Because, apparently, when I get back into the swing of writing, I can't stop! Not complaining, though. This was quite fun to write, though it's my first time writing a proper conversation for Ziva so I'm not sure about keeping her in character. That's always the struggle in an AU. But I think a couple of people, in past reviews, pointed out to me that Ziva would probably be able to identify with Tim on this the most and I realised that was probably very true, and really wanted to include it.

Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who is reading/reviewing/following this story! I was sure you'd all have given up on me by now.

As ever, I own nothing NCIS and do this out of love.

"It's getting bigger." Harriet said, solemnly. "We first picked it up just before the recruits got in this morning. Since then, it's more than doubled in size."

"Why didn't you get me earlier?" Timothy demanded, staring at the blip on the temporal radar screen with worried irritation. He, Harriet and Kinoan had commandeered Commander Correzan's private terminal, to puzzle over an unexplained shockwave currently rippling through time on the outer edges of their galaxy.

"Thought it was just a Time Bubble," Harriet shrugged. "There's nothing out there for it to swallow up, so it wasn't a priority."

"Well, clearly, it's not a Time Bubble," Timothy snapped. His temper had been bubbling just below the surface ever since he was recalled, and it was often Harriet that caught the worst of it. Mostly because she didn't seem to care. "What else have you missed?"

"Timothy, the Captain is right." Kinoan said, his voice as calm as ever. "You have enough to deal with, without making every radar blip your problem. It's been less than twelve hours since this anomaly appeared. You have not been left out of any loop."

Timothy glared at him, but took a deep breath and softened his voice. Kinoan was, as ever, right.

"Fine. Do we know what it actually is, yet?"

Harriet shook her head.

"I consulted with General Vivia Leconiger half an hour ago." The Pastiaran military director was something of an expert in temporal anomalies, and was one of the few beings in the Peace Force who could hold a civilised conversation with Harriet. "She doesn't recognise the readings, but we don't really have much information to go on at the moment."

"Did she propose a course of action?" Kinoan asked.

Harriet snorted.

"She wanted to deploy a patrol to the fault line, see if they could get more accurate readings."

Timothy rolled his eyes. For all Vivia's expertise in the theory, she had very little practical experience.

"The rate this thing's growing? They won't be there five minutes before they get swallowed up. Fault lines are not as reliable as they seem, in my experience."

Harriet grinned at him, and Timothy couldn't help but return the smile. He knew they were both remembering their very first experience with a Time Bubble, when false reassurances about the safety of staying on the fault line - the furthest point in the surrounding space that an anomaly could affect - got them pulled into the maelstrom of space-time and deposited them in the middle of a warzone. It was a war they would spent the next seven years fighting, locked in an immovable moment, until they finally managed to break the bubble - to find that only two days had passed in the world outside.

"I know." Harriet said. "I told her that all decisions would have to be approved by you and Kinoan. You're running this war, after all."

In the days following the Void's first contact, the General's Council had agreed to centralise all command decisions relating to war activity. A unanimous vote had handed overall control to Generals Kinoan and McGee, aboard the Lunar Orbiter. Individual Generals would still have command of their territories, but any activity in interstellar space, or any which involved long-distance travel, had to be approved by the new Central Command.

Timothy sighed. Not for the first time, he wondered what life would be like had he never accepted the promotion to General. Kinoan had convinced him to wear the stars, impressed upon him how important it was for people to have a leader they trusted and admired, but the role had not come easily. The decisions he had to make, the responsibility on his shoulders, weighed heavily on him and he could never quite reconcile himself to giving orders that would put others in danger.

As a Captain, he had been responsible for his unit only. He'd made decisions that decided whether they would live or die, yes, but those men and women had signed up for service and knew what they were getting into. As General, his decisions affected everyone, from soldiers to civilians. Innocent people - children - had died because of him.

