McGee let out a deep sigh of relief when he saw Tony and Kate walk out of the elevator. Abby looked towards the agents making their way to the bullpen, then looked back at McGee and smiled.
"See, McGee? Gibbs isn't going to kill you," she said to him, as Kate made her way to them, and Tony hung back, stopping in front of his desk, wandering what his Probie and the lab rat were up to.
Kate handed McGee a coffee. "Thanks, Kate," he said, while DiNozzo slowly made his way over.
Kate then noticed Abby standing behind Ari's desk; Abby smiled at Kate, then glanced at McGee. "How are you two doing on the case?" Kate asked, slowly.
"I can't crack the hard drive," McGee replied. "I was hoping Abby would help me out. Instead...she found ANOTHER case to work on."
"Abs?" Kate said, glancing at the desk before addressing her.
Tony grabbed McGee's coffee - to the probationary agent's annoyance - and took a drink, inserting himself between McGee, Abby and Kate.
"Probie. Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?"
McGee reached out to take his coffee back, but Tony held it away.
"Tony, give that back!"
"Not until you answer Kate's question, McGoo."
"She asked Abby."
Kate grabbed the coffee out of Tony's hand, gave it to McGee (who thanked her), and raised her palm to Tony's face when he went to take the coffee back.
"I asked ABBY, DiNozzo," Kate said, following up with an elbow to Tony's stomach. Kate turned to Abby, who was still standing behind Ari's desk, holding Bert the hippo in one hand, and one of Ari's notes in the other.
"Why are you standing behind Ari's desk and WHAT on Earth led you to do that?" Kate asked.
Abby explained the missing Caf!-Pow and the note taped to Bert - stuffed in the lab refrigerator - and her impromptu "investigation".
"You went through my desk?" Kate said.
"You two went through MY desk?" Tony followed.
"You went through Gibbs's desk? And HIS desk?" Kate added, pointing to Ari's station. "Ohmigod...he'll KILL you, Abby!"
"He'll kill you too, Probie," Tony said. "He's like Ethan Hunt, John Rambo and the Punisher rolled into one, and he's an equal opportunity killer. He'll shoot lab rats and Probies, both."
"I'm sure he's not above shooting an ex-cop either - JUNIOR," McGee said, with a smile.
Just as he was about to rifle through McGee's desk, Tony froze, then glared at McGee.
"How did you find out about THAT, McNosy?"
"So you admit it," McGee said, smiling. "There IS a Tony DiNozzo Sr."
"...I plead the Fifth."
"But you didn't deny it."
"This isn't about ME, McNoneofyourbusiness," Tony said. "This is about you AND Abby. And the trick you played on her."
"ME?" McGee half-shouted. "Tony, this has YOUR fingerprints all over it."
"Moi?" Tony replied. "I would NEVER touch the Lab Rat's Caf!-Pow, McAccuser. Neither would Kate. Neither would Gibbs - and I know damn well Ari Rambo wouldn't. Come to think of it...Ducky wouldn't either. And I don't think the Autopsy Gremlin has the nerve to try. So unless the security guard or Balboa has a sense of humor we don't know about, that leaves YOU."
"Really, Tony?" McGee protested. "Process of elimination. THAT'S how you figured out who stole Abby's Caf!-Pow?"
"I used my detective skills, McWatson," Tony followed. "That - and seeing the Caf!-Pow on the corner of your desk."
"I put it there," Abby said.
"You put it there?" Kate said. "YOU stole your own Caf!-Pow?"
"NO," Abby replied. "I put it BACK. I FOUND it on McGee's desk-"
"Further evidence to indict the Probie," Tony interjected. "Now that we've solved the case, we come up with a punishment-"
SLAP!
Tony's train of thought was stopped cold by a headslap from Gibbs, who appeared out of nowhere to he and the other three.
"Unless you've SOLVED this case for us, DiNozzo, what I want to know is what you four have found to help solve it," Gibbs said, putting his coffee on his desk.
All four looked at Gibbs, blankly, and all four were frantically trying to think of an excuse to give him for their inactions.
"Anybody?" Gibbs said, annoyed. "McGee. What's on the hard drive?"
"Uh, can't crack it-"
"And what about the blood on the money, Abs? Anything?"
"Er...still running tests, Gibbs."
"And you two. DiNozzo. Kate."
