Twelve reviews in the last chapter! I'm so happy! :D Seriously, many thanks to everyone who's reviewed; you all make my day and motivate me to continue writing!
I can guarantee that you'll all hate Agent Emilia by the end of this chapter, more than most of you already do. :P I'm sorry if the chapter is just way too long! I tried not to overload the chapter with too many things at once, but I couldn't stop writing lol (: I also threw in some McAbby in there, since I couldn't help myself. Enjoy and review!
On a side note: what did you all think of the 200th episode? I have to admit that I was really disappointed with it. I didn't think it lived up to its expectations… :( But then, that's just me. I'd like to hear what you all thought!
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:: Chapter 11 – Stock Puzzle ::
Sunday was hell.
After running errands for what felt like all day, I came back home to take a quick shower and relax for a while. As I lay down on the couch, I reached for the yellow camera, which was set on my coffee table, and turned it on. There was a whole new set of pictures, but this time, they were different. They were stock photos, so I did not actually see anyone that I personally knew. One would have thought this was automatically better, but it was not.
What this did was send me on a journey to decipher the message behind these stock photos. There must have been a hidden message in it, but I did not know what it was.
And it cost me a potential good night's sleep.
There were only six stock photos in the camera, but all the strain my brain endured felt like six times fifty. The first picture was of a man looking sad. The second picture showed a woman and a man together, laughing and smiling. The third picture had a woman who looked exaggeratedly happy. The fourth one consisted of the same woman with a sneaky and mischievous look on her face. The fifth picture showed a couple sitting on a bench at a park as they held each other's hands, their faces inches apart. And the last picture was a restaurant.
I was utterly confused. I looked through the pictures a few more times, trying to see what they were trying to tell me. Two minutes later, I came up with something small, but it did not help in making out the meaning behind those random photos.
I noticed that the woman that appeared in all four of the six pictures was the same woman. She had black, curly hair and a tan complexion. However, the man that looked sad was completely different from the man that was with the woman in the second and fifth photos.
I continued to go over the photos. There had to be something behind those photos, but for the life of me, I could not figure it out. Why was the woman the same? Why were there two different men? And what was up with the completely random picture of a restaurant? I had so many questions floating around in my head, but had no answers. Ten minutes into the beginning of my brain-strain, I got up and headed into the kitchen to get a snack.
Seconds turned to minutes and minutes turned to hours. Before I knew it, I was reaching for a pen and a notepad at three in the morning. I kept telling myself that I would only spend five more minutes doing all that and that I would then head off to bed, because, seriously, I had to be at work early in a few hours. But my attention never waned. I could not stop what I was doing.
I began to jot down a brief overview of the stock photos onto my notepad:
#1: Sad-looking man
#2: A woman and a man, laughing and smiling
#3: Extremely happy woman
#4: Sneaky/devious looking woman
#5: Couple sitting on a bench at a park, holding each other's hands, about to kiss
#6: A restaurant
I looked over my list a few times. Still, nothing came to me. I tried to think up possible scenarios that would somehow connect all these pictures together. As soon as a scenario idea hit me, I wrote it down. It seemed even stupider the second time I read it, though.
Scenario #1: A sad man goes to a restaurant one day. He sees a woman and a man together, laughing and smiling, and decides he must do something about it. He goes over to the park, where he meets an extremely happy woman. They hit it off right away, and a few days later, they meet up at the park again. They sit at a bench, hold each other's hands and move closer towards each other for a kiss. But the man's sneaky and devious sister has been spying on him and ruins their moment together.
It was absolutely stupid. Sighing, I turned to a new page on the notepad and began to work on the second scenario.
Scenario #2: There is a couple sitting on a bench at a park and they are holding each other's hands. They are hungry, so they decide to go over to a restaurant. Their waiter is a sad-looking man. They do not like him so they ask for another waiter. They get an extremely happy waitress. They do not like her either, so they go to another restaurant where they end up getting a very sneaky and devious waitress. She wants to ruin their day, even though she does not know them at all. They get fed up with her, so they go home and make a meal there.
