Twelve days. They had been watching the storage locker for twelve days. Gibbs looked at his watch. Five minutes until his and Ziva's shift was over.
Ziva. Boy, was he glad she was his stakeout partner. Not that the shifts had been determined purely by chance… Being the boss did have its perks. He shook his head at the thought of spending the entire shift with Dinozzo.
McGee would have been marginally better, but the incessant chatter of computer gobbledygook and stammering "Yes boss"es would have driven him to the brink insanity within the first three hours.
Ziva, on the other hand, was more than enjoyable as a stakeout partner. A few comments and observations here or there, but for the most part, she was as silent as he was.
But then, he wasn't surprised. She had been through similar experiences as he had, most likely. She knew the skills he did: to observe, the value of silence. She was level-headed and quick on her feet.
She reminded him of a young Jenny, before the politics of the job had driven her to play ball with the higher-ups. When Ziva first started working for him, she had been similar to Jenny in that she responded to authority quickly and efficiently—a result of her father's training, no doubt.
But as she had continued to work under him, she had taken on more of his characteristics; namely, shirking authority in favor of intuition. He remembered her disarming a bomb after being ordered to vacate a warehouse, her and Dinozzo remaining at his side at another bomb after being ordered to leave the premises…
"Do you think prostitutes get bored? I mean, the same work, day in, day out, day in, day out…"
"Ziver… The storage facility." But Gibbs knew where she was coming from. A week and half of sitting and waiting was getting to him too. She no longer reacted to the use of her new nickname, though she had the first time he used it.
It had been an early morning at the Navy Yard, and both Dinozzo and McGee had not arrived yet. The nickname had slipped out, but he had played it off as if it were intentional. She hadn't verbally questioned him, and he hadn't explained himself.
When he came out of the head ten minutes later, Dinozzo had shown up. He did a double-take as he noticed the black rings around the agent's eyes. He kept his expression blank, and only nodded at other man. He returned to the desk, shooting a inquiring glance at Ziva. Only the slightest smirk graced her lips, but the exaggerated wag of her head left no doubt in his mind she was the culprit.
Oh, yeah. And every now and then she lets slip that she has a wicked sense of humor beneath that tough assassin mask.
A few minutes later, McGee had shown up, and he and Ziva were leaving.
"Have a good day, McGee," she threw over her shoulder.
And then they were in the car and on their way back to D.C. region.