Recap: Saturday, 31st October 2009. Halloween. (Including spoilers for Code of Conduct !)

~ Random Factory ~

Palmer was on his way from Abby's lab to Autopsy when he forgot to press the right button and the elevator went to the floor of the Bullpen. As the doors opened he was greeted by Ziva, who had waited impatiently in front of the silver doors.

"Uh, hi Ziva." Perplexed to see her standing there, he gave her a smile nonetheless.

The little girl grinned at the young man, "Shalom!"

"Where are you going?" Palmer asked, shifting the heavy tank in his arms.

Ziva shrugged nonchalant, "Dunno."

"What 'is?" she pointed at the steel container.

The future M.E. looked momentarily confused, "Oh, this is liquid nitrogen. It makes things freeze like ice, instantly."

Mini-Ziva's eyes dilated, a devilish glint in them. "Rweally?"

"I was going to do some test with it," he paused for a moment, "You want to help me try it out?"

"Yay!"

Palmer couldn't help but to laugh as the little girl jumped up and down in excitement, smiling wholeheartedly as she did so. Right then she remembered him a lot of Abby, when the goth found something interesting to work and play with.

"Okay," he tried to calm Ziva down a bit, "But we need to be very careful, 'cause its very dangerous to play with it. You can't touch it or get too close to it. I don't want you getting hurt. Alright?"

The little girl bobbed her head, still smiling brightly.

"Well, then come. We need to go to autopsy." He was about to press the button for Autopsy when he noticed that Mini-Ziva still stood outside of the silver car, suddenly looking frightened.

"'ibbs say no..."

Palmer looked puzzled, "He said you can't go there?"

"Uh huh." Sad, Ziva looked at the floor, disappointed not to be able to go with Jimmy.

"Oh, there are no dead bodies," Palmer babbled without thought, his eyes widening as he realized what he had just said.

Mini-Ziva cocked her head to the side and regarded him. She frowned slightly.

"Uhm, I mean... I'm sure Gibbs won't mind as long as someone else is with you."

As Ziva still didn't looked convinced, he elaborated, "I'll take all the blame for it, if he finds us. Okay?"

Her expression brightened. Happy with the suggestion, she grinned widely at him, "O'tay!"

An hour later they were ready to start with their little experiments. While Palmer had his normal work clothes on, along with safety gloves and helmet, Mini-Ziva wore a scrubs top over her clothes and the adult sized gloves made her look smaller than normal.

Even though Palmer had managed to diminish the head support of the helmet to a size that fit Ziva, with the help of having Jimmy's wool hat on, the headgear itself still looked way too big for the little girl.

Through the visor of her headgear Ziva grinned at Palmer. Since she wasn't able to see much while just sitting on a stool, he had let her sit on the removable plates of the autopsy table. Now she had the perfect view on everything they would do and the room itself.

Meanwhile Palmer silently kept wondering what Gibbs' would do to him, if he found her there. He seriously hoped that neither Gibbs nor Dr. Mallard would show up before they were finished.

Although he had the suspicion that the team leader would be told about this by Ziva anyway.

"Might enjoy it as long as it last," thought Palmer.

The little girl watched closely as Jimmy prepared a bowl in which the liquid nitrogen would be placed. Her eyes widened as he filled the bowl, causing smoke to come up. Ziva crinkled her nose, the stuff Palmer had filled into the bowl looked like water, but water shouldn't do that.

As if he was reading her thoughts, Palmer started to explain a bit to her, knowing that she wouldn't understand all of it just yet, "I know it looks like water, but it's actually another substance called liquid nitrogen. 'Cause it's so cold, it boils when coming into contact with warmer substances, like the bowl. But ones the bowl is as cold as the liquid nitrogen the boiling stops, like right now." He pointed to the bowl where the liquid was slowly quieting down. "And if too much of this liquid nitrogen comes into contact of skin for too long, it can leave bad 'burns' behind."

Mini-Ziva pulled her hands a bit more to herself, "No good."

"No it's not," he smiled, "Let's begin, okay?"

The little girl nodded eagerly.

Palmer grinned, "What should we put into it first?"

Mini-Ziva's eyes swept across the table, "'is!" She pointed to a white rose which she had gotten from the Director's office on their hunt of things to put into the liquid nitrogen.

"Alright," Palmer picked the flower of the table and regarded it, "Where did you got it from?" Since they had separated for a short time on their 'hunt', he was left clueless of where some things on the table came from.

