I apologise for my short absence. I do not know what happened, I just did not feel motivated to update this, although I did upload a few one-shots and another chapter of Everything Starts Somewhere.
I have been working on another one-shot, which is possibly why I have not updated this, that is getting to be very long (Word count of 4214 so far and still nowhere near completion). However, I still do not know if I like it enough to upload it and if it will be worthwhile, or whether I should just keep it for myself. I guess I will have to finish it before I even think about uploading it anyway, but look out for that if it arrives.
XXIX. While I Thought I Was Learning How To Live, I Have Been Learning How To Die.
"Hey, it's like, five AM, where you going?" Tony asked as he walked through to Ziva's living room and looked over at her through the forest of cardboard boxes. He frowned as she laced her running shoes up.
"It has been over a month since I have been for a run." She shrugged. She had had another sleepless night, not that she wanted to admit it, after another nightmare. She wanted to run, to clear her head. "The snow has cleared."
"It's still icy." Tony shook his head, putting his hand on her shoulder.
"I have run in much worse weather." She looked at him and sighed. "Tony, I will be fine."
He bit his bottom lip and ran his thumb across her cheekbone. "I just don't want anything to happen to you. You understand that, right?"
"Of course I do, Tony." A smile spread across her face as she reached up and brushed her lips against his. "But you still want to come with me, yes?"
"You can see right through me." He laughed.
"I always have been able to, Tony." She grinned. "Do you think you will be able to keep up with me?" She called as he walked back into the bedroom to collect clothes.
"Well, you might need to slow your pace down slightly, but you are pregnant and as you said, it's been a while since you've run, so I think I'll cope." He poked his head around the doorframe and grinned.
"We shall see." She chuckled and shook her head.
"I like this whole 'get up early and run' thing." Tony said as they walked upstairs from the showers in the NCIS gyms. "Makes me feel all awake and alive."
"That's what coffee's for." Gibbs said as they walked through.
"Hey, where's McGee? We haven't been here before him in, well, a long time." Tony sat at his desk, stowing his bag in its usual, accessible place as Ziva did the same.
"Well, you're early today." Gibbs looked at his watch. "Tony, McGee printed a list of all of petty officer Woodson's recent calls from his cell and home phones. You and Ziva divide them up and go through each call. Follow any lead you can." He placed the file on Tony's desk and walked out of the squad room, heading up the stairs to the directors office. He smiled at Cynthia's empty desk and pushed through the doors to Jenny's office.
"Jethro. What is it that I need to sign off on now?" She smiled, looking up from the report she was writing.
"Who said anything about signing off on something?"
"Your expression." She smirked.
"Jen, what happens when Mossad want Ziva back?"
She placed her pen down, her smile fading. "At the moment Eli David seems to tolerate her being here, but I don't know what's going to happen when he wants her back. I don't even know if, when that happens, there'll be a way around it." She sighed. "This is what I worried about when I first recommended the position. I feared that something would make her not want to leave."
"Trust DiNozzo." Gibbs shook his head.
"We can hope that Mossad never ask for her back."
"And when she marries Tony and they renounce their claim to her?" They stared at each other.
"Then we have a problem. Without her being Mossad liaison, we'll have no position for her."
"What about her becoming an NCIS agent?" Gibbs asked, leaning forwards.
"She would need to be a naturalised citizen. It takes time, Gibbs. And stress. Not something either she or Tony need."
"So we get them to start filling out paperwork now, and don't get them to start filing it until absolutely necessary." Gibbs shrugged and stood up, walking to the door.
"And what if they don't want that?" Jenny smiled.
"Then they can deal with it themselves." He shrugged and stood up, walking out of her office and leaving the door open. He stood on the balcony overlooking his small squadron as Tony started a paper aeroplane race between he and Ziva, chuckling to himself. Even marriage and kids could not get them to grow up. A paper projectile hit McGee in the temple as he walked through and both other agents stifled grins as he glared at the woman who launched it at him. All three pairs of heads turned to look up at him as he whistled a sharp ear-splitting noise, walking down the stairs and into their team area, eyebrows raised. "You're late, McGee."
"Only by two minu…" He trailed, knowing that arguing was pointless. "It won't happen again, boss."
"That's what you said last time, McProbielicious." Tony grinned, his smile falling when Gibbs turned his stare to him. "Um, Petty Officer Woodson made numerous calls to different numbers for an…" He paused as he looked at his notes.
"Alan Dodge." Ziva piped up.
"Well go talk to him, then." Gibbs looked at them as if they should have been able to guess.
"Yeah, there's the catch. He phoned a lot of different Alan Dodges trying to look for a certain one and we don't know whether he found the Alan Dodge he was looking for. It's a surprisingly popular name."
"Find him." Gibbs shrugged. "Gonna go talk to Ducky."
"Ah, Jethro. This case is very interesting." The Scotsman had a wide grin spreading across his face.
"Let me guess, it reminds you of the food they gave you at boarding school?" Gibbs raised his eyebrows.
"No, that's just my point. It doesn't remind me of anything."
"Well, now you'll have a story to tell the next time you serve Jell-O." Gibbs shrugged and smiled slightly at his older friend before getting down to business. "How'd he die, Duck?"
"It's worse than I thought." The smile faded from Ducky's face. He nodded over to a table with the petty officer's lungs lying open on it. He held up a piece of the gelatine substance and looked at his colleague. "His lungs were filled with the same jelly that incarcerated him."
"He drowned in it. Why didn't he just swim to the surface?"
"My guess is he was pushed in just before it set, when it was at a thick, gloopy consistency. His clothes were pulling him down and the sticky dessert was too viscous to allow him to swim to the surface. It must have been a very painful way to go."
"Why'd he look like he was smiling in the pool?" Gibbs asked, staring at the solemn face of the dead man.
"The Jell-O bent the light, from the angle we were standing at his warped features looked happy." The duck man sighed, and leaned down to the height of the petty officer's head. "Yes, you did not have a peaceful death at all. But of course, you know that. You were there."
