"Of course the only room left would have one bed," Tony said, entering the room and dropping his bag to the floor.

"And no couch," Ziva said, mimicking his movements, her voice echoing the tiredness she heard in his.

"You take it."

"It's all yours."

They shared a smile, their eyes moving from the bed to each others'.

"Have a seat," he said, gesturing to the bed, "and give me three good reasons I should make you sleep on the floor." He dropped with a yawn into one of the stiff chairs in the corner of the room, which was small and cramped, but he was just glad they'd gotten any room at all.

"You first," she countered, kicking off her shoes and sitting on the foot of the bed with her legs crossed. She realized belatedly what he had done and found herself surprised she had so easily played into his little manipulation. Stupid jetlack… No, jetlag. The first works, too, though. I am seriously lacking the energy to do this dance with him. Stubborn man…

"I asked first," he said, toeing off his own shoes.

She sighed, rolling her eyes. "I am smaller. You are taller. And there is hardly any space on the floor in this tiny room. There."

He narrowed his eyes at her as he got up and raided the mini-fridge for two bottles of water. "Bonus points for rhyming," he said, handing her a bottle. "But that's really only one reason. Give me one more and we'll call it a deal."

She watched his face carefully as he sank back into the chair. "You have a bad back. You will be in agony if you sleep all scrunched up on the hard floor."

"I do not," he denied, throwing her a wounded look. "Old people have bad backs. And they smell funny and keep their teeth in cups on nightstands, but that's not the point. Are you calling me old?"

"No, I am not, but yes, Tony, you do," she said. "I can hear it in your voice whenever you are speaking and move from sitting to standing… or standing to crouching… or whenever you—"

"Okay, okay," he grumbled, feigning grumpiness to cover his discomfort. "I was a football player. It kind of comes with the territory with a full-contact sport. Anyway, my turn. Three good reasons I'm not making you sleep on the floor: One, you, contrary to your impeccable ass-kicking abilities, are a woman; B, I'm the senior field agent, you're the probie and I order you to take it; and three, my mother raised a gentleman. There."

"Your father raised you," she said, smiling until she saw pain that had nothing to do with his back flick through his green eyes.

"You would be an expert on fathers, wouldn't you?" he said, regretting it even before he finished the sentence.

"And," she continued tightly, "while he seemed like quite the gentleman, I am not so sure you quite fit the description."

They stared at each other for a long moment. Ah, and this is the problem with staying in one place too long, getting to know people, letting people in, Tony thought. You each know just where to hit to cause the most hurt.

"Technically," he said, faking a smile and trying to lighten the atmosphere made too heavy for such a small room, "I raised myself. Which might explain why people are always telling me to grow up."

Her smile was decidedly less fake than his, but plastic nonetheless. "We are both tired, and tomorrow is going to be a long day. We should just go to bed."

"Ah, and so we come full circle," he said, looking pointedly at the bed she was sitting on.

"You take it," she said again, standing and setting her unopened, newly label-less water bottle on the table. "I have slept in far less comfortable places."

She could practically hear him grinding his teeth but suddenly his expression softened. "Or we could stop acting like kids squabbling on the playground and just share," he said, studying her face. He added quietly, "As long as you're comfortable with that."

She felt a strange little flare of anger at that, knowing what he was implying. She did not like his wanting to protect her. In fact, she liked it the other way around and had a vision of lying on top of him in that cold shipping container years before. "Of course," she said crisply. "I can be an adult if you can."

He smiled at her, the boyish grin erasing her annoyance. "Can't promise anything."

He let her take the first turn in the bathroom and was almost asleep by the time she came out only minutes later. He returned almost as quickly to find her curled on her side, facing the window. She was so close to the edge and looked so small and vulnerable that he fought the urge to lie down on the floor and damn the consequences. But considering the consequences would likely involve vehement cursing in Hebrew and possible broken bones, he slid into bed, putting as much distance between their bodies without actually ending up on the floor anyway.

He lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling, tired but suddenly unable to sleep.

