Warnings: Spoilers for "Jack Knife"
A/N: I think I'm still recovering from that season finale, haha. Anyways, thanks for all the feedback, and I'd always love to hear more :) Enjoy!
amaia- I really felt that the writers made Tony and Ziva look stupid in "Jet Lag". They were always leaving her alone! And I think, on some level the team does know about Tony and Natalie, just that Tony and Natalie are not aware of that yet lol.
Natalie woke up, sprawled out on her stomach with the sun beating on her face. It had been a while since she had slept so late, considering what the team had been through in the last few weeks. And it felt glorious to get that much sleep... even if Tony kept her up late the night before. Stretching she discovered that she was alone in her bed.
Gently she got out of the bed, finding Tony's sweater and pulling it on over her head. It hung so loose on her that it fell off of one shoulder and came all the way down to her knees. It didn't bother her. She rather liked how comfortable she felt in it and she liked how it smelled of his cologne.
Tony was in the kitchen, scrambling eggs and cooking bacon, wearing nothing but his jeans. They were hanging low enough on his hips that she could tell that he did not have his boxers on. Smiling, coyly, Natalie went and hooked her fingers into his belt loops. Pulling him backwards towards her she kissed his shoulder blades, lightly. Her hands roamed freely down the front of his thighs and she heard him groan.
"If you keep that up… you will not be getting breakfast," he threatened, hollowly.
"Do you want me to stop?" she asked, sweetly, her hand traveling lower to brush against the strain in his pants.
Tony grabbed her wrists and spun about, pinning her arms at her sides. He kissed her, languidly and then pulled back. "Darling… I need to regain some of my strength after last night… and the only way I'm going to do that… is if I eat a good breakfast."
Natalie stuck her lower lip out in a pout. She had learned that he was easily swayed, however it appeared that was not going to be the case this morning. Apparently, he really was just hungry for breakfast. "Fine. I should know better than to deny you food. You're always hungry."
He smiled at her and pulled out a small black box from his pocket. "Maybe this will help with the disappointment?"
"You bought me something?"
"Something you were admiring while in Paris. Go on, open it."
"Besides your body?" Natalie teased.
"Besides that," Tony said, honestly.
She looked at him, skeptically as she opened the box. Inside, nestled on a red satin pillow was an antique locket she had noticed while they were out sight seeing. She had commented on it because her grandmother had something similar. Natalie recalled admiring it when she had been a child. When he had doubled back and purchased this? They had spent almost every waking moment together… except those thirty minutes or so that he disappeared on the morning of their departure. She picked the oval shaped locket up in her fingers, running her thumb over the stone-carved flower center. "Tony… why did you do this?"
He smiled at her softly and helped clasp it around her neck. "Because I saw the way it made you smile." Plain and simple. Tony loved her smile, wanted to see it more. If an old necklace did that… then so be it.
Natalie admired the locket around her neck and did smile. She slid her arms around his waist and kissed him. "Are you sure you want to eat first? I have to thank you, properly, for my present."
Tony laughed and brushed his fingers through her hair. "Yeah. I'm sure. My stomach is rumbling… but afterwards, I promise… I am all yours to do whatever you wish with."
Stan noticed on Monday morning that Natalie was playing with a rather beautiful if not old looking locket. She hadn't been wearing it the last time he'd seen her and judging from the way Tony looked at her while she played with it spoke volumes—it had been a gift from him.
Gibbs either didn't notice or if he did, wasn't saying a word. Stan was even more interested in what was going on around him. In the old days, Gibbs probably would have dragged Tony out by his collar and fired his ass. Now… it appeared that perhaps the boss was willing to let whatever happen… happen. Stan had seen the photographs from Tony's camera, thanks to Abby getting her hands on the SD card for the case and he had to say that the ones of Natalie were intimate, beautiful, and not something a partner took of his partner if he was not in love with her.
