A/N: So this might be a little silly, but I can't help it. It wanted to be written. And it is being all fun to write and everything. I hope it is fun to read. I have more written and it will probably be somewhere around 10 chapters long. Thank you to my favorite Monkey for encouragement and the title. 4/26/14 Squares

It was infuriating. Ziva could kill in a hundred different ways. She could fly a plane, rebuild an engine, speak a dozen languages. And, in the work she did, with the father she had, diplomacy was taught in the cradle. She conceded that she had investigative skills to learn but knew she was doing well, and while her interrogation methods were not diverse in kind, they were effective. And when it came to analysis, to scanning a crowd or a park, a coffee shop or the stands at a soccer match, there was no one better. A thousand tiny signals coalescing into near perfect recall and identification of foci and loci. Deciding which individuals had power, what kind, and how to counter it was essential and lives often depended on her ability to single out such individuals and their motives.

That...well, that wasn't the infuriating part. She did know who had the power here, had discerned that from the moment she arrived. Gibbs, obviously. Except...if that were true, or the entire truth, the situation would be different. And in the months since she came to NCIS, it had become crystal clear to her that she was missing something. She never missed anything. And in fact, wasn't missing it now, she just didn't know what to do about it. Gibbs had the power. Obviously. Except…

Abby.

Abby had power too. Maybe more than Gibbs, if she read the signs right. It didn't make any sense. She understood well the power the techs had in the modern world. Getting in good with the people who could speed the analysis of evidence and identification of suspects and victims was important. But Abby didn't seem to deal in the currency of blat, as the Russians would call it, in favors or gifts or flattery. And it wasn't as simple as the fact that Abby traded in emotion; she could be unhappy or irritated or even furious with Gibbs or Tony and still deploy her resources on their behalf. And Ziva had tried to get close to her, had invited her to dinner, to a "girl's night out", to a club for dancing. Abby had warmed to a degree, especially since the time Ziva and Tony had been locked in the storage trailer, but even that was infuriating because Ziva didn't know why! Ziva didn't feel that she could control Abby, or alternatively, discount her. And that was unacceptable and meant her situation was not fully known and in her control.

Ziva wasn't giving up yet though. Some problems were more complex, took more time to analyze and strategize. Clearly Abby was a worthy adversary and while Ziva didn't know how she did it, Abby clearly knew when what was being offered was genuine versus when it was a move on a chessboard. So it was going to be harder than she thought, but Ziva was no coward. Ziva needed to offer Abby something real, something of herself, extend a genuine hand of friendship, to have a chance of success.

Sitting in the waiting room of Human Resources, ten minutes early to her meeting, Ziva pondered her options. She didn't think that Abby would bond with her at the firing range, or at lethal martial arts classes. Her sex life was rich and varied but discrete and absolutely within her control, and control was something that Abby was all too willing to give up, or manipulate. From Ziva's close observation—she followed the woman almost around the clock for almost two weeks when she first identified the power imbalance at work—she knew that Abby played at a number of adventuresome recreational pursuits, from weekend RPG getaways to playing the banjo at a series of guerilla gigs by a well known local punk band. None of those seemed like viable opportunities for Ziva to get close to Abby.

While she mused, sitting in the amazingly ugly HR waiting room, Ziva leafed through the piles of offered documentation. Leaflets on sexual harassment, work and life balance, childcare. Ziva had just completed the last of her FLETC courses and each step of the way had to share the documentation with the flunkies in HR in person. In addition to this ritual, on each occasion she had to complete a battery of tests, or complete a series of forms, as if spreading out the inanity made it less a waste of time.

"Ms. David?" The same flunky as at previous meetings called to her from the door leading back to offices. Ziva pasted a bright smile on her face, feigned pleasure at seeing the woman again, and wondered to what new level of paperwork hell she would be subjected.

ZZZZZ

And so it was that two hours later, Ziva finally dumped her gear on her desk, frustration at the wasted morning seeping from every pore, she was sure. She snapped at Tony and booted up her computer, eager to continue the work of the prior day only to find that Tony and McGee had already run down those leads, interviewed suspects, and uncovered what might turn out to be the murder site. Khara. Shit.

