A/N: My psychology textbook has sat untouched on the shelf despite having a massive exam in two days; I haven't slept in at least 35 hours, and am seriously doubting my own sanity, which may be reflected in the following chapter. I really hope it's worth it…
For the record, I know bugger all about computers and programming and McGee things. That's the beauty of internet research, from which I gather that what Abby is talking about might be possible. However, there's a reason why Wikipedia is not an accepted academic reference.
His mother forced him to wear a sailor suit at family gatherings and special occasions until he was ten, something Tony still thinks of with no small amount of resentment (and perhaps a little bit of sadness, given how it all turned out in the end).
Granted, his underlying feelings might actually be more attributable to the fact that his mother was a raging lunatic who was a little too fond of her nightly cocktail (her name for it regardless of the time of day said cocktail was being consumed), and less to the indignity of wearing the blue and white outfit like a little doll.
His extended family called him Popeye for most of his formative years. He's fairly sure his Uncle Mario was (and still is) convinced his name actually was Popeye, but the man regularly trumped his mother in the incoherent and somewhat embarrassing stakes, so Tony supposes he can forgive the oversight.
By the time he was old enough to realise that this was not regular barbeque attire, he was also old enough to know that something was not quite right with his mother, that her vomiting and persistent complaints of back pain, fatigue and lack of appetite were not just a byproduct of her drinking.
Instead of flitting around the backyard like a social butterfly, she sat; yellowed face tight and drawn, in a white wicker chair, clutching her drink like it was the only thing keeping her tethered to the earth. The only time she smiled was when she caught a glimpse of the blue and white cotton.
She straightened his collar and told him he was going to make her proud one day.
He was twelve when she died – 'Pancreatic cancer, inoperable, isn't it a pity,' his aunts whispered in corners – and instead of putting on the black suit the maid laid out on his bed on the morning of the funeral, he dug through his closet until he found the familiar blue and white, and forced his gangly, growing limbs into it like penance.
He did not cry at the funeral, but he did punch his cousin Rick in the face as he passed him by on the way to drop flowers – yellow roses, they were – on his mothers open grave, and when his father asked why, the only answer Tony gave was 'He said sailor suits were for babies.'
It didn't matter that Tony himself hated the suit, he wore it because it had made his mother smile (once upon a time).
As a man, he has fashioned his own suit, not of blue and white but of movie quotes and wisecracks and an air of confused incompetence. Those who truly know him (and you could count them on one hand) know that this could not be further from the truth (but they play along anyway), and those who don't are instantly put at ease. If they need to be lured, he will reel them in and hold up his catch proudly as if to say 'look what I did.'
He makes them smile, and it is worth the price.
The sun has only just begun creeping over the horizon as Tony enters Abby's lab, having bypassed the deserted bullpen and come directly here. He hovers in the doorway for an instant, because he has a gut feeling that he is not going to like what he is about to hear.
His gut is usually right, and right now it is churning.
"Tony!' she cries like a child at Christmastime, and you would never know that she only saw him yesterday the way she squeezes him. 'You shaved! And showered! Not that you smelled bad or anything, it's just that… well, after awhile, everybody gets a little musty. And while we're on the subject of smells, I found a code smell on the laptop we recovered from Ziva's apartment.'
She might as well have been speaking Swahili, but he knows this is her process, so he just watches and waits. Seconds tick by and there's no explanation forthcoming.
'This is the part where you ask what I'm talking about, and I give you a long string of information, and then you cock your head to the side – yes, just like that – and say "Abs, I'm a phys ed major, dumb it down".' She doesn't wait for him to oblige, just circles the table where the charred laptop sits (he wonders why it is here and not in some Mossad spy lab in Tel Aviv) and shakes her pigtails as though clearing her head.
'Well, we found emails from Rivkin to Ziva, supposedly sent to her NCIS email account – a very secure, highly encrypted email account, I might add. Though if McGee can crack the CIA, I suppose anything is possible. Anyway – what we didn't find were emails sent from Ziva back to Rivkin, and you would think that there would be, if she really was dating…'
She catches a glimpse of his face, '… not important. So I took a closer look at the emails, and found something hinky.' A line of complicated-looking letters and numbers flashes up on one of her computer screens and she points at it with the straw of her Caf-POW. 'It's a code smell – a replica of another code. And it shouldn't be there, because it's like when you write a report – nobody wants to read the same paragraph twice in a row. Or in this case, six times. It's sloppy, and it takes way longer to finish. So I checked each part of the code, and voila!'
