Ziva laid on the couch with a hacky sack in her hand, throwing it up and waiting for it to come back down to her palm. She waited for her husband to get back home. Such an unusual case. It wasn't her case, but she felt connected to it one way or another. A woman and her baby barely alive, much like the type of woman she felt she used to be one day over 10 years ago.

Crimson. Everywhere she looked there was blood gushing out of this woman from wounds recently inflicted. She turned around and saw Tony's face, scared, urgent, total disbelief.

"Call NCIS! Tony, hurry!" Her attention was on the woman and her infant child.

Ziva was meeting Tony for a late lunch. She got out of her car, a few blocks away from the boutique restaurant when she heard moaning and hard breathing behind a dumpster in one alleyway.

Her training told her to get out a gun and walk over slowly, calm and expectant; one problem, she didn't carry a gun in public anymore and she sensed a need to act soon. She was right.

This woman, who looked otherwise like a normal middle class mother, looked as if she had been attacked and left for dead: three stab wounds and a broken wrist. She instantly called 911 and awaited an ambulance's arrival. Tony ran from his building to meet Ziva at the crime scene.

"NCIS? She needs a hospital!"

"An ambulance is coming. Here, this is why we need NCIS-" Ziva gets up with a badge that came off the woman and showed it to her husband. On the white badge it read: Arthur, Sara; Pay grade: O-9, VADM.

Tali was on the way to the kitchen when she saw her mother in the living room (so very unlike her, to just do nothing).

"Whatchu doing?"

Ziva shrugged, "Your hacky sack. It's... fun."

A car door slammed outside, Ziva knew it was Tony back from the hospital. As the footsteps became louder, Ziva made sure she was standing straight like a soldier waiting for a battle plan.

"She a vice admiral?" He quickly ran over to her and grabbed her hand, his investigative skills fully aware of the situation: someone wanted her dead and her occupation could not suggest otherwise. "Who did this to you?" Sara was unresponsive, her eyes closed but still breathing. He took her head and forced her to look at him, but she was so tired. "Sara! Sara! Help is coming and for your baby, but I need to know who did this to you!"

Sara closed her eyes and then re-opened them, her speech was slow and barely audible, "I don't know. Please Zach, make sure he's…"She closed her eyes again, unable to finish the sentence.

"Sara!" This time Ziva was the one speaking. "Can you give us any description of who attacked you?"

"Two men. Both had black tees and work fatigues." She gasped for air, "I recognized one, he works on the fantail most days…"

The ambulance screeched to a halt at the entryway of the alleyway, blaring their horns, and out rushed three medics. One grabbed the baby and the two others lifted her up on the gurney.

"I thought if I acted faster..." He had tossed his keys onto a table by the front door, struggling to put his thoughts together. He told her that the child had survived but the mother had no chance. "Her chances were slim, Zee."

Ziva saw his face;pure dread. His job didn't require any of what he used to do on a daily basis. Death. Crime. Justice. Repeat. She slid her hand down his cheek, "I suppose we both were taken out of our element tonight, hm?" '

"Being separated from the crime scenes for as long as we have...being thrown back into it….it's exhausting."

She understood what he felt more than anyone else. "Has there been a family member to take custody of the child?"

"Grandparents picked her up from the social worker. I made the mistake of sticking around for that." How can you not get emotionally invested and not lose a part of yourself along the way? Tony forgot that basic rule.

"Not a mistake. You felt an obligation. I would have done the same thing." But, she didn't. Tony told her to go pick Tali up from school and stay there. She wasn't too pleased but agreed, nonetheless.

Feel me when I shudder. My mind is too damn scattered to form an objective.

"My whole life I wanted to do the right thing."

"You did do the right thing." She was wrapping her arms around him when that tiny voice peeked out from behind both of their backs; they shared a smile.

"Um, am I interrupting something?" Tali had a sandwich in her hand and spoke through her bites. Ziva instantly saw yet another way her daughter was like her husband.

"Is that pastrami?" Tony licked his lips and tried to steal a bite from Tali. She hopped back and swerved away just in time to gobble the rest up.

"Tony, there's more in the kitchen." Ziva affirmed.

"I have to fix it?" Tony whined. Before Ziva would respond with some hostile threat, he had left the room.

She chuckled to herself and gave Tali a look of satisfaction. "Your father-"

"Yeah, I know." Tali finished her mother's sentence. No need to explain. "But he's still pretty cool."

"Yes. He is still pretty cool."

"I'm what now?!" Tony's voice echoed from the kitchen.

"Nothing!" Ziva hollered back.

"Ziva, I think you called me cool! Tali, am I right?"

Tali was about to answer, but she was interrupted by her mother. "Don't you bring Tali into this!"

She heard Tony laugh and say, "I'll bring Tali into this anytime baby! I got time!"

Tali looked between the two adults and slowly back away, "Uh, Tali is going to her room now...so...bye!"

Tony walked towards Ziva is that sly manner of his, holding a sandwich on a plate "So you admit I'm cool?"

She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "Yeah, Tony, you're cool. You happy?"

He wasn't going to let her off that easy. "How cool?"

Ziva glared at him for a second then grinned. With one smooth move Ziva had taken hold of the sandwich and bit into it. When she put it back down after a gulp, she simply replied "freezing."

Tony still was amazed by her quickness, "Still my little ninja."