Tony let his head loll back on his shoulders tiredly for a second, then reached for the power button on his monitor. "That's it. I am out of here." He reached over to the printer, picked up the paperwork it had just spit out, and headed for Ziva's desk. "Hey, Desk Duty Girl, you can check my work."

She accepted the sheaf of papers with only a mild roll of her eyes. She was usually irritable about her restriction, but Tony would not be Tony if he didn't prod her about it. Besides, at the moment she was less concerned with his teasing and more concerned with his departure. "It is only six-fifteen," she commented glancing at her watch. "You are making an early night of it. Do you have somewhere you must be?"

"Nah." He reached for the lightweight jacket he'd worn into the office that morning. "I just want to get out of here before Gibbs comes back and finds something to head-slap me about. How about you? Gonna spend the night unpacking, or do you have a hot date?"

A hot date, hah. Ziva had been too concerned with recovering her normalcy to worry about socializing, and she didn't foresee returning to casual dating any time soon; she was still too prone to flinching at inopportune moments. For now, she was content with interacting with only the people she knew she was safe around.

But Tony didn't know that, and she didn't plan to tell him. For his benefit, she shrugged carelessly. "As you can see, I am in no hurry. However, if you do not have plans, I have a..." She paused, searching for the word. "...a 'proposition' for you."

"Oh, really." He grinned. "Wait 'til I tell McGee that you propositioned me right here in the office."

Ziva took in the smug look on his face, mentally rewound through her words, and decided that clearly proposition had not been the correct word after all. "I did not mean it in whatever way you seem to think. I was simply going to suggest dinner."

"Oh?" In spite of himself, he looked interested.

"Yes." It was silly that she felt so nervous about this. She knew that Tony disliked cooking for himself; an invitation to dinner was not likely to be declined. Even if she did have an ulterior motive, he didn't know that. Not that she necessarily had an ulterior motive at all; she wasn't entirely sure what had caused her sudden desire to invite him. Perhaps there was a motive she wasn't conscious off, and perhaps there wasn't. She would explore that thought later, after -

"Ziva?"

She blinked, realizing that while she had been debating with herself, he had been watching her skeptically. Now she straightened her back, lifted her chin, and pressed on: "I owe you a dinner from long ago, in exchange for the dinner party I did not invite you to."

"Wow, that's a blast from the past. Thought you'd forgotten about that. No one ever mentioned it again."

"I do not forget. So?" She stood up and turned off the monitor on her desk. "Are you interested? I will cook."

"An evening with a pretty girl who's going to cook for me?" He threw his jacket over his shoulders and gave her his most charming, boyish smile. "Damn right I'm interested."

"Come on, then." In spite of the fact that she knew just how much research he had put into perfecting that smile, she still struggled to not be affected by it.

"Uh, Ziva?"

"Yes?" she asked as they headed for the elevator.

"How exactly are you going to cook for me? Do you even have, you know, pots yet?"

She smiled. "I bought some yesterday."

Hours later, she laughed and poured more wine into their glasses, nudging their dirty dinner plates aside to put the wine bottle back on her coffee table. "I am surprised."

He took a sip of the red and raised his eyebrows. "At what?"

Ziva cocked her head to the side, studying him. "At you. We are here, in my apartment. We have eaten and drunk. I let you force me to watch a movie featuring dwarves and flying monkeys."

"They're munchkins, not dwarves, and what's so surprising about any of what we've been doing?"

"Munchkins, Tony, are donuts. You made me eat them once. These," she emphasized, pointing at the screen, where Judy Garland stood surrounded by little people, "are dwarves." She toasted him teasingly and took a large sip of her wine. "And the surprising part is that I have not wanted to kill you even once tonight. You are being...less obnoxious than usual."

To her surprise, he had no quick rejoinder. He took a thoughtful sip of wine and smiled slightly. "Would you believe me if I told you I've been practicing?"

Ziva snorted. "I have seen you interact with McGee. If you were practicing being less obnoxious, you hid it well."

"Not with him." He shrugged. "Just with you."

She opened her mouth to reply, could think of nothing to say, and reached for the wine bottle to cover her consternation. The last of the wine went into their glasses, and Ziva held the bottle up. "We have finished almost two liters of pinot noir."

He blinked, not having expected that conversational about-face. "Did we? What's a liter in real measurements?" Her easy use of the metric system had always garnered teasing annoyance from him.

She let out a surprised giggle, then cut off the sound in horror. "I am sorry. I did not mean to -"

"Laugh?" He gave her the most serious look he could muster with a liter of wine swimming through his bloodstream. "You should do it more often. You don't smile enough anymore, either."

"I..." She swallowed. "I am trying, Tony."

"I know." He stretched an arm across the back of the couch, brushing his hand across the far side of her shoulder. "C'mon, pay attention to the movie. I can't believe you've never seen The Wizard of Oz before."

"I will get another bottle of wine," she said, standing up.

Tony glanced at his hand where she had been a second ago, then looked up at her, silently questioning her movement.

"And then we will watch the rest of the film." She dredged up another smile for him. "I promise."

"Christ, how much did we drink?" Tony groaned, rubbing his eyes as they stepped into the elevator the next morning.

Ziva smirked at him. "I believe there is still a bit of wine left in the second bottle. You do not hold your liquor as well as you had led me to believe, Tony. I am disappointed."

"Yeah, well, sorry. How about next time, we drink martinis, and we'll see who does better with those."

She crossed her arms and faced him, eyes direct. "Will there be a next time?"

He met her gaze and nodded as the elevator doors opened in front of them. "Yeah. I think there probably will."

They stepped out of the elevator, still focused on each other. In fact, Tony was so busy watching Ziva sit down that he almost walked into the person standing next to his desk. He pulled up an inch short, raised his head to look at the visitor, and froze.

"Hi, Tony," Jeanne Benoit said quietly.