Tony sighed. Monday morning, pouring rain, and heavy traffic. This was not his idea of a fun start to the week. He looked up ahead and saw a mini-van pulled over to the shoulder with a flat tire. As he approached the vehicle, he noticed the Marine bumper sticker on the back window before a petite woman in a raincoat raised the rear door. He realized the young woman was attempting to change the tire herself. Without even thinking about it, Tony hit his hazard lights and pulled in behind her. Reaching for his NCIS identification, he jumped out of the car and approached the young woman.
"Hey, there, need some help?" Tony asked holding out his credentials to reassure her.
"Um, yea, that would be great. I mean, my dad taught me how to change one of these when I was sixteen but I haven't actually had to do it in years. The kids are freaking out," she said pointing to the back seat of the van. Two small unsmiling faces peered over the top of the seat.
"Mommy broked the car. My daddy is in Afastan. He can't come home and fix it," the little boy said with a very serious expression. His blonde hair and large blue eyes reminded Tony of those figurines at the Hallmark store. Precious Moments he thought they were called. Some previous girlfriend had dragged him with her when she purchased one for her mother.
"Well, how about if I fix the car? Would that be alright?" Tony asked.
"You fix our car? Why?" asked a little girl who looked like she could be the boy's twin.
"Um, because it's raining and I don't want your mommy to get all wet," Tony answered.
"Why it raining?" the little girl asked at the same time her brother asked his name.
"My name is Tony and I don't know why it's raining," Tony answered both of them while exchanging an amused smile with their mother.
"WHY IT RAINING?" the little girl asked again, demanding a better answer.
"Because God sent the rain so the flowers will grow, honey," her mother answered and then turned to Tony. "Gracie is almost four. She's in the why stage and she won't accept 'I don't know' as an answer. It's mentally exhausting. I'm Ashlynn, by the way. And the little boy is Aidan. He just turned five last month. They are both late for preschool. And you have no idea how sad that makes all three of us."
Listening as Gracie asked why the flowers growed, Tony grinned. "I think I'm getting the idea. Why don't you sit inside with them while I take care of this? I just need to call my boss and let him know where I am."
"Oh, no, I don't want to make you late for work. I can do this, really," Ashlynn protested.
"Don't worry about it. My boss was a marine. I'd be in more trouble if I didn't stay and help," Tony assured her.
Ziva looked in the mirror and debated. There was really no point in trying to straighten her hair in this weather. I might as well leave it curly she decided as she reached for the hair dryer in her bag. She had been shocked at how understanding Gibbs had been. With the power unexpectedly out in her building, she had taken the time to make sure Lucy would be alright before coming to work. Now she was using the shower room normally reserved for hazardous material incidents to get ready for the day. I guess Gibbs considers watching out for elderly neighbors an acceptable excuse for tardiness, she thought, as she finished drying her hair. She was facing the mirror with her back to the door when she heard footsteps behind her. Looking up, she caught Tony's eye in the mirror's reflection and suddenly became very conscious of her state of undress.
Tony came around the corner in the shower room and realized he was not alone. His partner stood with her back to him wearing only jeans and a lacy black bra. His first thought was that this was a definite improvement on his Monday morning. That quickly changed, though, as he got closer. He could see faint thin pink lines across Ziva's back. They started just below her shoulder blades and continued below the waist of her jeans. Tony felt a momentary wave of nausea but recovered quickly. As his eyes met Ziva's in the mirror, he saw her distress before she quickly masked it. He deliberately shifted his eyes so that he was staring at her chest in the mirror.
"Well, good morning, you look very nice today, Special Agent David," Tony said with a smirk.
With a look of disgust, she asked him, "Why are you so wet, Tony? Lose your umbrella?"
"Flat tire," he replied while keeping his eyes glued to her chest.
Exasperated, she turned around to face him and he finally pulled his eyes back up to hers. "You could have called one of us to pick you up instead of changing it in the rain," she told him, her tone clearly conveying she thought he was an idiot.
"Wasn't my tire. Young mom. Mini-van with kids. Marine husband deployed to Afghanistan. What are you gonna do?" he explained. "What are you doing here?"
"The power is out in my building. There is some issue with the wiring. I believe it was somehow revealed with that city-wide power outage but they are just now finding it. I waited to make sure my elderly neighbor was going to be okay. Her daughter was coming to get her. It is quite the Monday, yes?"
"I don't know about that. My day just got a lot better," he said with another pointed look at her chest.
"Enjoying the view, Tony? Please hand me my sweater," she said pointing to the red pullover that lay on the bench beside him.
