I do not own NCIS

The team was now in the cafeteria on base. They had just finished giving their tours to the there perspective pen pals and were sitting down for lunch. Tony saw how busy the place looked with a class room full of kids. The normally quiet room was now with kids chatting about school and life. The team was spread out around the tables. Tony was in the far corner with a group of students that were obviously the geeks. Tony at one point saw the group arguing about something in Lord of the Rings. Gibbs was sitting in the middle. No surprise he was surrounded by most of the class. They were all asking him questions about his time serving and about cases he had worked on. Most questions were answered by a smile and small laugh from Gibbs, and others were answered with a yes or no. Ziva was the closest agent sitting on the left of Tony two tables over. Jessica had been very demanding in where they sat. Tony thought nothing of it until Jessica changed the subject.

"So has anything happened?" Jessica said interrupting Tony's description of a movie.

"What do you mean?" Tony asked putting his glass of water down and looking over at Jessica.

"You know what I mean. Has there been anymore progress with." Jessica nodded her head and looked over at Ziva who was talking to an exchange student from Germany. Jessica looked back at Tony with an eyebrow raised and a smirk on her face.

"I thought we discussed this Jessica we aren't going to talk about this and you aren't going to do anything about it." Tony put his best serious face on as he stared Jessica down. She looked right back at him with a big smile. Tony saw this smile and couldn't help but smile back.

"Anthony you need to make a move. I am honestly tired of hearing you talk about her and not doing anything about it. You need to man up." Jessica said.

After she said this she turned and looked at her lunch. She went with the spaghetti; she was going through yet another vegetarian phase, and Tony knew it wouldn't last long.

"I thought you said you were going to talk me to that deli shop?" Jessica said as she put her fork down and pushed the food away from her. "Why don't we go there tonight?"

"Sure why not after the afternoon tour I will talk to your teacher and we can do dinner. Happy now?" Tony responded as he took a bite of his lunch.

"Nope not yet" Jessica said. "You need to do one more thing. You need to invite Ziva." Crossing her arms as she spoke Jessica smiled at the stupefied and confused look on Tony's face.

"I thought you wanted to just meet Michelle?" He asked.

"Tony for all the talk you do about woman I am starting to think that in truth you have no idea how woman work. We are always changing and always I repeat always one step ahead of men. So get over there and do what she expects you to do." As Jessica ordered Tony she punched him in his shoulder causing him to shift slightly and then stand up.

What they hell am I doing? Tony thought as he stood up. He took one last look at Jessica and started to walk over the Ziva. Am I really doing this? I just got tricked into asking Ziva out. Jessica you can be scary if you want to be. Tony found him self standing over by Ziva.

"Ziva you have a second?" Tony spoke up when he saw Ziva start to turn and look at him.

"What is it Agent DiNozzo?" Ziva responded.

"I was wondering if you had plans tonight." Tony said. There she goes with that Agent DiNozzo again. Ever since the tours started she had been calling him Agent, sometimes his full title of Special Agent DiNozzo. What was up with that?

"I do why are you asking?" Ziva said. She seemed surprised by this sudden interest.

"Well Jessica wants me to take her to Michelle's and I thought it would be better if we got everyone from both parties to go. But if you had plans guess it's your loss." Tony said as he turned around. He smiled as he heard the kids around Ziva start to complain about her not going.

"Tony!" Ziva yelled at him.

Tony turned around smiling and said "Yes Agent David?"

"I would be happy to go." Ziva said sighing in defeat.

"Great we meet at the hotel at 5:30." Tony smiled and turned to see Jessica standing in front of him, arms crossed and a frown on her face.

"You little coward, that was not the deal. I said you had to ask her out not invite her. I mean good what is this going to be a group date? Even I have out grown those Tony. Now I have to fix everything." Jessica walked back to her seat and grabbed her back she looked around and saw her friends and when to sit by them.

Tony stood there dumfounded for a second and then his phone rang. He looked at the caller ID and saw it was base command. He looked around and made eye contact with Gibbs. He signaled that he needed to go and Gibbs nodded in acknowledgment. Tony then answered the call and started walking to the MTACK. "This is Agent DiNozzo."

Jessica watched as Tony walk out of the room and shook her head. She tuned back to her friends. She was now sitting in the heart of the AFK and was only 2 seats way from Abby who was talking to Robin about blood splatter or something like that.

"You're Jessica aren't you?"

Jessica new it was Abby from her voice. She had yet to properly meet Tony other "little sister" as he called them. Tony talked fondly about her although Jessica was a little turned off by Abby's sleeping arrangements.

"Yes I am its Abby isn't it?" Jessica smiled as she engaged in the new conversation.

"Yep it is. So I finally get to meet Tony's secret friend. Has he said anything about me I should know?" Abby looked at Jessica with puppy eyes.

Tony was right. No one could say no to this woman. "He has. I like your famous threat. The whole kill you and leave no forensic evidence. But I have some questions for you. Wouldn't leaving no evidence make you the prime suspect? I mean how many people have the training to do that? I think it would be better to say something like; I'll kill you and then lead the investigation straight into the cold case section." Jessica said this as she looked back over to where Tony left. Seeing he hadn't come back yet most likely meant work.

