Chapter Two

No One is to Blame

Tony cut the ignition on his classic Mustang, allowing it to roll silently into Gibbs' driveway. He knew his attempt at subterfuge was pointless. Gibbs would know that he'd arrived. Gibbs always knew. There was no doubt in Tony's mind that he was expected, despite the fact Gibbs had never returned to the squad room after telling the team to finish their reports. In fact, it was because he'd never returned that Tony knew his presence was required. Gibbs liked to flex his supreme power over his fiefdom.

He supposed he ought to be grateful that his boss hadn't decided to just have it out in the middle of the bullpen, but he wasn't. Although his date with Kerstin was a piece of fiction – she'd reached that point where she was becoming more possessive than he could handle – he still wanted to go home. He was tired, he was sore, and he was pissed off about this confrontation he was sure was going to happen. He and Gibbs had worked together for over four years – they knew how the other operated. Gibbs should know better than anyone that Tony needed to trust that his partner would have his back. He'd been burned at a couple of the precincts he'd worked in the past, and there was no way he'd allow it to happen again.

Philadelphia had been a mess all around, then he'd been completely blindsided that his former partner in Baltimore had been corrupt. Sometimes, he'd wake up in the middle of the night, heart pounding in his ears, dread clawing at his throat, as he remembered that scene in a dirty alley where his partner didn't show himself until the perp Tony had been chasing fired his weapon in the air. It was the sound of that shot that caused Danny to take action. If Tony had been able to apprehend the suspect – who was Danny's contact to the money launderer – he suspected Danny would've remained well out of sight. It was reckless and irresponsible to the partner who's back he's was supposed to be covering – Tony's back.

In his dreams, the guy didn't fire into the air, but instead he shot Tony dead where he stood, his head blowing outward in much the same way Kate's had done. It could've easily happened that way. He'd have died, and his partner wouldn't have done anything to stop it…

Fool me once… and all those other crappy cliches.

When they had a new team member placed on their team, Tony tried to give her a fair chance, despite the fact something about her unsettled him. The habits he'd developed to keep Kate on her toes didn't work with Ziva, and Tony had yet to find a rhythm or get a good read on her. She made his investigative instincts tingle with her combination sex kitten/superior disdain routine. She questioned his authority at every turn and seemed to think she could still work as a lone-wolf despite being a member of a team. The incident in the storage container last week had been a tipping point. Ziva not only fired her weapon in an enclosed steel container, but she'd leaned more toward panic than figuring out the problem.

He expected that kind of reaction from the Probie – not from Mossad.

The fact of the matter was – Tony didn't trust her, but he wasn't yet ready to explain himself to Gibbs. Unlike his boss, he liked to move on solid evidence rather than gut feelings. So far, everything he had was circumstantial. There were frequent phone calls where she'd suddenly switch to Hebrew. That was her native language, so it could be nothing. Her reports often missed key details, but he couldn't decide if it was because she resented doing them, or if she was really missing things and just didn't care.

Her over eagerness to get involved with anything happening in MTAC. Of course, her elevated sense of self and her importance in the whole chain of command could explain that. The bi-polar way she reacted to him. Even if she was a spy, she hadn't been able to fully conceal her frustration that he hadn't reacted to what she seemed to be offering.

On several occasions, he'd also noticed her trying to eavesdrop on his conversations with other SFAs, but she was as nosy as him. The difference was, he was nosy about everyone, not just those in supervisory roles. Of course, that could always be her bias that those with a lesser rank weren't of any interest.

Why the hell was she working at an agency whose purpose was to investigate crimes both committed by and against military personnel and their families? Why did Mossad need to be involved here?

Ziva's father was the Director of Mossad – Tony was sure of it even if no one had ever officially confirmed it. He'd first heard the name Director David shortly after Ziva's arrival. In that box car, he'd tested her with a random question – when was the first time she realized Daddy wasn't perfect. Her reaction told him everything he needed to know. Her daddy was the Director; there was no way she could be impartial. Of course, he knew better than anyone that blood wasn't always thicker than water. He hadn't yet found any concrete evidence to her true family dynamics.

