Tony was ravenous the next morning. He had gotten home late and for the first time in his life he'd decided that sleep was more important than dinner. Despite that, he'd slept in significantly in the morning, and didn't end up leaving his house until about ten minutes before he usually arrived at work. Even then, he'd decided to make a quick stop to pick up coffee and a bagel. Feeling generous, he made another stop at a nearby bakery he knew that sold little pieces of artery-clogging deliciousness. Okay, perhaps it wasn't generosity. Perhaps he was just on a high from feeling like things were about to get more defined between him and Ziva. But what the hell did it matter? The team would receive sweet, fluffy pastries to get them through the day, and anyone who questioned his motivations could just return their pastry to the box so that other, more grateful people could enjoy it.
He stepped out of the elevator and into the bullpen 20 minutes later, and he knew Gibbs would be pissed. But frankly, he didn't care. He had a good mood on his side, plus pastries. And he had a week of sunshine ahead of him which, while it would sadly take him away from the woman responsible for his cheeriness, he was almost looking forward to.
Gibbs and his perpetual dark cloud could shove it.
"Morning, co-workers!" he greeted loudly as he came around the corner. "Sorry I'm late, but I bring pasties of penance." He gestured at the white bakery box in his hand in a flourish.
His co-workers looked back at him silently, and with varying emotions. McGee looked pleased, but suspicious. Gibbs looked annoyed. And Ziva, aside from looking delicious herself, looked at him with a warning to tone it down. He swallowed and adjusted his smile down a few notches.
"What happened?" he asked when no one said anything. "Did pastries become a dirty word?"
"Why are you in a good mood?" McGee asked, narrowing his eyes. "And buying pastries?"
Tony dropped his bag on the floor and slid the box onto his desk. "Can't I just be in a good mood, McGoo?" he challenged.
"I suppose I might be in a good mood if I was about to go off on an all-expenses paid cruise to the Caribbean," McGee muttered.
He was very close to forfeiting pastry rights. "I don't make the rules, McGee."
"I do," Gibbs shot in. "One of 'em is never be late."
Tony smoothed his tie down his chest as he took a seat behind his desk. "Really? Hadn't heard that one, boss."
Gibbs just glared at him.
"My apologies," he offered again, without much sincerity. "Won't happen again."
"So…are you going to pass them out?" McGee asked.
"Later," Tony sniffed. "You've all been rude to me. You need time to turn that around before you can benefit from this bounty of baked goods."
"Am I to guess you've already had some of that sugar this morning?" McGee asked.
"You are not. I'm just in a good mood," Tony repeated.
"Okay." McGee looked between him and Ziva. "Ziva hasn't said a word to you yet. Does she have to wait?"
Tony looked across at Ziva as she looked up at him. "You're right. She hasn't said a word to me yet."
"Good morning, Tony," Ziva said deliberately.
He gave her a bright smile. "Good morning. Would you like a pastry?"
"Thank you, but my breakfast is still settling. I will have one later."
"A sensible approach," he said, and then heard Gibbs heave an epic sigh. Tony fought the urge to roll his eyes, but turned his attention to work. "So, any major developments overnight?" he asked. "I don't suppose anyone came forward and confessed to murder?"
"They might've, in the time it took you to get in and turn your attention to your job," Gibbs said.
"Unnecessary, boss," Tony said, feeling his good mood ebb away. "No pastry for you."
"I had a thought," Ziva cut in before things escalated. "Who is the boss?"
"Who's the boss?" Tony repeated.
"Gibbs," McGee answered.
"Or Tony Danza," Tony added, hearing the theme song to an 80s sitcom in his head. "Or Judith Light. I think it was supposed to be Judith Light."
"Well, she was definitely the boss," McGee said. "She employed Tony Danza. But I think the title of the show meant to throw that into question."
"You're right," Tony said, and he and McGee frowned at each other as they tried to work it out. "I'm going to be thinking about this all day now."
"Maybe it was meant to be Alyssa Milano?"
Tony shook his head, but Ziva was the one to speak.
"I have no idea what either of you are talking about," she said. "But I was referring to the boss Paulson referenced in the video tape Abby studied."
"Oh! I've been thinking about that too," McGee said, getting on board with her. "I thought it had to be Paulson's big brother, since he's the one who paid for John Paulson's house and cars."
