It's been a long day, and both Tim and Ellie are unusually quiet on the ride back to the yard. Though the recent spring time change means the sun is just beginning to dip below the horizon, the agents find themselves stifling yawns and daydreaming about getting home to bed.
"Hey, McGee, thanks for driving me today," Bishop says softly. She clears her throat; she's barely spoken since she and Tim hit the road nearly an hour ago, too emotionally drained after the day's events to make much conversation.
"Sure, no problem," McGee replies absentmindedly. He sneaks a glance at his passenger out of the corner of his eye. "I know you were pretty rattled this morning when we finally heard about Nick. I'm glad you didn't have to be on the road like that."
Ellie smiles a little vacantly. "I'm just glad he's safe," she murmurs.
For the safety of my family . . .
Ziva's words have been echoing in her head for weeks now. Having never met Agent David, Bishop has no voice to assign to the warning, so it's been her own voice whispering whenever the day grew quiet enough for wandering minds. Still, though, as the days keep passing without so much as a hint of news, she finds herself feeling hopelessly lost and in way over her head.
I need help, she realizes. After all, Nick might be fine now, but earlier in the day his future hadn't been so sure. What if that had been me? What if something happens to me, and no one ever knows?
"Hey, Tim." The words tumble out of her mouth before her brain catches up to what she's about to do. "I – I gotta tell you something."
From the driver's seat, McGee furrows his brow slightly at the use of his first name and the tone of Bishop's voice, but his eyes stay fixed on the road. It's been a stressful day, he figures it's not too far outside the realm of possibility that Bishop is just having a bit of an emotional moment. (Goodness knows he's had his share over the years, too.)
"Sure, Bish, what's up?"
Bishop swallows hard and fixes her eyes on her teammates face before saying slowly and with as much clarity as she can muster, "Ziva is alive."
There are moments – fleeting moments, few and far between – that remind Bishop just how much time Timothy McGee has spent around Gibbs over the past decade and a half. The way his face stays completely expressionless as he whips the car to the shoulder against a chorus of protesting horns? Definitely one such moment.
When the car comes to a stop, McGee very quietly puts it in park, pulls the key from the ignition, unbuckles his seatbelt, and turns (slowly, slowly, slowly) towards Bishop. The way his right hand clenches around the key is the only physical manifestation of his emotion as he says softly, "What did you just say?"
Bishop opens her mouth and shuts it again, feeling very exposed under McGee's undivided attention and unrelenting gaze, before finally speaking. "She's alive. Ziva. She's – she's still out there."
McGee blinks slowly. "No," he finally says. "That's impossible."
"McGee –"
"I watched her die, Ellie!" Tim's calm façade flies away and the car keys slide through his fingers to the carpet with a tiny jingle that does absolutely nothing to break the rising tension as his voice rises. "I watched her house explode on international television! The director of Mossad brought her daughter to Vance's office! Hell, Tony moved to Europe! Ziva. David. Is. Dead."
An angry tear runs down his face and he takes a shaky breath. "Look, I'm sorry I yelled, but it took me a long time to – Bishop. What are you doing?"
Bishop finishes wrestling her wallet from her back pocket and slides out a small, folded up sheet of white paper. McGee watches closely as she smooths the page out flat on the dashboard.
"Bishop?" He's too busy watching her actions to pay much attention to the paper itself, until she says, "Is this her handwriting?"
Between the chaos of the day's events, the rush of emotions from which he's just beginning to calm down, and the roar of traffic outside the window, McGee's not quite firing on all cylinders, so he's quickly growing very confused by the seemingly disjointed turn of events. "Whose handwriting?"
"Ziva's. Is this Ziva's handwriting?" Bishop urges, sliding the mystery wallet paper towards McGee.
After a moment's glance, his eyes widen and he grabs the paper up for a closer look because yes it is. "Where did you get this?" he demands without looking up. His eyes race back and forth over the words and he rubs his thumb gently across the page.
Bishop tucks her hair behind her ears nervously, keeping a close eye on McGee's reactions. "During the, uh, Morgan Burke case – the case where we found her office," she begins, "I went to read Morgan's mom's letter to Robert. Gibbs gave me Ziva's journal, and I went over to the hospital, but when I went to read the letter, the page was torn out. Robert said a woman had already been there and read it to him."
McGee waits anxiously for Bishop to continue, his fingers of one hand still grazing back and forth on the paper while the other hand gripped it tight.
"I figured it might've had something to do with Ziva. I didn't want to assume to much, but I went over to her office, and that's where I found the letter," Bishop finishes.
