Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Anthony DiNozzo, why are you breathing down my back?” 

“Breathing down your neck,” Tony corrected her. 

Ziva huffed, stopping from typing on her keyboard to turn and look at him standing behind her desk chair. “Neck or back, who cares. Why are you hovering?” 

The bullpen was empty. Gibbs and McGee out interviewing possible witnesses. The rest of the team in their rightful spaces in the lab or in autopsy. It was quiet, except for Tony and Ziva bickering about American colloquialisms yet again. Some things would never change. 

“I’m not hovering.”

“Yes you are. Close enough that I can smell the coffee you were drinking earlier and I wish I could not.” 

“What’s with you and the coffee lately?” Tony asked as if he hadn’t been tracking for a couple of weeks now every time her face turned slightly green at the sight or smell of the brown liquid that she used to drink regularly. He noticed the way she had to pinch the bridge of her nose every time she stood next to Gibbs too long, seeing as the man was ninety percent coffee and was rarely without a cup in his hand.

“I do not know what you are referring to,” She blew him off like he was making up her recent aversion or maybe if she at least pretended like he was, then he’d start to believe it was all in his head. Good try. 

Tony narrowed his eyes at her, wondering how far he could push before he either said out loud what he was thinking or he chickened out. The latter seemed much more appealing than fighting with Ziva about something that he was certain would get his head bitten straight off and spit out in the trash can. 

“Zivs.”

“Anthony.” 

“Why do you have to keep using my full name?” 

“Because you keep being weird.”

“Have you thought that maybe or you know, possibly you could be…” His courage faded with his words; the look of daggers in Ziva’s eyes made him think she knew what he was implying. 

They weren’t “together,” but they also weren’t not together. It was messy. The post elevator them was messier than they ever had been or maybe it was the opposite. Perhaps the most clarity they had ever had about what they wanted with each other had come from hours enclosed in that metal box. It certainly had been the inciting incident for Ziva showing up at his apartment building afterward, inviting herself in and finding themselves tangled in the sheets of his twin bed, breathless and wondering what happened next. 

They weren’t kids anymore; they were not half grown adults testing out the waters of their sexual attraction to each other and seeing how far they could take it before they had to cut it out and move on working with one another like nothing ever happened. They were no longer alone in a Paris hotel room when Ziva needed him to be there for her, needed him to be a piece of her healing from Somalia and he had so expertly cared for in the exact way she asked. They were both single. They were both competent, consenting adults who had made the distinct decision to sleep together and not just once, multiple times. 

So every time they woke up in one another’s bed, they were pushing their luck. 

And yet they couldn’t stop. They couldn’t commit either. They could not finally throw all inhibitions to the side and just do what they were quietly, or not so quietly, begging each other for. However, they felt as close to that as they had ever been. 

Sometimes, there were consequences to their actions. 

Tony suspected this was one of those times and it was a consequence with the ability to change every single trajectory they had ever pictured for themselves. 

“That I could be what? Annoyed by you? Because the answer to that is yes.” 

Tony fought to not roll his eyes at her. “No, that maybe you are… maybe something more is going on? Maybe there’s a reason you suddenly hate coffee and have been peeing every thirty minutes.”

“Now you are keeping track of when I go to the bathroom, Tony?” 

“Not on purpose,” He tried to back pedal. “But you just keep going all the time and I couldn’t help but notice.” 

“I think you could have helped it.” 

“Zivs,” He tried again with the nickname, as if that would soften her up, make her forget his comment about how many times a day she was peeing and how easily he had taken note of it.

“If you have something you would like to say Tony, I wish you would just say it.” 

Except she didn’t wish that he would just say it. She wished that he would keep his thoughts to himself and let her continue on her path of willful ignorance. 

“Do you…” Spit it the hell out, DiNozzo thought to himself. “Do you think you could be pregnant?” 

And there it was the very thing Ziva was hoping he wouldn't say, but had every idea he probably would. It was easy to ignore the signs. The sudden distaste for coffee and nearly anything with meat. The need to pee constantly that Tony had very not-so-kindly pointed out. The way she had to excuse herself from their last crime scene because she thought that if she spent even one more second with the three day old dead body she would vomit right there in the middle of all the evidence and Ziva was never affected by a dead body, she’d seen too many; she'd committed too many. She had been so tired lately that she had found herself falling asleep on her couch, barely after seven o’clock because she simply couldn’t keep her eyes open. It was all there, right in front of her face and seemingly also right in front of Tony’s. But acting as if all was normal and well was a far easier thing for her to do than to realistically look at her list of symptoms and admit to what they might, or probably did, mean. 

Ziva was careful. She had always been careful. Yet, somehow she was staring at Tony from her desk chair, being forced to admit that this might have been the first time in her life that being careful wasn’t good enough. It had not been nearly enough. 

“What makes you say that?” She tried to be casual, but her wavering voice gave her away. 

“I googled all your symptoms and that’s the number one possibility, Ziva.” 

“You were googling me?” 

“Well I thought maybe you were dying, but that seems low on the list of possibilities, which I suppose is good.”

“It is not low on the list of possibilities for you,” Ziva threatened. “You cannot just google things and come over here in the middle of the day and ask me if I might be…” But she could not say it. 

Tony caught the way her voice drifted off before the word could come out of her mouth. “But could you be?” 

“And if I was?” 

“Don’t change the subject. Could you be pregnant?” The last word came out quieter. 

“I don’t know. I never have been before.” 

“But do you feel like you could be?” 

“Oh my god, Tony ask me that one more time and find out what happens to you.” 

Tony knew he was pushing his luck, but he continued anyway. “When was your last period?” 

“No way. No. I am not doing this with you.” 

Tony knew that if he pushed too hard and too fast, she would simply shut down and with something like this, something that was not just about her, that was a big risk. But he had to know. He needed to know and he couldn’t quite understand, when her avoidance was obvious, why Ziva wasn't also chomping at the bit. Didn’t she want to know if they were on the verge of a life-changing, life-altering, biggest thing that had ever happened to either of them thing? Didn’t she feel like she needed to know one way or the other? 

“I’m not trying to pry,” Tony insisted, working to take any edge out of his voice. Though he was prying. “But Zi, this is a big thing.” 

“And you think I do not know that?” Tony was surprised to see the tears welling up in her eyes, which she quickly wiped away. 

Tony tried to reach a hand out to her, a way to show that he was not just an insensitive asshole, but she shifted quickly to avoid his touch. He tried not to take it personally. “There’s a chance, Ziva. There’s a good chance and I can’t stop thinking about it.” 

“If I am, then what? What happens then, Tony?” 

“We can’t know until we know.” 

“I’m scared to know.” 

“I can go to the drug store right now, before Gibbs and McGee are back.”

Ziva looked for him to be kidding, searched his eyes for any unseriousness, but he was dead serious. He was absolutely certain that if she gave him permission, he would be in the elevator, out the door and down the street in no time. She had to let him. There was no way for them to go back to work and act as if they never had this conversation, act as if he didn’t know what she had been trying to keep away from him while she processed it. There was only one option. 

“Get more than one.” 

As instructed, Tony came back with two boxes, two tests. They were hidden in a doubled up plastic bag and with time running out before they were bombarded with the other members of their team, Tony and Ziva found themselves in the women’s restroom, with the door securely locked so that absolutely no one could walk in to find them in the in the middle of reading plastic sticks.

The air in the bathroom was thick with anticipation as Ziva slipped both tests out and ripped them out of their plastic; her hands shook as she tore and she hoped that Tony didn’t notice. Though as far as she could tell, he was too wrapped up in reading the instruction manual that came with the tests to notice much of anything.

“It’s not rocket science, Tony,” Ziva criticized. 

“Well we have to make sure we do it right.” 

“If we cannot figure out how to pee on these things, I’m not sure how you expect us to be parents.”

Parents. 

Mom and Dad.

That was the point of all of this. It was to see if those very names were going to be theirs in a few months or if all the panic was for nothing. They were locked in a bathroom, Tony reading instructions and Ziva panicking because they had to know if they were supposed to be getting ready to be parents, to be somebody’s parents. Ziva cursed herself for using that word out loud and then being stuck with it floating through her mind as she closed the bathroom stall door behind her. 

Tony tried not to listen, tried to focus on anything but the idea of Ziva very literally sitting in the stall doing something that very well might blow up whatever they were and whatever they were hiding from everyone who knew them. 

“All good?” Tony asked when Ziva reappeared, tests with their caps back on. She could not set them down on the counter fast enough, like the two little life bombs they were. 

Ziva just glared at his question. “How long do we have to wait?”

“Why are you asking me?” 

“You read the instructions!” 

“I stared at them, Ziva. I did not actually take in a single thing they said.” 

She let out an exasperated sigh, picking up the box to read for herself. “Three minutes.” 

The silence built around them. It could be cut with the very knife Ziva kept concealed at her waist, the way it was so thick and heavy. It was not helping the anticipation, the fear, the little bit of excitement that was probably only felt by Tony and not his counterpart, who picked at her cuticles mindlessly. Her eyes stared off into the distance not looking at anything specific, but filled with much contemplation. 

“Have you ever done this before?” Tony wanted to know far less because he was curious and far more because if someone didn’t say something soon, he was going to lose his mind more than he already was. He could not handle another minute and a half of quiet eating through him. 

“Once,” Ziva still didn’t look at him. 

“Was it as bad as this?” 

“Worse,” She admitted. “It was when I got back from Israel, when I was dating Michael.” 

Tony felt the admission like a punch straight to the gut. Every jealous bone in his body was livid that the other person who had a chance to be a parent with Ziva was Michael Rivkin, the scum of the earth if anyone asked Tony or even if they didn’t, he was happy to tell any listening ear what an awful human the former Mossad agent was. 

Ziva continued when Tony said nothing. “I never told him. The test was negative and I just didn’t feel like he needed to know if there was nothing to know about.” 

“What would you have done if it wasn’t negative?”

“I have no idea,” There was a raw honesty in her voice. She could feel herself being sucked back to that time in her life, how she had felt standing in her apartment bathroom willing the stupid little white stick to be negative. Begging her rarely spoken to God to please help her, to give her what she wanted and she would not ask for anything else. Even if she had believed at one time that she loved Michael, there was a big difference in her mind between loving him and wanting to have his child, being ready to have his child. Her life had been in shambles for the months she was away from NCIS and she had only just returned to the place that she was starting to think of as home, a baby would not fit into the plans she was making. 

Would a baby fit into the plans she currently had either?

This time felt different, equally as terrifying but not because of who she was with, but because the prospect of being a parent, of being pregnant, of all the pieces were overwhelming. Tony standing next to her, tapping his fingers on the edge of the sink, was far less the problem than Michael had been and he’d been on another continent when she’d gotten the negative result. 

“I think…” Tony let out a deep breath. 

Ziva nodded, understanding. “Yeah.” 

But neither of them moved. They both stood frozen to the bathroom floor where their feet stood.

“Do you… or… should…” But Tony’s brain could not string together a coherent sentence. 

“I probably should.” 

Her hands trembled, shaking with a volatile nervousness that made nausea bubble in the base of her stomach. They sat right in front of her, turned over, hiding the results. She reached for the closest one with her thumb and forefinger, but she couldn’t turn it over. Her brain screamed at her to get it over with and yet, nothing could make her hand work. 

“Zi?” Tony saw her hesitation and while he did not feel any more confident than her, he would offer to do it if she needed him to. 

She bit her lip, as she willed herself to get it over with. The longer she waited did not change whatever result was waiting for them. She was entirely petrified. 

How many times in Ziva’s life had she faced things that any sane person would classify as for more terrifying than a pregnancy test? Too many to count. This should not have been the scariest moment of her life, but still it felt like it. If what she thought was going to be on that test was on that test, she and Tony were looking at never being the same again. They could never be just co-workers again. They could never be just friends with benefits. They could never find their way back to each other after more failed relationships that were of course not meant to be because what was meant to be was right in front of them. 

“Ziva,” Tony tried again. 

She took a shaky deep breath that was no help to her growing terror and nausea. 

Ziva slowly flipped the first test over, painfully slowly. It took every muscle in her body to lift this thing that weighed maybe an ounce, but felt as heavy as a boulder.

Two deep red lines stared back at her. She knew what that meant. 

She went for the second one, just as methodical as she was with the first. This one being digital meant that it screamed in her face the results and on its tiny little screen it read, very clearly, too clearly “Pregnant.” 

Tony reading over Ziva’s shoulder stumbled backward away from her, away from the tests. 

“Fuck,” Slipped out of his mouth.

He had convinced himself that he was ready for whatever they would say. He had read and reread all the google articles he had found and he was certain that when they found out the inevitable, he would be prepared for this very result. But he was wrong. So, so wrong. There was no preparation for finding out that the woman you had always loved and had never fully had was pregnant with your child. None of the websites discussed that. 

Ziva felt the familiar tingling of numbness coursing through her body. The trembling had been replaced with statuesque stillness that felt like it was gripping every muscle. She was sure that Tony, even a few feet away from her, could hear her heart racing in her chest, feeling like it might leap right out it was beating so fast. 

She was… pregnant. 

She was actually pregnant. 

Both tests were very assured in their positive results. 

Her eyes glazed over, the disassociation starting to battle its way to the forefront and remove her from the bathroom, take her anywhere that she did not have to face the reality in front of her, in front of them. 

“Ziva?” Tony could see what was happening, it was not the first time he’d watched her do that very thing. He needed her to stay with him. He needed her to understand that he was there and was going nowhere, no matter how absolutely absurd their lives had just become. “It’ll be okay,” He didn’t sound as convincing as he wanted to.

She looked up into the mirror and found his eyes in the reflection. They were soft, they were just as scared as hers, but he was going to great lengths to pretend he felt anything else so she wouldn’t pick up on it. He was failing, but the sentiment was not ignored by Ziva. 

“What do we do now?” Her voice shook with the quiver of her chin. 

“I don’t know,” Tony answered honestly.

“Gibbs is going to be back soon, if he isn’t already and now we just have to go out there, go back to work like…” 

Like their world didn’t just fully explode, Tony thought to himself, but he didn’t need to finish Ziva’s sentence for her; she was already thinking the exact same thing. 

“We don’t really have a choice, Zivs.” 

They really didn’t. There was no exit plan and even if they tried to make one, there was no way in hell they would get away with it; Gibbs would be onto them so quickly, their feet wouldn’t even make it to the elevator. The only thing they could do was march back into the bullpen, separately, and act as if all was fine and dandy. If they wanted this to stay between them, and they desperately did, then it was their burden to keep pretending. It wasn’t so different than how they had been for weeks since the elevator, anyway. Or how many times before that? Tony and Ziva were good at pretending with others and themselves. Except, their personal make believe might have just come to an end. 

Ziva wrapped the tests in a paper towel and shoved them as far as she could down into the trash can. Tony left first, sneaking around to the back set of stairs, so that he could sneak around to their normally used set and pretend to come up from Abby’s lab. Ziva exited the bathroom a few moments after Tony left and with every effort she could muster, casually walked back to her desk. She nearly ran into Gibbs and McGee getting off the elevator. Her timing was inevitably perfect, the only perfectly timed thing that had happened the entire day. 

“You got anything, David?” Gibbs asked as she followed him back to their row of desks. 

“Not yet,” She sort of lied. She had been working until Tony interrupted. “I have another twenty files at least, but so far no connections to our victim.” 

“What about DiNozzo? Where is he?” 

“Was down with Abby,” Tony answered for himself, timing his entrance just as his name left Gibbs’ mouth. 

“And?” 

“Nothing worthwhile. She’s working on finishing the fingerprints, but no matches yet.” 

“Well keep looking,” Gibbs sat down in his chair. “Ziva, get through those files. Tony, help McGee go through the security footage.” 

“On it, Boss,” Tony glanced over at Ziva, watching as she took a few deep breaths after being in the vicinity of Gibbs’ full coffee cup. 

Her eyes drifted up and met his. 

“You okay?” He mouthed, silently. 

She nodded, even if she wasn’t. She knew Tony wasn’t, either.

Chapter Text

Perhaps finding out she was pregnant in the work bathroom was the only distraction that could make Ziva follow the rules of the road so consciously. 

She sat at a red light, two cars away from the intersection and everything seemed a blur. 

The blurring of lights and road lines was not helped by the falling rain. The humidity in the air made Ziva think that lightning and thunder was not far behind the big drops that were hitting her windshield. It had just turned to fall in DC, the calendar marking the day, but it was still warm enough for what felt like summer storms. It was ominous, the way the dark clouds rolled in just as she was leaving the Navy yard the moment she had to face the thing she’d tried to discard in the bathroom trash can. They were a reminder that pretending only worked for so long. Each raindrop a reminder of the cloud that now hung over her and Tony. 

A honk from behind her made Ziva realize the light had turned green without her even noticing.

The drive home was autopilot. Every turn, every stop sign and stop light. If it was not for the familiarity of the route, there was no chance Ziva would have made it home in one piece. 

Tony tried to grab her attention on the way out, but McGee was in the mix asking about plans for the weekend, something he and Tony were intending to do. Gibbs was close behind her as she grabbed her bag, headed to see Director Vance. There was little room for mouthing words or gestures or anything that would formulate what the evening was supposed to look like. 

And what was it even really supposed to be anyway? 

It felt like there was everything to talk about and nothing to talk about all at the same time. Tony might have been ready for a discussion that was both aimless and heavy, but Ziva questioned whether she could handle it. There was quite enough suddenly on her metaphorical plate. 

She pulled into her usual parking spot in front of her building and cut the engine of her Mini. She leaned her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes, a wave of nausea washed over her. Ziva was unsure whether it was the overload of emotions or the pregnancy or both and it didn’t matter because it passed as quickly as it came on, only a few short breaths needed to keep it at bay. If only it was always that simple; previous experience stated otherwise.

Ziva felt like it must have taken hours to get to her apartment front door, the weight of her day slowing her down tremendously, but in reality it was only the couple of minutes it always takes. She could feel the rain that had dampened her clothes on the trek inside soak into her skin, sending a shiver down her back.

As soon as her door was shut and locked behind her, Ziva let her backpack slide off of her shoulder and onto the floor somewhere that she would find it in the morning when she needed it again. It was more important to her that she finally found something other than the pace of a slug toward her bedroom for dry sweats and a t-shirt then faster even toward her bathroom; awaiting her in there was something she didn’t even need, but she did in her own fearsome way. 

The box was shoved in the furthest back corner under her sink. It was unopened, bought when her and Ray were at their peak and for just an instance there was a thought that if something did happen, it would not be the end of the world. But that moment was fleeting, only lasting two days before Ray was off on a new assignment and there was a new fight about how he was always leaving the future they discussed. So instead of ever needing the test, it made it further and further back in the cabinet, until she would have forgotten it had it not been for the day she had. 

What did she need to take another test for? It wouldn’t say anything different than the other two had but some part of Ziva, a huge part of her, needed one more. She needed the lines to stare back at her. It made her for a moment feel like she may actually have lost her mind. Why did she need to see the same thing over again? That wasn’t enough to stop her, though. 

So, she peed on yet another test that was not necessary and once again found herself twitching with nervous energy in a bathroom. There was little left to be worried about in this process and yet, her hands still trembled when she picked the test up after three minutes and was once again met with deep read lines that did not lie. They were so bright and glaring. Somehow they seemed even darker and while Ziva understood they could only be saturated so much, it didn’t stop the tricks her eyes were playing on her. 

“Oh my god,” Slipped quietly from her lips, talking only to herself. 

She stumbled backwards and slid down the bathroom wall onto the floor, the same emotions coursing through her. The numbness tingled and her fingers that held the test still couldn’t even feel the plastic. 

It was becoming more real. Too real. Even though that was why a third test had been on her radar since she remembered she had one. To make it feel more real, to process in a way she could not before. 

She stared at the test. 

This was the moment she could not have earlier. The time to stare. The time to allow the tears, that had only threatened to spill earlier, fall freely from her deep brown eyes. The time to feel things that only privacy would allow her. Ziva was worried by the way she already resented the sharedness of this pregnancy. How there was no way to keep Tony out of any part of it and she knew how awful a thought that was, but they were not together. They had not planned this. They were being thrown into an ocean of wild change and no lifeboat would come to save them; they had to do this themselves and Ziva was better at being alone. Or she had at least convinced herself of that after so many failed relationships and then finally loving someone who was nearly off limits publicly. 

Once Tony started the discussion, there was no choice but the one they made in haste while they could be alone in the middle of a day that should not have allowed them such time. She did not necessarily regret what happened, not the test taking part anyway. Other things were tasting very familiar to regret. This was not what the day had gifted her; the day hadn’t gifted her anything actually. So maybe she was crazy for wasting another test on an answer that was not going to change, but so be it. Ziva felt crazy no matter what she decided to do. 

She dropped her head back against the wall and her eyes closed around the tears that were still falling. 

There was a loss of time. Without looking at a clock, Ziva had no idea how long she stayed on the floor. It didn’t matter all that much, there was nothing else that needed to be done with her evening and if there had been, it was long forgotten. 

The knock at her door made her jump and if her heart was not already racing, it certainly was at the thumping sound bringing her back to reality. 

She contemplated not answering. A little more time alone before this was constantly something that involved more than just herself. 

Ultimately, if she ignored the man on the other side of the door, he’d only worry. He’d only stay and wait. Tony did not give up as easily as she wanted him to. 

“Hey,” He said solemnly when she finally answered.

Tony could see the tear stains splattered on her cheeks. He had expected to find her in some sort of state similar to how she seemed to be. The tears, though surprising from Ziva David, the tough ex-Mossad officer, were less than astonishing knowing what he knew. 

She stepped aside, not greeting him, and Tony took the invite to step into her apartment. 

It smelled familiarly of the candle she loved to burn, mahogany mixed with undertones of cardamom and a little cinnamon. He’d grown accustomed to it with all the late nights and early mornings he’d spent there. The pillows were haphazardly thrown onto the couch and in the far corner was a little end table, occupied by the candle with the lingering smell and framed photo, one he had stared at on a few occasions, of Ziva and her mother. 

Mother. 

Another reminder of the impending. They were everywhere.

Ziva closed the door and stood in front of it, arms crossed, a safe distance away from Tony. 

The silence hung between them, uncomfortably thick and becoming stale quickly. The ticking of the clock hanging on Ziva’s wall reminded them that time was wasting as they both contemplated what was supposed to happen next. 

Tony spoke first, a deep breath to work up the courage. “Are you okay?”

“No,” Ziva answered him, monosyllabic and morose. 

“Zivs, I don’t know… I’m not sure what to do.”

“It is a little too late to do anything now, anyway,” Ziva spat, realizing only after that her words sounded much harsher than she meant them. 

Tony narrowed his eyes at her. “What is that supposed to mean? This is my fault?”

“That is not what I meant,” Ziva sighed. “It is not your fault, Tony. I participated as much as you did. It is just…” But she trailed off.

What was it? Besides the togetherness of the entire process that she was already feeling an aversion to. 

It suddenly felt like honesty was too difficult. Say the wrong thing and jeopardize more than just casual sex, that was really anything but casual. More than ending up in bed together was on the line now. The pressure of saying the right thing, of not saying something that she would regret or sharing a feeling that would make her come across as cold only grew. And she was talking to the one person she should not be icing out. 

“It’s what?” Tony’s tone sounded like the same one he used in interrogation, his guard suddenly up as he came to terms with the place that Ziva was in. It was as if he was certain he’d do what he needed to get an answer. “Are you having second thoughts?” 

“Second thoughts?” Ziva nearly laughed. “Tony, I have not had first thoughts. We found out six hours ago that we are going to be…” The word burned coming out. “…parents and you think I have had enough time to change my mind?” 

“I mean you sound like you have, Ziva.” 

“Do you understand that this changes everything? Do you really understand that? Because I don’t yet, not all the way.”

Ziva could feel the slight tremble of her chin, it perfectly matched the one she’d seen in her own reflection in the bathroom, as the confession slipped from her lips. Her hands shook with what was growing anger for the way Tony didn’t seem to be able to grasp how life altering their situation was and with the fear that she was on the cusp of saying something that would be so irreversible. Her eyes wandered around the room because looking directly at Tony was too hard.

“Yes, Ziva. I do actually know that having a baby means absolutely nothing will ever be the same again. It’s already changed. It changed the minute those stupid tests were positive. It changed the minute you were, for once, more afraid than I was and I didn’t know what to do with that. It has already changed.” 

She resented him instantly for calling out her fear. Curse him for knowing her so well that she could keep little to nothing from him. 

“We are not ready to have a baby,” It was nearly a whisper.

“Zivs?” Tony didn’t like the way she had stated that; it made his heart drop. 

“We are not ready,” She repeated.

“But we can be ready.”

“Do you actually believe that?” 

“Yes,” He did not waver. He did not for any one of those three letters sound like he was unsure of the answer. 

Tony made her utterly incensed. He could show up at her apartment, greeted by a version of this woman that was crumbling under the weight of their future and he could be so certain that they could face anything at all, even the most monumental, out of left field thing. It was so angering she might have found it in her to punch him right in the jaw or kick him in the shins or something that made her feel even slightly better. 

And yet, she was so comforted by his words, by his assuredness, that for the first time all day, Ziva might have felt an ounce of confidence in the future that was now in front of them. 

She needed him, as much as she wanted him to leave. They were equal, dueling feelings that were both fighting their way to the forefront. Her mind worked against itself as Ziva wanted nothing more than to be wrapped up in Tony’s arms, lying in bed, his touch enough to allow her some sleep, a moment’s respite from the scary. But she also wanted him to walk out the same door that he had come in from and let her be by herself. 

“I can’t change your mind or make you believe me, Ziva. I know that. But I think we can do this.” 

“And what makes you so sure?”

“Because I know us.”

Us.

Since when were they us? 

Maybe they had been since that night Ziva showed up at his apartment door and she was the one who could not admit the thing that Tony seemed to know. 

“I want to do this with you,” Tony swallowed hard around his own confession and the work up to saying more of what he really felt made Ziva step closer to him, finally feeling like he was not so perfectly certain as he had tried to be since he arrived. “I want to have a baby with you and I want you to feel the same about me.” 

“You are not the problem,” That was the first thing Ziva said all evening that she felt she meant wholeheartedly. 

It was the same thing she felt in the bathroom when she told Tony about her almost with Michael. At that time, Michael had been the problem. She was a few years younger and the idea of becoming a mom was not nearly as heavy as it was now, perhaps it was some naivety back then that made her more scared for it to be a man’s child she didn’t fully trust than it being a child at all. Those thoughts had reversed and there was so much solace for her in who would be the father to her mother and the idea of being nine months away from an infant disrupting their entire lives was far more terrifying. 

Ziva continued. “This is not about you, Tony. This is not about second thoughts. I just… I need some time… alone,” A deep shaky breath followed her admission. “I need to be able to process this and I need to be able to do that without you thinking that it means I do not want to do this.” 

Tony bit the inside of his cheek, hoping it would stop the look of disappointment that wanted to cover his face. He had been under the impression that they were doing this together, every single second of it after they shared what was the most ridiculously wild moment of finding out at work. Yet, he had been wrong and he knew his only option was to respect Ziva’s wishes, doing otherwise would push her further away than she already wanted to be; it was not worth the risk. And maybe someday he could tell her how much it hurt him, how much it worried him that she was shutting him out, and that someday was not now. 

“Okay,” Tony’s voice was flat. 

“Just tonight,” Ziva may have been trying to assure him, but it did not work. 

“I got it, Zivs.” 

“Do not leave if you are going to be mad at me.” 

“Then what do you want, Ziva? Do you want me here or not?” 

“I do not want you to walk out that door if this is going to cause something, if this is going to make you resent me.” 

“I don’t think I could ever resent you, but I don’t want to be pushed away from something that is half mine because you’re worried that you have to do this alone or handle it by yourself. I need to know one hundred percent that you know I am here and I will be here, Zi. I have to know that you know that. I can give you space if you need it, but not if it’s because you have to get away from me.” 

Ziva finally came the rest of the way up to him, finally broke through the space that was left and her hand landed flat on his chest. “I will not shut you out.” Those were heavy words from someone who only knew to run.

Something about the touch of her, the way her eyes had finally softened from the dark brown fiercely set in their lack of emotions to a more honest mixture of sincerity and begging for him to understand, the way her shoulders slumped into a more relaxed stance then the staunch straightness they held when he walked in, all told Tony that he needed to trust how much she needed this time to herself and that it was not in spite of him. 

“You call me if you need me? I don’t care if it's three in the morning, I’ll be here.” 

She nodded. 

His lips were gentle when they met her forehead. 

He gave her one last look, searching for her to be shutting down, but her eyes remained trained on convincing him she would come around, she would eventually meet him where his excitement lay. And he walked out of her apartment for what would hopefully be the only time she had to be alone over this new found, unbreakable connection; the rope that tethered them endlessly together now. 

Ziva ran her hand through her unruly curls, letting out a deep breath and hoped that doing what she needed, advocating for that, was the right thing.

Chapter Text

“Tony!” Ziva hissed through her teeth as the man, hands clasped behind his back, tilted his head at a poster in the OB’s office that seemed very confusing to someone who was missing the anatomy to have ever been in such an exam room before. 

The comments were off the hook and the only reason Ziva had not yet murdered him was because he had been generous enough to only say the dumbest things imaginable when it was just the two of them. 

“Well Ziva, it just doesn’t seem natural that that,” Tony gestured toward the poster that showed the phases of dilation in labor, “happens.” 

“I should not have let you come,” Ziva rubbed at her temples. 

Her own nerves were eating away at her and they were not being helped by Tony’s, who dealt with his uncertainty about their first doctor’s appointment by acting like a twelve year old boy in sex ed. 

“Sorry,” Tony gave her a sheepish grin and finally sat in the seat next to the exam table that had been offered to him as soon as they entered, but he had been unable to comprehend the idea of sitting still. He still wasn’t so sure about it, but the more razor-sharp Ziva’s tone became, the more he knew he better find the idea delightful if he wanted to keep all of his limbs. 

Ziva tried to be sympathetic, as she knew that this was just as scary for Tony as it was for her, but she found it hard to manage both of their trepidations at once. 

They were staring in the face the first real thing to happen in this pregnancy. Her general practitioner confirmed the pregnancy with a blood test a few weeks earlier, just a couple of days after the bathroom tests, though that had not felt as serious, as monumental, because they already knew that; there was virtually no doubt in either of their minds that the blood test would say anything different than their little plastic sticks. But this. This appointment where they saw the actual doctor for the very life altering thing was more vomit inducing than the pregnancy. This being where they supposedly, if what Ziva had read was correct, might hear a heartbeat, might see the little alien-esque blob on the screen, might get news that isn’t what they hoped, was overwhelming to say the least. And while Ziva wanted to crawl into her shell, remaining still and quiet, Tony needed to have every outburst known to man. 

It was not helped by the lack of conversation they’d had since Ziva asked to be left alone for just one night while she worked through all that was thrown at her, thrown at them. Fighting through their awkwardness and the demons of uncertainty was a battle Ziva had to think would be ongoing. 

Finally quieting his body and having a moment to actually see Ziva, Tony could look right past her facade and register the way her fingers wouldn’t stop twisting, every few seconds she was biting at her cuticles. He could see her knee bouncing under the flimsy paper covering she’d been provided by the kind nurse who had also asked her to remove her pants before the doctor came in. 

Tony felt so instantly like a useless jerk, like the type of father-to-be he would have been had this happened years before. That wasn’t him now, that was not how he was going to behave and yet, he almost allowed himself to. Ziva needed him. She needed him to be the strong, assured person in their partnership because she deserved to have a moment that did not require her to hide how she really felt for the sake of someone else, for the sake of him. 

He stood up again, this time scooting just to the edge of the table, a hand crinkled against the paper covering, as he gently reassured her with his touch. “Are you okay?” 

“I am… fine,” Ziva didn’t look at him, instead she stared straight ahead and clenched her jaw.

“You know you don’t need to lie to me,” Tony squeezed his hand gently where it rested on her mid-thigh.

“What if something is wrong?” Ziva bit her bottom lip, finally turning to make eye contact with Tony. 

He had those same thoughts. There was too much room for wondering in this situation. Was the baby okay? Was Ziva okay? Would they have his eyes and her unruly brown hair like he so desperately hoped? Would they have two heads and six eyes? Tony would still love them. But from that moment in the bathroom, there were so many thoughts running rampant in his brain, and Ziva’s he was sure too, that he never imagined himself having any curiosity toward.

“Whatever happens, happens.” 

Ziva scoffed at his cool tone and calm answer. “It is not that simple.” 

“It is until someone tells us otherwise. Nothing is wrong right now, there is nothing we can worry about,” Tony said it to Ziva for her sake, but he needed to hear those very words just as much for himself. 

“Except for all the things I am already worried about.” 

Before Tony could manage some half-hearted retort about how it would all be okay that even he didn’t believe, the door handle shifted and both sets of eyes in the room shot to the door as they watched the doctor walk in. Tony felt his hands instantly get clammy and the one still on Ziva’s leg nearly ran away from the contact with her thigh, like their doctor didn’t have every idea how they ended up in her exam room in the first place; immaculate conception was not actually a viable option. 

Ziva had to focus on answering the introductory questions, when was her last period, what were symptoms so far, any previous pregnancies, and so on and so forth, while also willing her fidgeting to quit. She was flexing her quads against the table to stop them from shaking. She gripped her fists in her lap. They were not hard questions, this was not a test, there were no right answers, yet it felt like she had no idea what to say. 

And then the very thing that Ziva had hoped not to discuss came up, hit her metaphorically in the face and she felt her breath catch in her throat. 

“I read through your files that were forwarded by your gynecologist, Ziva,” The sympathy in the female doctor’s voice made her skin crawl.

It was unfair how instantly she was transported back to that stupid little hovel. The smell of blood, vomit and sweat permeated her nose, replacing the sterile doctor’s office scent that had been there previously. She felt the shoes on her back holding her down. The grip on her biceps when she would writhe in pain, but was forced not to by yet another unknown man in her cell. The days when she was weak, so sick with heat stroke from the desert temperatures permeating the stone walls, she couldn’t drink water without throwing it back up. The look of satisfaction that sat on Saleem’s face at all times. All of it rushed back, like it was waiting on the cusp of her thoughts always and could crash in at a moment’s notice. It was the way that the effects of those weeks in captivity did not cross her mind until she was in a hospital emergency room with a nurse asking her questions far more invasive than this OB had; when it really dawned on her that some of the things she’d hoped to live for, but she had been certain she’d die before she saw, were jeopardized. And years later, it was somehow still coming back around, being brought up and forcing her to recall one of the few times in her life that Ziva had not been certain she would make it out of. 

Ziva had to wonder if that first follow up appointment, after the blood draws and the physical examinations, was scarier than this one. Was the thought of having lifelong physical repercussions that could affect every idea she had for her future more intimidating than that very future, which had arrived so suddenly in front of her, hanging in the balance? Somalia was etched into the crevices she was able to hide from the world almost always, but then it crept up on her when she least expected and reminded her that it was not so easily forgotten. But that had been about her life only at the time, this was no longer only about her. 

The doctor continued. “We don’t need to revisit that, okay? I can read what I need, but it is a reference for me just in case.”  

Tony watched Ziva swallow the relief of hearing that she didn't have to sit another time and tell a perfect stranger what had been done to her.  

His details about the whole thing were limited. Other than mentions made in passing, one very short, curt conversation and all that he could surmise after being tied to a chair himself, Tony was mostly left to fill in the blanks. It was not his intention to pry, to wonder, but it changed her. It changed them. He was sometimes desperately grasping for a way to be a better support to her in the moments when he could see her eyes wander toward the desert and get lost in what she went through. That happened less and less as more time passed, but it was not obsolete like he was sure she wished it was by now. 

For at least the time being, Tony could translate the relief and while he wanted so badly to reach out, to supply her with a touch of reassurance and support, he refrained. They were in their too awkward in between. Their awkward in between that was sort of together, sort of not, but now having a baby together without so much as a real proper date. 

It was so complicated, constantly. 

Tony lost in his thoughts, lost in his concern for Ziva’s response to her revisited trauma, had not noticed the doctor starting her physical exam. He had been certain he wanted to come with Ziva; she asked him casually, but had the body language of someone who was begging him to not leave her alone. Not that he would have missed it for anything, but certainly not when she was personally allowing him in. That was the kind of thing that would get them past in between, one way or the other. It just somehow also felt like an invasion of privacy. 

His eyes flitted around the room, trying harder than he should not to stare, not to watch too closely. That was until he watched her shift the screen on wheels from where it was pushed out of the way and Tony knew what came next, maybe the only thing in this entire appointment he understood. 

“Can you scoot to the end of the table for me, Ziva? And lean back, feet in the stirrups.” 

It suddenly became abundantly clear to Tony why the nurse had asked Ziva to take her pants off. Tony was in so over his head and he wondered if there would be a single moment in this entire process where he wasn’t.

Ziva did as she was told, taking a deep breath while she shifted into the required position. 

Without a thought about it, her hand reached for Tony’s, searching, without looking, for his fingers to intertwine with hers. Tony was so taken aback by the outward gesture, the thing he had wanted to do earlier, but had been worried was too forward, that he almost didn’t reciprocate. Then their fingers locked and he gave her hand a squeeze. 

In a quick second, their eyes met, as if to agree that there was no turning back, that in some backwards, unclear way, they were in this together. They were agreeing on it right there because what was the alternative? He wondered if this was Ziva’s way of backing up the things she said in her apartment about not pushing him away, not shutting down. 

Silence enveloped the room from floor to ceiling, the doctor working quietly. Was that good or bad, Ziva wondered? Was the irritating quiet normal or was it an indication of something bigger? Or it came down to her reading far too much into something that was routine for this stranger who was going to tell them whether or not they walked out of this room in a few minutes preparing to start what might be the most unconventional family or if they had to pretend it was all just a bad dream. 

“Okay,” The doctor started. “Everything looks good. I think we are right on with you being about nine weeks, Ziva.” She was referring to the calculations that she’d done at the beginning based on Ziva’s answers to her questions.

She pointed out some things that neither Tony nor Ziva comprehended the importance of, but nodded along like they were grasping it all. Their eyes followed her finger around the screen, though most everything looked exactly like the alien blob Ziva was expecting from her research. 

“Do you see that flickering here?” Her finger pointed to a blinking spot on the screen. “That is baby’s heart.” 

Their baby had a heart. Not that it was some unbeknownst entity in the makeup of a person’s body, but that was their baby’s heart. It wasn’t a random photo in another article Ziva kept herself up reading, some image that belonged to another person, another family. That heart, on the screen, flashing with quick pulsing movements, belonged to their child. 

Ziva hoped the little quiver of her chin was not noticeable. 

“Alright, mom and dad, let’s see if we can hear that heartbeat.” 

Mom and Dad. 

There wasn’t time for either of the people who had those titles to comprehend being called them. It would hit them later, hard and fast, but there was no space in their minds for another big revelation. 

The gel was cold on Ziva’s stomach, just a little bit for the doppler to do its job, but it sent a chill directly up her spine. Though it might have had nothing to do with the cold gel. 

Tony could feel Ziva’s grip on his hand tighten when it was once again quiet in the room. For every second they heard nothing, Ziva increased the pressure of her grip. They had just seen the baby’s heart, fast at work on the screen, it seemed there was no reason to panic now. Except the brains of both Tony and Ziva could think of nothing better to do than dread. Ziva’s face twisted in consternation. Tony tried to keep his face as blank as possible, so as to not add to what Ziva was feeling. He had to wonder if he was failing miserably and if he was, thank god Ziva was not looking at him anyway. 

And then it burst through their trepidation like a bomb blowing to pieces their worries. Shattering them into millions of tiny little pieces that dissolved effortlessly after so much attention had been paid to them. 

The sound reverberated through the small box of a room. It bounced between the walls, it flitted off the table, filling the ears of all three people in the room. 

Tony let out a breath he had not realized he was even holding. 

Ziva felt a singular tear snake down her cheek. She didn’t have time to be embarrassed by her emotional reaction.

The baby’s heartbeat was strong and loud and emanated from the speaker of the doppler in a rhythmic pattern; the thumping of the very thing they had seen beating on the screen. 

“Oh my god,” Slipped from Tony’s mouth, coated in disbelief. 

Ziva looked to him, opening her mouth to say something, but then she recognized that there were not words enough to share what she was feeling and thinking. So her lips closed into a little half smile and she brought her attention back to the sound. 

That was their baby. 

They had made this thing that would bond them together forever. The mixing of their DNAs that would somehow come out being a perfect combination of the two of them and very likely stubborn as hell. That heartbeat belonged to the very person that would tie them to each other like an invisible string and that very small, still growing personage would forever change who they were to each other. Sure they were still partners, co-workers, friends, but now they were mom and dad. They would be those roles first and foremost from now until they were no longer earthside. 

Parents. 

Parents to that beating little heart that made so much noise for something so little. 

“Sounds great,” The doctor assured. 

Ziva looked to Tony again and this time, she could not help the real smile that tugged on the corners of her mouth, pulling her lips into a grin that was so unlike her, so much more like a look Tony would have given her. He saw the gleam in her eyes that matched the smile. It was happiness; it was real happiness that he was not sure he had ever truly seen her share with him. It was so the opposite of what he had worried about since she asked for alone time and avoided anything deeper than surface level conversation. He wiped the spot that her tear had tracked down her face; perhaps she hoped he hadn’t noticed, but he couldn’t help but see it. 

For something that seemed so monumental, it also felt as if it was over in seconds. 

There were some tasks dulled out by the doctor, next appointment, prescription for prenatals, things to watch for. It all felt like babbling that would eventually be comprehended but just felt unimportant in comparison to all the other thoughts racing through their minds. 

When they were left alone again, it seemed like time finally slowed. They were left to hear the echoing sound of the baby's heartbeat, the encouraging words of the doctor they would see for the next nine months and all the ways that mingled with their many other thoughts, playing like a tape recording in between their minds. Much stillness followed the doctor leaving and both Tony and Ziva seemed to understand that the other needed this very thing they were sharing. 

“Do you need help getting up?” Tony offered her a hand. 

She shook her head. “No, but can you hand me my pants.” And he did; she discreetly put them back on, as if he had not seen all of her many times before and now, a pregnancy later, was the time to feign modesty in front of him. 

Ziva slipped off the table, adding her shoes to her redressing and for just a quick second she thought about how months from now she would be asking Tony to help her put her shoes on without another choice. 

“What are you thinking about?” Tony could see it in her eyes, the lost in thought look.

“How eventually I will not be able to reach my own feet to put my shoes on.” 

“Of all things, Ziva David?” 

She shot him a disbelieving half smile as if the reality hit her all at once again. “ We are having a baby.”  

“Yep.”

“How did we get here?” 

“Well Zivs, nine weeks? I gotta think this has something to do with that time on the kitchen counter.”

Her jaw clenched and her eyes narrowed. “That is not what I meant.”

Tony ignored her anger and instead replaced his boastful pride about whatever had happened in his apartment weeks earlier, with a softer look. One that was more reflective of how he actually felt, not him hiding behind his boyish humor. “We’re having a baby, Zi. I know it doesn’t matter how it happened.” 

“A baby,” Ziva’s voice was once again dripping with incredulity. “It’s strange to love something so much that is nothing more than a blob.” 

“God, isn’t that true.”

And for an ever fleeting moment, they could just be. They could just be expectant parents basking in the news that everything was as it should be. It could seem like all the ways it was all so complicated didn’t exist. 

It felt the way they both daydreamed about, not that they had ever fully expressed to one another their matched ideas of what they wished it could be for them. They both wanted kids and marriage and a house to share and the things that for Tony seemed so far out of reach as a lifelong bachelor and for Ziva, they were the things an ex-Mossad agent didn’t have the courage to want; spending her life killing for the honor of her father, made for wants of a normal life feel impossible. Yet, this moment in time with Tony, with the first pictures of their child stored safely in her purse, it was starting to feel like maybe there was room for her to wish for more. 

But it couldn’t last forever. It was in fact, just fleeting for now.

“You need to go, get back before Gibbs starts asking questions,” Ziva sighed, picking up her purse. “I will get scheduled for the next appointment.” 

Tony nodded. 

It wouldn’t always be a secret, but for now it was theirs to hide and that meant lying to the rest of their team until they could come to terms with how best to share the news. 

“Come over tonight?” Tony asked just as he was slipping through the door. 

“Maybe,” Ziva told him. “Get back to work, we will figure it out.”

They would need to figure out a lot more than if Ziva was going over to Tony’s.  

Chapter Text

The Chinese takeout leftovers were not as appealing as Tony had hoped they’d be, but in his usual fashion there was nothing else in his fridge and if he wanted to eat dinner he was looking at his only option. So he popped them in the microwave. 

He let his food heat up and meandered toward his bedroom in search of something that was not his work clothes. The day had gotten long and all he wanted was to not be in slacks and a dress shirt anymore. So he found his usual Ohio State shirt and a pair of sweats, the two grays clashing endlessly, but there was a big chance that no one would see the outfit anyway, so it didn’t really matter how stylish it was or not. 

Tony took one last look at his watch, it was already five minutes after eight, before tossing it on his bedside table, where he would grab it from in the morning. 