"It could be," Ziva said. She leaned over her desk and pointed at McGee, palm to the ceiling, as she made her point. "But who is Paulson and Rose taking the teddy bears to in Key West? Is his brother meeting him there?"
Tony thought he knew the answer to that. "No. I checked Jim Paulson's Facebook page when I checked everyone else's. He posts daily and he's made no mention of being in Florida in the last few months."
"Perhaps he was lying about his whereabouts," Ziva said.
"Why would he? It's not like they know that anyone's on to them."
"Yeah, but if you're planning a crime, you plan an alibi," McGee said obviously.
"I know that, Danny Ocean," Tony sighed. "But he was posting photos from New York when the others were in Key West."
McGee looked at him as though he was charmed by Tony's idiocy. "You can fake that pretty easily, Tony," he said condescendingly.
Tony curled his lip at him. "Definitely no pastry for you," he said. "Me and Ziva and the Abbys are going to eat them all."
"Focus on what we do know," Gibbs said.
"That's not much, boss," McGee said.
"The Paulsons and Roses are all in on it," Ziva said, talking with her hands. "Probably. Whatever it is. It is likely the older brother is also in on it. There must be people in the Dominican Republic involved—they are the ones giving Paulson and Rose the bears."
"And there's got to be people in Key West involved," Tony added. "The people receiving the coke bears."
"Did Paulson have any friends on that Face thing who are based in Key West?" Gibbs asked him.
"Can't remember," he said. "But I can start looking through them and find out."
Gibbs nodded. "Do it. McGee, you take the older brother. Ziva, you take Martin Rose."
"On it," she said, and then shot Tony a discreet look that he read as needle in a haystack. He nodded back. Talk about tedious. But his good mood reminded him that this wasn't close to the worst thing he had to do in his career. One of the most boring, sure. But at least they weren't elbow-deep in dead bodies or being literally tortured. He had to keep that in perspective.
…
An hour into the search, Tony tore his eyes from his computer screen and rolled his neck and shoulders. He looked across at Ziva, whose chin was resting heavily in her hand as she stared with crushing boredom at her computer. When he looked at McGee, he found him with almost the exact same expression. Gibbs had disappeared.
"So," he said, and then stifled a yawn. "Anyone find anything useful? Or sordid? I'll take sordid."
"I have a lot of private accounts," Ziva said. "I cannot say for sure, but I cannot find anyone in the Dominican Republic or in Key West on Martin Rose's page."
"Yeah, same deal on Paulson's older brother," McGee said. "There's a guy in Nassau who he's friends with. That's about as close as it gets. But I've got a bunch of private accounts as well."
"Did you have any luck?" Ziva asked him.
"I guess the best of the bunch," Tony said. "I've got a guy named Oscar McCarthy in Key West who's friends with Paulson. It looks like he runs some kind of small charter boat business."
Ziva and McGee both perked up.
"That is something," Ziva said, and then got up and walked around to look at his computer over his shoulder. The smell of her immediately had an effect on him, but he tried to ignore it. "Pull him up."
Tony searched back through his pages for the right one, and McGee stood up to join them. He finally found Oscar's page, and then scrolled down through his timeline for the others' benefit. The photos all followed the same theme. "Boat, boat, boat, water, boat."
"It's what I imagine Gibbs' Facebook page would be like if he had one," McGee murmured.
"Has Paulson posted on his wall recently?" Ziva asked.
"Just a comment about a photo of sunset over the ocean a few weeks ago," Tony said. He scrolled until he found the photo, and then highlighted John Paulson's comment. Great shot, buddy. Wish I was there.
Ziva sighed heavily. "Not exactly a smoking gun."
"I'll check if he's got a record," McGee said, and walked back to his desk.
While they waited for McGee to run his name, Ziva leaned over Tony's desk and put a fingertip on the bakery box. She slid it closer, and then opened the lid and peeked inside. "Éclairs?"
He knew they were a favorite of hers. "You're welcome."
She smiled as her eyes flicked over him. "Very thoughtful of you."
"I try to look after my co-workers."
"Hey, I got something," McGee said. He waited for Tony and Ziva to cross to his desk before continuing. "Oscar McCarthy has done time in Florida for theft and possession with intent to distribute."
"Possession of what?"
