Ziva stepped off the elevator and suddenly Abby was standing in front of her.

"Hi, Abby."

Abby pulled her arm and practically dragged her around the corner. Confused and caught off guard, Ziva allowed herself to be pulled away from the bullpen.

"What were you thinking, leaving us like that? Do you know how much we all missed you? Why did you even bother coming back? There's nothing for you here anymore, we replaced you when we realized how stupid you were being." It was a terrible argument, but Ziva had never seen Abby this angry so she wasn't about to question it. This was even worse than when Abby berated her for doubting Tony a couple of years ago.

When Abby was done, it was obviously everyone else's turn. McGee, Tony, Ducky, Palmer all crowded her, asking the same questions and wasting no time breaking her heart.

"What are you doing here? You don't belong here anymore." She could read between the lines easily enough. They wanted her to leave and never come back. Her visitor's pass was getting heavier by the second, dragging her down, down; she was at Tony's apartment, at his front door, and he was staring at her, accusing her of leaving him alone.

"Why did you even bother, Ziva? You knew I'd be mad at you; there's no chance of us together now." Tony opened the door further to reveal a pretty blonde girl in a low-cut dress grinning and waving at her maliciously. At this moment the floor jolted (earthquake?), and Ziva fell on top of Tony. It was such a reminder of the past, 'that's not my knee,' she wanted to stay there forever, but his new girlfriend was shaking her shoulder, and kept insisting she get up and leave.

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Ziva awoke with a start, the woman sitting next to her shaking her shoulder and talking to her.

"Ziva, we have arrived. We are in the United States! You need to get up, you need to leave as quickly as possible, or you'll be late for your family!"

Ziva was still very upset by her dream, but she tried to be encouraging to the woman. She was very nice and had been a comforting presence as Ziva talked about the family that she was so excited to see again. "This is going to be great for you, Malka, you're going to love it here," she managed to say as she stood up and walked off the plane.

Ziva grabbed her luggage as quickly as possible, directed Malka to a cab, and gave her a piece of paper with her phone number on it. "If you need anything, I'm just a phone call away."

She hailed a cab to take her to Stillwater, and practically threw her luggage in the trunk. "I need to get there as fast as possible," she told the driver. She had chosen a long black dress to wear on the plane, specifically for this reason. In her carry-on was a black wide-brimmed hat that she would use to hide her face from her friends.

The cabbie was a quiet man, not one of the talkative drivers that she was used to in DC. This was a nice change, though, because it allowed her some time to think. Was this really the right thing to do, moving here, or was she just thinking about what was best for herself? Well, maybe she should have talked about it more with Gibbs, actually asked his opinion. If he didn't think it was a good idea, she would just hop back on the plane and go somewhere else. Where, she would deal with later.

Her thoughts turned to Jackson Gibbs. He was such a nice man. She could remember all the times when they'd seen him when they were working on a case...when she was an agent. No, she would think of all the times Gibbs got mad at him for normal old-people things- forgetting the oven was on, making Gibbs help out at the store. Redoing the car for Gibbs when he came home. She had rarely seen Gibbs so happy as when he rounded the corner and whipped past her and McGee in that car.

She couldn't help it, her thoughts floated to work- her old work- and the team. She wondered how they were doing. She figured McGee and Abby were pretty much how they were before, stuck in the cycle of working on case after case. And there was probably a new member of the team, most likely a girl. She wondered if this girl was pretty, and how much she flirted with Tony.

Tony. She wondered about him most of all. And worried. She hoped he hadn't been stuck in the past, that he had found some way to move on from her. He always had a hard time moving on, he had turned to drinking after Jenny died, and she wished he hadn't repeated that part of his life. And part of her,she didn't want to think how big, hoped that he still loved her, because she still loved him. But she knew that they would have to start up from the beginning again, take it slow. Ach, why was she even thinking about this? Why would he still be in love with her? After she pushed him away for the hundredth time? And yet- they had made so much progress the year before, before her father died, before they had resigned, before she decided to get away from it all. They could get back to that point. But it would take a lot of work on both of their parts. She looked out the window and refused to acknowledge any further thoughts she might have had regarding their relationship. Maybe if she stared hard enough, the image of passing trees would fill up her brain, and she would not have to think for the rest of the trip.

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She was late, of course. She approached from behind the team, and hid in expertly with the other mourners, not even turning her head to look at her friends. There was a time and a place for her to show up, and although she didn't have a plan of where or when, it definitely wasn't here and now.

They were just folding up the American flag, and handing it to Gibbs to keep. This was close to the end of the ceremony, if Ziva remembered correctly. Yes, the bugle was played, and then everyone walked by Jackson's grave another time before solemnly climbing in their cars to go home. There was sometimes food afterwards, but she doubted Gibbs had done anything about that, probably eager to be alone after this.

Gibbs was, as expected, the last to leave, and Ziva stayed until everyone else had cleared out. She stepped forward, and placed a hand on his shoulder. He turned, gave her a slight smile, and hugged her. "Glad you could make it, Ziver."

A/N: I hope you guys liked this chapter!