Fic: A Goat for Azazel, (Tony, Ziva, Team), [12/15]
Title: A Goat for Azazel, chapter 12/15
Authors: Hagar and Sailor Sol
Category: gen
Rating: overall M for captivity elements and intense emotional content
Summary: Goes AU after Aliyah. When Tony disappears two days before the Saleem op is a go, the team scrambles to find him - and to understand what an associate of La Grenouille and Israeli domestic intelligence have to do with it.
Chapter Title: Old Skins
Chapter Rating: T (harsh end of) for emotional content and semi-graphical mentions of violence
Chapter Summary: Tony's roller coaster of recovery begins, and everyone is along for the ride.
AO3 | DW | LJ Below:
Warnings: single semi-graphical depiction of major violence (T-rated chapter)
Monday, September 21
The situation he walked into on Monday morning was not the same one he'd left the day before. All the reports he'd gotten from everyone indicated that Tony's physical condition was constantly improving; Abby and Ducky also quoted Tony's pulse, BP and blood-sat levels at him when they'd called, and everybody mentioned that each time Tony woke he was more lucid. The reports weren't all sunshine and roses, though, and while Gibbs expected to walk in and find Tony not looking like death warmed over, anymore, he was still expecting Tony to be on the opposite end of the spectrum from his usual talkative self.
He certainly hadn't expected to find Tony - in a wheelchair, so obviously headed somewhere - joking with Dr. Pitt.
Gibbs only caught the tail end of whatever the doctor just said, which ended with "your chest," and a beat later Tony replied, with a smile that was a little bit forced but still a valiant try: "Hope you catch the good side."
And Dr. Pitt replied, in all seriousness: "We wouldn't want the bad side on film."
Tony and Cassie both looked up at Gibbs when they noticed his presence. Cassie stood up. "Hey, Boss," she greeted him. Tony echoed the statement a moment later.
Still wearing the mask, Gibbs noted. No nasal cannula yet.
"Oxygen doping, DiNozzo?"
He half-expected an immediate, witty response, but Gibbs could almost see the effort it was taking Tony to come up with a reply. "The doc won't tell on me," Tony finally said.
"We were just heading down to Radiology," Dr. Pitt said. "Tony's blood sat has been looking good since yesterday evening, but I didn't want to chance it before the night."
"Yeah," Gibbs said. Good thinking on Pitt's part, but Gibbs hadn't expected otherwise. He considered Tony - who was making steady eye contact and was actively following what was going on, though his posture still seemed off - and Cassie - who was beginning to look like McGee had two days before - and told the doctor, "Well, don't hold up the line on my account."
Dr. Pitt gave Gibbs an assessing look cast deliberately above Tony's head. "We'll be back in twenty minutes," he promised, wheeling Tony outside. Tony's hand twitched, but that was all. Gibbs noted that.
He waited until he was sure they were clear of the room before he turned to give Cassie an assessing look of his own. "Taking up a new profession in miracles?"
"I wish I could take the credit for this, Gibbs," Cassie replied. She looked distinctly uncomfortable.
"Oh?" He asked, wondering what could possibly make her squirm this way.
"I let Dunski cover for me for about two minutes last night."
His good mood evaporated in a split second "You what?"
"He was asleep and - "
"I thought I told you to keep her away from him," he cut her off. The last thing he needed was for Tony to be anywhere near that damn woman, especially when he was vulnerable.
"I shouldn't have done that, I know - "
"Damn right you shouldn't have - "
"But you should have seen that, Gibbs. Tim told me that Tony wasn't making eye contact, that he was barely talking at all, and I walk in and he's looking straight at me and they're doing the crossword."
I don't care if they were solving world hunger, he almost said, but he bit it back. What Cassie said was right, but, "She shouldn't be allowed anywhere near him, and I don't care how much honey she puts in that trap. I don't trust her."
"I don't trust her either, but that doesn't mean we can't use her."
That sounded familiar. He'd thought that, when the damn woman first walked into the bullpen. "Yeah, that's what she'd like you to think," he said, still angry. The "Don't you have a desk to return to?" came out a lot more tired.
The look she gave him spoke volumes, but she picked up her coat from the chair and walked out without another word.
They scheduled to meet at their usual coffee stand. Well, for a certain value of "scheduled" that accounted for Jethro Gibbs' verbosity, but Tobias Fornell was well-versed in translating from Gibbs to English. Said coffee stand being at the park two blocks down from the Hoover building, and knowing Gibbs' driving habits, Fornell hadn't expected to be the first there. Still - and again knowing Gibbs' driving - he just got two coffees and didn't bother settling in for what would be, he was certain, a very short wait.
Unsurprisingly, he was right.
"You look like hell," Fornell told Gibbs as he handed the man his coffee.
Gibbs took the coffee before he replied. "You're not winning any beauty pageants any time soon either, Tobias." He took a long sip of his coffee. "What've you got for me?"