Then again, Timothy thought, glancing at Harriet, children had died because of Captain Mason's decisions as well, and she didn't have nearly as much power as he did. This was war. Children were going to die, no matter what he did or didn't do. But maybe, just maybe, his actions could save more lives than they cost. For the sake of everything, hard decisions had to be made.

He'd done it before. If necessary, Timothy knew he could do it again.

All I am I vow to thee.

The archaic words of the Stars oath came back to him, then. He remembered standing in Tony and Ziva's positions, so many years ago, saying those words and not really appreciating what their meaning. Now, he did. He had given all of himself to the service when he accepted the stars on his shoulders, and even his ten-year break didn't change the fact that this was who he was. He was a soldier. He was a General.

And that meant he had to do what others couldn't, no matter how much that tore him up inside.

"I'm running this war." Timothy echoed Harriet's words, a little absently, staring at the temporal radar. He nodded his head once, decisively. "Captain Mason, order a patrol team to deploy to the Aricon Radar system. From there, they can send out a Gatherer to get the readings. I don't want any living being within two lightyears of that thing, fault lines or no fault lines."

Harriet nodded, turned on her heel, and left. Control Room workers parted in front of her, automatically clearing the way. Timothy watched her go.

"I'm not giving Tony and Ziva to Harriet," he said.

"You're not?" Kinoan's voice was calm, even, as if they were discussing the weather and not Timothy's sanity.

"I don't know what I was thinking. Harriet doesn't do safe." Timothy gave a bitter kind of laugh, recalling the glint in Harriet's eyes every time the two of them ran into danger. "She goes where things look impossible. They're too inexperienced. She'll get them killed."

"Captain Mason protects her own." Kinoan reminded him. "You were fairly new yourself, when you were assigned to her unit. Now look at you."

Timothy turned to look at the old alien, his eyes hard and set.

"Exactly."

"What are we doing?"

"We are learning Konithan. Though the standard-issue translators are excellent, Konithan is the official language of the UIPF and it is wise to speak it."

Gibbs fixed Kinoan with an unimpressed stare, raising one eyebrow expectantly. Kinoan didn't allow himself to react - despite wanting, very much, to laugh. The agent's look reminded him so much of a younger, more innocent Timothy; a Timothy still learning, who didn't yet have all the answers and was not expected to.

"I don't mean, what are we doing right now." Gibbs waved the battered old Konithan dictionary that Kinoan had dredged up from the depths of his bookshelves, after the agent had refused, point-blank, to use a handheld computer. "I mean, what are we doing?

Kinoan smiled sadly.

"Our Timothy is going to save the Universe. Don't you think we owe it to him, to ensure there is someone in the aftermath who can save him?"

Timothy lay back in his bunk, staring absently at the ceiling. After making sure Harriet carried out his orders to the letter, Kinoan had personally marched him back to his sleeping quarters to insist he get some rest. He hadn't really had the energy to argue; sleep even sounded appealing. But, now he was here, it was eluding him. It would be hours before they could reasonably expect to hear from the patrol deployed to the Aricon Radars - the Gatherer robot was notoriously slow in its work - and a nervous kind of tension had settled in his stomach.

It had been four months. Four months of ... nothing. No attacks, no communications, no threats. The whole galaxy was suspended in some kind of limbo, stuck on a knife's edge, just waiting for war to come. It was making everyone nervous.

He couldn't see the reason behind it. The Void had announced its presence and intentions, then dropped off the radar, leaving the UIPF with a warning and plenty of time to prepare.

Part of him - a slightly sick part that Timothy would never share with anyone but Harriet - wished the fight would come. He craved battle, almost. Inaction didn't suit him, not when he was filled with this jumpy, electric energy crackling through every muscle. He wanted to fight. To be doing something, anything, except stalking the corridors of the Orbiter, desperate for answers that weren't forthcoming. Fighting, at least, made sense.

A hesitant knock on the door broke Timothy out of his reverie. It took him a moment to register what the sound was - nobody had ever actually visited his quarters before, not since he made General.