That was even worse, I realized, after I had read it. I moved on to the third scenario, already knowing it was not going to be better than the first two.
Scenario #3: A sneaky and devious woman is friends with a very happy woman and a very sad man. They like each other, and the sneaky woman has a plan to get them together. One night, she has a dream about her two friends sitting on a bench at the park, holding each other's hands, but just as they are going to kiss, she wakes up. She decides to set them up on a date at a restaurant. They hit it off and she sees that they are laughing and smiling with each other. So, her job is complete.
I sighed to myself and buried my face in my hands. I knew I could not give up, even though every limb in my body was protesting against my apparent obligation to stay awake and solve the puzzle behind the stock photos. As I went to get coffee, despite the current time, another thought hit me. What if I, for some reason, was right about the scenarios? What if at least one of them were to come true? To whom would those things occur to?
I felt another wave of weariness hit me when I thought of that. But I knew I would not be able to get any sleep that night (or morning, rather) even if I tried. My brain was working on overload; considering the time, I might as well have just gotten the entire job done.
After I poured myself a cup of coffee, I went right back to my couch. I turned to a fresh, blank page on the notepad and began to think of similar scenarios with people I knew personally. It was a little awkward, because it felt like I was about to decide their fate, or that any little thing I did would actually make whatever it was happen.
By six-thirty in the morning, I finished scenario number twenty-eight. The only reason I even stopped was because I put everything away to take a shower. It was time for the day to start, and, needless to say, I was dead tired. My muscles ached like hell and the warm shower water did little to help me feel better. Once I was done, I gathered my things for work, slipped a warm coat on, grabbed my keys, and went out the door.
The morning air was cold and basically ruthless. I could have sworn it felt much colder than it really was. Once I was settled in my car, I turned the heat on and allowed it to circulate before leaving. I had no clue, honestly, how I made it to work in one piece, after not sleeping for so many hours, but I made it. The bullpen was a little quiet when I got there, and only the soft and tired chatter of certain people could be heard. More people were starting to come in, but I saw that no one from my team was there.
As I neared my desk and set my things down, I noticed that McGee was actually already there. His bag was at his desk and his computer was on. If he was not at his desk, then there was only one other explanation for it: he was with Abby.
I took the elevator down to Abby's lab. I neared the lab door but stayed outside. Carefully, I peeked inside, but I did not see either of them in plain sight. I did, however, hear them faintly, but I could not make out anything they were saying – if they even were saying anything. I wondered what they were doing that they sounded so distant.
I leaned against the wall outside Abby's lab and tried to ignore the aching of my muscles all over my body, as well as the fact that I just wanted to close my eyes and go to sleep. I tried hard to avoid closing my eyes just so that I would not literally fall asleep, but suddenly found myself closing them for a moment.
Just for a few seconds… I told myself. It was getting hard to keep my balance.
"Ziva?"
My eyes, thankfully, snapped open and I turned my head to the side. Abby and McGee stepped outside the lab and stood before me. They looked surprised to see me.
"You're here pretty early, Ziva," McGee said.
"Yes," I said. "When I got here, I saw no one from the team, but I did see your stuff. And your computer was on, too, so I thought maybe you were in Abby's lab."
He looked like he was about to answer, but instead Abby stepped in for him. "How long have you been standing out here? Did you see anything? Anything at all? Even just a little glimpse? Please don't tell on us. Don't tell Gibbs," she spoke, as usual, at about a hundred miles per hour.
"Tell Gibbs what?" I asked.
"Abby," McGee hissed, looking at her incredulously, but she was unable to stop.
"That we were totally just making out in here!"
I bit back a laugh, but McGee was not amused.
"Abby!"
"Please don't tell Gibbs, Ziva, pleasepleaseplease!" She attacked me with a hug, which subsequently tested my balance. It caught me by surprise, too, and we both ended up tumbling down to the floor with one hard thump. As if my body had not already been aching – and she decided to send us both to the ground.
