13th October 2010, Chesapeake Hall, Maryland

Harry was awoken by a gentle but insistent shaking of his shoulder by a somewhat unfamiliar hand. Snapping awake in moments, his hand was already twisting free the butt of the perpetually-present pistol from his waistband. Then he stilled and pushed the pistol back when he realised that the person waking him up was Ziva. Relaxing, he sat up, having realised he was draped across the sofa, and had evidently slept the night.

"Hey Ziva." he said, yawning.

"I brought you some coffee." she replied, handing him a large mug containing a pint of very strong coffee. She hadn't forgotten his own penchant for good coffee, nor his habit flying a sack of Fazenda Santa Ines coffee beans from Brazil whenever he was running low.

"Thanks, you're a brick." said Harry gratefully, taking a gulp of the liquid ambrosia.

"A brick?" Ziva asked, sitting down on the sofa next to him.

"Sorry, English-ism." Harry answered; "Means someone who's as reliable as a brick." and continued as she opened her mouth with another question on her tongue; "Don't ask."

Ziva laughed, taking a sip of her own tea, something she'd started drinking while attending Oxford University in the early to mid 2000s prior to entering Mossad. A time when she'd still had some of her innocence, even after her conscription into the IDF. After a satisfied sigh as the hot liquid washed down her throat, she decided to break the subject of what they needed to do during the day with Harry.

"Gibbs sent me a text message telling me that I wasn't to bother coming into work today. While he didn't say it explicitly but hinted it was time better spent on getting settled in, and added that you would be doing the same." she commented.

"I haven't had a chance to look at my phone yet." Harry replied; "How much stuff have you brought over from Israel?"

"Not much, a couple of changes of clothes and some toiletries which I need to retrieve from the motel the Israeli Embassy set me up in." answered Ziva; "Everything else is in a shipping crate somewhere between Tel Aviv and Hampton Roads. It might be a couple of weeks before it arrives."

"You need to get some more essentials then." Harry noted; "I need to get a couple of cars serviced before I can use them."

"Doesn't sound like too much." Ziva said, smothering a yawn; "Hopefully no sudden calls from Gibbs ordering us to come in and solve another weird case." this time she had less success at covering her tiredness; "Still just a bit sleepy. Sorry for falling asleep on you by the way."

"Hey, don't worry, I fell asleep on you too." Harry laughed, affectionately wrapping one arm around her shoulders; "Anyway, I should get up and look at getting some breakfast."

"Thanks." replied Ziva, leaning over and pressing a lingering kiss to his cheek as they rose from the sofa and headed towards the kitchen.

"You know, it's odd the number of times that we've coincided around the world." Harry commented with a grin as they walked through the house; "That first posting with my unit to Sayeret Matkal in '97, one covert operation in Iraq in January '98, now here."

"I'm not complaining." Ziva shrugged.

"Nor I, Ziva, nor I."

Harry, having seen Ziva head off with the Bentley, finished helping the workers from a Washington-based classic car dealership load his old muscle cars onto a series of trucks. They drove off, taking six-figures of value in motor cars to get them in working condition.

Satisfied that there was little else he could do of use without a car around, Harry walked down to where the estate backed onto Chesapeake bay, and where a fairly large boathouse sat. He would spend the rest of the day working on his boat, and try and get it going. As long as Harry could remember, Gibbs liked building neat little sailing dingys. However, he himself liked things a little bigger.

High and dry above the water on a rail-mounted trolley on the slipway at the end of the boathouse was his own vessel. Ninety feet long, with a low, squat superstructure, an open bridge on top, and a sleek triple hull, even sat above the water with its three propellers sat out of the water, it looked like it was going flat out.

Making his way around the walkways on the sides of the boathouse, Harry securely knotted a rope onto one of the bollards on each side of the boathouse, fifty feet or so in front of the boat's bow. Tying a knot in the end of each rope to weight it, he then twirled them around to gather momentum before slinging them onto the rail of the vessel.

Jumping onto the boat's deck, he tied the ropes down to mooring cleats mounted on the deck, securing it firmly so that the boat wouldn't drift out of the boathouse onto the water before he was ready. With the boat secured, Harry ducked down into the superstructure and headed down to the engine room where he started checking through all the machinery.

A boat like his own had several engines. There were a couple of compact flat-sixes he had bought from Porsche which were attached to powerful winches on the bow and stern. A Rolls-Royce Meteor V12 could be used for low-speed manoeuvring in harbour, and then there were three gas turbines providing main propulsion. It took a period of several hours for Harry to work his way through all the mechanical parts before he could say that everything was working.

Preparing for a test run, Harry released the stern rope, holding the boat on its trolley high above the water. The trolley, mounted on a rail, with the weight of the vessel pulling it down the ramp, and thus forward, sent the boat into the water. Holding onto the rail as the boat hit the water, Harry made his way around to the waist of the vessel, making sure that the ropes at the holding it to the bollards were secure and would keep it in place as he started the engines.

