A/N: I admit I wasn't super excited about the new season until I read that Cote de Pablo is leaving the show. It's definitely not that I don't like Ziva; it's that I'm really interested to see how the show is going to handle her leaving. This is what popped into my head upon first hearing the news, and since I know I can pretty much guarantee this *won't* be how it happens, I was thinking of maybe making this one of those "5 times" fics-if I can come up with that many scenarios before the premiere... So maybe it'll be more of a "2 or 3 times" fic. : ) But until then, I hope you enjoy this completed one-shot.

The sniper rifle felt leaden in Gibbs' hands, but not because the model was any heavier than his old friend from the Corps, the M-40.

It wasn't even because he knew he might have to end someone's life with the gun. He had taken lives before, and he wouldn't think twice if he had to take out the terrorist they were all waiting for on this unseasonably hot fall evening.

The fact that he was set up in this musty, unused office for the sole purpose of protecting that traitor to his country only made the rifle feel heavier. If he were the longing kind, he would have acknowledged then that he missed the old days when the job made more sense, when he just put away the bad guys instead of making sure they lived long enough to see the inside of a cushy courtroom.

But the mission was to get Marcus Keys, a money-laundering lieutenant, to the meeting so NCIS could help the FBI nab the leader of the terrorist cell—the cell that planned to use the clean stacks of cash to buy the dirty bomb the cell wanted to unleash on the city's Metro system. Gibbs took a moment to thank Navy SEAL Chad McBride—whose radioactive head had wound up in their morgue—for his courageous service and the invaluable intel he had gathered and sent on before being tortured and murdered.

Gibbs had been skeptical—his default mode, but even more so in this case where his team's careers were on the line—when Vance had told him about the magic bullet that would make everything go away.

Life doesn't work like that.

But then Vance told him about Parsons' massive gambling debts and how the launderer wanted a deal. That was the reason his agents had pretended to resign, getting Parsons off their backs long enough to let the team find the terrorist cell and make this meeting happen. And once the cell was busted and the launderer started singing Parsons' least favorite tune, they could all return to normal. Former director Morrow, who had hatched much of the plan, had assured Gibbs of that.

Gibbs used the scope to check on his agents. Tony and Ziva were in a dark blue company sedan on the street below, the location in downtown Alexandria chosen by some high-ranking intel guy who'd probably never seen an op anywhere but on TV. Both Gibbs and Fornell had wanted to set up a diversion to get the planned meeting off the busy thoroughfare, but the agent had pulled rank on Fornell, leaving Gibbs to wonder why the fed would want to make decisions on an op he wouldn't even be physically present for. But Fornell had just shrugged and said, "Welcome to my world, Gibbs," and that was the end of that.

Gibbs felt a stab of annoyance at himself for giving in on that as he focused on the tinted windows of the sedan, parked to his right at the near end of the street. He knew Ziva was perched inside with a sniper rifle of her own, but she would lose vital seconds waiting for the window to lower before she could fire. In this crowded an area, Gibbs had insisted on two precision shooters up high, but the head fed had overruled him again, wanting agents on the ground quickly in case anything went wrong.

It was too late to do anything about it, so Gibbs moved the scope up and to his left to find Keys and McGee, who were slouched in seats at a sidewalk café a few buildings farther away on the opposite side of the street. He smiled a little at his agent's homeboy outfit, which today included baggy pants, a wifebeater and impossibly white sneakers that shone in the light of the old-fashioned streetlamps. Gibbs had wanted Tony playing Navy officer turned smalltime drug dealer to befriend Keys, but he had to agree that it was time for McGee to spread his wings and get out from behind the computer. Not to mention that Tony was better than the Probie behind the wheel, his precision-driving skills coming not from his law enforcement experience but from someplace Gibbs wasn't sure he needed to know. At any rate, McGee could get Keys to safety inside the café in a hurry, if need be.