"Ziva."

"Yes, Gibbs?" She kept the irritation out of her voice.

"Go check on the lab results. Abby will bring you up to speed on what we found."

Without answering, and still in a foul mood, Ziva descended to Abby's lab.

"What happened to you?" Proving her point from earlier, Abby seemed to know right away that she was out of shape. Shape? Out of...sort or...sorts. That was it. Out of sorts.

Ziva peered over her shoulder at the computer screen. She just wanted to work. Ziva mumbled something about the stupidity of human resources tests.

To her surprise, Abby brightened. "Really. Which ones?" Ziva catalogued the physiological signs of positivity. Abby's voice deepened and warmed, her body turned toward Ziva, the movement of her fingers slowed, and her laugh lines deepened although she didn't smile, her pupils didn't dilate appreciably and yet—

"Stop analyzing me, Ziva. I know you don't mean anything by it, but it is rude." Abby's head snapped back to the screen and her hands tap-tap-tapped in careful patterns on the keyboard.

"Abby—"

Abby turned just her head and gave her a scornful look. "Do you deny it?" Infuriating, how direct Abby was, how direct she was, and yet they couldn't seem to...what? Be friends? Ziva wasn't looking for friends. Be partners? Ziva already had one. Connect?

"No. I do not. I apologize. I...you are correct. Indeed, I do not mean anything by it. My training...it is unconsciously done."

Abby's voice was warm again. "Fine. Thank you. What forms?"

"What?"

"Lighten up, Frances. Human Resource forms. There are a lot. Which ones has your razor-edged deadly thong in a twist today?"

Too many idioms. But Ziva thought she knew what Abby meant.

"Something called Myers-Briggs Type Indicator."

"Ohhhh." Abby was smiling at this.

"What?"

"Gibbs was so mad after everyone had to take those. Like, really mad. The results came in a green envelope and it sat on his desk for four days, unopened. All the other team leaders opened theirs, shared them with their teams in some way. The test is for HR, but people were allowed to see their results and we were all given some stuff about what it meant...well, some of us were. Not me, and not Gibbs' team. That envelope sat there all week and then on Friday morning, he dumped it in the trash—not even the recycling. It sat there all day, the green corner sticking out of the basket. Gibbs went home last. Tony went back later but it was gone."

"What is so objectionable about this test?"

"Oh, I don't know. It's the kind of squidgy, touchy-feely thing that Gibbs hates. He hates being put in a box. So do I, so I never asked why I didn't get my results. Plus I had done it before as part of a Wiccan Rodeo Retreat I went to one summer so I knew what box this test put me in. I figured that Gibbs threatened the other team leaders with something terrible if they told me. All we had to do was go to HR to get another copy but I never did and I'm pretty sure Tony and McGee didn't either."

Ziva was interested now. "The questions were ridiculous and the title indicated that it was some kind of personality test. I had to rank things...how easily I introduce myself to others, how much "alone time" I need, and which was more important to me: justice or mercy. What is Human Resources doing with this information? We already have our assignments. Our training indicates which positions we are qualified for."

"Oh, I don't know. Things like which member of the team breaks bad news to families or something about leadership potential. I just don't think that people work like that, are only one way all the time. On the other hand, my friend Hank told me that there is a Myers-Briggs category of people who basically can be identified as 'people who don't believe in the Myers Briggs test.' I thought that was pretty interesting."

"You have an acquaintance who takes this seriously?"

"Hank? Well, not seriously exactly. At least not the way it was meant to be taken. He is a programmer friend of mine. For fun one summer he wrote a program that took Myers-Briggs scores and analyzed them within the context of what he called The Compatability Index to see if he could predict when two people were romantically compatible. It worked, actually, and he made a lot of money before he got sent to prison."

"For what?"

"He developed his indicator, the CI, by analyzing indicators of long-term compatibility in couples...marriages and divorces, travel, children's success in school and permanent relationships, participation in recreational activities...stuff like that...information he got from a number of protected databases, some of them government, some of the private, like airlines. He combined all the other information he had on people with their Myers-Briggs scores to predict romantic success. Anyway, he's out of prison now and working for Disney."