Abby was quick to leap up off me, and she and McGee both helped me in getting me back on my feet. "Oh, I'm so sorry, Ziva!" she exclaimed and dove in for another hug. I swayed again, but McGee held me steady. "But, please, don't tell Gibbs! Promise me? I'll do anything you want, anything!"
"Abby, I will not tell Gibbs," I assured her with a laugh. "Please. Your secret is safe with me."
"Oh, thankyouthankyouthankyou!" She hugged me tighter and gave me a huge kiss on the cheek. "You're a good Samaritan, Ziva!"
"Abby, get off her," McGee told her. "You're going to kill her." She let me go, and I actually began to regain feeling in my body again.
"So, uhh, how long have you two been… you know?"
"Dating?" Abby filled in for me.
At least she admitted it.
"Yes."
"About three weeks," McGee answered. "And we haven't told anyone yet."
"Well, are you going to?"
"No!" they both said in unison.
"If Gibbs catches us going behind his rule twelve, he'll kill us!" Abby said. "Anyway, this isn't the best place to talk about it. You know Gibbs is like a creepy ninja sometimes. Let's go inside." We went in and she closed the door behind us. She put up her music a little too loud (never minding my growing headache) and led us over to her desk.
"You two do a good job at disguising it," I said. "I would not have guessed it myself." Well, okay, maybe just a little.
"We don't want Gibbs to know," Abby said. "I don't know what he'll do to us if he finds out that we're together. He'll be angry, yeah, that much I know. But Gibbs is super unpredictable. What if he…. Oh, I don't know."
"And don't tell Tony, please," McGee said. "I know you won't tell, but Tony and his big mouth… it could be a problem."
"I will not tell, I promise," I said. "The moment I walk out this door, this conversation never happened."
"Thank you," they both said.
"So that is why you get here so early, McGee," I went on. He became red in embarrassment and I just smiled at him. "I knew there had to be a reason why you always came so early. Normal people usually come in and start working a little bit later than that."
"Normal people? And you started working at Mossad at 0500?" he retorted.
I shot him a wry smile, only to have it be returned with a triumphant one.
"Well, you two should go," Abby said. "Wouldn't wanna get Gibbs suspicious." McGee and I got up to leave, but before we could, Abby stopped her boyfriend. (I was going to have to get used to the sound of that.)
"Wait, Timmy," she said and went up to him. "Your tie's crooked." She fixed and straightened his tie, because she knew that Gibbs would probably have noticed something small like that if none of us did.
By eight-fifteen, McGee, Tony, Gibbs, and I were all at our desks, all of us working on something different. I was trying hard not to fall asleep, and doing so proved to be quite difficult. I was surprised that none of them had made comments about my terrible appearance, let alone noticed it. If they had noticed, then I would not have been able to tell.
I was thankful when five minutes later, Gibbs got a call. I knew we already had a case, and soon enough, we grabbed our gear and headed out.
At the crime scene, I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open. I busied myself taking pictures of everything, but even that was not enough. I knew that once the clock announced it was 0900, I would have been awake for exactly twenty-four hours straight. My muscles were still greatly aching, and my head was pounding with a headache, although part of the headache had to do with the fact that Tony had been telling a really stupid story that I could not be bothered to listen to.
Instead, my mind was wandering all over the place. I needed to talk to Tony – in private. I did not want to continue having small talk with him, or pretend that nothing ever happened between us and just continue to nonchalantly ignore each other. I hated that elephant in the room.
Once we were done processing the crime scene, Tony, McGee, and I left, but Gibbs stayed behind. Tony drove the van, McGee sat in the middle, and I sat in the corner. It was surprisingly silent the whole way through. When we arrived at NCIS, I did not see Agent Emilia anywhere. So I took advantage of her absence. I went up to Tony's desk as he was scribbling down something on a file he had. He looked up at me when I said nothing.
