And here's your second chapter for the night.
The sound of the cabin door closing woke Tony for the second time the next morning. The first time he'd woken, Ziva's hands, mouth and naked body had been doing things to his that he enthusiastically approved of. When they were both done, he'd fallen asleep again feeling sore, exhausted and happy. And he was still all those things, but now he was more alert with the potential of an intruder in the room. He turned his head towards the bedroom door as he identified a few potential weapons in the room, but then relaxed at the sight of Ziva carrying two cups of takeout coffee. He hadn't heard her leave, but supposed he shouldn't be surprised.
Damn ninja.
He returned her smile and started to pull back to covers in invitation, but Ziva cocked her head towards the balcony, inviting him to join her. He groaned internally—what did she have against drinking coffee in bed?—but obliged. He threw back the covers as she stepped outside, pulled on his boxers and then shuffled towards the balcony. Ziva held a cup out to him, which he took with a smile and then leaned down to kiss her cheek in thanks.
Man, he really liked kissing her.
"Good morning," she said.
"I thought we already did good morning," he replied as he lowered himself into the seat beside her.
She turned a wide smile on him that kind of made him melt, then turned her head to look out to port. They'd arrived in Samaná around sunrise, and the view of the island was a hell of a thing to wake up to. White sand, clear water, lush jungle, chirping birds and brightly colored buildings spotted the hills. If Tony couldn't be in bed, he was content to sit out there in the sunshine, taking in the view as the coffee slowly did its thing on his very happy but kind of rubbery-feeling body.
He looked across at Ziva and found her watching him with a small smile. He loved it when she turned that smile on him. And he loved it even more now that she was letting him see it rather than hiding it. He reached over to take her hand and leaned his head back against the back of the chair.
"You keep staring at me," he told her.
Ziva's smile grew, and she brought her coffee cup to her lips. "What does that tell you?" she asked before taking a sip.
"I think you might like me."
"I might," she allowed, and then turned her face to look out at the island, giving him an opportunity to watch her. Things had been so easy. Sure, they'd only been doing this for a day and a night, but it was easy. It was natural. It was everything he'd hoped it would be. He wondered if they would find things as easy when they returned home (no, of course they wouldn't, he knew that), but he was already so committed to this that he didn't think it mattered. He'd move heaven and earth. And unlike Martin Rose, he meant it. Figuratively.
They sat quietly together until they'd both finished their coffee. Then, as soon as he'd put his empty cup down, she turned things to business. He had a feeling this would be how things would go between them as they balanced personal with professional. But that was okay with him. As long as they split their time fairly.
"We should talk plans for today," Ziva said.
"We should," he agreed, and they both sat up straighter and dropped hands. "I think you're right. I think we should hire a car."
Ziva nodded. "But that leaves this location where John and Martin allegedly pick up the stuffed animals open. We should split up."
Tony saw the benefit, but shook his head. "No. We're not splitting up in a foreign country."
"We did yesterday—"
"Because of yesterday," Tony elaborated. "John Paulson is dangerous, I have no doubt. If they see one of us sitting outside their shop and one of us up in the mountains near their secret drug jungle, that's going to end badly for us."
Ziva pursed her lips, but didn't argue.
"I think we should hang back as we leave the ship and let their movements dictate where we go first," he said. "We've got nine hours in port. There's a clock, but it's not ticking so fast that we need to panic."
"We never panic," Ziva countered.
He smirked. "Sometimes we panic, Ziva."
She grunted and picked up her empty coffee cup before standing up. "We should study the roadmap of the island. And you should have a shower."
"But we're on vacation," he returned, making Ziva stop dead and stare at him.
"Are you serious?" she asked. "Do you go without showering on vacation?"
He had the impression that an affirmative response might be a deal breaker in their relationship, so he chuckled as if the suggestion were ridiculous and told a small lie. "No, of course not," he said. A day or two here and there didn't count, did it?
Ziva narrowed her eyes with suspicion, but let it go and returned to the cabin. Tony picked up his cup and joined her.
They spent ten minutes working out the route from the car rental place they knew was next to the port up to the Prestons' property, and then Tony jumped into the shower and got ready to disembark the ship in record time. As planned, they hung around the back of the crowd of people waiting to get off the ship and made sure that the Paulsons and Roses were well ahead of them. They kept eyes on the two couples all the way up the pier, and they had their answer about what they were going to do with their day when they saw them get into a waiting van and leave the area.
"I guess we're going on a scenic drive," Tony said.
The car rental stand was next to the pier as expected, and their argument about who would sit in the driver's seat of the soft top Jeep was short thanks to Ziva's unusually agreeable mood. Within 20 minutes of disembarking the ship they were in the car and already making their way away from the central tourist town and up into the jungle.
