Chapter 25—
Monday came too quickly. Ziva arrived at work after Tony – quite some time after, she later found out. He'd been there at seven that morning for lack of sleep and a thirst for productivity that Danny would never understand.
When Ziva came in, he was glaring at the paper folder on his desk. His desk lamp was on, despite the fact that sun was starting to flood in through the windows, cut into neat slices by the dusty old blinds. His head was resting on his hand.
She sat at the desk. "Morning," she said quietly. It was just to him. He looked up and smiled at her, but did not say anything back. He just went back to his file. His mind seemed to be in overdrive. She tried again. "I bought you some coffee."
He seemed to realise he'd been functionally mute since she'd walked through the door and took it, whispering a 'thanks' and quickly kissing her cheek. She smiled girlishly. "I gotta get back to work, sorry," he told her. She nodded. They were at work, after all. The kiss made her smile but it was more than she should expect from him around the office. This was his job, and it was a job he loved. If he could put up with being second to Tali then she should accept his passion for his work, even if he had never felt that passion herself.
"I'll talk to you later," she said, leaving him, believing it was best. She didn't speak to him again for most of the day. He and Danny had a new case – something about a sailor getting murdered. She didn't catch the details.
On interval she found her eyes wander to him and she would watch him with intrigue. He was kind of beautiful when he wasn't trying to be handsome. When he wasn't smiling his trademark hair or fixing his hair – over the weekend, she had actually learned this was regularity for him, and laughed. She liked looking at him, even though it just made her want to kiss him. Although, almost everything did lately. And she couldn't seem to suppress that desire. It wasn't physical, though. Not really. She mostly just wanted to be near him in the kind of way that she had been in. In the way that made her existence feel like more than just an existence. The way that made her feel whole and human and impossibly complete.
But she could keep her distance if she had to.
...
He left the office around noon on a lunch run. Ziva and Danny stayed back.
"I can't believe you guys," Danny said after a while, completely out of the blue. Ziva was confused and asked what he meant. "It's just . . ." he stammered. "I never would have pegged Tony as the kind of guy that falls in love after five minutes. And it's not puppy love or anything – I'm not saying that, it's just that it's not his normal style. I didn't even know he was a believer in love."
"Well, he is," Ziva said, coming across extremely defensive, though not intending to. She didn't really know what else to say to that. "What is his style?"
"Uh," Danny said, suddenly hesitant.
"Danny," she prompted, hardening her gaze. For a cop, he sure faltered easily. Maybe she was intimidating. It was a little gratifying that she could still do that to people. She thought maybe that intimidation had left her since quitting her job, but maybe not.
"He had a bit of a reputation in college. I didn't know him, but I've heard stories. Seen pictures."
"And?"
Danny laughed nervously and folded his arms over his crisp, sky-blue shirt. "He was a party animal. I don't know how else to put it. What was it they used to call him – "sex machine"? I mean, he went to parties a lot and strip clubs and – "
"What?" Ziva asked, hoping harder than she ever had that she had misheard.
"Strip clu—oh my God, Ziva, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have said anything," Danny said apologetically, realising what he had said.
"No, no," she said, collecting herself. "Ignorance is bliss, right?" Her breathing had become shallow, and she kept blinking rapidly. Tony. Her Tony? He had been one of them all this time? It couldn't be, could it? "I am glad you told me." She wasn't. She was devastated.
She felt unbelievably stupid, like she'd just been played. Had she been so naive that she actually believed he was some kind of God-send? He was like all of them! She met him at a bachelor party, for God's sake!
It shouldn't bother her, she knew it shouldn't. But her image of him was tainted. She knew what it was like to be the girl on the receiving end of forcibly welcomed but ultimately unwanted touches and to imagine him behind all that . . . it made her want to burst into tears.
She'd somehow convinced herself that he lacked any fatal flaw, which made it more difficult when she found it, in the end.
...
He came back after. She didn't want to look at him. She wasn't angry, but she didn't know what to feel. She looked up once during the final four hours of work and saw him standing over Danny's desk, holding a manila folder. Those hands, those hands that she loved were right in front of her, but she didn't want to look at them. Or him. She felt like not knowing that about him, made her a fool. She didn't like feeling like that.
And of course, he noticed something was up. But he let it go – he didn't want to push her, especially if it was about Israel and she was trying to think. He gave her space for the rest of the day. When she left, forty minutes before he was scheduled to finish, she placed a note on his desk.
Come to the basement of my apartment building when you finish.
She took a deep breath and walked out the door, Danny watching her leave with all the regret in the world. He'd never broken a girl's heart before, and he made careful note not to do it again.
...
Ziva played for a long time before he came. The sound wasn't beautiful today. It was distorted and minor and ugly but she kept playing anyway. She played till her fingers ached and her back had fallen into a slouch after sitting upright for so long. She let one single tear fall onto the keys.
Her Tony was another man that she would be otherwise afraid of. And not just that, but she refused to not talk to him about it – she'd been called a 'whore' more times than she could count, but reverse the roles and boys will be boys. She refused to just accept that he could act like that and never acknowledge that it happened.
