Part three of Not All That Is Over Is Past. This is in commemoration of my…interesting birthday last week, and my hopefully negative lab work.

Again, I didn't check this. If anything looks wrong, tell me, and I will get down to corrections.

Gibbs and his team—minus Ziva, who was off with K-Unit, and Ducky, returning to his morgue to confirm Lieutenant Johnson's cause of death—had corroborated the teenage spy's story.

The path that Ziva had tracked to the edge of the road did not end there. Further down, they continued on the other side and progressed back through the thin woods. McGee got the honor of collecting blood samples that had coalesced alongside the single set of heavy-seated footprints. From the sheer amount of the liquid, it should have been obvious whose it was, but he collected small amounts of it just to prove that he had done the assignment appointed to him.

Tony, on the other hand, blindly followed after Gibbs. "Hey, boss. So what if these tracks don't end and we're just going around in circles."

"Then we'll know that Alex and our lieutenant were walking around in circles."

"Okay, sure, but doesn't something about this seem strange? Sort of like Inception where everything looks like one thing, but it actually isn't and there's—"

"Dinozzo. Concentrate."

"Sorry, boss. Right. Concentrating." There was nothing but the crack of branches and the crunch of the underbrush for a moment before the silence was broken once again. "But I know something else is at work here. He's like Andy Dufresne in Shaw—*"

"Dinozzo?"

"What boss? Oh, that. Wait, this is…" They had emerged from the last of the trees to find themselves in the backyard of a disturbingly familiar building. Only a chain link fence, electrified and fourteen feet high, kept them from getting any closer. "Isn't this the—"

"CIA building? Yes."

"But does that mean that he was actually telling the truth? The whole 'identity stealing' thing?"

"Looks like it." Gibbs bent down to peer at the neatly sliced hole in the links, just large enough for a large dog…or teenager. "I wonder how he knew when the electricity would be switched off."

"They turn off the electricity?"

"We're not the only division that's been suffering large cuts. The FBI, Fornell complains to me, has been doing something similar with their building. Making sure lights go off when they leave rooms, keeping heating bills to a minimum, turning alarms off for a couple minutes every two or three hours, and other things to keep their funding in places where it won't be put to waste."

"Alright, so now I've been left behind. What are we supposed to do if the guy was working for the CIA, we can't tell the CIA about Alex, and Alex won't tell us anything about anything?"

"The same thing we always do. Find the killer and put him behind bars."

Tony crossed his arms. "We just walked around for four hours to figure out that we are still at square one, didn't we?"

"Don't think of it as overtime, Dinozzo."

"I'll do my best, boss, but I don't think that's going to help."

Wolf refused to come anywhere near their safe house until he was sure that no one could possibly be following them. Even Snake had to admit he was being ridiculous, up to a certain degree. "No one even knows we're here."

"Obviously someone does, or we wouldn't be in this mess."

And that was how things stayed until Alex groggily sat up in the backseat. "Hey, where are we now?" Ziva turned around to see the teenager rub at his eyes and pick at the stained gauze wrapped around his head. "And why do you guys keep drugging me? That's just unfair, and a little clichéd."

Snake tipped his head back from the passenger seat. "I hope I'm not hearing any complaints from the minor who just got admitted as my patient after recklessly running into the road without looking both ways."

"Besides," Falcon swung around, "do y'know how long it took me to line up that beautiful shot? Finding the perfect tree hours in advance so you wouldn't hear me move?" If the sniper had been a teenage girl, he would have been flipping his hair with a pout. "Not that I minded. It was totally worth it."

Alex grumbled, but didn't protest further. "As long as you're enjoying this. But where are we, exactly?"

"Security run," Wolf growled.

The teenager raised an eyebrow and leaned over to Eagle. "How long have we been on this security run?" he asked in a low voice.

"At least half an hour," he muttered back. "And I don't think he intends on stopping for breakfast anytime soon. Oh, and Ben told me to tell you that he needs you in on one of the meetings. Something to do with Iodine and Hobbit?"

He shot up in his seat, holding his head when the wave of dizziness caught up with him. "What time was that?"

