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“You cannot possibly mean that.”
“I’m serious, Ziva.”
“No, you are not.”
“I am.”
“You’re cold?”
“You could’ve told me it gets cold in Israel.”
“It is not cold, Tony.”
“Whatever, we’re not gonna argue about this right now.”
It was a simple enough sentence to say, but it cut through the situation like a knife and the laughter faded. Ziva’s hand on his chest slowed the absent strokes it had been making.
It was funny, that they could so easily forget what it was they were doing here. That this wasn’t just a joking conversation at the office or falling into bed together after one too many drinks.
Perhaps it was the emotional toll of the last few days finally beginning to show cracks, leaving room for a split second of light-hearted conversation between stares and thoughtful pauses. The silence clung on between them now, though, and Tony’s arm that was behind Ziva’s back pulled her into him tightly. She moved her head to replace her hand on his chest, curling around him a little. He could feel his heartbeat stutter under her ear.
“It really is not cold.”
“I’m freezing. I can’t go to sleep like this.”
“Did you not bring any clothes with you?” Ziva mumbled pointedly into his bare chest.
“Ha, smart.” Tony extricated her from his body and pulled himself reluctantly up to a seated position, immediately feeling the absence of her skin about his. He got wearily to his feet and began to look around the room while Ziva watched him with a frown.
“A sweatshirt, yes?”
“I did - I think I left it in the other room.” Tony said the words absently as he looked around, poking his foot around discarded clothes strewn across the floor.
They hadn’t done much today, or even strayed far from the room aside from to get food and sit on the balcony. Things had been intense ever since he arrived – straying so far in opposite directions that it had taken a toll, and sleeplessness providing the rest. To say he felt foggy was an understatement.
“The bedroom?”
“Yeah, I just dumped my bag in there. I’ll go look for it.”
“Bring the bag in here.”
He hadn’t needed the confirmation, of course, after everything that had happened since the orchard. It still felt foreign to hear out loud, though; the wordless becoming spoken.
He stretched his arms over his head as he left the bedroom, shaking them a little as he lowered them to warm them up as he picked his way back through the house.
The first of his two-becoming-three nights in Beersheba so far had been spent at the opposite end of the house. He'd arrived gone 10pm, and after the initial shock and a little small-talk Tony had asked her to point him towards a guest room on the proviso that they would talk the next day. He'd lain awake in Ari Haswari's childhood bedroom for the entire night, and when he'd got up to get a glass of water just before 4am he found her sat on a stool staring into space. She hadn't reacted when he'd sat down next to her and the two of them had talked accentuated with long silences until the sun rose. Mainly about Tony - whether he was back at work, how long he'd been out of the US, what Gibbs thought about it. Ziva was reserved about her opinions of it all, not reacting until later on when he had spoken to the man on Skype and lied about where he was. Not that Gibbs believed him (he was almost certain of that).
Things had progressed after the ‘I Will’ letter, desperate pleading in the orchard and Ziva’s hand taking his, leading him back inside with no façade or thinly-veiled excuse.
They’d barely spent more than five minutes apart since then, only leaving the house once to buy food, hands brushing against each other as they walked. Perhaps that was why it felt oddly lonely, then, when Tony walked down the corridor and left the light of the bedroom into the darkness. Unfamiliar territory.
The house was quiet; a strange kind of isolated quiet. Evidently nobody had stayed here in a long time - it was devoid of things like computers and televisions, and though Ziva had seemingly dusted the rooms a lot of them still had an air of un-use about them.
Tony hadn’t spent much time in a lot of it and so he took his time walking through the halls towards Ari’s room, poking his head around corners and looking into other disused rooms. He hadn’t realised how big the house was, outward appearance being deceiving in spite of the sprawling land that he and Ziva had tracked their way through looking for a place to bury her list.
A strange sense of foreboding overcame him when he reached the one familiar doorway. He’d left it cracked open and he could see the heel of one of his shoes poking out around the space. The surrealism of his position in the house hit him again: the reality of who the room had once belonged to, the child version of a man who would one day cause such pain and destruction. That this was how he and Ziva had met all those years ago, lives inextricably linked by him.
The fact that, in spite of it all, the two of them had become what they had.
With her firmly in his mind, he opened the door.
