Chap 21 Rounding Up the Family

Tuesday, March 30th 2021

The sun crept quietly through the crack between the window sill and the shades that had been drawn the night before over more than three quarters of the window. On average it was still too cold for that time of the year in DC and it seemed, even now, that the sun was still not in too good a shape to fight through. At least that is how McGee was imagining it, watching the light trickle into the bedroom he shared with his wife. He had carefully shifted his position over half an hour ago, his head now half resting against the headboard, half on his pillow. His arms were folded in front of him. Beside him Abby was still sleeping peacefully. She was buried almost completely beneath the white covers with smiling skulls that she had fallen in love with the second she had spotted them in the store a few months ago.

McGee refrained from saying anything, doing anything. Waking up, the first thing he had noticed was the lack of a presence, Liora's presence, in the middle of their bed. Already he had grown accustomed to her little form couched between them, always curled up into a small ball of content slumber. The night, of course, she had spent at Gibbs' with her cousins. So, instead of gently nudging his daughter awake to get her ready for the day, McGee just sat there, not saying anything and not doing anything but stare at the trapezoid-shaped ray of light streaming in from outside.

He stayed that way for a while, unmoving. It was still early enough. Eventually, he lost track of time until the furry ball of something-or-other started purring on Abby's nightstand. Her eyes fluttered open immediately. McGee had seen it thousands of times before, but it still drove a smile on his face that Abby woke so seamlessly to the sounds of the smallest, faintest, tiniest alarms.

She didn't move, her eyes merely rolled up at him. "You were already asleep when I came."

McGee nodded, bending forward to brush a kiss against her waiting lips. "I think Ziva and I, we were both pretty beat", he explained simply. "Besides, we have a two-boss day ahead of us. Better be well rested for that."

It was Abby's time to nod as she stretched, her extremities briefly flying out into all directions, before she sat up next to him. "Tony and I didn't stay too late either. He helped me lock up and drove me home. Couldn't have been long after you'd gone to bed, Chuck wasn't even halfway to the hills yet."

To unknowing ears Abby's last sentence wouldn't have made much sense, but McGee understood perfectly. As opposed to Ziva's and Tony's situation, Abby and McGee would regularly be running on very asynchronous routines what with him being an MCRT Senior Field Agent and her being NCIS' go-to lab tech - and that, mind, not only for the teams based in Washington. During their busier times, years ago, when they had first moved in together and there had not yet been a child to synchronize their schedules for, they had seen practically nothing of each other: One would be sleeping when the other came home, or still sleeping while the other went into work early. There had been little time to keep each other posted on their constantly varying schedules. That's where Chuck had come in.

Chuck was the name of an avatar in a small, rectangular tablet by the door. He was a little guy who was living in a house beyond the hills. In order to get to that house, and thus get beyond the hills, Chuck had to walk down a long, long road. The track to his house took him about an hour and a half, during which he would grow smaller and smaller as he went farther and farther down the road until he would vanish completely behind the hills. When either Abby or McGee came home or left early then, they would set Chuck's tablet and send him on his way towards the hills. So, when the other one came home or got up, they could check with Chuck and estimate, seeing how far he had already come on his home-bound track, if it was still okay to wake the other one up, or give the other one a quick call on their way to work. It was a basic setup. It was a cute setup. Abby had instantly fallen in love with the idea. Others might think it obsolete. Now, at the current stage of their life, it was quite obsolete anyway. Liora had induced a more attentive schedule in both of her parents. But sometimes, sometimes they still made use of Chuck. For old times' sake.

Their eyes met over the empty midline of their king-sized bed. "Ready to get our daughter back?", McGee asked pointedly, a small smile on his face.

Rather than answer him Abby leaned over and returned his kiss from before. With a small smile she swung her legs over the side of the bed and slipped into her black-white coffin-shaped slippers. "I'll go pack another diaper bag, just in case", she said, already on her way to the door.

McGee, running a hand over the stubble on his face, turned just in time. "Don't forget to pack at least another outfit too, I'm sure-"

Abby stopped him with a grin. "Always so attentive, McDaddy." With that she was out the door.

