Disclaimer: I don't own anything. I'm just playing. Honest.

A/N: So this was something I had to get out of my head. Something like it could so easily happen in my own opinion anyway. Enjoy.

When they told her that the bullet came as close as it could come without leaving her unable to bear children. She felt nothing. When they told her that had she been delayed longer in coming to the hospital, she would have died from blood loss, she tried to remember how she had felt just before she passed out. 'Should she have felt more?' Know thy self, a great man once said. He saw artistry in the horror. It had taken her a long time to agree. The longer one fights the easier it is to hear the melody. You either hear it, or that gun at your hip begins to look useful for other reasons.

Had she ever a choice, she was not sure this was the life she would have chosen. But then, choice was not something she or anyone else around her ever had. Her nation, assailed on all sides by enemies, struggled to survive every single day. Struggled to carry on against an assault that she was slowly coming to believe was never going to end. A war they fought, yet perhaps it was one that they could not win. That she had suspected for sometime and ultimately, it was the reason she came back. She was a soldier, first and foremost. And when it came time for war, soldiers fought.

She looked them in the eye when they asked if it was an order, when they asked if it was her father and she had simply shrugged. Let them think what they will. The truth was her farther had kept her away as long as he could. He kept her from the suicide bombers, kept her from rocket attacks, and kept her from those that prized Mossad scalps more than any other. It had been just another day, until she had heard about yet more attacks from the Gaza Strip, more Israeli dead. Suddenly the missing marine didn't seem all that important. It had happened prior to that, of course, but that day she finally realised why she had been attached to NCIS. And it had little to do with co-operation.

There is one thing about soldiers that everyone knows. They fight, they get hurt, and they die. It had only been a matter of time, a matter of time and a lucky shot by a turncoat. They only thing that had saved her was that the hospital had been so near.

The blaring white walls of the hospital room had been the only thing to greet her when she woke, the walls, a simple card from her father and a view of Tel Aviv out the window. Her first instinct had been to panic and it had not lessened in her drug induced haze when she had struggled against the IV lines and the lancing pain in her abdomen to reach under her pillow for a gun that was not there. Her screams as she thrashed on the bed had brought the nurses and they ensured that she quickly found the peace of sleep again.

When she next woke she was less disorientated and the doctor told her that surgery went well. She simply asked about rehabilitation, all the while staring at the empty chair beside her bed. Once she would have expected a room full of people. Once she would have expected black roses. Once she would have expected one of the rare looks from her partner. A look where the game was forgotten and what they pretended didn't exist was laid bare, if only for a few fleeting moments. It was unspoken, simply understood.

She had thought she would move on or at least that with time the memories would dim and new people would move into her life. Never forgotten, not replaced, just something to fill the void. For two years that absence had plagued her, haunted her at every turn. Those that used to pick her up were gone, those that stood beside her and whose unneeded support was always appreciated, if not necessary. There had been a boss that guided her, a technician that grew into a friend and a partner that saw deeper than anyone else ever had no matter how hard she tried to deny him. He had always been upset she could get close to him without been noticed. He had not realised she was simply returning the favour.

Returning to Israel had brought what she thought she craved back to the workplace, professionalism. It was difficult to get attached to somebody who could be dead tomorrow. That air of detachment floated around Mossad like a protective blanket. Relationships were not forbidden, just not sought. Her life was not devoid of humour, nor happiness or fun. It just never ran deeper than the surface. Physical relationships were never much more than a source of comfort within the Agency. Seeking more meant looking elsewhere, but then they might become a target.

She knew each and every person was prepared to die for Israel; she was not sure how many people she would be willing to sacrifice herself for though, or them her. The only people on her personal list were thousands of kilometres away, probably unaware she was even hurt, let alone how close she had come to death. She hoped they never found out. Their response would tell her more than anything else ever could. She was not sure what she feared more, concern or no response at all. She did not know why, she just knew that she wished for neither. When the nurse came and injected something into her IV line, sleep was not long in following. Her thoughts all the while on her war that could not be won and all she had left behind to fight it.

That pain, which made everything else seem trivial, could not have shielded her from what assailed her the next day. The nurses had just left after redressing her wound, the sun that turned the city into an oven had been reflecting off the steel on both sides of her bed which she had gripped to keep from crying out. Breathless and bathed in sweat, she had been unprepared when the Mossad officer walked swiftly into her room. He took one look at her panting form, at the empty, stark room before moving to her side and asking quietly, "Officer David?"