"I could live here," Tony said as he slipped his sunglasses on against the morning sunshine. "Just hang out in the jungle or by the beach and eat pineapple."
Ziva looked up from the map displayed on her tablet. "And harvest coca?"
Tony shrugged one shoulder. "You've got to make a living somehow, Ziva."
"And here I thought your long career in law enforcement made you a pillar of virtue."
He held up his index finger. "That's part of the beauty of the plan," he said, going along with it. "No one would ever suspect me of being involved in illegal activity."
Ziva snorted and looked back down at the tablet. "Of course not. We have never suspected or arrested a law enforcement officer for crimes ever before."
He grinned at her sarcasm. "Gibbs'd find a way to get us off."
"Us?" Ziva questioned, then gestured to her right. "Take the next right."
Tony slowed for the corner and let a red truck laden with crates of fruit pass before accelerating again. "You don't want to hang out in the jungle, eat pineapple and harvest coca?"
"I think there are a few more things I would like to achieve in my life before retiring into the drug trade."
Tony didn't doubt it. And he was joking anyway. But it occurred to him that they'd never really talked about their plans for the future. He didn't know how long she intended to stay with NCIS, or whether she wanted to try her hand at something else. But if they were going to be a team in the personal sense from now on, then he should probably find out. He made a mental note to bring that up later once he had his own answers to those questions.
For the time being, he joked with her. "Is one of those things competing on American Ninja Warrior?"
She turned her head to look at him. "I would be an excellent competitor, Tony."
He smirked and elected not to argue, because he thought she might just be right about that.
It took them a little over half an hour to navigate their way through the steep, winding and degraded roads in the jungle to where they believed Rodney and Nadine had their coca plant farm. Tony had his eyes peeled for a driveway, but Ziva was the one who saw the thin dirt track leading off from the road as they came around a bend.
"That's it," she called, pointing across Tony's body. "With the blue mailbox."
Tony turned his head but they were already past it. He tried to find it in the rear vision mirror. "I can't turn around here," he said. The road was too thin and bendy.
Ziva consulted her tablet. "There is a lookout about a mile ahead," she told him. "But I do not think we can just drive up to their house."
Tony agreed. When they got to the lookout, he pulled over and cut the engine. Instead of taking in the incredible view of the valley below them, he took off his sunglasses and leaned across to look at Ziva's tablet. She had a Google earth image of their location displayed.
"The driveway appears to be about a mile long," she told him, and traced a faint line between trees with her finger. "Dense foliage all the way up to what looks like it must be the main house." She pointed at a dwelling with a red tiled roof, and then pointed to two other buildings. One was small and sat beside the main house. The other was half the size of the house and about 500 yards away. "These appear to be the only other buildings on the property. I think the larger one further away from the house is where we should look for signs of a drug lab."
"Leaf mulchers, cement mixers, kerosene, acid," Tony rattled off, then sighed. "I mean, it wouldn't be unusual for a remote property like this to have those things anyway."
"No," Ziva agreed.
"And honestly, I don't think we can just walk up to the house any more than we can drive up," he said. "If they're really drug dealers or manufacturers or whatever, they're going to have security. Cameras, dogs, machine guns. And we can't just head up there in plain sight and act like we got lost and need help. The Paulsons and Roses are going to get suspicious if they see us popping up everywhere."
Ziva tilted her head back against the seat as she looked at him. "We could crash the car and go up there to get help."
Tony shook his head. "That's your plan for everything," he pointed out. "It never works."
"It sometimes works."
"We're not crashing the car."
Ziva looked back at her tablet. "Then how do you feel about a hike?"
Tony pursed his lips. It was hot and humid and he felt itchy just looking at the plants around them. "Maybe we should crash the car."
She grinned, but held the tablet up for him. "We could approach via the neighboring property."
He sighed. It wasn't his idea of a good time, but it was better than the alternative. "Let's go," he said. "And hope the neighbors aren't gun runners."
As Ziva worked out their route, Tony put two water bottles in his backpack and locked the car. Ziva carried her tablet in her hand, and she led him across the road and up a small embankment into the jungle. He swiped at a tree branch before it whacked him in the face.
"I wonder what kind of beautiful and exotic animals hang out in the jungle that could kill us in 30 seconds," he said.
"I would watch out for snakes," Ziva said, although she didn't sound particularly concerned. "Spiders, definitely. And scorpions. But most of the other animals are harmless, I think. Butterflies, mosquitoes, frogs, lizards, iguanas—"
"Iguanas?" he repeated. He thought back what felt like a hundred years ago to one morning he'd woken up in Cuba with an iguana in his bed.
