Rule 12

Making Headway

Thanks for the comments guys I do appreciate them! And Shadow112244 thanks for the prompt to keep writing- they do encourage me to write faster. That said it might be a while until my next update as I'm pretty busy at the moment but here you go.

Tony’s PoV

Well that didn’t go too badly I thought to myself as I sat back down at my desk. Having been given no specific task I set up a search to run for any details regarding the others involved in the accident that Katrina was killed in and leant back to think about what had just happened. Hopefully there would be no ramifications and the only consequence of our talk would be a change in Ziva’s behaviour back towards normal.

As I sat there wondering over her behaviour and what it was that was bothering her (it was easy to read her eyes even when her mouth said something different) Gibbs came back from his coffee run and headed straight for Abby’s lab. When this happened it tended to mean that she had something and when he looked back at us and told us to hurry up it pretty much confirmed this was the case. Thinking it was probably a match on the prints me and Ziva hurried after the boss while McGee awaited the email from Abby with the search result so that he could make a start on profiling the owner.

Sure enough, when we entered Abby’s lab there were the results of the scan on the screen but Abby being Abby meant that she didn’t come straight out and tell us them. In fact, at the moment she was staring at Ziva with a look that I couldn’t place on her face. It appeared that Ziva understood it perfectly however, as she shuffled her feet a bit before asking Abby who the fingerprints belonged to as an attempt to shift the attention off of her.

“We’ll get to them in a minute Ziva; I have other things to show you first. And don’t think you’re getting out of answering my question,” At this Ziva started looking everywhere but me, Abby and Gibbs and I was really confused.

“Hey, I’m a little confused over here. What question?” I asked them.

“Nothing important,” Abby said and added something under her breath that sounded something like “But when I get the answer I’ll tell you.”

I opened my mouth to reply but before I could Gibbs interrupted, “What’ve you got Abs?”

“Evidence Gibbs, and a suspect,” Abby said, obviously excited, “Look at the clothes she was wearing; I was able to pull a couple of hairs that weren’t hers off of them. She had also recently had sex but there was nothing I could match,” she finished, turning towards her computer as she did so. We all followed her as she brought up the results.

“Looks like the hair belongs to James Taylor whose fingerprints also match those on the note. Looks like a nice and easy case Gibbs,” she said with a smile on her face. I also began to smile as it looked as though this was going to be a relatively easy case which we all liked as it didn’t mean too many long nights. Hopefully McGee would have the address by the time we got back upstairs and me and Ziva could go pick him up, get him to confess and everything we could finish all the paperwork by midday tomorrow.

With that thought in mind I turned around and made my way back up to the bullpen where McGee would hopefully have an address and Ziva followed. It was quiet in the elevator and when we got back up Ziva and I branched off to our respective desks where we sat down for all of two minutes before Gibbs walked round the corner McGee started speaking.

“Boss, Taylor is in the same unit as Seaford was under her command. I’ve managed to track down his address but he wasn’t answering his phone. His housemate said that he’s out with a couple of mates down the local bar.”

“Good work McGee. Tony, take Ziva and go check out the house, talk to the housemate, do whatever. Tim you’re with me, we’re paying this bar a visit.”

We all grabbed our stuff and hurried off to the garage before Gibbs could accuse us of slacking. I pitied Tim for all of two seconds seeing as he was with Gibbs but then I remembered that Ziva was not in the best of moods and I could tell that this journey would not be the nicest or most comfortable ever. Mindful of her mood I was too busy thinking of a way to get the keys off of her so I could drive without ending up on the receiving end of one of her punches and didn’t realise that she was dangling the keys in front of my nose.

“Are you going to take them or do you want me to drive?” she asked me. I quickly snatched them out of her hand before she could change her mind and got into the car.

“Are you coming Ziva? Or am I going alone?” I said, keeping my tone light hearted.

Sighing heavily, Ziva lowered herself into the passenger seat and stared straight ahead obviously reluctant to talk to me about anything. I decided to let her be for the moment and waited until we arrived at Taylor’s house before breaching the elephant in the room.

Determined to try and keep things relatively light hearted I asked her, “Is it me or was that some serious silence all the way across town?”

If looks could kill the one she gave me would have had me hung, drawn and quartered within 10 seconds flat. Mercifully she chose not to kill me and turned around to open the door. Being the driver however, I was able to lock it which earned me another look but I did get an answer out of her.

“If you wanted to turn on the radio then you could have done so. I would not have minded Tony,” she said.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it Zee-vah,” I responded, thinking that I should be alright to use that version of her name seeing as she hadn’t killed me yet.

“I know Tony,” she sighed, “but I have already told you that there is nothing you can do. This is something I have to solve myself,” she finished but did not look me in her eyes. It appeared that she was well aware that I was able to read hers far too well.

“Well why won’t you look me in the eyes when you say that?” I asked.

She sighed again before turning to me, “I will rephrase myself then Tony. You are unable to help me solve this apart from in one way and I am fairly sure that you would be unable to do so. Therefore, it is something that I need to sort out myself.”

“Why don’t you give me a try?” I asked, well aware that this problem would not just go away like that if looking in her eyes was giving me much of a clue to how much it was affecting her. If only I could get her to tell me what it was.

“I would rather not,” she retorted, rather sharply.

“Okay,” I conceded, knowing that it was in my best interest to do so, “But if you do want to talk then you know I am always ready to listen.”

“I know Tony,” she said and then turned to get out of the car muttering something under her breath that I didn’t catch but knew it was related to what had made her so upset.

Sighing I climbed out of the car and followed her up the steps to the door of Taylor’s house ready to see if we could find anything out about our main suspect. We were back in our work frame of mind and I knew it would take a while for Ziva to open up again. Waiting for a response to our knock on the door I vowed to do one thing for her though and there would be no stopping until I had done it.

I must get to the bottom of her problem.