"How long have you been in love with Zena?"

"Excuse me?" The question jars Tony, makes him panic. He looks away and then back at her; even as the thought occurs to him that he should hide his reaction, he knows it's too late.

"Come on, you heard me." Her smile has turned humorless. "You're completely transparent, Tony."

"In love with— I'm not—" he sputters.

"Are you lying to me, or are you lying to yourself?" she asks shrewdly.

That finally stops him, and given how recently he's come to the same conclusion himself, he's floored by her acuity. "Both of us, I guess," he finally answers, sheepish. Once again, this assignment is veering off in a direction that he didn't intend for it to travel in, and he's not sure how to proceed.

"Hey, don't look at me like that. I'm not going to hit you." Jeanne's smile turns sweeter again, amused. "I knew you were too good to be true." It's said without malice, but he still winces.

"I didn't mean to…" he trails off, uncertain of how to finish that sentence.

"You didn't mean to lead me on. I get it," she says with apparent sincerity.

Tony's surprised that she really doesn't seem angry with him at all. "Why are you so… calm about this?" he wonders aloud.

"Because I've been on your side of a rebound relationship before. I know how you've got to feel." She shrugs. She's not smiling anymore, but she's still looking at him with a compassionate expression.

"Rebound?" he echoes. "She and I… we've never…"

"Ah, you may have skipped having a formal relationship with her, but that doesn't mean you weren't emotionally attached to her. What changed?"

He looks at her suspiciously, frowning. "Thought you didn't work on the psych floor, Dr. Benoit," he jokes uncomfortably.

"I don't." Laughing lightly, she sits back in her seat, still studying him. "I do, however, know a troubled soul when I see one. You, Tony DiNardo, are in desperate need of someone to talk to."

Tony's struck again by just how likeably Jeanne comes across, and he regrets that he still can't tell her who he really is. She's choosing to be kind rather than allowing herself to be hurt, something he's not sure he's ever been able to do.

"You might be right," he admits after a minor war with himself.

"Alright, then, spill. Tell me what happened."

He deliberates for a moment—obviously, he can't tell her everything or even most things, but the basics are shareable, especially if he changes some details. Jeanne's wide-eyed, concerned expression is hard to say no to. "I… I met Zena around a year and a half ago. We didn't immediately get along, but I'll admit I found her… intriguing, even from the beginning. Attractive. She ended up being someone that was in my life for a lot longer than I thought she would be—I sort of figured we'd never meet again, after the first time.

"But over time, we got closer and started spending more time together. I know I've told you some of it—we do things together all the time. Every time I come across something I'd enjoy, my first thought is to tell Zena about it because everything that's fun to do is more fun to do together. After a while of that kind of thing happening more and more often, I started to realize that what I felt for her was stronger than what I've felt for anyone else I've ever met. That… well, it really scared me, so I ran.

"I told her that I wanted to stop doing what we were doing. I really hurt her that day, Jeanne, but I had some things I needed to work through and understand alone. We spent weeks fighting after that, and we have this—this mutual friend who got tired of it. The friend basically shoved us together in one room and told us that if we couldn't figure out how to forgive one another, he'd only be friends with one of us because he didn't want to be the middleman.

"For the sake of our friend, we talked it out and we admitted some things to one another. We were both hurt and angry, but we worked it out. That was recent, though, and what you just—uh, deduced…"

"You mean that you're in love with her?" Jeanne correctly guesses.

"Um, yes, that. That's something I've only just come to realize myself." He finishes his story awkwardly… this does somehow feel oddly like therapy, mostly because in most of his close relationships, they don't have this kind of conversation very often. He's vitally aware, then, of how much he's just spoken and revealed about himself, even if some of it's fabricated. It's weird, something he's not used to doing.

Jeanne nods, contemplating what he just told her. "So now that you know, what's stopping you from pursuing her? You obviously want to."

"I can't," he answers immediately. "It's more complicated than that."

"Complicated how?"

"There are a lot of factors to consider," he replies.

"Factors like what?" Jeanne pushes.

"Well, there's you," he starts, but she cuts him off.

"No, no, no, don't drag me into this." Yet again, she's laughing when she says it, but it's gentle, not mocking or angry. "I mentioned that I've had a rebound relationship before, but I've also been on the other side of it. It's not something I want to do again. You're a sweet guy, Tony, and I think you're wonderful, but it just isn't going to work while you're in love with someone else. Go ahead and leave me out of the equation." She pats him on the shoulder in a way that says 'no hard feelings' and he sighs.

