Gibbs closed his phone and returned to sanding. Neither of them was particularly given to introspection to begin with, let alone sharing conclusions in long winded conversations, so the talk with Ziva had been little more than a bare bones explanation of her decision, and his own minimalist declaration of understanding and support.

Over the month or so that Tony had been out looking for her Gibbs had found himself in an unusually reflective state of mind, sorting out for himself what he hoped for when DiNozzo found her. That he would find her was a given, it was a simple matter of when and what condition either or both of them would be in when it happened, and then of course what would happen next.

He hadn't settled anything for himself when Tony first let them know he had located her, and then later her decision to stay in Israel, but realizing that he felt a metaphorical weight lifting off his shoulders Gibbs found the word that fit.

Relief.

He wouldn't admit it to anyone, not that anyone would ask, but he was honestly relieved that Ziva hadn't returned from the latest breakup of the team. He certainly wasn't glad she was gone, and he wasn't sure it was a great idea that she was staying in Israel…but yeah, relieved was the word he wanted. Second B for bastard? Cold? Unfeeling? No, not in this case anyway. It was what was best for her, probably. And probably best for the team as well. Most importantly, it was unquestionably what was best for Tony.

Jenny put Ziva on the team without consultation, and he and Tony, and to some extent McGee, had been tasked with turning a spy into an investigator and an assassin into a team-mate. He had to concede they had only ever been partially successful. Eight years on she still defaulted to violence rather than thought, manipulation over honesty, secrets over trust, and impulsive, independent action over team work. Perhaps not every time any more, but still more often than not. And when she did, she was defiantly arrogant in defense of her actions while either ignoring or dismissing the damage done along the way or any unintended consequences, for which she certainly didn't take responsibility.

And in hindsight no matter how much progress had been made, every team break-up, regardless of the reason or length, was two or more steps backward.

The first time the team had been fractured was when he went to Mexico. He hadn't known - hadn't wanted to know - what had gone on while he'd been away, but had gotten an earful from Jenny one night following a heated discussion over the Benoit debacle, when he'd accused her of being reckless with his agent. She'd snapped back that she'd treated Tony with more respect and care than he'd shown in his departure or since his return, starting with dumping his desk and continuing on with constant belittling comments and privileging of the other team members. She'd gone on a tear about their behavior in his absence, suggesting he reacquaint himself with Ziva and McGee's current personnel files – taking particular note of hours logged during that time, and both the content and quality of the field reports. For her coup de grace she let him know that after she had offered Tony Rota and he refused, she had also offered to bring the rest of the team in on the Benoit operation. Tony had refused that opportunity as well, saying he'd rather know up front he was working solo than find out the hard way that his back up didn't actually have his back.

Looking back over that year he could identify symptoms of Jen's illness in her behavior and decisions, and he could also see symptoms of his own never admitted less-than-complete-at-the-time recovery. He confirmed some of Jenny's assertions by getting Tim drunk one evening and asking for stories about cases that happened while he was away. Between case details Tim had no clue about and the delight he took in demeaning Tony's leadership, it was clear Jenny had had the right of the situation. Case in point, the whole Rennie Grant debacle. It was a white collar financial crime computer case for God's sake, Tim should have been all over it; ready, willing, and able to show-off his skills. And yet the reports were half-assed, the logs showed late arrivals and early departures, and even he could tell that there just wasn't enough tech-talk in the paperwork for McGee to have been making any kind of effort. Gibbs also recalled that years later when the case came back around McGee was all too willing to throw Tony under the bus, reserving no responsibility or accountability for himself.