"Good point. I think I might do that. Tony has taught you well young" Abby said laughing. She went back to talking with Robin and Jessica was left to her own thoughts again.

With Tony having blown Jessica's original plan out of the water she needed to make a new one. The major problem was Ziva. Her informants in Ziva's pen pal group told her she seemed to have some feelings for someone at work but the way most of the letters were writing seemed to be very cryptic. She needed to talk to Ziva and get to the bottom of it today. Jessica started to think of how she was going to do just that.

MTACK

Tony walked into MTACK and saw the Director. He saw that no one was one the screen and the standard news programs were being watched as the communication experts were taking their own calls at their stations.

"Agent DiNozzo over here." Vincent called out as he looked up from a file in his lap.

Tony walked over and sat next to the director. "You said you needed me in on a call with metro anything I should know before this party starts?" Tony asked as he tried to look at the file in Vincent's hands.

Vincent saw this and defended by closing the file and putting it in Tony's hand. Does this look familiar to you?

Tony opened the file and looked at the title. After reading the title Tony closed the file and fell silent. "What is going on?" Tony had no emotion in his face.

Vincent new this was a likely response and was ready for it. "You will be briefed now, Jim punch up Captain Sean Dolan on the main screen now please.

The big screen went black for a second and then went back online with an aged police captain looking at them with a pile of case files next to them. The ma looked up and saw the Director and gave him a quick nod and then turned to Tony. "Tony" he said "It's been a long time. You look good."

"Thank you Captain. Can you please tell me what is going on? Why was this case file given to me?" Tony tried to hide the restlessness in his voice but couldn't hold it back. "This case was thrown to the cold case department years ago."

"And it just got hot again. Tony we just had a major jewelry sting happen and we believe that it was done by the same group. I called the Director because I wanted to talk to you as well as discuss our plan of action.

"Plan of action what are you getting at?" Tony was not fully confused and getting more and more angry but he pushed that away.

"We believe the diamonds are going to be in the possession of Jim Cho." Captain Dolan said resting his hands on his desk.

"I still don't see why I was brought here." Tony said slowly.

"Tony don't start with me I called you because this means a lot to you. You also have intimate knowledge of this group and we have found out that at least one of them was ex military, Marians to be specific."

"Which is why the Captain has called both of us into this meeting Tony. I am taking the team off babysitting duty and I am assigning you all to this case. I also want you to be team leader because of your past experience. Is that understood?" Vincent's tone showed that any issues Tony had would only fall on deaf ears. Tony nodded and then walked out of MTACK with the file still in hand. He walked down to his desk and put the file in his bottom left drawer and then locked it. He sat down and gave out a loud sigh. After a moment of silence he took his phone out and called Gibbs.

NCIS Cafeteria

Gibbs was quiet during Tony's explanation. When Tony brought up the fact that Tony was to take lead on this case it didn't surprised him. Vincent was good at exploiting strengths and besides Tony was better at handling metro police then anyone else on the team. From what Tony said it sounds like Metro is going to want to partner up on this one. Tony said that he was going to start making calls and set everything up for tomorrow when all the paper case files will be delivered. Gibbs hung up and walked over to Linda. He spoke a few words and then stood up and looked to McGee and Ziva making eye contact and with silent words telling them he needed everyone to stop talking. After 30 seconds Gibbs had run out of patients 45 seconds ago. With a quick HEY! The room fell silent.

"Our team has just been assigned case. We will be starting tomorrow morning. This means we will be unable to continue being with you after tonight." Gibbs sat down and started eating again. Linda stood up and raised her hand to show she needed to speak as well.

"Class Agent Gibbs has also informed me that Agent DiNozzo will be busy for the rest of the day so we will be splitting his group among the remaining team members."

Chance! Jessica thought as she saw the door open before her. She stood up and walked over to Ziva. She sat down waited for lunch to finish. 10 minutes later lunch was done and the groups were decided. McGee was taking his group down to computer encryption lab to show the class some of their server rooms. Gibbs decided to take his group to the physical education area and show the kids some of the agents working out and force them to talk to the kids. Ziva decided to take her group to the bullpen and see where to go from there. She felt uncomfortable with the situation as a whole. She never was that good around kids and suddenly being in charge of eight of them was a big stress added to her plate. Now she also had a case to look forward to. But why was Tony starting on the case now? Shouldn't the whole team be together on it? Ziva thought as she walked into the bullpen. The kids followed her and started to sit in empty chairs and on desks. Ziva didn't mind as long as it wasn't her desk. She sat down in her chair and stared at her computer screen.

"What is going on what is this case you are working on?"

Ziva looked up and saw it was Jessica. "I don't know I haven't been briefed on it yet."

"Do you know where Tony went? He promised me we would go to Michelle's place to night." Jessica said reminding Ziva of the new plans they had made.

"I don't see why you still can't go with the whole class; the plan was for everyone to go so it's not that big or a deal." Ziva said looking over at Jessica.

