A nice deep breath and a good exhale (the type that made a whooshing noise) and he felt all relaxed. No tense muscles for a change or headaches. He was nice and relaxed. How could he not? It was the weekend, there wasn't a case, they weren't on call, the two days were theirs to do what they wanted with it. And what they wanted was to spend it out in the sunshine (with a slight breeze at their backs that Ziva half-heartedly complained about), the salty-fresh air with a hint of seaweed around them and watching the glittering ocean. Yes, it was actually glittering - it was that nice a day. It really was all kinds of picturesque and very cliche-like. Not that he was complaining. Sometimes you needed cliche.

He had to say, it was nice being at the beach again. Yes, they had fallen straight back into this habit of theirs. It had been a bit awkward at the start. Then there had been that time where Ziva had pretty much had a panic attack from feeling the sand. That had not been good. Thankfully it had happened just as they walked onto the beach and he managed to bundle her back into the car before things got out of hand. Yeah, that hadn't been good. Let's just out it this way, he was incredibly lucky that she was even on the beach with him now after that.

He had to admit he was both impressed and worried. Impressed because of her strength (though when wasn't he impressed by her strength?) and worried because, well, was she actually ready? Was this going to cause more harm than good? It was days like this that he wished he could be a psychologist so he could figure that out. Everything would be much easier and didn't they deserve easy sometimes? They had had a lot of hard recently. A lot of it. They were due for some easy. Easy would be good.

Of course, things weren't easy and never really would be (It was the two of them after all, where would the fun be in that?) But today could be. All they were doing was hanging out at the beach. That was it.

His fingers brushed against hers and that was becoming a pretty normal thing now. They were just walking so close together that it couldn't be helped. It wasn't like either of them walked like robots so of course their hands were going to touch. He had almost jumped out of his skin the first time it had happened. He hadn't realised how close they had been when her fingers at first brushed against hers a few weeks ago. Sure, they were normally all over each other's space but they usually didn't go near each other's hands for whatever reason. Ducky was sure to have a reason. He didn't need a reason or anyone to look too much into it.

With his hand in hers, he couldn't help but smile. Was that a cliche? He felt like that was a cliche. Didn't stop him smiling, though. Because she was holding his hand. Ziva David. Ziva David was holding his hand. And she was the one who initiated it. Her. All by herself. She wanted this. She did. Just like him. Except she had actually acted on it, apparently having no doubts at all. He had let the thought cross his mind but had dismissed it as making her skittish and awkward, which he didn't want. That sort of thing should be up to her, if she wanted it. And it turned out that she did.

He wasn't sure what this was, or what he even wanted this to be but he liked it. Ziva's hand gave a brief squeeze and he was pretty sure his heart jumped at that. In a good way. Because he liked this whole hand holding business. He liked it a lot.

[xxxxxx]

She was not sure what had made her do it but she hand done it. She was holding Tony's hand. And it felt... It felt nice. Firm. Warm. Steady. Strong. All words you could use to describe Tony himself. Always could. But that was not why she had grabbed his hand. No, it was not. She had grabbed his hand because, well, she did not know why she had grabbed his hand. Normally she did not do thigs that she did not think through and disliked things that she did not understand but she had still done this. And it did not feel wrong. It just felt like the right thing to do.

Safe. She felt safe with her hand in his. Almost like nothing could hurt her, which was ridiculous, she knew but that's how Tony made her feel. Safe. Cherished. He ran a thumb over her knuckles and a sort of warmth followed them. Which didn't make any sense, she knew, but that's what it felt like. It was reassuring and comforting. Two things she definitely needed. Wanted. And Tony gave that to her. He always gave that to her.

The thing was, he did not let go. He did not let go of her hand. His hand was still in hers. In fact, his fingers had wrapped around hers so they were both holding each other's hands. And she was not going to let go so they were going to continue holding hands. Along the beach. She almost laughed, all they needed was a sunset in front of them and it would be like one of those cliche ending scenes in a movie.

Except, they were going the opposite direction to the sunset and she and Tony were not a pair of lovers who had conquered all by the end of a Movie. They had conquered plenty, a lot of it together. But this was no movie. This was not an ending.

She squeezed his hand and got one in return, that warm feeling flooding through her again. She was okay with this not being an ending because this felt an awful lot more like a beginning.