Ziva was intrigued, despite herself. "So you could give this man the Myers-Briggs results of two individuals and it would predict whether or not they were compatible?"

"Or you could give it a batch of results from a group of people and it would pair up the most compatible."

The two women looked at each other, for once thinking exactly the same thing.

"No."

"No. It would not be ethical."

Their eyes held, though, the whirs and beeps of Abby's machines and the occasional clunk of the A/C an appropriate soundtrack to the inner workings of two curious women's minds.

"How would we get them?"

"You could hack into HR…"

"You could break into their files."

Now the light dimmed in both sets of eyes. "But if Gibbs found out…"

"He would be angry?"

"He would be disappointed." Abby deflated.

"He wouldn't have to know. We're not using them for work purposes after all. Just to see—"

" —if anyone on the team is especially compatible."

"Pretty small sample size."

"Well, we could also utilize Agent Dorneget's, Ducky's, Jimmy's, maybe some former team members."

Neither woman wanted to say who came to mind.

"There was nothing there like that. With...Cate."

"No, no, of course not. I know that. It's just that sometimes…"

"What?"

"I just wish I had met her, known her at least a little. Sometimes it feels like she is still here. Like a ghost that everyone else can see but me."

"Oh, Ziva." Abby hugged her. Ziva felt warm, suddenly, decided it was satisfaction at her methods starting to achieve results in building a relationship with Abby. But she couldn't stop the small smile. Stop it, she told her lips.

"Well, it is just that it would be so sad. Sadder than it already is if it turns out that Cate was someone's true love."

"Well, we could add Agent Cassidy and Director Shepard. What was the name of the other director?...Director Morrow."

"Oooh! We could include Fornell. But we'd have to get his test results from the F.B.I. and I don't know if they even give it over there."

"What do you have for me, Abs?" And Gibbs was there, suddenly.

Ziva was impressed when Abby didn't miss a beat, "As I was just telling Ziva, Gibbs, Mr. Mass Spec had some very interesting news to tell me…"

Ziva didn't let herself look back as she followed Gibbs up to the bullpen.

ZZZZZ

Days passed. Finally, Ziva decided to try to get Abby alone again, but she was thwarted by circumstances and Friday afternoon found her staring at a dark lab.

"Whatcha doing, Zee-vah?" Tony came to stand next her, a file in his hand. He surveyed the lab and clearly puzzled, glanced over at her, eyebrow raised.

"I was merely going to say goodnight to Abby, Tony."

"Oh," he strolled away, tossed the file on Abby's desk. "She left early to go to a concert."

"Is she playing in it or watching it?"

Now Tony seemed actually surprised. "You know a lot about Abby, Ziva. Why is that?"

"I'm an investigator, Tony, it's my job."

He nodded, smirking a little at nothing that she could see. "Well, Gibbs said we could go, so see you Monday, Investigator David."

Ziva stood for a few minutes more, thinking. It was a ridiculous idea. Ludicrous. She decided she would stop at Rubin's Bakery and purchase the good Apple Challah to observe the Shabbat tonight.

ZZZZZ

If her light was on, she would call. If her light was off, she'd wait until Monday.

It was just after 3 am on Saturday morning and indeed, that evening Ziva had observed the Shabbat with her own Friday night rituals, but then couldn't squelch the urge to plan out just how she would break into the Human Resource files. By eleven she had it all worked out. By two am she was holding the files in her hands. Now, at three, she was walking toward Abby's apartment block.

Abby's light was on. Ziva didn't call, just buzzed.

"Hello?"

"It's Ziva." The door released.

When Abby opened the door, her eyes went to the large bag on Ziva's shoulder. Despite the trepidation Ziva could see in Abby's eyes, the other woman grinned, clearly unable to contain her excitement.

"I knew you'd get them. I hacked into the F.B.I. and got Fornell's results. That also netted me Diane's test, so that will be interesting. I wish I could think of a way to get the other wives' Myers-Briggs tests." She reached out and dragged Ziva into the apartment. "I haven't put in any of the test results yet. It took me a while to find the last version of the algorithm that Hank had passed on to me. I have an email out to him asking if the 4.7 version that I have is the latest one. Here." Abby pulled out a chair in front of a monitor, "You can help. Start putting in the results. You want wine?"