In contrast, Tony was all too willing to take on more responsibility than was actually his. Following the Grant case he'd invited Tony to dinner as a means to corner him, and then demanded to know what the hell had happened on the case the first time around. The demand had gotten him nothing but silence from his second, who was heading for the door when Gibbs realized what it was going to take. So, like the marine he was he sucked it up and said it, "Dammit Tony, you know I wasn't right in the head when I left, and I still wasn't right when I came back. I know you saw that and turned down Rota to cover my six, and I know the damn Frog thing was a solo op because you'd gotten to a point where you didn't trust the team to have your six. Jenny told me. Hell, she was sick and hiding it, Vance and Hetty were out west setting up the ops team there, I had scrambled brains, and what did you have? An arrogant, bratty junior agent following the lead of a condescending foreign national not-an-agent with no regard for due process or chain of command, and a tantrum-throwing lab tech, with nowhere to turn for help. Am I close?"

Tony's growled, "Not even" had been, if nothing else, a starting point. By the time they hit an end point several hours, not to mention numerous bottles of beer, tense silences, and one long overdue actually sincere apology later, his understanding of what had transpired in DC while he was in Mexico was much clearer, as was his awareness of just how badly he had fucked up. It wasn't Ziva's fault, by any stretch, nonetheless, the strides she had made in terms of being a functional member of the team had been lost.

The second break up of the team was Vance's doing, and a cluster fuck from the get go. Setting aside the whole cockamamie idea of finding a mole based on intuition (no matter how good his gut was) rather than actual investigation…seriously? The background and files and 30 minutes with each in the interrogation room could have solved the problem in an afternoon. Like Keating wouldn't have pissed his pants within ten? As if Tony couldn't have wheedled and charmed the truth about the endangered little sister out of Lee? Langer ended up dead because of it, as did Lee several months and how much additional stolen information later. More to the immediate point, Ziva came back from that team break up with an even bigger attitude and, unbeknownst to them at the time, Rivkin in tow.

One step forward, she did actually come back to the team.

Two steps back, she came back with a lover she wasn't honest about, and an agenda that almost got Tony killed.

And why the hell hadn't Vance told him about her "kill Haswari" order then? Given that information he would have understood Vance's reluctance to bring her back, and maybe even agreed. Instead, he waited until Tony's life was on the line. Gibbs didn't know if that would have changed anything, but damn the man for placing his friendship with Eli over the trust, safety, and well being of his own agents.

And so they'd ended up with the Rivkin mess, another cluster fuck. He'd had his head so far up his own ass, so busy being pissed about how he personally had been manipulated by Ziva, and how the agency had been played by Mossad, that he once again spectacularly failed to have Tony's back. At least until that final critical moment on the tarmac, when she asked, no, demanded he choose. When she broke up the team. At least he'd gotten that piece right.

He hoped she would come back and feared what might happen to her if she didn't, but also wanted that return to be a true clearing of the decks. Full disclosure, and he had to know what the truth was so he would know if she spoke it. So he dug. How did she meet Jenny? How long had she been Ari's handler? How much of the backstory was real and how much a set up? And why him?

The paperwork was the first clue, her birthdate. Listed as November 12, 1982, that made her all of 23 when she arrived in DC in 2005 as Ari's handler. So…school until 18 graduating in 2000, two years service in the IDF gets her to 2002 and 20 years old at her discharge. Directly into Mossad; six months of basic training and the standard six month probation before being officially qualified as an officer brings her to 2003. Jenny had said they worked together in Europe, and the last time Jen had been actually working there rather than simply attending conferences was when she had been Assistant Director for European Operations, after their break-up and just prior to her becoming director, which meant 2001 – 2004. The IDF didn't maintain bases outside of Israel, so clearly Ziva was there as Mossad – and not as a probie on her first assignment either. And back to handling Ari in DC in 2005, even with nepotism at its most egregious, a second year rookie being tasked with the handling of a high value asset like Ari just didn't make sense. Which meant the '82 birthdate couldn't possibly be accurate.

Mossad is nothing if not thorough, but he found what he needed. 1979. Only three years, but enough to explain her training and experience. And why? As soon as he thought the question, he had the answer. A birthday in the late 70s makes her about McGee's age, one in the early 80s makes her about Kelly's. It wasn't as bad as it once had been, but he never quite managed to stop the "Kelly would have been…" thought when he heard dates from anywhere within her short lifetime. He'd hear a date and immediately his brain would supply her age and then he'd have to play catch up with the few sentences he'd missed while a random Kells-at-whatever-age memory played through. With that realization came a different memory, Ziva's first birthday at NCIS not long after she arrived and the manner in which she first dodged and then coyly offered the year. She had known exactly what she was doing.

