Chapter Text
The bullpen was quiet – typical for 17:30 on a Sunday. The only people in the building, it seemed, were him and the cleaners.
Tony quietly worked away, clearing caseload after caseload off his desk. Off McGee’s desk. Off Ellie’s desk. If his teammates wondered why he took on so much extra work, they knew not to ask. They just thanked him.
His life of late had been…tough. With Ziva gone, the light went out behind his eyes and the colour out of his world. He never really did understand that cliché. But now he did. With startling clarity.
Everyone was sure he’d eventually bounce back. He wasn’t as convinced.
It had been just over four months since he left her…No. Since she sent him away. God, he hoped this got easier, because continuing on like this scared him.
His desk phone rang, startling him. He looked at the ID – it was the security desk.
“DiNozzo”, he answered, his voice polite, but tired.
“Special Agent DiNozzo? It’s Vince at security. There’s a man here to see you. Says it’s urgent”.
“Who?”, Tony asked, straightening up in his chair.
“His ID says Adam Eschel”.
About 50 different thoughts and emotions rushed through Tony. Anger, shock, worry, confusion. Why was he here? Why didn’t he call? Is it Ziva? Oh, god, is it Ziva?
“Special Agent DiNozzo?”, Vince asked after a few seconds of dead air.
“S-send him up”, Tony responded, quickly slamming the receiver down and jumping to his feet. He ran his fingers through his hair, combing it down, bushed off imaginary lint and wrinkles from his slacks, and adjusted his sweater. More for something to do than to look good for Adam.
When he heard the elevator dinged, he walked out of the bullpen and waited by the bay windows.
Spotting Adam, Tony asked in a mock-jovial tone “Adam! To what do I…”
Tony didn’t get farther than that before Adam’s fist collided with his face.
Momentarily stunned, and forced backward by the force of the blow, Tony clutched his nose, and hunched over, anger past its peak. Looking down at his hand – wet with blood – Tony looked back at Adam.
“What. The. HELL!”, Tony yelled.
“You deserve worse”, Adam seethed, rubbing his knuckles.
“For what? What did I do to you?”.
“Not to ME! To HER!”, He bellowed.
“Ziva? Her – Ziva?”.
“Who else?”
“What the hell are you talking about? I didn’t do anything to her!”.
“Is that what a man says when he gets a woman pregnant and then leaves her?!”, Adam yelled.
Where only a few moments ago there was a tumult of emotion, now Tony stood, stunned and empty. As he stood up, his hand fell away from his nose (now free to bleed all over him and the carpet), his mouth hung open slightly, and his eyes widened. But he said nothing and did nothing; save for the ringing in his ears and the tunnel vision, he felt nothing.
Adam watched his reaction with a careful eye. But any idiot could see that this news was new news. That the man in front of him knew nothing of what Adam just accused him of.
Tony felt himself sway slightly and reached out to brace himself on the window.
“What?”, he whispered.
“You did not know this?”, Adam asked, needing to confirm what he already knew.
“NO!”, Tony tried to yell, but it came out as a breathy-huff.
“Oh”.
Tony just stood there, rooted to the floor.
“I am sorry I hit you”, Adam apologized. But getting no response from Tony, who Adam wasn’t sure had even blinked, he forged on. “Ah, Tony. Come sit”. Shockingly, Tony allowed himself to be pulled away from the window and deposited in his chair.
And then it all came screaming back.
“Oh my god. Why didn’t she tell me? Is she alright? How the hell do you know?”, the last question hurting more to think about than all the others.
“I had not seen her in many months. Since before she went off the grid. I heard that you had left, and she had stayed, but nothing else. I tried calling, but she would not take my calls. I went to the farmhouse many times, looking for her, but she was never there. It was a coincidence I was in the area a few days ago, and I saw her, in among the olive trees”, Adam explained. A wave of jealousy, the likes of which Tony had never known, crashed down on him. But Adam continued, ignoring the incredulous look he was getting. “I spoke to her briefly. It is not yet noticeable. The pregnancy, I mean. It is not noticeable if you did not know Ziva”. And, oh, how both men knew Ziva. Tony gripped the edges of his chair, his nostrils actually flaring. How dare he. But again, Adam forged on. “I asked her. I know you should never ask a woman such a question. But I did. And she did not deny it. She did not deny it when I asked if it was yours. Then I asked where you were, and she said you were here, in DC. But speaking about you upset her, so I left it at that”.