McGee could hear her start rummaging through Liora's drawers. He couldn't help but hold onto his grin on his way to the kitchen. He would never get tired of hearing that word: daddy.

Ziva dropped her keys in the bowl by the door. She eyed it for a second. Tony had brought that bowl back from Rota, a gift from the office upon his departure. It wasn't the prettiest bowl beneath the sun. It was reddish brown with faint blue-black ornamentation running along its rim. There wasn't much use for it, so they had placed it on the little bench by the door to hold their keys, lost-and-found toys, and whichever small item someone found lying around in the apartment. The bowl was one of the few things that had changed about their apartment upon Tony's return, too. Yes, he had added to the pictures and books and, in particular, the DVD collection in the study and the living room. And now there were two strongboxes with spare guns hidden from the kids. But furniture he had left in his small apartment in Spain, finding no need to merge anything; rather finding need to return.

Ziva slipped her bag off and dumped it next to the couch, already on her way to the bathroom when she noticed Tony in the kitchen. She stopped hard in her tracks. Glancing at her watch, she realized it was still early. She thought he would be sleeping, having come in only after she had fallen asleep last night after all. Slightly scratching her temple, she crept into the kitchen. Tony was standing by the sink, both of his arms braced against its surface. An empty glass rested on the counter top next to him.

"Tony", she said quietly, putting a hand on his lower left arm.

He took a moment to turn around. When he did, only a small startled smile was playing on his lips. "Mornin'", he mumbled, leaning forward for a quick peck on the lips.

Ziva's forehead furrowed, her hand not abandoning its place on his arm. "Are you alright, Tony?"

He nodded somewhat and turned around fully, now leaning against the sink and looking at her. "Just thinking."

"About what?", she asked casually.

She knew right well that they had both had overdue conversations with their friends, and she saw no need to dig themselves in even deeper now, at the beginning of a long work day, with overbearing questions. Her eyebrows rose for just a second before she ducked around his momentary silence to fill his glass with water. Then she went to the cabinet on the far side of the kitchen and reached for a small box on the uppermost shelf. She snapped it open, took out one of the pills hidden inside and put the box back where it belonged - far away from the kids' reach. She gulped it down with three big sips of water.

"They're almost out", Tony observed, having followed her with his eyes. "Gonna swing by Bennett's office this week and get you a new prescription."

Ziva nodded her thanks and put the glass into the sink. Ever since the accident two years ago Bennett had been her physician. After Ducky's departure it had come in handy to have another doctor who had already been read in on her complicated and distinctly horrifying medical history. Ziva briefly glanced back up at the box of pills. They were for coagulopathy, or for bone density problems, or for boosting her immune system. She didn't quite remember, actually. Bennett had explained it to Tony and her, something about infections and scarring and past injuries. It was easier not to remember exactly why she was taking certain things; not to remember what exactly had happened to her to warrant a constant intake of medications. Other women were simply taking the pill on a daily basis. That had almost taken care of itself for Ziva, now, hadn't it? Ziva's routines were different than that of most.

Shaking those thoughts from her mind, she turned back to Tony, her eyebrows rising once again. He gave her a small smile. Finally, he relented. "I was thinking that I never think we might not make it, the two of us."

Even though she could easily place his expression, and she knew that he had meant it to be a positive thing, she didn't quite understand. "What do you-"

"I mean that I know we have our problems, and we fight, and the kids have problems, and we worry, and our jobs aren't easy, and we take on a whole lot of risk, and we see a lot of crap happening to people", he elaborated, bouncing a bit off his palms that were still resting on the counter. "And then there's cases like these where we freak out, constantly, because for some reason we seem to get swallowed whole by it. And I know there is a lot to be scared of… But I never worry that the two of us might not make it."

He was absolutely sincere. She could see it. She loved him for it. But she still wasn't sure she understood. "As in…survive?", she inquired tentatively.

Tony snorted softly. "No, believe me, that I worry about all the time." For a moment he was taken back to the hospital bed two years ago, seeing her lying there with her eyes closed against a coma he could not fight for her; taken back to lying in a hospital bed himself that time he had been shot; taken back to all those times they had fought on the brink of death. "No. As in together."

