Hello and welcome to the second chapter! Thank you for those of you who favorited, followed, and reviewed. Enjoy :)
It was 07.00, and the NCIS bullpen was buzzing with activity. Bishop lounged at her desk, carefully spreading out a napkin, preparing to eat her favorite breakfast treat, an almond croissant. Her mouth watered as she delicately shook it out of the bag and onto the napkin, the delicious aromas of butter and vanilla wafting towards her. Neither Torres nor McGee were in yet, and despite the office buzz around her, she felt that the morning was quite a peaceful one.
She pulled out the bottom side drawer of her desk and pulled out a worn black composition notebook, laying it flat on her desk. It was one of Ziva's journals, labeled as number 10 on the spine. She looked around the room, searching for anyone who might be watching her. Finding none, she slid her finger underneath the cover and opened it. She turned to the dog-eared page where she had left off, and began to read.
"I thought Gibbs told you to leave that stuff alone." Torres said from behind her. Bishop jumped, snapping the book shut and glaring at her partner. He was kneeling on a desk chair in the cubicle behind her so that he could see clearly over her shoulder, his black tactical backpack slung over one arm.
"I thought Gibbs told you to stay out of other people's business." Bishop countered, quickly shoving the journal back into her desk drawer. "And besides, I am leaving it alone."
"That doesn't look like leaving it alone to me." Torres cocked his head at her. "You're still reading her journals."
"She is an interesting person." Bishop said, shrugging him off. "There's a lot I can learn from her."
"She was an interesting person." Torres corrected, eyeing Bishop.
Bishop bit her lip. "Right." She watched as Torres demounted the desk chair and rounded the cubicle walls, heading for his desk. "Have you seen McGee?" She asked him.
"No, actually, I was just going to ask you." Torres said, his eyes flicking over to the senior field agent's empty desk. "His parking space was empty when I passed it just now."
"Hm, maybe he's just running late." Bishop took a bite of her croissant.
"Why? You wanna sneak in another chapter before he gets here?" Torres smiled at her teasingly.
"No," Bishop said through her mouthful. She swallowed. "It's just unlike him to be late." Suddenly her phone began to ring, and McGee's face popped up onto her screen. She raised her eyebrows at Torres as though to say, speak of the devil. She answered. "What's up McGee? Where are you?"
"Turn on the news." McGee said, his voice urgent. Bishop could hear police sirens wailing in the background. An icy cold wave of dread washed over her.
"What?"
"Just do it, channel 4."
Torres, seeing her face, asked what was wrong, but she didn't respond. She grabbed the remote from McGee's desk and clicked the button for channel 4 news. She nearly dropped the remote.
"Last night at around 1 AM, neighbors heard a series of loud bangs that sounded like gunfire coming from the street." A blonde reporter said feverishly on the screen. "They exited their homes in the morning to find a horrific sight..." The reporter's voice faded to white noise. There, in the middle of the screen, was Gibbs's house. In front of it sat a dark sedan that was riddled with bullet holes, all of its windows completely shattered. Bishop couldn't help but notice the streaks of blood on the back seats. Her body went numb.
She squeezed her phone tightly, her fingers turning as white as her face. "We're on our way."
Time at the crime scene seemed to pass in slow motion. Bishop interviewed witnesses while McGee and Torres processed the car. Bishop's mind kept wandering as she jotted down notes from the eyewitnesses, too busy worrying about Gibbs. After everything that had happened that week, this shooting could not be just a coincidence. First a group of rogue justices is out to send Gibbs to jail, then Gibbs drops a bomb on the team about his damning secret, and now a drive by shooting in front of his house, which he is absent from without any explanation...
Bishop closed her notepad and tucked it into her jacket pocket. She thanked the witness that she had been interviewing and turned back towards the dilapidated car.
"McGee," she called to where the senior agent stood talking on the phone by the trunk of the car. "Do you have an update?"
"I just got off the phone with Kasie." McGee said, hanging up the phone and slipping it into his pant pocket. "She ran the vehicle's plates and turns out it's a rental."
Torres popped his head up from the passenger's side door where he had been dusting for fingerprints. "Did she find out who rented it?"