"Marijuana."
Ziva made a face. "There is no way they are smuggling marijuana from the Dominican Republic to Florida. Not unless they are even more stupid than we thought."
"It has him involved in a certain lifestyle, though," Tony said. "Maybe he graduated to the stronger stuff."
"Or maybe he's on the straight and narrow, and there's not actually anything illegal going on here at all," McGee said.
Tony shared a look with Ziva. He knew she felt there was something going on, but he wasn't entirely convinced.
McGee's desk phone rang then, and he answered quickly. "McGee. Hi boss." He paused and looked upstairs towards Vance's office. "Sure. I'll be right up." He hung up and shrugged at the others. "Gibbs and Vance want to see me," he said, and then brushed past them on his way to the stairs.
"You're in so much trouble!" Tony called after him, despite not having a clue what was going on. He turned back around and faced Ziva. "I've got to admit, I'm getting really tired of not knowing what's going on."
Ziva frowned. "With McGee?"
"No, on this case," he said. "There are all these threads that can't be definitively tied."
"Well, that is why you are being sent to the Caribbean for eight days," Ziva said. "To tie the threads."
"I hope they tie together in a simple bow," Tony said. "I was never a boy scout, so I don't know how to tie a slip knot or that figure eight one or…I don't know the name of any other knots."
"You do not want to force it to come together," she translated.
"Right."
"No one wants you to," Ziva said. "And your wife is here."
Tony frowned at her. "What?"
Ziva's eyes fixed on a spot over his left shoulder and she nodded pointedly. He turned to see Borin stride into the bullpen, coffee in one hand and the other buried in her pants pocket. She gave them a pleasant smile.
"Oh, my wife," he said.
"Ex," Borin told them. "Sorry, DiNozzo, but this ain't working out for me. I'm breaking up with you."
Tony lifted an eyebrow as he sat back on his desk. "Wow. It was only a day, but the rejection still stings."
"What happened?" Ziva asked her.
"I have to go up to Maine," Borin told them. "There was a shooting on a super yacht off the coat on the weekend."
"I read about that," Ziva said. "Husband, wife and a teenage daughter."
Borin nodded. "Yeah. The case is getting tangled. Seems like it might be connected to another case we've been working, so my director wants me to go up and sort it out."
"You'd rather be in Maine than the Caribbean?" Tony asked.
Borin smirked. "Not really. But an active case takes precedence over a cold one, so I've got to pull the pin on Borin and DiNozzo's excellent adventure." She paused and looked around the empty bullpen. "Where's Gibbs?"
"Meeting with Vance," Ziva told her. "He could be a while."
Borin turned her wrist to look at her watch. "I have to get back. Can I leave it to you two to break the bad news?"
"Is this still a joint case?" Tony asked.
"Of course."
Tony looked at Ziva with a knowing look. "What're the odds that Gibbs lobbies Vance to cut the trip entirely?"
"High," Ziva replied, and looked at Borin. "We will tell him."
Borin gave them a little salute and backed up towards the elevator. "Keep me in the loop, okay? Tell Gibbs to call me if he wants someone to yell at."
"Just for this? Or is that an open invitation?" Tony asked hopefully.
Borin grinned but shook her head. "I don't have time to be his sounding board, DiNozzo." She turned again and left, and Tony and Ziva looked at each other.
"I was kind of coming around to the idea of a cruise," Tony said ruefully. "The sun part, anyway."
Ziva patted his shoulder briefly. "There, there," she said insincerely.
"I guess now we start pulling in all the major players that we know of for questioning."
Ziva crossed her arms and shifted her weight to one foot, and then stared at a spot on his chest. Tony recognized this as 'thinking mode', and had enough sense to stay quiet while she formed her thought.
"What will the penalty be?" she finally asked.
He tried, but couldn't follow her line of thought. "Penalty for…?"
"Cancelling the cruise the day before you are supposed to depart."
Tony's eyes flittered around the room, as if he might find the answer on the orange walls. He didn't. "I don't know. We'll probably forfeit some of the cost."
She pursed her lips, and then turned and went back to her desk. "I think it is likely that we will forfeit 100 per cent of the cost," she said.
Tony shrugged. "Maybe. Or we'll get a credit, but that's not exactly useful for a government agency. I guess that's for the travel team to work out."
