Disclaimer: Disclaimed.

Thursday, 17 December 2015

"We're looking at a little place in Silver Spring. A one-bed above a dry cleaner's. It's kind of gross, but the landlord reckons the heat works so it's already way better than our current place."

Ziva looked up from her computer to throw Quinn a sympathetic look. "Does 'gross' mean beyond repair? Or will it be okay if you spend a weekend cleaning it?"

Quinn frowned at her, not comprehending. "A whole weekend?"

"Ziva used to live in Silver Spring," McGee told Quinn from the other side of the room. Then he looked at Ziva. "Was that the place that blew up?"

Ziva shook her head. "No. I moved from Silver Spring on my own accord."

"Your house blew up?" Quinn asked, stunned. "How'd that happen?"

Ziva hesitated a moment and glanced at McGee. He shot her a fleeting look of apology before getting up and heading to the printer. "Just…faulty gas lines," she said, giving Quinn the vaguest of truths. "No injuries."

Quinn looked at her, askance. "But…your house blew up. Did you lose much?"

Ziva shrugged, as if she wasn't particularly bothered by it. Quinn had been with them for a year and a half and had proven himself to be loyal and trustworthy. Furthermore, Ziva liked him. But she still needed some more time before she gave him her full backstory. "Nothing irreplaceable. Have you looked at the apartment yet?" she asked, moving the conversation back to a more comfortable place.

"We're supposed to go look at it tonight," Quinn said. "If I can get out of here by six. Otherwise Yasmin'll just go by herself."

"You'll get out of here by six if you find me a killer," Gibbs said as he rounded the corner into the bullpen. "Hell, I might be really nice and let you go by five."

Quinn, still learning the intricacies of Gibbs' personality, perked up. "Really?"

"No," Gibbs said, and came to a stop by McGee's desk as his senior field agent returned from the printer. "Talk me through what we've got."

"Bonnie's cell phone activity," McGee said, and pulled it up on the screen. "It's all calls to her mother, Kavita, her sister. A couple more to other agents she was in training with, including one to Tom Chesterfield on the morning she died."

"Could be her lunch date," Ziva threw in. "Kavita said Bonnie had plans to go to lunch with a Tom from her training."

Gibbs nodded and McGee continued.

"Incoming calls are much the same. It's the same numbers over and over. Nothing interesting. But her mom's home phone line is different. Quinn found a call that stood out."

Quinn stood up and approached the plasma, then pointed at the number McGee highlighted. "This one came in at 3.25pm from a payphone in Tacoma Park. Only lasted 15 seconds. I'm trying to track down some video surveillance from around the pay phone to see if we can ID who called her."

"Good," Gibbs said, and looked at Ziva. "You get anything from the friend?"

Ziva shook her head regretfully. "She knew of no threats against Bonnie. No boyfriends, no one bothering her. I will chase down Tom Chesterfield and talk to him. He may have been the last person to see her alive."

Gibbs pointed at her. "Find out where he lives. We'll go now."

Ziva returned to her computer. "On it."

"Wait, Gibbs? Are you leaving?" Abby called as she trotted into the bullpen. She waved about the iPad in her hand. "I have stuff for you. Well actually, I don't have stuff for you. But that, in and of itself, is stuff. Sort of."

"Abs," Gibbs said, his tone just this side of impatient.

Abby got to the point. "Right. So, I went through everything that Ducky pulled off the body and that you guys collected from the scene."

"What did you find?"

Abby's face fell. "Well, like I was saying, nothing. All the hairs on Bonnie's clothes were hers, fibers were consistent with her clothes and the living room carpet. The fingerprints you collected all came back to Bonnie or her mom, except one from the kitchen sink."

Ziva looked up from writing Tom Chesterfield's address on a Post-it note. "Who did it belong to?"

"I don't know yet," Abby said.

Ziva's eyes flicked between Gibbs and McGee. They were both wearing the same expression of interest as her.

"That's not nothing, Abby," Gibbs pointed out.

"But I don't know whose it is yet!" Abby repeated. "It's useless until I find a hit."

"It's something," McGee said.

"Not yet," Abby argued. "I've got it running through every database and I haven't got any hits yet. But I'll keep working on it."

"I know you will," Gibbs told her, then cocked his finger at Ziva. "Come on."

Ziva got up and grabbed her coat, but Abby stopped them again. "Wait! One more thing."

Gibbs and Ziva turned and looked at her expectantly.