"They should be harmless if you do not provoke them," Ziva told him.
"Great." He eyed the plants around them and then her bare legs. Ziva would usually wear long pants and heavy boots for this kind of expedition. But Zara was on vacation, and she favored shorts and canvas tennis shoes. "I hope the plants aren't poisonous. Because as nice as your bare legs are to look at, they're extremely vulnerable right now."
"Yes," Ziva acknowledged, and glanced back at him. "But stings would benefit from some rubbing alcohol, would they not?"
Like the rubbing alcohol that had killed Will Crawford. "Sure. But there has to be a less painful way to catch a killer."
It took them half an hour and Tony was sweating like a fountain when they arrived, but Ziva was eventually able to navigate them through the jungle to where they needed to be. The chain link fence between the two properties was about ten feet tall, and Tony looked up and down for the presence of cameras, dogs, drones or whatever the hell else people who were involved in the manufacture of drugs might use. As far as he could tell, it was all clear.
Ziva leaned her ear towards the fence then shook her head at him. "I do not think it is electrified."
"That's vague enough to be satisfying," he said, and then bit his tongue as Ziva reached out to touch it. When she didn't scream or suddenly start smelling like roast chicken, he decided it was probably safe. He craned his neck to see through the jungle on the other side. "I don't see anything. How about you?"
Ziva raised herself on her tiptoes as if that would help, but shook her head. "No." she looked down at the tablet. "We should be close, though." She cocked her head at him and he followed her along the fence line for a few more minutes until they came to a break in the vegetation. She pressed her shoulder into his chest as they both tried to peer through the small window.
"I think I see something white," he said.
Ziva moved her head around. "A building?"
"Yeah, maybe."
Ziva set the tablet down on the ground by the fence and then twirled her finder at him. "Bend down."
He frowned at her for a moment and then caught on and sighed. He set his backpack down, took a breath, and then crouched down and held onto the fence so that he wouldn't fall on his ass.
Ziva touched his damp head briefly "Toda," she said, and then slung her leg over his back and maneuvered herself onto his shoulders. "Okay."
Tony took another breath and then engaged every muscle he had to help his stand up again without grunting like Maria Sharapova. When he was upright again, he bounced as much as he could to shift Ziva into a more comfortable position (relatively speaking), and then held on to the fence.
"Do you think," he asked breathlessly, "that other partners get on each others' shoulders as much as you get on mine? I'm thinking back over all the partners I had before you, and I'm positive that none of them got on my shoulders. But you always seem to be there."
"Perhaps I just like you being between my legs," Ziva said deliberately. "Can you take a step to the left?"
Tony closed his eyes and shook his head before taking the step. "I appreciate the sentiment, sweetcheeks. But I had something else in mind."
"So did I." She took her cell phone out of her pocket and aimed it through the fence.
"Can you see anything?"
"I am trying to zoom in with the camera," she told him. "I think…there are two men, but I cannot be sure who they are. They are just standing by the white building and talking." Her hand dropped down to touch his cheek gently. "Can you take two more steps to the left?"
Tony gritted his teeth and groaned, but managed to move her where she wanted to be. "Today would've been a good yoghurt and fruit for breakfast day," he mentioned. "Although I'm sure the pancakes were delicious."
Ziva tugged his hair. He kissed the inside of her bare thigh in return.
"You've got bites and scratches all over your legs," he told her.
"If asked about them, I will just tell our ladies that we went on a hike."
"You're diabolical," he drawled. "Have you got everything you need up there?"
"A bottle of water would be lovely," Ziva told him.
Tony shook his head. "No, I meant have you gathered all the information we need?" There was an ache creeping up the centre of his back that he knew would need more than a massage to correct. And he felt a twitch in his neck that didn't bode well for the future.
"No," Ziva said, her tone completely devoid of urgency. She shifted her foot and accidentally kicked him in the side. "Oh. Sorry."
Tony let out another groan. "You definitely owe me a massage now. A nice one."
"I promise I will help you ease some of your tension later," she said.
Tony would have been pleased with the response had there not been an insect buzzing around his face. He shifted his head around and lifted his hand to swipe at it. He missed and slapped Ziva's thigh instead. "Sorry."
"There are a few more people there now," Ziva told him. "Perhaps a dozen. They are all moving around as if they are carrying out tasks of some sort. They do not appear to be speaking to each other. It is not a social gathering."
Tony made another swipe at the bug, and then grabbed the fence before he overbalanced. He swore under his breath.
"We could jump the fence to take a closer look," she suggested.
Tony let out a long breath and dug his heel into the ground. "I'd rather not get caught out that was, Ziva."
