AN: Happy Thanksgiving for the Americans reading this! I figured I should wrap this up so people who have been waiting for it to finish can read it over the long weekend. Last chapter will post by lunchtime tomorrow. Also, I broke 50K on my NaNo draft today. Go me! It's not where I wanted to be for the month, but considering how much heck broke loose at work, I'm still pretty proud of finishing. I'll be posting some excerpts on my author FB page in the next day or two (facebook dot com slash JennieCoughlinExeter) if you want to see what I write when I'm not torturing our favorite naval investigators. ;)
Gibbs picked up his cell phone on the third ring.
"Yeah, Gibbs." He tucked the phone between his ear and his shoulder and continued planing the wood on the crib, shaping the curves of the headboard. At the silence on the other end, he waited a beat. "Anybody there?" When nothing came, he disconnected, snapping the phone closed.
He looked at the time on the phone — almost midnight — and the Caller ID. Ziva. "Hell." Gibbs shoved the phone in the pocket of his jeans, then pulled it out again. He had a rare moment of hesitation before he punched in a number.
"Boss?" Tony's voice was thick with sleep.
"You heard from Ziva tonight?"
All of a sudden Tony sounded wide awake. "Not since she hotwired the Charger on me this afternoon."
"Hotwired?" Gibbs didn't like not knowing things. "You forget to tell me something, DiNozzo?"
Tony sighed. "I didn't forget."
"DiNozzo." Gibbs' hands tightened over the wood frame in front of him. "You hiding things from me?"
"I was going to tell you tomorrow." At his words, Gibbs could hear noise in the background that had to be McGee.
"It's zero-oh-two, DiNozzo," Gibbs said. "It's tomorrow."
"If she called you, it's probably because she's trying to get to where she can talk to you, Boss," Tony said. "McLocator's pulling up her phone's GPS, and he's calling Damon. But I'm not going to tell you unless it looks like Ziva's in trouble. Trust me. That will only make this uglier."
"A hint, DiNozzo?"
Nothing for a minute, and Gibbs only held off on yelling because he could hear them talking in the background. Finally, Tony spoke: "Her phone's outside your house, and Damon said she stormed out after she yelled at him and he pissed her off."
"You mean he pissed her off and she yelled at him."
"Nope. She started by yelling when he got home. Then he pissed her off more by telling her she needed to talk to somebody. If she's there trying to come inside and talk to you, I'm not screwing the team up by telling you first."
Gibbs stared at his phone after Tony hung up. No wonder it pissed Vance off when he did the same thing to the director.
Still, Tony had given him valuable intel. He walked upstairs, cautious. The low light in the kitchen illuminated the room enough to see that Ziva wasn't lying in wait. He moved silently across the living room, grabbing his old night vision binoculars from the top of a stack of books. He scanned until he found the car, Ziva in the drivers' seat. She was the only one there. Gibbs nodded, once, then stepped back and set the binoculars down. He padded across the room to the kitchen and managed to find the tea Jack kept in the cabinet for when Sean and Eileen were over. He picked up the kettle and shook it to make sure there was enough water before setting it back on the burner and turning the gas on. While it boiled, Gibbs managed to find an extra travel mug in the cupboard. He unwrapped the teabag and dropped it in, then poured the water over it once it had boiled. Gibbs got his gun from the safe and changed from sneakers to boots before pulling a long-sleeved T-shirt on. It wasn't the fall weather that dipped into the 30s at night, but it was cool enough to want more than a T-shirt, especially if he would be out there a while.
~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~
Ziva drove to Rock Creek Park after leaving the house. She parked near a restroom and ducked inside to change into the running clothes she kept in her gear. After four miles, her muscles were trembling and she realized how little she had eaten that day. She used her phone to find the closest store and went inside to buy a piece of fruit, an energy bar, a six-pack of water and a sports drink. The drink first, the electrolytes and sugars staving off the trembling that must be obvious even to a bystander at that point. Then the water — two bottles — and the peach. She paused, feeling her body steady. She uncapped a third bottle of water and alternated bites of the energy bar with sips of water. Only then did she realize her clothes were stiff with sweat and it was after nine at night. She did not want to go home. Not yet. She would need more gas if she intended to continue driving around. What else could she do? She would not talk to Tony, not after today. She could not go to McGee because Tony would be there. Abby and Jimmy were not options. They would not understand, and Ziva could not handle Abby's emotions tonight. Sarah and the McGees were out for the same reasons. She thought about going to talk to Ducky, but she knew at this hour, the elderly medical examiner would either be in bed or close to it by the time she navigated her way over to his brownstone.
That left only Gibbs, but that also meant Jack. Another person she was not sure she could deal with. Still, Jack, like Ducky, was in bed earlier than Gibbs. Jack slept upstairs, and she could easily slip into the house and down to the basement to talk to Gibbs. She did not know what she could say, though, or what she should say.
Ziva drove across town to the Mall, parking near the Jefferson Memorial. She walked up the steps, bathed in the lights that made the memorial a focal point along the Tidal Basin. She looked west, to where the Lincoln Memorial anchored one end of the Reflecting Pool, another pool of light in the night. She could not truly see the Vietnam and Korean memorials, but she knew they were there, faint glows marking the spaces where crowds gathered at the smaller memorials, visiting to honor those lost in battles fought by different rules than the ones today. Neither one had been a concern of Eli's, nothing compared to the defense of his homeland, and the great war that had led to its creation. As a child, Ziva had only cared for those battles that affected her homeland. Then she moved to the United States and began to learn about the American perspective. She looked east to the World War II memorial, the one honoring a battle that was fought before the current Israeli state existed, the war that led to the creation of the Israel she once called home. She had fought its battles for many years, until it took too much from her. Until Eli demanded too much from her. He was an outsize figure in a small country. Now she was only one in a country larger than any in the industrialized world. Just a single person, not the future of the agency that maintained the safety of a nation-state under constant attack.
She began to realize Damon was right. She could not let Eli and his decisions, or her decisions that he had driven, continue to rule her life. He had taken too much from her over the years, and she would not allow her to take this from her. Decision made, she turned and headed to her car, her muscles protesting. She would pay in the morning for not properly stretching them today after her run. But that would be tomorrow.
Ziva drove south over the Potomac to Gibbs' Alexandria neighborhood. She parked on the street, the houses dark. She did not see a light on the main floor of his house, but knew that meant nothing. If he was in the basement, she would not be able to see from the front of the house.
Ziva pulled out her phone and dialed his cell number. But when he answered, she couldn't find the words. Before she could figure out what to say, he had disconnected. She wrapped her fingers around the phone and tried to bring her breathing under control. She had told Damon. She could tell Gibbs. She did not even have to tell him all of it. She thought perhaps he would prefer not to know all of it, especially the events of the past few days.
Still, she did not move. Only when a movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention did she stir. She saw Gibbs walking toward the car, and hit the automatic locks so he could come inside.
"Drink some tea, Ziver," he said as he settled in the passenger seat. He held out the travel mug, and she took it, the heat seeping into fingers she didn't realize were cold.