Washington, DC

It had been many months of happiness, filled with trial and error and hiding. It had been so many months, in fact, that it was almost a year since they started this. They were happy with each other. They were so happy that it showed that they were both happy when they were at work, which was where the trial and error came in, since they were trying to hiding it from their coworkers. Happiness was what they had been searching for and what they had found. Trial was what they were constantly doing. What worked best for Tony? What worked best for Ziva? What worked best for the two of them together? What worked with their erratic work schedule? It was difficult, to say the least, which was where the errors came in. And there were many errors.

There were mornings they were both late to work. Those mornings they usually had been up late. Sometimes they were talking, sometimes they were watching a movie, sometimes they were on a date, and sometimes it was for other reasons entirely. There was one particular morning, and not the first morning, where Ziva's car broke down outside of Tony's apartment after they had already overslept, because of a late night. It was about three months into this new relationship and it was the beginning of October, on a particularly cold morning.

"I cannot believe we slept past the alarm, Tony!" Ziva said. "Again!"

They were rushing. They were rushing because they had gone out for a date and then come home and made passionate love late at night. They had definitely overslept. It was one of the mornings they were supposed to be at work for seven, instead of eight, like always. They were in the middle of a case, and this was not good. Both were nearly ready and gathered their keys at the same time, already having agreed to take separate cars to work on days they stayed over, because they already knew that taking one car was suspicious enough.

They headed out the door and down the elevator at the same time, giving each other a kiss as they got to their cars, as though they were heading off in separate directions, like normal couples. They got in their cars and Ziva's was not starting. Tony hopped back out of his car and indicated that she should pop the hood up. Her starter was dead. That meant that jumping it was no use.

"Come on, I'll give you a ride," Tony said through her open window. She sighed, got out, locked her car and got into Tony's. They were over an hour late already and were bound to hit some rush hour traffic, which was never a good thing in DC.

"We're going to get into trouble again," Ziva warned him. "You should have gone without me."

"We'll think of something we always do," Tony reassured her as he started his engine and drove off at a high speed that made Ziva remember why no one liked her driving.

They arrived at NCIS one hour and forty minutes late. They climbed into the elevator nervously, neither daring to look at the other, their backpacks slung over their shoulders. Ziva was fidgeting with her hands, as she always did when she was nervous. Tony was bouncing on his toes, as he did when he was nervous.

The silver doors slid open with the familiar ding and every head on the MCRT turned toward them. Gibbs looked ready to kill. They should have called. That was a mistake. Staying up so late was a mistake. Ziva's car breaking down was beyond their control. That was their excuse though, and they both knew it, without having to voice it to the other. McGee was staring suspiciously, this was not the first morning that both were late to work and coming in at the same time or nearly the same time.

"You two know how to read a clock?" Gibbs asked.

"It is my fault, Gibbs. I am sorry," Ziva said automatically.

"How's it your fault DiNozzo's late?" Gibbs asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You see, my car broke down this morning. Something in it does not work. The thing would not start. I tried to figure it out myself before calling him. I thought he would already be at work. When I called, he came," Ziva explained.

"Then I tried to fix her car, boss," Tony said. "I failed, obviously. It's her starter. She needs a new one."

"Sure," Gibbs said, his eyebrows pulled together. "Either of you know what a phone is used for?"

"I did not think of it," Ziva said shamefully, knowing that they should have called as soon as they knew that Ziva's car was not starting without further investigation. "We should have called."

"Yup," Gibbs said. "McGee'll fill you in on what you missed."

Gibbs left the room, looking positively furious at the two of them, as well as suspicion. Another mistake; they both knew it. They weren't found out yet. They had good excuses and usually their excuses didn't involve each other. They really had to stop showing up late, though, because they would definitely get caught soon at this rate and neither one of them wanted to be transferred or fired.

There was a late night phone call that they weren't paying attention to and Ziva answered Tony's phone as they got ready to call it a night. It was on a weekend. They had just gotten in from dinner and were not supposed to be on call. Ziva automatically picked up the phone and answered it.

"David," she said into the cell phone that felt familiar in her hand, not yet realizing that it wasn't hers.

"Um… uh… we have a murder. Ziva?" McGee's voice asked.

"What?" she snapped at him, frustrated that they were getting called in on their rare weekend off.

"Why are you answering Tony's phone?"

Oops, she thought. That was definitely a mistake that was not worth having happen again. She sighed.

"We were at a bar picking up women together, McGee," she joked sarcastically. "I accidently grabbed his because we both left them on the bar."

She heard McGee's sigh. He had caught the sarcasm and wasn't entertained by her joke in the least. Ziva knew that he was suspicious of something between the two of them. After all, Tony had turned down two women in the last week and there were many others that McGee didn't know about. It was Ziva's turn to sigh.

