A/N Thank's to all those who continue to read this story. I'm glad it's still holding your interest. And please review if you're so inclined.
To Guest reviewer: I have to chuckle at your words (though not very nice of me) but a pen in the neck would hurt and bleed all over your desk, a lot, so here's another chapter.
Disclaimer: not mine, no money being made
Beta: Mike91848 who receives, saves, corrects and polishes. Thank you.
Any mistakes are mine
CINDERELLA Revisited
Chapter 26
Previously
"You couldn't have just called first?" Tony's words were caustic and challenging.
Anthony DiNozzo, Sr, stood in the kitchen doorway holding a briefcase and an overcoat over one arm. He silently contemplated his hostile welcome from the angry older man at the table and remembered his mother's stern warning; 'Anthony, remember this, what goes around, comes around double fold'. She had been right of course. Too bad he hadn't listened.
"Why upset a perfect record of arrogance and false opinionated view of one's self-importance?" Senior said this philosophically, wanting to truthfully define his faults as he saw them. When he wasn't thrown out, or even worse, asked to leave, he came further into the room and placed his overcoat over a chair and his briefcase on the floor next to it.
Tony had gone from mildly irritated at the imperious knock on the front door to full-blown rage at his perceived understanding of the man's comment. Jokes? Senior thought he could come in his house and make jokes? Tony just barely resisted the urge to get up and give the interloper a good working over, reduce him to a bloody pulp on his pristine kitchen floor, then see who had the last laughing joke. The damn bastard!
The urge was so strong that it made him nauseous. He excused himself to Gregor, got up from the table and left the room. "Be back in a minute." He made it to the bathroom in time to spew his breakfast into the toilet bowl, and spewed again and again, exacerbating his already sore stomach. To his disgust, the residual effects from his bout with his kidney infection and the antibiotics he still had to take made him more susceptible to upset stomach, nausea and vomiting.
When the spasm was finally over, he sat on the edge of the tub and took deep gulping breaths. He ran cold water into the sink and rubbed his hands together under the cool refreshing stream, sometimes cupping his hands with the liquid and splashing it in his face. He lambasted himself over and over for being so weak and letting this man reduce him to...this.
Back in the kitchen, Anthony DiNozzo, Sr sat in a chair at the table and rubbed his hand lightly over the smooth glass surface. He noted in passing the quality and oldness of the dinette set and recognized it as the one his mother had used in her bedroom as a writing and drawing table when he and his brother were children.
Senior had not missed the streak of violent intent towards him in Anthony's eyes and body language and wondered what the penalty would be if he dared to help himself to a cup of the excellent coffee he smelled.
"Tony hates you, grandfather." Greg broke the silence left by Tony's abrupt departure and Senior looked at his grandson's young face. Young face and young intellect, but sometimes an old mind in a young body.
"I know, Gregor, I know."
"Yep, that he does. His face get's this pinched, wrinkled look and his eyes get all squinty until his eyeballs disappear and his lips kind of shrink..."
"Gregor, enough. I know he hates me, he has every right to put a gun to my head and pull the trigger." Senior said this without trying to camouflage or to hide his culpability behind lies.
"I get it Grandfather that you've done some pretty bad things to Tony and I've managed to surmise some things but this family is so screwed up that it's hard to put it all together.
"There were so many lies and secrets from grandmama, ditto from Dad, and you, hell, I was Tony's twin brother from the way you ignored me. And not helping was grandmama's every other word consisting of, 'I hate your father's bitch and the bastard from her filthy loins', shitty crap she was always yapping about. So, I may not be entitled, but I want some answers anyway. I want to know why Tony hates you so much."
"First of all, stop using profanity as a fill in for common decent language, Gregor. It's crude and unappealing. But to answer your question, can I get away with, it's complicated?"
"Sorry, grandmama's influence. She was pretty foul mouthed. And complicated means nothing, I'm a genius grandfather, try me."
Just then Tony strode purposely back into the room, determined to kick ass. He went to the counter and the coffee pot where he got another mug from the cupboard rather than reusing his used one, which just happened to be still on the table next to Senior. He rudely didn't offer the man a cup. Tony leaned back against the counter and took a sip solely fixated on getting Greg sorted out and Senior out of his house as soon as yesterday. To that end, he dived into the subject immediately not even trying to be politically civil or demonstrate good manners.
