“DiNozzo, grab your go bag, you’re going to the ligtas house. The person in protective custody is already there, Agent Richards is with them now,” Gibbs ordered Tony as they stood in the bullpen. The case that they were working on was getting messier sa pamamagitan ng the minuto and Tony hadn’t even realized that they had a person in protective custody having been neck-deep in interrogation for most of the day.
“Can’t McGee do the babysitting this time, Boss?” he yawned in the middle of his whine. “I pulled babysitting duty two cases ago.”
“I helped!” Bishop piped up from her mesa which cased Tony to turn in her direction with a slightly mapait look on his face. It may be the mesa that she occupied, but he would never see it as ‘her’ desk. “Well, I did,” the new agent simmered down after receiving the glare from the senior agent.
“You nearly blew our cover when you went to get dinner,” Tony snapped. He was cranky and not liking that he was being told that his plans for going tahanan and crashing in his kama were being thrown out the window. He’d apologize later and he knew it, but now he was still peeved over such a rookie mistake from the team’s newest member.
Gibbs stepped between the two agents and stared down his longtime, right-hand man. “You have ligtas house duty, DiNozzo,” he barked. “I’ve got McGee busy with some computer stuff and Ellie’s going to be helping me with some stuff for Abby.”
The steely gaze that was boring into him told Tony that he had no room for argument. Sleep be damned. He’ll just have to grab an energy drink on the way to the ligtas house location and maybe some of the strongest coffee to brew in the morning. Turning away from the gaze he went back to his desk. “Am I all alone on this or will Richards be there all night, too?” he muttered as he closed down his computer.
“You’re relieving Richards. I’ll be sa pamamagitan ng in the morning,” Gibbs told him as he leaned against his desk. “It’s should be an easy night. You may even be able to get a cat nap in if all things go accordingly.”
Tony sighed as he looked up at his mentor. “Which location are we using?”
“The house in Chantilly.”
Nodding, Tony calculated that he had about a half oras drive in front of him and plenty of places to pick up the energy drink and coffee along the way. “My go bag is in my locker,” he grumbled as he rose from his seat. “You can call Richards and tell him I’ll be there soon.” He left the bullpen without a goodbye to anyone else there.
After making a stop at the grocery store along the way Tony pulled into the drive of the ligtas house that sat sandwiched between two other at the end of the quiet cul-de-sac. He got out, hoisted his bag on his shoulder, and trudged up the front walk while taking note of his surroundings. Nothing seemed out of place and it was almost eleven at night, most of the lights in the other houses were dimmed or out completely as the residences having turned in for the night.
Knocking on the door he heard the shuffle and voice of the other agent ask for the codeword which he supplied. The door opened and he shuffled in. “Just give me the sit rep and you can go,” Tony mumbled as he looked around the living room.
The other agent told him that nothing strange had gone down since he had arrived with the protectee and that there was some leftover Chinese pagkain in the fridge if he wanted any. The person they were watching was upstairs taking a bath and should be out momentarily, she had been in there for about fifteen minutes. The faint sound of running water from a paliguan could be heard from where they stood.
“Does she have a name or do I just call her ‘Jane Doe’?” Tony asked, realizing that this was the first time he had actually bothered finding out if it was a man or woman or even the person’s name. The fact that Richards had sinabi that it was a woman at least clued him in on the gender.
“You can ask her for yourself,” Richards laughed as he grabbed his bag. “She’s feisty. Could probably handle herself really, but protocol and all. Anyways, I’m just going to head out now. My wife is already pissed at me for having to kanselahin petsa night.”
Tony watched as the other agent left a bit bewildered sa pamamagitan ng the lack of information ibingiay to him about the person he’d be watching. Deciding that he didn’t want to frighten the woman when she got out of the paliguan he dropped his bag beside him and went upstairs, standing in the hall he knocked on the door and cleared his throat, “Um, ma’am, I’m Agent DiNozzo. You can call me Tony if you’d like. I’m relieving Agent Richards. I just wanted to let you know before you came out of there.” He heard a hum of understanding come from the other side of the door and went back downstairs to wait. He flopped down on the sopa and popped open his drink.
