Hello everyone! This is just a little one-shot that was inspired by the recent return of my fave Ms. Ziva David. I'm not quite sure how long it will be yet but stay tuned. I hope you enjoy! :)

"Ziver."

There she was, right in front of him, her wild curly hair spilling down her back. Her olive skin glowed in the basement's dim light, a small crooked smile breaking across her lips. She gazed almost apologetically at him with her dark eyes, seeming to scan him for any signs of anger. It was as if he were looking at a ghost, looking not a day older than when he had seen her last. He wondered if she was just another Diane-maybe Fornell was right...he really was losing it. He blinked hard, his own disbelief was clouding his common sense.

"You are in danger, Gibbs," Ziva repeated softly, breaking the silence. "We must leave. Now."

She turned away, determinedly walking towards the stairs, but stopped at the foot of the staircase, turning back to him with a furrowed brow. He stood still, unable to move. He felt as though someone had used wood glue to permanently fasten his feet to the floor. He couldn't go on without an explanation. There was so much he wanted to say and yet he couldn't find any words. Ziva swallowed.

"There is not much time, and frankly, you, standing there, could get all of us killed." She turned again and began climbing the stairs two at a time, her steps barely making any noise.

"All of us...?" Gibbs questioned distantly, watching her from his frozen position. Ziva leaned over the railing at the top of the stairs as another small smile crept across her lips.

"Come and see for yourself."

Just then there was a tiny crash, like the shattering of glass, from upstairs followed by a fit of delighted giggles. Ziva's smile turned apologetic. She stepped back through the doorway and disappeared down the hallway, snapping Gibbs out of his confused daze. He jogged up the stairs after Ziva, feeling unprepared for what he knew he would find once he arrived upstairs.

"Tali, lo noge'im bameh sheyno," he heard Ziva scolding from his living room. Gibbs advanced slowly down the hallway. "I told you to hold her and keep her quiet, while I went to get Gibbs." Ziva said sharply, switching to English. "I was gone for two minutes."

"Hey, don't blame me, she's very impatient and is always breaking things, especially when she's tired." Another deeper voice protested from the living room. "She gets that from her mother, ya know."

At the end of the hallway, Gibbs rounded the corner to find Ziva kneeling on the ground, picking the shards of some glass paperweight out of the carpet while a little girl with a full head of blonde curls squirmed in the arms of none other than Tony Dinozzo. Ziva stood when Gibbs entered.

"Oh, hey Boss," Tony said, filling the silence. "I love what you've done with the place." He smiled a big toothy grin. Tali whined.

"Abba, put me down!" She cried and struggled some more, kicking Tony in the stomach with her tiny feet.

"She kicks like her mother too," Tony grunted, doubling over dramatically. He put Tali down and she ran to Ziva, wrapping her stubby arms around her mother's left leg. She blew a raspberry in her father's direction and then eyed Gibbs warily from behind Ziva's leg.

"We must keep moving," Ziva said, glancing out the window worriedly. "Come on, Gibbs, we'll explain on the way."

"To where?" Gibbs said irritably. There was clearly something bad happening, and the fact that Ziva was keeping him in the dark bothered him. Ziva would not have come out of hiding with Tony and Tali just to hold an awkward reunion and break his paperweight.

"Trust me." Ziva said. She reached down and smoothed back Tali's hair from her forehead, holding Gibbs's gaze evenly. Gibbs looked at Tony. Dinozzo shifted his weight uneasily, wearing a grim expression.

"Okay," Gibbs nodded. "Let's go."

The three adults rushed out to the dark rental sedan that was parked around the corner from his house, Tali in Tony's arms. Tony reached into his pocket for the keys, and the car chirped as it was unlocked. Ziva flinched at the shrill noise, and scanned the street nervously. Gibbs slid into the passenger's side as Tony buckled Tali into her car seat in the back.