"You look like hell."
Well, I was not really expecting him to say that. But it was so like him to say something like that that my hopes that things were getting better between us soared.
"Can I talk to you, please? In private?" I said quietly.
He nodded and stood up from his desk. With the camera already in my NCIS jacket, I led him over to the elevator. I quickly hit the emergency stop switch and the elevator stopped. We stood in silence as I pulled out the camera from my pocket. "I need to show you something."
"Someone in trouble?" he asked.
"Well…" I began, but stopped. I actually did not know if someone was in trouble or not. "That's where I am kind of stuck. I have some weird pictures here, but I do not know what they mean. I was wondering if maybe you could help me figure it out."
"Okay."
I switched the camera on and showed him the stock photos. He furrowed his brow in confusion upon seeing them. I patiently watched and waited as he looked at the pictures a few times. The frowns he made, the confusion plastered on his face, the way his eyebrows etched together as he thought – it was all enough to make me want to grab his face and indulge him in a heated kiss. We were alone together after all, but I knew I could not do that.
The elephant was still in the way. I really hated that stupid elephant.
"I have no idea what this means," he finally spoke as he handed me the camera. I stuffed it back into my pocket. "Who are these people anyway?"
"They are stock photos, Tony."
"Oh."
"I have not been able to figure it out either. I know there is a hidden message behind it, but I do not know what it is."
He raised an eyebrow at me. "You been losing sleep over this?"
"Why?" I asked.
"Just wondering," he shrugged.
I explained to him about how I discovered the pictures last night and I was up the entire time trying to think up possible scenarios to connect the pictures. My attention was on it the entire time, and, indeed, I had lost sleep. I was pretty sure that by that time, it had already been exactly twenty-four hours that I had been awake. I was not sure, and I could not be bothered to ask for the time.
"I wouldn't lose sleep over something like that," Tony said simply. "This could be nothing."
"Maybe. Maybe not."
He looked somewhat bored thereafter. "You done?" His hand reached out to flip the emergency stop switch, but I stopped him with my bluntness.
"Tony, I'm sorry."
He withdrew his hand and looked at me. "What?"
"I'm sorry," I repeated.
"About what?"
"You know what I'm talking about."
He sighed. "It's done, Ziva. It's all in the past now. Whatever happened happened."
"Tony, I know I messed up. I admit it. I should not have let you go after I kissed you. I was stupid. Insecure. Scared, even. I hate myself for it. But I do not want us to go around pretending that nothing ever happened between us and that time will heal everything. You have every right to be angry at me, and I understand that. If I were you, I would be angry with myself as well. But I miss the way we were before that night. I want us to go back to the way we were: you harassing me and me getting fed up with it. I do not want our friendship to disappear over something so silly." I was taken aback at my own directness.
"It wasn't silly when it happened, Ziva."
"I know. I am sorry, Tony. I am stupid."
"What were you scared of?"
The question threw me off a little, but if anything was for sure, he deserved an answer. "Of falling," I admitted, "and not being caught."
"You didn't trust me enough to be able to catch you? We're partners, Ziva. We have each other's backs in everything – at least I know I do. It doesn't matter what's happening; if you fall, I'll always be there to catch you," he said to me. "But maybe that's not how you see things. You trust me enough to have your back when we're out in the field, but not for the personal things, right? Well, guess, what, Ziva, this isn't Mossad! I'm not a robot who's been trained to do exactly what he needs to do. I care about other's problems. I'm always here for my family."
The only reason I did not want to start crying was because I knew that if I did, I would become ten times more exhausted than I already was. I held back my tears to the best of my ability, although I was sure he could probably see them.
"And over all," he concluded, "I'm always here for you. I'd like to think I've always made that pretty clear."
The best I could come up with was another pathetic and probably meaningless apology. There was more I wanted to say, but I could not find the courage to say it. After he waved off my apology like it was nothing, I leaned in to hug him. He returned it, but it was not as strong as it could have been and had been on other occasions.