"What do you mean the whole class? Tony said he was just going to invite you? That little coward and here he was all excited saying to day was the day." Jessica said to her self but obviously loud enough to reach Ziva's words. And so the seed is planted. And I shall be its gardener. Jessica thought smiling at her new plan as it started to unfold.

"I don't know what you are talking about when he came over he said you thought it would be a good idea to have the whole class come too." Ziva said when she heard Jessica talking. "What do you mean he got excited? What was he going to do today?" Ziva started watching Jessica carefully to see if she was making this up. If she was Ziva was going to lose it. Why did Tony change the plan to asking everyone instead of just her like he planned?

"Sorry I can't talk about it. But if you want to find out I think you should talk to Tony. You know be direct and corner him make him tell you at all cost! OK?" Jessica said and then continued. "But Tony did say he was better at interrogation then you so maybe you can't."

"Tony said that… I see well I guess I will have to talk to him about it." Ziva stood up and started walking to the elevator. She took her phone out and made a call.

Jessica watched as Ziva walked away. And now all you have to do is confess Tony. She thought to herself as she turned over and walked to Tony's desk. She looked for the fun things she sent to him for his desk. Her stapler was next to his cup with pens. She noted that none of the pens she sent him were in the cup, but she had a sneaking suspicion Gibbs wouldn't like Tony to write his reports in purple glitter pens. She opened his top drawer and saw two things. The first was a STUFF magazine which she pushed aside. The second was a file what had a declassified stamp on its cover.

Well if it's declassified than I guess I can look. Jessica picked up the file and opened it. After 2 minutes of reading she turned pale and closed the file. Looking up she saw Gibbs looking at her with eyes and still as stone. Jessica looked back with the same thousand yard stare and pushed the file toward Gibbs. "What is this doing here?" She said not batting an eye.

Gibbs had to give the girl credit. Even he had only met a few people in the world that were able to go on the offensive when Gibbs tried to stare them down. Putting his coffee down and picked up the file. He opened it and started reading.

"Why does Tony have that case file here? Is this the case your team was assigned to?" Jessica said. Her look told Gibbs she was not going to let it go.

At that moment McGee and his group walked into the bullpen. Followed by Ziva who was one her phone and looked annoyed.

"Boss" McGee said nodding to Gibbs.

"Do you know about this case McGee?" Gibbs said handing the file to McGee.

After a quick scan McGee shrugged meaning he had no idea.

"Tony is not answering his cell phone. I have left several messages and no response.

"You won't get one you have to confront him when he is like this." Jessica said looking at all of them her face showed annoyance and anger.

"What is this case about Jessica?" Gibbs asked.

"Don't you recognize it the names what happened?" Jessica was almost he yelling at the team. After a few uncomfortable looks were exchanged the team looked at Jessica. See had calmed down but was still looking at them with disbelief.

"Jessica this case was before Tony was part of the NCIS. I was still working for the FBI and Ziva was half way across the world." McGee said trying to explain why shouldn't feel guilty. He was doing a poor job of it though.

"That was a case Tony worked on back in Baltimore. Several strong arm robberies were happening all over the city. Tony was tasked to the FBI task force to help with the investigation." Jessica started to explain.

"Why would he be assigned to a robbery case? Tony was working homicide back then." Ziva asked aloud looking to Gibbs for an answer. Gibbs was still looking at Jessica and made no effort to answer the question.

Jessica looked like she was about to cry. Fighting the urge she started to speak again. "He was a double murder had lead him to one of the people involved in the robbery. The man killed his girlfriend…" Jessica started to hiccup. *hic* his girlfriend and *hic* and Tony's partner.

Jessica drove her head into her lab and kept hiccupping. Gibbs and his team looked at her in silence. All of them wonder what was going on.

OK Well I know that it is super long over due but I had gone on vacation and when I got back school started so I got a little behind. For everyone who was waiting I sincerely apologize and will try to put more time aside to work on my project. For everyone else here it the next chapter of Pen Pal. And right along with it a new conversation with Jessica and Tony. This one is after Ziva has joined the team and after Ziva's and Tony's undercover operation.

Jessica is Cutiegirl987

Tony is Buckeye#13

Cutiegirl987: So this new girl Ziva. What's she like?

Buckeye#13: Well I would say she is strong in a female super ninja kind of way. She is from Israel and was trained by the Mussad so not someone you would want to piss off. Smart too I guess but has no idea how to conduct an investigation or sketching but fluent in interrogation. She knows several other languages as well.

Cutiegirl987: OMG Anthony DiNozzo you have a crush!!!!!!!!!

Buckeye#13: What are you talking about? A crunch on a girl who can crush me is just dangerous.

Cutiegirl987: Tony when is the last time you described a girl as smart, strong, and criticized their art talent? I'll tell you it was when you told me about Sarah. And who was Sarah again TONY?

Buckeye#13: My college girlfriend. So what?

Cutiegirl987: Your college girlfriend and your last serious relationship. Are you going to sit there and tell me that you have no attraction to this Ziva at all?

… … … …

Cutiegirl987: Yea that's what I thought. You think on that for now and get back to me when you man up. Ttyl.

Cutiegirl987 logged out at 21:14:45.