It broke my heart to break the last chapter up into two parts, but it would have been too long and I want to put some emphasis on the character-interaction in THIS chapter. So, in a way you could claim the last one as strongly case-driven and this one right here: relationship conjuncture.

Once more and ever again: Thank you for your thoughts and reviews! I will refrain from answering any of your questions or requests just now...let's just see where it goes from here :)

Last chapter…

"Something must have been off...seeing as we just identified him?", McGee spoke up, trying to guide their conversation back to their case.

"Ziva lives." Gibbs shifted his weight.

"I am alive to recognize Claire on that video, I am alive to make the connection to Niv."

"You were supposed to die, six-feet-under their plan", Tony stated.

"You were supposed to be out of the way. This is bigger than you", Gibbs asserted, his eyebrows narrowing in consideration.

"Bigger how?"

Chap 25 Near the End there's an Abyss - Part II

Thursday, November 21st 2018

716 Sicard Street, S.E. - Washington Navy Yard

Gibbs didn't answer. Instead, that look of determined purpose settled in his eyes. He quickly swayed to the side and maneuvered himself around Ziva so as to storm off into the direction of the elevator. They knew that move. Tony knew that move, better than anyone. And he certainly wouldn't have it. Gibbs had barely made it out of the bullpen in one flash, Tony was fast on his tracks.

"Wait!", Tony called out, jogging up to him, "Don't give us that twinkle-twinkle-little-tinker BS. How is this bigger?"

Gibbs turned around slowly, a scowl setting his forehead in wrinkles. "Ziva's accident was only part of a bigger plan. We agree on that one?"

"You think that Niv guy and his ex-wife from hell aren't the only ones."

"There's more to it."

"Why kill those Marines if all they ultimately wanted to do was kill Ziva", McGee affirmed from behind them.

"It's about this whole show-case."

"You think it's about all of us", Tony realized, raising his eyebrows questioningly at Gibbs.

Gibbs nodded curtly. "At least some of us. More than just Ziva."

"Somebody's got it in for us?"

"It's personal, all of this."

This very new and very unsettling vantage point took its time to sink into Tony's system, but when it did, his eyes started glaring with the same kind of determined purpose he had witnessed on Gibbs a few minutes ago.

"Then we better-"

Gibbs cut him off, "You better get Ziva home."

There was a sincere tinge of kindness in his voice that immediately related to the sheer empathetic logic of it. "But what about you, I mean-"

A miniature smile lifted the edges of Gibbs' mouth for a moment before he turned on his heel and strode off on his initial path towards the elevator. "Don't worry about me, Tony. We never let any of those bastards get away, and I'd be damned if we started now."

Tony scoffed, somewhat good-naturedly. He was part of this team again, he wasn't the boss of an entire unit. He could yield some of the responsibility while he could take up more where he seemed to be needed more: at home, with his family, with Ziva. Before long his entire demeanor had conceded to the present reality of it all.

"Campfire?", he asked rhetorically, watching Gibbs step into the elevator.

"Zero nine hundred. Tell Ziva to be on time for once", Gibbs answered before the doors closed on his vague smile.

Before Tony could dwell too much on what had just happened, he could hear Ziva's voice, frail and small, calling out his name. "Tony..."

He turned around just in time to see McGee lunge forward and grab her arm before she buckled over in the middle of the bullpen. Tony immediately leapt over and pulled out a chair McGee then carefully eased her into. Her face was ashen and in her eyes Tony could see that she was in pain.

He crouched down in front of her. "Honey... What's wrong?", he asked, searching for her reaction beneath her fallen curls, "Ziva?"

"I don't know... I just felt light-headed for a second", she answered quietly, looking down into his worried eyes, "It is okay now."

"Ziva, you're in pain. I can see it."

"I am not-"

"Tim, go and get Jimmy, he-"

"No, there really is no need", Ziva reassured, stopping McGee before he could even nod his head and sprint down to the morgue.

"Then we'll get you to the hospital."

"No hospital, Tony. I just- Let's just go home, alright?"

"If you want, I can get Abby. She's been working on the Riley case all day, she-"

"No, let's not worry her without a reason-"

"Ziva, you almost keeled over", Tony implored her.

"Just home...please? I just want to go home to the kids. No doctors, no hospitals, no worrying. Just a quiet evening with the kids", Ziva almost pleaded.

He could see she wasn't feeling well - and that was an understatement any way you turned it. He knew the hospital or a check-up would have been the more rational choice, but the look in her eyes was more than his rationality could take.

"A quiet evening with our kids?", he quipped and a faint smile flashed across her face.

There were but a few moments in their lives together that Ziva had actually admitted to feeling pain and Tony knew that she was virtually incapable of admitting it. That's why he had sharpened his radar for detecting it anyway. He could read her like an un-officialized screenplay to his living reality. Maybe, over the years, she would have given up hiding her pain at some point or another, but they had easily fallen into this rhythm of not changing too much about each other and rather living with who they were, respectively.