"It seems Greg here has been left to his own devices and he's under the impression that he's free to do whatever he wants. What do you intend to do about it?"
"No need to take that tone, Anthony. I'm here to try and..."
"What tone would that be, 'Father'?" Tony goaded, the word father was said with such a bitter sneer it turned it into a filthy slur. "Remember, you're the one who barged into my home uninvited. Don't presume to dictate how I behave in it!"
"Very well, no harm intended." Senior said mildly, accepting the words as something he deserved. He had come a long way in acquiring self-control, and self-mockery was a heavy run-off. Who was he to chastise a man when he wasn't around to guide a boy? It took a great deal to get him heated up these days especially over his past mistakes, and he was determined no matter how provoked to accept his just desserts.
Senior reached down for his briefcase and extracted some papers.
"I found these papers in Angela's things, Gregor, you're school records, medical records, and your travel records. Senior paused briefly, "It seems you aren't as sick as Angela would have had us believe and for that, I am eternally grateful, Gregor. That is one good thing that has come out of all of this."
Senior bit back an overwhelming desire to hug his grandson to his bosom in a rare display of caring and love. But he figured now was not the time to change his modus operandi while a critically pissed off cop with a big gun primed and aimed at his heart took up an aggressive stance so as to not let his prey escape without doing it serious harm.
He couldn't help laughing inwardly at the dramatics. He was somewhat bitter but self- mockery was foremost in his thoughts when revelations of his foolhardiness, as his mother would have said, in his dealings with Anthony came non-stop. Coming out of the fog of alcoholism as it were revealed clearly things involving Anthony he would have preferred to be left a cloudy haze.
Senior sighed, enough indulging in retrospection and looking back on things that he couldn't change. His grandson first.
"It says here that you've been at The Italian Academy in Italy on an academic exchange program for advanced studies, and that you've already earned several degrees. So, unless you want to return, there's really no reason for you to go back there. There are several good Universities in the States that should accommodate your scholastic requirements. Do you have a preference?"
Both men stared at Gregorwho reached for his cold toast and started munching. When he swallowed his mouthful, instead of answering the question, he seemed to go off on a tangent.
"You know when grandmama dumped me over there three years ago and just left me, I thought I had done something terribly wrong especially when I didn't hear anything from anybody back home.
"So I was basically on my own and I couldn't make any friends because you know how grandmama spoiled me into thinking I was entitled to anything I wanted even if it belonged to somebody else and the other boys there didn't agree with her so they hated my guts and I was getting beat up and spat on all the time."
Gregor had finished the toast and started peeling a banana and taking a bite before he continued telling his engrossed audience a tale that disturbed at gut level and left Tony appalled at what could have been.
"After a while, I figured I was the most worthless kid and that's why nobody liked me and my family wanted nothing to do with me so I ran away, determined to commit suicide by laying down on the train tracks. Now this is how stupid that was because I made myself comfortable on that train track staring up at the stars all night and I even fell asleep but the train never came, some kind of stupid accident in the next town over. Isn't that hilarious? I couldn't even kill myself right. My crazy mother did a better job."
Gregor had both elbows on the table now. The half- eaten banana was discarded on the plate with the uneaten scrambled eggs, food forgotten as he glanced at the two other men in the room trying to gauge their reaction to his pathetic story.
"Geez, Greg! What ...?" Tony stopped, speechless. Greg's tale was so similar to his own. It seemed a despondent thirteen year old out of touch with family and reality trying to commit suicide was par for the course in this family.
Tony tried again to speak, to make some sense out of this. "What happened after that? Did you try to call home, get in touch with somebody?"
"Nope, I just went back to school and back to classes and nobody even knew or cared that I was missing that night and I hadn't carried any identification with me so no one would have recognized my mangled body once the train ran over me anyway."
"This is...this is just...that worthless, evil conniving bitch!" Tony slammed his hand down on the counter wishing it was her head he could smash instead.
"It wasn't bad enough she tried to make my life a living hell?" Tony yelled beyond righteous fury. He wanted her ass alive with every fiber of his being so he could shove her down the stairs and break her neck again and again on a continuous hellacious loop de loop theme park ride. He turned to the cause of all this misery.
