Ellie jerks awake to the ringing of her cell phone, a phenomenon with which she's grown far too familiar for her liking since joining Gibbs' team. Must be a case, she thinks groggily, the fact that the ringtone is neither Gibbs' nor Nick's nor McGee's not quite registering.

"Bishop."

Ziva takes a deep breath, then says, "Ellie?"

The unfamiliar voice and Middle Eastern accent effectively shake Bishop awake. She's fairly certain she knows who her early morning caller is, but she still says, "This is she. With whom I speaking?"

"Agent Bishop, this is Ziva David." In spite of everything, Ziva's fighting off a grin, because after years of hiding and secrecy, introducing herself by her real name is more exhilarating than it really has any business being.

"Ag - Zi - uh, Ms. David," Ellie stammers, because she's learned many things in her years as an analyst and an agent, but the proper form of address for one's investigative predecessor slash ex-coworker's lover who's secretly back from the dead isn't one of them.

"Please, call me Ziva."

Bishop feels her shoulders relaxing (even as her adrenaline level stays sky-high) and she responds in kind, "Call me Ellie."

"Ellie," Ziva repeats, and Bishop marvels at her calm, even tone as her own heart pounds against her ribs. "I hate to be too forward, but you are needed at Gibbs' house as soon as possible."

"I'll be right there," Ellie assures her, balancing her phone between her ear and her shoulder as she slides back on yesterday's jeans.

"Drive safe," Ziva implores, and the line clicks dead.

"Wha' d'you want?" Fornell's grumpy voice, heavy with sleep and irritation, drags through the phone.

"T'bias," Jethro grunts, "We gotta talk. Put some pants on and get over here."

Fornell groans unintelligibly for a moment before ending the call.

"That was quick," McGee observes, having slinked back to the table while Gibbs was waiting (and waiting!) for Fornell to pick up.

Gibbs shrugs. "He's on his way," he says simply.

"She's still sleeping just fine," Tony says quietly to Ziva as he pads back into the kitchen. Ziva visibly sighs in relief.

McGee is puzzled by this exchange for a moment; Tali must be five or six by now, so he's pretty sure she should have long since been sleeping through the night - like, since before Tony even met her. He feels like slapping the back of his own head when it occurs to him that if he were to suddenly be forcibly uprooted from his home and forced to live in a strange place with a slightly grumpy old man he'd never met, he might have trouble sleeping, too. (He tries not to think about the fact that, given her mother's been pretending to be dead for the past few years, and most people pretend to be dead for a reason, moving from - well, from wherever it is she's been living - to Gibbs' house might actually be the least of Tali's problems, or even a welcome change.)

Tony comes up behind Ziva and starts softly massaging her shoulders. Gibbs is busy moving kitchen chairs into the living room so that everyone has somewhere to sit when Fornell, Bishop, and Delilah arrive, while McGee stands by the counter drinking what he thinks is only his third cup of coffee, though it could very well be his fourth. As Ziva's head falls gently backwards and Tony whispers goodness-knows-what into her ear, Tim turns towards the wall and tries to busy himself with rearranging Gibbs' kitchen tools to avoid the uncomfortable feeling that he is intruding on a very personal moment (never mind the fact that he was already here when Tony walked in.)

When he finishes his coffee and goes to deposit his empty mug in the sink (Three-maybe-four cups of coffee is probably enough for now. Probably.), Tony and Ziva are leaning gently against the wall, totally caught up in their own little world, and Tim takes a moment to really look at them. They look very, very tired, he notes, and very in love, like two people who've spent years holding onto each other as hard as they can because if they let go everything might fall apart.

