Like Breathing
By Taygeta

Author's Note: I kind of don't know where this came from. It just sort of fell out of me. I felt compelled to write this after 11 x 02 "Past, Present and Future". Spoilers.

Disclaimer: Characters are not mine.

The days unwound from good-bye and Tony was sure that the weight that he carried would lighten, unravel with time. And the weight did lighten a little, but it was an expected little, the kind that comes from life moving on that must push you forward...or you drown.

Tony had been through too much by now to drown, but sometimes he found it hard to breathe. It was especially difficult when the days seemed to cluster together and he would all of a sudden look back to realize that the days were now months and time had indeed moved along without her.

Sometimes the team would notice and try to distract him, pull him out from under before he buried himself in it too deep. Abby with her bowling nights and cheerful demeanor. McGee with his gaming nights and the occasional offer to set him up with a friend of Delilah's. Even Gibbs backed off a little in those moments, though sometimes Gibbs backing off meant getting a literal slap in the back of his head.

Most times Tony hid it well, as he usually did under a lifetime of layering sarcastic jokes and film references. It was difficult to tell sometimes when he was trying to hide and just being himself. At the end of the day, the one person who would know the difference was the anchor to the weight and, well, he hadn't heard from her.

He knew what he was missing, but she needed him to let her go.

He knew that it was a possibility, that when he did that 180-turn on the tarmac, that it might be forever. But that necklace she left in his pocket had given him hope - had lit his filmic imagination with thoughts of postcards and letters and maybe she'd even call him to let her know about something - anything.

But there was only her silence and it was amazingly heavy.

When the days and the months gathered into a year, Tony figured it was time even though he didn't feel ready. He took McGee up on one of his offers to set him up on a date. In that moment, Tony was aware that life really had changed and the tables had turned because there was McGee offering to set him up.

She had been a nice girl - funny, even. It was a nice wall to break, spending time with someone and forgetting a little. Talking about silly getting-to-know-you things, but Tony's past was still heavy. He didn't call her back. Just like he didn't feel like calling any of the other women he went out with back after her.

Two years passed. Cases arrived. Cases were solved. Gibbs would suddenly announce he was ready to call it quits. Tony thought it was eerie that he finally understood his boss a little more by now, the undercurrent of thoughts beneath the layers of silence. He wondered how long Gibbs had considered this real retirement as the days went on and he didn't say a thing.

Tony was promoted.

"I guess I don't need to tell you the news with Gibbs finally retiring - if that can ever really be true," said Vance simply. "I just need to know - yes or no?"

"Does there really need to be a question?" Tony had asked.

Vance looked at him thoughtfully and said, "You've been on the job a long time, Tony. Every day is a question - isn't it?"

Tony nodded and said, "Yes."

They shook hands.

Later that day, Tony arrived to Gibbs' house with a six-pack and saw that the house - though always fairly empty - was almost all packed up in boxes.

"Is there still a boat in the basement, Boss?" he said, announcing himself.

Gibbs took a bottle of beer from the case, opening it with the edge of the table. "Moved that first." He was packing some old books that seemed to have a layer of dust on the top. Gibbs didn't bother to brush off the dust.

"So...did you hear?" asked Tony as he sat down at the kitchen table.

Gibbs glanced at him. "Put in the recommendation myself, even though I know I didn't need to. What'd you say?"

"What do you think I said?"

Gibbs was silent and took another swig of beer. He closed up the box he was packing and said, "Don't let the job take over everything, Dinozzo."

Tony raised his eyebrows, "Funny. I thought that's what came with the badge."

"Only if you let it." His eyes focused on Tony's - as if to emphasize his point - "So don't let it."

Both of them knew it was easier said than done, but it had to be said and Tony knew to remember it. Although, at this point, the job was all he had. And, Tony wondered, if perhaps that was Gibbs' point after all.

Then he silently helped Gibbs pack boxes without being asked.

A few weeks would pass and Tony received a letter at his desk.

For a second the weight on his chest lifted, thinking that maybe he was finally hearing from Ziva. But it wasn't the message he had been waiting for, it was something else entirely. Gibbs had transferred the deed to the house to him.

There was a note:

Maybe one day this house can be everything it should have been. Don't let the job take over everything.

It was unsigned. Typical Gibbs.