"Not much," Fornell admitted and took a sip of his own coffee. They began to walk. "Shimoni and Singer made some phone calls today. They're trying to get your former liaison officer in touch with some of their contacts. Suspected home-grown terrorists, gun runners, that charming crowd. Seems to be working so far. I'm also taking names of everyone who's been lying to me about this these past weeks, but you're not interested in that." He took another sip. "I met that evil mastermind you warned me about. She was very... underwhelming."
Gibbs scowled. "That woman makes our ex-wife look like Mother Theresa."
Fornell's eyebrows shot up. "She hides it well."
"She's apparently been raised for it. Leon had some choice words about her," Gibbs said.
Well, that seemed a lot more serious. There was quite the gap between the person Gibbs' words had painted and the unassuming professional who'd shown up to debrief Fornell over the weekend. "I'll keep that in mind," he said, and asked, in a different tone of voice: "How's your boy doing, Jethro?"
Another sip of coffee. "Improving."
"Well, that's informative." Fornell didn't really expect a reply, so after a beat he continued: "I tried to get her to talk about that part of the op, how this fit into the operational plan. Didn't even get a ‘no comment'."
"That's because it wasn't part of the op," Gibbs said.
There was something odd about Gibbs' voice as he said that. "And you know this how?" Fornell asked.
Gibbs just shook his head.
"Either this was part of Dunski's master plan, or your girl went off-script just to get back at DiNozzo," Fornell pointed out. "It's your team, but I don't like either of these options."
"Ah, hell, Tobias, I'd rather believe the first one," Gibbs replied.
"But you don't," Fornell half-asked.
"Even she isn't that good."
Or you don't want to believe that she is, Fornell thought, but didn't say out loud. Gibbs would rather believe that someone he trusted would betray him and his own this way, than assign the blame to someone he evidently hated quite a bit. That, in itself, was enough to make Fornell worry.
"I'll keep you in the loop," he said.
Gibbs, predictably, just grunted.
Interestingly, Yates was not ignoring her flat-out. She was more distant then she'd been before but then, that was within what Yael had expected for post-raid. There was little doubt that had Gibbs been informed of Yael's presence and involvement the night before he would've vented his anger at Yates. Either Yates hadn't informed him, or she was the best professional on Gibbs' team.
Gibbs would come to the office, sooner or later. What work Yael had to do she could do from the MCRT bullpen, very much as she had for the ten days before, except without having to hide, now. There were other locations where Gibbs would have to eventually be, but neutral and least confrontational was preferable.
And eventually, Gibbs indeed stepped in. Yael watched him walk from the elevator to his desk: dressed for the weather, jacket collar upturned, clothes dry, holding a green paper cup of not-coffee. He ignored Yates as he passed by her desk and she made no attempt at all to get his attention, which suggested that he had indeed taken his anger out on her earlier that day. Yael herself was treated to a single murderous look before he sat down at his desk, demonstratively turning his chair so as to face as opposite from her as possible.
She gave it a few minutes - until his shoulders went down a nearly-imperceptible notch - and then got up and walked over to stand in front of him, if with the desk between them. He wouldn't hold a confrontation in the bullpen, and he couldn't out-stubborn her.
"We need to talk," she said evenly.
"I have nothing to say to you," he replied. His eyes remained fixed on the computer screen, though, his posture turned from stiff-but-natural to frozen and his voice was too chilly, under the dismissal. This was not about anger, then.
That made the situation easier to handle, in some ways, if more volatile. It also made the best choice for her next move glaringly obvious. "You said that you would hold me responsible."
That made for an instantaneous response. Gibbs nearly knocked his chair over as he stood up and walked around her, nearly flush against McGee's desk as he put as much distance between them as he could on his way to the elevator.
She fell in step behind him without a word, keeping to two steps behind until they were inside the elevator. He stood by the control panel, facing the door, which was his usual position. She opted to stand roughly parallel to him but nearer to the opposite wall.
Predictably, he punched in a random floor number, hit the emergency stop as soon as the elevator started moving and only moved again once it screeched to a halt. He crossed the distance between them in a single step, putting himself very much in her face, and snarled: "You damn well better believe I'm holding you responsible."
"If this is what's required for you to be able to hold a conversation, go ahead," she said quietly, "but if the purpose of this is to intimidate me, then you ought to know better, as you did call me a torturer to my face."
His pupils dilated and his nostrils flared, for a second, but he didn't budge. His breath changed, became rougher, shallower. Gibbs needed status like gravity, and he'd just conceded needing the comfort of his military persona this much. It followed that whatever he was protecting himself from was even worse.
"He doesn't talk enough and he avoids eye contact," she said, quietly but at a different pitch, one meant to slide under rather than to shake up. "You would've noticed that. You expected that. Either major depression or two weeks of solitary would do that. Even taken together it should not be enough to make him not move." She'd meant to follow these two words with Not even a twitch, but the shiver she got for them was too obvious.
