Chapter 7
For the second Monday in a row, Tim practically springs into MCRT, high on feeling from the weekend. He doesn't stop at Daily Joe this morning since he knows Tony'll be driving by way of Dunkin Donuts and Gibbs—well everyone really—likes their coffee better.
McGee offers Gibbs a cheery good morning, not really bothered by the morning glare he gets in return seeing as how it's just that time of day when Boss' first cup of coffee starts to fade. He stows his gun and starts up his computer, setting his lunch in his lower right drawer. He's still checking his email when Ziva scurries in off the elevator, mind obviously elsewhere as she secures her own weapon and starts her daily routine.
"Good morning, Ziva," McGee offers her an eager smile as he comes around to the other side of his desk to start up the plasma.
She glares up at McGee. "I do not understand why American drivers are so sensitive."
Tim tightens his grip on the remote and bites his lip in an attempt to get rid of the grin. "Another ticket?" he tries to ask the question with a sympathetic tone.
"My third in two months!" she confirms.
Tim clears his throat, a little surprised at the low number. Then again, he rethinks, maybe they just haven't been able to catch up to her.
"The policeman said if I had even one more citation, I would be referred to driving school! Me!" She shakes her head. "Unbelievable," she finishes.
Tim squints and tilts his head away from her, perhaps in a subconscious motion to keep it more removed from the line of fire. "Well, maybe you should consider attending driving school anyway."
"What?" she squints and shakes her head at him again, and out of the corner of his eye, Tim can see Gibbs lift his head in amusement, giving the argument more of his attention. "I do not need to be taught how to drive," Ziva continues, maneuvering around her desk to walk right up to Tim. "I have been operating a vehicle since I was thirteen years old, and I do not need some overgrown, stuffed pants instructor to tell me what I already know," she lifts her chin and steps right up to Tim's toes, fire in her eyes, hands clenching at her sides.
Tim clears his throat again and takes a step back, about to tell Ziva how it might add points back to her license if she takes the courses preemptively, but then, in her irritation, Ziva follows his movement immediately, pressing him right up against his desk. His skin starts itching instantaneously at being boxed in, but instead of giving in to his long-held aversion to conflict by trying to sidestep her or beg his release with kind words, he feels his back straighten up, and he widens his stance a little, then he moves forward, right into Ziva's space.
"First of all," he lifts a single finger in explanation. "It's stuffed shirt, not stuffed pants." He waves his hand, still sporting the plasma's remote, in the tiny space between them. "Totally different meaning. Second," he sighs, still not wanting to be rude, but come on!
"Second, Ziva, you're scary when you drive, and not cool scary like you are when you do those freaky Mossad moves that make us laugh at Tony when he tries to imitate them, but oh my gosh I'm going to die scary." She lifts her chin even higher as he goes on. "I get that you learned to drive in a warzone and everything, but DC is not a warzone," he tilts his head, "though, granted, I will give you cherry blossom season when the crazy 'nature'," he uses air quotes, "tourists come out. You've never bothered to learn how to drive in an American city because there's a part of you that's never left Israel, and unfortunately, the driver in you is probably the biggest part," he finishes, still holding his ground.
Ziva blinks at him a moment, and then blinks away. "I see," she says stiffly and turns so abruptly her ponytail almost takes out his eye.
"Ziva." He lifts an arm a little in reflex toward her back, upset at having offended her. He almost even steps toward her as she smoothly slides back behind her desk. But then he drops his hand to his side. What he said was not untrue, nor was it particularly unkind.
Sometimes you don't like the things you learn about yourself from other people, but that doesn't mean you didn't need to know them, Abby had said that to him right after she'd called it off between them. Now, standing here in the bullpen seven years later, watching Ziva very studiously ignore him, it's the first time Tim has ever recalled the memory when it didn't sting.
Tim licks his lips, finishes setting up the plasma, and walks back to his own desk. He gets back to his email. Abby's comment and what she meant that day competing in his mind for supremacy with Ziva's driving skills and her offense when Tim had taken exception to them. He shakes his head in an attempt to clear his mind, then brings his chin up to check that the plasma screen has completed its connection with the wifi. His gaze stops when he reaches Gibbs. Boss' eyes are centered right on him, squinting and almost curious.
Tim meets his gaze and returns the stare, trying to imagine why Gibbs would be so focused on him this morning.
"You need something, Boss?" he finally asks, squinting right back.
"Nope," Gibbs shakes his head once, and though he doesn't smile, Tim gets the strong sense that he kind of almost is anyway.
