Well, here it is, folks. We've reached the end. I don't know what this means for me from here on out, but this has been a journey and I've enjoyed with you. Thank you for letting me bring you along.
xoxo
. . . .
Summer. Maryland. Cut grass, the cooling barbeque grill, the boxes Gibbs had yet to unpack. Books, some old documents, his medals. Photographs. The sun a thin thread of light on the western horizon.
Maybe he'd put a few pictures up. He had plenty of wall space now that his apartment ran the whole length of the house. Second floor. View of the park. Lots of light, a kitchen, a coffeemaker, television already tuned to Spaghetti Westerns with the sound off.
He lifted a box onto the kitchen table. Ziva's stuff. DPoA, original parking placard, doctor visit summaries, EEG results. Some pictures from the early days post-accident, when she'd been skinny and pale, sometimes there, sometimes not. Gibbs tucked them in an envelope and stuck it in a drawer.
His cell buzzed. He'd turned off the ringer for the night.
Blocked number. He ignored it.
It buzzed again.
"Yeah, Gibbs."
"Good evening."
David.
"What do you want, Eli?"
"I just wanted to say hello." He sounded nervous. "I skyped earlier with Ziva and Liana and Tony, but I did not get to speak to you. You are well?"
"Fine."
"They gave me a tour of the house. The renovation is beautiful."
"Thanks."
"Liana told me you have an apartment there now."
Trap. "Yep."
"You like it?"
"Yep."
"I have started a savings account for Liana. For university studies. I believe she is on that path, correct?"
"No one needs your money, Eli."
David harrumphed. "I don't, either, so I'd rather it went to a good cause. Liana's education is paramount. I do not want her to worry about cost."
"Strings attached."
"The money cannot be withdrawn until she graduates from high school. Not even by me. I'm happy to share the account information, should you want to receive statements or make deposits."
No way in hell would Gibbs put money in an account with Eli's name on it. Even an old mattress and an unlocked door was be better. "Why'd you give me those pictures, David?"
"Pardon me?"
"Pictures. Of Ziva. You gave me a check and a stack of photographs after Ziva got hurt."
"I suppose I wanted you to know where she came from."
"You plan that all along?"
"From the time I got the phone call that she'd been injured and I was to fly out right away. And once I saw her…I knew I was not the one she needed. Perhaps I never was."
Could Gibbs imagine Ziva without Eli?
Was that who she'd become since her injury?
"That all you called to say?"
"And to thank you."
He stifled a groan. "For what?"
"You are the father I never could be. And I appreciate your allowing me to be in Ziva's life, in Liana's, in small ways."
"Wasn't my choice."
"But you could have taken measures to ensure she never saw or spoke to me."
"That's not my game, David, and you know it."
"When Ziva was under investigation for the death of Daniel Cryer—what did you tell Officer Ben-Gidon? You said exactly this: she's off limits."
"You sent him to burn her."
"A mistake. One of many."
"How many?"
"More than I can count. And I regret each and every one. And I do not blame Ziva for not being generous with her forgiveness. "
"She doesn't owe you shit, David."
Quiet. Then, "I know. I should go. Have a pleasant evening, Gibbs."
Gibbs hung up, threw the cell on the counter, and went downstairs. Ziva was at the kitchen table with a cup of tea and her laptop. "Yes?" she asked blithely.
"Your father just called me."
She gave him a scowl. "For what?"
"Said he wanted to say hi."
Ziva rolled her eyes. "He needs a hobby. I should send him some needlepoint."
He smirked. "He still get to you?"
She sipped tea, one brow arched. "No more than a fly."
He let his gaze wander around the room and out the window. The yard was dark. The new grass slept under a smattering of fireflies. "Why'd you come here, Ziver?"
"The television is too loud. Tony and Lia are watching one of their cop shows and the noise giving me a headache."
"No, here. The US. Why'd you take the assignment?"
"You ask that like I had a choice." She closed her laptop. "I got orders. I followed them. You know that."
Of course he did. "It was different."
She shifted, touched the scar over her collarbone. He could see the device through her skin, tan from gardening in the sun. "I arrived here thinking it would be like any other assignment. But it was different. I was reporting to people who were as powerful as my father and did not hesitate to stand up to him. And my colleagues…they smiled and teased...even though I was so cold and distant. But you must understand that I learned early to shut everything out and complete the task at hand. There were no drinks after work. There were no movies or novels or diners or coffees. There were no friends." She looked away. Her lashes fluttered. "I worked and lived with my father for my entire life, to that point, and he only occasionally bid me goodnight. Do you know how strange it was to have coworkers who asked me how my weekend was or what activities I liked? I thought they were setting traps, looking for weaknesses to use against me later. And Abby hugging. Hugging! The first time she did it I thought she was going for my knife. I nearly put her in a headlock. I was taught to believe that being right meant survival, but here I was wrong—wrong about you, about NCIS, about my coworkers, about this country. Unlearning everything was not easy."
"You've come a long way." High praise.
She knew. "Imagine if I hadn't."
Nope. "Feeling ok?"
She smiled. "Seizure-free since my appointment."