Tony’s head was spinning. It felt as though everything was rushing by him and he couldn’t grab hold of anything.
“I am sorry I hit you, Tony. I thought…”, Adam sighed. “I thought you knew and left anyway”.
“I. Would. Never.”, Tony seethed.
“I did not think you would either. But the way the conversation went, that is the impression I was left with”.
The hits just kept on coming.
“Is she alright?”, Tony asked, ignoring for the moment all the other questions he needed answers to.
“I believe so. She did not seem to be in distress a few days ago. I asked where she had been, but she would not tell me”.
Tony, who had thus far been sitting forward in his seat, collapsed backward.
“Oh my god”.
The two men sat quietly for another minute, before Adam had to ask.
“Why did you leave?”.
Tony’s eyes, a moment ago unseeing and unfocused, found Adam in an instant.
“That is none of your business”. Adam held up his hands.
“Will you go back to her?”
“Yes”.
It was out of Tony’s mouth before his brain could catch up. Such a visceral, bone-deep, heart-wrenching, spontaneous, yet simple reaction for what amounted to life-altering events. How could he not? How could he not get on the next flight to Israel and go see her? She, who forced him away, and who had not spoken a word to him since telling him he was so loved on that tarmac. She, who had listened with rapt attention, as he told her he loved her when they fell into bed the night before. He loved her. And he knew, he knew she loved him. This self-inflicted purgatory was her penance for a life she felt misspent. Well, now it wasn’t just her life she was subjecting to this penance.
“There is a flight tonight, out of Dulles”, Adam informed him. Tony quickly turned away from him and pulled up the El-Al website on his computer. In a few clicks, he was booked and confirmed on that flight.
He looked back at Adam, for whom he had a lot of misplaced anger and aggression towards. And thanked him for what he just did.
Silently. He hadn’t lost all his marbles.
“Did you really”, Tony asked, as he got up and walked around Adam to McGee’s desk where a box of tissues sat, “get on a plane and fly halfway around the world just to punch my lights out?”.
“Yes”.
Tony, who had wadded up 5 or 6 tissues and began to gingerly wipe his nose, stopped and looked at Adam.
“Why. You could have called”.
“I wanted to punch you”.
“Ahhhh. But again, why?”.
Adam shifted slightly in his seat, looking at Tony, wondering for a moment what it was Tony had that he did not.
“You cannot choose who you love, Tony, even if that person does not love you back”.
Tony’s eyes widened.
“Ziva has had my heart for many years. But you have hers. I thought this the least I could do to protect it from someone who had it but did not want it”.
Tony closed his eyes and shook his head. How had they all fallen so far from grace? Why was he in DC, merely going through the motions of life, but enjoying none of it. Why was Ziva in Israel, pregnant with his child, enduring all the horrors of early pregnancy alone? Why was he looking at a broken-hearted man, who only wanted to do right by the woman who did not return his love?
What a fucking mess.
Speaking of mess. “I need to clean up”, Tony said, looking at his hands, his shirt, and only imagining what his face looked like.
“I will leave”, Adam said, getting up.
“When are you going back?”. Don’t say tonight. Don’t say tonight.
“Tonight”. Tony groaned. “On the same flight you are now taking”.
Great. Just great.
“I’ll call security to escort you out of the building”. Adams’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “I’d lose my job if I let a member of a foreign intelligence service wander around a US federal building, unattended”.
Adam thought on that for a moment, and then nodded.
Vince came up soon after Tony called down, and escorted Adam from the bullpen. Tony didn’t spare him a second look.
When Tony got a look at himself in the mirror, his first thought was “bloodbath”. His nose had stopped bleeding, but there was blood on his upper lip and chin, some on his neck, staining the collar of his shirt, and on the front of his sweater. His hands, too, were red.
Tony carefully washed the blood off himself, wincing when he got to his nose. He could already see a black eye forming. He was lucky Adam hadn’t broken his nose.
Tony left the bathroom and sat back at his keyboard. He pulled up an emergency leave request, filled it in, and sent it to the printer. He quickly signed it, left it on Gibbs’ desk, and high-tailed it out of the building.
When Tony arrived home, he allowed himself a moment to wallow, and slumped down into his couch. He covered his eyes (wincing as he touched the bruise) with his hands as his head tipped back.
What an absolute day this had been. This morning he was just a sad, lonely man whose heart was five thousand miles away. He busied himself as best he could, but ultimately found himself at his desk, working on case reports. If he was working, he couldn’t think about how he was feeling.
