Disclaimer: When Ziva comes back there's more than a few logistics that need to be worked out. How long will it take for trust to be rebuilt? Is bringing her home safely enough to heal old wounds?

Just taking the characters out for a "family" type spin. Wow, so much storytelling potential in the first 2 episodes of the new season. I must explore the options.

NCIS is the sole property of the creators, studio, writers, producers, directors, etc. Lucky them….

I consider myself lucky to be able to take them out to play for a while.

Read & Review… Suspend belief and enjoy it as the fan-fic it is meant to be….

~*~*~*~*~*~

Good grief thought Ziva. She didn't realize how many aspects there were to the constitution. Sure she had been enforcing American laws for the past six years, but she was plenty clear on the obvious: murder, drugs, and stealing. Why did they need so many words to make the rules clear? Laughing as she headed to the break room for a snack and more coffee Ziva thought about her mentor and his feelings on using so many extra words. He could probably reduce the constitution to a few simple rules. Knowing Gibbs he'd also have an easier time teaching and enforcing those rules.

Snacks in one hand with steaming (poorly made) office coffee in the other Ziva went back to her desk. As she passed Tony's desk she thought about killing time the way he always did by looking through her partner's desk. Putting the contents of her hands onto her desk Ziva glanced over her shoulder then slid to over Tony's desk. The sun still had another hour before it made an appearance, which of course meant she had plenty of time before Tony made an appearance too.

Crouching down on the right side of his chair the stealth Israeli pulled gently on the larger lower drawer. As it opened a wicked laugh poured out along with a ton of tiny pieces of confetti and a very disturbed clown. She nearly fell backwards from the shock. Recovering quickly Ziva slammed the draw back shut cursing her partner and that idiot prank playing Marine. Now she'd have to get all the confetti up before Tony came in to order it done. Even he didn't mess up with Gibbs the same way twice this soon.

They'd already had an in depth discussion with their boss about the Halloween Hi-Jinx. Tim's foaming keyboard, Tony's blue teeth, and Mr. Giggles in Gibbs' desk was bad, but Abby rigging everything in Vance's office with motion sensors to hoot, howl, and screech every time he moved across the room too fast was most certainly the final straw. It wouldn't have been so bad if he wasn't having a meeting with some Navy Admirals that had to be immediately relocated to the conference room. He must have called Gibbs on his way downstairs.

~*~*~*~*~

Flashback

1-Day After Closing The Corbie Case

They had been given their third and final warning. Each was to focus on post case paperwork and forbidden to speak to one another or leave their desk. Of course Tony had to see exactly how far he could push. He kept sending Ziva and McGee IMs, which they had to answer or they both knew he wouldn't stop. Gibbs kept shooting them glares when their computers went ding, but they avoided eye contact. When Abby came bouncing up to see who wanted to go to lunch the grumpy gunny informed her that no one was going anywhere until reports were turned in. She gave them a sympathetic look before offering to bring back provisions. As she headed toward the elevator Gibbs picked up his phone.

She had almost cleared the open doors when she heard his bellow.

"Abby!"

Well, that wasn't a cheery bring me a coffee bellow. When she thought about who could've been on the phone she really wanted to smash that door close button, but running would only make things worse. Poking her head out of the door she gave her best happy girl smile that was responded to with a sharp finger beckoning her to him.

"With me." As he headed up the steps from the bullpen Abby slowly trailed behind. When Gibbs looked over the railing and didn't see anyone else moving he added to his command.

"I mean all of you!"

You could hear the scrambling from chairs as the other three "adults" made their way up the steps. Silently they proceeded into the Director's office. Gibbs stepped aside for each of them to enter then slammed the door. Each agent attempted to make eye contact with one another to figure out what was going on. However, they made concerted efforts to limit eye contact with their now seriously ticked off leader.

Taking a step in front of the large flat screen monitor in Leon's office Gibbs purposely tripped the sensors that made the screen become overtaken with a crazed clown spewing idiocy about candy, ghouls, and goblins. Tony laughed, way too loud, while Tim was more discrete with his chuckles. Ziva wore a more puzzled looked trying to put together exactly what was going on. Abby on the other hand knew exactly why they were all there. Gulping down her sudden onset of guilt she launched into what she hoped would be an acceptable explanation.