He’d asked her to come over tonight at their appointment and she had brushed it off in the same way she did later, much later, as they were headed toward the elevator. Her eyes had been heavy, he could see how tired she was and he knew it was not because their day had been long, most of their days were, but because of the exhaustion of growing a human. She’d told the doctor about it, who had assured her it was totally normal. She’d shared it with him in the few short exchanges they had at work when they could get a moment that was just them. But he could see it, clear as day, how tired she was and he’d kind of hoped to just have her show up, get food and if she needed to, fall asleep while they were in the middle of a movie she didn’t care about anyway. Those days and moments seemed further and further away, harder to grasp as their situation became more serious without their permission.

The microwave beeped and Tony remembered that he was supposed to be eating what was inside of it, now warm, and he shuffled back into the kitchen, grabbing the plate before settling onto the couch, to apparently turn on a movie alone. 

The knock on his door startled him so much that a few pieces of chow mein went flying from his plate and his heart raced in his chest, as if her showing up at his apartment required the same fight or flight response as being chased by a bear. For god’s sake, he’d invited her there in the first place. He had been hoping she would show up, yet somehow it made him nervous. He missed when her showing up meant less, food, tv, tangled in his sheets. Tony was not a big fan of this heaviness that had taken over. Maybe use a condom next time then dumbass, he thought to himself as he got up off the couch. 

“What are you eating?” No greeting. No acknowledgment of actually showing up. 

“Leftovers?” Though it was more a question than a statement, as Tony was wondering why she was at his door at all after her nonchalant attitude earlier, but also why that was her opening line. 

“They smell awful,” She grimaced. 

“Don’t really taste that great either,” Tony admitted, realizing the reason behind the question. “Here, come in. I’ll toss them.” 

Tony did just that, throwing them directly in the trash and secretly wishing he had a candle to light to try and get rid of the scent, as Ziva’s face stayed stuck in the look of disgust over the scent. 

“Sorry about that.” 

“It is not your fault everything makes me nauseous.” 

“Everything?” 

“It seems like it,” Ziva told him. “I have been living off of crackers and tea for days.”

That was the first time she had admitted that to him, had given him any of the little details about her symptoms outside of being exhausted. Obviously, he had witnessed some of them or they never would have made it into that bathroom, but Ziva was not so willing to tell him what she was dealing with behind the closed doors of her apartment where he had felt unwelcomed since their strange night where she promised not to push him away, but also needed to be alone. She was not doing the best job of keeping him in the loop or he would have known better than to be eating something that made her have that green tinge to her face he saw every time she smelled Gibbs’s coffee. 

“I’ve got some tea in the kitchen, you want it?” 

Ziva wanted to instantly say no, to not get so comfortable when she had no idea where the night was going, but Tony seemed so eager. His feet were already moving toward the kitchen and she was suddenly so aware of the way she had kept him at arm’s length for weeks now. 

“Sure,” She nodded. “Thank you.” 

She followed him into the kitchen, taking a few deep breaths, both to ease the bubbling in her stomach, but also to keep her anxiety about what she was getting herself into at bay. The further into his apartment she got, the more she let him do for her, the more she was inviting the things to happen. Those ‘things’ being the inevitable conversation about what they were going to do with a baby and no relationship and two apartments and everything in front of them, like a train barreling down the track that would not stop before it got to the end of its route. That end was their child. 

Their. 

Ziva stepped out of the kitchen for a moment and grabbed the ultrasound photos from her bag that she had left by the door. She wasn’t sure for what reason, knowing it would only fast track the inevitable, but something in her needed to see them again. She had not looked at them, held the glossy paper in her hands since they were handed to her and Tony early that afternoon.

When she came back, Tony had a pot of water on the stove to boil. He didn’t have a kettle and he knew that Ziva hated the idea of microwaved water for her tea, almost as much as Ducky, so his next best option was to boil it the old fashioned way. 

“You could have just put the water in the microwave,” Ziva tried. 

Tony playfully scoffed at her suggestion. “No, I couldn’t have because I would have heard about it. I guess I’m going to need to get one of those kettles if you’re going to be here…” There was more to the thought, but he stopped before he got himself into something he was not ready for, they were not ready for. “You think someday it’ll look less like a blob?” Tony nodded toward her hands. 

Ziva had unfolded the four photos, all different angles of the same thing that would have been rather undecipherable if they had not known exactly what it was. 

“Well I imagine it will be born with a face and limbs, so yes I think it will stop looking like a blob,” Ziva tried to give him a half smile, as if what she said was funny, and it sort of was, but not in the growing tension between them. So the barely there smile fizzled fast and silence crept in. 

The water finally boiled. Tony poured it into a coffee mug, an old Baltimore PD one, the text so nearly faded on the front it was hard to make out. He added the tea bag, a little too expertly for someone who himself did not drink tea and scooted it across the kitchen island toward her. 

“Thank you.” 

“Welcome.” 

Ziva toyed with the tab on the tea bag, twirling it between her index and middle fingers. Tony watched her nervous fingers. 

“Is this how it is now?” Tony spit out. 

“What?” Ziva’s eyes shot up. 

“I just mean, is this how we are now? Uncomfortable around each other?” 

“What do you want instead, Tony? You would rather just pretend?” 

“We are awfully good at that.” 

“I do not think that is really going to slice it anymore.” 

“Cut it, Zivs. That saying is it won’t cut it anymore.” 

Ziva cocked an eyebrow at him. “There is some big difference between slicing and cutting?”

“I mean not really, just one has a saying and the other doesn’t.” Tony, with all the bravery he could muster, changed the subject before it was quiet again. “I don’t want to pretend this is nothing anymore, Zivs. It wasn’t really working before and like you said, it's not gonna work now.” 

“I am not…” She was not what? The list was long and growing just like their baby. “I am not ready to be ready.”

Confusion covered Tony’s face as her word settled. “What does that mean?” He asked with a genuine curiosity, no anger, no disdain. 

“It means that I know we are having a baby. I know this,” She gestured toward the photos now sitting on the counter next to her mug, “is our child and they will show up and we cannot stop that. But I have not suddenly figured it all out, everything I am feeling, and I am not ready to just move on like this is the happiest thing to ever happen to us.”

“Are you happy about it at all?” 

That question hit Ziva so hard her hands had to find the counter to stop herself from tumbling backward away from Tony’s words. 

“Yes,” It came out as a belabored whisper. She knew she had been distant, but only as the question sunk in, did Ziva grasp how hard her exterior had been. Though it always was and Tony knew that, it was different to brush other things off, to act causally when they secretly made their plans for an evening shared. To shut herself off from this had been so alarming Tony had to wonder if any single part of her felt anything that resembled joy about their child. 

Her answer was not a lie, even if happiness was not at the forefront of her feelings.

Tony was slowly starting to understand the way Ziva’s brain was comprehending this. He had struggled for weeks now to understand how she could be committed to having his child, while also wanting to be left alone and avoid the conversations he wanted to have. He’d been scared so momentarily when those tests said the same thing, matched results, but it had been replaced so viciously with the joy of knowing that he and Ziva had made this thing, this soon to be person, who was theirs. The first time anything was ever theirs to share. His brain could easily push aside anything that felt remotely like a worry and replace it with the excitement that was constantly lingering. 

That was not Ziva. She did not function the way he did. She worried. She contemplated. She thought about every detail, even the unlikely ones, until she convinced herself she needed more time. She had expertly done that when it came to her pregnancy. Tony could see he had to respect that or he would send her running so fast away from him, he’d never know their child. 

“I do want to do this. I do want to have a baby with you, not that there is much option about that now, but we are doing this and I know we are, Tony. There are just so many things. We are not together… not that way. We do not live together. Where will this baby call home? My place or yours or neither? You and I have never even gone on a real date. Takeout and sex, does not really count, not when it is our secret. Those are the things that make me sound like I am going to change my mind and I can see that. It just… it just is not as simple as forgetting them.”

“Does it help at all if I tell you we can talk about it? You can tell me this, Ziva. I know I’m always the dumbass or the smartass, but anything that has to do with our child you can come to me about. I tried to make that clear when I showed up at your apartment.”

“But you are not worried about the same things.”

“That’s not true. I just know better that we can figure it out. That somehow it’ll pan out just like it’s supposed to. Maybe I’m naive for thinking that, but I also don’t have all the answers to your questions, even if I’ll try to.”

“It is a very good thing that it takes months to grow a baby.”

Tony let out a genuine chuckle at her very honest statement. “Very good indeed.”

Ziva turned her attention back to the sonogram. Her fingertip traced the second photo from the bottom. She followed along the outline of the baby. Thank goodness it would not always be a blob, but thank goodness that would be months from now. 

“I um… I read somewhere that they are the size of a grape right now,” Tony said. 

Ziva tilted her head at him, trying to figure out if he was kidding or not, but all seemed serious. “Where did you read that?” 

“I just read it somewhere.”

If Ziva was not mistaken, she could see a blush creeping up Tony’s cheeks. “Tony?” 

“It was a book, alright?”

“A book?” Ziva could not help the smile that pulled at her lips at the idea of Anthony DiNozzo, lifelong playboy, reading a book that told him their baby was the size of a piece of fruit. Lord how the tables had turned and so quickly.

“I bought a book, okay?” Finally the truth was revealed.

Ziva masterfully covered her face with her hand to hide the almost explosive laugh she let out. In her mind, she could only see the image of Tony walking into a bookstore and having to peruse the aisles because she knew he would be too embarrassed to ask for help, looking for a baby book. It was ridiculous and also utterly the way Tony took on new things. It reminded her of the time she left to see a man who shall not be named and Tony had learned that Hebrew send off; it had equal parts gotten under her skin and made her rethink her trip. If Tony wanted to know something he’d figure out a way to know it. 

“May I see this book?” Ziva tried to ask between little fits of laughter she could no longer control. 

Tony crossed his arms over his chest and huffed in absolute irritation. “No you may not. Ever.” 

The break in tension made Ziva feel as if thousands of pounds of weight had been lifted from her shoulders. They may not have solved all their problems, but the ability to be honest with Tony, the way she could see him translating her words into his understanding of how best to tiptoe around her for just a little longer while her analytical brain coursed through every single detail, made her feel at least a little lighter. And now there was a baby book hiding in his apartment, because of course there was, that snuck into their conversation to remind her why having a baby with him was far less terrifying than any previous thought she’d had about becoming a mother.

“Tony,” Ziva took a deep breath, still trying to combat laughter. “Can I please see the book you bought?” 

“So that you can laugh some more at me? No way. I will keep my book and all of my fruit facts about our baby…” The words slid so easily off his tongue in a way that was so unfamiliar Tony drifted away from his sentence for a moment to let it linger. “...to myself.” 

“Oh so now I may not know what size fruit our child, that I am carrying, is?” 

“Not if you are going to be an ass about it.” 

“I have never been an ass,” Ziva gave him a devilish glance. 

Tony rolled his eyes right back at her. “David, you’re pushing it.” 

“Is there not some kind of rule that you have to do whatever I want since this is your baby that is taking over my body? I am doing this as much for you as myself.”

“Are you asking for some kind of special treatment, Zivs? You’re not getting soft on me already, are you ninja?” 

“This is not me getting soft. This is you owing me for not being able to eat real food.” 

Tony contemplated for a second and then started shuffling out of the kitchen, telling her over his shoulder, “One more laugh out of you and I will burn this book before you can tell a living soul about it.” 

He came back, bashfully carrying a rather thick paperback book. He let it thump onto the counter in front of Ziva and got back to his rightful side of the counter quickly, as if physical distance between them would make it less horrible when she inevitably started laughing at him again.

But seeing the book only made Ziva soften. 

Pregnancy, Childbirth and the Newborn. Even if the cover was a cheesy, too happy to be pregnant couple, that did make Ziva want to laugh and the title was ridiculous, it was the thought behind the purchase.

“You have read all of it?” 

“Who do you think I am? McGeek? No, I read through the beginning and I took a peek at some later chapters, but, uhh… I had to move on before I saw too much.”

“And you think you will not see too much when we are in the delivery room?” 

Tony blew out a deep breath. “Yeah, maybe we can worry about that when we’re closer to it?” 

“I think I might want to have the baby at home anyway.”

“Woah, what? No. Hardest of nos, Miss David. You’re not ready to be ready, but you’ve thought about pushing a football sized person out of your body in the living room?” 

“Yes, I have,” She chided. “It has been distracting me from all the things I have been… avoiding.”

Tony shook his head. Just when he thought he was beginning to figure her out, figure out this version of Ziva who was now his permanent partner in raising their future child, she goes off and shares what feels like a rather unhinged thing to mention in the middle of a seemingly normal-for-them deep conversation. 

“Hospital or bust, Zi. There will be medical professionals and I will be left in charge of nothing important.” 

Perhaps, she was yanking - pulling? - whatever the saying was, his chain by making that comment to get a reaction, but it had worked. And she was not lying, she’d been weighing her options as it pertained to where she’d have their child. She just knew full well it was not particularly important at only nine weeks pregnant and it was not necessary for their current discussion. 

She opened the book, but looked up at Tony over her mascara free eyelashes. “We’ll talk about it later.”

A quiet, that was not a deafening, tension-filled silence, settled in the kitchen. Ziva rested a hip against the island, sipping her tea and briefly reading some of the pages in this DiNozzo bought book. 

“Hey Zi?” 

“Hmm?” She answered without looking up. 

“Thanks for coming over.”

Ziva knew that thank you was loaded. Maybe he was glad she came over. But she knew it was more about her willingness to open up, at least increasingly more than she had, about what she was feeling. That it was a thank you for being the person who was going to have his child, not that he’d choose anyone else. Though he’d never have believed that the only person he’d want to have a baby with would be who he was lucky enough to do it with. It was also just a thank you for her being her; he’d want her never to be anyone else.

Ziva gave him a small smile and continued with her flip through the book. 

“Are you staying?” 

There was always an extra Ohio State shirt laying around for her to borrow. 

“I think so.”

Chapter Text

The desk had been empty across from Ziva for a little too long. 

She followed Tony’s trail toward the breakroom, where he had disappeared to, and where she sure enough found him sitting at a table, back to her. 

“There you are,” She announced her arrival, though he probably heard her footsteps coming. 

Her voice was light, cheerful, a strange thing for her compared to most of their awkward interactions lately. At the office where everything was still a secret and neither of them quite knew how to act normally, at home where they were practicing their best avoidance tactics, and in between all those moments. But it was just the two of them and Ziva was relishing in the fact that this was the first day in weeks that she had not woken up nauseous, her mood vastly improved by that and the ability to stomach a real breakfast, not half a piece of un-toasted white bread. Her fingers were crossed that as she barely squeaked out of her first trimester, she was leaving behind the persistent all day sickness that had plagued her.

Tony was haphazardly shoving something in his backpack as she got closer, the smile on her face turned into a look of contemplation as she could sense that whatever it was he sort of put away was weighing on him more than just the, as Ziva called it, “homely,” boarding school picture from earlier. Though she would never, or certainly not anytime soon, admit to how cute she thought Tony actually was in that photo, slightly awful bowl cut and all.

Ziva slipped into the empty chair next to Tony, as he didn’t get up upon her entrance. “Are you alright Tony?” 

He stared at her for a while, trying to read between the lines. There was a small part of him that hesitated to start what he knew he was starting. It was just Ziva. His friend, sometimes his confidant, but she was now also the mother of his child and somehow that made it seem like all that they were before was lost to the awkwardness of discovering what they were going to be before there was a baby in their midst in a little over six months. 

But her brown eyes were soft, not empathetic, but somehow they conveyed her willingness to listen, her understanding that he was not playing any games or pulling any pranks with this one. Tony’s seriousness about sharing was met with her seriousness about listening. 

“Can I show you something?” 

“Yes,” Her lips flinched into a half smile for just a moment.

Tony pulled back out the very thing, or things, he had shoved in his backpack when she came in. It was a stack of photos, the same size as his boarding school one. It dawned on Ziva immediately that Abby must have been able to develop the film for him from the little camera he’d loved in his childhood. 

He handed the stack to Ziva and crossed his arms protectively over his chest, preparing himself. Ziva looked at him, still a gentleness to her and then her eyes dropped to the first picture in the stack. 

A little Tony, probably about eight if she was guessing, stared back at her. Blonde hair and green eyes that somehow were so recognizable as the man she sat next to, it almost took her breath away. The smile on his face was real, so very real. It was the same one that had greeted her when they were reunited during his agent afloat days. It was the one that he shot at her from across the bullpen aisle when she returned after Somalia, his way of saying how glad he was that she was back, without having to put it into so many words. It was the one that she caught him giving to the ultrasound photos every time she found him pulling them out for a quick glance or a long stare. 

Ziva could not help but get caught up in her first look at Tony as a child. Never would an admittance leave her lips, but she had been wondering about the smaller version of DiNozzo, the one that would most closely be related to their baby. She had to hide the near gulp that followed that thought. Their baby. Ziva wasn’t sure when, if ever, she would get used to that thought and all that trailed along with it. But this blonde haired, smiling boy could be showing off some of the features their child would have and it was an odd thing for Ziva to suddenly wish that they favored their father. 

Her eyes fell from little Tony to the blonde woman next to him in the photo. “Is this your mother?”

“Yes,” It was a curt three letters. 

“Wow, she was… she was beautiful,” And she was. Ziva could see all the ways Tony resembled her, all the traits that had not come from Senior, but had come from this mysterious woman Tony did not say much about. 

Tony stared at Ziva, almost surprised by her reaction. “Oh. I… I guess she was.” 

“How come you never talk about her?” Ziva questioned rather casually for someone who was also very closed off when it came to her own mother and her own impending motherhood. 

“I don’t?” Tony asked back; there was one of those many avoidance tactics they’d been practicing: answering a question with a question, when they knew damn well what the real answer was but certainly could not just be open and honest. 

“No,” Ziva shook her head ever so slightly, looking for Tony’s eyes to give away that he knows he doesn’t. “No, you don’t.” 

“Hmm,” Tony made the noise to buy himself a second to think. “Well, I guess, uh… she was the first woman to break my heart and I don’t like to talk about things like that.” 

The admission settled between them and the honesty with which Tony had just explained the heartbreak of losing his mother, made Ziva feel the palpable shift in where their conversation was headed. His first heartbreak, his first loss. She wished he didn’t have to know what it felt like and she wished for herself to not understand so well how hard it was. 

“You don’t talk about your mother, either, you know,” Tony pointed out. 

Ziva gently set down the stack of photos. “No, I do not.” 

“Same reason I don’t?” 

“Yes.”

Tony probably opened his mouth too quickly to ask his next question, but it was too late once the words tumbled out of his mouth. “Do you think she would have been excited to be a grandma?” 

Ziva was visibly startled by the inquiry. It was not because it was invasive, it was because it felt like Tony was reading her mind. He somehow viewed the very thoughts in her head, something he was irritatingly good at. 

“I keep thinking about that.” 

“You do?” 

“Mhmm. I just…” She sighed. “I never thought about how it would feel to do this without her. It has been… so long, or it feels like it has, and I think I thought it would be easier than it is. I did not think that I would think about her all the time.” 

Tony’s own face softened as he watched Ziva’s hands twist in her lap. He could feel the way she was so willing to open up and yet so closed off still, the way Ziva always shared something. 

“She has missed a lot of things,” Ziva continued, her voice quieter, laced with more emotion. “It is not like this is the first time.” 

“It’s a big thing though, Zivs.” 

“It… I mean… for the first time in my adult life, I just, I feel like I need her. I really need her, not just want her to be here, and there’s nothing I can do about it.” 

Two things struck Tony about what Ziva said. First, that she said it at all. They were teetering on the edge of something bigger than either of them had ever faced. Her openness was acting as a step toward that inevitable moment when they either decided they were in this parenthood thing together or they would yet again make it as complicated as possible. Tony wasn’t sure he was ready for that to happen in the breakroom; one massive thing had already happened at the office, another one didn’t need to get added to that list. 

Secondly, he was shocked by how much her out loud admission made him suddenly realize the same thing. The pictures, the memories, the things he had spent so long pretending he didn’t have access to. And now, he wanted them, to cherish them, to place himself back in front of that movie theater in the city where he saw his last movie with his mom. Tony wanted to hold tight to those moments because he too wished, or or more correspondingly, needed his mother. 

What he would have given to show her the ultrasound photos of their little alien, Ziva’s words, not his. What he would have given for her to meet Ziva; from what he could decipher of his eight year old memory they would have loved each other. Even if he could just hear from her once the reassuring words of a woman who knew him well enough to say he could do this, he could be a parent, he could be the father that he did not have. There was no one for either of them to look to for reassurance, because it certainly was not going to be either of their fathers that stepped up to do such a thing.

Ziva sniffled. “She would have liked you.” 

“Huh?” Tony was pulled from his trance. “You think?” 

Ziva nodded. “The exact opposite of my father, she would have thought you were perfect.” 

For just a second, Ziva let herself picture that meeting. The way Tony would have been boisterous to hide his nerves and her mother would have read right past it, grilling him for all kinds of answers that she maybe didn’t need because if Ziva was choosing him, she trusted her daughter’s instincts, the very ones she’d instilled in her. They would have ended up with a good relationship. If only. 

A thought, one that Ziva had never shared with anyone crossed her mind and before she contemplated telling Tony, it was leaving her mouth. “When I was a little girl, I had this baby doll that I loved to play with. My father hated that I wanted to have a doll. I was their first born, not his, but he looked at it like I was and he expected me to join Mossad from the beginning. My mother fought him on it always; I remember that even when I was little. But my Ima encouraged me to play with my doll if that was what I wanted. So she would teach me to swaddle it and change it and I even think my grandmother sewed me an outfit for her. But I just think about how gentle she was with this baby that was not even real, the way she taught me to care for her while still reminding me that I could be whatever I wanted and someday if I wanted to be an Ima, I could. I cannot stop seeing that version of her. It is as close as I will get to what she would have been like as a real Savta, a real grandmother.”

“Zi,” Tony, unearthing a courage he didn’t know he had, put a gentle, yet reassuring hand on her thigh. 

She shifted under his touch, but did not pull away. “It is what it is, Tony,” She tried to feign indifference about the whole thing, but a few too many confessions later, it was hard. “I can wish all I want for her to be here, but I cannot change it. I can just hope that she would be… happy or proud or something.” 

“She would be,” Tony was assured in his words. 

Ziva took a deep breath, steadying both her oxygen and thoughts. “What about your mom? She would be excited about a grandchild?” 

Tony shrugged. “I guess.” 

“You do not know?” 

“I mean I only knew her until I was eight. I wasn’t exactly asking her if she wanted to be a grandma back then, Zivs.” 

Sometimes she forgot how much less time he got with her. Tony did not have the chance to know her when thoughts like grandchildren and girlfriends and what their adult relationship would be like played into their conversations. He was only a child with her; just her little boy who loved movies and probably flirted with girls even back then. His mom was not thinking that she needed to tell her young child that someday he would make a good father, that someday he would find someone he would really love and she would give him this thing he wasn’t sure he would ever have. No parent prepares to leave their child wandering the world with one less person to guide them. And unfortunately, no matter where they stood now, Senior had not been totally capable of giving Tony what Ziva knew his mother would, what her mother gave to her for the many more years she got to have with her. Perhaps, Ziva should find herself lucky to have made it longer than eight years with the woman who shaped her. There just was no luck in losing these women. 

“She would have been proud of you, though, Tony,” Ziva rested her hand on top of his, scared to break that imaginary barrier between them. That thing that was keeping them from the intimacy that led them to their very conversation. But she knew he needed more than her cold shoulder. She could not follow up her thought with an icy response that made it feel unbelievable. She believed his mom would be proud and Ziva knew herself that she was proud of the way Tony was stepping up, in more ways than she had. 

“Ehh, I’m not so sure about that.” 

“She would be,” Ziva squeezed his hand. 

“I would hope so,” Tony sighed. “I think you two are a little bit alike. Strong, stubborn, put up with men you shouldn’t have to. Senior was no pip to be with, I’m sure.” 

“You are better than your father, Tony. You are already more involved than he was and this… our baby is not even here yet. Not even close and I do not doubt the ways you will be there. For both of us.” 

A heaviness immersed them. The problem was these were the conversations they needed to have. They needed to understand each other on this level, not that they didn’t to some extent, but not fully. They would never be more than casual sex and co-parents, if they did not open up. Tony and Ziva were complicated in their own ways and if there was not an expectation of understanding each other, they would tap dance forever around one another wondering when the other shoe would drop because it always did. They were two adults, grappling with adult consequences from their actions and the world had a funny way of making it happen, but this was their chance to not look back at what they had been, but to look forward to what they could be.

“I will never be to our baby what my father was to me. You have to know that now.” 

“I do,” Another confirming squeeze of his hand, before Ziva reached for the stack of photos. “So she was the one who took you to the movies, huh?” 

“Yeah. Yeah, we would go to these dollar matinees. Make these weekend trips into the city and there was this theater that she loved over on 42nd street. It was pretty run down, but she loved movies. You know? And uh… I think she loved the escape.” 

Ziva knew that as much as his mother liked the escape, so did Tony. It was another thing he had learned from her. For every thing that seemed a tad superficial coming from Tony, there was, usually, something deeper behind it. He escaped his mother’s death by watching movies. He escaped his father’s inability to parent by watching movies. He most likely escaped his bachelorism, the one that he boasted about, yet was so excited to give up the minute he could have this new life with Ziva, by watching movies. They were a shield for him. One, perhaps, that he would not need quite as much now as he had. 

Though, trust that their child would be a film aficionado just like he was.

Tony went on, remembering the day the photo depicted. “That was the last movie we ever saw together. Right before she…” His gaze looked longingly at the photo, unable to get the words out. But Ziva understood the implication, the way the silence filled in the blank that words had left. “The Little Prince.” 

“Mhmm,” Ziva nodded. “That which is essential is invisible to the eye.” 

A slight smirk and raise of the eyebrows replaced the sadness on Tony’s face with one of unintended shock at the sound of his Israeli counterpart spewing a direct line from the film at him. “Ziva David, did you just quote a movie?” 

“No,” She was quick to correct. “I quoted a book that was made into a movie.” 

“Huh?” Tony pondered.

Ziva gave him a soft chuckle. “You are surprised that I have only read the book?” 

“No, it’s you. But we will have to change that. If not now, when this baby of ours is old enough to see it.” 

“Our baby,” Ziva repeated to him. Someday, or maybe never, the shock might wear off of hearing that, of discussing it. 

“It never gets old does it?” 

“It never gets less insane.” 

Tony pulled his hand back, but his eyes lingered. He could see the changes in her body, even through the loose fitting black top and low waisted pants, Ziva was trying to hide it with. It could have been simply because he knew, his eyes were trained to see the things he knew were there. Nobody else had noticed yet or if they did, they were keeping their mouths shut and given the team of people they saw every day, Tony had to think it was the first and not the latter; this group did not keep things to themselves. 

“We’re going to have to say something here soon, Zi.” 

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why? Can you tell? You think they have noticed?” 

“Woah, woah,” Tony replaced his hand quickly on her leg, trying to ease the panic he had caused. “No. I think if someone thought something they would have already asked. We just cannot hide it forever. I’m…” 

“More excited than I am to share it?” 

“They’re family, Zivs. We don’t have a lot of that if you remember the discussion we just had. I know they’ll be happy for us.” 

“You forget rule twelve.” 

“Okay, so there will be four people happy for us and one person who will get over what we did by building us a crib in his basement.” 

“God, he probably will do that won’t he?” 

“Man can’t help himself if there’s a project involving wood.” 

Ziva thought for a moment. How do you even make such an announcement? These people were so important in her life, so special to both her and Tony. They would always be family, yet it seemed terrifying to just show up one day, spewing about being pregnant with a child that was half the coworker they did not know she was sleeping with. They really needed to work on being less complicated. 

“I need just a little more time. We need to decide how we are going to do it, anyway.” 

“Mass email? Balloons? We’ll blow up one of the ultrasound photos and hang it in the bullpen?” 

“If you do any of those things, you will never be able to have another child,” Ziva glared. 

“Heard.” 

Tony glanced at his watch, just then realizing how much time they had spent in the breakroom and how quickly a search party would be sent out for them, if they did not get back to their desks. He worked to shove the photos back in his backpack, where they would safely be hidden until he needed to look at them again. 

“We gotta get back before Gibbs has our asses,” Tony stood from his chair. 

“Tony?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Thank you for showing me.”

Chapter Text

“I know it’s not the same, but maybe if you closed your eyes it would be like you were at the opera. And maybe even like Tali’s there with you.” 

“Thank you.” 

“You didn’t have to do that,” Ziva clicked her seat belt on. 

Tony turned to look at her, sitting behind the steering wheel. He could see, because he knew her so well, the faintest tear tracks that she had tried to cover up with more makeup than she usually wore. He had to imagine that was why she had taken more time than he expected coming back from the bullpen to meet him at his car. Gibbs and company would be waiting for them at his house, Thanksgiving dinner prepared and ready to eat. 

While this dinner was important to everyone else, Tony knew, after her admittance in the car to him about why the opera was so special, why she had to see it on the exact date, that the team could wait for them. Or more so, they could wait for Ziva. He was simply the chauffeur.

“It was the least I could do,” Tony wanted so badly to reach out, to sweep a loose curl out of her face, but he refrained. “You changed,” He pointed out instead. 

Ziva looked down at her now black and looser fitting dress, as opposed to the teal one she’d had on when he left her to her opera in the bullpen experience. “Umm, yeah. I felt like you could see too much in the other one.” 

“I mean I wasn’t going to say that, but…” 

“You noticed and did not tell me?” 

“Sometimes I’m not sure Zivs if it’s because I’m actually seeing something or my mind is playing tricks on me and just showing me what I want to see.” 

Ziva narrowed her eyes in Tony’s direction. “You want to see me pregnant?” 

“Is that a trick question?” 

“No.” 

“Then yes.” 

For a second, Ziva wanted an explanation. She wanted to offer him her own third degree about why he wanted to see through her dress the very thing that made her change in the first place. Was that what he was supposed to say now that he would, in fact, have to see her very pregnant in not so many months from this moment in the car? Or did he mean it? There were too many ways the conversation would become convoluted if she asked now as they were already late, already awkward and already processing enough other things. 

“Say something next time. I am actually not trying to use this Thanksgiving dinner as our big reveal.” 

So much for that idea , Tony thought to himself. It had crossed his mind, probably too many times, that maybe he’d come up with a way to persuade Ziva to use this dinner as a way to finally tell the team. They’d be all together. Everyone would have a little wine in their systems. For so many reasons, it seemed like a good idea to him. Obviously, Ziva thought differently and if she was vehemently against it, Tony stood little to no chance of convincing her. So much for telling everyone they were expecting their own little turkey. Though, Tony flinched at the very thought thinking about the gut punch that would come from his co-parent as soon as the words left his mouth. Might have still been worth it. 

“We have to…”

“Tell them eventually. I know that Tony,” Her words were a little too sharp. 

If there was a magic fix to Ziva’s fear of telling the team, she wished someone would just share it with her already. The mere mention of it made her palms sweat, made her feel her breathing shorten and her nerves fire on all cylinders. They were her family, they were the people she trusted with her life and with things that others may never know about her. Yet, the idea of them knowing they would all soon have an unexpected addition to their family, was petrifying. It was as if that was the thing that would finally make it all crumble. The village, the one she constantly read she would need to raise this baby, would disappear into thin air and the biggest responsibility of her life would somehow be all hers, no support, no help. Ziva wished her brain would not come to such awful conclusions so easily, but it did. It always did. And so maybe, by keeping their secret as long as humanly possible, she could convince herself that this would not end badly. 

Her efforts weren’t working thus far, but as Ziva David did, she would just keep trying.

“Look, I’m following your cues on this one, Ziva. I’m not going to do anything without you, but I know that you want this to happen your way and the longer we wait the harder that’s going to be.” 

“And the consequences from it? Have you considered those?” 

Tony, not wanting to wait any longer, reversed his car out of his usual parking spot. These days he was thinking constantly about trading it for something more family appropriate, his dad mobile as he had called it one day, only to be answered by rolling eyes from Ziva. 

“What consequences? The one where everyone finds out my swimmers are in perfect working order?” 

The sound of Ziva’s hand slapping him on the arm reverberated through the car. 

“Ziva. No one at this table is under the impression that neither of us have ever had sex. Immaculate conception just really isn’t crossing their minds. Gibbs will get over it. Vance, when he finds out, will get over it. Abby will be thrilled. Honestly so will Ducky. McGee is going to be the only one weirded out that we slept together, but McGeek is weirded out by everything pertaining to sex. These are our people, Zivs.” 

“You really want them to know, don’t you?” She could hear, more clearly than she had before, how much Tony had thought about this. 

“I’m just… I’m excited. I’m tired of keeping that to myself.”

Keeping that to himself. 

Those words were like a punch to the gut.

Tony watched as Ziva’s face fell, as he realized how his words sounded to her when she was still sensitively in a spot where excitement was hard to hold onto among all the other things that she was carrying. Her shoulders slumped forward in defeat, like the weight of knowing that her slow coming around to the idea of having a baby was affecting both of them. 

“Zivs, I didn’t mean you,” He backtracked. 

“I am trying, Tony,” Her voice was quiet. 

“I know you are. I don’t doubt it,” Now his hand did reach out, a gentle, but reassuring brush of her upper arm. “We’re getting there, Zi. I’m impatient, always have been, and I think ripping the bandaid off, not having the secret looming over us anymore might actually help you. Once they know, they know and there is nothing anyone can do to change what’s happening. Maybe that’s what you need.”

“Maybe,” she sighed. 

The rest of the drive was filled with an uncomfortable silence. 

Ziva contemplated what he was suggesting. What would be the worst thing that happened? That list was actually quite long and whether or not any of the fears were worth stumbling over in her attempt to get on the same page as Tony, was still to be seen. Though that did little to stop her from worrying. 

But, some part of her, fighting for her attention, did picture the reactions. The way she was certain Abby would squeal with joy and hug her so tight that all of her internal organs would be reorganized, before remembering that there was a baby to protect and she would let go faster than she ever had. Ducky would offer his congratulations, with a side of sage advice and some, probably, strange facts about early pregnancy that were either interesting or terrifying and either way not at all called for. McGee would be happy for them in his quiet way, surprised for sure, but the congratulations would come again later when he could get both Tony and Ziva alone; his soft antics would be what Ziva looked forward to most. Palmer would be entirely beside himself, surprised, confused, unsure of how to react. 

It was Gibbs though, that gave her the most hesitation. While Tony was sure he’d get over it, Ziva was not so certain that the man, who had acted much more like a father to her than her own ever had, would take the news lightly. She wanted him to be happy about it. She wanted him to understand that while they never, ever meant for this to happen, it was happening. She searched for his approval in most things she did and if there was no approval for having a baby, Ziva would have to live with that; it hurt her to think about.

“You gonna stay in the car?” 

Ziva snapped back to reality. The car had stopped, they were pulled up in front of Gibbs’ house without her even noticing. She unbuckled and got out, hands immediately going to fidget with her dress now that she was standing again. 

“You look fine,” Tony told her, as he found his way next to her. “In fact, I think you’re glowing.” 

“Shut up.” Ziva rolled her eyes so hard at him, it was a wonder they didn’t get stuck in her skull. 

“Finally!” Abby greeted them both at the door, opening it before they could reach for the handle, as she’d probably been listening for their car doors. 

“Sorry, Abbs, I had a little Thanksgiving gift for Ziva,” He shot his favorite ninja a knowing smile. “Didn’t mean to make you all wait.” 

Ziva shook her head. “It is my fault Abby.” 

“That’s not what you were wearing earlier,” Abby pointed out the same thing Tony had about her dress. Did everyone really need to pay such close attention to her outfit choices?

“Abby, can we come in?” Tony changed the subject expertly. 

The rest of the team was working around the makeshift dining room table that sort of sat in the living room, but really was in the very place it should be given it was Gibbs house and little made sense there. Ducky was gently placing the gravy boat on the table, next to the turkey that was already being cut by Gibbs. Palmer trailed behind with bowls of stuffing and mashed potatoes in his hand. The table was cluttered with so many dishes, there was barely room for the place settings that had obviously been done by Abby. 

These are our people, Zivs. Tony’s words echoed in Ziva’s head as she watched them all functioning like the perfectly dysfunctional family they were. Next year there would be one more addition to the place setting, though they would need a high chair. 

“Tony and Ziva, nice of you to join us,” Ducky noted as he took his seat. 

Neither of them responded, but instead fell into line and also took their seats next to each other, across from Ducky and Palmer, McGee to Ziva’s left, leaving Gibbs and Abby on either end of the table. No one was wasting any time with pleasantries, as everyone had already waited long enough for Tony and Ziva’s arrival.

The wafting smell of turkey was all that Ziva could focus on. Her aversion to meat, the one she thought she had finally kicked, was apparently lingering and just waiting for the right moment to remind that her body was no longer just hers and what she used to enjoy on this very American holiday was no longer true. It wreaked. 

“To family,” Ducky lifted his glass of red wine. Ziva missed the entire toast thinking about the dead bird, now cooked, on the table, but she lifted her glass, filled before she sat. Everyone hardily took their sips and in her best effort to pretend, Ziva lifted the glass to her closed lips, tipping it back without actually ingesting any of it. 

That, for just a moment, made her forget about the turkey smell. But as soon as her glass was back in front of her, not to be touched again that night, her brain could only zero in on the way her stomach was starting to churn with acidic rapture. Her cheeks were hot and she was sure, without looking, that they were flushed. 

Tony shot a sideways glimpse her direction. He could see her stiffening, the very way she did when something was going to make her nauseous or already had. He had come to know it a little too well for either of their comfort. 

“You okay?” He whispered in a hushed tone, concealing it under all the voices around them chattering. 

She shook her head so slightly, Tony would have missed it had he not been paying attention. 

Plates and bowls were circling around the table, passing from each pair of hands to the next. Ziva could feel the hot saliva in her mouth growing with every food item she had to put on her plate to appear as if nothing was wrong. 

She was silently cursing herself for coming into this dinner so unprepared. She should have known better than to assume her days of food aversions were behind her; it was not that simple. Nothing was that simple. 

Ziva berated herself for her own stubbornness. 

If they all knew, if they had ripped off that metaphorical bandaid that Tony was discussing earlier, she would not be trying not to gag as Tony scooped stuffing for both of them onto their respective plates. It was not his fault, he was following her cues and he was pretending just as much as she was. Ziva could see it in his eyes, though, that he was fretting just as much as she was. Their cover was about to be blown to literal chunks. 

“Ziva, can you pass the gravy?” McGee innocently asked from next to her. 

Tony reached for it instead. “Here McGeek.” 

“Gee, thanks,” Tim answered as he took the glass boat from Tony’s hands. 

Don’t do it, don’t do it, Ziva was begging herself to not let it happen. Not here. Not with everyone waiting to be an audience to her fleeing from the table. Please. 

“Ziva, my dear, are you okay?” Ducky was gently patting his face with his cloth napkin. 

“I’m…” She had to close her mouth as quickly as she opened it. 

Her throat burned. Her palms were clammy with sickness and terror over the imminent thing that seemed like it was happening whether she begged it to stop or not. 

“Ziva?” Ducky tried again. 

Tony’s hand reached discreetly under the table to land just beneath the hemline of her dress. 

She knew all eyes were suddenly trained on her and the attention only sped up the inevitable. The bile rose in her throat. The flush of her cheeks became hotter. Her sweaty hands started to tremble. There was no turning back and instantly she was flying out of her seat, away from the table and down the hall toward the bathroom. 

There was a shared moment of stunned silence at the table. All utensils were set down, eyes drifted between each other as they tried to make sense of this very out of character thing that just happened in front of them. So much for a nice family dinner. 

“I’ll go check on her,” Tony offered, tossing his napkin from his lap onto the table and scurrying down the hallway after Ziva. 

The sound of the toilet flushing greeted Tony as he made a show of knocking gently on the door before he went in. 

Ziva was at least upright, still on the floor, but sitting up. The color that had been draining out of her face since she took her seat at the table, had somewhat returned. The flush of her cheeks was still prevalent, as was the heat that was spreading through her body with the post vomiting relief of at least feeling slightly better. 

“Zi?” 

“I cannot go back out there,” She declared, though rather quietly. 

“Are you going to sneak out the window then instead?” 

“Not funny,” She told him flatly, as she flipped her hair from one side to the other.

Tony knelt down to her, crouching even a little further to be at eye level with her. “Are you okay?” It was a sincere question. 

“Besides ruining Thanksgiving? No, not really.” 

“Can I do anything?” 

“What am I supposed to do? I cannot pretend like nothing happened.” 

Tony thought for a moment. “I’ll just tell them you must have caught something and I’m going to take you home.” 

“That will ruin dinner for you.” 

“You don’t live that far away. I’ll come back and act like all is good. You just needed some rest.” 

Somehow something that was so small, had the ability to wreck just about anything it wanted to. When Tony had made a dumb comment in passing about their baby being the size of a plum now, Ziva had not assumed that the little plum would make itself known with the most horrific timing. So much for assuming. 

“Here,” Tony stood back up and offered Ziva his hands. 

She took them standing up slowly. “You know I was really looking forward to those mashed potatoes.” 

“Zi,” Tony chuckled. He’d have traded places with her in an instant. 

Ziva let go of Tony’s hands and steadied herself on the vanity for a second instead. She turned the cold water on, cupping it into her palms before using it to rinse her mouth out. The sour taste needed to vacate in some way and quickly before its lingering made her just as sick as the smells of Thanksgiving dinner. 

“You ready?” 

“No.” 

Her stomach now bubbled with nerves at her reentry into the room. Once again, the audience of eyes were on her and each one held a combination of sympathy and questioning, varying degrees of both things depending on whose eyes she was met with. 

“My dear girl, are you alright?” Ducky was far more sympathetic than maybe anyone else at the table. 

“I will be fine, Ducky.” 

Abby shot out of her chair, accosting Ziva. Her hands gripped Ziva’s biceps and she searched the Israeli’s  face for the answers she wanted. “Are you sure you’re alright? 

“Yes,” Ziva tried to soften her tone. 

“Ziva, you had me worried sick. Oh well not actually sick, maybe that wasn’t a good use of words. But you’re Ziva, you don’t just run to the bathroom to throw up at dinner. Maybe you caught something? You guys see and talk to a lot of people in the field.” 

“Abby,” Ziva tried to get a word in edgewise, but had little luck interrupting her. 

“Maybe you’re allergic to something? Should you get tested? I thought for a second that maybe you were pregnant. Pregnancy makes you sensitive to smells and tastes, you know? But that would be impossible, right?” 

The P word slipped from Abby’s lips and Ziva was sure that her eyes might have popped all the way out of her skull. Her heart started to race so fast she was sure that Abby was close enough to hear it beating against her chest cavity. Her palms were coated in the same clammy feeling she’d had right before getting sick. 

“Right, Ziva?” Abby asked again. Her eyes zeroed in on the stunned look covering Ziva's dark eyes and the still flushed features of her face. “That’s crazy?” 

Everything she had held onto was fading away. The statement about not using Thanksgiving dinner for their big reveal was coming back to slap her right in the face. The comfort keeping their secret a secret gave to her disappeared faster than she had run down the hallway only a few moments earlier. It was all imploding and it was so much quicker than Ziva could be, she was not even left with a millisecond to try and keep even some semblance of it together.

“Abby,” The goth’s name was a hushed whisper, as if that would stop everyone else from understanding the admission that was in those four letters. She didn’t dare look at Tony, who stood just a few feet away, worried that would be the next giveaway. 

“Ziva.” 

“I am not…” 

“Ziva, is Abby right? Are you pregnant?” Ducky was the first addition to what had been a two person conversation. 

“Don’t be ridiculous you two. There’s no way Ziva is pregnant," McGee piped up. 

Every time the word was said, Ziva's heart pounded faster and her head spun more, making her dizzy standing in place. The seconds ticked by on the clock and the longer she waited to say anything, the more confirmation of Abby’s statement she was giving the entire group. 

“Ziva!” Abby screeched. “Oh my god! Oh my god! Our first little NCIS baby.” 

While Abby’s voice was filled with enthusiasm, was nothing but pure excitement, Ziva found herself wishing she could fall through the floor away from everyone. She wished she was invisible or at least deaf, so that she could not hear the muddled congratulations coming from her team that while kind, were the very last thing she was feeling she could receive. 

She turned to the only person who had not said anything, had not moved from his seat. Their eyes met, but Gibbs was doing that thing he did so well in keeping whatever he was thinking far away from his face. She could make nothing of how he was ruminating on the news. 

“We have to go shopping, like tomorrow. You’re going to need so many things,” Abby’s mouth moved utterly too fast. “How far along are you? When are you due? I have to know so I know what season I’m buying for. Oh my god, Ziva! I’m so excited for you.” And there was that monstrous hug that she had predicted happening; Abby squeezed her ridiculously tight. 

Tony wanted to step in, to save Ziva from Abby’s many questions, from the stares of their team, from all the things that she had explicitly shared she’d wanted to avoid when she told them all. He knew this was the exact opposite of how she pictured telling them going and he knew in her overthinking Ziva way, she was panicking more and more with every passing moment. But what did he do? How did he jump in without being obvious? Maybe it was too late for that to be his concern? 

