A/N: Damn, I spoil you guys! I'm currently at Supply School at USMC Camp Johnson- oorah!- and I have some free time so I thought I would watch the finale online. But the internet is so frikking slow I'm going crazy. So I churned out this little ditty while I was waiting for the video to finish loading. Please understand I have only seen the first 18:10 minutes of the episode, so things may pan out differently from how I am making things out to be at this point. But anyway, here it is!

Enjoy, and let me know what you think. I can check email every now and then here. And now I'm off to find another, hopefully faster computer. Later!

P.S. There's no guarantee I will post anything else in the near future... Go ahead with the assumption I'm poofing again until August. This is Memorial Day weekend, so we all get the weekend off. This is a once in a blue lagoon type thing. :} Kudos to who ever spots that little treasure!


There was something off about the whole thing, Tony decided. Ziva had taken her test, and Gibbs was nowhere to be found. Of anyone in the world, himself excluded, Gibbs would be the one person Tony would have thought to be happy and supportive of Ziva's endeavors. In the past months, the team leader had been the person who had shown the most pride for Ziva. Sure, McGee and Abby were happy for Ziva, but Tony doubted whether or not they truly understood and appreciated the momentous nature of the development in their friend's life. To completely denounce all ties with Israel for the sake of America- in which she had so long been merely a guest- even when tensions were ever mounting in her native country.

Tony knew that a part of her would always want to return to Israel, to work to defend her home from the new threats that seemed to emerge every single day. But she remained true to her decision, and studied and studied until she knew more about American history and politics than Tony himself did. And even as he joked that her citizenship was an outrage, he could tell that she knew how proud he truly was. No amount of joking could hide that, and the gleam in her eye told him that she acknowledged said pride.

Even so, there was a slight reservation in her gaze. She was stiff, and Tony had noticed that she refused to glance towards her left. She didn't want to see the empty desk beside her, didn't want to be reminded that her mentor and staunchest supporter was absent from these moments of pride and congratulation between team members- between family.

It made DiNozzo pause, this change in his partner. It also made him wonder. It felt like more than just a boss being missing, more than an employee being missing.

Gibbs and Ziva had always shared a thing. A weird, indescribable thing that Tony himself could barely understand. He could never be certain if it was the fellow warrior thing, or the lost family thing, or the fact that Gibbs had been the one to give Ziva a chance when all other evidence made available to everyone else said that she was just as dangerous and untrustworthy as her brother. Since then, it had become obvious that she was more dangerous than her brother, but absolutely worth every ounce of trust anyone was capable of giving her. She was loyal, though often conflicted as to whom that loyalty belonged to.

But it was now evident that her loyalty was to the US, to NCIS, to Team Gibbs. And Gibbs himself was absent from what was possibly the most important point in Ziva's life.

And that realization made Tony's gut burn in indignant anger for his partner.

Picking up the phone, Tony threw another snarky comment and Ziva, reveling in the squinty look she shot him in return. It figured though, he thought to himself as he started typing some random number he would shortly be hanging up on in a few minutes.

Things between him and Ziva regained some semblance of normality only when Gibbs had taken it upon himself to cause them both worry and pain. It really was just like Mexico all over again.

Gibbs mirrored Ziva's movements as she repositioned herself in the netting.

He'd been staring at her but talking to Tony, who was looking at him with just as much intensity as his partner. But Gibbs wasn't concerned about Tony. He was concerned about Ziva, her last words to him echoing in his mind as he tried to see something beyond the walls that had been put up in her uncharacteristically cool brown eyes. She was still here, not disappeared, which was some comfort, but it was clear that she had divorced herself from him.

Divorce. The word sent ice through Gibbs' chest.

They weren't married, not in the legal or political sense, but the honest truth was that none of that mattered. He loved her more than he'd loved any of his ex-wives. The fact that he HADN't jumped immediately into a marriage with her was proof enough of that. And now he was faced with the idea that his fourth ex-wife, whom he hadn't even had a chance to marry yet, was sitting across from him scared him more than the daunting task that now lay before him.

But the reminder of said task reminded him of why he had made that particular sacrifice.

Ex-wife Ziva was daunting, frightening, even heart-breaking, but broken, bloody, bullet-through-the-head Ziva was absolutely terrifying. He would do everything and anything in or outside his power to ensure that he was never ever faced with that possibility again.

He fired off something unintelligible, finally tearing his eyes from Ziva's shielded gaze. She had yet to speak to him, and he doubted she would be doing so in the near future. She had been glued to Tony's side since he'd come to meet them on the plane. And by the hard look DiNozzo was peggin him with, Gibbs knew that Tony was ready to step up once more to protect the team. And Ziva was part of that team.

Tony would protect her, and for now, that would have to be enough.