Author's note: This chapter doesn't have much action, it's all about Cote and Ziva becoming adjusted to their new realities. But it's important you read it before you get to the action in Chapter 3, which hopefully will be fast and funny.
As always, reviews and constructive criticism help the creative process along. ; )
In The Dark
A sequel to The People Out There
Chapter Two
Part One - Cote
The NCIS team moved purposefully through the Fly Girls of WWII exhibit.
Cote, still feeling bemused and confused, stayed by the side of David McCallum....well, Ducky. Not so much because she was interested in what he had to say, but because she found the steady drone of his voice rather comforting. Along with the knowledge that he wouldn't be interrupting his monologue any time soon, to ask questions to which she did not know the answers.
As usual, he knew everything about the subject under discussion – in this case the WASP – and was sharing what he knew. Palmer also stayed at Ducky's side, whether because he was interested in the knowledge Ducky was sharing or because he felt it politic, who could say?
Abby and Gibbs moved from exhibit to exhibit together, and Tony wavered between the two groups, then finally decided to join that of Abby and Gibbs, due to the fact that Ducky was attracting quite an audience.
They were not alone in the exhibit rooms, and more and more of the people entering crowded around Ducky, apparently believing him to be a tour guide. Ducky relished his audience and played to them.
Cote walked around with her hands folded over her chest, eyes gazing unseeingly into the vitrines or at the walls, forehead creased in thought. She almost had a deja vu feeling..had she dreamt of this before...waking up and finding herself in the real world of NCIS? She probably had. What actor, especially one in a long-running show, didn't dream on occasion of being his or her character? Well..usually it was stage actors, who dreamt that they were on stage in front of a thousand people, and were either totally nude or dried up in the middle of an important speech...
She had to be dreaming now...because there was no way on God's green earth that NCIS was real, in some alternative universe somewhere...she'd just have to go with the flow until she woke up...
Cote suddenly put her hands down to the pockets of the dark blue jacket she wore. She wasn't carrying a purse...where was her wallet - her ID and keys? Ah, of course. Doubtless in the black fanny pack around her waist, which she just realized she was wearing. And in the inner breast pocket of the dark jacket she wore would be her NCIS ID. Casually, Cote reached into her jacket, pulled out the ID, and flipped it open. Yep - there was her ID card. Ziva David, NCIS. She flipped the ID closed and returned it to her pocket.
Across the room, Gibbs, who noticed everything, noticed that. He thought it an odd thing for Ziva to do, but then dismissed it. Perhaps she'd written herself a note which she'd folded into her ID... He turned back to the exhibits in front of him.
After every single vitrine had been looked at, and every poster or placard on the walls read, the NCIS team foregathered in a corner. (All except Ducky. He'd been approached by one of the docents of the museum (in her early 50s, with a straight and slender frame and well-coiffed silver hair over a fine-boned, pleasant looking face) – probably the one who would have been responsible for telling the visitors what Ducky'd been telling them. The two of them were in another corner, looking quite matey, as Ducky – and David – would have put it, doubtless discussing the finer points of museum exhibit design, or perhaps something else...)
The consensus among the NCIS agents was that they would go to a local Chili's for lunch, then return to the NCIS parking lot where they would disperse and go their separate ways. Cote took no part in the discussion, except to add a nod when it was her turn to say 'yay' or 'nay' to Chilis.
"I'm thinking of taking flying lessons," Abby announced, cheerfully, on the drive to the restaurant. "I've been inspired."
"I have, too, " brought up Tony DiNozzo. "And I've been thinking, too. With all of us pitching in, we could afford to buy our own Eclipse. That's a seven passenger luxury plane, Boss!"
Gibbs chuckled. "You're bound and determined to get NCIS its own private jet, aren't you, DiNozzo?"
Tony grinned. "You got that right, boss. Only it would be our private jet as well, don't ya see?" He said this while whirling his finger around at all of them at the table. " What do you think, Ziva?"
Cote, glanced up, made herself smile. "As long as Abby is the only one who pilots it," she said.
"You think if we had a jet I wouldn't learn how to fly it?" scoffed Tony.
"I can fly," offered McGee.
Everyone looked at him.
"Well, I can fly on a flight simulator, via the computer, which is essentially the same thing," McGee amplified.
Gibbs quirked up one side of his mouth in a smile. He thought about saying something clever comparing phone sex with real sex, but Abby beat him to it.
Amid the ensuing laughter, Ducky heard his cell phone. He dug it out of his pocket and handed it to Gibbs, who was riding in the passenger seat next to him.
"Ducky, Jemison here." Jemison was the other NCIS supervisor, who had replaced Paula Cassidy after that agent's heroic death.
"It's Gibbs, Jemison. But Ducky's right beside me. What do you need?"
"Dr. Guterman's daughter went into labor an hour ago - a month early. I need an ME and I was hoping Ducky could help me out."
Gibbs tucked the phone in between his ear and shoulder and pulled out pen and notebook.
"Okay, give me your location." He scribbled a few lines. "Ducky'll be there shortly."
"Sorry, people," he said as he flipped Ducky's phone closed. "We're losing our chauffeur. Ducky, duty calls."
"What about us, Boss?" said Tony.
"Jemison's people are on it. They only need Ducky."
Ducky dropped the team off in the parking lot at NCIS headquarters, beside a cluster of cars that obviously belonged to them all, then went with Palmer to his lab to pick up the material he'd need at the crime scene.
"Well..we still up for lunch?" asked Tony. "Chili's is a bit far away, but there's always Sam's Seafood."
They had Sam's Seafood.