"Come in." Whoever it was, Timothy was thankful for the intrusion. Being alone with his thoughts was getting more and more uncomfortable, as time dragged on.

The door opened and Ziva walked in, looking a little nervous.

Timothy smiled.

"Hey. Everything all right?"

"Yes, sir ... I mean, Timothy," she corrected herself, remembering his earlier request. "I just ... wanted to talk to you."

"There's not much space, but it's private." Timothy gestured at the cramped room. "You can sit down, if you want."

Ziva perched next to him on the bed. The nervousness with which she moved around him was unfamiliar and unpleasant; it left a thick, heavy feeling in his gut.

"I'm not going to bite," he said, trying a smile. "You can talk to me about anything."

She looked at him steadily for a moment, relaxing a bit as he settled against the wall. Here, out of uniform and one step removed from his rank, he looked just like the man she'd always known. It was comforting.

"There's something wrong, isn't there?" Ziva said, quietly.

"Well, there is a war on." Timothy tried to lighten the atmosphere a little, knowing instinctively what Ziva really meant. She didn't reply; just looked at him with one eyebrow raised. He couldn't help but smile. I t was the same look she'd always given him, back at NCIS, when a flippant comment annoyed her.

"Yes." Timothy held Ziva's gaze, deciding honesty was the best option here. "Something's not right. Something is distorting the very fabric of the Universe. That's why we all feel like we do. And I don't know what happens next."

"Is the Void causing it?"

"We don't know." Timothy shrugged, a hint of defeat in his posture. "There's something out there, a couple light years beyond the Aricon Radars - a temporal anomaly, and it's growing faster than you would believe. If it's been brewing for a while, that could be it. Of course, even that could be the Void' doing."

"You've travelled in time." This was a statement, not a question. Timothy nodded. "What's that like?"

It took Timothy several moments to figure out how to reply.

"There is so much wonder out there, Ziva. So much war and death, but so much wonder." Timothy shook his head. "I've travelled through time to fix it. Most of what I've seen is war, but there are moments ... moments so beautiful, places and people so incredible, it makes everything else worth it. Once this is all over, I'll take you out there. Show you the galaxy."

He turned his head to look at her, his smile more genuine, in that moment, than it had been since his recall.

"But you spend enough time out here, you'll realise. There's nothing more beautiful than Earth. Nothing more amazing than home. That's what keeps me fighting."

"Why did you leave?" Ziva settled back against the wall, mirroring his posture.

Timothy sighed; he had been expecting that.

"You know what I did?" He couldn't bare to look at her, but the space was so cramped he could feel her nod. "I was scared. Scared of myself, of what I could do. I know I made the only decision I could, but that doesn't make it any easier to live with. I thought, by leaving, I could keep hold of myself. If I went back home, surrounded myself with humanity, and took a job where I wasn't the one making life-or-death decisions for other people, I wouldn't turn into the monster I feared I was becoming."

Ziva gave an incredulous laugh.

"You are not a monster, Timothy. You're a hero." When Timothy shook his head, still not looking up, Ziva grabbed hold of his arm. "Yes, you are. Would you just look at me?"

"You are my General now, not my co-worker and friend. And it is very clear that there's a hell of a lot I never even guessed about you. But I still know you - part of you, at least. The part you came down to Earth to protect. That is the part that makes you a hero. That's still you."

Timothy was staring at the hand on his arm like the contact was the last thing he'd ever expected. Ziva - strong, honourable Ziva, who knew first-hand how much light and dark could exist in the same person - did not hate him for what he had done, and nor did was she glorifying it. He looked up at her, finally, and met her smile with one of his own. Maybe there was hope in all of this, after all.

"I'm sorry I got you dragged into all this." Timothy said quietly.

"I am not." Ziva shrugged. "I would much rather be up here, fighting by your side, than down there, oblivious."