The problem with hard was that too often it implied brittle, and Gibbs was too close to shattering. Still not quite there, though, as the clipped, low quality of his voice indicated: "You don't get to talk about him like you know the first thing about him."
"I don't need to know him any better than any other person I work with."
"You don't work with him."
It was a good thing that she'd had sufficient practice in keeping her demeanor inviting even in the face of relentless adversity. "If you do care about him more than your pride, reconsider that." She gave it a split-second, enough to confirm his reaction, and continued in a slightly different tone of voice, putting more steel in it: "This job is not about you or me, or any one of us. This happened on my watch, which makes it my responsibility whether or not you want to accept what that means."
"So which is it?" he nearly snarled. "Because I find it equally hard to believe that you give a damn what I think, or that you care at all."
"I don't give a damn what you think," she said, returning his serve in full. "I just need you to not crack on the job." That said, and the latter part being plain true, she stepped neatly around him and switched the elevator going again.
He didn't say a word, didn't try to stop her or interfere with her in any way, but he did turn around, keeping his eyes on her, face set in a scowl and hands clenched into fists at his side.
Perhaps it was supposed to communicate distrust and anger, but the underlying mindset Yael read in the sum total of his nonverbal cues was different.
Helplessness.
The rest of the world didn't go on hold as much as Abby would've liked for it to, which meant that Abby had to be at her lab during something like normal work hours, working evidence for all of NCIS. She would've much preferred to sit with Tony. Well, okay, Tony still wasn't really up to taking more than one visitor at a time yet and it would've been unfair to the others if she hogged all of Tony's time, but Abby still felt annoyed and a little - ridiculously - guilty, so in between the DNA and the material samples she made a few things for him - just a couple of banners - and she ordered a whole lot of helium balloons, and she passed through the store on the way to pick up Tony's favorite ice cream - both Cherry Garcia and Chunky Monkey, she wasn't sure what he'd like today - to celebrate that he was on the nasal cannula and not the mask, and some of the good probiotic yogurt because Tony was on so many antibiotics, and the organic whole apple juice too and, okay, maybe a few other things, and really, it hadn't occurred to her how many things she was carrying until she tried to walk into Tony's room and decided that hospital doorways were way too narrow.
That had been a few hours ago now; the juice was half gone, the yogurt was untouched, and Abby had convinced the duty nurse to put the ice cream in the freezer in the staff lounge so it wouldn't melt. He'd eaten a couple of bites of the Cherry Garcia, at least, which had left Abby with the Chunky Monkey. She had been worried that he didn't want more of the ice cream, but according to what Damon Werth had said, Tony hadn't really been eating much of anything for the last two weeks, so she could at least rationalize that. And since they had started with the ice cream, she wasn't terribly surprised when he didn't want to eat the yogurt. And Tony was so much better than he was just two days before, totally looking at her and talking and trying to be funny, and Abby was trying so hard to think about that and not about the pauses between his words, or the look on his face whenever he realized the same thing. Tony didn't need to worry about her worrying, though, so she covered it up with all the enthusiasm she could muster, accompanying her words with illustrative gestures.
"So then Sister Rosita bowled two strikes in a row, which was great, because her game had been off for the entire night, and it brought our team total up high enough to beat our rivals - they're Episcopalian preachers - so we managed to get the trophy, and when we went back to the convent after the game, Father Jeffrey was delighted, of course, and even made a joke about the Ecumenical Wine, but you know how much of a stuffy-duffy he can be, so it was definitely only a joke."
Tony was looking straight at her when she started talking about the game, and even smiled a little as she gave him the play-by-play. At some point, though, something became off. She would've written it off as tiredness - it was getting to be evening and they had been talking for a couple hours which was maybe more talking than he'd done during the whole day, as Gibbs had sat the morning with him - but that didn't feel quite right. It took her a few seconds to realize that Tony wasn't just looking away, he was eyeing the glasses on the tray table. His glass was about a third-full and totally within reach, but he didn't reach for it, didn't say anything, just looked at the glass with an expression that, by the time Abby paused for breath, had turned to confused, somewhat helpless, frustration.
"Tony?" she asked.
It took him a second to look up at her. His expression shifted, the confusion winning over the frustration and touched with something that could be worry, or -
"What's wrong?" she asked. He was acting weird, weirder than he had been, and she could feel tears starting to prickle at her eyes.
He opened his mouth, closed it, licked his lips, swallowed, and then tried again to speak. "The glass," he said. "I -"
And that was all: Tony just stuck in place, frozen, not another word and not moving at all, and Abby hadn't been wrong a second before - that was fear on his face. And then she knew it was on her face, too, trickling down her spine as she realized that what Tony tried to say and couldn't was that he couldn't do this, couldn't reach for the glass even though it was right there.
She picked up his glass for him, quick, and she had to use both her hands because they were trembling, shaking, and so were Tony's hands as they closed around the glass and her hands both, as if the second she moved - the second she offered him the glass - the evil spell was broken and it was all right for him to accept it.