The sound of the water flow stopped a few minutos later and Tony raised his eyes to the ceiling as he listened to the soft sounds of feet moving across the floor above. He turned his attention to the kusina and debated on whether he’d dig into the leftovers as he waited for the woman that he was there to watch appear.
The sound of someone clearing their throat drew him out of his internal pagtatalo a few minutos later and he looked towards the stairs that it came from. His puso jumped into his throat and he spilled some of his drink on his sando as he jumped to his feet at the sight before him.
“Hello, Tony,” the woman greeted him softly as she walked towards him.
Tony ran his eyes up and down the woman walking towards him. Her curls were damp from her paliguan and she wore a pair of sweatpants with a white tank. She looked casual and comfortable and so damn good. “Ziva,” he breathed.
“Long day,” she said. It wasn’t a tanong or even a reference to her day. She took in the darkening circles under Tony’s eyes and brought her hand up to touch the side of his face before withdrawing it unsure if he would want such contact. “You can sleep if you want. Gibbs insisted on the ligtas house. I was fine with taking care of myself.”
Tony’s mind reeled as it processed what was going on. “You’re the witness? But you… you… you were suppose to be in Israel or wherever the hell it was you were going to go!”
“I was in Italy. One night about two weeks nakaraan I went out for a late hapunan and the susunod thing I knew,” she shrugged. “I did not go looking to be a witness to part of this.” She stepped to the side and collapsed into the chair that stood there. “I was just hungry and this found me.”
She looked sad and the tone of her voice sounded miserable to his ears. Taking a upuan on the edge of the coffee mesa Tony placed a hand gently on Ziva’s knee. “Why don’t you start from the beginning?”
Ziva took a deep breath and filled Tony in on why she was in Italy and what she had stumbled upon in the alleyway. “And then I called Gibbs and told him what I saw and now I am here,” she finished her story with a wave of her hand around them before dropping it to cover Tony’s hand that hadn’t left her knee since he had placed it there.
Tony stood up then, taking his hand away from her, and began to pace as he went over a few of the details that she had mentioned, piecing them together with what he had discovered during his time in the interrogation room. “And that’s all you saw?”
“Yes, Tony, that is all that I saw.”
Ziva’s story was enough for Tony to flip the switch inside of him to complete protective mode after his emotions had messed with it briefly upon seeing her again. “Go upstairs and get some sleep,” he ordered with his back to her. “I have enough coffee to keep me wake all night.”
“But-”
“No, Ziva,” he cut her off. “I’m here to protect you, not the other way around. “ He whirled around to her. “You go to kama and I’ll be here. Don’t argue!”
Rising from her upuan and seeing the no-nonsense look on his face Ziva headed to the stairs. She paused for a moment at the first step. “I did not expect this to be how we would see each other again,” she whispered with a glance in his direction. When he didn’t answer she sighed and headed up to the bedroom that she had picked out.
Tony paced the living room well into the night. His energy restored with the information that Ziva had ibingiay him and now having her to protect. Part of him wanted to go upstairs and hold her tightly, but his agent side won the battle every time the urge grew even madami intent. He had called Gibbs and connected the few dots that he could. Neither spoke about the fact that it was Ziva that Gibbs had sent him to protect.
It was nearing four in the morning when Tony heard the soft creak from that stairs. He waited in the kusina where he was picking through the cold leftovers when she leaned on the counter a few feet from him. “You’re supposed to be sleeping,” he mumbled through a mouthful of rice.
“I could not sleep. I have spent the entire time tossing and turning knowing that you are down here,” she sighed. “You are mad at me, yes?”
“No, I’m worried about you; have been since I left you in Israel.”
“Tony, you know why I could not come back with you. You helped me make my list.”