The same couldn't be said for Fornell, though, and the thought of how exposed his friend would be when he showed up made Gibbs feel a rare twinge of unease. As a sniper, he was used to being relatively removed from the action—relatively safe—but that didn't mean he liked that the agents' roles put them right in the thick of it. But all of Gibbs' team had been doing undercover work lately, something that was never entirely safe to begin with.

McGee had spent the last four months posing as a Navy officer, spending his days behind a computer at Naval Station Norfolk and his nights in far less tame ways getting to know Lt. Marcus "Mickey" Keys and some of his friends/clients, many of whom both did and dealt drugs all over the Tidewater region of southeastern Virginia. Not only had the Probie fixed a computer bug that had been plaguing the station for weeks, but he also managed to be convincing in getting "caught" smoking marijuana, which was in reality something that smelled just like the real thing, cooked up by Abby, with Ducky assisting—though why his old friend should be an expert on the smell of grass, Gibbs didn't know and didn't want to know.

It had been no accident that Keys had stumbled across McGee smoking that day. Tony and Ziva had been stalking the lieutenant and knew his routine inside out and backward. Gibbs felt his mouth twitch again knowing the pair had been posing as a couple and staying together in a crappy apartment two doors down from Keys in Newport News—a hop, skip and jump over the James River north of Norfolk. He wondered both if they were driving each other nuts (a given) and if they were sleeping together (a possibility), and he shook his head slightly when memories of Jenny momentarily covered the view through his scope.

Nothing was happening down below, just McGee and Keys waiting for the cell leader to show and Tony and Ziva waiting unseen in the sedan. Fornell was playing Keys' driver and had gone to pick up the mysterious leader from his hotel, which was according to Keys a sign of trust between the two murdering terrorist slimeballs. Gibbs didn't like it, but Fornell hadn't been bothered by it so the FBI agent won that round.

It helped that Fornell had put the most legwork into this, having been under nearly a year to gain Keys' trust and become his driver before busting him and turning him in short order. Fornell's cover was a former Secret Service agent disgruntled because he'd been fired after nearly 20 years protecting presidents who didn't protect American jobs, and it was just the kind of government-hating story that Keys would latch onto. It wasn't that Keys was tired of seeing his buddies killed in wars the public no longer seemed to care about or even that he'd been wounded himself—he had never even seen a battlefield. No, Keys' problem was that the Navy had transferred him from the paradise that was what the Marines called K-Bay—on the beautiful island of Oahu—to the "hell" that was Norfolk, all of twenty sandy miles from Virginia Beach.

Gibbs worked his jaw in an effort to stop gritting his teeth at the thought of Keys' absurd, petulant "reason" for wanting to kill innocent civilians. But it pissed him off even more to think—as Fornell thought—that Keys just wanted to be famous, and Gibbs cursed a world where bombing suspects ended up on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.

He rolled his shoulders, careful not to move the rifle resting on its tripod, and he tried to shake off his impatience. The terrorist was late. The street was growing more crowded with evening diners. And the fact that neither Gibbs nor his team had ever laid eyes on the mysterious man didn't help Gibbs' unsettled gut. But Fornell would have called if anything were hinky, so Gibbs chalked it up to traffic and continued to wait.

His radio squawked and Gibbs heard the voice of the leader of the JSOC team that was providing backup down the hall from his sniper's nest.

"We got a suspicious black minivan inbound from the east, slowing near target area," Capt. Wayne said, his tone calm and professional. A pause. "Cancel. Vehicle picked up a passenger and is outbound."

"Shoulda known," came a voice Gibbs didn't recognize. "The day the terrorists start using minivans—"

"They already do," another young male voice said, "for exactly that reason and—"

"Oh, shut it, dude. Did you get that from the last episode of 'Homeland' or—"

"Guzman, Duncan, kill the chatter," Wayne said, beating Gibbs to the punch.