"Haven't they sorted everything out yet, DiNozzo?" Gibbs asked as he returned to the bullpen, Vance in tow.
Tony looked up at him, and then stood up straight when he noticed that Vance was in tow. "Yes, boss. But we've hit a snag. Borin just came by to let us know she's been pulled in on an active case. She's not available for undercover anymore."
Gibbs stopped walking when he was level with Tony, and stared at him in demand for an explanation. Tony didn't have any more of an explanation to give.
"Uh, she said you should call her if you need to yell at someone," he said, and then gestured at Ziva. "We were just talking about cancelling the cruise and pulling Paulson and the others in for questioning."
"Why cancel?" Vance asked.
Tony glanced at Gibbs. Bright blue eyes narrowed in warning, and Tony felt stuck between a rock and a hard place. Gibbs clearly did not want the cruise to go ahead. It was the same position he'd had all week, and, as Tony and Ziva had suspected, this was a perfect opportunity to shut the operation down. But on the other hand…
"Agent DiNozzo?" Vance prompted.
Tony sent Gibbs a brief look of apology and then turned to Vance. "I guess we were thinking along budgetary lines," he said, and glanced at Gibbs as he walked to his desk in a huff. "But Ziva was just checking out how much of the cost we'd forfeit if we cancelled today for tomorrow's departure."
Vance swung his head around to look at Ziva. "And?"
Ziva shot a nervous glance at Gibbs before replying. "Terms and conditions say 100 per cent," she replied.
Vance nodded. "So we may as well go ahead with it," he said. He took two steps over so he was standing right in front of Ziva's desk. "Any reason you can't go?"
Tony watched as Ziva tried to control her expression. She may have passed Vance's inspection, but to Tony it looked like she was about to either laugh in his face or pitch a fit. But she kept her cool.
"Me? No. If Gibbs would agree to—"
"Then you'll go," Vance cut in, knowing full well that Gibbs wouldn't agree, but unable to find the ability to care. "Get on to travel to make the change ASAP. Then go talk to Ms Sciuto to get your documents sorted out." He paused and swung his head between her and Tony. "I assume you two can come up with a believable back story in the next 20 hours?"
There was the hint of a smirk on his face that Tony wasn't sure how he felt about, but he and Ziva both nodded.
"Easy," he said, just as Ziva replied, "Yes, sir."
"Excellent." He crossed to Gibbs' desk as Gibbs held out a Post It note and peeled it off the team leader's finger. "Thank you. Best of luck, agents. I'm counting on you to make an arrest." He threw them a final, knowing smirk and then left the bullpen.
The silence that followed was, in a word, awkward.
Tony kept his eyes on the floor as he slinked back to his seat, and then positioned his head behind his computer monitor and out of Gibbs' field of view before looking over at Ziva. His partner's eyes were glued to her monitor and her face was as straight as she could make it go. But her fingers flew over her keyboard, and Tony assumed she was composing an urgent email to the travel department about their change in plans. After five painful minutes of silence, Gibbs pushed his chair back and stood, and then practically stomped out of the bullpen. Tony kept his eyes on his computer as he listened for the ding of the elevator, but didn't open his mouth until he was sure the doors had closed and Gibbs was at least a floor away from them.
"So, he's upset," Tony said, and looked across at Ziva.
Ziva broke into a wide smile before reeling it in again. "So it seems."
"You think he's going to call Borin and scream at her?"
Ziva shook her head. "He does not have the guts."
Tony considered that. Gibbs wasn't the kind of man who was easily intimidated. But Borin wasn't the kind of woman who would give even two seconds' attention to a tantrum.
"The flight to Miami leaves at 0700?" Ziva checked with him.
"Yeah. I'll pick you up?" He paused and then smiled. "This sounds familiar."
"Hopefully we will not encounter Luis Zapata on the cruise," Ziva said.
"That would be bad luck," Tony said. Although he doubted that even the reappearance of the odious Luis Zapata would dampen his mood right now. He was about to embark on an eight-day Caribbean cruise with a bikini-clad Ziva. The only thing that could bring him down is if Gibbs decided to come too.
…
"You're going too?"
