Holy crap...I think this is the fastest update in the history of me, like, updating. I think that's cause for celebration. Since I am a broke college student...throwing money at me in gratitude is always a nice treat. Also may I suggest starting a new religion in my honor?
Okay. Stopping now. Mom always said I was too full of crap to be a normal human being. That's unconditional love for you, I guess.
And now time for my random quote/observation/non sequitur of the day: My friend and i were at a meeting for work the other day and they gave us free bottles of water, simply labeled 'Artesian Water'. I was all like, "How the hell do you get Artesian Water?" and myfriend replied, in all seriousness: "It's from Artesia...duh."
I'll stop laughing if someone could point "Artesia" out on a map for me...
Oh, and I talk about 6x04 "Heartland" below. So if you don't want to be spoiled then don't read the bold print.
It was a while before things had subsided enough to be considered calm. Normal hearing had not been restored to me yet, and it felt like I was hanging out with those BOSE Noise-Cancelation headphones they give the first class passengers on planes. I didn't move, still holding Ziva close to me in the chilly water. Burning pieces of wood and what was left of the now-destroyed dock floated by on the water, and I prayed profusely to whatever higher power existed, thanking them fervently for the fact that I was still alive.
The end of the dock had collapsed, cutting off the way out, though I don't think I would have risked swimming back out anyway with all the unseen debris in the water waiting to stab me in unpleasant places.
After a few more shocked, frozen seconds, I heard the sound of tires screeching madly and the sound of doors slamming.
"Tony! Ziva!" Gibbs shouted.
Hearing my name helped get me to move. I was shaking badly, and so was Ziva. As I pulled back, I could still see the explosion in her eyes, and I knew that the experience of nearly being blown up by a suicide bomber brought back memories she would rather forget. Tentatively, I reached up my hand and secured her hair behind her ear, my hands gently caressing the side of her face.
Her eyes were wide and she was breathing heavily; she probably didn't realize I was even there.
"Ziva," I said, meaning to whisper, but I think it came out pretty loud as a result of the aforementioned temporary hearing impediment. "Ziva, are you okay?"
She looked up at me, her eyes connecting with mine, and she seemed to realize where she was. She tried to push herself out of my arms, but I held her fast.
"Are you okay?" I repeated.
"Yes," she replied, succeeding in worming out of my embrace.
"TONY! ZIVA!" Gibbs called again, closer this time.
"Here, boss!" I shouted back, as loud as I could, and there were loud footsteps on what was left of the dock.
"Where's 'here', DiNozzo?"
"Found them, boss," McGee's voice said, and I looked up to see the younger agent's concerned face looking through the gaps in the wood…that weren't there when Ziva and I had run across them not three minutes before.
Gibbs' face appeared next to his, relief flickering on his face for half a second. He would deny it later, of course…but I had seen it and that was good enough for me.
"We can't exactly swim out of here, boss…" I said. "The end of the dock fell down."
His face disappeared, and I heard footsteps walking away.
"Are you guys hurt?" McGee asked, staying in view.
"No…just shaken, I guess," I said. "Can't hear worth shit at the moment though."
McGee smiled. "We were about a mile away when we saw the explosion," he said. "It was huge―We were dodging debris within seconds. And of course Gibbs was speeding through it all…"
"Where did he go?"
McGee turned around to see where the boss-man had gone. "He's getting an axe out of the back of the car."
"An axe?"
"Yep."
"Why the hell did he have an axe in the back of the company car?"
"I don't even want to ask."
"Stand back, DiNozzo," Gibbs said when he came back. I grabbed Ziva's arm and pulled her back as McGee and Gibbs worked on making a big enough hole to pull us up through. It didn't take long…the wood was weakened significantly by the blast. Ziva was silent through the whole thing, even when I was forced to put my hands on her ass to help her out. Not even a comment. Nothing.
Something was up with her.
"McGee, call an ambulance," Gibbs said when both Ziva and I were safely out of the water.
"I'm fine," I insisted. "It's just shock and cold water," I said, explaining away the shaking.
Ziva nodded in agreement.
I looked around, taking in the devastation. The warehouse was completely gone…all that was left was a dark, building-shaped smudge and the fiery remnants of mine and Ziva's car.
"Holy shit…"
"When we saw the car we began to fear the worst," McGee said. "What the hell happened?"
I told them the short version: warehouse go boom.
"He seemed to know that we suspected him," I explained. "He knew that the two women were dead."
"That's impossible," McGee said.
"Unless he was the one who did it," Gibbs said.
"And then he stepped back and we saw this mountain of C4," I continued. "That's when I grabbed Ziva and started running…ten seconds later the world exploded."
Sirens were heard in the distance, growing louder and louder. The locals were already responding to the explosion.
Gibbs' phone rang, too. "Gibbs," he answered curtly, just like he always did. "Did you get any hits on those prints?...Thanks Abs…No, they're right here…"
Wordlessly, he handed the phone to me.
"Hello?"
