Word Count: 1,045/1,617

Author's Note: Here's the second chapter. I'm glad you all have enjoyed the first part. Let me know what y'all think on this one.

Fae


Chapter 02

Twenty minutes later, Gibbs rounded the partition into the bullpen to see Silene standing there, staring at the closed elevator doors. "Not in a hurry to pack up?" he asked, taking a sip of his coffee.

She shook her head. "No. I don't actually have to go anywhere."

He nodded. He had expected that. Silene was like McGee in that way. They would both be staying in DC. As long as she didn't have to go somewhere else for a case. He didn't want to think about that happening. Sure, she had always been fine in the past, but she would be working with them for the foreseeable future.

He had no idea who she would be partnered with. He just hoped it would be someone who would watch her back, and look beyond the masks she wore. She had let go of some of her more eccentric practices over the years she had been at NCIS, but she was still more than most people were willing to handle.

Even after four years on the same team, McGee still didn't recognize the genius behind the ditz.

He may have to pay a visit to her new partner, warn him or her that if anything happened to Silene on their watch, he would be gunning for them.

"Take care of yourself, Silene," he said suddenly. He didn't want her to take the sort of risks she always took. Not without him or DiNozzo there to have her six.

"I'll be fine, Gibbs," she said, looking up with him with a bittersweet smile. "I'm adaptable. I always have been. If I can't work for you, there's nowhere I'd rather be than the DMLE. Jade will fully utilize my skills while giving me as much leeway as you do. But I'm worried about Tony. Agent Afloat is a death sentence for someone like him. Not to mention his skills will be completely wasted on a ship. He's a better agent than that."

Jethro nodded. "He needs the fast pace of the MCRT."

Silene shook her head. "He needs the fast pace of working for you. No one else utilizes him to the fullest. They don't understand his masks."

Jethro sighed. She wasn't wrong about that. There was a reason why DiNozzo had been going on seven years with him, as opposed to the approximately two years at each of the three police departments he had been at prior to joining NCIS.

"I'll get you back," Jethro said. "All of you."

She just smiled at him, hesitating slightly and glancing around the bullpen to make sure they were alone. "Listen, LJ," she said seriously. "Don't tell him this, but- If Vance gives you a choice, if he makes you pick one or the other, I don't mind staying at the DMLE if it's the only way to bring Tony home."

"Why?" Jethro asked. He was pretty sure he knew, but he wanted to hear her say it.

"Tony needs this team more than I do. Especially now. He needs to know that you still want him, that you don't blame him."

That- wasn't what he had been expecting. "Why would I blame him? It wasn't his fault. Jenny was gonna do what she wanted, even if he had tailed her."

"You know that and I know that, but Gibbs- You and I both know that if Tony could find a way to blame himself for global warming, he would."

"Ah, hell," Jethro said with a grimace. "I'm gonna hafta go talk to him tonight, aren't I?"

"If you don't want him to self-destruct while he's gone, then, yes. Let him know that you don't blame him and that you will be doing everything you can to bring him home."

"Why do you keep saying it like that?"

She shot him a look and he sighed, running a hand over his face.

Yeah, he knew what she meant. If he ever got his hands on DiNozzo, Sr. He shook his head, resigned. "I'll talk to him," he promised her.

"I'll see you around, Gibbs," Silene said, going over to pack up her stuff.

"Hey," Jethro said seriously, causing her to turn. "I will get you back. You and Tony both."

She smiled at him. "I know," she said, as if it were that simple.

He supposed it was. As far as she was concerned, at any rate. He still couldn't understand how someone who had suffered as much as he suspected she had could possibly be so trusting and innocent. More importantly, he couldn't understand why she had latched on to him to put that trust in.

It's not as if he deserved it. He was as fallible as any human. Worse, really. And yet, she had still chosen him.

It was the same childlike innocence and trust that Abby had, as if he had hung the moon. He was their Superman, always swooping in to save the day and catching the bad guy. Always there, always strong. Granted, that unshakeable belief had suffered a little after his trip to Mexico two years ago, but they had worked through that.

But it was different, too. Abby didn't know all of his secrets. Silene did. She knew all of his dirty laundry. Everything that he had ever tried to hide. And she didn't blame him for it. She still believed in him.

They had only just gotten back on an even keel after his amnesia, retirement and subsequent reinstatement, along with the mess that Jenny had gotten Silene and DiNozzo tangled up in over Rene Benoit. He wasn't going to do anything to screw that up.

He was going to get them back. Both of them. He wouldn't let Vance know how much he wanted the two of them back. He wouldn't let it be forced into a choice between the two of them. If he had to, he'd arrange it so that Vance made him choose between DiNozzo and McGee, and Silene and Ziva.

He liked the younger two, but he could do without them. He couldn't do without Tony and Silene.

He had lost his family once, and had somehow earned the right to have a second one. He wasn't going to lose them again.