I apologise that I haven't updated in a week, but I've been busy with Christmas and New Year. I know I sort of left it on an emotional cliffhanger with the last chapter, so here's some more happy Tiva.
Disclaimer: Same as other chapters.
Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Way Things Were
Ziva woke up at 0600 the following morning to a proverbial scent wafting through the air and a familiar arm lying across her naked torso. She'd counted the days, months, well years, since she'd had sex, and it would seem that the dry spell had finally been broken. It was different to the last time they were together, more than two and a half years earlier, and she could sense that Tony was finally in it for the long haul.
Slowly sliding out from underneath Tony's grip, Ziva quickly threw on a tracksuit and walked downstairs, hoping to get a few minutes of peace and quiet before her son woke up. She walked into the kitchen and found Emily sitting at her bench with a steaming mug of espresso.
Ziva looked at her, wordlessly asking why she was there.
"My coffee machine broke," Emily told her.
Ziva nodded and poured herself a cup of coffee from the jug in her machine. It was strong and she knew that it was at least a triple shot. Emily always doubled or tripled the caffeine intake in her first cup of coffee of the day if she had not slept much the night before. Those nights almost always coincided with Kalev's presence in DC.
"Is Tony asleep upstairs?" Emily asked as her best friend sat on the stool across from her.
"Yes," Ziva answered simply. "How did you guess that? Were you watching to see if he left or not?"
"No! I was a little too busy last night," Emily replied with indignation. "You just look like you didn't get any sleep last night either." Emily paused for a second before continuing, gauging her friend for an emotional tell. "Something must be different this time."
"He said he loves me," Ziva told her in a matter-of-fact fashion.
"Really?" Emily shot back, ignoring her friend's dissociative tone. "Well, that does change things. This is a good thing, Ziva."
"I know that," Ziva retorted. "I feel like we can finally sort this out."
Emily opened her mouth to answer when a little boy, toddling down the stairs one at a time, screamed out. "Mama!"
Ziva turned around to see Tony grab his son around the waist and flip him up onto his shoulders. Anthony shrieked with delight as his father carried him into the kitchen and handed him over to his mother.
"Good morning, Ziva," Tony said happily, followed by a light kiss on her unsuspecting lips. "So, what's for breakfast? Pancakes? Bacon and eggs?"
Emily laughed. "Haha, bacon? How long has it been since you lived here?"
Ziva merely shook her head at him, handing their son back to him and walked to the pantry. She opened the doors and immersed herself in the wide selection of foods.
"What are you doing today?" Tony asked Emily, simultaneously setting Anthony down on the bench. "Work?"
"Yeah, at NCIS," Emily replied, finishing off the last of her coffee. "Gibbs wants to find out who was behind the kidnapping and I'm pretty sure that Hotch is growing desperate for an answer, too. He does not like leaving open cases. You got the day off?"
"Ziva and I have today and tomorrow off," Tony answered. "Jenny's orders."
"Well, you two are the lucky ones," Emily pointed out. "If I know anything about Gibbs, which I do, he's not gonna stop until he finds Jed Peterson and whoever hired him."
Tony nodded. "You should have seen him when he was tracking down Ari," he muttered to Emily in a low voice, trying to avoid being overheard by Ziva.
oOo
"What do you mean, you have nothing, McGee?!" Gibbs ejected across the bullpen. They had been on the same case for four long days and were no closer to tracking Jed Peterson, Benjamin Cohen or finding the person who hired them. "They are not that good. There has to be a trail somewhere."
"They are that good, Boss," McGee stuttered out. "There is no trail. Abby, Garcia and I have been tracking every single virtual lead down for days and we've come up with... well... bupkis."
"Bupkis?" Gibbs shot back.
"Uh, nothing, boss," McGee struggled to answer back in a small voice. "We have nothing."
Gibbs sighed and looked around the bullpen. "Let's go through what we do know."
There were some murmurs of revolt, but they were quickly silenced by Gibbs' stare. Rossi and Reid were the lucky ones. They had left that morning on a flight to Houston, Texas for a custodial interview. That left Hotch, Emily, JJ, Garcia, Morgan, Tony, Ziva and McGee to suffer under Gibbs' newfound obsession. Morgan, an expert on crimes of obsession, had steered clear of questioning Gibbs about it, instead referring his concerns to his own boss. Hotch had agreed that they needed to speak with him about it.
Tony stepped forward first to address Gibbs' order. "We know that, under a burned alias, our mystery man hired four people to carry out the kidnapping and attack on NCIS. They were paid out of Russian bank account and we have no leads how the money got into the account... yet."
"Jed Peterson withdrew the entire sum from his bank account in Zurich before disappearing," Emily continued. "Benjamin Cohen also disappeared after withdrawing his money from a bank in the Caymans. He was last seen in Venice, Italy, five days ago. Interpol is tracking both of them, but they appear to be far underground."
"Jed Peterson sold all of his shares in Incan Exports before disappearing," Abby added. "He's completely gone off the grid. Probably retired somewhere to a nice island in the Mediterranean or South Pacific."
"The kidnapping was definitely a set up," Morgan concluded. "They thought we'd all run to the aid of Anthony and Marcel and leave NCIS with virtually no staff. It was night, so nobody was supposed to be here and the Director was only here because of the kidnapping."
"It was a targeted attack, Gibbs," Ziva put in with a tired voice. "But we still have no idea who hired them or why."
"Keep looking," Gibbs ordered, before collecting his jacket.
"Where?" Tony asked as his boss passed him.
"Everywhere, DiNozzo," Gibbs replied in a low, dangerous voice. "I wanna find them."