Their eyes met over their clasped hands, slow-building terror in his and - she thought - panicky outrage in hers.
What happened to you? she wanted to ask, but she had no idea if he could answer.
Tuesday, September 22
The room was dark, blinds drawn in against the glare from the motel parking lot. There was a table with a glass balanced on its edge pushed against the door, and alarm wires on every window. No one was coming, though: the Dutchman was not on to them, and law enforcement would give them a wide berth. Benny and his people did not know that, though, and so the next day - today, it had to be past midnight already - Ziva would be introduced to the Jewish Justice network, who in turn would introduce her to their suppliers; and because Ziva had a bug in her phone, the FBI would hear and record all of these conversation, all of this framing evidence.
Lies are hard to remember. Tell the truth as much as you can. It was one of the first rules repeated to undercover operators. It was the reason Ziva was assigned to this op. Tell the truth held doubly true when the target of the undercover sting was a retired Shin-Beit department chief, still connected inside the organization. Benny Shema did not let anyone in unless he thought he had something on them: his wife and her children, widowed from her first husband and their father by a roadside shooter; the hilltop youth, angry at a government that first sent their parents to the Settlements and then called them fanatics; Oren with his baggage; and Ziva with hers.
Eleven years and just over eleven months before, it was Sukot, it was a holiday, and Ziva and Tali braved the buses to Jerusalem on their own, to visit with their paternal grandparents. They were in the market, and the market - unlike malls - did not have walls and gates and guards. The market was no safer than the buses. Ziva had located Tali and pressed down on her wounds before she realized that a piece of wood torn by the explosion had ripped Tali's little girl body nearly in half; Tali was already dead, very dead. By the rules of triage - the rules of triage for mass casualties events of a terrorist nature - Ziva should have helped evacuate everyone who could still walk or be carried and only then risk herself with the potential second-wave bomb by tending to the wounded; and even then, she should have started with those who could be quickly stabilized and evacuated, not with the elderly woman with a hole in her thigh, but the woman was her grandmother and her sister was already dead.
Sometimes she could still feel Tali's blood on her hands, close to her skin, under her grandmother's. Sometimes, like lying awake in bed and staring in the direction of a ceiling that was invisible in the dark.
She pushed herself out of bed and went to wash her face, closing the bathroom door and not bothering with the light: enough of it filtered in through the window. She washed her hands first, first putting her left hand under the tap up to her elbow and then spilling water from it onto her right, and then from her right onto her left. Only then she brought her hands up to her face, the water first warm against her skin and then quickly chilled by the air.
The room she walked back into was still dark, but now with the stove on and Oren standing next to it, looking down at the pot. A glance at the clock revealed that it was past four in the morning; neither of them would go back to sleep. The room did not smell of coffee and, anyway, they did not have any coffee appropriate for boiling. They did, however, have lemon balm and spearmint, and as Ziva stepped closer she could detect the soft lemony scent of them and see the sugar Oren had waiting on the side, to be added only for the post-boiling simmer. Trail-tea, refreshing and sweet.
Oren shifted as she stood by him but said nothing, just glanced at her and then turned his gaze to the pot again. She could appreciate the effort it had to cost him: distance did not come easy to Israelis, and privacy was a distant concept.
She had never told Tony that. She had never told Tony that his nosey, pushy obnoxiousness was the most familiar thing for her at NCIS, a welcome respite from the utter foreignness of McGee's manners and Gibbs' rigidness. She hadn't taught Tony the word dachka, had never told him about all the times she privately thought he could be happier among Israelis, who would not judge him for what he was, who would return his serves.
Her throat tightened at the thought but her fury spiked, too. Tony's welcoming front hid the same fucking stupid beliefs as Gibbs, except Gibbs knew to check himself before protectiveness became possessiveness, and let capable people handle themselves. Tony tied the noose around Michael's neck and Tony kicked away the chair, even if it was Ziva who failed to take the rope away, as Hadar suggested.
She still believed that, deep down to her bones. Michael had been drinking too much for too long, but he was only teetering on the edge; Tony provided the final push, even though he did not mean to, even though he was not acting out of explicit jealousy.
Oren moved - lowered the fire, stirred the tea before adding the sugar - and Ziva started at the movement. Because it was sudden, yes, but also because Oren's solid build and controlled, efficient motion were a sharp contrast to Tony limp and pliant by her side, staring up at her with a longing adoration that no person should give up to another.
Her throat stuck. She closed her eyes and tried to focus on the scent of the tea instead - it smelled like school trips and childhood, like togetherness and belonging - but nearly all of those memories had Yael in them, and Ziva opened her eyes abruptly and turned to find two mugs before Oren could reach for them himself.
She held the mugs over the sink for him to pour the tea into. He did, and then turned to place the pot on the dark stove again. She held one mug out to him when he turned back around. His hands touched hers as he picked it up. That was all.