When they went out into the parking lot at the Navy Yard that day, however, things were different. Ziva was leaning heavily onto Tony. It scared him. The last time she had clung to him like that had been throughout that excruciating hour of fighting their way through the maze of cells and corridors in Saleem's little shop of horrors. Her mind had been near dead back then, as had been her body. Tony feared nothing more than for Ziva having to go through so much pain again. Until a day ago he hadn't even known just how much pain she had been through. But this was different, still. Right?

McGee had come along, carrying their bags and helping Tony ease Ziva into the passenger seat before bidding his sympathetic goodbye to meet up with Abby back inside. Now they were trudging along the streets at a speed well below the limit in the afternoon traffic. Ziva was leaning her head against the cool glass of the window with her eyes closed against the oncoming lights. Tony kept looking at her incessantly.

"Tony, please stop looking at me all the time", she requested suddenly and quietly, her eyes still tightly shut.

He wanted to justify his concern but something more pending crossed his temporal lobe before that. "How do you do that?"

"You are tingles", she answered matter-of-factly.

"I'm what?"

"Others are chills or stings. You...are tingles."

A soft smile made it to his lips. Then he grew serious again. "You sure you don't wanna go to the hospital?"

She moved her head a little to the side. "Yes, no hospitals anymore. Just home."

"Okay", he conceded, drawing out those two syllables in a final statement before silence settled between them for a while.

Suddenly, words tumbled out of his mouth. "You know I love you, right?"

"I know."

He could see the hint of a smile on her face in the corner of his eye, even though his confession might as well have sounded like the justification of concern he didn't want it to be. "I thought I made myself clear this morning", he continued, sounding somewhat irritated.

"You did", Ziva retorted evenly but she knew exactly that this conversation would not end there, "What are you getting at, Tony?"

"It's bothering you", he stated simply, stopping in front of a red light.

"What is?"

"That you told me. It's bothering you that I might be bothered by what you told me about Somalia."

"I am not-", she started but her words suddenly hung silently from her gaping mouth. She finally opened her eyes and turned to look at him, scowling, "How do you do it?"

He grinned sheepishly. "You're rosebud."

"I am what?" She was absolutely positive it had to be one of his more meaningful movie references but she couldn't quite place it.

"Rosebud", he clarified matter-of-factly, "The single most important moment."

She couldn't help but smile at the ease of affection he so often performed with no effort at all. Still, there were more pending issues weighing onto the ease of her mind. If it hadn't been for the agonizing pain in her head, she would have shaken it to emphasize how little she could believe into her own reality sometimes.

"How can you forgive me something I could almost not forgive myself?", she blurted out.

"Because...I love you", he answered immediately, an incredulous laugh ringing through, "I love who you are. And who you are, that's Somalia too. I don't love you in bits and pieces, I love you as a whole. Would you-"

"You do realize what all this means, yes? That we cannot have any more children, that-"

"I know, Ziva. I figured as much", Tony nodded, his voice completely even, "No potential DiNozzo-offspring could ever be worth the risk of losing you. We have two awesome kids, I have you. There's no more. So, this once, would you…just believe me?"

"I do", she affirmed quickly, knowing it too, "I am... I am being stupid." She placed her head back against the glass, watching the traffic rush by without actually watching it.

"I don't-"

"Please, Tony, I just want to go home. No more trying to make sense of the bedlam in my head", she almost whispered, "I am trying to save up enough energy to make it to the medicine cabinet without looking the way I am feeling right now."

"You know…you don't need to do that."

"Yes, I do", she argued determinedly, "The kids do not need to see me like this."

"Ziva, they know you were hurt. They understand-"

"Tony... They are six and three years old. They may seem to understand, but their souls cannot. I have traumatized them enough already, they do not need to see me faint in the middle of the living room."

He scoffed. "Come on, Ziva. Give yourself a break, will ya? You didn't traumatize them."

"I did not? I did not rip their mother from their lives? I did not force them to fathom the possibility of losing their mother?"

"No, ya didn't", Tony cried out tersely, "That sick Israeli bastard did."

An exasperated grunt ripped through her throat. "That sick Israeli bastard is part of my past, a past that has caught up with me now."

"But that's not your fault."

"How can it not be, Tony?"

"Aren't you the one who told me she couldn't change her past no matter what?"

"I am also the one who told you that I could live with it as long as it did not affect our kids."

"They're kids, Ziva. They're resilient." A good-natured smile had settled on his face. It calmed her.

"They should not have to be", she sighed.

"It's part of us."

"But it should not be a part of them."

He jerked his head back as he turned the familiar corner into West Clark Street. "Are we some kind of federal herpes now?", he deadpanned.

