A/N: Okay so this is a small multi-chapter. It's looking to be 5-7 chapters long and I'm almost done with it.

Fair Warning: This is not going to be a fluffy story. It's on the darker side. By no means explicit, but dark themes with some allusions to the horrors of Ziva's past.

Other than that - this goes AU after Dammed If You Do, spoilers for everything up to there.

Chapter One

The men's room, he thinks, is not nearly as interesting as the ladies' room. There is no gossiping, no dirty looks and no clandestine hookups going on – though, in fairness to the other men of NCIS, there's not enough room to hook up in the men's room.

He and Ziva have tried. It's why they do all of their daytime hooking up in the ladies' room – with the lock on.

But they don't do it that often. Not at work, anyway. It's not professional and they always feel so guilty afterwards, but it also feels cheap. And Tony will probably never tell Ziva this, but he just doesn't like it. He doesn't like doing things like that at work with her; he'd rather be at home – in one of their apartments – in private, because that's where their relationship and its activities belong.

So about a month or so after they went back to work, they swore off many things in the office – hook-ups included. The list of activities non-gratis became known as The Rule.

He doesn't really mind The Rule.

Tony is more protective of their relationship than Ziva probably realizes. He's worked hard to be tight lipped about it at work. It's not like most of the Navy Yard doesn't know, because they do. Tony and Ziva have become this de facto class couple of sorts and though he isn't surprised, he hates that title. Absolutely hates being the ones whom everyone likes to gossip about.

And he never thought that would be the case, but it is. He's ridiculously protective of his relationship with Ziva and it's private nature. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they're both so different at work than they are at home. He would never make the amount of juvenile jokes and comments that he does in the office when it's just him and Ziva. It just doesn't seem necessary. And there is something so soft and relaxed about the Ziva who likes to curl against him at night.

He cleans his hands and exits the bathroom. She's the only one in the bullpen and as he walks to his desk, he allows himself to give her a real smile. That's the only thing they sometimes cheat with. The looks. They've never been wholly professional anyways and she's always been able to read behind his eyes.

His look catches her off guard and he knows that she can't hide the blush the blossoms on her features.

It's moments like these that he wonders how he ever went home without her. He doesn't understand how he made it eight years staring at her, without ever getting the opportunity to really be with her.

But he did. They did and it wasn't until they placed their badges on Vance's desk and lost everything that's ever really meant something, that they both took the plunge.

Maybe they'd both thought it would be a fling – something they'd push aside when everything settled down and went back to normal.

Except it wasn't. Far from it, actually. And when Gibbs returned from his clandestine summer fun, they made a pact with each other.

No, they couldn't be like that on the job. It wouldn't work and things would be messy. On the job, they had to pretend this had never happened. They had to pretend that things had never irrevocably changed. That was how The Rule started.

But at home – in the privacy of one of their apartments – they knew they could never go back. Things would never be the same.

That's just what they wanted.

He can hear her in her kitchen when he lets himself into her apartment. She's humming to herself as she works on the stovetop and it brings a smile to his face.

He loves turning that key and opening this door – it's like he's stepping into a whole other world where only the two of them exist and nothing else matters. He likes it and he loves her. And she knows that and he knows that she likes it and she loves him. It's complicated and difficult – keeping their emotions in check and having a balance, but it's worth it. Being able to still have each other's back in the field and at home – it's worth The Rule.

"That was fast," she says.

He leaves his shoes by the door and joins her in the kitchen. "Yeah, well, didn't have much to do at my place."

"And you just couldn't bear another moment without me?" she throws a smile at him over her shoulder.

"Actually," he says, coming up behind her, and wrapping her arms around her shoulders. "I couldn't." He places a kiss on the side of her neck and he feels a shiver run through her.

"Dinner will not be ready for another forty minutes."

"That's too bad." He feigns. He places another kiss, this time on the side of her cheek. "Does it require your constant attention?"

"Not after I put the chicken in."

"Huh." He kisses her shoulder and then backs away.

She continues working and he knows she can feel his eyes roaming all over. "Tony," she says, after a brief silence and her tone has suddenly gone serious that it makes him sit up straighter, "Why did you give me that…look today?"

"What look?" he asks.

"When you came back from the bathroom…we were alone in the bullpen and you…gave me that smile."

"Oh…" he says, "I don't know I just thought, wow, there's Ziva. I'm going to smile at Ziva. So I did."

"That's it?" she asks. He knows that sometimes what he says is just a little much, but he can't help it – he has eight years to make up for.

"That's it." He confirms. "Why?"

"It did not seem in compliance with The Rule. That's all."

"For all you know, I was smiling at you because I cracked the case. That would not break The Rule."

"Did you crack the case in the bathroom?" she returns.