"Tony!" Abby squealed through the phone. "What did you do to your phone? I got so worried when your GPS marker disappeared…"
"Our phones got wet," I explained. "Ziva and I decided to swim in the ocean."
"With your clothes on?"
"Unfortunately yes…Jared Ryan went all suicide bomber on us."
I heard her gasp.
"But we're fine. Just a little shell-shocked."
"I was wondering why you were talking so loud," she said. "And Gibbs and McGee?"
"Were lucky enough to drive up after it happened."
Just then, two fire trucks, an ambulance and a slew of police cars drove up. I said good bye to Abby as Gibbs walked up to the closest car, already pulling out his badge.
McGee handed me a wet rag.
"What's that for?" I asked him, holding it in my hands and looking confused.
"Your head is bleeding."
…
After some fast talking and zero help from Ziva, I managed to get both me and Ziva out of a trip to the hospital. Gibbs settled for the compromise of having Ducky look us over, and thus handed us over to one of the junior police officers, giving the newbie specific instructions to take us to NCIS. Ziva and I sat in the back of the police cruiser as the officer took great liberties with the law, turning on his sirens to disperse traffic a little bit.
I had a sneaking suspicion that it was another one of Gibb's orders.
Neither I nor Ziva talked at all on the way there; we just looked out the window and shivered in our soaking wet clothes. I wished she would talk to me…I was getting worried.
I tried to help her out of the car when we arrived, screeching to a halt in front of NCIS, but she ripped her hand from mine and shrank away, refusing to touch me. I sighed, then lead the way to Autopsy, continuing to hold the wet rag to the cut on my forehead. The newbie cop followed us like a lost puppy…it was both pleasing and annoying. I was pleased at being admired, yet annoyed that he couldn't do it some other time when I was not soaking wet and bleeding.
"Tony, Ziva," Ducky greeted us as we walked in, unsurprised at our condition. Abby must have told him what had happened. "You can change into these, first," he said, giving us each a pair of green scrubs. "Don't want you to catch a cold, now do we?"
Ziva was faster than I was; when I got back from the bathroom she was already there. I guessed she hadn't stuck her head under the automatic hand dryer like I had.
"Sit on the table, Tony," Ducky instructed. "Palmer…"
The autopsy assistant walked over from somewhere. "Palmer!" I said. "You're back."
"Yeah―" was all he managed to get out before he promptly sneezed with enough force to send a rocket to the moon.
"If you give me that cold I will be severely pissed off at you…" I warned. Palmer nodded quickly, and then proceeded to check me over. He inspected the cut on my forehead, using the rag to dab at my head some more. "I don't think you need stitches," he pronounced finally, and just grabbed one of the white strips to hold the cut together, taking way more time than I thought was strictly necessary.
"Can I go back to work now, Florence Nightingale?" I asked. Not waiting for Palmer's answer, I stood up and went over to where Ducky was examining Ziva.
"I'm fine, Ducky," she kept saying.
At least she was a little more talkative. A silent Ziva was a scary Ziva.
"If you say so, my dear," Ducky said finally, finding nothing physically wrong with her. I was pleased with this…I had protected her so well that she wasn't even hurt. "You two can go up and sit in the squad room if you want, but I would suggest taking it easy for the rest of the day," the ME said. "I knew this one chap back in Europe that survived being blown up by hiding in a refrigerator―"
"Like in Indiana Jones," I put in, unable to help myself.
"―And when he came out he wasn't event the least bit affected by shell shock. It was very mysterious…but then we found him two hours later, dead from a hyper-accelerated heart rate. I said to myself then that―"
I didn't hear the rest; I was following Ziva out to the elevators.
"Are you going to speak to me?" I asked her when the doors had shut.
She was silent, and I waited for a response. Any kind of response.
Nothing.
"Damn it, Ziva," I said, getting frustrated. "Something is bothering you! Why won't you tell me what it is?"
Still no answer. When the doors opened, she walked out quickly, heading straight for her desk. I caught up to her before she could sit down and grabbed her arm, turning her to face me. I knew I was probably risking death with this action, but at the moment I didn't really care.
"What the hell is up with you?" I demanded.
"It's none of your business, Tony," she snapped back. Good. Talking was good, even if it was anger. I could deal with anger a lot better than silence.
"When you look upset it makes it my business," I retorted. Couldn't she see that? Couldn't she see that everything she did affected me, no matter how small it was? When she was happy, I was happy. When she was sad, I was sad. When she looked broken like this, I had the overpowering need to fix her, to do anything for her…and she had no idea. This was fucking torturing me.
"Why did you save me, Tony?" she asked me quietly, eyes flashing.
Because I love you, that's why.
That's what I wanted to say. Those were the words that were coming up, right now. But they stuck in my throat, blocking it off, refusing to come out. I couldn't say it. I wanted to, but I couldn't. I was surprised that she couldn't hear me screaming it inside my head, trying to force the words into existence. So instead, the words reassembled themselves into a form that was easier to say.