Abby looked sheepish. "I don't suppose you've found the knife yet? Or the cable ties Ducky said she was probably bound with?"

Ziva felt a flare of professional anger and signed heavily. "No," she said, aiming her anger at herself. "We looked all over the place but we did not locate them. It seems the killer policed the scene."

Abby shrank back a little. "Okay. I just wanted to check."

"We're on it," Gibbs told her, and then looked between McGee and Quinn. "Chase down that surveillance tape," he told them. "I want something in our pockets before we go home tonight."

…

Tom Chesterfield lived in an apartment complex just a few blocks down from where Bonnie Stewart used to. His complex looked much the same as the one to the left and the one to the right—red brick, three-storey and in need of a blast from a high pressure hose to clean off all the dirt that had accumulated over the last couple of decades. According to the information Gibbs and Ziva had, Tom lived by himself on the second floor in a one-bedroom apartment furthest from the elevator. Ziva shot a cursory glance up at what she suspected was his bedroom window as she and Gibbs walked up the sidewalk to the complex entrance, but there didn't appear to be any movement behind the curtains. She waited by Gibbs' side as he pressed the buzzer for apartment 208. A few seconds passed without a response, so Gibbs pressed it again. He waited longer before he pressed it a third time, but it, too, went without acknowledgement.

Gibbs looked at Ziva. "Did he start work yet?"

Ziva shook her head. "No. Like Bonnie, he was not scheduled to begin until the new year."

Gibbs pursed his lips and surveyed the door buzzers for the other apartments. None of them had names next to them, so they couldn't choose who had a friendly-sounding name and might be sympathetic to their plight.

"Landlord," Ziva said, but before Gibbs made a move a man in his 20s carrying a rucksack over his shoulder came up beside them. He gave Gibbs and Ziva a polite nod before he unlocked the door to the complex and stepped inside.

"Hey," Ziva called to him as she recognized him from a photo she'd looked at just before coming over. "Are you Tom Chesterfield?"

The red-haired man twisted and planted his hand back against the front door to catch it before he closed. He pushed it open again and stuck his head out to talk to them. "Pardon me?"

Ziva took a step towards him. "I asked if you are Tom Chesterfield."

He looked between them curiously. "Who are you?" he asked instead of answering.

Ziva shot a look at Gibbs—damn probationary agents were always so uptight—and they both pulled their badges out for him.

"Special Agent Gibbs," Gibbs introduced. "And Special Agent David. From NCIS."

Tom's curiosity deepened. "Yes, I'm Tom Chesterfield. But you already knew that. What can I help you with, agents?"

"Can we come inside?" Gibbs asked. "We'd like to talk to you about a case."

Tom looked confused. "A case? But I haven't been assigned to a team yet. I was told I wouldn't be starting at the agency until January."

"Perhaps if you let us in, we could explain," Ziva said.

"Yeah, sure," Tom said, and pushed the door open wider for them. "Come on up."

Tom's apartment was dark and cold when they went inside. All the curtains were closed and the lights were off, but the first thing Tom did after dumping his rucksack on the floor beside the door was to go to the thermostat and turn it up.

"I just need to get the heat pumping," he told them, and then crossed to the living room window and opened the curtains.

"How long have you been away?" Ziva asked, putting all the pieces together.

"Oh, only since yesterday morning," he said. "Went to visit my dad." He turned to face them again. "Do either of you want a drink?" he offered.

"No, we're not staying," Gibbs told him. "Where does your dad live?"

"Virginia Beach," Tom replied cautiously. "Why? What's going on?"

Gibbs started wandering around the room, so Ziva took over the questioning. "Do you know Bonnie Stewart?"

"Sure," he replied. "She was in the same class as me at FLETC."

"And when was the last time you saw her?"

"We had lunch yesterday, before I left," he replied. "What happened to her?"

"You think something happened to her?" Gibbs asked from behind him.

Tom didn't flinch. "Well, two NCIS agents are asking me about her," he reasoned. "Either something happened to her or this is a surprise part of agent training."

Ziva met Gibbs' eyes over Tom's shoulder, and he gave her an almost imperceptible nod. Ziva proceeded to tell Tom what happened. "I am sorry to tell you this, but Bonnie was found murdered last night."

Tom studied her for a full five seconds before he moved or even made a sound. "Are you kidding me?" he asked with disbelief.

"No," Ziva said gently.

"I just saw her yesterday," Tom said firmly. "Are you absolutely sure?"

