Distorted View: Undercover Again? Chapter 1: Recognizing Behavior Patterns, a ncis fanfic

Of course I don't own any of the original characters, stories, concepts etc. of NCIS or otherwise, they belong to their respective owners. However any characters and/or storylines that I created for this story are mine.

This part of a series of short-stories set after my story 'Distorted View', most of them are not sorted in any particular manner. If I think it would be best to read another particular story before reading this one, I will mention that below.

I recommend reading the following story/stories first:

- Distorted View

Also I chose to ignore anything happening after and including 'Recoil'.

DV: Undercover Again??

Chapter 1: Recognizing Behavior Patterns

Ziva's POV

When I stepped out of the elevator, entering the bullpen, I caught movement in the corner of my eye. Tony had quickly shoved something into his top desk drawer, trying to be casual about it.

He could not have gotten here more than ten, maybe fifteen, minutes before me. After all, he had left my apartment not more than half an hour ago. The separate commute to work was merely a facade for the rest of our team which we had decided to keep up until we were ready to tell them.

I couldn't help feeling like there was something Tony was doing behind my back. And it bothered me beyond what I had thought possible. We just had started seeing each other again after a long time of cold silence.

How could he be doing that to me again?

Tony's POV

When I heard the elevator chime I quickly stuffed the material I had been studying into my desk, just in time for Ziva not to notice anything.

She could not know what I had been up to, at least not for now. A part of me just wanted to get it over with, while another part actually was sort of enjoying it.

My focus raced back to reality as my phone started to ring. It was Jenny. She told me she had finally gotten the material I needed and asked me to pick it up sometime today. I decided that I would pick it up immediately, after all, Gibbs could come in anytime, announcing that we had a new case.

I got up, told Ziva that I would be back in a few minutes, and headed for the stairs to the upper level offices. When I walked up the first set of stairs I could see Ziva looking right at me and boy, she looked pissed!

What had I done now?

Ziva's POV

I was in disbelieve!

This couldn't mean anything else than that Tony was about to take on another undercover mission. He was basically running up the stairs to director Shepards office, obviously he couldn't wait to hold the briefing materials for his assignment in his hands. And he hadn't even bothered to mention anything to me!

When he walked across the first landing his expression changed to a sort of bewildered look, he obviously saw something that irritated him. A split second later I realized I wasn't doing a very good job at hiding the sense of betrayal that washed over me right now and tried to put up a neutral expression.

Damn him, he always brought down my poker face!

As I watched him walk up the last flight of stairs, I quickly decided to use his absence for a quick examination of the contents of his desk drawers. As soon as he had disappeared into the directors office I walked across the bullpen and pulled on the top drawer which had swallowed the documents he had been working on when I arrived at the office.

I suppressed a scream of frustration when I realized that the drawer was locked. He never locked any of his desk drawers but the one where he kept his gun when he was at the office. Although I always thought he kept his gun in the middle drawer of his desk, maybe he had moved it up for better access and I was worrying over nothing?

But checking on that drawer yielded the same result as the drawer I had checked before. It was locked! Realizing that he could be back any minute, I walked back to my desk, steaming with anger. How dare he, risking our just regained trust and love by doing something so boneheaded moronic!

When I saw him coming down the stairs again, I decided I was going to cancel our lunch plans for today. I really couldn't even look at him right now.

So, when he got back to the bullpen, walking to his desk, I timed my getting up from behind my desk and storming out of the office so I could pass him on my way out, of course close enough to roughly bump into him.

It worked beautifully, I actually bumped into him a little harder than I had anticipated and he fell backwards, landed on his ass and in the process sent his undercover briefing materials flying through the air! I kept on walking and arrived at the elevator just as the doors slid open. Entering my escape vehicle, I quickly glanced back one more time, enjoying his baffled expression and uttered a hebrew curse under my breath, just loud enough for him to realize it was directed at him.