Chapter 36

Lizzie POV

‘Hey, I bought a new car yesterday. I’ll show you when we leave,’ I said to Dad as we sat in McDonalds. I know, he said he’d pay for us for lunch, but I really fancied something unhealthy.

‘What is it?’ he said, his mouth full of burger.

‘I said I’ll show you when we leave,’ I smirked.

His face had me in hysterics, I had never seen such a tough, silent guy have such a pout. He obviously loved his cars as much as I did.

‘I got it from the wife of a friend I knew in Iraq. I tried to save him, it didn’t work out, but Gen still wanted to give me something. So I paid her for the car,’ I told him.

‘Hold on, she offered you the car, and you paid for it!?’ he seemed shocked.

‘Uh, yeah, it was the friend thing to do!’ I protested.

‘Yeah well, I don’t have many friends,’ always the marine.

Whilst we were talking, Ziva and Abby were whispering to each other on the next table.

‘Guys, whatcha talking about?’ I called over.

‘There is a charity ball coming up, and NCIS will be ambassadors. Jenny wants three of NCIS’s finest there, namely, you, Abby and I, preferably with plus one’s…’ Ziva implied.

‘And you want me to go with Tim?’ I finished for her, as she nodded hopefully. ‘Sure, why not. I’ll tell him tonight.’

‘Apparently Tony cannot go, so Abby is going to find me someone,’ Ziva seemed slightly down about it.

'And who is Abby going with?’

‘I can’t go, so the Director will go with Gibbs,’ Abby said, slightly unhappy, although I think the Director may have planned this, as she’s still wary of Abby’s dress sense.

‘I think we should get going, I know how long you girls take to get ready. We going to my house?’ Dad said, throwing away the wrapper from his food.

‘Gibbs! That must be the first time you ever invited anyone over!’ Abby almost yelled.

‘We were already going to mine, Abbs. I was just confirming,’ he held his hands up in defence. I grabbed one and tried to pull him along to the car park.

‘Come on!’ I said, dragging out the last word. ‘I need to show you my new baby!’ That was now my Mustang’s nickname. What? I had one, Tim had one, and now Baby had one.

Eventually we got to the space where my car was, and again, jaw hit floor.

‘It’s amazing, 1967 GT right?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, it is actually. It’s not one with the 289 V8 engine, but it’s the 390. Still got all 320 horsepower,’ I smiled, patting the bonnet.

‘You girls okay driving yourselves?’ Dad said to Abby and Ziva, tossing them the keys to the Dodge.

‘Sure,’ Abby smiled.

‘You mean you’re gonna let me drive you?’ I was shocked. When he was in the car, no one else drove.

‘Hell no. I’m driving,’ he smirked, taking the keys from my hand.

GIBBS HOUSE

‘Abby! You don’t even have to be anywhere tonight! Get out the bathroom!’ Ziva and I were alternating who would should upstairs to Abby, who was taking forever in the bathroom. Apparently she was setting up her make up to do ours.

‘Okay! I’m ready! Ziva, you come up first! Lizzie, you get dressed in the other room!’ she called down to us.

‘Thank you,’ I breathed. She did know how to make me nervous. It was already 7:15 and we hadn’t even started getting ready yet.

It only took me a minute to get dressed, since I didn’t have a long dress like Ziva, and as I stepped out of the spare room, Ziva stepped out as well.

The gold jewellery she was wearing with the blue dress went amazingly with the light sparkling golden eye shadow and brown mascara Abby had applied along with light brown lipstick. She’d curled Ziva’s hair, and pinned up the top part.

‘Ziva, you look amazing. He’s going to love it,’ I told her.

‘You know him?’ she asked, surprised.

‘Oh, yeah, I met him a couple of days ago, he’s really nice,’ I made up quickly.

‘Right, Lizzie, your turn,’ Abby turned to me, trying to change the subject.

Once she’d closed the door, she brushed my hair through, and then picked up the curling wand.

‘Oh no Abby. You’re not curling my hair!’ I told her. I said she could do my makeup. That’s as far as I was going.

‘Oh come on! You want to look nice for Tim, don’t you?’ she questioned.

‘Well, yeah, I guess… fine! Just don’t put it in corkscrews,’ I warned her.

It didn’t look too bad in the end, just really wavy, but not my usual frizz. More subtle, and beachy.

The makeup didn’t look half bad either once she’d finished. Black mascara, brown eye shadow, and a dark red lipstick that very nearly matched the blazer.

‘Oh! I nearly forgot! I picked this up when you guys were eating!’ she rushed out of the room, past Ziva and raced downstairs.

‘She does realise she nearly pushed me down the stairs?’ Ziva asked.

‘I don’t think that matters right now to her. She bought me something else,’ I smirked.

Abby ran back up the stairs, with a soft grey, short, trench style coat.

‘What?’ she said to my raised eyebrow. ‘It’s cold outside, thought you might need something other than blazer,’ she smiled. ‘Just think of it as a birthday present!’