"We're sure," Gibbs told him, continuing his walk around the room.

Tom turned to look at Gibbs. "How?"

"How am I sure?"

"How did she die," Tom elaborated, his tone hardening as Gibbs played games with him. Ziva knew Gibbs was only trying to get an instinct for whether Tom had anything to do with it, but she couldn't help but flinch with empathy for him. The deaths of people close to you were always difficult, and sometimes more so if you had to remain professional about it.

"She was strangled," Ziva told him. "In her mother's house."

Tom swung back around to look at her. Tears gathered in his eyes as it all sank in, but then he pulled himself together in front of the two senior agents. "I had no idea," he told them. "I guess you want me to give you a timeline of our time together yesterday?"

"If you wouldn't mind."

Tom nodded and took a seat on the couch. Ziva sat in an armchair across from him and took out her notepad while Gibbs continued to pace slowly around the room.

"We made plans the day before to catch up for lunch," he began as he ran his hand through his hair, making it stick up at all angles. "She called me yesterday morning at about half past ten to double-check I was still coming. I'd mentioned to her the day before that if my dad needed me to come to his place earlier, then I wouldn't be able to make it. But I hadn't heard from Dad, so we met as planned."

"Where was that?" Ziva asked.

"It's this place down from Dupont called Palermo," Tom replied. "We met at about 12.30, hung around for an hour or so. Maybe a bit more. I was in my car and on the road by two."

"Did Bonnie mention anything to you that seemed out of the ordinary?" Ziva asked.

"Like if someone had threatened to kill her?" Tom asked. "No." He paused then, and cocked his head to the side. "You know, I think there was a guy that she had trouble with once. She never really went into detail about it, but her friend Kavita would know. They're really close."

Ziva had a feeling she already knew all about the guy Bonnie had trouble with. But on the off chance that there was another man they needed to look at, Ziva questioned him further about it. "Can you remember what she told you about him?"

Tom dropped his head and rubbed his face with his hands. "Uh…not much. We were sitting around one night at Glynco with another trainee and talking about why we'd decided to train to be a federal agent. She said that she'd met this woman a few years back who used to work for NCIS. She helped her deal with this guy who was stalking her when the cops couldn't. The guy…I think he was an ex-boyfriend."

Ziva kept her composure but felt Gibbs' eyes on her. She ignored him. "Did she ever mention anyone else who gave her trouble?" she asked. "Or anything strange that had happened to her in the last few weeks."

Tom shook his head sadly. "No. She was her normal self. Happy. Frank as ever. She was talking about going Christmas shopping today and what she was going to get everyone." He paused and shook his head. "I can't believe it."

Ziva watched him closely. He seemed completely sincere, and behaved the way that friends of a deceased person often behaved. She didn't get the feeling that there was anything else going on, but there was one fairly routine question she had to ask.

"Tom, what was your relationship with Bonnie?"

He shook his head. "What do you mean?"

"Was it purely platonic?"

His face opened up as he realized what she was getting at. "Oh! Yes, completely. There was no romantic interest there on either side. Bonnie was really focused on her career and she just wasn't my type."

Ziva had an inkling that there was more to that, but nothing nefarious that would have an impact on their case. She let it go. She looked up at Gibbs to see if he had anything else he wanted to check. Gibbs shook his head, so Ziva reached into her pocket for one of her cards.

"You have been very helpful," Ziva told Tom. "I am sorry to have brought you bad news."

Tom nodded numbly. "Yeah. Me too."

She stood up as Gibbs headed to the door and put her card down on the coffee table. "If you think of anything else, please give me a call."

"Sure."

She joined Gibbs at the door and they were just about to walk out when Tom called out.

"Wait, Ziva?"

Ziva turned and looked at him in question, expecting that there was something important he had just remembered. Tom was holding her card and looking at her with growing comprehension.

"Were you were the agent?" he said. "Who helped Bonnie that time with her stalker, I mean. I knew it was something with a Z. Your name sounds familiar."

Ziva swallowed hard, uncomfortable with being found out. But she nodded. "Yes. I was."

Tom nodded. "She spoke highly of you."

Ziva didn't know what to say. She, Tony and McGee had helped Bonnie the first time around, but now they were struggling to do it again. And she didn't know whether she was responsible or not for giving Bonnie false bravado, or making her think that she could do what she couldn't. She pressed her lips together in a thin line, and then nodded her thanks before brushing past Gibbs into the hallway. A moment later, he followed her.

