I do not own anything to do with NCIS, that is the property of CBS, the only thing I own is my NCIS ballcap...

Prologue:

Homecoming

Ziva had never known what it had felt like to be out of place before, but now, looking around at the faces of her "former" NCIS co-workers, and most importantly, her "former" team, she could understand slightly, what was usually meant by being the center of attention. She could not get the idea out of her head that she was as of yet, still someone not trusted, someone not given the full picture, and not let in on all the secrets. Then she heard someone start to clap, she looked toward the stairs and saw Director Vance clapping at seeing her return, and the rest of the office followed suit. She could only look around in a daze, her head still pounding and disoriented from her recent trip back to the states, and the deeper ache from her long torture in the desert.

She saw something else that was achingly familiar, the young goth and the old doctor who, for each of their little (quirks, she thought the word was), she had come to respect, not only as being very knowledgeable in each of their fields, but because of their understanding of Ziva herself. She was still thinking about the two of them as Abby's next action almost brought tears to the Mossad Operative's eyes, Abby's hug was a reminder of something she had thought she'd forgotten in the desert, she had forgotten that she indeed had a real family, not a family that took advantage of her heart, the heart she thought she had given to Rivkin, yet long ago had already been given to someone else.

She looked over at the three men that had traveled across the world to bring her back to them safely, who risked everything, even their lives for her. It was an action she would never have expected happened, not even from her fellow Israelis, her own people. McGee who had broken the mold which she had come to expect of her, taking a great risk to try to get her captors disoriented and thrown off, using hand to hand combat moves she never would have expected of him, which she thought she could help him improve. Gibbs, who shot like nobody else, even herself, would be able to do, something she had always envied, and who had saved all of their lives not once, or twice, but three times before they managed to escape the holding building.

Then her eyes found Tony, Tony, who had probably taken the biggest risk of all of them, who had pissed of his captors when they revealed the way they had tracked the movement of their camp, Tony, with his endless movie references, open contempt, embellishment of the truth, and most of all, the devotion he had shown to come that far for news for Ziva. It was that, more than anything else that had indeed proven his word to being the wildcard of the group, and it was that more than anything else, that made Ziva wish he wasn't just a co-worker.

But for the moment, she kept all of these things bottled up as she returned Abby's hug, wondering what the next move was.

For now however, she was glad for knowing one thing, she was home...

A.N. - We'll see where it goes, I'll add more as they come into my head