"Tony," I said when I pulled away, although I really did not want to, "I just thought I would tell you… be careful with Agent Emilia. Do not ask me why. Just… promise me you will be careful with her."
He flipped the emergency switch back on and the elevator began to move. He gave me a look. It was not one that was completely convinced, but it did not completely disbelieve me either. It was a neutral look. Still, his voice betrayed the nearly unreadable look on his face.
"Why do I feel like trusting your instinct right now?" The elevator landed back on our squad room floor, and with that, he exited. I stayed behind in the elevator and pressed the button down to Abby's floor. It landed there and I stepped outside, knowing full well that I should have been with the group, working on our case.
Gibbs was going to kill me.
I entered Abby's lab and she turned and looked at me. "Ziva!" she said excitedly, but stopped when she took a good look at me. "You look like hell!"
"I know. Tony said the same thing."
"Have you been sleeping lately?"
"Not really…"
She gasped a little too dramatically. "Why?"
"I was up last night doing something… important. I did not sleep last night at all and I am… tired." To say the very least.
"Oh, my. That's terrible! I hate when that happens! Sometimes I swear I'm an insomniac. It used to happen to me quite a lot in high school. I remember this one time – I had a huge History test coming up one day. And for that test, I had become really, really lazy, so I didn't study beforehand, and ended up cramming everything into my head the night before. So, anyway, I didn't sleep at all that night 'cause I was, you know, studying and all, and I was dead tired when I got to school that morning. Would you believe that I fell asleep halfway through the test, and the teacher flunked me! Huh! All that studying and cramming for nothing! I was so pissed off! I knew I could do well on that test, too! So I totally understand how you feel! If I could, I'd let you sleep on the floor with Bert, but… hey, that reminds me! Don't you have a case you should be working on right now?"
Her words were making me dizzy, although I would have been lying if I had said that that was the first time that day that I felt dizzy. I knew the lack of sleep was having a huge effect on me, and I began to stumble unsteadily as my head began to spin. Luckily, Abby caught me before I could hit the floor.
"Whoa, Ziva, you're in no shape to work!" she said. "Come on, sit down." She led me over to her desk chair, despite my protests that I was fine and that I was just feeling a little light-headed.
"Abby, I am fine," I said, but my head was throbbing a little too forcefully for comfort.
"You're not fine! You practically passed out on my floor! You should tell Gibbs that you need the rest of the day off. You shouldn't be working. He'll understand."
"The last excuse he will want to hear is that I did not sleep and that I should go home because I am tired. It is not his fault or the team's fault that I did not fall asleep last night."
"But, Ziva…"
"Abby, please. It's gonna take a lot more than lack of sleep to send me home."
"Yeah, maybe like lack of work."
We both turned to look at Gibbs standing a few feet away from us.
"Gibbs!" Abby was clearly alarmed. Neither one of us had heard him come.
"Funny how I seem to have two agents working on a case when I distinctly remember having three."
"Sorry, Gibbs," Abby said apologetically. "It's not Ziva's fault. She was–"
"Just heading back to work," I butted in, not willing to let her finish that sentence. "Sorry, Gibbs. It will not happen again."
"I was hoping that would come in effect the last thirty times," he said dryly. I followed him out of Abby's lab. I glanced over my shoulder and managed to catch a glimpse of a worried face looking right back at me.
The next day, Abby approached my desk at around eleven in the morning, just as I was practically smothered in paperwork. My mind was elsewhere, and I was mostly pretending to be working, as I scribbled on a small piece of paper to make it look like I was actually working.
Every head turned to look at the scientist. Given the way she was walking, a few paces too quickly (even for her), we all could tell something was up. Indeed, she was in a bad mood that morning.
"What's wrong, Abbs?" Gibbs asked.
"Nothing," she snapped.
"Obviously, something's wrong if you're acting like that."