Tony picked it up but did not give it to her immediately. "And spoil the view? Why would I do that, Ziva? You aren't embarrassed, are you? It's not like it's the first time I've seen it. Ah, the undercover memories."
"Why would I be embarrassed? I am just cold. Now give me the sweater," she insisted as he held it out of her reach.
"Yea, I can see that you are cold," he said with a leering grin.
"Oh my God, you are such a pig. If you value your life at all, you will give me that sweater," Ziva threatened.
"Here," Tony said with a disappointed sigh as he handed her the garment. "Hey, I don't suppose you'd let me borrow your hair dryer?"
Ziva considered as she pulled on her sweater. Finally, she said, "Alright. I should not but since you helped the mom in the mini-van, I will."
As it turned out, drying their hair had been a wasted effort for Tony and Ziva. Within an hour, they got a call out to a crime scene. The Baltimore police had originally taken the case. After identifying the dead woman as Katie Williams, the missing wife of a Navy lieutenant, they called NCIS. Ducky quickly determined that the woman had only been dead a short time before being found in the vacant lot. She had been killed elsewhere and then likely dumped right before dawn. The rain had destroyed any evidence at the scene. Gibbs still made them look, of course.
Once back at NCIS, the team gathered all the information they could about the woman while they waited for Ducky to complete the autopsy. Everything seemed to point to a random killing by a stranger. Lt. Williams was on an aircraft carrier in the Indian Ocean and the couple had no children. Katie Williams was last seen leaving work on the previous Friday. Her employer had called the Baltimore police when she didn't report to work on Monday morning. There was no evidence of an affair and her friends described her as a supportive wife eagerly waiting for her husband to return home. She lived a quiet life and was well liked by her coworkers. Her credit card showed she had stopped for groceries after leaving work Friday afternoon. The camera footage from the grocery store showed nothing unusual. Her car was parked in her garage at her house and the purchased groceries put away. There was no sign of struggle and her bed was made with neatly arranged throw pillows still in place.
When Ducky completed his autopsy report, the news was sobering. The woman's body showed evidence of a brutal sexual assault and other various injuries. Many of her injuries looked to be the result of bondage and torture. Some appeared to be more than a day old. It was likely she had been with her killer most of the weekend. The woman's death was the result of strangulation with some sort of wire.
Abby was working on identifying the type of wire used to kill the woman but it was going to take time. When Ziva had checked with Abby for a progress report, the forensic scientist had been in the process of reviewing the pictures of the body. Non-consensual BDSM is so not cool, Abby had said. Her observation gave Ziva chills. They had reached a dead end by six that evening and Gibbs told them to go home.
"Power back on in your building yet?" Tony asked Ziva as they walked to the elevator.
"No, I called my neighbor and she said the building manager told her it will be some time tomorrow. There is some issue with the wiring not complying with building codes. She did not understand the cause well enough to explain it to me. She is staying the night with her daughter in Fairfax. I will call the building manager myself in the morning," Ziva told him.
"Maybe you should crash somewhere else too. My couch is always available," he said. At her look he quickly added, "I'm sure Abby's is too. Maybe she would actually get to eat her thank you cupcake this time since McGee is on his weight loss kick."
"I will be fine, Tony. It is not that cold and I will just shower here again in the morning. I need to go home and clean out my refrigerator anyway."
"Since you don't have any food, you want to eat least come over to my place to eat? We can get take out."
"I suppose even your company is better than sitting in the dark all evening," Ziva teased.
When Tony had first returned to the bullpen after getting dry, Ziva had been nervous. It only grew worse when Gibbs sent the two of them to investigate the victim's residence. She expected Tony to acknowledge what he had seen earlier. His ogling of her chest had been an obvious diversion. She did not know how long it would last, though. He was too nosy not to ask about the scarring on her back eventually. The doctor had assured her that it would fade over time. Meanwhile, she did her best to block both the scars and their cause from her memory. Perhaps a preemptive strike would be best with Tony, she thought. If she brought it up first, she would be prepared. She could choose the circumstances. She could stay in control and make sure she did not inadvertently share more than she wanted him to know.
Ziva took another bite of pizza while casting a disgusted grimace at the television. Tony had turned on a show called Dirty Jobs as soon as they sat on the couch to eat.
"I cannot believe you watch this while you eat. It is disgusting," Ziva said as she watched the star of the show gently squeeze a baby chick to make it expel excrement. It was apparently necessary to do this in order to determine the sex of the chick. "Why would anyone do this?"
"Be a chick sexer? Well, someone has to and it probably pays well for the education level. It's the American dream for someone, Ziva," Tony joked.