Tim shakes his head at the oddity, but then focuses back on his work. He feels Gibbs' eyes drop off him after another few moments and then the three of them work separately and in silence for another fifteen minutes before Tony steps off the elevator.
"Hey, hey, hey! Hot stuff coming through." Tony grins at them, setting a bag of pastries onto his desk and letting his pack slip down to the floor beside his chair before passing out the steaming coffees from the Dunkin Donuts paper tray. "Oh, and be careful because the coffee's pretty warm, too," he winks at Tim as he sets his latte down on his desk.
"Thanks." Tim grins right back up at him. Even though it's a joke Tony's told a dozen times before, it seems newly funny.
Having finished distributing his load, Tony looks around the cubicle at his abnormally closed-mouth coworkers, and checks his watch. "I'm not late, am I?" The minute hands confirm, "No, I'm not late. Ooh," he winces, "Beth from accounting didn't call, did she? Because that suit really was ruined while chasing a suspect. I just got the coffee stain on it the same day."
Tim chuffs, trying not to laugh. "Good morning, Tony."
"Good morning, McWhyNot," Tony grins hugely at him.
"McWhyNot?" Tim lifts his brow.
"Come on," Tony leads. "Porquoi Pas? Don't tell me you didn't take French in high school."
"I didn't take French in high school," he deadpans.
Tony squints, "Are you lying?"
Tim narrows his eyes right back at him for only a second until he breaks, "Yes, okay, I'm lying, but it's not like I remember any of it," he shrugs.
"Timmy, Timmy, Timmy," Tony shakes his head. "It's a good thing you have me to take you under my wing."
McGee feels the comeback bubble up in his throat, but the truth is, he's kind of had the same thought, however unformed, rolling around his head for the last couple weeks. "Of course it is, Tony," he says eventually, trying to infuse some irony into the statement so his voice doesn't come across as pathetically grateful as he feels.
Tony steps up to him, placing his own coffee on Tim's desk to grab Tim's shoulders. "Porquoi Pas means—"
"Why not," Tim cuts him off. "Yeah, I caught that."
Tony tilts his head and smiles, pinching McGee's cheek. "Why not, indeed?" Tony squeezes Tim's shoulders one last time before picking up his coffee and shuffling towards his own desk.
Why not? Tim repeats silently to himself, and then he smiles.
Tony's blood pressure still hasn't normalized five minutes after the team arrives at the crime scene. He doesn't know what he did this time to piss Gibbs off, but whatever it was, tossing Ziva the keys to the van with that gleeful—well, for Gibbs—smile was a completely disproportionate punishment.
The only thing that made it bearable was the fact that Tim must have equally irritated him as he was specifically included when Gibbs told them to secure their seatbelts—tightly.
The rhythm of the team's routine slowly calms his heartbeat—Tim excitedly using his fingerprint toy, Ziva snapping pictures and flashing in everyone's way just to tease-slash-irritate them, Ducky droning on about pine cones and holly berries and the derivation of the Christmas song spotlighting them regardless of the fact that it's actually a beautiful mid-spring day, Palmer asking questions at just the right intervals to spur him to continue, and Gibbs contentedly glaring at, well, just about everyone.
By nature of the investigation, the commander sitting at his desk with a hole in his head is assumed to have died from homicide, though the gun in his hand, gripped tightly around the effects of rigor, would seem to beg otherwise. There's no note immediately apparent, which doesn't necessarily mean anything, but the empty dresser drawers upstairs—including half the drawers in the master bedroom and all the ones in the children's bedrooms—also speak loudly.
"It's a shame," the marine who first cordoned off the scene says as he's about to leave. "He was up for promotion."
Gibbs' head snaps up, the gears already turning. "Promotion?" he prods.
The corporal nods. "About to get his own ship. Ticonderoga class if you listen to the rumors," he clarifies.
Tony raises his brows and looks at Gibbs, "He's pretty young for it."
"Forty-one," Tim agrees.
"Hey, it looks like this crime scene just got a little more interesting," Palmer slowly grins. He shakes his head and frowns. "Not that somebody dying is ever interesting, well not that I'm not interested in the medical examiner's profession—"
"Mr. Palmer," Ducky interrupts, exasperated, "While I am certain you meant no disrespect to Commander Mitchell, perhaps we should get him back home before we decide how 'interesting' this case is."
"Right," Jimmy nods. "Of course, Dr. Mallard," he says and scrambles out toward the van with their equipment inside.
Ducky flashes his eyes toward the ceiling, then looks over to Gibbs. "I'm afraid Mr. Palmer may be right, Jethro. Although it is apparent the commander's hand was in close proximity to the gun as it was fired, this pattern on his skin as revealed by Anthony's field kit is somewhat suspicious, although we should be able to figure that out fairly quickly once Abigail runs a computer simulation of the incident."