Being a stripper had never been easy for Ziva, but her heart was in the right place, and shame was there but it had never utterly consumed her. Doing the wrong thing for the right reason had never felt shameful. And then poor, sweet Tony had come along and tried to help her, he'd charmed her sister into an unlikely friendship and fixed her life, but in the process, he had given her something to be ashamed of.
And worst of all, she'd fallen for him through it all.
...
"That was beautiful," a voice said from behind her. Tony was leaning against the wall, having come in without her noticing. She bowed her head.
"Thank you," she said quietly. She didn't know how to start. She didn't want a confrontation but she couldn't ignore this. Eventually, he spoke first.
"You okay? You seemed a little pensive today."
"So did you," she countered, her defences automatic and dangerous and she was willing them to stop but they wouldn't. Her mind seemed intent on ensuring that he didn't get inside her head. He was good at that.
"I was just . . . thinking."
"About?" she asked.
"Work, mostly," he answered. 'Mostly' being the key word. There was something else.
"Listen, I was talking to Danny, and he said he just 'couldn't believe us'. I didn't know what he meant and he told me . . . he told me the way you usually are . . . w-with women. Strippers. I . . ." her voice began to fade away.
"Ziva," he started, though not finishing.
"You were one of them? All this time?" She looked so defeated, and it killed him, it really did. "You were just another one of those drooling sex-crazed men who only love women for their bodies?"
"I'm gonna kill Danny," he muttered through gritted teeth.
"I trusted you!" she said, her volume climbing steadily. "I trusted you and you somehow failed to mention that this is who you are? Did I fall for a facade?"
"There's a reason I didn't tell you, Ziva."
She stood up. Her expression had morphed from sad to bitter. "Because you're a liar?" It was the first real jab at him. She couldn't stop herself. She didn't try to.
"Because I'm ashamed of it!" he exclaimed. "You think I'm proud of all that stuff? It wasn't so long ago that I was a complete idiot, but I wanted to change! I just never had a reason."
She shook her head. "I thought you were different." Honestly, she was scared of where this could go. Words spilled uncontrollably from her lips before she could stop them.
"Really, Ziva?! You're judging me on my past? That's a little hypocritical, don't you think?"
She gasped and rose from the creaky piano stool to stand close to him. He had crossed a very dangerous line. "How dare you, Tony! You know why I did what I did. I did it for a little girl who needed me. I had no parents and no money and nobody who gave a shit about my life! You don't know what that is like." There were tears streaming down her cheeks, and her voice had a raw edge.
"No, you're right. I don't," he admitted. "But people change, Ziva. Look at you?"
"At me? You were the one who changed me, Tony. Were you ashamed of me? Is that why you got me that job?"
"I was trying to help you! I didn't fall in love with a stripper, Ziva. I fell in love with a girl who is amazing and kind and generous and selfless and smart and beautiful!"
"Don't say beautiful. Don't say it." She took a step back from him. She didn't want to hear that from him. Not now.
"You are. And you know you are. But I love you for so many other reasons other than all of that. That's not me. You know that's not me. That guy that Danny told you about. You fell in love with me, too. Not with that guy. He's gone."
She closed her eyes, and tears fell. "I know." She touched his chest. "I know, but I can't help but feel like I might be reliving someone else's story. Like there was some other girl like me who you cared for and nursed back to health and I cannot have it end the same way. I cannot get thrown out on my ass, Tony. I have to worry about somebody other than myself."
"Ziva I've never loved anyone like I love you. You know that." He cupped her cheek but she turned away.
"I don't, though. I thought that that night I was wrong and that you were actually some kind of knight in shining armour but I had you pegged from the first second I saw you. And I was right. I don't have time for a Tony DiNozzo in my life."
So this is what heartbreak felt like. "Ziva, please," he was pleading with her.
"You aren't the grocery man anymore, Tony."
"This shouldn't change anything."
It shouldn't. She knew that. "But it does. Can you go, please?"
"Not until I fix this," he argued.
"You cannot fix ME," she pressed.
"That's not what I meant and you know it. I'm not letting you go. The past is the past. Aren't I entitled to a few mistakes?
She paused before looking up at him. "You never told me."
"I tried to tell you, that night that your Aunt Nettie called."
"That's not true!"
"No, Ziva, everything you are saying is not true," he spat. "You're terrified. You're just a scared little girl who let herself fall in love with a guy who, God forbid, might not actually be perfect! And I'm sorry, Ziva, I truly am, that I couldn't be perfect for you because I tried but you aren't going to let me! Are you? Because you're too scared of your own feelings to take a risk."
She swallowed. "Get out."
"Ziva, wait, I –"
"Now. Please."
He slammed the door on the way out. She finally let herself cry properly. Her existence felt like little more than an existence now that he had walked out of it.
Author's Note: I just want to point out that by doing this I was making a point about the characters: Just like in canon, they have flaws. It's always darkest before dawn, etc. In order for things to get better, they sometimes have to get worse first, and the best things come from hardship. This story, like most, is not a fairytale. Having said that, a happy ending is not out of the question. In fact, it is very much in the question.