Tony saw that look on her face. That look she had when she thought he wasn't looking. Except he was pretty much always looking at her so of course he wasn't going to miss it. Look didn't sound like a word anymore.

Ziva didn't often get this look of unfiltered glee on her face so it was worth looking at if you could catch it. And he definitely caught it. But it left her face so quickly that he couldn't even comment on it. Not immediately anyway. You wouldn't even think it was glee unless you knew her. And he knew her. Her eyes brightened and you got a quick glimpse of her teeth as she smiled. Yep, definitely glee.

He just needed to figure out what made her so happy. It was really random, they were just walking along and then she would have this smile and then not two steps later there it was again. But it wasn't consistent or anything, they could go for a whole stretch and there would be nothing from her and then she would be smiling again. Not that he was complaining, it was nice to see her smile. He just wanted to know what she was smiling at.

He couldn't just ask her, she would get all defensive and shut down and then focus on not smiling at all. So that was a no go. He would just have to figure it out himself. Which he was fully capable of doing, he was an investigator after all.

It wasn't the weather, she had complained about that as soon as they got out of the car. He didn't think that she was ever going to get used to cold weather. It wasn't the case because it was really do nothing to be happy about. Unless you were Abby because of some cool chemicals she had to analyse but that was besides the point. Ziva wasn't Abby. So, no, it wasnt the case. Nor was it the chance to get outside, though that was a good thing because they had been cooped up doing reports and other paperwork the last few days. Getting outside at all was something to be happy about but maybe not gleeful.

So what was there left that could get her this happy? And it wasn't like it was constant so that made it harder to figure out... maybe it was a car or a person or something? Oh, he didn't know.

There was that expression again. Seriously, what was causing it? Why couldn't he figure it out? This shouldn't be that hard. He was good at his job, he could do this.

It took another two glimpses of her gleeful expression and crossing a road for him to realise what was going on. And once he had figured it out, he had to bite back a smile of his own. Of all the things for Ziva to smile about this was definitely one he wouldn't have thought of.

"Like the leaves, huh?" He asked as she deliberately walked on the part of the pavement that had more of the dry, crunchy leaves on it. Again.

She thought that she was being subtle but she really wasn't. Well, not to him. Maybe someone else wouldn't notice the way she sometimes took a larger step than necessary so she came into contact with a dry leaf. Or that she changed direction slightly so she walked through them instead of the clear bit of pavement.

She stopped briefly to look at him with this blank expression on her face before shrugging.

"I do like the sound of dry leaves," she admitted, stepping on another one and frowning when it didn't make as loud a crunch as the others had.

He would not chuckle. He would not chuckle. Even if she did look extremely put out. Over leaves. Leaves. His partner was a ninja assassin and she was getting excited over leaves. There was something oddly... adorable about that. Who would have thought? And she actually admitted it to him without getting annoyed or embarrassed. Which was pretty impressive.

"Not get much of it in Israel?"

"Actually, we do. In certain areas."

Huh. He hadn't expected that. He thought that Israel was all desert. Which was a bit stupid of him if he thought about it.

"Not in the areas I grew up in," she added. "Not really."

"More desert-y?"

She nodded. "Exactly."

"Huh."

He wasn't sure what to say to that. Unfortunately he wasn't exactly knowledgeable on the physical demographics of Israel. Or knowledgeable about it at all, really. Perhaps he should be considering his partner was from there...

'Crunch, crunch, crunch,' went the leaves under their feet. He was seeking out the dry leaves too now. It really was a satisfying noise. They even scuffled a bit to get to a patch of them first. It was fun.

"You know we do this thing over here as kids where we rake leaves into a big pile and jump in it," Tony told her.

Well, other kids did. He didn't. DiNozzos didn't demean themselves to do such things and there was always a gardener to rake leaves. Thankfully there had always been a friend's house so he didn't completely miss out.

Her eyes briefly lit up before she schooled her features again. A normal person would have missed it, she was that fast, but he was her partner. He didn't miss it.

"Sounds fun," she said lightly.

"It is."

They both walked along in silence for a bit, there were unfortunately no more dry leaves to walk through. Which was a shame. Then he remembered something.

"Come here," he said, tugging her to the right of where they were going.

"Where are you taking me?" She asked, actually allowing herself to be led along.

He debated on whether or not he should let it be a surprise but decided that Ziva probably wouldn't follow if he didn't tell her.

"There's a park over here," he gestured down the road. "And it's leaves never get swept up quickly."

The grin that appeared on her face was neither small nor fleeting.