"I can see why people would dream of falling in a driveway if this is their only alternative. And I meant, why does this man go around doing these horrible things on television?" Ziva clarified.
"I guess that's his version of the American dream. Actually, it's brilliant if you think about it. It's an original take on reality television that no one else has done. Very creative. You should give it a chance. My favorite so far has been when he worked with the guys who put up those billboards on the highway. I've got to find a way to make McGee watch it. I mean, can't you just see him up there trying to paste on those ads? He'd have a total McHeartAttack," Tony said with a grin.
"You really should be more understanding of McGee's phobia, Tony. It is a very real fear to him. Much like your fear of rats," Ziva teased.
"Hey, I have a legitimate reason to hate rats. Those things carry deadly diseases. And I've already survived the plague once, you know. I probably couldn't live through it a second time."
"Yes, Tony, you have told me many times about surviving the plague. I do not need to hear it again. My point is that everyone has their fears and you should be more supportive of McGee."
"Everyone, huh? Even you? What are you afraid of Ziva?" Tony asked her, narrowing his eyes and staring intently.
"Besides being trapped for hours with you while listening to endless movie references? Ah, the cargo container memories," she said mimicking his comment from earlier that morning.
"Very funny. Seriously, you said everyone has a phobia. So that must include scary ninja chics. What is yours?" Tony persisted.
"I may have been mistaken. Not everyone has a phobia. Take Gibbs, for example. I cannot imagine that he has a phobia. What could it possibly be?" Ziva asked.
"Termites? A reinstatement of prohibition? Power tools? Nice diversion tactic, by the way, but I'm still waiting to hear about your phobia," Tony replied.
"I already know I am going to regret sharing this but…okay, I was once deathly afraid of lizards. My brother and cousins used to chase me with them as a child," Ziva revealed.
"So, you're over your fear of lizards now?" Tony asked while silently wondering if the pet store at the mall sold reptiles. He still hadn't paid her back for the blue teeth incident.
"I was forced to confront my fear. And I have learned lizards can be very useful for eating bugs. I do not much care for bugs, either," Ziva explained and then hastily added, "I can easily step on them, though, so I do not fear them." She could see the prank ideas forming in Tony's head and had no desire to find bugs in her desk.
"Confront it how? As part of your Mossad training?"
"No, it was not Mossad," Ziva told him. She thought for a minute before deciding to reveal the truth. "It was in Somalia."
"How…did Saleem's men know about it? Use your fear to try to get you to talk?" Tony asked with concern. He immediately ditched the idea for the lizard prank he was contemplating.
"No," Ziva said with a soft smile. "It was just the opposite. There was a lizard in my cell. I have no idea what kind but it must not have been dangerous. I was afraid of it in the beginning but we became friends. Sometimes I would go for two or three days with no one speaking to me. So I named the lizard and had many conversations with it. It was…comforting. And it ate the bugs."
"You're like Tom Hanks in the movie Cast Away. He is stranded alone on a deserted island. He has this volleyball so he paints a face on it and names it Wilson. He talks to it to stay sane. What did you name the lizard?"
"Lagarto. No one at the camp spoke Spanish. I wanted to be sure no one understood in case I was overheard," Ziva explained.
"So it was a big lizard then?" Tony asked recognizing the variation of the Spanish word as indicating a large lizard.
"Probably not but I thought so. Besides lagarto is masculine. I thought of it as male."
"You should have told us about it. We could have tried to rescue him, too. You could keep him in your apartment. You'd never need an exterminator," Tony teased.
"It was too late for Lagarto, Tony. Saleem found out about it. One of the times I made him angry, he killed it. I never made Saleem angry enough to kill me, though. Despite his rage, he always seemed to maintain some amount of control. His control is what made him so powerful."
Tony said nothing for a few moments as he absorbed the impact of her words. In his mind, it was Saleem's lack of control, his caffeine addiction specifically, that led to his downfall. He could understand how Ziva might not see the terrorist from that perspective, though. He had seen the look on her face when Saleem fell to the ground dead. It was part relief but also disbelief. She had not thought it was possible anything could defeat him. It was that look that had enabled Tony to understand why Ziva had been so dismayed to see them there. She had not believed there was any chance they would survive. She expected to watch Saleem kill him and McGee just as she had watched him kill the lizard.