"Text the address," Ziva said quietly.

"Will do," McGee said. "But, Ziva?"

"What McGee?"

"What were you two really doing together?" he asked, hoping to get something other than a joke.

"Killing children," Ziva said darkly, knowing that no matter what she said that wasn't one hundred percent serious the other field agent wouldn't buy it. She hung up the phone before he could make another remark or ask again in hopes of finding an answer. She only hoped he would take the hint that they weren't going to talk about it.

There was an early morning phone call that was similar. Tony answered Ziva's phone. It was four in the morning and they nearly missed the call. As a matter of fact, Ziva did miss the call. It was less than a week after their late-night phone call and it was, again, McGee calling.

"DiNozzo," Tony said groggily, feeling Ziva stir on his chest and holding her tightly, hoping that whatever it was wouldn't make him need to wake Ziva up.

"Hi, Tony. You're not Ziva," McGee said on the other end.

Shit! That wasn't good! How could he have been so stupid? Why hadn't they taken the time to go get different phone cases yet? They should've made that a priority.

"Well, we have a lead and boss wants you in here in less than a half hour," McGee said, not bothering to wait for an answer from the senior field agent. He knew that Tony and Ziva had been acting oddly around one another for a while and he wondered what was going on or what had happened between them. But, he didn't ask. He didn't want to know, because he didn't want to have to hide something from Gibbs and get them caught.

"I'm going to assume that since you answered her phone she was either with you, or still is. Wake her up, or call your own phone to get a hold of her. You two might want to considering answering your own phones from now on. If this was Gibbs he would have a field day!"

"A field day with what, McGee?" Tony heard Gibbs ask in the background of the silent room that McGee was in.

"The case," McGee said quickly. "Get here," McGee added to Tony.

There was one day where they had a particularly difficult case, while Eli David was in town. That was rough on both Tony and Ziva. Tony had hugged Ziva, unsure of whether Eli was okay or not and wondering if Ziva was going to kill Liat or not. That's when they almost said something, in front of Gibbs.

They pulled out of the embrace at the same moment and got lost in each other's eyes as they often did. This was true both before and during the relationship and something that was dangerous now that they were more open with each other and together and aware of what each other was feeling. Tony opened his mouth.

"We'll figure this out, Ziva," Tony promised her, knowing that they had to. "Just don't kill Liat while we work with them."

"I know, Tony," Ziva said with a sigh, still lost in his eyes. "I tr… I know."

He looked at her curious and nodded his head. Of course Ziva trusted him. It was obvious.

"We'll find whose done this," Ziva said quietly.

"Yes, we will, my l… ninja, we will, ninja," Tony said covering his tracks and shaking his head at his near slip. Ziva chuckled and so did Tony. They heard a heavy sigh from their boss.

There was that day where they sat in the office all day and did desk work. They had gotten so lost on focusing on one another that they didn't realize that there were five sets of eyes staring at them and trying to get their attention.

They had been staring for about ten minutes, though it felt like no time had passed at all. Tony was aware that Gibbs was watching them and Ziva was aware that Vance was watching them. They didn't indicate this to the other. What they were unaware of was that Abby, McGee, and Ducky were also watching them. Their names had been called at least three times each by varying people among those five.

"DiNozzo! David!" Gibbs shouted for the final time at his loudest volume, stepping in between both of them.

Both agents jumped and stared at Gibbs, coming back to reality. Gibbs looked at each of his agents, sighed and walked back to his desk.

"I was going to tell you all that you could go home for the day, but I'm sure that you two aren't actually done with what I asked of you. Something you'd like to share with the class?"

"What?" Ziva asked. "We are not in a class. Are we?"

"It's an expression, Ziva," Tony said quietly. "Sorry boss, I was just thinking."

"About Ziva? About work? About the clock on the wall over there? About the orange wallpaper on the opposite wall? About the other agents in the building? About the hot blonde that sits behind us? What were you thinking about?"

"A movie, actually," Tony said quickly, trying hard to cover his tracks, and realizing that he had definitely said the wrong thing. "I was thinking about Star Wars and when Yoda dies and it's just really sad, but very promising all at the same time."

Gibbs sighed and shook his head. "Go home. All of you."

They had made other small errors, too. But, that was beyond the point. It was the major errors, where they had had a difficult time coming up with an excuse for what was going on that had nearly gotten them caught on several occasions. But, they were doing better lately.

Hiding their relationship was not an easy task. They were already tired of hiding it from the people that was so much like a family to them. However, they had started off with an advantage. They had been pretending for so long that, in the beginning, hiding it was the easiest part for them. However, hiding it had become increasingly more difficult as time passed. They grew closer, more in love, and more dependant on the other as time passed, that they didn't even see the difficulties starting until it was past several mistakes. They knew that someone had to be suspicious, but no one had said anything to either of them yet.