It was a good thing that Abby hadn't been around this morning when Natalie arrived—she distinctly smelled of men's cologne, Stan recalled. And if anyone knew what kind of cologne that Tony wore it was going to be Abby.
"Hey! Let's go!" Gibbs called to the agents. "Dead marine found in a dumpster."
"I vote for the probie getting into the garbage, boss," Tony joked as he grabbed his gear up.
Natalie threw him a glare. "I thought you said you weren't going to call me that anymore?"
Tony grinned, unashamed, "I say it with love, Nat."
Gibbs almost resisted the urge to headslap the SFA—almost. He lightly thwacked Tony on the back of the head. Tony flinched, slightly, and apologized. Gibbs grinned in his coffee as he took a sip. Okay, so Ducky was right, it was cruel that he was leading his agents on to believe he knew nothing about them being together… but there was a certain element of fun to it. When Tony and Natalie were ready to come clean to him... they would. For now, he was happy with them thinking he was in the dark.
"Where we going, boss?" Stan asked, noticing Gibbs little smirk, and interrupting the lead agent's thoughts.
"Downtown. Looks like our victim came out of a bar and met a messy end," Gibbs replied.
"No pun intended since he was found in the trash, eh boss?" Tony remarked, still cautiously keeping his distance from Gibbs.
Gibbs glanced over his shoulder at Tony and frowned slightly. "DiNozzo…"
Tony gulped and gave a shake of his head. "Sorry boss… I'm all focused from here on out."
Stan watched as Tony's eyes traveled to Natalie playing with her locket and chuckled, silently. As long as Natalie was around with that locket, there wasn't going to be a lot of focus on Tony's part. "Do we know anything else about our marine? Other than he was found in a dumpster?"
"Metro has a witness in custody. Said he woke up next to the dead marine," Gibbs stated.
"Sounds more like a cover up," Natalie pointed out as they stepped off the elevator.
That was what Gibbs was hoping for, that this was a easy open and shut case. Even as he ordered his team to gas the truck and meet him at the crime scene, Gibbs had a tingly feeling his gut that nothing was going to wrap up neatly in the next hour.
"You have got to be kidding me," Tony whispered underneath his breath as the agents climbed out of the truck. He slammed the door shut. "Of all the witnesses…"
Stan and Natalie watched as Tony slammed the driver's side door shut and stalked towards Metro and the witness. "Do you have any idea what he's grumbling about?" Stan finally asked after they had sat there in silence for thirty seconds.
Natalie shook her head. "No. I've never seen that witness before. Perhaps… Tony has?" As she climbed out of the van, following behind Burley, she noticed the witness look up from speaking to Tony and a puzzled look crossed his face. He was good looking, clean cut…well built… and certainly didn't have the expression of a killer.
"Where's Ziva?" the witness asked when he noticed Natalie, his dark brown eyes looking at Tony.
"Israel, hopefully getting her head on straight," Tony remarked. "Special Agent Natalie Callahan, meet Damon Werth, former USMC."
Werth got to his feet and held a hand out to her. Natalie noticed that Tony flinched ever so slightly as she shook it. "It's nice to meet you, Agent Callahan."
Natalie nodded politely, her grey eyes darting towards her partner. "Did you know the victim?"
"Friend of mine."
"I'm sorry for your loss."
Werth's shoulders slumped. "Not as sorry as I am. He had a wife and kid."
Tony's brow furrowed and he fixed his ball cap, as if he was stalling. "We're going to have to take you into NCIS. You know, technically, NCIS doesn't need to investigate this murder since you both aren't enlisted marines anymore."
Natalie could see the pleading in Werth's eyes. Whatever had happened in the past between this former marine and NCIS, needed to be put in the past. He needed their help now, regardless of what Tony's personal feelings were. "Maybe we should hear him out, Tony?"
Stan watched as Tony relented. He raised his chin slightly towards Werth. "What happened last night?"
"Heatherton called me. Wanted to meet for a drink. We had a couple of beers… I blacked out, woke up in the dumpster next to him," Werth said. "Called an ambulance but it was too late, he was already dead."