"And where were you? Where in the hell were you, dammit?" Tony pointed an accusing finger at the older man still seated who didn't even attempt a defense. With an angry bellow, Tony picked up his coffee cup and threw it across the room where it shattered against the wall and dripped dark liquid in rivulets.
Disgusted, he turned away and faced the kitchen cabinets placing both hands on the counter, effectively turning his back on all that was Anthony DiNozzo, Senior; loser, father figure failure, feet of clay flawed and grandiose disappointment.
Senior was sickened and he had no defense. His excuse that he hadn't known was ludicrous. He should have known. He hadn't wanted to know though there had been many clues. That was the sad story of his life that would go on his tombstone, 'here lies the body of a total failure patriarch who died with his head in his ass'.
With that background, how could anything go well for anyone growing up with him for a father and the harmful evil that was Angela and the repulsive atmosphere she had fostered?
The first few years after he had stopped drinking Senior was beyond self-absorbed in getting himself together. Anton was no help with his son; he was a mama's boy through and through, her willing subject. And so Gregor was left to Angela's devices, her property, to do with as she pleased.
And she had been pleased to make the boy into a snotty, bratty, spoiled rotten replica Anton clone that Senior had been peripherally aware of and that he could conveniently block out the commotion that was Gregor by escaping to his office or den or library and close the door until the sound of his grandson's temper and presence went away.
Autistic, Angela said at first. Einstein-like genius that no one could understand but her was another option for his bad behavior and so on and so forth. Spoiled rotten brat was the general consensus of everyone else.
Senior didn't have any plausible answers for Tony to accept so he remained quiet which only acerbated Tony's vile mood.
"Why am I expecting an answer from you? You've been a damn useless source of fatherhood to me from the day I was born. It's like you said, and sounded so proud of, 'why upset a perfect record of arrogance and false opinionated view of your self-importance?'
"I got it. Maybe, though, if you thought of someone other than yourself that would have made you into a better human being and father figure to Gregor than you ever were to me, and given you some redeeming points to call on when you die and are rotting in hell where you belong."
DiNozzo Senior was not trying to be a doormat when he nodded at Anthony's harsh words because really that wasn't his nature. He could and had been a ruthless SOB, you couldn't run a successful business and be a soft wooly foot warmer, but his son's words were nothing but the truth.
He looked away from the defiant glare that was his eldest son to Gregor, who perhaps there was still time to redeem himself to, as Anthony so aptly put it, crawl one step up from the bottom of hades. And the first order of business was getting the boy taken care of.
"Gregor, Estelle and I were worried about you after you disappeared the other night. We tracked down the cab driver who took you to the hospital to see Anthony, and the one who brought you here, and Gregor, it would have saved us a lot of unnecessary worry if you had been kind enough to leave a note." Senior said in mild reprimand.
"I'm sorry grandfather."
"Thank you for that, Gregor." And Tony wondered again where the feral snarl and snapping bared teeth had vanished to, the sum of all he had ever gotten from this man.
Senior put the papers back in his briefcase and snapped it closed.
"It's up to you what you want to do now, no one is going to try to force you to go away to school if you don't want to, though you will have to go to school until you're of age, be it boarding school or a university here. There are options, you just tell us what you want and if it's reasonable, well then it's done." And he reached over to rough up the spiky blond strands that was Greg's latest hairstyle, and chuck him under the chin playfully.
And to Tony's utmost horrifying chagrin and humiliating jealous weakness, a solitary tear formed in the corner of his eye that thankfully didn't fall, at watching something he had coveted during all his growing up years that he never got even a smitten of, the concept of fatherly love.
Ruthlessly, Tony buckled down his useless stupid emotions and stood up straight. He wasn't a baby anymore needing daddy's held-back love. Fuck that. He was a grown up man and had moved on from that need.
"You know my work schedule, Gregor, and I don't want you to be on your own without some kind of supervision but you're more than welcome to stay here until you decide what school you want to finish up in. But like your grandfather said, not going to school is not an option, okay? Think about it."
"I'd like to stay here while I look into it, if that's alright, grandfather." There was such innate sincere goodness in Gregor that Angela had not been able to degrade or corrupt, just like with Steve. They had both survived a tyrannical Angela, not totally unscathed, no, but certainly nothing like her and the demons that possessed her.