If he was trying not to whine, McGee was doing a bad job of it. Because she liked him, Ziva gave him a sympathetic smile instead of rolling her eyes and telling him to get over it. And she knew where his frustration came from. She and Tony did undercover work far more than McGee did, and she knew he felt left out. But they all had their strengths, and McGee's was not related to maintaining cover in stressful situations. He was more analytical. Better skilled to quickly synthesizing complex information and turning it into something they could use, or connecting it to the larger picture to make everything much smaller and digestible. And those skills were vital to their team, but they didn't require him to dress up, pretend to be someone else and read people on the fly.
"Tough break, McGee," Tony said, and cuffed him on the shoulder. "Maybe next time."
McGee glared and pursed his lips. That was unlikely, and they all knew it. He looked at Ziva. "How much would I have to give you to make you throw him overboard?"
Ziva pretended to weigh that up. "You have not brought in any of that coffee cake from the bakery near your house in a while."
Tony leaned back against his filing cabinet and crossed his arms over his chest. "You'd kill me for coffee cake?"
Ziva lifted a shoulder. "It is very good coffee cake."
"I brought you éclairs this morning," he reminded her.
"They were good too."
"Is it true?" Abby asked as she trotted into the bullpen, chains on her clothing and around her neck jangling. "Is all the magic I worked on Borin's documents in vain?"
She looked upset, so Ziva tried to smooth it over. "Nothing is ever in vain, Abby," she said, but she wasn't surprised when she got three looks of doubt in return. She returned to her desk and let Tony take over.
"Borin was called out on an active case," he explained soothingly, but somehow without sounding condescending. "So Ziva's stepping in. But the good news is that you don't have to do a bunch of identity documents for her because she already has half a dozen ready to go."
"That's true," Abby said, calming down.
"Plus you don't have to Photoshop pictures of them together because we already have, like, a thousand," McGee shot in.
Ziva gave him a warning look—that was nowhere near true—but Tony just shrugged and said, "We're photogenic."
Abby looked at McGee. "Guess you don't have to worry so much anymore about Tony selling his cover."
McGee opened his mouth to reply, but Tony was on her in a millisecond. "Why would I have trouble selling my cover? I'm great at undercover. I spent months undercover infiltrating a mafia family and they never suspected a thing. I got Ned Dorneget through undercover!"
Abby took half a step back. "Okay, you're great at undercover."
He also spent months undercover infiltrating a French arms dealer to great success, Ziva thought to herself. But she was hardly going to bring that up as evidence.
"Undercover with Borin would've been a piece of cake," Tony said. "Undercover with Ziva? I barely need to prepare."
"You will," Ziva said firmly.
"But of course I will," Tony added easily.
Abby shared a knowing look with McGee that didn't sit well with Ziva. It hadn't escaped her that just last night she and Tony had agreed to talk about things when he returned from the Caribbean. But now she'd be taking that trip to the Caribbean with him, and they'd be undercover as newlyweds. The problem here was not that they wouldn't be able to sell the cover. The problem was that they might end up taking it too far. And if the looks on Abby and McGee's faces were anything to go by, she wasn't the only one who thought so.
McGee's computer let out a beep, and he looked at his screen for a moment before letting out a thoughtful, "Hmm."
"Is that an important hmm?" Tony asked. "Or a hmm, there's a half off sale at Old Navy?"
"Depends on whether you think that Oscar McCarthy making contact with John Paulson is important," McGee said.
"Who's Oscar McCarthy?" Abby asked as Ziva and Tony got to their feet and slipped in behind McGee at his desk.
"A friend of John Paulson's," McGee told her. "He owns a boat charter business in Key West. I set up a program to alert me whenever any of the principle players in all this, or interesting looking people on the fringes got in contact with each other on Facebook."
"And they just did?" Abby asked.
McGee nodded. "Oscar McCarthy just posted on John Paulson's wall."
"We're all set, buddy," Ziva read aloud. "See you in the Keys in a few."
"What does that mean?" Abby wanted to know.
"Maybe nothing," McGee said.
"But maybe something," Tony added. "A private charter boat business could be pretty helpful if you're trying to move drugs."
Ziva looked across at him. "I think Oscar just became a principle player."
After today's news, I am bereft. Insert glass case of emotion gif here. So I guess I'll get you guys Tony and Ziva on a cruise ship, and then I'll jump overboard and just try to leave everything there forever. [sobs for eternity]