"Why do you call Tony your partner?" Ziva looked up at the young rookie's confused tone. The rookie had been asking her some questions for the last couple of minutes, most of which Ziva had answered without taking her eyes off the case report she was working on.
"Because he is my partner." She said simply, but the woman shook her head. Her ponytail jingled faintly. She had some kind of metal rings or bells woven into it.
"He's your teammate. Gibbs is your boss, and you, Tony and McGee are teammates. You aren't partners." Ziva shrugged.
"Tony and I are the senior field officers." Another shake, more jingling.
"That doesn't mean you're partners. Someone partnering you makes you partners. If you were partners, Jenny would've brought you in on the La Granouille case. Partners share those kinds of responsibilities." Ziva almost laughed.
"I'm not quite what Jeanne was looking for in a groom." The woman smiled, but her curiosity wasn't sated. Tony came into the bullpen, giving the woman a cursory glance before sitting down at his desk, across from Ziva's. His first act was to scribble something on a piece of paper, crumple it up, and chuck it at Ziva. Ziva caught it and acted like she was pitching it, but she was actually hiding it to read later. The woman did not miss the lack of paper plunking into the waste bin.
"Thank you, Officer David. You've helped me quite a bit." And she was gone.
"Who was that, Zee-Va?" Tony asked. Ziva, still not quite believing what had just happened, shook her head.
"A rookie." Her tone was what Abby would call "spacey." Tony gave her a concerned look. Ziva looked down at the ball of paper in her hand, un-crumpling it as quietly as possible.
Dinner my place Y/N?