That critical bit of information had led to others, and a clearer picture emerged, but he was still left wondering about the larger why. While he played cock of the walk in the office, he knew in the world-wide scheme of things he was a gunny; a pawn, maybe a rook at best. He knew what was in a few closets, but more than a few others knew his skeletons as well. He was damn good at what he did, but that didn't merit attention from the head of Mossad. What he learned, courtesy of a then out-of-favor Orli Elbaz, was a surprise.

As far as Mossad was concerned Ziva's initial placement at NCIS was a punishment for her failures. She had had missed or intentionally not reported multiple clues that Ari had turned. A Hamas agent they were working to turn had brought Eli the evidence as his ticket to safety. She'd had an order to bring Ari in for months and hadn't completed it because she argued, as she had at Kate's death, that he was innocent. After Kate's death she had been told, in no uncertain terms, that if she delayed any longer she would be bringing suspicion on herself. Her refusal/failure to retrieve or eliminate him had allowed Ari to plan and nearly execute a major terrorist incident, he had killed a US agent, and it would have created a major international incident if he had been captured alive and questioned in the US. She was demoted from handling a deep cover agent and removed from the international scene; exiled, assigned not to the CIA or NSA or other intelligence group with an international focus, not even to the US military "at large", but to the internal police force of the navy. A near non-entity of an agency on a team that mostly dealt with domestic crimes, and one that had no equivalent in Israel as the IDF navy has only 63 vessels in total. Eli had informed her that if she was able to talk "her newly promoted friend Jenny" into a job that would prove that she had at least some remaining worth as an asset, if not – she was done at Mossad. Ziva passed the test; Jen bought her sob story and placed her on Gibbs's team. When Vance terminated then reactivated the position Eli took advantage of the situation to place a permanent operative in the US. A smaller agency, yes, but with a position that would never be questioned, "friends" could come to visit, she could take vacations wherever and with whomever she chose – and she did. Gibbs wasn't a target he was part of her cover; the great Gibbs with the inerrant gut – if she was on his team no one else would dare question if she was engaged in anything "extra-curricular". He could practically hear the disdain for his gullibility in Elbaz's voice as she shared this with him. He absently noted that her attitude hadn't changed much when their paths crossed again this past year.

He hadn't known all this on the tarmac when Ziva asked him to choose between her and Tony. At that point he'd really only known he'd been lied to and manipulated, and that he was angry as hell at everyone about all of it. Her declaration that she couldn't trust Tony? It damn near made him laugh, but he had better self control than that. Still, he hoped. And because he hoped, he dug.

And then she was dead and he stopped.

And then she was alive, and he had a decision to make. For possibly the first time in his life he proceeded with caution. He talked first to Ducky and then Vance, even Fornell. And finally Tony, who in his opinion had the most say in his eventual decision.

He recognized the manipulation when she came to talk with him in the basement. Knew all the real backstory and just how much of what she said about the past was a lie. But he had also seen the camp, her cell, and the evidence of all that had happened to her while in Somalia. He couldn't bring himself to proceed with the interrogation he had planned immediately after he left her in Israel, and he hoped against hope that her lies at that point were born of desperation rather than a true intent to misdirect. She asked to come back to the team, rather than demanding.

She wanted her job back, so she had to become an agent. To become an agent she had to become a citizen, so she did. He was proud of her, there seemed to be a few steps forward.

And then the steady trek backward. Now he wondered, how much she actually valued that citizenship and how much was nothing more than a means to an end. The marine in him was a little bit pissed.