It was clear Ari hadn't been here in several years when he died, the bedroom still remnants of a college student. Medical textbooks on the bookshelf, little mementos and knick-knacks next to the headboard of the bed. A small collection of photos he’d found on top of the dresser as though someone had been looking through them before he’d first arrived: teenage Ari with a young Ziva. The two of them, older, with Tali. Fully grown Ari sat with the toddler on his lap, clutching at his hand. That one, in particular, made Tony's stomach lurch.
And then, in the centre of the room sticking out sharply and starkly, the feeble collection of Tony’s own belongings. He’d half-unpacked, if you could call ripping open a bag and tipping out the contents in an exhausted rush unpacking, and his clothes were on top of the fabric. He grabbed his sweatshirt and pulled it over his head, rubbing his hands over the material on his arm to warm himself up.
He didn't think he’d ever have been able to sleep a wink in that room. Thinking constantly of Ziva - not just what had been plaguing him all summer but this, too. How could she stand to be around these things? For as little as he may have thought of Ari that was her brother, someone she had loved deeply who’d done things to betray her and forced her to complete the kind of act you’d dream about in nightmares.
She’d talked so little about it over the years, and he’d always had half a mind on the idea that she hadn’t fully processed it. Connected the dots between the two versions of the man. Then, maybe she was now.
He left the room again in a hurry, thankful he hadn’t thought quite so deeply about it on the night he’d arrived.
Before he headed back to Ziva he stopped at a door he’d noticed when he’d first arrived, tucked away just past the other bathroom.
The only closed door in the house.
His hand came instinctively to the handle to open it and then paused. Trepidation suddenly coursed through his veins, as though he was going to open the door and find someone stood behind it. More hesitantly he pressed the metal down, and the door slowly opened.
As could’ve been expected in an abandoned house anywhere that wasn’t a horror film, it was empty. The curtains on the windows were open, which surprised him, leaving light flooding the room from what he hoped was an over-sensitive sensor light on the exterior wall.
It was sparse - walls painted cream and the floorboards bare. The bed was stripped and clinical in the centre of the side wall.
Tony stepped inside, looking carefully around the corners to see if there was anything left in there. There was an old piece of sellotape stuck to the side of the wardrobe door and he could see the corner of a piece of paper tucked underneath it, where something had been ripped down.
He knew what the room was without needing to ask or pry any further. Remnants of a teenage girl's posters, ripped down unceremoniously. Even stripped bare the room had an energy about it - hers, yes, but Ziva's too.
He thought about the teenage girl he'd seen disappearing into her mother's old apartment. Big, bright eyes. Innocent and peaceful smile.
He knew there had always been things going on in her life, but even his hallucination had reminded him of how much came later. Ziva had told him enough vague stories (before catching herself and stopping) in the last few days to make him assume that she was happy here, even in the ever-shadowy presence of Eli: really, genuinely happy, free and able to be young in a way that had been utterly knocked out of her by the time she reached her early 20s and their paths had crossed.
She'd had siblings who she'd loved dearly, and had spent holidays chasing them through the fields and having sibling arguments with over the most mundane of topics. He could picture her sat on this bed, that same bright-eyed girl, laughing and telling jokes with her little sister.
He thought he saw a flash of her again, then, in the doorway, but it disappeared as quickly as it appeared and was replaced by the real thing.
She had her hair tied up away from her face and was wearing the shirt he'd had on half-buttoned earlier that day, as far as either of them had got dressed.
He stepped away from the wardrobe and the paper corner guiltily and back towards the centre of the room. As if on cue, the sensor light flicked off. The two of them bathed in darkness, if only for a moment, until Ziva flicked the switch. Tony blinked as his eyes adjusted.
"Sorry, I-"
"No, it's OK."
She was still stood in the threshold and Tony looked around the room, trying to envision the scene through her eyes. "This was Tali's room?"
"My father was not a sentimental man."
She took her turn to look around the sparse space with a sardonic smile. That seemed an understatement for what Tony had known of Eli, though even for him doing something like that seemed to be going a step beyond.
"Did you keep her things at least?"
"Yes, a lot of it is in my old bedroom. Most of it - Tali could be a hoarder. So much the opposite of me."
Ziva noticed the ripped edge of the picture Tony had been looking at and signalled it. "That was her thing - photographs and posters everywhere. We shared a room at our mother's apartment in Tel Aviv and it would drive me crazy."
