What did I do for love? Oh, the question. Let's see. Looking back, I confronted a Mossad agent. And not just any Mossad agent. I confronted a Kidon agent, a trained assassin. Sure, maybe he was drunk at the time. Sure, maybe I figured I'd be able to confront him in front of Ziva. Restrain the Israeli tiger, play him like the left bower on an off suit Ace. I didn't know he'd be there alone and I sure as hell didn't back down. Say what you want. Call me a spoiled kid, but you don't survive any time in Philly or Baltimore without having a little bit of the bulldog in you. When I tossed the cuffs at Rivkin, I meant it. I wanted to do it civil. I didn't want to put four in his chest. But I would have died if I didn't.

Then what did I do? Well, after I killed her boyfriend, I confronted her in Israel. Told her exactly what happened. I wasn't proud to shout at her. I would have drunk myself stupid for it that night. But the doctor told me no drinking with the pain killers for my broken radius and I couldn't find a decent bar in Tel Aviv. Watching her stand on the tarmac in Tel Aviv, I felt like Rick at the end of Casablanca. Like I should have roped my right arm around Gibbs and said, "You know, Leroy, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." The boss would have smacked me good for that one. He would have gotten a good laugh out of that one, probably even gotten a decent laugh out of that.

That was the longest flight of my life. Fifteen hours sitting across from the Director and Gibbs on a C-9 out of Tel Aviv. A canvas seat giving me hemorrhoids and those two burning holes in my morale. Nothing quite like having your loyalty, competency and objectivity questioned by the only people that matter to you. I'll give the boss man credit, I don't really believe he ever doubted me. Gibbs doesn't doubt. He deals in black and white. There's no gray. Not in his world anyway.

But man, oh man, heading back to the States on that C-9, I was begging for a little Dooley Wilson. I wanted to hear Sam play it one more time. Just as we left her on the tarmac, just for me and her. What did I do for love? The answer, like a fool I went back. Yeah, it took some time. Yeah, I tried to move on. But I couldn't. After a few minutes, I wanted that gaze. I wanted to hear a mangled version of a common English idiom or I wanted to hear a reference to my chauvinism or her kinky attitudes. Sow what did I do for love? I left. I left for Northern Africa. Just like Ilsa. Yeah, maybe Ziva's playing Rick in this role. Nah, that doesn't work.

I'm too well dressed. McGee's too Sam, the boss too Renault to make Ziva anything but Ilsa. Maybe the boss would rather be Rick. I'm sure he would. The idea of being as mercenary as Renault would probably make Gibbs sick, but he'd appreciate the humour, even if the French don't drink bourbon. I quarterbacked the whole thing. Sure the boss caught the long ball with the Director. But I organized Abby, the Probie, even Ducky on this one. I got us in, I put up with the poison, put up with the torture, suffered the inquisition. Put myself through it, all of it, to bring back a woman I wasn't even sure was still alive.

I knew she was alive. I just did. I could feel it. If she'd died, I would have felt that. Ziva's like a propane flame. Not a natural fire. Typical love is a natural fire. Burns yellow, even orange. It gets put out with water or a lack of oxygen. Ziva doesn't. As long as there's a propane supply, the flame burns blue. You know when that kind of fire gets put out. When the fuel gets cut off. That's the only way the fire dies. What did I do for love? Everything.

Everything I could and still live through it. I came within minutes of coughing up blood and spitting out my teeth. Because I knew she was still alive. I knew McGee would back me up. I knew the boss would back me up. Even the toothpick, duplicitous as he sometimes is, wouldn't miss the opportunity to hold a trump card over Eli David's head. He just wants to be holding the biggest card. Ziva alive to him is worth more than Ziva dead. Ziva alive to me is worth everything. I even told her I couldn't live without her.

