They flipped through two more photos, Ziva describing what had happened in each (Her getting stung by a jelly fish and the other was her wrapping Tali in seaweed). It was only two more when Ziva realised the pattern. And she did not like it.

"What?" He asked, sounding genuinely confused when she stopped talking and glared at him.

Ziva did not know why, she was sure that he knew what he was doing. And he needed to stop doing it.

"You need to stop saying that," she complained.

Surely he had a wider vocabulary than that? In fact, he definitely did. So there was no excuse for him saying what he had. Multiple times. Per picture!

"Stop saying what?"

"You know what."

He just looked confused. "I really don't."

"You have been saying it for every photo."

That seemed to clear up his confusion but it was replaced with a thoroughly amused look. It was not an improvement.

"Oh, you mean the word 'cute'."

She glared at him. "Exactly."

He did not look repentant at all. Did not even try.

"Well, I can't help it if you were cute."

She resisted the urge to snap the pen she was holding. That would just end up with plastic shards in her hand. Which were painful to remove. It was also painful to hear the lecture Ducky gave her as he did so. Yes, she had done this before. Twice. She did not want to go down to Autopsy a third time.

Ducky had threatened to make her work with crayons if she did it again and she did not want to find out if he was being serious or not.

"Stop saying that."

Someone might hear him and think all sorts of things. She looked furtively around the office but no one seemed to be paying them any particular attention. Thankfully. But that still did not excuse him! Not even a little bit!

"But I like saying it."

"Then you are not going to get any more stories," she threatened.

He narrowed his eyes at her and she just crossed her arms, perfectly serious. He glanced down at the photos and Ziva could see him calculating. There were six of them left. That was six seperate stories for him. Actually, it was five, she had realised that two of the photos was from the same day. Taken within minutes of each other but Tony didn't need to know that quite yet.

Especially since it was one of her partially buried in the sand. Sort of because it was really just from her waist to her feet. Tali had wanted her to be "a pretty mermaid" and had proceeded to give her a sand tail in place of her legs. She had even taken the time to etch scales into the sand and add shells. For someone who was usually so impulsive, the time Tali spent doing this to her was quite impressive. The first photo was of her as the mermaid. She had not realised that Aunt Nettie had taken the picture. She would not have allowed it if she had known. She had been fourteen in that picture, after all. Far too big for such childishness, in her opinion. But she had done it for Tali. She always did such things for Tali.

The second photo was a far more blurry one. Actually, it was an incredibly blurry one. She had realised that her photo had been taken and had been most displeased. And had promptly kicked the sand off her and stood up, much to Tali's annoyance.

Her breath caught in her throat at the memory. That had been a good day. A very good day. One of the very few in her teenage years. She missed her little sister. She really, really did. Sure, this was taken years before her death but that did not make it any easier. No, she should not be thinking like this. Not now.

"Maybe we can look at the rest of these later," he suggested, thankfully interrupting her thoughts.

Ziva raised an eyebrow. He had been pestering her for days, literal days about photos. Getting them. Sharing them. Wanting to know the stories behind them and now he wanted to stop? There was still just under of them to go (why had Nettie felt the urge to send ten, she would never know).

But, she was not going to question it. Looking through the photos had certainly been more fun than she had expected but it had also been more draining than expected. All these memories and... feelings. She had not been prepared for them. Not really. So yes, a break would be nice.

"Yes, later," she agreed quickly so Tony did not get a chance to change his mind.

Later would be good. Never would be better but she knew her partner better than that. He would want all of the stories. And she found that she did not mind the thought of sharing more with him. Later, though. Now was, well, it was a bit much. It made her feel vaguely uncomfortable.

"I'll hold you to that," he teased, very obviously trying to lighten the mood.

And, admittedly, it worked and she smirked back.

"I would not expect anything less."

Maybe she would skip the mermaid photos. Yes, that was probably a good idea. She could probably make them vanish between now and later she was sure of it.

"Would you knuckleheads get back to work!"

They both jumped at the sound of Gibbs voice. Ziva spun her chair so that she was facing her computer screen and Tony scuttled back to his desk. She had long since abandoned the notion of being annoyed with herself for not noticing when Gibbs reappeared. As Tony once said, she may be a ninja but Gibbs evaded even those.

"Cute photos, Ziver," he commented, as he walked past.

She quickly shuffled them back into a pile. Maybe it had been a bad idea to do this at her desk