"Did you see if anyone put anything in your drink?" Natalie asked.
"You hitting the steroids again, Werth?" Tony intervened before Werth could answer.
The former marine shook his head. "No way, Agent DiNozzo. I'm clean. I have been since I was discharged from the Corps. And no, Agent Callahan, I didn't notice if anyone put anything in my drink last night."
Tony didn't look like he was buying it, but didn't push it either. He had more important matters to get too, and that was finding the marine's killer, not the drugs that Werth could have been using at the time. "You and Heatherton just party or did you talk?"
"He's been working for this guy… trucking… he said that he messed up but he had too, being human came first."
"What did he mean by that?"
"Don't know. All I know is that he was doing some serious driving for the guy, across country in a week. He wanted my help on the next run. I met with the guy and made a deal to do a two man job later today. Told him I had a guy to help me."
"Can we have a name of the guy he's been working for?"
Werth licked his lips and glanced between the three agents. "Listen, it's been hard for him since he got out of the Corps. His wife left him because he couldn't readjust. He was… he was trying to make some cash to send to them."
Natalie spoke before Tony, sensing he was about to snap. "It's fine. We're not looking into his integrity here. We're trying to find who killed him."
"Aaron Szwed, he owns the trucking company Heatherton was driving for."
"You two stay here—I'll go find Gibbs."
Tony walked briskly down the alley, beyond the NCIS truck and the Medical Examiner's van, and climbed into a parked sedan. He slammed the door shut and watched as Natalie and Burley continued to question Werth through the windshield. "He says Heatherton was working for this guy," Tony told Gibbs handing him a piece of paper. "Can we trust him?"
Gibbs ran his hand across his mouth and shrugged. "Doesn't look like we have much a choice, DiNozzo. He might be the only one that knows who killed Heatherton."
Natalie looked over in the direction of the car then. Gibbs nodded towards Tony and told him to get out. "Go see what she wants."
"You know, Ziva would have just barged over here…"
"Ziva was trained differently than Natalie. Go on, DiNozzo."
Tony got out of the car, shutting the door behind him and rejoining his teammates. Natalie glanced once at Gibbs still sitting in the car before speaking. "Damon says that Szwed has a bodyguard named Lucas… carries a jack-knife. He thinks they killed Heatherton."
Burley shifted his gaze only towards Gibbs' direction. "Doesn't sound like this was a legit trucking business. More like smuggling."
"What were they smuggling?" Tony asked Werth.
"No idea. Szwed told me I'd find out what I was doing today when I showed up with my partner," Werth replied. "But I'm without a partner now. I was going to use Heatherton."
Tony pursed his lips and shook his head. "No. You're not."
Werth raised his eyebrows in questioning. "I'm not? Who's going to join me?"
He took a deep breath. Tony glanced at Natalie and Burley before he simply stated, "One of us."
FBI agent Tobias Fornell had been praying to be left alone on his day off.
Gibbs had other plans. At least he showed up at his door with coffee, and his arm in a sling. "What the hell happened to you?" the lead NCIS agent asked, seeing Fornell's beard.
"The job…deep undercover assignment. What happened to your arm?"
"Same. The job."
"You still driving with that thing?"
"Not supposed too, but I manage."
Fornell took the coffee Gibbs held out for him. "What do you want, Jethro? Last time I saw you, you were here asking about Paloma Reynosa. By the way, I heard that McGee is going to be just fine. You got lucky."
Gibbs wasn't going to argue with that. He knew how lucky they'd been. Tony's injuries had healed completely and McGee was at home comfortably resting now. It was only a matter of time before his team was whole again and they could go after Reynosa. "Need your help on a sting operation. Smuggling."
"What do you need me for?"
"I need you to drive!"
Fornell grumbled, his eyes growing dark. He knew that this day wasn't going to be a quiet one when Gibbs showed up at his door. He glared one last time at the former marine and retreated back into his house. "Let me get my coat."