Hey guys! So, I haven't uploaded anything to in a while (though I have been writing an uploading elsewhere), but this is my first NCIS fanfic anyway. I'm generally more at home in the realms of House and Psych, but I've been watching more NCIS than usual lately, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Also, the title is a nod to Five for Fighting's "The Riddle," which there is a minor allusion to at the end of the fic.

P.S. This looked way longer as a word document.

Disclaimer: disclaimed

The Riddle

You are still with them, even after you've died. You will always been there, lingering in the shadows, even though they don't realize it. You can feel yourself leaving your body, and you see Tony and Gibbs on the rooftop, weapons drawn, looking around frantically, but you also see yourself lying there on the roof, blood pooling around your head, and it's the weirdest thing you think you'll ever experience.

You watch the events of the next day unfold. You know Tony and Gibbs blame themselves, because, in their minds, it could just as easily have been one of them. You wish you could tell them that it isn't their fault. You'd already taken a bullet for Gibbs and you were happy to take another. They are your family after all, and you don't really mind dying for them. There is, of course, a certain amount of guilt from McGee and Abby too, just for being alive when you aren't, and that's only natural. You've felt that kind of guilt before.

Abby takes it particularly hard. She cries over a joke she forgot to tell you last time the two of you talked, a song she heard right after you left that she thought you would like, the birthday present she already bought you. You understand, of course. You've already bought her birthday present too. You wonder if she'll ever get it, or if maybe it would be better if she didn't.

You are listening when Tony and McGee visit you in the morgue. You've been waiting for them, but you know it took McGee a long time to build up the courage, and you're okay with that. You understand. You smile when he tells you he really liked you. You really liked him too. For a moment, it's just like always, just the three of you. And then you remember that this is nothing like that, and it pains you to realize that Tony and McGee will probably never speak to you again.

And then your replacement shows up, the half-sister of your killer, go figure. You don't like her at first, but she grows on you, just as she grows on Tony and McGee, and before long you find yourself thinking that you really don't mind this woman after all. It takes Abby a lot longer to warm up to her, and you wish you could tell her that it's okay to like your replacement, that it doesn't mean she's forgotten you. And then Ziva and McGee start to get a lot closer, and Abby dislikes Ziva even more, only now it's for another reason, and you wonder if Abby recognizes that. You're dying to ask her.

And then one day, Abby and Ziva are okay, and things go back to normal, only it's a new normal, and it doesn't include you, and that hurts for a while, but you're glad they're finally moving on, because these are their lives now. Yours is over.

You watch as the awkwardness that enveloped Abby and McGee ends in the wake of your death—you can't help but think you had something to do with that—and as they become friends, and then best friends, and then something more, though you doubt that either of them realizes it.

You watch as Gibbs becomes more and more Ziva's father and less and less yours. In fact, you're not sure he ever really was your father. Not to the extent of which he's Tony's or Abby's, or now, Ziva's. And that hurts a little too, but you know that he liked you, that he was proud of you, and father or not, that makes everything okay, because you know those are words that very few people get to hear.

You watch McGee as he struggles to find The One, in a cheerleader, in a South African assassin, in a woman who turns out to be Tony, and you wish you were still alive so you could tell him that the person he is looking for has been there all along, her wardrobe becoming less and less eccentric over the years, her makeup beginning to approach natural tones.

And then there's Tony and Ziva. You and Tony always had an unspoken Thing, and maybe, you used to tell yourself, in a few years, it would evolve into something else, because you both knew that's where you were headed, but you thought you had all the time in the world to grow into the idea. And now Tony and Ziva have the same Thing, and you want to tell Tony not to make the same mistake twice, but you know that it wouldn't help anyway, because Tony never listened to you.

And then Ziva comes back from Israel and she is secretive and elusive and everyone can tell that her loyalties lie elsewhere. Even you can see that, and you never really even met her. And then her boyfriend turns out to be a spy, and everyone saw it coming except Ziva, and you kind of feel for her, and when she enters her apartment to find her boyfriend and Tony on the floor among the pieces, when she decides to stay in Israel, you get where she is coming from, even though it saddens you that when she entered her apartment that night, she didn't see what was really in front of her. You go back with Gibbs and Tony on the plane when they leave Ziva in Israel, because even though you've grown fond of her over the years, Tony and Gibbs are where you really belong. She may be a part of their life, but she was never a part of yours.

And then your hear with Tony, McGee, and Abby, that Ziva's ship has gone down, and you watch as they struggle to comprehend why this had to happen again, why, after they'd already lost you, they had to lose Ziva too, why this had to happen twice, because even when she was back in Israel she wasn't really gone, but now she is and she's not coming back. You watch the gears turn in all of their heads until Tony finally speaks up, because you know he feels guilty about Ziva too, even though he shouldn't, and because there was nothing he could do for you, but there is something he can do for her. It is him realizing, too late, the mistake he's now made twice, and it is his chance to make up for it.

You go with them to Somalia and you watch as they courageously carry out their plan to take out Saleem, and you know that in their minds, they're killing Ari again too. You know that this isn't only about Ziva. They're also doing it for you, as some convoluted and way-too-late apology. Too bad they have nothing to apologize for. You never blamed them to begin with.

And then Ziva turns out to be alive, and they bring her home, and it's just like a fairytale, only it's not, because Ziva is broken and nothing will ever be quite the same. You know that they know this, but you also know that they'll work through it, because to Tony, McGee, and Gibbs, saving Ziva and saving you were one in the same. The guilt has lifted. They couldn't save you, but they could save her, and it was a symbolic act, one that they needed to finish healing all the way.

It's been five-and-a-half years since you died, and you've been watching ever since. You watch Tony and Ziva go back to their normal routine, continue to dance around what Tony had with you and now has with her. You watch McGee struggle to find his perfect women, continually becoming even closer to Abby and continually oblivious that he doesn't need to look any farther. Their actions are less influenced by you than they were before, and you know it's because, in their minds, you can finally rest in peace. They're finally moving on in a way they haven't been able to, and even though you'll always be there, lingering in the bullpen by the desk that's now Ziva's, you aren't hanging over their heads anymore.

You watch and you hope that Ziva keeps struggling to understand what happened to her, why it happened, because you know she will one day if she keeps trying. You hope that McGee finds all the answers that have been only a few floors down all along and that Tony and Ziva will finally go to the place that you and Tony never can. It hurts that they've moved on, but it's what they need and you have to respect that. They were your entire life, but you were only a chapter in theirs.

You've always been one of those people that believes that everything happens for a reason, and it's taken this for you to realize the reason for your death. In the end, it really is about Ziva, because you had a family, but she needed one more than anyone you ever met during your life. You had to die so she could take your place, because her family wouldn't have rescued her from Somalia, but yours did. You thought you were dying for Gibbs when the truth is that you had to die so that the life of a person you never really met could be saved, and you've found, a little surprisingly, that you have no problem with this. It was a riddle, and after all these years, you've finally found the answer.

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