Magnets

6. Ziva

           

The apartment is silent when Tony wakes up. He closes his eyes again, trying to figure out what, if anything, woke him up. He can't remember.

He checks the time and sees it's hours past Tali's lunch time, but his headache has abated some and that almost makes his screw-up acceptable.

Tali.         

He jumps up, immediately cursing himself for falling asleep.

And then someone knocks on the door, and it's really not a good time because he needs to find Tali, where is Tali?

The visitor knocks again, more reluctantly, if a knock could sound reluctant.

"One minute," he calls, frantically peering around furniture. How can he possibly raise Tali if he loses her in his own apartment?

He looks in his room and is relieved to see Tali curled up on his bed, fast asleep. He tucks a blanket up around her and for a moment watches her sleep. He used to watch Ziva sleep sometimes, loving how peaceful she seemed. And now those days were gone.

Tony remembers the knocking and goes to open the door.

He can't speak.

"I am so sorry, Tony."

He shakes his head like a wet dog. Surely this is some kind of messed-up dream, if you could call it a dream.

She doesn't try to come in, and Tony finds himself regretting that he never invited Ziva over. She never got to see his apartment, and now she never will.

He notices that she is wet, like she has been walking in the rain. Maybe she has. Ziva always liked the rain.

This is a weird dream. He can still feel all the pain he's been feeling since Abby and McGee broke the news to him. Tony's dreams are usually a little more lacking on the emotional spectrum.

"I don't want to do this right now, Ziva. I don't want to see you if I can't have you back."

Her soft eyes betray her confusion. "Tony?"

"Ziva, please." He turns back to the apartment, not bothering to shut the door.

Ziva follows him to the couch. "Tony, I think we should talk."

"What is there to talk about? You're dead, I'm not..."

"Clearly I am not dead. Tony, have you been drinking?"

"A little," he admits, because this is only a dream, and she can't really hurt him in a dream. Not any more than she already has.

"I figured as much. I will come back later."

"No, wait..." He catches her hand as she starts to leave. "Stay."

So she sits back down and holds his hand as he falls asleep.

****

"I wasn't dreaming. I wasn't dreaming?" Tony's heart starts pounding as he stares at the face he's been missing these past couple of years.

"No, you were not dreaming," Ziva says with a hint of a smile.

He sits up a little too quickly but doesn't care. He's so glad Ziva is here... and also very angry.

"How could you do that to me? Why didn't you tell me about Tali? That you were pregnant?" he demands.

Ziva stands up. "I did not want to uproot you from your life," she says hotly.

"That was not your decision."

"That is your opinion." There's fire in her eyes, fire he hasn't seen in too long. "It was not a good time, Tony. I had some things to sort out. Alone. You knew that."

"For almost three years? I find that a little hard to believe."

"It was my decision. My choice. My life. I am the only one who gets to make that call. I chose what I thought was best. So I chose to let you move on. I wanted it to be easy for you to let go."

"Easy? Easy? How the hell do you figure that was easy for me?"

He's driven her to tears, but he wants to see her upset. He wants her to know that she hurt him, badly, and it's not okay. It's still not okay. Hell, he doesn't know if it will ever be okay.

"I do not know, Tony! It made sense at the time!"

"Does it make sense now?" he presses.

"Of course not, but you need to know it was hard for me too. It was not easy leaving the team. It was not easy asking you to leave. It was not easy keeping Tali a secret. I wanted to tell you so badly, but I did not want you to keep dancing around me your entire life. We are like sides of different magnets. We will not ever be able to be together. There is something about the universe that will always stand between us. I thought that if I removed myself from your life, you could find someone else more... compatible."

"Compatible?" He's stunned by her continually flawed logic. "We were compatible. We still are."

She seems so tired, and he wonders when she last slept.

"You know, Tony, I did not come here to fight. I came to apologize. I came because McGee told me I had to. I did not come here" –she wipes her eyes– "to try to convince you of anything or to have you yell at me. I did not need to come. I could have stayed away. I wanted to stay away." She gets up and he knows that if he tries to stop her, she will pull away from him.

He missed his chance.

"Ziva, don't..."

"No, you. I am done here." She lets herself out.

****

In the hallway, Ziva sinks to the floor. What had she been thinking, letting him wind her up like that? She always fell for it. And now he was worse off than he was thinking her to be dead.

She leans against the wall, thinking about her next move. She definitely can't return to Israel, but Paris is still an option. Especially since Tony won't come looking for her now.

The door opens, startling her.

"Ziva..." Tony offers her a hand, and she takes it without thinking. He kisses her as he did that night at the airport, and her heart sings for him, but this time the song is happier.

"We must be pretty strong magnets, if we can get this close without shooting away in opposite directions," he jokes.

She punches him, and it's almost back to the way things were before.

Almost.