"Wanz," Ziva grinned at him, causing the young man to cough, "Really? He gave you a rose?" He really hoped that she hadn't just taken it.

The little girl shook her head, "No he. She!" Ziva gave him a toothy smile upon which he immediately knew that she more than likely had used the same smile on the person who gave her the flower.

The rose audible crackled as Jimmy carefully dumped the head into the liquid nitrogen. After a few seconds he pulled it out, "And now open your hand."

Ziva frowned and vigorously shook her head.

"I promise nothing's gonna happen to you. I just want to show you the effect of the liquid nitrogen on the rose."

The small child regarded him but eventually she bravely held her hand out. Jimmy carefully placed the head of the rose into her hand.

"Now you can crush it."

"Crush?"

"Yea, like this," he showed her what he meant with his own hand.

With the glove hindering her actions, Mini-Ziva had trouble to copy his action, but as she opened her hand again, after having successfully made a fist, the palm of the glove was sprinkled with tiny white pieces.

Ziva's mouth gaped open a bit.

"That's cool, huh?"

The little girl nodded, but then looked at the remains of the rose, somewhat sad to see it destroyed.

Palmer followed her line of sight, "There will be other roses," he smiled at her, "Let's continue with the glove."

He took a normal disposable glove and stretched it slightly before blowing air into it. Mini-Ziva giggled at the sight of the fully blown up glove.

"Now watch," Palmer's eyes glinted in excitement, "This is one of my favorite tricks." He cautiously took the tongs and held the glove into the substance with it.

"'li'l!e!" Ziva exclaimed surprised as the glove got smaller and smaller.

"Yep, and now," Palmer held it back up and the glove immediately started to grow back to its original form, "It's like it was before!"

Ziva blinked at the glove, "Big?" She frowned, wanting to know the secret behind it.

"Well, when you blow a balloon up, you blow your breath into it. And the breath into the balloon shrinks as it gets colder. So the mass itself gets smaller, causing the balloon to get smaller too. And when I have held the balloon back up in the air, the air in it extended again, and the balloon grow."

Mini-Ziva made a face, deep in thought but then grinned at him and nodded.

"Okay, what can we do next..."

"Mr. Palmer!"

Startled, Jimmy and Ziva turned to the door, right next to the morgue refrigerators.

"Ducky!" Unfazed by Jimmy's suddenly nervous behavior she grinned widely at the older man, who slowly approached them.

"Ziva, my dear. Is that you?" He chuckled slightly at the sight of her wearing much too big pretection gear.

"Uh huh!"

"Dr. Mallard we were just..." Palmer cursed inwardly. He hadn't thought the sentence through.

"You were only showing Ziva the wonders of liquid nitrogen?" Ducky offered with a small smile on his lips.

"Uhm.. yes..."

"And I'm sure you'll clean this mess up, too." He looked pointedly at the pieces of crunched rose leaves.

"Of course, Dr.."

"Good," Ducky turned to Ziva, carefully removing the much to big helmet, "I'm sorry my dear, but Mr. Palmer and myself need to work now. I'm sure you two can finish your experiments later though."

Mini-Ziva's face fell slightly, "O'tay." She sighed.

"I'll think of something really cool to try out next time," Jimmy promised as he helped her off the table and crouched down in front of her.

Ziva nodded and used the adjustment in height to hug him, "Toda."

"You're welcome." A bit awkward he returned the hug before helping her out of the remaining protection gear.

(Bullpen – Later)

The team was bickering when Gibbs swiftly walked into the bullpen. In his hands were five orange cups. Without a word he handed Tony one.

"You brought us coffee?" The teen asked frowning, trying to decipher what was in the cup as he smelled at it.

"Nope." Gibbs handed his newest team members each a cup before giving one to McGee.

McGee sniffed at his cup, "It's apple cider."

"Yap." Gibbs walked over to where Ziva was playing and gave her the fifth cup, ruffling her hair before he walked to his desk, sitting down, "Happy Halloween."

Although the moment was very short-lived as Gibbs rose again, "Break's over."

A few minutes later the team leader had sent Agent Peters and Thompson out to question Rodgers, leaving him alone with his 'original' team. Except one.

"Where's Ziva?" McGee frowned at the empty spot next to Gibbs' desk.