Chucking the container that he had been digging through across the counter Tony’s emotions took over. “I may have known, Ziva, but I still wanted you here! I still need you here! You could find yourself here! You wouldn’t have been in Italy and getting mixed up in this shit! You could have been here. I could have been protecting you all along! I would not have shown up to some ligtas house to find out that the person Gibbs sent me to protect was the very person who has been carrying around my puso in a vice for the last eight months!” he roared.
“You are mad,” she calmly stated again as tears pricked at her eyes. She angled herself away from him afraid that the tears would begin to fall and she did not want to let him see her cry when he was already angry with her.
“Damn straight I’m mad! Getting on that plane was the hardest thing I ever had to do, Ziva! I’m also scared for you right now. These people in this case have been killing our men and women all over the world! If they saw you- I know you say that they didn’t- then you may be next!”
Ziva’s shoulders started to shake as the tears streaked down her cheeks. “There will always be another monster,” she echoed words she had sinabi years before. “I cannot escape them, can I?”
Tony glanced over at her from where he had placed his hands on the counter as he unleashed his feeling upon her. Watching her try to hide her sobs from him softened his anger at the whole situation and he closed the distance between them. Carefully he turned her to face him and cupped her face into his hands as he used his thumbs to brush away her tears. “We’re going to get them, okay?” he whispered as he drew her to his chest and held her there as she cried. “I didn’t mean to yell,” he breathed into her hair as he placed a halik on her temple. “I’m just tired.”
“No, you have the right to be angry, Tony,” she sniffled as she turned her head to the side. “My choices have hurt you.”
“You’re not staying after this is all finished, are you?” the words felt like sandpaper on his throat as he sinabi them.
Pulling away from him Ziva took Tony’s hand in hers and led him towards the couch. “Just lay down with me, please?”
Her request was answer enough and he gave into it deciding to take as much time as he could with her in his arms as he could get. He settled on the sopa first and Ziva followed as the laid against the pillows. They spooned for awhile not saying a word.
When Gibbs arrived at just before seven that morning he found his current agent and his former agent facing one another, limps protectively wrapped around each other, sleeping peacefully. He cleared his throat with his arms crossed. “I don’t recall this being considered a tactic for protecting a witness, DiNozzo,” he scolded as the couple jolted from their sleeping positions and into alert positions.
“Yeah, well I don’t think anything about this arraignment is considered ‘normal’, Boss,” Tony yawned, his arm still possessively wrapped around Ziva’s waist.
“I suppose not,” the silver haired agent acknowledged. “Hey, Ziver.”
“Hi, Gibbs.”
Gibbs nodded to the box that he had placed on the mesa when he came in. “Brought doughnuts if anyone’s hungry.”
No one reached for the pastries. Instead the three of them engaged in a round of challenging looks as to who would tanong or offer an answer to the chosen sleeping arraignments first and with the three players involved it looked like the case was going to be closed before an word about it was spoken. Gibbs reached into the box and pulled out one of the sweets first.
“So, while you two were here, McGee hacked away at some of the sites that our suspects provided and we have just about everything we need to nail them. Just need your statement, Ziva,” he munched away at his breakfast.
“As easy as that?” Ziva asked. “I thought it might take longer ibingiay how you were speaking on the phone when I called you.”
“Thought so too, but one of their men cracked and the case started falling into place.”
“But we barely had enough info to get just one man when I left last night!” Tony disputed as he felt his time with Ziva slipping away from him once again. Three hours of sleeping with her in his arms wasn’t enough. He wanted madami time.
“Like I said, one of the men cracked. Can’t help that it blasted the case wide open and crossed the ‘T’s’ and dotted the ‘I’s’ for us when he spilled his guts.”
“Did you bring the paperwork with you? I could fill it out here and-” Ziva had started as she snagged a doughnut from the box to nibble on.
“Nope, you’re coming to the Navy Yard. I want this written down and recorded on video,” Gibbs shutdown her thought process. “You won’t have to go to court that way,” he added.
