Rule 12

Jane Doe

Disclaimer: Still don't own, please don't sue

Jane Doe

Ziva’s POV

Aargh that man is so annoying I thought to myself. Despite Tony’s constant assurances that scene badtakes are erased when cases are closed I was not so certain. And the photo he had shown me was definitely a bad one, though very humorous I must admit. It was unlikely that Tony would get rid of what he called ‘perfect photos’ and I was well aware of the number that he has taken of me when he is meant to be picturing the crime scene and victim.

Once he had snuck up behind me and I had thrown him to the floor I laid on top of him for a little while longer than I needed to so that I could hopefully warn him against taking anymore photos. He completely ignored this warning though and the camera carried on going off whilst I methodically bagged and tagged everything that I could see.

‘Flash’

The constant flash of the camera in my eyes was getting very annoying now. One more time I told myself almost begging him to do it again so I could pain him. One more time and that will be it. I will break.

‘Flash’

That was it. I was not going to take this anymore. I turned around aiming to grab his arm and twist it behind his back. Unfortunately, as I took a step towards him I tripped over something which made me fall straight towards the ground. Fortunately, before I could reach it however, a strong pair of arms engulfed me, preventing my face from smashing into the floor. Unfortunately, my weight was obviously too much for those arms to handle and we both hit the floor with a thud.

“Ooooof, Ziva you’re squashing me.”

“Are you in pain?” If he was then this was a far better way of inflicting pain than what I was originally planning to do. Looking down I realised that Tony was still looking up at me as if he was expecting something. “Yes,” I asked, smiling a little.

“Aren’t you going to move?” This was said in a very expectant way with his signature DiNozzo grin firmly in place.

“I was not planning on it,” His smile faltered when I said this, before it reappeared, brighter than before.

“So you enjoy lying on me then?” I paused, considering my response.

“I am quite comfy thank you, yes.”

“For you, maybe. Now please move.”

“Only if you promise not to whitemail me with that photo,” As soon as the words left my mouth I knew that I had made a mistake. The smirk on Tony’s face only confirmed my fears.

“Blackmail Ziva, it’s blackmail. And I wouldn’t dream of doing that. You are a crazy ninja assassin remember.” I was not sure whether I was meant to be pleased at that comment or not as Tony had again managed to confuse me by correcting my English and giving me something that could almost be considered a compliment. I was not sure that he would not use the picture however but this time I decided to give him the benefit of doubt. If he did use it then it would be the perfect opportunity for me to practise my ‘crazy ninja’ skills for betraying my trust.

“Fine. I believe you. But you better not use that picture,” I told him.

“Oh don’t you worry Zee-vah. I won’t use that picture,” he said, drawing out my name in the way he knew annoyed me, with a ghost of a smile on his face.

Satisfied, I moved off of him and reached out my hand to pull him up. As I did so Gibbs walked into sight with Ducky behind him and I pulled Tony a little harder in order to make him move because Gibbs would not look kindly at us not working. Unluckily we had already caught Gibbs’ attention and he was giving us a strange look.

“David, DiNozzo, no grab-ass at work.”

“Oh hi boss. We were uh just looking at uh something Ziva found,” Tony mumbled while looking at the ground. I gave his head the best glare I could manage for trying to make me sound like the one to blame.

“Not what it looked like to me DiNozzo. Now you go and help McGee with those interviews. David carry on. Ducky what can you tell me about our victim?”

Nodding my head I dutifully carried on with my task while at the same time keeping an ear open to hear what Ducky could tell us about our mystery victim. There was no form of identification on her and we could only tell her rank by the uniform she wore. Bending over to pick up a strand of hair that I had noticed on the victim’s shirt I heard Ducky begin his analysis.

“Well Jethro, at first glance it appears that our young vic was stabbed multiple times and simply bled to death. However, looking at her head it tells a different story,” He said while rolling the victim on to her side, “Just what I thought. If you look here there is a large depression which appears to have been caused by a heavy blow to the head. If I am correct then I think this poor women died of a severe head trauma before the stab wounds were administered. Did you know, this reminds me of a time when I was working at a hospital in…”

“Thanks Duck. Time of death?” came Gibbs’ fast reply, he needed to ask that quickly before Ducky got too carried away.

“At this stage I can only give you a rough estimate but I would say that she died between 4 and 6 hours ago, in the early hours of the morning. Judging by her breath I would also suggest that she has had a lot to drink in the last 12 hours which suggests a night out.”

“A drunken fight then taken too far then?” Gibbs asked.

“Maybe, but these marks on her neck and the state of her clothes suggest that there may be more to it than that. The killer is probably someone that she knows quite well.”

I too had noticed some of these things that Ducky had said while bagging and tagging and his comments further strengthened my opinion. Risking a glance up from my task I noticed a scrap of paper next to our victim. Hoping that this was some form of identification I quickly reached over and picked it up. Turning it over to read it I realised that this was not identification, but it could be a crucial piece of evidence to help find our killer.

“Gibbs, you should look at this,” I called him over so that he could decide what should be done about it.

“What is it?” He did not sound very happy as he made his way over to me. This is unusual I thought I cannot think of anything that I have done to annoy him, yes I was lying on Tony earlier but that was a complete accident and there was no meaning behind it. I was very confused now and did not know what I could possibly have done to make him angry with me. Hoping it was nothing I showed him the piece of paper I had found.

“If I can’t have you, no one can. Where was this?”

“Under our victim, I only saw it when Ducky rolled her over.”

“Right. Grab the other two and you can head back to base. Go straight down and hand this to Abby, I want fingerprints.”

“Yes boss.”

“What are you waiting for? Go.”

I quickly headed off in the direction of the cars where I could see McGee and Tony waiting for us. They looked like they had been standing there a while. I couldn’t help but think of Gibbs as I walked towards them. He sounded very angry with me and I had absolutely no idea what I had done. I would love to be able to look into his head sometimes. He was never normally that short with me.

“Penny for your thoughts?” came the voice of one Tony DiNozzo. Looking up I realised that I had made it to the cars and was being spoken to.

“Penny for my thoughts? Why would you want to buy my thoughts? Why would I want to sell them to anyone?”

“No, that’s not the point. What I meant was, actually never mind,” Tony finished leaving me even more confused than I was already.

I really need to learn this English language