"I saw some in your brother’s room."
She smiled. "I found them last week. I am not sure how often anyone has been here since.." Her voice faded again and he gave what he hoped was a look of encouragement. "They were in a box under his bed. I had never seen them before, that I can remember."
"You should hold onto them."
Ziva sat down on the edge of the bed easily but then almost viscerally reacted. He watched her look around the room, suddenly her mind busy.
When she finally caught his eye again he was sure there must have been concern etched on his face.
"I know what you are about to say."
"What?"
He could see he wasn't going to change her mind, on any of this, and spending whatever time he had here trying to argue wasn't good for either of them. The thought of what came next sickened him to his stomach, but he knew he'd rather had this to remember than him constantly arguing to fight a losing battle.
He'd been trying to listen instead. Stroked her hand and dropped kisses onto her shoulder as she talked; the way she'd grow insistent as she reached a point she particularly wanted him to understand.
It didn’t make it any easier.
"I find it a comfort. Being here. It is just.. strange, seeing this room as it is now."
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come in here.”
“I understand your curiosity. I would have shown you anyway.” Ziva played with her fingernails, addressing them rather than him. "I was not thinking when you arrived. I should not have made you sleep in Ari's room. My old one does not have a mattress anymore – I should have given you my parents' and gone in there myself."
"Yeah, like that'd be so much better." It was a little sarcastic and Ziva did smile but it was a placid one. "It was fine. I know that.. I don't see him how you do. Didn't sleep, but I don't think that was totally because of Ari."
The name coming from his lips seemed to strike something in her. A little hitch in her breath as she looked him in the eyes.
He supposed it had never fully occurred to him before how much Ari's death had affected her. He knew it couldn't just be Deena Bashan that had her feeling this way after one conversation: that it was something that had weighed on her, silently, for years. A weight on her chest that pressed down, the boot twisting more after what had happened to her dad.
Then, she never spoke much about Ari to him. He could understand her reluctance but at the same time wished differently - maybe she underestimated his ability to compartmentalise the issue. Or, maybe, he overestimated it.
She cleared her throat.
“You did not sleep much last night, either.”
“Guess I have things on my mind.”
"Tony, I.."
"Don't apologise." His voice was conceding but he hoped it was warm, too. For all that was happening he knew she couldn't be blamed for the way things were transpiring. That she would feel guilty enough about it already without the need for apologies. "Please. It's not.. what can you do?"
It was a strangely blasé thing to say, a meaningless admission of inevitable fragility. Ziva stared at him and he joined his hands behind his back, leaning them against the wall from his position in front of where she sat.
She smoothed the blankets with her hand.
"Did you come here often? I don't think you ever said."
She sighed out of the previous conversation, her cadence quicker. "Less often after my parents split up. When I was young, though, I have a lot of good memories in this house."
"Tell me some."
The wistful expression slowly left Ziva's face as she looked at him. "Hm?"
"I want to hear them. For real, not just little ones."
The shift in her eyes was stark, then, as if she hadn't expected it. As though his words about Ari and her father had been platitudes, meaningless buzzwords said to carry her along in a topic. As though the idea that he might actually want to hear about them how she saw them was unfathomable.
She smiled furtively and ran her hands down her legs. "Tomorrow."
"Yeah?"
"Yes. Tomorrow. You are tired."
It was absurd the way they could treat this like a holiday sometimes, pencilling plans and little details into the diary as though they weren't on an as-yet-undecided-but-swiftly-approaching deadline.
When she stood she walked over to him, into his space, and lifted her hand to his upper arm. She cupped it slowly, and rubbed his shoulder, and Tony wondered how this had turned into her comforting him.
She lifted her head to look him in the eye and he couldn't help but lean down, kissing her slowly and thoughtfully, a little sad.
The sliver of air between their bodies when they moved apart felt like a ravine - much too big. Tony wanted to close the gap again immediately but restrained himself.
"Come to bed." Her voice was quiet, tender as anything, but he could hear the other emotions lurking beneath the surface. He wondered how it felt for her, acknowledging things like that. Both of them well-aware of the cause of his insomnia.