It was enough.
Authors: Hagar and Sailor Sol
Category: gen
Rating: overall M for captivity elements and intense emotional content
Summary: Goes AU after Aliyah. When Tony disappears two days before the Saleem op is a go, the team scrambles to find him - and to understand what an associate of La Grenouille and Israeli domestic intelligence have to do with it.
Chapter Title: Old Skins
Chapter Rating: T (harsh end of) for emotional content and semi-graphical mentions of violence
Chapter Summary: Tony's roller coaster of recovery begins, and everyone is along for the ride.
AO3 | DW | LJ Below:
Warnings: single semi-graphical depiction of major violence (T-rated chapter)
Monday, September 21
The situation he walked into on Monday morning was not the same one he'd left the day before. All the reports he'd gotten from everyone indicated that Tony's physical condition was constantly improving; Abby and Ducky also quoted Tony's pulse, BP and blood-sat levels at him when they'd called, and everybody mentioned that each time Tony woke he was more lucid. The reports weren't all sunshine and roses, though, and while Gibbs expected to walk in and find Tony not looking like death warmed over, anymore, he was still expecting Tony to be on the opposite end of the spectrum from his usual talkative self.
He certainly hadn't expected to find Tony - in a wheelchair, so obviously headed somewhere - joking with Dr. Pitt.
Gibbs only caught the tail end of whatever the doctor just said, which ended with "your chest," and a beat later Tony replied, with a smile that was a little bit forced but still a valiant try: "Hope you catch the good side."
And Dr. Pitt replied, in all seriousness: "We wouldn't want the bad side on film."
Tony and Cassie both looked up at Gibbs when they noticed his presence. Cassie stood up. "Hey, Boss," she greeted him. Tony echoed the statement a moment later.
Still wearing the mask, Gibbs noted. No nasal cannula yet.
"Oxygen doping, DiNozzo?"
He half-expected an immediate, witty response, but Gibbs could almost see the effort it was taking Tony to come up with a reply. "The doc won't tell on me," Tony finally said.
"We were just heading down to Radiology," Dr. Pitt said. "Tony's blood sat has been looking good since yesterday evening, but I didn't want to chance it before the night."
"Yeah," Gibbs said. Good thinking on Pitt's part, but Gibbs hadn't expected otherwise. He considered Tony - who was making steady eye contact and was actively following what was going on, though his posture still seemed off - and Cassie - who was beginning to look like McGee had two days before - and told the doctor, "Well, don't hold up the line on my account."
Dr. Pitt gave Gibbs an assessing look cast deliberately above Tony's head. "We'll be back in twenty minutes," he promised, wheeling Tony outside. Tony's hand twitched, but that was all. Gibbs noted that.
He waited until he was sure they were clear of the room before he turned to give Cassie an assessing look of his own. "Taking up a new profession in miracles?"
"I wish I could take the credit for this, Gibbs," Cassie replied. She looked distinctly uncomfortable.
"Oh?" He asked, wondering what could possibly make her squirm this way.
"I let Dunski cover for me for about two minutes last night."
His good mood evaporated in a split second "You what?"
"He was asleep and - "
"I thought I told you to keep her away from him," he cut her off. The last thing he needed was for Tony to be anywhere near that damn woman, especially when he was vulnerable.
"I shouldn't have done that, I know - "
"Damn right you shouldn't have - "
"But you should have seen that, Gibbs. Tim told me that Tony wasn't making eye contact, that he was barely talking at all, and I walk in and he's looking straight at me and they're doing the crossword."
I don't care if they were solving world hunger, he almost said, but he bit it back. What Cassie said was right, but, "She shouldn't be allowed anywhere near him, and I don't care how much honey she puts in that trap. I don't trust her."
"I don't trust her either, but that doesn't mean we can't use her."
That sounded familiar. He'd thought that, when the damn woman first walked into the bullpen. "Yeah, that's what she'd like you to think," he said, still angry. The "Don't you have a desk to return to?" came out a lot more tired.
The look she gave him spoke volumes, but she picked up her coat from the chair and walked out without another word.
They scheduled to meet at their usual coffee stand. Well, for a certain value of "scheduled" that accounted for Jethro Gibbs' verbosity, but Tobias Fornell was well-versed in translating from Gibbs to English. Said coffee stand being at the park two blocks down from the Hoover building, and knowing Gibbs' driving habits, Fornell hadn't expected to be the first there. Still - and again knowing Gibbs' driving - he just got two coffees and didn't bother settling in for what would be, he was certain, a very short wait.
Unsurprisingly, he was right.
"You look like hell," Fornell told Gibbs as he handed the man his coffee.
Gibbs took the coffee before he replied. "You're not winning any beauty pageants any time soon either, Tobias." He took a long sip of his coffee. "What've you got for me?"