McGee nods slowly, his eyes distant as he processes what he would've said ten minutes ago was completely impossible.
"Wait!" He exclaims suddenly, his eyebrows shooting up and his eyes swiveling to Ellie's. "You didn't tear the page out of the notebook?"
"No, McGee, I just said –"
"And you got the notebook from Gibbs?"
"Yeah."
"Was the letter still there when Gibbs got the journal?"
"Yeah. He took it from me, and when I had it last, the page was still there." Bishop frowns, not understanding McGee's line of questioning. "What is this all about?"
McGee's eyes are wide and bordering on frantic. "Bishop, if the letter was in the journal when you gave it to Gibbs but gone when he gave it back to you, then whoever tore out the page did it while the journal was with Gibbs!"
Bishop's jaw drops. "Gibbs knows," she breaths. "Ziva's alive, and she was in DC, and she was at Gibbs' house!"
"Oh my god," McGee whispers, finally setting Ziva's note back on the dash and rubbing both hands over his head. After a moment, he turns back to Ellie. "Do you know anything else?" He demands. "Is she okay? What does this mean about keeping her family safe?"
Bishop throws up her hands almost defensively. "You know everything I do, McGee. And look, I know she says not to tell anyone, but, I mean, Nick just almost died today, and I couldn't stop thinking that it could've been me, and then no one would've known that Ziva's still out there." She laughs drily, then adds, "Except Gibbs, apparently. Of course."
"No, no, no, I'm glad you told me," McGee says quickly. "God, we gotta – I gotta call Tony! Oh my god, Tony. Do you think he knows?"
"No!" Bishop exclaims. "I mean, not 'No, Tony doesn't know,' but 'No, don't call Tony.' She told me to keep her secret, and I've already told you. The last thing we should do is get more people involved, right?"
She looks down to check an incoming text as McGee sighs. "Yeah," He concedes, though he's nearly whining in frustration, "But this is her –" He pauses – her what? Tony was never her "boyfriend," at least as far as Tim knows (Though I seem to be out of the loop lately, he thinks derisively), and "lover" doesn't really fit either. "Best friend" doesn't quite convey the significance of the pair's bond; Tim's had best friends, like Abby and even Tony, but those relationships were never anything like the one between David and DiNozzo. "I mean, this is Tony we're talking about!" He finally says, though he realizes that the meaning is effectively lost on Bishop, who never saw them together or even knew Ziva at all. "This is the father of her child," He adds, in the interests of emphasis, detail, and relational accuracy.
"He might already know," Bishop reasons. "For all we know, they're having dinner together as a family right now. And if she hasn't told him, it's because she doesn't want him to know." She pauses, taps out a quick response to the text, and turns back to McGee. "Gibbs is asking where we are. You want me to drive the rest of the way?"
"Sure. Thanks." McGee's voice is hollow as he slips out of the driver's seat to swap spots with Ellie.
It doesn't take Bishop long to slide behind the wheel and find the keys on the floor, and then they're back on the road. The quiet is different now, less tired but relieved and more shocked and uncertain. Ellie fiddles with the radio a bit before deciding maybe the silence is best.
They're just turning into the parking lot when McGee says, barely a whisper, "She didn't tell me."
"Hmm?" Bishop looks over at him. She missed what he said, distracted by her own thoughts about the mysterious life, death, and life of Ziva David.
"You said that if she wanted Tony to know she was alive, she'd tell him," McGee explains, just a little louder, as Bishop searches for an empty space. "She didn't tell me. She wants me to think she's dead."
"Tim –" Bishop starts to explain that that wasn't exactly what she'd meant (Wasn't it, though?) but he cuts her off.
"It's okay, Bishop," he mutters. "I guess I just don't understand." He pauses as if he's done talking, but apparently changes his mind. "I mean, I was here from the beginning. We were 'Probie' McGee and Officer David. I helped her study to become a citizen. I helped her look for her father's killer. I just – " He chokes up but swallows back his tears. "Gibbs I understand. But why would he tell you instead of me?"
A million reasons, Bishop thinks. She's trying to protect her family – you're a part of that, but I'm not. I'm safe and neutral.
As she shifts the car into park and pulls the keys from the ignition, though, she knows that's not at all what McGee needs to hear. "I don't know, Tim," she says softly. "But if Ziva was here in DC after all this time? I have a feeling we're going to find out."
A/N: I'm thinking of making this a series of one-shots, each exploring what would happen if Bishop confessed Ziva's secret to a different character. Tim was the one that felt most important to me, though, so he had to be first!