Tony wasn’t quite sure how they had ended back up at the Navy Yard about two hours later, but they had. He still felt like he was on the sopa in the ligtas house with Ziva asleep in his arms and breathing softly on his neck, but the kahel walls that surrounded him now told him it wasn’t the truth. Gibbs had taken Ziva into the conference room to do the taped deposition about fifteen minutos before and he was ordered to stay out.
“So, Ziva, huh?” McGee asked as he stepped up beside Tony.
“Yup, Ziva.”
“How did last night, uh… go?”
“We didn’t have sex, if that’s what you’re asking, McGee,” he snapped.
McGee flushed. “I didn’t mean… it’s just that it’s been so long and you two obviously…” he let the thought hang between them.
“Didn’t happen,” Tony sinabi flatly.
“Oh.”
The two agents stood with their arms crossed staring at the door to the conference room for another ten minutos before it opened and Gibbs stepped out. “With me,” he ordered. “Vance is speaking with Ziva now.” He led the two away from the room and back to the bullpen where he had them type up their reports on the case.
After Tony turned in his ulat about an oras later he glanced in the direction of the conference rooms and back to Gibbs who just shrugged at his unasked tanong of when was Ziva going to come out. Waiting a few minutos madami he made his way to the bathroom to take care of business in there. While he was gone Vance can into the bullpen and placed an envelope on Tony’s mesa with a glance to Gibbs and then went back to his office.
Tony sat down at his mesa and Gibbs expectantly raised his head from his paperwork as Tony found what Vance had left. Opening the envelope Tony pulled the piece of paper from it and began to read:
Tony,
I do not want to cause you the pain of seeing me off so I left through the back elevator.
I wish we had madami time, but I fear that if I stayed any longer I would not be able to leave again. I still need my time, Tony. I do not know how much madami time I will need. I will stay in better contact though; you can tell the team that as well.
Always,
Ziva
P.S. – On the days that are hardest to get through I still count to a million.
Tony read the post script a dozen times as the team waited for him to say something. He looked up, a forced smile on his face, “she says that she’ll stay in better contact.”
Gibbs nodded, McGee sighed, and Ellie let the three men have their moment. pagbaba the letter once madami Tony placed it back in its envelope and tucked into his drawer under the divider the held her kuwintas and his boyhood picture.
“Can’t McGee do the babysitting this time, Boss?” he yawned in the middle of his whine. “I pulled babysitting duty two cases ago.”
“I helped!” Bishop piped up from her mesa which cased Tony to turn in her direction with a slightly mapait look on his face. It may be the mesa that she occupied, but he would never see it as ‘her’ desk. “Well, I did,” the new agent simmered down after receiving the glare from the senior agent.
“You nearly blew our cover when you went to get dinner,” Tony snapped. He was cranky and not liking that he was being told that his plans for going tahanan and crashing in his kama were being thrown out the window. He’d apologize later and he knew it, but now he was still peeved over such a rookie mistake from the team’s newest member.
Gibbs stepped between the two agents and stared down his longtime, right-hand man. “You have ligtas house duty, DiNozzo,” he barked. “I’ve got McGee busy with some computer stuff and Ellie’s going to be helping me with some stuff for Abby.”
The steely gaze that was boring into him told Tony that he had no room for argument. Sleep be damned. He’ll just have to grab an energy drink on the way to the ligtas house location and maybe some of the strongest coffee to brew in the morning. Turning away from the gaze he went back to his desk. “Am I all alone on this or will Richards be there all night, too?” he muttered as he closed down his computer.
“You’re relieving Richards. I’ll be sa pamamagitan ng in the morning,” Gibbs told him as he leaned against his desk. “It’s should be an easy night. You may even be able to get a cat nap in if all things go accordingly.”
Tony sighed as he looked up at his mentor. “Which location are we using?”
“The house in Chantilly.”
Nodding, Tony calculated that he had about a half oras drive in front of him and plenty of places to pick up the energy drink and coffee along the way. “My go bag is in my locker,” he grumbled as he rose from his seat. “You can call Richards and tell him I’ll be there soon.” He left the bullpen without a goodbye to anyone else there.