But he was looking.

Although he liked to play a happy-go-lucky clown, he could be calculated and controlled when the situation called for it. The laid-back persona put people at ease, and they weren't as vigilant in watching what he was really doing. He knew Ziva had bought the act.

Despite any precautions she might've taken, Tony had managed to figure out her computer password. He might not be the best with technology, but he spent a great deal of time observing people and their patterns. It took a while, but he'd finally been able to access her computer. Unfortunately, he wasn't exactly certain what he was looking for, but there was more than met the eye – he was sure of it. Consequently, he'd put feelers out to his vast network of contacts that he'd amassed over the years. One of them would eventually turn up something if there was something there to be found.

Unfortunately, Gibbs had noticed his focus wasn't completely on their cases, and it pissed him off. Tony wasn't yet ready to bring up his suspicions about Ziva – particularly since Gibbs seemed oddly attached to the new hire. Gibbs never warmed to anyone that fast. In Abby's words – it was hinky.

There was a part of him that lurked deep in his heart – the part that usually cut and ran when things got difficult – that was gnawing at him. Why did he care so much? Why not just pack his bags and disappear in the heart of the night without a backwards glance? It was his standard MO, after all. Never stay long enough to get attached. He'd blown that rule in a big way at NCIS. He didn't want to run. He just wasn't sure how much it would cost him to stay.

He trusted Gibbs. He'd once argued with Kate about the infallibility of Gibbs' gut, but something about Ziva didn't sit right. He could almost hear the ghost of Kate's laughter echoing in the back of his mind that he was doubting it now. Gibbs probably thought that if Tony trusted him, the fact he trusted Ziva should be enough.

But it wasn't.

He respected Gibbs more than anyone he'd ever known, but he'd seen firsthand that the man was human, and his feelings sometimes got in the way of his good judgement. One of Gibbs' rules was to protect the women and children first. Unfortunately, he was enough of a misogynist to put female agents in that category rather than seeing them as equal protectors. And he seemed to have placed Ziva – the Mossad assassin – in the category of needing his protection. Still, Gibbs always had Tony's six. Tony would have to have Gibbs on this one.

Deciding there was no point in further delay, Tony got out of the car, inspecting his face in the side mirror. His left eye was swollen half-closed, but there was nothing he could do about it. He stretched his long legs, turning his neck from side to side trying to work out some of the tension knots. He reached inside the car and pulled out a pizza box along with a six-pack of beer. Maybe Gibbs would only be Alec Baldwin angry rather than full-on Jack Nicholson angry if he fed him first. Yeah, because that always worked.

Not.

The box was warm in his cold hands as he jogged up the steps to Gibbs' modest home. It was bitterly cold, and a light snow had started to fall. Tony's breath created spirals in the chilly winter air. The door was unlocked – it always was – and Tony let himself inside. There was a single lamp burning on a side table, but the door to the basement was open wide, showing the top of some dark, wooden stairs. It was like one of McGee's video games highlighting the way to whatever obstacle you had to face.

Or a horror movie.

Tony sighed and followed the path. His college coach always said he had more hutzpah than brains.

/* /* /* /*

In his basement, Gibbs heard the outer door open and recognized the nimble tread on the floor above. He'd been expecting the company despite never extending an invitation. He didn't turn around but kept his back to the stairs, slowly sanding while trying to get his temper under a modicum of control. If he started off yelling, DiNozzo would just become glib, and they wouldn't get anywhere. Gibbs had reached the end of his admittedly-short patience – something had to change, if only to get Jenny off his back.

He heard the rhythm of shoes coming down the stairs and smelled the pizza before Tony reached him, stopping beside him to rest the box and some beer on his workbench. Tony pulled one of the beers out of the ring, popped the top, and took a long swallow. Maybe he, too, needed to get his temper under control. While it might not frequently make an appearance, Tony could rage with the best of them if you set him off.