Though it's only been a few years since his last face-to-face with Tony (and they've video chatted plenty in the meantime), he seems to have aged faster than time since last McGee saw him. He has dark circles under his eyes and wrinkles he's never seemed to have before, and the roots of his hair are going gray. What really shows the passage of time, though, is the blatant domesticity between Tony and Ziva. Tony's wearing a dark pair of sweatpants, what look like very warm socks, and an old NCIS tee shirt; though he hadn't noticed down in the basement, Tim notes with a soft smile that Ziva's got on leggings and a well-worn Ohio State tee-shirt that he's positive she didn't pick up at some market in Tel Aviv or Paris. She's laughing quietly as Tony braids a small section of her hair, and Tim feels a deep pang in his heart.

He remembers that day on the bench, talking to Tony while Tali watched quietly from her stroller. "Were you two an item the whole time?" he'd asked. Though Tony's evasive answer had confirmed what he'd suspected (not really, but they'd always been almost there), the deja vu is hitting him hard and he's pretty sure the answer's different this time: the whole time Tony's been gone, or certainly close to it, he and Ziva have been together. Every time he and Tony Facetimed, or texted, or talked on the phone, Ziva's been in the other room, cooing over Tali and waiting for Tony's update on the life and times of Tim McGee. After his impromptu wedding, when he and Delilah made that (admittedly somewhat tipsy) video call to tell Tony that they were married and expecting, when Tony had nearly cried and told them how he couldn't wait to meet their new addition, Ziva was just offscreen, listening and observing but never letting him know she was there, never letting him know that she was alive, that she was with the ones she loved.

None of this is about him, and he knows none of this is about him, but hot tears still sting at his eyes. She didn't tell me. She wanted me to think she was dead.

Gibbs comes back through the door to grab another chair, and anger twists itself up with Tim's hurt. How long has he known? Has he been in on it this whole time? How long have they kept this from me? It's been years and years and years, but suddenly he feels like a probie all over again, trying to prove himself to be good enough for Gibbs' team and somehow always falling short.

"Tim," Gibbs' quiet but unwavering voice, much closer than he'd thought Gibbs was, startles McGee out of his thoughts. "C'mon, grab a chair."

Obediently, McGee picks up the last chair still at the table and follows Gibbs into the living room. "You okay?" Gibbs asks softly, a hand on his agent's shoulder, after they set the chairs down opposite the sofa.

For a long moment, Tim says nothing. What can he say? I'm not okay at all. I was already struggling to balance the job with my family, and my wife is mad at me, and I might have a drinking problem, and now it turns out the three people besides Delilah that I trust and respect most in the world have been keeping a massive secret from me for who knows how long.

"I have a headache," he finally says.

"McGee," Gibbs warns, because apparently he actually wants to know the answer. That's different, Tim thinks a little derisively.

He closes his eyes for a long moment, breathing out slowly. "I'm not doing too great, boss," he finally admits. Gibbs just nods, which rubs him a little the wrong way. If he already knows, why is he asking?

"No one's trying to hide anything from you," Gibbs says, one eyebrow raised, and though he knows better, McGee scoffs. Rather loudly.

"Sure, boss," he snaps, and Gibbs' other eyebrow leaps up. Tim tries his best to keep his voice down; he may be hurt and even a little angry, but he's not sure he wants Tony and Ziva to know that. In a loud-ish sort of whisper, then, he says, "Ziva's been alive this whole time, off with Tony, probably living in familial bliss or what-the-hell-ever, and he couldn't be bothered to mention it to me. Every time I've talked to him the past three years, he's been lying through his teeth. And what about you, Jethro? Have you been in on this since the start, too?"

"They've been fighting for their lives, McGee," Gibbs barks. "You need to calm down right now."

Something in McGee breaks, and he can't pretend that anger outweighs hurt anymore. "I just don't understand," he whispers, voice cracking. "Why was I not go-"

A familiar car engine spins off outside, and Tim chokes on his own words and frantically dries his tears with his hands as best he can, because apparently Gibbs doesn't keep tissues anywhere in this freaking house.

"That's Delilah," he chokes out, and Gibbs nods. "Get it together, Tim," he says. "You need to cry later, you cry. Right now, you need to help your wife, you need to listen to Ziva's story, and you need to trust me. Got it?"

McGee swallows hard. "Got it, boss."