He heard—and felt—her move, and she said softly to the ceiling, "I am sorry if I upset you by bringing up your father. It is just that he came and went so suddenly, and you have not said a word about him since he left…"

He waited for her to finish and when he realized she wasn't going to, he said, "Another lesson from my mother. If you don't have anything nice to say…"

"Sometimes I wish we did not have so much in common," she said wearily.

Hearing the exhaustion in her voice, he just said, "Me too, Ziva. And I'm sorry, too, for what I said."

They were silent, but neither made the mistake of thinking the other was asleep.

"Why does this feel so strange this time?" she asked. "We practically fell into bed on our first under cover assignment."

He thought for a moment before responding. "I could say it's because we were under cover, trying to sell our new identities. But really, I think it's because that was a lifetime ago. There was no baggage between us—and now we've got enough to fill the cargo hold of the Airbus 380 we came here on."

"I wish we did not," she said, sounding impossibly sad, and he cursed himself for putting her in this mood. One of these days, he was really going to learn to shut his big mouth.

"Me too, Ziva," he repeated. "We're friends and coworkers. It's normal to have bumps in the road every now and then. But it's late, and you're right, tomorrow is going to be a long one. Try to get some sleep, okay?"

"Okay," she said, wanting to say more but saying simply, "Good night, Tony."

"Good night, Ziva."

It turns out that Anthony DiNozzo is a cuddler. Not that he'd ever admit it. Hell, he'd swear on a stack of Bibles and perjure himself in front of a jury of his peers if ever placed on the stand and questioned on it.

But he just couldn't help it.

Put Tony in a bed—in a hotel room, no less—with a warm body and he was going to cuddle with it. It was as inviolable as a law of nature. Turns out ol' Newton forgot one. He'd have an easier time hopping off a building and falling upward than stopping the unconscious urge. Which was why no matter how long the assignment, how tired, bad back or no, he simply would not share a bed with a male team member—for any reason. Not even if held at gunpoint by whatever psycho they happened to be hunting. The mere thought of awakening attached to Gibbs like a limpet was enough to make him prefer to sleep on a bed of nails. Sharp, bloodstained, rusty nails.

Turns out he should have expanded that rule to cover female former-assassin team members, too.

Tony came suddenly awake to the wholly disconcerting feel of a knife pressed to his throat. Gibbs? Oh no, just Ziva. Oh wait, that could be worse. Infinitely worse. He moved his leg to make sure he hadn't, in fact, pissed himself. Nope. Not yet, anyway…

"Ziva?" he whispered, trying to speak without moving his throat—an interesting task, especially at 4 in the morning in a strange bed on an unfamiliar continent.

All traces of humor fled at the sight of her stumbling out of bed, dropping the knife from magnitude-7.0 quaking hands.

"Tony," she gasped, pressing those trembling hands to her quivering lips.

He sat up slowly, not sure if he should go to her. Vulnerable, frightened Ziva was completely uncharted territory, and while he would let her beat him to a bloody pulp if it would take an ounce of suffering out of her pretty dark eyes, he didn't want to frighten her any further.

"Ziva," he said, finding his voice. "It's okay. It's me. I'm not going to hurt you."

He saw the tension ebb from her body at the sound of his familiar voice, and she dropped back onto the bed, sitting against the headboard and pulling her knees to her chest. Moving slowly, he slid from the bed and retrieved another bottle of water. He handed it to her cautiously and went to sit again in one of the stiff chairs.

"Thank you," she said softly. He could feel her eyes on him in the darkness of the room. He reached over and flicked on a lamp, eliciting a gasp of shock from Ziva's tremulous lips. The light illuminated the guilt in her eyes and he lifted a hand to his throat. His fingers came away bloody, but the only pain he felt was the aching in his chest at her suffering.

"Tony, I—"

"It's nothing, Ziva," he said, plucking a tissue from the box on the table and wiping away the thin trickle of blood from the shallow wound. "Really, Ziva. I've cut myself worse shaving."

"But, I—"

"Hey," he said gently, wanting to go to her, to touch her softly and pull her out of whatever nightmare she had found herself in. "I know you'd never hurt me."

