Fallen Angels: Chapter 21
A/N: I woke up this morning without pain (for the first time since Thursday) and able to see (for the first time in as long as I can remember), so I'm celebrating by giving you a chapter. Writing is still slow, so I can't guarantee a timely next chapter, but you do get one today. Enjoy!
Ziva's third day of looking at apartments started much the same as the first two: poorly. "This will not work," she declared within two minutes of stepping into the morning's third apartment. Across the small living room, the real estate agent frowned.
"Do I need to guess what is wrong with this one?" she asked sarcastically.
"With how many explanations I have given you, you should be able to."
The native Bahraini sighed as she began looking around. "I am thinking that it is a bit small," she finally said.
"Yes," Ziva replied simply. It also had small windows and a kitchen barely large enough for one person, but there was no use getting into that now.
"In two and a half days, we have only seen one place that you would even conceive of living," the real estate agent said. "But that one, you said was too large. I am finding it difficult to find one that is in your exact size range."
Ziva frowned. "The one that I was fond of was a house," she pointed out.
"A gated compound," the realtor corrected. Ziva didn't bother telling her that calling a compound actually made it worse.
"It had two stories, three bedrooms, and a swimming pool," she said instead. "That is a bit excessive."
"It was gated, which meets your security requirements." Ziva snorted at that; she required more than just a gate for security. Gates provided little more than the illusion of security, which in itself was more dangerous than having no gate at all. "It has enough bedrooms, large windows with a view of the beach, three balconies, and a modern kitchen with new appliances. Was there any wrong with it, other than the fact that it did not share a wall with another person's home?"
Ziva opened her mouth to respond and closed it when nothing came to mind. Although the house was a lot more than they were looking for, it did have everything they were looking for, which was a lot more than could be said for any of the apartments she had seen, or the one they were currently living in.
She just still hadn't figured out how to bring it up to Tony to make him think that living in a house was his idea, though.
The NCIS special agent in question was exactly in the same place he had been for the last several days: at his desk, on his computer, trying to find some sort of clue that would point in the direction Rabb had gone.
He was one dead lead away from going home and running a Bond marathon. Surely 007 had come across a situation like this and had some sort of advice to offer.
DiNozzo glanced up hopefully when Freiler walked into the field agent office, his hopes falling just as fast with the look on his junior agent's face. "Sorry, Agent DiNozzo," Freiler said as he collapsed into his desk chair, sounding just as tired as DiNozzo felt. "The analyst division has been working on finding that plane, and they've got nothing."
"Planes don't just disappear, Freiler. Neither do captains. Or, unfortunately, lawyers."
"Yeah," Freiler agreed. "I'm sure the plane's somewhere. I just don't know where. And I'm sure Captain Rabb is somewhere, too, but—"
"You just don't know where," DiNozzo finished for him. "Thanks. I got it."
"I can tell you where the plane's not," Freiler offered, pulling something up on his computer. "It's not at any international airport in the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, any country in the EU—"
"You're really not helping," DiNozzo interrupted with a sigh. "Did you see the email from Tomblin?"
"About the conversation with Mrs. Rabb? Yes, sir, I read that."
"You don't need to call me 'sir', Freiler."
"Right. Sorry."
"And don't apologize." He stopped and looked up, frowning. "Who am I?"
"Who are you?"
"Right. Who am I?"
"Uh, NCIS Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo?"
"Okay. Good. I was worried that I had somehow become Gibbs."
"Ah. Right." Freiler continued to watch him for a long minute. "Was there something about the email that got your attention?"
"Oh." With the temporary identity crisis, DiNozzo had forgotten that he was going to say anything. "The wife seems to think that our case and our little McGoo's case are related."
"Huh?"
DiNozzo had forgotten that Freiler didn't know about the case the headquarters MCRT was working on or the nicknames he gave his former junior agent. "There was a Hornet crash in the Indian Ocean a few days ago. Gibbs and company are working the case."
"Oh. Why does Mrs. Rabb think they're related?"
"Because believing that is better than believing that your husband was kidnapped by terrorists?"
"I guess that's a good point. Is there anything about that case you want me to work on?"
DiNozzo sighed again and leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes. He didn't know enough about that case to answer that question, so he chose to ignore it. "Anything new on the embezzlers?" With all of this attention focused on Rabb and the Zazi case, they had been neglecting all of their old cases.
They really needed another field agent.
"Uh, we got the results from the Secret Service on the bills…" His voice trailed off at the sudden and unexpected appearance of Mossad Officer Ziva David in the office doorway. "Uh…"
"We can get back to this later, Freiler," DiNozzo informed his junior agent. He turned his attention to the Israeli woman standing just inside his office. "Hi."
"Hello," she replied, a smile on her face. Well, that was a welcome change from the exhausted glare she had been wearing halfway through the first day of searching for apartments. She held up the bag she had brought in with her. "Have you had lunch yet?"