After a heartbeat of silence, she took a handful of what this really was about and threw it out into the bordered open of her car. "I resent my father for a lot of things, but most of all I resent him for bringing me into his world, subjecting me to its violence and…its…its ephemerality", she confessed sincerely, "Ima was the one who shielded us from it. Abba was the one who caused it."

Tony stole a quick glance at her while they waited for the automated barrier to open. Ziva looked worn, a little too tired to fight herself any longer. "You never talk about her", he assessed softly.

"Don't… You know it hurts."

He nodded; oh, he knew. Sometimes he even thought that having lost both of their mothers so soon, too early in life was part of the destiny that made them fit together. It made talking without saying anything so much easier sometimes. He killed the engine and turned in his seat, searching her eyes with his.

"Don't punish yourself for your own past, Ziva... You already punished yourself enough." To his surprise she nodded her head, if vaguely. He reached over and put his hand gently on the side of her face, inadvertedly catching a brief tear that sprung from her eyes. "You're the best mother our kids could ever wish for. They missed you so much..."

She smiled, if vaguely.

"Your past may be more violent than that of other moms…but unlike other moms you're a deadly weapon in itself and you will stop at nothing to protect them."

Ziva took a hold of his hand and guided it to her lips, kissing it. "You know that I love you, yes?"

Tony smiled; a real smile.

51 Chester Street - Abandoned Warehouse

Four people were standing in a semi-circle in the middle of the warehouse they had spent so much time in for the past two years. The woman seemed giddily nervous and the oldest of them gruffly compliant. The green-eyed man started buttoning his black coat, the plan he had been replaying like a visual mantra in his head for days driving a satisfied smile onto his face. He looked at each one of them.

"Everything's ready for the face-off. They'll find the backup soon", he asserted with purposeful aura.

The woman nodded obediently, the older man puffed affirmative smoke through the cracks of his teeth.

"Niv?"

His green eyes settled on the youngest of the group who was standing a little to the side, his blue eyes clouded by his unfocused mind and his dark hair dimmed by the haziness of the room. He looked up.

"Yes?"

"You ready to go through?"

Niv's blue eyes regained focus. "Absolutely."

"Good", the man's green eyes jumped greedily in their sockets, "You can almost hear Morricone blowing his whistle, can't you?"

94 Hulland Drive - Apartment 2

"You know, I get the whole strict military upbringing compensation thing…I really do, Tim. But I'm not going to raise our daughter in the middle of Barbie's Bimbo Parlor", Abby exclaimed, her eyebrows raised in deadly-intent seriousness.

"I actually think it's bad luck to bicker about the color we're going to paint her room in before our application's even through", McGee countered matter-of-factly.

He weathered her glare and jerked his head to the side before he stepped out of the nursery that had been left plain white ever since they had moved into the new apartment. Abby, however, was right behind him. He hadn't accounted for her exponentially high tempo given the lack of plateau boots on her bare feet.

"Don't you run away from my point."

"I'm not", he declared and kept going without turning around, "I'm not running from your point. I'm walking…briskly…away from your craziness."

"How is not wanting a future Ms. Beauty Pageant crazy in the mommy-book?"

When he finally stopped halfway through the living room, Abby almost crashed into him. He turned around, the look in his eyes soft and imminent. "Maybe not in the mommy-book, but in the Abby-book it's borderline obsessive."

"Is not." She pouted.

"Well, have it your way then", he conceded with vocal decrescendo, yet a slight smirk erupted on his face, "But I'm not raising her in the middle of a Dr. Frank-N-Furter-Fantasy."

Abby drew in a sharp breath, mock-appalled. "I never said I wanted that."

"But you never denied it either."

"I just don't want to put her in the girly straightjacket before she can even say a word", Abby clarified, picking up his slack smile, "I know you have that little daddy's-girl-fantasy of yours and it's long overdue-"

McGee huffed knowingly. "I'm not the only one here."

"I know", she stated bluntly, her eyes - in balance - grew serious again, "But there are principles…principles we vowed we'd stick to."

"So…eggshell it is then."

"Cadmin yellow."

"Apricot."

"Aureolin."

McGee opened his mouth, the upcoming words waiting their turn on his lips. His eyes were smiling with the quintessential argument. "Pastel yellow...with sunglow", he suggested slowly.

"Sold." Abby cocked her head to the side with a satisfied smile.

West Clark Street - Apartment 7

Tali and David were completely immersed into the movie they had started on about an hour ago. Tony was sitting on the floor with David beside him. A while ago he had successfully if subtly shifted Tali to the other side of the couch since the little girl had been dangerously close to Ziva's torso. Ziva had been asleep for good half an hour already. He was glad she was asleep, glad she was finally allowing herself to rest. She needed it. Earlier he had entered the apartment ahead of her, making sure the kids were upstairs, so that Ziva could raid the medicine cabinet in the meantime. After thanking Sarah a thousand times, they had soon plugged in a movie and Ziva had even sooner dosed off into well-warranted dreamland.

