Ziva was going to kill Gibbs when he got back.
The words were a bit too close to a raw spot, even within her own head, but the urge to wince at her own thoughts didn't change her anger.
What had he been thinking, running off and leaving them like this? Did he not know what it would do to her to have him out of sight and unprotected? What it would do to Tony to be left behind? To Tim to -
Well, Tim was handling this better than she would have expected, actually. He had always been the best adjusted of all of them.
And it wasn't as if they were completely abandoned. Jackson was here and seeing him was always a pleasure. Being around someone who didn't know how much blood was on her hands helped her forget it was there.
But no amount of home cooked meals or bright children's movies could take away the pinched look hiding behind Tony's bright smiles. Tony had stood by her after Somalia, protecting her and pushing her in turns until she was something approaching normal again, or at least functional. The least she could do was stand beside him at times like this.
She hurled a paper wad down at Tony from her perch on the back of the couch.
He didn't even flinch. He just kept looking at the cheerfully singing figures on the screen.
The singing was pretty, Ziva had to admit, but no one was that aggressively cheerful unless they'd been drugged.
She shared a worried glance with Tim. Being engrossed in a movie was one thing. This was another.
"I saw that," Tony said. He still hadn't moved his head.
Ziva sighed. Of course he had.
The oven dinged in the kitchen. "Macaroni's done, kids."
Ziva rolled off the back of the couch and landed on the floor in a crouch.
"I give it a seven out of ten ninjas."
Perhaps Tony was not wholly withdrawn after all.
They were almost to the kitchen when the doorbell rang.
They froze.
"Maybe they'll go away?" Tim whispered hopefully.
The doorbell rang again.
"They will have seen the lights. They know someone is home."
They could see Jackson through the doorway to the kitchen. "I'll get it," the old man muttered. "You lot stay out of sight. I won't let them in."
Tony nodded and started herding them toward the staircase.
Ziva let him. It was good for him to feel useful.
The doorbell rang again. "I'm comin', I'm comin'," Jackson called. "No patience, these days."
Ziva could hear the door open.
A gunshot split the air.
Alejandro Rivera knew that coming here was most likely a mistake. There was just too high a risk that someone would discover exactly what he had been up to on his "vacation". It would have been safer to stay within the confines of the law. Prosecute this the right way.
But Paloma had been right when she'd convinced him that sometimes this was the only way.
Waiting there in the rental car with three of his sister's men as darkness fell, he was glad he'd listened. The dark coil of anger inside him was finally loosening into something free and exhilarating.
Two other cars idled nearby. They'd brought twelve men in all.
When the sun had finally set, he gripped his gun and got out of the car. His men followed after him.
Three circled around back to prevent escape. The rest fanned out behind him as he went up to the front door and rang the bell.
He pressed it twice more when he didn't get a response. A nervous, jittery energy was making him impatient.
This is for you, Papa.
Someone was drawing closer to the door. He raised his gun.
An elderly man finally managed to open it. His chest was level with Rivera's gun.
Rivera fired.
This is for Paloma. For how she used to be.
There was a camera on his hat designed to capture the action. He made sure to look down at the corpse so that the camera could get a good angle.
He put his gun away. It would be useless for the rest of the night.
He pulled two salt packs off his belt instead. Some of the men behind him were armed with guns designed to fire pellets filled with salt and other things that were less than ghost friendly, but they fired differently than normal guns, and it was safest to stick with what he knew.
He stepped over the body and entered the house, salt packs at the ready as he scanned for movement.
A movie was playing in the living room. The music was jarringly happy.
More men were filling the house. He could hear the three in the back kicking down the door.
"Living room clear," he called.
"Kitchen clear," someone responded.
"There's a basement. Matias and I will go check it out."
A couple of men headed for the staircase that lead upstairs.
"Up - "
A gun fired. One of the men fell down the stairs. The others were shouting and firing with their modified weapons.
An unearthly shriek split the air. Rivera ran for the stairs and got there in time to see a little girl with blood red eyes sink into one of his men.
Someone had turned the stair light on. He could see the blood be sponged out of the man. Could see his skin go dead white as he collapsed.
Rivera threw one of his salt packs at the body. More men ran for the stairs.
This is for my mother.
Pain shot up Rivera's shoulder as a gun went off again. He turned to see two small, defiant ghosts crouched at the top of the stairs and armed with federal issue guns.
They fired again. A man behind him went down.
More shouting came from downstairs. The girl ghost must have fallen straight through the stairs to avoid the salt.
