A/N: Thank you so, so much to everyone who alerted, favourited, reviewed and encouraged me to get through the writer's block. I'm overwhelmed by how wonderful and supportive you guys can be. I think I've almost got it sorted out (maybe).
I quite like this chapter as well. Makes me feel like there might be an actual plot to the story, and I always like writing banter between Tony and Ziva.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
They arrived at Navy Lieutenant Ryan Stewart's house on the beach and hour later, after making the quickest of stops at a McDonald's drive through for more Slushies. Tony groaned as they stepped out of the car and into the blistering sun, and joined Ziva at the trunk where she was pulling out her backpack.
"I don't see McGoo's ride," he commented, looking up and down the road.
"He was not my responsibility," Ziva replied, slamming the trunk shut half a second after Tony's hand was clear. "Nor were Ducky or Palmer."
Tony looked up and down the street again, but only saw two cruisers and a bunch of luxury cars. "Are we seriously the first ones here? Gibbs' head is going to explode."
"It is a good thing I drove, yes?" Ziva said, tilting her head to look up at him as they walked towards the house. "If we relied on you, we would still be 20 minutes away."
Tony gave her an exaggerated smile and forced a laugh. "Yes, your safety-adverse driving style saved the day."
In response, Ziva spun and stepped in front of him, causing Tony to walk right into her. "Hey, I bought you a Slushie," she reminded him, and dropped her eyes for what had to be her fifth good look at him that day. "Be nice to me."
He couldn't help the smile, or encouraging her further. "When am I ever not nice?"
"When you make fun of my superior driving skills," she replied, before poking him in the ribs and turning her back to him once more.
Tony watched her go for a moment before jogging to catch up with her. "I'm sorry I hurt your feelings, Ziva," he said as he slung his arm around her shoulder. "Would a sugar-laden, raspberry-flavoured ice drink make it up to you?"
She cut him a look out of the corner of her eye. "I have more obvious weaknesses, Tony," she said, and broke away from him as they approached a red-skinned uniformed officer.
Tony watched as the officer looked Ziva up and down, his eyes pausing at the gun on her hip and swell of her chest before settling on the badge she held up at her shoulder.
"NCIS," she said. "The body is around back, yes?"
The officer nodded and lifted the crime scene tape. "Yes, ma'am."
Ziva paused at the label as she ducked under the tape, and Tony heard her intake of breath. He put his hand on her back quickly, stilling the verbal bitch slap she was undoubtedly about to let loose at the officer's use of the 'M' word.
"Thanks, kid," Tony threw at the officer, and he caught the smirk touching the corner of Ziva's mouth. He gave her a wink of solidarity and they continued to the scene.
It wasn't hard to spot Gibbs. He was the only one in a crowd of party guests and cops wearing a windbreaker. His Gibbs Magic kicked in when Tony and Ziva got within ten feet, and he called out to them, despite having had his back to them the whole time.
"What took you two so long?" he asked.
Tony and Ziva shared a 'how does he do that?' look before Tony spoke up.
"I was in the middle of a game, boss. Probably would have been here ten minutes ago if Ziva had been able to stop ogling me." He shot a childish grin at her, but Ziva only gave him a sultry smirk in return.
"Actually, I was ogling the 25-year-old in the red shorts."
Tony's smile fell, even though he knew she was probably joking, and he unconsciously sucked his stomach in a little. Fine, he wasn't 25 anymore. But he thought he was pretty good for 40, especially since he'd picked up his exercise regime.
"How 'bout you both start ogling the scene," Gibbs suggested. "DiNozzo, shoot and sketch. David, bag and tag."
"On it, boss," Tony said, already pulling the camera with the telephoto lens out of his bag as Ziva tied her hair into a loose bun.
Gibbs finished his perusal of the body of a woman in her mid-twenties, lying beside a large pool after being dragged from the water, and turned to look at them. His eyes flicked over Ziva's bare shoulders, then up to her face.
"Make sure you get that bloodstain on the edge of the pool," he told them.