"That question is in violation of The Rule. But no."

She places the chicken in the oven and sets the timer for thirty-five minutes. And then she turns around and raises her eyebrows at him in a way that makes him itch for her.

She settles in his lap and places his hands on her chest. "Okay." She says.

"I thought so."

She smiles and leans down to kiss him and her lips are warm and soft and so welcomed. He runs his hands up and down her back and she arches into him as he slips between her lips.

"I love you," she says between his kisses and it makes his head spin and his heart flutter in the best of ways.

He pauses for a moment and lets his hands frame her face as he stares into, what he considers, the deepest and most incredible chocolate brown eyes in the world, "I love you, too." He says. "I missed you at work today."

She smiles and plays along, kissing his chin. "How was your partner today?" she asks.

He shrugs. "Eh, she was alright. A little cranky in the morning."

"Maybe you should have bought her coffee."

"Have to stay professional," he parrots.

She swats his chest and then leans back into him, capturing his mouth once again. They stay there for a moment, but then his hands begin to roam under her shirt and she raises a brow at him.

He pushes her off his lap as he stands and she wraps her arms around his neck. "What do you say we move to a more horizontal location?" He asks.

She is awake before his cell phone goes off. Years after her days in Mossad and that foray into the desert, her body has never conditioned itself to be able to sleep for more than four or five hours at a time – even after a full days' work and an evening with Tony.

So it's three in the morning and she's awake.

She twists in Tony's arm and reaches for the remote control, but it's behind her still-filled tea mug and she'd have to totally untangle herself from her partner and she doesn't want to do that so she just sinks back into him.

He is so comfortable to lie against and she's sure she will never get used to how much she enjoys just laying with him – being with him.

They've been together – officially together with full disclosure on feelings and desires – for almost six months now. She will never tell Tony this, but they have been some of the happiest six months of her life.

Sure, they have their issues and they fight, but she would never trade what they now have. This – the coming home with each other, the bantering over dinner, the weekends together – they outweigh whatever small quarrels spring up between them.

With Tony she feels like she can be her complete and total self – she could take him down physically or mentally in a fight if she wanted to, but she can also find the safety and protection in him that she never dreamed she'd want or allow someone to provide her. It's this balance in their relationship and her life that leads Ziva to think she might just be on the path to something really good.

One of their phones lights up on the bedside table and she leans over to confirm her knowing notion that it's probably Gibbs rousing them from their beds for another case.

She flips the first phone open and spares only a second's thought of what Gibbs will say if this is Tony's phone rather than her own.

"David." She says.

"You mean DiNozzo," comes Gibbs' gruff reply and Ziva rolls her eyes. So she had picked up the wrong cell phone.

"Sorry, Gibbs."

"Crime scene in Hillcrest Heights. See you both when you get there."

The phone clicks and she closes it and she tosses it back on the bedside table. She supposes being awake already makes getting up easier.

She shifts in Tony's arms and rubs a hand down his side. "Tony," she says. She shakes him just a bit. "Tony."

"Hmm?" he startles. "'S wrong?"

"Crime scene. Time to get up."

"No," he whines and tightens his arms around her.

"Fill me in," Tony says to McGee as he rounds the hood of the car and snaps a picture of the license plate, "As to why we're here."

"She's a Marine Dependent," the younger field agent explains, "And she works on the Navy Yard."

"Worked." Tony corrects. He accepts McGee's explanation, but he definitely doesn't like it. Tony doesn't appreciate being roused from bed – Ziva's bed, no less – at three o'clock in the morning on a Saturday for a case that is barely in their jurisdiction. He's beginning to think that Gibbs saw an in with the case and took it – just to save them from another week of cold cases.

Tony would've have appreciated the move, had it been ten o'clock Monday morning, but right now, he can't say he's filled with such a sentiment.

They haven't had an active case in almost a month and sure, good for the Navy and the Marines – their dead body count is down, but bad for Team Gibbs because their body count was about to go up if they didn't something to occupy their times.

"Looks pretty clear cut," the Metro Detective says to Gibbs, "Wallet's been cleaned of credit cards and cash and there's marks on her fingers where her rings were."

Gibbs nods and Tony can't tell if he's agreeing or disagreeing and that's probably the point.

"Just a good old fashioned robbery?" Detective Rossetti confirms at Gibbs' silence.

"Looks that way," McGee pipes in and now would be the time for Tony to jump in and offer some sort of joke or move reference, but Ducky and Jimmy are currently removing the body from the vehicle and it has caught his attention.

Maybe it was her brown eyes that first caught his attention or the golden skin that still is just barely evident or the dark brown ringlets that frame her face, but either way, he is awestruck and a little disturbed that their robbery-gone wrong victim bares an uncanny resemblance to Ziva.