Disclaimer

Noun

Anglo-French disclaimer to disclaim

a denial or disavowal of legal claim (as in pleading where a defendant denies any interest in or claim to the subject of the action)

(Source: Merriam-Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.)


Author's note: Not that I'm not interested in NCIS. Further proof of geekdom.


Abby went back to prepping her machines, while Tali continued eating. Some minutes later, she looked up to find her lab empty.

"Um, Tali? Where'd you go?"

She heard a slurping sound and looked up toward it, startled, to see Tali sitting on her windowsill, still enjoying her Caf-Pow!.

"Tali, you'd better get down before you fall…" she beckoned.

Tali climbed down, but as she did so, she bumped her shoulder on a table. She gasped in pain, clutching at it.

"Here, let me have a look." Abby pulled Ziva's sweatshirt off of Tali, noticing as she did so the ragged shirt the girl wore. She gasped. There was a fresh scrape on her shoulder from her clash with the table, but that wasn't what caught her attention.


Palmer walked down to Autopsy, noticing that the team must be out on a case. I'm late. Gibbs might Gibbsslap me when he gets back. Though the rest of the team referred to them as headslaps, Palmer had always felt it necessary to give credit to their inventor.

All thoughts of cranial impact were driven from his mind when Abby almost literally ran into him, looking worried.

"Jimmy, I need to talk to you! And Ducky when he gets back. Actually, I think the whole team needs to have another conference -you missed the first one- oh, by the way, this is Tali -she's Ziva's niece, long story- and anyway, I think you and Ducky should have a look at her; it looks like she got hit."

"What?"

Abby glared at him. Suddenly, she Gibbsslapped him.

"Won't happen again."


The team walked into the office, stopping when they noticed Abby talking to Palmer.

"What's going on?" Gibbs stared at the two of them, suspicious as ever. Abby, meanwhile, equally suspicious, looked at Ziva.

"Why are you staring at me, Abby?"

"Well, I just thought that you might have, you know, noticed that her entire back is bruised and stuff? Cause you had her for at least a couple of hours..."

"Look, Abby, she seemed cold, so I offered her one of my sweatshirts, and she put it on by herself. The rest of the time, she was sleeping. She never let me touch her. It was like pulling hair to get her to hold my hand so she wouldn't run off while I was bringing her here."

"Teeth, Ziva." Tony sighed.

"What?"

"Like pulling teeth."

"But I know I've heard the phrase 'made me want to pull my hair out', and pulling teeth is easy. All you have to do is punch someone really hard in the mouth…"

"Ziva, you probably shouldn't talk like that around Tali; you'll scare her. And she'll probably never understand idioms."

"Understood."

Abby burst in. "Anyway, I think Ducky should have a look at her." Ducky nodded.

"I'll do that, Abigail."


Author's note: I'm still taking predictions on what will happen in the future (hint, hint). For instance, should Eli David be a complete jerk, or should he start being nice to Ziva? I'm not sure which, but he will be in this fic.