"Okay, boss man I know you're thinking this went too far, but I thought the Director would get a kick out of it. He's normally a cheery holiday loving guy, well except last year with McGee's goofy… and might I add inappropriate costume…"

"Hey, it wasn't inappropriate it was authentic!"

"Come on Probie you had to know you couldn't pull off skinny jeans… I mean you really couldn't pull them off! Almost had to call for the Jaws of Life boss…"

"Well, that part was funny even if it did get dressing up banded until further notice…"

"Enough!" The loud whistle that followed silenced the room in exactly the manner Gibbs wanted.

"I can promise you the Admirals did not find any of it funny at all. If you're going to pull a hair brain stunt like this the least you could do is check the man's calendar to see if he has meetings scheduled."

All eyes immediately fell to the floor feeling all of ten years old. Embarrassing the Director in front of Admirals was not the intent or spirit of the prank. Tony and McGee made eye contact and move to Vance's desk to dismantle Mr. Chuckles. As the confetti shot up Gibbs got so red in the face they were convinced his head would rupture. Ziva stepped a little further away as her hand shot up.

"What?"

"I do not actually know anything about any of this."

"Way to snitch 'team-player'." Tony snapped.

"I did not say you had something to do with it I was simply stating that I did not."

"All of you were given the same warning to knock it off. When I look around it sounds like a federal office building, it looks like a federal office building, but apparently I'm not working with federal agents! Instead I'm stuck with a bunch of high school delinquents."

"Gibbs…" Abby whined.

"Boss…" Tim pleaded.

"Come on Boss…" Tony attempted an appeal.

All three attempted to speak, but he was having none of it. Gibbs grabbed an apple from Leon's bar and parked himself in a chair. "Ziva back downstairs and finish that report. The rest of you take it all down."

She was one happy petite Israeli. Of all the things that gave her pause a ticked off Gibbs with repeat offenders was at the top of her list. The man did not take kindly to open defiance. Ziva couldn't imagine what her teammates were thinking, but for once she was thrilled to be out of the loop.

~*~*~*~*~

Her report was finished and she had even managed to go out for a quick bite to-go. Close to an hour had passed and still no one was in the bullpen. Sitting around for another fifteen minutes Ziva got antsy and made her way down to Abby's lab. She found her counterparts standing around commiserating.

"I don't think the punishment fit the crime." Abby was pouting and leaning on Tony's shoulder.

"I'm just glad he didn't go through with his last threat." Tim said from his gentle perch on the edge of the metal table in the center of the room.

"He's not cruel Timmy. He'd never really let Vance punish us himself. Would he? Oh, I can't even think about it."

Tony rubbed her back and kissed the top of her head. "Hey Abs it was a brilliant set up and if those Admirals hadn't been in I think it would have gone over much better. Live and learn."

"Painful lesson Tony… Gibbs is not happy with us."

"Yeah, well, he's gonna be even less happy if he catches us still down here."

"He wasn't serious about us being 'grounded' from each other was he?" Tim asked.

"Probie when was the last time Gibbs joked with you about anything?"

"He has a point Timmy. I don't want him mad at me for anything else for a long time." Abby shoved them both toward the door causing Ziva to duck behind the extended wall. She saw no need to make them feel worse.

~*~*~*~*~

Present

She finished cleaning up the mess surrounding her partner's desk laughing to her self. If only they could channel that energy in ways that didn't make their boss take it out on their backsides. At least the restriction had been lifted after only two days. Ziva wasn't sure who whined more about the separation, Tony or Abby.

Back to her books Ziva sipped the now lukewarm coffee and tried to focus. She can't be sure how long she lasted before she slipped back to sleep. Suddenly the guys were standing over her. Pretending to still be deep in slumber she knew Tony couldn't resist the urge to screw with her in some way. She heard McGee backing off warning his senior to do the same. Obviously, Tony had no desire to heed warnings this early in the morning because Ziva could feel him getting closer and closer to her face with something in his hand.

"Touch me and die." She grunted out as she slowly lifted her head with a paper stuck to her face.

Schooling her features Ziva managed a giggle inside. Things were finally back to normal. It was really good to be home.