"Not much," Fornell admitted and took a sip of his own coffee. They began to walk. "Shimoni and Singer made some phone calls today. They're trying to get your former liaison officer in touch with some of their contacts. Suspected home-grown terrorists, gun runners, that charming crowd. Seems to be working so far. I'm also taking names of everyone who's been lying to me about this these past weeks, but you're not interested in that." He took another sip. "I met that evil mastermind you warned me about. She was very... underwhelming."
Gibbs scowled. "That woman makes our ex-wife look like Mother Theresa."
Fornell's eyebrows shot up. "She hides it well."
"She's apparently been raised for it. Leon had some choice words about her," Gibbs said.
Well, that seemed a lot more serious. There was quite the gap between the person Gibbs' words had painted and the unassuming professional who'd shown up to debrief Fornell over the weekend. "I'll keep that in mind," he said, and asked, in a different tone of voice: "How's your boy doing, Jethro?"
Another sip of coffee. "Improving."
"Well, that's informative." Fornell didn't really expect a reply, so after a beat he continued: "I tried to get her to talk about that part of the op, how this fit into the operational plan. Didn't even get a ‘no comment'."
"That's because it wasn't part of the op," Gibbs said.
There was something odd about Gibbs' voice as he said that. "And you know this how?" Fornell asked.
Gibbs just shook his head.
"Either this was part of Dunski's master plan, or your girl went off-script just to get back at DiNozzo," Fornell pointed out. "It's your team, but I don't like either of these options."
"Ah, hell, Tobias, I'd rather believe the first one," Gibbs replied.
"But you don't," Fornell half-asked.
"Even she isn't that good."
Or you don't want to believe that she is, Fornell thought, but didn't say out loud. Gibbs would rather believe that someone he trusted would betray him and his own this way, than assign the blame to someone he evidently hated quite a bit. That, in itself, was enough to make Fornell worry.
"I'll keep you in the loop," he said.
Gibbs, predictably, just grunted.
Interestingly, Yates was not ignoring her flat-out. She was more distant then she'd been before but then, that was within what Yael had expected for post-raid. There was little doubt that had Gibbs been informed of Yael's presence and involvement the night before he would've vented his anger at Yates. Either Yates hadn't informed him, or she was the best professional on Gibbs' team.
Gibbs would come to the office, sooner or later. What work Yael had to do she could do from the MCRT bullpen, very much as she had for the ten days before, except without having to hide, now. There were other locations where Gibbs would have to eventually be, but neutral and least confrontational was preferable.
And eventually, Gibbs indeed stepped in. Yael watched him walk from the elevator to his desk: dressed for the weather, jacket collar upturned, clothes dry, holding a green paper cup of not-coffee. He ignored Yates as he passed by her desk and she made no attempt at all to get his attention, which suggested that he had indeed taken his anger out on her earlier that day. Yael herself was treated to a single murderous look before he sat down at his desk, demonstratively turning his chair so as to face as opposite from her as possible.
She gave it a few minutes - until his shoulders went down a nearly-imperceptible notch - and then got up and walked over to stand in front of him, if with the desk between them. He wouldn't hold a confrontation in the bullpen, and he couldn't out-stubborn her.
"We need to talk," she said evenly.
"I have nothing to say to you," he replied. His eyes remained fixed on the computer screen, though, his posture turned from stiff-but-natural to frozen and his voice was too chilly, under the dismissal. This was not about anger, then.
That made the situation easier to handle, in some ways, if more volatile. It also made the best choice for her next move glaringly obvious. "You said that you would hold me responsible."
That made for an instantaneous response. Gibbs nearly knocked his chair over as he stood up and walked around her, nearly flush against McGee's desk as he put as much distance between them as he could on his way to the elevator.
She fell in step behind him without a word, keeping to two steps behind until they were inside the elevator. He stood by the control panel, facing the door, which was his usual position. She opted to stand roughly parallel to him but nearer to the opposite wall.
Predictably, he punched in a random floor number, hit the emergency stop as soon as the elevator started moving and only moved again once it screeched to a halt. He crossed the distance between them in a single step, putting himself very much in her face, and snarled: "You damn well better believe I'm holding you responsible."
"If this is what's required for you to be able to hold a conversation, go ahead," she said quietly, "but if the purpose of this is to intimidate me, then you ought to know better, as you did call me a torturer to my face."
His pupils dilated and his nostrils flared, for a second, but he didn't budge. His breath changed, became rougher, shallower. Gibbs needed status like gravity, and he'd just conceded needing the comfort of his military persona this much. It followed that whatever he was protecting himself from was even worse.
"He doesn't talk enough and he avoids eye contact," she said, quietly but at a different pitch, one meant to slide under rather than to shake up. "You would've noticed that. You expected that. Either major depression or two weeks of solitary would do that. Even taken together it should not be enough to make him not move." She'd meant to follow these two words with Not even a twitch, but the shiver she got for them was too obvious.
