Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS
SO, now I'm going to rant on about season 7 premier so if you haven't seen it, skip this and read the story. The season premier was AMAZING! Really, I wouldn't say it was the best episode ever but the producers got it right when they said the viewers would think they know what's going on but they don't know what's going on. When I read that during the summer I just expected that it'll be a bit better than the later season 6 episode (No offense to those who liked them but I think it was just plain horrible, ok so it's wasn't horrible but i just didn't like them as much) but I was on the edge of my seats the whole time. There were lots of surprises, like the one where Tony said Ziva was dead. That totally threw me off, and slowly revealing what happened in the past while another plot is going on the present was awesome. (Granted it is a TV show and there are unrealistic scenes such as how the hell did Gibbs get to the building when he was like up the hill so far just just like a minute ago or the fact that Ziva was held captive by a terrorist for couple of months and she didn't need to check in with the hospital when she got back to DC) Can't wait till Tuesday to see what happens to Ziva. Now back to the dinner...
McGee and Abby were the first ones to arrive at Ziva's house at exactly six o'clock sharp, and couple minutes later they were joined by Ducky. Just as they finished greeting each other, the doorbell rang again. Ziva walked towards the door and opened it for the third time in ten minutes.
"Hi Ziva." Kate said as Ziva let her in. "You got a nice house." She commented as took a look at her new friend's house. It was probably one of the larger houses in the neighborhood and it was well built but it kind of felt empty as it was barely decorated with anything. But then again, Kate reminded herself that Ziva had moved in just over a month ago. "I stopped by Tony's place before I came."
Ziva felt her body froze as Kate took a pause to take off her jacket. She was looking forward to having Tony over, and she felt so grad when he agreed to come. She knew that Tony lived just next door to Kate and since he did not come with her, Ziva was quite positive that he changed his mind. Although she was really disappointed, she could not bring herself to blame Tony for changing his mind without telling her because if she was in his shoes, she would not forgive herself neither. But then Kate continued.
"He said he had to stop by somewhere before coming over so he'd be couple of minutes late."
Ziva relaxed her shoulders as she learned that Tony was coming after all. "Tim, Abby and Ducky are in the living room." Ziva pointed to the living room for Kate as she looked at the clock. "I am just getting the dinner ready and I will be there in a minute."
Kate nodded as Ziva disappeared into the kitchen door. She headed towards the room Ziva identified as the living room. On the way she noticed a large bright room and its door was half open and as she walked by, she noticed that there was a enormous bookshelf filled full with books. She also saw a big leather arm chair in front of a large desk so she concluded that it was probably Ziva's dad's office.
Everybody on the couch turned as she entered to room. "Hey guys."
"Hey Kate." Tim and Abby said at the same time as she sat down beside them.
"Hello Caitlin." Ducky smiled at her and she smiled back. "Abigail was just about to explain to Ari why Harry Potter is a good movie."
Kate turned around to see what Ducky was looking at behind her, only to be surprised that Ari was right behind her. Ari was just as bad as Ziva when it came to sneaking up on people, if not worse. "Hello Ari."
"Hello Caitlin." Ari responded politely. She blushed as she realized how close they were, because she could have sworn that there weren't even enough room for a thin piece of paper between them. She was grad that Tony was not there to watch as she almost tripped on the side table when she backed away, because if he did, he would never let her forget it for rest of her life. And these days, that may not be an understatement since his teasing was getting worse and worse. She tried to remember what they were talking about before to try and fill in the silence. And then it hit her; they were talking about Harry Potter.
"You've never seen a Harry Potter movie before?"
"No" Ari simply replied.
"How could you-" Kate tried to say but Abby cut her off.
"That's what I have been saying for the past... two minutes. Anyway how could someone have never watched a Harry Potter movie? It's like the best known fantasy movie in the whole world!" She ranted on and on but Tim stopped her.
"You know Abby technically it's not-"
"I don't care about the technically. Ok so it probably isn't the most popular, and I don't even really think its special effect is that awesome, but it's still a movie that every teen in twenty first century should have watched."
"I have to agree." Kate added. "It is a popular movie. "
"It is true. If you watch movies, you have to watch Harry Potter. It's shown in more than 50 countries, 65 to be exact with three premiers each in Tokyo, London, and New York, and an IMAX version in the states and Canada." Everyone raised their eyebrows at Tim, which caused him to go into panic. "Not that I pay attention to them or anything, really."