In an act of hopeful helpfulness, he stepped up to put a hand on Abby’s shoulder. “Abbs, I think maybe you shouldn’t squeeze the expectant mother quite so hard.” 

That made Abby pull away as fast as she wrestled Ziva into the hug. “Sorry, Ziva. I just couldn't help myself. I’m so excited for you!” 

“It is okay, Abby,” It wasn’t, but what else was Ziva supposed to tell her friend?

“Who’s the father?” Abby blurted out and even she was surprised by her own forwardness. “Maybe I shouldn’t have asked that. It’s not really any of my business, but you aren’t really seeing anyone. Are you?” 

And finally it was Tony’s time to shine. He had been waiting for a way to deflect from Ziva and it had just presented itself on a silver platter. 

“Surprise,” Tony’s normally sloppy grin was only half hearted. 

But the audible sound of jaws dropping among everyone but Gibbs, told him half hearted or not, they understood.

Chapter Text

“You? You two? The two of you?!” McGee was, seemingly, the most shocked of the group about Tony’s admission, as the words literally squeaked out of his mouth. It was so high pitched and so probie of him, that if Tony had been just a little more dialed in, he never would have lived it down. 

“Yes, in fact the two of us McGeek,” Tony spat at Tim. 

“Oh my god! It really is an NCIS baby. A whole one!” Abby’s high pitched realization reverberated around them all. 

“Well, I suppose you two that congratulations are in order,” Ducky tipped his wine glass toward Tony and Ziva.

Tony could see Ziva retreating. Her arms crossed protectively over her chest. She bit at her lower lip. He knew her well enough and knew well enough how abrupt this change in plans was, to pick up on her descent from the conversation, even when she was standing in the middle of it. He reached a gentle hand out to rub her upper arm, an action he hoped would be reassuring for her, but instead she jolted away even from him and his touch. 

“Zi?” He spoke to her softly, not offended by her pulling away from him, but concerned about what kind of set back this was causing between them and more importantly, between her and this pregnancy that she was struggling with already. 

She shook her head at him. 

“Do you think they make combat boots tiny enough for a newborn? I’m gonna have to look into that because this baby will need those. Ooh and they’ll need a leather jacket; that’s a must,” Abby babbled happily away as she went back to her seat. 

“Maybe Abby, they’ll want to learn about autopsy.” 

“Palmer, our child is not hanging out in autopsy with you,” Tony put his foot down, right there, months before that baby had even arrived. 

“Fair,” Jimmy shrugged. “When it gets a little older. The dead body thing is a bit of a turnoff.” 

Ziva’s gaze drifted over her shoulder again, trying to find Gibbs. He still sat, returning to his own meal, adding absolutely nothing to the antics of the group who could not shut up about this thing that Ziva wished was not such a popular topic. There was yet again nothing being offered from him to her, a blank stare still looked back at her. She was scrutinizing every single inch of his face, begging for him to do anything that allowed her to have a sense of how he felt about all that had just exploded in his house. The nothingness was equated to disappointment in Ziva’s mixed up thought process, marred by her own disbelief and sudden inability to find an ounce of positivity, where everyone else was elated. 

“Do you want to go?” Tony asked, yet again trying to have her attention. 

“Please stay! We have so much to discuss,” Abby budded in. 

“Abigail, maybe Ziva would not like to stay,” Ducky spoke to her sternly. 

“Is this a prank?” McGee looked around the table and then back to Tony and Ziva. “Am I being pranked?” 

“Zivs?” Tony tried again. 

Her head was spinning. Thoughts whizzed by, the words coming out of everyone’s mouths were a jumbled mess of letters that were not coherently creating anything that made sense to her. Everyone buzzed with excitement, while she felt weighed down by the terror she’d thought she’d shaken about her and Tony’s impending future. The smell of the meal still lingered in her nose and she could not decipher whether that, or the overwhelming reveal of their well-kept secret, was what was causing her stomach to churn again. Either way she was light headed. 

“I just…” Her breathing was erratic and her words were barely audible. “I just need a minute.” 

She escaped to the only place in the house that might hold some amount of comfort: the basement. 

Ziva found herself sitting on the bottom step, the smell of sawdust had replaced the turkey dinner and she had never been so grateful for the scent of sanded wood. It was the sort of instant comfort she’d been hoping it would be. The familiar way it never changed down there. Smelled the same, looked the same, held so many moments, perhaps too many to count, that had shaped her relationship with Gibbs. And it was quiet. Void of the overwhelming crowd that was upstairs celebrating a thing that was changing her life not theirs and she had never been more grateful for the cement floors and the guessing game of what it was that Gibbs was actually building, as it was not boat shaped.

The silence that filled the basement was so welcomed, Ziva felt like she was basking in it. Like for the first time since arriving to what was supposed to be a nice dinner among family, that she could breathe. Not that it was helping the nausea or the growing headache around her temples or the sensory overload of suddenly being more aware than ever of her changing shape around her midsection, the way her dress stuck to it as a reminder of what had just happened upstairs, but it at the very least was buying her some time to find even just one single organized thought; those were hard to come by lately and most especially after the evening she’d had. 

Everyone knew. Everyone who needed to know, who deserved to know, who she really needed to know, now knew. 

That bandaid Tony had mentioned, the metaphorical one that he’d wanted to rip off and thought it would help her so much, left a stinging sticky residue behind and thus far, Ziva didn’t feel like it had done much in the helping department. It had been covering something that she wished was still hiding.

But they all knew. And they were all happy for them, she thought. Except for the one person whose opinion she cared about most. 

“You okay?” 

Ziva nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of Gibbs’ voice, his feet trailing down the stairs. She had been so lost in her own thoughts, his entrance had not registered. 

But she didn’t answer. Didn’t know what to say or how to say it, the words lost on the tip of her tongue. 

“Ziver? Are you okay?” Gibbs asked with a recognizable staunchness. 

He maneuvered around her at the bottom of the stairs and took a few more steps away, toward his current project and rested against the tool bench. Ziva was certain that a glass of whiskey would soon follow and boy how she would have liked to have joined him in that. 

“Not gonna talk to me?” 

“I’m sorry,” It was barely more than a whisper. 

“Don’t give me that,” Gibbs shook his head. “Not what I want to hear.” 

Gibbs was always curt, short in delivery, whether it was just another discussion in the bullpen or if it was a life altering conversation in his basement. Yet, somehow this felt different. It made Ziva nervous the way someone was nervous for a test they didn’t study for and there was no way they’d know the correct answers off the top of their head. She didn’t know what he wanted to hear. She was sorry, in more ways than one and she was lost on how this conversation was supposed to play out. 

“I asked you if you were okay. I didn’t ask for an apology. Don’t need one of those.” 

“But I am, Gibbs. I’m so….” 

“David. Are you okay or not?” 

“No,” She honestly admitted. 

“Didn’t think so. Whaddya need?” 

“To know you are not mad at me.” 

That was the sort of installed fear Eli had given her; that had been the everlasting gift from him into her adulthood. The fear of anger, the fear of making a choice disappointing enough to have the wrath of the men she most looked up to. One was worth the fear and the other was not, but either way the reaction was the same. A curse always, but most especially in situations like this. While Gibbs did not share the temperament of Eli, the ability to do wretched things like leave his daughter in a desert to die, his approval meant more than Eli’s ever would. 

“Not mad, Ziva. Why would I be?” 

“Why? Why would you not be? We broke rules. I did not tell you. The list goes on, Gibbs. You should be mad.”

“I should be mad? Mad cause you and DiNozzo are doing something lots of adults do? Mad you guys are having a kid? What should I be mad about?”

“All of it,” Ziva pushed herself up from the step she sat on and took a sort of measly step closer to the gray haired man. 

“I’m not your father, Ziver.”

“Yes, but you act more like one than he ever has. I need your approval. I need to know you are not angry with me or Tony. I cannot do this if I have to wonder what you really think, Gibbs.”

“When I asked what you needed, I meant how could I help right now. I wasn’t looking for you to tell me that I was the one who needed to approve this. It’s a little late for that.”

It was too late. It was way too late. What was going to happen if this father figure told them he hated the idea, thought they shouldn’t do it and he wouldn’t support them? What would they do then? 

They were having this baby. That one that two ultrasounds ago looked like an unidentifiable blob with no features and yet neither of their parents could stop staring at the black and white images. The baby who in their twelve week ultrasound, where Ziva had to go by herself to keep their secret intact, had a head and toes and fingers and the same strong, beating heart they had the first time, but now was recognizable as a baby. Their baby. It was the same baby that Tony had bought a book all about because he was so excited to be a father, he was nearly beside himself. It was the same baby that made Ziva so scared to become a mother she would do anything to run away from a conversation about them, but if anything happened to change what was coming for her in just some months, she wasn’t sure she’d ever recover. 

They were having this baby. 

They were having this thing that would attach them for eternity and for just a moment Ziva wondered if that was scarier than the baby themselves. And even if it was, it didn’t change what was happening. Just like Gibbs’ approval would not actually change this inevitable expansion.

And, as per usual, Gibbs was right: It was too late for him to do anything. It was too late for Tony and Ziva to do anything, but that was the moment that Ziva finally grasped how she really felt. 

Behind all of the terror and the nerves and the puking and the exhaustion, she wanted this baby. She really wanted this baby. 

Goddamn, Gibbs for knowing what she needed. For asking just to turn it around and be the person she needed so desperately in that moment. 

“We are having a baby, Gibbs,” Ziva looked up at the ceiling, hoping to stop the tears that had filled her eyes, but they rolled down her cheeks, anyway, so she let her eyes drift back to her boss. “Tony and I are having a baby.”

“So I owe you a congratulations?” Gibbs smirked at her.

She shrugged, a chuckle escaping her at the ridiculousness of her tears and her new found happiness and this man knowing exactly what he had just done for her. “I guess so.”

“Congrats,” Gibbs came up to her and a  gentle kiss to her hairline was the very approval Ziva had been seeking. 

“Thank you,” She sighed. Relief coursed through her so instantly now. 

Gibbs stepped back enough to take her in, inspecting her face for any part of her that was not being honest with him, but she had softened, she had relaxed into a place that she had not been all evening. That was his job as the man she felt was a father to her. He was there to ensure that she believed she could do this thing that was looming over her. All Gibbs wanted was to support her and them. 

“You really are not mad?” 

“Ziva, you really think I didn’t know what’s been going on between you two? I was born at night, but not last night; you two are more obvious than you think.”

“We are not,” Ziva objected. “Are we?”

There was only a look to answer her question. 

“We did not mean for it to happen, Gibbs. We have spent years avoiding whatever it is that we are and we do not even know what we are now, but it happened and now there is this child, an entire baby. I know we should not have and I know this affects you and the whole team. I know it is messy.”

“Life’s messy. We’ll get over it.” 

“You are being too nice.” 

“What? I’m gonna head slap the pregnant lady? If anyone deserves it, it’s DiNozzo and I’m not really sure I can get away with that either.” 

“I just was expecting…” 

“A lecture?” 

“Yes.”

“Ziva, you are two adults who have spent your lives dedicated to nothing but jobs. Jobs can go, jobs can come, there’s not a lot of chances to have a family. Trust me, I know,” He did. Gibbs knew too well. “I could throw rule twelve at you guys all day, but it doesn’t mean much now.” 

“You threw rule twelve at Tony about EJ Barrett,” Ziva pointed out. 

“Barrett was not what he needed. They were distracting each other and sometimes Tony can’t see past the end of his own damn nose.” 

Ziva narrowed her eyes at her boss. “So somehow I am better for Tony?” 

“You’ve been keeping him in line since you got here, Ziver. I don’t worry about the two of you. Well, I don’t worry about you.”

The softness of Gibbs’ approval lingered between him and Ziva. The stuffy, sawdust air lightened and Ziva took a deep breath that finally felt like it filled her lungs with air. Her stomach churned less. The tension on the sides of her face eased, their grip lessening. 

“Thank you,” Ziva couldn’t help the little smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth. 

“Don’t think I did that much.” 

“You did. More than you know.”

Their returning footsteps invaded what had become, it at least appeared from the outside, a rather quiet and tad strange continued dinner among the rest of the team. Tony’s eyes shot to Ziva the moment he heard them, everyone else followed in quick succession. Same audience as the announcement that wasn’t meant to be an announcement. However, this time Ziva felt less vulnerable and more ready to face whatever it was they had left to ask. 

She slipped into the seat next to Tony, pushing her plate of room temperature food as far away as possible. 

“Better?” He whispered.

“Mhmm,” She responded. 

“What are you all staring at?”

Eyes reacted to Gibbs’ slightly harsh question and went back to minding their own business, looking at plates or utensils or whatever of the surroundings that could hold their attention. 

“You want to go home?” Tony resisted the growing urge to touch her, to put a kind hand back on her leg where the bottom of her dress sat on her thigh and remind her he was also there for her, just like Gibbs must have been for her to return so calmly. 

Ziva took a deep breath, relieved that the smells that had attacked her earlier, seemed less strong or less offensive to the small being inhabiting her body; they were really the power at be. “Not yet.”

“So am I really not being pranked?” McGee’s eyes were still wide with disbelief, even after so much time to come to terms with the news. 

“I’ll pull out the ultrasound photos if that’ll help you,” Tony offered. 

“Pull them out from where?” Ziva’s head swiveled to Tony. 

“Umm…” Tony hummed trying to buy himself a little time. “Maybe that’s not your business.”

“It is not my business?”

Tony felt somehow that he was more nervous now, being glared down by a woman he knew could kill him with any number of objects sitting at the table. “So Abby,” He turned his attention hoping that he wouldn’t miss a fork coming toward his neck. “When are you two going to plan this little shopping excursion.” 

“I’m not getting you out of this one, Tony,” Abby smirked.

Chapter Text

“Your stomach will not magically disappear the more you mess with your shirt, Zivs,” Tony hit the button in the elevator to take them up to the bullpen, taking them back to their desks after being at a crime scene for most of the morning. 

Ziva sighed. “Everything clings to it.” 

“The it you are referring to is our child and god forbid they be growing, you know?” 

“That is not what I meant,” Ziva hastily corrected him. “I just hate… the attention.” 

People knew. The office was abuzz with the news that Tony and Ziva were expecting a baby together. There was no exact way to know who started the rumors, that were altogether very true, but they both believed there was a goth scientist at the helm, though she would never admit to it and even if she did, it was not malicious. Abby was so excited to be an honorary aunt it shocked no one she couldn’t stay quiet.

But people knew and so her pregnancy felt like it was on full display; Ziva hated it. She hated the way everyone’s gaze dropped to her stomach faster than they would ever meet her eyes. And their little it that was growing, every day it felt like, was no longer hiding themselves under baggy clothes or dark sweaters, even if Ziva still believed she could get away with just the right outfit. Little would it do when the world knew, anyway. She hated that all anyone seemed to be capable of asking her was how she was feeling, but it was frowned upon to be entirely truthful. Apparently it was not very PC to tell the world that she was still exhausted, even though she’d been told that would get better, or that if she stood up too quickly she’d be so dizzy she nearly had to sit again or that she had noticed the very beginning of her first stretch mark and nearly cried in the bathroom over it. So instead, Ziva was forced to plaster a fake smile to her lips and tell them ‘she was feeling just fine, thank you for asking’ and then find something to punch with her pent up frustration. 

“It’s the end of the world that people are asking you how you are?” 

“It is when I have to lie every time.” 

Tony just shook his head in response to her. Leave it to Ziva David to be offended by her need to share some niceties with the people from accounting or HR that were simply being friendly to someone they’d known for nearly eight years. Her shape may be changing, but underneath she was still the one and only provocatively slouching ninja that waltzed into his life just to flip it on its axis. And he was mostly sure that she still could, eighteen weeks pregnant or not, kill someone with a paperclip if deemed necessary.

McGee and Gibbs beat them upstairs and were both patiently and not so patiently waiting for them to debrief about the case. 

“Records show that Noel Huffner never gained access to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing building,” McGee stood in front of the big screen, their latest victim’s ID blown up on it, along with a suspicious one hundred dollar bill. 

“And we have not been able to connect him to anyone there,” Ziva added. 

“So how’d he get the bill?” Gibbs may have asked, but the team was abruptly interrupted before any of his agents could come up with an answer. 

The sound of Abby’s voice broke through their case discussion. “Hey guys!” Everyone turned to her, expecting to see the cheerful ponytails and tights she wore. “Look who I found down in the lobby.” 

The face of Anthony DiNozzo, Sr. beamed at his son. 

He was early. Only a few hours early, not days, but still sooner than expected and it seemed even sooner when there was a big looming thing that had to be explained to him. 

Thanksgiving dinner had been one thing. A crowd, the masses getting let in on Tony and Ziva’s growing secret, as seen by her constant tugging on clothes that did no good. But then, a few days later the realization set in that they both had fathers and they both had fathers that did not have any idea of their impending grandfatherhood. Ziva made it clear, almost instantly, that she was in no rush to tell Eli and she may even not tell him until after the baby was born. Tony respected and understood her decision, knowing full well it was not out of fear, but required defiance against her father; she was in charge of this life event and he would not take over it in the way only Eli David could. Tony, on the other hand, knew his father was hinting at this Christmas trip. Not to mention his ability to drop in with the worst timing possible. There was little avoidance of Senior and the news of their baby that would be acceptable. 

But he was supposed to go to his hotel. He was supposed to get off the plane and not head straight to NCIS where he would mess up the entire plan Tony and Ziva had contemplated for hours the night before. 

That was that lovely Senior timing Tony thought so fondly of. 

“Dad,” Tony croaked. “What are you doing here?” 

Senior chose to ignore his son and instead turned to his favorite ex-Mossad agent. “Ziva, show me some love.” 

Ziva froze, understanding that unlike everyone else at NCIS, Dinozzo Sr. had not taken in the way her black shirt clung to her growing baby bump and there was no semblance of him picking up on the physical changes that seemed obvious to everyone else in the world. Maybe, they’d just get away with this early arrival not ruining other plans they’d made. 

Fat chance with these people in this bullpen. 

She stepped up to hug him, knowing there was no other option and in all honesty, Ziva was glad that Senior had made the push to spend Christmas with his son. He may have been an absent father in so many ways through most of Tony’s life, but now seemed as good a time as any to step up a little. There was a little utterance of hope from Tony along those lines when they’d continued plotting that morning for his arrival; Ziva could sense that Tony hoped a grandchild would be a good thing for his father. 

“Hello, Anthony,” Ziva said as she reached her arms out toward him. 

Senior met her in the middle. “You know you call me, Tony.” 

“Tony,” Ziva pulled away quickly, still in the clear.

That was until Senior’s eyes looked her up and down. It was the same gesture that Tony made when he saw a woman he was attracted to, though his wandering eyes had long since planted themselves on only one woman. The same woman who his father was taking in, his face twisting into contemplation, like for an actual moment he was thinking about whether or not he should say the thing that sat on the tip of his tongue. 

Contemplation did not stop him. Little could stop an inappropriate comment from the first Anthony DiNozzo. 

“Now Ziva, dear. I know I shouldn’t say this.”

“Then don’t,” Tony spat at his father. 

“But if I’m not mistaken, it seems like you’re with child, there.”

“With child?” Tony pretended to gag; his father’s comment was much more disgusting in prose than content. 

“Is there something wrong with my word choice, Junior?” 

“Besides that you said it out loud?” Tony countered. 

Ziva knew that between Senior and Junior they stood no chance of getting to the point. First there would be an argument about word choice, then one about why he was in the squad room and finally they’d be so far off topic they’d not be able to circle back in time for Senior to be on his return flight home. God bless the DiNozzo men; Ziva loved one of them far more, but they were both capable of being insufferable. 

“Yes I am,” Ziva was not going to use the ‘with child’ reference, not over her dead body. “Pregnant.”

While she complained of the attention it brought her, there was an ease with which she admitted to being pregnant now. There was not always an ease with which she discussed or shared details of it, but the words ‘I am pregnant’ slipped effortlessly from her mouth when they needed to and that was far more often than she had expected. 

“It suits you,” Senior smiled. 

“Oh god,” Tony seethed through gritted teeth. 

Was it that he had just said that to his pregnant girlfriend? Or that he was right? Both, maybe. It did suit her. Being pregnant suited Ziva the same way her curls being just slightly messy and perfectly falling around her shoulders did. Pregnancy suited her the way wearing green did or the way making her belly laugh resulted in a smile that lit up her whole face did. Tony had always assumed the glowing thing they said came with growing a human was made up, something nice to say to a woman when she was complaining about how her body looked or her swollen feet or having her head in a toilet so much more frequently than they wished. But it wasn’t just a blatant lie. It was very real and Tony caught himself overwhelmed by it more often than he would ever tell Ziva. Caught in quick glimpses when he understood exactly why his father would tell her pregnancy suited her. 

But he cannot say that. Not to her. 

“Thank you, I guess,” Ziva tried. 

“Dad.” 

“Who’s the lucky guy?” Senior asked. “No wait, don’t tell me. It must be the man Junior mentioned you were dating. What was his name?” 

Ziva’s eyes narrowed at Tony, wondering how his father had come to know she was dating someone when she was not. Well, not officially anyway. 

“Dad, that’s not it at all,” Tony’s face was so flushed he could feel the heat radiating from it. 

“It started with an R, I think,” Senior just went on, blissfully unaware of the impact he was having. 

If looks could kill, Tony should have been dead ten thousand times over from the glare he was receiving from Ziva as she began to make sense of what his father was thinking. 

“Ray?” McGee dared to let the name come out of his mouth. 

“McGeek!” Tony nearly screamed at his friend, or had been friend at that moment. 

Ziva’s fists curled into balls at the sides of her body, the anger coursing through her had to end up somewhere. Her nails dug into the palms of her hands as she took a deep breath to try and, just even slightly, suppress all the ways in which she wanted to rip the head off the father of her child. His big mouth had to mention Ray to his father. They talk on such a limited basis, a couple times a year, and who she was dating was a necessary topic of conversation? 

“Yes, Ray,” Senior nodded along. “He really is a lucky man, Ziva. You know, Junior,” The attention was back on his son. “You really should have been more proactive, taken my advice years ago. If you would have done that, this could have been you and Ziva.”

This wasn’t happening. Tony laughed, a boisterous chuckle of absolute disbelief at the scene in front of him. It had taken twenty seconds from the time he’d first seen his father for him to open mouth, insert foot and create a mess Tony would be cleaning up for hours now. Christmas should be spent with family, but only if that family is not going to ruin everything they touch. 

“We need to finish debriefing here, Mr. DiNozzo,” Gibbs, the ever faithful, stepped in. “You mind giving us a few minutes?” 

Senior knew at least better than to argue with Gibbs. “Sure, I’ll go get a coffee or something and come back.” 

Still completely and blissfully unaware of having caused any single problem, Senior sauntered off toward the elevator in search of a few minutes worth of activities. His coat swayed annoyingly behind the backs of his knees as Tony watched him go and that small thing almost sent Tony after him, but he thought better of it (only just). 

“You didn’t tell him before he came?” Gibbs’ gaze flickered between Tony and Ziva, a berating look for their lack of care in the situation. Thinking that something this big would require nothing in advance of Senior showing up. 

“No,” Tony didn’t even have an excuse. 

“It seems as if we should have,” Ziva huffed. 

“Neither of you are very good at this. Figure out how you’re going to handle this and quick, so that I don’t have to deal with it all day.” 

Every single department on the floors below them could hear the angry, stomping footsteps of Ziva David as she almost had Tony by the tie following her to the breakroom. He didn’t need her grip on the silk fabric to feel suffocated by her furiosity. 

“How mad are you?” The sheepish grin that accompanied the question did nothing to stop the daggers being shot at Tony. 

Ziva crossed her arms and took a deep breath, not one to calm her but one to maneuver her thoughts in a way that would make it clear as the sky was blue how she felt toward Tony in that moment. “Why does he know about Ray?” 

“Because I told him about the guy.” 

“Why?” 

Tony shrugged. 

“That is not an answer.”

“Because.”

Ziva stepped a hair closer. “Not an answer, Anthony. Why does he know?”

“Because when I had nobody else to tell how much I hated CIRay and how wrong he was for you, Senior called for his annual conversation.” 

The ex-Mossad agent softened almost instantly at his reasoning. 

“I was jealous, Zi. I was jealous and I was running my mouth to the only person who would listen to me at the time. I thought something serious was going to happen between the two of you and after so many damn years of being stupid, you were finally gonna get away from me. So I told Senior about Ray.” 

Ziva swallowed hard against his words. 

“I’m sorry he mentioned it, Zivs. I didn’t expect him so soon and I really wasn’t assuming that’s where his mind would go.” 

There was so much to unpack. It so often only took a few seconds for things to become as heavy as they had ever been between them. It was not as if Ziva didn’t know of Tony’s jealousy toward her ex, but he had not voiced it in as clear a terms as he just had. Not to mention, the confession about losing her. There wasn’t time in the day to decipher what it all meant.

Ziva’s head was spinning, as if it wasn’t already.

“I will go talk to him,” Ziva volunteered.

“Why should you do it?”

“Just let me, okay?” 

“Should I be worried?” 

Ziva smirked in just a manner to make Tony a little nervous; he deserved it. “No you should not be.”

She found DiNozzo Sr. in line at their favorite little coffee cart in the navy yard. Matching the older man’s charm, Ziva scooted right up to him. 

“Are you buying?”

Senior looked surprised to hear her voice, but instantly replaced it with a knowing smile. “For you Miss David, I am.” 

He ordered a coffee and she an earl gray tea with honey and a splash of milk. They found a bench, one that Ziva was sure many other important conversations had been had on. 

“So what is so important that you needed to meet me out here and not my son.” 

“I thought you and I needed to talk.”

“Oh and what about?” 

“This baby,” Her hand gently caressed her stomach, taught and round under her touch. Ziva had been so careful to not make such gestures in public, even if half the world seemed to know about the pregnancy, yet something about this moment with Senior felt like she and her future child were in it together, doing a favor for their dad.

“I am not sure I’m following.” 

“This baby is not Ray’s. We have not been dating for almost a year.” 

“So you met me down here to correct me? I am sorry for the mistake, Ziva. Seemed the most logical option from what little I know.”

Another ripping off of the band aid of sorts. “This baby is Tony’s.”

There was no wild reaction, with over done words and gesticulating. There was no shocked manic response from the older gentleman. Instead there was quiet. Even Ziva thought she’d get a ‘good for, Junior’ from him. But it was oddly silent. 

“I do not know what Tony and I are right now. We are… working on that, very slowly. But he is the father of this child and he has been more than I could ask for. He has stepped up in ways that I knew he could, but I was not so sure he would,” Ziva took a breath. “Having a baby, as you know, is a big responsibility and he has been much better at it already than I have. I could not do this without him.”

It was implied, by the quiet, by the lack of commentary that Senior understood the importance of their discussion. Perhaps, Ziva being the one delivering the news, along with much of the inner workings of her and Tony’s relationship, made it feel as serious as it was. 

“We had a very different plan for telling you. Trust me when I say that Tony wanted it to be more special than whatever that just was. I know it is not really my place, but he is very excited. He is ready to be a father to this baby and he wants you to be a part of their life, as do I. He worries with you and with knowing how your relationship has been with him. I do not want to see him or our child hurt by you.”

“So you don’t think I’ll be a very good grandfather?” 

“No, I think that you could be a great one and I hope that it is true.” 

Senior took a slow sip of his coffee. “Well I certainly don’t intend to mess this up.” 

“I do not have in my father what Tony has in you. I do not think he could step up and be a grandparent without many… opinions and feelings that I do not share. I would not wish upon my child how my father treated me or the expectations he had. But I think you are capable of doing better now than when Tony was little. I would like this -- our -- baby to have the things Tony and I did not. I loved my grandparents; I hope your grandchild will feel the same.” 

“I imagine you are really good for my son.” 

“I have heard that before.” 

“You know, Ziva? I appreciate your honesty. I wasn’t the best dad to Junior, I’m sure he’s made that very clear, but this is a second chance for me. I’m not going to screw it up. Or I am at least going to try my damndest not to.” 

“Good,” Ziva offered him a soft smile. 

“You and Junior having a baby,” A look of whimsy settled on Senior’s face. “I sure did come at a good time to celebrate this.” 

“Whether Tony tells you or not, we are glad you are here for the holidays.” It would take Tony some time to agree with Ziva’s statement, but eventually he might come around. 

“Now dear, are there wedding bells in the future?” 

A laugh escaped Ziva so instantly she couldn’t stop it. “No, no wedding. Having a baby is enough right now.” 

“Just give it some time. Tony is a chip off the old block and his charm will get you eventually,” A wink accompanied the proclamation. 

“I think some of that charm has already worked or you and I would not be having this conversation.” 

“Touché, Ziva.”

Chapter Text

The quiet that had settled overnight in Tony’s apartment was not one of awkward silence, but one of peace. There was even an unreasonably perfect amount of snow covering the ground outside, casting a white glow into the bedroom as Tony’s eyes, heavy with sleep, slipped open. 

The alarm clock on the bedside table read 8:03am in bright red letters. 

Seeping under the bedroom door was just a little light and the smell of coffee brewing, which meant Ziva was already up. Though, he could have figured that out by the lack of her body next to his in the small bed. He had to do something about that before their child grew anymore and she could not comfortably squeeze in next to him -- he’d hear about it loudly if he did not take care of it himself. 

Tony found Ziva in the kitchen, eyes trained to the coffee pot as the brown liquid dripped into the carafe. The book she’d been reading sat on the kitchen island, a bookmark sticking out about an inch from the page she’d left off on. Her curls were wildly untamed from sleeping on them the night before, just how Tony liked them and even though it was barely ten degrees outside, Ziva paired the oversized NCIS sweatshirt she’d stolen out of Tony’s drawer with sleep shorts that had disappeared under the hem of the gray sweatshirt. He watched intently, taking his time before she inevitably noticed him and he would have to pretend he was not ogling. 

He’d seen her naked, actually more than either of them would publicly admit, as what happened in their bedrooms was nobody else’s business; she was already pregnant, the world knew what was happening. But he thought back to that first night undercover, what felt like so many years ago. The same mass of dark curls falling around her shoulders, the smirk on her face that maybe did not leave the entire mission and the green wrap dress that so easily slipped to the floor with one little movement of her hand at its tie. Tony should have known then there was no way they’d do those things together under the watchful eye of Gibbs and company and then never think about the other differently. If only that version of him knew what was coming, knew that he’d stand at the doorway of his kitchen staring at the same former assassin in an oversized, almost vintage sweatshirt, nearly five months pregnant with his child and still be so captivated by her he could only wonder how he’d gotten so lucky. 

Well, lucky enough to share a bed and a baby, but there was still no admission beyond that. His former self would believe that in an instant. 

“Anthony.” 

The use of his full name sent a shudder through him. He’d absolutely been caught red handed. The woman had eyes in the back of her head and he should have known better. 

“Ziva,” He tried to play it cool. 

“Why is it that I always catch you staring?” 

“Maybe you should pay less attention?” 

She finally pulled her eyes away from the coffee pot and looked up at him. “I was not trained to do such and I will not start now.” But a smirk pulled at her lips. 

“How long have you been up?” 

“Twenty minutes,” Ziva stretched her hands above her head, a pop coming from her lower back, but all Tony could see was the strip of skin that just barely peeked out from the sweatshirt. A little swell of her stomach that was just starting to become taught, round in shape and ultimately fascinating to Tony. If he had just an ounce more courage, he might have moved toward her fast enough to press his palm against her growing belly. 

Somehow it seemed a step too far. It kept seeming a step too far to touch her, to caress her stomach and the baby growing inside. Like to do that was a privilege he did not have by simply being the father, he needed to be more to Ziva than that. 

Ziva caught onto Tony’s eyes, glimmering at her in a way that made her uncomfortable and also feel oddly appreciated in her new skin, so to speak. Her two hands snuck around her own stomach lifting the oversized sweatshirt and revealing her midsection, past her belly button. “I think they grew overnight. I swear it feels like it.” 

“I mean you only have nine months to grow a whole person, they gotta grow pretty fast, Zivs.” 

“What happens when I cannot see my feet anymore?” 

“I promise to check and see if they’re still there for you.” 

A soft chuckle escaped Ziva as she moved her hands and let the sweatshirt drop back down. If only Tony had the guts to replace her hands with his. But for now, he would at least take note of the way she was slowly becoming more open to the topic, more willing to discuss it and act as if the very real thing that was lurching toward them was just that: very real. 

“Here,” Ziva handed Tony his cup of coffee. Black like he liked it and she set her own down on the island next to his. Hers had milk and a spoonful of sugar -- something Tony joked about every time he made it, ‘a spoonful of sugar made the medicine go down’ was spoken so often recently as Ziva craved the sugar from her coffee more than the brown liquid itself that they had to watch the movie together. She’d found Tony’s joke about losing her Mary Poppins virginity rather vulgar for a movie targeted at kids. 

“Thank you,” Tony took a long sip. 

“When is your father supposed to be showing up?” 

“This morning, eventually. He’s not really a man known for being an early riser, so I guess we’ll see him when we see him.”

“He better rise early enough to feed his grandchild in a timely manner. We are hungry.” 

Tony couldn’t help the laugh that escaped him. The endearing way Ziva seemed to be willing to speak about their unborn baby that morning was laughable as such a major one eighty. He had to wonder what had so suddenly gotten into her. 

“What did you two really talk about yesterday?” Tony’s eyes narrowed in her direction, but she avoided his gaze, a hand running through her hair, eyes looking past the rim of her lifted coffee cup. 

“I told you already. I told him this was your child and that he would be a grandfather.” 

“Zi?”

“Why are you so certain that there is anything else?”

“Because I know you and your Israeli filter, which is to say you lack one. My father came in guns blazing in all the wrong directions. I don’t buy that you didn’t make him sweat a little.” 

“I was not an ass Tony, but I told him some things that maybe… you would not have.” 

Tony eyebrow cocked in response. “What things, pray tell, did you tell the man, Miss David?” 

“Before or after he asked if we were getting married?” 

Tony scoffed. “Jesus Christ, he’s so dense.” 

“Sometimes he is. The orange does not fall very far from the tree right?” 

“The apple. The apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree, Zivs.” 

She shrugged. “Whatever. Fruit falling from a tree is all the same.” 

“You’re doing a very good job avoiding.” 

“Tony, I did not sit down and reveal our darkest secrets to your father. It was not that big a deal. I told him that this was your baby,” She turned to look at him, setting her cup down. “Our baby. And that we were working out what we were slowly.”

“And?” 

“That he has the capability my father does not to step up and be a grandparent to this child, not just Senior who sometimes shows up, but frequently does not. That you would maybe never admit to him what it would mean to you if he would show up in ways he could not seem to for you, but that it would actually mean a lot. He was really rather quiet for a man who usually cannot stop talking.” 

“Well shit, it’s not like you gave him a lot of room to be an idiot.” 

“You are mad that I told him that?” Ziva crossed her arms over her chest protectively. 

Tony felt like he should be mad at her for sharing things he wouldn’t say to anyone but her; Ziva could always relate to the rather abysmal father train he rode down the tracks toward whatever disappointment was next from them. Except, how else would Senior have ever known that Tony did, in fact, hope he’d step up to the plate. He certainly would not have told him because Tony thought that maybe just once he’d be adult enough to see where and how he was needed without a preemptive conversation. Ziva, at least, took that conversation off of his plate and carried it brashly on her own. God, what he would have given to have been a fly on the wall when they spoke. 

“No, I’m not,” Tony was decisive. 

“He does love you, Tony. In his own weird way, but he does or he would not keep showing up. My father cannot do what he does. Even if it is not perfect, it is more than some people.” 

That was more what this was about for Ziva. Yes, Senior was on the receiving end and yes she told him things he absolutely needed to hear, but this was about Eli for her. At least a large part of it. What she could say to Senior were things she would have struggled to get across to her own father. He was a man of few words unless scolding and even fewer reasons for why he did what he did. And she was right, Senior showed up, even if it was with atrocious timing and too much unmitigated gall. Eli wasn’t appearing to spend the holidays with them, he wasn’t appearing at all. He knew nothing of his daughter’s baby, his first grandchild and that was because Ziva was not willing to risk a reaction that fulfilled all the awful things she knew about him. 

So maybe Tony is who won in this situation. Ziva got things off of her chest that helped her ease toward excitement over their child and Senior got his ass handed to him just enough to suit his son. 

“I do want him around,” Tony admitted. 

Ziva’s face softened, her dark eyes said more than her two word response. “I know.” 

For a second the silence crept in again, sneaky the way it settled around them a little too often. It was less and less uncomfortable, but somehow it was where they kept ending up: in the quiet. 

Ziva rolled her shoulders back in an exaggerated circle, trying to bring her shoulder blades together to stretch them. Tony watched as some kind of sore discomfort settled on her face. She used the counter top to roll her back, hunching in something he had to assume was a stretch. 

“You good there ninja?” 

She grunted at him in response, leaning further into the stretch.

“Good talk.”

Ziva slowly stood up. “It is just my back. Your uh… book said it is normal as the baby is growing and like I said, they grew over night in there.”

This was his chance to sneak in. To break through their awkwardness. Intimacy was not their issue, Tony’s bed sheets could report from the night before. But those things that made them more than friends with benefits were difficult. The small touches, the permission to work past each other’s barriers, but mostly Ziva’s, were taunting him all the time. The same way he worried about touching her growing stomach, he worried about putting his hand on the small of her back or pushing loose hair out of her face if it wasn’t so he could reach her lips. She was basically begging for him to press the palms of his hands into her back and offer her some relief or he was so wrapped up in this step forward that he was making it all up. 

“Here,” He announced before slipping his hands under his sweatshirt covering her back. 

She flinched slightly at his touch, though she couldn’t decide if it was just the touch or the way his hands were cold against her or both. But she tried to breathe into it, to not panic at the gesture from a man who she’d just shared a bed with. Their comfort was behind the very tightly shut doors of their bedrooms and this, while seemingly the most logical next step, was happening in what felt like the wide open. The wide open was terrifying. 

Except his hands felt so good. 

“It will only get worse,” Ziva sighed. 

“Are you talking about when you won’t be able to see your feet again?” 

“Mmm,” She hummed in response, too distracted by the relief he was offering her. 

He didn't dare, but he actually did. Tony’s hand rolled around to the sides of her stomach, thumbs working nearer her to her hip flexors and the round curvature of her stomach grazed his knuckles. His heart promptly stopped, but his hands did not. 

This was the kind of caring for her that got them into this mess in the first place. Tony never found himself being the giving type. He could, he was good at it, but until Ziva came along he wanted just as much if not more than he gave, but with her, with her he would have given her almost everything with no expectation of a single thing in return. He wanted her head to fall back against his chest just as it was doing then because the long sought relief from what her growing body was causing her could only be found by his hands. This was not sex nor was it about it, this was about the ways he wanted to have a real relationship with her, be her partner for better or worse. Though any vows that included those words were a long way off, just like Ziva had told Senior; it just didn’t mean he couldn’t live by them before they legally bound them to each other… maybe someday. 

“Tony?” 

“Yeah?”

“I am…” She trailed off, worried that the thought hurtling toward hanging out loud between them was a little too much. 

“What?” 

“I am glad it is you and not Ray.” 

She didn’t have to elaborate for Tony to understand what she was referencing. His earlier comment about why his father knew about her ex-boyfriend had obviously stuck with her and of course it would, it probably should. It was not his business to share, but he had been honest with her about why. 

Ziva recognized as Tony sacrificed the warmth of his coffee for her silly little backache that the man she had very nearly agreed to marry not even a year earlier would never have done the same. It still hurt her, left a little pang of sadness over the idea that she very well could have settled and if she had, she very well would have been wishing she didn’t. And so, she was being honest. She was glad it was Tony. She was happy to know their child was theirs and that she was not looking at him from across the aisles of desks wondering what it would be like if it was. Maybe it was just that this was the first time they were experiencing what it would be like to not hide their shared lives away in a bedroom forever. 

Terrifying, but not horrible. Those things were not mutually exclusive. 

“Me too.”

Tony had fallen further down the rabbit hole already that morning, so when his lips pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead, he didn’t think better of it, didn’t wonder about the consequences. What’s the worst that could happen? She pulled away, she retreated? Ziva had always done that, most especially since they found out they were forever attached to one another. 

She didn’t pull away, though. Which to Tony was permission for more. He reached further and she turned her head. Their lips met softly, but purposefully. His hands never left the places where they were still massaging the pressure their little one was causing. 

“Woah! Sorry to interrupt you two,” Senior’s voice boomed in the doorway of the kitchen so suddenly, Tony and Ziva scrambled away from each other with such little grace it was a wonder either of them stayed on their feet. 

“Dad! What the hell?” 

“I kept the spare key you gave me.” 

“I never gave you my spare key.” 

“Mhm. Guess I must have found it earlier this week then. Oh well, I have it and I let myself in, but apparently I should have been much louder. Didn’t think I’d find the two of you like that. Ziva dear, you said you were taking it slow, but that didn't look very slow to me.” 

Ziva’s mouth hung agape, with no words in response to Senior. 

“Oh my god,” Tony huffed. 

“Should I give you two a minute?” Senior offered, as if that was the fix all for yet again showing off his incredible timing. 

“No, that is not necessary,” Ziva found her voice, slightly annoyed. “I need to change into something more appropriate for breakfast. If you will excuse me.” She didn’t know what else to do and in fairness, she was not going to sit down to Christmas breakfast with her baby father’s father in short shorts and an oversized sweatshirt. She slipped past Senior in the doorway and left the two men to ignore what happened or hash it out, either way she’d come back in a few minutes. 

“Dad.” 

“Junior.” 

“You’re never gonna change are you?” 

“Look, son, I am sorry for that. I really didn’t think I would find the two of you making out in your kitchen. Ziva said you guys hadn’t decided what you were and I took that as not serious enough to be doing whatever it was you were doing,” He refrained from winking at Tony, finally having enough wherewithal to realize it might not have been the time or place. 

“We weren’t making out.” 

“So what would you call that then?” 

Tony rolled his fingers into fists and took a deep breath, trying with all of his mite, not to tackle his own father. “It doesn’t matter what we call it. What Ziva and I do in my apartment, by ourselves, is not your business.” 

“Some of it is though. Where else did that grandchild of mine come from?” 

“Dad,” This time Tony’s tone was finally serious enough to make Senior back off. “Much to your chagrin, we don’t usually find ourselves doing whatever that was in the kitchen while we wait for company, okay? We are still figuring this out. A baby didn't magically solve things for us and if you keep coming in at just the right times, we’ll never make it past co-parents.” 

“Oh you two will be fine.”

“You only say that because it’s what you want.” 

“No, I say that because I’ve seen the two of you together,” Senior slipped off his wool coat and stepped into the kitchen far enough to place it on the back of a stool at the island. “Junior, you don’t look at someone that way because you’re just friends or because you just so happen to be having a baby together. I can see how you feel about Ziva and she can too, even if she’s not admitting it. I used to look at your mother like that, like she might make my heart explode and like I worried she could break it at any time if she really wanted. There’s no question she’s it for you. Just don’t take it too slowly, huh?” 

Tony sighed. “Is it that obvious?” 

“Yes.” 

Something he’d never said to another soul and yet it slipped out. “I love her, Dad. I love her and I love the baby.” 

The admission was a hushed whisper, as if he said it too loud he'd curse the very thing he just said out loud for the first time. 

“Then don’t wait forever to tell her. She’s a tough one. She needs to hear that from you.” 

“And if it ruins everything?” 

“It won’t.”

Chapter Text

“Zi, you look like you lost your last friend.” 

The response to Tony was silence. He watched her face for a reaction to him, but he got nothing, not even the smallest twitch of annoyance. 

“Zi?” 

She laid on the exam table of their now very familiar OB’s office. The black long sleeve shirt she had on was rolled up to her ribcage, putting on full display her rounding stomach that Tony could have sworn had grown just since he watched her get dressed in his apartment that morning. A throw away blue paper towel was tucked into the waistband of her dark green cargo pants, shifted down just a little low so as to offer the ultrasound tech full access to all that they would need to see. Somehow it never got less revealing as her pregnancy went on. The very thing she tucked quietly into clothes that drew the least attention to her changing figure being displayed for someone who was nearly a stranger came close to making Ziva’s skin crawl. 

“Earth to Miss David,” Tony waved a hand in front of her eyes, desperate for even a grunt in response. 

“Hmm?” She finally answered, eyes shifted in Tony’s direction, but they still did not meet his. 

“Are you okay?” 

“Fine,” A rather bold face lie. 

“Sure thing,” Tony scoffed his indifference to her answer. “Could I get a real answer by chance?” 

Ziva sighed, it rattled upon exit. “We are sure we want to know?” 

“I’m sure that I want to know. I think what you are asking is if you are sure that you want to know and from the way that you look like chewing glass would be more fun than this appointment, I'm going to assume you’ve changed your mind since we last talked.” 

“It seemed easier before we were here.” 

