Chapter 13 –

Tuesday morning rolled around and Ziva woke up with a strange feeling in the pits of her stomach. It was daylight outside, just on 7:15 am. Fifteen minutes before she absolutely had to get up.

It was this strange gut feeling that maybe today wouldn't be awful. Scorpion was gone from their lives. There were no men for her to dance for anymore, there were no more people to tell her she was a worthless human designed solely for pleasure. She need no longer look into the mirror and despise the woman she saw because she was not setting a good example by her little sister. It was a new chapter. And maybe not even that. Maybe a whole new book.

Ziva could not change who she was inside, but the outside could be utterly new. The way people looked at her in the street would be refreshing. They would see a confident young woman, one who was going places. Places. Places that were light and full of civil people.

There was a certain . . . wildness to Ziva, though. The curls and the eyes and years of running through rows tall olive trees shading her from the Israel sun. A part, albeit a very small part but a part nonetheless, would miss the feeling of stepping into the room and reducing a man to awe without a word. Something about that feeling made the adrenaline course through her like nothing else. She had said it before, her hips told people stories. They evoked raw human emotion. They allowed her to hold a certain power over people – strangers –that she never had felt before. A girl with no voice can still dance and be heard.

But, she knew, she had been heard selectively all these years. You know, in the kind of way where if, on the news, someone says there has been a murder on the other side of the country, you listen, but if it's a murder in your neighbourhood, you panic. How Ziva felt other than 'sexy' as some kind of emotion did not matter to these men. If it did not benefit them (or, more, their egos) then they would rather not listen.

Tony was one of the first people to ever break that cycle. And he was the only one that had stuck around so long. Thinking about this, Ziva reached up and rapped her knuckles against the wooden bed head. She mustn't tempt fate, how easily it was tempted.

She thought of him. She thought of how easy it felt to sink into his arms when he pulled her off of Scorpion. How Tali suddenly brightened up and warmed to Ziva after he had spoken to her. How he gave her a reason to smile in the morning without even meaning to. And most of all she thought of how he had somehow snuck his way into her life, when she had told him from the get-go she did not have time for a Tony DiNozzo.

Things change, though. And when you don't have time, you have to make it yourself.

...

For the second day in a row, Tony kept bugging Raimey about the job. At first it had been the kind of pestering akin to a sugar-high child, but now it was just a stare every time he walked into the room.

10:00 a.m. arrived and Tony was growing impatient. For one, Scorpion had been taken over by another department, since to their knowledge he did not kill anyone, which meant that while he could watch, he couldn't actually interrogate the asshole. (He probably wouldn't have been allowed to anyway, because it would have been too personal, but a guy can dream).

Needless to say, he'd been charged, and he was going to trial soon. So, there was closure there after all. He had been a little worried that Scorpion would be let off and would still be a threat to Ziva but, behind bars, there was little he could do, and with two more girls safer than they were before, he was doing his job right.

Raimey shuffled out of his office again at noon, and looked across the room first, then at the cluster of desks which included Tony and Danny's. He was smirking.

"What's with the face, Major?" Danny asked.

Raimey just rocked on his heels, tucking his thumbs into his pockets.

"Why are you holding off on us? Look if Ziva didn't get the job, then . . . tell her she did a good job at the interview, okay?" Tony said.

Raimey chuckled. "Why don't you tell her yourself?" He cocked his head in the direction of the door, and there was Ziva, as 'bright eyed and bushy-tailed' as he had ever seen anyone. Her hair was straight, and she was wearing the same outfit she wore to the interview. He wondered if she did that for sentimentality reasons or if she simply didn't have that many outfits.

It didn't matter. She was here and she was smiling and oh, that smile made his heart flip inside his chest in a way that he was not proud of. Her eyes lit up when she walked in, and even under these unflattering fluorescent lights she looked perfect. It was amazing how happy she seemed. He hope to God her happiness would stick around.

And goodness, how glad he was to see her. Once she was close-up, his gaze shifted from her to the Major over and over, as if he was checking to see that he had it right in his head. Eventually, Ziva gave an excited nod and he cheered for her. This was happening. She squeezed his hand, a thank-you in case there wouldn't be time for a proper one. It was subtle, but it was there, and it was enough.

He was so glad for her. He had thought for a doubting minute that maybe he had forced this too much on her and that she was only doing it because he wanted her to, but then he remembered who he was dealing with. While the Ziva he had met at Tim's party and the Ziva he knew today seemed like different people – though perhaps that was just Ziva's lack of facade around people she trusted – her happiness seemed genuine, and she seemed to believe that this truly would be the best thing both for her and for Tali, too.

"Oh, and, uh," he remembered his partner. "This is Danny. The right-hand man."

"Nice to meet you," he said with complete authenticity, reaching out to shake her hand. That made Tony so glad, after his initial apprehension about her.

"Okay, Ziva, just come into my office for a sec, I'll just grab some papers and stuff, and we'll give you a tour."

Tony's head popped up. "Can I do it?" he asked.

"You've got a case to solve, DiNozzo!"

"Right," he said under his breath. "The Case of Tony's Missing Bagels."

A/N: Don't forget to review, you guys xD