The day was another long one that was interrupted only by the appearance of a group of men in dark suits, and the director physically tearing the case file from Gibbs' hands and ordering them off the case. Ziva was sure that Abby and McGee had spent the hour between the closing of the case and the introduction of the new one exchanging emails fraught with conspiracy theories. Ziva and Tony had made hiding from Gibbs into an Olympic sport. He hadn't been thrilled when the mysterious case had been taken away from them, to put it mildly. Abby hadn't been there to witness it, something which Ziva could only interpret as a blessing. Gibbs had come very close to breaking down right there, his frustration with the political factor that had been introduced along with the director becoming very apparent. It could have been devastating for the girl; she thought the man invincible.
She waited for a lull in the new case to go visit Abby down in her lab. She wasn't working when Ziva got there, instead leaning back in her chair, sucking on the straw of one of the massive slushes that always seemed to appear on her desk courtesy of Gibbs. She was typing one-handed, smirking at whatever she was reading on the screen. She set down the drink when a new song came on, and began headbanging to the harsh electric guitars and drums. Ziva was loathed to interrupt her. It was the most relaxed she'd seen the lab tech since she first met her. She almost backed out, almost left her to her brief rest bit from reality. The choice was taken from her hands as Abby spun her chair, ending up staring straight across the lab at Ziva. She reached over and turned down the music, sitting up straighter and suddenly becoming hostile.
Before the Israeli could say a word, Abby spoke with a venom that Ziva had only heard directed towards her person. "You can tell Jethro that he will have his fucking results when I've finished them, and sending people down to tag team me will merely increase the chances that his evidence will be pushed to the bottom of the overly massive pile of evidence which is building up on my desk at a positively alarming rate. All of my machines have been working nonstop since I got in this morning and therefore he will get his results as soon as physically possible, and not a moment sooner. And no, just because he's Jethro Gibbs and he bribes me with caffeine and he stares threateningly at anything that pisses him off, the laws of physics just won't bend for him. Even, though I'm not entirely sure on this one, if he says "please"."
Ziva held up her hands as if fending off an attack. "I'm not coming on Gibbs' request. In fact, I don't think he knows I'm down here, and would probably have my head if he found out."
"Oh." Abby grinned, dropping right back into her relaxed state, flipping a pigtail over her shoulder. "I'm worth risking life and limb over? I'm touched."
Ziva moved farther into the lab, the stark white of the tiled floor providing a backdrop straight out of a horror movie for the gleaming metal counters and sterile instruments of indefinable purpose. Mechanized devices, the function of which Ziva could only guess at hummed away contentedly, performing a multitude of tasks to identify and incriminate perpetrators of crimes of all kinds. Abby was the perfect mad scientist archetype, sitting with a manic grin on her black painted lips, with her raven hair flowing over her slender shoulders like a shawl.
"Gibbs isn't thrilled with the director taking us off of the case," she explained. "I had to get away from the tension for a while."
Abby was still wearing Ziva's clothes, a fact which hadn't gone unnoticed by the Mossad agent. The soft cotton fell around her frame in the way a summer day breezes over the landscape and all that reside there, a sharp contrast to the mental image that her name brought to mind, that of layers of black lace and velvet and leather against white skin. Her eyes glittered with amusement, but Ziva could detect a slight darkening of concern when she mentioned their superior, and she wondered just how much of that particular story Abby hadn't yet confided in her.
"He's really pissed about that," the Goth agreed, twisting her fingers together in her lap. Ziva perched on the corner of a table, brushing her unruly hair out of her eyes.
"No one's telling us anything. The body's gone, all of our records of the case, everything; just disappeared."
"What, No special intel from your pal the director?" Ziva detected an undercurrent of the girl's former hostility as she arched one thin eyebrow snidely.
