FIC: Per Aspera ad Astra, NCIS, 2/?

[tigerlily0484]

Title: Per Aspera ad Astra
Genre: Het
Pairing/Characters: Tony/Ziva, Team Gibbs
Rating: PG-15 for language and content.
Summary: It's all well and good to have your questions answered, but what do you do when the answers just bring about more questions? Ziva has abandoned her past and now has to find her place in an uncertain future. Tony's found his feet in the present but is about to be hit with a blast from his past. Everyone else is trying to deal with the fallout as best they can.


~Chapter One: A Grin Without a Cat~

There are at least a dozen things Abby should be working on right now. Ballistics testing, cataloguing evidence ready for the Anstey trial, analysing the highball glass from the Walton case for traces of GHB…

Yep, now is really not the best time to be socializing, especially not with a medical examiner who likely has his own exhaustive list of tasks to complete.

“You know what the problem is, Ducky?”

“Enlighten me, my dear.”

Silence falls, punctuated by the gentle hum of the mass spectrometer and the scrape of a straw through a plastic lid. Abby shifts her weight back and forth, the chains draped from her plaid skirt sounding out her sudden uncertainty. “I was hoping you’d know,” she sighs. “It’s been three weeks, Ducky, three weeks of - nothing.”

Ducky frowns. “Surely you have - ”

“Seen Ziva? Sure.” The truth, but not the whole truth, so help her God. “Seen her, hugged her, hung out at Tony’s while he tries too hard to make jokes and Ziva does her best Mona Lisa impression. I even dragged her shopping for new clothes, which was almost normal - she still won’t go into Hot Topic on threat of…” Unable to say the word, she trails off, biting her lip. “Well, that hasn’t changed. But I didn’t think it would be so… it’s just like when Kate died!”

“I’m not sure I follow.” But Ducky gives her the look that means the complete opposite, and she can’t decide whether to scowl or smile because sometimes he’s more like Gibbs than he’ll ever admit.

Just when she really needs a story, he has to go and make her figure it out for herself, dammit.

Abby sets her Caf-Pow down on the stainless steel table and starts pacing in slow circles. “Ziva showed up, and she wasn’t Kate, and I hated her for it. Well, maybe not hate, because hate is for power suits and evil lab assistants and people who call me ma’am, but I didn’t want to like her.”

She completes another lap, her even footsteps a counterpoint to the uneven stream of words. “All cocky and not-fitting and not Kate, and at first she rubbed me up the wrong way so hard it left skid marks, but… after awhile she grew on me like Cladosporium. And I don’t really know what happened to her in Africa because Tony’s gone all Fight Club about it and Gibbs - well, he’s not one for sharing anyway, which I understand, but it’s like they brought back a completely different person, and I keep saying the wrong thing and…”

She stops dead in front of Ducky, who is watching her with a mixture of quiet patience and wariness. “I’m really not making much sense here, and whoa, starting to think that maybe that fourth Caf-Pow was a mistake and - ”

“Enough,” he interrupts gently. Pats her hand. “I am not Ziva’s primary care physician, Abby, but I have looked over her medical records - and while not exhaustive on the subject, they give me a fairly clear indication of what she must have been through. Dr Angelou from the North Base Camp medical facility was certainly concerned about the possible onset of post traumatic stress symptoms. Do you - ”

“Uh-huh,” Abby says quickly. She can deal with science talk, even medical science talk. It’s familiar ground. “Well, I looked it up on Journal Watch. Do you think Ziva’s doctor at Bethesda has read the latest research, because there’s a psychiatrist in Buffalo who has done studies on the effectiveness of Prazosin - ”

“I’m sure that Dr Kochler has ample experience with treating victims of traumatic incidents, my dear.”

Abby blinks like a chastised child. “Oh. Right. I was just - see, this is what I mean! You’re reading her records, Tony’s giving her a place to stay and watching her six, McGee… well, McGee’s covering for Tony so that he can leave early without Gibbs knowing, and Gibbs is - ” Pigtails whip as she turns to peer through the empty doorway, “ - apparently not living up to his normal standard of mind-reading tricks, otherwise he’d be coming out of the elevator right now.”

“Or it’s an especially good Houdini day and he’s been here for the last two minutes,” a familiar dry voice says in her ear, making her jump. She wonders idly if it would be a violation of the Hippocratic Oath if she bribed Ducky to implant some kind of tracking device under his skin, sort of like the microchip his furry namesake has in the back of his neck.

“You got anything, Abs?”

