Disclaimer: This was edited by llamas, or would have been if those lazy camelids had the common courtesy to keep appointments.

Spoilers: Truth or Consequences.

Summary: Not everyone is pleased to see Ziva back at NCIS, though that opinion has some time to evolve.

Steve Grossman clapped politely, following the lead of the people around him. As far as he was concerned there was no reason to applaud, but it was hard not to go along with it when Director Vance started it, then stood on the landing, watching the room like a hawk. Steve wasn't about to be the guy who drew attention to himself by standing out from the crowd.

So, that crazy foreign chick was back again. And filthy. That was just great. She'd probably be in the men's room all afternoon giving herself a sponge bath or something, and the fact that this idea didn't excite him was the last thing he was worried about. Why had the whole major case team come back to NCIS instead of going home and showering? Would that cut into their overtime or hazard pay or something? He bit his lower lip thoughtfully as his hands started to sting. The foreign chick supposedly didn't have an apartment anymore, but that didn't rule out a hotel with some extra bars of scented soap sent up from room service. Of course, given how long the Goth chick from the lab had been hugging her, maybe she didn't smell too bad. Might still be worth it to hit the head before the hugging stopped. A quick glance around told him it was safe to stop clapping. He dropped the file he'd been delivering on the appropriate desk and made his way out of the squad room.

Truth be told, he hadn't minded in the least that his bathroom breaks had been so peaceful of late. It sounded like a small, selfish thing, but he worked in a cubicle in a room with five other people, including two that talked to themselves and one who had very little concept of personal space. The bathroom was the only place he got to be alone during the day. He liked that time. He needed that time. Having it continually interrupted by a crazy chick who didn't understand door signs was torture. Even on days she didn't come busting in, he'd lived in fear that she could, right up until she'd left and not bothered to come back.

He'd been taking extra bathroom breaks the past four months just to enjoy the freedom and peace of mind, just like the previous summer. Sylvia had even made a joke about him involving one of those overactive bladder TV ads, but he couldn't be sure if she'd meant for it to be overheard or if it had just been part of her constant one-sided conversation.

He looked over his shoulder as he entered the bathroom, just to make sure he was going in alone, maybe for the last time – definitely for the last time he could be sure of. The seat was cold and it looked like someone had tried to write a message on the inside of the door. Probably a visitor, he decided. No one who worked in the building would be immature enough to scrawl Go Army in the men's room. Or scrawl anything anywhere, really. "Not even me," he muttered, with a brief laugh. Did he really have a right to grumble about colleagues who talked to themselves in the office when he was doing the same thing? On the toilet, no less?

He shifted to relieve the discomfort in his stomach, but it had nothing to do with bodily processes. So…the crazy foreign chick looked a little worse for wear at the moment. If she treated people the way she treated men's rooms, she probably deserved it. There'd been a vague rumor going around that she was a hostage or something. Maybe she didn't deserve that.

No time to worry about that now. He just had to make it from the stall to the door for his worries to end. His timing proved impeccable, for once. He held the door open for the crazy foreign chick. She walked past him without seeing him, straight into the ladies' room.

He shrugged and started toward the vending machines for a soda before deciding it might be wise to curb his liquid intake for now.

Steve hurriedly cut off his conversation with Pete the analyst, not able to wait any longer. He'd had three cups of coffee since he'd arrived at work in response to the first really cold morning of the fall and they weren't going to allow him to shift back and forth from one foot to the other indefinitely. It didn't appear that the thing he'd been waiting for was going to happen anyway.

Five minutes ago on the other side of the partition, after ten minutes of one-sided sniping, the player had concluded with something Steve was sure would prompt the crazy foreign chick to storm after him, probably following him into the bathroom. She, however, had quietly returned to her desk, where she was still sitting now. Steve didn't stop to peek back around the corner just to make sure she hadn't moved.

He crashed through the men's room door, anyone unfortunate enough to be standing on the other side of it be damned. The player looked up from where he was leaning against a sink. "What?"

Unsure about how to proceed, Steve replied, "What?"

"What are you doing here?"

"I gotta take a piss."

"Can't you go somewhere else?"

Steve glanced around the empty bathroom, knowing that he wasn't going to make it down a floor; he was getting to the point where he'd be lucky to get through his zipper, assuming the steps to the urinal weren't delayed much longer. He edged in that direction. "No."

The player watched him until he made it clear he wasn't going somewhere else to handle his business. "Fine."

"Uh…" Steve stopped trying to formulate a response as relief flowed through his body. Or out of his body. Did it matter? The sound like running water confirmed, in his mind, that it did not.

"Hurry it up."

Steve had to catch himself before he turned bodily. The player was not a person he would have suspected of breaking the unspoken laws, but…

"What, have you been saving it since yesterday?"

He was actually doing it. Steve did turn this time, being careful to make sure it was just his head. At least the player was studiously staring in the opposite direction, even if he was initiating conversation. It was probably best not to reciprocate. Steve looked down, one of the acceptable positions for his eyes in this situation. Three cups of coffee certainly went a long way.

The player was still staring at the door when he zipped up a few moments later. As Steve was about to walk out, he said, "Hey, uh, when you came in here, I mean, before you came in, did you see my…I don't know if you know who my partner is, but…"

"Cr…" Steve decided the first descriptor was best forgotten at the moment. "Foreign chick?"

"Yeah. You, uh, see her anywhere?"

"Uh-huh. At her desk."

The player looked at him incredulously. "Doing what?"

"Sitting there."

"Well…did she look mad or anything?"

"Look, I don't know why you're in here, but I just had to pee and I'm gonna go now."

