****Author's note - after the kids did the undercover operation at the high school and Lenny went AWOL, Logan handed over the crappy pickup truck they used to Craig. And everyone kept making fun of him because of it. So, Craig decided to go get a job in order to get a new car for a couple of reasons: 1, the truck was a piece of junk and on its last legs. 2, he wanted to impress Ziva. (well maybe 2 should have come first lol) I simply never found a place to fit this chapter in the original book, so consequently poor Craig never got his new car.****

“Has anyone seen Craig?”

Melissa looked up at Ziva. “He’s gone.”

“Gone? Gone where?” She blinked at Melissa.

“Don’ know, just gone.” She shrugged.

“He can’t just be gone, Melissa. People don’t simply disappear!”

“King me!” Melissa shouted at Angela.

Angela scowled and narrowed her eyes at Melissa. “You can’t do that! The pieces only move forward Melissa! You can’t go backward and get to make it a king! It doesn’t work that way. Haven’t you played checkers before?”

Melissa shrugged. “Just with the dogs and they don’t really follow rules, now king me.”

“Melissa, are you listening to me?” Ziva shouted.

“No, not really,” she replied.

“Seriously? You are no help at all! This is like the eighth time in two weeks Craig has just disappeared! I’m starting to get a little suspicious here.”

Melissa waggled her eyebrows at Ziva. “Starting to think American Pie is cheatin’ on ya Ziva?”

“Shut up!” She spun around, stalked out of the room, headed down the hallway, and pushed open the door into Stone and Craig’s room. And immediately regretted not knocking since A’Cadia and Stone were being all kissy face, cuddled together on his bed.

“Could you knock at least?” A’Cadia snarled at her.

“Sorry! I was looking for Craig.”

“As you can see, he isn’t here, now go away.” A’Cadia waved a hand toward the door.

Ziva gave an aggravated sigh and started to turn away, as she did, she noticed that Stone was looking everywhere but at her. Almost as if, he wanted to avoid catching her eye. Almost as if, he knew something and didn’t want to get caught knowing it. She stopped and turned back to face them.

A’Cadia gave aggrieved sort of sigh. “Now what?”

Ziva ignored A’Cadia, focusing instead on Stone. “Stone? Where is Craig?”

Stone’s eyes immediately locked on her face. “Uh, I don’t know. Haven’t seen him.”

“Really. You haven’t seen your roommate all day. Hmm, well that’s kind of odd now isn’t it?”

Stone suddenly looked extremely uncomfortable. “Well, um, I mean I saw him this morning, you know, earlier. But I haven’t seen him, like lately. Now or anything, ’cause I’ve been with A’Cadia. Now. Here.” His words were stilted and he paused a lot as if he were thinking.

Ziva nodded as if she understood. “Right, uh huh. Where is he? Either you tell me or I zap you until you do. Your choice.”

“Now wait just a minute—”

Stone didn’t give A’Cadia a chance to finish, the fear of Ziva zapping him obviously won out over his loyalty to remaining silent and protecting Craig. “He got a job, okay? He wanted to surprise you and save up so he could get a better car and get rid of that crappy pickup truck!”

Ziva blinked at him. “A job? He got a job?”

Stone nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah. At Pizza Hut.”

“Pizza Hut? So he’s a delivery driver?”

“No, he’s at one of the restaurants. He’s a server.”

“Oh. A server.” Ziva wasn’t sure what else to say.

Stone stood up with a sigh. “Right okay then let’s go before you grow roots in that spot.”

“Wait. What?” Ziva stared at him.

“I’ll take you over there and you can see him.”

Ziva backed away from him, hands out in front of her as if to ward him off. “No, no, that’s all right! If he wanted me there he would have told me!”

Stone shook his head at her. “To bad, we’re going.”

“If you two are going, then I’m going too. I’m not missing this.” A’Cadia followed them out the door.

They headed for the garage, passing through the kitchen as they went. Everyone else seemed to be gathered in the kitchen, for whatever reason.

Skylar smiled at them as they passed through. “Ooooh where are you guys going?”

“Pizza Hut,” Ziva answered tightly.

“Pizza!” Melissa yelled loudly. “I want pizza! Take me with!”

After that, it was all downhill and before Ziva knew it, the entire gang was on board with the plan and it was a group outing to the Pizza Hut. Even Logan tagged along. It took two cars to cart them all over there.

“He’s going to be really pissed at us,” Ziva told Stone as they piled out of the cars in the lot of the restaurant.

“Nah, more me since I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. He really wanted to surprise you when he got a new car.”