"Director Shepard has been less than forthcoming with what information she chooses to share with me," Ziva stated coolly, folding her hands. If Abby wanted to play, she would play. The implications in her words that she was in fact privy to information not accessible without an inside connection placed her on a higher ground than the lab tech. Ziva had had suspicions that Abby suffered from a massive inferiority complex when she first arrived at NCIS and witnessed the girl's interactions with the members of the team. As her time there increased, so did her understanding of those with whom she worked. It wasn't Abby who suffered from the inferiority complex as much as Tony, and if she had to make a guess, she'd say Abby was borderline suicidal. The scars on her wrists and the admonitions of previous attempts by Abby herself served to cement this theory in her mind, and she was determined to keep an eye on her in order to observe any patterns of self-destructive behavior she might exhibit. The previous day had been a perfect example, in Ziva's thoughts, of Abby's disregard for her personal well-being.
Abby turned back to her computer, picking up her drink. She took a long sip, and promptly choked, coughing and obviously trying not to spit it everywhere. Ziva slid from the table, moving over to stand behind her. "Abby? Are you alright?"
The girl nodded, setting aside her drink and typing madly as she continued to cough. "People in IRC are mocking me," she said, completely confusing Ziva.
"Did you eat today?" Ziva asked, noting that it was almost four PM.
Abby nodded, tilting her head up to look at her backwards. "Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. An entire bole of soup, a cookie and a lot of coffee and caf-pows. And no painkillers – Jee, I wonder where those got to? I mean, they might have magically hopped out of my purse and returned to their home planet, but I doubt it."
Ziva shrugged. She felt no regret in the fact that she had stolen the bottle from Abby that morning. It wasn't like the Goth couldn't buy more, and Ziva was sure Abby's medicine cabinet at home wasn't exactly barren, but if she could prevent her from using drugs to force her body to do more work than it was meant to for even one day, she would do so gladly.
A high-pitched whining exploded from a nearby cubical machine, and Abby spun out of her chair, bounced off of Ziva, into a table and finally landed in front of the machine, which she proceeded to silence with the push of a button. "Shiny," she said blandly, and a printer jumped to life.
Abby walked over to it, pulling the papers from the tray as they fluttered into place. "Have you seen anyone off of McKay's team lately? I think Laura said they were going back to the crime scene, which would be very bad because I lost McKay's cell number, and he's worse than Gibbs if he doesn't get his results ASAP."
Ziva had never heard of, let alone met the people of whom Abby was talking. "Maybe he hasn't discovered the miracle of coffee yet," she suggested, moving out of Abby's way as she walked back to the computer chair, reading the papers and not watching where she was going.
"Oh believe me, anyone who's worked with the government for more than a week knows all of the ins and outs of the cure to all things work related," Abby flopped back into her chair. "Coffee rules."
"Have you even started processing our evidence?" Ziva asked, already knowing the answer but hoping, with some small bit of remaining optamism that she was wrong.
"Nope," Abby shook her head. "But if you promise not to tell Gibbs I didn't start running it as soon as he dropped it off, I might be able to do a bit of shifting so that the stuff you guys brought in is next on the list."
Really, it wasn't even a decision. "Of course." Anything that kept Gibbs below the boiling point was worth a million lies. The phone on Abby's desk rang shrilly.
"Abby Sciuto, NCIS forensics division, how can I help you?" Ziva hadn't been aware that the Goth could sound so professional. She grabbed a piece of paper and a pen, jotting down information as fast as she could.
"Okay. Yeah. Cool. Really now? Jee, I wonder how that happened. …heh." She made dismissive gestures at Ziva until the Israeli gave up on getting anymore interesting conversation out of her and left, the glass doors sealing away the sound of the music which Abby turned up as soon as she started walking out.
XXX
"It's seven-thirty at night," Ziva sighed as Tony knocked on the doors to the high school for the fifth time. "No one is going to be here."
He shrugged, giving up on knocking and focusing all his attention on the door bell beside the doors. "You'd be surprised. The school's open until ten. A lot of functions go on at high school when classes are over. People rent the gyms, games are going on, study groups, parent/teacher meetings, the list goes on. I wouldn't be surprised if our friend the principal is still here."
"Things would have been so much more convenient if he had just stayed at home tonight," she reflected, studying a particularly explicit display of graffiti.