"So, you do not think that we will get sick of each other some time?", Ziva quipped in response, thus offering him an easy out from his confession.

Tony didn't take it, though. He smiled, but his voice remained solemn. "I think that, barring any kind of life-threatening run-ins, we'll stay together."

He was talking about constancy. That, they both knew, rang a particularly emotional bell with Ziva. She stepped up to him, slowly, and leaned up to kiss him. Her hand came to rest on his cheek, her ambers in his emeralds. "I love you."

"I know", he returned both her smile and her kiss. "And I intend to keep it that way."

She gave him her most endearing smile before slinging her arms around his waist, placing her head squarely against his chest. "Just stay", she breathed against his shirt, her mind wandering back to the bowl by the door.

Tony understood. He leaned down to kiss her forehead before resting his chin on top of her head and linking his arms around her body. This wasn't the most routine position they were in now, he realized. Ziva would lean into him from the side, or fall back against him, or let herself be engulfed in a hug. She was all about touch, his face, his arm. Her kisses were the most comfort to him. To make herself small enough to fit against him in a hug she herself had initiated, with her head on his chest and her arms low around his waist, however, this was the greatest comfort he could give her.

Not letting go in the slightest, merely turning his head enough so she could hear him, Tony asked, "How was your heart-to-heart with McGee?"

"Good. Really good", she answered. He could feel her smile against him.

He waited for a few seconds, then, "You talk about Liora?"

She nodded, a sigh leaving her lips. "I cannot even imagine how it must feel to fight someone else's claim on your child."

Ziva lifted her head slightly to catch his eyes, and he returned her gaze determinedly. "Good thing we don't even have to imagine. They're ours. Nobody's ever gonna take them away."

She nodded again, her chest heaving in a deep breath as she put her head back down. "They will be okay, though."

"We'll be okay", he assured her, feeling the need to. "We'll all be okay."

They remained that way for a while, just lying in each other's arms, nothing and no one around to interrupt or break them up. At some point, however, a distinct smell started to fill Tony's nostrils. Turning slightly in his position, he leant down and sniffed at Ziva's bare upper arm. Pulling back, he frowned at her. "You smell like that chlorine poisoning victim."

Ziva straightened back up. Her eyes were scowling, but her mouth was set in a smile, regardless. "With no kids to take care of in the morning I thought I would take a trip to the pool", she explained, a small chuckle ringing through. "I haven't showered yet."

"Any intention to change that soon?"

"Yes", she drew that syllable out in a low voice, giving way to a seductive edge, "Right now, actually."

A DiNozzo-grin quickly settled on his face. "Incidentally, I haven't showered yet either."

Ziva cocked her head to the side. "Huh…what a coincidence."

"Right? And a nice one at that." Ziva just smiled at him mischievously, stepping away from him just as he was about to sling his arms back around her. If possible, his grin widened. "So, that's how you wanna play?"

Ziva let out a low 'Hmm', looking back at him just once as she set out on her way upstairs, humming slightly along. Tony squared his shoulders, a kick in his step as he went after her. No worries. He was very willing to play any game she wanted.

A little shower get-together on the one, and a quiet breakfast on the other side, both couples arrived on Gibbs' porch at about the same time. Abby and McGee were holding hands, a bright yellow backpack with red rose-shaped buttons slung over his shoulder. Tony and Ziva were each carrying a backpack, one for each kid. Their morning smiles, this time around, were encouraging, comforting even. This was a family thing.

Behind the front door they could hear a chorus of voices. Tony smiled knowingly, taking off his sunglasses. He casually grabbed the doorknob, expecting it to snap open instantly, but for once it didn't. "It's locked", he said, a frown on his face.

"What? It's-", McGee stepped up to try the doorknob himself. "It's locked."

"How do you-"

"What do we-"

"Guys", Abby stopped them short, freezing their perplexed expressions. She stepped around her husband and tapped the glass inlay a few times. "You knock."

Almost on cue the chatter behind the door grew quieter and a second later Gibbs unlocked and opened the door, greeting them with Liora sitting in his arms. Smiles on their faces. The little girl, however, was only clad in a diaper and an obviously oversized shirt. Abby's eyebrows shot up immediately.

