Chapter 6
"The Rise of the Three Musketeers"
~~Around November 2005~~
Ziva shouldered her apartment door open after unlocking it, her hands full with her shopping that she had gotten done after getting off work. Pushing the door closed with one foot, she took a couple of steps toward the kitchen, where she tossed her keys on the counter, then set the bags onto the counter. Letting out an exhausted sigh, she then walked to the living room, dropping her backpack on the floor next to the couch. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed her laptop on the table, her own, not the one belonging to NCIS. She suddenly realized that she had totally forgotten to ask McGee to take a look at it because it had been giving her obscure error messages. She let out an exasperated sigh as she pulled her phone out of her pocket and called McGee.
Ziva listened to the phone ringing, waiting for McGee to answer, her thoughts flashing back over the past few days. Moments later, she heard the line pick up. "Hello, McGee speaking."
Ziva smiled to herself. She could always count on McGee to answer his phone even on his off time. "Hello, McGee?" she asked.
"Hi Ziva. What are you up to?" McGee said over the phone.
"McGee, you got plans tomorrow?" Ziva asked McGee.
"Not much. Just doing my writing." McGee replied.
Ziva sighed, then said, "Well, I just noticed the laptop on my end table. I totally forgot to ask you about it at work. Things got busy, and you know, it went out my mind. Would you be able to stop by tomorrow and see if you can fix the laptop?" Ziva's eyes flicked to the side as she tilted her head slightly in the direction of the clock on the kitchen wall as she walked to the stove.
"Sure, I can stop by in the morning, no problem." McGee's voice sounded over the phone's speaker.
"Great, see you tomorrow" Ziva smiled and nodded to herself. That's settled, then, she thought to herself.
"See ya. Bye," McGee replied, before he hung up.
"See ya," Ziva said as the line went dead on her. She closed the display on the phone, then set the phone down on the counter and turned her attention to the cooking. No sooner than she had done that, the phone rang again. She scoffed at herself and picked up the phone and looked at it. The display showed Tony's name on it, and her slight frown quickly turned into a smile. She brought the phone up to her ear as she answered the phone, smiling to herself. "Hi Tony" she said.
Tony's voice sounded upbeat on the phone. "Hi Ziva. Just wanted to let you know I am on my way now. Traffic's kind of decent for a change."
"Ah that's good to hear. Dinner's almost done, now. I think you'll love it," Ziva replied, smiling to herself.
"Ooh, looking forward to enjoying the dinner," Tony said, his voice sounding enthusiastic.
"Oh, did you find the way out to my place okay?" Ziva asked Tony. She knew that this particular neighborhood she was living in was slightly confusing with the street layout. There was only one way in and out.
"Yeah, I just found the street I was looking for. I shouldn't be more than a few minutes away. See you soon," Tony replied.
Ziva could hear the blinker in Tony's car clicking over the phone, and she smiled, because she knew he was making a turn. "Sounds good, I need to get dinner done. See ya soon."
Eventually, after Tony and Ziva had eaten their fill of chicken alfredo, Caesar salad, and some rolls slathered with garlic butter, Tony looked at Ziva across the table as he sat back, wiping his mouth off with his napkin. He smiled at Ziva, looking at her for a couple of moments. He said, "That has got to be some of the best Italian I've had in a long time, Ziva."
Ziva smiled at him. "Italian suits you perfectly. I could tell." She winked at him. "Your arm's doing better, I see," she said, pointing to his arm.
Tony looked down at his arm, then back up to Ziva. "Oh, yeah, it's better now, now all the junk's been cleaned out of it. Doesn't hurt as much now." His expression changed somewhat. "I've been wondering about something."
"Ah." Ziva slowly nodded, her eyes saying to Tony that she didn't quite buy it but she'll go along with it. "So, what's on your mind?" she asked as she tilted her head to him.
"Well, I was just wondering why you didn't invite me with the rest of the team." Tony shrugged as he asked the question.
Ziva's eyebrows raised and her brow furrowed. "Think of it this way. If you had been invited with the rest of the team, you'd have left with the team when the dinner was done, or possibly even earlier. So, I thought, what if I wanted a private dinner with you?" She winked and smiled flirtatiously to Tony, and added, "And dessert, pretty please, with cool whip on top?" Her fingers mimiced her spraying out the whipped cream out onto a pie. She stood back up and put her hands into her hips and said, "Remember, we gotta be careful about everything. Don't let anybody else know."