"Hey, Probie," said Tony, looking up from his desk. "What do I have to bribe you to help me move a piano?" McGee's confused expression gave him enough time to think and ask, "...or maybe help paint a house?"

Tony moving into Gibbs' old house was more of a team event. No one said anything about Gibbs giving the house to him. Maybe it just seemed right somehow. Or maybe they were just glad that Tony had more interior design sense than Gibbs, so much so that it really was Tony's place after everything had been finished.

But the place was never really finished. Tony found himself adopting some of Gibbs' love of carpentry and handiwork. There was never a boat being built in the basement - that had transformed into a cinema room, housing all of Tony's movie collection and a projector - but there were always projects to keep him busy. And the house also had its fair share of house problems - like the time the sprinkler system decided that it didn't want to work and the plumbing went awry...at the same time.

But it all helped - not letting the job take over everything.

The house would become their gathering place, where they had Wednesday night dinners when there wasn't a crazy case and Tony would host their Thanksgiving and Christmas parties two years in a row.

Gibbs would show up for that second year as the first guest. He would greet Tony with, "What the hell did you do to my house?"

"You mean, my house," said Tony with a wide grin, handing Gibbs a drink. There was a pause before he hugged him, "Thanks, Boss."

"Well, couldn't let it go to waste," Gibbs said simply before Abby arrived and it was all Abby-sized hellos complete with presents and cookies and holiday elfness.

But in those many days when there were no guests and parties, Tony came home to the quiet. To the silence. He often fell asleep in the couch in the living room with the TV on or in the cinema/basement, watching a favorite movie. He thought it ironic every time he woke up on either couch. When he moved, he had finally decided to get that Queen-size bed and he hardly slept in it. By this time, he had been with other women, but he still didn't bring them home.

None of them made up for the silence.

There was only one person he wanted home and as much as he had pleaded on that day long ago, she couldn't come back with him.

There were days when he let himself think back to that day, to that night, when they were finally together. He had kissed her in the orchard. It was slow, burning, and quiet. And, unlike a kiss undercover years ago, there was so much more meaning. He couldn't hear anything but the wind in the trees, and yet he felt like he could hear everything as his lips met hers and her skin pressed against his. As far as Tony was concerned, they were the only two things that mattered in the world.

They walked slowly back to the house, their hands clasped, as if they had just gone on a little walk and they always walked like this. But the moment they were in that house, she kissed him fiercely and that's when Tony noticed the heaviness that was gone, a heaviness he hadn't recognized until that moment, until they kissed again. The heaviness lifting with every touch and moment as they made their way into a bedroom and the layers of clothes - like the layers of years and masks they held - fell one by one away.

Until there was only themselves reaching into the night and into the day.

And with every step away from her, the heaviness returned, hardly budging except for what was necessary to continue on, forgotten at times but always there.

Sometimes he thought he heard her voice in his dreams.

"Tony, we will be okay."

Always that phrase. Always giving him hope, like the necklace that he saw every day on a picture frame of her in Paris by his piano. Sometimes he played piano, as if it was for her. On Tali's birthday, he would play Puccini for both of them.

Then one day, he fell asleep in the living room, after a long day at the office. His arm was in a sling, after having been shot at during a case a few weeks before. He woke up because his arm hurt not because of the noise he should have heard - someone trying to open the front door.

He may have gotten Gibbs' house, but he locked his doors.

It was nearly two in the morning. He reluctantly pulled off the sling he wore, so that he could have one arm to open the door and a hand to hold against his gun. It hurt, but potential alternative events made it the lesser of evils.

He opened the door. His hand dropped away from the gun in his holster and his mouth fell open a little. For the first time in five years, the weight on his chest lifted for a second before settling back again because this moment held more questions than answers.

She stood in front of him. The porch light he left on glistened through the waves of her hair. At her glow, he wondered if he was dreaming.

"W-w-what are you doing here?" she said, her eyes wide.

"I live here," he said slowly. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to see Gibbs," she said. She looked confused and then concerned, "Is he okay?"

Tony nodded, thinking to let her in. He closed the door behind her and said, "Probably a little bored in his cabin in the middle of nowhere - maybe even asleep - but I'm pretty sure he's fine."

Her eyes took in the house from the inside, "This is your place now?" Finding it quite obvious from the inside.

