Disclaimer: Fish.

Spoilers: None.

This is about sex but not with sex :P It's based on the premise that Tony and Ziva have been having a Friends With Benefits-ish relationship, where they have sex but not much beyond that. Before you dismiss the idea completely, I think the possibility of Tony and Ziva having (or rather, pretending to have) this relationship depends on the context in which it happened, so I feel this scene can fall within canon, yeah. I like it; I hope you do, too!

Enjoy!

-Soph

Riddle

It'd started out innocently enough.

Two partners, each prone to teasing the other, sharing veiled details with their co-worker about their passionate nights with each other. McGee didn't know that it was themselves they were talking about, of course. They would never reveal the names of their lovers.

(Or perhaps McGee did know, but didn't say. The risk was always there.)

It'd started out innocently enough, but when Ziva had made the remark about how she'd "had better," it suddenly wasn't so innocent anymore. Tony's eyes had darkened and clouded up at the same time; he hadn't retaliated, surprisingly, but had rather toned down the banter until it tapered away and he could sit at his desk and do paperwork.

(If McGee noticed the abrupt change in atmosphere, he didn't bring it up.)

Ziva kind of regretted what she said after that. It was true, of course—she'd met far more adventurous in bed—but it was also not—she'd never met any more tender in bed. And Tony, for all his surface jokes and pranks and bravado, was softer and more fragile on the inside than she would ever know. He often boasted about his prowess in bed, proclaiming himself to bed the best she had ever had; and while she never minded and knew he wasn't serious, she was starting to think that she'd fallen for his mask of confidence more than she'd realised.

All this slammed down on her as she watched him from across the bullpen and took in his profile—the way his brow was slightly furrowed and his right cheek twitched oddly and his shoulders were tense—and he clickedclickedclicked away at something on the computer. (McGee had to know by this point.) She didn't look away until Gibbs breezed through the bullpen and shot them orders, and then they were collecting their backpacks and he wasn't looking at her and oh, it was going to be an awkward day.

xoxo

Late that night was the only chance she got to talk to him.

Thankful it was the weekend, she stepped up to his door and knocked, dressed in her work clothes with her hair down but slightly bedraggled and her overall appearance undoubtedly a little wilted. It took him a while to open the door. When he did, he was wearing a T-shirt, a pair of shorts, and a grin that wavered at its corners.

This brown-haired, puppy-eyed Adonis would make himself hers if she ever just opened her mouth to ask him, and yet she didn't know how to cherish him.

Swallowing back the bitterness that tainted her throat, she stepped inside.

"Here to get some DiNozzo treatment?" he asked casually, a little crudely, his grin never slipping until she shook her head.

"I am not here for sex."

"Wow, it's really that bad, huh?"

"No!" Her emotional reply caught them both off-guard, and he stared down at her, his eyes inscrutable, while she cleared her throat and regained her composure. "No, it is not that bad. But I am here to apologise."

"What for?"

"I hurt you when I said what I did this morning … and for that, I am sorry, Tony." She paused. "It was never my intention to hurt you. You are … very attentive of me, and I do appreciate that."

"Okay," he said quietly.

"'Okay'?"

"Okay," he repeated. "But um, if—if I could ever make it better, you'd tell me, right?"

She sighed. "You are missing the point."

"I don't know what you want me to say, Ziva. I know it was a joke."

"But then why—"

"But then it wasn't a mean joke. And if it wasn't a mean joke, then that means you were being honest, and that means I'm really not the best you've had in bed—and yeah, I know I'm not exactly spectacular but I was trying…" he stumbled. "Well, I guess I do know what to say after all, and you probably don't want to hear this, but I was trying."

"To be the best I have ever had in bed?" she asked.

He blinked hard and turned his head, looking away. "More like, to be memorable."

She pressed a hand to his jaw, drawing his face back towards hers. When his tormented green orbs finally settled on hers, she brushed a thumb along the edge of his mouth. "You are memorable." A self-deprecating snort escaped his lips, and she lightly tapped his face. "You are. I was—I was doing an analysis on sex and I neglected to bring emotional ties into account—"

"How do you do that?"

"How do I do what?"

"How do you separate sex and emotion? And yeah, I know you're going to say I practically invented the term 'casual sex' but we're not casual friends."

It was a confession she never thought she'd hear from him.

"Tell me something, Ziva." He was already speaking again before she could still the spinning in her mind, and she nodded. "Was I 'memorable' in the sense that when you think of 'your friend Tony' in the future, when we're both old and grey, you'll remember once having had a sexual relationship with him?"

"What do you mean?" she asked, her throat dry.

And there the muscle in his cheek was, twitching oddly again as he licked his lips and started haltingly, "Did you … also neglect to bring emotional ties into account when we were having sex?"

"No." She frowned at him. "No, of course not. But we were talking to McGee and I did not think it prudent to share my feelings with him. I … I will remember this precisely because there is a vast amount of emotion involved, and … if this ever does stop, the emotion—it would not stop."

He blew out a breath and she held hers, half-expecting him to tell her to quit speaking in riddles. Or maybe just quit. Instead, he merely murmured, "Wow, we're really bad at sexual relationships."

She laughed shakily. "But I don't want it to stop."

"Well, I do." That made her throat tighten and her eyes sting, but he was holding onto her waist and it was so hard to pull away from him. And then he continued, "I was just thinking … y'know, that since it's really hard for us to stop the emotion, we should just not separate the emotion from the sex."

She kept her eyes on the floor, not willing to jump to conclusions before a clarification was sought. "As in, a both sexual and emotional relationship?"

His chuckle sounded just as shaky as her laugh had. "Yeah, one of those."

She swallowed. "I could do that."

"So could I."

And then she lifted her head, barely daring to meet his eyes. "I just—um, I hope you know that emotionally, you are … unforgettable."

His thumbs slipped beneath the hem of her shirt in answer, warming her skin with the small circles they rubbed as he whispered gently, "Ziva, I don't intend to have to be forgotten. Not if you don't want me to be."

"Good," she said, unable to keep her voice from breaking. "Because I expect more than memories."

The taste of his kiss was sweet. That's what she always noticed. But unlike his other kisses, this time was also unhurried. It was slow and soft and light and he was barely even touching her, and that's probably what made it all the more memorable—so much so that it terrified her.

But then he pulled away and promised her, "You have that," and she didn't think she would ever find anything better if she tried.

Not that she had the least intention of trying.