Tony chuckled. "That's right. I got it now. We can enjoy the rest of the evening together," he said to her.
"That's right. So, what do you have in mind for the evening?" she asked.
Tony chuckled, then got up and walked over to his bag that he had brought over with him. He opened it and pulled out a couple of DVDs. Ziva could see that one was from a local rental place, but the other one -
"Tony!" Ziva's mouth hung open. "Don't tell me you took that from Evidence!" She pointed to the DVD cover Tony was holding.
Tony guffawed. "No, I know better than that. Just the cover. Thought I'd take the cover out of the one I messed up to make an antenna support. Remember that one?"
Ziva sighed in relief. "Good, because if you were going to have me sit through watching that movie I will show you new meaning of the word pain." She held up a finger and raised her eyebrows up and smiled at him.
Tony chuckled. "Yeah, no, I know better. But no, I thought why not watch something that I got from the local rental place?" He held up the movie rental.
Ziva smiled at Tony. "Sounds great." She put together the plates and brought them out to the kitchen and put them in the sink.
Tony smiled and went over to the DVD player and put the movie in and got it set up while Ziva cleaned up in the kitchen. Moments later, Ziva joined Tony on the couch and sat back to watch the movie.
"Ah, there we go," Tony said, smiling at Ziva as she snuggled up close to him to enjoy the movie.
"Mm," Ziva smiled to herself as she basked in Tony's warmth as she watched the movie. "Certainly better than watching that screen with endless pictures of victims and perpetuators scrolling across the screen at work," she said, her hand flipping through the air as if she was flipping through pictures.
Tony chuckled. "Yeah. Gives us a chance to just turn off our brains for the evening and just enjoy the night off."
Ziva looked up at Tony and scoffed. "How do you turn off your brain while away from work? Some days I can't stop thinking -"
Tony put a finger on her lips and shook his head slightly, slowly. He held up his hands, then weighed them up and down, as if holding two cups and testing their weights. "Work," he said, holding one hand up in the air, then he held the other hand up in the air and said, "Home life. It's a fine balancing act, this. Pay attention to one thing at a time, at the appropriate time. At work, we think work, and not home life. At home, we think home life, and not work."
"How's that? My mind won't shut down from work even when I'm cooking food -" Ziva started to say.
Tony held up a hand. "I know, mine too. That's why I throw something on the player and watch a movie. To turn my mind off for the night."
"No wonder you're always coming up with movie quotes and names!" Ziva shook her head and went back to watching the movie.
Tony chuckled to Ziva. "I guess so. I've always found movies to be comforting escapes from the daily grind of life."
Ziva chuckled. "I guess it'd help after being boxed in for so long today. So glad the day's over, to tell you the truth." She sighed in relief as she relaxed into Tony's arms.
Tony chuckled. "I would have loved to seen the look on that guy's face when you shot his foot, though. Instant dancing lessons for him, for sure."
Ziva scoffed while chuckling to herself. "And that moron who ran the shipping port, I don't think he'll walk right for a while now." She turned her head up to look at Tony and her eyes flashed with anger as she held up a finger in the air. "Never get in the way of a woman with a full bladder."
Tony guffawed. "He made that mistake for the last time now, I hope." He looked back up at the TV screen at the movie and shook his head, still chuckling to himself.
"Yes, well, I hope they enjoy their stay in prison for a good while." Ziva turned back to watch the movie. "What's this movie about?"
Tony chuckled. "Well, I don't know, I wasn't really paying attention."
Ziva scoffed at Tony. "If you rented this movie, you would have known about it enough to describe what it's about -"
Tony stopped Ziva with a full-on kiss that lasted for a few moments. Breaking for air, he sat back up and looked at Ziva more closely. "I like this movie better than what's on the screen, anyway."
Ziva laughed at Tony and batted his arm. "What part of this movie is interesting? The dinner, or the snuggling up, or the talking?"
Tony smiled gently and looked into Ziva's eyes. "The best part is looking at you. Seeing how you handle the world. Just being in your presence." Tony closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. "Smelling you, your warmth." He opened his eyes back up and held up a finger. "When I'm away from work and spend some time with you, I feel more human. At work, we gotta be like robots – just do our jobs. Don't let anybody know about this."
Ziva smiled and nodded. "Double lives for us, then. I think my training will come in handy for this. Rule twelve, right?"