It had seemed easier. When the decision was made, neither of them wavered in wanting to find out if it was a boy or girl. They both were confident that being pregnant at all was such a shock (though their actions to get them there really weren’t going to lead to much else) that the sex of their baby was not something they wanted to be surprised by. Now when it stared them in the face, like so many things, it was not as straightforward.

“What do you think it is?” 

Ziva was caught off guard by the question, enough so that she brought herself to make eye contact with Tony and her eyes narrowed upon inspection of his face, but he held steady to remaining blank, not giving away whatever his motive was behind the question. 

“I do not know.” 

“Zi,” He prodded. 

“Why does it matter?” 

“Because I know that you think it’s a girl and I also think that you’re worried that if they're not, you’ll be disappointed.” 

They had been innocently discussing the baby over Chinese take out, which was now back on Ziva’s list of edible foods; it had replaced both Greek and Indian, two of her previous favorites that were vetoed by their child. There was an unfortunate evening involving a Gyro just when Ziva thought she was done laying her head on the cold rim of a toilet losing the contents of her stomach. So with a container of lo mein gripped in her clutches, she had let it slip, identifying the baby with the use of the word ‘she.’ It was a blip on the radar, but Tony picked up on it instantly. Though when Ziva returned to her gender neutral ‘they’ in the next sentence, he stored it away and didn’t push. It was the one and only time it happened and honestly, that might have been the reason it resonated with Tony. Ziva was a woman always careful with her words, she had to be or all of the languages she spoke would be much more difficult and the only time the eloquence of her sentences was lost was when some American idiom was jumbled in translation. For her to so easily refer to their baby as a girl meant it was something she had been contemplating, not a simple mistake. 

“I hate when you do that,” Ziva hissed. 

“When I do what?” 

She would not give him the satisfaction of spelling it out; he knew what he had done that she despised. “I have never said I thought it was a girl.” 

“A week ago on my couch you said she.” 

“And you remember that? You, the man who has to change his email password weekly because you cannot remember it and will not write it down, remembered one word I said days ago?” 

Of course, Ziva knew the very slip up he was referring to. She pretended it never happened and when Tony had not called her out, like she had expected him to do within milliseconds of the three letter world leaving her mouth, Ziva moved on. Her guard had been down. They were relaxed, comfortable, stealing bites from one another, it was like an evening would have been if they would let the walls of their worry come down and they would just act the way they both wanted to, but would not admit. A movie played in the background, food littered the coffee table and Ziva’s feet rested in Tony’s lap, where she strategically put them hoping for a foot massage that would inevitably turn into more, the sneakiest of second trimester hormones making her teeter on the edge of begging to be touched. She had allowed her thoughts to form in comfort and because of it, she was now being called out for accidentally sharing something she’d kept tucked away. 

It had started as a thought, a gut feeling if she were Gibbs. Something had been tugging at her since those bright red lines stared at her in the bathroom, something that insisted the baby she carried was a girl. It would creep in every so often to remind her of what her intuition seemed so certain of. Ziva would find herself drawn to pink things, to things she herself would never have cared about in a million years. She’d been shopping, begrudgingly picking up a few things that would actually fit her when the options in her closet were slimming, and she’d wandered to the baby section, a place she’d yet to muster the courage to explore before. She’d flipped through the racks of things that would someday fill the drawers of a dresser for their child and she’d had to stop herself from walking out with anything. What she did not appreciate was Tony pointing out the internal battle she had been dealing with for weeks. 

But of course he saw through her.

“It’s really okay if you want a girl.” 

“I never said I wanted either,” Stubborn as she had ever been. 

“Well I’d be happy if it was a girl.” 

Ziva felt the authenticity of his statement like a punch to the gut. Her breath hitched in her throat at the way he was admitting to it without actually admitting to it. It was the way a little half smile followed his words. The way his gaze shifted into one that was far off for even just a second as he pictured what she had been picturing already, what it would be like to have a daughter. 

“Would you be disappointed if it was a boy?” She asked quietly. 

“No, not disappointed. Terrified maybe, we have all met me and what a chip off the ol' block I am, so like it might be the scariest thing in the world to have another DiNozzo running around, but I wouldn’t be disappointed, Ziva.” 

“Okay, good. I will not be either.” 

Tony did not buy that for a second. Not for a single measly one. 

Before Tony could think of another way to sneak into Ziva’s secret thoughts, the door handle clicked and what had been a private moment between them, was no longer so. There would be no further discussion on whether they were following through with finding out; they had to stick with the plan they came in with and deal with the repercussions on the other side of the appointment. 

Ziva watched the screen while the stranger, in pink scrubs she tried not to take as a sign, did her job. They had been warned this was a long appointment. Longer than normal, more thorough than normal, but being told that and experiencing it first hand while waiting for the second biggest shock of the process, sitting right behind actually finding out about the very baby in the first place, were two different things.

Somewhere along the way, Ziva’s hand searched for Tony, aggressively working to intertwine their fingers; the minute she had a hold of his hand, he gave hers a reassuring squeeze, though Tony wasn’t really sure he was the person that should be offering reassurance to anyone right then. He thought back to that first appointment to the way the chill emanating from Ziva disappeared with her need to touch him, to find him in a moment when she was so uncertain. Thankfully that had not changed almost three months later, even if the rest of their relationship had taken steps forward that someone couldn’t even scrutinize well with a microscope, so as to say it hadn’t. One lousy admission to Senior had been just that, to Senior, not to the woman whose hand curled around his tighter and tighter by the second. 

“Are we finding out the gender today?” The question rang through the air as if it was somehow unexpected. It wasn’t. 

Ziva’s face flushed hot. If the room had felt small before, it seemed to be caving in suddenly. 

“Zi?” Tony’s voice was only a whisper, like if he kept it quiet, they could make the decision amongst just themselves. 

He watched her take a shaky breath before her worried dark eyes searched for his green ones. 

“We’ll be fine either way,” But was that if they did or did not find out or if it was a boy or a girl? Tony’s statement swirled in Ziva’s head. 

What it must be like, Ziva thought, to have planned for this, to have wanted this and to know all the answers to the never ending questions. How different it would have been if she and Tony were doing this, were having a baby together because as two consenting adults in a relationship, up front with their feelings, they had come to the conclusion that this was the next logical step, that growing their family was what was meant for them. She wanted to know, to feel, if even for a split second, how she would have behaved if being pregnant had been the greatest news of her life and not something that turned it so upside down she could not see straight some days when she thought about what happened in five more months when the smallest of beings finally disrupted her and Tony’s not so peaceful existence. Would Ziva have known so assuredly that she wanted to know right then, within minutes, the gender of their baby? Would it have mattered less to her if she was one of those people who had daydreamed about becoming a mother? 

“Hey,” Tony stuck to a whisper, but now his face was much closer to hers, pressing for intimacy when they weren’t alone. “It’s up to you. If you can’t do this today, it’ll be okay. I’m not mad. I won’t be. Boy or girl, it’s our baby, right? We already know that.” 

“You are sure?” 

“I will still love both of you no matter what.” 

Love. 

He would love them both. 

Both was not one. Both were both. Both included their child and Ziva. 

Had he actually just said that? Tony watched Ziva’s eyes grow and her realization was happening at the same time as his own. It slipped out, so easily. Too easily. Without a conscious thought it rolled off his tongue like he was saying good morning or goodnight. Like he was stating a fact that was so well known between both of them it could just leave his lips and think nothing more of it. Except it could not. It could not be left to linger in the open. 

“I love her, Dad. I love her and I love the baby.” 

He’d meant that. Tony meant it with every fiber of his being.

Meaning it and conceding to sharing it with the person he meant it about were not the same. Not even similar. 

Honesty had a shocking way of intertwining itself into their relationship at the least opportune times. Only in times when nothing could come of heavy admissions did they decide to weigh down the moment. Tony had been lying to himself, holding onto his feelings and when Ziva needed more than a hand to squeeze his brain could only compute that as the exact right time to say something that derailed the thing that was frightening and instead made it seem like child’s play. At least a small bit of good would come from it, very small. 

Ziva bit the inside of her cheek so hard it nearly drew blood, because otherwise the quiver in her chin would have given her away. As if, the tears welling in her eyes were not enough. The tingling numbness coursing through now had little to do with whether their baby was a boy or girl, and everything to do with a confession that left her breathless. 

“We don’t have to find out if you’re not ready today. It can be confirmed at another appointment,” The tech was sweet in their delivery, trying with a sort of softness to break the strange tension that now appeared. It was not her job to know that neither Tony nor Ziva had ever admitted to feelings for each other; they were having a baby after all, to the world, the people in this doctor’s office, they were a mostly happy couple expecting their first child. That was all they needed to think. Their complications were not for public consumption. 

And suddenly finding out the sex of their baby was the very distraction they needed. 

“No, we want to know,” Ziva mumbled just barely. She cleared her throat and tried again. “We would like to know.” 

Tony nodded along, he had no other option.

“Okay, assuming baby is cooperating, let’s find out.” 

Even in the growing awkwardness, Ziva had not let go of Tony’s hand and he was reminded of her grasp when it tightened in its normal pattern when her nerves were outweighing everything else. 

“Mom and Dad, you have a well behaved baby.” 

Those titles again. 

If there was any air left to breathe in the room, it was sucked out with the words of the tech filling such a brief silence. 

“They are very clearly…”

Do not be disappointed , Ziva berated herself. They had a healthy baby. That was confirmed once again with this scan; they were growing, they were seemingly perfect in all the ways that mattered. That had to be the most important thing and it most certainly was. It just couldn’t outweigh the nagging gut feeling that positioned itself right on top of Ziva’s chest and made it hard to inhale. 

Tony was starting to lose feeling in his hand. 

“...a girl.” 

The sigh of relief from Ziva nearly echoed. 

“It’s really a girl?” Tony's words were coated in disbelief. 

“Very much a girl.” 

It was a girl. They were having a girl. A daughter. Their daughter. The tiny pink outfits that any time prior to pregnancy would have made Ziva roll her eyes, were now their reality. If they wanted to, they could go pick up paint for an imaginary nursery they couldn’t actually fit into either of their apartments. They could share with the team that their newest member would be their niece and if it was Gibbs, she’d be the closest thing to a granddaughter that he’d ever have. Their daughter had just opened up a world of possibilities that Ziva had not even known she wanted to contemplate. 

Their daughter.

“How accurate is this?” Tony, ever the skeptical in times when he wasn’t expected to be. 

“Accurate. I have yet to be wrong and I have been doing this for a lot of years. You two are looking at probably a lot of pink in your future.” 

Tony loved pink. Pink was a great color. He’d coat his whole house in pink if his daughter asked him to. Or purple or blue or yellow or whatever damn color she decided she loved. He’d change it once a month if she wanted. The tiniest person, who wasn’t even a person yet, had just wrapped Anthony DiNozzo around their little finger in one swift move. 

“You were right,” He whispered in Ziva’s ear as he pressed a gentle kiss to her hairline. He was already in deep shit, what was one soft kiss going to do at this point? He’d rather have assured her too much that he was thrilled they were having a daughter than not enough. 

“A girl,” Ziva marvelled. 

“Our girl,” Tony grinned. 

In an instant it was just the two of them again. This time in Tony’s car. Though they’d only gotten as far as buckling their seat belts and turning the heat on to warm the brisk January temperatures outside. The car sat entirely still, just like the two people occupying it. They weren’t due back at work, it was already after 5:00pm and Gibbs’ orders had been to stay away until the following morning; the gray haired man seemed to understand that there would be little point in trying to work with either parent after they received whatever they would during their appointment. He always knew. 

“Did you mean what you said?” Ziva started. 

Fuck, Tony hoped he thought just to himself. Here it was. They couldn’t even make it home. He couldn’t find comfort in take out to shove in his mouth while he pretended to answer whatever it was that was coming full force at him. 

Ziva continued. “You are happy that it is a girl?” 

God bless the mother of his child being just hung up enough on their baby to ignore the thing that would eventually come back around to bite him in the ass. “Yes, Zivs. I meant it. I’m happy she’s a girl. I mean not that I really know how to be a girl dad. But, in fairness I don’t really know how to be a dad at all, gender not withstanding.” 

“You love her already, I think that is a good place to start,” Ziva spoke gently. She did not look to Tony, but instead stared at her stomach, hand caressing her bump. The fluttering she’d been feeling for the last week, like little butterflies, could now be identified as their little girl. Nothing big enough yet for Tony to feel from the outside, so she hadn’t shared with him the baby’s activity. Ziva thought somehow it was unfair to tell him all about something he could never experience and had to wait his turn for, so she instead quietly enjoyed the somersaulting reminders of their girl. 

“I know we’ve said this before, but it’s weird as hell to love a person you don’t even know.” 

“Very strange,” Ziva agreed. 

“You know you can admit it now, Zi? You can say you’re happy too that it’s a girl.” 

“Now, I can.” 

“You’re allowed to want things, you know? You’re allowed to be happy that we’re having a daughter. This is your experience, Zi. Well ours, some of it. It’s okay if you experience it.” 

Who had died and made Anthony DiNozzo, lifelong bachelor, the voice of reason in all of this? Since when did he have all the answers and comforting words and wise views? Since when was Ziva looking to him in moments when it should have been the opposite? “It changed the minute you were, for once, more afraid than I was and I didn’t know what to do with that.” He’d stepped up to the imaginary plate for them so readily. Them. Ziva and the baby. Their… family. 

“I suppose we can start preparing now. We do not have anything for… her.” 

“Oh just tell Abby. We’ll have an apartment full of things we never knew we needed.” 

Ziva chuckled. “That is too true.”

Chapter Text

“You could have at least called.” 

“I did not want to be refused.” 

“There’s no other reason for your visit?” 

“I promise you, my intentions are honorable. No one will know I was here.” 

Gibbs slammed the stop button on the elevator. “What’s up, Ziva?” 

“My father’s in town,” And then to let that news settle with Gibbs or even let that news settle with her as she finally said it out loud to someone. 

She had told Tony the night before that she was going home to her apartment after the gym, after finding Eli in her car, after their walk, though she left the latter two out and claimed that she just wanted to sleep. Tony hadn’t necessarily bought it, but he hadn’t pushed and Ziva knew sooner or later, she would have to explain anyway. 

“He came to see me last night. Alone,” Ziva explained. “Even his own people do not know that he is here. I know it sounds bad and this is the last thing you want to deal with, but I… I did not want to hide anything from you.” 

“Why is he here?” Gibbs would never trust Eli David as far as he could throw him and he certainly never trusted his intentions with his daughter, who more often than not was hurt in the crossfires of Eli’s inability to put his family first. 

“To spend time with me,” A smile crept onto Ziva’s face and then she thought better of it; there was little reason for her to trust her Abba's words. “Or so he says. I know it sounds silly when I say it out loud.” 

“Not silly,” Gibbs shook his head. He could see it, in her face, in that small smile she had let show, in her body language. Ziva wanted this to be different. As she should. She and Tony were on the verge of the biggest thing that has ever happened to either of them and there were very few people to share it with. Not that their NCIS family was not enough, but Gibbs understood the want, the need, to share this major thing with someone who was blood. It just so happened that person for Ziva rarely stepped up when she needed him to and if his track record proved anything, it was that this time would absolutely not be any different. 

“But suspect,” Ziva corrects. “What do you want me to do?” 

“Spend time with your father.” 

“Really?” Ziva was partially stunned by Gibbs' response and the other part of her was hoping he would be on the side of not trusting his intentions. Ziva certainty didn’t, even if she wanted to, and if Gibbs had felt the same it would have validated her, perhaps given her an excuse to trust her gut. 

“And keep me updated.” 

“Of course. Until we know for sure what he is up to.” 

“Does he know?” Gibbs nodded in the direction of her stomach, more obvious in the shirt Ziva wore than she wished it was. 

She shrugged. “He did not say anything about it last night when he showed up, but that does not necessarily mean anything. Knowing my father, he is just waiting for the right moment to throw it back in my face, use it against me that I have not told him. He always has people everywhere, I never know when or if I am being watched, so I would not be surprised if it was… not a surprise to him.” 

“You still think he will be mad?” 

“I cannot win now. Either he will be angry that I never told him or he will be angry that I am. I have to face whichever one it is.” 

And so she faced him, winter coat open, showing off her changing figure. She had to wonder if her own father knew her well enough to notice the other changes in her. The slight roundness to her face where her more prominent cheekbones had once been, the slightest adjustment in her walk from her shifting hips that was sometimes more noticeable than others, the way that walking into the diner for breakfast with him she had instantly turned her nose up at something that wreaked. It was hard to say if he had been around enough or noticed enough about her before their meeting to pick such things out as different from the Mossad agent he once knew. 

“Shmeil lives outside of Tel Aviv now in senior living apartments,” Eli had in his hands photos Ziva had brought to share with him, ones she thought would be talking points for the two of them because otherwise she would have been staring down a very awkward meal. “But based on his level of energy and his, um, tolerance for alcohol you’d never know he’s retired.” 

“The old man has not changed,” Eli had a fondness in his voice. 

“He’s no fan of yours,” Ziva told her father, rather frankly. 

Something similar to a chuckle escaped Eli. “Uh my fans become fewer by the day,” But his eyes still looked at the photos in his hands as he shuffled to the next photo, one that made him stop. “Now this is what retirement should look like.” 

When he turned the photo around to show Ziva, she reacted as quickly as a cat trying to snatch it away from him. The bright yellow and slightly embarrassing ‘Bun in the Oven’ shirt was staring her right in the face, hand caressing a fake baby bump that she had no idea at the time would turn into the real thing much sooner than she had bargained for. It had to have been Tony who slipped that little gem into her pile, of course not knowing that they would eventually be viewed by one of his biggest critics, but still Ziva would be having his head when she got home later. That was, if she first survived being mortified that her father was seeing it. 

“That… that was not supposed to be there. I was… undercover.” 

“It’s very convincing,” Ziva attempted to read the look on her father’s face, though she was certain it was something she had never seen from him. 

“Do you mean your retirement?” That was more a clarifying question about what Eli was trying to say about his position and less about his opinion on grandchildren, even if she was also curious about the latter.   

“Ah Ziva. The world is changing.” 

“And what about you?” 

“You have disagreed with many of my past decisions as a father and I have always hoped to make up for it when I am free from this responsibility,” That responsibility he was speaking of was his position as Director, the very one that had always come before the relationship he was claiming he now wanted to fix. 

Ziva was constantly left to wonder if her father ever meant what he said, if there would ever be any follow through. She examined his face as he semi-announced whatever it was he was announcing, trying desperately to see something she hadn’t before that would tell her this time was different, that this time he would be true to his word and for even just a second Ziva could be the most important person in his life, instead of the government agency that had been the reason she was the only family member left of his. She wanted to trust him and it was never that simple because he had yet, in thirty years of her life, been convincing. Imagine having to second guess her own father at every turn? It was nothing new, but something about her own life and where it stood in the balance with a man who haphazardly said he loved her after already getting her pregnant, but both of them were too scared to discuss the admission and they wondered what would ever become of them and their family, made Ziva yearn more for what her father was claiming to be real. Apparently, she would never be too old to hope for his guidance and maybe even a piece of his love at a time when she felt the most lost. 

“But judging from the way you are looking at me, perhaps my sins are too great.” 

“I think you are confusing retiring with repenting. Only the latter makes any difference to me.”

“Then let this visit be a first step to my redemption.” 

She was softening around his words. Ziva could feel it and no matter how much she wished it was not as simple as a few meaningful, or supposedly meaningful, words from her father to pull her in, he was good at doing so. The same way he was so very good at turning those words into things that eventually hurt her. 

“Was it a boy or girl?” 

Ziva shook her head, playing along with his strange line of questioning about the photo, when she was sitting across from him in the very way she was. “It was not real.” 

“I know, but what did you tell people when they asked you?”

She paused, contemplating how to answer, but more than that, Ziva was realizing her own foreshadowing -- she had already put out into the universe the thing she had been scared to tell Tony she wanted. “I said it was a girl.” 

“And your baby? Do you know what you are having?” 

Ziva’s stomach dropped, her breath caught in her throat. But her hand instinctively went to her belly, as if her fingers could protect the baby from her father. The little butterfly feeling, the small flapping wings that were supposedly her baby, moved under hand. Though they still could only be felt by her, it seemed they were becoming bigger by the day, a staunch reminder that she was there. Ziva hoped soon Tony could share in them. 

“Did you know before you came?” 

Eli shrugged, his features still gently paying attention to her, no anger in sight. “I had my suspicions, but you are not really hiding it this morning, Ziva.” 

“You mean your little spies had told you,” Ziva corrected his suspicions. 

“It really does not matter who told me what. What I want to know is if you were ever going to tell me yourself had I not come to see you?” 

Ziva sighed. “Do you want my honest answer?” When Eli simply looked at her and did not say anything, she had to assume that was the exact answer he wanted. “No, I was not going to tell you. Maybe after she was born, if I felt up to it, but I… this was not planned. It was not intentional and I did not want to have to hear from you all the ways I was disgracing our family by doing this. It has taken me a long time already to be even kind of excited to have this baby and I did not think telling you would make me feel any better about it.” 

“She?” Eli asked, a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. 

The slip had been unintentional. Since finding out they were having a daughter, there was no avoiding it. She and Tony could not have been paid to remember to use any kind of gender neutral term when they talked about her. It was her. It was their daughter. Referring to her as anything but had felt strange as soon as they walked out of the doctor’s office doors. 

“Yes. We are having a girl.” 

“A girl,” Eli breathed, a far off look took over his dark eyes for a moment, before he turned back to Ziva. “And Tony is excited?” 

Ziva knew her eyes grew ten sizes when he asked that, there had been no time for her to feign indifference to his question. “How do you know that?” 

“A father knows. A man does not do what he has done for you, whether I agree with it or not, because he does not care for you. I may not like Tony much, but I can see how he feels about you and so I suppose if he is good to you, to both of you, I will have to accept it.” 

Was this the moment that she rubbed in her father’s face all the ways Tony was a better dad to their baby than Eli had been even once in three decades? Was this the time to tell him she never had to worry about their daughter the way she had to worry about herself because of the things imposed by her own flesh and blood? Was now when she made sure Eli David regretted everything he had ever said about the father of his future grandchild? 

“Tony is very good to me, Abba. And he is so happy about this baby, much more than I have been. He loves her… he loves her so much that he cannot stop talking about her every single moment of the day. Gibbs is going to give him a muzzle soon if he does not shut up about our baby. I know he is not your first choice for me or maybe even your last, but no one has ever taken care of me the way Tony is taking care of me through this pregnancy. I would not be doing this without him. And you will tell me that I should not need to rely on a man and that I can take care of myself and perhaps those things are true, but I am glad to have him.” 

“You love him?” 

“And if I said yes?” 

“I cannot change who you love, Ziva. I can only hope you have chosen someone who is deserving of you.” 

And that was what a father was supposed to believe. That his child was so faultless they were deserving of only the best to match how wonderful they were. But in this case, did Ziva deserve Tony? A man who had risked his life in a Somali desert for her. A man who killed someone in honor of her and protection of her. A man who when plagued with the idea of a fatherhood he was not expecting, did everything he could to start preparing and assure her that as a team they were capable of anything, including having a baby. Ziva more often than not, felt like the weak link in their strange little scenario. She was the one who took so long to come around to the idea. She was the one who told Tony he should not have come to save her. She was the one who would have fought him tooth and nail over his need to protect her from a man she thought she loved. She was the one who immediately pushed him away when her world was rocked by their daughter. Those were all details that her father had no right to be privy to, but his words made her think. 

“We could not ask for someone much better, Abba.” 

“Then I am happy. For both of you.” 

“I am happy.” 

But happiness was forever fleeting in Ziva’s life. 

Tony would never get the sound of Ziva’s blood curdling screams out of his head. They would replay eternally when he thought about the moment that she received the news that the smattering of bullets into Director Vance’s home had not been for show, but had instead taken the life of the man she had just discussed grandparenthood with. 

“Abba!” Guttural and heart wrenching. 

Tony had to wonder what kind of sick and twisted joke it was to take away the last remaining piece of Ziva’s family just as they were about to add to it. Like the universe was telling her that she was not allowed more, she was not allowed additions only substitutions. He could feel whatever he did toward Eli David, and he most certainly did, but no man deserved to be littered with bullets when he was attempting amends and had just received news that was accepted happily by him, in spite of what his daughter had expected. 

“Just tell him Agent Meatball says hi.” 

That was the last thing he had said to Ziva about her father. It now felt insensitive, uncalled for. Had he known that he was going to have to watch his pregnant… the mother of his child scream in despair over the sight of her dead father, he never would have made a joke at all about the man. 

Though, that was the game of life: someone could be gone in an instant. 

Tony had to watch her charge into the house and abruptly stop when she saw him. His face, the look of sympathy that he wished he could have hidden better, had been the thing that gave her the final answer. It was Eli’s final answer. Ziva’s face had dropped so immediately, it was ashen, losing all the color faster than Tony could blink. He could only imagine the gut wrenching feeling of realization that he watched her have. He could only feel immense guilt for it being her burden to bear and not his.

“No,” Had been all she said to him. It was as if, telling Tony that would bring him right back, would make Tony desperately wrong. 

“Abba!” She howled. “Abba!” 

And then Tony watched her crumble to the floor by his lifeless body. Ziva fell to her knees next to him and without a single thought pulled him close. Blood smeared onto the white blouse she had changed into before going to dinner. It made Tony swallow hard to watch the blood stains land on her swollen stomach. The image of both life and death swirling together, but all Tony wanted to do was take them away from it. He did not want to see bright red marring the image of her pregnancy, of the way he had thought to himself how easily you could see the thing she still sometimes tried to hide in the shirt she had worn to dinner and how much he admired it on her way out of the bullpen. 

“Who did this?” Tony questioned Gibbs and McGee when he walked in, though the question was barely audible over Ziva’s sobs. 

The hitch in Ziva’s breath that then made her next cry exponentially louder than they had been, made all three men turn to look at her. 

She held Eli’s head under her chin, holding onto him like a mother would hold onto their child when they needed to be comforted. Her tears dripped on his forehead and slithering out of her mouth was a broken Hebrew prayer that Tony never would have understood, but even less of it made sense between her cries. 

For a while they all left. They all left Ziva to mourn in private. This was a side of her that none of them were privy to and while both McGee and Gibbs were hurting for someone they truly cared about, Tony felt sick to his stomach over the sight of Ziva. He was supposed to protect her. He was supposed to protect their child. That was the job he signed up for the moment those tests told him to, but maybe even more accurately the minute Ziva walked into the bullpen. Something had told him from the start that the tough as nails, closed off, shut down Mossad agent, trained assassin would need him for more than she would ever admit. Most of the time that seemed like some weird fantasy that Tony had cooked up, but as the minutes ticked by and he knew Ziva was still sat on the floor with her father’s body, he started to wonder if he hadn’t been right. But god, he wanted to be anything but. 

Eventually Gibbs nudged him back inside. “Get her. Ducky needs his body and she can’t stay like that all night.” 

Tony barely tiptoed in. By then, the loud raging sobs had stopped, but Ziva still held him. She rocked back and forth every so slightly, the tears that fell now were silent and paired with a disturbingly distant look on her face. 

“Zi?” He came close enough to whisper. 

She only shook her head in response. 

He knelt down. “Zi, baby, you have to let him go.” 

“No,” There was that word again. 

“Ducky needs to come get his body.” 

“No.” 

The body in her arms may have been Eli, but it was not just him. It was Rivka. It was Tali. It was all of the family that she had lost. He was a substitute for everyone near and dear to her that she had lost, which felt like everyone. This was her chance to say goodbye to a physical representation of her family. Tony was maybe the worst person in the world for interfering, but he had to worry about Ziva because this had made her unable to worry about herself. 

“Zi,” Tony reached for her hands and gently unwrapped them from Eli’s body. Something he would never forget having to do was stoically taking Eli in his own hands and laying him down, out of Ziva's lap, out of her grasp. But it was for her and he would do anything for her, that was being proven by his actions at that very moment. 

He stood first and then grasped her under the armpits pulling her to her feet, where all of her weight was in hands because holding herself up was a step too far. 

“I got you,” He assured. 

And he did. Tony had her through the good and the bad, the very, very bad. 

He would be there when she threw up in the bushes outside of the house from the heaving breaths that started when Ducky took Eli’s body to the van. He would be there with her when he was too afraid to let her shower by herself so he sat on the closed lid of the toilet in his bathroom until she was finished. He’d be there when she couldn’t commit to eating a single cracker, even though he was desperate for her to have something in her stomach. He would be there when she stayed up almost all night on the couch, silent and bereft, until the exhaustion took its hold and her body curled into his, sleeping only because she had no choice. 

He would always be there. For both of them.

Chapter Text

There was nothing left behind Ziva’s dark brown eyes.

After hours of shaking hands and accepting unwanted hugs from so many people Tony lost track of the time. Ziva was the ever polite… host was not the correct word. The ever polite dead man’s daughter? She respectfully heard what everyone had to say, or at least did a fantastic job pretending to -- Tony believed it was the latter and he also was certain she had earned the right to do so. But there were so many condolences, things that meant nothing to Ziva. They would never bring her father back, just like years ago they did not bring back her mother or her sister. Never once did anything anyone said to her in grief give her what she wanted: any part of her family back. 

The family left was the baby growing in her belly, something a few people did mention, but with a lack of fluency in Hebrew Tony could not decipher whether it was congratulations or more sympathy for how much harder this must have been on Ziva. She responded the same way every time, though, he assumed that was again her politeness and not a clue as to what was being told to her. 

And now that they had returned to the farmhouse, there was nothing left of her. 

Stopped in the middle of the living room, only a few feet from the door they had just entered, Tony waited patiently by her side, just close enough. He was waiting for anything from her. 

The fight that she’d had just a few days earlier, the need for revenge that she had shared with him almost too readily was long gone and had since been replaced with the docile version that stood before him. He had to assume that the reality finally sunk in when they stepped on the plane. When she was no longer detached from the situation in Tony’s apartment, filled with anger, the actuality of what she was facing in Tel Aviv grew. 

“Zi?” Tony’s voice was hushed, not wanting to startle her if she was in fact as far away as she seemed even if she was standing next to him. 

As he had expected there was no answer from her, but he watched her hand snake across her stomach, stopping to rest somewhere just above her belly button. 

Tony let the silence envelope them again, maybe that was what Ziva needed. He could respect that, at least for a while until the nagging voice in the back of Tony’s head told him to make sure she ate, to make sure she took a shower, to take her to bed and be some kind of comfort to her when she would inevitably wake up from a nightmare in a cold sweat, like so many previous nights. 

When that voice began to nag after enough time had passed, Tony tried again. “Zi?”

She took a deep breath and turned to look up at him. Her eyes now were less dark black holes of her grief and despair and had come to life, even if only a little bit. Tony could at least see in them something that resembled those of the woman he knew so well. 

“What can I do?” 

She shrugged. 

“Anything you need, Zi. Anything.” 

But she didn’t know what she needed. Not that Tony could provide even though she understood he would move heaven and earth to do whatever it was that she asked. 

Ziva needed to not be the center of attention watching as many familiar faces and just as many unfamiliar ones pretended her father was a righteous man, that he had done only good and he was someone to be honored at his funeral. She needed to stop hearing the word sorry or she might just scream, pulling her hair out with whatever guttural noise. Sorry did not bring him back. Sorry did not make up for the countless horrible things he did to his own family. Sorry did not make up for whatever repentance he would never get to do. Sorry did not allow Ziva to have her only family member back. Sorry did nothing and every time it was said, it meant less. 

“Please,” Tony begged. 

Ziva could see it in his face, how much he wanted to help her. How he was longing for even any task at all that would give him a purpose in her healing or in that moment, her moving forward even if only for ten steps. Perhaps, it was that she was the mother of his child. Her stomach visible through the fitted fabric of her black knee length dress was a reminder of why Tony was there with her. Maybe he looked at her like that because he was worried about his own child and the repercussions of everything Ziva was balancing on her shoulders affecting far more than just her. It was fair. It was right of him to worry about the one part of this that tied him to the situation. 

“Just a shower,” Ziva’s voice was quiet. 

Tony nodded, feverishly, finally hearing her speak, finally having a task. “Yeah, yeah.” 

He turned the water on for her in the downstairs bathroom. Rolling up the sleeve of his dress shirt, after discarding his jacket, and checking the temperature with his hand. It had to be just right. The only option was for it to be just right. 

Ziva leaned against the doorframe of the bathroom and watched the way he moved so quickly, not very efficiently, but with only good intentions. She watched him check the water and decide it was too hot to start and that it needed to be cooler. When he was satisfied with the water, of all things, he turned to her and there was a combination of tears in Ziva’s eyes and a smile tugging on the corner of her lips. 

“Zipper?” He asked, knowingly. 

“Yes,” Ziva stood up and turned around, moving her curls from where they hung down her back, so that Tony could unzip the gold zipper down the back of her dress. 

Tony was gentle with the zipper, more methodical with it than he had been with any other preparations. He remained behind her as she slipped the black fabric from her shoulders and shimmied out of it, letting it drop to the floor around her feet. She paused for a moment, wondering if she should in fact ask the next question, but there was no reason not to. There was nothing about that moment that was anything but Tony taking care of her and there wouldn’t be because it was so important to him that she be the focus. Ziva turned her head and caught his gaze. “Get in with me?” 

He wanted to second guess it. Tony would have asked a million different ways to make sure she meant what she said, had it not been for the way she was looking at him. Actually looking at him. Not past him. Not through him. Not because he was talking and she had to pretend to give him attention she did not have to spare. She was looking at him in a way that was only decipherable as needing what she was asking for and being so bold as to ask for it when Tony could not get her to share her needs with him for days now. He should have been worried that it was a step too far, putting them both in a vulnerable place that was far too inappropriate given the circumstances, but Ziva was unwavering. 

“Of course,” Tony pressed the gentlest of kisses to her forehead and got undressed himself. 

He stepped in first, the water the perfect temperature just as it had been when he tested it. He reached a hand to Ziva, who obliged his offer and she stepped in after him, pulling the curtain closed behind her. Her hand remained in his. She looked down to where they touched and then back up, the confident asking stare she’d had a moment before was replaced again with the threatening tears. Tony lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it, soft and thoughtful. An assured reminder from him that he was there for her, not for anyone else. 

And that was what broke the dam. 

It was not just days of build up. It was weeks and months and years. It was brick after brick. It was a mountainous wall that Ziva had been building for as long as she needed something to hide behind. She had been so precise with her configuration of it, only allowing Tony in a select few times and then shutting up the gap with tape or glue or whatever she needed to remind herself that she was stronger than whatever threatened to tear down the walls. But the river of tears ran down her face like rapids and the walls, the dam, the compound she’d built for herself tumbled to the ground in a heap. 

The sobs shook her body. 

Tony wrapped his free hand around her and pulled her in, as close as he could. 

Her head fell onto his chest and even with the running water washing over both of them, Tony could make out what was shower water and what was Ziva’s tears running down his bare chest. 

She buried her head into his skin and he pulled his arms around her tighter. 

Tony was desperate, aching, to assure her that it would be alright. That she would be okay and that he would once again be there for everything she needed. He wanted her to know without a doubt that he would never abandon her the way so many others had. He would never have flown halfway across the country to accompany her to the funeral if that was not exactly how he felt. But she did not need to hear him again. She would not be crumbling in his arms if he needed to say any of those things again for her to understand. This was her answer. This was her way of showing to Tony that she knew what his role was, she knew he was only there for her in a way nobody else could claim. This was never for a moment about Eli Davi for him, this was about his daughter, whose tears stains on his skin were a reminder that he’d made the right decision in being there. 

Seconds turned into minutes, but eventually it stilled. It did not move, but it quieted. Ragged breathing still pressed into Tony as Ziva worked to manage her descent from so many heavy emotions. 

Tony would have stood there with her until the water became frigid if that had been how long she needed. 

But the water remained warm, crashing down around them. 

Ziva wriggled just enough around Tony’s grip so that she could look up at him. Her chin still trembled when she parted her lips to start words Tony would not let her finish. “I am…” 

“No, you’re not,” He was firm, but not angry. 

“But I am.”

“And you don’t need to be.” 

Tony caressed her cheek, dampened by more than the shower. His touch was soft against the flushed skin. 

Ziva wondered how he looked at her like that. How he managed to see right through her, while his eyes say he’d never wanted to be anywhere more than in that shower with her. She was a mess. A struggling version of herself and he could not have been anymore engrossed in making sure she knew that it did not matter what version she was in that moment. 

Tony dropped his forehead to rest on hers. “I meant what I said,” He whispered. 

“Even if I am?” 

“Not about that.” 

“About what?” 

Though, Ziva thought she knew. She could feel it in the way his body tensed just slightly around hers. The way his tone changed and while he was still being delicate with her, there was a seriousness there that had not been true prior to the statement. “I meant what I said.” There was only one unspoken moment in their past that had been lingering between them. A second in time that would change everything when they finally let it. 

“At the ultrasound, that I love you both… that I love you.” 

There it was to change everything. 

He continued. “I meant it then and I mean it now, Zi,” He moved only enough to let their eyes meet. He needed to see her. Even if he wanted to run naked and wet out of the shower away from the thing he started, Tony needed to see her. “Maybe I shouldn’t tell you that right now. But I need you to know. You have to know that it wasn’t just something I said because I didn’t know what else to do. I…” A deep breath. “I love you.” 

The three little words were like a weight, momentarily making it hard for Ziva to breathe. Constricting her chest in disbelief. 

Except it should not have been a surprise. 

The words were nothing more than a formality. Tony had shown her how much he loved her for years, but since they found out they would be parents, he could not have been more obvious. A man does not excitedly step up to the plate to have a baby with a woman he cannot label more than a friend if he does not have deeper feelings. No man would volunteer to sit bolt upright for a twelve hour flight across an ocean so that the pregnant mother of his child who hadn’t slept in days, but fell asleep on him an hour into the flight could stay comfortable. Someone did not show up day in and day out for a partner who wasn’t sure she could do the thing he was so happy about. No one did the things that Tony had done or was doing, without more behind it than a simple friendship with benefits that turned into life altering consequences. 

It was so obvious that he loved her and Ziva knew herself well enough to know she had turned a blind eye to it all in an attempt to protect herself. Nobody who loved her survived it. 

“And you don’t have to say it back or feel it back, I just need you to know. You’re not alone, neither of you are alone. No matter what happens I’m here. I mean obviously I’m here, but you know…” He was babbling. 

She wanted to tell him she knew. She wanted to tell him that he did not have to explain further because she knew how he felt. She wanted to tell him that she had not felt alone for one moment since he drug her home to his apartment after that fateful night. She was exhausted and grieving and overwhelmed and heartbroken, but she hadn’t once had the chance to be alone. 

She wanted to tell him that she also loved him because she did. 

But the words lodged in her throat, not yet ready for their debut. 

A piece of Tony was hoping to hear it back. Though, with everything happening, with the state Ziva was in, even if a little improved from when they first returned from the funeral, she was not obligated to fulfill that need for him. 

Someday. Hopefully, someday.

Her arms wrapped around him and her head fell to rest perfectly under his chin. The roundness of their child ever present between them. That was his answer for now, that's what she could muster and it was enough. He planted a kiss to her wet hair. 

“Why don’t you finish without me?” He suggested. 

Ziva nodded, but he could make out the quiet words. “Thank you.” 

Just when Tony was wondering if he needed to check on Ziva after leaving her to finish her shower, she trundled into the first floor bedroom, towel wrapped around her body. Except for the little sliver where the small towel could not conceal her growing stomach, their growing daughter. Tony’s eyes were so instantly drawn to it, he was worried he might have blushed at how discernible his wandering eyes were. But Ziva was too busy searching through his suitcase to find an oversized t-shirt to steal to pay attention, to notice the way Tony marveled over her changing figure.

Without another thought, Ziva dropped the towel and threw on the Washington Capitals t-shirt she’d dug up. And still, Tony found himself clocking the way it instantly clung to her belly. 

“Feel better?” 

Ziva shrugged again, too common a response in recent days.

The easy way she slipped under the covers with him and did not hesitate to snuggle her body against his, even maneuvering his arm to exactly where she wanted it, told Tony that at least something was better. 

“He was once a good father. When I was little, he was a good man who I know loved me. He just wasn’t able to stay that way. The job… He was ready to be more of that man again.” 

“Do you think he would have kept his word?” 

“I do not know. I will never know,” Ziva sighed. “But something told me this time was different. There was just something about how he reacted to the news, to hearing we were having a girl. I just… I had hoped that maybe he really would step up.” 

“I’m sorry you don’t get to know.” 

“He could have just as easily disappointed me again. I had not known a version of him that did not for so long, I am not actually sure he could have changed. Part of me is… relieved to stop being so disappointed and that sounds horrible, but…” 

“It was exhausting, Zi. It’s exhausting to be disappointed by the people you are supposed to love. I speak from experience. I know.” 

“You do not think I sound like a bitch?” 

“No, I think you sound like someone who is dealing with the loss of a person that is very complicated.” 

As complicated as it ever could have been was the loss of Eli David for his daughter. He showed up to all of her birthday parties, but he sent her to be lost forever in the Somali desert. He trekked across the country to profess his intentions of stepping up for her, but he also killed a man on the path to that conversation. He trusted her with missions he had not dreamed of giving to anyone else in the agency, but he made sure his little spies were watching her every step while she did so. Eli had always and never trusted her and that was almost exactly how she felt about him. Complicated may have been an understatement if she were to describe the relationship they only had sometimes. She would go back to her life in DC and her everyday life would not be affected by the loss. Her day to day did not revolve for even a minute around Eli David anymore. But it would still haunt her, it would come up at times when she least expected it to. It would never not play a role in her future. 

“Tony?” 

The way in which her tone changed so rapidly made him worry. “Yeah?” He only just responded. 

“Promise me something,” Ziva took his hand and pressed it to her stomach, topping it with her own. “Promise me you will not ever do to her what my father did to me. No matter what you think of me or what happens to us, please just be a good father to her,” She stressed the words as they left her mouth, something more important she had possibly never asked of someone else. 

As if Tony could imagine doing it any other way. As if he could imagine even contemplating the things that made her ask him for such.

“Never, Ziva. I will never be him. I promise.” 

“I know we do not know her yet, but she deserves the things you and I did not have. I need to know we both think that.” 

“Zivs. I would rather hurl myself from a building or chew glass than hurt this baby,” His hand spread across her stomach. She had never granted him the access, this permission to touch her and while he was engaged in their very significant conversation, he was relishing in feeling the place she was safely keeping their daughter. The one he was making promises for. “I guess you have to take me at my word for now, but I promise. I promise.” 

“Thank you,” She shifted closer to him yet again, but did nothing to move his hand. 

For that night, it felt like it was supposed to, like they were suddenly more than Tony and Ziva who happened to be having a baby and she was two steps behind him about the whole thing. In that farmhouse in Tel Aviv after Eli’s funeral, of all places, was the first time there was an inkling that maybe things could be different for them before the baby came.

Chapter Text

“Your place or mine?” 

Tony asked, nonchalantly, but quietly to not set off alarms for McGee or Gibbs who were also packing up to leave. Even if it was entirely possible that one or both of the other men knew that they were going home together every single night since they returned from Tel Aviv. Ziva was in fact pregnant, there was really little left to the imagination about their relationship. 

“Yours,” She was quick with her answer. 

They were a few pieces of paperwork from wrapping up a case and with an actual clocking out time of 5:00pm for a nice change, the couple, only labeled that because they roamed as a pair and not because anything was official, would have a whole evening to themselves. 

Among other things, Ziva was hoping to easily find herself in a pair of Tony’s sweatpants that were starting to fit her better than her own and that she could convince Tony to make his family sauce for dinner, a skill only recently revealed. It was too bad for the father to be because Ziva was finding herself only craving the delicious red sauce. No takeout could touch it and Tony knew what was good for him, which meant no request had been denied yet by him. 

“You want me to make dinner, don’t you? That’s the only reason you said that?”

McGee walked by on his way out and Ziva offered him a quick goodbye. “No. I also want to steal your sweatpants that I washed this weekend. Dinner is in addition to that.”

“Ahh I see. At least I’m good for two whole things.”

“You must be good for more than that Tony or you both wouldn’t be having a baby,” And that was the goodbye they earned from Gibbs. Ziva thought it was funny, rather poignant. Tony felt a small blush creep into his cheeks at his boss mentioning anything that happened in his bed or other places in the apartment that led to a baby. 

“Come on baby, mama,” Tony picked up Ziva’s backpack and layered it on top of his, already slung over his shoulder. “Two cars or do I have to drive also?”

The scowl on Ziva’s face was enough to nearly make Tony step away from the expertly trained former Mossad agent. “Do not ever call me that again.” 

“It’s accurate.” 

“It is stupid.” 

“You don’t like it?” 

“Do you like all your limbs?” 

“Noted.” 

The drive was made in one vehicle, Tony’s. That was part of their shift since Tel Aviv. She was allowing him to do more. Maybe because he had been so forthright with his confession, one she had still not matched a couple of weeks later, she was trying to pacify him with things that felt like they were helping. But Ziva had never been that type of person. She did not simply do to make others feel better about themselves. She was calculated, even when it came to her personal life and Tony felt as if this was her way of moving in the direction of his location, which was admitting feelings and preparing to be there for this woman he loved in a way he hadn’t had permission to before. There was a softening that had been in the works since she yanked his hand to her belly and made him promise to not be her father. 