"However no where near difficult enough," Tony explained cheerily. "This way, Gibbs gets to torture us far past quitting time because he's pissed at the director. And, ya know, really? This could wait until tomorrow. The guy's not a suspect, just a witness. We're not expecting him to make a sudden trip to the Bahamas or anything. But no, we just have to get his statement tonight. Never mind that some of us actually have personal lives. Oh no, our problems are positively minuscule when compared to Gibbs' pissing match with the director. It'd be so much easier if they just had sex and got it over with. Then we could all rest easy at night because we'd actually be at home at night instead of outside of some second-rate high school looking for some idiot principal who couldn't be bothered to stick around for the police to question."
She arched an eyebrow at him. "You had a date tonight."
He groaned. "Katrina Davies. Only the most beautiful pharmaceutical technician in the state. And she was going to go out with me tonight. But no, I had to call and cancel. Now she'll never go out with me."
"Poor baby."
He glared at her. "Hey now. Women like this one don't come along all that often. She was special. A delicate flower—"The doors swung open, almost catching Tony across the jaw. He hopped backwards, flailing his arms. "We're with NCIS," he said without hesitation, still trying to get his footing. "We need to speak with Principal Douglas Pine."
The potbellied, balding man in the doorway stared at them with disdain. "What, exactly, is NCIS?"
Ziva and Tony exchanged exasperated glances, and pulled out their badges. "Naval Criminal Investigative Service," they chorused.
"We need to speak to Mr. Pine in regards to a murder we believed him to have witnessed," Ziva continued.
The man studied their badges distrustfully. Ziva pulled her jacket closer around her -- October nights in DC were chilly. Tony shifted from his left foot to his right. The man blew irritably into his beard, and stepped outside, closing the door behind himself. He wore a white tee-shirt with the logo of the school emblazoned across the front in painfully bright colours. Ziva assumed the school was playing host to a sports event. The cold didn't seem to affect him, and Ziva made a conscious effort not to huddle in her thin coat.
"You're talkin' to him," the man told them, sounding bored.
Tony kept a completely professional smile in place as he shook the man's hand. "I'm Special Agent Tony DiNozzo, this is Officer Ziva David. Can you tell us where you were this morning, around eight-thirty?"
Pine looked at Tony like he was an idiot. "I was here, Mr. DiNozzo." He emphasized the second syllable of Tony's name, making it ‘Da-nose-o.
"What time did you arrive?" Tony asked. Ziva noted that the cold didn't seem to be causing him any grief, either.
"I got here at seven in the AM. I certainly didn't witness no murder."
Can anyone corroborate that?" Ziva asked coldly. She didn't like this man, and it was a wonder to her that he was the representation for an institution of learning.
Tony gave her a warning glance. "We just want to make sure no one gets any ideas of trying to connect you to the death," he told Pine smoothly.
"I was in a meeting with my staff from seven-fifteen until eight-thirty. School started an hour late today ‘cause of the staff meeting. The kids didn't start classes till nine."
"And what did you do after the meeting, Mr. Pine?" Tony asked, still smiling in an open, friendly manner.
"I had a call from the board of trustees. Then I went out to pick up coffee for the office. After that I had to deal with a student who decided it'd be fun to pull the fire alarm."
Tony nodded, and tugged on his jacket, straightening it. "Great. You won't mind if we just check all of that out in the morning?"
Pine shrugged. "Go ahead. I got nothing to hide."
Tony nodded, and signaled to Ziva that they were leaving. "Thanks for your time. You have a good night."
"You too, Agent."
They reached the car, and Tony slipped into the driver's side as soon as he unlocked the vehicle. By the time Ziva got in, he had the heat on full blast, and was rubbing his arms. The smile was gone. "Somehow, I don't think I missed much not going to public school," he said, rolling his eyes at the building that was just visible through the encroaching darkness. "Some people just have that air about them. The one that makes you want to shoot them and put the rest of the world out of its misery."
He grinned appreciatively. "Funny. You kinda struck me as that sort of person when I first met you." She resisted the urge to stick out her tongue.
"And you struck me as a sexist pig."
He pulled out of the parking lot. "I guess we're both good judges of character."
"Are we done now?" she asked, pushing her hands through her hair tiredly.
"Yes. He can't expect us to work any later than this. I intend on going straight home after I drop you off."