Clearly, he's going to have to approach this assignment from another angle—the one he's been coming at it from is shot to hell. No use stressing about it just yet, though, because there's little he can do about it right now. He needs some time to strategize before he decides what to do next… and besides, he's probably gaining more of Jeanne's trust by being honest right now. "Okay," he agrees. "You were a consideration, but even if you're not, there are still other… barriers."

"Tell me about them."

"Well, Zena's and my mutual friend, for instance. He would be—" he laughs suddenly with a dark humor, imagining Gibbs' frustration if he and Ziva started hooking up again after they made him so mad the last time. "Ah, he'd be pissed, to put it lightly. He wouldn't like us trying something that could end badly, not after our last fight so nearly ruined things for our relationships with him."

"If he'd be that angry with you because you tried to be happy with your best friend, maybe he's not that good of a friend," Jeanne suggests.

"No," Tony disagrees quietly, thinking about everything Gibbs has done for him over the years. "He's as good a friend as I could ever have—he's a better friend than I deserve. He's a wonderful friend to Zena, too."

"Okay," Jeanne concedes, nodding. She flips her earlier point on its head with exactly as much conviction. "Then if he's as good as you say he is, he'll forgive you. He'll come around. Friends want friends to be happy." Tony flashes back to Ziva saying something very similar earlier in the week, and his cheek suddenly feels warm where she kissed it.

"The best ones do," he says to himself.

Jeanne nods in agreement. "Is that all? I've got to say, those hang-ups are not the biggest I've ever seen," she comments, teasing.

"No, that's not all," Tony replies in a pseudo-annoyed tone, but he smiles. "Those are just… some of them." There's the Benoit assignment, there's Gibbs, and then there's the biggest hurdle-Ziva herself. "Here's another one—I'm sure you heard from listening to Zena talk that she's not American. She's not a citizen here, and there's no telling how long she'll be in Washington. What's the point in starting a relationship with someone when they might move halfway across the world in a month or a year from now?"

"There's plenty of point," Jeanne counters. "You could always move with her if she left, or better yet, you could give her a reason to stay here."

Tony has a sinking feeling that he wouldn't be enough. Ziva's first priority is and probably always will be Mossad and Israel itself. She's sworn herself to protect them, and the only reason she arrived here in the first place was because of her duty—she was following orders. Luckily for Gibbs' whole team, those orders have kept her here, but that might not be true indefinitely. What would he expect her to do if her father ordered her home? Quit Mossad and stay with him? He can't see it happening, and he's not sure he could ever ask her to, no matter how much it would hurt to see her leave. She'd go crazy within a month sitting in Washington if she didn't have assignments to complete and the team to work with.

"Tony?" Jeanne prompts, and he realizes he's zoned out and has been staring into space for too long.

"Sorry," he responds, shaking himself. "I guess you're right. It's just… I don't know if I'd be enough to keep her here. That doesn't matter so much for now, though, because at the moment, she is here. The bigger issue—maybe the biggest one of all—is that I really hurt her, Jeanne. I don't think she believes in me anymore. She may still be my friend and she may still have my back, but I'd say there's a strong possibility that she won't trust me with her heart any time soon."

"Mm… that is a pickle," Jeanne agrees. Her face has a conspiratorial expression on it, though, at odds with what she's saying.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" he demands.

"Because that would only be a problem if it were true."

"What do you mean?"

Jeanne smiles ruefully, shaking her head. "It's so easy to see what's going on unless you're in the middle of it, I guess," she speculates softly, almost to herself, and then shifts her focus back to Tony. "It was clear to me within a few minutes of meeting Zena how strongly you feel for her, right?"

He nods in confirmation, mildly suspicious of where she's going with this.

"Then it shouldn't surprise you that I could see the exact same thing about her. She loves you, Tony. It was obvious every time she looked at you. Her face just lit up when she was interacting with you—I don't even think she noticed that I was putting needles into her hand!"

"You know, you're not the first person to say that to me this week."

"No?" Jeanne smiles at him in an almost pitying way that should offend him but doesn't. "Then maybe now is the time you'll listen to it."