It would be naive and self-centred of him to focus on himself right now, ignoring that she was feeling it too. That it wasn't comparable, even, to what was going on inside her head. The way he'd catch her off-guard staring into space, or plotting conversation in her head in a way that was so un-Ziva-like.
He offered a smile, an attempt at a peace offering. A desire to make it known that he empathised, even if he didn't understand.
He took her hand just barely as they walked back through the empty house, fingers linking around each other as he imagined the younger version of herself wandering the same halls. When they got back to the bedroom he stopped dead to look at her - really look at her, and see the trace of that girl in her eyes. He wondered, not for the first time, how things had got to this. How one person should've had to deal with so much.
Was it any wonder?
The room was beautiful - he knew it had been Ziva's parents, back in the day, but she'd taken to sleeping in here now because of the airy space and the way the sunlight hit the balcony in the early morning.
The lighting even at night was strange. When Ziva got back into bed she was lit up by the bedside lamp, her face glowing warmly as she settled down staring back at him. He searched her eyes as he had done non-stop for the last couple of days, hoping for a way in.
"What?"
The question was cautious from her lips, a little frown forming as though she was nervous about where the question would lead.
She looked so innocent in this light. So warm, and calm. Somehow free of the things that were plaguing her mind, the guilt and the fears and the memories and everything that tied her up into knots when she tried to picture her future. She tried a smile, and he realised she was still waiting for an answer.
"Nothing. I'm gonna get some water, you need anything?"
“You to come and relax.”
He felt himself start to grin and tipped his head. “I am relaxed, Ziva.”
“You need to sleep.”
“I’d love to, if someone didn’t snore like a garbage truck driving past all night.”
“Just get your water.” She cocked her head and closed her eyes in amused irritation, and he felt a bubble of lightness fill his chest and then slowly fade again as he turned away.
There was something about bathrooms.
Whether you were drunk, or over-tired, or there were too many things on your mind, Tony always found them to be disorientating. Maybe it was something about the light – harshly artificial compared to everywhere else in the house, or the isolating quietness that left you alone with your thoughts.
It was the tiredness that got him this time, staring at himself in the mirror as he filled his glass.
He looked off, somehow, through his exhausted eyes. It was as though suddenly he could see the weight of the past few months on his face - the lines that he swears weren't there before, the stubble he hadn't shaved in god knows how long. He felt like any number of protagonists in any number of films that he was too far gone to try and recall the names of right now, staring at their reflection as they had an emotional breakthrough.
She really wasn't coming back. She was staying here, for good.
He’d tried to process the fact as though it was nothing the last couple of days, the idea of it unfathomable. He'd be naive to not realise the significance that his relationship with Ziva holds to him - the unbelievable grip she had on his heart, how she had seeped into the very fabric of who he was as a person. All the changes he'd made to himself, the growing up and maturing he had done, his desire to settle down. He realised now how much of that was influenced by her. How much he had learned from her.
It was why the thought of leaving her here was as sickening as it was rapidly inevitable. After so long spent denying himself that kind of attachment to another person he found himself feeling ripped open at the thought of having it taken away. He wasn’t sure anymore quite how he was supposed to get by without her. What his life would look like without her in it anymore.
How he, physically, was supposed to put one foot in front of the other and walk away. Knowing it was what she said she wanted. Knowing it was anything but that for him.
He continued to stare into the mirror for a little while longer, picturing the scenario. Running it over and over in his head until he became familiar with the routine. He’d try to crack a joke. She’d say something that made him want to drop his bags and grab her and never let go. He’d kiss her, for a moment, and wouldn’t be able to resist looking back over his shoulder.
He’d hoped preparing himself would make the inevitable easier, but it didn’t dissipate the fear in the pit of his stomach. Instead, he drank half of his glass of water and filled it for a second time.
When he re-entered the bedroom Ziva was lying across the bed, her head on his pillow and her arm outstretched watching him with one eye open.
"You were gone for a while."
"Was I?"
He approached the bed as he felt her eyes boring into the top of his dipped head. "Are you alright?"
"I would be if you'd get off my pillow." Tony tapped her lightly on the nose and she frowned, though she moved backwards to allow him room.
He settled down on his back and closed his eyes.
"Tony.."
"I'm fine." Tony turned his head to look at her and he could see the faintest hint of concern and guilt in her furrowed brow. "Hey, I promise."
