Ziva lay in her bed staring at the man lying next to her. He was everything she had ever wanted; he was kind, understanding, gorgeous and he was able to truly accept her for who she had been without losing sight of who she was or who she could be. His name was Ethan, they had met in the bookstore when he unabashedly walked up to her and told her not to waste her time with the novel she had been considering buying and instead offered her one that he said was " was truly brilliant". Their relationship had taken off from there and it had now been almost three months. Tonight she had finally relented to his pleading and told him generally of her past, that she had been an assassin for the Israeli intelligence agency, but she dared not tell him everything. She wasn't sure if he, well honestly she wasn't sure if she could handle dredging up all the painful memories from her past life. She was a new person with a new life that was nothing but a shadow of what it used to be. She hoped that after the few tid bits she had given him tonight he would drop the subject and she felt confident that he would, he seemed satisfied enough that she had trusted him with what little information she had. She of course had checked his background and their were no glaring problems in his record, sure he had racked up one or two misdemeanor charges mostly traffic tickets and one charge of trespassing when he was sixteen, but that was nothing to get your panties in a bunch over. But despite all of this something wasn't right. She tried to blame it on her issues with trust (thanks to her father and Michael) but no matter what she did she just couldn't shake the feeling that something was off with this man, he was just too good to be true.
Everyone at NCIS had found about Ethan shortly after they began dating. Tony seemed to pick up on her little secret immediately and through various nefarious machinations he had discovered the identity of her mystery man. From then on he insisted on constantly pestering her about Ethan, wanting to know what kind of guy he was and when he could finally meet him. Ziva had come close to killing Tony quite a few times when his constant badgering became too much for her to handle but somehow she managed to hold back. Mcgee and Ducky simply said they were happy for her and that they would love to meet Ethan. Gibbs of course didn't seem to care too much. Abby was nearly as hard to handle as Tony was; constantly asking questions and begging to meet Ethan, but she didn't' bother Ziva quite as much. Abby's questioning lacked the jealous motives Tony desperately attempted to hide. They didn't know it but tomorrow they were all going to meet Ethan, he was going to pick her up from work. It may seem silly but Ziva was nervous about introducing Ethan to her coworkers, they were like family to her and as much as she may try to deny it she needed their stamp of approval on her new boyfriend. She really wanted them to like Ethan because maybe if they felt like he was a good guy she could finally rid herself of these feelings of doubt.
Tony sat by himself staring at the television screen in his living room, there was a movie playing but he was too distracted to notice. He couldn't stop thinking about Ziva and this boyfriend of hers. He hadn't even met the guy and he felt like he was not good for Ziva. He tried to blame his feelings on jealousy because truthfully he was quite jealous. He couldn't even begin to count how many times he'd thought to himself "screw Rule 12" and almost drove over to Ziva's apartment but he knew he couldn't do that, it would ruin everything. They were friends and that's the way it needed to be, for now anyway. But his jealousy couldn't explain the foreboding feeling he had about this Ethan guy, hopefully he would get to meet him soon and put those feelings to rest. At least he hoped he could because he more than anything he just wanted Ziva to be happy.