Title: The Too Young series: The Forbidden

Disclaimer: I don't own the show NCIS, I'm just borrowing the characters for the story.

A/N: This story is part of my series called Too young, where Ziva is nineteen years old and has been assigned as Liaison Officer to Gibbs' team (just like on the show). She is taken care of by, and also seen as the responsibility of, Gibbs and occasionally also Director Jenny Shepard who were the ones that decided she could stay at NCIS regardless of her young age.

I wrote "Staying Focused" as the first story about a younger Ziva and I've had to make some changes in that story to make everything work better as a series. "Staying Focused" is still included in the series though of course.

The first change is that Ziva is nineteen, not twenty three and I have my reasons for making that change. The second change is that in this series Gibbs only administers Corporal Punishment to Ziva, (because of her age and the fact that he has taken responsibility for her training and safety) not the rest of the team. The third and last change is that "Staying Focused" takes place at the beginning of season three, not the end of the season. In this story the team has been informed of Ziva's age.

A/N 2: This is the third story about Ziva in my Too Young series.

CHAPTER 6

As she stumbled out of the car, Ziva felt her head spinning slightly but quickly recovered and pointed her gun at the two men laying on the ground completely stunned.

Tony looked up and smiled at their very welcome vigilante. "Ziva," he said and got to his feet, "nice of you to show up." he went over to her and started looking her over for injuries while she still had the men at gun point. "Are you all right?" he asked.

"I am fine." she said in an annoyed tone and tried to keep herself from getting distracted by his never ending check up. "Stop it! I am not a child!" she insisted as she had done many times before.

McGee staggered to his feet on shaky legs and took a step further away from Tanner and Warren. "I've never been so happy to see someone in my life." he said and started walking over to her ready to give her a hug filled with gratitude.

Tony rolled his eyes at the Junior Agent's emotional state. "Don't worry about McSensitive, Ziva, he just gets like that when he has just woken up from a slumber."

"Would you two grab your weapons and give me a hand with these two sometime today!" Ziva yelled, anxious to get the situation under control.

Both Tony and McGee hurried over to where their weapons lay on the ground and picked them up. They then retrieved some handcuffs from the car and cuffed the two dirtbags who were still laying on the ground muttering curses to each other about who was responsible for the trouble they were in. After having put the two men in the backseat of Gibbs' car McGee finally slammed the door and three sighs of relief could be heard. Ziva's relief did not last long though when she finally took the time to notice what state Gibbs' car was in. As a result from hitting the cart the car now had a dent right between the headlights. One of the headlights had been smashed and there was red paint all over the roof of the car and its right side. "Gibbs is going to kill me." she whispered sadly as she realized she was not going to be able to keep the fact that she had been driving from him now. And there was also the damages to his car that he would not be too happy about either. She was in a world of trouble.

Tony snickered, "Yup." but when he saw her sad face he quickly regretted it and put a hand on the young Agent's shoulder. "Come on, ninja. It'll work out. You saved our lives. We would actually be dead if it weren't for you. At least he's going to be grateful for that."

McGee decided to offer his more realistic view on things, "You sure about that once he finds out about the way we got here and the reason we got here?"

"Speak up, Probie! What do you mean?"

"I mean, Tony, that we hitchhiked here with a murderer's best friend who led us straight to the murderer and we didn't even notice."

"And the reason?" Tony continued to ask.

"I think you know."

"Why don't you enlighten me."

"The reason is that Gibbs' car ran out of gas before because you forgot to gas it up earlier today even though you knew we'd be using it again." he finally spat out ignoring Tony's angry face and the fact that he was standing quite close to a tin of paint at the moment.

"That was not my fault, Probie." he hissed between clenched teeth and glared at McGee.

Just as Tony was about to actually make his thoughts a reality and cover McGee in the same red paint that covered their boss' car, Ziva gave a loud whistle to get their full attention. "HEY!! You are both wrong! The reason this happened is that you stranded me at that gas station because that is what led you to get on that," she pointed at the truck covered with sheep, "in the first place!"

McGee felt he should try to explain to Ziva as soon as possible how they ended up leaving her but he also felt the need to at least defend their action a little. "No offense Ziva but if we had stayed we could have given Warren enough time to get away since there was no gas back there. We thought it was only a matter of short time before he would have gotten away from us." he fidgeted a little, "We would have been stranded back there."

"Wrong McGee!" she yelled and threw both hands in the air, "If you had waited for me to exit you would have noticed that I found a perfectly good petrol can in there."

Tony's face lit up with realization, "Ooooh, so that's how you got here." he said.

"Yes!"

McGee scratched his chin in thought. He had known it would be a bad idea to get on that truck but he had also felt Tony had a point in saying that apprehending the suspect should be their main focus and therefore he had jumped in the back of the truck as fast as possible. Of course now he knew they had made a big mistake. He felt they definitely owed Ziva a full explanation and an apology.

"Ziva, that truck came by and stopped just when you had gone inside to look for someone to help us and Tony asked the driver about Warren. He said he knew for sure Warren was still in town but wouldn't stay there for more than half an hour so if we wanted to catch him we should hop on immediately. We thought we'd be back for you in the blink of an eye so to speak." he looked her straight in the eyes and spoke with only sincerity, "We're really sorry. It will never happen again."

Ziva tried to look mad but McGee's puppy dog eyes had her melting in no time and she felt her anger dissipate. Tony put on a pair of puppy dog eyes too and looked at her. Him she mostly frowned at though. "Sorry, Tony you're not as good at that as McGee. He is the one saving you both from much earned torture." she could not help but grin though when Tony put on a pout as well. "Oh alright, you are both forgiven." she said with a smile.

"Good." Tony said, "because I would like to know how you got here so fast."

Ziva rolled her eyes, "Well Tony, you may have had a pretty big head start on me, but Gibbs' car is still faster than that truck. I managed to catch up with you just in time to see you guys turn right and toward this farm." she raised her eyebrows, "Pretty good timing too, huh?"

"The best, Ziva." McGee said and both him and Tony gave Ziva a hug at the same time, not caring what the two handcuffed gentlemen in the car thought about the gentle exchange.

To be continued

A/N: Please review. It would be nice to get some encouragement on this one. What do you think? If anyone has any ideas of what you think should happen then feel free to let me know.