"What on earth is wrong with Fornell?" Ziva asked as she watched Fornell practically jumping up and down and cursing with frustration at his phone at the end of the hallway.

"I think he just received some bad news" Gibbs smiled wryly.

"He looks like that character …what was his name ..Rumplestiltskein when his name was discovered?" Ziva considered thoughtfully and Gibbs tried to hide his smirk as Fornell once again joined him.

With a brisk yank on his jacket to straighten it and a snap of his phone Fornell glared at Gibbs.

"You will never guess who that was. Agent Kelly is expecting a baby and has been removed from field duty. Now I have to start all over again…AGAIN"

Ziva smiled "Agent Kelly? The agent that was going to work with McGee at the Plaza? If you need someone quickly I could replace her if you want. I speak Spanish well and I was only going to be assisting on the case anyway. Besides I have lots of experience undercover, more than enough to handle pretending to be an actress come singer come whatever."

Ziva turned to Gibbs who was considering her offer. He raised an eyebrow silently at her, questioning her.

"What? You were worrying about McGee anyway so now you can have someone with him that you trust. Besides I would not like my skills to get rusty from misuse. And you cannot practice at being undercover."

Gibbs paused for a moment before agreeing and turned to Fornell who was studying Ziva, considering her in a new light.

"What do you think Tobias? Although you know that with TWO of my agents involved I am going to be more then just consulted on this case aren't I? "

*******************************************************************

Tim felt his eyes widen as he felt Ziva's warm hands slip around his waist and she leaned into him in front of a roomful of strangers.

What should he do? Smile? Pat her back? Back away? Shake her hand? Hola, what was that? Hello? Should he say hello back? Or was she saying that to the room in general not specifically him?

Before he could figure out a suitable move she had withdrawn her arms and stood relaxed next to him listening to Fornell.

Tim tried to listen to what was being said but found it difficult as he considered the reality that Ziva (ZIVA!) was going to be his wife (WIFE!) in front of everyone (FBI, Tony, Gibbs, Tony, did he mention Tony?).

"Alright let's get this show on the road. Introductions. Well this side of the room is the Alpha team and the rest basically make up the Beta team. The Alpha team works the day shift and Beta runs through the night. They will be covering surveillance but also researching other delegates attending the conference and profiling other guests staying at the hotel. There are also the staff themselves to check through. Unfortunately as the Hotel is so large we are going to be working through a lot of people……..."

Tim felt his self confidence start to wilt. This was going to be hard enough as it was but now he was going to be working with Ziva? That just made it worse. All his self doubts that he had stuffed into the potted plant by the door reared their ugly heads and galloped around the room.

What if he did something stupid? Now Ziva would be there to see it first hand. With Agent Kelly he might have been able to bluff his way through things but Ziva would be able to just look at him and know that he was clueless.

Suddenly a worse thought popped into his head. What if his actions resulted in Ziva being hurt? He would never forgive himself.

Tim felt his palms start to sweat.

"……………..There are the official functions, the presentations, the Gala dinner and so on as well. Agent McGee will have much of the heavy lifting with this one as he will be at the Conference posing as Toby Wilson in front of some of the smartest people on the planet. His 'wife' Damita on the other hand will be shopping and generally amusing herself and meeting up with him in the evenings and at the various social events. To make it more realistic we asked Damita for the schedule she had planned and Ziva will simply attend her appointments in her place………"

Official functions. Presentations. Public speaking. Interactions with people who knew exactly what they were talking about. The reality of being watched and on guard 24/7 started to roll out before him and Tim wasn't quite sure why he had been so happy when Fornell had asked him to do this.

Tim's eyes wandered across the faceless crowd looking for a safe resting place. Tony. When he finally found him it appeared that Tony was participating in a game of rather enthusiastic and silent charades from deep in the crowd with Ziva. Tony's face was all twisted up in surprise and he seemed to be trying to ask her….two words…. Starts with….an ….F? A …T? What?

"……Agent DiNozzo of NCIS will also be joining our team and will be assisting as liaison between the FBI and NCIS and specifically Agent Gibbs. Agent DiNozzo will be installed as a staff waiter at the Plaza Hotel…….."

And suddenly there it was. The silver lining. Tony was going to be a waiter and he, Timothy McGee, The Probie was going to be the Lead Agent on an undercover operation. He couldn't help the smile that spread across his face. He was going to order Nachos at 2.00am …and then send them back down for more sour cream. He was going to make Tony fetch him the Wall Street journal so he could read it while drinking his fresh morning coffee, in his bathrobe. He was going to poke fun at the jacket Tony would be wearing…just like Tony had done to him. And he definitely wasn't going to tip him.

Yes perhaps this wasn't going to be so bad after all.

