Thank you for sticking with and supporting this story - I'm blown away by the reviews, follows and favourites! Here is the final chapter. I hope it lives up to expectations.

It is designed to follow the Season 9 Finale and Season 10 Premiere.

Tony was still thinking a little about Ziva's father calling in the lift, and her expression when he joked that his father too would be calling any second. He was still thinking about her tone of voice when she asked, "What if one of those men is dead?" He still didn't want to know the answer. He wanted to be back in that elevator, not facing this reality - the reality where people were dead, injured, scarred. Where Ducky was sick and Jimmy's wedding was ruined and Gibbs had stabbed Dearing only after the bastard had blown up an entire FBI squad.

"Director Vance." Tony's voice was heavy, lead-lined with exhaustion. It had taken them time and effort to find Dearing, and since, sleep had been hard to come by. Too much had been lost. They'd nearly lost Gibbs, Abby and McGee. It kept him awake. And of course, his father still hadn't called.

"DiNozzo. How are you holding up?"

"Fine, sir. Physically." Tony glanced over at the reconstruction works going on behind him, and grimaced. "It looks… bizarrely similar to its original state."

Vance nodded. "Partly because it is faster, given that the construction orders require no change. Partly in defiance of the destruction Dearing wreaked. And partly in an effort to heal."

Tony struggled with himself for a moment. "Will anything be different?" He asked quietly. "Well, everything will, but also…nothing."

Vance laid a hand on his shoulder. "I know." He said, uncharacteristically quietly. "It seems kind of wrong, doesn't it?"

"Is there at least going to be a memorial, or a plaque, or…or something?"

The director lifted a shoulder. "I have asked, but the powers that be are loath to direct funding to a memorial when there are so many national memorials in DC already. All of those fallen will be added to existing memorials…adding another is, apparently, surplus to requirements. The extreme prejudice order was their only grace."

There was a moment of silence between the two men, and then Vance clapped him on the shoulder. "We'll heal." He said, sounding like he was attempting to convince himself as much as the agent he was comforting. "All of us. In time."

He strode away.

Tony wandered back towards his car, which he'd been aiming for in the first place, and leaned on it absentmindedly. His fingers itched to hold a pencil, an idea forming, and suddenly he was driving, trying to hold onto the image.

Three hours later, he pulled into his boss's driveway, sketchpad clutched under his arm.

"Boss?" He called through the door as soon as he'd opened it.

"Yeah, DiNozzo." Gibbs, unusually, was in his sparse living room, relaxing into his sofa, a black and white film playing quietly in the background and a book on his knee.

"I have an idea." Tony threw himself down on the couch and Gibbs lifted his coffee hurriedly to stop it sloshing. "Oops." Tony mumbled, and Gibbs raised an eyebrow as he deposited it and his book on the coffee table.

"An idea?"

"I talked to Vance." Tony elaborated. "About HQ, and it's going to look just the same, and it doesn't seem right, so I… I think there should be a memorial."

Gibbs remained still for a moment, surprised by the turn the conversation had taken. Then he slowly nodded. "Something inside the Navy Yard." He agreed, turning slightly to face his senior field agent. Behind his eyes, the feeling of his knife - the knife he'd left with Cole, and pulled from the mangled wreckage of the Director's car - plunging into Dearing's abdomen, like the shard of glass into McGee's, flashed.

"Yeah. But Vance said the higher-ups aren't convinced because there are national memorials already in DC and why add another? But I don't think it needs to be that fancy."

He held out his sketch pad and Gibbs raised an eyebrow. "You haven't drawn much since Katie died." He said quietly.

"No. But I thought this was as good a time as any." Tony shrugged, suddenly self-conscious, and an image of Kate Todd's angry expression as he shoved a magazine under her nose and asked for the model's measurements wavered in his mind. She'd been fiery from the moment they met aboard Air Force One.

"She'd be pleased." Gibbs flashed him a rare smile and Tony smiled hesitantly back.

Gibbs flicked the sketch pad open to the first page - testament to how little it was used - and saw a rough sketch of some sort of mounted and ruined object with a scribbling line through it. On the next page was a similar image, but on the next -

Gibbs blinked, held the sketch pad further away, and then brought it closer. Then he put it gently down on the table and scrubbed at his face, taking a steadying breath.

"I don't know if it's too simple, but that was sort of the point, and I haven't added any colour but I thought it would be quite plain and… well, just… a bold statement really. A memorial and defiance in one." Tony rabbited, rubbing his hands together nervously. "But I could try some other designs out, and maybe add names, if you think…"

"It's perfect." Gibbs shook his head. "Their names will go on the other memorials. This is… this is perfect." He took another deep, slightly steadier, breath and looked up. "You're not going to get approval for this."