At a nod from his grandfather, Gregor turned to Tony with a tentative smile, wanting to be sure of his welcome.
"If that's okay, Tony? You're still getting your friends together for the jazz jam here, right? Cause I know I'm better at tickling those keys than you'll ever be, man."
Tony rubbed his hand over his stubble, not having shaved yet this morning. He had things to do today and it was time Senior unglued his ass from that chair and vamoosed.
"Yeah, bonehead, isn't that what I said? You think you're good but you haven't heard the real artist in this family yet."
Their familiar ongoing competitive but safe rivalry was a distraction to the elephant in the room until Senior opened his mouth.
"If you need any money for his care and..."
"I don't need any money from you, or anything really, so it appears that our business is complete. Gregor, please show your grandfather to the door." Tony started to walk out of the kitchen but turned back for a few last parting words.
"I'd appreciate it if you not come back here again unless invited which I can assure you an invite will not be forthcoming. The telephone is your friend, use it man!"
Tony left the kitchen with old feelings and hurts anchored in place around his heart and did not look back.
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Tony returned to the office the next Monday. So far, the morning had been quiet. Gibbs was in MTAC in lieu of Vance who had taken the morning off.
"Congratulations, Tony." At his inquiring look Ziva got up from her desk and walked with purpose over to his.
"On your promotion. I forced Tim to tell me about it so do not blame him for leaking your secret."
If she expected him to get angry with Tim he showed no inclination to do so or get upset at how easy it was for her to manipulate his second in command.
"No, not at all, Ziva. I trust Tim's judgment and he told me he felt it had been the right time. Besides, it's less a secret than circumstances, and decisions on Director Vance's part and mine as well."
She didn't look happy for him and he guessed it was for the same reasons she'd already expressed, her opinion of his lack of leadership abilities and qualifications, and her failed attempt to control him. Too bad. He faced the fact that just like with Abby things had changed in his and Ziva's relationship. Unlike with Abby where reconciliation was their goal, Ziva would not be satisfied until she was in charge.
That time when Gibbs had taken his sabbatical in Mexico was eye opening now that he had time and years to think about it. He understood what had driven her and to a lesser degree, Tim McGee. Ambition and ego had her challenging him even after Gibbs had returned. But on that case with the teenager with a bomb strapped to his chest at the high school with a room full of students, his solution had saved many lives.
It had been a wonder he could think at all with both Ziva and Director Shepherd working in tandem to undermine his decisions and plans, and his confidence, until he was so fed up he had thrown his phone and his timidity at the wall and plowed ahead with instinct and inspiration, even if it did come from a movie, to success and the liberation of those children and the capture of the terrorists. Ziva had acted like it was a lucky fluke though Tim's attitude had started to change towards him after that.
Tony didn't know what her plans were after he left the team but he wished her all the best in the world. Gibbs hadn't said what her position would be but his bet wasn't on the SFA position if that was her expectation. Maybe she would be satisfied with someone like Stan Burly who she seemed to like. And the new probies might satisfy her need to be the boss of something.
Tony's phone rang which sent Ziva back to her chair and the cold case they were working on. He and Tim went to pick up evidence in storage and then to check out the apartment where the woman of their cold case had been murdered, because Tony had a hunch.
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With the background crescendo blaring music of the afternoon soap opera, the landlady loudly bemoaned the continued vacancy of the apartment; even after several years people rented but didn't stay long. This time, the place had been vacant for three months.
The stereotypically wire-curlers coiffeur, house dress and slippers, middle-aged woman shrewdly assessed the two handsome, tall men at her door. Stereotypically repeating in her head the television truism that every unattached handsome man is either married or gay, and completely ignoring the warrant thrust at her by McGee, she formed her own erroneous conclusion.
"I'd be more than happy to take ten percent off the monthly rent if you two boys wanted to rent the place as a couple."
"Uh, we don't want to rent as a couple Mrs Snyder, we just need to reexamine the apartment and check out the bedroom, ah ..." McGee stopped at Tony's incredulous glare and not so discrete shove.
Mrs Snyder removed the lit cigarette from the side of her mouth and blew smoke in Tim's face with a sly grin while pointing her eyes at Tony.
