Breaking Point

Disclaimer: Not mine.

So, this is the final chapter. A huuuuuuuge thank-you to everyone who's been reading and reviewing; your support and comments are greatly appreciated. I'm planning to do a sequel to this fic at some point, dealing with the aftermath and consequences, mostly emotional, of the events of this story. I'm writing a post-season-9-finale fic at the moment; no idea what it'll be called, but keep an eye out for it! I won't be posting it until it's finished because it really annoys me when stories get abandoned partway through. The aim is to have it written in the next month, because once I start my MA (Creative Writing, part-time over 2 years) I highly doubt I'll have either the time or energy (thank-you, fibromyalgia and ME/CFS) to write fanfic during the MA.

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Chapter 11: Welcome Home

Four days later, Bethesda's doctors declared Ziva fit for release, on the condition that she stayed with Gibbs for a few days. It was that or stay in hospital for another week, and there was no way Ziva David was going to do that!

She was dressed and ready when Gibbs arrived, the discharge papers signed. Physically she was much better: the wound infections, the main reason for her several-day stay, had cleared up and the wounds themselves had improved substantially, though they were still painful and it would be another few days before the stitches could come out. They would scar, probably quite badly. She was glad that her clothing style consisted of loose, dark, long-sleeved items.

"Ready?" asked Gibbs, bringing her out of her thoughts. She nodded and he smiled. "Let's get you out of here."

She was silent as she followed him to his car, pulling her cardigan close around herself. Tomorrow she had an appointment with the psychiatrist at NCIS, the same one she had seen after her return from Somalia; Gibbs could tell that she was fretting about it and he was determined to keep her distracted. And Abby would not fail his expectations.

The drive was quiet, with Gibbs concentrating on driving gently and Ziva lightly dozing. When they arrived at his house, he helped her out of the car (she was still a little weak) and into the house.

"What is the plan?" she asked him as he unlocked the door.

"It's a nice day; I believe there's a paddling pool in the garden," he replied.

She blinked. "You have a paddling pool."

"Never said it was mine."

Comprehension dawned. "Abby."

"Yep."

She narrowed her eyes, "What is happening?" she asked suspiciously.

"You'll see. C'mon."

Obediently she followed him through the house and into his garden. When he opened the back door, she gasped and unbidden tears filled her eyes.

"WELCOME HOME, ZIVA!" everyone yelled. Abby and Breena were sitting in the paddling pool, Tony was by a delicious-smelling barbeque with Palmer helping, McGee was blowing up balloons and Ducky was sitting on a chair between the pool and the barbeque. A huge handmade banner proclaimed what they had just shouted. They were all grinning, Gibbs most of all.

Overwhelmed, Ziva leaned against Gibbs, who put a supportive arm around her. She wiped away a couple of stray tears and then smiled. "Thank you," she said quietly. "This – this means the world to me."

"I know," said Gibbs softly, "And you mean the world to us."

Ziva smiled through the now-falling tears, unable to speak due to the wave of emotions crashing over her. She was home, back with her family. She knew there would be hard times to come, dealing with everything that had been done to her – and she was expecting everything from Somalia to come back, too – but she knew that she would get through it. She broke free from the man she considered her Abba and almost ran to the paddling pool, suddenly not caring that she was fully dressed, and hurled herself into it. Abby and Breena shrieked at the unexpected assault of water; when Ziva sat up, wet hair all over her face, they retaliated, splashing water at her, giggling as they did so. It wasn't long before McGee, Tony and Palmer joined them and a water fight ensued.

Before moving to take over the barbeque, Gibbs exchanged glances with Ducky. They had their family back together again and Ziva would heal. None of them could ask for more.

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The End!

I'll probably do a sequel at some point, dealing with the aftermath of everything that's happened; I'm not going to pretend that she's instantly OK again as soon as she returned because it doesn't work like that. I wanted to end on a happy note;