MISCOMMUNICATION

(What could happen if an Australian gets assigned to Team Gibbs)

Tony DiNozzo, Ziva David and Bruce LaPaglia were waiting in the Director's office as they were instructed. Tony held an icepack to his jaw and Bruce was holding a handkerchief to his nose to stem the bleeding. Ziva sat in the middle while looking pretty pleased with her self over everything.

Jenny walked into her office and looked at the three agents that sat in front of her. Tony had been with the agency the longest… Ziva was Mossad and therefore very well disciplined and LaPaglia was part of the foreign exchange program to learn the American way of investigating and therefore representing his country, Australia… All three of them should have known better as to not get into fighting with each other. She successfully hid a smirk at Tony's bruised cheek and LaPaglia's bloody nose.

"Any of you want to tell me what happened?" Jenny asked. She almost felt like a high school principal that's always having troublesome students sent into her office. "Agent DiNozzo… You begin," it was an order and not up for discussion.

"He hit me for no reason," Tony pointed past Ziva and at Bruce. "I was just talking as normally as I do," he said.

"Ha!" Bruce responded quickly. "I hit you for no reason? I had a perfect reason to hit you," he added.

"And what was the reason Agent LaPaglia?" Jenny asked. He wasn't denying it so that was the start in the right direction. "Not that there's ever a good reason to strike a fellow agent," Jenny added.

"He was being disrespectful to Officer David," he answered.

"It's David," Ziva replied with annoyance.

"Well, Agent DiNozzo was being disrespectful to Officer Dah-Veed," Bruce quickly corrected himself. He had first hand experience with what her temper was like. "Tony kept commenting about her…" Bruce cut himself off.

"About her what?" Jenny's eyes

"Well I can't repeat it in front of you and Officer Dah-Veed," Bruce answered. He thought him self as too much of a gentleman to do that.

"All I said that I think Ziva has the cutest fanny in NCIS," Tony defended himself. He couldn't figure why that had caused the Australian to act violently towards him. "No offence to you Director," Tony said calmly.

"None taken," she smiled.

"Have you all got a few sheep loose in the top paddock?" Bruce asked with a shocked expression. He couldn't believe that they were just throwing that word around in the present company. "You honestly don't have a problem with him commenting on your…" Bruce cleared his throat. "Your, you know?"

"He is Tony," Ziva said. "We are use to it. We come to expect it. I honestly do not see the big deal about it," she added.

"You mean you don't comment about fannies in Australia?" Tony asked.

Bruce felt somewhat flustered. "Not unless you want your faces slapped or worse," he answered uncomfortably.

"What? Why?" Tony asked. "Don't Australian women like having their asses talked about?" he was bewildered. Surely not all women enjoy that, but there had to be some that did.

"What?" Bruce asked as he matched Tony's bewildered expression. "You're saying that… That word is referring to a girl's bum?" Bruce asked. There seemed to be a lot to learn about the Australian-American translation.

"Yeah," Tony answered. "Why, what do you think it means?" He asked. It was tough trying to understand the Australian that was for sure.

"Well…" Bruce began to say. Trying to find the right words.

"Just spit out Agent LaPaglia," Jenny said impatiently. She wanted to wrap this up as quickly as possible.

"Excuse me?" Bruce blinked a couple of times. "If you really want me to… In Oz, that term," he pointed to Tony so they knew what he was referring to. "Is what we use to call pussy," Bruce cleared his throat.

Jenny's face turned red. "So that makes your reaction to Tony's words understandable. Do we all agree?" She waited for the three to nod. "Now what happened to your nose Agent LaPaglia?" Jenny asked.

"Officer Da- Dah-Veed punched me for no reason," Bruce answered. He was just talking to her normally when Ziva turned around and struck him on the nose. It was obvious that she was a capable fighter but it was another thing to actually experience it first hand. "I was just talking to her and then wham!" He raised his voice and made a punching motion to accentuate the point.

"It was not for no reason Agent LaPaglia," Ziva defended herself. She felt that she had good reason to act the way she did.

"Like what?" Bruce asked. "What possible reason could you have for striking me? If it was because I hit Agent DiNozzo here, I could understand," Bruce answered. But the two events seemed unconnected.

"You talked about Tony being disrespectful to me," Ziva snapped. "Why do you not think about how disrespectful you were to me?" She asked.

"Name one thing I said that was disrespectful," Bruce asked.

"You suggested to me that we become mates," Ziva said in an angry tone. The conversation only happened about ten minutes earlier had escaped Bruce's memory. "That should not have been forgotten already," Ziva said.

"What's wrong with that?" Bruce asked.

Ziva's eyes were fuming. "I do not know you all that well. But what makes you think that I would want to have sex with you?" She asked in an extremely dangerous tone.

"What?!" Bruce asked. "Crikey no. Where'd the bloody hell did that come from?" That came out of the blue.

"You suggested we become mates," Ziva repeated a bit slower so that Bruce could understand perfectly.

"Whoa, wait a minute. No!" Bruce responded excitedly. "I didn't say we should mate I said we should be mates," he tried to explain quickly but only ended up confusing the issue more.

"That means something different in Australia?" Tony leaned forward so he could look directly at Bruce. He'd interviewed a couple of Australian women before and was amazed at how they talked. There was still so much he didn't get.

"Yes!" Bruce shouted the answer. "It means really good friends. I was just saying that I wanted us to become really good friends," Bruce calmed down.

"Then why did you not just say that?" Ziva asked.

"I'm so use to saying mate," Bruce answered.

"Are we all sorted then?" Jenny asked. "Is this miscommunication over?"

"Yes Director," They all answered accompanied with the nod of the head. The three stood up and left the office.

"In future, make sure you know what each other means," Jenny said just before they left.

Tony, Ziva and LaPaglia briskly descended the stairs and straight into the deathly gaze of Agent Gibbs. "Where the hell have you three been?" He asked angrily. He'd been out for coffee and when he came back everybody was gone… That was half an hour ago. The unexplained absence demanded explanation. "What happened to you two?" he pointed to Tony, who held an icepack against his cheek and LaPaglia's nose looked slightly swollen.

"Well," Tony said. "I got hit for talking about asses, Boss," he smiled.

"And I got hit for saying that we should become really good friends," Bruce answered as he sat down.

"Ziva?" Gibbs asked.

"I hit him," Ziva nodded in Bruce's direction.

"I can't leave you three alone for five minutes now?" Gibbs asked gruffly.

A/N: This came about because of the differences in Australian and American terms. And yes, LaPaglia is named after Johnathon LaPaglia(Who was born in South Aus) who played Langer on NCIS