Gibbs gives one quick shake of his head. "Alright, let's finish up then," he says and rises from his kneeling position. "DiNozzo," Gibbs bellows.
"Yes, Boss?" Tony jerks his head up immediately upon hearing his name.
"You ride with me," Gibbs orders.
Tony perks up. "Yes, Boss." One glance over toward McGee's face—quickly turning an unbecoming shade of green—tells him Ziva still has the van's keys.
Tony pats Tim's shoulder in commiseration then quickly scurries off after Gibbs and far, far, far away from Ziva and the keys she's holding hostage.
They ride to the nearest Starbucks in relative silence—well, Tony rationalizes, talking about the weather is practically speechless for Tony. They walk into the coffee shop—Gibbs is obviously still maintaining that weird thing he has about drive-thrus, a fact that has always privately reminded Tony of Joe Pesci in Lethal Weapon 2: They fuck you in the drive-thru.
"Heh," Tony chortles but cuts off the sound abruptly at Boss' glare
They order coffee for the team. Just to be on the safe side, Tony forgoes a brew for Tim and buys him a peppermint tea instead, adding a solid amount of sweetner. That should help with the nausea once Tim gets back to the Yard.
They're already back in the car before Gibbs offers more than a 'hmm' or a growl to the conversation. "McGee looked good this morning," he points out as he makes a nearly legal left turn.
Tony smiles to himself at Gibbs' observation. "He did, didn't he?" Tony turns to Gibbs whose attention seems to be wholly fixated on the mid-afternoon traffic. Tony knows better, though. He knows that Gibbs expects more details, and Tony is happy to provide them. He frowns, well some of the details anyway.
"We had a good time Saturday," Tony offers.
"You went out again?" Gibbs asks, but they both know he already knows the answer.
"Yeah," Tony nods. "Different club. Slightly younger crowd than last week but more adventurous," he waggles his eyebrows.
Gibbs levels his eyes at DiNozzo. Tony doesn't exactly flinch under the gaze, but he can't quite say he doesn't flinch either.
"Didn't think that was McGee's style," Gibbs points his gaze back outside, and something about the way Gibbs doesn't look at Tony gives the younger man a bad feeling.
"He's less vanilla than you'd think," Tony defends.
"Never thought it was a matter of vanilla," Gibbs winces like it's something he really doesn't want to think about. "McGee's always been the type trying to find something steady."
Tony swallows hard, thinking of Tim's words that first night in the parking lot, how Tim talked about wanting to fall in love and get married, how he said he wanted it to mean something when he went to bed with somebody. Was Tony somehow tarnishing that ideal, tarnishing Tim?
Tony juts out his chin. "He's having fun."
Gibbs shrugs, lifts the middle of his lower lip as if agreeing with the information.
"Really, he is," Tony insists. "You said so yourself how good he looked," he points out.
Gibbs just nods.
"I'm not pushing him into doing anything he doesn't want to do," he asserts, certain he's telling the truth. "I'm just there to support him." And to have sex with the women he's having sex with while we're all in bed together, Tony very pointedly does not add.
Gibbs glares at the traffic light they're stopped at as if it's wronged them personally. "What's this whole thing got to do with Abby?" the older man finally questions.
"Boss—" Tony shakes his head.
"I haven't sent him downstairs in over a week. He hasn't gone down voluntarily, Abby hasn't come up, and neither one of them has said a word about it. As far as I know they haven't so much as talked to each other on the phone," Gibbs turns his glare towards Tony. "If they can't work together, then I need to know."
"They are working together," Tony insists.
Gibbs shakes his head, focusing back on the road as the light turns to green. "They're avoiding each other," he corrects. "Why?"
Tony feels Gibbs glance his way but doesn't give in to the urge to look back at him. "It's Tim's business," he quietly lets on as Gibbs gets to him.
Gibbs hones in on the little bit of information he's given, "Not Abby's?"
Tony bites his lip, eyes peering out the window. He shakes his head, and hears Gibbs sigh behind him. Tony locks his jaw, irritated with himself at how much of Tim's secret he's given away. Gibbs must know now that it has something to do with Tim's feelings for Abby. What else could it be, after all?
Gibbs makes the last turn to enter into the Yard. "He seems happier, more relaxed than he's been in a long time. Whatever business he's taking care of, it seems like he's doing all right," he decrees. "He's going to keep needing your help," Gibbs offers, a little more stilted this time.
Tony nods. "He doesn't have to ask."
"Good," Gibbs declares. "Because he won't."