Tony clicked his tongue and held up a finger in the air, flicking it once. "You got it. Like I said, this movie's better, anyway. Less headaches to worry about."
Ziva laughed. "I agree with you. Irregular hours, though. Nature of the job." She shrugged.
Tony nodded. "Right, the never-ending problem of having to solve the case on the fly when lives depend on it. Still, gotta love the occasional adrenaline rush of working the case. Just no locking us up for long periods of time, thank you very much." Tony sighed exasperatedly. "Of course, who'd expect the bad guys to cooperate?" Tony muttered to himself.
Ziva let out a short chuckle. "Handling things is the name of the game. Handle things in a way that you can come home at the end of the day if at all possible." She winked at Tony and smiled.
Tony smiled and leaned over and gave Ziva a kiss. "Most important part is being there for each other. Both on the job and off." He put a hand on her cheek and stroked it gently as he smiled at her. "You do your job the best you can, that's all that counts."
"Thanks." Ziva felt reassured with Tony's touch, his words. She nodded, taking the words in, digesting them. It meant that she had to compartmentalize her home life from Gibbs, from McGee, from everyone else, in the best way she knew how. It came almost second nature to her, a product of her training. She swallowed and smiled at Tony. "Two lives we live. I think we can do that."
Tony smiled and drew Ziva in closer to him. "That's the spirit. Low-key always works. The occasional visit here and there shouldn't raise any suspicions."
Ziva snuggled closer to Tony and smiled as her eyes gazed upon the TV screen as the movie played on the screen. The movie audio droned on, but she tuned it out. "I needed this after a long day," she said after a long pause.
"Hm," Tony said, almost absentmindedly. He looked down at Ziva and said, "What, my knee?"
Ziva scoffed and punched Tony in the leg, but not hard enough to cause actual pain. "What is it about you and knees?"
Tony laughed. "Oh! I wasn't fully paying attention to what you were saying. I was watching the movie and thinking about other things."
Ziva turned and looked at Tony. "What other things? Would your knee be one of the other things?"
Tony smiled and waggled his eyebrows. "More specifically, when you were on top of me in that box. How it felt, especially in time of danger. That adrenaline rush, you know?"
Ziva laughed. "Just doing my job. I lost my balance and was thrown on top of you. It wasn't about me wanting to feel your... knee." Ziva's eyebrows moved around flirtatiously.
Tony chuckled. "Sure, the truck going around the corner didn't hurt anything. Anyway, here's better anyway. So I can..." Tony reached out and goosed Ziva on her side. "Tickle you!"
Ziva jumped and shrieked in laughter. "Don't!" She looked at Tony and smiled.
Tony chuckled and pulled Ziva in closer to him. "Or hug you like this," he said, then hugged her, and started kissing her all over her face.
"Oh!" Ziva moaned as Tony touched a particularly sensitive spot "Don't stop!" She arched closer to Tony as she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him and started kissing him back.
Tony ran his hands up and down Ziva's body sensuously, exciting her. He whispered to her, "What do you say we head on to bed?"
Ziva nodded, her head swimming with the sensations and excitement, her senses running on overdrive. "Yes, let's go," she whispered in his ear huskily.
"I'll bring the whipped cream," Tony said.
~~Next Morning~~
Ziva stirred awake and her eyes flicked over to the night table where the clock was. It read 7:57. Some unspoken thought had jolted her awake, something that she had forgotten about. She couldn't put a finger on it. She shook her head to herself, waking herself up a little further. She sighed, then swung her legs out of the bed and stood up and stretched herself. She looked over to the bed, where Tony lay, sound asleep, his arms and legs splayed out over his side of the bed She smiled at him, then went to the bathroom to get ready for the day. She came out moments later, wearing Tony's long sleeve white shirt on. As she slipped her leggings on, she noticed that Tony had rolled over in bed, and was starting to wake himself up. "Tony, you better get up and get cleaned up for the day," she said as she put her hair up in a bun.
"Mmh," Tony grunted as he sat up. "Good night sleep?" he asked her as he started yawning.
Ziva smiled. "Better now that you're here." She turned to the doorway. "I'll get coffee going."
Just then, the doorbell rang.
Ziva gasped. "McGee! I forgot!" She ran out to the living room and madly scrambled to pick up things in the living room and neatened it up the best she could.