Ziva waited for Tony's next question. She had not necessarily intended to bring up Somalia tonight but the conversation had flowed naturally in that direction. She had found it easier than she expected to talk about it with Tony up to this point. However, they had barely scratched the surface and she was careful with what details she shared. Lagarto had been an important part of her ordeal but far from the worst of it. The lizard's death at Saleem's hands had represented just how powerful Saleem was to her by the time the NCIS team found her. At the time, Lagarto represented everything she cared about. She doubted Tony fully understood that, though.
"Did you try to make Saleem angry enough to kill you? You said you were ready to die but did you also want to?" Tony asked quietly.
"I did once. It was after he killed the lizard. I wanted him to kill me as well. The result made me careful to never anger him again," Ziva again spoke cautiously. She knew this would lead to her revealing the cause of the scarring on her back. She was not surprised by Tony's next inquiry.
"Is that how you got the scars on your back?" Tony finally asked.
Ziva had been preparing for the question since she first said the word Somalia. She took a deep breath before answering. "Yes. Saleem was very skilled at inflicting pain. He always made sure the resulting injuries were not life threatening, though. One of the other guards was sympathetic and he treated the welts so they did not become infected. I have been told the scars will fade."
Tony was again silent for a long time and for once, Ziva could not read his expression. Finally he spoke, "How bad was the pain? Tell me the truth. Please."
Puzzled by his question, Ziva replied, "The pain was not the worst part, Tony. It was the humiliation of it. I was fortunate, though. Saleem sometimes disciplined his men the same way. Their punishment would be outside in the open area where everyone could see. I could hear their screams from my cell. He punished me in my cell. No one else witnessed it although I am sure they heard me. I think the guard who helped me had himself been punished by Saleem."
"He made you scream. That tells me a lot," Tony said in a tight voice. "How did you make him so angry?"
Ziva had remained fairly stoic and unemotional up to this point. She panicked slightly at this question, though, and Tony knew he had ventured into forbidden territory.
"It's okay. Don't tell me if you don't want to talk about it. I…I'm glad you told me some of it," Tony paused and then said what he was thinking. "Sometimes, I wish I could go back and kill Saleem again. Slowly and painfully this time. Watching Gibbs shoot him was not enough…"
"It is enough for me that he is dead, Tony. It does not matter how it was done," Ziva told him. "I do not wish for anyone to be angry and bitter on my behalf. It is in the past. I want to focus on my future."
"Okay. Wow. I can't believe we talked about this. I mean, it's like we've been avoiding anything to do with Somalia since that day in the men's room and then…it's not what I expected when I asked you over. I want you to know that. I just wanted to hang out. Maybe ask if you were feeling better after Friday night," Tony explained.
"I was certain you would ask about my scars. I was actually afraid you would do it at work," Ziva revealed. She was pleasantly surprised that he stopped asking questions when she became uncomfortable.
"Thanks. I'm not that insensitive, Ziva," Tony said trying to hide how much Ziva's words stung.
"Sorry. I just…I knew it would be difficult to talk about it and I was dreading you asking. I know you are not intentionally insensitive."
"I don't know if I can say this in a way that makes sense but…well, I want you to be able to talk to me. I know I haven't always been open with you either. I think it would be good if we could try to change that but I know some things are too hard to talk about. So maybe if we could just be honest about that. Say it's too hard and agree not to push. Did that even make sense?" Tony asked struggling to express what he wanted.
"I believe I understand," Ziva said with obvious relief. "You wish for us to communicate openly and honestly. If something is too difficult, we will admit that rather than hiding behind our usual defenses. And we will agree not push when the other person needs to not talk. Is that what you are trying to say?"
"Yea. That's exactly it. So is it a deal?" Tony asked.
"Yes, it is a deal," Ziva replied.
Lying in her bed later that night, Ziva could not fall asleep. She was still processing her conversation with Tony. There was no question he had surprised her tonight. She knew he had matured over the last couple of years. The last few months had a significant impact on him as well. However, he had been intentionally masking it with his annoying behavior over the last few weeks. She knew it was partly a defense mechanism and partly an attempt to make things less awkward for the team. Still, Tony asking for open communication shocked her. He had only said he wanted it, though. She had yet to see if he would follow through.
Tony lay awake in his bed. He could not stop thinking about the things Ziva had told him. He was still shocked she had talked about Somalia. As far as he knew, it was the first time she had done so without being forced. Tony knew by the state she was when they found her that her time in the camp had been bad. For her sake, he would try not to dwell on his anger at what she had revealed. He wondered if she believed him when he said he wanted them to be more open with each other. It wasn't going to be easy. It meant they might eventually talk about the things he told her in Somalia. For now, that remained firmly on his "too hard to talk about" list. He doubted it was something she was ready to talk about either.