“Other than an overdeveloped sense of helpless guilt?” she asks without looking at either of them. “Nope.” Wanting to prove she’s actually doing something, Abby points at the sound-recognition software running busily on the overhead monitor. “There are over literally thousands of possibilities that could match the background noise we pulled from the mystery burn phone. It’s only been an hour, Gibbs, and I’m fresh out of miracles for the day.”

“Jethro,” Ducky ventures, “Have you had the chance to speak to the Director at all? It might go a long way in reassuring Ziva that she is wanted here.”

“Won’t make much of a difference, Duck,” Gibbs replies, and his words practically suck the caffeine buzz right out of Abby’s brain. He looks at her briefly then takes a deep breath. “Without US citizenship and without a relationship with Mossad, it doesn’t matter how many strings Vance is willing to pull - SecNav will never allow it. Assuming she even wants to come back to NCIS, and you know how I feel about assumptions.”

“Much the same way you feel about coincidences, I suppose.”

Abby just gapes at Gibbs for a second. “Of course she’s coming back!” she says furiously, refusing to believe what Gibbs just said. Ducky touches her arm gently and she shakes him off. An idea forms. Hitting the power button on her second monitor, Abby turns to face Ducky and Gibbs. “There must be a loophole somewhere that we can slip her through, and I’m going to make like Bubba sticking his black and tan nose into the rabbit hole - and find it. Abby’s Caffeine-Fuelled Adventures in Wonderland. And, speaking of…”

“Behind you, Abs,”

The empty cup she left on the table has magically refilled itself and she intends to ask Gibbs how he did it, but her computer prompts for a password with an indignant beep and by the time she’s typed it in and turned around the lab is empty. At least she’s solved her dilemma about what to get Ducky for his birthday - a bell just like the one Gibbs has sitting on his desk.

She wonders if Palmer might be easier to bribe.

“Okay, Team Abby,” she says brightly, pleased at finally having something to make her feel useful. “Time to find an iron-clad way to keep Ziva where she belongs.”

Up in the squadroom, Tony pounds out a soft, slightly manic beat on the three square inches of his desk not covered by paperwork.

Wait. Not his desk. Ziva’s desk. Somehow it seemed wrong to let it be taken over by a temporary agent, even if she’s never coming back to NCIS. Which they still don’t know, given Vance’s point-blank refusal to discuss it. Bastard.

Plus, he can see the stairs from here and thanks to his discreetly rigged mirror system, he has an excellent reflected view of the elevator doors. Just in case Gibbs feels the need to sneak up behind him while he’s doing something he shouldn’t be, or isn’t doing something he should. Like clearing his desk of the forms and reports that he’s been putting off reading all week.

Should have shown more support for McGee’s ‘digital revolution’ plan, DiNozzo, he thinks idly, using a broken chopstick from yesterday’s lunch to hit random objects on the desk. He’s searching for a sound.

Well, Abby is searching for a sound. Tony’s searching for the perfect combination of office supplies to flesh out his own personal one-agent percussion ensemble, while simultaneously timing how long it takes Keating to crack from the annoyance of the noise. Given the way he’s grinding his teeth at the moment, it won’t take much longer.

The junior agent is even more green than the original Probie was, though he has his own moments of brilliance and a certain dogged enthusiasm to prove that he belongs as a Field Agent rather than a desk jockey. He also has a certain DiNozzo-esque knack for coming up with pranks that is entirely unexpected in someone who looks… well, like a geek.

All in all, there are worse agents to be temporarily stuck with, but each time Keating trips over his own shadow or quotes the NCIS field regulations it only serves to remind Tony of how much he wishes someone else was sitting at the desk he’s unofficially taken over.

“Tony…” Keating says now through gritted teeth. “Is there any chance that you could…”

“Nope,” Tony says without looking up.

“Oh. Okay then.”

He waits just long enough to make it look like he isn’t giving in, then stops drumming and flexes his fingers. Thirteen minutes, twenty-six seconds. Keating has more patience than Tony gave him credit for.

Or perhaps just a higher level of fear of annoying his Senior Field Agent and winding up assigned to desk work for the foreseeable future. In true Gibbs style, Tony hasn’t bothered to tell Keating that he actually has no authority over team assignments. It’s much more fun to watch him fumble and sweat.

It’s like a never-ending rerun of Revenge of the Nerds around here at the moment. If this keeps up, Tony might have to give in and learn to speak Geek. He misses speaking Ninja. Misspoken idioms and vague teasing threats of harm to his person - all coloured with a tiny hint of smug. Hell, he even misses the prickle on the back of his neck that usually means Ziva’s standing behind him, about to invade his personal space.

There’s not much invading of anything these days.

