Disclaimer: Don't own.


Leroy Jethro Gibbs succumbed to a heart attack at 67. It was a shock to the whole team. Out of all the ways for the strong man to fall, that was something none of them thought would beat him. He had, after all, survived two bombs.

With Gibbs's death the three agents left come together, growing closer in mourning. Tony takes over as team leader again, and Tim is ever vigilant as his senior field agent and right hand man. They never do accept another agent to fill in the void that resulted in their loss, and the three agents are alright with that.

When Ziva goes, it almost breaks them. This time, it wasn't natural causes, so the tattered remains of the team had the vindictive satisfaction of hunting down the bastard that had slipped her the poison (she used to be so vigilant, did being in America dull her edge? Why did she let it do that? Didn't she know she still had enemies out there?) but that didn't bring the fierce woman back.

And so the two men move onward. Once again they deny adding any new team members to take the spot of those lost.

Tony pretends not to notice when Tim stops writing even as Tim pretends that the absence of movie quotes doesn't bother him.

Cases still pass over their cluttered desks rapidly, solved with the same speed and efficiency as before, because even though there are only two physically, they can feel the presence of the lost. Both men still duck to avoid a slap that never comes. They instinctively correct a wrong analogy that was never actually muttered.

There are only two left, but they refuse to be called anything but a team. Just because everyone else can only see two halves of a whole, both agents know they are actually parts of a puzzle that has four pieces.

No one is surprised when a particularly vicious case brings both men down. Vance just sighs and shakes his head sadly. He should have known that the men, who had been clinging to each other resolutely for ten years now, would breath their last together, not willing to leave one behind to mourn alone.

And two puzzle pieces smile, and finally leave the office that had been their home and prison since the first piece was lost. It won't take them long to find the other two among the clouds.


The uploader is acting weird... Anyway, this is just a short thing that popped into my head as I was trying to fall asleep, and gnawed on my brain until I gave up and wrote it. Now maybe I can sleep. Oh, just for those who are reading Back in Time, it's going on Hiatus for a while, because I'm finishing up my senior year and am swamped by things that need to be done. I will probably upload more tidbits like this, but anything that requires slightly deep thinking like that will have to be put off. Sorry! Lionna