He was the luckiest man on earth.

Travis Kinsey smiled to himself as he puttered around his girlfriend's kitchen, doing his best to throw together an edible breakfast. It was Sunday morning, and, so far this weekend, there had been no signs of any inconvenient cases popping up for Ziva's team.

He'd had Ziva all to himself for their weekend half-anniversary.

And it had been brilliant.

At first, Travis had worried that he and Ziva wouldn't last. Both of happen to be incredibly stubborn, very devoted to their jobs, and not used to or comfortable with normal, healthy relationships. At only six months, they had had many rough patches.

But somehow they had pulled through.

Last night Ziva had seemed so relaxed and – trusting.

Trust.

Travis opened the cupboard in which he knew the coffee was kept.

Ziva had admitted early on that it was difficult for her to trust anyone. Travis still didn't know a whole lot about her professional background – other than that it was very classified – or even much about her family – again, other than that she didn't seem them much.

She always tried to be honest with him, when she could. And, up till now, it had been enough.

So, he was happy.

There was a slight rustle of cloth and he reacted, grabbing the coffee pot and preparing to throw and dodge.

"Travis"

Before he remember the pertinent who, what, where details.

He sighed. He had some of his own 'classified' issues, but Ziva always seemed to understand.

She smiled apologetically and walked over to hug him.

"What were you thinking about, that you did not hear me come?"

Travis wondered how he should handle this one. He decided play it cool.

"After last night, what do you think I would be thinking about?" He tagged on an affectionate grin.

Ziva sniffed delicately before answering.

"Apparently not breakfast," she teased, nodding toward the … eggs. He hesitated to call the charred lump in the frying pan "eggs". Neither, however, could it be called "breakfast".

After frantically taking care of the mess – with Ziva laughing all the while – he offered to go out for breakfast.

"Yes, please." Ziva grinned. "With strawberry cream cheese and the good coffee."

"What makes you think I'm going to Granny's Bagel Shop? There are a dozen other breakfast establishments nearby, you know."

"Because you know I like Granny's bagels."

Well, he couldn't argue with that.

"Granny's bagels it is. I'll be back in ten."

Travis received a quick smooch before being ushered out the door by his hungry girlfriend of six months and counted.

He couldn't help but smile.

** * ** * **

Ten minutes later, Travis was waiting rather impatiently in an unusually long line.

Granny's Bagel Shop was a small family owned establishment that had a reputation for good coffee and superb home-baked, made-from-scratch bagels. The bagels were so good, Gran's didn't even offer doughnuts or yogurt.

Still, it was unusual for it to be busy so early, especially on a Sunday.

Looking around, Travis noticed that the majority of the crowd seemed to be teenagers. Occasionally, he spotted a long-suffering adult, no doubt 'supervising' minors.

An unexpectedly chipper voice called his attention to a group just entering the little shop.

"All right!" The tall, rather familiar figure addressed his own group of five teenagers. "You guys can order whatever you want. Just remember that I'm a poor government employee –" his tone turned plaintive "and stay under five dollars apiece. Got it?"

The group nodded and quickly choose the line they deemed to be the shortest. The man threw up his hands and turned slightly – enough so that Travis finally got a good look at his face.

"Tony!"

The man turned towards him instinctively.

Travis grinned.

He'd met Tony in a bar several months ago. Come to think of it, it had been barely two months after he'd started dating Ziva. Things had been rough for him – both professionally and personally.

At work a new scandal had developed – one of the relatively new hires decided to sell company secrets to a competitor. The result had been a disastrous mess for all parties involved, including himself.

At home, Ziva was moody and silent. Something work-related was bothering her and she had refused to talk to him about it.

So he had taken a break – he left Ziva at her house, brooding, and his cell phone in the car – and gone to his favorite bar to relax.

Instead, he met Tony.

It was unbelievable how easy it was to talk to a complete stranger. The alcohol may have helped, but Travis had by no means been drunk – barely even tipsy.

He hadn't had to be.

Ten minutes or so after he'd arrived, Tony had waltzed right up to him – completely ignoring his defensive body language – and announced that he'd been pegged as a pool player.

Without allowing him time to object, Tony had pulled Travis over to one of the free tables and rustled up two opponents. The game and the friendly banter had been soothing.