"Accident", Gibbs stated evenly, handing Liora over into Abby's awaiting arms.

McGee showed him the backpack. "We came prepared."

"Hey there, baby girl. Did you miss your daddy and me?", Abby cooed, showering the giggling little girl with kisses. "We sure missed you like craaazy."

"Miss ya too, Mama", Liora declared, putting a chubby hand on each side of Abby's face before kissing her back.

A content, reassured smile crept onto McGee's face just looking at them. "Come on, you two."

Gibbs stepped aside to allow the three of them to go upstairs for a little privacy in one of the bedrooms that had only recently been remodeled to accommodate beds for all three kids: Gibbs' subtle way of telling them that he expected his grandchildren for sleepovers on a regular basis. Ever since he had retired the kids had spent quite some time at his place, at that. All the stuff he had bought or the kids had smuggled in that was now permanently harbored at his place certainly took account of that. Neither Tony nor Ziva could keep grins off their faces upon the mayhem of toys and games and pillows that presented itself to them where formerly Gibbs' living room had been.

They found David and Tali sitting at the breakfast table in the kitchen, contently munching down their cereal. "Well, sweet cheeks, doesn't look like our kids missed us just as much", Tony remarked, highlighting his words with an exaggerated sigh. Upon his voice, and the familiar sound of a joke from their father's mouth, however, both kids jumped up to receive their elaborate good-mornings.

The moment Ziva kneeled down to hug her Tali placed her head on her mother's shoulder, feeling free to make her still-sleepiness known. David, on the other hand, took a few steps back into the kitchen so as to show off his attire. "Look what Uncle Gibbs got me", he boasted. He turned a little to the side and straightened up so they could examine the overgrown red shirt he was wearing, complete with an implied black Sam Browne belt to round off an imitation of a Canadian Mountie uniform.

"Mixed up the sides of the border, eh?", Tony quipped, earning himself a scowl from Gibbs, but winked at his son nonetheless.

"Did you thank your Uncle Gibbs for your present?", Ziva asked.

"He sure did", Gibbs answered for the eight-year-old, ruffling his hair. When David smiled at him appreciatively for just a second before he moved to straighten out his mat of hair again, Gibbs couldn't help but be reminded of who his father was.

"Uncle Gibbs is not workin' on a boat anymore", Tali piped up.

Ziva frowned. "No? What is he working on then?"

"'s a surprise", Tali whispered, putting her index finger on Ziva's mouth. "Ssh."

"Sure is", Gibbs chuckled. "Shouldn't you be getting ready for school, though?"

"Oh yes, she should", Ziva ascertained, scooping Tali up into her arms.

"You too, big boy", Tony added, nudging David. Tony handed him his backpack and the eight-year-old followed his mother and sister upstairs.

Silence remained for a while after they had left. Tony eventually turned to look at Gibbs. "Ten hundred at the office work for you?", he asked nonchalantly.

Gibbs nodded, but still eyed his former Senior Field Agent wearily. "You guys okay?", he inquired, his eyes narrowed.

Tony scoffed. "Sure, you know, same as always. Creepy guys, dead guys…Israeli guys."

"Israeli?"

"Yeah…you know how it is. They're like airborne allergies. You cough, you wheeze, you snot. Then the season's over and you're feeling fine. But with the first breeze- Bam! Play it again, Sam."

Gibbs threw his head back slightly. "Tough case?"

Tony was about to respond, his mouth gaping open with the first syllable, when they heard Abby and McGee come down the stairs, Liora babbling away to her mother and David recounting the meaning of his new pajamas to his uncle. "The gutsy kind", Tony relented, shooting Gibbs a last knowing glance before stepping up to his son. "Who wants to ride the 'Stang to school?"

After the accident that had totaled Tony's beloved Mustang two year ago, he had insisted on getting the exact same model, even though he now readily admitted Ziva's Mini wasn't all bad either. That also meant, however, neither Tony's nor David's love for that car was waning, while Ziva and Tali could only wonder why. Cars certainly seemed like the most gendered aspect of their lives.

