Author's Note:

Hey all! Hope you like part two! I love all the responses, so please keep the prompts coming before I run out! See if you can catch my Lord of the Rings reference…;)

-C

Prompt from Bamie02: the teams thoughts on Bishop and her taking over Ziva's desk

(Part Two)

Gibbs

War.

It was a peculiar thing.

You train and you train and you train. Mental. Physical. One would think that by the time they leave American soil they would be ready for it. They suit up. Lace the boots. Check the weapon. Secure the belt. Check the weapon again. That first step into battle, there is no turning back. And suddenly, all that training means nothing. It's you. Your enemies. And the fight for who lives and who dies.

In the grand scheme of the universe war was the perfect, ironic metaphor for life.

No amount of training, preparation, or the soft words of consolation murmured by a love one could ever make-up for putting on your coat and stepping out the door. It was a dangerous business. You have all the tools. You have wit, intelligence. Hopefully family.

And then one day it can just all be gone. Some days the world just wins out. But that was just life. And no matter what, life carried on.

Shannon and Kelly had left him already, but he had to carry on. He had to itch to reach for a hand that wasn't there and walk into his daughter's room to kiss her good night and suddenly remember the sheets weren't occupied anymore. Her favorite stuffed bear wouldn't be cuddled anymore.

People would move into that house and not even realize the memories that it held. And then the family after that. And after that. The world kept spinning no matter how many times you wished you could stop it.

In the case of Leroy Jethro Gibbs, he wished it would stop several times.

And it didn't.

So when his house stopped becoming a home, NCIS had kinda taken the place of it. At least he was used to the pain. The occasional empty desk. Like an occasional empty room. Hell of a thing to get used to.

When he found his solidified family of agents, Gibbs cursed himself for being naïve enough to think that they would stay that way. Whether it was a thought or a desperate grip of normalcy, he didn't know.

Eight solid years they had been a tight knit unit. And then it all just started crumbling. The loss of one soldier would leave a gap; the mission would collapse.

This team was different. So very different.

But Gibbs wouldn't be around to see it change forever. Someday he would leave. Someday DiNozzo and McGee. Ziva already did.

And then there would be a whole new team of agents filling their shoes, sitting in their desks.

That was just life.

Tony

When you think you've become a master of all, somebody who knows, something always replaces those feelings. Definitive ones. Redefining ones.

He first thought he knew jealousy in high school, watching his best friend going out with his ex-girlfriend. Then when he found out that Wendy had remarried. But all of those felt so childish in the prospect of things.

Tony was envious of Bishop. How she occupied her desk. How she became the newest probie. It felt so wrong.

But it was more than a desk or a chair or a title. Bishop was innocent. Her heart wasn't marred by years of warfare, inner and outer.

One can only take so many bullets. So many bunches. And it's tough to hang up your gun when it's the only thing you've ever known. That's what drove Ziva away from them all. Heartbreak.

He only hoped that Bishop got out of the game half as unscarred as himself.

"