Ziua sets down her coffee cup with a sigh and says, "Let's all sit down. We have a lot to discuss."

McGee hurries to the table, but he hasn't even gotten settled in his chair when he jolts to his feet. "Delilah!" his voice borders on panic. "I gotta call Delilah."

Tony narrows his eyebrows. "You can't tell her what's going on, McGee," he says, almost a warning.

Tim shakes his head. For a fleeting moment, he wants to snap something back about how not everything is all about Tony, but he decides to just ignore it. "I gotta tell her where I am. Tell her I'm not passed out in a ditch somewhere. She was – she was pretty upset when I left. I gotta apologize, rule 6 be damned."

"No rule 6 in marriage, McGee. Call your wife," Gibbs says with a firm nod.

Tony knits his eyebrows together, thinking that this previously undisclosed exception to the rule was probably added after a particularly rough night with Diane, Rebecca, or Stephanie.

McGee fishes his phone out of his pocket and starts to head to the next room, but stops and turns back to Gibbs, Tony, and Ziva. "I –" he stammers. He knows what he needs to say, but he remembers the look on Tony's face when he'd insisted that Delilah couldn't know anything. "I need to tell her. Something, at least. I – she thought –" Remembering the (loud) conversation he and Delilah had right before he slammed the door and ran off to get plastered is making it very difficult not to cry, which is not something he's interested in doing right now, thank you very much. "She thought she did something wrong. She thought I was mad at her, and I couldn't say anything, and I stormed out and left her alone with the kids to go to the bar."

"Jesus, Tim," Tony mutters. Tim ignores him, looking right at Gibbs.

"What about rule 4, boss?" He's shamelessly pleading now. "Second best, tell one person. C'mon, 'lilah's DOD. You know she won't tell anyone."

The look on McGee's face is shaking Jethro more than he cares to admit, but it isn't his call to make, so instead he meets Ziva's gaze for a long moment, trying to make sure she understands that this is her decision.

McGee finds himself unable to stop the tears, and he's not even talking to anyone in particular anymore, just crying and begging to be allowed to be honest with the love of his life. "I've kept so many secrets from her," he slurs. "If I keep this from her, I don't know what's going to happen. God, I can't lose her. I already messed up so bad. She deserves to know what's going on . . ."

As McGee continues rambling (a little pathetically, DiNozzo thinks, but wouldn't he do the same for Ziva?), Tony looks to Ziva across the table. Ziva gives the smallest of nods, and Tony reaches out his hand to grab McGee's arm mid-gesticulation.

"Tim."

McGee goes silent and stock-still, his eyes wide and a little wild as he looks down at Tony.

"Call your wife. Get her over here." This is a conversation that needs to happen once, in person, with everybody on the same page.

Relief rushes over McGee, then panic sets back in. "'Get her over here?'" He repeats. "It's not exactly that easy, Tony. It's the middle of the night, we have twin infants, and she's paraplegic!"

Tony starts to argue – What would Delilah say if she heard you doubting her capability like this, Tim? - but Ziva, having been very quiet since the beginning of McGee's little freak out, finally speaks.

"Excuse me?" she says, looking hard at McGee. "Delilah is what?"

It's Tony who answers: "Paraplegic, Z. It means she doesn't have an-"

"I know exactly what it means!" Ziva cuts him off. "I just did not realize Delilah had a disability."

Tony furrows his brows across the table at her. McGee starts pacing back and forth, feeling very uncomfortable with his old friends discussing his wife this way, but knowing that he can't exactly say anything. Gibbs takes a long drink of his coffee.

"Ziva, you remember I told you – "

"No, Tony, you most certainly did not tell me!"

"Guys, look, just because Delilah's –"

"Hey! Enough!"

At Gibbs' unexpected outburst, the rest of the room goes silent. Jethro sets his coffee cup down (hard) and scowls at Tony, McGee, and Ziva each in turn. When he feels they have been sufficiently chastised, he looks back to McGee and says calmly, "Call your wife, Tim. Tell her to get over here. She can bring the kids. Any other questions?"

"No, boss," McGee says quietly, then scurries off into the living room to call Delilah.

"We should call Bishop, too," Gibbs says when McGee is out of earshot.

Tony scowls. "Why don't we just get ZNN over here, too, boss? Let everyone in on all our secrets all at the same time. It'll be more efficient that way, right?"

Unfortunately for Tony, sitting perpendicular from Gibbs at the small kitchen table puts the back of his head well within slapping range. His only saving grace is that he's not holding his coffee at the moment of impact.

Apparently writing Tony off as tired, cranky, and incapable of rational adult conversation at the moment, Gibbs turns to Ziva. "We need to call Bishop," he reiterates. "You two can meet, we can tell her off for telling McGee, and we can get everybody on the same page."

Ziva nods; it makes sense to her. No reason to explain it more than once if we can help it. She pauses a moment, then says, "That's everyone who knows, right? You, Bishop, and the McGees?"

It isn't exactly the right time for paternal sentimentality, but Gibbs can't help the warm feeling that spreads through his chest every time he hears Tim and Delilah referred to as "the McGees." He shakes away the brief moment of pride and tries to remember what Ziva asked. Who all knows. Right.

Gibbs has the decency to look embarrassed – much to the surprise of both Ziva and Tony, who didn't fully realize Jethro was capable of such an emotion – as he locks his eyes on the table, runs a hand through the side of his hair and confesses, "I may have let slip to someone else."

"Come on, boss!" Tony scowls. Ziva rolls her eyes at his outburst, though she is not feeling particularly grateful for Gibbs' loose lips, either. "I mean, it obviously wasn't me or Z, and Tim heard from Bishop, so who on earth would you have –" Tony suddenly cuts himself off with a loud and dramatic sigh of realization. "Fornell, right?"

Gibbs breathes out hard. "Yeah, Tobias knows," he admits.

Tony sighs again, and Ziva is beginning to wonder how much more of this drama his lungs can reasonably take. "Okay," he says, transitioning from frustrated-and-protective-boyfriend to efficient-and-productive-former-agent. "Ziva, you call Bishop. You have her number, right?" Ziva nods, and Tony turns to Gibbs. "Chatterbox, you call Fornell," he instructs, and Gibbs very nearly smiles. Only DiNozzo, he thinks.

As Gibbs and Ziva reach for their phones, Tony pushes back from the table. "I'm going to go check on Tali. Regroup in twenty?" He asks, trying to remember where Fornell, Bishop, and the McGees live and thinking this should give them all just enough time to get here. When he receives two nods in response, he heads towards the stairs.

Here we go.

A/N: I hope you are enjoying the story so far! It's been a long time since I wrote anything more than a one-shot, and a long time since I wrote anything for NCIS, so I hope I'm at least coming close to doing it justice. Just a heads-up: the next chapter will be a little different; instead of following the plot strictly chronologically, we're going to jump back a couple of minutes and follow Tim to the living room for his phone call with Delilah. Depending on how long that is, Gibbs' call to Tobias and Ziva's call to Bishop will either be additional sections of the next chapter or their own subsequent chapters. Have a lovely day!