Dr. Monroe had adjusted the frequency of her VNS after a week of too many breakthrough events. "Headache?"
"No."
The dishwasher clicked and turned on. He could still smell chicken and rice. "Dinner was good."
"I could make that meal with my eyes closed." She grew far away. "It was exciting, when I got my first apartment here, to cook dinner. I could make what I wanted rather than what my father wanted. I got a library card—my first ever—and checked out every cookbook in the collection. Indian, Thai, American, Japanese, Mexican, German—I tried them all. And other books, too. Novels. Poetry. I read Neruda for the first time. Toni Morrison. Shakespeare. Chaucer, though the language was too hard. Science fiction, history, science. I read everything I could get my hands on. I bought a television and watch programs and movies I'd heard about but never saw. I went to museums and to the theater. We Jews love theater. Did you know that?"
"Nope."
"We do. But I'd never gone. I grew up in one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world but I'd never gone to the theater, or a library, or to a concert hall unless Tali was performing. I had never seen modern art or King Lear or Fiddler on the Roof. The only musical I'd ever seen was The Sound of Music, and only because my father was out late one evening and it was on television. I watched it with Tali while I ironed his shirts. We turned the sound so low we could hardly hear it. I was afraid the neighbors would hear it and tell him."
She was a hydrant, wrenched open and gushing.
"Sometimes I read so late into the night that I did not sleep. I went for my run, showered, and went to work. I do not think you ever noticed. And I was happy to go to work, where I had friends who wanted to talk about film and science when you were not around."
And he'd been not-around enough. Juggling Jenny, then Vance, MTAC, HR. "What else, Ziver?"
She glanced away, diatribe interrupted. "Then it was all destroyed. And my father summoned me back to Israel and—"
"I was a bastard."
"I wanted you to think I was making a choice."
"I shoulda had your six."
She shrugged. "It was what it was."
He'd dropped her in the lion's den and flown back to his job, his life, his empty house. "Then what, Ziver?"
"You know," she said softly. "I will not repeat any of it."
"And then you were back here."
She laughed humorlessly. "Feeling like I had been dropped out of a spaceship. Everything was different. I had no place to live. I had no ID. I had no car. I was lucky to have a bank account and good people who had no forgotten who I had worked so hard to become."
Gibbs sank down in a chair. He'd done nothing at first. But the gang? Sure. "They were trying to make it up to you."
"I never held them responsible. I felt guilty that you all came across the globe to find me."
"We thought you were dead."
"And still you came."
He looked down at his hands, folded on the tabletop.
"But," she continued, brighter, smiling. "I got a new apartment. I bought new things. I watched more television, read more books. I became a citizen. I began to dissolve my relationship with Mossad and my father. I would not be controlled anymore. Tony and I…we started seeing each other. It was a secret. It felt so defiant and so delicious. And then?" She shrugged. "I got hurt."
"You couldn't hide from us anymore."
"I could not make that choice." She raised one eyebrow. "And according to some legal documentation between you and my father, I still cannot."
"Formality."
"It was necessary at the time. I felt like I was drowning. Even after I came home. Even after the house, and you, and Tony—for a year, maybe, I could not keep my head above water."
"What changed?"
"The miracle of neuroplasticity."
He snorted. She laughed. "That is all I can claim. It was not like I woke up one morning able to do quantum physics; we put in a lot of hard work."
We. "Don't give me too much credit."
"You deserve plenty for what you did. What you do."
He shrugged. "I made a choice."
"For reasons I cannot begin to understand."
"You gave up your family, your country, hell your life for my team, Ziver. Someone owed you."
"You?"
"Process of elimination."
She cocked her head. "I remember Vance's bedside manner to be…somewhat lacking. But so many people are afraid of people with disabilities. They do not know what to say, or what to do. He is not alone in that."
He was still embarrassed for Ziva every time someone pet her on the head. "Hard to see you struggle."
"It is hard to wake up in the morning and have to consciously think about every step of the day. It is hard to know when to ask for help and when to figure things out on my own. And it is hard not to feel resentful of everyone and everything. Do you know how jealous I was of Delilah? Delilah who experienced immeasurable physical pain and PTSD? I heard L4 and thought, she will be independent, and I am not, and that is unfair. How childish is that?"
She'd never, ever let on. Not even when she'd gone with Tim and Delilah to seating clinic to pick her chair. "It's human, Ziver."
"I have never been comfortable with my own humanity."
Made two of 'em. "You and everyone else, Ziver."
"I was taught to be different. Greater than human. And then I was unable to perform even basic self-care. That is difficult for anyone. I preferred, for a long time, that I had died."
He swallowed, unexpectedly emotional. "Glad you didn't."
"Me, too."
Thank whatever for meds. For docs. For shrinks. For families. He touched her hand with one of his callused fingers. "Glad you're here. Glad we're all here."
She gave him a sly look. "I love you, too."
Damn her knowing. He got up. "I'm going upstairs."
Ziva nodded. "Yes. Tomorrow I'd like to hang up some of our artwork. I will need your help."
"Yep."
"Liana already chose a place in my art room for the photo transfers she made."
"Yep."
"She is quite proud of them."
"She's a talented kid."