"Oh! Two of the workers are carrying boxes to a car."
Tony tried to see through the trees, but it was no use. "How big are the boxes? Bigger than a breadbox?"
"Is that slang for something?"
His eyes went heavenward. "No. It's a box you keep bread in."
"I do not know," she said dismissively. "It is small enough to be carried in one hand."
Tony rolled his eyes at the vague description as Ziva took a few photos, and then she put her phone back in her pocket.
"Okay. You can put me down."
Tony bent down just a little, and then Ziva jumped from her perch and landed with a soft thud. It was only Tony's pride that kept his from collapsing to the ground and crying with relief. Ziva turned her back and walked about ten paces away, and whether she was giving him time to recover or really wanted to check for another vantage point, Tony wasn't sure. But he didn't care. His face pinched as he rolled his neck and shoulders and tried to stretch his back. He wondered if he'd be able to get some muscle relaxants from the ship's doctor.
When Ziva came back she arched an eyebrow at him. "Okay?"
"Let's agree not to do that again for a while."
"You should be pleased I am not McGee," she said.
"I am pleased by that literally every day in a thousand different ways," he told her.
She pulled her phone out of her pocket again but took a moment to kiss his cheek before showing him the photos she had taken. There were a few of the two men she'd spoken of initially, and Tony couldn't tell any better than her whether they were John or Martin. She swiped to the next shots of the workers, and one of them approaching a car with a box in his hand.
"Yeah, that's about the size of a breadbox," he told her.
"I am sure that information will be useful to me in the future."
He nudged her with his arm. "What kind of car is that? Red Jeep? That's not the care they got into at the pier."
"No."
He bent to pick up his backpack and her tablet, and was relieved when the muscles in his back didn't seize up completely. "Okay," he said, still with some pain evident in his voice. "I think we should get back to keep watch over the street in town where John and Martin got the bears last time. We don't want to miss the easy surveillance part."
Ziva looked longingly over her shoulder at the property, but nodded. "Okay. Let's go eat. I'm starving."
…
They took a seat at the same table or thereabouts that Will and Alicia Crawford had been sitting at when they captured John and Martin walking down the street with teddy bears under their arms. There was a toy shop in between a baker and a jeweler on the other side of the road, which Ziva would keep her eye on as much as possible throughout the afternoon. Sterling and Jolene sat a few tables over to their left, and when Tony and Ziva waved politely they both got up to come over and say hello.
"Are you enjoying yourselves?" Jolene asked, placing a gentle hand on the back of Ziva's shoulder.
"Very much," Ziva said. "Tom and I went for a hike this morning."
"That wasn't actually that enjoyable," Tony said.
Ziva winked at him. "What did you do with your morning?"
"We went down to the markets," Jolene said. "We go every time we're here. There's so much you can buy. Food, clothes, jewelry, furniture, art, car parts…"
Tony raised his eyebrows. "I have been looking for a new alternator for my Mustang."
Ziva shot him a look to tone down the sarcasm, and took the opportunity to look over his shoulder at the door to the toy shop. There was no movement yet.
"You should head down there," Sterling told them. "They close up at 2 pm. And after that you should definitely go for a swim. The water here is so clear and warm. I think it has healing properties."
"Is that a local legend?" Tony asked.
"No, no," Sterling said. "That's just my opinion. I always feel full of vim and vigor afterwards!" He winked cheekily at Jolene, and she giggled.
Ziva cleared her throat. "Well. Tom is feeling a little sore after our hike, so perhaps we will take your advice."
The waiter arrived then with Tony and Ziva's drinks, and Jolene took Sterling's hand.
"We'll leave you to your lunch," she said. "Enjoy! The food here is wonderful. Oh, but don't have the lobster."
"Why not?"
Sterling leaned in a bit and lowered his voice. "Someone always gets sick," he told them. "Last time at least half a dozen people ended up in bed with food poisoning. Best to be on the safe side."
"Thank you for the tip," Ziva said, and Sterling and Jolene returned to their table.
"Food poisoning, Zara," Tony said. "You hear that?"
"Alicia said they didn't eat seafood on shore," she reminded him. "And he had ingested isopropyl."
"Yeah."
She looked over his shoulder again and sat up straight with interest. "Red Jeep just pulled up," she told him, and then reached for her phone. She lined it up so that it looked like she was filming Tony when really she was filming the car, and hit record. "Why don't you tell me a story, honey?"
"There was an old woman who lived in a shoe," Tony began. "And she had so many cats that animal control was called and they had to take a bunch of them away from her."
"I do not like this story."
"Did I tell you the one about he old man who built boats in his basement?"