Tim smiled and waived at Tony gleefully ignoring the uncertain expression on his face. Then he daringly slipped an arm lightly across Ziva's shoulders pulling her closer to him before returning his attention to Fornell's briefing.

Ziva looked up at him and smiled before she too gave Tony a small finger waive from where they stood together by the podium.

Ziva considered the small amount of video footage she had been able to get her hands on of Toby and Damita courtesy of the FBI. She had wanted to get a better idea of the person she was supposed to be impersonating and she knew she didn't have a lot of time to make it convincing.

She knew that Fornell didn't think much of Damita and considered her a bit of a 'flake' but Ziva had decided she liked her. She was bright and fun and enthusiastic. She laughed a lot, flowing in front of the camera with waiving hands and was willing to try anything once. She talked a lot and wore bright beautiful clothes and apparently got into constant mischief.

It was also clearly obvious that she was blindingly in love with her husband. She touched him constantly with little brushes on his arm and kisses and hair touches. She called him pet names constantly ranging from 'Little Pool Frog' to her 'Fuzzy Rabbit' or to the more classic 'Sweetie Pie'.

Toby occasionally called Damita his 'Little Princess' and Ziva smiled as she realized that Little Princess was the Spanish meaning of her name.

While Damita was in almost constant motion her husband Toby was a very quiet still man. He was accustomed to spending long hours working towards a distant goal and Ziva could see his patience and gentleness of spirit in his warm eyes.

While Damita was like a bright fiery star, Toby was like a moon that happily quietly orbited around her, his eyes never leaving her from the moment she stepped into a room.

Ziva sat back and considered herself for a moment. Tony had told her that she needed to have more fun in her life. Perhaps this was her chance. She would need to get in touch with her more playful side if she was to become Damita.

Damita would be more likely to throw a drink or maybe a pot plant at someone than a punch or a knife.

Ziva considered with a smile that perhaps she was going to enjoy being the beautiful, playful and much adored Damita for a while.

Tim muttered to himself and tried again. He pulled his eyelid wide open and proceeded to willingly poke himself in the eye. He blinked rapidly and could feel the contact lens moving around uncomfortably across his eye before it settled.

Tim blinked and peered at himself in the mirror. It seemed very strange to see himself with one pale light green eye and one bright blue. His transformation into Toby Wilson was underway.

They said that as he got accustomed to wearing the soft contacts it would get easier to put them in. He hoped so as he had so far spent twenty minutes and only got one of them in. He had also dropped two contacts and washed one down the drain. He was grateful they had provided him with so many. As he was wearing them for cosmetic purposes only and would have to wear them while he slept they had given him plenty of the soft disposable ones.

With a sigh Tim ran his mind over the presentation he was learning. Toby had been asked to present his recent findings to the delegation and it had been considered too obvious to have him pull out once the security risk had been discovered. Toby had been promoted as one of the key note speakers and so now Tim had to step up.

Luckily Toby had provided him with the speech he had been going to present and essentially Tim just had to learn it by rote. But to be convincing Tim had wanted to not just learn it by heart but to have an understanding of what he was saying so he would be able to express the nuances of the work to his audience.

On top of all the other information he was rapidly stuffing into his head it was making it difficult to remember more than one line at a time. And that was making him worry.

Which was only making him nervous.

And that was making him feel nauseous.

Tim leaned back and dropped some eye wash into his now rather sore and red eyes and with a sigh started on the second contact.

So far being Toby Wilson sucked.

***************************************************************

"Ziva, what cha doing? McGee is already talking under his breath to someone who isn't there. And he isn't even miked up yet. I hope you know what you are taking on?"

Tony peered over her shoulder curiously while Ziva ignored his jibes.

"McGee will be just fine Tony. He is just getting prepared in his own way and I am getting prepared in mine."

Ziva held up her wildly colored sketch proudly.

"I am designing a hand bag"

Tony tried not to laugh and muffled it just in time as Ziva glared at him.

"What? I am meant to be a handbag designer. I thought I should start trying to get an idea of what it feels like. Get some ideas in case anyone asks."

"What's that bit?" Tony enquired curiously pointing at the bold lines across the bottom of the sketch.

"That is where I want it to be lined in Kevlar so that it could be split open at the top and used as a sort of bullet proof vest in an emergency. You could put your arms through the handles. The outer layer will be red leather and I'm trying to think of a way to introduce a butterfly motif into it."

"Uh huh…." Tony wasn't sure how to respond to that.

"I am thinking of making it part of my 'Assassin' line, you know have a signature style. I have never really been interested in handbags. Normally they are so boring or too small or too big but my ones might just prove to be useful. A spot for your phone AND for your handcuffs. See? They might even save someone's life."

Ziva turned around hopeful looking for Tony's input but he had already snuck away, convinced anything he might say could result in his untimely death.

Ziva looked at her sketch again consideringly.

"Maybe he doesn't like the butterflies?"