He laughs uncomfortably. "Even if you were right—and I'm not sure you are, mind—I'd say there's a good chance that Zena hasn't realized it herself."

"Well, you didn't realize you were in love with her until recently either, right?" she points out.

"Right, but you don't know Zena like I do."

"How about you enlighten me? What am I missing here? Because it seems to me like something she just needs a little nudge to figure out."

"Zena is… well, she's had a hard life. A really hard one. I don't even know most of the details because she doesn't like to talk about it, but she had a difficult time growing up and she's lost a lot of people. It's left her sort of… stunted, emotionally." He feels guilt bubbling in his gut at describing her that way, but he's not sure how else to say it. She does have trouble expressing her emotions, and he's not sure how often she lets herself feel anything at all.

"That's all the more reason to make her happy, Tony," Jeanne persists softly.

A small smile floats to Tony's lips. "I'd really like to, if she gives me the chance."

Somehow, Jeanne has given him the hope that despite odds that feel insurmountable right now, he'll be able to come up with some kind of solution to get through this and work it all out. He just has to find the right path.

An idea comes to him later that night. Like most of his good ideas, it comes in a stroke of movie-inspired brilliance.

Sunday evening, he's flipping movie channels on his tv, trying to decide what to watch. There's nothing that looks particularly appealing at the moment, much to his annoyance, so he leaves the tv in guide mode and goes to feed Kate and use the restroom. When he comes back, the guide has timed out, auto-selecting the channel he'd randomly stopped on. That movie is playing now.

It's not a film he would usually pick to watch—sort of a girly movie, in his opinion. It's the 1993 version of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. Still, the scene happening on the screen catches his eye, and he settles in to watch it.

He saw a production of the play in high school a million years ago, but he's long since forgotten the plot. Watching it now, he gets surprisingly engrossed in the simple but engaging storyline of trying to make two people realize they're in love with one another.

That's when it hits him. Much as Beatrice and Benedick's friends trick them by making each believe that the other is in love, he can give Ziva a reason not to give up on him. He's even got a plan for what to do with Jeanne to salvage his assignment.

Plausible deniability is the key here, he's certain of it.

Mid-morning on Monday, Ziva is at her desk doing research for a cold case when her phone rings. Barely bothering to tear her eyes away from the computer, she picks it up and glances at the caller ID. Tony DiNozzo, it reads, confusing her. He was just at his desk a minute ago, and as far as she knows, they have no active cases that would require him to do fieldwork or even go down to talk to Abby or Ducky.

"David," she answers after a moment.

All she can hear on the other end is rustling. "Tony? Are you there?" Still nothing. She's about to give up and hang up, assuming it was an accidental call, when she finally hears his voice.

"Director! You wanted to see me?" Director? Well, that explains why he's not in the bullpen for now.

"I did. Sit down, Agent DiNozzo."

Ziva can hear Tony pulling back a chair and then more rustling. He's probably sitting now, and she should absolutely hang up. This definitely is an accidental call, not meant for Ziva's ears, but Tony's been acting so weird lately and maybe this will help Ziva to figure out why. Glancing around the bullpen guiltily to make sure that neither McGee nor Gibbs are paying her any attention, she presses the phone closer to her ear.

"Thanks for coming," Ziva hears the director's tinny voice say. The voices are a little distant, but it's possible to make them out.

"Of course. What can I do for you?" Tony replies.

"I'm looking for a status update. You've had this assignment for close to a month now, and I was hoping to hear that things are progressing."

Assignment? What assignment does Tony have that he hasn't mentioned to ZIva? Usually, they work the same cases, but as of now, Ziva is pretty sure they don't have any open investigations.

"I am making progress, Director," Tony replies cheerfully.

There's a pause after which Shepard speaks with mild annoyance. "Would you care to elaborate?"

Tony chuckles. "Gladly. Jeanne Benoit is a lovely girl and I'm getting to know her well, if you catch my drift." Ziva's eyebrows fly up, surprised that Tony would be that openly suggestive with the director.

"I can imagine," Shepard says dryly. "Have you learned anything about her father?"

"She's mentioned him, but that's about all I've got. No sign of Daddy Dearest visiting any time soon, but from the way she talks about him, I think you're right and they're close. He'll show up. Most of what I've learned we already know: he spends most of his time in Paris, he makes frequent "business trips" all around the world, and he put his little girl through medical school. I would really be surprised if Jeanne had any clue of what he's up to, though I don't know how she thinks the Frog got all of his money."

