Author's Note: Hey guys, hope everyone that has been reading still finds a liking for the fic. I haven't heard from anyone from the last two chapters so I hope everyone's okay and that I'm doing a decent job with the fic. Later Days--GEEK.

Chapter 15: No Room For Team Players

Ziva had not been pleased in the slightest with Tony, and she made sure that he absorbed the full extent of her discomfort while being stuck inside the back of one of the many planes they had to travel on, in order to get to Tel Aviv.

She the others to be stupid, but not as stupid as Tony. His reason for wanting to see her held no weight as she took note to his selfishness and made sure he knew exactly her opinion on his visitation. Pure foolishness from him; how he ever he thought his departure would go unnoticed was beyond her.

An unaccounted for team mate on Gibbs' team always needed a reason--a damn good one, too. Whether it was general, or rather personal, if he was uninformed to their lack of presence he would take it upon himself and the remaining team members, to develop a strategy to find out their whereabouts and never rest until they found the location of said missing person. That was just the way he operated--the way he expected his counter-parts to operate.

Tony had not literally disappeared, but his wheeling and dealing with the Director of NCIS did enough damage to the entire team. If he thought about his decision before he pounded on the large door of Director Shepard's office a few days prior to his current location, things would be different. Of course, decisions in the life of Anthony DiNozzo were more, rather than less, spontaneous--and completely out of left field. He never played, he never pondered--he only created an idea and he acted on it.

Gibbs would never be able to blame him for requesting time off nor would he be able to put in a request that he should be taken off the team and forced onto the streets outside of NCIS Headquarters, and perhaps somewhere in the back of Tony's mind, he knew this. He knew that he served Gibbs well for all these years and that he owned a great deal of righteousness to be able to do the right thing without having Gibbs be any part of it.

The right thing was laughable because each team member felt that they each had been right about certain things, on certain levels, and at certain times.

When Ziva disregarded the fact she fled from the team, on her own terms, she felt right about her decision to leave them behind in order to find a new life for herself. Naturally her initial thought had been to try and glue the broken pieces back together, but Gibbs left no room for her do so. With each one of her advances, he knocked her backwards one step at a time until they both managed to put their guard down for once.

Once. That's all it was. One time, on a beautiful sunny Spring day looking out at the waterfront. It wasn't enough, but it was so much more than either of them had seen in their future--together; side by side without hatred for one another and severe discomfort with themselves and their thoughts. They had been at peace, if only for a moment--and though their future seemed promising, there hadn't been enough time left in that day or any other day, to really paint a picture.

That seemed about right because the canvas needed for this painting of a picture had already been blackened with dirtiness. Their relationship had went beyond the point of any return, and even if there hadn't been a line defining what was beyond and what was not, their thick heads would keep them apart from one another for as long as they both had their strength.

So right she was for leaving. Right she had been for escaping the states with Michael, only moments before dropping in on Tony and giving him a proper goodbye, and finding just sliver enough of time to tack a quickly written letter to Gibbs' boat. Of course the latter had been constructed poorly on her part, but part of her, then, felt as if she did not owe Gibbs more than ink on a paper.

Gibbs wouldn't let anyone get away with the notion that they had knocked him down; that they left him beaten and defeated--so he didn't. He got to her very core moments after she knocked him flat on his back between her apartment entryway and the outside hallway. Telling her to leave was the only thing his last nerve could make him do to her--to hurt her.

It had only been a few days later when things really started to get to him--to his very core. So in order to deal, bourbon had been his first-class ticket on a trip around a care-free world, completely unlike his own--despite what Ducky had to say about his fixation on the darkened liquor and any other team member that dared to make words with him whenever they found a free moment.

All would have served him right if he ever put his walls down. Gibbs kept his walls up--way, way, way up. Even with the invasion of Hollis, he never allowed her a moment to swarm through his layers and sting him like a bee.

His decision to let Ziva go--to send her back to her country had been a diversion created from an impulse that had come about because of her constant badgering of him--and every waking moment he spent trying to talk to her; trying to get her to understand that he felt just as miserable as she.

All these decisions. Decisions made from these individuals---about each other caused such an earth-shattering quake. Each individual wanting to take their decisions as the righteous thing to do, because they more or less had this insanely large issue with pride--or because their inner-anger needed a subtle way of showing itself, and despite everything that they were taught by each other and others around them, they forgot about all of it in order to please themselves--to better themselves…

…but they failed.

They failed each other, and then they failed themselves.