As the DC traffic was on their side, they slid through the city and to Tony’s apartment in record time for a weekday after work. He carried in their groceries, picked up for him to cook with, and followed Ziva who at this point was in charge of keeping track of the keys. She didn’t have her own set yet, but it was impending. The extras were in a drawer Tony had opened many times recently wondering if the offer of having them should be made yet. 

“Zi?” 

“Hmm?” 

Tony watched her take off her coat and sling it onto the back of the couch. “You're awfully quiet, you okay?” 

“I am fine, Tony.” 

He kept checking in. Even the slightest change in her demeanor and Tony was on guard, asking questions, making sure. It came from a place of caring and so Ziva tried, even when it irritated her, to be kind to him. There was a little reminder in her head at all times that he meant well, that him caring this much was for the better and not the worse. 

“I’ll make dinner, while you take a shower if you want,” Tony would offer anything. He’d find a tightrope to tiptoe across if that meant easing the strange combination of tension and needfulness that was settling between them every time they were alone together. 

“Okay,” Ziva easily agreed. “Thank you.” 

“Anything for you baby…”

“Remember keeping your limbs?” 

“Yeah, yeah. I got it,” Tony, in a bold move or maybe a move that was now on the list of okayed things, pressed a gentle kiss to her hairline and beelined for the kitchen with his ingredients. 

The aroma of dinner wafted through the apartment and as soon as Ziva was dressed in the sweatpants she said she was going to steal, waistband rolled over to take up some of the length her small frame did not, and a black t-shirt of her own that she had left on another occasion, she traipsed into the kitchen where the smells were coming from to find Tony. He had a hand towel flipped over his shoulder and a spoon in hand that he was blowing on to cool off, red sauce dripped from the rounded bottom. 

“If you get over here, you can taste this for me,” Tony only quickly glanced over his shoulder to confirm the presence he felt behind him was actually there; her bare feet on his floors were so quiet it was sometimes hard to track her. 

Ziva obliged and just like every other time he’d made it, it was perfect.. 

“Thoughts? Feelings?” Tony inquires. 

“It is great,” And she meant that about more than just the sauce on the spoon she just tasted. 

“Grab a couple of plates. I’ll dish it up,” Tony’s eyes followed Ziva to the cabinet on the far end of the kitchen. She would never admit it, but he could see the way her walk was changing just slightly to accommodate her growing stomach, her widening hips, the undeniable way her body was preparing for their daughter. Tony knew she would have killed him had he said anything about how much he admired it, so he kept his thoughts to himself and appreciated it from afar before she handed him the dinnerware for their meal. 

They sat side by side at the kitchen island. Forks clinked against the plates and it was mostly silence that filled the rest of the air. Though, it was an easy quiet. A quiet that felt normal after a day at work coming home together to eat dinner, watch a movie Tony decided on and Ziva would either love or hate, there was little in between, and then inevitably Ziva would doze off, probably on Tony, and he would have to nudge her to bed. It wasn’t necessarily new; they’d spent lots of nights like that, before and after the news of their impending parenthood. But since they returned from Israel, it was like clockwork. It was the most reliable part of their lives together, nights at home, usually at Tony’s, sometimes at Ziva’s. A routine they were subconsciously creating with one another and there was a distinct comfort they both felt in it. 

It was making Ziva think. It was making her contemplate what the next move was for them more often than she really wanted to. 

She might regret what she let herself ask, but the thoughts were creeping in. “Do you think we should move in together?” 

Tony nearly choked on his pasta as the words flopped between them, changing the entire dynamic of a quiet night at home together. “What?” 

“I mean, would you want to?” 

“Do you want to?” 

“I do not know.” 

“Then why did you ask?” 

Ziva took a deep breath. “I just…” She trailed off and Tony watched as her face changed, as she thought better of sharing what she had worked up the courage to. He knew her well enough to know she suddenly thought whatever she was going to say was dumb and she no longer had any desire to share it at all, but it was too late because his wheels were turning just as fast as hers. 

“You can say it, Zi,” A gentle hand came to rest on her knee. “It’s just me. Just us.” 

That was the thing, it was just them. It came down to being just them every time. Something made it seem as if just them was always going to be the destination even when it seemed impossible. 

“I do not want to shuffle her back and forth. I want us to have a home that is ours and is hers. I want to… I want to feel settled before she is here and right now I do not.” 

“Do you not feel settled because of everything that has happened or you don’t think we’re settled?” 

“Probably both,” She shrugs as she takes a bite of dinner. 

“Zivs, if you want to live together, then let’s live together. We basically do now and maybe it would be good to have a place that is ours. But if it’s filling a void for you or you think it’s what I want to hear, then let’s not. It’s only been a few weeks. She’s not here for another what? Seventeen? We have some time and if you need time, I’m giving it to you.” 

“The farmhouse was home. It is not what it once was to me, but as a child it was home. It was where my family was, it was where we went when we needed something my father could not provide for us. It was a refuge. I have not felt that way about any other place I have ever lived and I do not want to bring my… our daughter home to a place that is not our home.” 

It was funny to Tony that she could tell him this. That she could be so blatantly honest about wanting a home with him, that included him. It wasn’t that he didn’t also want it; as far as Tony was concerned they could have terminated their leases and gotten a place together the same day those tests were positive. It was funny to him that she could not say certain things, she could not answer back to his confession of love for her, but she could tell him she wanted a home with him and their child. It was nearly the same thing. He knew well enough to know that the backwards way her mind worked through her feelings, that this was so closely related to admitting her feelings. He would accept it, happily, and just wait for the thing he wanted to hear so desperately.

“So you do want to do this?”

Ziva slowly nodded, as if giving herself even an extra second to think about it before she was certain. 

“You’re really sure? Zivs, I only want to do what you want to do.”

“That is not true,” She corrected him.

“What does that mean?” There was a defensive edge to Tony’s voice and Ziva quickly realized her mistake.

“No, I did not mean it like that. I just… I mean I am sure there are things in this that you would like to do, that you would like me to do or us to do. I just meant that I am sure I have not given you everything you want out of this and it has not been easy to share that with me when I have been… the way I have been. You have bent over upside down for me.”

“Bent over backwards.”

“Yes that.”

Tony had not settled in for dinner with this conversation in mind. In fact, he was expecting an entirely normal no surprises evening and even had the movie they were going to watch picked out: The Silence of the Lambs — he had an odd feeling that Ziva would enjoy it more than some of his other choices. Yet, here they sat and it was beginning to feel like Ziva was needing to apologize for things that were not necessary. It could all be traced directly back to how she opened up, how she shared when she was ready, but she was not ready.

“Ziva, I don’t have to have a baby. Until she’s here and waking us up constantly and needs us to be kept alive, I’m not doing anything. Well I did something, but that was really pretty enjoyable.”

Ziva rolled her eyes so hard at him that he wondered if they wouldn’t get stuck.

“My point being is you have to do all the hard work and heavy lifting. You’re the one who can’t eat foods you like, who had to buy new clothes, who has to be poked and prodded at endless doctor’s appointments. It’s not really for me to do what I want to do. I gotta do what you need and keep that baby happy.”

“You are also becoming a parent, Tony. You do not have any feelings about how we prepare?”

“Don’t make it sound like I’m heartless, Zivs. I have a lot of feelings about a lot of things. I would also like to be in the same apartment or house before she’s here. I want you and I to have some kind of idea of what the hell we’re doing with each other. I want to know if Gibbs is building us a crib in his basement and if he is where the hell we’re supposed to put it when we get it. But if I rush you or you make these decisions for me, you’ll regret them. I don’t want that. There’s already enough regrets floating around.”

“There is?”

“You don’t think there is?”

“You think I regret having our baby?” Ziva pursed her lips and cursed the hormones out of her control that made tears sting her eyes.

“No, but maybe you have some regrets about how it happened.”

“Tony, I think we could have been more careful. I think we should have known better if you and I were ever going to be…” Going to be what? Together? “I think we could have done things differently, but I do not regret it. I do not for a second regret her,” Ziva laid a hand on her belly, where a thumping foot was waiting to greet her touch. “Here.”

She grabbed Tony’s hand, rather abruptly. Ziva gripped it, somewhat gently, but with authority, and placed it on her growing stomach. It took a moment, some convincing as she pressed Tony’s fingers into her t-shirt just below her ribcage, but there was a not so delicate response from their daughter. Her father very nearly jumped when the sensation of their baby moving under his fingertips started. If he did not have his wits about him, Tony would have certainly made an inappropriate joke about their little alien, but he refrained and instead lost himself in the idea that what he was feeling would be in their arms in the very seventeen weeks he’d mentioned earlier. That was their baby, the one that still took his breath away when she was mentioned. 

“I have only been feeling her like that for the last couple of days,” Ziva explained.

“And you’re just now sharing?” Tony’s statement should have had a little edge, but he could not feign even the slightest annoyance. 

“I was not really sure how to show you.”

“You just did a pretty good job there.” Another thump and the sloppiest grin tugged at Tony’s face. “God, that’s really her.” His voice dripped with disbelief. 

“She is just saying hello to her Abba,” Ziva smiled at Tony, though his eyes were fixated on her bump and not her. “She is who we have to think about and I know that you do, probably better than I do. I know better than I do, actually. So maybe I am talking to myself here, but I just want to do what’s best for her. Right now having a place that is home, that can be her home feels like something I want to do for her.”

“And for yourself, Zi,” Tony brought his gaze up to hers, but didn’t think about moving his hand. “You need it too. You’re allowed to think about yourself in this just as much.”

“I want another place to feel like home.”

The closest she had ever come to that feeling again, the comforts the farmhouse created for her, was in Tony’s apartment eating pasta and watching movies. It was the first time in a long time that she felt as safe as she did in that house that sat among the olive trees. It was not a perfect solution because it was Tony’s, it was the place he’d chosen for himself to live before he was thinking about someone other than himself and certainly before he was looking fatherhood in the face. It would always be his, but they could have something that was theirs.

Tony’s promises in Tel Aviv to be a better father than Ziva had started with her letting him be. He had tried so hard to do everything he could from the outside, from the arm’s length she kept him at this far into her pregnancy. But a man did not fly across the world with her, did not hold her sobbing body in the shower or promise his best if he was not ready to step up. Ziva had to let him be the person she knew he was and the person that she found comfort in having a child with — never for a moment had she worried about having a baby with Tony and she had to remember how important that was. 

“So we’re going to move in together?” 

“Yes.”

“God it took us long enough to get there,” Tony joked, providing the levity that they needed.

“Oh you have been waiting for so long to move in with me?” Ziva joked.

Tony finally took his hand back and the bashful way his head fell told Ziva the moment of levity had been very fleeting with that being her next question. 

“Kind of.”

“What?”

Tony sighed. “It’s not… I just,” Words were harder when he painted himself into a corner. “I would have done it the same day we found out if you had been ready. I’m all in, Zivs.”

“I know,” And she did.

For a moment they went back to eating, slow tactful bites as all the things that were unraveled around them started to settle. None of it was so shocking, but it felt like the evening had turned into a sudden decision making session that once again tore down some walls between them that neither had expected to demolish. 

Tony in his usual fashion, grabbed their dishes and put them into the sink with the rest of the dirty dinner dishes because in his mind that was his responsibility and Ziva did not fight him on it. 

“Did we finish the bag of chocolate covered pretzels?” Ziva sounded hopeful. 

Tony swiveled away from the sink. “We?”

“Yes, we. Do not act like you did not help me with them.”

“Well we did finish them. But I bought us another bag.”

“Your child and I are very grateful.”

Tony chuckled at her. There was something so out of character when she talked about the baby in that way, but he loved it. Those were the moments where he really did feel the stowed away excitement for their daughter.

He grabbed the bag of pretzels from the counter and brought them to her. “Here you go.”

“Thank you,” Ziva popped one in her mouth. “God, she is doing flips in there tonight it feels like.”

“Can I?” Tony cautiously asked. 

Guilt ransacked Ziva at how timid he was to even be asking. “Of course. Let me.” She placed his hand again, targeting the exact place the baby was flipping and flopping and she continued her show as Tony’s hand roamed freely across the apex of Ziva’s stomach. “You see what I am saying? She is all over the place.”

“Just wants to remind us she is there.”

“I do not think we have forgotten.” 

“How could we?” Tony’s smirk was about more than just their tumbling baby girl. “I mean we’re trying to move our entire lives into some new place for her." Then his words were no longer aimed at Ziva, but instead at the baby slapping against his palms. "We know you're there squirt, but maybe you could be a little gentler with your Ima?" 

“I do not think she will listen all that well if she is anything like her father.” 

“Yeah because I’m the stubborn one?” 

“You certainly can be.” 

“You know the apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree, Zivs.” 

Her face curled into contemplation as the saying obviously made no sense. “Huh?” 

“I just mean we’re all stubborn here, she’ll fit right in.” 

Chapter Text

Ziva may have been pretending to be on a call, acting as if she’d needed to put some other woman in place over “her man,” who actually hadn’t looked at another woman in months and would not have been the topic of this kind of conversation anymore, but all she could think about was how badly the heels were hurting her feet. Somewhere in her imagination, Ziva had expected the swelling to start much later, but she’d been wrong and cramming her feet into the little black heels that once fit was not helping matters. 

Their target had no idea of course that in between maintaining a cover and waiting for the moment when the shoes could come off, Ziva was ready for his next move. She was after all the person put into place for this very reason.

“She actually had the nerve to look at me in the eye and pretend…” Ziva loudly babbled into the phone where no one was on the other line. 

He bought it just like they expected him to. Quickly and what he thought was without warning, the man’s hand was around Ziva, wrapped across her shoulder and chest instantly. He was armed just like they knew he would be and the gun he pulled out was first pointed as Ziva as a warning, before he turned it on Gibbs, undercover as a homeless man digging through the trash.

What Ziva hadn’t expected, had not counted on, was the way her heart raced, beating out of her chest. The way she could almost not decipher what was her acting the part of scared hostage and was actual terror. The way her mind only thought about the baby, even if it was all just a set up with carefully timed steps and precise plans in place to ensure nothing would happen to any of them. The fight or flight response that had been drilled into her to use only in her favor at Mossad, worked in over drive and it was absolutely not in her favor at the moment. Her bright coral jacket leather jacket was unzipped, not for lack of trying, and underneath she had on only a black shirt that Tony had commented earlier camouflaged her bump. Maybe their target had no idea he was yanking around a pregnant woman, but Ziva certainly knew or maybe he didn’t care, but suddenly she cared a little too much.

Keep your cool, she thought to herself. She just had to stay calm. It would be over sooner than it started. 

Their feet stumbled forward together and Ziva was thinking about every step she took not wanting to trip, not wanting to fall face first over the ridiculous shoes that completed the outfit. 

“Federal agents!” Gibbs screamed, drawing his own weapon. “Let her go.”

The most wanted hacker started to surmise what agency he was dealing with, all of his guessed incorrect. His grip tightened with every federal agency he named and Ziva tried her hardest not to flinch under his arm. 

A little too easily, they began backing toward the dumpster. The smell was enough to make Ziva’s stomach churn and it was not only because she was pregnant. It wreaked of weeks old food, used beer bottles and god only knew what else. The closer they traipsed toward it, the more Ziva found herself gasping for deep breaths to work against the bile that wanted to rise in her throat. She knew the ending was in sight. She knew what would find them in the dumpster, or better yet who , and it couldn’t be over soon enough.

Their bodies got just close enough to the smelly blue monstrosity and Tony was instant in his reaction, grabbing the man’s backpack in one swift move. When he started to turn to see who had ruined whatever half-ass plan he had, Ziva threw a punch he never saw coming, one that was necessary and also cathartic. One that gave her back some power she’d thought she’d might be losing right along with becoming a mother. The unconscious body of the hacker hitting the concrete was something she needed to hear in that moment more than she’d ever admit to any of the team. The thought made her seem like a monster, but the man would be fine and she needed to know she would be too.

“Nice job, sexy,” Tony hummed from his post inside the dumpster. He knew he’d hear about his word choice later, but it was worth it. The outfit was something and while he never complained about how Ziva looked in anything, her long leans legs in the black mini skirt were catching his attention.

“Next time, you wear the heels,” Ziva shot back at him, hoping she sounded normal, hoping to cover up the relief in her voice at being unhanded by the stranger who’s weapon could have gone off at any time.

“Okay,” He smirked and went along with whatever it was Ziva was going along with. He noticed the way her eyes didn’t match her words and her uneven breathing, but he’d say nothing then.

They’d barely gotten on the elevator back at the Navy yard, before Ziva was slipping off her heels. She sighed in relief, becoming three inches shorter and she hid her annoyance about the way she could not just simply reach over and massage at the knot in the ball of her foot that was killing her -- there was a small person in the way, who she was certain felt no type of way about being in the way.

“You good?” Tony’s sidelong glance was filled with inquiry. 

“I will be fine.” 

“You sure?”

“Uhuh.” 

It was obvious to Tony that there was no discussing what he’d noticed earlier. Or if there was it would not be anywhere on the premises of their jobs. He’d try again later, when it was just the two of them. 

Except later on was on a plane headed to “Cuba.” 

The case had turned into even more than anticipated and it worked. It always worked. Gibbs always did what he knew needed to be done and all was well. Or seemingly well until Ziva told Tony she needed to go home by herself for a few things before she came over to his place, where her stuff was taking up nearly the same amount of space as his was. It was a plausible excuse, but Tony knew she was up to more than just that. He didn’t want to push, so he let her go and hoped that she would share with him later what had been bothering her since she threw the punch at the dumpster. 

It wasn’t that Ziva didn’t go home for a few things; she did actually need a couple packages she’d ordered, along with some other things, but Tony’s hunch was correct that it was not all she needed to do. 

The distinct smell of sawdust never changed. It was ingrained in every crack and crevice of Gibbs’ basement and truthfully, Ziva hoped that never changed. It was the most comforting part of the whole thing. The smell of shaved and sanded wood would always attach her to the room in Gibbs’ home that had changed the trajectory of her life repeatedly. It smelled that way when she took the shot and made a choice about her own brother’s life. It smelled that way when she had asked for permission to have her position at NCIS back after her life was nearly lost at the hands of her father’s undying need to teach her a lesson. It smelled that way every time in between. And as the scent wafted into her nostrils at the top of the stairs, Ziva wondered what would happen when the refuge was no longer that and it was something she could not afford to add to her growing lists of concerns. 

“Ziver, you gonna stand up there forever?”

There was never any getting away with lingering when it came to Gibbs. A person either ripped off the bandaid or he ripped it off for them. It would have been more endearing had it not been that every time Ziva was waiting, was working up to being more than a bystander to watching him work on whatever project was on the tool bench in front of him, she was too wrapped up in the conversation that awaited. There was not time to collect the good qualities of the gray haired man when she was busy contemplating how she told that very man whatever it was that was weighing so heavily on her mind.

Her feet felt heavy on the stairs, like they were reminding her of the extra weight her body was carrying in contribution to her little growing stowaway. Everything was a reminder of her, or perhaps it was really that Ziva’s mind thought of little else these days. The latter was the right answer, but Ziva wasn’t so willing to admit that. 

“That does not really look like a boat,” Ziva nodded toward the crafted wood laying along his work table. It was too many pieces to be anything that floated in water and it was just that, in pieces. 

“That’s because it isn’t,” Gibbs' eyes did not come up from the long, narrow slat he was sanding. “Did you come over to ask why I’m not building a boat or is there something else on your mind?” 

“I think you know the answer to that.” 

“Then spit it out.” 

Ziva took a deep breath that did nothing to calm her nerves about what was going to come out of her mouth next. “I think I need to be taken out of the field.”

“What makes you say that?” Gibbs asked gruffly. 

“I was…” 

What was she? Besides a mom- to-be whose thoughts revolved around something she felt she had absolutely no control over. Her training should have been enough to overcome her fear. Her years at NCIS should have been enough to make her certain Gibbs and their team would never allow her to be in harm's way, even before all of this, if they could help it. Her instincts should have been enough and all they had done was put her on high alert and throw so far to the wayside everything she knew, Ziva wasn’t sure where she went to pick it back up. 

“I was scared. When he pulled out that gun even though I knew you were there and Tony had my six, I felt like I had no control. It was all staged in the prison and I still could not tell the difference between what was real and what was fake.” 

“So you want out?” 

“If I cannot trust myself, then neither can you. That is not fair to our team.”

“Do you want this for you or for us? Which is it? Cause if it’s about us, I don’t want to hear it. This has to be a decision you’re making for yourself. Nobody gets to make calls for the team except me.”

The soft tapping of the baby against her ribcage was timed so well she had to wonder what all she was aware of from the inside. Three fingers of her left hand pressed against the right side of her ribcage and it was the answer she was looking for for Gibbs.

“I need to make this call for myself, before someone else has to. Before something happens that I cannot take back. I do not want to sit at a desk all day doing paperwork, that is not what I am trained to do, not by NCIS or Mossad. But…”

Gibbs cut her off. “It’s being a parent, Ziver.” 

“What?”

“You feeling this way. You coming to me about this. It’s because you’re a parent now. Everything is put into perspective. It doesn’t take you off the team, you’re not losing your job. If it’s what you need then I can’t argue with that.”

“You are okay with my decision then?”

Gibbs nodded. “Yep, because it’s yours. It’s not mine, it’s not Vance’s or the director's. It’s not being forced on you. I know damn well enough Ziva that if anybody else told you that you were cut off, you’d be kicking and screaming. Now there’s only kicking and it’s not coming from you.”

Ziva chuckled at the joke, softening around the observation he’d made. “That is true. She has been in my ribs all day, but it is much worse at night. My little night owl,” She smiled softly. “It does not bode well for the future.”

“Make DiNozzo get up with her. It’ll be good for him.”

“Did you know you were ready?” 

“For what?”

“To be a parent.” 

Gibbs finally set down the small piece of sandpaper he’d been expertly working with. He heard in her voice that she needed more than what he’d usually give anyone on his team during a conversation in the basement. Gibbs was so often the voice of reason and all it took was the minimum number of sentences he was allotted and he’d help them solve whatever the problem was. But the brutal honesty in Ziva’s tone told him that this was a time when too little would be felt too much. 

“Ziver. Nobody’s ready. If it was that damn simple a lot more people would do it. It doesn’t matter if you expected it or not, having a baby is scary as hell. When I found out that Shannon was… I thought there was no way I could do it. No way I could be someone’s dad. But then they’re all you can think about and you’re making choices that revolve around them before they’re here,” That was a pointed reference to the very reason Ziva was there in the first place. “And you’re ready before you realize.” 

Ziva ran two hands down the length of her stomach, stopping for them to rest on the underside. It felt like she’d expanded since that morning. Definitely since Tony tried to convince her that a simple black shirt could hide their constantly growing daughter. “I was scared I would never be ready.” 

“Was?”

“You are right. You are always right. I keep doing things that are for her and she is not here. Coming to you. Asking Tony to move in with me because I want a home that it settled for her. Life is revolving around her before she is here and you are helping me see that is because that is how it is supposed to be,” Ziva’s chin quivered as she tried to press out her next words. “I love her so much and it is… terrifying.”

“You’re ready, Ziver.” 

“I think I might be.” 

“I’ll let the director know tomorrow. Tell him what you do is at our discretion.” 

“I do not want to be couched entirely.” 

“Benched,” Gibbs couldn’t help himself. “And you don’t have to be.”

“I am pregnant and I am making this decision because it is the right thing to do, but I am not incompetent.”

“No you’re not.” 

“I can still do interviews. I can still be at crime scenes if we see it fit. I will not be chained to a desk, but I want to set boundaries on the things that feel like they are going too far,” Ziva sighed. “I know I do not need to tell you all of this, but I want to be clear about keeping my job as much my job as I can. Otherwise it will also be me kicking.” 

Gibbs couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped him. “Have you told DiNozzo?” 

“He is next on my list.” 

When the apartment door clicked, much later than it should have if Ziva was only picking up a few things from her apartment, Tony felt vindicated in knowing he was right that she had more planned. 

“Get what you needed?” Tony’s head swiveled to look over his shoulder where his arm was draped across the back of the couch. 

Ziva saw in his eyes that it was a loaded question. “Yes I did.” 

“Good,” Tony nodded. 

For a moment he thought that was the extent of the conversation. Ziva slipped into the bedroom without another word. But she returned momentarily, in her usual uniform: items of clothing stolen from Tony’s dresser drawers that she never asked for and that he never told her she could not wear. It was a what used to be an oversized NCIS sweatshirt, Tony was sure was from his first week on the job, that now clung to her belly. It was too big for her everywhere else, but the swell of her stomach was obvious even underneath the thick gray cotton fabric. 

Ziva shuffled across the floor to the couch, inviting herself into the space next to Tony. “Can you have a chat with your child about getting herself out of my ribcage,” She stretched her torso, leaning to her left side to try and open up the cramped space their daughter was just absolutely certain she needed to cram herself into. 

Tony welcomed the invite so wholeheartedly, he was sure he seemed too eager as he laid a hand in the place Ziva was complaining about, though he didn’t care. He’d been waiting months to feel her and to have permission to do so. 

“Little quirt, my girl, you gotta take it easy in there,” There was not even an ounce of listening. “I tried. Listens to me about as well as her mother does.” 

Tony earned fair and square the smack he received from Ziva on his chest, but it only made him laugh. He was always just trying to get a rise out of her, it kept things normal. It kept things feeling like they were supposed to feel between them. 

“I worry discipline with our child is not going to be your strong suit.” 

“That’s what you’re for. Good cop, bad cop, Zivs.” 

She only rolled her eyes in response, something she did so often at her baby’s father. She secretly hoped that never changed. 

“Except it might make me the bad cop if I ask you where you were. It doesn’t really take that long to get things from your apartment twenty minutes away.” 

Ziva sighed, but was not at all surprised by Tony’s inquiry. “I went to see Gibbs.” 

“Oh yeah, what about?” 

“I asked to be taken out of the field. Well, mostly, anyway.” 

Tony’s eyebrows raised in suspicion rapidly. Those were not the words he’d expected to come out of her mouth. He had half expected her to tell him she was at their boss’ house, deductive reasoning said there were few other options the way she was acting earlier. Although, he would not have been a betting man about the subject of their conversation; he would have lost. 

“You did?” 

Ziva was not all that shocked at the look, at the way his tone was one of disbelief. “Yes. That surprises you so much?” 

“I mean, honestly, yeah.” 

“I am not getting any less pregnant, Tony. There were…” She swallowed. “Some things during this case that made me more nervous than I care to admit. I cannot do my job if that is how I am feeling. It is also not worth it. Something happening to either of us is not worth chasing the bad guys. You can do that. But I told Gibbs I would not be tied to my desk for the rest of this. There are plenty of things I can still do and will do.” 

“Trust me I know.” 

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Ziva insisted. 

“It means that I am not living or working with you if you are just a glorified paper pusher. We’ll all be miserable Zi and while I love you,” Those words slipped out without a thought and Tony should have been embarrassed, but he was too busy making a point. “I’m not going to put up with the version of you that sits in a desk chair for eight hours a day.” 

“I do not think I appreciate that.” 

“Truth hurts.” 

If he had not been right, she would have pummeled him, pregnant or not. But Tony was right and that was why she had informed Gibbs the way she did. It was already a long wait to meet their baby, she would not make it longer by twiddling her thumbs at a keyboard all day. That sounded much more like something McGee would not mind and a lot less like something Ziva would put up with. 

“Whatever you say, the decision has been made and Gibbs is telling the director in the morning for me.” 

“You seem like you’re okay with that?” 

“I think so,” Ziva scooted closer to Tony. His arm wrapped around her body and his hand landed directly on her stomach. “It had to happen eventually. I am glad I got to decide when and the minute she has exited my body, I will be back to doing my job in its full capacity. I can wait that long.” 

“Can you though?” 

“Anthony, do not push it.”

Chapter Text

“I can’t believe Vance assigned us to babysit. Of all the damn things,” Tony huffed, flicking on the turn signal in the car to turn down Vance’s street. 

“Could be good practice,” Ziva countered from the passenger seat. 

“I don’t need it.”

“Oh really,” Ziva’s sidelong glance was paired with a smirk. “You have this entire father thing figured out already? How had I not known that?” 

Tony pulled the car up the curb in front of the house. “That’s not what I meant. But it’ll be at least ten years before I’ll need any of this kind of practice. Besides, I’ll just learn as I go. I’m a special agent and not a babysitter. This is below my paygrade.”

“Tony, what is this really about? You are this angry because you have to spend a few hours with Director Vance’s children?” 

“No,” Tony murmured. 

That was enough for Ziva to pick up on the thing she should have caught earlier. When his voice changed an octave in Vance’s face at the question of whether or not he could handle a couple of children for a few hours. When he started acting utterly annoyed to cover up his actual feelings because it was easier to pretend. Ziva let out an amused chuckle, as she unclipped her seatbelt, and just before getting out of the car looked at him. “You are scared.” 

“I am not!” Tony yanked himself free of the seatbelt and car door, though his aggressive pace was unnecessary against a pregnant Ziva who did not move as quickly as she once did; he was out and around the hood by the time she had slammed shut her own door. “You take that back.” 

“Nervous then, Tony. They are just children. I do not know if you remember,” Ziva gestured to her belly, the one that made it impossible to zip up her jacket against the night chill. “But we are having one of our own, DiNozzo. This does not bode well for you.” 

Tony waved a hand around as if swatting off Ziva’s accusations like a bug. “That’s entirely different, Ziva. She’s… ours. She’s part us. I know how to handle us.” 

“Yes, I feel better already,” Her tone was mocking.

While Ziva was not nervous to spend some time with Vance’s children -- she knew them only vaguely, but they were kind and polite at every NCIS Christmas party or event she’d ever met them at -- she understood Tony’s rationale, even though she wished she didn’t because it sounded ridiculous. Creating a small human who was a mix of them wasn’t worrisome. Would they have their hands utterly full? Yes. But that was okay, she would be made up of the pieces of each other that drove them crazy and it would be entirely endearing when it was their child. 

But perhaps it was also that Ziva had… something. An inkling? A weird sense of faith in Tony? She could not quite pinpoint it, but even if she was so rightfully giving him the crap he deserved, Ziva would be remiss if she did not admit to herself that she knew he’d be a good parent. 

“I just am not really the biggest fan of other people’s children.”

“Tony,” Ziva chided.

“Too rude?”

“I suppose you are being honest. But they are just children. Children who just lost their mother.”

“Yeah, I know what that feels like, Zivs.”

“So do I,” She looked him directly in the eyes. 

Such an unfortunate thing to relate to each other, but also to Vance’s young children. A group of people who all lost their mothers at times when they needed them the most, when a mother was perhaps the most influential person in life. Ziva and Tony had the chance to deal with their grief, though each reminder of what they had lost made them revert to who they were when their losses occurred. They were walking into a house that had not had adequate time to handle any part of their shake up, so Ziva, very personally, felt a responsibility to not add to whatever sorrow still clung to the walls. Not that she was certain of what she was capable of doing to help, but she would not be adding to it and she certainly wasn’t going to let Tony either.

Except, she had also lost her own father in the very house she was assigned to walk back into. She owed herself the same gentleness she was claiming the kids needed, but there was little chance Ziva would be as kind to herself. Rarely was she.

Kayla answered the door and like the expert child of the director of NCIS, she asked to see their badges through the peephole even if she could identify them by herself, having seen them enough times in her life. Tony rolled his eyes about it, Ziva got a good laugh. 

Though only one body actually passed over the threshold when the front door was open. 

“Your dad said he would be here in a couple of hours. You guys okay with that?” 

“Yeah that’s cool,” Kayla answered Ziva. 

Jared leaned around her, ignoring her question and focusing on Tony. “Is he just gonna stand there like that?” 

Ziva turned sharply on her heels, as if she was looking to a third child she had not known would also be her responsibility for the evening. The stupid grin of terror on Tony’s face made her contemplate slapping him, but she thought better of it when there were actual children eyeing their movements. Instead, she stomped, rather loudly up to him and took him by the bicep. 

“Get in here. You are scaring them. Come on.” 

Tony followed, but only because he had to. 

“You look weird. Are you sick?” 

“Bad batch of shellfish,” Tony spewed, though his joke was lost on the kids and if Ziva hadn’t wanted to smack him before, she was likely going to do it right then.

Ziva, showing immense restraint, once again, kept her body parts to herself while the kids tried to make sense of the strange pair of people their father had sent to be their keepers for the night. “Why don’t you two go into the kitchen? I will be there in just a minute and I will make you guys some… hot chocolate?” It was the first thing that came to her mind, both because she could make it and because she figured that was something that went over well with kids. Maybe Ziva shouldn’t have been giving Tony such a hard time about this. 

“With marshmallows?” Kayla asked, relieving Ziva that her suggestion had not been extremely dorky. 

“With marshmallows,” She nods. 

“Yes,” Jared agreed easily and the kids did as they were told, off to the kitchen to wait. 

As soon as they were out of earshot, Ziva was on Tony’s ass. “You have to get it together. Shellfish?”

“First thing that came to mind?” 

“They are just kids. Good kids who were easily distracted by hot chocolate with marshmallows. They are not scary. You might be, but they are not.”

“Are you going to make me hot chocolate with marshmallows?”

“Not if you keep acting like this.”

Tony sighed. “I’ll do my best to shape up. They’re just kids.” The second sentence was for himself. 

Ziva stood at the stove, stirring the pot of hot chocolate, delicately mixing the ingredients to a thing Tony had no idea she was such an expert at making. Her free hand absentmindedly rested on the top of her stomach and it was like looking into the future. It was the most mom-like Ziva had ever appeared, like she did this all the time, like it was second nature and Tony would have been remiss not to feel his heart expand at the knowledge that, if he played his cards right, this was the version of her he’d get to see for years to come. He hoped to never lose the woman who’s stealth terrified him, who threatened his life more often than not, who could take care of herself, but he wanted that version combined with the one who made him realize he couldn’t have had a baby with anyone else. All of the parts of her were important to him, more so now than ever.

“This is ready, if one of you will grab us cups, please,” Ziva softly looked over her shoulder at Jared and Kayla, the ones who knew where everything was in the kitchen.

“I’m getting the whip cream,” Jared announced, leaving his sister to sort out the mugs.

Tony caught Ziva’s eyes. “Want me to pour?”

She nodded.

Tony, more carefully than expected, poured the liquid evenly into the four mugs Kayla set out for him. Each kid dressed theirs with all the toppings their hearts desired -- Tony was one of these children. His cup had more whip cream and just as many marshmallows as either Vance child. It was not surprising, ridiculous, but not at all shocking. 

“You will let your daughter put all the crap on her hot chocolate if she asks?” Ziva asked as sort of a joke. 

Tony shrugged. “Sure.” 

“And then you will stay up with her when she is bouncing off the walls?” 

“That’s yet to be determined.” 

“I think that tonight will help determine,” Ziva raised an eyebrow at Kayla and Jared’s cups. “Alright, what is next?”

“Can we watch a movie?”

“Can we get pizza?” 

Ziva watched the smile creep across Tony’s face at the mention of both things, but most especially that of a movie, of a cinematic experience he would eventually call it because he simply could not help himself. They were speaking his language and whatever fear reamined over being the “babysitter” went right out the window. She tried not to laugh at him, at his predictability, but it was hard not to when his mouth opened to move a mile a minute on his favorite subject. 

“Oh can we watch a movie? Can we? What are you two ankle-biters in the mood for? Comedy, drama, dramedy? Classic? Scary? You name it and we can watch it.” 

“Something Dad wouldn’t let us watch.” 

“Are you trying to get me in trouble with your father?” 

“You better watch it, DiNozzo,” Ziva warned.

Tony narrowed his eyes at the kids, trying to read how much they were playing with him and what he could actually suggest, within reason. He wanted to keep his job, but also if this was his chance to indoctrinate the next generation of movie lovers, he’d have a hard time turning down the opportunity. The man loved movies, third only to his future child and the woman standing next to him whose feelings he was unsure matched his own.

But, god he hoped they did. 

When his glance shifted for a single second to watch her roll her eyes at his movie enthusiasm and instead see the smile on her face, that was very real, Tony wondered how much longer he could stand wondering. They were having a baby. They were moving in together, if they could ever find a place that suited them when they had no time to look between cases. They were a packaged deal, just what kind of package was not yet determined. Together? A couple? Only co-parents? Tony wished that every time he admired her without her knowledge, he didn’t ache to know where she stood. But he did. And he would until there were clear answers, or maybe just clearer, it was Ziva after all. She held her mug gently in her hand, smile tugging the corners of her mouth, hand pressed to her stomach where he knew the baby was moving because of the way she held her fingertips against the fabric of her shirt and he didn’t want anyone else by his side.

The thoughts were fleeting, but never gone, as they were interrupted by the task at hand: picking a movie.

“I want something scary.” 

Tony’s thoughts were broken up and brought back to the movie. “Scary, huh? You two can handle scary?”

“Yes,” Immediate and simultaneous from both kids. 

“Then I have the perfect movie,” Tony smirked, more for Ziva than the kids; he felt her eyes on him waiting to see how upset she would or wouldn’t be about his suggestion. 

The pizza was ordered, half pepperoni and half canadian bacon with pineapple for the pregnant woman who never one time in her life wanted pineapple on her pizza until that very night. Tony had thought she was losing it, but she was quick to blame it on the child that was half his inhabiting her body, asking for things that otherwise would have turned her nose so far up in the air it would have been on another planet. Even if she would pay for the heart burn later -- which actually meant Tony would pay for it later when she was explaining all the ways it was his fault her body was no longer her own -- the first bite was exactly what she’d wanted.

The movie was turned on just as the door shut and Ziva placed the box on the coffee table, where she had laid out plates and napkins, something her three compatriots wouldn’t have cared about had she not insisted they be something other than neanderthals. 

Opening credits, accompanied by what Tony claimed were some of the most iconic music notes in cinematic history rolled, as the pizza was distributed. Besides the sound of the TV, silence enveloped the room and all eyes were on the movie, even Ziva’s who claimed she did not care for such kinds of films. Fins roamed the ocean and unfortunate screams were sometimes the only other sound outside of chewing and plates clattering back onto the coffee table. All were entranced and Tony, who kept his facts to a minimum, which Ziva knew was hard for him, had earned some “cool” points with the kids and his movie choice. 

Tony snuck away for what couldn’t have been more than a minute and came back to his spot, grabbing the now empty pizza box because he may have given Ziva a hard time about her topping choices but he absolutely helped her finish it. 

So when Ziva got up to make her second bathroom trip of the movie because a certain small inhabitant would not stop using her bladder as a trampoline, she eyeballed Tony hard on her way back into the room trying to understand what he possibly could be doing and worrying slightly about what he could possibly be doing. All she received was an eyebrow raise and a shifty grin. 

“You have got to be kidding me,” Ziva tried to hide her amusement at the lengths Tony was willing to go, but she couldn’t. 

The pizza box, somehow cut to perfection, sat on his head, teeth cut out of every single edge and roaring sounds coming from his mouth that made both kids unexpectedly scream when the end titles rolled on the TV. It was chaos and commotion and the sound of shrieking laughter was the polar opposite of the transfixed silence they’d had while watching the film. Footsteps thundered around the house from DiNozzo and scurrying feet were always fast in front of him as the kids wheeled around furniture and whatever objects got in their way. 

Both kids and Tony went careening by in front of Ziva, not a care in the world for their surroundings or the furniture that might be a causality of their game. “Stop it. Stop it. You are going to break something, DiNozzo.” 

And what could have happened, besides Director Vance opening the door at that exact minute? Thank god there was a look of amusement on his face and not what could have been. “It’s been a long time since I heard that sound.”

The magic of Anthony DiNozzo being himself. 

“Oh I know this looks really bad. It is way past their bedtime,” Ziva, the ever studious agent, tried. 

“No, it’s okay. Let them play. They need it.” 

And suddenly, it was just them. Just Ziva and Director Vance in the same room, alone, for the first time since they lost people who meant more to them than either could put into words, no matter how complicated or not the relationships were. Beyond Vance, was the empty dining room where the table, left covered in blood after shots had rung out on that fateful night, had hopefully been taken somewhere and burned. But the emptiness remained and it mocked Ziva for trying to say whatever she was going to say because she knew well enough that few words would do anything to ease the grief. 

She had to try anyway. “Director, I’ve been thinking… what to say to you and I’m… I am just sorry. Had my father not been here…” 

“Agent David, you don’t need to say anything else. Not another word,” She could see in his eyes that this was not the conversation he wanted to have, but he understood. “You can’t take the blame for something you didn’t do.”

“Guilt is not that simple.” 

Director Vance’s gaze shifted downward; Ziva kept still though she desperately wanted to protectively cover what he was looking at. “Neither of us walked out of this unscathed, but we both have…” He searched for the right word. “People relying on us. Worry about them, not about me.” 

The sound of screeches came back around and the only response Ziva had time to give was a little nod. 

“Slow motion shark attack!” Tony’s hands flapped the box up and down like jaws on the real animal he was impersonating. 

“Oh my, what do we have here?” Vance questioned. “Well I see Agent DiNozzo has been keeping you entertained.”

“He let us watch Jaws,” Jared snitched instantly. 

“Yeah, uhuh, I can see that. Nice hat DiNozzo.” 

“Used to have a dorsal fin, but somebody ate it,” Tony nervously chuckled. 

“Okay, let’s get you guys ready for bed. Time to brush your teeth, let’s go.” Vance shuffled his children out of the room toward the assigned task and turned back to Tony and Ziva. “Thank you.”

As Director Vance exited, Tony turned to Ziva who made herself immediately busy cleaning up the mess they’d left. “So you two talk?” 

“Yes.” 

“All good I hope?” 

“As good as it can be,” Ziva was doing a terrible job of seeming normal now that Tony stood there with his own questions and knew all too well every tell she had. His eyes searched hers, but it didn’t take much to see it hadn’t solved all that she was feeling about what her father caused and being back at the scene of the crime, literally, had taken her back a few steps in the progress Tony thought she had been making.

“It was never your fault, Zi.” 

She changed the subject. “You know, you not only rifled up those kids, but your daughter will not stop in here,” Hands pointed to the swell of her stomach.

“Riled, Ziva. Rifled would be something I’d go to jail for.” 

“Well, whatever the word, you need to have a chat with your child because I will not be kept up all night by her somersaults that you caused,” As if on cue, a foot or hand ran smack into Ziva’s side just under her ribcage and she exhaled her annoyance. 

“This is my fault, how?” 

“Because she started moving as soon as she could hear your voice, like she does, therefore it is your fault.” 

“What can I say? She loves her dad.” 

Her dad. That was who he was. Tony was the father of her child and somehow Ziva still found herself reeling from the way he said it so nonchalantly. It slipped from his mouth like he used his own title all the time when referring to himself. But he didn’t. She didn’t. They just didn’t. Avoiding the parts that made it too real: a game played expertly by Tony and Ziva. 

“Then by all means, dad,” Ziva knew her voice was not nearly as apathetic as she wanted it to be when she referred to him as such, trying to play along. “Work your magic because I am tired.” 

“Let us get home first, I’ll work more than just my magic.” 

“Anthony. Do not be gross.” 

“Especially not while you’re still in my house.” 

Tony’s cheeks were so red, so quickly. The heat rose unusually fast at the idea that Vance just heard his offer for more than just sleeping. God, sometimes he was stupid. Sometimes he was just such a DiNozzo. 

“Sir, my sincerest apologies.” 

“Yeah, okay Dinozzo. I’ll finish cleaning up. Why don’t you two go home and make sure that I don’t know anything about what you two do behind closed doors?” 

“Yes, sir,” Tony croaked.

The same way Ziva had pulled Tony into the house, he pulled her out. He could not exit the building fast enough and if it wasn’t for Ziva’s growing discomfort, feet swelling in her shoes, baby still rampantly running laps in her belly, he would have been in the car and down the street already. 

“If I get fired tomorrow, can you financially support us?” 

“Tony get a grip. He is not going to fire you over that. Once again reminding you I am pregnant. He knows how that happened.”

“Yeah, but I don’t need him to!”

“Even if I was going to take you up on that little offer?” Ziva cocked an eyebrow at Tony, a little pull of her lip giving him a suggestive half smile. She was almost certain he forgot about what had just happened almost instantly.

Chapter Text

“Anthony, remind me again why we are doing this?” 

The question seemed to be about the day he’d planned, but in fairness it could have just as easily been about Ziva’s growing inability to get herself out of the car in a timely manner and without the assistance of Tony’s hands tugging her along. Either way, he still helped her out of the car and still answered her question.

“Because it seemed like the thing to do on our first Saturday off in weeks.” 

“It did?”

“Why are you so damn skeptical?”

“I am not,” Ziva corrected. “I just did not picture you of all people choosing this when we could have just as easily laid on the couch watching Casablanca again.” 

“First of all, you say that like I’m constantly forcing you to watch an unmatched classic. And secondly, I do believe that you are the one who secretly wishes we were on the couch so that I could somehow get roped into a foot massage I didn’t want to give.”