He ripped off another salt pack with his good arm and tossed it up the stairs. The taller ghost tackled the other one to the ground to avoid it. The smaller one never stopped firing.
He had lost caught of how many of his men had been hit. There was a pretty even split of salt vests and bullet proof vests among them, but few vests accommodated both.
None were adapted for knives.
He looked down at the metal sticking out of his gut in a daze. The girl - Mossad, she had been Mossad - snarled at him from the bottom of the steps.
He slid slowly down the railing.
He had known coming here was most likely a bad idea.
Watching his kids go into danger on the job was bad enough. This was something else entirely, but Gibbs forced himself to watch as the men walked up his driveway.
Watched and hoped.
He jerked like the bullet had hit him when Rivera fired the first shot of the evening.
Dad.
Just like that. No fanfare. No chance to save him. Just a bullet motivated by Gibbs' long ago vengeance and given opportunity by him asking his dad to come up while he ran off to Mexico again.
Then the men were in his house, stepping over his dad like he was so much trash, and they were hunting his kids.
Every man they took down was a shot closer to safety.
And to blood madness.
Gibbs didn't know what it was about the man that Ziva threw a knife at that made Paloma cry out, but the thug behind him jerked in surprise at the sound, and that was all the opportunity Gibbs needed.
The gun had risen an inch when the thug had flinched, and now Gibbs drove an elbow into his gut as he twisted into a crouch. The gun fired, but it was over his head, and almost only counted in horse shoes and hand grenades.
Gibbs had his knife out. He threw himself at the man to the side of him and jabbed the knife into his neck. He pulled the gun out of the man's hands and turned, already firing.
The man he'd elbowed earlier went down without firing a shot. The third man managed to get one off.
Gibbs dove to the side. Fire grazed his right arm, but he was long past caring. He fired again.
Thug number three went down.
Another bullet thudded into his arm.
Reynosa hadn't gotten to be head of a drug cartel by being helpless.
Gibbs hadn't survived this long by not taking down people who hurt his family.
His gun went off one, two, three more times, and Reynosa collapsed to the sand.
Only one of those shots had probably been necessary.
The video on the laptop had cut off. It could be a good sign.
But then again, just because the cameras were dead didn't mean all the men were.
He couldn't just leave Franks here to rot on the beach, but he couldn't afford to wait for the Mexican authorities to wade through what had happened either.
He called an anonymous tip in and wiped down anything that might have his fingerprints on it.
Then he took off running for the vehicle he'd rented.
He needed to get home. Now.
By the time he'd gotten through the airport security and managed to drive back to his neighborhood, his house was covered in crime scene tape, and the FBI were standing in his hallway.
It was Fornell's team, at least. That was something, even if it didn't feel like much right now.
Franks was gone. His dad was gone. His kids -
"Gibbs!" A hand latched onto his arm.
He turned to see a near frantic Ziva. Tony and Tim weren't far behind her. All were in their adult forms.
He grabbed onto Ziva's shoulders since she was the closest. "You're all right?" he demanded.
She waved a dismissive hand. "There was minor damage. Ducky cleaned us all up hours ago. Gibbs, your father - " And then even Ziva's eyes got over full. "Gibbs, I am so sorry. I should have realized - "
"No," he stopped her. "This one's not on you. Not on any of you."
"Not on you either, Boss," Tony said quietly. His voice sounded scratchy and rough.
They could argue about that one later. For now, he just hung onto them as tightly as he could.
Fornell'd tease him about it later, but he didn't much care.
"Fornell wants to know why a bunch of grown NCIS agents were watching Tangled, by the way," Tony muttered into his shoulder in a hesitant attempt to help the only way he could think of.
If he'd been another man, Gibbs might have laughed until that laughter turned into sobs.
But Gibbs wasn't that man, so he just held on tighter.
A/N: Originally, this was going to be a funny little chapter where Diana showed up and there were a ton of evil stepmother jokes, but I had no confidence in my ability to write that, so I wrote this instead.
. . . You're probably not thanking me for that right now.
References to "Spider and the Fly".
Next up: Eyes Open. Fair warning, it's not exactly going to be a bucket of laughs either. I've also just posted the first chapter of "Little Girl Lost". Eventually, it'll be three chapters. This first one deals with Ziva's death, if you're interested. And while I was at it, I went ahead and posted the first chapter of "If We Shadows" which is about Tim's death. Athea781, you're finally going to be getting your wish. Like "Little Girl Lost" it will eventually be three chapters.
No spoilers from last night's episode, please! I won't be able to watch it until tonight.