EPILOGUE

As a sniper, Leroy Jethro Gibbs had learned to be a patient, very patient man. He could and would wait, motionless, for hours for his target—calm, controlled, ready to spring to action with a moment notice.

However, that day, Gibbs was anything but patient. In fact, he had to resist the urge to start pacing and rubbing his sweaty palms on his trousers. He felt like the day he had asked Shannon's father for permission to take her to see a movie.

His eyes kept on looking at the NCIS HQ entry, waiting for Ziva's arrival. He knew her flight from Tel Aviv had landed on schedule and now he could barely contain his need to embrace her again.

The past four weeks had been very hard for both of them. Their almost daily communications had been interrupted when Ziva had told him she had to go on an undercover assignment, and that she wouldn't be able to contact him until she returned.

So Gibbs had done the only things he could do: wait and pray Ziva would be alright and would contact him soon.

Watching her being carried away on a gurney on a ZNN feed, her face smeared with blood had almost paralyzed him with fear, until his brain had kicked in, making him realize her condition couldn't be very serious since she wasn't wearing an oxygen mask or an IV.

That had calmed him a bit, but he hadn't completely relaxed until he had finally managed to talk to her. It hadn't been the private, personal conversation they would have preferred – he had realized Ziva wasn't alone when she had called him Gibbs instead of Jethro – but it had given him the clue he needed to discover why his team had been disbanded and find a way to bring them back.

Sighing, Gibbs walked to the elevator and pushed the button for the squad room floor. It was useless for him to wait in the hall, for it was highly unlikely he would be able to properly welcome Ziva any time soon, no matter where he waited for her.

As he stepped in the bullpen, he saw that Michelle Lee was just finishing cleaning what was again Ziva's desk.

"Done?" he asked gently.

"Done," she answered with a little smile, then continued after a slight hesitation. "Look... I know you never thought much of me as a field agent...You probably never thought much of me as a lawyer…"

"Oh, that's more the profession than the person," Gibbs said in her defence; after all this was the second time she was promoted to field agent only to be sent back to the legal department, and he felt slightly responsible for it.

"But if you ever need... I mean...If the chance ever comes up again..." Lee's cell phone thrilled, interrupting her stammering. She quickly silenced the phone, barely looking at the caller ID.

"Might be important," he said.

Lee smiled again, "It can wait." They shook hands, then he helped her with the box she had filled with her stuff.

As she was about to leave Lee turned around, looked at Langer's empty desk and asked, "Do we know why he did it?"

"Money... probably," Gibbs didn't wish to elaborate. Langer's betrayal was still an open wound. He had vouched for the other man's transfer from the FBI, and he didn't like to think he had been so wrong in judging him.

"Well, thanks. Be seeing you," Lee said and moved toward the elevator.

"Yay! Oh, my God, I'm so excited!" Abby's vibrant voice exclaimed from behind his back, and Gibbs turned around to see his favourite lab rat walk in at McGee's elbow. "McGee, I can't believe it. Pinch me."

Abby left's McGee's side and hugged Gibbs. "Thank you," she said and he hugged her back, briefly envying how free she was to show her emotions.

"It's you! Ziva!" Abby suddenly shouted and Gibbs whirled around, his breath catching in his throat as he saw her walk into the bullpen.

He wanted nothing more than to reach her, pull her into his arms and never let her go, but he had to wait his turn as Ziva was enthusiastically hugged by Abby and shook hands with McGee.

And then, finally, Ziva turned to face him, eyes shining with barely repressed emotions. Gibbs took a step forward and embraced her, pulling her as close as possible while keeping his hug appropriate for one between two colleagues.

"Welcome home, Ziva," he murmured.

"Thank you, Jethro," she whispered close to his ear. "Now let me go, I need to report to Vance."

He nodded and regretfully stepped back, watching how Ziva, after another of Abby's hugs, climbed the stairs to the Director's office.

Then he turned to McGee and Abby and clapped his hands. "All right, the party is over. Time to do some work!"

-----

Later that evening, Gibbs came down after a meeting with Vance and stopped by Ziva's desk, finding her engrossed in reading something on her monitor.

Since they were alone, he put his hands on the desk and leant forward. "What is so interesting?"

Ziva gestured to the screen. "I was checking the cases you investigated while I was away and found this—the report about Sarah Andrews' death.

"Oh yeh," Gibbs nodded and came around the desk to look at the screen from behind her shoulder. "You don't know the latest development: Chief Johnson caught LaBelle as he was trying to throw the knife in the ocean. They ran DNA test on the blade and found traces of all the five victims' blood. He has admitted killing his wife 'cause she wanted to leave him. Turned out all the money and the industrial empire belonged to her and he would have lost everything if she obtained the divorce."

"So he killed four other random people to mask the only murder that really mattered… Bastard!" Ziva hissed.

"Yeah."

"I see this happened 40 days ago. Why didn't you tell me before? You knew I was interested in this case."

"I didn't tell you, Ziver, because I didn't know. Chief Johnson – or possibly his bosses – sent the report of their investigation to Captain Andrews, who sent it to his brother, who in turn sent it to the SecNav. It arrived to us only last week."

"Oh."

"And now that your curiosity is satisfied, can we go to my house and satisfy…something else?" Gibbs whispered into her ear.

Ziva looked at him, feigning to be scandalized, "That was quite bold, Agent Gibbs! A true red-light situation!"

He pulled back and put his hand on his heart. "I'm wounded, Officer David. I was just thinking of our stomachs. You must be quite hungry, since you ate only a small sandwich for lunch."

Ziva nodded enthusiastically. "That's true! I'm very hungry!"

She stood up, grabbed her jacket and backpack and walked to the elevator without looking if Gibbs was following.

He was a bit taken aback by the fact she seemed more interested in food than in him. They stepped in the elevator and he pushed the button for the garage level.

Then, quick as light, Ziva reached out, stopped the elevator and turned around with a serious expression.

"What?" Gibbs said, concerned. The evening was not going as he had imagined…

"Nothing, Jethro," Ziva whispered throatily, taking a step toward him. "I've just changed my mind…I'm not hungry anymore…" and speaking so, she closed the distance between them, threw her arms around Gibbs' neck and gave him the first of the many kisses they would share that night.

THE END

OK, that's all for this story. I hope you enjoyed it! I would love for this story to reach the 100-review mark, so please, let me know what you think! :)