Recap: Sunday, 25th October 2009. (Drama ahead.)

~ Small Objects & Lots of Trouble ~

Gibbs stopped short when he entered his bedroom. For the past few minutes he had tried to locate Ziva and now had found her next to his open nightstand.

"Ziva!"

The small girl looked up at him, unfazed at Gibbs' sudden appearance or tense posture.

"Give me the gun," he carefully approached her, ready to take the weapon out of her hand as soon as he was close enough to her. Much like he would do it with a suicidal suspect.

Gibbs' eyes scanned over her hand and the gun. The agent felt his heart stop momentarily as he noticed that the safety was off and the gun fully loaded. To make matters worse Ziva had her fingers on the trigger.

"That's no toy," he quietly commented, his hand only inches away from taking the weapon.

Mini-Ziva frowned at him, before she looked back at the firearm.

Gibbs could hear his blood rushing through his veins as he knelt in front of the little girl. Slowly putting his hand out...

-"Lo"- Ziva exclaimed loudly and held the gun closer to her small chest.

"Ziv, please give me the gun." He calmly ordered, while he briefly wondering how a heart attack felt like.

Ziva scrambled a bit away from him, looking very confused. "T'at Mine..."

"If you would know how right you are about that," thought Gibbs, scolding himself for forgetting about the weapon in his nightstand. He had confiscated it from 'grown-up Ziva' when she had spent the night at his house, right after Mossad had tried to burn her.

He had wanted to make sure that she wouldn't turn and run in virtue of being suspended to an uncertain future.

Back then Gibbs hadn't wanted to get shot by his jittery agent in the middle of the night, but now it seemed as if this was a very likely scenario if he couldn't get the firearm from his shrunken agent.

"Why haven't I given the damn thing back to her sooner..."

(Flashback)

"Hey," Gibbs called out as he saw Ziva passing his open bedroom door, "I think that belongs to you." With a smirk he held the gun out to her.

Ziva only looked at it, a small smile on her face, "You can give it back to me when I actually need it, yes?"

Gibbs sighed inaudible, but put the gun into his nightstand anyway, under the watchful eyes of his agent. He knew that Vance would have taken care of all formalities by the time they would've arrived back at work, although with her watching him he couldn't just pocket the weapon right now.

xxxxxx

The firearm being buried in oblivion when Ziva had gotten her new NCIS issued firearm.

(Flashback End)

"Ziv..."

Her eyes snapped to his blue ones. She frowned at the open display of emotions in Gibbs' eyes, not knowing why the team leader suddenly was acting so strange.

Handling a weapon was nothing new to her and her parents never reacted like this. Although her mother would often scold her father, ordering him to lock his weapons away and not letting her play with them.

Was Gibbs against weapons, too? He was carrying one himself, every now and then... Ziva squinted at the firearm. Maybe it was better when she did as told.

With a sigh she clumsily made the gun's magazine drop to the floor, not bothering or rather forgetting to put the safety back on beforehand.

Gibbs stared at his shrunken agent in complete shock. Only when he felt the cold metal hit his fingers he remembered to breath again.

Stunned, he looked at his palm where the firearm now rested. "Thanks," he muttered, closing his eyes briefly.

Mini-Ziva wordlessly held the magazine out to him, her eyes harboring thousand questions.

Her innocent gaze made something inside of Gibbs snap. It wasn't normal for a child to do something like that. And in the wrong way off all things, too.

Laying the weapon and its magazine on a high shelf he turned back to Mini-Ziva.

"Ziva, do you even realized what you just did?" He roughly grabbed her by the arms and made her sit on the bed, before standing back and starting to pace in front of her.

"Guns are dangerous! You could kill yourself. Don't you realize?" His voice was rising even more to the end.

The little girl just blinked at him, seemingly completely undisturbed by his words.

"Ziva! No!" Gibbs yelled at the top of his lungs as she showed no reaction of noticing how dangerous weapons were.

He ran a hand through his hair, grabbing the endings in frustration.

"No Gun!" He pointed at the gun, shaking his head.

However, Mini-Ziva only knitted her eyebrows together.

"Go to your room," he swiftly ordered, his eyes holding a glare he normally only used on suspects.

Ziva looked at the floor in front of her. The team leader's reaction told her that he was beyond mad. If not even worse.

"Ziva!"

His frustrated shout snapped her out of her thoughts and she quietly got off the bed and made her way over to the door. Shortly before she reached it, she once again turned around and looked at the man which she had started to like a lot over the last weeks.

"Go," Gibbs repeated angrily, completely drained by the sudden shock of finding his Mini-agent with a gun in hand.

Low spirited Ziva trotted out of the room to her own, shutting the door with a soft click.

'Donald Mallard speaking.'

"Duck." Gibbs sighed heavily.

'Jethro? Is everything alright?' Ducky questioned surprised.

"I need your help."

'What happened!'

From upstairs Tony had heard most of Gibbs' angry rant. As it finally had gotten quieter below, the teen dared to poke his head downstairs - just in time to see Ziva walking into her room, with a downcast expression on her face.

Knowing that she probably only had understood parts of what Gibbs had meant to say, he was about to enter her room when he had heard Gibbs on the phone with whom he presumed to be Ducky.

"She doesn't even know what she has done."