"Not exactly," McGee said, frowning. "She said that for some reason, when the car was rented, the rental company accidentally forgot to make copies of the renter's driver's license. Therefore, they only have a name, no photo."
Bishop furrowed her eyebrows. "That's a pretty big mistake. What's the name?"
"Laura Daniels," McGee said, shrugging his shoulders. "I wouldn't read too much into it though; Kasie thinks it's an alias. She's running it down as we speak."
Bishop bit her lip. The name sounded extremely familiar to her. Laura Daniels. She had heard it before, but she couldn't figure out from where. She searched her memories for a moment before shrugging it off, placing it at the back of her mind. Her focus needed to be at the crime scene.
"As for the blood in the back seat," McGee continued, moving around to the side of the car, "most of the stains are from skin contact, meaning that whomever was bleeding probably only had a minor wound, otherwise there would be pools of blood on the seats." He gestured to a couple of dark smudges of blood on the middle and left seats.
"That's good news," Torres put in. "That means that whoever was in here probably left alive."
"Yeah, but look at this one." McGee leaned farther into the car to point at a larger smudge on the left seat. "See this line?" He traced his finger along one edge of the stain. It was oval-shaped except for one side which had a clean, straight line. "Normal blood stains and smudges don't form straight lines like this."
"So...there was something there." Bishop said slowly. "Something that blocked the rest of the blood stain from forming on the seat."
"Exactly." McGee said, his voice carrying a hint of excitement.
"What does that tell us exactly?" Torres said skeptically.
"Well, whatever was there was obviously important enough for someone to remove it and take it with them." McGee said, raising his eyebrows. "Possibly something worth killing over?"
"Yeah, but literally anything could have blocked the stain." Torres argued. "Anything with a straight edge. Like, uh, a piece of paper, or a blanket, or a-"
"Car seat," Bishop said softly. She felt sick to her stomach.
"What?" McGee asked, looking at her.
She remembered where she had heard the name Laura Daniels before. It was the name of the mother of a navy lieutenant who had been raped several years ago, another one of Ziva's cases that had been recorded in the journals. Bishop's head spun. Was it possible? Was Ziva back in the states with her daughter? She opened her mouth to answer McGee, but then closed it again. This was crazy; there was no way that Ziva was involved in this. They didn't even know for sure if Gibbs was involved in this. She decided she'd better wait until the DNA from the blood came back before she blew Ziva's secret.
"Nothing," Bishop said, forcing herself to seem unfazed. "Just, uh, spitballing ideas."
McGee surveyed her for a minute before continuing. "Alright, well, Torres and I will be done processing the scene soon. Bishop, you go back to the office and help Kasie." Bishop nodded her head, her mind reeling. If this was Ziva, who was shooting at her? And where the hell was Gibbs?
The safe house was located behind a thick clump of trees, just barely accessible by car. Everything there was extremely quiet; only the wind rustling through the trees and the chirping of birds by day and crickets by night. There wasn't another house or even a highway for miles. Perfectly isolated. Something Gibbs might have liked if he were taken there under different circumstances.
He was sitting with Tali and Ziva in the living room of the house. The barren walls were painted a sickening beige, a sagging moth-eaten couch shoved into one corner. Gibbs chose to sit in the stocky wooden chair that was pushed up against the wall by a window. Ziva was sitting on the carpet with her legs spread out, watching Tali as her daughter talked to herself, moving around the two dolls clasped tightly in her tiny fists. Tony had left about two hours ago to get groceries. They had arrived at the safe house very late the night before, deciding that they would further discuss their game plan in the morning. But now it was the morning, Tony was still gone, and Gibbs was getting antsy.
He shifted in his seat. Ziva looked up at him, noticing his impatience. Her hair was much longer and more unruly than the last time he had seen her. Back when she still worked for him, she had straightened her hair every day, pulling it back into a ponytail. With her hair like this, wild and curly, she looked more carefree. Happier. His gaze fell to her hands, which rested on the carpet in front of her. She wasn't wearing a wedding ring of any kind, an observation that brought a number of questions to the forefront of his mind.
"About two and a half years," Ziva said suddenly, as though reading his mind.
"What?"
"How long Tony has known."
"I...didn't ask."
"You did not have to." Ziva smiled slightly. There was a long pause, during which Gibbs tried to decide how to proceed. He still had so many questions.
