At this point in the story, everyone's hurting and that's just the way things go, but yeah, that theme of not being able to go home again is certainly underlying all this. I wanted to have Ziva interact with everyone on the NCIS team in Gibbs' absence, because he's always the most dominant figure in the room when he is around. It does bring up some interesting interactions. But he's back soon enough.

And Sheppard is the best/worst big brother out there - he's so protective of his little family even though they can all kick butt on their own (even McKay after all this time).

I love this fic like a burning thing on fire too, after all this time staring at it and reworking verbs. The universes just fit so nicely :)