers, the entire time they worked together.
"I'd already ordered the gift, before we even got the bat signal," Tony muttered. "She likes earings, and she doesn't have to worry about getting them caught on stuff anymore. Besides, it's our first Valentine's Day, I've got to set the standard. I don't want her settling for anything, or anyone."
Once upon a time, when Tony was slimmer and McGee still hadn't shifted his freshman fifteen, a decade out of college, Tony had told him the trick was to never get too expensive a gift for a woman, as it set an unrealistic expectation. Oh, how times had changed.
"I'm sure, she'll love them," McGee replied.
He had gotten Delilah a rare first edition of a comic book, they both shared an interest in, and now found himself unable to shake the idea that he should have gotten her something more traditional.
The waitress shuffled past them, and left the bill on the table.
"Look at us, McGoo," Tony said, as he settled the bill for both of them, despite it being McGee's turn to pay. "Being grown ups."
"Feels good," McGee said. "Doesn't it?"
"It does," Tony said, with a smile.
A/N: I don't own a thing.
I know, it's not strictly a T/Z chapter, but considering these two spent most of the chapter gushing about their loves, I hope you enjoy it. I also, really wanted to get an 'outsider' view on it all. The next chapter will be T/Z.
Also, like I said before, I haven't seen an episode since 11x02, but I don't know how exactly, they dealt with Delilah's injury.
Thanks for the reviews, favs, follows, and general love.