"He took it better than expected, considering," Ziva continued, breaking the silence. "I guess it was because he was still partially in denial."
"Are you-"
"-married?" Ziva finished, shaking her head. "No. But we are in a relationship of some sorts." Ziva rolled her eyes as though she didn't like putting a label on it. Or maybe it was because of who she was dating. Gibbs couldn't tell.
"You could have come to me, Ziva," Gibbs said suddenly, leaning forward in his chair. "You know I would never betray you." Ziva stopped playing with Tali and gave him a sideways glance.
"I know that." Ziva said, running a hand through her hair. "Call me crazy, but at the time, I could not stop thinking about Rule 4."
"Aw, hell," Gibbs said, leaning back in his chair again, exasperated. His rules were really starting to bite him in the ass.
"The best way to keep a secret is to keep it to yourself-"
"I know how my damn rules go." Gibbs snapped.
"I felt..." Ziva swallowed hard, "I felt that Tony deserved to know." She took a deep breath. "I had kept his daughter from him too long."
Gibbs looked away from her and out the window, trying to keep his anger checked. He stood up from the chair and leaned against the wall instead.
"I was...I was scared, Gibbs." Ziva's bottom lip trembled and her voice caught. She took another breath. "I knew that the moment I told him he had a daughter, he would have dropped everything, and I did not want to make him do that. But after a while, I realized that keeping it from him was worse." Ziva turned to Tali and smiled warmly. "So when Trent Kort did what he did, I decided it was time." Ziva continued, returning her gaze to Gibbs. "Time to disappear. Time to..." She trailed off.
"...die," Gibbs finished. He looked away from the window and met her gaze. Ziva nodded.
"I cannot change the past," she said, rising to her feet to meet Gibbs. "Which is why I am here, now, trying to make things right."
As Gibbs and Ziva stared at each other, the front door to their right swung open. Ziva sprung into defense mode, shoving Gibbs to the side and pulling out her sidearm. Just as she was about to call out for the person to state their identity, Tony pushed through the doorway, his arms occupied by a huge paper bag full of food.
"Abba!" Tali cried out cheerfully, dropping her dolls and running over to where Tony stood in the doorway. She hugged his left leg, latching on as he shuffled over to the kitchen table in the adjoining room. She squealed in delight when he lifted her off of the ground as he walked. Ziva hastily shoved her gun back into its holster, glaring daggers at the back of Tony's head.
"Hey guys," Tony greeted with an impish smile as he set down the bag on the kitchen table. "I bought all the goods." He reached into the bag and pulled out a package of assorted clownycakes, waving them in front of Ziva's face tantalizingly. Ziva pursed her lips, unamused. Tali let go of Tony's leg and climbed up onto a chair so as to see into the bag better.
"Ima, can I have one?" Tali asked sweetly, giving Ziva her best smile. She looked exactly like Tony.
"No, Tali." Ziva said, shaking her head. "Those are not healthy. In fact-" Ziva glared at Tony again, "-they should not have been purchased in the first place." Tali whined and puffed out her bottom lip in a pout.
"Oh, c'mon Ziva," Tony pleaded, "let her live a little." Ziva crossed her arms and opened her mouth to argue, but she was interrupted by Gibbs.
"Are you two done?" He asked gruffly. "I would like to figure out how to catch the guy who tried to kill us last night."
"That's a great idea Boss." Tony said, extracting a clownycake from the package. He took a huge bite of it, chewing with his mouth open, while making eye contact with Ziva.
"Like I said before," Ziva said, tearing her eyes away from Tony to look at Gibbs, "I think we should look at the places that are significant to him or related to his sister's death. If he is really out for revenge, the symbolism will be everything to him."
"Even better idea, sweetcheeks," Tony said, his mouth full of clownycake. "But there's a lot of those, most of them probably in Mexico...so where do we start?"
"The safe house," Gibbs said, "the one where Paloma died."
Bishop sat at her desk, trying to keep her mind off of Ziva. She was sorting through the rental car company's records, trying to find more information on the mystery renter, Laura Daniels. So far, nothing had proven nor disproven Ziva's involvement, and with every passing minute, Bishop wondered if her silence was doing more harm than good. She glanced over the top of her computer at McGee who was hard at work at his desk, contemplating saying something, but at the last second, she decided against it, looking back at her computer screen anxiously.