To be honest, Gibbs still wasn't exactly sure what a JSOC team was doing on this mission. Sure they often assisted law enforcement with security at high-profile, high-risk events like the Olympics or presidential inaugurations, but more often JSOC meant extremely fucking classified ops. Hell, their Special Mission Unit guys had to be tightlipped even when chatting up their DEVGRU buddies—better known as SEAL Team Six. Gibbs knew a mass-casualty attack on something like the District's Metro system was right up JSOC's alley, but the plan here was to catch the terrorist cell before they could even start planning. According to McBride's intel report, the bomb wasn't even in the country yet—and wouldn't be until it was paid in full. Apparently bombmakers were smarter than America's subprime lenders—they didn't give credit when it wasn't due.

Gibbs let the scope slide back to the café in the lamp-lit street below and he watched McGee turn his head sharply to the left. Tensing, he followed the agent's sightline but didn't see anything suspicious, and the radios stayed silent. He moved the scope back to the car and saw McGee jerk his chin to the right, and he realized his agent was just cracking his neck. The movement reminded him of Tony, and Gibbs wondered when Tim had started doing that.

He slid the scope to his right, his gaze moving across the street and finding the sedan still sitting silently at the curb there. The tint of the windows didn't allow him to see inside, and for some unknown reason, that bothered him. But he didn't dwell on the odd feeling and continued watching the street below for any sign that their terrorist had finally arrived.

If Gibbs were the sighing type, he might have let out a long one as he continued the long wait.

Less than two minutes later, he'd be finding himself with blood on his hands, longing for the calm that had vanished with a single gunshot.

I'm kneeling on pavement so hot I don't even register the warmth of the blood.

"You will NOT die on me," I yell.

I doubt that I'm heard. The wound is pulsing under my sodden red hands and as much as I want to tell myself the weak thudding against my palms is a good thing, I don't believe myself. Because the thuds are getting weaker, slowing until there's far too much time between each pump of thick blood.

It crosses my panicked mind that I've been here before, trying to physically keep life inside a broken vessel while desperate for some magical intervention. After some of the things I've been through, I don't know how I feel about the spirit, but I realize I'm pleading for the vibrant life to stay inside the body I'm suddenly being pulled away from.

As soon as I realize I'm being dragged upright, I whirl and take a swing at whoever would be so stupid as to think I'd give up on my partner, who has begun to gurgle, choking on whatever blood hasn't pumped out onto the ground.

My smile means nothing but rage as my fist connects, and so great is my horror, my anger, my anguish, that I never even feel the skin on my knuckles tearing. There is no pain but the rending of my soul.

Because even as the voice—muffled at first through a hand wiping across a bloody mouth—orders me to stay back and let the medics work, I know.

It's over.

I've lost another one, and there's nothing anyone can do to fix it.

Gibbs never heard the gunshot that started the melee.

But he knew immediately that something was wrong when he tried and failed to raise Capt. Wayne on the radio. The silence kicked him in the gut and he was up and moving, radioing to the agents on the ground a terse command to sit tight.

Gibbs left the rifle at the window and ran down the hall, pulling his 9mm just before entering the abandoned office the JSOC team had chosen for their post. The sight that greeted him was as shocking as it was terrifying. Each man in the elite unit was lying in a heap of limbs and tactical gear, completely unmoving.

Gibbs stooped on creaking knees to check the nearest man's pulse, and he was relieved to find it steady and strong under his calloused fingers.

"Gibbs."

The call of his name was weak, but the agent rushed into the next room—what must once have been someone's dream of a corner office—and found Wayne slumped against a wall, bleeding from the chest.

"Gotta … get … out," he gasped. "Gas."

Gibbs looped an arm around the injured man and they staggered into the next room, where the agent almost shot one of the JSOC guys who had managed to rouse himself. Together they dragged Wayne down the hall and propped him against a wall.

"I charged when he threw the canister," Wayne said, gasping among the words. "Got shot for my trouble. Silencer. Just one shooter. Ran toward stairwell."