Tony sighed. "I know. That's why I thought… well, I wanted to see what you thought of the design, and if you knew anyone who could make it. And then I thought if we got some quotes, I could give the design and the funding to Vance anonymously, and it would be easy to push it all through."

Gibbs sat back. "You want to fund it?"

"I don't know what to do with that money, Gibbs. I've had it for years now and done nothing other than donate to Abby's charity and buy people nice gifts. Without even telling them. Look at Palmer's wedding…nevermind." Tony frowned at the thought of the spoiled nuptials. "Anyway, it's just sat there collecting interest. I didn't want to lose it and it's great to have, but there's nothing much I want or need and this will barely dint it anyway… but of course, I'll need you to countersign it. My dad hasn't even called since the explosion and I know he knows that he can't access my accounts any more..."

Tony was studying his hands, evidently uncomfortable talking about money and feelings, just as he always had been. Gibbs raised an eyebrow, and then smiled.

"I think it's a brilliant idea, Tony. For NCIS, for you, and in defiance of your father. As long as you're sure." Tony nodded resolutely, and Gibbs clapped him on the shoulder. "Then let's start getting in touch with some friends." Gibbs glanced back at the sketch and pulled the pencil out of the ringbinding. He added a line to the end of the plaque, and Tony read it, raised an eyebrow, and smiled.

Tony fidgeted at the queue counter of the bank, waiting for a teller to call him forward. It was just three days after he'd showed his design to Gibbs, but - as his boss had rightly pointed out - the materials required for the memorial were being removed by the construction company and so they needed to move fairly quickly. The quotes were in, and the person who was likely to be doing the work was ex-Navy, and incredibly proud to be given the opportunity to create such a meaningful memorial. Gibbs trusted him to remain tight-lipped on Tony's identity, and he was confident that he could recreate the sketch, to which Tony had now added some colour.

"Who's next, please?" The teller shook Tony from his thoughts and he stepped forward, Gibbs at his shoulder.

"Hi. I'd, er, like to make a large withdrawal." Tony gulped nervously. "If it's possible, as a cheque. Payable to someone else."

He handed over his card, and the staff member checked it. "Certainly, sir. I have two signatories required for this account. Could I have both your ID's, please?"

Tony and Gibbs handed them over and she checked them with a smile, dark lipstick that Abby would be proud of stretching to show the light shade of her lips beneath.

She handed them back, her smile becoming impossibly wider. "Who do you need the cheque to be payable to?"

Tony shuffled from one foot to another. "John Tanner."

"And how much does the cheque need to be for?"

There was a long silence and Gibbs stepped forward, clearing his throat. "Three hundred thousand dollars."

Tony relaxed as the huge amount was spoken, without him needing to open his mouth. Tanner had estimated less than half that, but Gibbs knew he'd underestimated, and they had agreed that he would donate whatever was left to the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society anyway. Tony had wanted to make the cheque more, but they had compromised.

The teller blinked. "I'll need to get approval for a transaction that size." She hedged. Gibbs shrugged.

"Well, yeah." He said as if it were obvious - which, of course, it really was.

She stood and disappeared from view.

"You alright, DiNozzo?" Gibbs asked.

"Yeah, boss. Yeah. I think… I think this is gonna help. You know. With the moving on thing."

"I think so too." Gibbs wasn't sure whether Tony meant from the bombing, or from hoping for his father's love, or both, but his words applied to both anyway.

A balding man appeared behind the counter. "Anthony DiNozzo?" He asked as their previous teller appeared at his elbow.

"Yeah." Tony stepped forward.

"I'll need to check your I.D. again."

Tony slid his license under the glass, and once it had been returned Gibbs stepped forward to do the same.

Fifteen minutes later, they were emerging from the air conditioned bank into the heat of DC in July, Tony's wallet feeling heavy with the weight of an impressive cheque, his bank account barely noticing the difference.

"I guess now is the harder bit. Convincing the brass." He mumbled.

Gibbs clapped him on the shoulder. "I can do that. Leon knows you changed your name. He'll put two and two together if you go."

Tony smiled gratefully and handed over the cheque, surprisingly relieved to be rid of it.