"Me!", David volunteered quickly, already rushing through the door.

Ziva was just coming down the stairs with Tali by her side, catching but the back of her son as he was sprinting towards the street. "Atsor, David! There's cars-"

"I got it", Tony stopped her, already jumping after their son.

"Three kids", Gibbs observed with a small grin, "Told ya, Ziver."

Once they had dropped off all actual kids at the right school respectively, the adults had fanned out around NCIS headquarters. This had led Tony down to autopsy where he was currently looking into the faces of not one, but two certified M.E.'s. While Gibbs had busied himself taking care of three kids last night, Ducky had spent another quiet night at his manor. And he had found himself dearly missing some of the bustle of the nights he had spent at friends' and family's houses throughout Scotland, Ireland and Great Britain the last couple of months. One way, for him, to regain some of that liveliness right here in DC was to step up when his extended family obviously needed him.

"I want this thorough", Tony instructed with every ounce of authority of the Supervisory Special Agent that he was. His hand indicated the still-covered corpse of Dustin Leahy lying on a stretcher beside them. Metro had delivered him earlier that morning.

"You will get the same thoroughness of examination and observation that you always get", Ducky cautioned with a small smile. He understood the younger man's lingering frustration, but tardiness had never been his particular style, regardless. "Maybe even more than that as we are counting the knowledge of three separate doctoral degrees amongst ourselves in this case."

"No, Ducky, you don't understand", Tony reiterated forcefully. "I want this more thorough than thorough."

"You believe he is the missing link, don't you, Tony?", Ducky inquired knowingly.

Tony nodded his head solemnly. "He might have known something without knowing something."

"You mean like a courier of some kind?", Palmer suggested.

"Carrying information somewhere on or in his body maybe?"

"Just treat this like an alien-kidnapping, 's all", Tony retorted tersely, already turning around to leave the room through the swooshing of double doors.

"So, we got a dying cryptographer, terrorists on domestic soil, a dead insurance clerk and somewhere in this whole mess Eli David, currently AWOL", Tony summarized, gripping the remote control for the plasma screen tightly in his right hand.

He was flanked by Ziva, McGee and Gibbs in the middle of the bullpen. Just like old times, except for the thick folder he had dropped in Gibbs' lap a few minutes ago to catch their former boss and mentor up on their case.

"Who wants Johnston?", Tony called out, an impatient edge in his voice.

McGee plucked the clicker right out of Tony's grip. With a flick of his finger the Navy ID portrait of Ian Johnston appeared on screen. "Navy Lieutenant. Worked as an IT-specialist for the Pentagon's cryptography department. Genius in his field of work. Came here two weeks ago claiming he had information on a future case", he rattled off, shooting both Tony and Ziva knowing glances at the appropriate places. "What we didn't know at the time was that he, in fact, was the case. We put him up in a safehouse. Last time we checked in on him his organs were starting to fail, though. He's dying, and slowly."

Ziva took the remote from McGee's hand, trying to hide the pained look on her face. She quickly glanced at Gibbs who was looking on intently, trying to absorb everything they were saying. "He had been tracing a terrorist cell for a few months, storing all the intel on a computer chip that he handed over to us and that Abby and McGee have been sifting through ever since." She briefly checked with Tony if she had gotten that particular verb-preposition-combination right. Tony nodded. "With its help we now have information on communication logs, arms deals, their travel route-"

"Israelis?", Gibbs cut in, yanking the glasses off his face.

"Apparently so", Ziva confirmed in a low voice.

Gibbs' eyes narrowed, giving her a long hard look. For a while the two just stared at each other, McGee and Tony merely watching them from the sidelines, but when nothing more came Ziva took it as a sign to continue. "We could also identify the safehouse they had used as a stop-over here in DC. The apartment was owned by one Dustin Leahy, an insurance clerk. We found a fresh set of prints on the doorknob after the apartment had apparently been cleaned, but he claimed not to have been there."

"He seemed like a small fish in a bigger pond", Tony added, taking the remote from Ziva and stabbing it with his index finger. Instantly, the pan shot of Leahy's corpse appeared on screen. "That is, of course, until his brain was blown to pieces with a sniper rifle while standing right next to Ziva and me in a parking lot."

