Amina's husband briefly interrupted their game to say goodbye to Amina. There was a small stampede as all the children who could walk left the house as a small herd, shrieking and cheering.

"I feel sorry for him," Amelia commented, wincing as the door slammed amongst childish giggles.

"I am sure he will retrieve your husband for backup," Amina dismissed, frowning intently at her tiles.

"Almost definitely," Amelia agreed.

"Ha! Twelve points," Amina said happily, fishing around the bag for more tiles. "That puts me in first place."

"By one point!" Liu pointed out, who was now in second place. "And it is my turn."

In which she quickly regained her first-place position. Seven points ahead. Something Amina did not appreciate. Probably because Liu was being infuriatingly smug about it.

"The game is only halfway through," Ziva reminded the student.

Plenty of time for someone to beat her. Though, from the look of her own tiles it wasn't going to be Ziva. Seriously, what could she do with three l's and no vowels?

She tried to add an 'L' and a 'Y' to "fub" but was informed by Amelia that that wasn't a word.

"You can't make nouns adverbs," she was told. "Only adjectives. And only if they describe a verb."

Ziva sighed. She hadn't been completely certain that "funly" was a word but she thought it was worth a try. It would have gotten rid of one of her l's. Unhappily, she placed a 'D' at the end of "hope". At least that put her firmly out of last place now.

"So, I assume nothing interesting happened in work today?" Liu asked.

Ziva raised an eyebrow at her. "How so?"

"You are here, aren't you? If something big happened you would either still be at work or refusing to come."

Ziva opened and closed her mouth, unable to come up with some sort of defence. Liu had a point, she supposed...

"An old... colleague of my boss turned up," Ziva told them, though colleague was probably the wrong way to describe Mike Franks.

"Did he give you any stories on Agent Gibbs?" Amelia asked curiously.

"We didn't have time," Ziva said regretfully.

Mike was normally good for Probie-Gibbs stories too. But it would pretty insensitive to ask him when his son was dying. Even the boys had enough sense not to ask. And then he was gone when it was all over, with his son's wife who they never met. It was all quite mysterious in the end. A bit of a sad love story as well. O'Neil's wife had no one now that he was gone. Except for a father in law that she didn't know. A foreigner, a refugee in a strange country.

Ziva snapped back to the present to see her friends staring at her.

"Why do I feel like there is actually a story there?" Amelia asked suspiciously.

Noticing that it was her turn, Ziva quickly focused on her tiles in hope that Amelia would get the hint. She didn't.

"Oh, Ziiiiivaaa."

"I thought Francisca was the nosey one."

The Mexican woman was suspiciously silent on this matter. They all turned to look at her.

"What?" she shrugged. "I have nothing to say except that your Mike Franks has good taste in living in Mexico."

They all rolled their eyes at that. One minute Francisca would be praising Mexico to the heavens and the next she would be calling it a hell hole. You could never win with her.

"Aren't you interested in what Ziva is thinking about?" Amelia pressed, trying to get the older woman on her side

As if that was more likely to make Ziva break. Ha! She had withstood tortures much greater than a persistent Francisca. Well, maybe not much greater but still.

"Yes. Of course, I am."

"Then why aren't you asking about it?" Amelia asked in exasperation.

"I thought maybe you would be able to do the work for once."

"Francisca!"

"What?" she asked with wide, innocent eyes. "You always say that you do not like it when I go on and on and on and on at people. You say that I am too much."

"Well, we need that now." Amelia gave her a disgruntled look.

"So?" Francisca asked expectantly.

Amelia sighed heavily and waved her hand. "Go."

Francisca beamed and Ziva tried to squash the sinking feeling in her stomach. She was not scared of a small, elderly Mexican woman. She wasn't!

"So, what happened? Was it gruesome? Was it sad? Wait, I don't want to know if it was sad. Did you get the bad guy? Is he going to prison? Did your boss' old boss get to work with you? Did-"

Ziva held up her hand in an effort to stop her. Surprisingly, it worked. Unfortunately, it meant that she had to actually tell them something.

"It's kind of a sad love story," Ziva said in an effort to make it sound unattractive.

"Oh, my favourite kind," Amina said.

They all looked at her.

"What?"

"Sad love stories are depressing," Amelia complained.

"That is life, is it not?" Liu asked.

"Life's not all depressing, Liu!"

"Yes, it is," she muttered darkly, poking at her tiles.

"Time for your mother's monthly phone call?" Amelia asked sympathetically.

Liu laughed in a self-deprecating manner.

"It was not much of a phone call."

Ziva winced in sympathy. Liu's mother had still not given up on her insistence on Liu finding a husband as soon as she returned to China.

"Reconsidering that Masters?" Amina asked only half-teasing.

"At this rate, I'll happily do a PhD."

That got Ziva raising her eyebrows. Liu, despite stereotypes, did not like studying. Nor was it the only thing she did. She was quite happy to get a basic college education and then try to get work in her field of study. Or, rather, that was her original plan. It didn't look like that was the case anymore.

Liu let her head drop to the table, upsetting the tiles on the board.

"Why can't she just let me be?"