They made the trip down to the ground floor and out to the car in silence. But as soon as Gibbs had started the engine and pulled into traffic, he turned a knowing look on her.

"You're uncomfortable knowing she thought highly of you?"

Ziva turned her head to look out the passenger window, purposefully hiding her eyes from him. "We do not do this job so that others will think highly of us," she replied.

"Sometimes they do anyway."

Ziva absently picked at a loose thread on her coat. "I do not know why she fixated on me."

"Because you helped her."

"So did Tony and McGee."

"Tony and McGee aren't women."

She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "Gender should not mean anything."

"But it does anyway," Gibbs said bluntly. "If she already wanted to be a cop and then you set an example—"

"She did not want to be a cop," Ziva said, swinging around to face him. "She was working in a bistro and studying to be in public relations or…something like that. I do not know what a public relations person does, exactly, but it has nothing to do with law enforcement. And there was nothing about her that made me think she would be good at it. McGee thinks there was. Tony thinks there was. But I never saw it. So why on earth would she switch careers?"

"Ziva, sometimes you don't know what you want until you see it."

She held his gaze until he looked back at the road, and then turned her face back to the passenger window. "What if I am responsible?" she asked quietly.

Gibbs sounded annoyed. "You making a confession, David?"

"No," she said, ignoring his challenge. "But what if she was never cut out for this, but she went after it anyway because of something I did or said?"

"You got some ego there," he commented.

She sighed heavily. "That is not what I meant."

"Do you know how many rounds of testing she had to go through to get as far as she did?" Gibbs asked.

Ziva threw him a self-aware look. "No. I did not go through FLETC. I just…skipped all that."

Gibbs looked fleetingly amused. "Lots of rounds," he told her. "If she didn't have what it takes to be an agent, she wouldn't have passed FLETC."

"If she had what it takes to be an agent, why did she not fight off her attacker?" Ziva countered.

"You're not blaming the victim, Ziva," Gibbs said with something approaching disappointment.

"No," she insisted. "I just want to know what happened and why she did not fight back. She did not have defensive wounds."

Gibbs sighed. "Well, gee, someone should investigate that."

She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. "Thank you for pointing that out, DiNozzo," she mumbled.

Gibbs lifted a shoulder. "I know you miss him."

Her eyes slid over to him. "So do you," she pointed out.

Gibbs held his poker face and didn't say anything. She didn't see the point in pushing him. They both knew it was true. So she turned her attention back to the case.

"Gibbs, I know that Eddie Hertzog is still in prison. But he is involved. I can feel it."

There was a long pause before Gibbs changed his tone to the one he used as a father, not a boss. "Because of the way she died?"

Ziva kept staring out the window. She didn't want to go into details, but if she was going to convince him, she would have to. "I think—"

"Eddie strangled you," Gibbs said. And although she doubted he meant to spin her off her axis, the fact that he said it so plainly took her breath away. "He strangled you, the same way someone strangled Bonnie."

Ziva swallowed and forced herself to turn her head to look at him. She didn't have to guess who he heard that information from. "I do not like it when you and Tony use your little coffee dates to talk about me behind my back."

Gibbs glanced at her. "He's worried about you."

"You should both understand that he has no reason to be."

"You think Hertzog paid someone off?"

"Perhaps," Ziva said. "A friend from the outside. He had many who were willing to give him false alibis before."

They drove a few blocks in silence as Gibbs thought it over. When they stopped at a set of lights he looked over at her with an expression she knew would be useless to argue with. "We need evidence first," he told her. "If we don't get anywhere by tomorrow, you can look into it."

…

When Ziva and Gibbs walked back into the bullpen they found all the desks full. McGee and Quinn were still at their desks, but Abby was swivelling back and forth in Gibbs' chair, and Tony was reclined in Ziva's with his feet up on the desk and his hands behind his head. With Gibbs away, they'd been taking the opportunity to talk real estate.

"No, no. Not Silver Spring," Tony was saying. "Ziva used to live there when she first moved here and didn't know any better. It was a pain in the ass. Especially over that first summer when I had to keep driving out there."

"Why were you driving out there to see her?" McGee asked, mostly teasing. "I thought you two said you held out much longer than her first summer here."

Tony rolled his eyes. "Shut up, McGossipGirl."

"Okay, so not Silver Spring?" Quinn asked, getting them back on track.

"I think you should stay in Maryland," Abby said.

"No, I think you'd like Laurel," McGee told him.