"Of course," she said.
"You wearing sunscreen?" he asked her, almost kindly.
"Yes, Dad," she replied, managing to keep a straight face.
Gibbs nodded, threw a look at Tony, and then left them.
"I'm wearing sunscreen too!" Tony called after him. "Thanks for checking."
Ziva chuckled. "Looks like I am the favourite today," she said, and snapped on a pair of gloves.
"Only until he sees Abby."
Ziva pulled opened the small evidence kit she had in her bag and crouched to swab the spot of blood Gibbs had been looking at earlier. Tony snapped a few shots from above of the body and the stain.
"You know," he said, "I was kind of hoping that we'd get a happy Gibbs to work with on this case after all the yelling and throwing things during our last."
"I'm not sure I understand your use of the word 'happy' in the context of Leroy Jethro Gibbs," Ziva replied, carefully sealing the blood sample in an evidence bag and tagging it.
Tony leant back slightly to snap a photo of her ass. "I meant happy on the Gibbs scale of emotiveness."
"Is that anything like the Richter Scale?"
He grinned, pleased that she was in a playful mood. "Kind of. They both measure forms of explosive outbursts."
"And both outbursts leave a path of destruction," came a familiar, accented voice from behind them.
They turned to see Ducky and Palmer approaching, both in full Medical Examiner jumpsuits.
"Afternoon, doctor," Tony said. "Lovely day to be beside the seaside."
"Perhaps for some, but not for others," Ducky replied, kneeling beside the body before addressing it. "Now, my dear. What happened to you?"
As Ducky continued his one-sided conversation, Palmer sidled up to Tony. "Is McGee here?"
"Not yet," Tony replied, snapping a few shots of an overturned chair and high ball glass. "Gibbs is going to have his McHead on a McPlatter."
"Oh. It's just that I was on a mystery novel discussion board last night," Palmer offered enthusiastically. "And they were talking about the upcoming release of the new Thom E Gemcity novel."
Tony froze for a moment, then swung around to see if Ziva had heard the comment. It was obvious she had by the way she narrowed her eyes at Palmer. She flicked her eyes to Tony and they made a silent agreement. War on Probie.
"When is it coming out?" Tony asked as Ziva got to her feet and took up position behind him and to the right. Backup position.
"November some time," Palmer said. "Apparently the release date has been bumped a few times. He didn't say anything to you guys, did he?"
"We left him alive the last time we saw him," Ziva replied. "So no, we did not know."
Palmer looked embarrassed. "I just don't want him to say I'm a necrophiliac again," he said, and left them to rejoin Ducky.
Tony looked over his shoulder at Ziva. "Okay. Palmer probably got the worst deal of all of us, but that doesn't mean that we can't tear McGrisham limb from limb."
Ziva gave him an enigmatic smile and bumped him with her shoulder. "I think my assassin's training is finally rubbing off on you."
The New York Times' best seeling author arrived half an hour later, hastily pulling on his NCIS cap as he ran across the lawn to where Tony was sketching a rough outline of the scene.
"You're late," Tony said without taking his eyes off the sketch.
"I got tied up," McGee said breathlessly. "Gibbs is going to kill me."
"Gibbs won't have a chance once we're done with you," Ziva said, appearing out of thin air to whisper menacingly into McGee's ear and causing him to jump in surprise.
"What are you talking about?" McGee asked, trying to turn to face her but finding himself suddenly sandwiched between Tony and Ziva.
"How's the new novel going, Thom?" Tony asked.
"We heard it was almost complete," Ziva added.
"Were you late because you were working out the percentage of royalties you're going to be paying us all?"
McGee swallowed. "How did you--?" he started, but Tony cut him off.
"We're very talented investigators," he anticipated. "Isn't that right, Lisa?"
"I am more talented at torture," Ziva replied. "What peril does Officer Lisa find herself in this time, Mr Gemcity?"
McGee had no doubt that he was inviting hours, days and possibly months of thinly veiled threats, but there was no point lying. They'd both read the book soon enough. "She's in a plane crash," he told her.
