A/N: This took longer than expected. I'm still not sure how I feel about it. I guess I'll just have to see how you all like it, eh? Oh, and even though the chapter title is "The End", this is not the final chapter. Just fyi. :D Enjoy!

A tense shroud of silence hung over the Sanctuary, clinging to Residents like a fog. The absence of so many had gripped its collective heart in a vise, squeezing until it was all they could do to simply breathe. Days were passed performing the most essential of tasks, with nights spent silent around solemn fires. There were no games played, no music shared. Only the taut apprehension of what the morning might bring.

Within a day, Tony and Tim had begun to plan for the worst. There was no guarantee Gibbs and his war party would ever return, even if the Bloods stayed away. For all they knew, those left behind could wait years, hoping, only for the entire force to have been slaughtered in the first week. And if that happened, it was up to the Council to keep the Residents together, cohesive and alive.

And so they planned. They drew up contingencies for every scenario they could conceive of, and then some. Lists and game plans, and outlines to implement each with the least amount of jarring to the Residents. But even as they drowned themselves in their task, as much to avoid the wait as anything else, Abby withdrew. Planning for the worst asked it to happen, and she staunchly refused to contribute. They didn't ask twice. That left her with nothing to distract her but a lonely little girl.

Solemn for the first time in her life, Tali was stuck in the lonely purgatory of youth—not yet old enough to express herself, but wise enough to recognize the gloom for what it was. Abby saw her bright blue eyes take in the empty courtyards, and knew she heard the hidden sobs that escaped into the dark of the night. Without her father, her Big Bear, and her mother—too briefly a part of her life, but no less dear—the rambunctious child had disappeared, leaving only a morose shade in her place.

Together, they spent quiet hours in the Garden, or along the edge of the woods, seeking the solitude of the forest without daring to be out of sight from the others. More than once Abby soothed spontaneous tears, holding Tali tight while keeping her own grief carefully shrouded.

But somehow, together, they held themselves kept breathing long enough to see the Runner come sprinting into camp, exhausted to the point of collapse. They converged on him in time to hear of the Victory in the City. The Bloods are dead and the Survivors return, he got around heavy pants of breath. And they return with more than they left with.

Abby refused to get her hopes up about what he might have meant, but then the Runner met her gaze, and delivered a beaming smile. He nodded once, deliberately, before he let himself be escorted to the nearest home.

Her heart lifted, but the apprehension of the others kept celebration at bay. There were small smiles of hope, but no grins. Sighs of relief, but no laughs. They would not allow themselves any greater reaction until their people came home. Because though the battle was won… some still lost. Not everyone would be coming back. Some had fallen.

But when the rumble of the first seven-ton drifted to them through the trees, they all came together like moths to a flame, milling stiffly as they anxiously waited. A mottled green snout crawled down the gravel road, and as one they released their collective breath. The foremost among them stepped towards the emerging vehicle, and as though the dam had been broken, bodies came flooding from the tree line. With excited shouts they surged towards their home, and the families they had left behind.

Abby gathered Tali into her arms and shouldered her way past hugging couples and tearful reunions, searching for her own homecoming warriors. A fist clenched her heart as she peered into each truck that passed, knowing Ziva must be riding. The trip would have been too arduous on foot. But the first yielded no Ziva, and no Gibbs— nor did the second or third. The fourth she skipped altogether, intuitively knowing that their intrepid leaders would have secured their proper place at the rear of the convoy. First to fight, last to leave. Last to come home.

The fifth and final vehicle squealed to a halt just as she came abreast of it, and Tali's arms tightened around Abby's neck, as though she too could feel that this was the right one. As they moved towards the rear hatch, there came the sound of gravel crunching beneath familiar feet, and then they rounded the bumper and there was Gibbs, shoulders heavy with exhaustion and relief, his back turned as he reached back into the truck bed to help Ziva scoot forward until her legs dangled twistedly over the edge.

Tali screamed something unintelligible—it might have been mommy or daddy, or any combination therein—simultaneously deafening Abby and launching herself from the Goth's arms. Gibbs caught the flying girl, barely, and wordlessly passed her up to her mother. Thin arms accepted the gift of toddler without hesitation, returning Tali's fierce grip with a desperate squeeze of her own.

Abby watched, trying to focus on the beauty of the reunion playing out in front of her, and not on the new shadows that lurked in Ziva's tearful eyes. She tried not to see the not-quite-right set of her friend's nose, or the fresh bruises and lingering stains of blood on her hands. And she used Gibbs' warm, welcome hug to turn away from the unmistakable shape of a shrouded body riding atop the stack of supply crates that lined the back of the truck bed.

"It's over, Abs," he murmured in her ear, as though reading her mind.

She squeezed him tighter, burying her face in his shoulder. "You promise?"

His hand came up to stroke the back of her neck, the touch reassuring. "I promise."

And just like that, her fears were banished—if not her uneasiness at what they still faced. They all needed time to heal, Ziva most of all. It wouldn't be easy; nothing about this life was easy. But they were together, and that was what counted. Everything else would follow, as it always would.

Abby pulled away from Gibbs, though his hand continued to rest between her shoulder blades, as she wiped her eyes and turned to Ziva. Her own pale hand reached out to brush the scarred skin of Ziva's arm. To her surprise, and relief, the arm reached out and pulled her in, inviting her to join the embrace. Abby came willingly, and though the unforgiving metal of the truck's tailgate dug into her ribs, she pressed even closer. Her arms wrapped around mother and child in an ungainly reach, feeling the pieces of her heart click into their proper place at last.

"Ziva!" The shout was Tony's, but none of them reacted until he skidded to a stop at the rear bumper, Tim close on his heels. Abby imagined Tony's eyes misted over briefly before his stoicism reasserted itself, and that Tim's lower jaw worked soundlessly for a bit before Ziva reached for them too, turning their hug into a huddle. With Ziva on one side, and Gibbs on the other, and the team sandwiched between them, suddenly…

They were whole again.