Gibbs was all seeing and all knowing, and somehow he hadn't yet worked it out that they were together and had been for almost a year. McGee was a trained investigator and the caller of two separate times when they had answered the wrong phone, not a mistake they made a third time, but still, he had no idea. Abby who tried to stick her nose in wherever it didn't belong hadn't figured it out, either. And then there was Ducky.

No one knew what Ducky was seeing about these two. Whenever there was a body he saw them together. He saw how differently they acted around each other. It was as though they had careful footing now, whereas before they were totally uncensored in front of their colleagues. They always stood too close, but they were, somehow, closer now when they stood. They usually flirted, but sometimes, now, they got carried away. Ducky was good at psychology and no one knew what he was seeing, because he was keeping it to himself.

And, although they were quite happy and had overcome many of the mistakes and not made them more than a few times each, they encountered new things and a new theory. Perhaps, hiding the relationship was a mistake as well. Ziva had miscarried once and claimed that it had nothing to do with work. Tony hadn't believed her at first, until he was sitting in the doctor's office at an examination with her.

"Okay, I've done an ultrasound to make sure that your body's voided all of it," the midwife said gingerly, knowing that this was a very difficult thing for a happy couple such as the one she had sitting in her office now. "Everything looks pretty healthy. But, Ziva?"

Ziva looked up at the midwife, tears in her eyes at the situation, hoping that it was nothing to do with work.

"I know you were concerned about your work being an issue," she said. "It's not. The fetus is very protected in their. Nothing in your line of work, short of getting shot directly in the uterus, can harm the pregnancy this early on. It's the scaring on the lining of your uterus. I would like to go in and remove some of the scar tissue as soon as possible, if that's okay with you? It's an easy procedure and you should be back to normal within a couple of days. That should help for the future when you two decide to try again. However, don't think that this is foolproof. It is not a cure-all. It will only make it less likely that you will suffer through this one more time."

"Do the procedure," Ziva insisted. "I do not want to take any chances of going through this again."

"Didn't you want to talk to your husband about it first?" the midwife asked.

"Oh, we're not married," Tony said. "This was unplannewith d in the first place, but we were happy about it. I want you to do the procedure too, even if it is only a minor improvement for the future. I would like to avoid anything happening when we do decide we're ready."

"Great!" the midwife said.

And with all those mistakes it was getting more and more difficult to hide what they had going. They were beginning to not care about the job that they needed to keep. They knew that they could both make it work on one income. They also both knew that Ziva had not seen her apartment in more than two months straight. Most of her clothes were already at Tony's and they were planning on moving in together.

But, this latest event had them both wondering if they should share. This was not an error of theirs this time. Mike Franks was just murdered and Ziva was emotional, and so was Tony. Mike was a part of their extending, and admittedly strange, family. They knew that they would have to talk about what they were doing very soon and Gibbs would either like the idea or fire them and neither of them cared.

"We should tell them," Ziva said quietly as she pulled back just a little from Tony's hug in the elevator.

"I agree," he said quietly. "Life can be cut off at any time. I don't want to hide anymore. I want them to know that we are happy and that we've found someone. It's only fair. They're family."

Ziva put her head back on Tony's chest and allowed her emotions to go until the elevator opened and Ziva didn't move her head from his chest, knowing that it was the only comfort she was ever going to have over this. When she felt Abby and McGee join the hug she was glad. Her whole family was coping with this together and soon their family would know what was going on between them too. She looked at Tony.

"I know. We wait," he whispered in her ear. "When this is over."

She nodded, silently glad that she understood his words perfectly, considering he had known what to say based on the expression on her face. That was all the discussion that they would ever need. They both silently felt relieved that they were going to tell their family what they had been doing for nearly a year, but they also knew that it would make things more difficult for a while before they could find true happiness.

Everyone would need to adjust. Abby didn't want a change in her family, but they knew that she would be happy for them. McGee would be confused, even though he suspected it. Ducky would see it coming and they both knew it. Gibbs, also would see it coming. He wouldn't be happy about it, but he would see it coming. They were afraid of how Vance would react, but neither really cared. It was Gibbs' opinion that mattered most.

Though they had tried many things and occasionally failed, they were doing well. Though they were going through a lot of trouble to hide the relationship, they were doing well. Though they had suffered a silent loss together, they were doing well. Though they suffered the loss of a family member, they were doing well. It was nice to be doing well, and it was the best that they could ask for. They were genuinely happy with their relationship and where it was taking them. It was time for them to share that with everyone else, as soon as this case was over, since Franks was one of most recent victims of the Port-to-Port Killer.