A smaller window opens onscreen, and she looks at him expectantly. ' It's not sloppy coding – it's stinky, in an I-smell-a-rat kind of way. In this case, a rat named Rivkin.'
Five years with McGee and it still means nothing to him. 'Abs, is there a point to this?'
'Rivkin didn't send Ziva an email. He sent her email program a bug. It allowed him – or someone else – to access her email through a backdoor and add messages, including specific time stamps. With this bug, anyone could plant messages about anything, all on one day, and make it look like they'd been communicating for months!'
And it dawns on him then, though he's not sure why this was so important that he's in the lab at the ass crack of dawn. 'So someone planted the emails to make us think she was in on whatever Rivkin was ordered to do… to make us believe she was a traitor.'
'Gold star, DiNozzo,' comes a voice from behind him, and he's somehow not surprised that Gibbs is here just at the right time as always. 'But you're still not asking the right questions.'
Tony thinks for a moment, then frowns. 'Can you tell when the emails were planted?'
'I don't get all those job offers for nothing, Tony,' Abby says huffily, but she's smiling. 'The emails were planted the morning that Ziva's apartment was blown up. And here's the other thing – there's no reason for the same codes to be on the laptop and on Ziva's email, unless…'
'Unless the owner of the laptop – the dead agent – was being bugged as well.' Tony interjects, his face stony. 'Or Rivkin was. Mossad set him up. And Ziva. And us as well.' And Tony wants to smack himself for all the times he'd entertained the thought that Ziva had betrayed them from the beginning, but Gibbs beats him to it.
It's the first time Tony has ever seen his boss deliver a headslap to himself. 'Boss?'
Gibbs looks behind him and then shuts the door. 'Don't you get it, DiNozzo? Someone wanted us to think she was a traitor. Rivkin is sent to Washington, on the Director of Mossad's orders. Told to stay with Ziva, maybe to pretend he was in love with her, maybe not. I don't know. He dies,' –and Tony is thankful for Gibbs's choice of words- ' they blow up her apartment to hide the evidence that backs up your story. Eli David requests our presence in Tel Aviv, tells Vance some cock-and-bull story about ordering Ziva to kill her brother to gain our trust, knowing Vance would pass it on soon enough...'
This tidbit about Ari is news to Tony, but it actually explains a lot, and he doesn't want to interrupt Gibbs who is clearly on a roll. Except he's not, because he stops and stares at Tony like there's something else that needs to be said. And there is.
It turns out that Tony's gut was churning for a reason, and it isn't at all the reason he expected. An email from Ziva to Abby saying she never wanted to see him again, that she was done with NCIS – now that, he'd expected. But not this.
He doesn't know what's worse, the thought that she hates him and remained in Israel because of this, or the thought that she's out there somewhere unaware of the games that are being played, with her as the pawn. He's fairly sure Mossad don't fuck around when it comes to getting the job done. Ziva herself has proven that.
'Someone doesn't want us to come looking for her.'
'And why might that be, DiNozzo?' It's not said unkindly, but softening the blow doesn't make it hurt any less.
He has a fair idea, and suddenly he can't speak because the world is spinning and it turns out that McMuffin on the way into NCIS was a bad, bad idea, because it's no longer in his stomach, it's in Abby's trash can. Tony spits; rinses his mouth and when he straightens up Gibbs is staring at him like he's never seen him before.
And the words flow back to him like someone's taken a knife and carved them into his flesh. Ayudame! Sa'adunee! Ta'azor lee! Pomogi Mnye!
His voice is not his own when he speaks. 'Boss: Pomogi Mnye. That Russian?'
'Well, yeah, DiNozzo. It means "Help me".'
'What about ayudame? Sa'adunee?'
Abby turns, types, looks back at him and he swears his heart stops. He wants to be sick again but there's nothing left, and finally, finally he understands what Ziva-in-his-dreams was trying to say. Help me.
And as always, she was right, he has not been listening and now all the pieces have clicked into place and it's Director David, in the library, with the wrench and oh god oh god oh god.
Turns out he was wrong (again) when he said there was nothing left.
That night she does not appear in his dreams, but he wakes up thinking he can smell yellow roses.
A/N: I don't think there's anything to say, really, except please review, because I'm very very nervous that it didn't live up to expectations.