Summary: Kidding. This is actually a disclaimer. I own nothing. I'd like an apple. Now I want eggs and toast. I'm sure that will change by the time I post. Have I disclaimed anything yet? Ah, yes. Cake or death?

Spoilers: Bounce. And the invisible period between Hiatus and Shalom. Also, everything that's happened between then and now. Like a pile of raw meat left in the desert sun for three days, all will be spoiled.

Summary: This is the actual summary now. Tony decides to get things all the way back to the way they were back when everybody called him boss on a regular basis around an imaginary campfire with no s'mores.

---

Tony raised his hand to knock on the door in front of him, but his arm dropped a third time without any knocking to show for it. He still wasn't entirely certain why he'd come here. His intentions weren't what they once might have been, but…this what just what he did. McGee had called him boss. A case was wrapped up, he stopped by – it was a different apartment now, but… He hadn't done it in years, but he hadn't been the boss in years, either.

He was about to take a crack at knocking attempt number four when the door swung open, allowing a delicious scent to waft toward him. Ziva prevented him from following his nose directly to the kitchen by blocking the doorway with her body. "Hello, Tony."

"Hey. How did you know I was out here?"

"I have been watching you through the porthole."

"Peephole," he corrected. The smell of whatever she was cooking was causing him to invade her personal space. There was meat and bread and… He suddenly became aware of a new scent and inhaled deeply. "That's nice."

"Steak." She finally stepped back, allowing him in. "I think I put too much pepper in the marinade."

"No, I meant…I mean, the food smells amazing, but…" His compliments about her unexpected perfume died on his tongue when he caught a glance of the table. He paused, setting the six pack of beer beside one of the two places set. "You're expecting company?"

"Yes. The steaks should be ready in about ten minutes."

He hung his head. "So I should probably…"

"Yes," she interrupted, "put the beer in the refrigerator. I think the wine will go better with dinner."

"I didn't…" he stopped short in his protest of having his beer confiscated before he was kicked out so she could enjoy dinner with… "Me?"

"Yes, you can open the wine. You know where the corkscrew is." He was trying to decide which drawer to look in first when she saved him. "Wait, you don't, do you?" She opened the last drawer he had planned on checking and handed him the corkscrew, saying, "I don't know why I would expect you to be as familiar with this apartment as you were with…I should check the steaks."

He didn't comment that it had only been a minute since she'd said they needed ten minutes. "It's too bad you couldn't get your old apartment back when you came back from Israel." Same couch, of course, so the memories were only a few undetectable stains on the red leather away, but… "I mean, this one is nice too. Closer to work, isn't it?"

"Slightly. I did not bother to make a salad because I knew you would not want it, but…" She twitched away from the hand he reached toward her. "I forgot to buy that steak sauce you like, so…"

"How did you know I was coming?"

"I didn't."

He uncorked the wine with a pop, pouring it into two glasses she pushed toward him. "Then why are you making dinner for two?"

"Look, you…you are here, aren't you?" She picked up her wineglass and stalked toward the table. "It was just that you were in charge and the case was over, so I thought…why did you come?"

"I guess I just thought…too." He shrugged as he sat down. "I probably should have called instead of just dropping by, but…"

"You never had to call before," she finished for him. She left him at the table for a moment, returning first with a steaming bowl of mashed potatoes and basket of rolls and then with the steaks. "I am glad you came."

"Because this would be a lot of food for you to eat on your own? Plus, who would finish your steak when you leave half of it on the plate?" He grinned as he held up his plate for her to distribute potatoes to him. "Mmm, and they're the kind with the skins still in it! Garlic-y, right?"

"Yes, just like you like."

"You didn't have to do this, y'know." He took a bite and said without swallowing, "Buh I'm glah you dih."

She smiled, not taking a bite of the smaller portions she'd doled onto her own plate as she watched him chew. "See if the steak is all right."

He cut a chunk and shoved it into his mouth. "Ooohhhh."

"Good?"

He simply nodded, not wanting to stop chewing. When he opened his eyes after swallowing, he noted that Ziva was now eating. They were able to maintain a comfortable silence amid the clink of silver against china until he had finished his steak. "So…"

"I am not finished yet."

"What?"

"You are eyeing my meat."

His eyes quickly refocused from the point slightly above her plate to her face. "Well, I didn't have lunch today…" He immediately went to work with his fork and knife when she rolled her eyes while transferring the rest of her steak to his plate.

She was on her second glass of wine when she asked, "Tony, what did you expect when you came here?"

"I thought I'd bug you into drinking the beer and watching a movie or something." He finished his last bite of steak. "I was thinking I'd be lucky to get a pizza, even, not something this good."

"And that was all?"

"Well, I mean…of course." He slipped his hands under the table, folding them and squeezing as hard as he could. "I know things are different than they used to be."

"Right."

"Ziva…"

"No, you are right. Things have changed a lot since you were Gibbs."

"I was never Gibbs."

"Since you were team leader, then." She picked up his plate and brought it to the kitchen, returning a moment later with the near-empty wine bottle. "I meant what I said."

"Which part?"

She refilled his glass. "Earlier today, with McGee. I always thought you were a very capable team leader."

"You weren't just saying that because you were looking at me?"

"I said it because I was looking at you." He was about to ask how he was supposed to interpret that when she added, "I regret never having said it before."

"Hey, we were always…"

"Partners, yes. Friends, most of the time. Lovers…"

He was surprised she'd brought it up, but he had to acknowledge that he wouldn't even be here if not for some of the memories. "That summer."

"That summer," she repeated. "Is that why you are here?"

"No," he answered with minimal hesitation. "Is that why you made dinner?"

"No."

He found that the recollection of their brief months of closed-case celebration sex wasn't what bothered him most. "What did you mean that we were friends most of the time? When were we not friends?"

"Tony…"

"No, I want to know. Was it…was it because of Jeanne?"

He watched her carefully as she cleared the rest of the dishes on the table. Her silence was partially his own fault; for once, he'd been the one to hang the matzo ball out there. And this was the J-word Ziva wasn't afraid to say. He held his breath until she finally said, "Partly. I suppose that was not entirely your fault."

Sensitized by the alcohol he'd consumed, he caught the slight. "You're not supposed to speak ill of the dead."

"Jen was not the same person I knew in Europe when I came to work at NCIS. Not after the first few months. She was my boss, but she was no longer my friend. "

"That make it easier?"

"Did drinking make it easier for you?"

He swallowed the last of his wine. "Wanna crack a few beers and find out?"

"We are not going to get drunk enough to have sex."

"Isn't that how it happened the first time?"

"Yes. But only the first time."

He made his way to the refrigerator to get the beers himself. "So, suppose we get to the point where we're actually drunk…" The warning in her narrowed eyes made him add, "We can still watch a movie, right?"

"What movie do you have in mind?" She accepted a beer and led him to the couch.

"I was just planning to flip through the channels until I found something good," he confessed. "Could we pretend things are they way they were? Maybe? Just for tonight?"

She sighed, leaning into him. "Perhaps things would have been easier if they had remained that way."

"But they didn't." He slipped an experimental arm around her shoulders.

She didn't push it away. "No, they did not."

Tony woke the next morning awkwardly sprawled on the couch, with Ziva still snuggling against him. He could still feel like team leader until she woke up, at least.