Gibbs stepped through the door to the interrogation room where Ziva was still stood in the corner. He lent back against the door and looked at her. For a few moments she stayed still but, growing uncomfortable from his glare boring into her back, she began to fidget and eventually lost her patience.
"Can I just come out of the corner already?" She snapped.
Gibbs moved swiftly across the room and stood behind her speaking in an unnervingly soft voice.
"If you want me to let you out of this corner, you're going the wrong way about it. Keep up that kind of attitude and you can stand here all day."
Ziva felt her insides turn to jelly at his words, and cursed herself for it. She had spent so many years conditioning herself to every kind of challenge and yet here she was, standing in a corner like a little girl, getting all worked up over a spanking. A spanking! After all she had been through she was worried about Gibbs smacking her bottom a few times! Her father would be disappointed. So very disappointed.
"Ziva. You can come out now."
Gibbs was hoping that the time in the corner had cooled Ziva down and that she would finally be ready to discuss what had happened in a sensible, adult manner. Unfortunately, the exact opposite had occurred and Ziva, who had spent her entire life trying to please her father, was determined to do what she felt he would have wanted from her. She was going to fight, and she was never going to let Gibbs make her feel so scared again.
There was an annoying little voice in the back of Ziva's mind that was telling her that she wasn't truly scared of Gibbs. She trusted him, more than she would care to admit. She was apprehensive more than anything. The same kind of feeling that she had experienced as a child when she had stood outside the principle's office having punched Shmuel Rubinstein, the kind of feeling she'd felt as a teenager when she stood outside her father's office as a teenager having screwed up a mission and let a terrorist get away.
Not that that had ever come to anything. Her father had never expressed displeasure in her, he left any kind of punishment down to her instructors. As a child, she had liked it when her friends complained of their parents' strictness and she could say quite truthfully that her father had never been angry with her. As an adult however, she was beginning to wonder if maybe the fact that Gibbs was bothering to be angry with her, where her father never had, meant that he cared about her more that her father did.
But Ziva gritted her teeth and shook her head, suppressing the voice. She was not going to allow herself to get emotional. She would not allow Gibbs to break her.
This decided, she spun around and faced him. He studied her face for a moment before sighing. There was a defiant glint in her eye and he was doubting how effective her time in the corner had been at calming her down.
He gestured to the table, "Sit."
She stomped over and pulled herself up onto the table.
He glared at her, and she glared back.
She'd never realised quite how unnerving his glare was until she tried to keep looking into his cold, blue eyes.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs was an intimidating man at the best of times, Ziva thought to herself. But when you had severely pissed him off and he was stood over you, giving you his most ferocious glare he was, quite frankly, terrifying. Of course, she was a highly trained ex-Mossad agent and would never let him know this, she sat with her arms crossed never breaking eye contact, which only served to made him even madder.
When he finally spoke it was cold and quiet and caused Ziva's stomach to tumble involuntarily.
"Would you like to tell me what the hell you were thinking?"
"Not particularly," she replied dismissively.
Gibbs took a deep breath to try and keep a hold of his temper. "Ziva Abrahama David," he said slowly. "I suggest you quit with the attitude right now. You're in enough trouble as it is."
"I did nothing wrong," Ziva argued narrowing her eyes.
"Nothing wrong?" Gibbs asked disbelievingly. "You think you did nothing wrong? Well, we'll just go through the list of offences you've racked up today shall we?"
Ziva's stomach did another involuntarily flip. She had a feeling she was not going to enjoy this conversation.
"You disobeyed me and Ducky when we told you to go to the hospital, you lied to us about it multiple times, you were rude and defiant and refused to do anything you were told even when it was for your best interests that we were telling you to do those things.
"Then you started a fight in the bullpen and made a complete spectacle of yourself, your co-workers and me and Jenny. How do you think that would look for Jenny? She's recently become the first female director of a federal agency, can you imagine the ribbing she'd get at conferences if it seems like she can't even control her agents? And on the subject of Jenny, we still haven't had that conversation I promised you about yelling at the director."