("It's likely that her father had her trained from young age.")

"Yeah, but that's way too young to train someone..."

("...")

"Duck she didn't even put the safety back on. What if a bullet had come off? She was pointing that damn thing at herself!"

The teenager quietly listened to their conversation, before he softly knocked on Ziva's door. He understood the team leader's fear, but also had a vague idea of what his yelling had done to his small friend.

As he received no answer after knocking once again, he gently turned the knob and entered the dim lighted room.

"Hey," he whispered, shutting the door behind himself.

The sight that greeted him momentarily made him want to turn around and punch the team leader. After the little girl had slunk into her room, her bottled up emotions finally had broken fourth, leaving her exposed to a severe crying fit.

"'ibbs mad," Mini-Ziva chocked out from where she lay on her stomach on the bed.

"He's worried, not mad," Tony gently corrected her as he joined the little girl on the bed, laying carefully down next to her.

"It's gonna be alright," he softly tried to sooth his crying friend, gently running his hand up and down her shaking back.

After a while Mini-Ziva sat back up on her heels and regarded him. Her sobs had turned into mild sniffles, leaving her eyes puffy and red, shining wet with unshed tears..

"'ibbs me no like," her bottom lip started to tremble again.

"He loves ya." Tony rested on his elbows, "I swear." He crossed his heart before he gently pulled Mini-Ziva to him. "Don't doubt it, he loves you," he repeated over and over, reassuring the little girl as he held her shaking frame close to him.

The fact that Gibbs had yelled at her was completely new to her. The team leader had been nothing but gentle to her and his sudden outburst had shaken her consistently.

Gibbs had obviously come to the same conclusion as he now stood in the room and regarded his agents.

Silently making his way over to the small bed, he knelt on its side and gently put a hand on the small of Ziva's back. The little girl momentarily tensed at the sudden pressure.

"'ibbs," she croaked as she looked up and saw the team leader, silent tears running down her nose and cheeks.

Her tear-strained face stung Gibbs deeply, "No touching of guns," he quietly said while he gently stroke the little girl's cheek, making sure to confirm that he was not angry at her, "Promise?"

Mini-Ziva nodded slowly and started to hiccup as she tried to keep the sobs at bay which threatened to escape her once more. She really didn't wanted to cry like that.

"Come 'ere." Gibbs had sat down on the end of the bed and pulled the sniffling girl into his lap, holding her close as he rocked her back and forth, "I'm sorry that I've yelled at you." He whispered into her ear, letting his chin rest on the top of her head after having placed a kiss on her hair. "You scared me, Ziv."

When she had calmed down a bit, Mini-Ziva peeked at him, "Aba tea'sh me. No mad. Aba prouwd." she sniffled, a new set of tears forming in her brown eyes as she remembered her father.

Gibbs had to restrain himself from tightening his muscles at the mention of the Director of Mossad. He couldn't let his shrunken agent know his anger though, not after he had just yelled at her and with her still idolizing Eli.

"I know a lot of things are very different here, Ziv."

Ziva sniffed pitiful, "Home?..."

The team leader tried to bypass her sorrowful question, which made his insides twist painfully, "Kids don't play with guns or knives here. Their parents and other adults are supposed to keep them safe from any danger. Ziv, you don't need to 'play' with guns, cause I'll always be there for you. Okay?"

"'tay," mumbled the little girl as she snuggled into his chest, feeling more than drained after the last hour.

"I love you," Gibbs whispered quietly, causing Ziva to wrap her small arms around his neck, hugging him. "Luv ya, 'ibbs."

The team leader tightened his arms around her. "How about we watch that movie now?" Gibbs quietly offered, hoping to distract both of his agents after all the commotion.

"Can we order something in?" Tony asked lowly, speaking for the first time since the older man had entered the room.

"Dinner is already in the oven."

"Oh, okay."

"Fries?" Ziva questioned quietly. Since they had taken her to a certain fast food restaurant chain, she had developed a liking for it.

"Yes, we'll have some fries too," confirmed Gibbs, eliciting a smile from the little girl.

"Can we eat while watching?"

"Yes Tony, we can do that too." The silver haired agent smirked and hoisted himself up from the bed, Ziva safely held in his arms.

"You hear that bug? Grumpy Gibbs lets us eat in front of the TV." Tony commented from behind them.

Mini-Ziva giggled, "'ibbs no gwumpy."

"Sometime I am," Gibbs grinned at her, placing a kiss on her cheek as they descended the stairs.

(After Dinner / Movie)

"I've overheard Abby and McGee the other day... they said something about this being your second chance to be a father again..."

Gibbs briefly closed his eyes and then shook his head, "No." He stopped and regarded his agent, "This isn't about me, I've accepted it a long time ago."

"But..."

"No one could ever replace my daughter. She'll always be my only child. My everything. Although I admit that Abby and Ziv have sneaked their way into my heart and made their own little corners in there. In their own way. No matter if they're adult or child size," he looked at the sleeping little girl in his arms. A smile on his face.

"So you don't..."

"Abby likes to think of the team as a family." Gibbs smirked, "And I think she might be right with that."

"But you just said..."

"Let's say I'm something in between. I'll always protect them, you, the team, whatever the costs may be..."

~ Fin ~

Lo = No