Gibbs reckoned tonight would be one of those times. Still, he kept his head down and continued the monotonous sanding. He could see Tony's expensive leather shoes contrasting starkly against the concrete floor. They were still shiny after a day spent in a dusty, rundown, deserted building. Damn shoes probably cost more than DiNozzo made in a month.

Dumbass.

Tony took another swallow of his beer while he pulled a slice of pizza from the box. Gibbs wasn't fooled. He knew his SFA was trying to keep his mouth full to avoid talking. Tony always broke the quiet first, but Gibbs decided he could give his SFA this one, knowing it would mean Tony would have to relent the next point.

He picked up a slice of his own, inhaling the delicious aroma. "Good thinking," he said, taking a bite.

Tony nodded while he swallowed. "Sausage, pepper, and onion. I wasn't sure if you'd eaten yet," he said.

Gibbs cracked open a beer. The pizza was a blend of each of their favorites.

"You gonna tell me what happened out there today?" he asked, using Tony's trick and taking another bite of pizza to force himself to listen rather than berate.

He'd get to that in a minute. He knew he wasn't capable of holding in his temper much longer. Never was very good at that.

"Nothing much to tell. Case is a wrap," Tony said, shrugging.

Gibbs scowled and finally looked fully at his guest. He winced internally at the vivid black and blue surrounding Tony's eye but didn't let it show.

"Since when don't you embellish a story?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

The left side of Tony's mouth tilted upward, and a bit of sparkle lit his good eye. It was only at that moment that Gibbs realized that the sparkle had been missing for quite a while – probably since that rooftop with Kate. Why hadn't he noticed before? Perhaps it was because his own guilt regarding her loss still consumed him, clawing at his insides whenever he stopped long enough to think.

"Embellish, eh? Good word, Boss. I do like to embellish – ex-aggerate – e-lab-orate – en-hance – some might even say I overdo it. In fact, I've been known to hold off a dirtbag that wanted to shoot me for a good ten minutes talking about the color green staining the walls of the place he was holding me. That was–"

"DiNozzo!"

"Boss?" Tony asked innocently, as if he didn't know exactly what he was doing.

"Why did it take so long to clear your end of the building?" Gibbs asked, putting the pizza down and getting right in DiNozzo's face. They were going to have this out no matter how many diversionary tactics DiNozzo tried to pull.

Tony held his ground and didn't take a step back as most people did when Gibbs got into their personal space.

"Asked and answered," he said flatly, his eyes deadened.

"Not to my satisfaction," Gibbs said, baring his teeth.

"There were a lot of rooms. I had to be sure," DiNozzo stubbornly maintained.

Gibbs tenuous grip on his temper snapped. "That's why I sent two of you," he snarled. "You delayed because you didn't trust Ziva to do her job."

"You simply telling me I have to trust her isn't going to cut it. I need to feel it – and I don't. Until then, I'm going to watch my own six when it comes to her," Tony said heatedly.

And there it was. The elephant in the room. It had been going on for months, and Gibbs had hoped it would work itself out. DiNozzo had always trusted his judgement before, and it stung that he wasn't willing to do it now. He knew trust took time to build between any new partners, but both had to be open and willing to give it a try. DiNozzo clearly wasn't.

"She's a member of my team," Gibbs said, his voice low and dangerous.

Even if Jenny hadn't left him a lot of choice, it wouldn't have worked if he hadn't relented. He could've just left Ziva stuck permanently behind a desk if he'd wanted to make the point. He wasn't going to tolerate anyone questioning his decisions – not even DiNozzo.

"So you've said," Tony replied without any inflection in his voice.

"I need you to follow my lead. McGee and I will have your six until Ziva earns your trust," Gibbs said, leaving no wiggle room.

Tony's eyes remained dark; his expression blank. "Nothing I've seen convinces me it's just time that's needed. She doesn't know the first thing about being an investigator."