Gibbs looked at his former protégé, trying to discern the emotions behind Tony's words. They weren't too hard to pinpoint. "And the terrorists?"

"We believe there's three of them. One guy's named Arik", Tony answered, his voice even. "Right now our only leads are a piece of gum and saliva that Abby found on the shell casing. The DNA on both is a match. So, we're pretty sure those guys killed Leahy. We just don't know why. And Abby's been processing traces of mold found at Leahy's house which apparently had been ransacked."

Gibbs felt strangely winded. They were staring at him and he could do nothing but put on a crooked smile and shift his weight to his left foot. "Anything else you need me to know?"

Tony opened his mouth, but shut it again a second later. Instead, he and McGee turned towards Ziva, looking at her expectantly. Ziva let out a slow breath before fixing Gibbs with her amber eyes. "And my father's assistant…seems to be their contact agent."

"But Eli's missing?", Gibbs concluded.

"We believe so, yes", Ziva confirmed tersely.

"Sanctioned op?"

Tony glanced at Ziva before answering in her place. "We don't think so."

Gibbs' eyebrows jerked upwards. "Why's that?"

Ziva raised her chin, looking resolute. "We just do."

Gibbs nodded. "And where do I fit in?"

"Sergeant Jared Cooper", McGee inserted, pulling up his picture and the related case file. "Leahy claimed the safehouse was actually Cooper's while he was just his landlord."

"Cooper's dead, though", Tony clarified. "And that's exactly where you come in, Gibbs."

"Thirty-year-old case?", the older agent asked skeptically, a frown settling on his face. When he found nothing in their faces but slight nods, however, he turned around and leaned against his old desk, facing them. "Cooper was shot in a robbery at a liquor store in 1992. I was new at NCIS and Mike-", Gibbs chuckled remembering his mentor, his gaze briefly wandering off to the side, "Mike sent me to do scut work, deal with local LEOs. Jurisdiction was a mess."

"Don't tell me you let it go", Tony whined, throwing his head to the side. "Don't tell me this is another unavanged victim coming back to haunt you."

Gibbs had already raised his hand, ready to deliver a slap to the back of Tony's head, but instead he stopped, his arm then falling limply back against his side. His frown remained. "No, DiNozzo, my gut told me there was something off. I convinced Ducky to do an autopsy. For a while he didn't find anything but the GSW. Mike was ready to kill me", Gibbs recounted, a small smile settling on his lips, "But then Ducky found a ricin pellet lodged in Cooper's left upper arm."

"Wait, I know that one", McGee cut in. "KGB method."

"The Dana Hutton case", Tony added. For a brief moment he met Ziva's eyes, offering her a small smile.

Gibbs nodded for a while, then started shaking his head instead. "We never found who did it."

"You thought that Cooper was shot before he could die of contamination?", Tony tried to clarify.

Gibbs nodded again.

"It certainly is…a valid technique", Ziva said.

McGee shook his head anyway. "I still don't get why people go to so much trouble."

"To avoid suspicion", Ziva explained solemnly. "Also, people who fit the profile could then be used as cover IDs, their assets could be utilized, their houses left dormant as safehouses. Like I said, techniques used by many agencies."

"You really think that's what this could be?", Tony asked, skeptical. "Cooper was killed thirty years ago for his apartment?"

"I certainly would not put it past any agency to do just that. Mossad among them", Ziva declared. "But they would have never just poisoned an innocent man simply because his death would have come in handy."

"You sure about that?", Gibbs inquired through narrowed eyes.

"Yes." Ziva quickly matched his expression, remaining defiant. "Because I never killed anyone out of sheer convenience."

McGee, aware of the growing tension in the room, decided to point them all back at the elephant in the room. "Which leaves us empty-handed any way you turn it."

Tony, drawing a hash with the index and middle finger of his right hand, added unceremoniously, "Hashtag… Hate this."

Gibbs eventually tore his eyes away from Ziva. "Leahy", he said, to no one in particular.

"Why kill him?", McGee asked the quintessential question.