Ziva nodded at him and Tony smiled, barely hesitating before leaning forward and pressing his lips to hers. This seemed to reassure her and she melted into the touch, shuffling towards him.
Maybe a part of them both was still waiting for the other to pull back.
"Come 'ere." Tony mumbled as they separated, turning onto his side and placing an arm around her waist.
Their faces were close together, both of them watching each other’s expressions carefully. Tony felt around for Ziva’s hands in the dark and lifted one upwards.
"I love you." He whispered quietly into the palm, pressing his lips to it as an afterthought. She turned it over, grazing the backs of her fingers against the stubble on his jawline.
The last thing he wanted was a response, a kind of shared sentiment that would make it impossible to think of walking away. He could see she sensed that from the way she opened and closed her mouth, eventually settling on resting her forehead against his and closing her eyes. They stayed still like that for a moment, inhaling the moment, before she pulled away to kiss a spot next to his mouth.
It wasn’t the first time he’d told her since arriving, but it was the first time he’d done so easily and without the added extra of trying to persuade her to change to her mind. She needed to know it, even if it wasn’t going to change anything. Even if she thought that was the problem – that somehow him loving her was going to cause bad things to happen to him, that she was inevitably going to cause problems for him like the problems she blamed herself for in the rest of her families’ lives.
She’d said as such, before, and he’d tried to argue but he could see it was something she needed to realise for herself, too. That being encircled by bad experiences didn’t make them your fault.
Any other time he might not have dared to look her in the eyes but he couldn't look away now, not even for a second. He wanted to remember everything about this - though realistically he knew there will be times in the future when he would try anything to rid it from his brain.
“You know you do not have to lie to me. Right?”
Tony frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I am not… I don’t want you to pretend that you are alright just because you are afraid the truth might hurt me.”
“I’m not lying. I just..” Tony sighed, inexplicably feeling a tear pricking the corner of his eye. “I can’t be any more honest than this. I don’t know how to.”
He was certain he’d found himself close to crying more times around Ziva in the last couple of days than he had done in anyone else’s company in his entire life. She responded by burrowing her head against him, her body pressed warm and firm against him.
She was tapping lightly over his heart. She'd done that before - the kind of gesture that would usually make him take pause, have him questioning its intentions. Tonight it was a comfort, a rope tethering the two of them together.
The silence stretched before them as she breathed slowly against him and he felt his own chest begin to rise and fall in tandem.
"Whereabouts was it that you were born?" Redirecting attention. Giving them a breather.
Ziva hummed and he felt the vibration against him. "I am not sure I ever asked. In here, I would assume. I think I remember Tali being born in here."
Tony looked around the room for effect, tried to imagine it in such a context. The idea that Ziva was born right here, taking her first breaths where he lay, was as unnerving as it was fascinating.
"God, it's.."
"Strange, yes?"
"Not just that. Just.. thinking about how differently things can be seen. Y'know? You saw your little sister get born in this room, and I just associate it with you. How much things can change as the years pass."
"When we met, I was just Ari's Mossad associate coming to make your life difficult."
"That's not exactly what I thought of you, but yeah. Like that." Ziva pulled away a little so she could look at him and there was a small smile on her face, soft and almost shy. He lifted his head and felt flirtatious all of a sudden when he poked her in the ribs. Clinging onto that smile for dear life. Smothering other thoughts with it: ones of Ilan Bodnar and sleeping on planes and tears in Ziva's eyes. "Obviously some people knew more than others."
"You cannot still be upset about that? It was my job to know about you."
"I was never mad. I kinda liked the thought of you lying in bed, writing my name in your book."
"Now who's twisting what we were thinking?" Tony grinned, feeling the fabric of the pillow against the corner of his mouth. "I think that is a little of the truth, though. I was quite interested in meeting you."
"Oh yeah?"
"I thought I could intimidate you. The concept seemed like fun."
"I bet it was.”
"I think I did a good job."
He poked her again, harder, and a couple of small hand-fights ensued before he captured her lips with his own and they both breathed into it, relaxing. The warm feeling was back in his chest again. Moments of normality against the backdrop of anything but.
When they separated they were earnest again, and Ziva rubbed the corner of her eye. The bags under them were older than either of them cared to acknowledge "It is right; what you said about how things change. You never realise how significant things are going to be in the future when they are happening. How some things will.. stick with you for long after the event."