While he watched the kids laugh and giggle at the jokes he, for some reason, didn't really seem to get that night, Tony couldn't help but replay some odd instances. In all their stress and in all her pain, they had overlooked a seemingly miniscule detail: Just that morning Ziva had promised two hopeful kids that she would not go away, that she would be right there and that they would see her again in just a little while. In fact, however, Ziva had been at NCIS by the time the kids had come home and it had been Sarah, who had picked them up and spent the afternoon with them. Tony doubted Ziva had remembered her promise; or else she would have been more distraught at having broken it.

Tali had failed to remember as well, it seemed. David had not. It had been that little moment of hesitation before David had budged to welcome Ziva. A small moment of hesitation, and in that moment Tony had realized something more. He had realized, once again, just how far and unconditional Ziva's commitment and devotion to her job could go. This kind of commitment for that which she believed in, that which she believed to be right and just, Tony had always had a hard time grasping.

It was a different mindset, a mindset that had been inculcated in her ever since. For a greater good - the greater good of, maybe, keeping her family protected from past and present threats - she was willing to go to any known length, even to the margins of her own strength. What she believed in, what she thought indispensable was more important. In that she wasn't far from her own father's reasoning. It were those moments, Tony realized, that he could understand why she couldn't just hate Eli. It was because she could relate - on a different scale, under different circumstances. But at the end of the day: She could relate.

When it came to promises to the kids, Ziva was even more fiercely committed. Today she had broken a promise within the hassle of solving the case and the pain of its aftermath. Tony knew she shouldn't have felt bad, even if she had noticed. He knew she would have, no matter what. It was understandable, though. Sometimes he didn't. Sometimes he did.

714 Wesley Lane

The moment Gibbs returned home, he locked his SIG safely away in a strongbox, tossed his clothes into the hamper and put on the shirt he had been wearing around his home for the past two days. His next move led him to the basement, where he started planing away at an array of squared lumber. He was starting on a new boat, a new project. The last one he had finished a little over a month ago and gotten out of his basement just in time to clean up before Abby had taken over the make-over of his silent sanctuary for Tali's birthday party.

A smile sprang to the outskirts of his mouth when he thought about the little girl holding tightly onto Ziva's hand as they had crept down the stairs step by step to uncover her whole family waiting with banners and presents and hats. He smiled even a little bit more at the memory of Tali letting go of Ziva at the foot of the stairs and sprinting towards him with that contagiously enthusiastic grin to get a hat placed on top of her head as well. He slammed the planer onto the workbench and retrieved his chisel from the other side of the room. He couldn't believe that their case had endangered her.

What's more, whoever was behind this had not only put Tali in danger, they had almost killed Ziva too. Just how close they had come to losing her - again. And he couldn't lose anymore, not another one. No, he knew exactly that Ziva wasn't his daughter. Kelly was and always would be his only daughter, the only daughter he had ever had - and lost. Ziva had a father, a father she had somewhat made peace with. And, by God, Ziva could handle herself and her life. She didn't need a father just for its own sake rather than for the one she had to accept her. If he despised Eli for one thing, it was for making Ziva feel as though she had failed him, as though she even could.

Gibbs couldn't deny, however, that out of the only family he now knew, Ziva and he were the most alike. Sure, Tony had learned a lot over the years and so had McGee, but Ziva was similar to him on the whole. He had faith in her, trusted her, accepted her and understood her. That's why he was what he was to her: family, as much on the vertical as on the horizontal. He was filling a gap she had known and craved to be filled almost all her life - even though she would have never admitted that.

And once again he had almost lost her. They had almost lost her. Those children he loved so much would have lost their mother. How could this case have come that far? They had found a body as they always did some way or another, but those body parts had set off every ventral alarm bell in his body. It had smelled like a plot from the very beginning and yet they hadn't figured it out. They had allowed themselves to be played. He had allowed himself to be played by whomever was behind all this.

Ziva's accident had been the break-even point. Ziva surviving, once again, had been the break-even point. Not only for the case, for all of them. They just…could have saved so much time if they had looked into the accident earlier, if they had given a damn about the guy who had hit her. They had neglected the accident because Ziva had been more important - single most important. They had passed him over, Chad Michaels, a guy who shouldn't have died just because someone had elected him murder weapon. They had-

Gibbs' eyes went wide, the blue in them suddenly gleaming purposefully through the dimly lit basement. They had neglected him, damn it! He jerked his head to the side. He lunged for his cell and hit the familiar digit for speed dial. A lightly amused voice answered.

"McGee", Gibbs declared unceremoniously, "Got a job for you."

...TO BE CONTINUED...

Leave a thought?