I am so sorry that the update took this long. But I had been just busy and I had a minor writer's block. I had not idea what to do with this chapter. I did my best but it still doesn't feel really right to me. But I decided that it's a filler chapter mostly anyway so I just went with this idea. Anyway I hope it isn't too bad.
Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS
"Well, well, well, if it isn't little McBusy himself." Tony said as Tim joined them at the lunch table for the first time for the past two weeks. "What? The Elf Lord Crew finally let you go?"
"No," Tim started confidently which made Tony quirk his eyebrows. Tim never answered back like that before, ever, "I was working on a project with my partner."
"With who?" Tony asked teasingly.
"Lucy Augustine."
"Woo, a girlfriend?" Tony asked pulling a chair near McGee and sitting down ignoring his protests, "Our little McGoo is growing up. Got any pics? Did you reach-" Tony stopped asking questions when somebody pushed him from behind and his sandwich fell onto the ground.
"Stop harassing Tim, Tony. Not everybody's like you. He doesn't need to brag about every single detail about his relationships, right Tim?" Kate told him off.
"Actually, Kate, Lucy and I are just friends." McGee confessed, looking embarrassed from the conversation.
"My sandwich is on the ground all for 'just friends'?" Tony complained.
"Stop whining Tony."
"Easy for you to say Kate. Your lunch isn't on the ground."
"Buy another one. Here," Kate offered Tony five bucks, "You can use mine since it was sort of my fault even though you deserved it."
"But they don't have ham salad one in the caf." Tony whined.
"Fine." Kate said as she put her five bucks back into her wallet.
"Hey, I didn't say no." Tony protested as he grabbed Kate's five buck and headed for the caf.
Kate rolled her eyes and sat down at the table just as Jenny and Gibbs arrived with coffee in their hands
"Hey Kate and Tim. I haven't seen you for a while." Jenny asked.
"I was um working on my business project." McGee answered.
Before Jenny could comment on that, Abby joined them around the table.
"Timmy! Where have been all these days?" Abby asked as she lightly punched Tim.
Tim immediately cuddled his arms and started rubbing while commenting, "Abby! That hurts!"
But Abby ignored it and continued on, "We missed you Timmy. And you missed a lot."
For rest of the lunch Abby caught Tim up with everything that he missed the last two weeks. And everything with Abby literally meant everything. By the end, Tim would have sworn that if Abby said one more word, he'd have gone mad. But thankfully, Tony interrupted Abby's long long story.
"Hey Abs, where's Ziva?"
"Oh, yeah, she's preparing for her History final project." Abby answered.
"What is it with everyone these days? They're all either doing this project or that project. Doesn't anybody understand the meaning of lunch break anymore?" Tony shook his head.
"Yeah well unlike you Tony, some of us actually want to pass our classes." Kate commented from across the table.
"Believe it or not Kate, I do pass my classes." Tony fired back.
"Barely." Kate added. Tony was not dumb, in fact to be truthful, he was really smart. But he was such an idiot sometimes that Kate often wonder if there's something seriously wrong with the guy's brain. Of course the answer would be no, but Tony was so immature that she sometimes felt like she was talking to a five year old instead of fifteen.
Tony laughed alongside his friends at that. Despite the happy mood though, he couldn't help himself but to feel the anxiety that he was feeling deep down in his gut. Then he internally chuckled, he wasn't Gibbs, he didn't have a gut. And if he did, it was usually wrong so he pushed the feeling aside and focused on something more important like trying to come up with another McNickname.
Ziva sunk to her chair in front of the library computer in defeat. She was completely dumbfounded. She had no idea what in the world she was supposed to do now. The librarian has kicked her project partner out. Great, she thought to herself sarcastically.
She and Michael was just trying to put their project together for their presentation they had right after lunch. But as usual with her these days, something had gone wrong. Michael just happened to forget his student card so they had to use her card instead even though all their work was on Michael's account. They signed in and started to work on it. It was quite for maybe five minutes and then the librarian came and started to give them this whole big lecture about not using other people's card to sign in.
She had no idea why the librarian made such a big deal out of it but Michael was locked out of the computer for a week and kicked out of the library so she was alone. And things just got worst. She accidentally closed Michael's stuff that he sent to himself on the e-mail which he logged out of just before he left. So she left the computer and went looking for Michael but she could not find him anywhere. She glanced at the caf, his locker, her locker, the front foyer, the office, and any other place she could think of but she could not find her partner.
