Recap: Monday, 2nd November 2009. Two days after Halloween. (Including spoilers for Code of Conduct !)

~ Army of Gummy bears ~

When McGee entered the Bullpen he was greeted by Mini-Ziva, who was the only one present that time.

"Shalom McGee!" She cheerfully greeted him as she looked up from Gibbs' desk, where she had been quietly coloring since arriving with Gibbs an hour ago.

The agent came to an halt, right in front of the desk, "Morning Ziva. No preschool today?" After all it was Monday, usually meaning preschool time for her.

"No! Me stay up late!"

"Ah, I see," McGee grinned, "How was trick or treating?"

"Fun! Me lots of sweets! Here!" With a big grin she handed him a coffee cup from the tray next to her.

"Mhm, thank you." McGee smiled and walked back to his desk before taking a sip of his freshly acquired coffee. Getting comfy on his chair, he made an approving noise as the hot liquid trailed down his throat. McGee then set the cup aside and tapped on his keyboard, only to discover that nothing was happening.

"My keyboard is not working..." As he said this, his keyboard already started to get a life of itself and McGee swiftly jumped to his feet in order to avoid the foam which was coming out of his keyboard, uttering an "Abby..." as he did so.

Across from him Ziva's eyes had gone wide before she started to laugh happily. She had seen Abby replace the keyboard and had been asked not to tell McGee about it, 'cause it would be fun to watch his reaction. And it was. A lot.

"I love Halloween." Tony came waltzing into the bullpen, dropping his bag next to his appointed desk.

"Good morning to you, too," McGee replied to his absence of a greeting, "I fear the answer, but why?"

Instead of answering Tony just gave him a sly smile.

"Tony?"

The teenager broke the eye contact with McGee and turned his attention to Ziva, grinning madly at her. "Yes, my little bug?"

Mini-Ziva frowned at the 'little' but remembered Gibbs telling her that Tony just did it cause he liked to tease her, so she let it drop and concentrated on her mission instead, "Here."

She carefully had extracted the cup with the small x on it's exterior and now handed it to Tony, who took it with a wide smile. "Thanks."

With the utmost concentration Ziva watched as Tony completed the last stage of Gibbs' and her plan. After the teen had pranked them the day before, Ziva had only been too happy to help Gibbs to get payback for it.

~ Flashback ~

Ziva and Gibbs had just returned, after they had brought Max and Daniel home, when the little girl sauntered into the agent's bedroom. All the drive home she had bugged Gibbs about being allowed to eat some of her sweets. With her friends visiting over Halloween, she had barely thought about the sweet treats, but once she had said goodbye to Max and Daniyel, her curiosity had taken over and she wanted to taste the different sweets as soon as possible. Luckily, Gibbs was more or less easy to convince and told her where to find them.

However, as she now stood in front of the dresser she could neither see the plush candy bucket nor the plastic bag, where the rest of her candy was held in.

Mini-Ziva frowned and decided to take another look around.

Gibbs walked down the basement stairs and over to his work desk. His little agent had quizzed him about how and where and when she could have or see her sweets. Needless to say her constant questioning had irritated him. But thankful it could easily be cured with spending some quality time in his basement, on his own, sorting out his tools, while Mini-Ziva busied herself with her candy.

Gibbs took his jacket off, threw it over the workbench and reached his arm out to grab the sander - which wasn't there and which he soon found to be missing at all as his hand blindly swiped at the place where his sandblock should have been. He looked at the blank area and frowned before looking for his chisel, which wasn't there either.

His suspicions that something wasn't quite right was soon proved correct as Ziva's voice floated down the stairs.

"'ibbs?"

With a sigh he paused in his search and swiftly made his way upstairs. Briefly stopping midway as he caught sight of Mini-Ziva's troubled expression.

"What is it, Ziv?" He gently asked her as he knelt in front of her.

"No sweets," she looked sadly at him, wrapping her small arms around his neck a moment later.

"I'm sure they are somewhere," Gibbs reassured his little agent as he stood up again, with Ziva securely held in his arms. "Let's take another look, okay?"

"O'tay..."

"See..."

"That's strange," muttered Gibbs as he stood in his bedroom. He had checked every closet and drawer, finding no traces of the Halloween loot.

"Where they are?" Ziva mumbled against his shirt, having laid her head against his shoulder once it was clear to her that there were no sweets in the room.

"Not sure, but we'll find out."

Gibbs kissed the top of her head, before walking downstairs. He had a suspicion who was behind the missing candy AND his missing tools. Although, since the culprit in question was out at the moment, he couldn't do much about it right now. In order to allow his shrunken senior field agent some sense of privacy, Tony was allowed to lock his room – which he did every time he was out.

"How about some chocolate pancakes for dinner?"

"Rweally?" Ziva regarded him with wide eyes. Gibbs never had allowed her to eat something like that in the evening. He always told her it would keep her awake way past her bedtime, which would make standing up in the morning very painfully.