Gibbs watched as Tali babbled softly in the back seat, picking up a stuffed monkey from the seat beside her and telling it a story. Suddenly, a bright light swept over the front of the sedan, momentarily washing the dark car with white. Gibbs turned his head to find Ziva peering down the street, watching as an SUV slid slowly out of where it had been parked in a neighbor's driveway. Her shoulders were tense, and her hand had drifted to rest upon the handle of the glock she had stuffed in the waistband of her jeans.

"Gibbs..." She warned. The backseat window of the SUV rolled down slightly, and something flashed in the moonlight.

"TONY!" Ziva tackled Tony, landing in the car just as a wave of bullets rained down on the car. Gibbs keeled over in the passenger's seat, taking cover behind the steering wheel. Tali began to scream. The windshield and side windows shattered above Gibbs. Glass shards sliced at his scalp and slid down his shirt. He reached for his side to grab his gun, but it wasn't there; it must have fallen out of its holster. He felt around his seat for it. There was the sound of screeching tires as the SUV sped off back down the street.

Finding his gun, Gibbs sat up quickly, immediately turning to the backseat. Tony was brushing glass out of his hair, a tiny river of blood making its way down his temple. Ziva was pushing herself off of Tali after shielding her daughter with her body during the shooting. Tali was still wailing, her eyes swollen with tears. Ziva frantically checked Tali for any wounds. Finding none, she leaned back onto the seat, relief flooding her body. Tony sat up and took Tali in his arms, stroking her hair and talking to her quietly. Her wails were quickly soothed to small whimpers. Ziva wrapped her arms around the both of them, trying to stop Tali's trembling. Her left arm had a long gash that ran from her shoulder to her elbow, but it seemed shallow because the blood had already begun to congeal. She locked eyes with Gibbs. He suppressed a shudder. It was a mere miracle that no one had been killed.

If he hadn't stalled...

They didn't stay to talk about what happened; there wasn't time to let the close call affect them. The rental car was disabled so they piled into Gibbs's car, keeping an eye out for any other malicious vehicles. It didn't take long for Tali to fall asleep in her carseat as Tony drove to the nearest gas station. When Tony parked in front of the gas pump, Ziva slid out of the backseat and stole the plates off of another car in the lot. After purchasing some snacks and a first aid kit from the deserted food mart, Gibbs installed the stolen plates in place of the old ones. With new plates and food for the road, the trio headed northwest towards a remote safehouse in the Virginia woods.

"I never meant for it to happen like this, Gibbs." Ziva said once they were settled and on the road. She finished bandaging the gash on her arm and leaned forward between the two front seats so that she could see Gibbs's face. His eyes were fixed firmly on the road.

"The faked death or the shooting?" Gibbs said with his jaw clenched.

"I wanted to tell you," Ziva said, pursing her lips, "right after it happened. But I couldn't. It was too much of a risk. I thought you, of all people, would understand."

"Understand?" Gibbs said, anger boiling up inside of him. "When we saw it on the news, we thought-I thought..."

"I know what you thought." Ziva caught Gibbs's eye and they held each other's gaze for a couple beats. "You know the things that I have done. You know the enemies that I have made. Things changed, Gibbs. I have a daughter to protect. I could not let her grow up in that world." Ziva glanced at Tali who was still sleeping peacefully in her car seat. "I-I thought you...would understand."

Gibbs took a deep breath. She was right, he did understand; there wasn't a day when he didn't wish he had done the same all those years ago for his own family. Things might have been different.

"We came back because you're in danger." Tony said, breaking the silence. He took one hand off of the steering wheel and entwined it with Ziva's.

"Yeah," Gibbs said bitterly, focusing his eyes back on the road. "So I've heard."

"Three weeks ago, there was a mass shooting at a taqueria in Columbia Heights, believed to be drug-related." Tony began.

"At first, police believed it to be regular gang violence," Ziva continued, "but further investigation linked the crime to a powerful Mexican drug cartel."

"The Reynosa drug cartel," Tony added. Gibbs's eyes snapped away from the road in surprise.

"Did they talk to-"

"Alejandro Rivera," Ziva said, interrupting Gibbs. She nodded her head. "That is the first thing they did...or tried to do anyway." Gibbs raised his eyebrows.

