Warnings: Same as usual.

A/N: Sorry for the delay. Enjoy!


Tony was acutely aware that someone was watching Leah while she met with her contact in the hotel lobby. I knew meeting out in the open like this was a bad idea, he thought as he walked the perimeter of the room one more time.

Leah shot him a glare from across the room. She obviously didn't think there was any danger and thought that he was overacting. He was definitely making her contact a little bit nervous. Oh well, he thought, I'm not here to make him feel better—I'm here to keep Leah out of harm's way.

He glanced at his watch. She had been speaking to the contact for nearly fifteen minutes. Across the room he caught sight of a young, good looking man, sitting at the bar, watching Leah. Bingo.

Disappearing into the crowd, Tony moved towards the stranger who was very intently keeping tabs on his charge. Sauntering up to the bar, Tony ordered a drink. "Nice view, huh?"

"True. But she seems to have eyes for someone else," the man said in a smooth British accent. He turned to smile at Tony. "You're not the only one in this building that has a keen sense of observation."

"Is there a particular reason you're interested in observing her?" Tony asked, leaning against the bar while waiting for his drink.

"Are you her boyfriend or something?"

"I'm assigned to protect her—at all costs."

The man laughed. "Don't worry, mate. I'm not here to kill her."

Tony pursed his lips. "Then what are you here for?"

"Same thing you are. Ilan Bodnar."

"How do you know about Bodnar?"

"Clayton Reeves, MI-6."

Ah. A spy. Tony took a deep breath. Leah had mentioned that she was in contact with MI-6. He had just been under the impression that the man she was currently speaking with was a British agent. Tony felt his senses suddenly heightened, he saw Leah's contact reach into his pocket for something even before Reeves did.

Tony left his drink behind, pushing his way through the crowd and grabbing the anxious contact's arm furiously. "Drop the needle!" he snapped, giving the suspect a little shake before he did so. Tony dug his cuffs out and cuffed the guy to his chair before he leaned down and picked the syringe up.

Leah looked baffled and a little bit terrified. "What is that?" she asked, anxiously.

"My guess," Tony said, carefully holding the syringe between his fingers, "it's poison."

"I don't understand," Leah said. "He's providing me with information, why would he want to kill me?"

"Because, he's not really your contact," Tony replied, glaring at the suspect, "Isn't that right, buddy?"

"I'm not saying anything until I speak to a lawyer," the suspect snapped.

Tony shrugged. "Fine. I'll ship you to the Italian authorities and let them deal with you. I got enough problems, pal."

The other man scowled. "Hey, a bloke has to make a living, ya know?"

"Yeah, yeah, tell it to the judge," Tony hissed, pulling out his phone. "Meanwhile, Italy can deal with you."

Leah finally found her voice. "Wait, you're my contact and you wanted to kill me?"

The suspect rolled his eyes. "I'm not your contact, honey. I lied. You analysts are far too trusting; do you know that? If it weren't for your bodyguard here, you'd be dead."

She managed to give him a glare, even though she was clearly shaken. "He's not my bodyguard. We're working together to bring Bodnar—your boss—in."

He snickered. "Bodnar doesn't want you dead. You're the only one that can clear him."

Italian authorities arrived before she could respond that and Leah watched as the would-be assassin was led away. If Bodnar had not hired the hitman, who did? This was the only case she was working. She had been ordered to hand over everything else to solely focus on finding Bodnar…

Tony suddenly reached out and touched her shoulder, startling her. "Leah? Did you hear me?" he asked, slightly concerned that she had mentally wandered off for a moment. "This gentleman here seems to think he has the information you're looking for."

"You do?" Leah asked, looking at the smiling, suave man standing near them. "Clayton."

"Hello, love," Reeves said, grinning. "How are you?"

"I'm fine," she snapped. "Don't call me love."

"Still sassy as always. I missed you," Reeves replied.

"Wait," Tony said, "you two know each other?"

Leah reluctantly nodded. "Yeah… we worked on something… a year or so back…"

Reeves chuckled. "Bloody hell, Leah, I thought I meant more to you than just a contact."

Tony bristled with obvious jealousy, just as his cell phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket to answer, "DiNozzo."

"Gibbs wants an update," Ziva said without even uttering hello.

"Ok, then have Gibbs call me," Tony retorted, noticing that he now had Leah's attention. "You know you're not allowed access to this case. You're lucky that you're still allowed to be at your desk right now."

Ziva audibly snarled. "She is never going to be able to track Ilan."

Tony clenched his jaw. "We'll see about that," he said before hanging up. I'm gonna pay for that later.

Leah gazed at him, heatedly, but before she could say a word, he had grabbed her arm and was directing her back to their hotel room. "Wait a minute, we haven't finished for the day!"

"We're done," Tony snapped. "Someone tried to kill you—that means locking down in our room until further notice."

"What about Bodnar?" Leah retorted. "We were sent here to catch him."

"No, you were sent here to catch him; I was sent to protect you."

"But…"

Tony straightened his shoulders, did his best impression of a Gibbs' glare, and saw her slightly cower. "Some guy just tried to shove a needle in your arm—we're going back to our hotel room so I can update NCIS and we can go from there. I thought we had an agreement that you would listen to me?"

Leah opened her mouth and quickly shut it. Yes, she had agreed to listen to him and damnit she hated that he remembered that little agreement. "Fine."