As the game wore on, Travis found his guard dropping. He answered Tony's questions honestly, and, many times, was taken aback by the other man's scarily astute observations.

At the end of the night they had exchanged phone numbers – Travis was appalled by this the next day, but he reassured himself that there was no way Tony could be gay – and promised to catch a game together sometime.

They hadn't, of course. Travis felt awkward about his encounter with the stranger and Tony had never called him.

He hadn't mentioned it to Ziva, pushing it out of his mind as irrelevant.

Seeing the man again, however, made him curious.

"Oh, hey, er, Travis." Tony looked shocked at first, but quickly recovered. "Been awhile. How's it going?"

"Great, it's going great." It really was. "What brings you here… with your current company?"

Travis had never liked children – and that went double for teenagers.

"You're kidding me, right?" Tony gave him a comical look of complete disbelief. "There has to be dozens of flyers all over this neighborhood!"

He frowned. Why would he bother to read local flyers?

"Faugh." Tony made an exasperated sound in the back of his throat. "Special Olympics is in town – my group are volunteers."

"Ah, giving to the community." Travis wouldn't have expected something like that from Tony, but, then he'd only spent four hours with him.

"Yeah, something like that." Tony shrugged, glancing over his shoulder and 'his group'. "So, how are things with the girlfriend? I kinda wondered how that turned out."

Travis recalled having vaguely explained the situation to Tony over their 'victory' toast at the end of the night.

"Well-" his cell phone rang. Reflexively, he pulled it out and glanced at the caller ID. "Excuse me, that's her right now."

Tony nodded sagely and drifted back a step.

"Well, I'll leave you to it. It was nice to see you again." He extended his hand, which Travis dutifully shook. "We really should catch a game sometime."

"How about next weekend? Virginia versus Ohio." Travis surprised himself with the offer – but what could it hurt, really? Tony seemed like a decent fellow and Travis was tired of watching football with co-workers who had never participated in any kind of sport.

"That's nice, but –" Tony stopped, wincing, as Travis' phone reached its crescendo. The annoyingly loud rings cut off abruptly and it was Travis' turn to wince. He needed to call Ziva back, soon, lest she decided to come after him – just to make sure he was okay, of course.

"Look, I'll give you a call, ok? I still have your number, I think. We'll make plans then." Travis saw Tony's attempt to decline, but he was a business man. He decided not to take no for an answer.

Opening his phone, Travis hit speed dial. "Have fun with the whole Special Olympics thing."

Tony, clearly recognizing his not-so-subtle dismissal, smiled cheerfully and rejoined the excitable teenagers.

"Travis!"

"Hey, Ziva." Travis tried to sound contrite. "Sorry I didn't answer earlier. Granny's is really busy today and I bumped into a friend."

"Friend?"

"Yeah. Hey, it's my turn to order – I'll see you in a bit, okay?"

"Yes, fine."

Something in Ziva's tone sounded off, but Travis ignored it. He'd ask her about it when he got back. For now he was busy trying to remember what kind of cream cheese Ziva had asked for.

** * ** * **

Tony was screwed.

Travis recognized him.

That was not good.

Gibbs had practically ordered Tony to 'check out' Ziva's new boyfriend when she refused to talk about him at work. Gibbs and Abby had helped with the background check, of course, but Tony was the designated undercover agent.

It might have been easier just to show up at Ziva's place with some lame excuse when he knew Travis would be there. However, he had been particularly annoying to Ziva that week, asking too many 'prying' questions.

He was sure Ziva would see right through that ploy and quickly give him the boot.

Not only would he not accomplish his goal, but he'd attract Ziva's awful wrath.

So he'd had Abby set up a trace on Trav's phone so that Tony could find him that weekend. He'd been prepared to bump into the man at a grocery store or in some random parking lot when his target showed up at a bar.

Tony had taken advantage of the situation, easily getting the information that he wanted.

And then, after reporting to Gibbs and Abby, he'd forgotten about the whole ordeal.

Now he was reminded.

Consequences – right.

Travis had recognized him and invited him over for football.

If Ziva ever found out that Tony had basically stalked her boyfriend for a while, he was so dead.

Maybe he could talk Gibbs into coming along for protection.

** * ** * **

A/N: Alrighty – here you go, another shortish chapter. Please read and review.