He worked a lot.
But now, he sat here, an expectant father. With a woman who hadn’t told him how his life was about to change.
He oscillated between anger, compassion, love, worry, frustration, and fear. He didn’t understand her need for self-flagellation. But he respected it because he respected her. If this is what she needed, he remembered thinking, this is what she needed. He had told her he loved her. That he would always fight for her. That he was always going to be there for her.
But, it seemed, when push came to shove, Ziva decided she didn’t need anyone. Least of all him. And boy, did that hurt.
He checked his watch – just after 18:15 – and figured he needed to be at the airport by 21:00 for the 23:30 flight. That gave him just less than 3 hours to…do what? Pack? He’d only be taking a duffel. Clean? His apartment was immaculate. Watch a movie? He couldn’t possibly follow a plot right now. Nap? Fat chance.
Then a though hit him. And he rushed out of his apartment, grateful he hadn’t even taken off his coat.
“Good Evening”, Adam greeted Tony as he handed him a coffee when he arrived at the gate.
“I’m surprised you recognized me, what with my disfigured face”, he replied, pointing at his now-officially-a-black eye with one hand while accepting the coffee with the other.
The two men lapsed into silence for more than an hour, only rousing slightly from their own thoughts when boarding began.
“Where are you seated?”, Adam asked.
“Uhhhh”, Tony looked down at his ticket. “Somewhere in the middle?”. Adam looked at the slip of paper and nodded. “You’re not…”, Tony trailed off.
“No, no. I am in first class”.
“Terrific”.
“I would like you to have my seat”, Adam said, handing Tony his boarding pass.
“No, no, I couldn’t. I’ll be fine”.
“I insist. I feel as though I owe you more than just an apology”.
“That’s really not necessary”.
“Please?”.
Tony could tell that this man – a man he harboured no warm and fuzzy feelings for, who had, less than 5 hours ago sucker punched him – wanted to do something. And, if Tony was feeling generous, the only reason he knew anything about Ziva, least of all that she was having their baby, was because Adam loved her enough to lay waste to anyone who harmed her.
Tony gave in, smiling. “Thank you. We’ll switch on the plane – my name isn’t on that ticket”.
Adam smiled, and produced his badge from his pocket. “It will be fine”, he smiled. Tony rolled his eyes.
First class was nice, Tony decided. There was ample leg room, a seat that reclined into a bed, attentive service, and free food that didn’t look like it was just squeezed out of a tube. He spared a thought for Adam somewhere in the middle seat in the middle of the plane.
As an obligatory gesture, Tony flipped through the movie selections and decided, if he needed them, there were a few good options to distract him. Had he known about this trip, he would have pulled a Senior and taken a sleeping pill to ride out the flight with. As it was, Tony’s heartrate hadn’t quite returned to normal.
Sighing, he took out the book he rushed out of his apartment to buy. He had a lot of reading to do.
But even after a few hours of this, admittedly, fascinating page-turner – sections of which he read and re-read – Tony’s nerves got the best of him. His legs started to bounce and sweat accumulated on his brow as he considered what it was he was doing.
He hopped a plane to rush to the side of a woman who didn’t even tell him she was pregnant with his child. A woman whom he loved. But who hadn’t told him she was pregnant. A woman for whom he was ready to die in a desert for. But didn’t call to tell him about the baby. A woman on whose smile the sun rose for him. But who kept this a secret.
He hastily filled out emergency leave forms and didn’t tell his team where he was going. He sent a text message to the neighbours, asking them to feed his fish, but who hadn’t yet responded in the affirmative. He left his apartment as though he was returning the next day – didn’t stop the mail or turn down the thermostat or clean out the fridge (does beer spoil?).
He once again upended his life for a woman he loved but who didn’t love him enough to tell him he was going to be a father. Didn’t love him enough to come home with him. Didn’t love him enough to stay.
Tony angled his head towards the window and closed his eyes, feeling the tears leak out from under them.
What would happen if he got there and she wasn’t at the farmhouse? What if she was there, but didn’t want to see him? What if she wanted to see him, but didn’t want him to stay? What if she allowed him to stay, but only out of kindness, and not because she wanted him there? What if she didn’t want him in hers or the baby’s life? What if she disappeared during the night, leaving again?
The tears came faster now, and his heartrate picked up. His chest felt tight, and it was getting harder and harder to breathe.