Reeves suddenly cleared his throat, alerting the others that he had followed them. "I hate to interrupt this little lover's spat…but I need to check in with MI-6. Let me know when I can speak to you, Leah, without your guard dog here."

"He isn't my guard dog!" Leah snapped as Reeves walked away.

"Let's go," Tony said, pulling her into the elevator.

Jamming his finger onto the button, he shut the doors and then pressed the button for their floor. Leah could see how tense he was through his body language, but she was sure if he was angry at her or at their… problem.

Tony ran his tongue over his lips. "Did you sleep with Reeves? Was he the one that broke your heart?"

Leah wasn't expecting that of all questions. "What? No! Clayton is a spy, never around, just ask his estranged wife. And what do you care? Are you jealous or something?"

"Do you want me to be, jealous, that is?"

"What the hell does that mean?"

He took a step towards her, green eyes piercing. "You seem to like to play sexual politics with your colleagues."

She clenched her fists. "Excuse me? I like to play sexual politics….what about you?"

Tony grasped her waist, pulled her towards him, roughly, and kissed her.

Leah didn't react at first and then she melted against him, returning the kiss. They were only stopped by the elevator arriving at their floor and the ding of the bell startled them back to reality.

"We… we should…we should stop," she whispered.

"Yeah…" he said, softly, not sounding very convincing.

Swallowing, Leah stepped out of the elevator and turned towards their room. Hundreds of thoughts were running through her brain and she couldn't sort any of them out. It was an angry kiss, he was trying to prove a point—it meant nothing.

But you want it to mean something, she argued with herself as she shoved the hotel key into the turn and turned the handle. She pushed the door opened and stepped inside, vaguely aware that Tony was right behind her. His fingers brushed against hers, grabbing her hand as the door slammed shut behind him.

Tony took a deep breath. "Leah… I don't want to stop."

Leah turned halfway and looked at him in the dim sunlight filtering into their room. "What do you mean?" she asked, quietly.

"I mean… I want more than a kiss from you, I want more than the sexual politics between us," he responded.

"But," she said, sensing there was more.

"Rule 12."

"Another one of Gibbs' rules that I should learn?"

"One that can be broken once we catch Bodnar and you go back to the NSA."

"More incentive to catch him."

Tony pulled her closer one more time, just one more kiss…

Leah startled when his cell rang.

He glanced at the screen and grumbled. It was Ziva. Again. "I should probably get this."

She nodded. "That's fine. I'm going too… I'm going to go take a shower."

Sighing, Tony went out on to the balcony to answer his phone, and Leah, went to take a shower—their kiss all but forgotten.


"The would-be assassin isn't talking much," Tim reported to Gibbs. "I just got off the phone with Tony. The only thing the guy would tell him is that it wasn't Bodnar that hired him."

"If it wasn't Bodnar then who the hell hired him to take out an NSA analyst," Gibbs snapped. From the moment Tony had informed him that someone had attempted to kill Leah Dawson his gut was churning. "Do you know what she was working on before Bodnar?"

Tim shook his head. "NSA says it's classified."

Gibbs grumbled. "Even though one of their own was almost murdered."

"Apparently, they trust NCIS to keep Leah safe."

"We'll see if they'll be saying that if she's dead."

Tim glanced over his shoulder, to make sure that they were still alone. "Tony also said that Ziva will not stop calling him for updates, claiming that you told her to call."

Gibbs frowned even more. He had told Ziva to back off for her own good, but once she got something in her head, well, it was hard to clear her mind of it. "Next time you talk to him, tell him I'll handle it."


Tony found Leah sitting out on the balcony. "Hey. You shouldn't be out here…alone."

Leah glanced up at him and watched as he sat down with her. "I needed a quiet place to think."

He reached out and pushed her hair, gently, off her shoulder. "I spoke to NCIS, they're investigating into who hired the hitman; if what he says was true about Bodnar."

She meekly nodded her head. "If there's one, there's more of them," she mumbled, staring off into the distance at the night skyline of Rome. "He wasn't the only hired to take me out."

"Well, that's why I'm here," Tony assured her. "To make sure none of them get the job done."

"Even if that means losing your own life?" Leah asked.

Tony played with her hair, absentmindedly. "Part of the job."

Leah looked away. "It's a crappy part of the job."

"Better me than some agent who has a family at home," Tony mused.

"You shouldn't value your life any less than a married agent," Leah argued.

"Honestly, I don't have anything to live for."

"What? That can't be true…"

Tony didn't answer, instead he simply shrugged his shoulders. There was no need to get into the complicated history of his life with her. "Devoted my whole life to the job; when you do that… that's all you have."

Leah swallowed the lump in her throat. They were more alike than she ever believed. "Have you ever wanted more?"

He smiled at her, sadly. "Yes. Haven't you?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"We should probably get some sleep," Tony finally said after several second of silence. "Did you ever call Reeves back?"

"Yes, while you were at the police station," Leah admitted. "He told me to follow the diamonds."

Diamonds? Tony was going to have to get Tim on that; in the meantime, he wasn't joking about needing sleep. He stood up and held his hand out to her, helping her to feet.

Leah tucked her chin against her chest, and gripped his hand. "Are we ever going to talk about what happened between us in the elevator?"

Tony took a deep breath. Yes. Eventually. Not today. "Let's put Bodnar away first; then we'll talk." Until then, it was better for the two of them to just ignore what was happening between them.