"Like meeting me." He knew it wasn't the only thing she was referring to, but the glimmer that flashed over her eyes when he said it was his intention.
"Yes, like meeting you. I really had no idea back then how any of this worked."
“I’m not sure I do even now.” Silence. A sigh. “Just to clarify, we’re talking about..?”
She let out a breathy chuckle that spread, just a touch, to her eyes. He felt his mouth upturn in response but kept himself measured.
"Are you gonna stick around here?"
Another sigh – this one more conceding. "I am not sure. You think it's a bad idea."
"No, I don't. Even just practically, I'm sure it's easier. I know it'd be hard to leave behind."
"But..?"
"I'm not sure how conducive it is to a fresh start."
"Conducive?" She repeated the word, teasing him, but he could see she was avoiding the conversation.
"You know best. I can't pretend to know how this place feels for you."
"To be honest I am not sure if I thought about it myself until you began asking."
“I don't know, kinda seems like everything is more to the surface when you're here. Just something to think about."
"Maybe I need it to be at the surface. To face these things."
"I understand what you said before. About good memories. But I... God, I don't think I could be here if it were me."
"Was there nowhere like that for you in your childhood? Places that may have painful associations now that once meant a lot to you?"
He thought about the movie theatre he used to go to with his mom in the city. How, in the later ones, he'd turn to her and see the tears in her eyes. "Yeah. But I.. I can't go back. Feel too much like torturing myself."
"I understand that you would see it that way. Especially," she paused to search for the words, "especially given the circumstances."
"I do get it. Honestly. Trying to find meaning, looking back to try to understand how you got here."
"And you are not going to argue that?"
"Not anymore. You know what I think." The words were tired and that's what he was: tired of fighting a losing battle, of expending energy on anything else except consuming this period of time with open eyes and an empty mind ready to be filled with whatever he could gather.
His first finger reached out a drew a line, slowly as possible, down her cheek and along her chin. As he continued to stare he could see her trying to understand what he was doing - not quite on the same wavelength, not fully seeing that he was trying to commit everything to memory.
She settled down into him again and the air was heavy with meaning but light of tension. Common ground, as divergent though it may be.
"Thank you."
"For what?"
Her own hand was stroking his side as though she was falling asleep but when he looked down at her, her eyes were wide open. Staring at him.
"I know you have not accepted it, but you have.. allowed us this. This time with you. I know you do not understand, but I can feel you trying. You came here to try. That is more than most would give."
“You know I was always going to.”
“Maybe I had forgotten.” The tone in her voice was wistful and muffled by the sound of his sweatshirt, but she pulled herself away once again to look him in the eye. "Are you glad you came?"
"There's no easy way to answer that question."
Ziva had a hand lightly on Tony's jaw and he tilted his head down into the touch as she stared at him thoughtfully.
“I don’t know how much longer I can stay, Ziva.” The words came out quickly, days of holding them back finally coming into fruition. The regret was instantaneous, even if they’d both seen it coming.
“I know.”
“If I don’t leave soon, I’m never gonna leave.”
“I know.” The repeated words were softer, whispered like a lullaby as she stroked his face in comfort.
“And you want me to leave.”
Her hand stilled. He could see her fighting the urge to look away, and had someone asked him at any point in the future he would swear that he'd seen the last eight years flash across her eyes. Fingers warm in front of his ear he found himself wondering if she was seeing him too, in the way he'd seen her this summer. Young, before they'd ever met. Before any of this had happened to them.
"It is not that simple."
Somehow, that only made it worse.
"It has to be. If you want me to be able to leave, it has to be."
She nodded absently, as though she weren't really there. Going through the motions of her response. Seconds stretched on like an eternity as they stared at each other, both of them wrestling with what it was they wanted to say. Things bitten back for years, suddenly becoming impossible.
"You should get some sleep." Ziva eventually managed, a foreign and quiet note. Tony nodded in what he hoped seemed like reassurance and pulled her down onto his chest.
She buried her cheek under his arm, breathing against the skin and moving her arms and legs around him. Anchoring him to the bed. Surrounding him.
He went to say something else, but couldn't bring himself to as he felt the drop of a tear against his chest.