The problem with hard was that too often it implied brittle, and Gibbs was too close to shattering. Still not quite there, though, as the clipped, low quality of his voice indicated: "You don't get to talk about him like you know the first thing about him."
"I don't need to know him any better than any other person I work with."
"You don't work with him."
It was a good thing that she'd had sufficient practice in keeping her demeanor inviting even in the face of relentless adversity. "If you do care about him more than your pride, reconsider that." She gave it a split-second, enough to confirm his reaction, and continued in a slightly different tone of voice, putting more steel in it: "This job is not about you or me, or any one of us. This happened on my watch, which makes it my responsibility whether or not you want to accept what that means."
"So which is it?" he nearly snarled. "Because I find it equally hard to believe that you give a damn what I think, or that you care at all."
"I don't give a damn what you think," she said, returning his serve in full. "I just need you to not crack on the job." That said, and the latter part being plain true, she stepped neatly around him and switched the elevator going again.
He didn't say a word, didn't try to stop her or interfere with her in any way, but he did turn around, keeping his eyes on her, face set in a scowl and hands clenched into fists at his side.
Perhaps it was supposed to communicate distrust and anger, but the underlying mindset Yael read in the sum total of his nonverbal cues was different.
Helplessness.
The rest of the world didn't go on hold as much as Abby would've liked for it to, which meant that Abby had to be at her lab during something like normal work hours, working evidence for all of NCIS. She would've much preferred to sit with Tony. Well, okay, Tony still wasn't really up to taking more than one visitor at a time yet and it would've been unfair to the others if she hogged all of Tony's time, but Abby still felt annoyed and a little - ridiculously - guilty, so in between the DNA and the material samples she made a few things for him - just a couple of banners - and she ordered a whole lot of helium balloons, and she passed through the store on the way to pick up Tony's favorite ice cream - both Cherry Garcia and Chunky Monkey, she wasn't sure what he'd like today - to celebrate that he was on the nasal cannula and not the mask, and some of the good probiotic yogurt because Tony was on so many antibiotics, and the organic whole apple juice too and, okay, maybe a few other things, and really, it hadn't occurred to her how many things she was carrying until she tried to walk into Tony's room and decided that hospital doorways were way too narrow.
That had been a few hours ago now; the juice was half gone, the yogurt was untouched, and Abby had convinced the duty nurse to put the ice cream in the freezer in the staff lounge so it wouldn't melt. He'd eaten a couple of bites of the Cherry Garcia, at least, which had left Abby with the Chunky Monkey. She had been worried that he didn't want more of the ice cream, but according to what Damon Werth had said, Tony hadn't really been eating much of anything for the last two weeks, so she could at least rationalize that. And since they had started with the ice cream, she wasn't terribly surprised when he didn't want to eat the yogurt. And Tony was so much better than he was just two days before, totally looking at her and talking and trying to be funny, and Abby was trying so hard to think about that and not about the pauses between his words, or the look on his face whenever he realized the same thing. Tony didn't need to worry about her worrying, though, so she covered it up with all the enthusiasm she could muster, accompanying her words with illustrative gestures.
"So then Sister Rosita bowled two strikes in a row, which was great, because her game had been off for the entire night, and it brought our team total up high enough to beat our rivals - they're Episcopalian preachers - so we managed to get the trophy, and when we went back to the convent after the game, Father Jeffrey was delighted, of course, and even made a joke about the Ecumenical Wine, but you know how much of a stuffy-duffy he can be, so it was definitely only a joke."
Tony was looking straight at her when she started talking about the game, and even smiled a little as she gave him the play-by-play. At some point, though, something became off. She would've written it off as tiredness - it was getting to be evening and they had been talking for a couple hours which was maybe more talking than he'd done during the whole day, as Gibbs had sat the morning with him - but that didn't feel quite right. It took her a few seconds to realize that Tony wasn't just looking away, he was eyeing the glasses on the tray table. His glass was about a third-full and totally within reach, but he didn't reach for it, didn't say anything, just looked at the glass with an expression that, by the time Abby paused for breath, had turned to confused, somewhat helpless, frustration.
"Tony?" she asked.
It took him a second to look up at her. His expression shifted, the confusion winning over the frustration and touched with something that could be worry, or -
"What's wrong?" she asked. He was acting weird, weirder than he had been, and she could feel tears starting to prickle at her eyes.
He opened his mouth, closed it, licked his lips, swallowed, and then tried again to speak. "The glass," he said. "I -"
And that was all: Tony just stuck in place, frozen, not another word and not moving at all, and Abby hadn't been wrong a second before - that was fear on his face. And then she knew it was on her face, too, trickling down her spine as she realized that what Tony tried to say and couldn't was that he couldn't do this, couldn't reach for the glass even though it was right there.
She picked up his glass for him, quick, and she had to use both her hands because they were trembling, shaking, and so were Tony's hands as they closed around the glass and her hands both, as if the second she moved - the second she offered him the glass - the evil spell was broken and it was all right for him to accept it.
