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He groans loudly, his head falls to the window soon followed by his fist. “Stop! I beg of you! Just stop!”
Ziva can hear the man complaining from her desk as she finishes her work on the latest case they closed. They were thankfully able to finish the case just in time for Friday night to start. But the weather outside was quickly worsening, and as much as she agrees with her partner, her complaints were silent.
She glances up at the man for a brief second before she hits print on her report. All she has to do is hand it in.
“Are you almost ready, Tony?” She asks, pulling out a folder to put it in.
“Hm?” He turns to her. “Oh yes, I just have no idea how we’re getting home, the snow trucks haven’t gone out yet.” She hums her response to him, tapping her papers together.
“Thanks again for driving me home.” She says; her eyes soften as they land on him. “You do not have to do it.”
Tony moves around to sit on the edge of her desk, looking up at her. “I could not let my friend walk home in this weather. Besides, I had carpooled with you this morning, and you brought me coffee. I believe that warrants as good reason to drive you home.” He wiggles his eyebrows at her. “Maybe I’ll get a coffee out of it.”
She chuckles at him, leaning in close. “Maybe if you’re good.” Squeezing past him, she leaves to hand in her report. When she returns, Tony has his jacket on and his bag over his shoulder, her items were in her hand. In union, they walk to the elevator.
***
Ziva keeps herself from tapping her foot as Tony does a snail’s speed down the street to her apartment. After an hour they were finally the ten minutes away from Navy Yard, and neither Tony nor Ziva could be more relieved to see the building. Finally they could get out and stretch.
Ziva doesn’t ask out loud if he would like to come in for coffee, she didn’t have to; he parks the car and follows her up the stairs. She opens the door in a swift movement, a wave of heat greeting her as the two of them stepped in from out of the frigid weather.
“Ah,” Tony sighs. “At least the power didn’t go out.”
“Don’t jinx it, Tony.”
Tony gives a short laugh as the two of them shrug off their jackets and toe off their shoes. He hangs up his jacket before reaching around to grab hers from her hands and adds it to beside his. She wants to comment on it, but she decides to leave it alone as she watches him move before her. Instead, she turns her back on him and walks to the kitchen.
After making a pot of coffee, no doubt most of it going to waste by the end of the night as it was already 8:00pm that night, but she never knew, she might pick up one of her newest books and spend half the night reading it. She might need it then. Stirring the two cups and licking the teaspoon, she takes them to her partner who was sitting on the couch with his feet propped up on the table.
She places the cups beside him; she steps over his legs and sinks into the couch beside him. When he throws his arm over the back of the couch, she leans into him and pulls her feet up under her. “What does the weather network say?” She mumbles, resting her head on his shoulder.
“Snow, snow, and more snow.” He drops his hand down to rest on her hip. “It’s not going to stop all night and chances of more snow tomorrow.”
She sighs. “Hopefully by the time you get home, the snow has at least slowed down a bit. Or the traffic is gone.” He nods his agreement, then takes a sip of his coffee. “Do you want dinner?”
“I would love dinner, but I don’t dare to order out, the less I get a bite out of my pizza or half eaten fries.” She grimaced at the thought of sending a delivery boy out in this weather.
“I think I have a lasagna in my freezer from when I made a couple batches last month.” She thinks out loud. Her response is the growl from Tony’s stomach.
Ziva takes a few moments to listen to the lady on the TV to explain that they were going to be getting another three feet of snow over the next few hours. Part of her thought of sending her partner home right then and there, but she knew that he would end up going to bed hungry instead of eating. Knowing that the last thing in his fridge was a bottle of wine and his cupboards only held stale cereal.
She wasn’t going to let him go home hungry. “Keep me updated on the weather as I go start dinner.”
“Do you need any help, Zi-vah?” He asks, his eyes following her, a small smile adorns his lips.
She looks down at him from her vantage point. “No, no, it’s just turning on the oven and setting a timer. No need for the two of us in the kitchen.” He doesn’t say anything as she walks away, and she could feel the burning of his gaze on her body.
As she moves around the kitchen, Tony hollers updates from the living room. The main road has been completely backed up, and people who have been avoiding it have backed up nearby streets. The power in the south side of the city had been cut out from the wind cutting power lines, over by where McGee lives. Along with warning that the temperature was going to be dropping quickly over the next few hours and will continue throughout the night. Plus the comments from Tony on the howling of the wind from outside the patio door.
In the ten minutes it took to preheat the oven, more than half of the incoming traffic from the freeways has been brought to less than 5mph, if at all.
From her spot against the dining room table, Ziva says. “I don’t think you’re going home tonight.” He sighs and agrees with her. “Unless you want to be out in that weather for the next three hours.” The glare he sends to her was enough to make her laugh. With the timer set, she walks over to the couch and snuggles into his chest again.
“This is getting too depressing to watch.” He murmurs, handing the woman her coffee, knowing that she was going to ask for it soon. She nods against him, cradling her cup.
“I know, but we must know what’s going on.”
By the time the meal was cooked, another foot of snow fell to the ground. Ziva had opened the door to look outside to see that Tony’s car was almost completely snowed in and she could no longer see the footprints they had left when they arrived. The wind had picked up its pace, and they could barely hear the TV over the howling.