Tony watched as Ziva came back in with the stuff from the living room. "McGee's here! Totally forgot about it." She grabbed her laptop. "He was supposed to come and work on my laptop." She held out a hand. "Stay here, get ready, but be quiet." Her eyes raised halfway.
"Okay." Tony got up and quietly walked to the bathroom.
Ziva nodded, then quickly ran to the living room door as the doorbell rang a second time, carrying the laptop with her. She quickly set it on the kitchen table before she answered the door. "McGee! Good to see you this morning," she said, smiling to McGee, who stood in front of the door.
McGee smiled at Ziva. "And a good morning to you, too."
She stepped aside and held a hand into the apartment. "Why don't you come in?"
McGee looked Ziva up and down once. "That shirt looks familiar," he said.
Ziva's face remained neutral as her eyebrows slowly raised slightly. "Where have you seen it?" She looked down at the shirt she was wearing. "Maybe I like a man's shirt as my pajama top."
McGee's eyes caught something near the couch, and they flicked over to it, then looked back up to Ziva. His eyebrows flicked once up and down. "You said you had a laptop you wanted me to look at?"
"Oh, yes, here it is." She walked over to the kitchen table to get the laptop, then brought it over to McGee. "I think the power brick thing is over there by the couch, let me look."
"Sure, no problem," McGee smiled at Ziva.
Ziva smiled at McGee, then walked over to the couch, and stealthily picked up the underwear that lay near the couch and made a show of looking for the power brick for the laptop. "Hm, not here. Maybe in the other room."
"You looking for this?" The bedroom door opened and a hand popped out, holding the laptop's power supply.
Ziva stopped short when the door opened and gasped. The power supply had suddenly materialized in front of her eyes. "Tony!"
McGee's face turned to that of puzzlement. "Tony? Is that you?"
Tony stepped out, holding the power brick. "Yeah, it's me, McGeek. Heard that she was looking for the power brick for the laptop, and I just happened to see it laying there by her end table."
Ziva took a deep breath as she looked at Tony. "I totally forgot about McGee, he was supposed to come this morning to work on my laptop. Sorry it slipped my mind." She smiled abashedly at Tony.
"No, that's not a problem, Ziva." Tony patted Ziva's arm, then he turned to McGee. "As she said, she was looking for the power brick, as I overheard, and I remembered seeing it there this morning as I was getting ready to come out here to make some coffee. Want some?"
"Sure, coffee sounds good. But I can leave with the laptop and come back when I'm done with it, if you'd like?" McGee said, as if he sensed that they wanted their own time together.
Ziva put her hand on McGee's arm and shook her head, smiling at him. "No, it's alright. You're welcome to stay here to work on my laptop and have some coffee?"
Tony pulled out a chair and held his hand out to the chair. "Here, sit, make yourself comfortable while you're working on the laptop. See what little secrets the laptop will divulge to you and what sweet little touches the laptop will respond to, huh?" Tony needled McGee.
McGee chuckled. "Nothing major needed, hopefully." He went over to the chair and pulled himself up to the table as he opened the laptop.
Before McGee could fully open the laptop, Ziva leaned forward toward the laptop and put a hand on the top of the laptop, closing it on McGee. "Before you start, why don't we talk about something first?" Ziva smiled to McGee across the laptop.
McGee sat back, taken aback by the sudden turn of events. "Uhm..." His brain tried to come up with words, "Sure, what about?"
"You know what about." She nodded toward the couch, near where Tony's bag sat. "Obviously you saw Tony here. You must be wondering if anything happened between us."
"Uhm." McGee's lips moved as his brain tried to come up with a proper response. "The agents showed me that video of you two on that undercover mission," he blurted out. "Sure looked convincing." His eyebrows shot upward.
Tony laughed. "Did it? Then we did our jobs well. Had to play the part, right? Married assassins, remember?"
McGee smiled. "The agents seemed to have enjoyed it. A little too much, if you ask me." He shrugged.
That response got a rise out of Tony. "What did you just say?"
McGee gulped. "Well, they were saying that it looked too real. That you weren't just doing your job -"
"They can say whatever they want." Ziva cut him off. "We were just doing our jobs. They can't prove otherwise, can they?"
Tony leaned toward McGee. "We're partners on the job, nothing more. We just get the job done, nothing more, nothing less."
"But, rule twelve?" McGee blurted out.
Tony smiled. "You tell 'im, Ziva." He looked over to Ziva.