Her eyes were full of sorrow when she said, "But Tony, I did hurt you. In Israel, I knocked you on your ass—when your arm was broken, no less." And I screamed horrible, hateful, hurtful things into your face as I pressed my loaded gun into your chest.

He blinked in surprise at the seemingly random memory, but he simply said, "Ancient history."

"Is it?" she asked softly, undressing the current water bottle with shaky fingers.

"It can be," he answered, his heart aching for her sadness.

"I am so sorry," she whispered.

He wasn't sure what she was apologizing for so he just said, "Relax, Ziva. We're here now, and we're okay. The past is the past." Imagined images of her nightmare popped unbidden into his head, and he said tentatively, "Unless you want to talk about something. I'll listen, whatever it is. What happened to you in—"

"Don't," she said, the use of the contraction as startling as the sharpness of the word. "You do not want to talk about your father. I do not want to talk about that. Please."

Talk about comparing a hangnail to a bullet wound, he thought, wondering how she could possibly think his confliction over his father's visit could even come close to the horrors she had experienced at the hands of her captors.

"Okay," he said, holding up his hands. "We'll stick to safer subjects. Or sleep. Whatever you want."

She shook her head, her dark hair swinging softly. "You look as tired as I feel. I will not keep you up all night talking your ears away."

"Off, talking your ear off," he corrected gently and with a smile. "And it's not like I haven't done it to you a thousand times before."

"I do not want to talk," she said, hesitating, "about anything deep. Distract me?"

"Ah, my specialty. Would you like to play 20 Questions?" he asked teasingly.

"Maybe not twenty," she said, and he was glad to see a slight smile creep across her face. "But I do have one for you. What position did you play? When you were a football player? An American football player, I should say, as we are in Paris, and I cannot see you wearing those funny, tall soccer socks."

He smiled. "I was a tight end."

"Ahh…?" she said, confused.

He laughed, but he knew things were still off. Her eyes should have lit up, she should have smiled provocatively, and she should have said something like "I bet you were?"

"I was a receiver. I caught the ball. What can I say? I'm good with my hands." He sighed, remembering she hadn't said that, hadn't smiled that devilish little smile she seemed to pull out only when they were teasing each other. "Leave it to me to say something stupid like that while in a hotel room with my partner."

"We are not partners, Tony," she said softly.

He blinked in surprise.

"You, me, Gibbs, McGee, Ducky, Abby, we are a family of sorts. And a better one than you or I ever had."

He swallowed hard at the truthfulness of the sentiment, thinking back to Gibbs' gentle questions and quiet support of him after his father's wholly unnerving visit. Tony knew anything could have happened that night: He could have screamed, whined, laughed, yelled, cried, or punched a hole in the wall—and Gibbs would have patched him up and ordered him to patch up the wall in the morning. Tony wanted to express his similar support to Ziva, but he couldn't find the words. He just said, "You forgot the autopsy gremlin."

She smiled, saying, "Palmer, too. Even if he is like the weird little cousin twice-removed."

"Ah, you have those in Israel, too?"

She laughed softly and the sound was music to his ears. "The aliens probably have those on Mars."

He yawned and moved to flick off the light but stopped. "I'm going to sleep on the floor, okay?"

She looked like she was going to protest, but she finally nodded. "Okay. That is very kind of you."

He flipped the switch and threw the room into darkness. "It's no problem, Ziva."

She heard him settle onto the floor in the cramped space beside the bed and almost told him to come back up with her. But the images from her nightmare flashed through her head and she just couldn't. She heard him shift slightly, and then they were silent again.

"Thank you, Tony," she said quietly. "I know you are going to wake up in pain in the morning. But thank you."

Better me than you, Ziva.

"You're worth it, Ziva."

She swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. "And I am really sorry about the knife, Tony, your throat…"

"Ah, no worries. Or I guess 'C'est la vie' would be more appropriate. Either way, don't sweat it. It's just one less place I'll have to shave in the morning."