Hey guys! This my quarantine story. It takes place in 2020 but I won't be mentioning the pandemic more than a couple of times. This will feature three of the NCIS families and how they are dealing with the shelter in place. It will be three chapters long and each chapter will cover the experience of one of three ladies in the NCIS family. First up, Ziva and her family. Hope you all enjoy the chapter.

It was mid May in Washington, D.C., and because of the pandemic that had been affecting the entire world for the past couple of months, things were upside down for the NCIS family.

First, five year old Tori Palmer had been staying with Abby since mid march because both her parents had jobs that dealt with dead bodies and they didn't want to risk passing the virus on to her Grandducky who was at high risk. Abby's job wasn't considered essential so she stayed home with Tori and her newly adopted three year old daughter, Caty. Her husband Jesse, being a scientist with the NAVY Medical Research Institute, was considered essential. In fact he, along with Abby's best friend Carol, was part of a team that was working to develop a vaccine for the virus. So, for the forseeable future, Jesse was staying with the Palmers.

Because of Tony's lung issues, he was performing his job as Director of NCIS from home. A small portable building in the DiNozzo backyard became his office. Ziva was also at home because the NCIS training school was shut down. Their three kids, six year old Tali and AJ and three and a half year old Timmy were being homeschooled for the rest of the year.

The rest of the NCIS agents were considered essential personel so McGee was bunking with Reeves to avoid infecting his family. Gibbs should have been staying home since he was in the at risk catagory due to his age, but then, Gibbs lived by his own rules. Delilah was able to work from home, so McGee's sister, Sarah came to stay with Delilah and the two and a half year old

In order to relieve the stress of being trapped in their houses with multiple children under the age of ten, Ziva, Delilah, and Abby had frequent phone conversations and made sure to schedual a group video chat at least every other week.

On this day in mid May, they were having one of those video chats.

"Hey, guys. What's going on? How are the kids?" Abby inquired once the connection was made.

Ziva waved at the screen "Hello, Abby. The kids are quite fine at the moment. Tony is entertaining them."

"And Sarah's playing a game with my twins right now. How are Tori and Caty?" Delilah added.

"They're ok for now. They're watching a movie. They miss their friends though. Plus, Caty misses her dad and Tori really misses her parents."

"My kids miss Caty, Tori and the McTwins as well. It's been an especially tough week."

"It has for me, too." Delilah empathized.

"I think we're all more than a little stir crazy here." Abby agreed.

"Monday was the worst." Ziva told her friends.

"Why? What happened?" Delilah asked.

"Yeah, you can tell us." Abby encouraged.

Ziva hesitated, but then decided to open up. After all, they were all in pretty much the same boat these days.

(Ziva's POV)

Well, it was mid afternoon, and Tony was in the backyard office on a video conference.

I was alone in the house with the three kids. At first they were all behaving themselves and getting along, but after only twenty minutes, I heard an annoyed scream from AJ. I went to check on them and they all ran up to me and began shouting all at once. I already had a bad headache from all the noise and stress. I had been to the grocery that morning and everybody was acting psychotic, then I was trying to check my emails and my laptop chose that time to totally shut down on me. Then Timmy had spilled grape juice all over the rug. Needless to say I was at the bottom of my rope

"Ziva, I think you mean end of your rope." Abby cut in.

"It does not matter. I was nearly over the edge and the kids were just about to push me the rest of the way. Shall I continue my story?" Ziva shot back. She received two nods, so she began again.

I gave a sharp loud whistle to quiet them. "Alright you three, calm down and tell me what is the matter, one at a time."

I then asked AJ to explain her side first. "Ima, Timmy keeps grabbing for the Wii controler and it's MY turn!"

"He can't play with us. He's a baby!" Tali cut in.

Timmy protested this quite loudly. "I am NOT!"

"Ok. Ok. Timmy, why are you teasing your sisters?"

"They won't let me play Mario!" he replied in extreme frustration.

"He'll break the controler! He's too little to play!" insisted AJ.

Well, I could easily see where this was going, so I calmly informed the the children that if they couldn't share there would be no more video games for the rest of the day.

AJ screwed up her face in annoyence and snapped, "Fine!" She quickly finished her turn and then handed her brother the remote, but when she saw that he was only wanting to swing it around, she exclaimed, "See?! He's gonna break it!" She grabbed it back from her brother and before I could do anything, she shoved him as hard as she could and sent him into the TV cabinet.

"Oh, no! Was he ok?" Delilah asked.

"Well, he had a bump but he ended up being just fine." Ziva assured her before continuing with the rest of the string of events.

"Abigail Jet DiNozzo! You do NOT shove your brother!" I admonished my daughter.

"But he deserved it!" she protested.

"Hitting and shoving is never the answer." I told her as I calmed my screaming son.

