After getting the clear from his doctor, Tony was more than ready to go back into the field. Being stuck on desk duty was fun for about fifteen minutes. The fifteen minutes his first day back where Gibbs let everybody have coffee and talk about how grateful the were that he was OK. That ended all to quickly and the next thing he knew he was alone in the office typing up reports and doing busy work. While the others were out at a crime scene. That's how it was for three miserable weeks. So the morning he could finally go back into the field, he jumped out of bed and ran downstairs.
"Did you run down here?" Holly asked.
"Yes because I am so excited." Tony replied.
"Oh yeah you get to go back into the field today." Holly said.
"Yes I do thank God." Tony replied.
"Just try to stay out of trouble." Holly replied.
"I never get in trouble in the field." Tony reminded.
"I know I was just talking about in general." Holly replied.
"I'll be good." Tony sighed.
After seeing the twins off to the bus stop, Tony climbed into his car and headed towards the office. It was his first time being alone in the car since his attack and it felt great. He was finally getting his life back. Granted it had only been a month but to him it felt like a lifetime. A lifetime of being under the constant monitoring of his surrogate father and teenage daughter who was way too grown up for her age. At least Delilah and Breena had kept McGee and Jimmy from getting too crazy and Ducky and Abby somehow managed to keep themselves in line. He could not imagine how unbearable the past month would have been if all of his surrogate family had been smothering him with attention and over-protection. He probably would have eaten his gun or used Vance's toothpicks to make a scale model of an Army base. Either one would have been equally effective in getting him killed.
It felt so good to park in his own parking space upon arrival at NCIS. That he just sat in his car and too it all in for a few minutes. Before getting out of the car and walking inside. The elevator was slow so he just took the stairs two at a time up to the squad-room.
"I'm baaack!" Tony cried jumping out of the door that led to the stairwell.
"Quiet down DiNozzo." Gibbs warned.
"But I am back! Why are you not making a bigger fuss?" Tony asked making a beeline for the center of the bullpen.
"You have been back at work for three weeks." McGee reminded not even looking up form his computer.
"I know but I can go back in the field." Tony explained.
"Actually I don't think you can." Gibbs commented.
"Why not? My doctor gave me the clear!" Tony whined.
"Yeah but you are limping. Go down to Ducky and get checked out." Gibbs ordered.
"Fine!" Tony sighed limping off.
Tony could not believe what he had done. He had aggravated his old knee injury doing that idiotic jump out of the stairwell. He mentally kicked himself for forgetting the stairwell was a higher jump down than the elevator. Hopefully he would get lucky and he hadn't done any real damage. A bad enough knee injury meant physical therapy, or worse surgery, or even worse permanent early retirement from field duty. He better not have signed his metaphoric death warrant. He shifted nervously on Ducky's table the pain in his knee driving him up the wall.
"Oh Anthony, what have you done to yourself this time?" Ducky asked.
"I don't know. I jumped out of the stairwell and injured my knee." Tony explained.
"Well now I know why Jethro's hair has grayed so since he met you." Ducky sighed.
"I was just so happy to be back." Tony replied.
"Oh Anthony, you are never boring." Ducky sighed, rolling his eyes/
"Can you just tell me if my knee is jacked up or not?" Tony asked.
"I will do the best I can Anthony but if I say so, you have to go to the hospital." Ducky replied.
"Deal" Tony reluctantly agreed, praying that he wouldn't have to go to the hospital. He hated hospitals almost as much as he hated when Gibbs was right.
Ziva sat at her desk, the day was over and her classroom was empty but she was stuck grading paper. She was in no real rush to get home though. Eliana was on a field trip to the aquarium with her preschool class and wouldn't be back until four-thirty. She could not believe that her baby was big enough to go on field trips. She was growing up so fast. Ziva prayed that she could do right by her and give her the life that she deserved. In a sense she was kind of relieved that her dad had died before he could do to her what he had done to his older children. Except for Talia that is. Talia was the good one. She knew that now. She missed her more than any of them and she missed her parents and Ari enough that it hurt to think about.
"Miss. David, are you alright?" Tony asked.
"Yes, I was just thinking about some things." Ziva replied.
"Would you like to talk about them?" Tony asked.
"Not really, I don't... Oh Tony! I didn't recognize you!" Ziva cried.
"Well it's been a while." Tony laughed.
"How are you doing? Holly said that you got cleared by the neurologist yesterday." Ziva asked.
"Yeah and then I aggravated an old knee injury today. So it's another three days at the desk." Tony replied.
"Oh I am sorry to hear that." Ziva apologized.
"It's OK. How are you?" Tony asked.
"Good just nostalgic." Ziva replied.
"I just wanted to let you know. That I am back to normal and I am ready to try dating you again. If you will have me." Tony replied.
"How's Friday night?" Ziva asked.
"It's perfect." Tony replied in a smile.
A/N: Finally Tony and Ziva are back to dating. New chapter will be up soon. Please review and thanks for reading.