Detective Alec Hanley watched as the three men approached. He had a feeling they weren't press; they were moving with an intensity of purpose that made him think they were law enforcement. The man in the lead pulled out a badge, but his gaze was was focused on the bank across the street as he said, "Special Agent Gibbs, NCIS. What's going on in there?"
Hanley frowned. "NCIS? What's your interest in this case? Is there a Naval connection?"
Gibbs finally faced him. "The woman with the gun to her head is a member of my team."
Hanley sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Sorry to hear that. But it explains why she's so calm."
Gibbs nodded. "You got an ID on the hostage taker?"
Hanley nodded. "Dr Conrad Fiscella – a hotel receptionist saw the report on the news and recognised him as a guest at the hotel where she works. He's a research scientist at the CDC in Atlanta. We're waiting to hear back from his boss, see if we can figure out what he's doing holding up a bank in DC."
"You made contact with Fiscella?" Gibbs asked.
"Not yet – we're setting it up now."
Inside the bank, Fiscella had moved back from the window. Now that he'd let the cops know that he had a hostage, he didn't want them taking a shot at him through the window. Glancing around, he spotted the TV on a bracket above the tellers' counter. It was showing a news channel, and he realized that he was looking at coverage of the bank holdup. "You..." He nodded at one of the tellers; he now had the bank staff sitting on the floor in the middle of the room, along with the customers. The teller, young and blond, her face pale behind her designer glasses, stared at him nervously. "Where's the remote for the TV?"
The young woman looked confused and fearful, and her voice shook as she replied, "The remote? It's behind the counter."
"Get it." The woman didn't move, and Fiscella said, "Go and get the remote!" Looking terrified, the woman stood up, but seemed unable to move any further.
"It is all right. He just wants you to turn up the volume so he can hear what they are saying about him." It was Ziva who had spoken, and Fiscella looked down at her. Now that she'd drawn his attention, it dawned on him that despite being held in a choke hold, with a gun to her head, his primary hostage was probably the calmest person in the room. The young teller looked up at the TV screen, then back at Ziva, who nodded slightly. "Do it. There is no harm in that." Right now, she figured the most important thing was to keep this man calm until the police decided what to do.
Swallowing hard, the teller walked shakily over to the counter and picked up the remote control. It took her a moment of fumbling, but then she managed to turn up the volume.
"...no word so far on number of hostages, although bystanders report seeing a man holding a gun to the head of a woman..."
Fiscella moved back, maintaining his hold on Ziva, until he could comfortably see the TV screen. Looking up, Ziva saw the shot of the bank change, focusing on the police on the street, and she felt a sudden jolt of relief; standing with the cops was a very familiar, silver-haired figure. As he had been on so many previous occasions, Gibbs was there for her.
Somehow she wasn't surprised that he was already at the scene. Sometimes Gibbs seemed to have a sixth sense when it came to his team, turning up on cue when Abby had lab results, or DiNozzo was talking about him – or when, as now, one of them was in trouble. Ziva knew he'd be there for any of them. She wasn't special in that respect – had it been DiNozzo or McGee, or Abby in this situation, held hostage in a bank, Gibbs would be on the spot, doing whatever he could to get them out safely. Gibbs didn't play favorites.
But just occasionally she'd suspected that he might regard her in a different light from the rest of the team. A look held just a little too intensely; his body just a bit closer than necessary when he leaned over to look at something on her computer monitor; one of his rare kisses on the cheek – she knew she wasn't the only one he did it to, and in fact it was more often Abby on the receiving end - but the times when he'd brushed Ziva's cheek in a moment of comfort or gratitude, she'd felt that he lingered just a little too long, and had inhaled as if savoring her perfume... except that Ziva never wore perfume at work.
Most of the time, Ziva laughed at herself for her suspicions, told herself sternly that there was no reason to believe that Gibbs felt for her the way she did for him.
During the first year she'd been part of his team, she'd not been consciously aware of having anything more than a professional regard for him. That he was an attractive man was undeniable, and not just physically. Ziva had quickly grown to appreciate his integrity, his intelligence, his sense of humor that was somehow all the sharper for being so understated. He was a truly good man, flawed but incorruptible. All those things she'd acknowledged, and considered herself lucky to be working with such a man.
It wasn't until he came out of his coma, that she was aware that she might have deeper feelings for him. Desperate to unlock the memories that held the key to the potential terrorist attack, she'd gone to his hospital room and finally broken through his amnesia, and had wound up sobbing in his arms. Relief that he was 'back' had been part of the cause of her tears, but it had also been the first time she'd truly wept for Ari – still her brother, in spite of everything he'd done – and those tears had done a lot to ease her guilt and anguish over killing him.
Afterwards, whatever Gibbs might have felt about it, Ziva knew that things would never be the same for her. It was as if she'd opened the door on feelings she'd kept locked away during that first year. Understanding his past had been part of it. Three failed marriages had not, as she'd first assumed, been evidence that he was lousy at relationships; they were the mark of a man who'd known true joy in his first marriage, and perhaps without even knowing it himself, had continued to try for that happiness again, had kept on trying despite his failures because finding the right life partner again would make all those wrong choices worth it.
Ziva hadn't tried to kid herself that she could be that one woman who would complete Gibbs again; she knew herself to be just as flawed as he was, probably more so. But for a long time she'd known that he was everything she wanted and needed in a man. She accepted that it was one-sided, that the way she imagined him when she was alone at night, and needed a moment of physical relief was just a private fantasy, not something to be acted upon. She'd seen him with other women; had had lovers of her own, because life had to go on, but had recognized every time that the men she'd been with had been lovers in the physical sense only.
Most of the time it was enough to be a trusted member of Gibbs's team, to know that he valued her as a person. But just occasionally the desire for him as a man and a lover became so acute as to cause almost physical pain; moments of acute stress or danger were her triggers, so it came as no surprise to Ziva that when she saw Gibbs in the news footage, just a few hundred yards away across the street, there to make sure she came out of this situation in one piece, the longing to be in his arms, to receive his comfort, and know that he returned the love she felt for him, hit her like a freight train, and she had to turn her eyes away from the television until she could blink away tears and clear her head.