"He the shy one, huh?" Her smoker's hoarse voice rattled their eardrums as she laughed harshly and coughed a heavy phlegm sounding noise before inserting the key in the apartment door and parking her carcass in their way.
"Look boys, you can't beat the house or fool a fooler. And anyways, there's nothing to be ashamed of..."
"Lady, get out of the way! We're Federal Agents, not a gay couple seeking asylum in this dump...uh, domicile. Thank you, excuse us...take your foot out of the door."
Tony awkwardly danced a shuffle two-step with the woman while trying to avoid her lit cigarette before finally getting her outside and slamming the door closed on the frumpy indignant know-it-all busybody, only to find a royally smirking Tim who had only pretended to misunderstand her.
"Very funny. Next time, you can deal with Will Ferrel's grown up landlady Pearl. Now get to work."
Disgruntled Tony and smirking McGee searched the empty apartment, banging on walls and jumping on floors. "Tony, there just isn't anything here. It was a good hunch but..."
"Hold on, hold on, McDoubtful. What's this? Tony ran his hand up and down the inside window wall in the kitchen just above the sill where he could feel a slight imperfection in the wall. He used his pocket knife to chip away at the peeling paint, scraping the knife up and down until very fine demarcation lines appeared in the wall.
Tony continued scraping then dug the tip of the knife between the wall and the line and wiggled the knife and slowly, the wall began to move. Someone had very cleverly dug out the plywood and then made a box of the same material approximately 3 inches across, 21 inches long and 6 inches deep. The box was shaped like a safe deposit box standing up. After more prodding the box slid out and using plastic gloves, Tony pulled out the handgun hidden in there, and a worn pair of leather gloves.
"Bingo!" Tony chortled triumphantly as he placed the gun back in the box. McGee held a plastic bag open and Tony slipped the whole box inside.
"Okay, I'm impressed. How, DiNozzo? How did you figure it out?"
"First bow to my greatness, McGee." Kidded Tony as he set the sack of evidence on the floor and started examining the rest of the windows he had missed. With McGee following his example, they finished the task quickly with no other hiding places found.
"Okay, let's look at the facts. The husband called 911 and said he and his wife were shot and the perp got away. Neighbors heard the shots and also called 911. Police arrived within 10 minutes of the calls. The M.E. confirmed the wife was very recently deceased, approximately one hour. The husband had a superficial arm wound.
"It was too pat. Nobody believed him. He was a stay at home jobless husband who gambled and was a violent alcoholic who drank her money away. That's why they lived in this rat-hole and she wanted out. She told her best friend the next time she came home on leave, she was filing for divorce. He loudly threatened to kill her if she tried to leave him."
McGee was still not getting it. "Yeah, so? I read the report. The police were there within minutes. There's no way he could have gotten rid of a gun that fast if he had shot her and they looked for a weapon before turning the case over to NCIS, plus his hands were free of gunshot residue. Pacci's team couldn't find a weapon either and you know how thorough he was."
Tim carried the evidence while Tony closed and locked the door with the key the landlady had left. They headed for her apartment/office to see if their suspect had left a forwarding address that still might be his current address years after he had gotten away with murder, and to return the key.
"Remember, the report said besides drinking and gambling, the man liked to carve novelty items with his hands, small, intricate items made out of wood or clay?"
"Yeah, he sold them at flea markets and such, again, so?"
"Eliot Ness." Tim stared at him blankly with a 'please get to the point' Gibbs grimace.
"The television series not the Movie. The gangster got away with murder because the police couldn't find the knife and he didn't have enough time to hide it. Well, he was an excellent carpenter and had carved a hole in the wall behind the refrigerator, low down next to the floor and disguised it so well it just looked like a crummy wall. The hole was found when they did some renovating and voila...there was the knife. See?"
"Sorta."
"McGee! The man had a minute, tiny, minuscule amount of plaster and paint on his clothes. Said he had been painting one of his figurines the day before and had fallen asleep in his clothes. They couldn't prove otherwise and he went free, got it now?"
"He shot her, shot himself then while he was on the phone hid the gun and the gloves. No gunpowder residue, no gun, no evidence." Tim concluded correctly.
They had reached the office and Mrs Snyder, who told them that she didn't have a forwarding address for the suspected murderer. Tony practically threw the key at her as they backed away from her door, and her unpleasant cloyingness. "Did you fellows change your minds because..."
