Two Strangers

This story falls after Kill Ari 2, in fact after chapter six of the story Save Ari that I posted this morning. The difference is that that Save Ari is what I actually believe happened and this is...HIGHLY improbable, let's say. The rating is for theme and sexual references; you can imagine the rest.

Tony is there for ten minutes before he sees her. Ten minutes of emptiness slowly pulling him into a glass because the case is over, the problem solved, the adrenaline abated—and Kate's still dead. As real as it was when her blood was all over him, the weight of her mother's arms around his waist at the funeral this morning brought crashing home what her death means: no family, no children, no little-old-lady Kate who suddenly he could picture so well, looking at her grandmother. DiNozzo men aren't criers, but if they were, he would have lost it.

Even when he does see the Israeli woman at the bar, he's sure she hasn't spotted him. As Tony approaches her elbow, though, she greets him with a harsh, "Pleased, Agent DiNozzo?"

He can't make sense of her words at first. "My partner's dead," he says.

Something in the roughness of his voice makes Ziva turn, and he remembers that he was right about Ari, and she was wrong. That's what she must mean.

"Sit," Ziva commands, and though one drink isn't usually enough to make Tony compliant, he sits.

He gestures to the bartender for another as he slides onto the stool, and they rest in silence. Eventually Tony breaks it. "What are you still doing here?"

Ziva freezes momentarily. "There is paperwork that must be done before a body can be shipped. I will escort him tomorrow."

Tony frowns, trying to summon up the energy to engage with what Ziva's saying. "But why wait around? Doesn't the embassy have someone they can send?"

She slams her glass down on the bar, turning toward Tony with blazing eyes. But in his she sees the blurring effect of grief, feels the weight of it on her own chest. Her shoulders go limp. "He was my brother." She shouldn't have said it, perhaps, but Ziva is too tired to care. The alcohol has made her emotions blessedly vague and distant—until Tony's face shifts, his eyes suddenly so deeply sad, for both of them, that Ziva feels tears rushing into her own eyes. She blinks them away, turns back to her glass and downs it abruptly. The empty glass joins a host of others scattered in front her.

Tony speaks softly. "I know it's not the same, but...in a lot of ways, Kate was like my sister." He catches her ironic glance. "Okay, my hot step-sister maybe." Joking feels wrong. "But in the ways that counted-" He stops speaking, studying his drink intently. Then he remembers, turns to Ziva. "Your sister-"

Ziva winces, closes her eyes. The world spins slightly, pricks of light swimming against her eyelids. Why has she shared so much with this stranger? "The night she died," she says softly, "Ari stayed with me, curled up on the other side of my bed just like when we were children and he'd fall asleep reading to me and Tali-" A tear streaks down her cheek, just one, but others fill her throat and Ziva stops speaking. She promised herself, when she realized what he was, that she wouldn't cry for him.

Tony's fingers squeeze her hand and Ziva opens her eyes. "He was your brother," Tony says, surprise still in his voice.

She nods once. "He was." He was. But she's not sure when he stopped. Suddenly it seems like there are two people to mourn, a brother who was destroyed by a father, a father who never really existed. Tony's hand on hers registers and Ziva pulls away instinctively. He doesn't seem to notice, reaches with his now-free hand to finish off his own drink.

Ziva pulls out her wallet, too raw now to drink more, and slaps some bills down on the counter. American currency is all so similar-looking. Beside her Tony sets down another twenty. He turns toward her without hesitation. "Want to come back to my place?"

It doesn't matter that they were complete strangers 72 hours ago; now they share a crucial piece of their own histories. It is enough.

He lets her inside in the dark, and the door is barely shut before Ziva is in Tony's space, leaning up for a quick, hard kiss. For a moment their lips are fierce, their arms locking around each other. Then Ziva shoves Tony's jacket off his shoulders and nips at his neck. Tony tightens his arms around her waist and buries his face in her hair.

It takes Ziva a moment to realize he's crying. Then she hears the quick sharp breath and it's over for her too. Just being clung to like this, being allowed to cling, opens up the floodgates of the grief neither of them can ignore or suppress, not now that alcohol has weakened the levees. They stand in the dark, silent because they both spent the years of childhood learning how to cry noiselessly, falling apart together.