"Can you just go look and the squad room and see if she's still sitting there or if she's coming…"

"I gotta get back to work," Steve interrupted before walking out of the men's room into the empty hallway.

Either the Christmas party was more fun than usual, or the eggnog was stronger than it had been in previous years. A funny thought went through Steve's buzzing head as he walked down the hall, past his usual door. Would the ladies' room have mysterious lotions and floral arrangements and… He came to a dead halt as he opened the door to a weapon being pointed at him. His hands shot into the air, sending the dregs of his fourth drink splattering against the wall. "S-s-sorry. Wrong d-door."

"Do not apologize," the crazy foreign chick replied, lowering her gun as she settled back onto her seat on the counter.

Steve was about to retreat from the ladies' room, which really didn't look all that different from the men's room, when his mouth betrayed him. "Everything okay in here?"

"My…someone recommended that I attend a social event, but…" she trailed off as her fingers ran idly along the barrel of her gun. "I am supposed to be at the party."

After overcoming the initial shock of her saying more than three words to him, he said, "Party's upstairs, y'know."

"I am aware of that."

"You, uh…" He couldn't be sure, but her grip seemed to have tightened. He took a step toward the nearest stall, asking, "Why aren't you trying to kick me out?"

"Why would I do that?"

"Well…this is the women's bathroom…"

She shrugged.

As he carefully raised the toilet seat, he wondered if the same rules regarding conversation applied in women's bathrooms. "I, uh…well, if you're gonna go upstairs, I'd say try the Christmas cookies, but avoid the fruitcake. The music is…well, you can hear it in here, so…I've never been that big on carols, but at least no one's dancing. Yet. That guy with the glasses from down in the morgue is probably just a drink away from getting up on a table and, uh…" He reached forward to flush and lower the seat, surprised when he found her watching him attentively as he exited the stall. He groped for something further to say. "It's, uh, it's a kinda fun party, y'know, if you're thinking of going up or, uh…"

"I…" She didn't continue, but shook her head in a resigned way.

Steve tried one last time. "If you don't want to come to the party, I could…bring you a drink or something."

"That is not necessary."

"No, you should try the eggnog, at least. Really good stuff. If you wait here, I'll be right back with one."

"No. But…thank you."

She was gone when he returned to the bathroom with two cups, just in case. He dumped both down the drain of the sink. Drinking alone wasn't something he'd planned to let her do either.

From the stall where he was enjoying the latest issue of GSM on an extra long break, Steve heard the men's room door open on a conversation already in progress. "…almost six months."

"These things take time. She is definitely showing signs of improvement, but there's no set schedule for recovery. Really, I find it impressive that she has been able to perform in her job almost this entire…"

"She's not performing in her job!" Gibbs, the only person Steve knew by name in spite of not working directly with him, interrupted Dr. Scotch, causing Steve to jump.

"What's happened? Has she done something to taint an investigation or…"

"Nothing like that. It's like…she's not a part of the team. She doesn't talk, she doesn't laugh, she doesn't…DiNozzo doesn't even bother trying to bait her anymore…"

"Well, I did tell him that it wasn't going to make the situation better."

"What will make it better? From the beginning, I said I help any way I could, but this waiting and…"

"You can't force this. There's no guarantee that Ziva will ever be her old self again. I think the best thing we can do is bear with her and ensure that she continues to get the support she needs. I know what you want to hear, Jethro, but there is no easy solution. It's not as if she's choosing to…I know this is frustrating, but she is trying and you three agreed to…"

"Duck," there was a pause as something that sounded like a slap on the shoulder occurred, "I know. Just needed to let off some steam."

"Oh. Well, I'm pleased to be of service."

"Yeah, thanks. Hey, is there any chance you can check in with that Dr. Scratchnsniff about…"

"For the last time, I will not be calling Dr. Schwartzwelder to ask for information about Ziva's treatment. That is privileged information and just because you don't feel that you must respect confidentiality is no reason to ask me to betray my own…"

"I think your hands are clean, Duck."

"Very well. Just remember…" The conversation faded as the door closed. Steve pulled up his pants and emerged from his stall, magazine forgotten on the floor at his feet. Now he knew the names of two people he didn't work with directly.

Steve was distracted from his efforts to erode the urinal cake when the bathroom door slammed against the wall as it was thrown open. A moment later, the dorky guy, who was going to need a new nickname soon because he was looking less and less dorky as time went on, was at the sink, splashing water on his face. Sure, the air conditioning had failed to function on this, the first really hot day of the summer, but that was no reason to make it look like you'd been attacked by a gang of kids with water balloons.

He almost missed the sound of the door swooshing open again, but even knowing that there was someone else present failed to prepare him for the surprise of a quiet voice saying, "It was not your fault, McGee. You did nothing wrong."

The dorky guy spun quickly, sending a spray of water onto Steve as he did so. "I shot an unarmed man!"

"The weapon he aimed at you did not look like it was fake."

"Yeah, well…" The calm voice he was trying to argue with seemed to overwhelm the dorky…McGee, who muttered, "Water versus bullets."

"It would have been worse if you had not fired and his weapon had turned out to be real." Steve smiled as he zipped up and turned to see Ziva with a comforting hand on McGee's shoulder. She didn't acknowledge him, but he didn't mind. Maybe worrying about who was going to come into the bathroom wasn't such a bad thing.

As he reached for the door handle, he felt a tug on the sleeve of his polo shirt. "Wash your hands for once."

"Oh, right." He tried to smile, but received only a raised eyebrow from Ziva in return.

She turned back to McGee. "I believe you need a cappuccino."

Steve was reaching for a paper towel as they exited the bathroom and wondering why it had taken him this long to realize that the nice scent that Sylvia sometimes carried when she leaned into his cubicle was that of the soap.