After making a stop at the grocery store along the way Tony pulled into the drive of the ligtas house that sat sandwiched between two other at the end of the quiet cul-de-sac. He got out, hoisted his bag on his shoulder, and trudged up the front walk while taking note of his surroundings. Nothing seemed out of place and it was almost eleven at night, most of the lights in the other houses were dimmed or out completely as the residences having turned in for the night.
Knocking on the door he heard the shuffle and voice of the other agent ask for the codeword which he supplied. The door opened and he shuffled in. “Just give me the sit rep and you can go,” Tony mumbled as he looked around the living room.
The other agent told him that nothing strange had gone down since he had arrived with the protectee and that there was some leftover Chinese pagkain in the fridge if he wanted any. The person they were watching was upstairs taking a bath and should be out momentarily, she had been in there for about fifteen minutes. The faint sound of running water from a paliguan could be heard from where they stood.
“Does she have a name or do I just call her ‘Jane Doe’?” Tony asked, realizing that this was the first time he had actually bothered finding out if it was a man or woman or even the person’s name. The fact that Richards had sinabi that it was a woman at least clued him in on the gender.
“You can ask her for yourself,” Richards laughed as he grabbed his bag. “She’s feisty. Could probably handle herself really, but protocol and all. Anyways, I’m just going to head out now. My wife is already pissed at me for having to kanselahin petsa night.”
Tony watched as the other agent left a bit bewildered sa pamamagitan ng the lack of information ibingiay to him about the person he’d be watching. Deciding that he didn’t want to frighten the woman when she got out of the paliguan he dropped his bag beside him and went upstairs, standing in the hall he knocked on the door and cleared his throat, “Um, ma’am, I’m Agent DiNozzo. You can call me Tony if you’d like. I’m relieving Agent Richards. I just wanted to let you know before you came out of there.” He heard a hum of understanding come from the other side of the door and went back downstairs to wait. He flopped down on the sopa and popped open his drink.
The sound of the water flow stopped a few minutos later and Tony raised his eyes to the ceiling as he listened to the soft sounds of feet moving across the floor above. He turned his attention to the kusina and debated on whether he’d dig into the leftovers as he waited for the woman that he was there to watch appear.
The sound of someone clearing their throat drew him out of his internal pagtatalo a few minutos later and he looked towards the stairs that it came from. His puso jumped into his throat and he spilled some of his drink on his sando as he jumped to his feet at the sight before him.
“Hello, Tony,” the woman greeted him softly as she walked towards him.
Tony ran his eyes up and down the woman walking towards him. Her curls were damp from her paliguan and she wore a pair of sweatpants with a white tank. She looked casual and comfortable and so damn good. “Ziva,” he breathed.
“Long day,” she said. It wasn’t a tanong or even a reference to her day. She took in the darkening circles under Tony’s eyes and brought her hand up to touch the side of his face before withdrawing it unsure if he would want such contact. “You can sleep if you want. Gibbs insisted on the ligtas house. I was fine with taking care of myself.”
Tony’s mind reeled as it processed what was going on. “You’re the witness? But you… you… you were suppose to be in Israel or wherever the hell it was you were going to go!”
“I was in Italy. One night about two weeks nakaraan I went out for a late hapunan and the susunod thing I knew,” she shrugged. “I did not go looking to be a witness to part of this.” She stepped to the side and collapsed into the chair that stood there. “I was just hungry and this found me.”
She looked sad and the tone of her voice sounded miserable to his ears. Taking a upuan on the edge of the coffee mesa Tony placed a hand gently on Ziva’s knee. “Why don’t you start from the beginning?”
Ziva took a deep breath and filled Tony in on why she was in Italy and what she had stumbled upon in the alleyway. “And then I called Gibbs and told him what I saw and now I am here,” she finished her story with a wave of her hand around them before dropping it to cover Tony’s hand that hadn’t left her knee since he had placed it there.