"Hadn't said it if I didn't meant it," he gave her a small wink which caused her to squeal.

"Yay!"

This was way better than the two sweets the agent had aloud her to eat.

(Later – Kitchen)

"Ziv," he paused momentarily and looked at the small girl, who stood next to him on a chair. A bowl of freshly made pancake dough in front of her. "I think I found your sweets."

Mini-Ziva furrowed her little eyebrows, "Where?"

With a grin Gibbs pointed at the top of one of the wall cupboard.

"How?" Stunned, Ziva cocked her head to the side.

"Oh I think I've an pretty good idea, who put them there..." Stretching himself slightly he got the bag and bucket down. The agent grinned to himself as he discovered his missing tools right behind the sweets, sitting close to the wall.

Gibbs decided that he would get them down later on. If he did now he would be forced to explain them to Ziva and why and where he used them, since he still hadn't told her about what he was doing in the basement and she still hadn't dared to go down there herself to take a look.

"Me have?" Ziva asked innocently as she peeked into the plush candy bucket.

Gibbs laughed, "Tomorrow, today the pancakes are enough sugar. Alright?"

"O'tay..." Mini-Ziva sighed and absently stirred the dough with the beater.

With a mischief glint in his eyes, Gibbs looked at the little girl. "How about we get Tony back for hiding your candy?"

"How?"

"We, my little troublemaker," he leaned down so that their faces were closer together, "Are going to play a prank on Tony for hiding your stuff," Gibbs declared, silently adding "And mine!" in thought.

Ziva's face lit up."Rweally?"

"Oh yeah." Gibbs smirked, "And I already know how..."

Mini-Ziva grinned at the silver haired agent and motioned for him to pick her up, which he did.

"But you got to promise me something, okay?"

Ziva bobbed her head eagerly. "O'tay!"

"You have to keep it a secret, alright?" Gibbs whispered over dramatically.

The little girl giggled and nodded, pressing a finger to her lips. "O'tay, secret!"

~ Flashback End ~

Ziva's smile grew as she watched Tony drink unperturbed. A quick look around, confirmed that her partner in crime was watching the scene unfold, too. Gibbs stood at the other end of the team's area, leaning on an office divider, a smirk on his face. He quietly gave her a small wave of the hand.

"Hm, that's good."

Tony didn't thought about it as his small friend broke into an even wider grin than before. Though, as he finally saw Gibbs a few steps away doing the same, just in his special way, he lost his grin and frowned at them.

"What?" Suddenly he noticed the strange aftertaste of the coffee and looked down at his cup.

"Oh, very funny..." Tony grimaced as he saw the blue blob of liquid on the lid. With a roll of his eye he took his phone out of his jeans pocket, in order to check on his teeth. Sure enough, his teeth had taken on a blue color.

"That's screaming for revenge," Tony declared halfheartedly, looking straight at his small friend.

Ziva's laugh momentarily stopped and she looked at Gibbs who shook his head smiling, telling her that the teen wouldn't do anything to her. So Mini-Ziv stuck her tongue out at Tony, who then happily returned the gesture. Both laughing again.

(Around midday)

Mini-Ziva was bored. Very bored. And hungry. Listlessly she wandered around between the agent's desks. Once in a while she would climb on one of the office chairs in order to get a better look on what was happening on the desks. But as she only saw clean surfaces or files more or less neatly stacked – on which she had been specifically told not to draw on again – she finally returned to her backpack which lay against Gibbs' desk.

The little girl grinned as she opened it, taking out four packs of gummy bears. Picking one package up, she easily ripped it open and dumped it's content in front of her before going for the next package.

Soon all four packages lay empty and discarded next to her, while a huge pile of gummy bears towered in front of her.

Mini-Ziva grinned from ear to ear as she grabbed one of the red gummy bears in order to put it in her mouth and chewing with relish on it. She really had missed those bears. Especially the red ones.

While picking up another few red ones and devouring them, she carefully separated the hated white bears from the rest of the pile. She momentarily frowned as she saw a pack of bears, which were molded together. Carefully she placed the red bears, which were still in her hand, aside, in order to try to pull the pack apart. As it didn't really worked she momentarily looked around for something that could help her before she simple bit the the red and green gummy bear off the white ones, leaving two fully and one half gummy bear in her wake.

Ziva scrunched up her nose as she noticed how sticky those bears felt now. She swiftly looked out for somewhere to put them, so they wouldn't get stuck to the mattress, but soon realized that she couldn't get up, without disturbing the huge pile and making the bears all mingle again.

The little girl sighed in frustration, till she suddenly regarded the wall next to her with interest... Could she?

Ziva then looked around for a while, checking if really no one was in sight, before she stuck the sticky gummy bears onto the wall. Satisfied when they held at the first try.