Kate stepped in to answer for Tony, who was still wincing from the unexpected headslap. "The lady claims she didn't see a thing. She said she was asleep. She wasn't very talkative, Gibbs."
"I'll say," Tony added. "She looked like she woke up from a tornado, cats meowing all over the place and the sight...boss, I'm putting in for hazard pay-"
SLAP!
"Sorry, Boss."
"Stop being sorry, DiNozzo. You and Kate go back and bring her in."
"WHAT?" They said simultaneously.
"Are ya deaf?" Gibbs said, grabbing Bert from Abby's arm. "Bring her IN."
"But she was asleep," Kate said. "What is she going to tell us-"
"When you put her in interrogation, Agent Todd - and Agent DiNozzo - ask her about her connection to her nephew," Gibbs added. "And make sure you keep them apart."
"Apart?" Tony said. "Who's the nephew?"
The elevator dinged, again, and out came Ari with a large, tall, muscular, bearded man none to pleased to be there, looking as if he had given up after a fight.
"Ask 'Officer Rambo', DiNozzo," Gibbs said, as Ari nodded in their direction while guiding the handcuffed man towards the stairs.
"I've seen that guy somewhere before," Abby said.
"You know him?" Kate asked.
"No!...I've seen him on TV. Maybe a commercial?" Abby replied, as McGee remembered when that would've been.
"Monday night. Wrestling," McGee said; Tony chuckled, while Kate's expression was a mixture of surprise and disgust.
"Jimmy said it's called 'sports entertainment', at least what we saw that one Monday night," Abby said. "Jimmy knows all about..."
Abby's voice trailed off, as she caught Gibbs' glare.
"Er, going now, Boss." "Yeah, leaving now Gibbs." Tony and Kate said in unison as they rushed towards the elevator. Abby hurriedly picked up her Caf!-Pow off McGee's desk, while McGee unhooked the hard drive from his PC; they both then scurried towards the back elevator, heading for the lab.
Gibbs headed up the stairs, towards interrogation.
He walked into Interrogation Room #2, to see the suspect already half-drenched in sweat and shaking in his seat, Ari quietly standing on the other side of the table.
"IdontwannadieIdontwannadieIdontwannadieIDONTWANNADIIIIIEEEEEMMMMAAAAAAAAANNNNNN-"
Gibbs walked over and looked the suspect in eyes; the suspect in turn stopped his babbling cold.
"Not gonna kill ya. Now sit," Gibbs said to the man, then nodded to Ari. "Officer David, with me."
Ari followed Gibbs down the stairs, briefly explaining who the suspect was and his involvement in the case.
Gibbs held his hand up to stop - and quiet - the Mossad officer as they passed the bullpen. Ari watched him pick up Bert the Farting Hippo and the note attached to his belly, and saw Gibbs walk towards the elevator, then stop and glare at Ari.
Ari got his point. Once he ran into the elevator, Gibbs hit the button for the first floor, then flipped the kill switch, stopping the elevator.
"Are you firing me, Agent Gibbs?" Ari said, innocently. "That must be the reason we are here. Or, perhaps, you want to promote me to 'probie'."
Gibbs held up Bert and the note.
"And you get to the 'tit'," Ari said.
"Saying goes 'get to the point," Gibbs replied. "Wanna tell me about this?"
"I need to work on understanding American idioms more clearly. That, or I have listened to DiNozzo far too much," Ari quipped.
Gibbs wasn't laughing, just holding Bert in his left hand and holding up the note with his right hand.
"Takes balls to do this, Ari," Gibbs said, "especially with Abby's hippo and her Caf!-Pow."
Ari looked at the note, and the hippo, and at the older NCIS agent. "You truly are, as Caitlin said, 'all-knowing."
"Don't know everything," Gibbs defered. "I DO know DiNozzo didn't pull this. Not since his first week here."
Ari considered that for a moment. "DiNozzo pulled the same joke?" Gibbs stayed silent. "I see...I should ask them myself."
"You probably should apologize to Abby and buy her a week's full of Caf!-Pows. And, buy McGee a couple of coffees or whatever that crap he drinks while you're at it," Gibbs said.
"Of course," Ari said. "I had no intention-"
"You're trying too hard, Ari," Gibbs said, and that caught the former Mossad assassin-turned-liaison to NCIS off guard.