"Kate wasn't an investigator," Gibbs said, infuriated DiNozzo was going to continue fighting this.

"Kate wasn't a spy or an assassin, either. If the liaison idea is so appealing, send her to the CIA where her skills are compatible," Tony said, eyes blazing as he struggled to keep a lid on his tightly controlled fury.

Gibbs was uncomfortably aware that DiNozzo's words were the same ones he'd argued with the director when she informed him Ziva would be joining the team. He brutally crushed that unease.

"She's not with the CIA, she's here. I can teach her to be an investigator. She has the skills. You just need to cut her some slack so the trust has a chance to grow," Gibbs said.

Tony's eyes widened incredulously. "Cut her some slack? Since when do you cut anyone slack? What does she have over you?"

Gibbs saw red. He leaned in so their noses were nearly touching and used the glare that had made seasoned Marines cry. "You saying I'd let someone blackmail me?"

"I don't know. Up until a minute ago, I never thought you'd cut anyone slack," Tony said, unflinchingly.

"You're the one who hasn't made any effort – couldn't even bother to show up for her team dinner," Gibbs snarled.

"A little hard to show up to something you don't know is happening," Tony snapped.

This caused Gibbs to take a step back. "What are you talking about?" he asked uneasily.

Ziva invited them all to a dinner last week to get to know her new team. Tony was the only one who hadn't been there, and Gibbs had been irritated by it. He'd thought Tony blew it off. He recalled the scene in the bullpen after his agents had been found in that storage container. Ziva offered to cook for an injured DiNozzo, and Gibbs had tried to let him know how good her cooking was. DiNozzo loved food, and he'd hoped that might be the first step in their learning to trust each other.

Now, here in his basement, he could see the hurt beneath DiNozzo's anger, and it threw him. He didn't like being wrongfooted, and it didn't happen very often. Was he cutting Ziva too much slack for the debt he owed her? If DiNozzo truly had been purposefully left out, the rest of them joining in would've stung – badly.

Despite the hurt Gibbs could clearly see, DiNozzo wasn't nearly ready to let his anger go now that it had been uncorked.

"My invitation must've got lost in the mail. She can invite or not invite anyone she wants into her home, but it's not a team dinner – unless of course, that's how she sees the team. Or maybe it's all just part of her plan to cause division amongst us. Isolation and manipulation, isn't that Mossad 101 – happily teaching everything you need to know about becoming a killer for over a thousand years? You can't have missed that she's been trying to drive a wedge between me and McGee. She's grooming him."

He had noticed that Tim had been siding with Ziva more frequently in the office sniping, but that wasn't hard to understand.

"You're hard on McGee," he said.

"Yeah, and as I recall, you were the one who told me to toughen him up, or he had no business being a field agent," Tony said, lip curled.

"He'll be a good agent. Complimentary skill sets," Gibbs said, confident he'd put together an exemplary team, each with their own specialties.

DiNozzo's eyes blazed. "Yeah, but if push comes to shove, I can at least do what needs to be done on a computer to get us out of a tricky situation. Do you honestly think that McGee would survive a one-on-one with a perp? He'd be dead. You know it. I know it. McGee is the only one who doesn't know it – which is why I thought you told me to toughen him up. Now, Ziva has him convinced he can do no wrong. What happens when he doesn't have anyone there to guide him step by step… or if he gets the wrong guidance?"

This was too much. Ziva was new, but she wasn't incompetent. "Ziva won't steer him wrong. She needs some training, but she'll make a good agent."

"Liaison Officer," Tony said, biting out the words.

Gibbs had had enough. "You need to get your head on straight. She's part of the team, and I expect you to work with me to teach her."

"You might believe her allegiance is to you, but I'm not convinced. You took to Kate quickly, too, but not like this. I've never known you to blindly trust someone like this, so there has to be something I'm not seeing," DiNozzo said.