In fact, they barely even look at each other. Certainly not in the same charged way that they used to once upon a time. Oh, she’s trying with everything in her to pretend that she’s fine. Sometimes it hurts to see how hard she tries. But the wounds are undeniably raw, and since they got back she’s been avoiding his clumsy attempts to get her to open up. And Tony understands.

Really, he does.

Still, there are things that he wants to say to Ziva, has to say, but he can’t bring himself to do it just yet. Even after three weeks of sleeping under the same roof, cooking and watching movies and chatting idly about the present. They talk about current events and how her doctors are impressed by her progress, and sometimes about cases the MCRT are working on. The last, she usually bears with a funny little half-smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes - it slides from her face like butter from a warm knife, like she’s only just bearing the reminder of how things used to be.

He jokes about Keating’s latest exploits and McGee’s attempts to hide the fact that the rights to Deep Six: The Movie have been bought by Universal. He avoids mentioning Abby’s refusal to return Broom Ziva to the janitor’s closet just yet, or that sometimes McGee glances up at her desk and can’t quite hide his surprise at seeing Tony sitting there.

Tony never tells her that the walls between his bedroom and hers are surprisingly thin, or that she’s not fooling anyone when he asks her how she slept and she says ‘fine’ with that same half-smile. He pretends not to hear her moving slowly around the apartment during the night, or hovering in his doorway indecisively - the opposite of everything she has ever been, strong and sure and unflappable.

They don’t talk about the future, and they definitely don’t talk about the past.

Instead, he cracks bad jokes and quotes movies and clenches his fists with the effort not to reach out and touch her slowly-growing hair, because in the before it used to make her smile.

He’s not entirely sure what he expected to happen when they got back to Washington, but they’ve deviated from the script somewhere along the line and he can’t find his updated copy. He tries to figure out his lines by watching her face, but she’s always been hard to read and now - in the after - she’s like an unabridged copy of War and Peace. In Swahili.

“Any leads?” he asks finally (more to shock himself back into work mode than from any real hope of something having turned up during his vague-out). The junior agent jumps at the interruption and then looks stricken for a moment. “Relax. I’m not going to bite your head off, Danny.”

“Daniel,” Keating corrects quickly, and Tony raises an eyebrow in his general direction. “Uh, Danny is a child’s name. ”

He makes a mental note of that. “Danny Ocean. Danny Zuko. Danny Bhoy. Granted, the last is a stretch, but I’m still not really seeing the Sesame Street element here. But whatever. Leads?”

The silence says it all.

Tony sighs. Gibbs is going to rip someone a new one over this, and by someone, Tony means him, since the person in charge always takes the blame. That’s just how the game works. Gibbs’ rules must supersede themselves, because he’s sure that there’s one about always working as a team, and yet they haven’t really been a team for months, maybe longer. And not just because of the seating arrangements in the squad room.

A tip-off about a planned robbery at a Norfolk storage facility just over three weeks ago led local LEO’s to a cache of weapons, ammunition and sundry supplies, most of which were clearly Navy-issue. Vance was concerned about connections with terrorist groups or perhaps a major crime ring - either way, the theft and potential misuse of Navy property was great enough to get the MCRT assigned the case. Keating tried to explain exactly why in far too many words, but after he heard the now-familiar phrase (“NCIS regulations state that…”) he tuned out until the Very Junior Field Agent got the hint and started nattering at McGee instead.

“So we’ve got nothing,” Tony says needlessly.

“Well, we found out that…” Keating stops, thinks and then shakes his head. “Yeah. We got nothing.”

Desperate times call for desperate measures, then. “Campfire, Keating,” he says firmly, pushing his chair into the centre of the bullpen and looking expectantly at the junior agent. “What, you think I’m wheeling around to improve the muscle tone in my legs? Hardly. Move!”

Keating moves so quickly he almost tips himself over backwards. “Don’t we need the, uh, the rest of the team?”

“Well, our fearless leader is off somewhere either raising hell or getting a refill, and McGeek is out following up the surveillance tapes from U-Store-It, so it looks like it’s just you and me, alone in the bullpen on a…” Tony looks out the window with a frown, “cold and rainy morning. Official campfire rules state that only two agents need to be present, otherwise I’d be talking to myself, and I can do that from my desk. Now. What do we know?”

Papers shuffle as Keating looks for the right page, the tip of his tongue darting out from his mouth in concentration. “We, uh, couldn’t trace the owner of the locker, the owner signed up online and it’s one of those self-contained places, you enter your code at the gate and then drive right to your locker. The surveillance cameras in the area were broken three days prior to the tip-off and fixed the morning that the LEO’s raided the place. ”

“Which is convenient for the dealers, but not so much for Barney Rent-a-Cop in the Security office.”