"Five, maybe six minutes ago. He was really insistent, but I told him you were going to be out of the game for a little while longer. Come to think of it, Ben bought that all too well. It's almost like…like he knew what we were doing."

"Oh he probably does." His face was lit by the blue glow emanating from his phone as it hummed the start-up chord. "Between Matthews, Lawrence and West, I doubt there are many things that can stay secret from SIS for very long." The quick tap of short fingernails on the miniature keyboard filled the silence for a couple seconds. "Wolf, I doubt anyone's good enough to still be on our trail, much less have the sheer amount of necessary patience."

"No backseat driving. You can't complain if you're dead. Again."

Alex wasn't the only one who flinched at that remark, Ziva noted with surprise. The last six months must have been challenging enough to leave lasting impressions on the group as a whole.

"Again?" she prodded, despite knowing she would get little out of them.

"Technicalities," he said offhandedly, so casually that it was the most blatant lie she had ever heard pass his lips. "I mean, if I were a vampire, I'd probably sparkle or turn to pixie dust in the sunlight. We're months past Halloween, too."

The joke passed over her head, as did many of the puns her colleagues made, but she got the gist of it. "There are many ways that people can…sort-of-but-not-actually die, as Tony would put it."

"Please, Ziva, you overestimate me. I may be a spy, but I'm also seventeen. That's practically a job of its own." The key-clicking recommenced, as he asked, "So, how's Eli doing these days? I hear he has a run of good fortune coming his way."

She spun around as fast as he had sat up only a moment ago, nearly giving herself whiplash. "How did you—?" Her phone buzzed, interrupting before she could even get started. The NCIS agent narrowed her eyes, wordlessly getting the message across that this wasn't over, and answered her phone. "This is Ziva David speaking."

Eagle draped an arm across the back of seat and hung his head over the headrest to stare upside down at the distracted teenager. "You know, she could probably kick your ass. I wouldn't make too much trouble with her."

He didn't look up from the cell. "She could and she has. We work the same field. Ziva's just mad that I know more than she does for once."

Ziva, who could clearly hear their exchange, mouthed the word 'payback' to a smirking Alex, before returning to her call. "Got it, Gibbs. You want to talk to Alex? … All right. Keep me updated. … I will." She snapped the phone shut, and returned her glare to full blast. "They confirmed your story, to a certain point. The trail led back to Langley and there was a nice hole in their security."

"Cutbacks can only go so far. Then they just become a nuisance. I'll be really nice and make sure to inform Rochester of this. Our gadgetmaker, Smithers, can probably give them a hint or two in the money saving department."

"Good. Now how do you know what my father is up to? You never elaborated on your meetings with him."

"Only because there wasn't much to tell. If it makes you feel better, we have not had contact beyond the odd email updates for the past year."

"Then how did you see the two of us together? We do not exactly have…family 'get-togethers'."

Eyes still glued to his phone, the teenager shrugged. "It goes back much further than that. My uncle and father were spies, you know, and on one of my uncle's 'business trips' to the Middle East, he took me along to expose me to the language and culture. Never did catch on to more than a couple phrases**, but at least I can fake the accent well enough.

"I didn't know then, but one of the men we ate evening meals with was your father, Eli David. He went along with the 'banking' story that my uncle Ian used as his cover, and until we met again a year and some months ago, I was none the wiser. Except…you had a sister and a brother with you then. Eli hasn't brought their names up since, but the rumors I hear about Ari—"

"Half-brother," she corrected. "Ari Haswari was my half-brother. I shot him before he could shoot Gibbs. Tali was killed in a suicide bombing, probably a year or two after you and your uncle visited***. What did you say your uncle's name was again?"

"Ian Rider. He was killed by Gregorovich three years ago."

"I don't recall anyone named Rider."

"Then he was doing his job right."

They engaged in another stare-off until Alex's phone pinged as a new text came in. "Who are you talking to, exactly?"

"Iodine. She needed some intel. With the little I got from my CIA visit, she and Hobbit are carrying out some regular, boring-old field work. And I thought for the longest time that I was the only one the higher-ups didn't officially register guns to. Apparently, the boring stuff doesn't get you automatically elected to carry concealed weapons like the active stuff does." Eagle and Falcon broke into laughter almost simultaneously, startling Alex into looking up with dilated pupils from staring into the bright screen. "What?"