Now, she sat in front of a library computer completely lost. After another few minutes of sighing to herself, she decided to finish as much of the project as she can. Even if she could only put together half of the presentation, it was still better than nothing. She set herself to work and started to typed intensely.
When she realized that there was not much she could do anymore without Michael, she logged off and packed to leave. She stood and as she put her backpack on she accidentally bumped into a girl. She had good enough reflex to avoid the collision had the girl been standing alone instead of being surrounded by five other girls forming a human wall.
When Ziva lifted her head up to apologize, she saw who she had collided into. Why in the fucking world is she here?, she thought to herself. Her day just was not getting better, at all.
"Watch where you are going you-" The girl started but stopped herself when she saw Ziva. "Well, well, well, it seems that you just don't understand the concept of 'get out of my face'."
Ziva opened her mouth ready to shoot something back but though better of it. The girl smiled at that.
"What? Don't know what to say? I though terrorists always know what to say."
"Sheket Bevakasha" Ziva spit.
"What? Is that supposed to be a code or something to your other little terrorist friends?" Jeanne and her group laughed.
"It is Hebrew for shut up."
"What, can't swear in English properly? And by the way, has nobody taught you how to use contractions?"
Ziva finally had enough. "See if I were to swear in English, my fist would have to accompany my words. Now I do not want to hurt my friend, well you are not my friend but you are my friend's girlfriend so in the end it is the same thing. My instincts however is not so... reasonable if you will."
Jeanne and Ziva glared at each other for several minutes before Jeanne spoke, "It that supposed to be a threat?"
"See it as whatever you like." Ziva shrugged. When the bell rang, she whispered to Jeanne on her way out "Just know that my patience is running out."
----------------
"Hey Timmy!" Abby waved from the bleachers.
"Hey Abs!" Tim waved back as he walked towards her. "Where's everybody else?"
"Tim, the bell rang twenty minutes ago. They left." Abby said like it was common knowledge.
"Oh," Tim said as he glanced at his watch, "Then what are still doing here."
"Eh, I don't know? Waiting for you and Ziva?" She commented sarcastically.
"Well, you didn't have to wait."
"I know, but me and Ziva planned to plan for Ducky's surprise party. Which she is almost half an hour late for."
"Ok, well I um have to-" Before he could finish he saw Abby's pout.
"Timmy! Come on you're already here and I don't know when she's gonna show up so can't you wait with me. I'd be all alone if you go and besides you should plan with us, it'll be fun."
"Abby." Timmy complained but rested her case since he knew he could never bring himself to say no to his best friend, "Fine, I'll stay."
After listening to two songs from Abby's iPod, Ziva finally appeared.
"Sorry I am late."
"Where were you Ziva? We waited for half an hour. Well I waited for half an hour since Tim jsut arrived ten minutes ago. But still, I was worried about you Ziva. I swear if you didn't came when you did I was about to put out a BOLO on you." Abby sputtered.
"A BOLO?" Ziva frowned in confusion.
"Be On The Look Out." Tim explained for Abby as she tried to catch her breath. "Seriously, where were you, Ziva?"
"I had to sort something out with a teacher. It does not matter."
Abby and Tim was about to insist but when they saw that Ziva had put on her no-expression face, they realized that she wasn't going to budge. So Abby changed the subject. "We're going to your place to plan right?"
"Yeah." Ziva smiled but it was not hard for Abby and Tim to see that it was forced. They had a feeling that something was wrong with their friend but didn't want to piss her off since that could get ugly. So they just started to walk home.
When they reached the intersection where Tim and Ziva's house go separate ways, they stopped to say bye to Tim.
"You sure you don't wanna come?" Abby pouted, "Come on Tim, we won't tell Tony, right Ziva?"
"Abby, I promised Sarah to help her with her science today."
"Fine, bye Tim."
"See you tomorrow Tim."
"Bye."
After another three minutes, they were at Ziva's front porch. They rang the bell and a girl that Abby did not know opened the door.
"Finally you're home Ziva. Ari has been waiting for you."
Ziva shook her head. Ari has been very bossy ever since Michael has moved to the neighborhood and she was getting really tired of him poking his nose into her business all the time. She sighed and told Tali she would talk to him later. When she looked at Abby she realized that Tali and her had never met before.
"Abby, this is Tali my sister. Tali, this is my friend Abby." She introduced them and the two girls said hi.
From the corner of her eyes, Ziva saw Ari descending the stairs. She turned to him and when their eyes met she noticed that his were filled with disapproval and hate.
"What Ari?" Ziva asked, her tone a little more hostile than she originally intended.