She knew instantly that something was wrong. If not for the fact that the first person to come visit her was not her farther, was not even a member of her team or anyone she knew from Mossad, the tone of his voice would have given it away. Anxious, sharp and careful, a man used to delivering bad news. "Yes, Officer…?"

A light smile touched his features before disappearing. "Officer Samuelson." He looked down at the papers in his hands as she nodded, steeling himself. "The doctors report that you should make a full recovery, something to be thankful for in these times?"

"Yes, something to be thankful for, though something I would just as soon have avoided." Once again that small smile touched his face before disappearing. His eyes moved over her and toward the door, something she could help noticing. 'Somewhere to be or wishing he was anywhere else?' She was still not sure. "The doctors believe with just a few months of physical therapy I should be fine." She paused for the briefest second, struggling to gather the courage to ask what was necessary. "What of my team?"

He flinched but to his credit he spoke without hesitation, though he failed to meet her eyes. "Dead. They moved off after the traitor after you were shot. They were not so lucky." He stopped briefly, perhaps letting the information sink in, perhaps wondering at what it meant that been shoot in the stomach was considered lucky. "To their credit the traitor also perished in the ensuing exchange."

Though death was a more closely accepted part of life at Mossad, it still came as a shock, "Both dead…Kira and Seth…." her voiced sounded hollow even to her own ears, "that should not have happened." They were young, too young. She struggled to sit up but he placed a hand on her shoulder to push her back down.

"No it shouldn't have. We lose too many of our best in this struggle." He shook his head sadly and she saw something flicker in his eyes briefly before disappearing. No one was untouched, she was reminded once again. "I am sorry for your loss."

She nodded and said simply as she recalled their faces, trying to memorize every detail "As am I."

"If you feel well enough, there is a …message from the Agency?" he said as he walked around to the other side of the bed and sat in the chair that was reserved for people that never came.

She didn't miss the way his voice dropped, nor the way he was studying the documents that he held and realised that this, rather then the news of the deaths of her friends and fellow agents was what he had been dreading. "Please, go ahead."

"Ok, but if you will be patient with me I think I would prefer to just read it, rather than have you hear it in my words," he waited for her ascent before clearing his throat and reading, his head bowed, "Officer Ziva David, The events of Friday the sixteenth, which led to all those under your command dead and yourself grievously wounded, are not acceptable. By order of the office of the Director, you are hereby relieved of command, removed from active duty and placed on extended leave pending investigation by internal affairs. Your weapon and all identification are to be surrendered and you are to report as soon as is possible for interrogation. Failure to comply with these orders will result in the severest of penalties." He looked up and finally met her eye, "I am sorry."

She simply sat there, stunned. Investigation? Office of the Director? Her Father? Removed for active duty? She knew what that meant, everyone did. Fewer than five percent of people placed under investigation ever saw field work again, at least at Mossad. Some moved to the army. If she was not discharged, or worse, the best she could hope for was going to be, as Tony have would said, riding a desk for the rest of her life. And just like that she understood. "He's overreacting," she whispered.

Not realising that he had heard, she was surprised when Samuelson spoke, "Every father has that right, No? Some are just more able than others…"

She tried to ignore that last part. "I should be able to choose what I do with my life; he should not be able to interfere-"

He cut her off, harshly. "Two agents are dead, Officer David. I would say he has just cause. In fact if he did not, there would be rumours at the very least." She could not argue with that, yet she could not help but be upset that the life she had imagined, the life she had sacrificed everything for had simply vanished. Samuelson stood and took a few envelopes out of his hands and placed them on the table beside her bed. "I took the liberty of bringing those from your office." He looked back to her and sadly tapped his folder. "Now if you'll excuse me I have more bad news to deliver. Shalom, Officer David."

"Shalom, Officer Samuelson," she said as she watched him turn and leave. Once again her world consisted of the white walls, her father's card and the dull ache in her abdomen. Yet this time there were the letters. She would have ignored them, would have left them for days without a second glance so she could be alone with her pain had she not seen the stamp on the one that stood on top. The American flag was just too tempting.

She picked it up, noticed the thick, expensive paper with her named scrawled across its surface in proper cursive and began to imagine what they could have sent her. Despite everything, a small smile fought its way onto her lips as she imagined a letter from each of them and words of kindness. Almost eagerly she tore back the flap and was surprised to find a single thick piece of paper inside. When she pulled it out and read the words her heart lurched in her chest, her stomach suddenly burned. For the first time in years tears fell from her eyes, the first few words playing over and over again in her mind. "You are cordially invited to the wedding of Anthony DiNozzo and…"

A/N: I know, I'm evil, yadda yadda yadda.