Going down to the auxiliary engine compartment, it was a matter of a few moments work with the fuel pump and then the ignition for the Meteor engines to burst into life, and then he headed up to the deck. Returning to the waist position, he loosed the ropes from the bollards and then climbed up to the bridge, and prepared to start the main engines.

Beyond the propellers and their shafts was the engine room. It held three gas turbines, and once they would have been Bristol Proteus engines, each rated at three-and-a-half thousand horsepower or a total of over ten-thousand horsepower. But yet again, Harry's love of things being a little bigger had intervened and he'd dug around until he'd found the most powerful turbines that would fit in the boat.

In this case, it was three engines purchased off the production line for the Airbus A400M Atlas, rated each at eleven-thousand horsepower. Engaging drive from the Meteor to the first engine, he ran it up to fifteen-percent RPM and then hit the ignition, before repeating the process. One by one, the engines mounted in the Soloven Class fast attack craft whined into life, spitting sheets of flame back up the boathouse.

That was one of the drawbacks of the design, no matter what gas turbine, residual fuel gathered in the exhausts, three of which were mounted at the stern. When he started the boat, the flames could cook anything within twenty feet. It was a good talking point though, and people never moored too close behind your boat more than once.

With the mooring ropes already cast off, Harry used a remote control to open the boathouse doors. The whine of the turbines increased as he throttled up the centre engine, cruising out onto Chesapeake Bay. Leaving the creek on which the boathouse sat, the turbines spooled up loudly, the port engine the most of all as he used it to turn the slow-moving vessel to face south along the bay before opening up on all three engines steadily.

Equalizing the power across all three, the powerful gunboat pushed forward, not racing off, but gathering speed. As he watched the speedometer slow its climb climbing, Harry eased open the throttles to full power. The low rumble of the jet turbines becoming a howl following in the wake of the boat, they took off down the bay, the bow climbing with the speed. Residual thrust through the exhausts blasted the surface of the bay, already turned into a roiling froth by the boat.

Chesapeake Bay was shallow, and at speed, the boat began to lift off the surface, hydroplaning, as a pressure wave built between the water and the bow. The boat was really shifting as it headed towards sixty knots. Harry glanced at the GPS. The mouth of the bay was a hundred miles south, it would take a bit over three hours to do a return trip. He had the time and fuel.

Sitting down in the seat behind the throttles and wheel, Harry opened the icebox next to him, producing a bottle of cider. It was then that he realised he hadn't brought a bottle opener. It was no matter, reaching into his waistband, Harry drew his M1911, slid back the slide and used the frame to pry open the bottle. Not generally a good idea as it could bend and break the metal, but he had put a few strengthening spells on the gun.

Harry was just mooring the Soloven to the jetty protruding beyond the mouth of the boathouse, not having any way of reversing the vessel back in without the use of the winch inside, when he spotted one of the NCIS Dodge Chargers rolling up the long driveway, crunching gravel beneath its tyres.

Jumping onto the jetty from the boat, Harry walked through the boathouse back onto dry land as the easily recognisable figure of his old friend and new colleague, Gibbs, climbed out of the car. Reaching into his pocket, Harry thumbed in a number on his phone, holding one finger above the call button.

"Morning... afternoon actually Gibbs." Harry stated, glancing at his watch.

"I wanted to speak to you while the rest of the team are on their lunch hour." Gibbs replied.

"Director still pissed?" asked Harry.

"You bet. She's accepted that you felt at the time there was genuine risk to your life, but generally we don't use automatic weapons in a civilian environment, and car chases are just an excuse for civil damages suits." snorted Gibbs.

"I'll try and tone it down." Harry conceded.

"I personally wanted to ask about Ziva." Gibbs added after a few minutes.

Harry's thumb jabbed down on the call button on his phone, waiting a few seconds as he walked over before asking.

"Why do you want to know about Ziva, Gibbs?"

Sat in Harry's Bentley Continental T Mulliner, feeling distinctly out of place as she munched a takeaway pizza outside the food outlet from whence it had come, Ziva noticed an incoming call on her phone from Harry's. Hitting the accept, she lifted it to her ear just in time to hear Harry speaking on the other end.

"Why do you want to know about Ziva, Gibbs?"

"You need ask that? She's on my team and I need to know enough about her to properly utilise her skills." came a slightly-distant voice instantly identifiable as Gibbs.

"I suppose that was a slightly stupid question, but I thought from what I'd overheard that Ziva's skills consisted only of spying and killing?" Harry asked.

"Look, you know and I know it's not as cut-and-shut as that." Gibbs growled; "I admit some of my comments could be seen as having been a bit rash."

"Glad we agree on one thing." Harry riposted; "But if you want answers to your questions, ask away. Though don't expect answers to many of them as a lot of our work is classified."

"How long have you known each-other, exactly? You've mentioned you're old friends..." demanded Gibbs.

"Thirteen years, give or take a few months. Pre-Mossad if that's what you're asking." sighed Harry.

"How did you come to know Ziva?" was Gibbs's next question.

"We saved each-other's lives during a military mission, most of the rest of that is strictly classified and of the rest I won't discuss much more because it's equally Ziva's story, not mine." Harry answered; "You remember Mogadishu? Operation Gothic Serpent."