"We do not have anything on Arik and his men just because he gave us Cooper's name", Ziva surmised. "There was no reason to kill him."

"Leahy must have known more than that."

"He didn't know anything, he said so himself", Tony cautioned. "And he didn't really strike me as a very secret-to-the-grave kinda guy."

"Maybe he didn't know that he knew something", Gibbs interjected.

A smirk appeared on Tony's face. "Great minds do think alike."

After Gibbs had completed a midday coffee run that had taken considerably longer due to various people's strange interest in his trip - not least among them Selma, the coffee cart lady - he found the bullpen empty upon his return. Recognizing the hollow scratching noise, however, he turned right and made his way to the copy room. There he laid eyes on Ziva printing, copying and stapling big stacks of paper. He leant against the doorframe, taking the odd sip from his cup, scrutinizing her.

"How are you, Ziver?", he asked eventually.

She turned, stopping her current task for a moment. A smile settled on her face. "Good", she answered evenly. "You have seen the kids. They are great-"

"You", Gibbs reiterated, eyeing her closely over the rim of his cup.

She sighed. "Being an overprotective and constantly worrying mother, I guess."

"Perspective", Gibbs nodded, a small smirk on his face. Ziva mimicked his nod, but soon returned to her stapling while Gibbs continued watching her. A few minutes passed. "Eli."

"What about him?", Ziva retorted quickly.

"You can talk to me, you know."

"No, Gibbs", Ziva declined. "Not after everything you've done for me, I cannot."

"He's your father, Ziva."

"So are you…Gibbs", she countered softly, "Even more so."

"He's still it, though." He finally took the few remaining steps towards her, a gentle smile on his face. He reached out and slipped a strand of hair that fallen from her clip back behind her ear. "It's okay…to be scared."

"I am not scared…for him", Ziva shook her head decidedly. "I might be worried for the kids, but that- that is to be expected, I guess. Eli…"

"Rule #40."

Ziva grunted exasperatedly. "But that is just it, Gibbs. It was different two years ago. That was about me."

"And this isn't."

Ziva shook her head, but stopped to sigh exasperatedly. "Oh, I don't know."

Gibbs nodded in understanding, "Okay." Slinging an arm around her waist, he leaned forward and gently kissed her temple. "We'll protect them."

Ziva nodded, taking a deep breath, her head leaning sideways. They waited another heartbeat and then walked out together, Ziva with copies under her arm. "I am glad you're back, Gibbs."

He just smirked. "No cheaper babysitter around."

Entering the bullpen, they almost ran into Tony shooting up from behind his desk. Tony's eyes instantly darted towards Gibbs' protective arm around his partner and a fleeting smile crossed his features. "Ducky and Jimmy just called", he informed them. Focusing on Gibbs, he added, "Wanna come with?"

Gibbs frowned. "You sure?"

Tony winked at Ziva upon her knowing smile. "For old times' sake", Tony retorted, already starting to walk away. "As an observer."

Gibbs smiled crookedly, but followed the younger agent nonetheless.

Tony chose to walk down the stairs, trying to avoid awkward elevator silences for one, and more than that he had come to appreciate a clear head and that worked best when he stayed in constant motion.

"We think we might have found what Mr. Leahy didn't know he knew", Ducky greeted both of them when they entered the autopsy room.

"His own position", Palmer put in.

Tony's and Gibbs' eyes met in a brief glance. When they stepped up to the autopsy table with Leahy on it, however, Gibbs made a point of standing back a little. That way, it was Palmer doing the pointing and explaining while Ducky held Leahy's head steady, and Tony doing the dot-connecting while Gibbs hung back. My, how times have changed.

"We found a chip, very small chip, inserted between Leahy's lower left molars", Palmer indicated the teeth in question. "We already sent it up to Abby and McGee. They're processing it as we speak."

"Their preliminary assessment identified it as some kind of tracking device, however", Ducky added.

"When Ziva interrogated him, Leahy told her he had been robbed a few days before", Tony asserted. "That's when they must've done it. Must've taken his prints then, too, and led us right to him."

"Collateral damage", Gibbs surmised.

