Chapter One: The Beginning After The End

"Agent Gibbs, meet your new team."

The four could only stare at each other silently before Gibbs finally cleared his throat and grabbed the three folders held in Vance's outstretched hand. Spinning quickly on his heel, he left the room, almost, but not quite, slamming the door. After glancing briefly at each other, his team followed suit.

Not daring to say a word, they hurried to keep up with their boss' long strides, still panting from exertion by the time they reached their destination—Gibbs' conference room.

Pressing the down button on the elevator, Gibbs tapped his foot impatiently as he waited for it to respond to his command. The moment the doors slid open, he was inside and gesturing for his team to follow. They immediately complied.

Once inside, Gibbs didn't wait for the doors to close on their own accord; he hit the close button and, as soon as the lift started moving, the emergency stop. Spinning around to face his team, he glanced over each of them briefly before clearing his throat again.

His face was its normal blank mask, but the hint of sadness around the corners of his eyes that hadn't left since he'd found out about his boss' death was glaringly obvious to those who knew him, as was the anger that tightened the lines bracketing his mouth. Leroy Jethro Gibbs was not happy.

As one, the team breathed a sigh of relief. If their boss hadn't given up, then there was still hope.

"All right. So, what're we going to do about this bullshit?" Gibbs asked his team, waving the folders clutched in his hand.

Tony sighed, stepping around Ziva to lean his head on the cool elevator wall.

"Boss, you know I'd never question your gut, but this time, I don't think there's anything even you can do."

"What makes you think it's my gut that's talking?"

Ziva and McGee glanced at each other, a passing look that soon turned into a staring match. Blinking, McGee gulped. He knew when he was beat.

"Uh, Boss?"

Gibbs turned to look at him sharply.

"Well, Tony's right. I mean, Vance is the director, first of all…" Gibbs' incredulous look made McGee trail off. Of course. When did a matter of authority ever stop his boss? He should have known a point like that wasn't even worth mentioning.

Sighing nervously, McGee started again, "Ok, fine. I guess that was a stupid thing to say."

"Ya think, McGee?" Gibbs' stare was getting decidedly impatient but Ziva was looking at him curiously and even Tony had lifted his head from the wall to stare at him. 'I guess neither of them had thought of a reason for Vance splitting us up other than the fact that he doesn't like Gibbs,' McGee thought.

McGee took a deep breath and plunged headlong into his speech. "Well, this is just what I think, but Vance probably had a reason for splitting us up. I mean, why go through all the trouble to scatter us around the world if he didn't have to? He could have just put us on different teams. It would have been a lot easier for him."

He paused and glanced around at the three people surrounding him. Ziva was nodding her head, comprehension dawning on her face. Tony and Gibbs, however, were still looking at him with mildly confused expressions on their faces.

Ziva looked at McGee and, at the nod of his head, proceeded to explain the rest of her teammate's "theory".

"I think I understand what McGee is trying to say. He believes that the reason Vance not only split us up, but also put us in far apart and very obscure places is that he is trying to protect us. Think about it: at Mossad, I will be heavily protected and undercover most of the time. Tony, you are going to be working on a ship very few people know about that has more security than this building. McGee will be with Cyber Crimes, where agents are not very well…what is the word…advertised? Well, anyway, he will be in the background instead of in the field where he has less chance of somebody recognizing him. And Gibbs, you have a whole new team, a whole new start. This is what you meant, yes, McGee?"

"Exactly," McGee assured her. They shared a smug look before turning to their teammates to see if they had gotten it, only to catch Tony and Gibbs giving each other a similar look, but of confusion. They were both still as in the dark as before.

Gibbs spoke up, "If you two are trying to make a point, I suggest that you spit it out before DiNozzo wets his pants in anticipation."

As if in proof to the deepness of their grief, none of the team laughed. McGee shook his head and Ziva quirked her lips up in a little half-smile, while Tony only managed a weak, "Hey!"

McGee sighed again, this time in exasperation. "Don't you guys see? Vance separated us and placed us in some of the most secure places he could think of without being too suspicious to make it harder for whoever killed the Director to come after us."

Ziva nodded and picked up the train of thought. "We were the Director's favorite team and the one assigned to investigate her death. All of us were close to her. We are the only ones who know the truth about how she died. If whoever planned this wanted to finish the job, tie all the loose ends, so to speak, we would all have large red targets painted on our backs."

Tony's eyes lit up. "Oh!"

"Yeah, Tony, ohhhhh," McGee taunted.

"Shut up, Probie!"

Then they all seemed to realize that Gibbs hadn't spoken a word since the revealing of this thought and all turned as one to face him.

He was angled away from them, staring at a patch of floor just left of his shoe.

"Boss?" said Tony softly.

"Nobody's coming after us," Gibbs said quietly, finally looking up at his team.

"What do you mean…" McGee began, but a swift elbow in the ribs from Ziva and a glare from Tony shut him up.

Gibbs didn't seem to notice his team's reaction to this news, but resumed staring, only this time, at the back wall instead of the floor.

Ziva spoke up. "Gibbs…what did you do?"

Her boss sighed, but didn't take his eyes off the spot they were focusing intently on. "What should've been done ten years ago."

His team glanced at one another, their minds scrambling to remember what they knew about Gibbs and Director Shepard's partnership, when Gibbs spoke again.

"I finished a job."

With that he turned that pressed the emergency stop button again. Refusing to meet the eyes of any of the other three people in the lift, he got off the minute the doors opened, throwing the folders carelessly on his desk and mumbling something about coffee.

His team stood in the elevator and watched him leave.