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When the doctor told Ziva that she would be released in the morning, she had assumed that Tony would be the one to show up early with clothes and a breakfast burrito, ready to sign her out and drive her to work. She'd been practising what she would say to him since she'd woken at 0500, and now, three hours later, she was ready. So it came as somewhat of a disappointment when Abby tottered through the door with one of Ziva's old Mossad rucksacks.

"Morning, Ziva!" Abby chirped. "Did you sleep okay?"

She wasn't Tony, but Ziva was still happy to see her friend. "Yes, Abby. I slept very well. Thank you."

Abby swung the bag onto the foot of Ziva's bed. "You still okay to leave this morning? Or will I have to bust you out of here in the laundry cart?"

"No, I can leave," Ziva said.

Abby smiled brightly and gestured at the bag. "Got some clothes for you." She paused to make a face. "I assume. I haven't looked. Tony packed it then brought it down to me this morning."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, he asked me to pick you up," Abby explained. "Cuz he's with the agency head doctor."

Ziva frowned, not following the colloquialism.

"Counsellor," Abby said. "He said he got a message last night that he had mandatory counselling this morning."

Ziva's frown deepened as she sat up and pulled the bag into her lap. "From whom?"

Abby shrugged and sat on the end of Ziva's bed. "Didn't say. I assume it came from Vance. I can't imagine that Gibbs would put any of us through it. He doesn't believe in any of that stuff."

Ziva unzipped the bag and saw her favourite jeans and a green shirt she'd caught Tony looking down the front of several times. "Why would Tony need counselling?" she asked. "Aside from the obvious issues he's always needed counselling for."

Abby didn't quite manage to catch her snort. "Um, maybe because he spent last night running around DC, trying to keep his best friend from dying or going insane? That kind of thing can screw with a person's head, Ziva. And their heart. And their fists." She shook her head. "You should see the dash of his car…"

She trailed off when she saw the worry in Ziva's eyes, then tried to backpeddle. "I mean, he's fine. It's just a thing that he's being forced to do."

Ziva nodded slowly and looked into the bag again. "I see. Just give me a minute to change and we can head back to the Navy Yard."

Abby twisted her lips. "Um, Gibbs and Tony made it very clear to me that I was to take you right home."

Ziva dropped her shoulders and rolled her eyes in annoyance. "Oh for the love of…Abby, I am fine. The doctor said I was fine. There is no reason for me to not go to work today."

Abby looked like a deer caught in the headlights. "They said that you would try to talk your way around it, but that I was to remain strong."

Ziva narrowed her eyes slightly and lowered her voice. "Abby, who are you more afraid of? Me, or Tony and Gibbs?"

Abby swallowed. "You," she admitted.

Ziva nodded. "So just give me five minutes, and then we will leave, yes?"

Abby gave in. "Okay. But can we at least tell them that I did drive you home, and then you came in on your own?"

"That would be acceptable."

The bullpen was empty when Ziva walked in just after 0900. Resisting the urge to scream over being ditched, she sat heavily in her chair, then immediately regretted it when a sharp pain stabbed through her ribs. Ziva gritted her teeth and rubbed the area. What she wouldn't give to find out how she'd received that injury.

She booted up her computer and ripped the Post-It in Tony's handwriting (Go home, Ziva) off her monitor. While she waited for the log on screen to appear, she dialled Gibbs.

"Didn't DiNozzo tell you not to come in?" Gibbs answered.

"Tony is not my boss," Ziva replied, controlling her voice. She was starting to get pissed at being handled with child's gloves. "Where are you? I can come help you."

"We got it, Ziva," Gibbs told her. "Go home. Get some rest. We'll keep you updated."

Ziva clenched her jaw. "You cannot expect me to sit at home and do nothing," she argued. "I was buried, Gibbs!"

"And that's why we want you to go home and rest," Gibbs spelt out. "I'll be in the office in 20 minutes. You better not be there when I arrive."

Ziva weighed up the value in continuing to argue the point, and decided it would not get her anywhere now.

"Gibbs?"

"Yah?"

"Did you send Tony to counselling?"

There was a pause, and Ziva had an image of Gibbs shaking his head in irritation on the other end of the line. "Nope." The line went dead.

Not willing to give up yet, Ziva immediately dialled McGee. He picked up after the first ring.

"You know Gibbs is standing right next to me, right?" he said when he answered.

"Damn it!" Ziva yelled, and hung up. She should have guessed. With Tony otherwise occupied, Gibbs would need a substitute number one.

Her log on screen finally came up, and Ziva entered her password so hard her fingers hurt. Stupid Gibbs letting stupid Tony tell her what to do. Stupid McGee for going along with it. Just because they were her family and she'd decided that she loved them all didn't mean that she wasn't ready to pummel them for keeping her off the case. She was fine—why couldn't they just believe her?

She pulled up her email, and sorted the important from the stuff she could immediately delete. All staff notices went straight to the trash, as did an email from a teacher she'd met on a Smithsonian tour three weeks ago. She opened an email from Tony sent at 1821 last night with no subject line (typical of Tony). The body of the email read, If you'd hung around just five more minutes… Ziva opened the attached jpeg and laughed out loud at the photo of McGee making some kind of monster face behind Gibbs' back. She added it to her personal folder.

The last email she came across had been sent at 0540 that morning from Vance's office. It was directing her to attend a mandatory counselling session to discuss the events of the previous night. She was to contact Vance's assistant as soon as possible on her first day back at work, who would then organise a session with the agency counsellor on her behalf.

Ziva's blood ran cold. Before NCIS, she had made it through eight years as a Mossad operative, two years training in the Israeli army, and five more years before that being trained by her father and brother. Never once in all that time had she been required to discuss how she felt about the things she was trained to do, and frankly she was not interested into delving into those feelings now. She hit delete. She would not be contacting Vance's assistant to make that appointment. If they wanted her to go, they'd have to literally drag her in kicking and screaming.

No sooner had she trashed the email for good did Ziva hear Vance's voice from above. She glanced up at the walkway outside MTAC, and saw the man himself chatting and laughing with another man in a boring brown suit. Acting on a ridiculous impulse, Ziva slid off her chair and crouched to the ground, hoping that the Director had not seen her. She counted to 10 and then peered over the top of her desk. Vance was gone, and Ziva made a decision. She would rather spend the day at home than spend it dodging Vance and arguing with Gibbs.

Chapter 9 is up now, where the action picks up a bit again.