He nodded, "Gave it to me - I think he hoped it might keep me sane when I took over the team - it's sort of worked. Minus the fact he didn't tell me about the plumbing issues and the mold in the basement when I was renovating it."

"Hmm...I guess I should have known from the outside. But it was dark," she replied.

Tony took a deep breath, "Ziva, it's two in the morning. What are you doing here?"

"Well, if it was Gibbs, I knew he would be awake in the basement working on something...and that the front door would be open."

"But it's not," he said, perhaps a little too sharply he realized once the words came out. He rescinded, "A lot can happen in five years Ziva."

She nodded slowly, "I know. I can see."

He offered her a drink of water and they sat down next to each other at the kitchen table. His left arm began to hurt and he winced as he rested it on the table.

A look of concern crossed her face, "Are you okay?"

He nodded, "Healing."

"What happened?"

"A billionaire's henchman thought he had a shot. Well, he did. It was just a bad shot. Doctor says I'll be good in about another two weeks."

She nodded.

There was an awkwardness he didn't expect the next time he saw her. As she brushed her hair out of her eyes, he remembered his hands in her hair. Those last moments when he kissed her, not wanting to let her go and wishing she would change her mind.

He always thought that the next time he would see her again, it would be like that moment - all over again - except it was a 'hello'. He wanted so badly for hello and now he had it. And he wasn't sure what to do with it, maybe because a part of him knew it was partly by accident.

"So, what are you doing here?" he repeated. At her silence, he continued, "Okay - let me revise the question - where have you been all this time?"

That question seemed more manageable as she began to open up, "I spent two years traveling the world, seeing all these places that I have always wanted to see. The pyramids of Palenque. Castles in England. Caverns in Asia, tucked away beneath the jungle. While I was in Asia, I took sometime teaching English at a village girls school."

His eyebrows raised, "You? Teaching English. A lot has changed."

She smiled slowly.

He missed her smile.

"Well, my English has always been impeccable."

He smiled knowing better than to argue, "Always."

"I loved it, but did not think the location was where I should be. So I left afterwards to travel with Shmiel for sometime."

"Working with Shmiel, sounds like a dream."

She nodded, "Oh, it has its moments. It was a practical decision, really. He needed help with his travels and research and I…" She chose her words carefully, "I was beginning to look toward where my new roots should be. I figured he was the best teacher I knew and that was where I should go on my journey."

"Teaching. I should have known - it makes...sense," said Tony. "Where is Shmiel?"

"He is in town for a lecture series and is probably still talking the ear off of an old friend he is staying with…"

"...and that's why you're here?"

She nodded, "He is - we are - not here for very long and he wanted me to reach out to - some - people while I was in town these few days. Though we leave tomorrow."

The adjusted time frame caught Tony's attention, "I thought you were here for a few days?"

"It took me a few days to reach out…"

"And you chose two in the morning...to see...Gibbs," said Tony trying to meet her eyes but she kept on looking away.

"I felt I had to say hello to...someone," she struggled.

"But not me," he said, still seeing her downcast eyes. He reached out to her, his fingers brushing against her chin and lifting her head up to meet his eyes. His touch on her skin was light, but it was like electricity under his fingertips. He half thought it was a dream that at any moment, she might break and he would wake up. But she was there and looking squarely at her now he added, "Why not me?"

"Because I needed to know what might have changed with you. Because I was afraid of this," she said.

"What?"

"That if I saw you, I would not want to look away and I thought I might have to...that maybe you had..."

"Last time I remember, I'm the one that had to do the 180." He leaned his head closer and said softly, "And I really, really didn't want to. Ziva, why didn't you say anything?"

He felt her hands across his face and heard her voice breaking, "Because leaving you - asking you to leave me behind - was the hardest part of letting go and starting over. Everywhere I went, I thought of you."

"And what about now?"

When she kissed him, he stood up and pulled her closer to him, forgetting the pain in his arm and losing himself in remembering her again. Being with her was like breathing and for the first time in a long time, he felt like he had taken a real breath. It was as if he had been holding his breath for all this time waiting for this wish to come true.

"Please say you're here to stay," he found himself saying, burying his face in her hair, whispering in her ear.

He felt her arms were wrapped around him and could feel her hesitate for a second. He knew she had a timeline; she was supposed to leave tomorrow. And then suddenly, she held him more tightly and said, "I am not going anywhere. I am home."

Fin. Feedback appreciated.