Gibbs nodded, having no idea what to make of the attack other than knowing that whatever was happening, it wasn't over. The JSOC guy—the overly chatty Guzman, his gear read—had gone to the door to barricade it, but quickly lost his battle with the effects of the gas he had inhaled in the other room and slumped facedown on the floor. Gibbs didn't waste time checking on him—he was out cold—and didn't bother pushing the heavy filing cabinet in front of the door. He simply shut it to keep any lingering gas from finding its way in.

He did wince a little when he stepped over Guzman's prone body to get back to Wayne, but he just focused on the task and pressed his hands to the chest wound.

"Gibbs, do it," Wayne said, his voice weaker.

Gibbs shook his head with the barest of movements. He couldn't call off the meet now. Too much work had been done, McBride's sacrifice too much, too much risk to let the payment exchange hands.

"Do it," Wayne said again, blood dripping from his mouth.

Gibbs pressed the man's hands to the bleeding wound and then he rushed to the window, making terse radio calls and knowing even before he crouched there that he wouldn't like what he saw through the scope.

And he didn't.

The limo carrying the terrorist cell's leader—ready to collect the cleaned cash to buy the bomb—had stopped, halted by traffic, in the middle of the street right in front of the sidewalk café where McGee and Keys waited. It was the most crowded part of the block, and Gibbs felt a sick curl of fear in his gut, knowing that whoever had gassed the JSOC team might be about to start a firefight right in the street—or worse.

Fornell was standing at the rear door of the limo, and Gibbs studied the agent's face, which had the unfortunate, unnerving effect of placing the crosshairs dead-center over his friend's heart. Gibbs' eyes widened slightly as he realized, looking at the limo, that Wayne might not have been asking him to call off the mission.

He might have wanted Gibbs to end it by putting a bullet through the cell leader's head.

Through the scope, Gibbs watched a hand emerge from the back of the limo, and for the first time in a long time, he wasn't sure what to do. Taking out the leader might stop whatever was coming—and something was definitely coming; Gibbs could feel it in the humming of his nerves, like the rumbling of the tracks as a freight train bore down. Or it could backfire, setting in motion the very thing Gibbs was trying to prevent.

His finger hovered over the trigger. His mind raced.

Wayne spluttered once and then went silent.

Gibbs' gut told him the Captain wouldn't be the only one to die tonight.

I know there are nurses eyeing the blood dripping from my knuckles, and their eagle eyes probably know that some of it is mine. For now, though, they stay away, and for that I am glad.

I figure they leave me alone now because of the way I came in: covered in gore, hands pressed to the sucking chest wound in a body so pale, so motionless that I can barely connect it to the partner who once lived, breathed, teased.

It doesn't even occur to me that the nurses keep their distance because of the way I am now: pacing, feral, wild-eyed with fear that I know is pointless because fear implies hope, and I have none.

But I can hear from the trauma room the shouts and orders of a medical team trying to save a life.

I hear a female voice warn to watch a broken rib, and I wipe my bloody palms on my pants, wondering if the bullet that tore through fragile flesh smashed that bone—or if my own hands broke it as I tried to stop the torrents of blood pouring through my fingers.

I shake my head. But it does nothing to clear the grisly visions that play in front of my eyes, still locked on the door that hides the room where my partner lies dying.

That we made it to the ER should comfort me, but it doesn't. I know I should be fighting my way into that room, demanding that the doctors do everything they can, but I can't. I could—I'd pulled myself up to my full height and arranged my face into a mask of pure determination when we first arrived at the hospital, sirens still screaming in my head—but I don't, because I know death is coming.

So much death. And it started so early in my life that I don't remember what it feels like to not know grief, to not mourn on certain days of the year that should be joyous. I wake sometimes with names stuck to my lips but I lack the strength to cry out.

So much death. And this one will break me. I know with everything in my being that while I might survive this most recent loss, my career won't. I still remember the first time I saw death on the job and I swore it wouldn't change me. And then I was the one to bring death—to take a life—and I swore twice as loud that it wouldn't change me.