Gibbs, who had been looking over Tony's shoulder to observe his shrunken agent's work for a while, peered over the desks and shrugged, "Must have gotten bored." He wasn't too worried about her running off again. By now nearly every employee knew who she and Tony were. And no one would let Mini-Ziva leave the building on her own or without at least one of the team being with her.

(Abby's lab)

Abby whirled around as the stuff, which the team confiscated from Corporal Corby's garage, sprung to life.

"Hey Zee!"

Mini-Ziva had stopped dead in her tracks and warily looked around.

"Come here, but move slowly." Abby grinned.

The little girl tiptoed to where Abby was standing. "What 'is?" She knitted her eyebrows at the new equipment around them.

"That's stuff people hang up as decoration for Halloween." The goth grinned, "You'll see much more on tonight's trick or treating."

Ziva frowned.

"Not so piled up in one place, though. This belongs to a case the team's working on." Now, Abby frowned too.

The little girl grinned at her, "Me look?"

"Sure. Go an..." Abby was harshly interrupted by her phone. Without having time to greet whoever was at the other end, she was immediately confronted with questions.

"Yes, she's here..." Abby cast a glance at Ziva, who stood in front of the reindeer head, looking at it in wonder.

"Alright. Yes, Gibbs," she rolled her eyes, "No I'm not... Okay I was... I'll make sure that she gets some sleep. Yes..."

Mini-Ziva having gotten bored with the reindeer, had walked over to the ghost. It howled loudly as she stepped near it. Intrigued, Ziva took the edges of the ghost' arms in her hands, lightly lifting the it off the table. Abby grinned from ear to ear as she watched her shrunken friend.

(Meanwhile Bullpen)

"McGoblin..."

"What now Tony..." Annoyed McGee regarded his partner with a dark expression. The younger man had called out to him numerous times, just to ask him silly questions or to throw a ball right next to his head.

"Can you fix this?" Tony motioned to the computer he was working on.

McGee sighed and went over to him, "What have you done to it?"

"Nothing!"

"Looks like you have," mumbled the agent, "We'll need to restart the computer. Then everything should work normal." He pressed the reset button on the computer tower.

"Wait! What about the file I was working on? I haven't saved that!"

McGee smirked, "As much as I would like to see you redo the work all over again, the program is set up to save automatically every few minutes."

Tony breathed a sigh of relief, "Thanks McGee."

"If you stop annoying me for the rest of the day, I'll say no problem..."

"That bad?"

"No, worse," McGee deadpanned.

"Sorry... Or no... Gibbs has a rule against it..." Tony rambled uncharacteristically, trying to come up with a different answer.

"Don't bother, I accept." McGee smugly told him, walking back to his own desk.

(Lab)

"Hey Abby." Gibbs greeted as he briskly walked into the lab.

Abby turned around from where she worked on her computer, grinning as every piece of the Halloween decoration sprung to life.

Gibbs looked first at the toys and then at Abby and back at the wide variety of prank equipment. A questioning look on his face.

"Welcome to the random factory, Gibbs." Abby greeted him cheerfully, "Most of Corby's prank stuff is motions sensor activated. So intelligated chance to process it all. You should move very slowwwlllly," she advised drawling.

With a last glance at the ghost on Abby's lab table, Gibbs carefully closed the gap between them.

He looked at her, "No costume this year, Abs?"

"Oh," she pulled a grimace, "After last years Jonas Brother debacle, Vance banned costumes. McGee, skinny jeans," she shook her head, still grimacing, "Didn't work."

The team leader smirked at hearing this, "And what are you still doing up?" He looked expectantly at Mini-Ziva, who sat next to the computer keyboard, happily slurping a NoCaf-Pow.

The little girl shrugged barely visible and gave him a wide smile. He turned back to Abby

"I know Gibbs! But what I'm supposed to do if she's not tired..." She tried her best hangdog look on him.

The team leader shook his head and instead of replying, he picked Ziva up and carried her to Abby's private office. Abby could hear the little girl's squeals of protest till they suddenly stopped and Gibbs reappeared not long afterward.

"Uh.. what did you do?" She looked uncertain in direction of her office.

"No sleep, no trick or treat," Gibbs smirked, "What ya got?" He looked expectantly at her.

Abby turned back to her computer, "A car," she activate a video file, "At the scene of the crime. It's only glimpse, but the time stance indicate that it was taken around the time of death." She turned to Gibbs, "Eleven thirty pm."

~ Fin ~