"Let's just say you're lucky Tony isn't here." Kate laughed as she saw Tim's expression. Abby laughed as well, and Ducky tried his best not to but he couldn't help himself as he found a chuckle escaping. Even Ari was grinning in amusement.
"Well, I have not seen it because I have seen total of three movies." Ari stated back to the original question. Abby audibly gasped and everybody else was surprised too.
"Nooo. You've got to have seen more!" Ari shrugged at Abby's startled answer.
Before anybody could say anything else Ziva came into the room with Jenny and Gibbs behind her. The group on the couch minus Ari was surprised that they did not hear the doorbell as they saw the couple. Ari would have been surprised too if he did not hear the door clicking as it closed just two minutes ago. He was not surprised but he was curious why Ziva opened the door before the doorbell rang.
"Oh hi Jenny, Gibbs. We didn't hear the doorbell." Tim said.
"That's because we never rang it." Gibbs stated in monotone.
"Wh-" Abby and Tim started at the same time.
"I was just passing the door when I though I heard two people arguing in front of the door." Ziva answered their unfinished question, knowing exactly what it was.
"We were not arguing. We were simply having a... disagreement." Jenny glared at Ziva, who only rolled her eyes.
"Yes. You were having a 'disagreement'." Ziva said in sarcasm.
Jenny narrowed her eyes in threat that would have scared the crap out of normal people, but compared to Ziva's it was nothing. So she gave up and changed the subject. She commented half-joking, half-serious, "How could you understand the concept of 'air quotes' when you can't get half of the idioms right?"
Ziva shrugged, "It is easier to remember since it does not involve translation from several languages. I do not have to remind you that English is not my first language, do I? In fact it is not even on the top three of my list."
After couple of minutes Abby found the remote to the large dusty plasma TV sitting against the living room wall. "Ziva, would you mind if I flipped through some channels?"
"Sure." Ziva answered almost instantly without registering what she asked. Then she realized that she was talking about the television. "Wait I do not..." She trailed off as she saw that Abby and Tim were watching some science channel. Then she turned towards her half-brother. "We have cable?"
Ari shrugged not much unlike his sister and answered, "Father must have forgotten to cancel original owner's cable or he could have ordered it to watch news. You never know with him."
Ziva nodded barely realizing that everybody except Gibbs and Jenny was looking at them in shock. Finally Abby said, "I take it you don't watch TV neither."
"No" They answered simultaneously. Their tone which both lacked emotions would have been exactly the same if it was not for the gender difference. And even their body language and facial expression were the same. The sudden realization of how similar the siblings were sent everyone in the room giggling in amusement.
"What?" Ziva asked in confusion, furrowing her eyebrows together, which just made it funnier for everybody else.
"What do you do in your free time then?" Kate finally got herself under control and asked.
"Reading." And training, the siblings both thought to themselves after answering at the same time again, unknown to them that the other one was thinking the exact same thing. But they kept that part to themselves since others did not need to know that.
Meanwhile Kate was registering for the first time of all the books lying across the house. She picked one up from the coffee table. It was in a foreign language. "German?"
"That belongs to Ziva. It is Turkish, I believe." Ari answered.
"Wow Turkish. Do you speak Turkish too, Ari?" Kate asked in astonishment. She never knew that Ziva could read Turkish. As far as her knowledge goes she spoke English, Hebrew, and Spanish.
"No. I never found myself as talented as Ziva was in linguistics. I only speak Hebrew, Arabic, English, some Russian and Spanish, and barely any Gaelic." Ari replied.
"Only? You consider that little? How many do you speak?" Kate asked now turning to the slightly shorter Israeli.
"Just Hebrew, Arabic, French, Spanish, English, and Turkish. Plus some German, Italian, and Russian. And I am currently trying to learn Wolof." Ziva listed, surprising everyone in the room except for Ari and Jenny. Even Gibbs was a little impressed.
"That's amazing Ziva." Tim complimented, clearly impressed.
Ziva just shrugged as if it was nothing. Jenny could only shake her head in amusement at how how little pride Ziva takes at her ability to speak six languages fluently and carry out a basic conversation in four others. Of course Ziva was confident, everybody knew that, but still it was not a big deal to her. Only Ziva could ever find it unimpressive, Jenny thought. Her friend was never satisfied with any of the skills she have. But then again she knew that Ziva was trying to live up to her father's standards, which was impossible for any human being to reach. Ziva knew that but she still never gave up and always found a way to beat herself up about a tiny little mistake she's made when she performed some task near perfectly.