‘Ah! Speaking of which, I just remembered,’ Ziva began, opening her gold clutch bag, bringing out a small ring box. Inside were two small earrings; two stars of David.

‘Ziva! They’re gorgeous!’ I said, going to find a mirror to put them on. ‘So is the coat, Abby! Thank you guys,’ I said, slipping on the coat, and hugging them as the doorbell went.

‘I guess that means I can’t drop you off Ziva, sorry,’ I said, guessing it was Tim.

I could hear Dad greeting Tim downstairs, so I thought I’d better go.

‘I’ll see you guys later? Tell me how it goes, Zi,’ I told her, trying to navigate the stairs in the small heeled boots Abby picked out.

I could hear Tim in the kitchen so I decided to have some fun. Creeping across the carpet, I jumped up behind him, which scared the hell out of him. It was very funny.

‘Woah! Lizzie! Where’d you come from?’ he yelled.

‘Upstairs,’ I grinned.

‘Well, we have to go. I promise I’ll look after her Gibbs,’ he said.

‘You better,’ he said with his glare. He hasn’t been my dad for five minutes and he’s already intimidating my boyfriends? I am now twenty, I hope he realises.

‘Let’s go then!’ I was actually really excited, I haven’t been on a date in a couple of years, and the warm fuzzy feeling was back again, but this time, it felt normal.  

‘Ah, hold on,’ Tim grabbed my arm as I was just about to go out the front door. ‘Turn around.’

‘Tim, if you play a prank or someth- AH!’ something black covered my eyes.

‘Tim! I want to see where we’re going!’ I told him, trying to take the blindfold off.

‘Not going to happen, you’ll see it when we get there!’ he told me happily, taking my hand and leading me down the drive to his car.

As he started it up, I frowned. This wasn’t Tim’s car.

‘Tim? What car is this? It’s definitely not your Porsche,’ I told him.

‘Well, you definitely know your cars, don’t you?’ he laughed.

We chatted for a while, mainly about today, and how we thought Tony and Ziva’s date was going to go.

‘They’ll be fine. It’s obvious they like each other, they’ve been like that for ages!’ Tim told me.

Then the car stopped.

‘Are we here? Please can I get out! I want to see where we are!’ I said excitedly. It must be dark by now, we’d been driving for about half an hour.

Tim just laughed.

‘Okay, okay, let me help you out,’ he said as he grabbed my hand and helped me out of the car.

Untying the blindfold, I saw one of the most beautiful places I’d ever seen.

The clear water of a large lake reflected the white moonlight, surrounded by tall pine trees, bright stars dotting the deep blue sky.

‘It’s gorgeous,’ I breathed. ‘Where did you find this place?’ I asked.

‘I’ve always come here. There used to be a cabin too, but that fell apart a while ago,’ he told me, getting something out of the back of the car, which made me turn around. I wanted to see what he’d driven me here in.

A yellow Dodge Charger RT Hemi, complete with black stripes, greeted me as my mouth fell open. It was an older model, probably 1971.

‘Where did you get this?!’ I said. ‘It’s stunning!’

‘It’s your dad’s,’ Tim smiled. ‘His dad gave it to him.’

He was setting out a checked picnic blanket on the edge of the lake. Taking the pizza box and cooler from behind him, I opened both to find a meat pizza, and a case of beer.

‘You know me so well,’ I said, kissing his cheek as we sat cross legged and he turned on the car radio. It really was perfect. I much preferred it to going to a posh thing, which is exactly what I had to do soon.

‘Hey, Tim?’ I asked, once we’d finished eating and were laying back on the blanket, looking at the sky.

‘Hm?’

‘Abby wanted me to tell you, we have to go to a charity ball soon, and you’re my plus one,’ I told him.

‘Really? The only time I’ve been to a charity ball was a protection detail on some rich guy, and I hated it,’ he laughed quietly.

‘Well I have to wear a dress. Suck it up, McMuffin,’ I smiled.

He just pulled me closer and I snuggled into the warm jacket he was wearing. With the warmth of his arms around me, his fingers playing with the ends of my hair, and the soothing sounds of the water around us, I slowly fell asleep.

McGee POV

Before I knew it, it was almost eleven, and Lizzie had fallen asleep curled up beside me. I should probably get her home, so I don’t have to wake her up later. Standing up, I brushed the pine needles that had fallen in my hair, and opened the car door. I went back to the blanket and picked her up, slowly, before I placed her in the passenger seat.

Grabbing the picnic blanket and her coat, I draped them both over her so she wouldn’t be cold, and drove her home. When we’d stopped at a set of lights, I texted Gibbs, telling him I’d return the car tomorrow, because Lizzie fell asleep and I had to take her home.

Luckily, she’d put layers on under her clothes, so I helped her into my MIT sweatshirt as gently as I could, over her tank top and leggings, and put her into the bed.

Turning the light off, I climbed in as well, and she immediately snuggled up to me. I kissed her forehead.

‘Night Marsbar.’

A/N: so the next chapter will be Tony and Ziva's date, for all the Tiva fans :) please commnet what you think? x :)