Ziva sat back and looked McGee over carefully. "You write, do you not?"
"Uhm, yes." McGee blinked. He was taken aback by Ziva's mode of questioning. "Why does that have anything to do with it?"
"Anybody at work know about your writing?" Tony asked.
McGee's face changed to one where it looked like he was trying to think of who could know, and he came up empty. "Not that many that I can think off the top of my head." He turned to Ziva. "How would you know, anyway?"
Ziva looked at McGee. "I didn't, at least not totally. Only read in your profile that you wrote, but hadn't published anything. As a hobby."
McGee blinked. "Should have remembered that you profiled us. What else do you know about me that I might not know?"
Ziva shot a look at McGee. "I didn't go that deep. Only what was important to the job at hand."
Tony cleared his throat slightly. "Well, you know what this means. You've seen us together on the job, and how well we do together. Now you've seen us together outside the job. These two lives cannot intersect with each other, or it'll mean trouble for the both of us."
McGee gulped. "Gibbs and rule twelve?"
"Don't ask, don't tell." Tony held up a finger in the air. "Gibbs is to not know anything about this." Tony looked at McGee more intently. "He is to not know about the history we have together."
"History? You have history together?" McGee looked at Tony, a baffled look on his face. "You mean you two knew each other before -?"
"Yes." Ziva smiled at McGee. "My laptop?" She held a hand out toward it. "You'll possibly find some information in there that ties us together. Keep that secret, please." She took her hand off her laptop and held a finger in the air.
McGee gulped. "Sure, no problem. I'll do that. I saw nothing, anyway." He shrugged.
"Sure you didn't, McGeek. I saw you eyeing that video that day, weren't you?" Tony waggled his eyebrows and grinned deviously at McGee.
"Boys, boys!" Ziva held out her hands on both Tony and McGee. "Not here, not now." She looked to McGee. "If you think I came out here on purpose to work with Tony, no, that was not the case. Destiny called us together again." She sat back in her chair and looked at the both of them levelly. "Now, for all intents and purposes, Tony had dinner with me last night, and this morning you came over to my apartment to look at this laptop and see why it's beeping and giving me error messages. Correct?"
McGee's head bobbed twice. "Got ya. What happens here, stays here." He looked down at the laptop and turned it on. As he waited for the laptop to come up, he asked while continuing to look at the screen, "So, where'd you meet?"
"Israel." Ziva said.
McGee's head swung up sharply to Ziva. "I didn't know Tony took a trip to Israel." He turned to look at Tony. "You're kidding."
Tony chuckled. "Nope. Exchange coursework when I was in college. I was 21 then. An eye-opener for me to go over there and hear gunfire every so often."
McGee blinked at Tony. "So how did you manage to make it look real? I mean, on mission."
Ziva shot McGee a look. "You forget I come from the Mossad, where we're trained to act in this manner if necessary to draw targets in for the kill. Yes, using any means possible."
The laptop dinged at McGee, saving him from having to answer for the moment. "Oh, it's ready now. Let's see what's the problem is."
"It happens every time I open a web browser. Any web browser, it doesn't matter which." Ziva sighed. "Something about a missing plugin, or something."
McGee's eyes shot up to Ziva. "Hm. Could be something simple, or something not so simple. Let's see here." He typed some commands into the laptop. "So, what were you doing over there, Tony?" he asked while typing in more commands on the laptop.
Tony watched McGee work. "You know, you always amaze me how you're able to type and say two different things at the same time," he said, chuckling at McGee. "I was a basketball coach at Ziva's school, when she was a wee little child."
McGee's fingers stopped moving over the keyboard and his face froze. He slowly looked up at Ziva. "How old were you then?"
Ziva let out a short giggle. "I was seven years old. My half-brother Ari was being a bully to me, pushing me around, when Tony stepped out of the taxi that brought him to the school and stopped Ari." She shrugged her shoulders. "Destiny must have brought us together again," she said softly, skipping the New York City and Rome stories altogether.
Tony raised an eyebrow, noticing it also. "Yup, and that's what leads us to now. The rule 12 thing?" He held up two hands and weighed them out like a balancing beam weighing out different things. "We do our best to keep work", he held up one hand, and continued speaking, "and life, here," holding up the other hand in the air, "separate so that Gibbs does not find out about us."
McGee's lips formed a small smile. "So, we three spend time together. As if we're friends outside of work. Gibbs wouldn't suspect otherwise, correct?" His fingers flew over the keys as he worked on the laptop.