McGee, noticing Bishop's stolen glance, sat up a little taller in his office chair to look over at her questioningly. She avoided his gaze.
"You...okay...?" McGee asked, raising an eyebrow at Bishop. Torres looked up at them from his desk on the other side of the bullpen.
"Yeah," Bishop said, shrugging him off. "I'm fine." She put on her best smile. Torres returned to filling in information on the form for the BOLO on Gibbs. McGee studied her for a second longer before he too returned to his work. Her smile fell the moment McGee looked away. She felt guilty for keeping this secret. McGee has known Ziva for years, while she has never even met Ziva. It seemed unfair that she knew such a damning secret about someone she hardly knew, while the others who knew her better lived in ignorance, still feeling the dull ache that never truly leaves you after the loss of a friend.
Just as Bishop was about to force herself to focus on work again, McGee's phone began to ring. He answered it. It was Kasie, asking him to come down to the lab. Bishop perked up in her seat, a sudden rush of adrenaline coursing through her veins. Maybe Kasie got a hit on the DNA from the blood found in the car. Maybe now she would finally get some answers.
Bishop and Torres both followed McGee down to Kasie's lab, Bishop practically stepping on McGee's heels as they exited the elevator.
"Good news!" Kasie called from her computer as they entered the lab. "I'm running the blood samples you gave me from the back seat of the car, and I found two distinct DNA profiles."
"So there were two people in the car," Torres said.
Kasie nodded. "At the least."
"Did you get a match?" McGee asked.
"Well, no," Kasie said, "but I do know that one is a male and the other is a female. The first thing I did was run the male's DNA against Gibbs's DNA and it didn't match. Which means one of two things-"
McGee interrupted, "-either Gibbs wasn't involved or-"
"-he was in the car but he wasn't injured." Kasie finished. "I'm leaning towards the latter, though, considering he's currently MIA."
"What database are you running the profiles through now?" Bishop asked, her heart racing.
"Uh, pretty much the usual, just CODIS for now," Kasie answered. "Why? Is there another one where you think we might get a hit?"
"No, um, I was just wondering." Bishop said, trying to hide her disappointment. McGee watched her out of the corner of his eye.
"Okay, well," Kasie said, fidgeting a little. "If you'll excuse me, I really have to go to the restroom. I've had to go for a while now, but I waited until I updated you guys."
"Okay, no problem," McGee said, he and Torres turning to leave. McGee hung back. "Bishop, you coming?"
"Uh, I think I'm going to stay here," Bishop said. McGee gave her a questioning look. "I'm going to watch the blood samples while Kasie's gone...see if we get a hit."
"Alright..." McGee said, slightly confused. "Torres and I will check in on the BOLO we put out on Gibbs and his car." Bishop nodded her head in understanding, leaning against Kasie's desk. She stifled a wince as she watched McGee, Torres, and Kasie exit the lab. If McGee wasn't suspicious of her before, he definitely was now.
Bishop turned back to Kasie's computer, watching the screen as the software sorted through the thousands of DNA profiles entered into CODIS. She placed her hand on the mouse, hesitating a second before clicking to change the search database. She selected the database labeled 'NCIS Employees' and expanded the search to include both current and former employment. Faces and profiles flashed before her eyes, some of them she recognized, some she didn't. The computer had been sorting for no less than three seconds before it froze on a face and a matching profile, sounding off a loud beeping noise to signal that it had made a match. Bishop's heart sank.
Ziva David's deadpanning face stared up at her from the screen, the ex-Mossad agent's hair slicked neatly back into a french braid. The computer beeped loudly once again, and another face popped up onto the screen. The other blood profile had been matched to its owner. Bishop's gut wrenched. Tony Dinozzo's dashingly handsome face smoldered at her, the green bar that signaled a match blinked above his head.
There was no avoiding it now. She had to find Gibbs.
Thanks everyone! Sorry this chapter took so long. I had to figure out where I was going with it. Just remember that I still have the rest of the story to write so if you think there are some questions that still need to be answered, don't worry! I'll get to them. The next chapter will be up as soon as possible.
Thanks for reading :)