Gibbs eyes flickered to the spot on the floor where Ari died. It was only inches from where DiNozzo was now standing. DiNozzo didn't know what really happened, but he'd promised Ziva his silence. The two of them were the only ones who knew that she'd really been the one to kill her brother, thus saving Gibbs' life.

"She earned my trust," he said simply.

"Fine, but she hasn't earned mine," Tony said, the glimmer of anger disappearing from his eyes, his shoulders slumping.

Gibbs knew how important it was for Tony to trust his partners. He still didn't know the full story of what happened in Philadelphia, and after everything that happened in Baltimore, it took some time for Gibbs to even get a footing inside Tony's walls. He didn't want to lose that, but he wanted his team to function. DiNozzo had simply walked away several times before when he felt he couldn't rebuild any trust, and Gibbs didn't want that to happen. Tony was a good agent, an excellent investigator, and although Gibbs would never admit it out loud, he'd brought laughter back into Gibbs' life.

He was genuinely easy-going, and he forgave others their mistakes far easier than Gibbs did, but he also stood his ground when he felt strongly. No matter how much it frustrated him, Gibbs couldn't make the other man trust Ziva, but he wasn't willing to cut DiNozzo loose, either. The younger man was an ideal partner for Gibbs, smoothing all the hurt feelings Gibbs left in his wake while taking his brusque nature in stride. Maybe Gibbs had been wearing some blinders where Ziva was concerned, but he didn't want to believe it. For now, that left finding some common ground so the team could function.

"You both need to find a way to make it work," he said, as close to a concession as he could come.

He saw DiNozzo's eyes widen in surprise at the atypical response. "I'm trying, but she's going to have to make the effort, too. If you haven't noticed, she tends to disagree with everyone who isn't you," the younger man said.

"Never said it wouldn't be a challenge. She's set in her ways," Gibbs said, unsure if Ziva could ever completely shed her Mossad habits.

"Aren't we all?" Tony asked darkly.

"She's trying to make a clean break from a bad father. Thought you might understand that," Gibbs said.

He knew it was the wrong thing to say as soon as the words left his mouth. DiNozzo wouldn't stand for being manipulated – he should've known that. That was a huge miss-step on his part. DiNozzo refusing to follow his lead had rattled him more than he'd realized.

Tony's face closed off as he pulled one of those damned masks of his into place. There was no doubt in Gibbs' mind that Tony's father was as much a bastard as Ziva's was reported to be, despite not being the head of a powerful, international intelligence agency. Less than a year ago, Tony had been laying in a hospital bed struggling to take each breath, and none of them had been sure he'd pull out of it, yet his father couldn't even be bothered to show up. Tony had made it very clear the subject was off limits, however.

Gibbs had hoped Ziva's troubles with her father might bond the two, but obviously that had been a miscalculation. Story of his life. He never got these inter-personal relationship things right – especially when it was of significant importance to him. His many ex-wives were proof of that.

Tony finished his beer, putting the can down with exaggerated precision. "I'm going home," he said, leaving no room for negotiation.

"We're not finished," Gibbs said, knowing he'd lost this particular battle and hating it.

Tony stopped, a foot on the first step. "Are you going to order me to trust her?" he asked.

"I can't do that," he conceded.

He'd have to leave the ball in Tony's court, and hope the younger man could find a way to make working with Ziva tolerable. If that didn't happen, Gibbs knew there was a very real chance Tony would walk away. He had to ensure that didn't happen, but he had no idea how. He'd never been very good at dealing with people's emotions. Why couldn't they all just do their jobs and not talk about it?

He heard the revving of Tony's engine as he left the driveway, and his frustration boiled over. He threw the pizza box, watching as it landed right side up as it skidded across the floor with the lid open. There was still half a pizza left inside, uneaten.

Jenny was right – things were worse than he thought. Since when did DiNozzo ever leave pizza unfinished?

Author's Note: The chapters are all 4000 – 4500 words long, but in sections. I won't be posting every day, so you can break reading if you don't like long chapters. I hope you enjoy.