Director Vance was rarely speechless, but this was one of those times. He sat down heavily behind his desk and once again shuffled through the papers Gibbs had placed there. A sketch of a chunk of bricks, mounted on a marble base with a plaque; a cheque for three hundred thousand dollars from an unspecified bank account; a quote for materials and labour from the person named on the cheque; a signed document assuring him that the leftover money would be donated to a Navy charity; and a business card for the same individual.

"But… who paid?"

"That is irrelevant, Leon. It wasn't me. An individual designed it and offered the funding, I approached an old friend with the required skills, and now I'm here asking you to convince your higher-ups that we all need this."

"I know we do, Gibbs. I know we do." Vance sighed heavily and scrubbed at his forehead. "With the money in place, I don't think it will be a problem. But they will want to know who the donor was."

"Tough. They're anonymous for a reason." Gibbs softened his stance slightly. "Leon, anonymous donations aren't unusual. With the rest going to charity, they can't argue on that basis. The donor has a strong Naval connection, isn't that enough?"

"Of course it is." Vance lifted his head from his hands and smiled. "Of course it is."

Seeing a sheen of tears in his eyes, Gibbs turned to stride away and give his boss some privacy. The sheen of tears in his own eyes were irrelevant, of course, to this decision. That's what he told himself, anyway.

Three months later, the finished NCIS Headquarters in the Navy Yard, Washington DC, looked just as it always had, if less weather-worn. However, outside, a block of the old wall - the weatherbeaten, faded red bricks, with mortar still holding them together - stood, mounted in white marble, in the grass. It was an odd shape, blown apart by the bomb in Leon's car, and Gibbs stood before it, remembering the ceremony during which it had been erected and the building officially reopened. He scanned the American flags stuck into the grass before it, one of which he himself had placed, and read the plaque, as he did every time he passed.

The bricks had been reinforced to ensure the memorial stood the test of time, and the marble it was set into extended a ways behind it, making sure it stayed upright. The plaque was black and bronze, simple, but - just as Tony had desired - it spoke volumes of the defiance and spirit left behind.

MAY 15, 2012

A DAY OF LOSS.

A DAY OF SORROW.

A DAY TO REMEMBER

AND VOW THIS WILL

NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN.

The last two lines were much less poetic than Tony's original design, but Gibbs felt his addition was justified and necessary, if not one hundred percent eloquent.

Gibbs glanced around the Navy Yard, where his team was at the coffee cart and Leon was striding by, talking into his cell. Still, only he, Tony and (he suspected) Vance were aware of the memorial's designer and financier - but he knew, without a doubt, that it was a comfort, a reminder, to everyone.

He'd caught Ducky - who was still on medical leave - standing by it, guilt-stricken that he wasn't here to help despite being glad that he hadn't had to autopsy more friends.

He'd caught Jimmy, whose wedding anniversary would always be a day of both joy and sorrow, standing statue-still in reflection of how much he'd learned and grown since joining NCIS and how hard the clear-up had been.

He'd seen Tony, scanning it with a critical eye but ultimately bowing his head to respect the dead. The exhaustion, the weight of maybes, had not left him until the memorial had been placed, and Gibbs knew without a doubt that he wouldn't have healed without it.

He'd seen Leon, struggling to come to terms with the fact that his car was the tool used to cause this tragedy. Struggling to relieve the responsibility he felt for all the deaths and injuries.

He'd seen Ziva, on her knees, saying a prayer at the memorial, her Star of David clenched in her fist, lips moving impossibly fast as she chanted in unintelligible Hebrew. Adding an Israeli flag to the stars and stripes.

He'd seen McGee, staring unseeingly at the bricks, absently rubbing the scar on his stomach as he relieved the panic in his and his boss's eyes when the glass shard had been discovered.

He'd seen Dorneget, shoulders bowed, fist clenched at his jaw, frowning fiercely at the memorial as he considered the events leading up to the explosion. Gibbs wondered if he'd ever go to the dentists again.

And he'd seen Abby, the only one to openly weep, black lace parasol in one hand and Bert clutched in the other. She'd watched one of the dead covered in a yellow sheet as she sat on a kerb, being checked over for injuries. She'd sobbed on his shoulder as they laid on the floor of her lab, breath knocked out of the both of them, glass shattered around them. He suspected she was often thinking of Jimmy, when she looked at that memorial; thinking of the wedding as much as the explosion. She was just positive like that.

The memorial gave them all somewhere to go, for none of them would willingly seek out a psychologist. It was a place and a thing to comfort them all and remind them of why they did their jobs - to prevent repeats of such events. To protect people, even if they were targets as a result.

He found more comfort in it than he could ever express, and he knew he wasn't the only one. He was just glad he knew who to thank.