"Michael called," He paused but Ziva did not say anything and just waited, "He said something about meeting you at the library at six tonight."
Ziva nodded and turned to Abby who was observing silently. When she felt Ari's gaze still on the back of her head she turned and added, "Thank you for taking the message Ari."
"Are you going?"
"Yes, we are working on a project." Ziva answered carefully with every single word measured to keep to temper.
"Did you tell father?" Ari asked just as calm.
"When is he ever home? And if he is you would inform him, no?"
Ari nodded and headed back to his room without furthering the discussion because he knew it would probably end up in a yelling match. He did not want to lose his temper in front of Ziva's friend and he was also tired of fighting over this subject. Why can Ziva not stay away from that bastard. Can she not see what I see? He is a maniac.
"Sorry Abby. Just ignore him." Ziva apologized when she turned to her friend, "Want to go to my room? My computer is there."
"Yeah sure."
By the end of two hours, they had decided they wanted to keep the party small so that they could all focus on making it the best party Ducky has ever been to. But they still had not chosen where to throw the party at. They were torn between watching one of Tony's movie at one of the person's house or just head to a bowling alley. They decided that it could wait and the invite list and the gift was more important at the moment. They had decided on asking everyone to chip in a little so that they had enough money to buy Ducky a really decent gift.
Right before Abby left they had decided the split the call list in half, with both of them calling half of the group to inform them about what they had decided. Ziva had Jenny and Kate while Abby phoned Gibbs, Tim, and Tony.
Abby's call to Gibbs and Tim went great, probably because both of them just agreed to everything she said and didn't add anything. Not that she expected them to add anything to begin with. It was Tony's call that Abby was sort of worried about. She loved Tony and all, but his girlfriend, Jeanne was a real problem.
Everybody in the group hates her and they all could see how annoying she is, except for Tony. Although Jeanne was nice to Abby personally, she still didn't like her, especially the way she treated Ziva. As she dialed Tony's number, she crossed her fingers for him not to bring up inviting Jeanne. But just as usual when someone wishes for something not to happen, it happens.
"Hey Abs. You said that we could invite our other friends right?" Abby shut her eyes wishing the next se4ntence for something other than what she was thinking about, "Can I bring Jeanne."
Abby sighed. "Why? Can we talk about that later?"
"Well, she's my girlfriend Abby." Tony said from the other side of the phone, "You like her."
When Abby didn't answer immediately Tony continued, "Wait, you like her right? You don't like Jeanne? Why, she's nice to you Abby."
"Well yeah she's nice to me and I don't dislike her." Abby explained as she heard Tony's hurt tone.
"Well then what's the problem?"
Abby sighed heavily but continued anyway because she really wanted Tony to open his eyes to what Jeanne was doing. "She's nice to me Tony, but haven't you realized that she's really mean to some of our other friends?"
"Who? Jeanne is a nice person. Don't talk about her like this Abby. And tell whoever you told you that to zip their mouths because they have no idea who they're talking about."
"Tony, can't you just see that-" Abby started but Tony cut him off.
"You know what Abs, stop! Seriously, stop, okay? If you can't give my girlfriend even the slightest respect, then maybe you aren't a good friend because I know she would support me instead of talking like this."
"What?" Abby asked feeling really hurt.
"W-sorry Abby, that's not what I meant. You're right, we should talk about this later."
"Tony-" Abby started but he had already hung up.
She closed her phone and sighed again. She had never fought with Tony before and she felt really guilty for saying that. But at the same time she was mad at Tony too. Everybody in the school knows how mean Jeanne had been to Ziva and it was amazing that Ziva had been able to keep her temper all this time. If it was Abby, she'd have already punched her in the face and if she had Ziva's skills, there'd be no tell what she would have done. Tony was apparently 'blinded by love' and couldn't see it, which was really starting to tick Abby off. As much as she loved Tony she could not let him bring Jeanne to the party since she knew it would destroy everybody's mood including Ducky. Even the sweet Ducky felt uncomfortable around Jeanne. But if she doesn't let her in then Tony would be really hurt. To let or not let her in. The question was hurting Abby's head and she hated it. It was destroying her fun on party planning which had gone perfectly up until that point. And it had totally killed Abby's happy mood She turned on her music to the loudest volume it can go to and buried her head in her arms desperate for an answer.
Btw I'm not sure if you use your student cards at your school library, but we do in our school and that did happen to me this week which was one of the reason that made my life miserable this week. Just an explanation if anybody's confused by that part. Anyway...
TBC and please review