"I don't know if I've had breakfast yet," DiNozzo admitted. He glanced in his garbage can to see a pile of empty coffee cups. "I've had coffee, though."
"Not even Gibbs can survive on coffee alone, Tony," Ziva said as she swung Tomblin's old chair around to the front of Tony's desk.
"I don't know," DiNozzo said thoughtfully. "There were times I'm pretty sure he did. I think he's got more coffee in his bloodstream than blood."
"That would explain quite a lot," Ziva replied with a nod. She reached into the bag from the deli and handed over a sandwich. "How is it going?"
"It's not," he replied grimly. "How's the housing search going? Find any you can see us living in?"
She looked uncertain, which always made him nervous. "There was one the other day that is a possibility," she began.
"So what's wrong with it?"
"What makes you assume that there is anything wrong with it?"
"If there wasn't, you would have signed a lease already."
"I would not sign a lease without you seeing the place where we would be living first."
"Really?" DiNozzo asked with a frown. "'Cause that sounds exactly like something you would do."
"Do you want to go see it?"
"Now?"
Ziva shrugged. "We cannot wait until you are done at work for the day, because the realtor will likely be asleep at that point. We might as well go now."
"Okay," he agreed as he stood from his chair. It wasn't as if he was accomplishing anything at the office anyway. "Let's go."
To his surprise, Ziva also stood, pulling her phone from her pocket and beginning a quick conversation in Arabic about seeing the place she liked with, he could only assume, their real estate agent.
And practically the next thing he knew, he was standing outside the realtor's car, gaping at a gated house. "This?" he asked. "This is the place you wanted me to see?"
"Yes," Ziva replied simply.
"But it's a house!"
"A villa compound," Ziva corrected, which actually just made the situation worse.
"You want to rent a villa compound," DiNozzo echoed. "What happened to the two-bedroom apartment idea?"
Ziva sighed and rolled her eyes. "Do you want to waste your lunch break standing outside complaining, or do you want to see it?"
"I don't know," DiNozzo said slowly. He was beginning to have flashbacks of another conversation about another house with another woman.
But this wasn't another woman. This was Ziva, the woman who changed her entire job and moved halfway across the world to live with him, the woman he once proposed to and might propose to again, if he ever figured out when 'the right time' was. "Yeah," he said reluctantly. "Let's go see it."
He had to admit, the house was nice. The three bedrooms were all large and brightly lit through the large windows, the living room and den were spacious and perfect for entertaining, the kitchen was large and fitted with brand-new appliances—something he knew was a 'must have' for Ziva—and, for crying out loud, the place had a pool in the backyard, somewhere where he could relax at the end of a long day, Ziva bringing him a cocktail—
No. This was ridiculous; it was a house, a house they definitely didn't need and he was pretty sure they couldn't afford. "Well?" Ziva prompted. "What do you think?"
"What do I think?" he repeated, feeling at the brink of panic. "What do I think? I think it's a house!"
She rolled her eyes. "Yes, Tony, I do realize this."
His eyes darted over to the real estate agent before going back to Ziva, his voice lowering. "Ziva, this place has to be over 2000 dinars—"
"It is 2100," she interrupted.
"That's over five thousand dollars, Ziva! A month! There's no way I can afford—"
"You are not the only one who would be living here, Tony."
"Oh," he said sarcastically. "So you're saying Mossad pays their operatives enough to be able to rent three bedroom houses with a swimming pool along the beach in Bahrain?" She just raised her eyebrows at him. "Are you serious?" he demanded. "Just how much money do you make?"
"Enough to be able to rent a three bedroom house with a swimming pool along the beach in Bahrain," Ziva replied. "You should not be worried about the money, Tony."
"But it's a house!" he exclaimed again, too flustered by wondering just how much money Ziva made to form an argument more articulate than that. "Houses are for people like the Freilers, with three kids and another coming in a couple of weeks. We're just two people—." He cut himself off, a sudden thought occurring to him that was enough to make his recently-fed stomach turn in nervous anticipation. "We are just two people, right?"
"Who else did you think would be living with us?" Ziva asked, clearly confused.
"No, I mean, there isn't going to be… You're not…"
"Pregnant?" Ziva asked, beginning to catch onto the conversation. "No, Tony. I most definitely am not."
"Thank God," he replied in an exhale. He remembered what they were talking about and frowned. "You don't… I mean…"
"Want to be?" she asked, now sounding amused. "No, Tony. I do not want a child right now."
"Then what's with the house?"
"It is a nice house. It meets all of our requirements—." Her arguments were cut off by the sudden ringing of Tony's cell phone. His eyes didn't leave hers as he pulled the offending device out of his pocket and accepted the call.
"DiNozzo," he barked harshly. The word was met with several beats of silence, enough to make him check that the call was still active.
"Uh, it's Freiler, sir," his junior agent finally replied. DiNozzo was still too distracted by the house to bother to correct him. "One of our analysts just found something, sir. I think we finally have a lead on the plane."