Dry my Dreaming (NCIS)
Dry My Dreaming
Dead my old fine hopes
And dry my dreaming but still...
Iris, blue each spring ― Bashō Matsuo
NCIS / Aberrant Magic
Tony angst
Eventually Tony/Gibbs
Before Bishop's breakup
The new team does not exist
Previous chapters HERE
Chapter 23
Tony stood outside Gibbs' house and started to question his sanity. Jethro had offered to come with him, and like a fool, Tony had turned him down. Sure, Tony had to face Ziva alone eventually, but he wasn't sure that today was the day for that. But since Jethro was at work, Tony had set himself up for this mess.
He took a deep breath and got out of the car. Part of Tony wished he could call Gibbs and ask for backup, but that was the coward's way. Tony had to deal with the mother of his child without hiding behind his.... What was Jethro? Friend was probably the safest word, but Tony did hope for more. Sure, Jethro was a cantankerous, short-sighted bastard who knew about as much about human psychology as the average housefly. But Tony still wanted him.
Standing in front of Jethro’s door, Tony took a deep breath and braced himself for a confrontation with Ziva. He never knew what to expect from her, and now that he knew her guide had been feeding from him, the feeling had doubled. She had always confused him-playing seductress one moment and damaged soul the next. She would play the ninja and pretend to be above everything and then cry over a case they hadn’t solved fast enough to save someone.
Tony knew all those masks were part of who Ziva really was, just like Tony the playboy and Tony the hard ass and Tony the goofball were all him in a way. They were aspects of him that he played up or down depending on what he needed at the time.
The door came open before Tony could make any decisions about how to handle the situation.
“Tony.” Ziva sounded guarded.
“Surprise,” Tony said with a smile.
“I expected you to come with luggage so you could move in. Why would I be surprised?”
Tony sighed. He didn’t really know how to talk to Ziva, not that he ever did. She had a language all her own.
“Where is your luggage?” Ziva leaned around him to look toward the car.
“I didn’t bring any. I’m not actually moving in.”
Immediately all of Ziva’s defenses slammed into place. After taking a step backward she crossed her arms. “Oh?” With her chin raised, she waited. Her body language demanded explanations. Tony felt a little sorry for their daughter the first time Tali tried lying to her mother.
“Where’s Tali?” Tony asked as he passed Ziva.
“She’s playing.”
“Playing?” Tony felt a shiver as he wondered if Tali was in the basement. That place was damp and full of sharp tools, but Ziva had shown a certain preference to put Tali in bomb-proof enclosures.
“Upstairs,” Ziva said with a touch of anger in her voice.
“Oh.” Tony glanced up and saw someone had fitted the top of the stairs with a sturdy child gate. Reassured that she was safely out of earshot, Tony headed for the couch. “I thought we could talk.”
“Talk?” Ziva still had that defensive tone. They’d been partners for a lot of years, so while she might think she was hiding her fear, but Tony could see it in every move. She shifted to stand near the bottom of the stairs, telegraphing her fear of losing Tali.
Tony sat on the couch. “Did I ever tell you about my mother?”
“No.” Ziva sounded unsure now.
“She drank too much and she had definite flaws, but she loved me. I always knew that.”
Ziva took a step closer. “She died, yes?”
Tony nodded. “She did. But I had her love for eight years, and that’s what saved me when things got really bad with Senior. But losing her caused me more pain than I can describe.”
“My mother tried to keep my father from influencing me. She would take me to the ballet and buy dolls, but she was not a shaman. She did not understand the link between my father and me.”
Tony wondered how Ziva would have turned out if her father hadn’t been a shaman, able to manipulate his children into following his agenda. Tony did understand that guides could influence a shaman, and Ziva had a wasp guide that would have pushed her to remain faithful to the nest. Her father would have understood that. Tony wondered what sort of guide Eli David had connected with.
“I never want my daughter to know the pain of losing her mother. I mean, I want us to die before her, but not until we’re all old and she has grandkids of her own. She needs you. I don’t want her to spend her life cherishing memories of you instead of having the real you to run to. There are going to be times that I’m too busy to come home or a case takes me out of town, and there will be times your life gets crazy and you need time to yourself, and it’s going to take both of us to raise her.” Tony thought about Jethro. “All three of us, counting Gibbs. Face it, he’s the only one with experience.”
Ziva came into the room and sat on the dining room chair. God Jethro needed new furniture. “Tony,” Ziva said softly, “I have experience raising Tali. I have always been there for her.”
“Yes, and you’re a good mother. But raising her alone is not healthy.” Tony was proud of himself for not bringing up the damn bomb shelter Ziva had turned into a nursery. Who the hell did that? It wasn’t like the PLO was going to break in and blow up the house.
“I wanted to tell you.”
Tony studied her. He could read the truth of that statement in the guilt she practically projected. “Why didn’t you? Did you know when you told me to go back to NCIS?” Tony figured that’s when she got pregnant. They’d only had sex four times, and three of them had been after she left NCIS and he’d followed her.