Tony looked at Ziva, who looked back at him. His eyes said to Ziva, what do you think? Her eyes shot back an affirmative answer. He looked back at McGee and said, "Haven't thought of that. That might actually help."
The laptop dinged at McGee and he looked down at the laptop. "Oh, looks like it's working again. Had an obsolete version of a plugin in, and it wouldn't allow the new version to install, because of a corrupt install file." He smiled and closed the laptop and pushed it across the table to Ziva. "Your secrets are safe now. You have a better antivirus program installed on the computer now. Top of the line."
Ziva smiled at McGee. "Thank you very much for fixing my laptop. I was about ready to throw it out the window because those errors were driving me up the ceiling."
"Up the wall," Tony quietly corrected Ziva.
"Will you stop correcting me all the time?" Ziva turned on Tony.
"That's what I like so much about you," Tony replied to Ziva, smiling and waggling his eyebrows at her.
McGee laughed at the two. He shook his head at them and said, "Wait, so you were in Israel for how long, exactly?" He pointed to Tony.
"Oh, about a year. Not exactly a year. It was for credit for my foreign studies classes I was taking at Ohio State." Tony shrugged. "Bit of a culture shock for me at first, if you ask me."
McGee raised an eyebrow. He shifted his gaze to Ziva. "Did you travel any time before this?"
Ziva looked at McGee, contemplating her next thoughts, debating whether or not to answer truthfully, weighing her thoughts. She decided to go with the truth, and said "Yes, I traveled to New York City with my Abba when I was young. Twelve, I think I was."
McGee smiled. "Liked the city?"
Ziva chuckled. "It was more enjoyable with Tony there with me."
McGee swung his head to Tony sharply. "Wha-?"
"I was on protection duty. Baltimore PD," Tony cut McGee off. "I got assigned by the chief himself, on request by Ziva's dad. Didn't know who I was protecting until I got there. Talk about a surprise of my life."
Ziva laughed. "Empire State Building. The helicopter ride. Leaving those bodyguards behind all the time."
Tony laughed. "Stiffin' em with the bills also. That helicopter ride cost him a week's pay, I was told."
McGee laughed. "Must have been fun go up the building and look out over the city. No bodyguards watching over you."
"Ah, Rome." Tony sat back, looking at the ceiling, but not really looking at the ceiling. His mind flashed back to his Rome trip where he had run into Ziva yet again. "Good times there also."
Ziva blushed slightly. "My birthday trip out there. I totally did not expect to run into Tony there. I was having a problem with the taxi company and Tony offered me a ride to my house from the airport."
McGee's eyebrows shot up. "You keep meeting each other from time to time. What's up with that?"
"You tell me." Tony shrugged and held out his hands.
Ziva shrugged. "That is something we've been trying to understand. I think it's Destiny that has brought us together. Especially in times of extreme need."
Tony smiled at McGee. "You believe in destiny, right?" Before McGee could answer, Tony continued on. "You see, I've come to realize that destiny is something that's not easily explained or quantified in any way that we can come up with."
McGee's face looked as if it was stumbling over itself. "W-, uh, well, no, I haven't really thought about it. I've always thought about things like coding, computer hardware, networking – you know, geek stuff." He flung a hand through the air, as if he was brushing off a topic that was trivial to him.
"And that's why we know you as McGeek," Tony chuckled at McGee as he clapped him on his shoulder. "You always think in logical terms. Numbers and little blocks of things that neatly fit into their respective places, leaving you no room to think about fate, or destiny, or whatever you may call it. Our situation that you see here is bound to throw all your little boxes and algorithms out of whack when it comes to work, am I right?" Tony's fingers were doing slow circles in the air as he made an exploding motion and mimiced little boxes flying through the air.
"If you say so." McGee gulped. Tony did have a valid point. All his life he'd spent worrying about whether the code he had written would work the first time around, whether his newest computer system that he'd put together would start up on the first time. He'd been worrying about the wrong things in life, but he didn't necessarily know how to think outside the realms of his geek world.
Ziva leaned over and put her hands on the two of them. "Not here, not now, you two. No need for putting him down," She shook her head at Tony.
