The apartment was a mess. The table was pushed up against the wall, with food debris littering it, and empty cups were lined up on her kitchen counter. Still, neither occupants of the now-quiet apartment made an effort to move. Instead they stood in the centre of the floor, surveying the mess. His arms were wrapped around her waist. Her hair tickled his nose.
"That went well," he said softly, as she moved slightly, getting closer"I didn't insult any of your friends this time."
She turned slightly, to look at him, a smile on her face. Maybe, it was the alcohol. The wine had been poured so freely, as the Purim party raged into the March night.
"Jessica said you apologised," she whispered, "Thank you for that."
"It was the right thing to do," he replied, as he pulled her a tiny bit closer. He still felt bad for how he treated Jessica. "I wanted to do it."
For Purim, she had gone for a more traditional costume; dressing up as Queen Esther. Dressing in a flowy dress, and a cheap crown. She could almost hear the sort of squealing noise, her mother used to make when she was happy. Rivka David, always wanted to see her eldest daughter in a dress. Tony, had put on his best suit and declared himself James Bond, to absolutely nobody's surprise.
"I vote, we leave the cleaning up, until tomorrow," he whispered, as he flicked her hair out the way and moved to place a kiss on her neck. Nothing would lead to a particularly gross situation. It could wait.
"Maybe," she whispered. She was tired. It had been a long week, and preparing for the party had been an effort. But this was a good tired. She had enjoyed the party. She had hung out with old friends and new.
"So, we've been invited to a Passover Seder?" he asked, as he twisted as loose curl in her finger.
The only other Jewish guest at her Purim party, had been Rachael her friend from Synagoge. Rachel had brought her non-Jewish partner, Jyotica a second-generation Indian-American, who was doing a PhD in microbiology. Tony and Jyotica, who went by Jo, had gotten on well, both following the same college basketball teams. It seemed that they were on track to making couple friends.
"Would you like to go?" she asked, trying to recall the last time she had actually sat down for a seder. Had it really been before, they lost Tali, with her Aunt Nettie scolding them for being late. She could still hear Tali's voice as she asked the four questions.
"I already said yes," he said.
"Have you ever been to a Seder?" she asked. "They can be very long."
She doubted that a Seder hosted by two women, one of which was not Jewish, would be a traditional fare. Perhaps it would be a good way to introduce Tony to it all.
"I want to go," he assured her, his voice soft, and reassuring. "It's important to you, so it's important to me."
"Okay," she said softly.
A thousand tiny moments played in her head, from Passovers past, she wanted to tell him all of them. Aunt Nettie's crazed cleaning. Her mother's cooking. Presenting Schmeil with the Afikomen she found.
"I want to be a part of this part of your life," he continued. Wine had loosened his lips.
"For when we have children, yes?" she said.
How quickly children, had gone from an if, to a when. It could only ever be with him.
"Yeah," he admitted. "But, not just for that. It matters to you, so it matters to me."
"Okay," she said with a soft smile. "I would like to share it with you. It has been a long time since, I went to a Seder."
He nodded. They continued to chat. Amira, had visited briefly, dressed in a costume, which was the Disney Princess of the moment, had looked adorable. The kid, has also left with more candy, than she could ever eat, much to Leyla's disdain. Delilah, was looking well, showing off her new wheelchair. Though, both questioned what would happen with Delilah and Tim, if Delilah got the secondment in Dubai. It was such a shame, that Ellie and her husband had not been able to come, Ziva had been looking forward to meeting her.
"I bet Palmer's having a tough night," he murmured.
"Why?" she asked.
"Breena was drinking like a sorority girl on Spring Break," he said. "What goes down must come up."
For a second she was confused she thought, the idiom was the other way around. Then she got it. Breena had looked a bit green, as Palmer ferried her out the door. Tony had placed a bottle of water in her hand, as she descended into the drunk babble, and pestered Jimmy for McDonalds.
"She was very chatty," Ziva whispered.
The party guests, had broken off into little groups. Jessica had slipped out, off to her second job, as she did not have the benefit of a dead father's' blood money. Rachael and Jo, had not stayed long either, as they had been invited to multiple Purim parties. The team, and Delilah, had started talking about work, whereas Breena had cornered Ziva.
"Really," he said, dragging to word out, so it sounded like a horses neigh. "Any juicy gossip?"
Some things never change, she thought to herself. How many times, had she seen Tony trying to get gossip, on Gibbs or Ducky. It seemed his interests had broadened.
"She wanted to know, how I was doing with my classes," Ziva said. She refused to call it school, like her friends did. School was for children. "She wanted to know how I managed work and study."
"I thought she already had a degree," he murmured.
Neither of them knew very much about Breena, but she had mentioned going to college in Florida. A state school, with a binge drinking culture, and a mediocre football team.
"She wants to do her Masters," Ziva revealed. "There is something called a natural death movement, she wants to study that. She asked lots of questions about Jewish death rituals."
He frowned. Ziva was too familiar with funerals.
"Now, thats a party conversation," he muttered sarcastically.
She let out a laugh. It was slow at first, bubbling in her mouth, then exploding like a volcano. He laughed too.
"She told me it was nice to have another wife in the group," Ziva said, as the laughter faded away.
"You're not a wife," he said, resting his chin on her shoulder. "Yet."
The yet hung in the air. How certain he was of their future. Maybe, it was because they had spent so long messing around. Perhaps, if it was anyone else, she would have run away.
"I am aware of your five year plan," she said, as she knotted her fingers in his, low on her waist, like an airplane seatbelt. "Breena is just glad to have someone else to talk to, when the team gets together."
"We talk to Breena," he said, trying not to get defensive.