Ziva narrowed her eyes at him. “You better watch it. Carrying your child entitles me to those foot massages.”

“Since when?”

“Since they started swelling enough to not fit into my shoes.”

“Touché, David,” He shrugged.

Tony shut the car door behind Ziva and shuffled a few feet down the sidewalk to the parking meter. He paid, sliding a card into the reader and maybe too generous to the adventure they were on, he paid for three hours. 

The streets of DC were quieter than they would have been had it been later in the year, but the frost on the sidewalks and the bite in the air had started to subside and a day that was forty eight degrees felt unendingly warm compared to the low thirties and even lower twenties that were a winter in the District of Columbia. The sun even shone a little through clouds and there were sneak peaks of blue skies. As far as Tony was concerned, it was the first day of the year so far that he could even have fathomed asking Ziva to accompany him downtown for a… a something.

It was not a date. They didn’t go on those. They didn’t go on those yet . Or they didn’t go on things called that, but he could sneakily make a day that felt like one and if he just avoided labeling it, Tony would get away with it. He hoped, at least.

They weren’t ten steps down the block before a little coffee shop came up. Ziva nodded toward it. “Can we?” 

“Sure,” Tony would have said yes to just about anything she asked, even something as small as her wanting a hot chocolate because she’d been thinking about it since they made a pot full for Vance’s kids. 

They placed their orders, and Tony paid. His black coffee was quickly handed to him and Ziva scooted to the end of the counter to wait for hers. 

In search of a cardboard sleeve to ease the warmth seeping through his cup, Tony for a moment stepped away from Ziva and even for that short amount of time, he couldn’t help the way his gaze wandered. Her winter coat, not zipped because she couldn’t and didn’t need to, framed her stomach. She’d grown, a lot, in the last few weeks it seemed and there was no missing the way her round belly protruded in front of her, covered only by the pale blue sweater she wore and caressed by a hand that probably had no idea it was even doing it. The longer it went on the more her hand was always instinctively resting somewhere on her stomach. It slid down a few inches, stopping in a new spot and Tony knew that the baby had moved, requesting her mother’s attention. Ziva’s reaction was always to follow their daughter’s somersaults and punches. 

A smile tugged at Tony’s mouth. How lucky he was to know those things about Ziva that he could narrate from afar what she was doing and why she was doing it? 

When her hot chocolate was in hand, the one not still touching her belly, Tony followed her lead back out to the street. 

They relaxed into a comfortable pace, meaning Tony was staying the course with Ziva and Ziva was trying her hardest to not be as slow as she felt. It was an ongoing battle for her to stop the waddle that had been not so delicately pointed out in the bullpen when Tony and McGee made eye contact at the wrong moment as Ziva passed by. Their snickering had gotten them nearly decapitated, but it took until they were alone in Tony’s apartment, a bad move on his part as there were so many more weapons for her to choose from, for him to admit what all the hullabaloo had been about. His foot massage business had been incorporated that same evening.

Her free hand now hung at her side and if Tony was as brave as he pretended to be, he would have slipped his fingers between hers. He didn’t. 

Ziva’s feet slowed for a minute in front of a clothing store. Based on the mannequins, it was the kind of place Tony would have expected her to shop. 

“Need something?” He asked.

“Not while I look like this,” Ziva sighed. “But I will remember it for later, when I am no longer a balloon with feet.”

“You’re not a balloon with feet, Zi,” Tony replied so quickly, it made Ziva’s head snap around to stare at him. And the way he said it. Like he was begging her to see that her pregnant state hadn’t for a moment changed how he felt about her physical appearance. 

He was a moron, but he only realized that after it was too late. 

Her eyes softened as she watched the red blush creep onto his cheeks; it wasn’t cold enough for that to be an excuse. He’d been caught red handed or red cheeked, if it was about the accuracy. 

“Well thank you, but it certainly feels that way lately.”

Their steps picked up again. Drinks were sipped, a few words were exchanged, it was an all too normal Saturday for the pair. Both of them eased into it. 

That was, until Ziva stopped dead in their tracks at the exact spot Tony had hoped they would. Though he did have a contingency plan for getting here there anyway, speeches prepared, bribing ready if required, the parking spot that was just the right distance away to not put her off, but it seemed he wouldn’t need any of it. 

“Should we go in?” 

Ziva ignored him, her eyes sparkling at the window displays, entirely drawn in.

“You want to go in?” 

But Tony was ignored again. Ziva’s eyes wandered across the windows and her head fell just slightly to the side, cocked in admiration or in contemplation. It was hard for Tony to tell. 

“Zivs?” 

“Huh?” 

“Do you want to go in?” 

She shook her head, pulling herself out of whatever thoughts she’d been having. “No, it is fine.” 

“You know we are having the thing that you buy these kinds of things for.” 

“I know.”

“Then let’s go in,” Tony urged. 

Ziva still hesitated, her feet firmly planted. The look on Tony's face was one of genuine want. He wanted to go in, he wanted to shop for the little stowaway, who just like she usually did, had a foot lodged in Ziva’s ribcage. An uncomfortable reminder that such limited preparation had been done up to that point for a baby that was impending. Twelve weeks seemed like a lifetime to still be pregnant for Ziva, but the first twenty eight weeks had gone by faster than she could blink. So fast, her heart raced at the simple thought that they were far past the halfway point, very far past. 

“Okay,” Ziva finally nodded her agreement. 

The tender hand Tony placed on the small of her back, guiding her through the door, sent a shiver up Ziva’s spine. It was so gentle. It was so easy. He didn’t seem to think for a moment about the little gesture and Ziva could have gone to Mars over how much she wished he would always do that. 

Tony felt the tense, the way her back hardened under his touch for a single second and then she relaxed against his palm. He held in his sigh of relief. 

“Welcome in! Anything we can help you find today?” The cheerful voice of the sales associate was enough to turn Ziva right back out the door. 

Tony picked up on her “spidey” senses tingling and his hand remained steady, even offering a subtle rub where it had been still just a moment earlier. “We’re just looking, thank you.” 

“Of course. Just let me know if you need anything.” 

When the glaring eyes of the woman were off of them, Tony leaned toward Ziva’s ear with a quiet whisper. “Take a breath, Zi. The bump gives us permission to be in here.” 

He was right. They were expecting. They were expectant parents having a baby in three months and there was absolutely nothing weird about them walking into a store catered toward small humans. Actually, it was the very place they should be. Ziva tried to take a breath through her nose, trying to ease the strange anxiety that wrapped around her at the thought of purchasing something for a very real baby girl whose flailing movements were a constant reminder, especially in that moment, that someone better start preparing before it was too late. 

“Wait a damn minute,” Tony, now on the other side of a rack of clothing, held up a pair of very tiny footie pajamas. “She is not actually going to be this small is she?” 

Ziva felt her shoulders fall, felt a few ounces of anxiety fall away at Tony’s ridiculousness. “I do think she will be that little, Tony.” 

“That concerns me.” 

“It concerns me more that you are just now understanding the size of a newborn.” 

“Well, Zivs, you see. I actually haven’t known that many of them. Newborns, I mean. So just sort of feeling it out for the first time right now and I am a little scared.”

Ziva rolled her eyes in response, as her fingers flipped through all the sweet pieces of clothing that hung on little velvet hangers around the rack. Everything was so soft under her touch, carefully crafted for the smallest of beings and the entire store smelled of fresh laundry and baby shampoo. There were pinks and purples, a few yellow items that grabbed her attention, floral patterns, many bows, one with little purple and green dinosaurs that Tony deemed his favorite thus far and one with very tiny little ballet slippers that made Ziva’s heart patter, though she did not mention it was her favorite. Everything tiny and adorable and making Ziva wonder where on earth they even started. 

“Hear me out?” Tony now held up a tiny matching sweatsuit in a lilac color. 

“Are you purchasing that?” 

“Am I allowed to?” The grinning excitement on his face was impossible for her to turn away from. It was so genuine. 

“I suppose,” Ziva answered rather coyly for someone who’s heart might as well have been bursting over the way Tony was having so much fun hand picking the things his daughter might very well wear sooner rather than later. God, he was going to be a much better parent than she would. 

Ziva was tactful in her looking and in her choices. Only a few items hung in her grasp, thoughtfully chosen. While it had started as just a quick stop, a quick look, it took no time at all to become more. Ziva would chew glass before she ever admitted out loud to it, but their first shopping trip for their daughter was one she knew she would not soon forget. A small moment in all the ones that made up their voyage toward parenthood thus far, but one that stuck out. 

“Hey! How do I look?” 

Tony marched up to her, pushing what looked to be a rather expensive stroller, and posed behind it. The dopey grin still on his face. 

He looked exactly like she had expected him to, like she had pictured him pushing a stroller. It was just a smidge too short for his tall frame and he would have to push it with just his fingertips to avoid hunching over. But it suited him. It suited him so well, Ziva wasn’t sure if that was what took her breath away or that this man who enthusiastically took strollers for a spin in a store was the man she was having a baby with. Probably both. 

Tony wasn’t a man that gave off dad vibes, so to speak. A man known for three day weekends and womanizing, there really was little room left for thinking he’d make a great father, but Ziva saw it. She’d seen it since two dark red lines stared at them in the bathroom. He was enthusiastic and caring and careful around her when she was so weary of what they were doing, of all the changes. Tony was ready for the role being bestowed on him and it was not just the pregnancy hormones that made her over emotional watching him bring another stroller around, asking again how he looked. Then another. 

“How many are you going to try?” Ziva at this point had followed him to the back of the store where her partner was getting up to no good. 

“All of them?” Tony questioned her like she should have known better than to even need to wonder. “They put them out for you to test drive, Ziva. It’s going to hold our child, we have to like it.” 

“You are insane.” 

“I think the word you are looking for is attentive, Ziva.”

“It was not,” She chided. 

“Look, you just gotta try them. This one,” He gestured toward one that was all black. “Is like top of the line, all sorts of attachments, grows with them so we can use it for a long time, but the price tag? Ouch. And this one,” His hands fly to point at a different set of wheels, one that was a dark gray with faux leather accents and handles. “Not quite as cool, a price that means we could still save for college after we buy it and the reviews are great.” 

“Reviews?” Ziva caught onto that word instantaneously. A smirk pulled hard at the corners of her mouth and Tony’s grin turned sheepish quicker than he could name facts about different strollers. 

“I mean… just… the woman here said it was good?” 

“Nice try. You have been reading stroller reviews in your spare time?” 

“No.” 

“Anthony?” 

“Maybe.” 

Why was she even surprised? The same man who had bought a book probably the first free minute he’d had after they found out. Of course, he was reading reviews of strollers and god knew what else, though Ziva was sure she’d find out. 

“Look, I’m just excited, Zivs. It sounds stupid as hell when you call me out for it, but I can’t help it. They’re all things for her and somehow they seem a million times more important than anything I would ever buy for myself. Laugh in my face if you want, I probably deserve it, but I’m still going to buy her the best things I can.” 

“You’re really ready for this aren’t you?” 

“Ready? No. You saw my reaction to that outfit, Zi. I am not ready at all for something that little to be my responsibility. But I can read reviews and drive strollers around like sports cars and sneak you into baby stores that I know you would never otherwise step foot in.” 

“Sometimes you are so irritating.” 

“Not that irritating or we wouldn’t be in this store right now,” If Ziva’s hands were not full, she would have considered punching him for winking at her like a child proud of the slightly dirty joke they’d just made. “Now, hand me those things and take one for a joy ride.” 

“I do not need to do that.” 

“Come on, Zi. You have to push her around, too.” 

“I will not.” 

“You will,” Before she could say no another way, Tony grabbed the clothes in her hand, flipped the stroller around and pushed it almost literally into her hands. Insufferability was one of his best qualities and most especially when it came to Ziva. Her stubbornness had to be met with something, Tony just so happened to have that very thing. “Give it a whirl.” 

The handle felt foreign in Ziva’s hand. Warm from where Tony’s hands had been, but not like anything else she’d ever gripped. It struck her so abruptly that she could have stumbled backward in shock. Their daughter could very well be buckled into the empty seat that stared back at her in a few months. She and Tony could be pushing her around the very streets they were roaming right now as a family of three. 

Family. 

Was that even what they were? Maybe from the outside. The woman working in the store had watched them walk in and probably assumed they were a happy couple shopping for the baby, protectively shown off my Ziva’s growing belly. The people they passed on the street on their way into the store had no idea that they were co-workers first and parents-to-be second. They had no reason to know that there hadn’t been a single time in seven months where either Tony or Ziva could label exactly what they were because there was no label. There was no exact way to describe their complications. 

And yet, Ziva held onto a stroller that they could very easily walk out of the store with if she gave Tony the word -- he was chomping at the bit to buy one -- and it dawned on her, maybe for the first time fully, that no matter what happened, she and Tony were now family. Bonded together by a child who had no idea what kind of inherent power she held over her parents inability to get their acts together. Anything they did have together was for her, for their daughter. 

That was not the intention Tony had when he innocently insisted she join in on his fun, but it was exactly what had happened. 

They were having a baby. 

They were really having a baby. 

Ziva’s denial didn’t stop it from happening. Pretending that nothing needed to be done, only to panic about it later when she realized how ill-prepared she was would only make the entirety of it worse. This man was constantly getting in the way of her getting in the way of herself. 

So she pushed around the damn stroller, frolicing around the displays of strollers and car seats and cribs and played along with the very thing she’d thought was so dumb a minute earlier. 

Tony watched as she tried and tried. As she brought one back to him and exchanged it for another. A lightness he’d not seen from her all day, but in reality maybe ever since they’d found out she was pregnant, took over the woman who had tensed at the approach of someone asking what they were looking for. She flitted around the story looking so much like a mom, Tony had to stop himself from ogling or he was sure she’d soon be threatening to pluck his eyeballs out and it would have been so worth it to watch her play mom. Soon enough, they wouldn’t even be playing though and the little straps would be tightened around the baby girl they’d made. 

“Which one will it be mama?” Tony wiggled his eyebrows at her, very nearly pulling his wallet out already. 

“Tony, we do… you do not…” 

“Nope,” He cut her off. “We’re making a choice. Humor me okay? Let’s have one whole thing for this baby before she is here,” Tony laid a hand on Ziva’s stomach and laughed out loud at the immediate rolling underneath it. “See, she agrees. Would also like us to buy her things.” 

So, it was not even remotely shocking when later that night, with takeout on the coffee table and a movie on in the background, Tony was dumping all of the pieces out of the box and starting his assembly process. Small screws rolled around the floor, a wheel or two might have popped off before properly being put on and a few too many expletives were not helpful, but made Tony feel better, at least.

And Ziva couldn’t even talk as she folded freshly laundered baby clothes, the dinosaur and ballet slipper patterns among the pile she neatly stacked on the couch next to her between bites of General Tso's chicken.

“Looks even cuter in here than it did in the store,” Tony boisterously claimed, displaying his work.

A laugh burst straight from Ziva’s chest. “You are hopeless.”

Chapter Text

“Uhh Ziva?” Tony’s voice carried down the hallway before he appeared in the doorway. “What is this? And does it belong in here?”

“It does belong in here,” Ziva answered.

Here being the second bedroom of their new brownstone, otherwise known as the nursery. Baby girl’s lair, if you were Tony and everything needed some kind of James Bond themed flare. 

For weeks, it seemed like it wouldn’t ever happen, like maybe they would just need to get a bigger bed for Tony’s apartment and call it quits. Neither of them were actually that picky funnily enough, but the rental options in a city like DC were wild. Insanely expensive or insanely small or in between, which was what both of them already had and what they were trying to get out of before their little addition marched her way into their world. Then the one came up. The one that had two bedrooms, the one that had a place for a dining room table where Ziva dreamed about eating meals as a little family, the one that was close enough to work, the one that felt like a place where they could settle. It seemed far too good to be true and when Tony got off the phone with the leasing agent, looking forlorn and rather worried that he would have to tell Ziva they’d missed their chance, it did not look likely that they would get a call back a few hours later when the first contract fell through. 

They never stepped foot into the place until after their signatures were on the dotted lines of the contract, something seemingly very Tony but not at all Ziva. She simply had to trust her gut and Tony’s that it was where they needed to end up. 

Thankfully, the minute she passed the threshold of the front door, she knew. 

So now, sitting crisscross on the floor of their daughter’s nursery, Ziva was piecing together bits to help make it all feel like a home. Their home. 

An insane idea that they were now officially sharing a home, both names on the lease, when Ziva had not so much as uttered that three word sentence to Tony. There had been so many almosts. When he’d kissed the top of her head in their new kitchen, while they basked in the idea that home was becoming a reality. When she woke up on their first morning in the king size bed together, to his hands wrapped around her belly, whispering god knows what to their daughter with an oversized grin on his face. When he looked at her just right and she could feel the admiration in his gaze. But every time she froze, words caught in her throat and she’d think next time, next time it would come out. 

“But what is it?” Tony held the object in his hand, twisting it sideways to see if that somehow made it clear to him what it was. 

“It is a breastfeeding pillow, Tony. That did not come up in all of your research on baby products?” 

“No, you see that is where my research ended and yours began.” 

“I guess just put it on the closet shelf for now,” Ziva advised and Tony did as he was told. 

Tony stood a few feet away from Ziva, watching her fold the tiniest of clothes. Some of the things they had purchased together were recognized by him, but many of the little items were new and his daughter’s wardrobe had doubled in size in just a few weeks. Ziva had been quietly shopping, gathering things to stow away in dresser drawers, the only piece of furniture that was in the room. It was like allowing herself to contemplate things in that store was the permission she needed to prepare. Her hands were delicate and precise as each piece was folded the same, pressed into the drawer and then repeated. It was some kind of endearing thing that Tony wanted to savor for even a minute while she let him -- let him meant she had not called him out for his staring, even when she could feel his eyes on her. 

Every little thing was suddenly bigger because it was for someone other than themselves, weird how that worked. 

“If you are going to stand there watching me fold, then the least you can do is hand me a box of diapers,” Ziva shifted her eyes in Tony’s direction. 

“Yes, your majesty,” He bowed foolishly before grabbing the box, ripping the packing tape off and setting the open box at her side. 

Ziva opened a new drawer and decisively stacked the diapers in rows. Two boxes of them were put away for use in weeks that would fly by. A little less than ten weeks and sleepy hands would be reaching for the stocked drawer while a crying newborn protested. Their lives were going to change so quickly and Tony felt dizzy at the prospect of time dwindling in front of their eyes. 

“Tony, one more thing?”

“Anything for you Miss David,” Tony smirked. 

“Help me up,” If Tony looked carefully enough, he thought he could detect a pout on Ziva’s face. Not one that he would mention, as he wanted to keep all of his limbs intact, but he noted it nonetheless. 

Hands reached out and Tony gently tugged Ziva to her feet. It was clumsier than she wished, the slow loss of control to pregnancy, and she wanted to be embarrassed, but then came along Anthony DiNozzo, wannabe knight in shining armour who would turn himself inside out to help her, and she was once again reminded that he never for a moment judged the way her hard exterior became less so with each passing day. 

“Uggh,” Ziva groaned, trying and failing to stretch out her back from her own poor choice to sit on the floor. “It would be a wonder if she would ever sit still in there.” One of their child’s extremities flailed, making Ziva flinch. 

There was a stretch of silence. Ziva watched as Tony’s eyes scoured the room, taking in its emptiness or maybe admiring his paint job. The soft pale pink of the walls was all Tony. Ziva hadn’t been convinced that anything needed to be pink for their daughter; she had suggested yellow or even lavender as a compromise, but instead she came home from a pilates class, one that was actually pilates and not a form of martial arts, to find Tony rolling the walls. Ziva had found herself nearly fighting tears as he hummed to himself, pink paint covering the walls and the ratty t-shirt he wore to do the job -- they were as equally stubborn as one another, but sometimes one of them was more endearing than the other about what they set their mind to. So Ziva had told Tony she loved it, which she did not because of the color, but because of the thought behind it, and left him to finish what he started. Now the more time she spent in the room, the more it felt like his choice was the right one. 

“Admiring your work?” Ziva asked. 

“She needs a name.” 

Ziva’s eyes narrowed. “What?” 

“She needs a name, Zi.” 

“Right now?” 

Tony shrugged. “I mean kinda. Aren’t you tired of just calling her the baby?” 

“I guess,” Ziva could agree with a little thought. 

“She, her, squirt, mini ninja. It’s cute and all, but, I don’t know. None of them are her, you know?” 

“Where is this coming from?”

“I mean we are having a baby, Zivs. We have to name her eventually.” 

“Yes, eventually .” 

“Yeah, eventually,” Tony ran a hand through his hair, working not to get angry at the woman carrying his child, but sometimes she was so dense, so busy keeping even just a millimeter of distance between herself and the reality they were living in, that getting something through to her was like hoping she’d get an American colloquialism correct on the first try. “The barstools for the kitchen island got delivered, I’m just gonna go put them together.” 

Tony traipsed out and Ziva was left wondering what she had missed. Obviously, the conversation had meant more to him than he had led on and without realizing, she’d not participated in the way he had hoped. 

She was far slower than Tony was down the hallways and down the stairs. By the time Ziva’s feet touched the main floor, there was already one opened box and the sound of little screws hitting the floor, followed by an expletive. The frustration in his voice felt like more than just that of having to put together endless furniture. 

“Tony?” 

“What Ziva?” 

The use of her full name stung. She knew what it meant. 

“I did not know you really wanted to have that conversation. I was not trying to sweep you off.” 

“Brush,” Tony corrected. 

“Same difference.” 

“It really doesn't matter. We can talk about it some other time.” 

Ziva approached, gently, scared to make things worse than she seemingly already had. She laid a soft hand on his shoulder, as he kneeled over the base of one of the stools, instructions nowhere in sight. “This can wait.” 

A deep sigh escaped him. “The more we do, the more that gets set up, the more this feels like our home, I just keep thinking about how she’s a part of this. I mean, god, she’s the reason any of this is happening and it feels… detached.” 

“She certainly does not feel detached every time she is wiggling around in there at the sound of your voice.” 

“Is she doing that right now?” 

Ziva nodded, as she planted her hands on her lower back. 

Tony pushed aside his project, easily forgotten when instead he could lay his hands on the swell of Ziva’s stomach and feel the bouncing of the very baby whose name was the hottest topic of conversation they’d had since moving. They hadn’t discussed anything but furniture and silverware since they signed their lease. 

“See? I feel her do this and want her to be more than just the baby or my daughter. I want her to have… an identity. I mean that’s a stupid way to put it, but you get what I’m saying.” 

“So you have some suggestions?” 

“I might have a few thoughts.” 

“Care to share?” 

“Care to break in the couch with me?” Tony wiggled an eyebrow in her direction and while he may have gotten a roll of her eyes in response, she did in fact join him on their new sectional feet propped up on the coffee table, her swollen ankles appreciating the elevation. 

“What is that?” Ziva eyed the piece of paper in Tony’s hand; he’d grabbed it before settling next to her. 

“It’s just a list.” 

“A list?” 

“Yes, a list, Ziva. Something you write on a piece of paper to remember the things you might like, in this case, that is names for our child.” 

“Mhmm,” Ziva nodded along, doing her absolute best to keep her expression neutral and not allow the laughter to escape that was threatening. This man. The same one who glued coworkers fingers to keyboards and who sometimes put on gas masks at his desk to see if women would chat with him longer, was now making lists of baby girl names for their child and acting as if it was utterly normal. “So what is on this list you speak of? I can know, yes?” 

“As long as you promise not to be an ass.” 

“Anthony DiNozzo when I am ever an ass? I resent that.” 

“Then you better play nice.” 

“Just tell me what is on this list of yours.” 

A blush crept up his cheeks as he thought about actually having to reveal to Ziva the names he’d thought hard enough about to write down. Tony was by no means shy, but Ziva’s dark brown eyes staring at him, her attentiveness on the sheet he’d ripped from a yellow legal pad he’d found in the bottom of a desk drawer, the delicate way her hand rested gently at the top of her stomach as if it was made to sit there, and suddenly he was as bashful as he had ever been. 

“Are you going to share while I am still pregnant?” 

“This is stupid. You were right.” 

“Tony,” she reached for his arm, landing on his bicep that flexed under her touch. “I never thought this was stupid. I did not think you were serious. That is very different,” Ziva shifted away abruptly, taking her hand with her to press right below her hip bone. “I hope you have middle name ideas written down too. I need your child's full name to use when she is doing whatever the hell it is that she is doing.” 

“She’s been giving you a run for your money all day.” 

“Yes, I know and I am getting quite sick of it.” 

“Hey squirt,” Tony leaned over, speaking directly to Ziva’s belly. “If we give you a name, will you maybe knock it off?” 

“Oh yes, I am sure she is going to fall for that.” 

Tony shrugged. “At least I tried.” 

“The list? You care to share or keep avoiding.” 

“I’m not avoiding.” 

“Tony,” Ziva chided. 

“How about this? You tell me what you like and I’ll see if they match with anything on my list.” 

“How about not?” 

“I can’t get out of this now, can I?” 

“Not a chance,” Ziva assured. 

Tony let out a long exhale, cursing himself for this because it was his fault for bringing it up in the first place. But it had been a long time coming. It was a conversation that had to happen, whether it was on their new couch in their new home or it was in the delivery room, they had to talk and now Tony had pinned them down or at least pinned himself down.

The paper crinkled in his hands. 

His hands were clammy and it felt like he was offering up the solution for world peace and not just a baby name. 

“Tony?” 

“And if I told you that there was only one name on this list?”

“I would ask you why you have that entire sheet of paper. Is that even a list?”

Tony had no idea how it would play out. When his nearly shaking hands held out the piece of paper toward Ziva and she took it, his mind was racing. Maybe this was the one thing that put her over the edge. Maybe this was when he overstepped his bounds and pushed her to a place she could not come back from nor would she forgive him. But he hoped desperately for the opposite. He hoped that she would understand his thought behind it. Tony just wanted this to be something he did for her that was really for her. And maybe this was the dumbest presentation possible and maybe he was a fool, but he could apologize for that profusely later. 

Ziva’s eyes scanned the four letters written in Tony’s handwriting, scribbled in blue ink. 

Tears immediately pricked her eyes. 

When her eyes met his, she was searching for some way that this was a joke, that he was just kidding in his DiNozzo way to get a reaction out of her. Instead what she found was him patiently waiting. He looked back at her with the smallest of sheepish grins on his face, just barely tugging at the corners of his mouth because if he let it take over his face he would scare her away. His body language was nervous and Ziva could see that he wasn’t, for a second, taking this lightly. This was not a joke. It was another move by Tony in their strange game of chess to move himself closer to her on the board, done in a way that Ziva would have to look back and figure out when it was that he won. 

“Why?” The word was barely a whisper. 

Tony took a deep breath. “Because I want you to have first right of refusal. I want you to feel like it’s an option if you want it to be, Zi.” 

“She is also your daughter.” 

“And naming her after someone important to you doesn’t make her any less my daughter. Doesn’t really work that way.” 

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Ziva had known she wanted to name her daughter after the woman that she’d never meet. A tribute to someone who had changed Ziva’s life forever, one time for good, one time in tragedy. A sweet new life who could carry on the name that never made it past those teenage years. Ziva’s sister deserved that and in those in-between times, when having a baby was like a fleeting hope because who would she ever do it with, when would she ever have the right person, Ziva still daydreamed about a daughter who carried on the name. And while she was certain she’d never said anything, was quiet with her wishes, Tony had come in and pulled the cloth off the whole thing, revealing something yet again that she hadn’t been ready for, but could not avoid. 

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to, Zivs. But I didn’t think that you would bring it up or suggest it because I know you. I know you wouldn’t want it to feel like you were making the decision for us, so instead you’d just not say anything at all.” 

“You are sure?” The question sounded more like it was coming from a hopeful first time mom, than the closed off special agent Tony was actually sitting next to. 

“Yes.” 

“Really sure?” 

“I’m all in, Zi,” It was a comment about the name and yet, it was so much bigger than that. It was a testament to all the ways Tony stepped up and stepped in. All the ways that he had made it abundantly clear to Ziva that no matter what she did or how hard she tried to create distance or how impenetrable she was, he was going to be there. Anthony DiNozzo meant the statement with his whole entire being.

Those magic words no longer caught in Ziva’s throat.

It slipped out. Finally and softly and like the flood gates had been opened. There was no stopping them, those words that had escaped her time and time again, only to be pushed further down. No longer were they going to settle in the base of her stomach, to hopefully be spoken at another right time, a better right time than all the right times before. They sputtered, but they persevered. 

“I…love you.” 

The air hung thick between them.

Shock coursed through Tony, numbing his mind and making him fight to comprehend what Ziva had just uttered . Had he heard her correctly? Had she just said the thing he had convinced himself she maybe never would and he would have to be okay with that? A wall between them, a barrier in their relationship had just crumbled so quickly, Tony worried he’d topple over right there on the couch and crash into her. But god, he kind of wanted to. He wanted to reach for her and kiss her and mean it. He wanted to show her all the ways he could reciprocate the thing she had just told him. Ways that she had seen and ways that she hadn’t and all the ways in between. Every molecule in his body wanted to celebrate this thing that no longer hid in Ziva’s shadows, concealed by walls and a deep-seated need to keep her feelings close to the vest. Tony wanted to jump up and down on the couch, throwing a fit because the woman he loved had ultimately given him the only thing that was as special as their daughter: the validation that there was more to them than coworkers who happened to have sex and now lived together for the sake of the child they’d created. 

Ziva David loved him. She had said it herself.

But instead, he was subtle, holding himself back. A sweeping hand that landed safely on her cheek and let him wipe away a stray tear that snaked a trail down her face with his thumb. 

“I love you, Zi,” He choked out. “Have for a long time.”

“I want to name her Tali,” The confession felt like a weight off Ziva’s shoulder she hadn’t even been aware she was carrying. Among all the other things that came with having a child with a man it had taken her nearly eight months to admit her feelings about, the name of their daughter had fallen to the wayside in priority, but not in importance. 

“Then we name her Tali.” 

“You are sure?”

“You already asked me that, Zivs. If I wasn’t I wouldn’t have said something. I wouldn’t have made up some elaborate scheme with a note that only had one name on it and a way to talk about it with you, if I wasn’t.” 

“Tali,” A hint of disbelief mingled with Ziva’s wistful reciting of their daughter’s newfound name. 

“Our Tali.” 

“Yes, our Tali.”

Chapter Text

“Zi?” 

“Hmm?” 

“You ready?” 

“What?” A look of confusion crossed her face because she was not tuned in, any reaction to Tony had been a knee-jerk one.

“I said, are you ready? They’re boarding.” Tony reached out a hand. 

But Ziva hesitated, not immediately reciprocating by putting her hand in his and Tony sensed her trepidations. Especially from a woman who rarely was unsure of herself, unless it was about having a baby unexpectedly with a man who’d only gotten past co-worker in the privacy of a bedroom, it was obvious when she was second guessing. 

“We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. Nobody will think twice.” 

“I have to,” She said flatly and molded her expression into one that was stoic. 

That sense of duty that would never leave her, even if sometimes Ziva wished to drop it off somewhere and never pick it back up. Her brain nagged at her to do what needed to be done and only after she had, could she go back to the cozy existence she and Tony were creating in their new home with their daughter’s eviction date nearing closer and closer. It was always duty first, everything else second. If it was ever going to shift though, an impending tiny human would do it.

“You don’t have to do anything, Zivs,” Tony was soft in his approach, hoping to get across that the expectations of the former Mossad officer were low given all the circumstances. However, it was also, a little bit, because he had his own worries about her taking on something like this. Tony would have just as easily walked back out the airport doors and gone home had Ziva said the word. The struggle between demanding she make the choices that were best for their lives and understanding he was in no place to judge her for needing to be more than a wall ornament in this case waged a war in his mind; it was not his father’s murderer on the loose. 

Always a dichotomy in his mind of how he best dealt with Ziva.

“I have to for me… and for him.” Ziva sighed, making her response less confident, but no less certain. 

There had always been a lingering knowledge that when and if they got close enough to Bodnar to track him and predict his next moves, they would have to. They would have to close in on him and they would have to do their best to catch the man who had killed Ziva’s father. Their relationship aside, Ziva had to help on this mission. Though, never would she have expected to be eight months pregnant, begging her OB for clearance and then regretting every moment that sat in front of her before she even got on the plane to Berlin. This wasn’t how she wanted to contemplate revenge, but it was her only option.

So she put her hand in Tony’s and allowed him to pull her up from the uncomfortable airport seat and followed him onto a plane she did not necessarily want to get on. 

Between brief periods of longingly staring out the window as the clouds passed them by and using Tony as a pillow, the flight was rather uneventful and passed quickly, both things of which Ziva was grateful for. Even their meeting with Adam was brief enough, the intel they needed and little else, but a tromp through a train station Ziva took little part in. It was already an op off to a strange start as she received a debriefing about what she physically couldn’t partake in. It being for nothing helped ease the painful reminder of just how changed she was. 

It was not a long trip, but it would be a tedious day or two in Berlin. 

“I’m just gonna catch forty and then get up, grab a bite, brush my teeth, take a shower and then get dressed and go,” There was a note of deliriousness in Tony’s voice, as he listed off his plan for the next hour. 

“Naps tend to work better when you lay down and stop talking,” Ziva pulled Tony’s clothes from his suit bag and let her pointing out of the obvious linger in the air. 

“Are you seriously hanging up my clothes, sweet cheeks?” 

Ziva laughed out loud at him. “That is very funny.” 

“What?” Tony played along. 

“You do not think I remember when you called me that? Mon petit pois.” 

Tony felt the smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth, before the comment was made. “I always knew you were the type.” 

“I am many things, Tony. A type… not one of them.” 

“Interesting, since you're my type,” It may have fit into the tone of the conversation, of the back and forth banter, but it was certainly a bold statement, even if it should have been obvious given their impending parenthood. Ziva’s eyes narrowed in his direction and Tony found himself fumbling for something else to say. “You’re the type who likes to hang up her man’s clothes for tonight.” 

“Her man?” Ziva nearly scoffed. “I actually prefer hanging up cute little outfits with animals on the feet for your child, but this has to do for now. Besides, when I have a man , the favors I offer have little to do with clothes and you should know as much.” 

Tony blew a little chuckle out of his nose, always happy to have moments of normalcy between them. Those moments where it felt like little had changed even when everything had. 

“Come on, Zi, you should get some sleep too,” Tony shuffled backwards on the bed, finding his head landing on the hotel pillow. 

He was right and she was exhausted, neither of those things she wanted to admit, but she still allowed her feet to carry her toward the bed. It was a clumsy drop onto the mattress and the moment she rolled to her left side, facing Tony, a sharp inhale alerted him to whatever discomfort it was that Ziva had been trying all day to hide. The silent winces, the fingertips pressing hard into her back as she casually tried to keep things rolling as if nothing was happening. 

Tony wanted this asshole, wanted and needed to be the one with Ziva in Berlin, but he was finding himself more and more annoyed by the whole situation. He was picturing where they could have been, on the couch, feet up on the coffee table, eating takeout and arguing over watching something Ziva knew she already loved or something Tony desperately wanted her to see. They could have been there in DC tucked into their brownstone safe and sound and let Mossad handle Bodnar. Orli Elbaz was sitting at NCIS probably right then working her own investigation, with her own motives and they all could have just as easily allowed her the permission to do whatever she wanted. And while it was not that simple and it would never be so simple, it did not stop Tony from watching the grimace on Ziva’s face and wishing for once, anyone could just let go. 

“What is it?” 

Ziva could hear the essence of panic in Tony’s voice. “Nothing.” 

“That’s not nothing, but nice try.” 

“My back just hurts from sitting on the plane. It really is probably nothing,” Ziva took a deep breath and tried to relax against the mattress underneath her, it was a little soft for her liking, but she was, in all honesty relieved even if just for thirty minutes to no longer be playing Agent David.

“So then just say that in the first place?” 

“What is that supposed to mean?” 

Tony rolled from his back to his side, looking Ziva dead in the eye and then trying hard not to recoil when he saw a deadly scowl. “It just means you can be honest with me instead of playing Mr. tough guy or tough girl, in your case.” 

“Why? You cannot fix my back or your child head butting me or my swollen ankles, so why do I need to make a big deal out of it?” 

“I didn’t say make a big deal, I said be honest, Zi. I don’t think any less of you as a ninja because you admit to pregnancy being hard, even for you.” 

“If we’re being honest, can I ask you something?” 

Tony pondered how much trouble he was about to get into, but he agreed anyway. “Sure.” 

“What did Gibbs tell you before we left?” 

Not the question he’d been expecting. “He told me that he’d personally take me out if I let anything happen to you and I think he would be thrilled to do it if he needed to.” 

“My keeper,” Ziva rolled her eyes. 

“Me or Gibbs?” 

“Does it matter?” Ziva rolled to her back, but found no more comfort for the joint nap they were supposed to be taking. “I just… I do not like feeling like a burden. You have to watch after me because I can no longer watch out for myself. And Gibbs has to worry from another continent. And all of this is because of my father. I continue to be the common denominator in these problems.” 

“Keep turning,” Tony pointed and Ziva followed orders. The heel of his hand pressed hard into the center of her lower back. “You’re not a burden. I’d much rather have to watch your back because you’re carrying our child then, not. You’re no less badass, Ziva, because you need more than you have before. We wouldn’t be in Berlin without what you know. We’d be fucking around in Rome right now with everyone else no closer to Bodnar.” 

“I have never been sent on an assignment I did not want to go on.” 

“And you don’t want to be here?” 

“No.” 

“I mean actually a hotel room just the two of us, a jacuzzi tub, big TV and no interruptions would be really great. I just don’t need it to be a ten hour flight from home.” 

“Are you referring to that baby sun you keep talking about?” 

“Baby moon, Zivs. And actually I wasn’t, but now that you mention it…” 

“No,” She cut him off. 

“I can go by myself tonight,” Tony offered. 

“I never worry about something happening. I just do the thing I am supposed to and take care of myself. I do not have that luxury anymore. Instead, I have to worry about someone who is much more important than I am and that is…” 

“Terrifying?” 

“Something like that.” 

“We could have stayed home. Everyone offered you that.” 

“But he was my father and Bodnar was someone I knew. Somehow the worse option was not coming.” 

“Not coming is always the worse option,” Tony earned fair and square the swat to the chest from the mother of his child and actually he was so impressed by the speed of her reaction, he couldn’t even be mad.

“Anthony DiNozzo, I will leave you here and Adam and I can go.” 

“No way,” Tony vehemently put his foot down. “Maybe you trust him, but there will be nobody else with you except me.” 

“Feeling a little territorial?” 

He added another hand to her back and smiled to himself when a quiet grunt of satisfaction slipped from her; a little petty reminder that Adam was not him nor would he be. They were having a baby and it was perhaps not necessary, but call it protective or jealous, Tony worked his hands into the exact place he knew was bothering her and took pride in being the one allowed to do so. “I am not territorial, but I know that nobody has your back like I do,” Tony leaned in close. “Pun intended,” He whispered into her ear. 

“You are ridiculous,” But Ziva flexed toward his touch. 

“Maybe I am, but I give one hell of a back massage.” 

“What if something happens?” The air was sucked directly out of the room by Ziva’s question. Banter cut short. Reality taking a step in.

“Telling you nothing will isn’t a good enough answer is it?” 

Ziva shifted onto her back again and allowed her eyes to wander to Tony’s, a mistake because the moment she saw him, the facade crumbled and it was replaced with a vulnerability that Ziva hated. 

“I can’t make guarantees, Zivs. But I hope you know that I will do everything I can and that I mean that. I want to get this piece of shit and then I want to go home with you and Tali in one piece. However that happens, it will.” 

What it was like to trust someone so explicitly? Ziva knew that behind every word, was Tony’s sincerest promise. When they first started down this road to becoming parents, Ziva constantly wondered if what he said was because of their child, if the words he uttered revolved around the baby more than herself, but the longer it went on, the more obvious it became: Tony said everything for both of them. It was equal parts Ziva and Tali in his mind, neither one less or more. 

“That stupid little app says she’s over four pounds now. Same size as a butternut squash,” Tony changed the subject. 

“Well then make sure your butternut squash,” Ziva emphasized the vegetable name, to remind Tony she thought it was a tad stupid that they compared babies to food on his app. “Makes it home.” 

“I plan to.” 

If only they understood home would be the problem. 

The nightclub mission went off without a hitch, if a hitch meant something happening to Ziva. There were many hitches when the man they captured was not Bodnar, but his brother doing his bidding. Certainly not the target that took them across an ocean, but he was still better than nothing. At least, Ziva believed that. If someone was going to lead them down the right trail, it was Yaniv and he’d already started as the diamonds he was collecting for his fugitive brother were now in the hands of NCIS. Without the resources he was expecting to have, Bodnar could only get so far. If they could corner him, find where he was or where he was going, they had a chance. 

For her part in it, Ziva felt like she’d wasted time and resources. Tony and McGee could have just as easily gone to Berlin and did what she and Tony had accomplished. For that matter, she could have set Adam and Tony up, though that would have ended with a brother caught and probably Tony arrested for god knows what. Either way, Ziva settled into the front seat of Tony’s car feeling no more useful than she had when they left, but grateful nonetheless that nothing more had happened during their short time in Germany. 

The dark velvet bag sat in Ziva’s clutches, holding it safely until they could get to the Navy Yard and pass the evidence onto Abby to dissect all she could about where the diamonds came from, as if there might be a shred more evidence to help their case. 

She fidgeted with the tassels that kept the bag closed and pulled them apart. Inside she found a diamond ring, ostentatious and very much not her style, but she pulled it out anyway, hovering it over her ring finger where someday something might sit. 

Tony’s eyes glanced for a second away from the road to watch her and all it took was a second for his stomach to drop at the sight of the wonderfully closed off, hard to read, difficult to love Ziva David thinking about where an engagement ring would go and where a wedding band would accompany it eventually. 

“Looks good on you,” Tony hoped the words sounded easy leaving his mouth, because his throat was dry and his nerve endings twitched with little control. 

“It is funny… the things we decide are worth something.” 

Was it though? It didn’t seem all that funny with the two people in the car who were working out just what was important to them and their growing family. It was starting to become clearer and clearer what was in fact very important and that was: each other. The little things they held dear about the other, the big ways they were having to step up and grasp at the idea that they would be parents together. It was not funny that Ziva finally felt comfortable enough with anyone to tell the story of the destruction of her family, something that had been playing as flashbacks in her head since Orli sauntered through the bullpen. The tears that pricked her eyes, that she let swell because it was just her and Tony, was a sign that it was not fate’s funny little timing that led to sharing, but the idea that Tony’s listening ears were something now important to her. 

They pulled up to a stoplight and Tony finally got to look at Ziva, but he found less strife and more sadness than he expected. 

“You know I keep thinking if it was not for Orli, things would have been different. I would be a different person,” Ziva’s voice and thoughts steadied. 

“Then I should catch her before she leaves,” Tony slipped his hand to Ziva’s and intertwined their fingers, a gentle reminder that he was there, in more ways than just in that car. “You know and thank her.” 

And he meant it. He would thank every person who had ever changed Ziva for the good, bad or better because no matter how strange and challenging and lengthy their journey had been to admit feelings, it had been worth it. Anthony DiNozzo did not for even a second want to love someone else or live with someone else or have a baby with someone else. He was so certain the exact version of the woman he wanted was the one that sat next to him, a single tear running down her cheek, the obvious swell of her stomach a constant physical reminder of their baby girl, the tiniest of smiles that tugged at the side of her mouth at his words, that was the woman he wanted to love. So maybe he did owe Orli a thank you for being a part of giving him the woman he needed, he wanted. 

Tony turned his head to watch the light change from red to green. He eased onto the gas pedal, trying to get them that much closer to headquarters, so they could be that much closer to home, to their bed, to the hot shower he knew Ziva wanted, to some strange combination of snacks that she would request and he would fulfill. 

“Tony…” Ziva started. She wanted to thank him, to share some kind of gratitude with a man who sat next to her and allowed her every minute of vulnerability she never normally would have needed. 

But in the blink of an eye, instantaneously, with bright headlights barreling toward them, was the thing that Ziva had been worried about: something happening to any of them. 

Instead it would happen to all of them.

Chapter Text

The air reeked of iron and salt. Of the blood dripping down Tony’s face and onto his lips. 

Everything was a blur. Tony’s world was in a haze and as his eyes struggled to open, the only thing he could hear was the raging sound of a car horn. It was loud and obnoxious and Tony wished anything but it would become clear. His ears rang and the blood was still rolling down his face. 

Where was the blood coming from?

Tony’s hand moved toward his face, it swerved and veered, the half conscious version of himself battled with the fine motor skills he knew he had, but couldn’t access. When his fingers finally touched his face, the bright red coated his fingertips. 

Something moved. His eyes could barely focus, but something outside the passenger door moved. 

Passenger. Ziva. 

Ziva was in the passenger seat, head dropped back against the headrest, far less conscious than he was. Tony's stomach dropped so hard he wondered if he might throw up.