"Okay. Stay on her, DiNozzo. You're doing a good job and she's the best chance we have."

"Right. Thanks, Director. Anything else?"

"No, that's all. You're dismissed."

There's more rustling—Ziva thinks Tony is standing up and walking—and she assumes this means he's coming soon. She quickly hangs up the phone before Tony can figure out that his line was open for the entire short meeting; Ziva certainly doesn't want him to know that she heard the whole thing. Clearly, this is something that he's not supposed to tell her—she wonders if Gibbs even knows.

When Tony doesn't return to his desk for a few minutes, she discreetly starts to search on her computer for the key words she heard. Searching the name Jeanne Benoit in the NCIS database of cases doesn't come up with any hits. She tries frog and that doesn't work, either. She's about to try something else when a coffee cup appears right in front of her eyes, blocking her view of the computer. It startles her and she jumps lightly, cursing in Hebrew and closing out of her search tab. "Tony," she snaps, "are you in the habit of rudely sneaking up on people!?"

"Why yes, I am, and thank you for noticing. If you don't want the coffee, though, I'll give it to someone else."

Scowling, the accepts the coffee with a grunt of thanks.

"What were you up to, anyway?" Tony asks, continuing to stand there and annoy her so she can't search. "I saw you close something miiighty fast there, David. Were you watching—" he pauses for dramatic effect, wiggling his eyebrows— "naughty movies at work?"

In answer, she reaches up and flicks his nose, making him splutter and choke on his coffee. She laughs darkly and he gives her a dirty look, moving away without further comment. He then sets the offending drink on his desk and walks over to McGee's.

"Hey, Tim!" he says loudly.

"Yes, Tony?" Tim replies, looking up in vague exasperation. His coworker is always up to something, and McGee is positive that this interaction will not prove to be an exception.

"Can I talk to you?" Tony looks around to make sure there's no one watching and then leans in and lowers his voice. "I mean, in private."

"Sure, Tony," Tim says, yawning and standing up. He starts to head toward the elevator, home of the majority of covert or serious NCIS conversations, but Tony grabs him by the upper arm and steers him in another direction.

Behind them, Ziva is still sitting at her desk, debating with herself. She wants to follow and eavesdrop again—she's already listened in on one of Tony's conversations today, so what's the harm in listening to another? She'd love to get to the bottom of his back-and-forth, hot-and-cold behavior, if possible. She doesn't want him to be angry at her for listening, though, when they've only recently made up from their last explosive fight.

She's still feeling torn when they disappear around a corner and she makes the questionable decision to follow them. Taking care to walk and act normally in front of Gibbs, she breaks into a sneakier, quieter walk once she's out of his sight. She knows where Tony and Tim are going—the private little corner by the stairs. If she goes around the other side, she should be able to stand along the wall behind without them seeing her.

Sure enough, when she slides into place near the corner, her back pressed against the bright orange wall, she can hear low voices.

"Stop making jokes and just tell me whatever it is you want to tell me, Tony!" McGee is annoyed, obviously, and Ziva has to wonder what Tony's up to.

"Are you really in a hurry right now, McTimmy Tim Tim? This place is cold case central. I'm spicing up your day and you know it."

"I'm going back to my desk now," Tim says flatly, and there are a few steps before Tony speaks.

"Okay, okay, fine, there's no need to be hasty. I'll talk." Ziva smiles to herself, because Tony sounds like a suspect in the middle of interrogation.

"Go ahead and do that, then."

"Right. Taaaaalking. Talking. I can do that. I'm ready to do that." He's stalling for something, but Ziva can't figure out what it is.

"Do you want me to shoot you, Tony? Because I can, and I will."

"No, you won't! Okay, maybe you will. Put that back."

Ziva holds in her silent laughter. Long gone are the days when Tony could manipulate, trick, or haze Tim into doing whatever he wanted. Now they have a relationship that's closer to brothers, and knowing that Tony grew up without siblings, Ziva's glad to see him have that with someone… even if it means he and Tim spent all of their time annoying one another.

"Tony, what's your problem?"

"If you really want toknow that badly—"

"I don't," Tim mutters. "You're the one that dragged me over here to listen."

Tony continues on with the uppity air of someone who's determinedly ignoring someone else. "If you must know, I want to talk to you about women."

