"I'm a little surprised you haven't invited Ziva over here, junior," Senior said, taking a seat on Tony's couch, the lamp beside him casting his face in an incandescent glow. The melodic tunes of jazzy Christmas songs spilled through the apartment, drowning out the sounds of clanking coming from the kitchen.

"What's that, Dad?" Tony asked moments later, entering the living room, his hands firmly grasping two glasses of scotch. He handed one to his father, sitting beside him.

"Ziva," Senior replied, looking at Tony inquisitively. "She hasn't been here before. Why's that, Junior?"

Tony gave a small smirk, raising his own glass of scotch to his lips, taking a sip. Senior gave a small chuckle at his son's obvious avoidance of the question.

"I don't," Tony let out a small chuckle of nervousness, "it's not… I'm not… I'm not talking about this with you."

"Come on, son. Why haven't you invited her over here? I thought the two of you were a couple."

Tony paused, looking at his father, raising his eyebrows. "What on earth would give you that idea?" he asked, putting his drink down on the floor.

"Well… I mean, the way you talk about her, and the way you look at her…"

"I don't look at her, Dad. At least, not any differently than I look at any other one of my co-workers."

"Well, that's not entirely true, is it?" He asked raising his eyebrows. Tony settled further back into the couch, adjusting his tie. "I've seen first-hand the look you don't give her. I would recognise it anywhere. It's the same way I used to look at your mother."

Tony sighed reluctantly. He didn't want to talk about his feelings. DiNozzo men didn't do… feelings. Especially not with each other. Sometimes, he envied the father-son relationships that he saw other boys have. The way they could be so open and honest. That was not something that came naturally to him and Senior. It was true they had been working on their communication more over the past few years, but he didn't know if either of them were quite ready for the heart-to-heart venting that Senior was trying to evoke.

"It's complicated," Tony finally said, biting his lip before taking a drink.

"What's so complicated about it, Son?"

"Well, Dad, we're coworkers for a start. And Gibbs has a rule about not dating people you work with."

"But does he have a rule about not falling in love with them?" Senior asked, raising his eyebrows. He was met with steely silence. "You can deny it all you want, Junior, but I know how you feel about her. She's the first person your eyes look for in a room, or after you say something. You do everything you can to make her laugh because you love to see her smile. Hell, you even travelled halfway around the world to rescue her from a camp in Africa?"

"How do you know about that?" he asked, his brows furrowing in confusion.

"Tim told me. I asked him about the two of you, and he seemed to play along with the whole 'nothing is going on' charade. But he told me about how difficult things have been for the two of you over the last few years, and accidentally mentioned about how you risked your life to save her."

"God damn it, McGeek!"

"It's not true?"

Tony looked at his father. "No, it's true. Got myself tied to a chair and pumped full of truth serum. It's a memory I just absolutely love reliving," he uttered, sarcasm dripping off every word. He took a small sip of his scotch, shaking his head.

"According to Tim, you volunteered yourself for it?"

"Also true," he nodded, gently raising his glass. He took another, larger, swig. God, he was going to need more alcohol for this.

"Why?"

"Why did I volunteer? They needed someone to change the circumstances, so we did." He shrugged, halfheartedly. It wasn't a big deal... was it?

"But you didn't have to. They could have sent any team there. But you made sure that it was you and McGee. Why?" God damn his father for making excellent points. He knew the truth. He knew that any team could have gone to rescue her. Any team could have put themselves in harms way, and gotten themselves captured on purpose. "Out of everybody in the world who could have found me... it had to be you," she had said to him when he saw her for the first time in months. She was glistening with sweat, and her lips were cracked and bruised. She bared new scars – physically, and emotionally. To this day, she had not told anybody of the traumas she endured. Not even him. He did not – could not – think about what Saleem and his men had done to her. Seeing his beautiful Ziva so... broken, broke him.

"Why are you here?" he was asked, as the blazing sun beat down into the makeshift prison.

"Vengeance, Saleem," Tony replied. "I'm here to kill you."

It had been three and a half years and he thanked God every night that Saleem was dead.

"Junior–"

"No, Dad! I don't want to talk about this because what would it change?!" Tony said, rushing to his feet. He wandered into the kitchen in frustration, opening the fridge and staring at the lack of contents inside.

"Son," came his father's voice from behind him. A gentle hand rested on his shoulder. Tony sighed. He knew his father wouldn't leave the subject alone until he satisfied him with an answer. He shut the refrigerator door, closing his eyes. He turned back to his father.

"I volunteered because I didn't want anybody else to find her – dead, or alive. It had to be me." If I could drag her back, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

"You're her knight."

"What?"

"Her knight in shining armour. Come on, Junior. You know movies."

"Okay, Dad, firstly – Ziva doesn't need a knight in shining armour to save her. She's a five-foot-five ninja and takes down most bad guys in one swipe. Secondly, I didn't even know if she was alive when I went to Somalia. For all I knew, she wasn't."

"But you went anyway–"

"And thirdly, this is not a movie, Dad. This is real life," Tony paused. "And even if it mattered – which it doesn't – she wouldn't want to be with me. I'm Tony, the class clown. The loveable goon. The immature man-child."

"But you don't deny that you love her." Tony glared at his father. "Because you do, Junior… don't you? You do love her."

Though the Christmas tunes were still leisurely humming away, silence seemed to envelope the two of them. "Yeah, Dad," Tony sighed. "I do."

Senior beamed at him. His arms wrapped around Tony, in a hug. For a moment, Senior was tempted to pat him on the back, but something inside him said that it was neither the time nor the place. Right now, bigger things were at stake: the happiness of his son.

"Tell her," Senior whispered before letting go.