Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. For surely, the show would never survive if I were to actually touch them…

Summary: Strangely depressing what-if scenario, set after the events in SWAK. Character deaths abound.

Spoilers: Takes concepts from SWAK, Twilight and Kill Ari Part 1.

Doctor Donald Mallard stood as part of the wake, looking at faces of those around him filled with grieve and anger at so much death, so much destruction in so little time. He looked at the mourners, people he knew from work, as well as people he had never met. Parents he never knew still existed. And he couldn't help but wonder what had led to this? How could an entire team, an entire family be ripped apart like this?

But he knew the answer. He was rather certain that it could all be traced back to that day, less than a month ago. That day which had took everything and everyone from him. Because less than a month ago his happy family had still stood together, firm, strong…

But one sick woman had taken it from him. Had taken everything from him…

Young Anthony's death had been a shock. They had all believed he would fight it, that he would make it through. But 15 percent was just too small a number, Anthony could overcome anything life threw at him, but he couldn't overcome that. He couldn't overcome those kinds of odds. The blue lights had taken their boy from them, but Ducky Mallard knew something few others did… Those blue lights had taken everything else from him as well.

The team had still been in shock when the call came in. They had a job to do. Bureaucracy said that two weeks was all the time the team had to grieve, and two weeks was what they received.

It had been their first case back on the job. Two petty officers shot in the head, abandoned in their car that was stuck in a ditch next to the road. It was supposed to be simple, supposed to bring them back together… It only tore their already broken team apart at the seams.

Doctor Mallard could still remember the force of the explosion as it pushed his body backwards. Could still remember the look of absolute horror that had crossed the face of the once unflappable marine.

Nobody would ever be able to understand the pain of losing your family twice in two weeks, until it happens to you. Doctor Mallard hoped dearly, that nobody else would ever have to understand that pain.

Unfortunately pain was not yet finished with these two men. For not a week had passed since the senseless deaths of two of their comrades, when another befell them.

The bullet that had tore through their young forensic specialist's heart, had ripped through both of these men as well, for surely no one person could be expected to remain standing, to remain breathing after such an accumulation of loss.

Leroy Jethro Gibbs stood at the bottom of his stairwell, looking at the man who had taken everything he had, had left in his life. He felt the bullet rip through his rib cage, before he heard a shot coming from above him, realizing that blood had just killed blood, but that it was all too late.

He could see the crimson blood seeping through his chest, and wondered how he had come to lie on his back. The last image he would ever see was the face of a shocked and emotional Ziva David.

Ziva could only watch as the blood flowed from two men, the one her brother, a man that she had loved, but killed, the other a man she had only just met, but who would haunt her for the rest of her living life.

What she would not know, what she would not understand, was that for that man salvation had come early, for he would not have to live in thehell that had become his life in such a short time, any longer.

So it was that on the darker days, those days, which Doctor Mallard wished he would never have to experience again, that he would have a wish that would surely send him to eternal damnation. For on those days, he wished for one thing, and one thing only. He wished for his mother to finally breath her last breath, for her to enter that blessed new world, for he would surely follow close behind her.

A/N - This is by far the most depressing piece I have ever attempted to write. I am not completely happy with it, since it just doesn't want to flow the way I had intended it to. Please let me know if you have any ideas how to make it better, as I know it could do with some major editing. So please, constructive criticism is exactly what I strive for with this piece!

English isn't my first language, so please let me know of spelling/grammar mistakes as well. Thanks!