Ziva’s shoulders slumped pathetically. “I shouldn’t have been so nosey and insecure. Should have just let it be.”

Stone dropped an arm around her shoulders with a grin. “Hey, he shouldn’t have kept it a secret, either. Come on let’s go in and annoy him.”

The nine of them packed into the small lobby and waited for someone to come seat them. The hostess walked up, cracking gum and eyed them as if they were trouble waiting for a place to settle, not that she gave off a vibe of straight up law abiding citizen.

One side of her hair was dyed raven’s wing black, the other hot pink. A diamond stud winked at them from the right side of her nose and an array of earrings marched up her left ear to curl around the lobe lovingly.

“Dine in or carry out?” she asked in a bored tone.

Ziva rolled her eyes and glanced back at the group. “Gee, I’m not sure let me think on it here.” She paused for only a fraction of a second before answering. “I think we’ll dine in. Is Craig working?”

“Yeah he’s here, you want his section?”

“No I asked just for information’s sake,” Ziva replied sarcastically.

The girl opened her mouth to reply, but seemed to freeze as her eyes lit on Death where he stood beside Skylar. “Oh. My. God! I don’t believe it! You’re Death!”

Ziva blinked and looked over at Death, who for the first time since she’d known him, had a huge smile on his face.

“Yeah.”

“Oh God I’m like a huge fan of Death’s Door!” the girl gushed as she spun around and hitched up her shirt to show off a full back tattoo of a band logo. The logo was a set of elaborate doors. To be more precise, a replica of the doors portrayed by Rodin’s sculpture that he was commissioned to sculpt for a museum in Paris, perfectly depicting a scene from Dante’s Inferno.

“Oh dude awesome! That was our first album cover! That must have taken forever!” Death moved closer to inspect the tattoo.

Ziva blinked at the pair. Great just what they needed, she thought, one of Death’s super fans.  

The girl spun back around and pulled her shirt back into place. “It took a couple of sessions but it was totally worth it.”

He grinned at her and yanked a Sharpie out of some pocket somewhere, grabbed a menu from her, signed it and handed it back to her. “There ya go.”

The hostess looked stunned, but clutched the menu as if it had suddenly become the most important thing in the world to her. “Come on I’ll seat you guys and let Craig know you’re here!” She got them settled and bustled off to let Craig know they were there.

“Craig, you have a table. Looks like friends of yours. You so totally didn’t tell me you were friends with Death! How could you not tell me that?”

Craig blinked and stared at Sabrina, the hostess. “Uh, what?”

“Death Teufel! You know the lead singer for the band Death’s Door?”

He shrugged. “I knew he was in a band, but I didn’t know they were famous or anything. Sorry, I would have told you if I’d known.”

“God, how could you not know? They are like one of the most popular emo-alternative rock bands like ever! They play the most awesome music; you really should listen to some of their music sometime.”

“Right, I’ll do that,” he told her as he headed out of the back and into the main part of the restaurant. He had to wonder what a combination emo-alternative rock band sounded like. As he spotted the table where everyone sat, he stopped dead. Good God, everyone was here!

He frowned and made his way over to the table, glaring at Stone. “Way to keep a secret man.”

“Sorry, Ziva threatened to zap me if I didn’t tell her where you were.”

Craig glanced at everyone else. “And?”

“They sort of tagged along for the ride.”

With a sigh of resignation, he took drink orders. “I’ll make sure you pay for this later dude.”

“Hey, do we get free pizza?” Melissa asked him.

“No, we still have to pay for the ingredients Melissa.”

“Oh. So do we get free drinks then?”

“No.”

“Oh. Well what do we get then?”

“Nothing. You still have to pay,” he told her.

“Well this blows. Why’d we come here? I mean what benefit do we get from you working here. I mean besides seeing you in that stupid outfit.”

Craig shook his head and walked off to fill the drink orders without giving her an answer.

Melissa grumbled and looked at the menu. “I should of just had Stevie call Vincenzo and have him send me a pizza. At least that would have been free. It probably would have been better than this stuff too.”

“Hey, you wanted to come with, so can it!” Ziva snapped at her.

“Yeah, well I thought we’d get some free pizza!”

In the kitchen, Craig filled cups with drinks. His manager walked over with a frown. “Those your friends Craig?”

“Yeah, don’t worry they won’t cause any problems.” At least he hoped they wouldn’t. He couldn’t be sure Melissa wouldn’t do anything crazy before the visit ended.

Sabrina stood nearby caressing her signed menu. “He knows Death!”