Ziva chuckled as the Jeep came to a stop. "You realize the man you speak of, who is not that old, is likely to watch this video, yes?"
"It was going to be a story about heroes, Zara," Tony told her. "You're the one jumping to conclusions to the contrary."
"The Paulsons and the Roses are getting out of the Jeep," she told him, narrating the scene unfolding behind him.
"All four of them?"
"Yes." The camera panned far enough to catch the side of Tony's face. He was wearing a serious expression that made her sigh. "Tom, please try to look like you're having a wonderful time with me."
Tony shot her a big DiNozzo smile. "Having the time of my life, sweetcheeks."
"John and Martin have retrieved two boxes from the trunk of the Jeep," she told him. "They appear to be the same boxes that we witnessed men loading into the car at Rodney and Nadine's property."
"What about Sacha and Julie?"
Ziva took her eyes off her cell phone screen and looked up and down the street. "They are walking down the street together." She panned the camera to catch them as they met up with another woman with a similar build and hair to Ziva's. "They have met up with another woman and they are heading to the beach. I am not sure where she came from."
"Nadine?" Tony suggested.
Ziva shrugged. She did not know what Nadine looked like.
Tony casually looked over his shoulder as Ziva returned the camera to the shop. "The other two haven't been met by anyone?"
"No," Ziva said. "They are walking into the shop on their own with the boxes."
"No one else hanging around?"
"Not that I can see." The door to the shop closed, and Ziva stopped recording and put down her phone. "Well. That was exciting," she drawled.
"At least we know that the Paulsons and Roses were at Rodney and Nadine's property," Tony said.
Ziva arched an eyebrow as she reached for the menu. "And what does that tell us?"
"Nothing useful," Tony admitted. "Yet."
"Nothing useful seems to be the theme of this investigation."
"And we know they took packages from the property," Tony added. "If we could get into their rooms, we could find those bears we expect them to walk out of that shop with and find out if they're stuffed with what we think they're stuffed with."
Ziva nodded along. "Yes. But did you bring a drug detection kit with you?"
"No. Did you?"
"No."
Tony pursed his lips at her. "Maybe we should have done that."
Ziva shrugged. "It will not be easy to get into their rooms, but I am sure we could do it." She paused. "I am not sure how admissible the evidence would be in court."
Tony sipped his drink. "Hmm. Good point. Let's leave that on the backburner for now and focus on trying to get some drugs from Julie."
Ziva flipped her menu shut. "Our activities are not normal."
Tony winked at her. "Stick with me, sweetcheeks," he started, and then lost his train of thought when he saw Herschelle cutting through the tables behind Ziva. He grabbed for his cell phone and held up it. "Smile for me, honey."
Ziva played along, and Tony did get in a sneaky shot of her before reframing the camera on Herschelle. When he put his phone down, Ziva picked up hers again and started filming. "This may confirm that Herschelle is their accomplice on the ship."
"Hope so," Tony said, and then smiled for her as if she was taking a photo of him.
Ziva watched Herschelle cross the street and walk up a few doors. "He is approaching the same door that John and Martin entered," she narrated. "And he has also entered."
"Great," Tony said. "With any luck they'll all come out carrying teddy bears with I'm a decoy bear stuffed with cocaine on it's little t-shirt."
Ziva stopped recording and put down her phone. "I have always been attracted to your optimism."
Tony's eyebrows went up. "Really?"
She smiled and shook her head. "No. I have found it exceptionally irritating at times."
Tony shrugged without offence. "That's what I thought."
Ziva kept her eye on the door for the next half hour while she and Tony ate, drank and talked about other people they'd seen on the ship. Even with the surveillance angle it was weirdly normal, and Ziva wondered if this was what their future weekends would look like. Lunches out in nice, low key restaurants in the summertime, perhaps taking advantage of their weekends off to go out of town. Finding a shared favorite place to visit that they would return to over the years.
She watched him as he looked out over the beach, sunglasses on, skin already tanned from the Caribbean sun, and his hand stretched across the table so that his fingers met hers. Her stomach did a little flip, and for a moment she wasn't really sure if it was from excitement or nerves. It was probably a mixture of both, she decided. She was excited to be with him in the way that she'd wanted to be for a long time, and so far, neither of them had done anything stupid (as she had been expecting). The nerves came from the knowledge that they had only been at this a few days, and that they were hardly living their normal lives. Perhaps the reason neither of them had done anything stupid was because the success of this case relied on their ability to convincingly pull off the appearance of a long term, committed and healthy relationship. What if things did not continue that way when they returned to DC? They were both stubborn and wanted the last word on things, so what if that meant they couldn't stop themselves from fighting about minor, petty things in the bullpen? Or what if the stress of proving to Gibbs that he didn't need to worry about any of this got to them, and they just imploded the day they got home?