Morgan shot a meaningful look at Hotch, who followed Gibbs into the elevator.
"You have something to say, Hotchner?" Gibbs questioned as soon as the door closed. The young clerk in the elevator with them looked positively afraid.
"You and I both don't like to leave cases open," Hotch pointed out. "But the trail's gone on this one. My team's skills would be put to better use elsewhere, but we are stuck here under some obligation that we have to your team."
Gibbs flicked on the emergency stop, frightening the young office worker even more. Hotch was unperturbed. He had been expecting this. "Nobody's making your team stay," Gibbs retorted. "Go, my team can handle this."
"It's been four days and we have nothing more to go on," Hotch reasoned. "You need to let this go. Your team's skills can be put to better use as well."
"You left out the part where this guy ordered the death of my Director," Gibbs said in a low voice, trying hard to ignore the anxiety of the clerk. "I will not let this drop. There will be a next time."
"I agree, but I think that we will work faster the next time it happens," Hotch answered. "We're expecting them."
"And what if we don't succeed?" Gibbs asked, flicking the emergency stop off.
Hotch didn't answer, allowing the remainder of the elevator trip to continue in silence. Gibbs walked to his coffee shop alone as the BAU boss headed back upstairs. He was going to sort it out with Jenny, then.
Gibbs returned to the bullpen fifteen minutes later. As he walked into the circle of his team and the BAU team, Jenny walked down the stairs from her office with Hotch in tow. She walked into the bullpen and headed straight for Gibbs' desk, where he had just taken a seat.
"So, anything new on the case, Agent Gibbs?" Jenny asked with pertinence.
"Not yet, Director," Gibbs answered dutifully.
"Nothing new in four days?" Jenny questioned, her eyebrows risen in discontent. "I am sending your team home. It's Saturday and they are not rostered on to work. This is no longer a hot case."
"They are my peo-" Gibbs began.
"They are my people," Jenny corrected, cutting him off. "And I believe that Agent Hotchner was going to tell his people to do the same thing. Let this go."
Nevertheless, Gibbs remained behind in the bullpen while his team left on Jenny's orders, reading and re-reading the case notes that both teams had written.
oOo
Tony dragged Morgan and McGee out with him that afternoon. He was babysitting Anthony while Ziva had lunch with JJ, Abby, Emily and Garcia and the three men, and baby, were heading down Tony's favourite designer street in Washington.
"Where are we going, man?" Morgan asked as he traipsed after his friend. McGee was left pushing the stroller. Thankfully, Anthony was fast asleep.
"I need your help to pick out something," Tony answered. "I've never gone shopping for something like this before."
"Something like what, Tony?" McGee asked, but Tony ignored him.
His question was sort of answered when Tony stopped and stared wide-eyed at the shop in front of him- Delaney's Jewellers, one of the most popular diamond jewellery stores in the DC area.
"Okay and why are we here?" McGee asked stupidly.
Morgan, on the other hand, had a very instinctual hunch as to why they were there. "Please tell me that you're not thinking of doing what I think you're thinking of doing."
"Come on," Tony ordered, opening up the store's door. They walked inside in silence, Morgan still coming to grips with his friend's boldness and McGee still confused about the nature of their venture.
"What can I do for you gentlemen?" a kindly jeweller, with a thick Mediterranean accent, asked them. She was a middle-aged woman of a short stature with brunette hair and flecks of grey through it.
Before Tony could answer, Morgan grabbed him roughly and whispered in his ear. "Think about what you're doing. Are you sure that you're ready for this? Is Ziva?"
"I know what I'm doing," Tony answered complacently. "I want to show Ziva that I'm ready for a commitment, but that is not all. I love her. Isn't that enough reason to want to get married?"
And with that question, McGee finally caught on to what they were doing there. "You're gonna propose to Ziva?! Are you sure she'll say yes? I mean, she's Jewish and Israeli and a Mossad assassin and you're none of those things. What will her father say?"
"Fear not, McProbius," Tony answered gallantly. "I'm sure that Director David will be very happy when he can convince his buddies back home that his daughter did not have a child out-of-wedlock."
McGee didn't reply to that and the short, brunette jeweller took advantage of the silence. "Engagement rings, then."
Tony nodded and followed her to the section. He peered through the glass and stared at the miraculously perfect gems, ignoring Morgan's comments about "finding them cheaper in Tel Aviv" or "make sure they're not conflict diamonds" or even the occasional "I still can't believe I'm letting you do this." And then he saw it. He could already imagine slipping the ring onto her finger. It was beautifully cut, bright and left a permanent sparkle in his eye. Just like Ziva did.
"The one in the last row," Tony whispered to the jeweller. "Third from the right."
She pulled it out and placed it, in its small box, on the counter. "Three stone diamond arrangement," she explained. "0.9 carat, total weight, with a fourteen carat white gold band set with princess cut diamonds. The main stone is completely unblemished. There is a small cloud, but it is invisible to the naked eye. You would not have even noticed it."
Tony took in what she said, but was still mesmerised by the ring. After all, Ziva had her imperfections too.
"Three thousand, nine hundred dollars," the jeweller concluded with. "But it is worth much more, I can tell you that for sure."
Morgan looked from Tony to the jeweller, his eyes wide in shock. He could not believe what his friend was about to do, let alone how much money he was going to spend on it. McGee had retreated to the back of the room and was no longer making any comments. Anthony had woken up and now it was up to the junior field agent to keep him preoccupied.
"I'll take it," Tony told the jeweller happily as he pulled out his chequebook.
So, Gibbs is not gonna leave this case alone and neither am I. Hehehe :). Hope that you like the ending to this chapter. Please review.