“Actually, his name is Barnaby Rentacol…” Tony just stares at him, his fingers twitching reflexively. “But you knew that.”

“What else, Agent Obvious?”

“Uh, the weapons and other devices found included - ” Keating begins to read from a long list of too-familiar names and calibres. Tony’s learnt more about the arms trade in three weeks than he really ever wanted to know, though the irony of him somehow becoming an almost-expert in the workings of arms dealers makes him cringe.

He wonders sometimes if Gibbs handed the task off to him on purpose, and thinks with a touch of bitterness that he’s somehow never going to leave Jeanne entirely behind him, just like Gibbs could never quite hide the lights of Paris in his eyes when he looked at Jenny.

“The tipoff was made anonymously from an unregistered cell phone - uh, burn phone - that we recovered in the trash at a gas station a mile from U-Store-It. Abby and Agent McGee have tried voice analysis, GPS signal positioning, surveillance camera footage from a nearby gas station… nothing. We have no idea who made that call or how deeply they were involved.” Keating pauses briefly, his lips twitching nervously. “And, uh, why are we going through all of this again?”

“It’s all about the context, Danny. Finding the answer to the riddles. Why is a raven like a writing desk?” Tony asks, hiding his grin at Keating’s confused blink. “Never mind. So we’ve got a cache of stored weapons, mostly Navy-issue. What does your gut tell you?”

“Well, whoever it is must have some connection to the Navy, specifically access to the armoury, so if I pull the files of personnel based in Washington and cross reference…”

“Time is money, Keating, and you’re using a whole lot of three dollar words there. You’ll owe me your first born by the end of the week. Campfire over,” Tony says as he clicks the recorder off. “Hop to it!”

The only anomaly on the recording itself is an odd clinking sound. Abby’s tracing her way through various audio databases and whatever else she uses, to see if they can locate the origin and maybe pinpoint the place where the caller was standing at the time, in vague hope of getting a decent description from somewhere.

There are far too many vague hopes and assumptions for Tony to be at ease, though the drumming is distracting him from his circling thoughts. Huh. He didn’t even realise he’d started again, on the side of McGee’s desk this time. Maybe he should apologise to - no, wouldn’t do to have Keating thinking he was... is soft the right word here?

Not at work, anyway. Actually, not even outside of work - or at least, not very often and definitely not in public.

Life after Egypt has slowly returned to something resembling normal, or if not entirely normal, then at least something familiar. Something that they can work with, like a classic movie targeted for a remake by money-hungry Hollywood. Someone makes a movie or a television show (or a life)… and the original is pretty close to excellent, though it has its flaws like anything else.

Then someone else decides that what the movie really needed was more drama, or a different slant on things, or a spot of torture and intrepid adventure to spice up the plotline and bam! The Ziva and Tony Show, version 2.0. As with most remakes, it’s always a gamble whether you’re going to strike oil or a sewage pipe.

It’s King Kong versus Planet of the Apes - Naomi Watts in a white dress, or Helena Bonham Carter in really bad primate makeup.

No contest there.

Some days he wonders who’s pulling the strings in this puppet show. He spins his chair around and does a little marionette-monkey imitation, much to Keating’s confusion and sudden visible trepidation, which probably means…

“DiNozzo!”

Dammit.

He forgot to keep an eye on the catwalk near MTAC. That being said, at least the Boss can’t sneak up directly behind him anymore, because another agent’s workspace backs onto Tony’s now. Which had nothing at all to do with why he switched desks, of course.

“Yeah, Boss?”

“Quit monkeying around down there and get back to work.”

Maybe Abby’s onto something with the ‘Gibbs as psychic’ theory.

“Just waiting for a contact at Metro Police Department to return my calls, Boss!”

As if on cue, the phone on his desk starts ringing.

Tony’s not the praying kind, but he takes a moment to send out positive thoughts into the universe anyway. Gibbs looks vaguely impressed for a moment, then shrugs and heads for the stairs. Keating looks downright surprised at the impeccable timing of the call, but hides it well - four seconds too late. If there were a catchphrase for the Junior Agent, that would be it. Four seconds too late.

Tony waits until Gibbs has entered the bullpen, then picks up the phone with a flourish.

“Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo is unable to take your call right now,” he says crisply, shooting a triumphant smirk at Keating. “Please leave a message after the - ”

“Women actually fall for that fake message schtick?” a gruff voice interrupts before he can finish. “Wait. Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.”

“And yet you called me, Jack, so deep down you must be just a little bit curious.”