Worse. What if she found out that lunches in nice, low key restaurants in the summertime and weekends away in their favorite little place bored her to tears?
She bit the inside of her lip with worry, and whether Tony sensed something was up or he just turned his gaze back to her then for no reason, she didn't know. But he did, and he smiled, and he turned his hand palm up so that he could hold her hand and run his thumb along hers. The nervous feeling in her stomach went away, and she was just left with excitement. So what if they occasionally fought over petty things in the bullpen? They did that now, didn't they? They'd be fine.
"You're wearing a very serious expression for a woman on vacation," he said lightly.
Ziva automatically smiled, but it was sincere. "This is just my resting face," she told him.
Tony shook his head. "No. Your resting face is a little more beatific."
She snorted. That was likely. She glanced over at the toy shop again, and her heart jumped when she saw Herschelle stepping outside. Without trying to be too obvious, she grabbed her cell phone and lined it up so that it would look to anyone else that she was filming Tony.
"Herschelle is leaving," she told him. "Alone." She frowned at what she was seeing. "He looks angry, and he is wiping at his lip and looking at the back of his hand."
Tony sat forward. "Maybe punches were thrown," he suggested. "Maybe John and Herschelle played a little Fight Club in there over Sacha."
Ziva hummed an agreement, and filmed Herschelle as he walked back across the street towards the restaurant Tony and Ziva were in. She filmed him only up to the moment that it would have become obvious, and then put her phone down just as Tony picked up his. But he didn't end up filming.
"He's just leaving the way he came," Tony told her after Herscelle moved past them. "Clothes are pretty pristine still. Doesn't look like he's been in a fight."
"He is in much better physical condition than John or Martin," Ziva pointed out. Tony raised an eyebrow at her, but Ziva didn't back down. "He is!" she insisted. "Did you look at his arms?"
"Being ripped is overrated," Tony said dismissively.
"Of course," Ziva said. "But it is certainly pleasant to look at sometimes."
Tony didn't respond to that. He tipped back the last of his drink and was reaching for Ziva's glass when she spotted the door to the toy shop open again.
"The others are leaving," she told him, and reached for her phone once again. She started filming just as John closed the door to the shop, and he and Martin started walking down the street, each carrying a large teddy bear.
"Have they got bears?" Tony asked.
Ziva nodded. "Yes." She panned the camera to keep up with them. "Smile for me, darling."
Tony gave her another big smile, not that she really captured it on camera. "Hey, did you know that Tim McGee once ate a foot-long meatball sub out of the trash in the break room?"
The question was so strange and unexpected that Ziva glanced at him to frown. "What are you talking about?" she asked. "I sincerely doubt that ever happened."
Tony shrugged. "No. But he'll see this, and I just want him to know that I'm thinking of him while I'm sitting out here on the beach."
Ziva clucked her tongue. "Tom."
Tony chuckled before pushing back his chair. "Let's go, Zara. We don't want to miss the entertainment we signed up for."
They paid the bill quickly, waved at Sterling and Jolene and then headed out onto the main street in the direction John and Martin had gone. Ziva slipped on her sunglasses before Tony took her hand, making her stomach flip again, and they played their part as tourists amongst hundreds of others strolling along the beach promenade and taking in the sights. It just so happened that the sights Tony and Ziva were taking in were of possible illegal activity instead of the island paradise. And their version of a stroll was more of a brisk walk as they tried to put eyes on John and Martin. She spotted the two men beneath the promenade making their way across to the pier and tugged on Tony's hand. He grunted in acknowledgement, and they veered right to take a flight of stone steps down to the pier.
"What is the plan?" she asked when they got within about 30 feet of John and Martin. "I do not think we can follow them all the way to their cabins."
"I want to see how they're getting the bears aboard," Tony said. "Every time we embark we've got to go through the same security screening. I want to see how they're getting past it."
"Assuming they are smuggling something," Ziva felt the need to add, even though she knew Tony was as aware of that as she was.
"Right. Assuming."
She sighed and swayed closer to him, and a wave of his familiar smell coming off his warmed skin hit her. The hair on her arms stood up, and she enjoyed the feeling (and the smell) while keeping on topic. "I am beginning to get concerned that we are on a wild duck chase."
Tony chuckled, and she knew that meant that she had made a mistake with the idiom. But he didn't correct her. "Me too," he said. "And Vance and Gibbs will be pissed. But at least we know the trip wasn't all for nothing." He lifted her hand to kiss her knuckles, and Ziva smiled at his point.