"The look on Ziva's face," Eagle gasped, "is absolutely priceless!"

The spy and former-Mossad shared an exasperated look. Dealing with coworkers was the same in every country and agency, as had just been proven.

Falcon helpfully added, "It's like watching a 'total bullshit' meter practically explode out the top. You've got yourself a human lie detector there, Alex."

"I'm glad that you two can amuse yourselves, but it's really no more interesting than that. Iodine needs a couple names, and I happen to have those."

"How long does it take to send names?"

"Who said that was all I was doing?"

Falcon opened his mouth, thought for a second, and closed it again with a shake of his head. "I give up on you. It gives me good target practice, anyway."

"I'm glad we have an understanding," he wryly shot back.

Ziva couldn't shake the feeling that Alex knew exactly what he was doing when he knocked conversations off on irrelevant tangents, but he did it so often and so carelessly that it was hard to catch on to if you were one of the ones engaged in the talking. "After you uncle's visit, how did you become…reacquainted with my father? He isn't the kind of person that most people would seek out."

"I'm not most people." She thought momentarily that he would evade the question with another well-placed remark. To her surprise, and K-Unit's, he said, "Funny story, because he was the one who contacted me."

Whether or not he intended to elaborate was cut short by the vehicle's sudden stop by the side of the street.

"We're here?" Eagle wasn't the only one surprised, but he was the first to voice it.

"No, I thought we should stop for ice cream." The soldier rolled his eyes as he opened his door. "Yes, we're here. Welcome to the safe house."

To say that the house looked nothing like a place to hide a spy on the run from some nameless enemy would have been an understatement. Now Ziva probably would have wondered what being beneath divisions of US land had anything to do with the current situation, but the very thought crossed her mind regardless. The quaint little house, with its old fashioned shutters, hand painted fence, neatly kept flower and vegetable garden, and the swing set meant only to be used by young children, was set well to the back of the large neighborhood. The back fence swung out to the woods on the outskirts of the property line. There was even a set of brilliant pink mittens that a girl might have left in the rush of being called in for dinner the previous night sitting carelessly on the bottom step leading up to the door. Had the two men sitting casually on the veranda with their blue and white striped mugs of coffee in hand not had machine guns lying across their knees and bulletproof vests just bulging through their parkas, she would never have guessed it for what it was.

"This is your safe house?"

Alex glanced up for a moment, looking from her to the house and back down to his phone, before nodding. "Yep. One of the nicer ones."

"It's not exclusively his safe house. We're borrowing," Wolf corrected, leaning back into the van to put the keys back in the ignition.

"Borrowing? From whom?"

He flickered his headlights twice before turning the van off again.

Eagle pulled a thin piece of metal from a duffle bag on the floor as he stepped out on to the grass, flipping it around when it became entangled in the handles to reveal an entirely different license plate. He handed off a handful of documents paperclipped together to Snake, who stuffed them into the dash. Falcon grabbed his long gun bag from where he had dumped it in the backseat with Alex, and proceeded to follow the teenager through the ivy-infused archway, Ziva and Snake not far behind. Wolf and Eagle completed the minor embellishments to the vehicle and locked up the van before coming through the gate themselves.

A rather short man, though not nearly as small as the teenager, still dressed in his pajama shorts and a thin grey top pulled open the door after Alex pressed the doorbell more times than strictly necessary. He had frazzled white hair and a matching mustache that gave the impression he had been recently struck by lightning. Lightning blue eyes stared piercingly out from beneath bushy brows. "Hn, Rider, I don't suppose that's you making this racket at one in the morning."

"I told you I would probably stop by."

"An advance warning might've been put to good use." Nevertheless, he stepped to the side, holding the door open in a clear 'come on in' gesture. "I see you've brought friends this time."

"There were extenuating circumstances. We may be staying longer than I originally requested."

The man was unperturbed by the surprise visit, knocking blankets and pillows down from what seemed to be an endless emergency stash in the downstairs hallway closet. "Problems?"

