I do not own them, nor will I claim them on my tax return.

CHAPTER 2

FRICTION

It wasn't unusual for the senior field agent to visit his boss after hours, but it wasn't expected early on a Friday night. When the heavy steps fell on the risers the older man looked at the clock then at the man himself with a questioning pause.

"Hey, Boss, felt like sanding. Do you mind?" Gibbs tossed him a sanding block which Tony caught without missing a beat.

As the evening progressed, Tony was too preoccupied to feel the weight of the stare bearing down on him. His boss was used to DiNozzo's company, but not his silence. The questions were welling up inside him but he knew that if Tony came to talk, he'd talk when he was ready. Gibbs might not know the details but he did know that the only person who had this dramatic of an effect on him had been acting oddly in a different way so it was likely related.

Ziva had been in a good mood and his best guess was that this reason had a name. She had not dated anyone to his knowledge since Michael Rivkin, or since being held captive in Somalia. She hadn't seemed to be suffering long-term psychological trauma, not any more than she ever did given her violent past, but she had avoided relationship until now.

Frankly, Gibbs assumed there was a specific reason she was holding off, the reason being the man currently sanding his boat.

Even if Tony weren't romantically interested in her, It made sense that he was at odds with the idea of Ziva dating again since he couldn't trust her judgment in the past. Gibbs wasn't settled with her falling for an unknown character either so he couldn't think of anything to say to ease Tony's mind. He kept quiet because at the end of the day, Ziva was his agent, not his daughter so no matter how much he cared for her he wasn't going to intervene unless it was necessary, even if that meant he passed an awkward evening with only the sounds of Tony's erratic scraping and the occasional sawing and clinking of hand tools that did little to mute the sound of Tony's breaking heart.

Around midnight the door creaked opened and hesitant footsteps followed. The scraping ceased as two stunned pairs of eyes waited to see her expression. Tony's heart sped while his brain tried to quell the selfish hope that this meant the end of Mr. Miami. When she came into full view, overwhelming concern for her trumped his joy. While Tony could not move his firmly planted feet, his boss calmly put down his tools, walked towards her and placed his hands gently on her arms. His slightly lowered gaze probed for a reading of her thoughts.

She shifted not only her weight but her also her eyes, revealing her extreme anxiety.

She restrained the inflection in her voice as she explained, "I do not want to be alone right now. Can I please just stay for a while and help you work?"

He tipped her chin up with one finger, forcing her to look up. There was a hitch in her breath while her eyes squeezed back the sentimental tears that threatened to flow. He kept her in place until she opened her eyes again and saw the concern etched in his expression.

He cleared his throat and spoke for the first time in hours, "Of course, Ziver, as long as you don't mind some company."

She had been so distracted that she hadn't noticed her partner on the other side of the boat. Upon registering his presence she turned away from him, grabbed a sander and got to work without so much as a nod in his general direction.

She focused on one patch of wood which kept her out of Tony's line of sight. She drudged the coarse paper over and over the wood as though the friction could erase what had transpired. She willed the boat to be smooth; flawless. With each memory of her failings this need became stronger. She gripped the sanding block with white knuckles and had an urge to use it on herself. She knew that was an irrational thought, but no sensible course of action would ever remove her imperfections. At least physical pain would be a welcome distraction from her inner turmoil. Only her deeply seeded discipline kept the sander firmly on the wood and away from her skin, but the struggle not to misuse it remained.

Tony was a mixed bag of emotions. It was obvious the hurricane either never made DC landfall or had already blown through town leaving distress in its wake. The investigator in him ran through various scenarios to determine what event had led the woman he held most dear to be sanding opposite him. He could feel the intensity of her movements through vibrations in the wood as she violently refined the indifferent craft. His sanding became less and less regular as he let his mind consider his partner. The silence should have been awkward, but it seemed to work in this one precise moment. There was nothing the normally smooth talker could think to say that would not end the evening badly, and for once he was mature enough to come to this realization before he opened his mouth and ruined a tenuously intimate moment. Sure, there was a boat between them, and sure, her thoughts were anywhere but on him, but she had not left after he saw her in a vulnerable state. Ziva had not run from him. Ignoring him was the best-case scenario and he found it to be oddly palatable.

The third party to the monastic event was perhaps the most concerned. He knew there was a delicate balance at play in the room. He wanted nothing more than to find out what had happened to this woman whom he would protect with his life. He wanted to go and wring the neck of anyone who caused her pain yet he showed restraint, knowing that she needed calm. She came here to focus on something outside of herself. His independent agent, who rarely became undone, came to him in her distress and that showed an enormous amount of confidence in him. The last thing he wanted to do was risk running her off with even a mild interrogation.

This was the room where Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs went for his own peace, where even if he didn't have the answers, he seemed to be master of this domain and those who spoke to him in it credited him with any wisdom they gained from the journey down those steps. On this night, however, a flood of inadequacy washed over him.

What surprised him the most about this peculiar evening was the silence between his 'kids.' The dynamics were off. He had been visited by each of them when they had sought wisdom or solace in the past, but the joint experience, while apparently working, was a novelty.

One certainty was that while the younger two silently worked out their frustrations, more mature eyes were no longer meant to be sleep deprived. Their unofficial chaperone delayed his ascension up the steps as long as he could. He wasn't sure what would happen if he left them to their own devices, but he would not have been surprised to see the boat seaworthy by morning if Ziva kept up her frantic pace. In the end he decided not to take any chances. Ziva felt his calloused hand gently cover hers to still her movements and heard his even voice coaxing her, "That's enough. Come on. You have the guest room." She allowed Gibbs to place his hand on her back and lead her upstairs but she did not spare even a neutral glance at her deflated partner.

Once upstairs Gibbs guided her to sit on the bed. He returned, handed his dazed guest some clothes, told her where to find a new toothbrush and instructed her to get ready for bed. He did not feel right leaving her, even though they were under the same roof. He didn't honestly think she would bring harm to herself, but it was obvious that she was troubled and while she had shown more caution in the past year, she still had the potential to be unpredictable when emotions ran high.

He sighed as he closed the door to give her some privacy.