Cote, who had been born in Chile but grew up in Miami, had no accent, except that one which anyone growing up in Florida would have, and so had to assume that of the Israeli, Ziva. She had been very careful to maintain her accent during the lunch, which to her surprise she rather enjoyed. She said as little as possible, as Abby was the most vocal of the two, engaging McGee and DiNozzo in conversation. She and Gibbs were the more taciturn of the group.
But then it was over, and they were back in the parking lot, and everybody was driving off. Cote got into her car, which to her utter shock was a Hummer.
Cote took her wallet out of her purse and checked the driver's license. She checked it again. Ziva David was how old? Suppressing a whew, and a "My, she looks good for her age... waitaminnit...." she concentrated on the address. She had no idea how to find it. Well, she'd stop in at a gas station as soon as she followed Gibbs' car out of the Navy Yard.
Once she'd reached "home," which turned out to be in a modest apartment block not far from the Navy Yard, Cote eschewed exploration. She simply found the bathroom, ran herself a hot bath, and climbed into it. She had a lot to think about, but she'd think about it later.
Part II - Ziva
Ziva sat in the passenger seat, as Michael Weatherly drove through the streets of Los Angeles. After she'd gotten into the car, he'd placed a purse - it must have been her purse, which due to her shock she hadn't noticed he'd picked up from that room he'd gone into - and the thick book on her lap.
She looked at the cover of the book - an 8 X 11 book, with a xeroxed cover, held together by three...she didn't know the English word for it... the things with a circular head and prongs which you put through paper and bent on the other end to keep papers together. On the cover was typed and centered the words:
NCIS: Chase Me Faster
She paged through it...it was some kind of script, with all their names - Ziva, Tony, Gibbs, McGee, listed down the pages, and blocks of text, and action and camera angles called out. Were they making some kind of training film?
But that still didn't explain why they'd kept calling her Cote, and Gibbs Mark, and Tony Mike. Still less did it explain how she could be one second in cold Washington DC, in the parking lot of a museum, and the very next second, in a room in Los Angeles, California.
"Feeling better?" asked... Mike.
"Yes, thank you," she told him. It wasn't exactly true...although she felt no physical pain she certainly felt bewildered. Nevertheless she did not want to draw untoward attention to herself.
"Have you heard anything back from the Taper?" asked Michael Weatherly.
Ziva glanced at him. "Um, no." she said.
"You should get your agent to give them a kick in the butt," Mike said. "You shouldn't have to wait this long to hear. "
Ziva essayed a shrug. "Perhaps not."
"Um...Cote?"
"Yes?"
"Why are you still in character?"
"What?"
"The Ziva accent. You're still doing it."
What the hell was he talking about? The Ziva accent?
She tried another shrug. "I just feel like it."
"Oh. Okay." He made a face at her, the type of face Tony would make at her when he was trying to make her laugh.
Five minutes later, he drew up in front of a large apartment block.
This must be it. Home.
"So, what time do you want me to pick you up tomorrow?" he asked.
"What time is good for you?"
"Well, five o'clock?"
"That will be fine...Mike. Thanks."
She got out of the car, and headed up the stairs to the building. She dug through her purse until she found a wallet, which, upon opening, revealed a driver's license.
Cote de Pablo.
Ziva's eyes widened. The photograph certainly looked like her, but that birthdate...
The license also gave her address - in particular her apartment number.
She found her apartment without trouble. She went through it carefully, thoroughly. She found an address book, photo albums, inscribed books, everything that identified the owner of the apartment as Cote de Pablo.
The living room had a couple of bookcases, and on one of the shelves was a row of DVDs...some of which were entitled, NCIS.
Ziva took these DVDs down and glanced through them, and as she did so, a chill went through her and settled in. She'd heard about Special Agent Caitlin Todd, she'd seen photos of her...and the pictures on the covers of these DVDs matched hers.
And then, there was her photo on the cover of some of these DVDs.
Ziva put one of the DVDs in the player, and sat down and watched the episodes unfold. Everything was happening...exactly as it had happened in real life...this wasn't possible.... definitely, definitely she'd been brainwashed somehow.
As had the rest of the team? Or had those people around her this morning been frauds...actors who'd had plastic surgery to make them look like Tony, and Gibbs, and so on. What an elaborate fraud...why would such a thing be done?
She returned to the script she'd been given. Every line that had h er name in front of it had been outlined in yellow. She saw the scene they'd been filming that afternoon...she didn't recognize it at all. Why not, if she recognized all the others?
Ziva buried her head in her hands and forced herself to calm down. Her heart was racing...she was starting to have an anxiety attack She breathed deeply for several minutes, concentrated on finding an inner balance.
There was no way she could return to the stage the next morning and pretend to be this Cote character pretending to be her. She had a photographic memory and she was a good actress - a Mossad agent had to be - but....she couldn't do it. She'd lose control of herself and start kicking butt, as Tony would say.
Tony....she had to talk to Tony....who thought he was Mike.
Ziva reached for the phone again, then stopped.
There was one thing she had to do, before she did anything else.
Ziva looked in Cote de Pablo's purse... lots of credit cards in the wallet.
She went out on a shopping expedition, and returned a couple of hours later returned with a gun and a throwing knife, and the appropriate holsters for each.
Then, taking a deep breath, she called Michael Weatherly's number, which she had found in the address book by the phone.
"Mike....Cote. Would you mind...coming back here tonight?"
"Sure, Cote. Something wrong?"
"I'm not sure. I... need to ask your advice about something...face to face."
"I'm on my way."
Ziva replaced the receiver very slowly. She sat down and methodically loaded her new pistol with bullets, then slipped it into the holster which she wore at her back. The knife went into a sheath near her boot.
Then, she sat back calmly – in a rather comfortable chair, to wait.