There's a lot playing on Vance's mind through all of this and I wanted to look at it more. And, it also gave me an opportunity to explore his relationship with Eli David, who I soften up a bit.

There's a little more here to Leon's plan. He's going to have to get clearance, but I can't see anyone objecting to the idea of keeping a valuable asset around.

As, even though I don't really watch any of the other NCIS spinoffs, I had to throw Hetty in here, just cause she is that awesome!

All reviews are welcome

It had been a long few days for Leon Vance. You never wanted your people injured under your watch, even if it was an occupational hazard. And for him, it always had ramifications that were personal.

When he had arrived at the hospital, he got a sense of deja vu that he never wanted to experience again. Seeing Gibbs, McGee, Dr. Mallard and Abby waiting for word on DiNozzo reminded him too much of coming out after…

He'd been seeing a therapist to help him cope with what happened to Jackie. Quietly, Dr. Cranston had been helping him, and his children, through the pain and anguish of the loss. He had turned to her because she herself was familiar with the pain of losing a loved one. She had to face the same feelings he was experiencing, so she seemed to be a natural choice.

When he got into the office the morning after it had happened, she was his first call. After going through what the situation, she had gone to the hospital immediately. Part initial assessment, part checking in on her late sister's partner and team, she reported back that she would gladly be available to them for whatever they needed.

Leon had asked her to pay special attention to Ziva David.

He knew it may be uncomfortable. A woman whose sister was killed by the other woman's brother, Rachel none the less had borne no ill to Ziva. They were both siblings in pain from lose, Leon remembered. With the added burden on Ziva being that she had fired the bullet that had ended her brother's life.

Leon had known Eli for many years and remembered a conversation the two men had after Ari's reign of terror had ended at last. He had sworn to Vance he never meant for Ari to have gone as far as he did. His son had seemed to welcome his duty to Mossad. It had shocked Eli when Ziva had reported back to him, privately, that the younger man had blamed him for the death of his mother and from that had festered the wound that ended up consuming him.

Leon remembered seeing Ziva at the hospital as they awaited word on DiNozzo. He had not seen her in the aftermath of the shooting at his house and in the months following, she had withdrawn from him further, until the night she, McGee and DiNozzo handed in their badges. She decided to return to Israel, where, away from the protection of NCIS, she was attacked by a group of terrorists. That had made her withdraw even further. It looked like she was desperately trying to hide from the world, with the amount of effort Tony had put into tracking her down.

When he had returned, it was without her. Vance, and Gibbs, had their doubts when he told them he'd been unsuccessful in finding her. Those were confirmed when Orli Elbaz informed him that she had located Ziva, mainly by tracking the NCIS agent, and she was safe. That had been four months ago, and still then, the younger woman chose to remain incommunicado.

When he had seen her at last, he readily realized why she had returned. It delighted him to no end for many reasons. Ziva had little family left, and even less after she cut off contact with NCIS. A child, he felt at least, could snap her out of her depression, out of the rut he had seen her in since her father's death. She had become, under the tutelage of Jethro Gibbs, a keen investigator, and Leon hoped she return to the job she had excelled at in recent years, at least in some capacity.

Mostly, though, he couldn't wait to see Tony DiNozzo as a father.

As his day went on, he had gotten constant updates on the case from Abby and McGee and on DiNozzo's condition from Gibbs. He had given the team time off, out of concern for their partner, but they had taken maybe half of it because Tony insisted. Gibbs had stayed behind and been point man up in Baltimore, which Leon took advantage of.

As the Director of NCIS, he had little time to be active in the field. But without Gibbs there, he decided to work a little more with the investigation. Besides the usual mundanity of his everyday tasks, he checked in with McGee and Bishop as they did their thing and kept Abby well-lubricated with her caffeine while she combed over her evidence. At the same time, he decided to throw his weight around a little more in cutting through the red tape in order to speed things along.

With the proper wheels greased to assist his agents, he remembered he had a conference call in MTAC with other NCIS station chiefs. There were a lot of briefings and updates which he wanted to get through to turn his attention back to the DiNozzo shooting and he began signing off with most of them.

The last one was the the LA office. Hetty Lange, in charge there, had, of course, heard about the shooting. "Is he recovering?" she asked him.

"It'll be a long road, but the doctors seem confident," Leon told her.

"Well, if you see that charming man, tell him to get his ass together." It was very typically Hettie.

"Will do, Ma'am." There were very few people who Vance ma'amed, but she was one of them. When he returned to his office, he found the other one waiting for him there.

"Do you have an update on Agent DiNozzo?" Secretary of the Navy Sarah Porter questioned him.

She was a woman who was always direct, so he returned the courtesy. "The doctors' are optimistic, from what Gibbs tells me. He's awake and alert, and I figure, nearly back to his old self," he replied.

She nodded at that. "And Agent David?"

He let out a small sigh. Obviously, the gossip had gotten through the grapevine and reached the top. "Technically, she no longer is that. She resigned in the wake of Parson's investigation and went back to Israel. It seemed for a while there she had no intention of returning."

Porter raised an eyebrow, letting him know she knew. "And now?"

"Well, she's staying, from what I hear. Beyond that, your guess is as good as mine," he said. "And there seems to be other things that have developed."

"Yes, I heard," she agreed. She pulled a memo out of her briefcase. "I read your proposal. Do you think this is something she's qualified to do?"

"Madame Secretary, in the five years I worked with her, she became a damn good agent. And with her contacts, I think she would be an asset to this agency, should she accept. If you knew her as well as I do, you'd know she not one to sit around twiddling her thumbs."

"But will she accept?"

He didn't want to voice his doubts, but he knew there had to still be emotional scars she was suffering from, and nothing, not even the promise of a new life, could paper over those scars. "Ma'am, I wish I could give you an answer. But there's a lot between then and now. I'm taking the philosophy of wait and see. Right now, my main concern is Agent DiNozzo's recovery. I have been told that if he stays stable, they'll be performing an additional surgery later today. That's a far as I'm thinking."

The woman nodded. "Fair enough. Please, keep me apprised of it. And contact my secretary. I want to have flowers sent to him."

"With all due respect, Ma'am, Agent DiNozzo isn't exactly the flower type. He is, however, a movie connoisseur," he suggested.

"Really? What is his genre?"

Leon laughed. "From what I hear, anything really. Check in with Agent McGee. He's been to DiNozzo's place and should have an idea of what the man doesn't have."

"I'll do that. Thank you, Leon," she said, extending her hand. He took it and they shook, before she stepped out of his office.

Leon sat back down and looked at the clock. It had been a while since he had checked in with anyone and decided to stretch his legs. He wanted updates, so he began the circuit to get them, starting with picking up a CafPow.