Tony stood up then, taking his hand away from her, and began to pace as he went over a few of the details that she had mentioned, piecing them together with what he had discovered during his time in the interrogation room. “And that’s all you saw?”
“Yes, Tony, that is all that I saw.”
Ziva’s story was enough for Tony to flip the switch inside of him to complete protective mode after his emotions had messed with it briefly upon seeing her again. “Go upstairs and get some sleep,” he ordered with his back to her. “I have enough coffee to keep me wake all night.”
“But-”
“No, Ziva,” he cut her off. “I’m here to protect you, not the other way around. “ He whirled around to her. “You go to kama and I’ll be here. Don’t argue!”
Rising from her upuan and seeing the no-nonsense look on his face Ziva headed to the stairs. She paused for a moment at the first step. “I did not expect this to be how we would see each other again,” she whispered with a glance in his direction. When he didn’t answer she sighed and headed up to the bedroom that she had picked out.
Tony paced the living room well into the night. His energy restored with the information that Ziva had ibingiay him and now having her to protect. Part of him wanted to go upstairs and hold her tightly, but his agent side won the battle every time the urge grew even madami intent. He had called Gibbs and connected the few dots that he could. Neither spoke about the fact that it was Ziva that Gibbs had sent him to protect.
It was nearing four in the morning when Tony heard the soft creak from that stairs. He waited in the kusina where he was picking through the cold leftovers when she leaned on the counter a few feet from him. “You’re supposed to be sleeping,” he mumbled through a mouthful of rice.
“I could not sleep. I have spent the entire time tossing and turning knowing that you are down here,” she sighed. “You are mad at me, yes?”
“No, I’m worried about you; have been since I left you in Israel.”
“Tony, you know why I could not come back with you. You helped me make my list.”
Chucking the container that he had been digging through across the counter Tony’s emotions took over. “I may have known, Ziva, but I still wanted you here! I still need you here! You could find yourself here! You wouldn’t have been in Italy and getting mixed up in this shit! You could have been here. I could have been protecting you all along! I would not have shown up to some ligtas house to find out that the person Gibbs sent me to protect was the very person who has been carrying around my puso in a vice for the last eight months!” he roared.
“You are mad,” she calmly stated again as tears pricked at her eyes. She angled herself away from him afraid that the tears would begin to fall and she did not want to let him see her cry when he was already angry with her.
“Damn straight I’m mad! Getting on that plane was the hardest thing I ever had to do, Ziva! I’m also scared for you right now. These people in this case have been killing our men and women all over the world! If they saw you- I know you say that they didn’t- then you may be next!”
Ziva’s shoulders started to shake as the tears streaked down her cheeks. “There will always be another monster,” she echoed words she had sinabi years before. “I cannot escape them, can I?”
Tony glanced over at her from where he had placed his hands on the counter as he unleashed his feeling upon her. Watching her try to hide her sobs from him softened his anger at the whole situation and he closed the distance between them. Carefully he turned her to face him and cupped her face into his hands as he used his thumbs to brush away her tears. “We’re going to get them, okay?” he whispered as he drew her to his chest and held her there as she cried. “I didn’t mean to yell,” he breathed into her hair as he placed a halik on her temple. “I’m just tired.”
“No, you have the right to be angry, Tony,” she sniffled as she turned her head to the side. “My choices have hurt you.”
“You’re not staying after this is all finished, are you?” the words felt like sandpaper on his throat as he sinabi them.
Pulling away from him Ziva took Tony’s hand in hers and led him towards the couch. “Just lay down with me, please?”
Her request was answer enough and he gave into it deciding to take as much time as he could with her in his arms as he could get. He settled on the sopa first and Ziva followed as the laid against the pillows. They spooned for awhile not saying a word.
When Gibbs arrived at just before seven that morning he found his current agent and his former agent facing one another, limps protectively wrapped around each other, sleeping peacefully. He cleared his throat with his arms crossed. “I don’t recall this being considered a tactic for protecting a witness, DiNozzo,” he scolded as the couple jolted from their sleeping positions and into alert positions.