Ziva’s gaze dropped to the floor between them. “I suspected, but I was not sure.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you would have stayed.” Ziva looked up. “My mother returned to my father after they had split, and she never stopped hating my father for all the freedoms she gave up to be in that relationship. I know she did it for me and my sister, and sometimes I imagine she looked at us as anchors that held her to a life she did not want.”
“Oh Ziva.” Tony hated all the misunderstanding and betrayals that they carried. Some of those were times they had betrayed each other, but they were both damaged long before they’d met. And while Tony and Jethro were damaged in ways that they could patch each other’s flaws, Tony realized he and Ziva were damaged in the same ways. Their flaws lined up so each would weaken the other. Neither of them knew who they were, so together, they were simply more lost.
Ziva shrugged. “It is what it is. That is past.”
Tony doubted that. As long as Ziva felt the pain, it still existed. Tony had learned that from his own difficult history. But pity had never been the way to go with Ziva. “So, we need to figure out how to respect and like each other well enough that Tali knows we will both always love her and we won’t ever put her in the middle.”
Ziva cocked her head slightly to the side. “I always thought we would end up together.”
For a moment, shock robbed Tony of the ability to form words. They’d always had an up and down relationship, but that train had long ago left the station. Tony could feel his wolf begin to pace at the very thought of being vulnerable near Ziva. Her guide might have instincts, but his did as well. And his wolf was in favor of ripping Ziva’s throat out. “How could….” Tony held up a hand. He didn’t need to reopen this wound. “Nevermind.”
The resigned nod spoke volumes. “You are upset because of my guide,” Ziva said calmly.
Tony had to take a deep breath and remind himself that his daughter was right upstairs where she could hear them. He had to practice disagreeing without fighting or Tali would learn too many bad habits from him. “Well, yeah. You let your guide feed off mine.”
“I honestly did not allow it,” Ziva said, but then gave a slight grimace. “In the beginning perhaps I was not vigilant.”
“You wanted me off the team.”
Ziva was silent for a time. “I will not lie. My mission was to make myself an integral part of NCIS, and you were more resistant to my attention than my research had led me to believe you would be.”
“You thought I would fall into your bed,” Tony translated.
“Yes.” Ziva fell silent, and her guard was up again. Now Tony honestly couldn’t read her.
“And from there?”
She shrugged again. “From there you would be easy to manipulate as I needed. But your reputation did not reflect your true motives or actions. And Gibbs was too attached to you. I needed you to leave.”
Tony thought back to those early years. He avoided bringing up that damn dinner party, but he could still feel the hot flash of embarrassment when he thought about all his friends stabbing him in the back. “So you started your campaign of harassment. You invited everyone else to dinner; you followed me into the bathroom.”
“I told the others you had blown me off. It made Gibbs very aggravated when I told him how bothered I was by your refusal and asked him how I could better relate to you.” Tony stared at her. Hell, that put a few things in a different light. Ziva sighed. “It was supposed to make you transfer. I never had any malice toward you. And the longer we worked together, the more I regretted that politics had put such barriers between us.”
“There were no barriers. We were team members. The fact we have a daughter shows how close we became at one point,” Tony pointed out. He was starting to think he deserved a medal for having this conversation without yelling. The topic warranted screaming and swearing and a few thrown dishes.
“I know.” Ziva didn’t even try to present a defense.
“Then how could you let your guide do so much damage?”
Ziva stood, clearly agitated. “Because I did not understand that I would grow to like you so much and because I am not strong enough to stop my guide. He will do as he does.”
“But he chose you because you two are alike-so can’t you communicate with him?”
Her flinch told Tony everything he needed to know. Tony’s voice turned deadly quiet. “You did communicate with him.” In the distance, Tony could hear a strange cross between barking and howling. The long series of vocalizations ended with a growl, and a sense of danger washed over Tony. His heart started to pound faster.
“It’s not what you think,” Ziva said.
“What? You didn’t send your wasp against me?” The sharpness of the tone surprised even Tony and he had to take a few calming breaths.
“Not directly, no. After Gibbs returned from Mexico, I knew I did not want to continue to hurt you. I thought you were ill, and you had a hospital bracelet and I realized I wanted you in my life. I fought him. I told him he had to stop and he usually did, although I had to remain vigilant.” Ziva crossed her arms over her stomach.
Tony stood. “You wouldn’t feel this guilty if you had done even a halfway decent job of keeping your guide in line.”
She glanced toward the front door. Maybe she was waiting for the cavalry to arrive, but they had to solve this together-just the two of them. That’s why Tony had asked Jethro to stay out of it. Finally she said softly, “After Michael died…”
Tony interrupted. “Seriously? Are you still blaming me for that?”
“No!” she said quickly, her voice rising, but then she lowered her voice. “No, I know Michael had been drinking. He was irrational, and no matter what I might have implied at the time, I do not wish for him to have won that fight. That is not what made it so difficult to keep my wasp from feeding.”
“Then what changed?”
“My father…”
“Your father changed?” Tony was definitely losing track of the conversation.