"No, it was not." The rising hair on her arms morphed into tingles that spread through her body. She was looking forward to getting back onto the ship that afternoon, but they had a bit more work to do first.
They quickened their pace again as John and Martin approached the foot bridge to take them back onto the ship, and tried to time it so that they were close enough to see them going through security screening a few feet into the ship, but not close enough that they would be seen. They were almost at the top of the footbridge and Ziva's eyes were trying to adjust from the brightness of the day outside to the much darker light inside the ship, but she was sure that she saw both men put the bears on the x-ray machine before they walked through the metal detector. As one man watched the x-ray screen, John chatted to the other member of security who was standing by the machine.
"You done for the day?" the security guard asked him.
"Too much sun," John said. "Gonna head to the ice skating rink for a bit to cool off."
"You skate?" the security guard asked, not quite succeeding in keeping the incredulity out of his voice. Ziva smirked.
"No," John admitted. "But I'm real good at sitting on the sidelines while other people do."
Martin picked up his bear that had been cleared by the machine, and John picked up the other that came through right on its furry heels.
"Enjoy yourselves," the guard told them, and John and Martin thanked him and walked off casually into the ship.
Tony and Ziva quickly backed up and walked back down the footbridge onto the pier. A member of staff had appeared there, and Ziva flashed him a smile.
"He can't make up his mind," she told him. "Ice skating or the beach. Is there really any competition?"
The staffer smiled politely but said nothing, and Tony and Ziva started heading back up the pier.
"Thanks for that," Tony said when they were out of earshot.
"You are welcome."
"So, those bears were x-rayed."
"Yes."
"And one guard was watching the screen."
"Perhaps for the benefit of security cameras?" Ziva suggested. "If those bears were stuffed with anything, that guard must be in on the smuggling operation."
"We're going to have to try to get an ID on him."
"What about the other one?"
Tony shrugged a shoulder. "Hard to say. We should check on him anyway."
At the end of the pier they headed towards the beach area. After a strenuous morning hiking in the stifling humidity and being eaten by bugs, the fine white sand, palm trees and clear blue water called to her. She took it as a gift from God, then, that when they reached the far end of the beach she spotted something interesting.
"Sacha and Julie are over there with their friend," she said to Tony, nodding towards the women. All three were lounging on pool lilos in the flat sea and chatting.
"Then we should keep watch on them," Tony said. "From a distance. But a distance that involves us also being in the water. Because it is hot, Ziva. And we spent the morning getting sweaty and gross."
She smirked to herself, pleased that they were on the same wavelength. She tilted her face up to his. "Take it off, DiNozzo," she said quietly, and brushed a kiss to his lips before walking off across the sand to the little water sports hut on the edge of the sand. She collected towels for them, decided against a pool lilo of her own, and by the time she dumped the towels with Tony's backpack he was nearly waist deep in the water. She stripped down to her red bikini and went after him, and then waited until he turned around in the chest deep warm water to look at her before she ducked below the surface and swam towards him. When she got close enough she reached out to touch his legs, and then scaled up his body as she resurfaced. He was grinning by the time she wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his hips, and he held her tight as he kissed her.
"I like the climbing monkey side of you," he told her.
Ziva chuckled. "I thought you did not like it when I climbed you this morning."
"That wasn't as cozy," he pointed out, and took a few more steps back into deeper water. "Just to repeat what I said before, I'm just so pleased that Borin wasn't able to make it."
"I am sure she would have made a most suitable substitute."
He leaned in to press kisses long the line of her jaw. "There is no suitable substitute for you."
The comment made her stomach flip again, and she smiled into his shoulder and chuckled. Tony pulled his head back to look at her.
"Don't believe me?"
"Yes," she said honestly. She believed that he believed it, but tried to explain her reaction. "It is just strange that you are now so sincere when we have both tried very hard in the past not to be."
Tony nodded easily. "Ah. Yeah, I've found myself about to make a cutting remark at you and pulling myself up."
"Don't," she implored. "I do not want us to change." She paused for a millisecond to reconsider. "No, that is not true. I do want us to be more sincere. But I enjoy our verbal sparring. Making fun of each other. I know when you are joking and when you are not, and I think it is the same for you."
He tilted his head from side to side. "Generally," he said at length, leaving a little room for debate. Ziva made a mental note of that and told herself she had to do better.
"I do not want to lose that side of us," she told him, and then shrugged. "Plus, McGee and Gibbs will know immediately that there is something going on if we are only kind and respectful towards one another."
"I can't argue with that." He lifted a wet hand to brush his knuckles over her cheek. "But eventually McGee and Gibbs are going to work it out, and they're just going to have to live with it."