"Women? If this is another one of those beautiful moments where you want to give me sex advice, I'm out."

"What? No, McDon Juan, not everything is about you. I'm talking about myself and women."

"Tony, please tell me you didn't pull me away from my desk to tell me about more of your sexcapades."

"Would you just listen?" Tony's getting snappy, and Ziva grins again. He's easy to rile up, and she thinks McGee might be doing it on purpose to relieve the boredom of a cold case day.

"Fine. Shutting up."

"Finally. Now, what I am about to tell you is top secret. No telling anyone. Don't mention this to Shepard, make sure as hell to not mention this to Gibbs, and I will actually tear you a new one if you mention this to Ziva. Got it?"

"Got it," Tim affirms, sounding bored.

"Okay. So here's the thing. There's this one girl that I…" There's a pause. "I just can't get her out of my head, and I don't know what to do about it."

"Aren't you already dating her?" Tim sounds skeptical. "You've been coming in with your I-just-got-laid swagger again and I think I've heard the name Jean a few times."

"Jean? No, not her. This girl is much more important than Jean."

Ziva chances a glance around the corner at that; Tim has his back to her and Tony's looking serious, his arms crossed. She pulls back before he can see her. Last she heard, he was really enjoying getting to know Jean, so who's this 'more important' woman? A tiny voice in the back of her head reminds her that if he stopped sleeping with her to be with Jean because he thought Jean was 'the one' and then he broke up with the girl after a mere period of weeks, it doesn't say anything good about how little Ziva herself really means to him.

Tony's next words shock her, though.

"If it's not Jean, then who is it?" Tim asks.

"It's Ziva," Tony says with no hint of joking in his tone.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," Tim replies with a groan. "This again? This office barely survived World War III the last time you two fought. Didn't that teach you a lesson?"

Ziva's heart races, and she strains her ears to make sure she's not missing anything that Tony says.

"It's not 'this again', Tim, because it's not the same thing. It isn't sex that I can't get out of my head."

"I do not want to think about you and Ziva sleeping together," Tim interrupts.

"I just said this isn't about sex, McGee, keep up," Tony snaps sarcastically.

"What's it about?"

"I really think I'm in love with her." The sardonic tone is immediately gone from his voice—he sounds almost somber instead.

Several seconds of silence meet this statement, and Ziva has stopped breathing.

"Really? You? In love? Who are you and what have you done with DiNozzo?"

"I'm serious, Tim. I've never felt this way about anybody."

"Tony…" Tim seems to hesitate. "Maybe you should be telling her this instead of me."

Afraid this means their conversation will shortly be over and that they'll be returning to their desks, Ziva hurries back to her own. It turns out to be several more minutes before they come back into her line of sight, but that's a good thing because she has time to compose herself.

Tim slips back into his desk chair with a significant look at Tony. Tony ignores it, heading right for the cup on his desk. "Damn, my coffee's cold. Wish you weren't such a chatterbox, McGoo."

"You're hilarious. Why didn't you pursue a career in comedy instead of law enforcement?" Tim replies flatly.

After that, silence returns to the bullpen, and Ziva gets back to trying to interpret the conversations she's heard today. Every few minutes, she allows herself to peek over at Tony, but he seems engrossed in something on his computer.

Ziva goes back to the NCIS case database and tries a few other things that don't work. Something is nagging at her, though, something she's missing. She goes over the things she heard Tony and Shepard say—the Frog, why does that sound so familiar?

Then it hits her—La Grenouille, the frog in French. That's why it's familiar, she knows his French epithet! He's a major European arms dealer, and now Ziva's sure that's who they were talking about. It sounds like Tony's secret assignment has something to do with him. She still can't find anything about this Jeanne woman in the database, though, so she goes to Google.

She types in Jeanne Benoit and her heart starts to race. The first result, attached to the webpage for Monroe University Hospital, is a photo of Tony's girlfriend Jean.

The pieces start to fall into place. Tony is "dating" Jeanne on assignment from Director Shepard, presumably getting close to her to learn of her father's whereabouts. Tony got this assignment around the same time he ended his arrangement with Ziva. Now he's regretting that, but he's still caught up in an assignment.

"Ha-matzav khara," she curses under her breath. Things have gotten a lot more complicated and this is going to make it a lot harder to move on.