“No. No, it is not-.” Ziva sighed and sat again. “My father was the center of my life for so many years. He raised me to be his warrior. What is it you always called me? Your Mossad ninja? That is too true. He was my leader, my general, far more than my father. He would send me on missions-tell me to use my body to trap men. He would choose those with whom I would spend my time. Michael was the first man I chose for myself-that I chose despite my father. And when we went to Israel…” Her voice cracked.
Tony could finally see the pattern. He slowly sat back down on the couch. “I showed you that Michael was your father’s tool all along.” Tony couldn’t imagine what Ziva had felt. She had thought she was finally finding her independence, and the manipulative bastard had been pulling her closer all the time.
“I never had broken away from him. I was still the Mossad ninja.” Ziva sounded so broken. “I had wanted to be a ballerina. I had wanted to paint or create beauty in the world, but I was Eli David’s daughter first and always.”
“You don’t believe that,” Tony said firmly. Eli David was dead, and while plenty of dead shamans remained on the spirit plane for years after their deaths, he couldn’t control her anymore.
“Perhaps not now.” Ziva looked up at Tony. “And I have you to thank for that. A child would never have been in my father’s plans, not unless the father had enough political clout that having a child would make good leverage. My father did not approve of your or your lack of ambition. You have shown me how to reject his judgment.”
“I never cared what your father thought of me.”
“You also do not care for what I think of you anymore,” she said sadly, “but I believe you are a good man, a forgiving one. You have encouraged me to return when most men would have either cursed me or denounced me.”
“I’m not perfect, Ziva. I’ve ruined lives. I ruined Jeanne Benoit’s illusions and drove her out of the city. I pushed Wendy into a corner, and I’ve let people down.”
“Your flaws are a fraction of those others carry. You are a good man, and I always thought that if I could only tell you the truth you would forgive me.”
“And I do.” Tony said. Forgiving had never been as difficult as understanding, and maybe he understood a little more today than he had yesterday. His daughter’s mother was one more person Eli David had damaged and then sent out into the world.
“And us?” Ziva asked. There was no artifice or seduction in her tone, just a simple, weary question.
“I forgive you because we’re going to be co-parenting Tali for decades. We need to be partners and friends, but I can’t-. We won’t be involved.”
She nodded. “You don’t trust me.”
“I trust you to have my six every time. I trust you to love our daughter. But I don’t trust you in a relationship. And I’ve moved on. I can’t risk ruining my new relationship by letting you nurse some hope that we’ll get back together.”
“I see.”
Tony didn’t want to hurt her. “Ziva…”
She waved his words away. “No. It is fine. You should move on. I will find my own way.”
“You don’t have to find your own way. I’m here for you.”
“You are here for Tali. I should find employment so I can pay my own way. You are not responsible for me.” She had her stoic look on her face as she turned her face away. Tony mourned for her. The second she thought someone couldn’t use her, she assumed they would throw her away.
“No, but I’m your friend.”
“How can you be?”
“Because we’ve worked together for nine years, because we have a daughter together. Because I understand that life has backed you into a corner over and over.”
When she looked at him again, her eyes shone with tears. “This would be easier if you would be normal.”
“So sorry for making your life difficult with my abnormality,” Tony said with a grin.
“This new woman of yours is lucky.”
Tony blushed. “Well….” He stopped, unsure about how to explain what had changed. He didn’t understand his relationship with Jethro, so explaining it was out of the question.
“The woman is not new? Wendy or Jeanne perhaps?”
“What? No.” Shock made Tony’s voice go up an octave.
Ziva jumped to the right conclusion. “Tony, are you dating a man?”
“If I am?” If she was going to get offended, he wanted to deal with the issue now and keep any tension away from Tali.
“Good for you. I have always admired your ability to not care what others think of you. Then I hope he knows how lucky he is.” Ziva’s smile was genuine.
“He’d better. If he doesn’t, I’ve had it up to here with his sullen and silent act.” Tony held his hand up to chin level.
Ziva’s eyes grew larger. She had caught his reference.
“Just because he’s a functional mute does not mean he’s going to get a pass if he pulls attitude,” Tony said, enjoying the look on her face. Most of the time Ziva policed her expressions, but right now every thought appeared in her face.
“You are seeing Gibbs?” Surprise. A touch of horror. “Truly? This is not a joust?” Suspicion.
“Jest, and no, it isn’t. I don’t know if we’re going anywhere, but I promised to give him a chance.”
Ziva’s expression slowly settled on a reserved smile. “Yasher koach, my friend.”
Tony didn’t know the phrase, but the meaning translated well enough. He stood and offered Ziva both his hands. She took them and he pulled her to her feet before kissing her cheek. “You will always be my beautiful partner,” Tony said, carefully omitting the “ninja” from his well-worn name for her.
She smiled at him, but he could feel the regret there. “Partners,” she said.
Tony wanted to see Tali, but he had to get to work. Vance would want to talk to Tony sooner rather than later, and Tony needed his professional life settled so he could focus on his personal one. “I have to get to the office, but maybe we can have dinner.”
“Tali and I would like that,” Ziva said.
Tony nodded. Ziva still had a lot of work to sort out her own life, but Tony felt like he’d cut her free of a piece of the past that was threatening to pull all of them down. He let go of her hands and left.