Back in the car, Tim contacted Ziva to tell her they had found the gun and to start a search for the missing suspect. He hung up and looked uncomfortably out the window.
"She putting me down again, McToosensitive? Finding the gun was not brain power but a brainless fluke? Ignore her, Tim. She's a sore loser, can't be helped."
Tim gave him a dirty look for the too long stupid name but then just shrugged and said no more. When they got back to the office, Gibbs was back and Ziva had found the suspect's work location. "Good work, DiNozzo, good thinking." Was all Gibbs had to say as they left the office to pick up the suspect murderer but it was enough said. Ziva never looked at him once. The suspect gave up without a fight. He had been hiding in plain sight for years and had mellowed. He seemed happy the charade was over and regretted killing his wife. She hadn't deserved it.
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Ziva David had still not had a chance to talk to Gibbs about the SFA position what with their work schedule and Gibbs disappearances throughout the day. So she drove to Gibbs' house that evening determined to put in her bid.
'Damn!' Tony's car was parked in Gibbs' driveway, what to do? He was probably there to get another pat on the back that he had been getting all day from his contemporaries and co-workers for the surprising piece of luck that had made him into a hero today.
That did not sound right. She could admit to herself that he had done a good job and give credit where credit was overdue. Regardless, he would just have to leave, she needed to talk to Gibbs and that was certainly more important than whatever frivolity Tony was getting into there.
Ziva parked and entered Gibbs' house through the unlocked front door. Surprisingly, she heard voices coming from the front room, not the basement, and one of the voices was deep but feminine. Tony and his giant bimbo whore...Tony and his girlfriend Margret were sitting cozily on the sofa with Tony's arm around her as she leaned back against his chest.Gibbs was leaning forward in his overstuffed chair with a paper plate with pizza crust on the floor at his feet. He had changed into worn jeans and tee shirt while Tony was still in his suit but had removed his jacket and tie, and rolled up his shirt sleeves.
A blond teenager was sitting on the floor in front of Gibbs scarfing down a slice of pizza while Gibbs' showed him something with a knife and a piece of wood. Tony and Gibbs had bottles of beer while the teenager drank from his soda can and the slut… and Margret had a bottle of water.
How cozy, thought Ziva's green-eyed monster who Ziva could not get to shut up.
They all looked up when she came in but she only addressed Gibbs.
"Gibbs, I am sorry to intrude. Shall I come back another time?" Surely he would not send her away.
Gibbs was silent as though waiting for Tony to decide and answer her. Tony stood up immediately still chewing while encouraging Margret to remain seated, and started gathering the detritus. Gregor followed suit and stuffed half a slice of pizza in his mouth before grabbing the empty soda cans and beer bottles.
Ziva saw Margret give her the evil eye, but she ignored her royal highness as she sat like a queen while her minions stepped over her long giraffe limbs and did all the cleanup work.
Ziva remembered part of a quote coined by Shakespeare that her mother for some reason thought applied to her. Oh! Beware, milady, of jealousy. She was not jealous she argued with herself.
On the other hand, Tony, being a paragon of gentlemanly conduct and chivalry personified, kowtowed to Ziva's rudeness and interruption of their dinner by gracefully bowing out.
"No need, Ziva, we were just finishing up. Hey, I don't think the two of you have met. Ziva, my nephew, Gregor, Gregor this is Ziva, we work together, both agents along with Tim on Gibbs' team. And Ziva you already know Margret."
"Hi."
Ziva noted the absence of the word partner and felt saddened. She finally remembered her manners and was slightly embarrassed at her rudeness, pushing her way in, disturbing their dinner and making them leave. She allowed some warmth to appear in her face and voice. "I am so happy to meet you, Gregor and that you are well."
"Thank you, ma'am."
The clean-up was quick and efficient. Tony quickly seized the rest of their meal in a box and the two DiNozzo's and Margret headed toward the door and out in record time.
"Sit, Ziva. What's on your mind?" Ziva sat up straight on the sofa across from Gibbs.
"I am ashamed, Gibbs. I do have better manners than that but I was so anxious to talk to you. I will apologize to Tony when I see him next."
When he made no comment she again tried to fill the silence. "Tony seems to have bonded well with his nephew. Is he going to be staying with Tony...?"