Ziva gasped and stepped back from him, only to punch him in the arm. "You want me dead!"
McGee spun and backed away from them both, raising his hands in defence. "No! Ziva, she doesn't die. I would never kill off Lisa."
But that didn't placate her. "Oh, so you just want me horribly disfigured!"
"It's a work of fiction!" McGee argued for what had to be the hundredth time. "Lisa is very loosely based on you and a few other women."
Ziva narrowed her eyes, and Tony shook his head slowly. "You're not writing a novel. You're writing a suicide note."
"Ah, damn it, McGee," Gibbs sighed as he joined his agents. "Not again."
"I signed a three-book deal," McGee explained, taking off his hat and fanning himself in the scorching heat. "I'm contractually obliged to deliver this book and one more."
"If you live that long," Ziva muttered.
"I'm with Lisa," Tony said. "Permission to throw him overboard, boss?"
"Denied, for now," Gibbs replied. "I need him to take witness statements. With me, McGee."
McGee slinked between the glaring Tony and Ziva, and caught up to Gibbs halfway across the lawn. "Sorry I'm late, boss. I—"
Gibbs' hand connected soundly with the back of his head.
"Right. Don't apologise," McGee recited.
"That was for Tony and Ziva," Gibbs told him. "The apology is deserved. Get your butt over to those witnesses."
Two hours later, Tony snapped off a final shot then looked over at Ziva as she stood up straight and stretched out her back, curving her spine in a way that he found irresistible. She looked over her shoulder at him, as if hearing his thoughts and ready to admonish him. But she shot him a small smile that struck him as intensely intimate, and wandered over to join him under a big, shady tree.
"Get enough shots?" she asked.
"The scene is well documented," he assured her.
She gave him a knowing look. "I hope you got my best angle."
He grinned, sprung. "Yeah, I got plenty of your ass."
She cocked her head to the side as she regarded him. "Does Gibbs know about the image file on the shared computer drive with all the crime scene outtakes in it?"
Tony shrugged. "If he does, he doesn't care."
She crouched to unzip his backpack sitting at his feet and pulled out his bottle of water. As she drank, McGee cautiously approached them with red cheeks and forearms.
"I think the goose is cooked," Tony cracked.
McGee rolled his eyes but accepted the jibe as penance. "How come you two aren't roasted?"
"Israeli skin," Ziva replied, wiping her mouth. "I have more melanin."
"Italian skin," Tony added. "Same situation. Sucks to be you, McIrish."
McGee gingerly touched his cheek. "This is going to hurt so much tonight."
"What did the witnesses say?" Tony wanted to know.
"No one saw anything," McGee replied flatly. "Molly Spears was swimming alone, and was found 20 minutes later floating face down. Her boyfriend, Sam Laconte, tried to give her CPR, but she didn't come around. And he's a volunteer fire fighter, so either he was doing it wrong on purpose, or it was never going to help."
"I collected some cocktail glasses from beside her chair," Ziva said. "Abby will tell us if there was anything hinky in there."
Tony and McGee both smirked at her terminology.
"Who interviewed Laconte?" Tony asked, taking the water bottle off Ziva and downing the remaining two inches.
"Both Gibbs and I," McGee said. "Seemed genuinely distraught. But I'm gonna go do a background check anyway." He wiped his bright pink brow again. "You know, from the air conditioned comfort of the office."
Gibbs appeared on the lawn ten feet away. "Ziva!" He cocked his head in a come here gesture, and Ziva gave McGee's burnt arm a gentle pat before joining Gibbs.
Tony watched her go, and then turned to McGee. "Plane crash? Really?"
McGee shrugged. "It's only to force a conversation with Agent Tommy." He looked up at Tony with a smirk. "He goes down with her, and right now, things don't look particularly good for him."
Tony gave him a dirty look in return, but as McGee wandered away, he couldn't help calling after him. "What conversation?"
McGee didn't reply, and somehow, Tony thought that may have been a good thing.