Sometime later Ziva pulls away, turning unerringly in the darkness toward the bathroom. She flips on the light inside, leaves the door ajar. Tony slumps to the couch a moment, waiting for her to return. When he hears the sounds of her getting sick, he frowns and rises again.

Ziva flushes the toilet as Tony pushes open the door. She spits into the swirling water. He rests a hand on her tangled hair. She flinches at the kindness.

"There's toothpaste here," Tony says softly. "I'll get you a glass of water."

When he returns from the kitchen with her water, Ziva is seated on the lid of the toilet, brushing her teeth with his toothbrush. For a moment Tony is horrified, then he remembers borrowing Kate's once and he starts to laugh. Water sloshes over the top of the glass and onto the floor.

Ziva takes it from him, her brow furrowed, and spits toothpaste into the sink, rinses out his brush. "What is it?" she asks warily.

Tony shakes his head. If he tried to explain he'd start crying again. "You can throw that out, if you're done."

She shrugs off his laughter and tosses the toothbrush, downs half the glass of water. When Ziva turns back to Tony he is looking at her sadly and she sets the glass down, slips her arms around his waist and hugs him, pressing her face against his shoulder. It is still damp from her tears. After all, they have already crossed this line together.

"Mmph," Tony grunts after a minute. "I must smell like airplanes."

Ziva snorts a laugh and leans back. "I imagine I smell like that bar. It was not a particularly nice establishment."

He grins momentarily. "Want to get clean?" Tony steps back and starts to unbutton his shirt. He watches Ziva carefully, waiting for her reaction. For all her flirting at NCIS, and in spite of her kisses earlier, he fully expects her to leave.

Instead Ziva cocks her head coyly and pulls her top over her head.

Tony gapes.

She slips off the rest of her clothing, leaving a pile on the floor, and steps into the shower.

His eyes trace her silhouette through the curtain as the water pours over her and melancholy washes over Tony again. After a moment he shakes it off, drops his pants to the ground and joins her.

He lays a light hand on her back, and Ziva whirls to face him. Her face is red from scrubbing away her tears. Tony winces sympathetically.

She shakes her head shortly, rejecting the emotion, then raises up on her toes to press her mouth to his.

This time Tony's hands are in her hair before he can even process that she's naked and pressing close to him. Neither of them processes much after that. It doesn't hurt that they've been attracted to each other almost from the moment they met, or that their bodies seem made for this. They make it from the shower to the bed without ever getting clean, and for all their silence when they were crying, both Tony and Ziva turn out to be loud.

For a little while afterward, they sleep, washed up on the shores of some island securely enough that the waves of grief cannot suck them back out to sea just yet.

Tony is awoken by movement at the edge of the bed. It is dim in his room—they never managed to hit the light switch—but he can see Ziva's profile as she slips into the bathroom and begins to pull on her pants.

"You can sleep here," Tony calls out to her. "You're in no shape to go out." He sits in a moment of vertigo and takes a swig of her water, eases his legs over the edge of the bed.

"I do not sleep with strangers," Ziva says, not unkindly, leaning against the door frame between the bathroom and bedroom. She's still topless and Tony can't help being amazed by her self-assurance.

"Are we really strangers?" he asks, a hint of humor in his voice.

"We are all strangers," she answers sadly.

Ziva turns to look for her shirt and the light illuminates her face. The betrayal she still feels is plain in her eyes.

"Well, I don't know about that, but I promise not to kill you in your sleep," Tony says, rising and approaching Ziva. She turns toward him, her shirt in her hands. "I mean, if you promise too."

Ziva opens her mouth to protest more, then closes it. She seems to deflate a little. "Alright."

Tony isn't sure if she's giving in because she feels close to him or she just doesn't care anymore, but he grins in satisfaction. He presses a quick kiss to her lips and returns to bed. When she joins him a few minutes later, Ziva lets him pull her against him.

They spend the night on their island, but when Tony wakes up, he's alone once more.