But then it moved again, this time closer to the smashed window of the passenger seat, accounting for the shards of glass around Ziva’s feet that reflected the light from the street lamp. One glowed right above the car, illuminating all too well Ziva’s current state and only making the vile bubbling of acid in Tony’s stomach worse. 

A hand reached through the broken window. Tony could tell simply because of size, shape and the way it snaked down by Ziva’s feet that it could only be an arm and hand.

Another car pulled up, he could hear the engine. 

“You both should have stayed out of it,” A voice that sounded far more distant than it was, spoke smugly.

Tony blinked hard against the fog that coated his brain, wracking his mind for who it could have been. It was eerily familiar, but that wasn’t enough. Familiar did not tell him who it was, did not explain in its fullest form who was speaking.

“All three of you would have been better off,” That statement made a chill run down Tony's spine. Someone, some man, he could figure out that much, was not going to show up in the shadows after running them down at an intersection, assuming the person speaking and the car that hit them all led back to the same place of origin, and make a veiled threat that included their unborn daughter. 

Tony’s hands shook as he reached for his gun. He fumbled miserably to get it out of the holster at his waist, like his hand had never grasped it before, had never needed it quickly and succinctly in a moment of panic before. But he had. If there was even a second to think about something else, Tony could have made a joke that this was not his first rodeo, but there wasn’t a second to waste. The SIG felt cold in his hand, though it didn’t matter, all that mattered is he clasped it like he was supposed to, exerting all of his energy to remember the years of training he had.

It unsteadily pointed past Ziva and out the window. 

A chuckle from the man outside the car made Tony almost pull the trigger. “Nice try, DiNozzo. I have what I need,” He shook something. It was small, but the fragile pieces of Tony’s mind were not yet sure what it was. “Tell Ziva I warned her.” 

Fuck him, Tony thought. Pull the trigger. You can pull the goddamn trigger.

The man chuckled, like a frigid asshole who didn’t care at all what destruction he had caused. “What are you going to do? Does not seem like much.”

Pull it. Do it, DiNozzo. Shit just do it.

And then his eyes caught Ziva again. He thought he saw her move. A little grimace on her face that he was certain wasn’t there before. 

For fuckssake, do it for them. Get a grip, they need you.

With a scoff and a turn on his heels, the man started to walk away and that was the chance Tony had. He either took it or this person got away. He had to do it. He had to do what needed to be done and instantly because Ziva needed him. 

The gunshot seemed louder than normal and missed, sailing straight through the rear window of the car that had pulled up after the accident. The car sped off into the night, leaving behind its pickup; apparently he was not worth waiting for or getting shot for.

Then he was angry. Then he was furious with himself. When the man looked back at the car and smirked at Tony’s inability, he was livid. When the gun went off again, in quick succession sending multiple bullets from its barrel, Tony did not miss. The painful groan of a bullet hitting the intended target and the sound of his body hitting the ground were all Tony required. He had no desire to care where he hit him or the repercussions; all Anthony DiNozzo needed was to have won the battle and move on to the thing that scared him back to full consciousness: the condition of both Ziva and their baby.  

The gun fell from his hands, or must have.

“Zivs? Ziva? Ziva please?” Tony wrenched his seatbelt off. His hands clasped either side of her face and willed her eyes to open. He needed her deep brown ones to meet his green and assure him that at the very least she’d wake up. “Ziva. Please!” 

There was nothing. No response. 

Tony allowed his hands to slowly leave her face. He searched his pockets for his phone where he thought he left it, but came up empty and that wasn’t good enough. 

Raging and worried and scared out of his mind, Tony climbed out of his seat and surged to the other side of the car. 

He needed a phone.

He needed to call for help. 

He needed Ziva to wake up.

The passenger door was bashed in, dented beyond recognition. Tony struggled to open it, yanking on the handle until he thought his arm would come out of his socket, little did he know. Through the broken glass, trying not to cut himself, he reached in and pounded the door open from the inside. It crashed open loudly, as the sound of screeching metal filled the air. 

“Ziva!” He tried again. 

Nothing.

But he found a phone on the floor, hers, and quickly dialed 911. The operator on the other side of the line implored Tony to calm down and he didn’t listen for a second as he begged them to send someone immediately. Just please get someone here, please, they need help he nearly cried through the speaker of the phone. He barely recognized the sound of his own voice. 

Tony thought he heard sirens in the distance, but then he wondered if it was all in his imagination because he was so desperate for anyone to show up and help him. 

“Ziva! Ziva please. Baby, please. Just please wake up,” Dread coated every word. 

A groan. Small and barely detectable. 

“Ziva? Zi? I’m right here, Ziva. Just come on.”

Her head rolled toward the sound of his voice. 

“Come on, Zi. It’s me, okay? Can you hear me?”

Her eyes fluttered for a moment, but did not open. 

“Here,” Tony took her hand. “Squeeze my hand. Can you squeeze it? Ziva, please. Anything.”

She had no visible injuries that he could see. Though that meant little, there were a million different things that could have been happening that he’d never see and never know until someone with the right credentials could help her. What wasn’t seen was so much scarier than what he could visibly take inventory of.

“Just squeeze my hand, Ziva. Can you do that?”

Her grip tightened for a second and then released, but it was a second long enough for Tony to know she was hearing him.

“Yes, yes, just like that Zi. Can you look at me? Can you open your eyes?” 

Her dark lashes parted ever so slightly.

The sound of sirens was now distinct, getting closer and closer to them, though still not moving fast enough for Tony’s liking. If it were up to him, they’d have been there minutes earlier.

“Help is coming, Zivs. Okay? They’re coming.” 

“Mmmm,” It was a decipherable sound. Was it an acknowledgement? Was it Ziva’s only way to let Tony know she was in pain because she did not have the ability to be any louder, any more direct? 

“What is it, Zi? Does something hurt? The baby? Is it the baby?” Tony didn’t want her to answer the second question because it terrified him what the answer might be. “Ziva keep trying. What is it?” 

“Ton…” She could not finish his name. 

“Yes. Yes. I’m right here,” Tony gripped her hand, harder this time than before and Ziva reciprocated to the best of her ability. He shouldn’t have dared to ask his next question and yet he did it anyway, knowing that on the other side could be an answer that was worse than the entire scene he was already existing in. “Can you feel her, Zi, the baby?” 

He could have sworn she shook her head. 

“Are you sure? You have to be sure. You can’t feel her? You have to! You have to…” Tony pressed the palm of his hand against her stomach, hoping beyond hope and reason that the little feet and hands that frequently pattered against the touch of someone from the outside, would show themselves. He ached for the thrilling feeling of their baby girl communicating with him. Suddenly, all those times he’d taken it for granted, placing a soft hand on Ziva’s belly and never being disappointed, replayed in his head. When they were on the couch and it was casual. When Ziva would complain about the way the baby always reacted to his voice when they were trying to have a conversation. When he would corner her in the breakroom and beg for just a couple of seconds to feel Tali roll around, like an addict who needed it, but in a way that was so sweet, Ziva always said yes after she first rolled her eyes. 

The sirens were on top of them now, blue and red lights lit up the scene. Destruction made vibrant when it was no longer a single street lamp to light what Tony wished was still in the dark. 

“Sir!” The paramedic’s voice echoed, as he and a crowd of people exited the vehicle. 

Tony’s head snapped up and the smallest, tiniest wave of relief blew through him. “Help her. You have to help her.” 

They were on her like life-saving piranhas. “How far along is she?” 

“Thirt… Thirty…” His mouth was dry and fear tugged on his words, weighing them down as he tried to get them out. “Thirty three weeks.” 

And then question after question, some of which Tony could answer and others he couldn’t. His own loss of consciousness finally caught up to him because there were moments that were entirely blank when someone needed an answer, another tactic for making him feel useless, not that it was hard. 

“Sir, someone needs to look at you.” 

“I’m fine, worry about her,” Tony stood over the men and women trying to do their job. 

“We have to check…” 

“Tony?” It was so quiet that if he had not been tuned in only to Ziva, working to ignore everyone else, he would have missed it. 

“Zi, I’m here. I’m right here,” But his body was blocked from getting any closer to the mother of his child as the stretcher locked into place underneath her still very limp body. It was a sight straight out of a horror movie and not one that Tony ever wanted to watch again. “Ziva!” 

“Sir, please.”  

“Tony!” The ever recognizable sound of a scolding directly from Gibbs unexpectedly stopped Tony from the physical altercation he wanted to start with the paramedic acting as a barrier between himself and Ziva. 

“Tell this asshat I have to go with her.” 

“Not until you get checked out,” Gibbs did not supply Tony with the answer he wanted. 

“No,” Tony objected. “She needs me.” 

“She needs you to be okay.” 

“I am. And what the hell are you doing here?” 

“You told the 911 operator you were NCIS.” 

Tony shook his head. “No I didn’t.” 

“Yes you did,” Gibbs moved close enough now to look Tony directly in the eye. “You need to be checked out. Do not argue with me.” 

Tony would have continued to argue had he not heard the sound of wheels rolling on the asphalt. The distinct sound of the gurney with Ziva on it leaving the scene to be loaded in an ambulance all by herself with little idea of what was happening and nothing seemed more tortuous to Tony who wanted to pull his gun again, not even on his person, until someone, anyone, agreed to let him go with her. 

“But…” 

“What did I just say DiNozzo?”

It took in total three minutes to determine Tony’s nose was probably broken, accounting for all the blood that had been on his face, and it would need to be reset. He didn’t care, barely took into consideration the suggestion of the paramedic and nearly ran the poor man over chasing Gibbs to his car. A broken nose was nothing compared to his need to get to Ziva. 

All he kept seeing was the scared version of her that would, hopefully, wake up in the back of that ambulance by herself to unfamiliar faces having no idea what had happened. He would have given all of his limbs for that to be him. Why could he not have been the one on the side they hit? Why did it have to be Ziva? Why did it have to be their baby girl? Enough things hadn’t already happened that something else needed to go so seriously wrong? Tony pictured a panicked version of the woman he desperately loved and the cruelty that was being kept from her. No car could get him to Bethesda fast enough to be with her. 

“Who killed Bodnar?” 

Tony stopped dead in his tracks, door handle in hand. “What?” 

“Bodnar? You shoot him?” Gibbs gruffly asked, even if he thought he knew the answer. 

“It was Bodnar?” 

“You didn’t know?” 

Tony thought back to pulling the trigger, to missing the first shot and then angrily firing again. Of course it was Bodnar. It could not have been anyone else. And the diamonds. That was what he had been reaching for when Tony’s world had still been so blurry everything had been barely recognizable fuzzy actions. He needed those diamonds or everything he had done up until that point was pointless. Bodnar was not a man who would be stopped by two piddling NCIS agents, even if one had the same training as him and he certainly was not going to be turned in by his own brother. 

No remorse was felt by Tony, not for a single millisecond. 

“I should have known.” 

“Where’s your weapon?” 

“I don’t know, probably in the car. Can we fucking go please?” 

Gibbs said nothing, but when he opened his car door and got into the driver’s seat, Tony took that as his invitation to get in, as well.

“She’ll be okay,” Gibbs flipped on the siren and gunned it away from what was now a crime scene. One that once again involved his people.

“It’s not only her.”  

"They will be fine.” 

“And if they’re not?” 

Gibbs knew all too well about the if they weren’t. He was living it every day, even after all those years and his own vigilantism.  There was not a cure for that kind of loss. If there was, in the car with the city blurring past them, would have been the time for him to share it with Tony. Ziva was not Tony’s wife, but there was a clear understanding that in this situation, in comparison to Gibbs’ own heartbreaking tragedy, she might as well have been. The daughter, that they shared. Except Gibbs would never have traded his few years with Kelly for the ones Tony might never get with Tali. 

So no, there was no antidote for what Tony was feeling other than Gibbs lying through his teeth that his gut was certain they would be fine. It was better than doing nothing at all. 

“Both of them are going to be fine,” Gibbs repeated. 

With each passing second, Tony felt the growing numbness because while he wanted to be with Ziva, while he wanted to hold on for dear life to that hand he had begged to grip his own earlier, it was also too terrifying to ponder what state she would be in when he finally held that hand. Was it better to not hold it at all? Or was it worse to know that there was a likelihood that the only comfort he could offer when she needed them desperately was a stupid intertwining of their fingers?

“I can’t lose them, Gibbs. I can’t,” Anger so urgently mixed with Tony’s numbness and his hand crashed hard on the dash, making a sound loud enough that even ever stoic Gibbs looked over to him. He wanted something to punch. He needed someone to scream at. He needed anything. “They’re my entire life.” 

The admission hung heavy in the air. 

It was not news to Tony, but to formulate a sentence that came out as those words in that order, was different than thinking it to himself every single day. The moment the shock of the news had worn off, his world’s axis maneuvered to revolve around Ziva and their baby. A shift so easy to make because all he had ever wanted was the dark haired mysterious woman who sauntered into the bullpen unannounced and little did he know, until he knew, that he had also always wanted a life with her that was more than teasing and taunting and pretending there was nothing between them. The house. The child. The weaving of their existences together infinitely.  

“Does she know that?” 

“I hope.” 

“You better make sure she does when you see her. You’ll regret it forever if she doesn’t," That was the one thing Gibbs did not regret; he knew that Shannon and Kelly knew how much they were loved. The tiniest sliver of solace. 

“I love her. I love them.” 

“Know you do.” 

Gibbs couldn’t even stop the car before Tony was flying out of it at the entrance to the Emergency Room. The screaming bright red letters above the door were as loud as Tony’s rampaging thoughts. 

It was eerily quiet in the waiting room. A few seats occupied by patients and the people who had accompanied them, faces Tony did not register and would never remember. The faintest of music played over speakers in the ceilings, inappropriate pop hits that had no place in an ER. The lights were bright and harsh against the white walls and floors. But it was the stillness that made Tony’s heart race; it felt like it would bolt out of his chest if he didn’t take a deep breath. He couldn’t though. He wouldn’t until he saw Ziva. 

The nurses station a few feet away from the door had bright spring decorations adorning it, as if that would soften the blow for anyone who had to enter the department. It didn’t work. In fact, they made Tony want to tear them into little bits of confetti. 

“Can I help you?” The look in the nurses eyes made Tony remember his shirt was covered in blood, some of it still probably lingered on his face, as well. He looked like he belonged, like he was in the right place. Except it was so wrong. 

“My…” His what? Girlfriend? Love of his life? Wife someday if they all survived long enough to make it to an altar? 

“Are you looking for someone?”

“David… uhh Ziva. Ziva David. Where is she?”

Chapter Text

“Ziva David. Thirty-one year old female. Thirty-three weeks pregnant. T-boned in an intersection, impact on her side in the passenger seat.” 

She was being talked about like she wasn’t even there, like she had not finally opened her eyes and been able to keep them open for more than a few fumbling seconds where all she could hope to do was see anything that answered to her what was going on. She supposed, at the very least, the man’s voice that spoke of her existence without her permission, filled in some gaps. Horrible, terrifying gaps, but gaps nonetheless. Ziva at least knew now to be utterly fearful of whatever was going to happen next. 

“Suspected dislocated shoulder. BP and heart rate are elevated.” 

Ziva’s heart rate felt far more than elevated. With every word she heard about her own condition she felt the beats quicken; she could feel it beating against her chest, almost painfully so, moving fast but constricted by her own inability to catch her breath. 

“One, two, three,” Her body levitated in the air and landed almost softly on something that was at least more comfortable than the gurney she’d been on. 

That was the first time she had been conscious enough to really feel the pain, the searing agony that emanated from her shoulder and bolted all the way down her right arm. A gasp escaped her, loud and foreign coming from her. Ziva did not react, she was trained not to do so, but the anguish of being moved was too much and all of that training was useless when she probably really needed it. Nausea rolled through her. It was that awful. 

Gentle hands made contact with her sore shoulder. They did their best to be kind but it was no use. Her stomach felt like ocean waves crashing around a rumbling acid, worsened by every moment of contact.

Feet shuffled out of the room and into it. Muffled voices, some of them she was sure were whispering and some she wondered if it was her own brain’s inability to hear them at full volume. People were working all around her, but she only caught quick glimpses of faces she wouldn’t remember and the searing bright white lights recessed into the ceiling. 

More hands on her injured shoulder and she could feel the trembling of her hand because of the pain, shaking next to the leg of her pants where it laid limp. 

A different voice, a woman’s this time was clear enough for Ziva to hear. “Labor and Delivery is waiting for her. Ortho will meet her up there.” 

Thirty-three weeks pregnant.

Her baby. Her daughter. 

Her left hand searched her stomach, still round and taught, but there was no response. She expected a response. Ziva knew that when she initiated, Tali answered with a foot or a hand or a sharp elbow that made her mother inhale at its discomfort. Her baby never stopped moving. Lodging feet constantly in her rib cage, head butting her bladder so that Tony was constantly giving her shit about moving her desk into the ladies room. Panicked fingers pressed where she wanted, no, needed to feel the baby move and there was nothing in return.

“...You can’t feel her? You have to! You have to…” Someone had said that, someone had begged for her to have an answer.

Tony. 

It had to have been Tony. Who else would it have been?

Instead of feeling her baby move, Ziva felt the slow contraction of her stomach. Suddenly it was rock hard under her hand and if Tali moved she wouldn’t have felt it. A groan echoed in her own ears from the discomfort. Not pain, not like the way her shoulder felt, but it still left Ziva uneasy.

“We’re getting you upstairs, Ziva, okay? They will take care of you and your baby.”

The sound of her name on a stranger's tongue did little to comfort her.

Everything just kept moving. That was the one thing Ziva was certain of. It all moved and fast and without her endorsement. She silently begged for it all to stop, even just for a few minutes, long enough for her mind to process what her body was feeling and what was supposed to happen next. They raced down a hallway and onto an elevator as fast as her heart was still beating. 

They will take care of you and your baby and she wanted to tell them to only worry about the baby.

Ziva willed herself to focus while they were still, confined in the little metal box that moved them upward. Elevators had a funny way of being too big a part of her life. Stopped at the hands of a gray haired man that believed they were the best conference room money could buy. Stuck in one with a man who only became a permanent part of her life after all those hours in confinement were a nudge in what they might both now agree was the right direction. Now her life felt like it hung in the balance of one with strangers on either side of her and she wondered when she could get off the ride. 

And when she got off, then what happened? Her life. She couldn’t find a molecule of herself that cared as much about it as her daughter’s. Her daughter who she worried hadn’t ever been in her arms and now wouldn’t be. The world had played many cruel jokes on Ziva, but this one felt the cruelest. And maybe, she thought, she was only supposed to be teased with this thing that she had not realized she wanted so much until it was possibly going to be taken from her. 

She was too attached. Too close to it all and had allowed her walls to come down. Buying clothes and a stroller and moving in together and finally telling Tony something she’d known for so long it had weaved its way into every crevice of her life and that only made it harder to speak out loud. All of these things because for just a while Ziva thought she had finally earned something resembling a happy ending, or a happier ending than she had yet to experience. The fortress that had protected her so boldly with stone walls and barbed wire fell to the ground because she finally had not needed it; she traded the castle on top of the hill for a man and a baby and a future that revolved around something other than being scared of a life she saw only for others. Foolish of her to think that anything so joyous could last. She knew better and now if her heart broke, Ziva may never recover. 

They got off the elevator and in the blink of an eye she found herself in a room, people flooding in one right after the other. It was louder, more chaotic than it had been in the ER and Ziva hadn’t been sure that was possible. A nod to the severity of whatever they all thought was going on.

She felt cold hands pull up the hem of her shirt and expose her stomach. “Monitor.” 

Something wrapped around her belly and she had no idea what it was for. 

“IV has to go in the left.” 

For the first time since she arrived at the hospital, Ziva’s eyes focused on a face. A nurse, probably about her age came into her view, pulling on blue latex gloves. The slightest smile met Ziva’s gaze. 

“I’m good at this,” She was referring to placing the IV. She used her index and middle finger to press on Ziva’s veins on her forearm, behind her elbow, deciding which one was best. Another woman showed up over the shoulder of Ziva’s new friend, whispered something quickly, and moved on. “They have to do a pelvic exam, okay? It’s not the most exciting way to be undressed, but they don’t mean anything by it.” 

Ziva didn’t respond, but felt the smallest bit of comfort from this woman who was speaking to her and not about her, who was talking to her like another adult, like she cared. Ziva believed she did.

“Do you know what you’re having?” This woman who was not for a moment missing the steps of her job, but could see that her patient needed someone who was on her team, who was with her and not just surrounding her. Clothes slipped from her body, replaced with a thin blanket, but modesty was the least of Ziva’s worries and she’d been warned.

“Umm yes. It is..” Ziva fumbled over her words, distracted by all that was happening. “It is a girl.” 

“Well we are going to take great care of her.” 

“What is going to happen?” Ziva regretted the question as soon as she asked it. 

The nurse expertly inserted the needle into Ziva’s vein and she was so preoccupied waiting for an answer she might not want to hear, Ziva barely noticed. “That monitor they just put on you is for the baby’s heartrate. It looks like it’s a little slower than we’d like, but they’re watching it. An ultrasound tech is on their way up right now so we can take a look. Pelvic exam is seeming normal, from what I can tell. Can I be honest?” 

Ziva nodded, with wide, concerned eyes. 

“You’re not bleeding and not having noticeable contractions. That’s a lot better than expected given the circumstances, but that can change really quick.” 

It seemed like she had more to say, but was cut off by the way Ziva inhaled at the feeling of stomach hardening again, gripping around her daughter. She tried to shift away, but was quickly reminded that her shoulder wouldn’t allow such movement; a sharper inhale yet crept through Ziva’s clenched teeth.

“What does that feel like?” 

Ziva tried to breathe in through her nose and out of her mouth, not because of any additional pain but to try and manage the panic that sat on her chest like an elephant because whatever was happening wasn’t supposed to be.

“Ziva, do they hurt?” 

She shook her head. 

“Then what does it feel like?”

“The.. the fake ones… I do not…” 

“Have you been having those recently?” 

“For the last week or so.” 

“Not new, that’s good,” She placed a piece of clear tape over the IV to keep it in place, expertly finishing up with no fuss. When she looked at Ziva, whose eyes were stuck on her because who else was she supposed to attach herself to in such a situation, the nurse finally had an inquiry that really mattered to Ziva. “Who can we get for you? Is there someone we can call?” 

“I do not know where he is.”

“Who? Dad?” 

Ziva nodded. 

“Was he in the car with you?” 

“Yes, but I think he was okay. I guess… I do not…” 

“Let me see what I can do,” And the determined look in her eyes made Ziva certain that she would do everything she could to find Tony. 

Ziva had to believe he was there waiting for her somewhere, if he could be. She remembered so little and what she did was in fragments. But he was talking to her, pleading with her, if he wasn’t okay then he couldn’t have been doing that. Ziva was not confident in anything anymore, other than if Tony could chase her down and be by her side, he was trying to. 

The revolving door that was her hospital room door swung open in a huff and someone new came in, while others exited. Ziva was tired, her eyes felt heavy and exhausted already by all of the anxiety that was strangling every part of her body. But how dare she think of being drained when nobody could tell her yet what was going to happen to a baby that relied on her? 

For just a moment her eyes closed against all of her will to not, but it was so short lived. Interrupted by the gasping, desperate screeching of her name by a familiar voice. 

“Ziva!” 

Tony’s eyes were frantic, scared almost beyond recognition. Where his green irises usually offered Ziva the comfort she could not create for herself, somewhere she looked to when all else had failed her and she couldn’t keep herself afloat, was now a look that told her he was no more capable of offering a safe haven than she felt she was for their daughter. Two people as equally as lost over where they went next because it was not for them to say. 

And Ziva crumbled. 

Under his fearful examination of her, his shirt collar coated in blood, his body language more defeated than she felt and Ziva could no longer hold onto something she hadn’t grasped was on the verge of tumbling out. 

Tears rolled down her face, so uncharacteristically, that she watched Tony recoil. 

Someone pushed past him, hurtling into the room without a care in the world as to who or what was in their way. Ziva, between ragged breaths, assumed that was the only way to come into a situation like this: assume they’re needed for the worst. 

“Tony?” But Ziva wasn’t sure if she said it out loud and if she had, it was so quiet there was no way he could have heard her over the commotion. 

She knew she shouldn’t beg, it was unbecoming, even given the situation. Except she needed him, like water, like air. She needed him to be close enough that she could smell the cologne he’d been wearing since the day she met him. She needed him close enough that her fingers could wrench themselves around his and convince him to not to leave, even if this was once again in the utmost twisted way her fault. She needed to feel the warmth of his body when her blood ran cold over the idea that not only was her happy ending slipping away, but so was his. And he was so far away, watching her at a distance because maybe he couldn’t get any closer to someone who had hurt him, no matter that she never meant to.

“This is going to be cold, Mom,” The nurse's voice was not so close now. 

Still with tears rolling down her cheeks, Ziva looked away from Tony, away from the man she so badly wanted by her side, but understandably had his own trepidations. Instead she watched the recognizable blue gel they used at any normal OB appointment meet her bare skin, a shiver ran up her spine, both at its chill and what it meant: the image they were about to look at could be life-altering. 

Please, please, Ziva begged silently and to whom she wasn’t sure. Just let her be okay. She has to be, please. She has to be. My baby.

The images of the future that Ziva had quietly conjured in her mind played like a slide show. She had pictured what it would feel like the first time she held her daughter. She had pictured her wearing the sweet little outfits that hung in the closet, so expertly organized by a mom who had once been so excited for them. She saw the first time she would look at Tony and he would be dad, abba, no longer just the man preparing for the role. The first moments when their team would meet her and she’d be inducted into their mismatched family. Every instance that made a woman like Ziva, who did not do such things, day dream felt like they slipped right through her fingers. 

Things were spoken among people who were not her and what she could decipher of a little black and white screen looked like static on a TV screen, no baby in sight. How could that be? How could she just disappear so quickly? 

The torture of her inability to understand, led Ziva back to Tony. He stood helplessly looking at her, unmoving. 

Maybe if they said the baby was okay. Maybe if they at least assured both parents audibly that at the very least they hadn’t lost her, he could come closer. He could share space with her without feeling whatever it was that kept him at arm’s length. God, she just couldn’t stand to be looked at like that, like he was struggling to not be a cold asshole, but it was more comfortable than pretending he wasn’t also hurting. 

The nurse reappeared by Ziva’s side, filling the gap between her and Tony. “Looks good so far.”

“She does?” Ziva hated the hopefulness that she could hear in her own voice. 

“You’re both really, really lucky.”

They’d have been a lot luckier if it hadn’t happened at all. 

There were a lot of words, most of which Ziva could not follow, whether that was because conceptually they were out of her league or if because after the OB repeated how utterly lucky it was that either her or the baby were evidently left mostly unharmed, she stopped hearing. Either way, words flew, bounced off the walls, bodies left with no new additions taking their places. The nurse Ziva grew fond of, and would be there until her shift ended later that morning. Ziva was staying put for the time being, watchful eyes on her for a while longer to ensure the luck didn’t wear off. 

Still, Tony remained in the spot he seemed frozen in. 

A warm blanket appeared on Ziva’s shivering body; she’d not even noticed how cold she’d gotten since her clothes were removed the rest of the way and traded for a gown that smelled a little too much of sterility. 

“I thought I lost you.” 

The words were reticent, as if Tony was talking to himself, working through all of his thoughts and so Ziva remained silent. 

“I thought I lost both of you.” 

He was right to think that. What other options were there? Tony was right to have been scared, to still be scared, but it didn’t make it hurt any less that keeping his distance was how he was coping. Ziva’s own emotions wanted more from him. A reassuring touch. A soft kiss to her hairline. She would even take his willingness to stand a foot closer to her. 

“I don’t…” Tony trailed off. “Fuck.” He ran a hand through his disheveled hair, staring out the hospital room window at nearly nothing.

Ziva was trying to decipher whether or not it was anger or terror or what that had him unable to form a sentence. 

“I’m sorry,” And she was. She was so, so, so sorry that Tony had to be put in a position where looking at her was hard because he didn’t know if he would again. 

His head snapped around so fast that if the car accident hadn’t supplied him with a case of whiplash, he’d just given it to himself. His eyes narrowed and for a moment Ziva was frightened to find out just why he had reacted in such a manner, convinced that she had really done it this time. He had finally had enough of the baggage she came with and it was about damn time she heard about it. Rightfully so , she thought. But she was wrong, so very wrong and Tony suddenly seemed to comprehend that his actions had convinced Ziva she was in the wrong, like she’d ordered the car crash and not a demented man who was now in Ducky’s morgue. Ziva watched him break the space between them, only needing three steps to cover the ground. She was garnered with both things she’d privately begged for: his gentle grasp on her wrist, below her IV and his lips meeting her hair line, lingering for a second longer than they needed to.

“I love you,” His voice wavered, not because he didn’t mean it, but because it was so thick with emotion. “I love you so fucking much, do you know that?” 

It was a raw admission, not a new one, but the most honest version of it. Ziva had no room to question how much Tony meant what he was saying. A chill coursed through her and it was not because she was cold, it was because she felt the exact same way and nothing, nothing , was more petrifying than knowing that. To feel so deeply about a person and have it reciprocated was the most terrifying thing Ziva David had ever felt. 

“I know,” She barely got out. “I know.” 

“A wise man told me to make sure you knew that and…” 

Ziva cut him off, surprise reflected in every part of her face. “Tony.” 

Where she was surprised, Tony was confused. “What?” 

Chin trembling and the tears returning, Ziva could hardly believe she could utter the words to Tony, but she did. “I felt her.” 

Her being the baby. Their daughter. The same one who hours earlier could have just as easily been mourned. Below Ziva’s ribcage was a well known and well loved foot, reminding her mother that in fact the little girl her parents were enamored with was still very much there. 

Ima wasted no time placing Abba’s hand in the exact spot where he was given his own little hello of sorts. 

Relief flooded the room and perhaps the first real breaths either of them had taken in hours filled their lungs.

Chapter Text

“Zi?” Tony’s voice carried through the brownstone. 

He dropped his backpack by the door, where inevitably Ziva would see it later and remind him there was a hook by the door for a reason. He installed it, he remembered, he just chose to also ignore it.

“Ziva?” 

Still no response, which always made Tony nervous. Especially given what had happened. His mind had the great misfortune of always assuming the worst because in the long time that he’d known Ziva and the short time she’d been growing their daughter, the worst was never far from knocking on their door. Someday his paranoia might lessen, but then again, once there was a baby in the house there was no chance it would improve for a good eighteen years.

His gut said go upstairs before he sounded the alarms and his gut would be right.

As he ascended the stairs, two at a time because of course there was no time to waste, it became clear that Ziva was in fact not in danger, but actually just in the shower. He could hear the running water and when he entered their master bedroom, the steam rolled underneath the crack in the door from their bathroom. He actually should have known better. It was just about that time of day. 

Ziva had been put on leave for the remainder of her pregnancy. She had fought it tooth and nail or tongue and hammer if anyone asked her, but there was no amount of brawling she could take on in her third trimester against Gibbs and Vance that would convince either of them her being at the Navy Yard was necessary. Even desk duty had been taken off the table because not a soul, and Tony was included in that one, trusted her to stay put for eight hours a day five days a week for another six weeks. Not that Tony was convinced leaving her at home guaranteed any better results. Ziva had moped and moped in a way her partner had never thought possible about the decision for a good week after it was made. Tony tried to chalk it up to pregnancy hormones exaggerating her defeat over the whole thing, but really she was just pissed that anyone else was allowed to decide her fate. So in such time, she instead followed a stringent routine at home; her shower was nearly the same time every night. Her routine, though, did little to shut Tony’s brain up.

Tony cracked open the bathroom door, to find Ziva standing in the shower, her forearms pressed against the opposite wall from the showerhead, elbows bent and head resting on her arms. The hot water splashing all onto her lower back where Tony knew it was one of the few things that offered her some relief. 

“Zivs?”

“Hmmm,” Was all he got in return. 

“So nice to see you too,” Tony retorted. 

“Anthony,” Ziva lifted her head and made direct eye contact with him. “Talk to me when you are carrying almost six pounds of human around and are approximately the size of a beached whale.” 

“You got that one right.” 

“DiNozzo,” She seethed through her teeth at his need to once again, as usual, comment on her use of American colloquialisms. 

“What can I say? I’ve always been good at pushing my luck.”

“That is putting it mildly,” Ziva used the wall to aid her in standing up. She flipped the shower off. “Hand me a towel please.” 

Little good it really did. She wrapped it around herself, only to be left with her belly protruding beyond the slit between the ends. Tony's eyes could do nothing but notice, as if he hadn’t seen it every night. As if he hadn’t watched the soft cotton towels do less and less to cover her frame as the weeks went on. Secretly, he at least hoped secretly, he loved it. He was enamored with the way a woman he’d already been so physically attractive to became even more so. 

Ziva shuffled past him. “You are home early.” 

“I can go back to work if you want,” Tony slunk behind her, both of their reflections looking at them from the large mirror above the double sinks. When his hands dug into her back, earning an immediate sigh from Ziva, who folded over the countertop at the pressure, he knew there was no way she’d be worried anymore about what time he got home. “But if I leave now, I’ll have to stop.” 

“Maybe you are good at two things,” Ziva breathed, as she curled toward his touch. 

“Three, Zi. We go into this mess somehow,” She could hear the smirk that was on his face. 

Ziva didn’t give him the time of day with a response. “Why are you home early?”

“Gibbs was feeling incredibly generous, you see. So McGee stayed and he sent me home.”

“To check on me no doubt.”

“He cares, that’s all.” 

She stood up, not that she really wanted to, and turned to look at Tony, who thought that was an invitation to take a hand no longer needed on her back and placed it on her stomach. “So this means you can make dinner?”

“Actually,” Tony started. “I was thinking we could go get dinner. You and me, somewhere that’s not our kitchen. You know in a restaurant, with clothes on.”

“I am glad you intend to be dressed.”

“But are you interested? In going with me, you know?” 

Ziva narrowed her eyes at him, clad in a towel in the bathroom they shared in the home that was theirs, pregnant with their daughter and she wondered if this was really what it was. “Tony, are you asking me on a date?”

“I wasn’t going to call it that.”

“A little late for dating, yes?” Ziva put her hand on top of Tony’s and while her words were smart, her face was soft. 

“Are you trying to tell me I should have asked you on a date before I got you pregnant?”

“It might have been the gentlemanly thing to do,” Ziva shrugged.

Tony leaned in, not daring to move his hand, and whispered so close to Ziva’s ear she could feel his breath. “I don’t recall a lot of complaints, David.” 

“There were not many,” She agreed, haughtily. 

Standing up, Tony let out a defeated sigh. “So that’s a no on dinner, I take it?” His plan was wavering. Not that it was essential, not that he wasn’t empathetic to Ziva’s discomfort and her want, probably, not to get dressed up this late in her pregnancy to avenge something she didn’t have the slightest clue about. He should have given her more of a warning, more time for himself to convince her that while she was right, it was a day late and a dollar short, they could still have their first nice evening out before they welcomed their daughter. “It’s fine. We haven’t had a nice relaxing evening in since, oh, last night.”

While Tony tried to keep his voice light, Ziva sensed more behind it. “You really would like to go?” 

“Not that bad, Zi. I know you’re not really up to it.”

“Maybe we can do something else?” 

“Like?”

“Can we get ice cream?” 

A laugh from Tony so immediately escaped from between his lips and filled the bathroom. Of all the damn things. Paper clip killer Ziva David wants to know if they can go get ice cream. She’s looking at him, hopeful dark eyes, in a towel, wondering if their exciting evening out can be getting ice cream. 

It was astonishing the moments when she was so normal, so unexpectedly normal. 

And then in a moment classified only under the heading of ‘very pregnant,’ Tony was almost absolutely certain he saw her chin quiver ever so slightly, her shoulders slumped just enough to notice the difference. The laugh was a knee-jerk reaction not one to make the ninja herself cry. God, their world was getting increasingly weirder. 

“We can get ice cream, Zi,” Tony went for something resembling even keeled with his tone because if he gave away that suddenly he’d go buy her a puppy with her ice cream cone if she’d stop crying, she might still cry, but he might also lose at least a few limbs. 

Tony noticed the breath she had to take to try and return to neutral when all of her emotions were being controlled by an alien invader, a cute one. One that had her nose and based on the heartburn, her wildly curly hair. One that would inherently have Tony’s love for movies and all things Hollywood, but an invader nonetheless; Ziva did not enjoy being out of control. 

“We do not have to,” She tried. 

“Well the clothing thing isn’t optional whether it’s dinner or ice cream.” 

Ziva traipsed down the stairs no less than fifteen minutes later, having run the marathon that is getting dressed in the third trimester. In her hands, were her tennis shoes, handed to Tony to put on for her while she scooted onto the edge of the couch. He double knotted them and never once gave her grief for needing his help in that department; Tony wouldn’t admit it, but if that was the one small thing he could assist with, he’d do it one hundred times a day if she needed. 

“Pop’s?” Tony asked, knowing damn well that was the only correct answer when it came to ice cream. 

Ziva nodded her agreement as Tony helped her back up to her feet. 

He grabbed the keys, gripping them in his hand, so that there was little of the fob for Ziva to see. A few butterflies flapped around his stomach. This was certainly not the biggest surprise of their relationship, that was stowed away comfortably in Ziva. However, with rampant emotions, he was on the edge of his seat wondering how Ziva might react.

“Where is your car?” 

Ziva stood atop the three stairs that led from their front door down to their small driveway outside of the brownstone, inspecting the fact that she had taken all that time getting dressed and forced Tony to put her shoes on to play some kind of game of charades over his car. 

“This is my car, Zi.”

“No it is not.”

“It is as of today.”

“What does that even mean?”

“For a woman who can injure someone with a fork, it’s crazy that you aren’t understanding this,” Tony earned himself a look of daggers and tried again. “Ziva, it is my car. I bought it today. That’s actually why I got home early.”

“You did what?” Disbelief covered her face.

“Oh my god, Ziva. I had to have a car. Don’t know if you recall the totaling of mine, some of it’s still blank for you I know,” Ziva didn’t appreciate his calling out. “I had to get a new car and so,” He gestured like the Price is Right host toward the sleek black SUV. “Tada! My dad mobile.”

“Your ‘dad mobile’?” Ziva scoffed as she descended the stairs, a tad clumsily, to get a better look. 

“Yep, had to have one sooner or later. We can fit the kid and the kid’s stuff. Someday we’ll have all her little friends in here after soccer practice. Well actually she’s half you, so after Karate class. We can take it on road trips. All the things, Zi.”

A soft smile tugged at the corners of Ziva’s mouth as she listened to Tony list more things they could do in his new car with their daughter. He didn’t do a single thing these days that didn’t revolve around her. Simple things. Little things. They went to the grocery store and Tony would talk about the day when Tali could sit in the cart, being pushed around the store. He made dinner, his sauce always, and he’d daydream about when the baby would be in her highchair, taste testing for him, taking the job from her Ima. Every single time they watched a movie, without fail, Tony would tell Ziva he couldn’t wait to show this one to Tali. The man was beyond smitten with a daughter he hadn’t yet met. The car was just another thing on the list for him that may be in his name, but was all for Tali. 

“Come on, Zi. Take a look. Admire my work.”

“Spending money is work?”

“Yes,” Tony didn’t hesitate. “Now just take a look. The leather seats. Lots of cupholders. Spacious backseat.” 

Ziva played along. No matter how ridiculous Tony was, she couldn’t bring herself to crash through his excitement with her wanting to just discover the passenger seat and be driven to the ice cream she’d been thinking about all day; she’d roll her eyes at herself if she could, craving things like some entirely normal pregnant woman and then making requests for it. 

“Come on, Zi. Look at it back here.”

Tony had the back door open on the driver’s seat. So Ziva matched his gesture, by opening the back door on the passenger side. Tinted windows had hidden more than the “spacious” back seat Tony bragged about. Her breath hitched in her throat so fast she nearly choked. 

“They helped me install it at the dealership.”

It was a carseat. Snuggly placed in the middle of the back seat. One that had been viewed on repeat between their two computers, but a decision hadn’t been made because everyone knew how Tony and Ziva made decisions. It seemed perfectly situated in the new dad mobile, like it was made to fit into the car, into their future or maybe it was their present as close as they were to meeting the baby they’d bring home in that very carseat. 

The quiver of Ziva’s chin returned. 

It was astonishing that she was constantly surprised by the things that showed up and reminded her that every day they were closer to never living the same existence that, while they never found comfort in with each other until very recently, they were comfortable living in. Change could be on their doorstep at any moment, if it really wanted. An irreversible change that held excitement and at least some pure terror. 

“I know we weren’t sure we wanted this one, but I wasn’t buying my dad car and not having something to put back there.” 

Ziva nodded, worried that if she tried to respond it would not be with coherent words. 

“And I think it looks great, fits right in. So now when she decides to make her grand entrance into the world we have a way to bring her home.”

“Sure,” Ziva barely whispered. 

“I mean, is it okay? I guess I could return it, if I could ever figure out how to get it back out. It’s damn near rocket science to put it in. Ruined the superdad facade I was trying to have when I needed help.” 

But how did Ziva tell Tony that there wasn’t a single piece of it all that could have been better? And she meant it all. That it couldn’t have been better that he was the father of the baby rolling around in her belly. That he couldn’t have done a better job being the person who reminded her at every turn she was allowed to be excited about finally having the chance at a life not revolving around her father or an agency or a job. He couldn’t have been a better dad without even officially having been bestowed the title by a little girl, presumably with dark eyes and curly hair who took after her mother. How did she look at someone who had managed to make himself insufferably invaluable to her and thank him for once again doing something she’d subconsciously been putting off and all the other things he did every single step of the way? There wasn’t a set of words, pieced together in any order, that was enough. 

“Is it that bad?” 

Ziva pulled herself from the trance that was appreciating Anthony DiNozzo for all that he was behind the closed doors they now shared, would always share. “No, no. It is…” A deep breath, filled with the weight of knowing she should say more, but couldn’t. “It is perfect.” 

And her eyes couldn’t stop glancing over her shoulder the whole fifteen minute drive. Between spurts of conversation with Tony, him filling her in on his car buying experience and doing a run down of everything the car had to offer, her eyes always drifted to the back seat. They were so close to it holding their daughter, nerves and excitement ran simultaneously through Ziva with every look. Now it was her who was daydreaming about the first time she’d join them for an ice cream outing, packed into the car like they would so many other times, they’d be experts about it. 

It was always the smallest things. 

“My lady,” Tony offered his hands after parking, nabbing a prime spot in front of their destination, and opting for the gentlemanly choice of opening Ziva’s door for her. 

“I will celebrate the day I can get out of the damn car by myself.” 

“Well that isn’t today,” Tony eased her out and shut the door. 

The smell of waffle cones filled their noses as they walked into their favorite little spot. Locally owned, with the best handmade ice cream in DC and while Tony had picked up many pints to bring home at Ziva’s request, it was nice to go together. To for a little while feel like any other couple who lived together, who were becoming parents together. 

Ziva ordered her usual, one scoop of chocolate peanut butter and one scoop of cookie dough, Tony his usual, two scoops of rocky road. They paid and stole a table in the corner of the little shop. 

Maybe Tony had wanted to go to some nice dinner and treat Ziva to an evening he thought she deserved, he thought they needed to have if whatever they were was going to keep evolving into what he wanted it to be, but really he just wanted to be with her. He wanted whatever the moments were that were just the two of them before they became the three of them. It had taken them so long to even be the people who lived together and who had an ice cream date without overthinking it, there was still so much work to do and all of it would soon revolve around a baby that changed everything more than it was already morphing in front of them. So ice cream, with Ziva in his Ohio state sweatshirt that she claimed was the only thing that fit her currently, unruly curls drying from her shower around her shoulders, eyes shining when she laughed at one of his ridiculous jokes was actually a perfect night. 

“We’ll bring her here, you know.” 

“I know.” 

“And if she’s anything like her mother, she’ll be obsessed with ice cream, too.” 

“What are you trying to say?” 

“That I hope she’s just like her mother,” Tony’s sheepish grin was nothing but genuine.

Chapter Text

Tony had to believe that the last few weeks of pregnancy felt the exact same as the last few miles of a marathon: riding the high of being so close to the finish line and yet, absolutely exhausted from everything that had already happened. Twenty six point two miles might actually have been easier to finish than the dwindling days with someone like Ziva, whose patience had actually disappeared at around thirty six weeks and would not be returning.

“She is technically full term at thirty seven weeks, I see absolutely no reason for her to wait any longer,” Ziva had commented on the couch, one day shy of full term, feet on Tony’s lap. He was working a pressure point that left her breathless in her request for their daughter to be in the same rush she was.

“She’s as snug as a bug in rug in there, Zivs.” 

“But why would you want a bug in your rug?” 

“You do realize that I actually didn’t come up with all these sayings right?” 

“That does not answer my question.” 

Much to her Ima’s dismay, Tali did not come at thirty seven weeks or even thirty eight. Tony had been right about her being snug and Ziva was on a mission for her to be anything but. 