On the other end, the Head of Security chuckles under his breath, a pack-a-day wheeze just evident around the edges of his laugh. Tony is curious despite himself. “What’s going on down there? Run out of donuts already?”

There’s a pregnant pause, just long enough for Tony to wonder who came up with that particular figure of speech. Across the bullpen, Keating is staring at him, and Tony almost groans as he replays his half of the conversation in his head.

“No, wiseass,” comes the reply. “Got a surprise visitor for you, actually.”

“If it’s a singing gorilla, I’m going to be very unimpressed,” he says, glaring at Keating just in case. He’s wondering why the security officer suddenly felt the need to call. “You’ve been here longer than me, Jack. You need me to tell you how to do a strip search again?”

“Well, that’s the problem, Tony,” Jack says, lowering his voice to what almost qualifies as a whisper. “They… uh, she doesn’t want to come up.” Someone murmurs in the background, and Jack’s voice lowers again, making Tony strain to hear above the usual squad room noise. “It’s Officer David.”

Ah.

“Just Ziva, Jack,” he hears Ziva say in the background. Her voice is strained, though whether it’s because of the doubly unwelcome name or whatever it is that’s brought her to the Navy Yard in the first place, Tony can’t tell.

Curiouser and curiouser.

“Keep her there,” he says quickly, then realises what he’s said. Jack’s no novice, but Tony’s not entirely sure that Ziva won’t react… badly… to feeling trapped, and neither of them deserve that. “Well, ask her very nicely to stick around, if you have to. I’ll be right down.”

He hangs up, pointedly ignoring Gibbs’ hawk-eyed gaze.

“Did Metro police bring in a suspect for us to interrogate?” Keating asks a little too eagerly, reaching for his badge and gun.

Tony winces, and from the corner of his eye he sees Gibbs’ hand twitch slightly. “Interview, Keating.”

Gibbs eyes him steadily for a moment, then tilts his head meaningfully toward the elevator and raises an eyebrow. Tony doesn’t pause to ask for clarification, just gathers his cell and wallet and starts for the exit.

“Sorry. I could’ve sworn I heard somebody… Hey, where are you going?”

Tony’s not entirely sure how much Keating knows - they’ve done their best to keep their time in Africa from reaching the gossip-hungry masses, but who knows what squadroom scuttlebutt is about where he and Gibbs disappeared to on their simultaneous ‘vacation’. Either way, now’s really not the time.

“Going to a party, Mom. Lots of alcohol, no parental supervision. Possibly strippers. I’ll take pictures for you. Don’t wait up, okay?”

“But - ”

Tony spins on his heel and walks backward toward the elevator, levelling Keating with DiNozzo Stare #3: No Questions. “I’ve got my cell. Try not to set anything on fire.”

“I never - ”

Keating’s protests are drowned out by the slam of the stairwell door.

His cell starts buzzing before he’s even made it down one flight, and he checks the display with a sigh. “You need another refill already, Boss?”

“I want you back in the squadroom by 1400, DiNozzo,” Gibbs says, and Tony checks his watch, stopping briefly on the flat section between floors. 1309. Hopefully plenty of time. Gibbs’ voice softens by degrees. “Ziva allowed to drive yet?”

“Not until the cast comes off in two weeks, Boss.”

“Right. 1430 then, and not a minute after. Don’t need to remind you about rule three, do I?”

Gibbs is being nice again, and that unnerves Tony more than the threat of punishment if he dares to be late back to work. Normally, just leaving the bullpen for a personal matter is enough for Gibbs to get that ‘Off with his head!’ look in his eye. Gibbs being nice means that there’s something wrong here, and Tony’s not entirely sure - given his abysmal record so far - that he’s the one to fix it. Still, she came to the Navy Yard and asked for him. That has to mean something, right?

“DiNozzo!”

“Ten-four, Boss. Drive Ziva home. Keep cell on. Don’t be late back. Over and out.”

He hangs up without waiting for a response, starting down the stairs again with a frown. Gibbs being nice generally means trouble for someone, and with Tony’s track record, it’s probably going to be him. As if on cue, the phone rings again. He doesn’t bother with a greeting this time, just stops and breathes and waits for the inevitable.

“Remember what I told you when we got home, Tony?”

“Yeah Boss,” he replies, thinking of awkward silences and clumsy questions without the weight of conviction behind them. Don’t push her, Gibbs had warned under his breath as Ziva climbed into the Charger, and he’s tried to follow the not-quite-order, gritting his teeth against everything he wants to ask…

Gibbs clears his throat, each word low but distinct. “Might be a good time to ‘forget’ that I said that.”