"Why do you think?" I whispered instead.
That was a hint. Get the hint. Read my mind. Do your crazy Mossad ninja Jedi mind power tricks on me or something. You know me. I can't say it. I can't….
We remained frozen there for who knows how long. I stared into her eyes, trying to find something in there that would tell me why she was acting so strange, but I found nothing. She had put up a wall, and there was no getting through it.
I realized with a start that this was the second time Ziva had ended up in my arms today…there was definitely something strange going on. I waited for her to move, to shift out of my arms and take her usual step back, but she didn't. We just stood there, in the middle of the office.
The urge to do something extremely unintelligent came over me then. Usually my common sense kept me from doing idiotic things like attempting to kiss assassins, but apparently my brain was on vacation. It was gone without even leaving a note, or a warning, or something to give me a heads up to be careful about finding myself in stupid situations.
I leaned forward ever so slightly, and so did Ziva. I saw her eyes close and we both stopped breathing.
Pausing inches away, I attempted to assess the situation I had just currently landed myself in, and I decided that I should just go ahead and risk it. If I was going to be killed for this, then at least I would die happy. That's what everyone wants, right? Dying of happiness?
If I didn't do it soon, then I was going to lose my self control. I was never one to go at this slow.
I asked myself if I felt lucky.
Maybe.
But, then again, I was no Clint Eastwood…no matter how many times I might tell my mirror otherwise.
I leaned closer, eager, breathless, and nervous as hell.
"Hey, guys, I have something super important to tell you!" Abby burst in, completely and totally killing the mood.
God damn it.
Ziva reacted first; she jumped and instantly there was six feet of space between us. The gothic scientist barreled into the squad room, completely oblivious to what she had just interrupted.
"Gibbs!" she asked, apparently needing to talk to him too, and only able to put together monosyllabic requests.
"He's at the crime scene, Abby," I told her.
"Am I, DiNozzo?"
Damn.
Fuck.
Shit.
I turned around slowly to see Gibbs leaning against the shoulder high divider that separated Ziva's desk space from the main walkway. She and I had been so intent on each other that we hadn't even noticed he was standing there.
And from the raised eyebrow look McAmused was giving me, I would bet my entire salary that they had been there much longer than I'd been fervently hoping.
"You got a lead yet, DiNozzo?" Gibbs asked me, walking up and smacking me upside the head with a rolled up newspaper much harder than usual.
"Working on it, boss," I said quickly, going to my desk.
"I can see that."
"Gibbs, Gibbs, Gibbs," Abby said quickly, walking up to him. "I think I have something!"
"You think, Abs?"
"Um, I mean I do…I mean I got a match on the fingerprints lifted from Baker's house―"
"And?"
"Will you let me finish, Gibbs?" Abby protested. "And I got a match on Jared Ryan."
"The guy who blew himself up this afternoon." It wasn't a question.
"Yeah…him. Apparently the fact that he turned out to be a suicide bomber wasn't too far-fetched." She clicked a button on the remote to the plasma and five pictures appeared on the screen. I got up from my desk to get a closer look. "He has been seen in the company of these people, who are―"
"On the Watch List," Gibbs finished for her.
"Yeah."
"That's not good…" McGee murmured.
"Thanks for the valuable input there, McObvious," I said. "What do we do now, boss?"
"Well, not much until we get something else that ties to the dead Marine wives in the basement," he replied.
"Maybe Anderson and Baker―"
"I'm not done!" Abby interrupted again. She clicked another button. "This, was found by the LEO's after you left."
A fuzzy picture was blown up to the size of the screen. Even though it was horribly pixilated, the point of the picture was clear. It was chunks of the warehouse wall, burned and charred from the explosion, and it looked like someone had put them together like puzzle pieces. The weird part was that there was red letters painted on them.
"It's a hit list," Ziva said quietly.
"Apparently it was painted on the inside of the wall," Abby said. "I did a search on the names I could read, and most of them are in the databases for arms dealing. The ones that aren't dead are in prison. I think they're on this list because―"
"Whoever these people are, they don't want them talking to the government," Gibbs completed for her.
"And there's one more thing…" Abby clicked the remote again and zoomed into a section in the middle. "NCIS Special A-G-E," she said. "I would bet my whole salary that last word is Agent."
It was deadly quiet in the bullpen.
"The question is…which one?"
SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 6x04 BELOW. FYI. DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUU...
So how great was Heartland? I LOVED the fact that they were all surprised to find out that Gibbs actually came from somewhere.
Also McGee's face when he walked in to find Gibbs sweeping. Haha...
And at the end, where awkward younger Gibbs was talking to Shannon? That was so sweet! OMG I loved young Gibbs... XD I guess we should have known that she was the start of the 'rules'.
But I think my favorite part was when we find out that Gibbs' father finished building the car he had started on, and did it just how Gibbs wanted it. And then watching Tony's face when they sped past him? Hee hee...I bet he enjoyed that A LOT.