This is from the Season Ten video spoilers regarding episode 10x4 "Lost at Sea" in which Abigail Borin makes her reappearance. Other than the title, I have no clue what this episode is about. It could be metaphorically speaking of the team as being lost at sea as well. Airs Oct 23rd.
Vignette Six: "Cute, but you had your chance."
It had been a weird past few weeks all around. Tony sat on the sofa, watching Ziva look through his old photos he had discovered. He shuddered when he considered this moment might not have taken place.
October 23, 2012
Before heading into work, Tony and McGee were both accosted by some man wearing a robe, handing out pamphlets about love.
"Here you go, McGee. You need this more than I do." Tony handed Tim his pamphlet, but the man wouldn't let him.
"No, this is for you. The first woman you see today; ask her out. It will change your life."
"Sure, ok, thanks." Tony steered McGee into the Navy Yard, which was strangely void of woman at the moment. McGee looked around. "Hey, maybe that guy knows something we don't."
Tony gave McGee a look like he was nuts. "Like what? All of the women in the world except the two who should be with us have mysteriously disappeared? You're beginning to sound like Abby."
They got off the elevator. Tim immediately headed into the men's room. As Tony was putting his stuff down, Ziva showed up. "Good morning!"
"Good morning, Tony. Why do you have this silly look on your face?"
"Oh, just some weird guy grabbed me and Tim as we were coming in and gave us these pamphlets and said we should ask out the first women we see…why Agent Borin! What are you doing here?"
Agent Abigail Borin wasted no words. "Where's Gibbs? Got a case."
"Ooh, he's gonna' be thrilled with that I can tell you right now." Borin raised one eyebrow at Tony. "Gibbs?"
"Don't know, haven't seen him yet. Why don't you sit and…or not." Tony looked at Ziva with a face that made her snicker.
Borin paced a bit. She heard someone behind her and turned but it was McGee, returning from the men's room. His head was down, trying to get a stain out of his tie. As it was, he almost ran smack into her.
"Agent Borin! You're here!" Tim gulped. He thought about it for a few seconds, and then he felt as if someone took over his brain.
"Uh, Agent Borin, I was wondering if you'd, I have these concert tickets."
The bullpen got quiet. "Are you asking me out, McGee?"
McGee stuttered. "Well, yeah, you see I got these tickets."
Abigail looked at him. "Yeah, know, got that part."
"When's the concert, McGee?" Gibbs caught the last part of the conversation.
Tony saw his chance and looked at Ziva. "Hey, you know technically maybe I should be asking you out since he did say the first woman I see…
Ziva laughed softly and slightly sarcastically. "Cute, but you had your chance." Tony just looked at her, not shocked at all by her response. He wondered if anyone would comment on the "you had your chance" part; but Gibbs was far more interested in why Borin was there and McGee looked about ready hurl.
Coast Guard Special Agent Abigail Borin had unexpectedly joined them at NCIS because a boat was lost at sea, and it looked like foul-play involving two Navy Midshipmen. As always happens when Abigail shows up, she and Gibbs played show and tell, following one another so closely that it almost looked rehearsed.
Tony and Ziva were sent to where the boat was towed in, to check for evidence. On the drive over, Tony was smiling. "Good come back, by the way."
"Excuse me?" Ziva looked at him, confused. Tony grinned. "You know, when I said I should ask you out and you said I had already had my chance. Keeping it out of the office was one of our top priorities."
"Oh God, serious gross thought. Borin is almost Gibbs' twin. That means McGee in essence just asked out Gibbs." He shook his head, trying to get that thought out of his brain.
Ziva shifted. "Keeping what exactly out of the office?"
Tony glanced at her, then back at the road. "You know, what we discussed in the elevator. How we decided to try to move our relationship a little bit more out of the professional and into the personal. We didn't want anyone to know about it. So good response to my comment."
"I was only speaking the truth." Ziva said, keeping her eyes forward.
This time Tony looked at her longer, looking for a smile or smirk to show she was teasing him, but none was visible. Without warning, he crossed two lines of traffic and pulled the car over.
"Tony, are you crazy? You could have killed us. Why did you do that?"
"What do you mean 'you were only speaking the truth.'? That sounds like a kiss-off to me and I don't understand what's going on and I want to know what you mean by that."
"Tony, we are on a case." Ziva admonished. "Gibbs will not be very happy with us if we spend the whole afternoon discussing our personal lives instead of doing our jobs."
"No, I need to know; are you bailing on me?"
"Tony, there is nothing to bail on because nothing has happened." Ziva sighed.
"Now what does that mean?" Tony was getting frustrated.
"Just what I said, nothing has happened. Nothing has changed. Whatever we said we were going to do in the elevator evaporated, at least as far as you are concerned, the minute we were rescued. OK, maybe that is not fair. Two weeks after we were rescued."
Tony was totally in shock. All this time he thought he and Ziva had been sharing these special private moments, moments that needed to be hidden from the team; and here she was saying that they had not be sharing anything at all.
Ziva put her arm on his. "I told you I did not want to talk about this while we are working. Your head needs to be on this case, not on us. We will talk tonight."
Tony looked really sad. "Are you breaking up with me, Ziva?"
Ziva looked anguished. "Tony, how can you break up with a man who is not with you?"
Tony didn't have an answer for that one, and for the life of him couldn't understand why Ziva would feel he was not "with" her. He was determined to get to the bottom of this but she was right. They had a job to do.