"Hold on, let me finish." Tony held up a hand to Ziva, and smiled slightly to her. He turned back to McGee. "So, to put it simply, what you know now, and what you have seen, does not ever make it back to work. Rule twelve applies, out there." Tony pointed his finger outward. "We work together, as partners. Strictly professional, like what we did back then in that undercover mission." He pointed back to the floor. "The job doesn't come here. Rule twelve doesn't come here. As long as Gibbs is around, rule twelve applies."
"But I thought you meant the job -" McGee started.
Tony held up a hand. "Gibbs is the job. Well, the same thing as. Look at it this way: as long as Gibbs doesn't find out, everything is like a computer running smoothly, not lagging when you're doing your intense gaming sessions. If he finds out, it'll be the equivalent of me pouring iron filings onto your shiny new computer you built that day." He shrugged. "As long as we spend our time together like the three musketeers, both on and off the job, we should be alright."
"Don't open the Pandora's box," Ziva said quietly. "If Gibbs finds out, it can also cost you your job, because you knew and didn't tell him."
McGee's eyes brightened with understanding. "Gotcha."
"Good, now let's make a vow." Tony turned to Ziva. "Should we do a blood vow?"
McGee let out a tiny shriek. "Blood vow?"
Ziva shot a look at Tony. Her eyes told him, you're bad.
Tony guffawed; he only said that to get a rise out of McGee. "No, we won't go as far as cutting into your hand and signing your name in blood. But a vow, nonetheless, where we all vow to each other that we'll have each other's six, no matter what."
"For infinity," Ziva added.
McGee's face remained neutral for just a split second before breaking out into a smile. "I'll do it. For you."
Ziva and Tony smiled at McGee. "Figured you'd understand," Tony said first.
Ziva nodded and added, "As long as you have our sixes, we will have yours also."
"Alright, let's do it," McGee said. Moments after they had made their vows, McGee smiled and said, "Now, we're the three musketeers. Partners in crime, so to speak."
"Crime-fighting," Tony corrected McGee, holding a finger up in the air. "Let's not forget that."
"Right." McGee smiled at Tony. "Well, since the laptop's back up and running, I think everything's going to be fine with it." He got up from his chair. "Well, I'll leave you to it."
Ziva smiled and got up from her chair as well, followed by Tony. She stepped around to McGee and walked with him to the door. She said, "Thank you again for fixing the laptop and making it shut up with all the error messages."
McGee chuckled. "Not a problem. See you Monday at work." He waved at her and Tony, then turned around and walked away.
Ziva closed the door, then turned around to walk back to Tony at the living room, looking at him. "Well, that went well with McGee. Glad he came to an understanding, at least," she said.
"Yea, I think it went well with him, too." Tony walked up to Ziva and drew Ziva closer to him in his arms. "Now it's just you and me. What do you say we spend our time together somewhere else than here?"
Ziva smiled. "We could go out and look at the city scape." She pointed upwards.
Tony smiled. "Oh, you have access to the rooftop? I've always loved to sit out on the rooftop and look out over the city."
Ziva nodded and her eyes twinkled at Tony. "Maybe we could do exactly that." She took Tony's hand and led him to the rooftop access and guided him up toward the flat rooftop of her apartment unit. On it were a couple of chairs and a small patio table. "Someone left these up here before I moved here," she said. She took a seat in one of the chairs. "Have a seat," she said, holding her hand out to the other chair.
Tony chuckled as he walked up to the free chair and sat in it. "Ahh, there we go," he let out a deep breath. "Nice place to just relax, I'd have to say. Just look out over the city and not think."
Ziva glanced at Tony and nodded. "That's what I do from time to time when I'm alone. Up, or away from everything, just look out and meditate."
Tony reached out and put a hand on Ziva's and squeezed it gently. "Doesn't get any better than relaxing with your best friend, does it?" He looked over at her and smiled.
Ziva chuckled. "No, it doesn't."
Tony looked over at her. "What do you say we get some Chinese food? Drive around and look at the stars, maybe?" he asked her.
Ziva smiled and nodded. "That sounds wonderful. Let's get out of here." She got up from her chair and turned toward the roof entrance.
"Let's go, then, " Tony said, as he got up and walked toward Ziva, holding a hand out. "May I?"
Ziva smiled and held her hand out for Tony to take. "Why, certainly." She stepped closer to Tony, and kissed him on his lips. She then walked alongside him out the door.
~A/N: Dear Readers, this is the post NCIS episode Boxed in episode on season 3, Thank you for your reviews, Tweets, and Messages/kudos.