Bemused and pleased, Ziva pulled out a stack of files and accepted the glass of white wine. The whole process took a surprisingly short time, even though the algorithm required that they enter all the individual answers given by each person on each test. With such a small sample size, the results would be ready within minutes. 20 names, including Cate's. Ziva had brought Cate's test with her in the copies she made but left it up to Abby whether she included it in the algorithm. She also included Vivien Blackadder. She didn't open it up to the entire NCIS investigatory teams because, let's face it, she was only interested in how compatible their team, defined loosely, was.

"So what do we want to ask it for, what kind of range for results?"

"We have a choice?"

"Well, Hank would only set people up with an 90% compatibility rating or higher."

"Did he have enough matches? How this this man make any money?"

"It was a pretty exclusive service, expensive, but his success rate was so much higher than anyone else out there that people would pay almost anything. He started out matching lower than 90% but there are still things that he couldn't hack a database to find out about a person and those things factor in too. At the higher levels, the algorithm is a reliable predictor even for things like sexual attraction. Below 90% he got complaints. Umm...I forget which we want...combinations or permutations of 20?"

"Combinations." Ziva asserted. "20 combinations of two people...20 times 19...380 possible pairings, but that is not taking into account gender."

Abby's face took on a look of diabolical glee. "Oooh, let's not. Plus we can't. Ned is gay. And...well, who knows?" She grinned at Ziva. "So," she clapped her hands and adopted a stern expression, "let's talk about how we are going to do this." She moved away from the computers and reached out for Ziva, snagging her hand and dragging her toward the living room. Once Ziva was seated on one end of the blue velvet chaise lounge, Abby bounded back into the other room to retrieve their wine.

Ziva, totally confused now and actually quite tired, waited impatiently. "What is there to talk about? We shall find out who is compatible, if anyone, and then we shall...know."

"Exactly!" Abby pointed at her. "That little pause there. That's the rub. Once we know...if someone is especially compatible...we will know. And what will we do with that knowledge? Tell them?"

Ziva was shaking her head. "Oh no, I do not think we should get involved in people's personal lives."

"Ziva, have you thought about what happens if you are the one paired up? What if you and Stan are compatible? Or you and Jimmy? Or...you and Tony—"

Ziva found herself glaring at Abby. "Do not be ridiculous. I will not be the one chosen. I would have known if I were compatible with any of these individuals, at least the ones I have met, and I did thorough background checks on the ones I haven't met when I broke into MTAC tonight."

Now Abby was impressed. "Well, what if we find out that Director Shepard and Tony are a perfect match. Don't you think we should tell them?"

"No, I do not. Perhaps we should abort this mission."

Abby actually took this seriously. "Maybe we should. But honestly," her curiosity obviously warring with her good sense, "the chances of any 90% or above matches in a sample of 20 is reeeeeeally low. We probably won't get any. And, I think that what we do with the information depends on who it is. We could just put the results in the mail to them and let them do what they wanted with them. Or we could swear to forget what we learned."

"Could you do that?"

"I...could, I think. Could you?"

"Absolutely. How do I know I can trust you?"

Abby drew back in shock and indignation. "It's a little late to be asking that!"

But Ziva was already pedalling backwards, "No, Abby, I'm sorry, of course I trust you. That is why—" she looked straight at the other woman and revealed something she had not planned to, " —I was looking for something that we could do so that we could increase the trust between us, maybe make it possible to...be friends...someday. I think that is why I am here now. Because I do trust you. And I want you to trust me too."

Abby's eyes were bright and she smiled, almost sadly, a real Abby smile Ziva recognized but had never earned. Again, she felt warm. "Okay."

"So we do it then? And decide what to do with the information that we are extremely unlikely to get, after we know even though we probably won't know?"

Abby pressed her lips together and nodded, determined if not completely certain they were doing a good thing. "Let's do it. 90% matches and above?"

"Yes." Ziva raised her glass to Abby to clink. Abby hooked her arm around Ziva's and drank.