"Nope. Just a couple delays."

"Good. Care to make the introductions?" he asked, dumping the pile by the nearby couch and leaning against one of its arms.

"Obviously, you've talked coordinations with K-Unit before. There's Wolf, Snake, Eagle and Falcon." The man shook hands with each one of them as their name was said. "And you might have heard of Ziva David, through Fornell. She's one of Gibbs' team, and he had the courtesy to loan her out for the time being."

"Of course, Tobias has had only the best to say about you," he added, clasping her hand firmly. She nodded, waiting to hear the other side of the intros.

"Ziva, this is Joe Byrne. He runs the part of the CIA that manages covert actions, and just recently promoted. The two armed guys up top are his nephew, Tyler, and son, Harrison. Speaking of armed, are they allowed to have any of that, or did you just let it slide?"

"This is a registered safe house for witness protection and used by the CIA for housing foreign guests. I doubt they'll have too much to complain about if the kids like to make sure the old place has some upgraded defenses." Eagle muttered something about testing them out before Wolf kicked his shin loud enough to hear the thump. "Which reminds me, how did it go?"

"Johnson's dead."

The deep-set frown lines embedded in Byrne's forehead grew deeper. "That's disconcerting. He was quite helpful, considering how short a time he was employed. How did this happen?"

"He came back early. Took a security officer by surprise."

"And? Were you caught on surveillance together, or…?"

"No. The officer won't be talking, either. It's been covered up." The tired reluctance in those two short sentences was immediately evident, though Alex would have marked it up to late hours and getting clipped by Abby's truck. The unfortunate officer would be found a week or two later, once the spy had safely fled back to England and thoroughly erased his presence, floating down the river or maybe badly burnt from a fire. There would be no connection to the CIA or MI6 anywhere on his person, and no one would ever hazard such an idea outloud without wanting to disappear themselves.

Byrne sighed. "Oh well. What's done is done. Get some rest and you can fill me in on the details tomorrow."

[…and the nuclear systems are intact?]

[Yes. Fully intact, but the nukes themselves are not. Rudimentary if you ask me.]

[It's the systems that I want to have analyzed.]

[Iodine has the first test results run off. Would you like them sent to you?]

[Don't bother. Complete gibberish without a translator. What do they say?]

[Radiation levels are dangerously high. Should Hobbit be withdrawn?]

[No. Finish the full spectrum tests and get Walker and Matthews up. The minute those systems are up, I want them working full speed on decryption. Tell me what else they're new defense package has in store.]

[We may have a problem. Hobbit is the only one who is fluent in Korean, and he's in the field.]

[So's Knight. We may as well put our liaisons to work.]

"Boss, he says he can't remember anything about when he was attacked, but the records show he was here. I think Alex missed a witness."

"He didn't see anything if he can't remember what he saw, Dinozzo."

There was a lot of explaining that needed to be done.

A/N: Yeah, this is shorter than the rest of the chapters, but I really wanted to post something for this story before going back on hiatus. I have this Rube-Goldberg design to make, record, and fill out paperwork for within the next three weeks. Sorry. I love working on these stories, but my physics final comes before everything else. Oh yes, and I haven't been magically cured yet. Still sick. Still not sure why.

So the next update…best estimates say winter break, for both this one and Requiem.

*Alright, who got this one? Anyone? How about a hint… This movie was originally a Steven King novel. Not enough? Okay, the movie is called The Shawshank Redemption. Dufresne was the main character, played by Tim Robbins. Get it? If you do, you're awesome and deserve a bonbon. O

**For those of you wondering if I've forgotten Safehouse, where he spoke fluent Arabic in the last chapter…I haven't. After all, a magician never reveals all of his secrets, and spies are a lot like magicians, are they not?

***I have done quite a bit of math, and apparently, there is only a fourteen year gap between Ziva and Alex (assuming Alex was born 1994, as I'm using the present as my reference, and I stated that he's seventeen). All my dates and information come via ncis .wikia .com as I couldn't possibly have watched every single NCIS episode. If something's wrong, correct me, s'il vous plait.