Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS or any of the characters. I am, sadly, not that brilliant.
Story is rated T for adult themes and a later chapter will be M, but said chapter can also be skipped over and nothing will be lost. There will be warnings before, I promise.
Tags to 5.18 and 5.19, "Judgement Day" parts one and two.

Ziva glanced at the clock as she placed the last of her belongings into boxes. It was almost midnight. No one was left in the bullpen. Ziva was still in the black dress she'd worn for the director's funeral, the dress she'd been wearing when Vance dismantled the team that she loved so dearly.

It had been a long day. She hadn't known it was possible for so much drastic and heart-wrenching change to occur in such a small time span. She swallowed a lump in her throat and hoisted the final box under her arm.

She opened the drawers of her now-empty desk, to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything. To her surprise, she heard a rattle as she pulled the bottom drawer open. She reached her hand down to the back of the metal drawer and pulled out Tony's infamous Mighty Mouse stapler. She stared at it, unsure whether to laugh or cry. She'd stolen it off his desk a week ago, before they'd left for their mission with the director, to see if he'd notice. He hadn't.

She held the stapler in the palm of her hand, deciding what to do, as she took slow steps toward the elevator. The weight of grief was making it difficult for her to think rationally about what would be best for her state of mind, about what would make it easier to leave.

Ziva had never been one for goodbyes.

She could have mailed Tony his stapler, and written a brief note to say farewell, have a nice life. The elevator doors glided open and she stepped in. She stared at the bullpen for the last time, and as the doors slid shut in front of her, she dropped the stapler into her box. She felt the elevator descend to the parking garage, but somehow, her stomach was left three floors up.

xXxXx

Ziva stood at Tony's apartment door, his stapler in one hand, the other poised to knock. She stopped short as her rational thinking came flooding back. What was she doing here? Why was she putting herself through so much more, when the day had been difficult enough?

I am here to say goodbye to my partner, to a man who has been part of my everyday life for every day I have spent here in America, she answered herself firmly, and her knuckles rapped on the wood three times.

There was a long moment when Ziva heard nothing, and she began to think that perhaps Tony had fallen asleep. She wouldn't blame him, she thought, her eyelids suddenly feeling heavy. Then, she heard the deadbolt on the door, and it creaked open to reveal an extremely intoxicated Tony. There were bags under his eyes, and Ziva could have sworn she saw several more wrinkles on his face. He looked aged and, simply put, worn out.

"Ziva!" Tony exclaimed loudly. "How kind of you to show up! Please, come in!" he proposed, then as an afterthought, he held out the bottle of Smirnoff that he was clutching. "Vodka?" he slurred, thinking he was being kind in his offer.

Had the situation been any different, Ziva would have been either very cross with her partner for his poor decision-making, or very amused. Drunk Tony was the caricatured version of the immature prankster that he sometimes allowed to seep through his professional side at work. Of course she'd seen Tony drunk before, but it was always in an instance where the objective was to have fun, not to drown his sorrows. And the situation being what it was, Ziva was neither cross nor amused. She was simply worried, and tired. Very tired.

Tony awaited her reaction, and when she was silent, he furrowed his brow, as though concentrating on something difficult to grasp.

"Why are you here?" he asked her, swaying slightly and leaning against the doorframe for support. Ziva held up the Mighty Mouse stapler. Tony's eyes lit up like a small child on Christmas morning.

"I was looking for that eeeeverywhere!" he cried, reaching out to grab the stapler and instead staggering forward. Ziva took a step towards him and braced her body weight against his, steadying him. "Hey thanks," he said lazily. Ziva, still silent, slid her arm around Tony's waist, holding tightly, and helped him stumble into his apartment.

She led him to the couch, where he collapsed in a heap. She snatched the bottle of Smirnoff from his hand and searched for the cap. "I wasn't done with that yet!" Tony protested loudly. Ziva located the cap on top of a stack of DVDs. Of course. "Oh, yes you are," she said under her breath.

Tony sunk back into the cushions, and his eyes began to droop. Ziva walked into his kitchen and put the alcohol into the back of his liquor cabinet, where he would hopefully be too drunk to find it.

"Zee-vah!" Tony called from the couch, finding amusement with his exaggerated pronunciation of her name. She sighed, marched back to the couch, and glared down at her inebriated partner.

"Yes, Tony?" she said, raising her eyebrows. Tony smiled his most charming smile up at her.

"Will you stay and watch a movie with me? You still haven't seen Forest Gump, right? And it's been an aaawfully long time since you and I had a movie night," he drawled, then paused, squinting. "Why has it been such a long time?" he asked, suddenly bewildered. Ziva snorted.

"Tony, we watched a movie on the plane home," she reminded him. He mulled this over, and then, without responding, his head fell back against the cushions of the couch, and his eyes began to close.

She looked at Tony, slumped against his couch, his breath reeking of liquor. His green-grey eyes were glassed over, and she saw a hint of sadness in them that was mostly drowned by the excessive alcohol he'd consumed. Still, the glimpse of emotion she saw there tugged at her already-aching heart.

"No, I have not seen Forest Gump," she informed him simply. Ziva located the DVD on his table, where dozens of movies were haphazardly strewn. As the opening credits began, she settled down on the couch beside him, and he contentedly snuggled into a pillow, stretching out a little more. She suppressed a smile.

Within thirty minutes, like clockwork, the two agents were fast asleep, Ziva in her beautiful black dress on one end of the couch, her head resting lightly against a pillow, and Tony sprawled out on the other, their toes just barely touching.

AN: You guys know why I picked Forest Gump?