But they were inside and away from the cold and snow. And better yet, they were not alone.
Placing the empty coffee cups on the counter, Tony pulls the plates down from the cupboard. The way the two move around the kitchen, warms Ziva’s heart. They were partners, but they fit so well together. They moved together. Thought together. Maybe they’ve worked so long together that they knew exactly what each other was thinking. When he had his back to her, pulling out their dinner from the oven, she smiles at him, a full out smile that she couldn’t keep to herself.
Yes, at least they weren’t alone.
But the moment the second slice was out of the tray, the room goes dark and the living room goes silent. She curses under her breath in Hebrew, and Tony in English, somehow managing to say the same thing.
They look at each other, barely making out the other’s outline in the room. She pulls out her cell, using the flashlight to look around the room. Together they walk to the patio door to notice, barely visible between the heavy flakes of snow, all the lights in the apartments across the street were dark and there was no light coming from the street lamps.
The power was out.
She sighs, raising her phone again to scan the room with her light. “Let us at least eat dinner before it gets cold.” He doesn’t say anything as they take their meals to the table, using the phone face-down as light as they eat.
It didn’t take long for them to start to feel the apartment to go cold, and Ziva could feel a chill run up her back.
“Are you okay?” Tony asks, resting his hand on her arm.
She nods, but figures he can barely see her. “I am fine, Tony. I will be better when the power turns back on.” He agrees with her, and goes back to eating.
Ziva doesn’t know what to do without the light from her lamp, the lack of brightness from any kind of candles, and no TV to watch, what were she and Tony going to do? They sit on the couch, but honestly, she was pretty much just sitting on Tony with how little amount of room there was between the two of them. With every shiver that ran up her arms and back, she scoots another inch closer to him. The warmth lulling her to sleep.
Whispering, Tony breathes to her. “Maybe you should go to bed.” Yes, she’d be more comfortable in her bed, but her bed is cold, her room is cold, everywhere would be cold, and he’d offer to sleep on the couch like always.
But instead, she mutters. “No, cold.” And snuggles into his side to emphasize her point.
“You can’t sleep out here with me, neither one of us would get a good night’s sleep.”
What she wants is for him to be her personal heater in her bed, but that whole ‘Rule #12’ thing still hung over their heads. But they won’t be having sex. They’d just be sleeping together. As friends. Nothing else. “I will go to bed if you come with me.” She declares, raising her head to stare him straight in the eye.
He’s caught off guard, stuttering. “Wai- wha- Ziva!” And then he lowers his voice, thinking someone, namely Gibbs, could hear him. “I’m not going to sleep with you.”
“I do not mean it like that Tony.” She says, pointing her finger into his chest. “You will complain about your back hurting if you sleep on my couch, and I will be freezing in my bed with the temperature dropping like this. What is that phrase you say about sharing a sleeping bag?” She asks. “It is only for one night, and it does not have to involve sex.” They were just friends, she reminds herself. Just friends sharing a bed together. Again. “We have done it before.”
She could see him thinking it over, weighing the pros and cons in his head. It was a full minute before he looks at her again to give her his answer. “Fine, but I don’t want to hear any complaining.” She smirks devilishly at him, bops him on the nose, and then gets up, pulling him with her.
The trek to the bedroom seems longer than it ever has been before. Tony has never slept in her bed, every time they have ever slept together, they had always seemed to be at a hotel. So when Tony steps up beside her bed and pulls back the covers, her heart starts to race and she feels her face start to flush. She would have been even more embarrassed if he could see her.
“Ziva.”
“Hm?”
“They tell us that to keep each other warm, we have to be naked.” Ziva gulps. She forgot about that part. “But seeing as neither one of us is wet, we can probably strip down to our underwear.”
“Yes, we do not have to be completely naked.” She turns her back to him, no matter how pointless it is, and takes off her jeans and blouse. She tries to peak over her shoulder at Tony, but she can’t see a thing, she can barely see outside the window, all she can hear is the howling of the wind and the shuffling of fabric. In just her bra and underwear, she turns around. “Are you ready?”
A ‘yes’ came from the darkness on the other side of the bed. Together they climb under the covers, not touching, not daring to get closer. “We need to be closer if this is going to work.” He says. Ziva eyes him and scoots closer, and he turns on his side, pulling her back to flush against his chest. A shiver runs up her spin at the contact, but she is comfortably warm. Even warmer than she was when they were on the couch. “Are you good?”
“Yes.” She whispers, resting her head on his arm. He wraps his arm around her stomach and intertwines their legs together as if they’ve done this a thousand times. “Good night Tony.” Her voice barely audible over the wind outside.
“Good night Ziva.” He whispers back, resting his chin on the top of her head.
***
When Ziva woke up the next morning, she was extremely warm and someone was pretty much laying on top of her. But she doesn’t seem to mind at all. The soft snoring she recognizes as Tony’s almost instantly. The arm she was laying on was stretched out in front of her with her hand wrapped around his fingers, and his other hand was placed over her stomach, holding her where she slept.
Unable to see out the window from her position, and certainly unable to reach for her phone, Ziva closes her eyes and falls back to sleep. Cause hey, it was Saturday, and they were snowed in.