Previously: (Tony) "Will you marry me, Ziva David?"

There was a two-second pause. She stared at him incredulously. I stopped to turn and see her reaction. A single gun-shot sounded over all the others.

I could not make out if the scream was mine or Ziva's or both. All I could comprehend in those two seconds was the circle of red that was growing on Tony's lower abdomen.

The Eraser I'd been fighting must have mustered its wits then. It picked up its gun and thrust it toward my forehead. I crumpled to the ground. When I put my hand to my injury, it came away red. My vision was turning blurry.

I thought I must have been hallucinating, because the last thing I saw before the world went black couldn't have been real. I saw a four-year-old racing up the hill from which we'd come and two frantic men chasing after her.

"Is she dead?"

"No, stupid, she's just sleeping."

"She looks dead."

"Don't be so ignorant."

"Hey, don't talk to her like that!"

"Defensive, much?"

"All of you, shut up! I think she's waking up!"

"Really?"

"Sh!"

"Max? Are you awake?"

I tried to open my eyes. They were greeted by a harsh white light outlining at least a dozen concerned faces hanging over me. I shut them.

"She's awake," confirmed Angel. "Hey, Max, how ya feelin'?"

A slur of Gibberish flooded through my lips.

"What, Max?"

I tried again.

"I think she wants us to heard sheep," Gazzy guessed.

"She said 'Shut up. I'm trying to sleep,'" a familiar voice told them.

Ignoring the horrible burning when I did so, I opened my eyes again. It had, in fact, been Gibbs who had spoken. He was leaning against the doorway of my hospital room, looking the same as ever. His silver hair was combed to perfection. His dark blue polo shirt, suit jacket, and white undershirt were just as crisp as the first time I had met him. But maybe, just maybe, there were a few extra lines in his face than when we first met. And his cocky smirk had a little less arrogance and a little more exhaustion.

Standing around my bed, cleaner than I've seen them in days, was the Flock. They all had a few bruises, casts, and band-aids, but they were relatively in one piece. Ducky, Palmer, McGee and Abby were standing among them, with the same air of concern.

I counted heads. I counted again. My throat closed up. I didn't want to ask. But I had to.

"Where are Tony and Ziva?" I asked hesitantly. The red-haired woman, Jenny, was also missing. But her absence didn't give me the same feeling of loss. More curiosity. I didn't need to know where she was.

Gibbs's face grew solemn. The silence in the room grew thick and suffocating.

"You've been out for a while, Max," I heard Nudge say. I didn't look at her. I stared straight at Gibbs, looking for answers.

"Where?" I persisted. I had to know that I hadn't led them to their deaths.

"Tony just got out of surgery. Ziva is with him," Gibbs answered.

I stood from my lumpy hospital bed, ignoring the blooming pain in my forehead. "Where?"

"I'll take you. Along the way, I can explain… things," said Jenifer Shepherd, appearing mysteriously in the doorway.

I nodded and followed her down the hallway.

"Where do you want me to start?" she asked, as we made our way through the maze of passages.

"Start with what happened after I went down," I said.

"You're not going to believe it, but I'm going to tell you a lot of things that will be hard for you to believe right now," she began. I simply nodded again, curious as to what she meant by that. "After you went down, the Erasers started to overwhelm our side, and those who could fly had to do so just to have some kind of advantage. Everyone on the ground was busy trying to protect you and Tony, while Iggy tried to stop the bleeding. Without him, you'd both probably be dead. But I digress.

"Even with the mutants' help, we were outnumbered, and their reinforcements just kept coming. That was, until the Gasman blew the whole building, and everyone in it, to bits."

"Director Vance?" I asked.

"As far as we know, he died with the rest of Itex," Jenny replied.

"No body?" I guessed. She shook her head. "What about the rest of the Erasers?"

"This is where the story gets a little… weird, for lack of a better word. Tell me: what was the last thing you saw before you fainted?"

I shrugged. "The Eraser hit me with the butt of his gun." A lie. I wasn't sure what I'd seen. But I wasn't about to tell this lady I barely knew about what could very well have been a hallucination. That is, until she gave me a reason to.

She seemed to deflate a bit. "Nothing else?"

Something in the way she said it crumbled my resolve. What could go wrong if I just told her? "Well, not exactly. I thought I saw Eliza—I mean, a little girl running up the hill, but I figured I'd just imagined it."

"You didn't. Elizabeth was there. She saved all of our lives," Jenny explained.

My mouth dropped open. "Whaaaa?" was all I could get to come out of it.

"Elizabeth Batchelder was born to be part of an army of mutant warriors that Itex was building. They figured if they started the training at birth, the children would never be capable to have minds of their own.