Quinn shook his head slowly. "I don't know where that is."

"Not far."

"Or you could just make it easy and move someplace close like Alexandria or Georgetown or—"

"Tony," Abby cut in. "No."

"Georgetown is a very nice area," he argued, and then noticed Ziva and Gibbs come in. "Oh. Hey, honey." He waited a beat and added, "Hey, Ziva."

"Pumpkin," Gibbs returned. "What are you doing here?"

"My team is looking through the contents of a dumpster, so I'm taking the opportunity to talk your baby probie out of a bad real estate decision."

"Doesn't sound like work," Gibbs said.

"It shouldn't be," Tony said, sitting forward in Ziva's chair. "But it is."

Ziva came around her desk and nudged Tony's shoulder. "Get out of my chair."

He met her eyes to share a smile before getting up and resettling on the bookshelf behind her desk. Ziva sat down.

"I thought Georgetown was kind of expensive," Quinn said.

"It is," Abby and McGee said in unison.

"Oh, yeah," Tony said, as if just remembering it. He clicked his fingers and pointed at Quinn. "What you have to do is get yourself a partner who will buy a house there for you." He looked down at Ziva and gave her a wink. "Thanks, sweetcheeks."

Ziva gave him an impassive look in return. He figured that meant she was annoyed with him about something.

"You're all wasting so much time with this, so I guess this means you have a killer for me to arrest," Gibbs cut in.

"Not quite," McGee said. "But we're closer." He nodded at Abby, who jumped up and aimed the clicker at the plasma. A mug shot of a heavyset man with a dark beard and ponytail came up.

"I fingered the fingerprint owner," she said. "Meet Ricky D'Augustino, age 34. I found him when I extended my search to Pennsylvania."

"He did time," Gibbs guessed.

"Back in 2007 for sexual battery of his girlfriend," McGee said. "Did a few years but was let out early in 2011 for good behavior. No record of any arrest since."

"Four years for sexual battery," Ziva stated with disgust.

"Uh, it was more like three in the end," Quinn said with a wince.

Ziva rolled her eyes and blew out a frustrated sigh. "Of course it was," she muttered.

"Where is he now?" Gibbs asked, trying to steer the conversation back to the case.

"Haven't gotten that far yet," McGee said, and then held up his hands to stall the protest that he knew was about to come from Gibbs. "Abby just brought that to us five minutes ago. Me and Quinn have been working on tracking down surveillance footage from the payphone used to call Bonnie's mom's house the day she died."

Quinn stood up and walked over to Abby to give her a charming smile. "May I?" he asked, holding out his hand.

Abby returned the smile and handed over the clicker. "You may."

Tony looked down at Ziva and rolled his eyes at her at the display. He hated it when Quinn tried to be all charming. That was his job. Ziva gave him a quick frown and shook her head at him, warning him to keep it to himself.

"This is the payphone outside a drugstore in Tacoma Park," Quinn said, showing them surveillance footage of a busy shopping strip. "It's a pretty affluent area, so the phone isn't used much. But fast-forward to 3.25pm, the time that Bonnie Stewart received a call, and there's this guy."

They watched a big man in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt approach the payphone about a minute before the call was placed to Bonnie. He took a card out of his pocket, read it, gestured a little bit as if he was coaching himself, and then picked up the receiver. He cradled the phone between his ear and his shoulder as he held the card up in one hand and punched in the number with his other. Then he checked over his shoulder before standing still for the next 19 seconds, and then hanging up and walking away.

"Surveillance timestamp puts the call at the same time as the one Bonnie received," Quinn told them. "And it lasts for approximately the same length of time."

"That's our caller," Gibbs said.

"It is not Ricky D'Augustino," Ziva said. "Not unless he turned 80 pounds of fat into muscle."

"Maybe he has in four years," Quinn said.

"Maybe?" Gibbs questioned.

Quinn stared at him for a moment before he caught on. "We'll find out," he assured Gibbs.

Gibbs turned to Abby. "Can you work on cleaning that up so we can make an ID?"

Abby saluted. "Can do!"

"McGee, help her out. I want to know who he is, if not Ricky D'Augustino," Gibbs said. "Tony, Ziva, find out everything you can about this guy and how he would've come to be in Bonnie Stewart's house."

"Oh, I'm flattered, boss," Tony said. "But I have my own case."

Gibbs stopped short and stared at him before realizing his mistake. "Quinn!" he barked. "Help Ziva."

"No problem," Quinn said.

