Disclaimer: Please don't slather me with plaster.

Spoilers: False Witness. A little. Minimal spoilage of non-dead-thing variety.

Summary: Tony finds himself enveloped by unspeakable terror, involving an angry Ziva and a smelly dead thing.

Tony wasn't sure why he had agreed to come to Ziva's place after work. It may have been the threats, it may have been the glares, it may have been a misplaced esprit de corps – it probably didn't matter, because she was going to interpret it as an admission of guilt, as if this were something personal. But what choice did he have? When a pissed off former assassin blew into the office like a tornado and started flinging around accusations, he had learned it was best not to stand in the way. A tornado was far less dangerous.

Of course, a tornado couldn't be neutralized with Grey Goose. Not that it was a guarantee with Ziva, though he was pretty sure he'd seen a bottle of it in her place at some point. He took a deep breath and stepped out of the stairwell with his bottle. If the hallway outside her apartment were any indication, he was right to have sprung for the larger size. Whew, she had not been kidding when she'd coming storming in that morning, complaining about her apartment reeking of death when she'd returned from her…vacation.

And he had laughed. That had been his fatal error. If he had just pretended he was McGee and sat at his desk looking sympathetic as she'd slammed drawers and shoved chairs, he wouldn't be in this situation now. He tried to breathe through his mouth as he knocked. And knocked. "Ziva, it's me!" Really, if she was going to demand he help her find the source of the stink, the least she could do was be home to…

"You are here."

Only an athletically- honed reflex allowed him to catch the vodka before the bottle shattered on the floor. "How many times have I asked you not to do that?"

"Many times." Ziva pulled her wool hat off, resulting in some interesting static frizz, not that he was dumb enough to mention it. "You can smell it, yes?"

"Uh, yes." He tried not to cough as she unlocked the door and threw it open. "Were you out buying Lysol and Glade products?" He nearly lost his battle with his gag reflex. "Okay, you weren't exaggerating about the smell. Don't you have a landlord or super than can deal with this?"

"On vacation."

"Huh. You'd think they'd leave some kind of emergency number." He took her glare as they removed their coats to mean, Stop saying stupid things I've already considered. "Right, you wouldn't have enlisted your trusty chump if you'd been able to get them to do it." He waited a second for her to deny that he was a chump, but quickly realized he wouldn't be getting any reassurance on that front. "Hey, with all the excitement and smashing this morning, you never told me how your ski trip went."

"Fine."

The odor was making him lose interest in everything but someday returning to fresh air, so he let it drop with her terse answer. "Ugh. I don't think I'm gonna last too long here. Can we open a window?"

"Yes, but it will not help much."

"Personal experience?" He set his vodka bottle on the kitchen counter, realizing that there was not going to be any drinking in Ziva's apartment until the air was again breathable. "God, how did you sleep here?"

"I did not. I told you that I am staying in a hotel."

"Right, so it's an assassin-conquering stink." He took a few deep breaths of the cold air that poured through the window she had just thrown open in the kitchen. As his head began to clear, he said, "You don't have to pay for a hotel, you know. You could stay at my place."

"The hotel is fine."

"How come you didn't at least call when you got home and found…" he waved his hands around to indicate the air in the apartment, "this?"

"At two in the morning?"

"That's when you got in last night?"

"Can we just…"

"Yeah. Let's find whatever it is and get out. Did you check the garbage?"

"No, Tony, I bombed out four-hundred dollars for a hotel room because I forgot to get rid of some old fish bones."

He cocked his head as he translated Ziva-to-English. "Uh, it's shelled out. And four-hundred? Where the heck are you staying?"

"I paid for two nights."

"Uh-huh. Are you gonna hit me if I ask about the possibility of something in the fridge?"

"Probably."

"Okay. Did you check all the cabinets and stuff?"

"Quickly. I did not find the source."

He exhaled loudly. "I hope you're in the mood to move some appliances and furniture, then."

An hour, stove, refrigerator, sofa, bureaus and chairs later, they still hadn't found what was causing the stench. It wasn't in the lingerie drawer, that was for sure; Tony had triple-checked, just in case. Of course, he couldn't be confident it wasn't in the bedside table, as he'd only gotten a brief glimpse before Ziva had shoved him away. Hell of a glimpse, though. If the whole apartment hadn't smelled of death, he would certainly have… The thought was lost as he made a quick sprint to the nearest window for some fresh air. Oh. Close one.

He also had to admit that Ziva was right – opening the windows was only minimally helpful. He was sorely tempted to crack open the Grey Goose. In the car. He doubted he'd be able to keep anything down in here at the moment. "I'm about ready to give up. When's your super gonna be back?"