"I was an NCIS agent embedded with a Marine Corps unit in Djibouti when the casualties began coming in. I heard rumours of British operators there... Nothing solid of course." Gibbs replied.

"Yeah, we were there. Well, let's say the mission that Ziva and I worked together on turned into a second Blackhawk Down." said Harry

"Why this level of trust? You're a British intelligence and military operative, she's Mossad, at best a tenuous ally." Gibbs said, frustrated.

"Gibbs, you have your rules, I have two, don't kill in cold blood and don't screw over your friends." said Harry; "I used to have three but then I grew cynical. At work, former work I should say, I had four colleagues who I would and did trust with my life, but outside of work I had one friend, rather sad really. And I don't make a habit of betraying her."

"Will you tell her about this conversation?" asked Gibbs.

"If Ziva asks directly, I won't lie." Harry replied.

"I suppose that's the best I can hope for."

"Yes. Yes it is."

"Well, I need to get back to NCIS, make sure Tony doesn't arrive back late after lunch because he's been wrapped around some girl." said Gibbs. "Else I'll smack him so hard he'll be stuck in the Civil War."

"Have fun." Harry said, and silence reigned for a minute before the sound of an NCIS Dodge Charger starting up and driving away; "I hope you caught that Ziva."

Then the phone line went dead. That was when Ziva decided she was going to do something really nice for him.

Axe in hand, Harry was just finishing splitting logs for the stockpile of burnable wood just after midday when Ziva arrived back, racing up the drive and pulling to a halt outside the house. Throwing the hatchet he was using into the wall of the shed, he walked out and headed around to the front where he'd heard the car arrive.

"I managed to fit all my shopping in the boot." Ziva said, smirking.

Harry chuckled, knowing that Ziva liked self-deprecating humour and often made comments comparing herself to the majority of women, especially given the fact that her Mossad service meant that she rarely spent money and could occasionally go all out on shopping.

"You need any help?" he asked.

"Please." replied Ziva, opening the Bentley's boot.

Returning to the car a couple of times, between them, they got the contents of the car up to the bedroom Ziva was occupying. A glance around as the contents of her shopping were loaded into the walk-in closet revealed a couple of photographs on the bedside cabinet, one of Harry and Ziva in 1997, another of Ziva and her sister Talia more recently and a third of Harry, Ziva and Talia.

"How secure is this place?" Ziva asked from the walk-in closet.

"Very. Department M at MI5 had every room individually layered with ward enchantments, then each floor, wing and then the entire house and grounds, add in the sound-deadening materials and a few other things..." Harry replied.

"How's my sister?" she said.

"Very well, her twenty-fourth is coming up and she's happily working running the stables for me." Harry replied; "Still misses you a great deal."

"I couldn't let her remain in Israel." Ziva stated, a slightly pained look crossing her face; "Between my father and the two Palestinian uprisings, I don't regret faking her death."

"I know Ziva." commented Harry, pulling her, unresisting, into a hug; "So does Talia."

"Yeah, just can't help but occasionally doubt myself." she sighed, burying her head in his shoulder and wrapping her arms around Harry's waist.

"Come on, chin up. We both know that often the right decisions are the harder to make." Harry stated; "And it's better to doubt yourself than be propelled by arrogance. You want a bite to eat?"

"Please." Ziva replied as Harry targeted her one weakness, a love of good food; "One minute, just stay here." she added before vanishing into the walk-in closet.

"Ziva?" Harry asked.

"Just hold on a moment... I wanted your opinion on something I bought." she called back from the walk-in closet.

Within a few minutes, Ziva emerged dressed in an elegant royal purple evening dress, with a plunging neckline which revealed just enough of the woman beneath, the waist clinging to her hips. Harry had enough control of his facial expressions not to gawp.

"Well... I'm not going to use any of our new colleague Mr. DiNozzo's terms... but it certainly suits you." Harry decided to shoot for the understatement of the year award before adding; "Certainly, it makes me remember why I fell for you."

Ziva twirled around, causing the dress to flare around her hips as well as moving her right in front of Harry.

"Does it..." she almost purred, leaning in until their faces were an inch apart.

Slowly, Ziva pressed a slow, gentle kiss to his cheek before drawing away.

"Well, I better get changed into something more practical for dinner." said Ziva as she turned towards the closet, a wicked smirk crossing her face.

Just as she was about to sweep out of his reach, Harry, who was turning towards the door, lunged out.

"Yowch!" Ziva yelped, rubbing her sore rump.

"It's not nice to tease." Harry commented before heading out.

Ziva glared half-heartedly after him before going to change.

His own slightly-wolfish smirk on his face, Harry headed down through the manor towards the kitchen to prepare supper. He shook his head to himself. Ziva would be the death of him. Who was he fooling though, it would be a pleasant way to go.

Dinner that night was grilled drum fish that had been caught that morning on Harry's six-hour excursion down the Chesapeake, and it was to his credit that Harry managed not to betray his thoughts about the fact that Ziva was playing footsie with him under the table.