Seeing her sitting opposite, beaten and defeated, wasn't Ziva. The real bitch was knowing that it wasn't Saleem but her Father that had done that to her. The Ziva I know, no Saleem couldn't break her if he wanted to. But Eli David, yeah he has access to the emotional pressure points. He's callous enough to use them, too. Even on his own daughter. One of these days, I hope he comes to D.C. I really do. And I hope Gibbs gives me the interrogation room alone. Just me, him and a nine mill. No cameras, no microphones, I'll even give Gibbs the bullets. Actually, I want a .357. Do it Dirty Harry style. Empty chamber, but squeeze the trigger six times. Never letting him know there are no bullets. Letting him feel the same kind of tenuous existence he made Ziva feel all those lonely months in Somalia. His life hanging as hers did, on one man's mood.

"Another one?" The young female bartender looks over the slab of granite at me. I avoid her gaze staring down at the empty cocktail glass in front of me. I grin and give her my best Connery.

"Absolute Martini, shaken not stirred with a lemon peel." I slide the coaster over the granite. Her hazel eyes stare back at me and she grants me the littlest cock eyed smile before grazing her fingers delicately over the cocktail glass and mixing the drink.

"We call that the Daniel Craig around here." She scoops ice into the shaker.

"Blasphemy." I feel like I should reach for a Marlboro or maybe a Benson and Hedges right now. Stick it between my lips and pull a zippo from my breast pocket. "Connery is the only real Bond." She laughs, that kind of girlish laugh. You know the one. Impish but not. Just immature enough that says she's looking for an older guy, just sophisticated enough to placate the college guys. She slides the cocktail glass back over the granite. She wants to know if I'm in the mood. How you hold a drink, a good drink, tells a lot about you. To strong and you're too desperate. Too limp and you lack that control that kind of control they want you to have. Control and stamina, taken as synonyms in the right context. The lemon taints the Vodka. Gives it taste. You can drink six or seven without tasting the alcohol. But the vodka is why you can shake it. Ducky taught me a long time ago that you never, ever, shake gin.

"What's got you drinking?" She asks. This is a class joint. The female bartenders are dressed to impress. The button down white blouses and black pencil skirts. This one, the top three buttons are undone. I'm catching a hint of white lace. She's game. And maybe eight months ago, I would be, too. I'd smile the right way, wink appropriately, flash her the badge, tell her about rescuing a missing kid and let her fall like low hanging fruit. But every time I close my eyes I see Ziva. Beaten and defeated, those normally passion clouded dark eyes subdued by reality. I probably could have frayed the rope that day, jumped Saleem and strangled him with my bare hands. But Gibbs' rifle was a better, more theatrical touch. Omniscience is more intimidating that invincibility anyway.

"A woman." A grizzled and familiar voice pulls up on the bar stool next to me. "Old Granddad, neat." He directs and she nods uniformly, reaching for the bottle.

"And for a second, boss, I figured you wouldn't find me." I joke as I sip at the glass.

"Almost nine years, Probie." The boss jokes. He hasn't called me that in eight years. "You should know better by now." She slides a tumbler across the granite in front of Gibbs. I've always wondered why he doesn't call me Probie more. Franks does it to him, I do it to McGee, McGee did it to Lee. It's followed by a warm smack upside the head. Always brings a half smile to my face now. "Rule 12."

"Only warns against dating a co-worker. That part I've followed." I finally look over my left shoulder at the steely blue gaze.

He laughs. A Gibbs laugh. The kind that precedes another rule or a life lesson. "Stuff never tastes the same without the Mason jar." He looks down at the Bourbon in his right hand.

"That's because it hasn't sat next to paint thinner for six months." I comment, raising the cocktail glass to my lips.

"You got a case of smart ass today, DiNozzo?" He purses his lips and leans his elbows on the bar.

"Third martini, boss." I reply smartly, awaiting another smack.

"What did you expect, DiNozzo?" He takes another drink. "That she'd be so grateful for your effort that she'd fall into your arms?"

"I don't know, boss." I grin at the lemon peel, now levitating over the remaining vodka and vermouth. "That was the one part I didn't think about ahead of time."