"Ziva, no more small talk. What's going on?"
"Very well. I will not thrash the bush, Gibbs. I do not want to come across as too brash but I felt I must stake my claim now. So, I have already applied for the SFA position on paper but I would appreciate a preliminary interview with you now. I believe my credentials speak for themselves and my experience in Mossad. There are also my years working with the team.
"I have faced up to the fact that my behavior with Tony as far as following his leadership was less than stellar. One of the reasons is that in the beginning he led me to believe that we were...that there would be a relationship between the two of us when we were both ready. It seems that he had moved on and I had become stagnant in my assumptions, and I acted out as a result.
"Another reason for my lack of protocol in following the chain of command with Tony as the SFA is that in all honesty, most of the time it felt as though I was required to take orders from a nursery school inmate.
"But, Gibbs, that is all liquid under the viaduct. I am ready to move on. As your SFA, I will be able to help in teaching any probies your methods and your way of handling a case because of my familiarity working with you over a period of time."
Ziva had stated her case to a silently listening Gibbs but he had been scribbling mental notes in his head. He had also gone over the updated job description for the position of Senior Field Agent at work. And most importantly, he had his still reliable gut churning.
He noted Ziva seemed confident and assured, almost entitled although that could be from trying to submerge her anxiety and nervousness. Possibly. She did have many admirable attributes including determination, steadfastness, and loyalty, but also, there were excuses to justify her actions and pointing blame on others to direct attention away from her. And that bit about being led on by DiNozzo...obviously she thought she was talking to one of those child inmates she had accused Tony of being, or she had just underestimated his observational skills if she thought he believed that crap.
Her problem with DiNozzo stemmed from a bigger issue; inflexibility and inability to learn or change plus unwillingness to listen or obey a superior officer which is something that must had been ingrained in her even from childhood by her father Eli David, and then Mossad.
It always boiled down to her inability to listen to someone else other than him. And he could understand that because it was hard for him also but he was a marine through and through. Chain of command was vital. Ziva was a good officer, a good fighter but she did not have the natural ability to lead, and she was too set in her ways to change.
And one other very important requirement was the concept, though overused and abused in this day and age, of thinking outside the box. Ziva did not have that ability. Bred out of her by Mossad's strict code of following an order, she was too rigid, too dogmatic.
DiNozzo had solved a year's old murder today because his imagination saw something different than the rest of them had seen. There was no guaranty that Gibbs next SFA would have that particular ability but he knew that Ziva did not have it.
All of that went through Gibbs' mind as he sat with a beer in hand and listened. Now how to tell Ziva that his decision had already been made even before she approached the subject? There was also the matter of the recent disciplinary action in her file. There had to be a period of at least one year after that negative report for a promotion to even be considered. Did Ziva think the negative report was filed and then forgotten with no unfavorable results for her future with NCIS?
Although it hadn't been that long since she had stopped speaking, it seemed his answer was long in coming. She sat patiently and refused to fidget as she waited to hear her future.
Ncisncisncisncis. Ncisncisncisncis. Ncisncisncisncis
Ziva was nothing if not pragmatic. No promotion for at least a year to offset the bad report, learning to be a team player, learning the chain of command and its importance, don't screw over your partner...she was sure all of the rules he quoted had numbers but not important enough in the grand scale of things to matter to her to learn them.
Utmost, he had emphasized, whoever was chosen as SFA, that person would be her superior officer. If she made the willful mistake of trying to override him or her, disciplinary action in the form of immediate employment termination would result.
So. Tail between her legs so to speak she left Gibbs house having been taken down a peg in her grand assumption of her self- worth. Her giant sequoia dreams reduced to a scraggly dessert-bush tumbleweed. Never let it be said that Gibbs was a functional mute. He was quite capable and more than adroit at using speech, and had gotten his points across quite well.
She was not even that disappointed on a scale of one to ten, five stood out as a good indicator of how she was feeling. A little numb, somewhat humbled and the most difficult part after it had been brought firmly to her attention, there wasn't a better model to follow in investigative work, and acknowledging to herself that Tony just might be better at what they did than she was.
Somewhat relieved that she could now stop stressing about something that had been taken well out of her hands, she decided to go home set out some candles, a glass of wine, lavender bubbles and a warm bath. Tomorrow was another day.