The manager frowned in confusion at her. “Death?”

“The lead singer of the band Death’s Door!”

Craig sighed heavily. “Apparently. I didn’t know he was lead singer. He’s my friend’s boyfriend. I knew he was in a band, but I never asked about the band.”

The manager nodded. “Right whatever.” He glanced out at the table scanning the patrons, his eyes narrowed. “Hey who’s the kid at the end there? The big one with the long hair. He looks familiar.”

Craig knew he was talking about Stone, no way was he outing Stone as Senator Covington’s son. That was all he needed. Either the manager could be a huge fan of the Senator or he could hate the man. Either way, he didn’t need the grief. “Just another of my friends. I think he’s done some modeling, might be why he looks familiar. Could have seen some of the billboards around town.” He hurried off with the drinks before more questions could be asked.

Melissa was still grumbling about not getting free stuff as he brought the drinks. He sent her a glare, telling her without words to be quiet. He really wanted this job so he could ditch the pickup truck leftover from their little foray at the high school.

“Have you guys decided what you want?” Craig asked them. Skylar rattled off the order and he wrote it down. “Okay, I’ll go put this in. If you need anything else let me know.”

Ziva watched him scurry off with a sigh. A’Cadia nudged her with an elbow and she turned to look at her. “What?”

“You look like a scared little bunny rabbit. He’s got a job, Ziva, not another girlfriend, chill out.”

“It’s just, I don’t know, weird seeing him here. I mean I know Craig is more like Skylar than me; he’s all responsible and stuff, but still … this is weird.”

“Why is it weird?” A’Cadia asked her.

Ziva stared toward the spot where Craig had disappeared. “I don’t know. I guess I kinda would have expected him to get a job in an office or something, not a fast food place.” She turned and gave A’Cadia a serious look. “Look at me A’Cadia. I’m nothing. A girl he picked up in a stupid diner. No family, nothing, no one who gives one care in the world about me. Now look at him. He’s got everything going for him. Family, a home, everything. And he’s working here. For what? Because he wants to get a better car to surprise me.”

A’Cadia gave her a tiny smile. “It’s sweet.”

“The kicker is—I don’t care what kind of car he drives. It doesn’t matter to me. I like him exactly the way he is. He doesn’t have to do any of this.”

“Well, you probably need to tell him that.”

Ziva blew out a breath. “Yeah, maybe.”

Logan spent the intervening time waiting for the pizza taking bets with Angela and Stevie on whether or not they’d have to wrangle in Melissa or not. She’d started eating the sugar packets while waiting for the pizza.

By the time the pizza arrived, she was more than a tad hyper and was certain there were pixies on the ceiling, which for some reason was making Stevie nervous.

Craig placed the pizzas on the table, with the help of the hostess who had seated them, and then left them to eat.

Stone frowned and leaned over to whisper to A’Cadia. “Is it just me or is the manager keeping a seriously close eye on us?”

“No, it isn’t just you. He’s been watching us since we sat down. Probably thinks Craig is going to give us everything for free ’cause we’re his friends.”

“Well then let’s make sure we pay for every last piece of food we’ve got on this table.”

She nodded in agreement.

“I think I ate tooooo much, my tummy is gonna explode-a-fy!” Melissa complained.

Ziva snorted. “What do you expect? You ate twelve sugar packets, an entire large pizza, and drank four glasses of Dr. Pepper.”

“I was hungry!” She groaned and put her head down on the table.

Craig came over with the bill. “Thanks for coming in guys. Could you do me a favor though?”

Logan grinned at him. “Don’t ever do it again?”

“Yeah, please?”

They laughed and nodded agreement. A’Cadia paid the bill.

As everyone headed for the door, Stone cradling a still complaining Melissa in his arms, Ziva stopped to talk to Craig. “Hey, you know you don’t have to do this. I don’t care about the truck. You could drive around in Rogue’s stupid little Smart Car for all I care. It’s you I want to date Craig, not your car.”

He smiled at her, leaned down, and kissed her on the cheek. “Thanks. I’ll think about that, right now I’ve got a shift to finish. I’ll see you later.”

“Okay.” She left the restaurant, feeling a lot better than she had earlier. Glad that she’d gotten to talk to Craig, if only briefly. A smiled curved her lips up at the corners as she slipped into the car. Yeah, things were way better. When she glanced back at the Pizza Hut, she saw Craig in the window, smiling, he lifted a hand and sent her a little wave.

She waved back as A’Cadia pulled out of the lot. And Melissa upchucked in the back seat.