"Lizzy was their prize possession. Every child had a unique talent and a unique test that they had to pass every day to be fed or given water. She was the best-nourished in their "collection." They thought her talents limitless. She had everything from telekinesis to telepathy to the unimaginable. Her tests got harder and crueler day by day. She passed every single one. They started injecting her with a newly tested hormone that would speed up her aging process until she reached the age of eight. That way, they would be able to use her sooner.

"Or so they thought, until her father, Jeb Batchelder, got tired of watching them use his daughter. He rescued her and dropped her off at Gibbs' door for you to find and save. Or maybe he knew she would save you. Either way, after you went down in the battle, Elizabeth ran over that hill. With one look, all of our enemies fell to the ground. Whatever she did, it was pretty amazing."

She gave me a moment to digest all of this information.

Once I had finally swallowed her speech, I asked, "And where do you fit into all of this?"

"I led Jeb to Gibbs. Then I killed Jeb," she answered casually.

I froze in the middle of the hallway. Nurses and doctors gave me dirty looks. "You did, did you? Well, I guess I should thank you, then. My father was scum," I said, trying to keep any emotion from leaking through my voice. I didn't even know what I was feeling at the moment.

"No, Max. Your father was a good man," Jenny promised.

"I guess that's why you killed him, then," I growled. Her constantly contradicting herself was seriously rubbing me the wrong way. Why don't people just say what they mean anymore?

"He was already dying, Max. They were slowly poisoning him, because they suspected his treachery. It wasn't the first time he'd stolen one of their experiments and plotted against them. You're not the only one who got tired of his constant switching sides," she replied, sending me a pointed look.

"Okay. I get it. But one thing I'm still not getting is how you ended up in the middle of this. Didn't Nudge say that you used to be the director of NCIS? How did you get mixed up with Itex?" I asked, pretending I was completely following her story.

"I was sick. Slowly dying from terminal cancer. My doctor contacted a scientist, a man he went to college with, who claimed he could save me… for a price. Well, I had nothing to lose. I was as good as dead, anyway. I met with the scientist from Itex, and he said he could cure my illness and get me a job with his company. But I would have to cut all of my ties with the outside world. All of the people who knew me would have to think me dead. I didn't think I had any choice. So, I let him take a DNA sample as he instructed. They made a clone, an almost exact copy, and sent her into the gunfire to die for me."

"Woah, woah, woah! Wait just a second. You didn't find any of this strange or suspicious at the time?" I asked, cutting into her story.

"Of course I did. I thought they were all insane," she replied, laughing a little, "but when you know you're about to die, you aren't exactly afraid to take chances." Her face took on a bit of a mournful look as she remembered.

"But what happened after they had you?" I asked, my curiosity winning over my need for courtesy.

"They cured me, as promised, but they kept me and tested me for years," she explained.

"Wait, so the scientists had a cure for terminal cancer, and they only used it to save one person?" I questioned. I know I'm not the most educated girl in the world, but hasn't finding a cure for cancer been, like, a big thing for a while? I wasn't surprised that they had been the first to figure it out. As insane and creepy as they were, they were equally smart. That's what made them so dangerous. But I'd always sort of wondered what would happen if they'd been the first ones to come up with something that could be so beneficial.

"They had their own agenda. Think about it, Max. I was the director of a federal agency. My "death" meant that they were able to plant their own spy into the government…"

"And they could get away with a lot of creepy, insane stuff because Vance was "leading" the case," I finished. She nodded. I felt sick. We stopped in front of a wooden door.

"This is it," Jenny announced, pushing the door open.

I covered my mouth with my hand to muffle the embarrassingly girly noise that wanted to escape.

The small hospital room was painted an irritatingly bright, cheerful blue. All kinds of beepy medical machines were placed around an uncomfortable-looking bed pushed against the far wall. In that bed, his waist wrapped up in gauze like a mummy, laid Anthony DiNozzo. He looked unnaturally pale and strangely peaceful. If it weren't for the steady beep, beep, beep from the heart monitor and his chest's constant rising and falling, I would have thought him dead.

Ziva, looking to be in even worse shape, sat in a fold-up chair next to him. Her slim, tan hand was wrapped around his. She was wearing the same clothes she was wearing during the fighting, but now they were wrinkly as if she had slept in them. Her round, exotically beautiful face was streaked with tear stains, and her brown eyes were sparkling with the appearance of more waterworks.

"She hasn't left his side since we arrived. You should have heard her growl at the nurse who informed her that she wasn't allowed to sit in during the surgery," Jenny whispered in my ear. Her mouth twitched up in the corner.

Ziva looked up when we entered. She simply nodded in our direction and went back to staring at Tony's face. The way she looked at him made me think she felt that she could wake him up just by sheer will.