"Rivera escaped from prison one week prior to the shooting," Tony said, answering Gibbs's silent question. "They have no leads as to his whereabouts."

"How did you hear about this before I did?" Gibbs said, annoyance tinging his voice.

"Our little Israeli is not the only one with helpful contacts." Tony said, squeezing Ziva's hand. "A buddy of mine who is working the case mentioned it briefly when I called him the other day to catch up."

"Police talked to Rivera's cellmate, and he mentioned that Rivera had been planning to escape for some time." Ziva said. "Rivera said that once he was out, he was going to get the revenge he has been longing for since the day he was arrested. Revenge on-"

"Me," Gibbs finished, staring at the road again. There was another beat of silence, during which Gibbs wondered if they knew. Did they know why Rivera wanted revenge? Did they know the terrible thing he had done all those years ago? He hoped they didn't. He had spent many years trying so hard to convince himself it was a justified act, so hard that he wasn't sure he had the energy to convince them.

"That's when we knew we had to come warn you." Tony said, forcing Gibbs out of his thoughts. "He had tried to kill you before, we figured he might try again. And after that Sopranos-style shootout back there, I'm guessing we were right."

"Why did you come?" Gibbs asked.

"Well, we just told you, Boss-"

"No, why did you come?" Gibbs said, this time looking at Ziva. "Tony could have called McGee, or Bishop, or anyone for that matter. You could have stayed in Paris. Why come out of hiding? Why put yourself at risk again after working so hard to disappear?"

Ziva hesitated, glancing back at Tali again. She let go of Tony's hand and stroked Tali's tiny one with her index finger. "Because," Ziva began slowly. "There was a time when I was in trouble, and I needed help, and you dropped everything to come and save me." She met Gibbs's gaze evenly. "I thought it was about time that I return the favor."

After a few seconds of silence, a corner of Gibbs's mouth lifted slightly and his eyes crinkled, forming a tiny smile. "It's good to see you, Ziva."

Ziva smiled back, her dark eyes lightening. "It is good to see you too, Gibbs."

"Yeah, it's great to see you too, Boss." Tony cut in a little dejectedly. Ziva smirked.

"So what's the plan?" Gibbs asked, his tone turning businesslike.

"The plan is to find Rivera, I guess," Tony said. "But we don't have any leads, and it's difficult to look for some when you don't have a badge."

"We thought he might be hiding out somewhere that has some significance to the death of his sister, Paloma Reynosa." Ziva put in. "Maybe he wants to avenge her death somewhere significant." Gibbs suppressed a cringe. Ziva noticed. "That is...why he's after you, right?"

Gibbs hesitated. He had already broken rule number 4 and told his secret to the entire team. Would it matter if he told Tony and Ziva too?

"Gibbs?" Ziva asked, noting his silence.

"That's only half the story." Gibbs said slowly. "I killed his father."

Tony slammed on the breaks, bringing the car to a full stop. "You what?"

"His father killed Shannon and Kelly," Gibbs said, his throat constricting.

Tony stared at Gibbs, wide-eyed. "Well, yeah, we know that but-"

"So I found him. Shot him. In cold blood." Gibbs looked out at the road.

They sat in a stunned silence, unsure of what to say. Then Gibbs caught Ziva's eye. She gazed at him, his eyes seeming to say, I thought you would understand. She thought back to the night she killed Ilan Bodner, the man who had murdered her father. Staring down at his bloody, lifeless body from over the ship's railing, she remembered very vividly how the satisfaction had coursed through her body. She did understand.

"That was a long time ago," Ziva said, still holding Gibbs's gaze. She could see the torment clearly written in his glacier blue eyes. "You are a different man now. Let it go."

Tony started the car and began to drive again. "Why don't we call McGee?" Tony suggested. "It won't be long before he and the rest of the team find out about the car."

"True," Ziva agreed, "but for now, we must stay on the move and avoid contact. They do not know that I am alive, and for their own safety and ours, it is better that they do not."

Thanks for making it through the chapter! I'm writing the next one now. Let me know what you think!