"Unfortunately, we have no hope of finding any traces of a drug that could have induced a temporary state of somnolence or unconsciousness", Ducky said, sighing. "If that is what happened to the poor fellow anyway."

Palmer picked up on matching looks of impatience on both Tony's and Gibbs' face. "Abby re-tested his blood and stomach content, but she didn't find anything."

Tony nodded, leaning in close to the corpse of the man he had been talking to only seconds before his untimely demise. He blinked. "They knew where he was every step of the way. When he was here at NCIS, when he was home, or at his safe place, or in a parking lot with Ziva and me."

"Still doesn't answer the why, though."

When the elevator doors had slipped shut behind them, Gibbs had shot him a swift glance as if to make sure Tony wanted him there. And he did. Without further ado the younger agent pressed the button for the floor Abby's lab was on, taking a step back to give Gibbs a bit of space to get off ahead of him. They stepped over the threshold of the lab, in unison, only to have an alarm start ringing that same second on one of Abby's computers.

Abby turned around, seizing Gibbs with a gaze of deep adoration. "The real deal."

Gibbs smirked, leaning a bit to the side so Tony could appreciate the full radiance of his twitching lips. Tony, however, merely huffed and chose to concentrate on Abby. "The chip Ducky and Palmer found?"

"Tracker", Abby clarified with a nod, turning to type into her keyboard. "I already matched the GPS log to a few places we know Leahy was at during the last few days. This puppy is a tracking device alright."

"So, how'd they do it?", Tony inquired.

Abby took a step back from her desk in an attempt to fit both her current and her former boss, and both her friends, into her field of vision. "It's a very basic setup. They did nothing artsy", she explained, her arms and hands doing a lot of the talking. "The tracker sent out a low-frequency signal that was picked up by a transmitter latching onto the same frequency. They did some encoding of the signal so that it couldn't be accessed just by anybody and by accident, but that's about it."

"Did you-"

"McGee will try to back-trace the signal to the transmitter first thing tomorrow", Abby interrupted, a proud smile on her face.

"Tomorrow?", Gibbs asked, his eyes narrowing.

Abby sighed. "One of us needed to pick up Liora early today and-"

"Everything okay?"

"Sure. Cameron's cramming for an exam and we gave her the rest of the week off, though."

"Good thing I'm back then", Gibbs quipped.

"You have no idea", Abby retorted, her smile getting bigger. "But that's not why my baby chirped."

"No?"

"No." She turned her attention back to the keyboard in front of her and pulled up a disgustingly micro-focused picture of a strangely familiar material and a chart next to it. "I finally specified the mold from Leahy's house. I was right. It's Stachybotrys, actually it's Stachybotrys chartarum, 'black mold' or 'toxic black mold'. It usually grows in damp buildings."

"Sick building syndrome", Tony deduced.

Abby looked actually impressed. "Trying to one-up the bossman, huh?"

Tony smiled at her. "So, if we assume that our guests really were in Leahy's house-"

"-and that maybe they left a little something behind without realizing it-"

"-then we got ourselves two leads on where they might be hiding", Gibbs summarized. "Abs-"

"-crosscheck with the city's Health Department", Tony continued, beating Gibbs to the order for the next-pressing task.

"To see if officials might have locked down any buildings due to mold infestation in the last couple of days, which our terrorist group might have used to set up a new camp in?", Abby said, grinning. "Yeah, started doing that ten minutes ago."

"Thanks, Abs", Tony concluded, presenting her with a TofPow bar before leaving to go upstairs and take some of the paperwork off Ziva's hands - delegate it to somebody else, that is - so she could pick Tali up from school.

For a second there, Tony had thought Gibbs was following him into the elevator, but before the doors had closed shut Gibbs had turned around and gone back into the lab. For a second there, Abby had been left flabbergasted. When Gibbs strolled back into her lab with a CafPow in hand, she couldn't contain herself any longer, though. She jumped into his waiting arms and engulfed him in a bear hug.

"I missed you, Gibbs", she whispered into his shirt from where she had buried her face in his shoulder.

Gibbs gently linked his arms around her. "Missed you too, kid."

Thank you for reading. Always appreciating your thoughts.