"My car's at HQ," she told him.
"Yep. Which is why you're going to deliver our info to Gibbs."
"Tony, he'll probably have me working until midnight."
He grinned. "If you're lucky."
"I'll email it to him."
He shook his head. "I don't think he knows how to check his email."
She stared at him. "Of course he does. Who doesn't know how to check their email in America, land of the technological advances?"
Tony shrugged. "Gibbs."
She sighed. "Of course. Just… to make our lives hell?"
Tony nodded. "You got it."
"Wonderful."
Tony was laughing at her. She could tell; he wasn't even trying to hide the fact. She focused all her energy on warming up, and ignoring him. The rest of the trip was spent in silence.
"Have a good night, Ziva," he told her when they pulled up outside of HQ. "Oh. And tell Abby I need to keep her copy of Children Of The Corn for a little longer."
She glanced back at him before closing the door. "What makes you think I'm going to go see her?"
He laughed. "I wasn't born yesterday." She stepped back, shutting the door. Tony pealed out, tires squealing and she was left to ponder what his last words could imply.
XXX
She didn't think of Tony when the first place she went when getting inside was Abby's lab. Jackson had looked at her strangely when she had reentered the building, but all she had had to say was "Gibbs." And he seemed to understand.
"Sorry about that," he said with feeling, and handed her belongings back to her.
Abby was asleep over her desk when Ziva entered the darkened lab. The girl was curled up on a futon in the corner, and all her computers were displaying a blank screen. Ziva walked over to her sleeping form as quietly as possible, studying her in the dim reflections of the streetlights outside the windows. Her hair was still down, spread out over the pillow like a black halo, and in the purple clothing she looked more like a little girl than a woman.
Ziva had always imagined Abby as appearing just as demonic when she was asleep than when she was awake. Now, all of her makeup had been wiped off and her eyes closed in sleep, Ziva could glimpse a human being beneath all the masks. "Abby," she said softly, touching the other woman's shoulder.
She woke immediately, shooting up into a sitting position. "Hi!"
Ziva stepped back quickly. "Hi. Were you planning on staying here all night?"
Abby nodded. "Yeah. I'm running tests that need to be monitored, and I need the results every half hour. However? I am sleeping in between, so you can't freak out at me."
"Is Gibbs still here?"
Abby nodded. "Yeah. You got stuff for him?"
"Not much. Tony and I just got back from visiting a high school."
Abby made a face. "Was that fun?"
"Not exactly."
"You heading out?"
"If Gibbs lets me."
Abby grinned. "You write it down?"
Ziva nodded, handing over her notes when Abby extended a hand. "I'll give these to him. You shoo before he finds you and makes you work all night."
? The Israeli blinked. "Thank you."
"No problem. Maybe you'll be able to relax for a few hours. Have some you time."
"Me time?"
Abby nodded. "Like, play your piano, or something. I dunno. Call friends, have a bubble bath, watch TV, go out and get drunk." She shrugged.
"Thank you, Abby," Ziva said, nodding to the sheet of paper in the girl's hand. "I'll see you tomorrow."
Abby bounced up, walking towards Ziva. "No problem. I'm gonna go see Gibbs. If we finish up I might catch a ride home with him. Or I'll just sleep here."
"Oh!" Ziva snapped her fingers. "Tony told me to tell you that he needs to keep your copy of Children Of The Corn a little longer than expected."
Abby rolled her eyes. "This just proves that he has a man crush on Courtney Gains."
Ziva stared, shrugged, and smirked. "And here I thought he was in a relationship with McGee."
Abby skidded to a halt, spun on her heal, and held up her hands. "Back up. What?!"
Ziva laughed. "Good night, Abby." She walked out of the lab, smiling to herself as the other woman put in calls to McGee and Tony, screaming into her cell with fervor.
Author's Chapter Notes:
In which Tony and McGee are in a relationship. ...but not really.
Chapter End Notes:
There is a method to my madness. There's an episode, I'm not sure which, where Ziva implies that Tony and McGee are special friends.Also hints of Gibbs/Abby, but I can't select multiple pairings with my screenreader.