Ziva objected. "Isn't this what romantic couples do?"

"Yeah, but I like it too." Abby smiled as she drank another large swallow of wine. "It makes me feel one with the universe. Okay. Let's do this."

Ten minutes later, Abby had two new emails in her inbox. The first, from Hank, said that the latest version of the program was actually 6.3 and he included directions to the dropbox where he had secreted a copy in case she wanted to use it.

"Two whole version changes. That could have an impact on the results. Should we rerun them now, before we look at any results?"

"What is the other email?"

"That's the email that tells me that the program found a single match."

"How do you know it is not informing you of several matches at once, or no matches?"

"Because I set up the program to email me for each individual match of 90% or over or to make a raspberry sound if there were no matches."

The two women looked at each other, Abby's head tilted up to look at Ziva, Ziva standing behind her. Without talking further, Abby turned back around and opened the message.

A 95% match.

"Khara."

"Shit."

ZZZZZ

Ziva was glad to be alone in the bullpen Monday morning. She always liked getting the scoop on McGee and Tony. Scoop? Drop. She liked getting the drop on McGee and Tony. Actually, she liked getting the scoop on McGee and Tony too. Especially Tony.

Gibbs was here, obviously. His desk had been disturbed; there was a file open and his computer was on. It was not a surprise to be alone, because she was very early indeed. It is not that she was anxious about today. There was nothing to worry about. She and Abby had decided absolutely to forget what they had learned. After they ran the scores again, of course, through the most recent version of the program. 98% match.

It was settled that they would forget they ever ran the program. They even had conducted a pinky swear that would bind them to their oaths before Ziva refused the offer of the couch and made her way through the early morning city to her own bed.

Perhaps it was the lack of sleep but she was finding it very difficult to focus on her work. Despite her earlier pleasure at being alone it was with relief when she saw Abby poke her head around the corner.

"Good morning, Ziva!"

"Good morning, Abby." Ziva smiled.

And then two things happened almost simultaneously. Gibbs descended at speed from MTAC followed by a woman from HR trying to press an envelope on him—no doubt Ziva's Myers-Briggs results. The elevator opened with a bing to disgorge a classically posturing and dominant Tony, sunglasses on to protect his eyes from his own blinding smile, earned obviously through some verbal torture of McGee who followed him out, arguing at his heels.

Within seconds, the area in front of the two women was loud and crowded. McGee had scored some kind of glancing blow and Tony was now rebutting whatever it was loudly. The HR assistant actually had the balls to latch on to Gibbs' coat sleeve, and while Gibbs was not above yelling at the woman—Ziva was betting on no more than 5 seconds from now—he would never physically hurt her. Gibbs' desk phone started ringing, and as McGee dropped into his desk chair, a relentless high-pitched cheeping sound started up, like a flock of ducklings had flown out of the drains and into the bullpen.

"Enough!"

Gibbs barely raised his voice but the effect was instantaneous.

Absolute silence.

Except the chicks.

Everyone looked at McGee. Who looked back at them, helpless to explain it.

Everyone looked at Tony, who laughed at his own joke and told McGee to stand up. Once he was out of the chair, the cheeping sound ceased.

"DiNozzo."

Tony turned to Gibbs, his own form of coming to attention. "Yeah, Boss." Tony was still trying to repress laughter.

Ziva was impressed at Gibbs' forbidding impassivity in the face of Tony's mirth. Then Tony took his sunglasses off and Ziva felt her lips turn up.

The light in Tony's eyes was no doubt for the success of his prank, but he looked at Gibbs like he made Tony's world a better place. And Gibbs...Gibbs' mouth...twitched. The two men's eyes held for the merest instant...

And then Gibbs turned away, barking orders and grabbing the envelope the woman was still holding out only to immediately stick it in the shredder. She squawked but at his glare, she hightailed it out of the bullpen. Tony tossed his glasses on his desk and called a greeting to Abby and Ziva. McGee pawed beneath his chair to find the source of the heat activated animal sounds.

They had decided to keep the match to themselves, to never breathe a word of it to anyone, or to interfere or encourage in any way. Ziva couldn't help but risk look at Abby.

"Want to have dinner tonight?"