"Acting like what!"
"That," Gibbs replied calmly.
"Nothing's wrong with me, Gibbs! Just stay off my case, okay?"
"You need something, Abby?"
"Yeah, I need to talk to Ziva."
I really did not want to make her angrier, so I simply closed the file folder on my desk and stood up and followed her. We stood before the elevator but did not go in. "You okay, Abby?" I asked her. To my relief, she calmed down around me.
"Fine, I just… Remember when I was in the hospital? And I was talking to you about my adoption? Well, I was just talking to Kyle and we decided to meet up for lunch in like twenty minutes. And I was hoping you could…"
"Go with you?"
She nodded, almost sheepishly.
"Okay. I will go with you."
She hugged me. "Thank you! I'll meet you in my car. I have to get my keys and my coat and stuff."
I headed back to my desk and grabbed my coat and several other things. Gibbs, Tony, and McGee were looking at me expectantly.
"What's up with Abby?" Tony asked.
"Nothing," I said simply. "I have to do something important, Gibbs. So I am taking an early lunch." Thankfully, he said nothing, but I knew all their eyes were on me until the moment I stepped in the elevator.
(-/-)
Abby drove. She and her brother were to meet up at a relatively new restaurant, which was about a year and a half old, and two miles away from the navy yard. Situated right across a lengthy park with a nice, green view, the restaurant had a beautiful outdoor seating, where the three of us took a table.
The moment I set eyes on Abby's brother, before she had introduced us, I was aghast. I could not believe the striking resemblance they both held. They had the same eye color and skin color and just about everything. It was like looking at a male replica of Abby.
Holy. Shit.
"What?" Abby turned to me.
"What?"
"You just said, 'Holy shit'," she told me.
I was not even aware I had said that out loud. "Sorry," I apologized. "I did not mean to say that. I just… I cannot believe how much you two look alike."
"Wish I could say I get that a lot," Kyle joked. Abby forced a laugh, which sounded real, but I could tell right away it was not.
We took our seats at the table outside, and I was, for the most part, enjoying the nice, clear day, no matter how cold it was. Not too many people were around at that time, so it was mostly nice and peaceful. I had to admit that the view was very nice and enjoyable. It could have been a great place to sit down and think.
"So, Abby," Kyle said, as he took a sip of his diet coke once our drinks were brought to us, "have you given any thought about meeting Mom and Dad?"
"Uhh, yeah," she said. "I've been thinking about it. Where in Florida do they live again?"
"West Palm Beach."
"Right. West Palm Beach," she sighed. "Well, I'm ready to meet them. That is if they want to meet me."
He smiled at her encouragingly, and for a moment, I could swear they were twins with those matching smiles. "They'll be thrilled, Abby. Don't worry. They're going to love meeting you."
"I hope so."
They continued their small talk about their biological parents and so forth, but if they talked about anything other than that, I really did not know. Because the restaurant was nearly empty, our orders came quickly. My appetite, however, was mostly weak, and so, for that reason, I ordered a small sandwich. Abby seemed to be starving. She ordered a (huge) Caesar salad, a double cheeseburger, and two sides of mashed potatoes with gravy. Kyle only ordered a bacon sandwich, which he had double portioned.
The sandwich was alright. But the food was not the worst part of my early lunch break. I ended up choking a little on my drink and immediately spit it right back out into my cup. I was not sure if the reason for my choking was the fact that I wanted to laugh in incredulousness or scream in rage.
Abby and Kyle were staring at me, asking me if I was okay.
"I am fine," I squeaked. "My drink just went down the wrong pipe."
It was not completely a lie, and I knew what triggered it. In the park across from us sat Agent Emilia on a bench. Right next to her was a man, whose hands were in her grip and whose face was inches apart from hers. All the scattered pieces of the stock photos puzzle that had previously cost me a good night's sleep finally came together as realization dawned on me.
The man she was with was not Tony, and she did not hesitate to eat his face off with a kiss.