"Are we going to tell them right away?" The idea didn't sit well with her, and she was pleased when Tony shook his head no.
"Let's give it a little while?" he suggested.
"Okay," she agreed. "But it may become obvious. You are very tactile."
"Am I?" he asked innocently as he ran his hand up and down her back.
"Are you aware of how much you kiss my cheek?" When he pursed his lips and looked a little unsure of what her feelings on that might be, she quickly told him. "I like it. Not at work, obviously. But generally."
"I wasn't planning on getting tactile at work," he told her. "Although I'm not sure about you. You're a lot more hands-on than I expected."
Ziva pecked his lips. "Well. I like to keep certain truths about myself between me and my partner," she told him, and then scaled her way around his body until she was wrapped around him from behind. She hooked her chin over his shoulder and closed her eyes, and then chuckled as Tony made the effort to swim forward. He managed it eventually and she kissed him behind the ear in recognition of a job well done.
"Jolene and Sterling are out here too," Tony told her.
Ziva opened her eyes, glanced around, could not immediately see them, and so closed her eyes again.
"Can you imagine being married for 45 years?" he said. "They got married in the 60s. They got married before I was born. And they still enjoy each other's company and are hot for each other."
She ran her lips across the back of his shoulder. "I think it is nice."
"Yeah. It's a long time." He paused, and Ziva smiled when he went on. Sometimes it annoyed her when he got an idea stuck in his head and just kept talking it out. Now wasn't one of those times. "I wonder how often that happens these days. I mean, you hear stories on the news about the old couple celebrating their 70th wedding anniversary, but they're those human interest stories, right? And people are interested because being married for 70 years isn't normal. It's extraordinary."
"Yes, it is."
"How many people can comprehend that?" he went on. "A lot of men don't even live much longer than 70." He paused, and then sounded a little sad. "And then you hear those stories about the couples who have been together for 70 years, and then one of them dies and the other one follows within weeks or months because they just don't know how to live without the other person. Can you imagine that?"
Ziva opened her eyes as his voice from years ago came back to her. Couldn't live without you, I guess. She pressed her face to his neck briefly and thanked God that he came for her.
"We wasted too much time," he said suddenly.
She drew a deep breath as weight settled in her chest. She knew he was right, and she regretted it. "Yes."
He twisted his head back to look at her out of the corner of his eye. "I'm going to remember that," he told her. "When it gets hard and we screw up. I'm going to remind myself that we already wasted too much time, and we've got to make up for it."
With that, the weight lifted again. Her partner was a desperate romantic. And he was stubborn and determined and probably the most loyal person she had ever met. She had no doubt that he would throw himself at this relationship and fight with every breath. It dawned on her that she had a big responsibility here to meet him halfway, toe-to-toe. He deserved it, and so did she.
"I will too," she told him, and then allowed herself to joke with him as she normally would. "Of course you may change your mind on this after you see the full extent of my knife collection."
He twisted his head back again, sharply. "What? How big is it?"
"Impressive," she purred.
Tony shook his head with resignation. "I promise to try to accept your knife collection."
She knew he would. "Tony, some people are lucky enough to find their partner when they are teenagers. It is unusual. But that does not mean that the rest of us will not feel the same kind of 70-year love for our own partners." She cocked her head to try to see his expression and found him staring off across the sea with a small smile tugging at his lips. "There is romance in being able to say that you got it right on your first attempt, and that you have not wavered in that decision for 70 years. But I think there is also romance in saying that I fell in love with my best friend. And that we have withstood hell. And that we would not give up on each other, even when we tried, or when people told us we should." She paused to swallow with a tight throat as she got more emotional and open that she had intended. "I think that is special too. Perhaps it will be worthy of a human interest story on the news one day."
She felt and heard him take a shaky breath, and he lifted his hand to grip her arm across his shoulders. "You fell in love with your best friend?"
Ziva froze for a moment. They were only three days into this, and even though it was true it seemed far too early to make such admissions. But surely he already knew how she felt. Didn't he? "Yes," she said thickly, and then held her breath while she waited for his response.
He pulled her arm away from him, and Ziva loosened her grip so that he could turn around in the circle of her arms to face her. He gave her that private, weighty look again, the one that made her soft and melty, and pulled her close again. "Me too," he said, and leaned in to kiss her with warm, salty lips that made her quiver.
They would never catch up to the number of Sterling and Jolene's anniversaries. But so what? They had their own thing, forged through blood, sweat, tears, trust, death, nightmares, bad takeout and paperwork.
Sterling and Jolene could suck it.
#NeverHappen #FuuuuuckYoouuuuuuuu #HonestlyNotSurprisedThough