She was suddenly at his side, breathing deeply at the window. "Not until the weekend."

"So if we don't find whatever it is…"

"I will be accepting your couch for several days."

"There's plenty of room in the bed for both of us, plus a pillow fort down the middle to minimize kicking injuries."

"I have already paid for my hotel room tonight." She smiled. "Besides, you did not bring enough vodka to convince me that is a good idea."

He felt like, given less stinky circumstances, he could have thought of a good comeback, but he stuck to the immediate problem. "Well, I think the liquor store is closed for the night, so we better find whatever it is."

"If it is a rodent, I am moving."

Taking a final deep breath from the kitchen window, he reluctantly closed it. "It's probably because they're digging up your street. It drives them out of the sewers when they get scared. Or something."

"Why are you closing the window?"

"I hate to say it, but maybe we should close them all so it's easier to sniff this thing out."

Ten minutes later, he felt that he'd made one of his stupider suggestions. Ziva was looking at him as if she were ready to deal with a second dead thing in her apartment. He wandered down the short hallway to put some distance and obstacles between himself and her building wrath. He was getting close to his goal when he heard her call, "It is definitely worse in here."

"Yeah, maybe we should open the windows again."

"No, I mean the smell is worse here than in the bedroom. And it is not in my nightstand, so stop trying to check there!"

His hand froze on the knob. "I wasn't…"

"Get your big nose out here and help me!"

"Hey, my nose is proportional and attractive!"

"Then bring it over here. I think it is in the vent."

"My nose is not…"

"The dead thing!"

He took a deep breath as he hopped up onto the sideboard beside her. "Oh, man. That is not cool. You have a screwdriver?"

"No need."

He shook his head. "Right, you have a knife." Now that his head was on nearly the same level as the vent, he was getting a real faceful of the odor. "Ugh." It only got worse when she finished unscrewing the cover of the vent. "Oh, God, that's nasty!"

"Do you see anything?"

"Yeah. Yeah. Dead rat." He shuddered involuntarily. "Not fresh."

"I will get you a pair of gloves."

He turned around and almost lost his balance on the sideboard as she landed gracefully on the floor and walked toward the kitchen. "Me? Why me?"

"Because you are standing on my furniture, scuffing it with your shoes."

"But…" He noted that she had taken off her own shoes at some point. He sighed heavily, which was a mistake because he then had to inhale and his face was still at rat-level. At least Ziva hadn't taken her time; she was already handing him a plastic bag and pair of latex gloves. "Thanks."

"Try not to let anything…spill."

He held the bag under the opening and reached into the vent. Do it quick, like taking off a band-aid. A painful, hair-yanking band-aid coming off a smelly, infected wound. He pinched the tip of the icky, naked tail between his gloved thumb and forefinger and gave a reflexive jerk backward. The tail was the only thing that ended up in the bag. "Oh."

"What?"

"I pulled the tail off." Before she could yell at him, he added, "The rest of it is still intact in the vent. Just give me a sec…" A few disgusting seconds later, he was jumping down from her sideboard with a surprisingly heavy plastic bag. "You've got a dumpster in back, right? Because I don't think your neighbors would be happy with this guy in…" He realized he was being steered toward the door.

"Yes, thank you."

She was standing on the sideboard with a can of disinfectant spray aimed into the vent when he returned. "Hey, I checked the bag before I tossed SuperBen because I thought it might be a possum, but it was definitely a rat."

The fumes from the spray had to be affecting her, because the next thing she said was, "Crack open the windows, grab the vodka and we will go to my hotel."

He was too floored to obey at first. "Um…you're gonna leave the windows open?"

"Just a bit. I think we are high enough up that it will not matter. Besides, I will set the alarm."

"Uh…"

"Look, the TV in my hotel room is at least 42 inches and I know how much of a thrill you get from ordering room service." She used his shoulder to balance as she climbed down. "It is the least I can do to thank you."

"You're sure it's not a trap?"

"My hotel room also has a king-sized bed and plenty of pillows. I mean, if you drink too much to drive safely." She held out a room keycard. "Eight-oh-seven."

He checked his watch and hurried to grab the bottle and his coat. "Buckeyes and Boilermakers tip off in ten minutes! To the Hilton!"

By halftime, he had had enough to drink and eat in the big comfy hotel bed to ask, "Why'd you need my help? Unless I'm drunker than I think, you're not usually squeamish about dead stuff."

She stared at him steadily. "Thank you for coming."

"Hey, whenever you need someone to…"

She smiled. "Would you like to order dessert?"

He found he had certainly had enough to drink to be distracted by chocolate cake.