Ziva bit her lip. When he listed everything like that it sounded much worse than it had felt at the time.
"Okay. I should not have done those things. I will not do them again."
Saying this, Ziva jumped down from the table, turned around and bent over it.
"Ziva, what are you doing now?"
Ziva lifted her head to look at him.
"Do you wish for me to go over your knee again Gibbs?" She asked confused. "Only I thought you were going to use your. . .or a. . .not your hand."
Gibbs placed a hand on her shoulder and pulled her up. "Ziva, did you listen to the list of offences you've committed?"
"Yes Gibbs."
"Do you really think that a spanking is enough to atone for all of that?"
Ziva's eyes went wide in fear and, to her dismay, she felt tears threatening to spill. "Gibbs. . .you. . .last time you gave me a choice. . .I. . .I do not want to return to Israel. . .I like it here, I know I screwed up but please. . ."
"Ziva. I'm not going to send you back to Tel-Aviv. Yes, you screwed up but I'm not going to give up on you that quickly. You have the makings of a damn fine investigator if you would just follow the rules."
"But I do not understand Gibbs. If you do not think a spanking is harsh enough. . .what are you going to do to me?"
In truth, Gibbs wasn't still entirely sure that what he was going to do was a good idea, but he had tried giving her a spanking, talking to her, sticking her in a corner. If she was ever going to learn to do as she was told, he was going to have to get serious.
"First of all, you're grounded. When we're done here, we're going to pick up a bag for you, then drive back to my house where you will stay for the next two weeks. You'll go to work, then you'll come home from work and you can help me with some of the jobs I've been putting off at my house."
"Gibbs. . .that is. . .you cannot ground me!"
"Au contraire my dear, I just did. In addition to that, I expect you to write letters of apology to Ducky, Jenny, Tony and the doctor at the hospital."
"Tony? Why should I apologize to Tony?"
"You attacked him Ziva. I believe you and Jenny have already had the 'not using physical violence to release your anger discussion'."
Ziva pouted. "It was not much of a discussion. Jenny did all the talking."
Gibbs smirked. "I can imagine she did. Also, I'm going to spank you now for your appalling attitude, tomorrow morning for the fight and again tomorrow evening for the lying."
Ziva's mouth dropped open. "Gibbs, you can't. That is too much!"
"I can, and it's just enough. The disobedience, I will leave to Ducky as he is the one who originally told you to go to the hospital."
At her obvious relief he smirked. "I wouldn't look so relieved Ziva, he is just as capable of delivering discipline as I am."
Ziva paled. "He would not. . .not like you. . ."
"What Ducky decides to do is between you and him."
Gibbs looked at her. The poor girl looked sick with guilt and fear, though she seemed to be trying very hard to hide it.
He stepped closer to her and kissed her cheek. "Ziver, you have to understand that what you did was wrong. Very wrong. And these next couple of weeks are going to be hard, but when it's over, it's over. The spankings are going to hurt but there'll be no lasting damage and when it's done you'll have a clean slate, and hopefully an incentive to behave yourself. So don't look so scared, we're going to get through this. You'll be fine. Okay?"
Ziva nodded. And though she knew that the next two weeks were going to suck big time, for the first time in years she really believed that everything was going to be okay.
I'm sorry for how rambling this chapter turned out (and this is the condensed version!) but I find Ziva's character to be so complex and fascinating that I got rather carried away trying to explain why she behaved as she did. I hope you enjoyed the chapter anyway!
Also, while I am extremely grateful for previous comments about how Ziva should be punished, and they've made me much more confident about the discipline scenes so thank you!, I'm still a little worried about making the 'punishment fit the crime' whilst still keeping Gibbs and Ziva in character so if anyone has an opinion on whether Gibbs is being too harsh or to lenient please tell me!