But it has.

And why should I even think that I will survive this?

I see my team pacing these floors where a thousand others have walked, hoping that death will stay at bay. We all are dealing in our own ways, some predictable, some not. I try to concentrate on them but their faces blur into those of the dead and I have to look away. I am moving because stopping seems wrong. Maybe I do have some hope left that this day won't end in tragedy, that I won't lose another one.

But I'm wrong already because I know I'm already gone. This death will be the end of my time at NCIS. My badge feels like it weighs a thousand pounds, hanging from my belt and ready to drag me down into hell, and I know I won't be wrapping yet another black band around it. Because it won't be mine anymore after I turn it in and turn around and walk away.

Maybe I'm a coward. My father raised me to show nothing but strength. No tears allowed. But I'm not sure it matters anymore. I count him among my ghosts, too.

I shake my head again, hating myself for my selfish thoughts. Every ounce of my being should be concentrating on whatever remains of the life behind those doors, but I know that wishful thinking won't stop the bleeding, can't mend the ragged edges of the path carved by that bullet. Nothing can change what happened after we looked at each other in that car, nodded, and set in motion the thing that would kill one of us.

I wonder if it should bother me that in that moment, we smiled at each other.

There's a sudden flurry of movement behind the frosted-glass doors and I can't take it anymore. One of the nurses is approaching me with bandages and by the time I realize it's for the injury to my hand that I can't feel, I've turned and am striding down the long hallway. For a moment I feel guilty for leaving my team—their devastation, their fear, their agony etched into their faces—because I know I'm usually the strong one who holds everyone together.

But right now I'm not.

Because death is coming.

And less than half an hour ago, I thought it was coming for me.

Gibbs didn't have to make a choice because someone else made the decision for him.

Because he was watching through the scope—frozen like a damned rookie—he saw the shot hit Fornell, entering high enough on his shoulder that it wouldn't be fatal. That the FBI agent had pulled his gun before he dropped all the way to the hot pavement pretty much confirmed Gibbs' street diagnosis.

But Gibbs could do little else except watch and try to provide cover as the scene unfolded below.

McGee grabbed Keys within a second of the first shot, and the Probie might have to get a new nickname after the way he hustled the lieutenant safely into the café despite the shots raining down on them from the rooftop on the north side of the street, to Gibbs' right. His blue eyes quickly found the shooter and his finger caressed the trigger, taking out the sniper with a single shot.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he realized they must have been set up. There's no way someone just happened to know to bring enough gas to knock out an entire JSOC team and to know their exact position. Keys would be the easy suspect—except that Keys hadn't known the meeting location until he was on his way to it and he hadn't had access to a cellphone. Whoever had sold them out must be high up the fed food chain.

But Gibbs was too busy watching Fornell scramble inside the bulletproof limo to worry about who might have set them up. There was gunfire coming from a storefront on the north side of the street—opposite the café—but Gibbs couldn't get a bead on the shooters because of the wide awning that shaded the sidewalk in front.

More shots came from a car on the south side several buildings down from the café, and Gibbs took aim at the roof above the driver, firing with deadly precision only to have the round slam into what was obviously heavy duty bulletproofing. Because of his high position, he couldn't get an angle on the glass and he saw that Ziva, from her place in the car on the opposite side of the street, wouldn't be able to either because of the limo blocking her trajectory.

People had abandoned their cars in the pandemonium and Gibbs could only hope Fornell had either killed or subdued the terrorist inside the limo, which clearly wasn't moving anytime soon because of the maze of vehicles in the road.

Gibbs saw McGee reemerge in the outdoor seating area of the café, keeping his back to the low stone wall that protected him from the shooters in the car just a few buildings away, and the gunmen in the storefront across the street.

