Chapter 28—
The incessant beeping of a wristwatch – they did not know whose – seemed to silence the sound of their hearts beating and of breath tickling kissed skin. Ziva's unbelievably brown eyes opened slowly to meet his, and a flicker of fear was present in her. He did not know why.
Her fingers brushed the stubble on his cheeks as she pulled back from him. The muscles in her neck twitched as she swallowed and she stared at his hands, which were stretched out to touch her waist, until he felt the burn of her gaze and he removed them from her.
"We should go," she said. She wished she sounded more certain than she did, and she wished Tony wasn't so good at reading her, or that he may not pick up on it. "Work."
While work was a priority, especially for somebody as dedicated as Ziva, he hadn't thought it would be the priority. He loved his job, but when it came to Ziva he wanted nothing more than to put her first, put them first. Was that feeling unreciprocated?
"Hold on," he said quietly, but she was already sliding out of her car and onto the sidewalk. She wore a red scarf around her neck, and he watched it flap in the wind and miss getting caught in the door by mere millimetres. He got out of the car and followed her. "Ziva!" he called.
She turned around, and the icy morning wind blew her hair about wildly. But she stayed silent and still.
"Can we talk about this for a second?" He had made his way over to her, and taken hold of her hands.
"Later, we can talk later," she insisted, pulling away and taking a few paces in the opposite direction.
"Ziva, wait," he snapped, sternly. He took a deep breath, and a cloud appeared in front of his face when he exhaled, from the cold. "I don't want to do this if you're tiptoeing around me to avoid conflict. If that's what you're trying to do, then it makes me think that you might have let me kiss you for convenience."
"Let you? What the hell, Tony?" She took a step back to him. Her eyes had thinned and her brows were close together. Despite the height difference between them, she could be rather intimidating. "Did I not tell you that I loved you?"
"You did," he said, guiltily.
"If I did not think that us being together was the right thing, then I would not be doing it. And since I do think that it is the right thing, do my motives matter?" She was choosing her words carefully, he could tell.
"No, they don't." He looked disheartened, though, and that made her feel bad. Tilting her head to the side, she placed both hands against his chest, and pushed herself up onto her tiptoes to press her lips to his ever so lightly, and he pulled her close, placing his own hands intimately at the small of her back. When they pulled apart for breath, there was barely even a space between them.
"We'll talk later," she whispered. "I promise."
"Okay," he replied, letting his hands fall to his sides. They walked together the remaining distance from the sidewalk to the station. Not hand in hand, just side by side. Tony felt apprehension setting in, accompanied by a deep inner confliction. On one hand, he was so happy to have her back beside him, but on the other, it didn't feel real yet. It felt as if perhaps the dangerous territory was not behind them yet.
...
His fear soon left him. She began sending him smiles across the office, like she was trying to reassure him, and it worked pretty quickly.
He realised eventually that what had scared him was the surprise that it had been dangerously easy to fall into each other after only a month apart. Like love broken and repaired did not come along so easily. Or maybe it did. Truth be told, he didn't really have any idea.
Perhaps there had been some foreign influence on the both of them, that love was only love once, and stubbornness should suppress any urges that say otherwise. But the scary part was that they had been so very stubborn and let themselves be heartbroken despite never having loved anybody else. Much care had to be taken, or one of them could inflict serious damage on the other.
And as she smiled at him, he found himself smiling back, and once more letting her hold his heart in the palm of her hand.
...
For most of the afternoon, Tony was gone from his desk. He and Danny worked in the kind of way that co-workers work, and interacted in the kind of way that partners interact, but it was not the relationship between two best friends. The boyish shoves and punches and goofy smiles had disappeared, and she missed it about both of them.
But, at least, they were civil. Danny seemed reluctant to ever speak first, and Tony seemed reluctant to speak at all unless it was about their case. There was a third man with them, and Ziva noticed – ever-observant as she was – that they seemed better when he was around. The third man was tall and older, with silver hair cut like a Marine's. Tony had said their case was surrounding a sailor – perhaps this man had something to do with the investigation. He carried a gun and a gold badge but she was never close enough to read it and she did not recognise it.
She could recognise, however, that Tony was a little intimidated by this guy. Maybe he could intimidate him into being friends with Danny again.
...
The sun was setting when they walked out onto the street together. Golden beams of light were stretched out over the buildings, which were half-cloaked in long, dark shadows. They reached his car, parked directly opposite her building, and they both stopped. The silence was sweet, but it was far too ongoing.
"You should forgive him," Ziva said softly, her head down. "He's your best friend."
"Not anymore," Tony answered, and he sounded perfectly casual about it, though she knew he was not.
"You know, our relationship ending was not his fault," she told him, and as the words left her mouth, she regretted the phrasing. It sounded as if she was blaming him for everything. She was unsure of whether or not she was.
Tony combed his fingers through his messy, unmaintained hair so that it stood up on all ends. "But he was a trigger. And he put his nose in where it didn't belong. If I had told you about everything then your reaction could have been different. We might have been able to get past it. The past month might not have been total hell."
"He never wanted to hurt you, Tony," she said, reaching out for him.
"He thought you were bad news, you know."
Ziva let out a little smile. "Well, I am, aren't I?" She leaned against the side of his car and he went to her side, sliding an arm around her waist.
"Oh, I missed you," he whispered ever so softly. She kissed his cheek and he smiled. After a minute or so, he spoke again: "Can I be honest?"
"Of course."
"I know that it was what I did that made you leave, but I can't help feeling like maybe it wasn't so much about me."
"You were right," she said. "You were right about all of it. I was scared of my own feelings. And I still am." He sighed. "But doesn't that say something about how much I love you?"
"Yeah," he said.
"I should never have done that to you. I know that I hurt you."
"Maybe . . . maybe that's your thing, you know? The flaw? You're a heartbreaker. Not by intention, just by nature."
Her expression became solemn. "I may have danced for them, Tony, but I have never had intentions of breaking a man's heart. And I especially do not intend to break yours."
"That's the thing about nature – it tends to be more powerful than intention. Some people believe that love is the absence of flaws, but really it's the acceptance of it."
"That is certainly a lesson we have learned the hard way," she said, with a crooked smile.
"But we have learned it, right?"
"We have."
Their idle hands became entangled. They were like opposite ends of a magnet – fused together any time they were in close proximity.
"I don't wanna screw this up again," he confessed. "We are worth more than our own individual flaws."
"Wise words," she quipped.
"You better believe it."
He walked her to her door.
"Are you coming in?" she asked, the hand trailing up his arm just slightly suggestive.
"Not tonight. The hot-and-cold of this whole thing probably isn't good for Tali to be around. You should talk to her."
She understood, and knew he was right. "I am glad that we fixed things."
"Me too," he said earnestly, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. "Tali will be, too. She seemed adamant to inform me that you simply couldn't live without me." A mischievous smile crossed his face. He was kidding, of course.
"I will kill her," Ziva vowed with a laugh.
There was a beat before Tony looked from the floor to her eyes. "I love you," he said simply.
"I love you too."
Things between them had never felt so simple.