Being Part of the NCIS Family

Sixteen

Liv POV

"How about breakfast?" I asked, panting. "I'm starving." Everyone filed to the kitchen and I asked Tony to make pancakes. He'd made them for me once when he'd been on Liv watch one of the times I'd gotten hurt. They were the best pancakes I'd ever eaten, I shit you not.

Luckily, Tony agreed to the pancake plan, and soon enough, we had a delicious breakfast in front of us.

"Oh!" Abby suddenly said, her mouth full of pancake. "I forgot to tell you last night." she started, swallowing her pancake. "I found your blood on the corner that Andrew's blood was on. I think you twisted to protect him after he hit his head and hurt yourself instead."

"Let's go with that, since all I remember is yelling to Andrew to wake up." I said. I took a big bite full of pancake. "Delicious as always, DiNozzo." Tony bowed in his seat.

"Y'know, I like the way you say my name." I looked at him quizzically.

"DiNozzo." I said, listening to how I said it. "What?" I was confused.

"You say it like all of my family in Italy. You stress the z's. That's how they say my name over in Italy and Europe."

"You have a beautiful way of speaking, tateleh." Ziva said. I smiled.

"Says the one with the softest, most beautiful accent I've ever heard." I told her. Ziva blushed, and I smiled. "Wow. I just made the former Mossad ninja blush. My work here is done."

"Better not be." Gibbs said. "Still going to need you for a while."

"Yeah." Abby agreed. "You're not allowed to go anywhere until we all retire. Then we can retire together in a nice place and live together and try not to drive each other crazy, although I think we proved that we can do that just fine after-"

"Abby!" everyone around the table said at once.

"Right." she said.

"Anyway." Tony started. "After Liv left with her brother and her bodyguards, Ziva and I talked to our love interest, Victoria O'Malley. Her alibi checked out, but something about her didn't." Tony said.

"Tony is right." Ziva said. "She brushed me the wrong way."

"Rubbed." Tony and I said together. "The expression is rubbed the wrong way."

"Whatever." Ziva said. "Something about her is just not right." I nodded thoughtfully.

"It must be another sniper, because this time there was a shot in just the right spot to paralyze him and cause our Navy Chaplain to bleed out rather slowly, if I remember correctly." I said. Gibbs nodded.

"Bingo."

"Well, shall we finish up and get going?" Ducky asked. We nodded and stood, the noise of our chairs being pushed up almost deafening, although I'm not the best judge of that because I was now fully deaf in my right ear. I've just trained myself to use my left ear extra hard. My brothers can barely ever sneak up on me anymore.

"I'm going to go get dressed." I said, and my brothers followed me as I went to my room. I could hear them banging around in the couple of rooms they used and in the bathroom. I was nearly knocked over while I brushed my teeth, and I tackled Josh on my way back to the kitchen because he was in my way.

"So this is why you got a place with carpet everywhere but the kitchen." he said. I nodded, grinning, and pushed myself up. Josh heaved himself up, too, and then the rest of my brothers came thundering out.

"We're ready!" Monty announced.

"Hey Andrew?" I said, walking over to him. "I want you in the NCIS building today. No field work until tomorrow--and that's if you're convincing today that you're fine." Andrew moaned. "It's either all of today or the rest of the week." I said, standing straight and tall.

"Fine." Andrew said. "Then I don't want you in the field, either."

"Hell no." I said. "I'm not hurt, not badly. You, sir, almost got a concussion and you still have a horrible head wound."

"I'm older." Andrew protested. "You don't get to tell me what to do." he said triumphantly, sticking his tongue out at me. I smirked.

"I outrank you. So, yes I do." I said. "No field work until tomorrow." I turned on my heel and went back to the kitchen, where I found Ziva and Gibbs smacking Tony upside the head. I heard Andrew shuffle up behind me. Suddenly his arms wrapped around my waist and thighs, lifting me up and onto his shoulder. I yelped and kicked, and he cried out, but he was laughing. Suddenly, he did what he hadn't done since he'd enlisted. He shoved me off his shoulder suddenly and quickly, without warning. He stepped back and let me fall. What he forgot about, though, was that I only had one actual leg.

When I hit the ground, my prosthetic gave out and I crumpled, landing on my shoulder.

"YOW!" I yelled. I felt around, making sure I hadn't hurt my shoulder. Luckily, this time no damage was done to my poor shoulder. I already had a way smaller range of motion in my left shoulder. I didn't need that going down any further.

"Sorry, Doogie. You alright?" Andrew asked, concerned and a little angry with himself. He tried to hide the anger, but it didn't really work.

"I'm fine." I grunted. "Cuidigh liom suas ." Help me up. Andrew heaved me back to my feet--well, foot, technically, I guess, and brushed me off. Just then, Mason came padding into the kitchen. I was surprised to see him, honestly. He likes to sleep until ten most days.

"Hey, bud!" Gibbs said. That man had a soft spot for dogs, I could tell. Especially Mason, who loved Gibbs right back. After Mason greeted everyone, he padded over to me and sat there, looking up at me.

"You want some breakfast?" I asked. Mason's ears perked up and his tail started wagging hard. I went over to his bowls and took his food bowl, taking it over to the counter to fill it. I kept Mason's food as high as I could, because Mason's gigantic and nosy.

I made Mason sit and wait while I put his food down. I was trying to train him to look to me for permission to eat so he doesn't eat something he shouldn't. So far, so good. I set the food down, and Mason looked at me, watching me carefully. I waited a moment, then gave him the go-ahead. Mason immediately chowed down excitedly.

"Let's go!" Gibbs said, and me and my brothers all grabbed our bags from various places around my place. Everyone said bye to Mason, and we all headed to the parking lot.

"I call driving!" I yelled to McGee and Gibbs, and slid into the driver's seat before either of them had a chance. I saw McGee gulp. This was going to be fun.