Gibbs wondered why Tony and Ziva hadn't made a move until he realized their car was blocked in by the car behind the limo and they couldn't fire on the storefront because of the trees lining the otherwise quaint street. Their trunks weren't even a foot around, but still the agents couldn't shoot through them.

And then Gibbs saw another reason why Tony and Ziva might not have moved, or even given away their position.

Most of the pedestrians had scattered at the first crack of gunfire, but from his perch high above, Gibbs could see that a small group had been trapped beside the sedan, in a little courtyard with a low wall similar to the one around the café across the street. Gibbs took one more look at the shooters' car toward the far end of the street and knew they had a perfect line on him in the window of the building at the head of the street but that they couldn't shoot through their bulletproof back window. They would have to get out to fire on him. So he turned his attention back to the group huddled terrified in the courtyard.

It was a family, he guessed, a mother, father and two children—one boy, one girl, neither older than seven or eight. Each parent was covering a child with his or her body, and through the scope, Gibbs could see their backs heaving with fear.

Gibbs reassessed the situation, seeing that McGee, still at the café, wasn't far from the shooters in the car but had apparently seen Gibbs' bullets deflect harmlessly away and so was keeping his head down. There was no motion or sound from the limo. Tony and Ziva's sedan remained silent, but Gibbs could see the car jostle slightly and he sucked in a deep breath of too-warm night air.

His agents had seen what he had seen through the scope: The two shooters in the storefront were using the awnings over the businesses on the north side of the street as cover to slowly make their way toward the family. Gibbs didn't know if they thought they could use the terrified bystanders as hostages or what their plan was; he just knew he couldn't let the shooters reach the courtyard.

The gaps in the awnings were too small for Gibbs to pick off both gunmen and his gut told him if he started shooting blindly at the obscenely bright fabric that the shooters would just run to the family. McGee, on the south side of the street, was helpless because of the line of cars blocking his shot.

That left Tony and Ziva.

Gibbs suddenly understood the movement in the car—which was NCIS standard-issue and not bulletproof—and knew his agents were lining up on the passenger side of the car, nearest the curb, one in the front seat and one in the back, getting ready to fire on the shooters as soon as they crept into view. Because they wisely had not given away their position earlier with useless potshots, they had a chance to save the family.

But Gibbs also knew that as soon as his agents lowered the windows to fire, they would become targets themselves. Even if they fired through the windows, those first shots through glass wouldn't be as accurate. His agents had a slight advantage with the protection of being in the car, but they had to know they would certainly draw fire.

Gibbs cursed the unseasonable fall weather as he wiped his sweating palm across his knee. As soon as the shooting started, he needed to be ready to put as many rounds through the bright green awning nearest the sedan as possible. It occurred to him that he didn't know who was in the front seat and who was in back, and he felt a flash of real fear for the agent up front, who would be closer to the shooters and the more likely to be spotted through the slightly less tinted front windows. Gibbs gave a grim half-smile when he realized he could picture Tony and Ziva fighting over the front seat—as if this were some fun road trip and yelling "shotgun" first was all that was needed to make everything all right—but he couldn't guess who would "win" the argument.

He didn't have much time to think about it because the first shot that rang out was followed in a split-second by a cacophony of others.

Five things happened in a waterfall of milliseconds, one immediately following another: The agent in the front seat fired through the windshield at the shooters, the shooters started firing on the sedan, the shooters in the bulletproof car began to pull away on screaming tires, McGee promptly shot out two of those tires, and Gibbs' bullets shredded the awning.

There was the barest second of silence in the vacuum of violence.

Then it started again.

The shooters bailed, guns blazing, from the bulletproof car, clearly intending to go down fighting. Gibbs easily picked off one while McGee bravely popped up over the low wall and took down the other.

It was silent again, and Gibbs felt his heart stutter when McGee slumped back down against the stone barrier, going completely still. Gibbs dropped the rifle and ran for the stairs, not caring how badly his knees ached when his agents needed him. He didn't know who was hurt—hell, if any of them were injured, or all of them. McGee, Fornell, DiNozzo, Ziva… It took his breath to realize he didn't know who was still alive.

