Chapter Text
January 2014
He didn’t expect the call.
Tony had come to live in seconds. Seconds and minutes and days and weeks as they arrived under his feet. He lifted himself from bed with the alarm, never snoozing. He operated with the sun, rays shifting east to west. Morning, noon, night, repeat. He didn’t remember his dreams or the names of victims, the outcome of this or that case once they were closed.
The world had devolved for him since returning to D.C. from Israel, a suitcase of dirty laundry and the pointy corners of her Star of David necklace imprinted on his palm to show for endless, brutal summer months spent seeking, finding, and being forced to let go again. Hope hadn’t fit in his carry-on.
She was there and he was here, and that was that.
So the call was more than unexpected, then. It was… immaterial. Unthinkable. And almost missed, thanks to McGee.
“I refuse to put my hand in your pocket.”
“It’s only my jacket pocket, McBrokeback. Come on!”
A stand-off ensued, McGee not taking pictures and Tony not collecting evidence, ring after ring going unanswered. If not for Bishop, they might have frozen there at the crime scene, buried under the softly falling snow. Or been head-slapped to the moon by Gibbs for wasting company time.
“Abby was right. You two fight like brothers, which is pretty normal for me since I have four,” the blonde babbled, extracting the contested device from Tony's pocket without missing a step in her stride.
“See this, McSqueamish. The Artful Dodger Probie here is a real fri–”
“Um, Tony?” The note of surprise in Bishop’s voice caught his attention. She stared at his phone screen, eyes wide.
“What? Who is it?” Tony started toward her. “Bishop, I seriously swear if–”
“Ziva David is calling you.”
The expression the world stopped spinning was overused. Hyperbole in most cases, too. But Tony knew his world had ceased its usual movement on more than one occasion and it had never felt too much. It felt like a teammate being shot out of the sky, a leader hunted inside an old diner, a best friend lost to the sea...
In comparison, a simple phone call shouldn’t have ranked high on world-stopping moments.
This one did.
No, he couldn’t remember cases, but the tangy salt of her tears when he kissed her cheeks, her jaw, her mouth was tattooed on his taste buds; he couldn’t eat or drink or swallow without her memory flooding him anew. He still felt the tender give of her body under his touch – years of restraint dissipating on a gusty breeze through the olive grove behind her parents' old farmhouse. At night, he let his mind and body dwell in the heady sensations that came after laying her down in her childhood bed, loving her through wondrous and aching nights together in the desert…
He would never forget the self-inflicted torture of turning from her and walking away.
He didn't expect the call.
He didn't not expect it, either.
She was there and he was here, but maybe… Maybe leaving her on that tarmac, releasing her to a quest for solace and breaking his own heart in the process, had been for something.
The world kept spinning, and on the final ring, Tony answered.
“...Hi.”