a/n: - hi, sorry i dropped off updating this! my bad!
H: Hoyden (noun) : a girl or woman of saucy, boisterous, or carefree behavior; syn: spitfire, wench
The Director was yelling at him again, but this time he wasn't bothered at all; this time he was prepared to win – because he had secretly come up with a way to dumbfound her into speechlessness, and he was simply waiting for the opportune moment to present itself.
He was, in fact, standing in her office looking much too smug while she yelled at him, which was probably why she kept getting angrier, and kept yelling louder.
"I don't understand why I have to tell you constantly to just keep your mouth shut!" she raged.
She leaned forward and slammed her hand on her desk for effect, wisps of her hair falling over her eyes. She pursed her lips and used her free hand to whisk them back, glaring at him narrowly.
"You spend your entire life in silence – you don't talk unless you absolutely have to," she ranted, "but there's a reporter in the vicinity and you suddenly turn into the goddamn spokesperson for NCIS?"
Gibbs shrugged a little – the reporter in question had hit him in the nose with a microphone; so what if he'd gotten a little … er, sarcastic?
He shifted his feet and gave her a bored look.
She grit her teeth.
"I suppose now you're going to stand there in blessed silence?" she hissed.
"What do you want me to say, Jen?" he grunted, shrugging again. "The damn girl hit me in the nose – "
"Oh, boo hoo," snapped Jenny. "The big scary Marine got popped in the nose with a measly little microphone – you didn't even bleed, you big hunk of obnoxious rock – "
"Jen," he interrupted loudly, "Is it professional for the Director to call employees names?"
"I'll tell you what's professional," she snarled. "Addressing me as Ma'am!"
"Yes Ma'am," he snarked back, arching an eyebrow suggestively.
She licked her lips.
"You told a reporter that NCIS was in the business of putting women in jail for exercising freedom of speech!"
"That's not what I said, Ma'am!" Gibbs retorted lightly.
"Close enough," Director Shepard growled.
Gibbs shook his head, striding forward a little. He picked up the remote and re-played the scene – a clear image of Gibbs, followed by Ziva, fighting his way through a crowd of media at a crime scene – the scene cut, and then Gibbs was standing there having Ziva physically restrain a female reporter, and the woman was saying –
"—think you have the right to censor me for asking for information?"
"—you damn well almost earned yourself a night in jail!"
- and then it cut to the woman sorrowfully explaining how Gibbs was sexist, and anti-free speech.
Gibbs thrust his hand out.
"They cut out her hittin' me!"
"You still threatened her – "
"I told her she could go to well for assaulting a federal officer – "
"Well that's just as ridiculously petulant, Jethro!" snapped Jenny loudly. She paused. "Do you need me to define petulant?" she asked icily.
He glared at her – but that was the moment; the moment he'd been waiting for – see, after too many incidents recently in which Madam Director had shamed him with her superior vocabulary, he'd made Ziva teach him some fancy words to use impressively – after swearing Ziva to secrecy, of course.
So when Jenny asked if he needed the word explained – and luckily, he didn't need that one defined, because it had actually been a favorite of Diane's – he said:
"The arrogant hoyden act is gettin' real old, Jenny."
Her lips snapped shut and she stared at him, so still her lashes didn't even move. He dared not smirk, but he felt incredibly proud of himself – it had been at the top of Ziva's list, and she'd told him it meant something like – rookie, Probie –
The redhead in front of him straightened a little, and then tilted her head, her eyes narrowing to studious slits.
"Jethro," she said shortly through grit teeth. "What?"
This time, he did smirk. He folded his arms.
"Don't know it, Jen?" he asked. "Thought you spoke Hebrew."
She flicked her eyes down, widened them, and then looked at him with large, serious eyes.
"In even the limited, rudimentary conversational Hebrew that I know, Agent Gibbs, I can tell you with absolute certainty that hoyden is an English word."
Gibbs blinked.
The smug feeling in his gut faltered a little, because he suddenly - very acutely – remembered that Ziva and the Director were very good friends, and Ziva had always thought it was fun to butt heads with him – she wasn't afraid of him like DiNozzo was – so she might have –
The Director suddenly started laughing. She sat down heavily in her chair and covered her face, taking a moment to just laugh – then she composed herself, and looked up seriously.
"What do you think hoyden means?" she asked, attempting to keep a straight face.
He decided it was best to remain silent.
"I won't make fun of you," Jenny said seriously.
Gibbs grit his teeth.
"Ziva," he growled pointedly, "told me it meant rookie in Hebrew – "
Jenny burst out laughing again. He glared at her. She leaned back in her chair, shaking her head.
"She – " she started, and then paused, licking her lips. "Jethro – hoyden is an old-fashioned word, it means a girl who's … carefree, or loud, or boisterous," she listed.
She touched her fingertip to her lips and lifted her eyes a moment.
"My grandmother used to tell me I'd never hook a man if I kept acting like such a hoyden."
She figured that's why Ziva had given the word to Gibbs – because she knew it gave Jenny a good laugh.
Gibbs kept giving her an annoyed, stony look – his plans were thwarted, and he was decidedly unhappy about it – he was going to give Officer David desk work for a week - !
"So," Jenny said, arching a brow in triumphant amusement, "did Ziva give you any other words – you might want me to look over them, just in case she's playing games," Jenny trailed off.
Gibbs stood still for another silent few moments – at least he wasn't being chewed out anymore – and then he slowly, dejectedly, brought a lined piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it over to Director Shepard with a scowl.
She took it, slipped on her glasses, and started to scan the page with a small smirk – and then she burst out laughing –
"No, definitely don't use this against the media – it's vulgar, and that's not even the right definition – "
She looked up, and winked at him, puckering her lips mockingly.
"Don't worry, Jethro; in Israel she used to feed me dirty Hebrew phrases and tell me they meant things like 'Nice to meet you!"
-sneaky Ziva strikes again!
-alexandra