One thing they could always count on that once they were on the job, that was the priority. That's what made them such a good team, good partners. In and out of the field. At least that was what he had thought.
They finished processing the scene in record time. They found blood splatter and got some prints off the boat. No weapons were found or any other objects that could be construed as a dangerous.
"Ok." Tony sounded defeated. "Let's get this stuff back to Abby. Maybe she can find something good out of all of this."
Ziva knew that Tony was making a thinly veiled comment at what he decided was rejection by Ziva. They got back to NCIS in record time.
Tony finished up his paper work in silence. Ziva kept looking up at him worried. She had hoped that this conversation would not come this soon, but maybe it was for the best. But not if Tony was going to mope and pretend she wasn't there.
She walked over to his desk. "Come, I will cook you dinner tonight. We can…discuss things."
Tony looked hesitant. As much as he wanted to know what had gone wrong, a part of him was in denial. "I don't know…"
"Tony." That's all Ziva had to say. His shoulders sagged and he nodded his head. Ziva was a little taken aback at how dejected Tony looked. "Come on, I will drive."
That put the life back into him." Oh, no thanks. I'll drive myself." Now he was more like the old Tony. They grabbed their bags and headed out. Tony followed Ziva to her apartment and felt his legs get heavier and heavier with each step he took closer to her door.
"I hope you do not mind leftovers." Ziva called out from the kitchen.
"You know me; I'll eat anything." Tony murmured.
They sat their plates down on the table and began eating. Ziva was hoping they could finish their dinner before talking, but Tony couldn't wait. He put down his glass of wine.
"How can you say I am not 'with' you? I am 'with' you all the time."
Ziva nodded. "Yes, you are: at work, when we have movie nights, or just do dinners here or your place."
"Then what is the problem? Please Ziva, I really don't understand."
She sighed. "Perhaps it was I who misunderstood." He looked at her confused. "What?"
"When we were stuck, all those hours in the elevator, we had some very heart to heart talks. And what I heard was that you were interested in taking our relationship to a new level. Instead of just being work partners, maybe it would also work in our personal lives as well. We have held each other at arm's length for so long. Maybe this was some sign for us, to throw caution to the wind and see what happens."
"Yeah, that's what we talked about and that's what I thought we agreed to. But you're saying we haven't been doing that. I don't understand. We're together all the time. Well, almost."
"Tony, to make a change in a relationship, you have to make a change in how the present relationship is working, or running or whatever you want to call it. You have to do some things differently. Before the bombing, we had our movie nights, our dinner nights."
"And we still have those. Nothing has changed. We have not done anything different than we did before the bombing. How can our relationship change when we have not?"
Tony was stunned. "Tony, I know almost everything there is to know about you from a work standpoint, but I only know bits and pieces that you reluctantly share about your childhood and family and personal life. I have shared far more than you have. To have a personal relationship, we must get…personal."
"And then right away, you are back to your old ways, lusting after that Facilities Manager, who just happened to be a deranged murderer. Tony, it is one thing to try to keep a relationship under wraps. It is quite another to strut around as if there is no relationship with anyone else at all and act like you want to throw every woman you see against the wall and have sex with her."
"Wait a minute, I don't do that! And I thought you knew I was just pretending with Judy so no one would know about us. Wait. Were you jealous?"
Ziva got mad. "That is not the point, Tony. The point is there is no "us" if we are not dating, if we are not doing couple things. If we are not…" Ziva stopped, embarrassed she had said too much.
"I think I get this." Tony said. "We already know each other so well, you think that I think I don't need to go through the same actions I would with any other woman I wanted to start a relationship with." He grinned. "You want to be courted!"
"I think that is an antiquated term, but it is perhaps not too far off the mark. We are supposed to be having this exciting new relationship. When is it going to start?"
"Is it going to start, or did you mean what you said, 'I had my chance.'? Did I miss it?" Tony held Ziva's hand and looked into her eyes. "Because I really want to try to make a go of this. That is, if you are still interested."
Ziva got up and sat on his lap. "If I was not interested, I would not be having this conversation with you. I would almost rather have an open declared relationship with you than a fake one kept under wraps."
Tony's eyes opened wide at that. "Oh, do not go all goofy on me. I was only trying to make a point."
"Point well made." Tony murmured. "Well, then. Ziva, are you busy Friday night? Because there is this new French restaurant in Foggy Bottom I have been dying to go to. It is a little fancy, so you will have to dress up." Tony waited quietly for her response.
"I will have to check my social calendar, but I do believe I am open on Friday." She smiled softly.
Tony felt like he won the lottery. "Great, then I will make reservations and let you know what time I will be picking you up, for our date."
Ziva laid her head on Tony's shoulder. He was smart enough that he knew that this wasn't all he needed to do to make this work, but at least he was now on the right track. He had no doubt that Ziva would let him know when he made a wrong turn.
November 2012
Tony and Ziva sat together, still going through the old photos. Tony sighed. "Sometimes I wish I could go back in time, to see her again, to relive these moments."
Ziva nodded. "I know it is heartbreaking at times. Butas much as you would like to, you cannot dwell on the past. After all, tomorrow is another day."
Tony looked at her in shock. 'Ziva David, did you just quote a movie?"
Ziva looked back at Tony seriously. "No. I quoted a book. That was made into a movie."
Done by request. Hope you liked it. The Spoiler Reel was going through so many scenes it wasn't always clear which episode each scene belonged to. I am guessing this last part is when Tony is sharing his photos but really have no clue.