“Yeah, well I don’t think anything about this arraignment is considered ‘normal’, Boss,” Tony yawned, his arm still possessively wrapped around Ziva’s waist.
“I suppose not,” the silver haired agent acknowledged. “Hey, Ziver.”
“Hi, Gibbs.”
Gibbs nodded to the box that he had placed on the mesa when he came in. “Brought doughnuts if anyone’s hungry.”
No one reached for the pastries. Instead the three of them engaged in a round of challenging looks as to who would tanong or offer an answer to the chosen sleeping arraignments first and with the three players involved it looked like the case was going to be closed before an word about it was spoken. Gibbs reached into the box and pulled out one of the sweets first.
“So, while you two were here, McGee hacked away at some of the sites that our suspects provided and we have just about everything we need to nail them. Just need your statement, Ziva,” he munched away at his breakfast.
“As easy as that?” Ziva asked. “I thought it might take longer ibingiay how you were speaking on the phone when I called you.”
“Thought so too, but one of their men cracked and the case started falling into place.”
“But we barely had enough info to get just one man when I left last night!” Tony disputed as he felt his time with Ziva slipping away from him once again. Three hours of sleeping with her in his arms wasn’t enough. He wanted madami time.
“Like I said, one of the men cracked. Can’t help that it blasted the case wide open and crossed the ‘T’s’ and dotted the ‘I’s’ for us when he spilled his guts.”
“Did you bring the paperwork with you? I could fill it out here and-” Ziva had started as she snagged a doughnut from the box to nibble on.
“Nope, you’re coming to the Navy Yard. I want this written down and recorded on video,” Gibbs shutdown her thought process. “You won’t have to go to court that way,” he added.
Tony wasn’t quite sure how they had ended back up at the Navy Yard about two hours later, but they had. He still felt like he was on the sopa in the ligtas house with Ziva asleep in his arms and breathing softly on his neck, but the kahel walls that surrounded him now told him it wasn’t the truth. Gibbs had taken Ziva into the conference room to do the taped deposition about fifteen minutos before and he was ordered to stay out.
“So, Ziva, huh?” McGee asked as he stepped up beside Tony.
“Yup, Ziva.”
“How did last night, uh… go?”
“We didn’t have sex, if that’s what you’re asking, McGee,” he snapped.
McGee flushed. “I didn’t mean… it’s just that it’s been so long and you two obviously…” he let the thought hang between them.
“Didn’t happen,” Tony sinabi flatly.
“Oh.”
The two agents stood with their arms crossed staring at the door to the conference room for another ten minutos before it opened and Gibbs stepped out. “With me,” he ordered. “Vance is speaking with Ziva now.” He led the two away from the room and back to the bullpen where he had them type up their reports on the case.
After Tony turned in his ulat about an oras later he glanced in the direction of the conference rooms and back to Gibbs who just shrugged at his unasked tanong of when was Ziva going to come out. Waiting a few minutos madami he made his way to the bathroom to take care of business in there. While he was gone Vance can into the bullpen and placed an envelope on Tony’s mesa with a glance to Gibbs and then went back to his office.
Tony sat down at his mesa and Gibbs expectantly raised his head from his paperwork as Tony found what Vance had left. Opening the envelope Tony pulled the piece of paper from it and began to read:
Tony,
I do not want to cause you the pain of seeing me off so I left through the back elevator.
I wish we had madami time, but I fear that if I stayed any longer I would not be able to leave again. I still need my time, Tony. I do not know how much madami time I will need. I will stay in better contact though; you can tell the team that as well.
Always,
Ziva
P.S. – On the days that are hardest to get through I still count to a million.
Tony read the post script a dozen times as the team waited for him to say something. He looked up, a forced smile on his face, “she says that she’ll stay in better contact.”
Gibbs nodded, McGee sighed, and Ellie let the three men have their moment. pagbaba the letter once madami Tony placed it back in its envelope and tucked into his drawer under the divider the held her kuwintas and his boyhood picture.