"She's proud of having made something with you."
Yeah, well. "She's a good kid."
"Yes."
Tony came around the bend from the new TV room. He was grinning. "Guess who went to sleep in her own bed?"
"The only person not in this room?" Ziva ventured.
DiNozzo's eyes were alight. "Know what that means?"
Gibbs cut for the stairs. "Glad we blew in better insulation."
He heard their bedroom door close. Laughter filtered up, then nothing. Better get used to that, he figured. He lived here.
Lived here.
He stretched out on the couch, unmuted the TV. Run, Man, Run. 1968. The final chapter of Sollima's trilogy. A rifle-shot ringing out across the desert hills.
McGee and DiNozzo dragging Ziva out of that hot hole in the earth. Saleem bleeding out on the dirty cell floor, his eyes wide and unseeing.
The elevator opening, agents like prairie dogs popping up from their cubicles.
Abby hugging Ziva, then the rest of them, ignoring the stink of sweat and fear they still radiated.
The knock his piece made when he dropped it in the drawer. His badge. His wallet and keys.
The knock.
A knock. Gibbs raised his head. He hadn't put a light on. "Yeah?"
"Saba?"
He opened the door. "Thought you were in bed."
"I woke up. My parents' door is locked."
"They're tired."
She gave him a look. "Saba, I'm eight. I know what they're doing. Abby bought me a book with these cool illustrations that have these overlays-"
"I don't need to know."
She held out a flat package wrapped in brown craft paper. "I made this."
"Li—"
"I made it for you."
He flipped on a lamp, took the package, tore off the wrapping. It was a sketch, matted and framed in military blue and gold.
His old house.
His old house as it had been when his wife and daughter were alive, with the flowerbeds tended and cleaned. The porch swing. The picture window. His old truck in the drive, because he was home and there were steaks on the grill and Crosby, Stills, and Nash on the record player.
He exhaled. "Liana."
"I made it for you."
Gibbs sat heavily on the sofa with the picture in both hands. "Yeah."
"I wanted you to have something from your old house, but I didn't know what. So I made that."
"You," he choked. "You did good, kid."
"You like it?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I like it."
"You can hang it up. Maybe you can hang some of your old pictures, too. Like of your daughter and stuff."
"Yeah."
"You like it?"
He looked at her, so young in her pajamas and braids. "Yeah, Li. I like it."
She gave a half-smile. "Good. Abba took me to the framer to choose the mats."
"You did good."
Liana nodded gravely. "Thank you. I wanted it to be really nice for you. I picked the frame because it was wood like what we used to do the photo transfers."
Teak. Damn nice, too. "Thanks."
"Will you hang it someplace special?"
"Yep."
Her smile grew. "Good."
Gibbs gripped it tightly by the edges. "Thank you, Liana."
"I don't want you to throw away your past."
He smirked. "You're a smart kid, Li."
She nodded. "That's why I placed into third grade at my new school."
He laughed at that, at her seriousness and sweetness. "Yep."
"You know what?" she started. "If I didn't have you, I wouldn't have my family. But I wasn't even sure you liked me when I got here."
Goddamn it. He'd kept his distance so she'd bond with Ziver and DiNozzo. "I'm sorry."
She blinked. "My dad said you had a rule about—"
"Sometimes we have to break the rules."
"He says that, too."
"Your dad's a lot smarter than people give him credit for."
She sighed. "Yeah, like Ema sometimes."
He laughed. She laughed, but grew serious quickly. "I'm scared to go to school."
"You are going to do great, kid."
"Just half-days to start."
"Yep."
"And you'll pick me up."
"Yep."
"And we're going to get a dog."
Huh? "Says who?"
"My dad. He said it was your idea. It was my idea to go to the shelter, not a breeder."
"Good."
"None of us ever had a pet."
"You'll learn."
"Did you?"
Duchess. "Had a shepherd growing up."
"Was she nice?"
He smiled, remembering her high bark, the way she herded him away from the river when it ran too high, when she jumped in to retrieve his canoe when it broke free, when she kicked dirt over the campfire left burning. "She kept me out of a lot of trouble."
"Oh. I don't get in trouble much."
"You're a better kid than I ever was."
Liana shook her head. Reconciling. "But now—"
"I was a bastard for a long time, Lee-lee."
"Why—"
"Grew out of it."
"Oh. That's…good?"
"Better than the alternative."
She didn't ask what that was. "Ok. I think I should go to bed now." She leaned forward and put her arms around his neck. "I love you. I hope you like your gift. Goodnight."
And then she disappeared down the stairs to her new bedroom with the jungle-green paint job and the whole wall of windows.
And Gibbs sat, flexing his hands, still holding the drawing. That was where he'd lived.
Lived.
And where Shannon had lived. And Kelly. But mostly he'd lived there with their ghosts and bourbon and the boats.
And now he lived here. Among the living.
And maybe a dog.
He put the picture on the kitchen counter, displayed so anyone who came in could see it. He'd hang it up later. Find a spot. A good spot. And hang it with nails in the studs so that even when he was gone, whoever came up here would see that he'd lived there.
Among the living.
Fin.
. . . .