I turned to my other daughter and requested, "Tali would you please get Timmy a boo-boo froggy from the freezer?"

"Yes, Ma'am." she quickly complied.

As I held the ice to Timmy's head, I firmly commanded, "No more Wii for the rest of the week for you AJ."

"WHAT!? That's not fair!" screamed my enraged daughter.

"It is absolutely fair. You hurt your little brother. He is smaller than you. You need to teach him how to play, not bully him. Tali, since you were name- calling you are also finished with the WII for the rest of the day."

"That's mean! You're mean, Ima!" Tali added her complaints to her sister's.

"How come she only has to stop for today and I have to stop for the whole week?!" AJ demanded.

"Tali called Timmy a name but she was kind to him when she got him the ice-pack. No more out of either of you or it will be longer."

Tali changed her attitude immediately. I don't know if AJ was just to far beyond control, or overly tired and over- stimulated, but she refused to back down.

She turned on me, stamping her little foot,and bellowed, "I HATE YOU, IMA!"

That did it. With all the control I had left I ordered as calmly as I could, "Go to your room, Abigail. Now."

She stared me down for a moment before spinning around a stomping off to her room and slamming the door. I was, by then ,barely holding it together. I asked Tali if she could entertain her brother for a bit. When she agreed, I settled them down with Legos and headed back to my own room before I could have a melt-down in front of them.

A few minutes later, I heard Tony enter the house and speak with Tali and Timmy.

"AJ yelled at Ima and said she hated her." Timmy tattled.

"Yeah. Because she got in trouble for pushing Timmy and hurting him. Ima said no more Wii for a week." Tali informed her Abba.

"And Tali can't play till tomorrow cause she called me names." Timmy jumped in

"Is that true, Tali-gator?" I heard Tony inquire.

I heard heard a soft, guilty, "Yes, sir."

"Well, where is your Ima?"

I didn't hear a response, so I assumed the kids pointed in the direction of the master bedroom.

"I'll go check on your Ima and then I'll talk to your sister. You two keep playing." was the reply I heard my husband give.

A moment later, I heard his footsteps approaching the door. He knocked softly, then without waiting for permission, he entered and walked over to where I was sitting on the bed.

"Ziva?" he uttered gently.

"I can chase down and take out criminals without breaking a sweat. I can kill someone eighteen different ways with a paper-clip. I can make myself disappear without a trace. Yet, I am a complete failure when it comes to controlling my children and keeping them occupied during a quarantine." I lamented as tears filled my eyes again.

Tony sat down beside me on the bed and pulled me into a strong embrace. "You are not a failure, Sweet-Cheeks. You are a good mother and our kids love you very much. Kids can get temperamental when they get over-tired or bored. They take after their Ima that way."

I glared at him and he quick continued, "They've been cooped up for months in this house with no one but each other and us. I'm not condoning their behavior, but it has nothing to do with your ability as a mother."

I looked at him for a long moment, wanting so much to believe his words. Before I could respond, however, there was a knock on our door.

"Ima? Abba? Can we come in?" Tali's little voice requested permission.

" Come on in." Tony called out. The door opened and, to our surprise, AJ entered, clutching her sister's hand tightly.

"Ima, I'm sorry I made you sad." she began timidly.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you and said you were mean. You're not mean, Ima. You're nice." Tali spoke up next.

AJ's next statement nearly broke my heart. "And I don't really hate you, Ima. I love you. Do you still love me?"

I scooped both of my little girls into my arms and held them close. "Of course I still love you, Angel. Very much. Nothing could ever change that. Ever."

"That goes for both of us." Tony broke in.

Timmy then ran into the room, realizing that was where all the action was. Tony held out his arms for his son and scooped him up. That was the bright spot of the day; Tony and I together cuddling with our children.

"Aww! That's so sweet. AJ and Tali are really big-hearted kids. Of course they would realize they needed to apologize on their own. I love my god-kids." Abby gushed.

Delilah nodded. "I'm glad the day ended better than it started. Tony was right. You are an amazing mother, Ziva."

"Thank you, both. Now enough about me. How are you two holding up since our last conversation?"

"Oh. Well, things at the McGee house haven't exactly been smooth sailing this whole time. In fact, Wednesday, Sarah had to go back to her apartment for a couple of hours to take care of things and I was alone with the twins. Let's just say things got interesting."

Ziva and Abby leaned forward to listen. This sounded like it was going to be an incredibly wild story.

Well, there's Ziva's quarantine experience. Delilah's will be next. The characters in this story that you don't recognize from the show such as AJ, Timmy, Jesse, and Caty , were all introduced in the first story of this series. That story is called Along the Broken Road, and this story is also a part of my Broken Road universe. Thanks for reading. Next chapter will hopefully be up on Friday. Stay tuned!