The little girl grinned to herself and wiped her hands on her cargo pants. One problem solved.

Another few minutes later the bears were all sorted after their color. The only thing left to do was to get rid of the ones which she didn't liked. Mini-Ziva once again regarded her surroundings before coming to a decision.

Quickly she stuffed the red and green gummy bears into the pockets of her cargo pants before crawling off the mattress and standing up in order to pick up the pile of white bears afterward.

She was about to just dump them on McGee's desk and leave them there, when an idea struck her. She quickly placed them on the desk's surface before scrambling on the chair, sitting on her knees so that she could reach the surface better.

Focusing all her energy on the task at hand, Ziva lined the bears up in a square formation, making sure that every bear was upright and facing in the same direction.

Once done with it she repeated the process with the orange gummy bears on Gibbs' desk, only to discover that the number of bears didn't worked with the form of a square. Mini-Ziva frowned and was about to line them up differently when she spotted a cup of coffee sitting close to the computer monitor.

The little girl grinned widely and pulled the cup a bit closer, so that it was standing right in front of her. And as the lid of the coffee cup was only semi-closed and sat very lose on the cup, she took it off, in order to place the surplus of gummy bears on the rim of the cup.

To her disappointment however, every single attempt of her to do so, ended up with one swimming gummy bear. Ziva tentatively peeked into the cup as all gummy bears found their watery grave in it.

"Uh oh..."

Swiftly the little girl looked around to make sure that no one had seen her failed attempts of decoration, before she placed the lid back on the cup and put the whole thing back in front of the monitor. Maybe no one would notice it...

Afterward she grabbed the remaining yellow gummy bears from where they lay on the mattress and made her way to the elevator. Since she wasn't allowed to visit Ducky, and for that matter also Jimmy, without an adult present, Ziva decided to give the last bears to Abby, sure that the goth would love to have them.

As it turned out Abby wasn't in her lab. A bit disappointed to have yet again no one to talk to, Ziva repeated her earlier actions and built a square of yellow gummy bears before leaving the lab again. Though, this time, happily munching on her own stacks of red and green gummy bears.

(Later on)

McGee's and Gibbs' reactions were one of astonishment as they noticed the state of their desks, after returning from their latest crime scene – where they had left the newbies to sort out the rest of it.

Bewildered, McGee turned to his boss.

"Uhm, was that Ziva?"

The team leader smirked, "Who else should it have been? The gummy bear fairy?"

"I just.. that's... wow.."

"Uh huh," Gibbs snatched one of the orange bears of his table and chewed it, "Tastes good, too."

"I wonder how long that had taken her..."

"You can eat that, McGee," Gibbs retorted sarcastically as he noticed that his agent was hesitant in touching the square.

"It just looks so... Should a four year old be able to build it that good?" He regarded the structure from every angle.

Gibbs shook his head at McGee's antics, "Make a photo if you don't plan to remove it or to work around it." He grinned. Like on his desk, the square was right in the middle of the desk, making work a bit difficult...

The team leader's gaze finally wandered to the source of the commotion, who peacefully slept on the mattress next to his desk.

"Ziva David you certainly were a cheeky kid." He silently mused, locking his desk drawer after having placed his gun in there.

If was only when the team was entirely present, as Gibbs grabbed the forgotten cup of coffee from his desk.

Mindlessly he took a sip of it, before freezing in his action only seconds later. With a disgusted grimace he removed the lid of the cup and spit the coffee, which was still in his mouth back into the cup.

"What the hell," he rather loudly cursed, causing a few of his fellow co-workers to look at him in alarm. With a gruff murmur Gibbs looked into his cup.

"Boss?" McGee dared to asked as he saw the brow of his boss rise dangerously high.

Gibbs looked at the still sleeping figure of his shrunken agent before meeting McGee's quizzically gaze, "Need to teach her one of my rules after all."

"What did she do?" He asked barely audible.

"Rule 23. Some gummy bears decided to take a swim..."

McGee gulped.

Agent Thompson, who didn't saw the harm in some sweets finding their way into his boss' coffee, unwisely decided to pipe up, "What's the matter? It's just coffee!"

Gibbs glared icily at him, while addressing his temporarily senior field agent. "McGee, you'll enlighten him. I'm going for gummy bear- free coffee."

With his best 'Don't annoy me or I'll split you into two' look he stormed into the recently arrived elevator, causing the agents who had been waiting for it to wisely stay and wait for the next one.

Contrary to his earlier actions, once alone in the moving elevator car, an amused smile stole on Gibbs' face. If he was honest he found the whole thing rather hilarious, but he had an reputation to keep.

As for Ziva, he would have to deal with her later. Maybe he would put up an adapted list of his rules, some which concerned tantrums, weapons, his coffee and sticking things to walls... Yes, he had seen the gummy bears on the office divider...

~ TBC ~