Her refusal to do any therapy beyond the minimal sessions required of all accepted applicants for armed federal agencies. Her unwillingness to acknowledge her own culpability in the actions that led to Rivkin's death, not to mention her role as accessory to the death of the ICE agent. Her constant degrading and undermining of Tony's position as SFA, and her damnable ability to bring Tim along with her. He'd wondered about that relationship from time to time, what had happened between them that Tim followed her like a puppy on a leash even to the point of damaging his relationship with Tony to keep her approval.

He had never had gotten the full story about what happened during that domestic terror case just after Ziva's return. Tony had appeared on his steps looking beyond terrible, sat silently for longer than Gibbs would have thought possible, then simply announced he was taking two weeks vacation and that he, meaning Gibbs, needed to embed the idea of backup into the "terrible twosome" so deeply it would show up in bloodwork, and then left without elaborating.

They were all damaged in one way or another, but they also, mostly, tried to help and support each other as well. To be each other's family, dysfunctional as that family might be. But she seemed determined to inflict as much damage as possible on Tony, and nothing he did, from coaching her on investigative techniques when she started with the team (finding evidence is a different skill set than being somewhere and trying not to leave any), to her rescue, to his support (guarded though it might have been) of her return to the team, seemed to soften her attitude toward him. Tony never stopped trying to humanize her, to help her understand, become part of, and really trust their family. She not only didn't get it, she damaged it. She called Tony her partner, but it seemed she rarely missed an opportunity to make him her target. He had his suspicions about her behavior, and it had less to do with Tony's supposed romantic jealousy and more with being unable to understand the depth and type of love that Tony actually felt.

Neither of them had any functional model of unconditional family love as children, but somehow Tony had found it elsewhere and figured it out and Ziva hadn't. Everything in her world was degrees of power; power over, manipulation of, being subject to, or escaping from. Even love. In her world, if someone loved you it gave you leverage, if you dared to love it made you vulnerable to that person's agendas and manipulations. She demonstrated that understanding quite clearly in each of her declarations to Gibbs that she loved him, that he was the closest thing to a real father she had. Even after Israel and Somalia, when he was fully aware of what she was doing, his love and care for her allowed her to be successful in manipulating his responses, after all he hadn't followed through on his planned questioning had he.

Her parents had battled over and about her, but had also used her in their battles against each other. Ari had used and manipulated her love to keep himself free, and then, well…look how that ended. He was sure he didn't know all the men she had dated in her time at NCIS, but the ones he did know about, the ones she felt confident enough about to share, had also proven to be manipulative and ultimately destructive. Tony, for all his tomcatting, or maybe because of it, had realized that what she needed wasn't another lover in her bed, but someone who actually, simply, loved her. So that's what he did. Thoroughly and unconditionally, whether she was brazen or coy, friendly or dismissive, angry or happy, needling, baiting, accusing, he was just…there. Not there, waiting for her to notice him; not there hoping she'd see the light and fall into his arms. Just there. Whatever other desires or possibilities DiNozzo may have considered early on, those had been long since set aside in favor of simple, unconditional, brotherly love. And it was that love, not lust or jealousy or some heroic fantasy that drove him halfway around the world, not once but twice, to find her. She didn't, maybe even couldn't, understand it and so she tested it, attacked and belittled it. Gibbs knew his own life had improved tremendously when he had finally woken up and smelled that particular cup of coffee. He hoped that one day she would be able to accept and appreciate it for what it was, especially since now it wouldn't ever be anything else.

The last episode with her father, the lies, the hiding of information, Jackie's death as a result, the dogged yet ultimately misdirected pursuit of Bodnar, co-opting Tim into operations that were not just sketchy but straight up illegal…not to mention the bits and pieces that Parsons had dug up…

If she came back again, what would she bring back with her this time? He just wasn't willing to take the risk. Not anymore. He set the sander aside and headed upstairs for another cup of coffee.

AN:

1. Ziva's birth years were from NCIS wikia and CdP's actual age.

2. I have no earthly idea how long actual Mossad officer training and probationary periods are.

3. IDF navy vessel numbers are from wikipedia. I assume they are undercounted, but it worked for the story.