Moving through the darkened building felt like running through molasses and it seemed like years later when he threw open the building's front door and stepped into the street. McGee still had not moved, and neither the doors on the limo nor the dark-blue sedan had opened.

Gibbs felt like he was being pulled apart by the soul.

But training won out and he first went to the limo, the only place where there could still be danger. But Fornell just smiled grimly out at him, a hand pressed to his bleeding shoulder, and wagged his gun at the terrorist bound on the seat beside him. No words were spoken—none needed because Fornell was going to be fine.

Gibbs saw the mother of the young family standing, albeit unsteadily, to move toward the sedan while the father stayed propped against the courtyard wall, his kids gathered tightly in his arms. So Gibbs went to McGee, needing only a moment to see that the graze just above his left ear had probably given him a hell of a concussion but hadn't even come close to penetrating the skull. He'd be fine.

Gibbs hadn't even gotten to his feet when he knew any relief he had been even close to feeling wasn't going to last.

The young mother was standing at the front of the sedan, the door flung wide.

And she was screaming.

The woman was howling in wordless horror and Gibbs again felt certain he was going to lose an agent tonight, if he hadn't already. He knew he should be standing up, running to the car, perhaps to say his goodbyes while there was still time.

He didn't think he could handle losing either one of them, and it suddenly occurred to him that perhaps both were gone. The gunfire had been so quick, but Gibbs knew how many bullets could fly in those short bursts. He managed to start toward the car and he did feel some measure of relief at what he saw. But it didn't last.

Whoever was in the backseat was flinging their body at the door—with its law enforcement locks stubbornly doing their job—so hard that the sedan was rocking with the force of the blows. Gibbs felt his knees go weak as he realized the animal-like sounds coming from the backseat were those of the surviving agent, who knew his or her partner had not.

With the woman still screaming, Gibbs could not tell whose voice had now turned to agonized, furious snarls as the person in the too-dark-to-see backseat continued thrashing to get out, to help.

Gibbs ran to the car.

I slide to the floor in the bathroom—banishing previous men's room conversations to a lockbox of steel in my mind—and I wish it had been me in the path of that bullet. I wish it had torn through my chest instead, leaving me gasping and bleeding, drowning in my own blood as I had almost drowned once before.

I wish that bullet had found me.

It would probably hurt less now.

For just a moment—or maybe it's hours—I let myself give in to that pain. I feel wetness on my cheeks but I lack the energy to sob, and somehow, that feels like a betrayal.

I close my eyes and let the memories come. And with them comes every emotion I've been ruthlessly repressing since the second I realized where that bullet had hit my partner.

Pain, sorrow, grief, rage.

Loss.

I feel lost.

I'm drowning in nothingness.

But I pull myself up from the bathroom floor. Because something has changed, and I can feel it. The lights have dimmed and the air is heavier, making my attempt to stand almost an impossibility. I waver on my feet and slump sideways against the cool tile wall, but at least I am upright. I have a feeling it might not be for long. My heart, which I expected—from experiences I do not care to remember—to be hammering, is thudding thickly in my too-tight chest.

For a moment, I cannot breathe.

The past is crushing me, and my wild thoughts wonder how the weight of ghosts can be so massive.

But I push on, leaving the restroom and coming to stand, blinking in the harsher lights of the ER, in front of Gibbs, whose mouth is bruised from my earlier swing. The rest of the team is either there or not there; I'm not sure. I am pretty sure, however, that if I were to study the faces of the people crowding the waiting room, most will be the faces of the dead.

He takes me by the shoulders, and then his hands move down my arms, as if he knows what he is about to say is going to take me out at the knees.

And if I see what I think I see in his tired, anguished blue eyes, he is going to be right.

Finally, he speaks.

"Ziva, I... Tony's dead."