Gibbs walked over to Ziva's desk and glared without much weight at Tony. "What are you doing here, DiNozzo?" he asked.

"I just need Ziva for two minutes," he said as he stood up and tugged on Ziva's sleeve. "Or perhaps one, if all goes well."

Gibbs rolled his eyes, turned and walked away, and Tony took that as his blessing. He cocked his head at Ziva as he came out from behind her desk.

"I need you," he said.

Ziva gestured at the team, making it clear that now wasn't a great time. "Can it wait?"

"No."

She pushed back her chair and stood, and then followed him past his old desk. "I will only be a minute," she told Quinn as she passed.

She followed Tony all the way back behind the staircase, where Tony crossed his arms and leaned against the wall.

"What?" she asked.

"Hello, honeybear," he said with a grin.

Ziva made a face like he knew she would. "Tony," she sighed.

He cut to the chase. "Are you okay?"

Ziva misunderstood. "Yes, I am fine! I just need to find this guy. What is it?"

Tony took half a step towards her and lowered his voice. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about," he said. "About how you are."

She stared at him for a moment and then caught on. "I am fine," she repeated, but without the impatience from before. "Really."

"Really?" he asked, and narrowed his eyes at her. "Because you've got that look on your face, Ziva. The one that says you want everyone, including yourself, to think you're fine when you're really not fine."

She hesitated, and Tony knew she was deciding whether or not to tell him to drop it, or to be honest with him. He tried not to take it to heart. He liked to think that if they were having this conversation at home then she wouldn't have resisted discussing it. She was definitely better at that these days.

When she crossed her arms and leaned against the wall too, he knew she was going to talk. "Three years for sexual battery," she said, looking up at him with sadness and frustration in her eyes.

He dipped his head as a slice of pain went through his chest. This case was getting more personal. "I know," he said softly. "It's not enough."

She turned her back against the wall and closed her eyes. "I am tired of this, Tony. I am tired of predators being sent away from sentencing with a slap on the wrist."

"Would you rather they walk away without any punishment?"

"Of course not. But the woman he raped is going to live with it for the rest of her life." She paused, and Tony could see her pulse jumping in her neck. He wanted to wrap his arms around her now and try to give her some kind of reassurance. But he couldn't do that here, and Ziva would not want him to. He'd have to wait until they were home.

"Three years is not adequate," she said with a shake of her head.

"No. It's not."

She rolled her head to the side to look up at him again. "Gibbs and I just met with one of the agents who had been training at FLETC with Bonnie. He said that she spoke highly of me."

The words seemed to catch in her throat, but Tony wasn't sure why. "I'm not surprised."

Her face fell a little. "What if we didn't do enough for her?"

"Ziva, we did a lot for her," he told her. "We put the guy behind bars."

"I am sure he is involved in this," she said. "I know it."

"Don't put blinders on," he warned.

"That is not what I am doing." She sighed and looked at her feet. "I just want to find out who is responsible. I am sick of these men coming in and making people they are supposed to love and care for suffer."

Tony glanced over his shoulder to make sure the coast was clear before he reached down and discreetly held her hand. "You'll find him, Ziva. He's not going to get away. And he will go to jail for more than three years."

She squeezed his hand and gave him a faint smile. "We can hope."

"Are you going to be okay?"

"Yes," she said, and pushed herself off the wall. "So you can tell Gibbs that when you have your next little coffee date."

Suddenly her vague irritation with him in the bullpen made sense. "Oh. You heard about that, huh?"

"Tony, you told him everything," she said, but the irritation was now gone from her eyes.

"He needed to know," Tony countered. "He's your boss. And he's Gibbs. He's not going to breathe a word of it to anyone."

"I just wish you would have asked me."

Tony nodded, accepting that. "I know. I'm sorry. I'm cooking you dinner tonight."

"Because you told Gibbs what happened?" she asked, arching an eyebrow.

He shook his head and leaned in to give her cheek a quick kiss. "Nope. Because I love you." He gave her a grin and then gently smacked her arm. "Get back to work." He turned and started off in the direction of his team when Ziva called out after him.

"You are a good man, Tony."

He turned to look back at her smiling at him with open affection, and his stomach did the little flip it did—still did—when she looked at him like that.

"Only to you," he called back with a wink, and then went back to work.

A/N: Thanks to all of you still following along, and to those of you sending me nice notes. I know you love the Tiva parts, but I hope this case-centric chapter caught your interest too.