Gibbs gave him the note he had written in haste the night before, after everyone else had gone home. Ari thought it to be a harmless joke, and no one would immediately finger him as the culprit.
"Abigail made me almost immediately, no?" Ari said.
"Yup," Gibbs replied.
"I meant no harm, Gibbs. I understand my presence here has made your team members uncomfortable, even after I have gone out of my way to amend for my sister's actions-"
"That why you did this, Ari?" Gibbs said.
"Yes...Gibbs. They fear me, somewhat. They distrust me. I do not wish that at all, in fact I wish to be as close friends with them as I see them becoming with one another. I do NOT wish to be the 'Rambo' or 'Punisher', the killing machine..." Ari's voice trailed off.
"That your father intended you to be," Gibbs said.
"BRED me to be," Ari added. "His intentions...clashed with my own dreams for my own life. And for my sisters...you know of Tali. A victim of the complex, never-ending hostility between the peoples whose blood runs through my veins. And you already know of Ziva...the heartache and terror she brought your team."
"Hadn't been for you, she would've killed Tony after she kidnapped him. And Kate and McGee a year later," Gibbs said, the memories of both incidents still fresh in his mind.
"In Norfolk," Ari said. "What she did to you and your team pained me tremendously...and what I had to do to her...broke my heart."
"You had to do it, Ari," Gibbs said. "Just like you saved McGee from shooting at those undercover cops. Like you saved Kate from Sterling...Tony during that gunfight at the container."
"It was my duty."
"It's more than that, to you," Gibbs said. "I know that. Ducky does, too. So does the Director. And, they know you care and want to undo all the harm she did."
"Then how do I break through, without making matters worse?"
"Lighten up," Gibbs said. "Like you did with the kid. And with McGee. You didn't kill DiNozzo that time."
"I do not want to, with any of you," Ari said. "I came here because I saw something you had that I've wanted all my life...family."
Gibbs put on his poker face, as he did every time anything reminded him of Shannon and Kelly.
"I want what you have here, what you are gaining here, without even realizing it," Ari continued. "My father sacrificed that without a care, for his greater mission. When Tali died, instead of comforting Ziva he used it to mold her. I was raised by Mossad as far back as I can remember."
He pulled out his wallet, and found a picture of he and Ziva when they were kids, both happy and joyous.
"My father - Eli - took that photo," Ari said. "He taught Ziva how to play baseball, of all things. He taught me how to curve the football past the keeper on a penalty kick. Both on the same day."
"He didn't do that often," Gibbs said.
"It was the last time," Ari said. "My - our, Ziva and I, childhoods were filled with training. Relentless, daily sacrifice, for Israel. America was our only friend, and even that tie could disappear. So we were our father's sacrifice on the altar, only he did what Abraham dearly did not want to do, and willingly. He shed our innocence, our childhoods and turned us into machines. We were his sacrifice for national salvation, and what is there to show for it? Two women, dead, the world robbed of their talents and contributions. A man, exiled in a foreign land, striving to gain the trust of those who have reasons to distrust him, estranged from his father. Who keeps on fighting the fight, breeding more machines to fight the never-ending war."
Ari hadn't realized that Gibbs stretched out a handkerchief to him, nor that his cheeks were wet. He turned around, composed himself, and handed the cloth back to Gibbs.
"What do you want, Ari?" Gibbs asked him.
Ari paused, looking at the photo of he and Ziva.
"Ziva once called me a prankster," he said. "The few times he wasn't around, and when certain, more...lenient...handlers were around, I would play small, harmless jokes on her. To lighten the mood, a little. She enjoyed it, more than she could let on...Eli was molding her, even then...I wonder if that girl would understand the things I've had to do-"
"Hold it right there, and listen," said the man whom Ari had come to see as more of a father than his own. "Remember the conversation we had in the basement?"
Clearly, Ari thought. It happened one month after he shot Ziva, hidden in the doorway leading to the stairs, as she moved to kill Gibbs. They talked for hours, Gibbs gauging whether he should put on his team the brother of the woman whom had made he and his team's lives hell three times in the past year and a half.
"I need you to remember what I told you, right before we ate breakfast."
"About moving on."