"Yes," she said. "But she felt left out, when we used to talk about cases."
"We don't do that," he said. "Not that much."
"You do," she replied.
"You never mentioned this before," he said softly. There had been a handful of team dinners and get togethers since, she gave up the badge. She had listened as they talked about work, and sometimes shared memories, but never tried to move the conversation along.
"I did not notice it before," she mused. "Not so much anyway. But now, I have been gone for so long."
He nodded. He still missed her on the field. What a team they'd made.
"Do you miss it?" he asked.
"Sort of," she admitted. Her voice heavy. "In the same way I miss Israel, but could not imagine living there again."
He nodded. The past was a foreign country.
"We should talk less about work," he said. "Be more inclusive."
"It's fine," she said. "I understand, more than Breena does."
"Still," he countered. "We should probably have lighter conversations, not that I really wanna hear about the McCouples cosplay."
She frowned for a second.
"It is good that they share interests," she declared. Shared interests, he wondered sometimes if that was why he tended to date other people in law enforcement.
"Is that why Breena was drinking so much?" he asked, "To put up with us talking about work."
Ziva shook her head. Curls spilled out.
"She has other reasons to drink," she murmured. Didn't they all.
His ears perked up.
"Are Ricky and Lucy, turning into Married With Children?" he asked.
"I do not understand what you just said," she replied.
He added two more television shows to the never ending To Show Ziva list, he had in his head. The McCouple's shared interest, was all things geek, theirs was American pop culture. Namely educating Ziva on the finer points.
"Are the Palmerino's on the rocks?" he asked. His tone had slipped from his gosspy tone, to one of true concern. Both of them had seen too many failed relationships. They did not want that for their friends.
"No," Ziva said, blinking a few times. Breena had not indicated that. "Breena was just a little sad."
"So, she got drunk?" he asked.
"A fairly common coping mechanism, no?" she replied. One they had both indulged in, a different times.
"True," he whispered. "What did Jimmy do to her?"
"Why would Jimmy have to do something to make her sad?" Ziva replied.
"Isn't that how marriage works," he said, with a smirk.
"And, you wish to be married," she replied.
"We'll be different," he assured her.
She hoped so. She had read somewhere the people often subconsciously repeated their parents marriages, how she hoped that would not happen to them.
"I am not sure, if I should tell you, why Breena is sad," she admitted.
Ziva had never been good at female friendship. She craved the intimacy, and the secret sharing but it always eluded her. Of the few female friends, she now kept, most had been met through work. Female friends of days past, were also bonded through bullets and bloodshed. Even now, she struggled with her new friend Jessica, who had cooled their friendship since that dinner.
"Girl code, I get it," he said, his tone breezy.
"You get it?" she asked.
"She saw you to secrecy or whatever," he said. "It's just old autopsy gremlin has been down in the dumps too."
She swallowed thickly, not surprised that Jimmy had been so down.
"Breena was sad because their fertility treatment did not work," Ziva said quickly. Her throat aching as the words came out. Guilt stewed in her stomach, maybe she should not have spilled that secret.
"Oh," he breathed.
"You cannot tell Jimmy that you know," she said. "I should not have told you."
"Poor guy probably wants someone to talk to," he muttered. "I suppose he's got Duckman."
Tony's words surprised her. She expected a jab about bad swimmers, or science fiction babies, instead she heard genuine concern for his friend.
"Breena said he has told noone," she whispered. "IUI does not have a very high success rate, but they got their hopes up. Breena really wanted to try getting pregnant. Jimmy is ready to look at other options."
"I guess that explains all the adoption stuff," he said. "How do you know so much about fertility treatments?"
"I looked it up once," she admitted, eyes darted to the floor.
She could still remember, sitting in her apartment in the days between Christmas and New Years, trying to ignore the pain, from her Christmas Eve fight. She had studied the statistics and outcomes, with the same enthusiasm as her citizenship test. She had read dozens of testimonials of women who had multiple rounds of IVF, and end up with their little miracle, as well as essays written by women who had found a happy ending without children.
"When?" he asked.
"When I was still with Ray," she said. "Just after Gibbs' delivered that Marine's baby. She let me hold the baby, and I knew then that I wanted to have children. Before then it was just a maybe. I looked up a few things, I wanted to know what my options were."
Tony frowned, a few weeks after all of that Ray had resurfaced and broken her heart. In those few days, he had planted visions of white weddings and chubby toddlers. The universe had such cruel timing sometimes.
"I should talk to Jimmy," Tony said softly. "Let him know he's got someone in his corner."
"Then he will know, that I cannot keep my mouth shut," Ziva uttered. "Breena swore me to secrecy. And, Jimmy would not want his business broadcast."
"He needs a friend," Tony said. "I'd want a friend, if I was going through something like that."
"I'm proud of you," she murmured after a few seconds.
"For what?" he asked. His voice cracking. He could not remember the last time, someone had said those words to him.
"Everything," she said. "So much has changed. You are changing."
"You're changing, I'm changing," he whispered, repeating what had become their mantra in recent months. "We're changing together."
"Yes," she said, as she turned around, so was in front of him. Their eyes met. A matching smile crossed their faces. The cleaning up could definitely wait.
A/N: I don't own a thing.
Thanks for all the love, and reviews.
As this is an AU, I played around with the side storylines, in this fic Breena and Palmer never got to the almost adoption or whatever was cannon. I like the idea of Tony trying to be a good friend, rather than the gossip fiend he was in earlier seasons. I'm debating whether to write a Jimmy and Tony chapter. This fic does seem to be developing into Tony's story, with all of the Giblets 'growing up' in their own way.
Apologies, for the delay. Life is busy. And, the ol' muse got sidetracked.