The timer went off after ten minutes, after the group went into separate conversations.
"The lasagna is done." Ziva said while glancing up at the clock. "It is still early, do you want to wait for Tony for another half an hour?"
"Speaking of which where is Tony?" Jenny asked.
"He said he'd be couple of minutes late, but it's closer to half an hour. The guy doesn't have any time sense." Kate complained.
"Maybe he got caught up in traffic or something." Abby suggested.
"What traffic? It's spring break and the traffic is much less compared to the usual. And besides even if he walked here, he'd have arrived ten minutes ago."
"Why don't we set up the table first and if Tony doesn't show up by then, we'll decide then. Here I'll come help you." Jenny offered.
"Yeah me too. You wanna come Abby?" Kate asked.
"Sure." Abby answered as she and Kate got up from the couch to catch up with Ziva and Jenny who were already heading toward the kitchen.
After the girls left, the three boys were left in an awkward silence. Ari and Gibbs were having an unspoken staring match, both observing each other, not backing down. Tim who were caught in the middle shrank in his seat trying to escape the situation. Although nothing was happening, the two older guys staring at each other so intensely not uttering a single word twisted and turned his stomach. Just when he was about to break the silence, he was saved by the bell. Well, doorbell.
The three guys walked out of the living room just in time to see Tony stepping in.
"Tony! Where were you? You're like over 30 minutes late!" Kate started to complain.
"Nice to see you too Kate." Tony replied, "Besides what are you complaining about Kate? It's not your party, and you don't see Ziva complaining."
"Well, I'm sure she wants to know too." Kate shot back, but deep down inside she was curious as to why Ziva wasn't complaining. In the short time Kate had known Ziva, what she noticed was that Ziva hated being late, or other people being late. So she would have expected Ziva to be slightly pissed that Tony was so late, but then again it was Tony. Kate knew that there were something going on between them, something special, since the first time they've met, but in the past month or so they were acting very strangely around each other. It seemed as if they were avoiding each other and wanting to talk to each other at the same time. So they were either easily pissed at a little insignificant thing the other had done or extreamely forgiving about the other's mistakes. And the problem for rest of them was that they never knew which mood either of them were in. So they could never see what was the right things to say and always ended up escalating the conflict between Tony and Ziva. She really wish they could solve it already because what ever it was, it was making Tony very unbearable.
Then Kate realized that Tony was reaching into his backpack for something. He brought out what seemed like a DVD box, which proved to be right. "Quantum of Solace." He said pointing to the DVD. " Just released last Tuesday. Had to go to three different stores to get one. The 22nd movie of the amazing James Bond. I know you said we didn't have to bring anything but I just thought that a movie after dinner would be nice."
Ziva could do nothing but blink. Tony went to three stores to just get a DVD of a movie that she bet he have already seen at least twice in the movie theater already. The only two reasons that anyone would ever do that is that they were either really desperate to get out of talking or really obsessed with the movie. And Tony was well... both. "That is a great idea Tony, but I do not own a DVD player."
"But you did say you own a TV. So..." He paused as his hand went into his backpack, "I brought my portable DVD player!"
"Of course you did Tony." Kate rolled her eyes. "Look Ziva took a lot of effort to make the dinner so why don't we eat first before it gets cold. We can talk about your stupid movies later, Tony." She said as she placed the last set of plates down.
Tony made a face at her. Then the tasty smell of lasagna registered itself causing Tony to say, "Mmm... smells nice. What'd you make Zee-vah? Lasagna?"
"Yes"
Tony rubbed her hands together and sat down at the table. "I didn't know that crazy ninja chicks can cook."
Ziva huffed and rolled her eyes. "Shut up movie boy before ninja chick decides to kill you with a paper clip." Ziva joked, playing with the paper clip she pulled out of her pants pocket. Ziva smiled as the room filled with laughter when everybody sat down around the table. She still did not know what effect the dinner will have on her relationship with Tony but she at least knew that everybody was going to enjoy it.
So this is one of those filler chapters. Not too much action (not that this story has any real action, but you know just plot development) and no new info to reveal. Just a filler chap, but for the next one I've actually planned something so stay tuned (okay that probably sounded horrible but anyways...)
TBC and please review