"Yeah," Gibbs said, looking back past Ziva, to Pacci, to Shannon and Kelly, to the estranged relationship with his own father. "What's done is done. You learn from it, you cherish the good memories, but you don't live in the past. You move on."
"Is it that simple, though?"
"Some days, Ari, I think it is. Some days, it's hard as hell to take the next step. Some days, I wish I could sail that boat across the lake, meet Shannon and Kelly on the other side, and never have to deal with any of this crap again."
"I wish I shared your faith in the afterlife," Ari said. "I have days when I fire a weapon, and I think of Ziva and what she could have become. Of what Tali could have been. I face reality, and it can be overwhelming."
"But you're a fighter...and you're a good man," Gibbs reminded him. "Think of the people here and now...of those you put your life on the line for, time and again. The ones you played the jokes on."
Both men chuckled.
"You did all you could for Ziva, and there's nothing left to do for her," Gibbs continued. "Except, be the man she wanted you to be when you were kids. Remember her as that girl, not the monster Eli created. As you move on, do that, and honor the real Ziva."
Gibbs flipped the switch, and the elevator resumed its descent.
"Thank you," Ari said.
"I trust you," Gibbs said. "More than enough to be part of my team. The others follow my lead. Just be gentle with the jokes, and with the people - like you are with McGee, and Ducky - and you'll gain their trust."
The doors opened to the sight of Tony and Kate on either side of a very loud, handcuffed older woman who just wouldn't shut up.
A couple of days later, the case was solved, and Ari was summoned up to Director Shepard's office for a quick chat. Afterwards, they both walked towards MTAC, and looked out at the bullpen.
"Hey, hey...HEY HEY HEY!" Tony yelled to no one in particular before looking towards McGee. "What'd ya do to me, Probie?"
"I haven't done a thing," McGee said, sincerely. "Unlike you, who's already stolen my-"
"LOOK AT THIS," Tony yelled back, holding up the keyboard stuck to his fingertips by superglue. Gibbs paused to look on, while Kate spit out her coffee on her monitor, then laughed, and laughed, and laughed like none of the team had seen her laugh before.
"What's so funny, KATE?" Tony snapped. "My fingers are MELDED to this keyboard."
Kate started to speak, then doubled over in more laughter. Tony looked over at McGee, who was happily grinning while leaning back in his own chair, watching the scene.
Gibbs pulled out a small bottle from his desk and walked over to Tony. "Acetone, DiNozzo," Gibbs said, before walking back to his own desk.
"What good is THAT gonna do me, Boss?" Tony whined. "Look at me. I'm Edward Scissorhands with a keyboard...Kate's laughing her butt off at me, and Probie - WHO DID THIS TO ME - is enjoying himself WAY too seriously!"
"No I didn't do this to you, Tony," McGee said, getting out of his chair and walking towards the senior field agent. "Look at the note by your phone."
"I can't pick it UP, McGlue!"
"I noticed," McGee smirked, then held up the note as Kate picked herself up off the floor behind her desk. "I'll read it for you. 'Dear Tony. Treat your probies right, or karma will get your tongue.'"
"Let me see that," Tony said, reaching out to grab the note when his keyboard collided with his monitor, then knocked over his coffee all over his lap. "OhmiGOD," Kate spit out, before putting her hands in her face in more laughter.
"I'll hold it up for you, Tony," McGee said. "It's not my handwriting."
"Let me SEE for myself, McJoker," Tony said, analyzing the handwriting, and realizing who the culprit was.
"Wanna analyze more samples, DiNozzo?" Gibbs quipped.
"NO Boss...I know who it is...and it's a good thing for Probie's sake he didn't do it," Tony said.
"Who did-did it," Kate said, making her way over to Tony's desk and seeing the note for herself. "Oh...my...god...this is genius!"
"No, it's dastardly," Tony said. "When SOMEONE shows me mercy and unglues my fingers from this THING, and Ducky's made sure my fingerprints weren't torn off by the glue...I'm going to KILL ARI!"
Kate, Gibbs, and McGee looked up, seeing Ari standing with Director Shepard. Then Kate and McGee gave him a standing ovation, while Tony looked on in shock, realizing what he just said.
Gibbs looked up at Ari and grinned, then had a good laugh himself.
"Still think you're not winning them over, Officer David?" asked Shepard.
Ari smiled in response. He finally was beginning to fit in.
-FOOF-