Ziva was watching Tony, on his first day back. She and McGee had missed him. He'd been out three weeks.

Agent Chiu had called them to see how Tony was, and even sent him an email, to express his concern for how he was doing.

They got to see him at Gibbs' house, and then last week they all went over for pizza at his apartment to get him settled back in. Abby even gave him a pizza phone, similar to McGee's hamburger phone, and Tony gave her a rewarding smile.

It had taken a little while, but he seemed to be coming back to them.

Tony was shuffling papers around, trying to organize the mess he'd left the day Gibbs sent him home, when Miranda was still alive.

Sheila from the mailroom was passing by Tony's desk. She loitered a little as he looked up.

"Hi Sheila. Can I help you with something?"

Ziva and McGee were staring at the leggy blonde, who had big blue eyes and a ski slope nose. Gibbs glanced over covertly.

"Ah…" she came closer to Tony's desk. "I'm actually leaving and going to work for a commercial company. And, today's my last day. I was just wondering, if you'd have a drink with me tonight." She looked fairly confident Tony would say yes. After all, he had flirted with her outrageously several times last year.

He froze for a moment, and then looked down at his desk. He caught sight of the magazine tear page he'd gotten from Petty Officer McKenna's fridgerator door, not knowing at the time if there was a clue on it. Somehow his eyes zoned in right at that moment, under Gallery Shows, "Galleries Du Cerisier, Featuring the works of Miranda Bianchi" and he took a deep breath.

He looked back up to Sheila, and smiled a little, "No, thanks. I have plans already, but good luck on your new job. I'm sure you'll be great."

"Oh…okay, Tony. Maybe some other time," she said with obvious disappointment, and left with Ziva throwing mental daggers at her back.

Tony couldn't look at any of them right at that moment. So instead he looked at his computer, going through his email.

He saw the one from Agent Chiu, entitled "Hi Tony" in the subject matter.

He opened it. It read :

Hi Tony,

I hope you are doing alright after everything that went down with Gravois. I'm keeping in touch with Dillon's family, to see if I can help them with anything. He would have wanted that.

I heard from Ziva you were coming back to work. I'm glad. You're a good Agent.

Maybe when things cool down some more, we can go get a beer. Or five.

Anyway, I wanted to say that I'm sorry for what happened to you, and Miranda Bianchi.

My grandmother was Cantonese, and she had a lot of sayings she used to tell us when something went really well, or horribly wrong. There's one that stuck with me, she used to say it when I was trying to get past difficult times.

It goes, "A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song."

Kinda too deep for me, but grandma…she used to smoke opium in the old country, so I figure she had more in way of deep thoughts.

Take care,

Chiu

Tony smiled, and clicked on his next email.

The End.

A/N : Bless you guys for all the support ! Happy Halloween 2011 ! Hope you enjoyed this tale woven from my crazy brain. I think maybe secretly I'm a serial killer who's just too lazy to kill anyone. SO I'll just write stories like these occasionally.

Next up : The Net. In the research phase, but will begin soon. CIAO !