Disclaimer: If I'm writing fanfiction, I probably don't own the souce material.
A/N: What did all of you think of Monique? Dr. Ryan? I'm still on the fence about both of them, if I'm to be frank, so I'd welcome other opinions.
Monique has to admit that she has been looking forward to meeting Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo. Ziva mentions him regularly. She mentions all of her team regularly, of course, but there is something indefinably different in her voice when she talks about this man.
Hmmm… he is very handsome…
Monique cannot help but impishly ask her friend, "How do you concentrate, Ziva, with so many attractive men around?"
"It's easier than you think," Ziva retorts.
One thing that you must know about Ziva David is that she is an excellent actress, but a terrible liar. So it comes as no surprise that while Ziva's exasperated tone and words are spot on, her body language gives her away; her lips quirk fleetingly upwards before she catches herself, and her eyes dart downwards. There are numerous small indicators that Ziva is not being entirely truthful, but the most obvious is her rush to physically distance herself from both the person asking the question and the person whom the question relates to.
It is perhaps not quite so easy for Ziva to concentrate as she would have them believe.
After a brief discussion with Chaplain Maria Castro, Monique changes the subject by mentioning the hotel's arepas.
DiNozzo glances briefly at her, but his gaze is primarily on Ziva as he smiles charmingly and says, "I do love hot arepas."
On a hunch, Monique asks him flirtatiously, "What else do you love, Agent DiNozzo?"
His eyes flick involuntarily over towards Ziva, who immediately half-turns away from him. As Monique watches, Ziva's eyes lift to meet his for a split-second, and Monique's suspicions rise.
The adoring look that he fixes Ziva with at lunch simply cements it in her mind: there is something going on here, and she wants to know what.
-–- -–- -–- -–- -–-
She cannot figure Anthony DiNozzo out. On one hand, he is loud and ethnocentric; on the other, he is familiar with arepas and speaks decent Spanish, even if he does mix it up with Italian every now and then. He is goofy and naïve (he honestly thought that the hotel employee would return with change?), but he is capable of hard-faced cynicism. He jokes around constantly, but is clearly a capable investigator. The man is baffling.
So when the opportunity presents itself to talk to him alone, Monique seizes it.
Ziva and Maria are picking up breakfast for everyone at the corner bodega, which leaves Monique and DiNozzo by themselves in the hotel room.
The air is tense.
"You do not trust me," Monique says pointblank.
DiNozzo crosses his arms over his chest and says, "You aren't telling us everything."
"Perhaps not," Monique concedes, "But I have told you everything that you need to know."
"That's for us to decide," DiNozzo says. "Why don't you tell us anyway, just so we can be sure."
"Think whatever you like of me," Monique replies curtly, "But know this: I would never do anything that would harm Ziva."
DiNozzo's brow furrows. "I want to believe you," he says, "but I can't."
Monique nods slowly. She can respect that, even if she doesn't like it.
To fill the silence, DiNozzo strides over to the rumpled pull-out sofa bed, and begins to smooth and tuck in the sheets.
A few minutes pass before they resume conversation.
"I owe you my thanks, Agent DiNozzo," Monique tells him at last, voice quiet.
"For what?" he asks, glancing up from making the pull-out bed.
"For bringing her back from that place," Monique says seriously. "When I heard…"
Her voice trails off at the memory and she shivers involuntarily. It had been a call far too close for comfort.
The man's face becomes solemn and his lips tighten. He jerks his head in the slightest of acknowledging nods.
"And now, as Ziva's friend, I must ask you a question," Monique adds briskly. "What is Ziva to you?"
He frowns slightly and opens his mouth.
Monique holds up a hand and cuts him off.
"No, do not tell me yet," she says. "Think about it and tell me later. And be honest, please. Ziva is too important a subject for lies."
-–- -–- -–- -–- -–-
She doesn't get her answer until right before they leave.
DiNozzo's accent is slurred, so she is not entirely certain what his first sentence is supposed to be. It is either "Yo no podía hacerlo sin ella" or "Yo no poderío ser esto sin ella." Either way, he ends it with an earnest "Es una mujer increíble."
He says it as a simple statement of fact, and this tells her all that she needs to know. In fact, she does not even think that it matters whether he said "podía hacerlo" or "poderío ser esto." From what she has seen of the man, they are the same thing to him. He appears to link his identity to his job, so saying that he 'could not do this' without Ziva and saying that he 'would not be like this' without Ziva seem like roughly equivalent statements.
The fact that he quickly adds on a disclaimer is equally telling; here is a man who uses his persona as a smokescreen. Monique strongly suspects that if she were to watch Puss in Boots, she would not find those words anywhere in the movie.
So now she has her answer as to what Ziva is to him. And although DiNozzo is a confusing man, Monique cannot help but like what she has seen; he is good for Ziva.
And she is willing to forgive much for anyone who makes her Ziva smile.