Title: What Remains
Pairing: None.
Rating: FR7
Genre: Character Study, Drabble/Vignette, Episode Tag
Cat: Gen
Spoilers: Tag to A Man Walks Into A Bar.
Warnings: None.
Summary: Ziva knows what she wants out of life, and realizes it may be closer than she thinks.
Author's Note: Okay, that scene was so amazing, I couldn't focus on anything else until I wrote a tag to it. LOL. It's short (story of my life), but there's not much more that can be said, ya know?

Permanence.

It was all Ziva wanted out of life, something she would always have. Because with her, everything was taken away before she ever really knew it was there. Tali, Ari, Michael, Mossad . . . She would not let the same thing happen with NCIS.

She knew, from the first moment she met Gibbs, that this may be her chance. An escape from Mossad, even if just temporary, hopefully something . . . permanent. She saw something in Gibbs and NCIS that she wanted to be a part of, something she knew she could grow to love.

And she has. NCIS has become a part of who Ziva is, and while she will never be a true American, she feels like it when she is with the team.

Ziva walks out of the conference room and stops before she reaches the squad room, watching the scene in front of her unfold. There is nothing out of the ordinary about this, just Tony and McGee making phone calls and doing research online, what they always do, but it makes her smile nevertheless.

She enters the squad room and McGee looks up, his eyebrows hitched in curiosity. "Meeting with the doc go good?"

She gives a half-hearted shrug. "It is hard to tell with psychiatrists, is it not?"

McGee echoes her shrug. "I guess you're right. I wonder if she'll find out anything useful to tell Vance." He returns to his work then, leaving Ziva to contemplate his words and the meeting she just had.

She sits down at her desk and looks across at her co-workers. This is so normal now and that seems almost bizarre to her, like an out of body experience. Being here at NCIS, she's come to realize something about permanence.

It is not a matter of being somewhere for the rest of her life, being with someone or never losing those she loves. Permanence is knowing who she is, no matter where she is, and knowing where she belongs.

This team, the people, NCIS in general . . . No one can take that away from her.

This is her home.

END

Reviews are always welcome. :)