Their eyes met over their clasped hands, slow-building terror in his and - she thought - panicky outrage in hers.
What happened to you? she wanted to ask, but she had no idea if he could answer.
Tuesday, September 22
The room was dark, blinds drawn in against the glare from the motel parking lot. There was a table with a glass balanced on its edge pushed against the door, and alarm wires on every window. No one was coming, though: the Dutchman was not on to them, and law enforcement would give them a wide berth. Benny and his people did not know that, though, and so the next day - today, it had to be past midnight already - Ziva would be introduced to the Jewish Justice network, who in turn would introduce her to their suppliers; and because Ziva had a bug in her phone, the FBI would hear and record all of these conversation, all of this framing evidence.
Lies are hard to remember. Tell the truth as much as you can. It was one of the first rules repeated to undercover operators. It was the reason Ziva was assigned to this op. Tell the truth held doubly true when the target of the undercover sting was a retired Shin-Beit department chief, still connected inside the organization. Benny Shema did not let anyone in unless he thought he had something on them: his wife and her children, widowed from her first husband and their father by a roadside shooter; the hilltop youth, angry at a government that first sent their parents to the Settlements and then called them fanatics; Oren with his baggage; and Ziva with hers.
Eleven years and just over eleven months before, it was Sukot, it was a holiday, and Ziva and Tali braved the buses to Jerusalem on their own, to visit with their paternal grandparents. They were in the market, and the market - unlike malls - did not have walls and gates and guards. The market was no safer than the buses. Ziva had located Tali and pressed down on her wounds before she realized that a piece of wood torn by the explosion had ripped Tali's little girl body nearly in half; Tali was already dead, very dead. By the rules of triage - the rules of triage for mass casualties events of a terrorist nature - Ziva should have helped evacuate everyone who could still walk or be carried and only then risk herself with the potential second-wave bomb by tending to the wounded; and even then, she should have started with those who could be quickly stabilized and evacuated, not with the elderly woman with a hole in her thigh, but the woman was her grandmother and her sister was already dead.
Sometimes she could still feel Tali's blood on her hands, close to her skin, under her grandmother's. Sometimes, like lying awake in bed and staring in the direction of a ceiling that was invisible in the dark.
She pushed herself out of bed and went to wash her face, closing the bathroom door and not bothering with the light: enough of it filtered in through the window. She washed her hands first, first putting her left hand under the tap up to her elbow and then spilling water from it onto her right, and then from her right onto her left. Only then she brought her hands up to her face, the water first warm against her skin and then quickly chilled by the air.
The room she walked back into was still dark, but now with the stove on and Oren standing next to it, looking down at the pot. A glance at the clock revealed that it was past four in the morning; neither of them would go back to sleep. The room did not smell of coffee and, anyway, they did not have any coffee appropriate for boiling. They did, however, have lemon balm and spearmint, and as Ziva stepped closer she could detect the soft lemony scent of them and see the sugar Oren had waiting on the side, to be added only for the post-boiling simmer. Trail-tea, refreshing and sweet.
Oren shifted as she stood by him but said nothing, just glanced at her and then turned his gaze to the pot again. She could appreciate the effort it had to cost him: distance did not come easy to Israelis, and privacy was a distant concept.
She had never told Tony that. She had never told Tony that his nosey, pushy obnoxiousness was the most familiar thing for her at NCIS, a welcome respite from the utter foreignness of McGee's manners and Gibbs' rigidness. She hadn't taught Tony the word dachka, had never told him about all the times she privately thought he could be happier among Israelis, who would not judge him for what he was, who would return his serves.
Her throat tightened at the thought but her fury spiked, too. Tony's welcoming front hid the same fucking stupid beliefs as Gibbs, except Gibbs knew to check himself before protectiveness became possessiveness, and let capable people handle themselves. Tony tied the noose around Michael's neck and Tony kicked away the chair, even if it was Ziva who failed to take the rope away, as Hadar suggested.
She still believed that, deep down to her bones. Michael had been drinking too much for too long, but he was only teetering on the edge; Tony provided the final push, even though he did not mean to, even though he was not acting out of explicit jealousy.
Oren moved - lowered the fire, stirred the tea before adding the sugar - and Ziva started at the movement. Because it was sudden, yes, but also because Oren's solid build and controlled, efficient motion were a sharp contrast to Tony limp and pliant by her side, staring up at her with a longing adoration that no person should give up to another.
Her throat stuck. She closed her eyes and tried to focus on the scent of the tea instead - it smelled like school trips and childhood, like togetherness and belonging - but nearly all of those memories had Yael in them, and Ziva opened her eyes abruptly and turned to find two mugs before Oren could reach for them himself.
She held the mugs over the sink for him to pour the tea into. He did, and then turned to place the pot on the dark stove again. She held one mug out to him when he turned back around. His hands touched hers as he picked it up. That was all.
It was enough.