"How is he?" I asked, just for something to say. I tried not to let any guilt slip into my voice.

"The doctor says he will be fine." Her voice was rough and thick from crying.

"Well… that's good news. Did she give you an estimated time of when he'll wake up?" I asked, studying his still face. It gave me the creeps.

"No."

"Look, I'm sorry I got you into this mess, and I don't apologize to just anyone. What I'm trying to say, Ziva—"

I broke off mid-sentence. I could have sworn I'd heard a moan. All eyes shifted to Tony.

"Was that…?"

Another moan. It had definitely come from Tony. Ziva was shaking his hand now.

"Tony? Tony, can you hear me?" she asked frantically, letting fresh tears flow.

He shifted, mumbling an incoherent slur of words. Apparently, Ziva had understood, because she smiled a little bit.

"What? What'd he say?" I asked, turning to Jenny, who was also smiling.

She shook her head a little bit. "'I've seen this movie.'"

When I turned back to Tony, his eyes fluttered open. I almost cried in relief. But that would be un-super-cool-emotionally-controlled-Max of me.

Tony's eyes searched Ziva's for a moment. She stared back. Then, all of a sudden, her lips were on his in a frenzy of passion and longing. Tony responded immediately, with an equal measure of intensity. It was completely out-of-the-blue. Jenny and I could think of nothing to do but stand there awkwardly.

I coughed. I mean, sure they had just spilled years of bottled-up emotions and unspoken words into one spontaneous action. But there were other people in the room. They should really learn a little something called self-control. Fang and I didn't just go around making out in public.

Though they physically separated, their gazes never broke from each other's. "Yes," said Ziva.

"Yes?" echoed Tony.

"Yes, I will marry you," she clarified.

"Awww! O. My. Zebra-printed-skinny-jeans! I have to help you find a dress! Who's gonna be your bridesmaids? What are you thinking for catering? Iggy makes a mean five-layered cake!" Nudge rambled excitedly, bursting through the door.

"It's true," agreed Iggy, following her into the room.

I know I probably should have been wondering where they had come from and how they managed such amazing timing. But all I could think was, Zebra-printed skinny jeans? Is that what the 'Z' in Z.O.M.G. stands for? Then wouldn't the 'Z' come last, in place of the 'G'?

I was starting to think I needed therapy. Is it usual to be wondering about strange acronyms just after going through a traumatic experience and learning a bunch of new, really creepy stuff? Or maybe it's just a "me" thing? I'd have to ask Ducky. Apparently, he had some kind of degree in psychology. But I digress.

The rest of the Flock and Team Gibbs had filed in behind Nudge and Iggy. I don't think that little hospital room was meant to hold so many people at one time. I was seriously starting to feel some claustrophobia.

Gibbs approached DiNozzo's bed slowly. The look on his face made me thankful I wasn't Tony.

"Uh-Boss-I know about Rule #12, but I really love her, and I think…. Boss? I-I'm injured. I think this hospital has a strict policy about head-slapping patients…" he begged, keeping a watchful eye on the older man.

"You didn't injure your head, DiNozzo. Well, at least, not in the battle. I'm sure your parents dropped you on it at least once or twice as a child," put in McGee, who was watching from a safe distance. He seemed best off after all of the fighting. There was an amused twinkle in his dark eyes and a smirk pulling one corner of his mouth upward. His only injury was a small cut on his forehead. Not to mention, his arm was wrapped around Abby's.

"OW!" Tony shouted, as Gibbs' palm made contact with the back of his head. "Hey! You didn't Gibbs-slap McGoof-Ball over there! If you haven't noticed, he's having some in-office McRomance as well! Wow, two McNicknames in one statement! I must be feeling better!" Tony exclaimed, his eyes lighting up.

Gibbs, smirking a little, pushed through the crowd to McGee. Seeing his fate was inevitable, the young geek turned around and offered his head to Gibbs. There was a satisfying smack!

Then, the unexpected happened. Gibbs strode over to Jenny, planted one right on her unsuspecting mouth, and once he had pulled back, reached behind him and gave himself a smack on the head.

We all stared, open-mouthed. Gibbs studied all of our expressions emotionlessly.

"Satisfied? Now, if you all wouldn't mind, I wanna talk to Max alone for a minute," he said, jerking his head toward the door.

Confused, I nodded and followed him out into the hallway.

"What is it?" I asked.

"How would you and your Flock like to join my team?"

A/N: Yeah, it's a bit rushed. Yeah, a lot of stuff happens. But I like it. So there. Also, I'd like to know if I should go straight to the epilogue from here, or add in another chapter for Max's immediate reaction? I really, really, really, really want your opinion, so please review!