Tony lost track of how many nights he pulled up to the house in his dad mobile to find Ziva outside walking lap after lap after lap across the curb in front of their house. She’d read somewhere, Tony wasn’t sure if it was from the book he’d bought all those months ago or another maternity blog she’d found online, that curb walking could help start labor. And when Ziva David did something she committed as wholeheartedly as anyone could. So Tony would exit the driver’s seat to find a sweating Ziva, clad in shorts and some t-shirt she’d stolen from his dresser drawer, glistening in the DC summer humidity and no closer to welcoming their daughter. He just knew the neighbors thought she’d lost all of her marbles and honestly he wondered the same, though he never uttered those words to her because he in fact liked all of his body parts intact. 

“This is not funny anymore,” Ziva huffed, pacing in front of Tony, who stood in their quiet street watching her unwavering commitment. 

“I don’t really think it’s ever been funny, Zi.”

“No you are right, it has not,” Still walking, she poked either index finger into the sides of her stomach. “Tali Elizabeth DiNozzo time is up.” 

Elizabeth after Tony’s mom, a sweet tribute they’d discussed and Ziva had insisted on, but the last name was a new one. 

“DiNozzo?” Tony asked with a proud smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth. 

“Yes because she could not be anything else and be this stubborn.” 

“Pot calling the kettle black, ninja.” 

“I will call the kettle whatever I want, Anthony.” 

Tony bit his lip to stifle a laugh that surely would have gotten him beheaded and continued to watch her walk. 

Thirty nine weeks and three days rolled around and not a moment too soon. 

Ziva waddled into the squad room as fast as she ever could, hands full of lunch for the team as a gesture of kindness and as a distraction even if only for a few hours from the fact that she was still pregnant, still not in labor and still waiting on a baby who was giving a run for both of her parents hardheadedness. Imagine still being in the womb and outdoing Ziva David’s stubbornness? Tali’s parents had it coming for them.

“Why you here, Ziver?” Gibbs narrowed his eyes. 

“Because I am actually not on house arrest, even though you may think so, and I thought that bringing lunch might be nice.” 

“That’s code for how she could get into the Navy Yard after being banned by you and Vance,” Tony took the food from Ziva’s hands and started digging through the two bags for what he knew was his. 

“Well I certainly appreciate it, Ziva,” McGee appeared at her side, standing in front of DiNozzo’s desk. He was handed his things, ordered perfectly because Ziva would never get it wrong after eight years. 

“Thank you, McGee,” Ziva told him before grabbing two containers and marching, or attempting to, up to Gibbs’ desk and dropping off his food. “And you are welcome.” 

Gibbs shook his head at her, but the smile on his face said that he’d missed having her around the last few weeks. “That baby ever gonna get here?” 

“God, I wish,” Ziva sighed. “She has her father’s temperament and timing.” 

“Excuse me?” Tony feigned indifference, while chewing a bite of his lunch; some things never changed. “I think it’s unfair to blame all of this on me.” 

“Kinda how it is, DiNozzo,” Gibbs offered little sympathy. 

“How was your appointment?” Tony inquired between bites, genuinely asking. 

Ziva had hoped, prayed even, that she would show up to her appointment and she’d be told she was closer than she was a week earlier. All of the jokes were on her, however. 

“It was fine. Apparently my cervix is very soft and that is considered a good thing.” 

“I don’t think that’s something you should be saying out loud, Ziver.” 

“It does not matter what I do or do not say, this baby is defiant.” 

The defeat in Ziva’s voice was evident to everyone in the bullpen. This was not a woman who complained loudly, but she had also never been waiting on a baby whose schedule was the polar opposite of her own and pushing her to a point she’d been convinced from very early on she wouldn’t have to see. Bold of her to ever think the small stowaway would move in tandem with her mother’s wishes. 

Tony watched her hands shift to her lower back, a deep breath sucked in through her nose and the smallest look of discomfort that she tried to hide covered her face. He knew it meant little, if it had meant more she would have reported such from her appointment, but it didn’t stop him from worrying. They were right on the cusp and while he wished for some sort of relief for Ziva, the actual thought of being the person who was her person when she went into labor was terrifying. And he would be there with his metaphorical bells on, scared to jingle them because it might send Ziva right over the edge; he’d never for a moment be anywhere else. 

Ziva caught Tony’s watchful eye. “Someday these will be worth it.” 

“We gotta work late,” Tony informed her. 

“That is fine. I am sure you will miss nothing.” 

If all it was going to take was Tony working late, Ziva would have hired someone to commit a felony or honestly, she would have committed one herself; a price worth paying if it meant finally inching toward that metaphorical finish line. There were a multitude of crimes she’d have been willing to commit in order to speed along their daughter’s arrival. Most of which she could have gotten away with even heavily pregnant.

Tony’s phone rang just after nine, Ziva’s name flashing on the caller ID. 

“You missed me so much you had to call?” 

“Can you come home?” Her tone was being controlled, Tony could hear it. She was working to be calm and collected and act as if there was no urgency, but Ziva did not call Tony at work, thirty nine weeks pregnant, wondering if he could show up at a moment’s notice just for fun.

“Are you sure?” 

“Yes.” 

“Okay. I’ll be right there,” Tony slammed his finger into the end call button. “Hey boss.” 

“She needs you more than we do.” 

The drive home might have been a blur, but everything became increasingly clear just before Tony shoved his key in the lock. Clear and suddenly overwhelming. He’d never walk back into their home just Anthony DiNozzo, special agent, movie aficionado and class clown. The next time he walked through the door would be with an addition in tow and the most important title he’d ever earned: Dad. Abba. Knowing everything would change and staring it in the face were two very different things, though it was only then that he realized how different. There was no reversal, not that he wanted one, but lacking options made what was happening much heavier than it had seemed when it was merely a discussion. 

Tony took a deep breath that did nothing to calm his nerves. 

Ziva heard the key click in the lock and her eyes snapped up to watch Tony walk across the threshold.

She was balanced on the edge of the sofa, hands behind her propping her up, a tactic to keep some pressure off of her back that was doing little to help the dull ache that did not leave with each passing contraction. Tony’s eyes met hers and he forced a little smile, like he had no idea what else to do or say. Before Ziva could respond, she felt the familiar sensation of her stomach tightening, pain not far behind. 

Tony dropped his bag at the door, showing up by her side instantaneously. It took little thought for him to slip behind her on the couch, placing her between his straddled legs. Was there another choice? Somehow springing into action was what he’d been waiting for. Palms pressing on her lower back, sent Ziva leaning forward. Tony’s hands worked in perfect harmony with her breathing. 

“When did they start?” Tony slipped his hands forward, toward her hips. 

“Around five,” Ziva exhaled. 

“Four hours before you called, Zi?”

“They were almost fifteen minutes apart, until they were not,” She used Tony’s knees to scoot backwards, closer to him. “That is when I called you.” 

“Now?”

“Seven minutes or so,” With absolutely no pretense or hesitation, Ziva let her head fall back on Tony’s chest, like they’d rehearsed the idea and not just fallen into place, as if they regularly practiced handling labor. “I know I was asking for her to hurry up, but she could not have let me sleep for a few hours first?” 

“I don’t think you can have it both ways, Zi.”

There was a calm flitting through the air around them that felt odd, like it should have been replaced with panic and a lot of it. It was not the way Tony had pictured it. Perhaps if he had done the reading Ziva requested he do, it all would have been less shocking, but the cinematic obsessions of his brain had him believing that it all would be dramatic and sudden and rushed. He had fully anticipated Ziva waking him up in the middle of the night, mid contraction, water broken and he’d find himself bolting around the room trying to get dressed quickly enough that it didn’t become his responsibility to deliver their daughter in the car on the way there. At the very least, he had anticipated coming home to find Ziva more worked up about the fact that she was very obviously in labor. He also should have known better than that, but his own fears were compromising his expectations. 

Ziva wouldn’t have been shocked by the images in Tony’s mind of how some of the most important hours of their lives would play out. In fact, she had expected it; it would not have been Tony otherwise. Yet, even with his confused idea of what to expect, Ziva felt an instant ease when he took what was his rightful place behind her, expertly assuming the position of doting partner. Maybe this was the one time that their lack of communication would have little effect on their instincts and it only took eight years, a baby and the early hours of labor to do so.

Tony’s hands nearly reacted faster than her next contraction could start. Hands and breaths in unison. 

Ziva’s head dropped back to Tony’s chest, eyes shutting when it finished.

“Are they… do they… how bad are they?” Tony stumbled, unsure of the correct terminology. 

While Ziva’s eyes remained closed, she still cocked an eyebrow at his question. “They are not fun.” 

“But are they bad?”

“They will get worse.”

“Zivs?” 

“They are not that bad yet, okay?” She opened her eyes to find Tony’s worried green ones staring fiercely at her, like he needed to be assured that she could handle it all. “I will be fine.” 

“I guess you’re sort of trained for this kind of thing. You’ve…” He trailed off, grasping that this was maybe not the time to mention certain moments where it remained unfair that Ziva knew how to handle herself.

“Been through worse?” 

“I wasn’t going to say that.”

“But you were thinking it and it is true. This time at least there is something that makes it worth it in the end.”

She knew Tony meant nothing by it, simply it was him observing the things he’d both witnessed and heard about. It was recognition, it was not a reminder. But he was correct, she was trained to withstand what most would deem insane and for now she found comfort in the knowledge of her own body, what she could manage, what would push her, when she would need more from Tony than both hands on her lower back. Both sides of delivery were far more terrifying. All the months leading up to it when she and Tony were forced by circumstances to admit things they’d long since kept under wraps. Then all the years after where they were bonded together by a knot in their invisible strings. Having a baby was not the scariest or most complicated part of the entire ordeal. It wasn’t easy on its own, but easy in comparison. 

“Mmmm,” Ziva hummed as the discomfort crept in. 

“That was closer to six minutes, Zivs,” Tony looked at his watch and did a horrible job of hiding the worry in his voice. 

“Glad you can tell time,” Ziva chided through gritted teeth. 

There was sort of a restless shift in Ziva. Tony watched as she used him to stand up, distancing herself a few feet away. Her weight shifted between her shoulder width apart feet. He could see her wheels turning, her mind toying with what happened next. And for a while that was all it was: contraction, Ziva swaying to the timing of her inhales and exhales and Tony quietly supervising in case at a moment’s notice he was needed. 

The sharp inhale accompanying her next contraction had Tony on his feet and at attention. “That was only five minutes.”

Ziva nodded, breathing heavier than it had been and no smartass remark available. Another shift closer to what they had been waiting for. 

“What do you need?” 

Ziva just shook her head. 

Tony inched closer and closer, closing the gap between them. “Tell me what you need. Anything, Zi.”

But she wasn’t sure. Did she need anything? Was the sudden sense of overwhelmingness just par for the course given the actual and entirely crazy nature of having a child and turning her world upside down? She was trained and very well, but that was physical not mental and it was quickly becoming evident that where shutting down would formerly have been an option, left alone to her own devices, now she had a partner in a man who would move heaven and earth for her if she simply asked. 

“I do not…” But the next contraction cut her off and instead of answering her hands reached for Tony, landing on his forearms. She was quiet for the time it took and then moved her dark eyes to find his face. “Can I tell you what I would really like?” 

“Of course.” 

“A nap.” 

Tony got a good laugh out of her bluntness. “Unfortunately, I think we actually just never sleep again now.” 

“That is what I am worried about.” 

“Can I get you anything that I can actually get?” 

“A shower, I think.”

“Okay that I can manage.”

“You will get in with me?” Ziva tried to hide the hopefulness she knew he’d heard anyway. However, the idea of hot water and Tony’s hand sounded like a relief she couldn’t get without both of them together.

Leave it to Tony to joke about it instead. “Woah there. I’m not sure now’s the time for that kind of business, Zivs.” 

“Anthon…” But words stopped being important when the very distinct sound of liquid splashing to the floor interrupted Ziva’s scolding. Drops splattered onto her bare ankles and her widening eyes fell as quickly as ever to the floor, as if she needed to stare at it to confirm what she very much already knew. One plausible answer as to why she was suddenly tiptoeing on their hardwood floor. 

“Shit,” Tony blurted out. 

Ziva was quiet, seemingly stunned by the all too movie-like surprise of it all. Where Tony had anticipated this, Ziva had been certain she somehow would be expecting it, perfectly timed like the arrival of their child that hadn’t yet gone to plan, any plan.

“Is that…?” The question wasn’t all that necessary. 

“Yes.” 

“Shit.”

“You said that already,” Ziva huffed. 

“What do we do? Don’t we need to go? Zi, we gotta go right? If we wait, I’ll have to deliver her and I can’t really think of anything worse for me or for you or for her. Oh my god, we have to go.” 

“Anthony DiNozzo,” The seriousness with which Ziva spoke his name made Tony contemplate saluting her. “Do not start.”

“Okay well one time you talked about having her at home and if this is some secret ploy to lull me into letting that happen without my consent, I’ll…”

“You will what?” Ziva spat.

“Go right along with it,” The sheepest of sheepish grins contorted Tony’s face making him look far more like the Mad Hatter late for tea, than the anxious father-to-be that he actually was.

“That is what I thought.”

“But actually what do we do now?”

Ziva herself wanted to know the exact answer to that very question. While Tony asked as if she was the expert, she very much was not nor did her claiming to be magically make it true. She felt as lost as Tony appeared. Though once again any time to think was interrupted by another contraction and another moment where she reached for the man who was half the reason they were in this mess in the first place; Tony obliged. 

“I think we are supposed to call,” Ziva informed Tony when she could form coherent words. 

“The hospital?”

“Yes.” 

“Should I do that?”

“Yes and will you bring me a towel,” Ziva gestured to the floor where her feet still stood in a puddle of amniotic fluid and a reminder that nine and a half months all led up to one absurd moment in their living room where the intensity of it all mutated into the unfamiliar. 

“On it,” But Ziva heard the nerves in Tony’s voice. 

Then, momentarily, she could hear him on the phone. The way he was unsure in every answer to every question, even the ones she could decipher he knew how to answer. Umm thirty nine weeks. I’m.. uhh… I think she said around five. What does normal look like? Right now? If Ziva was not trying to hold herself together, she might have been rolling on the floor laughing at Tony, but she wasn’t, she couldn’t. 

Footsteps ascended and descended the stairs, Tony coming back into her line of sight. “Here, I grabbed a couple,” Tony handed Ziva the first towel. 

“Are you going to tell me what they said?”

“Yeah so about that.” 

“What did they say, Tony?” 

“We’re supposed to come in.” 

“Right now?” 

“See, funny. I asked the exact same question."

“Tony.” 

“Right now.” 

The reality plummeted through Ziva so quickly it could have left a sink hole beneath her feet. She was in labor, there was no question about that; it was perhaps the most obvious thing of her entire life. However, that was not the same as being sent to the hospital. It was not the same as knowing that only two hours ago she had called Tony thinking they’d have hours ahead of them, which they did, but at home, not in an unrecognizable room filled with strangers; Ziva had done that before all too recently. It was not the same as all the anticipation that led up to the moment when nothing would ever be the same. A sink hole wouldn’t have been large enough to hold all the trepidations Ziva suddenly felt. 

“Zi?” 

Tony felt the shift in the air, the way her face paled just slightly at the idea that this entire ordeal was continuing to go a way she had not anticipated. He had expected it to be frantic and scary and for everything to feel exceedingly unfamiliar and he was still as unprepared as he’d ever felt. But Ziva. Ziva had plans and thoughts and big feelings about how she delivered their baby, this was not in any of her plans and while it was all too unpredictable, Tony could empathize with the way he understood formulating a plan calmed the soon to be mother of his child. 

The plan was the plan can change, had to change. Just look at them, all of their plans were different than they were ten months ago. They should have been experts. 

“Are you ready?” Her voice a shaky whisper. 

“No. Are you?” 

“Not anymore.” 

“We’ll be okay.” 

“We are having a baby.” 

“Yeah, we’ve known that for a while, Zi,” Tony's best effort at breaking up the tension. 

"We are having a baby,” She repeated. 

“Should we have bought a cake to celebrate her birthday?” 

That earned a genuine laugh from Ziva, one that cleared her chest for a second of that weight that was crushing it. “You are hopeless.”

Chapter Text

It was such an odd sensation, the way hours could tick by on the clock so quickly and yet every minute felt painstakingly slow. As if they weren’t tracking the same amount of time. 

The clock on the wall of the hospital room ticked incessantly and if Tony had not been willfully ignoring it in an attempt to keep all of his focus on Ziva, he might have found a chair to climb, grabbed it from where it hung and smashed it to the floor. There was no longer any point in keeping track of the seconds or the minutes, it was all going to happen whether Tony knew what time it was or not and by the looks of the very first rays of sun peaking through the clouds, turning the sky that was a dark navy when they arrived into a cerulean, he knew that somehow they’d managed to reach hour thirteen of labor. Tony could only hope his comparison to a marathon was inaccurate now, because if they were only halfway done, the finish line would not be a worthwhile enough destination.

Ziva’s head fell back against his chest, a moment of deja vu from the first few seconds when Tony arrived home and his only option was to forget processing what was happening and instead become an active participant. Tony watched her try and catch her breath, every effort to feel in control for the maybe ninety second reprieve she would have before another contraction tore through her. 

A towel covered the large exercise ball, birthing ball apparently when it was being offered to Ziva in her hospital room, and she sat clad in only her bra, having torn off the hospital gown the minute she could. Two wireless monitors wrapped around the swell of her stomach, keeping track of their baby and every single growing wave of pain that sent Ziva into orbit. Tony sat behind her on the rolling stool he’d found abandoned in the room. 

A heavy exhale escaped her lips and her body felt limp against him. 

“Do you need anything?” His voice was quiet. 

Her head shook so slightly. 

To be left alone and bothered by no one was what she really wanted. Tony had watched her flinch at the touch of strangers, only trying to do their job, but who didn’t understand the last time she was in this situation nobody knew what the outcome would be. The room flooded with people and it was all Tony could do to stay firmly at her side, making everyone work around him, so that his face was one she could return to in all the moments when the overwhelming panic reminded her of a time when she wasn’t so sure they’d make back to the labor and delivery floor. It was one traumatic experience on her long list, but it hit the closest to home. She was endlessly quiet, answering nothing more than she had to, Tony filled in all the other blanks. It was him who assertively asked for what Ziva knew she wanted: less and quiet.

The lights were dimmed. Besides the ticking clock, the room was still.

They hadn’t really discussed what they wanted, or more accurately what Ziva wanted. Tony would follow her lead, even if it was to the ends of the earth. Yet, somehow, he understood her. Not a shocking revelation seeing as they were having a baby together, but still a revelation nonetheless. Tony’s own instincts were guided by hers, that knot in their strings growing tighter every time he predicted what she would need. When he offered her a sip of water without her asking, when his hands would maneuver around her body to places that he shouldn’t have known she needed them, but he did, when her hands would grip him because she never for a moment second-guessed if she could. Months of hiding and expressing and questioning feelings, actually years of doing that, now translated to a comfort that made them dance the same dance, matching each other step for step like they’d choreographed every move. 

“Ughh,” Ziva seized forward with the grip of another contraction. 

She reached behind her where Tony’s hands were on her back, she grabbed either one by the wrist and wrenched her hands around them. Her hands trembled around the strength with which she held onto Tony and he simultaneously found himself proud of that very strength and distressed by the way that very strength wavered. For the first time since he had known her there was a crack in the facade that nothing was too much for her. She was after all, only human, and a stark reminder of that was labor. 

If Tony did not bite his lip, he would have been thanking her repeatedly. God, he wanted nothing more than to express every single bit of gratitude that he could for all that she was going through for their daughter. Someday he would tell her how strong her Ima was, how there was no else he’d ever met like her and that she was so lucky to have a mother like her. It was difficult to be terrified of the ending, while also admiring every single step that moved them that direction. On the other side was parenthood and meanwhile, Tony could not stop ogling over the way his heart hurt from bursting with undeniable pride at the woman who was sacrificing more than he could comprehend for a baby that was equal parts both of them. 

Perhaps, this was how he knew he was having a baby with the right person: he couldn’t imagine loving someone more. 

“Tony?” She spoke through clenched teeth, easing back toward reality for a moment. 

“What is it?” 

Ziva pressed against her grip on his wrists, floating just above the giant ball. A shift made out of discomfort. “I think I need to push,” A statement said with uncertainty. 

“What?” 

“I am not sure. Let me up,” She said in one single breath. 

Tony gently helped her to her feet, doing as she asked. “What do I do?” 

“Move it,” Ziva let go of Tony just long enough to wave her hand at the ball, gesturing for it to be gone and quickly.

He kicked it, soccer style, to the far side of the room, sensing that Ziva no longer even wanted it in her sight. It thudded against the wall, satisfyingly. 

“Do I get someone, Zi?” 

She didn’t respond, but instead scooted around to face him. For a single second her eyes met his and her uncertainty sent a chill running through him. She needs you , his brain immediately reiterated as a reminder; he didn’t need it. He knew. But it was fleeting because her next contraction sent her knees buckling under her own weight. Tony grabbed her instantly, without a thought or hesitation, and held her, keeping her balanced on her own two feet. He mastered the load she couldn’t while she worked through the part Tony couldn’t help.

She was teetering. Hour fourteen started to slip into view and Tony knew that while it could have been longer, it was still not over and it was his job to be everything she couldn’t be for herself. 

When it was over and she could hold herself up, at least more than she had, she sighed into a shaky exhale that Tony knew was filled with fret. 

“She is coming,” Ziva spoke almost to herself. 

“Ziva, do we need to call them?” Them being a medical professional that could help in the ways it was becoming apparent he could not.  

“Yes.” 

And she was right, just as Tony suspected.

Unavoidably, the room filled again. Someone checking Ziva, but having to look for only a second to confirm what the mom already knew. Nurses waiting for the doctor to arrive. The light flipped on above the scale, illuminating the little blanket that covered the hard plastic where upon her arrival, their daughter would eventually be placed. The volume increased tenfold. Ziva refused to get back in bed until it was absolutely necessary, until everything was ready. So she wrapped her arms around Tony’s neck, pulling him down, but he’d so happily feel his back become sore in the position if it was helping her. They swayed in unison, continuing their dance.

“We’re ready,” Were the most intimidating words Tony had ever heard. 

Ziva wouldn’t let anyone else help her back into the bed. Of course, not. These were maybe the moments that she needed him even more and Tony easily obliged, waiting with her every time she needed and moving at her pace just as she requested. 

Tony found himself all of a sudden in charge of holding one of Ziva’s legs; where he had hesitated when the nurse suggested it, Ziva’s eyes begged him in silence to please do it, so he did. The back of her knee sat perfectly in the crook of his arm as he was instructed. Reality settled in just the same way Ziva’s leg did. 

This was actually happening. 

He watched as Ziva tirelessly pressed her chin to her chest and used every ounce of energy she had left to push and then push again and again. Every effort bringing them closer to their daughter, but draining Ziva from the depths. Her body shook with exhaustion and adrenaline, a weary combination that Tony could tell was taking its toll. 

“You’re doing great, Mama,” Was uttered by an unfamiliar voice. 

Ziva looked to Tony in the minute between pushes and he nodded his head seemingly understanding that she would only believe those words if they came from him. “You are, Zi,” He assured her. 

The stupid ticking clock kept moving its hands around its face. 

An hour passed. 

Ziva fell back hard against the pillow laying behind her. Her panting breaths and closed eyes put on full display her fatigue. 

Her hand reached for Tony. He grasped it with his own that didn’t still have her leg. He brought the backside of it gently to his lips. It continued to tremble under his touch. “I know you’re tired, Zi. I know. You’re almost there.” 

“Again, Ziva,” Came from the end of the bed. 

“I can’t,” She was barely audible. 

“Yes you can.” 

“Tony, please.” 

Without an audible exchange, Tony found the gaze of a nurse who relieved him of the job of holding Ziva’s leg and allowed him the ability to focus one hundred percent of his energy on her need to be reminded that he had been right, she’d been through worse, she’d seen worse. She was stronger than he could ever have been. This would not be the thing that she did not accomplish, did not see through to the not-so-bitter end.

Tony never let go of Ziva’s hand, scooting a few inches closer, body snuggly pressed against the side of the bed. Without another thought, though so many were swimming through his mind, he laid his forehead on hers. The warmth of his mixed with the cool, damp sweat coating hers. 

“I’m here, Zivs. I’m right here,” He whispered, hoping that only she could hear him. She needed it to be just them even if they were in a room full of strangers. It had to be the two of them. Always.

“Please,” She moaned. 

“You’re almost there. I’m here, I’ll stay here. But you have to keep going.” 

Ziva pressed her chin to chest and pushed again. Tony’s head followed hers, contact not breaking, and squeezed her hand tight. He could feel her pushing, the effort that reverberated through her entire body to bring their baby into the world. 

“Again, Ziva,” Another command from the end of the bed.

She relaxed for nothing more than mere seconds and went again. Her groan echoed in Tony’s ears. But she was doing it, he was with her as physically as he possibly could be, other than doing it himself and he would have in an instant if he could. He would do anything for either of them. His girls. 

“That’s it Ziva, just like that. Her head is right there.” 

A silent effort, stronger than the last, but one that made Tony’s admiration soar ten fold. 

A nurse across the bed, worked quietly to unhook the monitors that had been on Ziva for hours, tugging them off without a word and making Tony realize they must have been close if they no longer had a need to keep track of what was happening inside because so soon it would be with them outside. Replacing the monitors was a blanket, one that was there for their baby, for when she entered the world and they would need somewhere to put her. Tony caught Ziva’s eyes open for just a moment to inspect the soft cotton fabric she could feel on her body. He sensed the same understanding he had come to was clicking in her mind as well.

She went again as instructed, curling her entire body around the little inhabitant that was teetering on the edge of eviction. 

“Yes, Mom. She’s right there. One more time.” 

Tony followed her again, feeling it all with her. The dance continued, the steps precisely as they were supposed to be until the finale came screeching into the world with a head full of dark hair and a set of lungs that could have notified the entire District of Columbia of her arrival. Only then did Tony dare pick his head up and search through the crowd to find who it had all been for. To look up and see why fifteen hours, nearly, sixteen hours had been worth every single second.

The baby was directly placed on the blanket laying on Ziva. Nurses' hands worked to wipe her off, but Ziva’s hands grabbed at her so instantly, so instinctually, she only got in the way of the work they were doing. Tony marveled at how she was simply Ziva’s baby and as her Ima there was no question from his partner about claiming their baby. 

“Holy shit,” Tony exhaled. 

He watched as Ziva pulled their daughter to her chest, hands so protectively wrapped around her as if she had done this countless times, the delivering of and meeting of a baby whose little limbs thrashed against the cold air of the new environment they now existed in. Those same body parts that had responded for months to the touch of her parents were as familiar as if they’d known her for years. They might as well have. 

“You want to cut the cord dad?” 

Tony’s head shot to look at the person who asked him, scissors held up for him to grab if he was up for the job. He looked back at Ziva first, who with barely open eyes, nodded her head, giving him permission. And so Tony followed instructions, clamping where they told him to and undertaking his first real task as a father.

His attention shifted right back to Ziva, watching her slowly take in all that had happened, shuffling back toward the top of the bed. He needed to be as close as he could. 

“My Tali,” Ziva breathed, lifting her head just enough to place a soft kiss on the top of their daughter’s head. 

“Oh my god, Zi,” Tony mumbled, the shock coursing through him again. 

She turned her head toward him and all Tony could respond with was a grin so huge it made his face hurt. That was the mother of his child. The same woman who showed up all those years ago to taunt him in his own squad room and who had immediately turned his world on its axis, had just given him the greatest gift he’d ever received, one he’d had no idea he wanted so desperately and only with her. 

His smile was met not with one from her, but instead the slow filling of her eyes with tears. 

Tony knew they were tears of mostly joy, of some relief. Possibly a knee-jerk reaction to just the sheer overwhelming nature of making it through labor and coming out the other side a parent. Perhaps, there was a bit of sorrow mixed in for Eli’s death, but more so from missing her mom and her sister, for them having to miss what had just become the most monumental moment of her life. And while Tony couldn’t, or didn’t need to, make up the entire chemical combination of Ziva’s tears, he did know they needed to happen. They needed to run down her cheeks onto the pillow behind her head as she clasped their daughter to her chest. She needed to have a moment where all of her inhibitions were held at bay and she could simply feel all that she felt. Rare, extremely so, were the times that Ziva was able to just be, whether because of her Mossad training or her oneness as the only woman on the team or whatever it may have been. 

So Tony simply let his head fall back against hers again, and while he basked in his first few minutes of fatherhood, he allowed her to spend the first of hers as a mother being an example of vulnerability that she nearly never was. He wondered if motherhood had changed her already; he was certainly never going to be the same again. 

“I’m so proud of you,” He whispered and he’d never meant anything more. 

Around staggered breaths as her tears dried, Ziva peered at the baby. “She is perfect.” 

“Both of you are.” 

They remained in their little bubble for who knew how long. The arrival of their daughter had finally been the thing that drowned out the sound of the ticking clock for Tony and all he wanted, for just a little while, was time to stand still because he’d never get the moment again where he was meeting his and Ziva’s child for the first time. He wanted it to feel like it lasted forever. 

Tony placed his hand below Ziva’s on Tali’s back, almost scared to touch her. “I can’t believe she’s real.” 

“Even after all those hours?” Ziva chided. 

“Thank you,” Tony finally uttered those two words. 

“For what?” Ziva’s question appeared genuine, like she couldn’t have any idea why he needed to thank her; an endlessly Ziva response. 

“For having our baby. For giving me…” Tony’s voice cracked and it really sunk in how much it meant to him to have just become a dad in the blink of an eye. “For giving us a daughter. I love you… both of you so much.” 

Ziva smoothed her thumb over the mass of dark hair on the baby’s head. “We love Abba. I love Abba.”  

It wasn’t until a nurse broke through their euphoria to take the baby for her weight, just shy of eight pounds, her length, twenty one inches and all the other various things they tell parents will be done after she’s born, but they aren’t exactly listening between contractions and panic and excitement. Tony certainly hadn’t taken in a single thing he’d been told and the only reason he knew she’d be weighed, was because the scale had been a reminder of how close they once were to being parents, but now they already were. 

Ziva was gently tended to in the ways she needed and that Tony couldn’t, even if he found himself struggling against the territorial feelings he had about his girls and anyone but him taking care of them. His mind knew better, knew that they both needed things he couldn’t provide, but it was still a battle for him to stand aside for even just a few minutes and be helpless. It was brief and he returned to Ziva’s side before anyone really gave him permission to. 

“Would you like to hold her dad?” 

Tony’s stomach dropped through the floor. 

Once again, all he could do was look at Ziva, eyes wide with no answer to the simple question he was just asked. He should know the answer, he did, yet all he could do was search for Ziva’s gaze. She sat up, pillows kindly propped behind her now to make her more comfortable and when their eyes met, she nodded vigorously. 

“Uhh yeah,” Tony’s answer sounded as unsure as he felt.

The baby was swaddled tightly, wrapped like a burrito safely in its tortilla. A hat, with a bow on it that Tony was certain Ziva would scoff at later in private company, covered most of her dark brown hair, but not all, leaving a few tufts sticking out in various places; it was adorable. All he saw when he looked at her was her mother, just like he’d hoped.

Without hesitation and ignoring Tony's, the nurse helped position Tony’s arms to receive his daughter and gently placed her in his grasp. 

He wondered if his heart could explode and if it could, it was bound to happen momentarily. 

Against his six foot, two inch frame, Tali seemed tinier than he could have ever imagined. Even when they were looking at baby clothes and he was holding up outfits he simply could not imagine would ever fit their daughter, he hadn’t pictured her feeling so small in his arms. Truthfully, though, Tony had spent months imagining the first time he held her, the first time he got to feel the same baby that Ziva diligently carried for them for thirty nine weeks and three days; he’d visualized every bit of the moment and some of it may not have been so accurate, much like his idea of labor, but he had known that no matter what it looked like, there had been nothing comparable to it ever in his life before and probably nothing after either. 

He had been right about that.

Tony glanced up for just a second at Ziva, who was contentedly watching him. Not scrutinizing at all, but happily staring at the two most important people in her life finally meeting. A smile, a real one, one that lit up her whole face, flashed at Tony and Tali, her family. 

“What do you think, Abba?” 

Tony chuckled in disbelief. “She’s really ours?” 

“She better be after all of that,” Ziva joked. 

“I think she’s better than I could have ever imagined.” 

“I would say that is accurate,” Ziva agreed. “You look cute holding a baby.” 

“I always look cute, Zi. I look cuter holding a baby. Our baby.” 

“Do not push it, DiNozzo.” 

“So if I say thank you again, then what?” 

“I might tell you you are an idiot.” 

“Even if I mean it?” Tony’s eyes fell down to Tali again, her little mouth forming an O around her yawn. Being born must have been awfully exhausting. 

“She was worth it.” 

“We have a baby.” 

“Yes.” 

“Tali Elizabeth.”

“DiNozzo,” Ziva added. 

“What? Are you sure?”

“Completely.” 

That was the point Tony was pretty sure his heart beat out of his chest. That was the moment that a few tears escaped down his cheeks, streaking their way to his jawline. Not a man who cried, but he supposed that a baby, a daughter, could change just about anything. 

“Tali Elizabeth DiNozzo,” Tony choked out.

Chapter Text

“Tony?” 

The new Abba looked in his rearview mirror, making eye contact with Ziva who sat in the backseat of his dad mobile, hand slung over Tali’s carseat that occupied the middle seat. 

“What?” 

“You do know you can go more than twenty five miles per hour?” 

“Yes, I do and I am. I’m going thirty.” 

Ziva could only roll her eyes at the care and consideration of Tony on his first ride with their most precious cargo in tow. She was not so sure that had she been the one driving, she’d be any better. It was hard to walk out of those hospital doors, suddenly left to their own devices as if they were born ready to take care of a newborn on their own, and not worry about every single thing you could imagine happening. They’d seen a lot, too much on the job, and it was possible that Tony and Ziva’s brains were occupied with even more abhorrent scenarios than the average parent. Especially in cars. Especially recently in cars. Ziva’s thoughts about how slow Tony was driving softened.

So Ziva would let him roll slowly through traffic, being passed left and right by vehicles that had no idea the experience they were having, though she just wanted to be home because she understood.

“Is she okay?” 

“Yes, snug like a bug in a rug.”

“As a bug.”

“Tony, it is all the same. She is asleep, has been since you pulled out.” 

“You know, it’s hard to be born,” Tony started. “I’m sure she’s exhausted.” 

“She is not the only one.” 

Tony had been correct, abundantly so when he told Ziva that he thought they might just never sleep again. Up every hour with the baby or because nurses were in and out of the room or because she was so sore there was no sleeping in the tiny hospital bed or for so many various other reasons the new mom never would have predicted. She was glad at least one member of their family would be well rested, even if she wished to join in her dreamland for just a few uninterrupted hours. 

Quiet settled in the car again and for a split second, Tony raised his gaze to glance in the rearview mirror again. Ziva’s attention had dropped back to the baby, head leaning into the carseat admiring the sleeping newborn. A smile tugged at her lips that he was sure she probably didn’t even know was there. Ziva’s hair was neatly pulled back with a black headband and her curls fell easily around her shoulder like they so often did. Tony had sort of assumed the whole glowing thing that came with pregnancy, that Ziva hated to hear about, would go away, but there was a different one that came with the way she looked at their daughter. 

“Anthony, you are staring.” 

His eyes shot back to the road and at a good time because he almost missed the turn onto their street. Their family’s street. 

“Just like the sight of two of my favorite people back there.” 

“One of whom you cannot even see,” Ziva taunted. 

“Yes, but I have long since been admiring the one I can.” 

Ziva wished desperately to blame the postpartum hormones for the little quiver in her chin, but Anthony DiNozzo had long since been having that effect on her and it seemed he would for a long time to come. 

Tony crawled into their driveway, putting the car in park and if Ziva had chosen to blink in that very moment she would have missed him exiting the car at the literal speed of light. Suddenly he was at her door, opening it in a less than chivalrous manner the way he might as well have broken it off of its hinges. And then expecting absolutely nothing else, Ziva was greeted with the sloppiest grin and she was unsure how Tony could look any happier than he had been for the last forty eight hours. 

She wasn’t sure how someone like him, a life long bachelor who nearly never contemplated becoming a parent because it didn’t seem like the kind of thing he would do, became the same man that would have hurled himself into oncoming traffic for the baby girl that was still fast asleep in her carseat. It was a wild transformation. One Ziva had sensed coming, but could never have predicted it to the degree it was happening right in front of her. She had thought to herself on more than one occasion how grateful she was that somehow the universe had given her a baby with him because by god it couldn’t have been as endearing and annoying and ridiculous with anyone else. The universe, in this case, knew better than she did. 

“Here,” Tony offered his hands to Ziva, who took the gesture better than she normally would have, but the realization had been quick that birthing an entire human being was actually much harder on her well trained body than had been expected. Therefore, scooting not so gracefully out of the backseat was only helped by Tony’s patience and assistance. 

“Thank you,” She meant it. 

“Alright, Tal, your turn.” With too much emphasis for simply getting the car seat out of the car, Tony gently removed it, adjusted his grip and shut the door behind them. A true family man, he was. 

And when his key fit into the lock, making it click, Tony was reminded of when he arrived home a few days earlier. The same pause he had then, he had again. It was the moment he’d thought about. He was walking back into their home for the first time as a dad. A father. Tali’s Abba. Maybe it was not as monumental as it seemed, but there was just something about the way it signified the huge change that had just appeared, the one he carefully held in his hand still fast asleep. That change. Their perfect, adorable, so loved already change. It felt better than he could have ever anticipated. 

“Perhaps we should actually go in, Tony?” Ziva teased, but she knew why he had stopped. Behind his green eyes, the same ones she’d looked for repeatedly during labor, were many swirling thoughts. Some of them she assumed they both shared. She imagined they both were basking in the idea that the home they’d gotten together because of their circumstances was now where they brought their daughter home from the hospital. Like puzzle pieces clicking into place, Tali was the final piece to make up their home. She could only tease so much. 

“Let me bask in my first door unlocking as a dad.” 

“Oh is that what this is?” 

“Yes, it is.” 

She knew that wasn’t the entire story, but it was possible he was “basking.”

Tony had been basking in everything else that was a first for him as a dad. His first diaper change, though that one had been a tad rough and if it were not for the very kind, very patient nurses who helped him, Tali wouldn’t have been the only one crying. His first time swaddling her, which once again was greatly assisted, and his little burrito, Tony’s words, not Ziva’s, would definitely continue to need some work. His first coffee as a dad, Ziva had to hear about it because he was holding Tali in one hand and his coffee in the other, a talent that needed showing off. The list went on and on and on. Everything was his first time and Ziva surprised herself by finding it more endearing than irritating. 

But he did finally unlock the door and hold it open for her to walk through, slowly, but surely and followed along behind her. 

“What are those?” Ziva pointed toward the kitchen. 

On the island was a rather unassuming brown paper bag, like the kind that takeout would come in, but that was not what Ziva was referring to. What she was trying to comprehend was the extremely large bouquet of brightly colored flowers and the six balloons that floated in the air all various shades of pink, one being the shape of a bow and one even shaped like a pink baby bottle. There was even a wrapped gift, in pink paper no less, among everything else. 

“Abby’s been here,” Tony commented, walking past Ziva. “She and Tim asked if they could drop off dinner.” 

“Well that was kind.”

“But apparently that was also an excuse for Abby to be Abby.” 

“I suppose she is just excited.”

“She’s chomping at the bit to meet her.” 

“Chomping what?”

Tony sighed, gently setting Tali on the floor by the kitchen island to peak into the paper bag. “She’s just excited to meet her, Zivs.”

“I am excited for everyone to meet her, too. I think maybe we just need a few days.” 

“We’re allowed a few days. I’m not actually sure I’m ready to share her, anyway,” Tony looked down, not able to keep his eyes off Tali for any length of time.

“I know you are not,” Ziva agreed. 

“What does that mean?”

“Do you see how you are looking at her right now, Tony? There is no chance you would let another human near her.”

“I’ll let you near her.”

“Anthony. She came out of me and I have the inability to sit to prove it, so yes you will let me near her.”

As if on cue, like she’d rehearsed her timing, Tali let out the start of a cry. A small whimper that in the two days they’d known her, both parents knew she would soon become a full on tantrum momentarily if her needs were not met. 

“Alright, baby girl we get it.”

Settled on the couch, to go containers at the ready, forks sticking out of the plastic, Tony and Ziva sat side by side. Tali was in her mother’s arms, eating her dinner first, though she slowly lost sight of that and began drifting back to sleep. Again, still exhausted from being born as Tony would have said. Tali’s father on the other hand, barely focused on his food enough to reach his mouth as he intently went between staring at Tali and admiring her mother. 

“Staring, DiNozzo.”

“I’m just…” 

“Just what?” Ziva shifted Tali to her left arm and eagerly reached for her food; Tony had told McGee and Abby exactly what she had been begging to have since she was no longer pregnant and could once again stomach certain foods. 

“Nothing.”

“No, not nothing. You are just what, Tony?” 

“Has it sunk in for you that we’re sitting on the couch with our daughter, our daughter, in a house that is ours together, eating takeout like this is our life?” 

“It is our life,” Ziva pointed out. 

“Now it is.” 

A scene from a movie as far as Tony was concerned, except he was the main character sharing the screen with Ziva and Tali. Bachelorhood had seemed the only logical answer for the rest of his life, three day weekends, flirting with a woman who was not ever really his to do so with, working at NCIS for eternity. Those were his only options it seemed for a lot of years and then suddenly, he was sitting on the couch with the woman he flirted endlessly with until it got them in bed together, staring at his newborn daughter, falling fast asleep, and it was all his to enjoy. It was real. 

“Would you want something else?” Ziva for a second questioned if it was disbelief or that Tony finally realized he was really stuck with her, with them, that he was left to be a dad who drove his SUV and toted around a daughter that hadn’t for a moment been planned. 

“Oh my god no,” Tony corrected. “Are you serious, Zi? You said it yourself I can’t even stop looking at her, you think I’d want to be anywhere else with anyone else?” 

“Just making sure.”

“I don’t know that I knew I wanted it, but here we are and it does seem pretty damn good.” 

“Will it seem pretty damn good still if I ask you to change her diaper?” 

“First diaper change at home!” He was hopeless. Utterly smitten and completely hopeless. 

It was almost too good to be true the way they eased into an evening and then night like it had always been the three of them.

It took her longer, it almost always did, but Ziva slowly started to grapple with exactly what Tony had been talking about. She watched their baby in Tony’s hands, snuggled against his chest, feet just curled underneath her and a small, but chubby cheek squashed itself against the cotton of Tony’s t-shirt. He kept talking about how Tali was her mother’s twin, but Ziva saw Tony in her and hoped, more than she’d ever say, that she became more and more similar to him. That was what someone was supposed to want right? They were supposed to have a baby with a person who they hoped that child would favor. Perhaps Tony came to the conclusion sooner, but it struck Ziva just as hard that this was meant to be, that there were plenty enough reasons for this to be the way it all happened. Those knots pulled tighter and tighter every second, but most especially in the time that established their new normal.  

“Do you understand that this changes everything? Do you really understand that? Because I don’t yet, not all the way.”

“Yes, Ziva. I do actually know that having a baby means absolutely nothing will ever be the same again. It’s already changed. It changed the minute those stupid tests were positive. It changed the minute you were, for once, more afraid than I was and I didn’t know what to do with that. It has already changed.” 

“We are not ready to have a baby.”

“Zivs?”

“We are not ready.”

“But we can be ready.”

If only she could go back and tell that stunned, terrified, convinced everything was wrong version of herself that in fact it would all work out. It would be ugly at times, there was tragedies that she had not thought she would deal with while pregnant, her view of her job and how important it was to her would shift and she’d finally tell the man that had been standing in front of her for years, the universe practically begging them to get their heads out of their asses, that she loved him and she meant it entirely. And she couldn’t, so she wouldn’t dwell on the past, but to be on the other side was a sort of relief she’d not been expecting to feel would have shocked the her of nine or so months ago. 

“What are you thinking about, Zi?” Tony could see the contemplation in her dark eyes. 

“That you were right.”

“Excuse me? You mind repeating that? I think I just felt the earth shift on its axis.” 

“No, I will not,” Ziva declared. She reached a hand toward the baby, running it softly along the back of her head where her dark hair stood up in little tufts. “You were really certain that we would be okay and that we could do this and we can.” 

“So far, so good. Only eighteen more years to go.” 

“Could the start of those eighteen years include helping me upstairs so I can shower and perhaps, possibly sleep for maybe an hour.” 

“I do think that we can make that happen. And besides, we haven’t given Tali the tour of the upstairs.” 

“Oh yes I am sure she will want to see her partially empty room,” Little did Ziva know. 

Tony was a patient man. In one hand he balanced Tali in the same position she’d been in, not wanting to disturb the sleep she was getting or wanting to set her down because why would he sacrifice precious minutes cuddling her, in the other he offered Ziva some guidance up the stairs, though he was mostly a prop for her comfort and he was happy to be that. 

“Aren’t you going to come with us to her room?” 

“You are the tour guide, Tony. What do you need me for?” 

“C’mon Zi, you gotta be there for this important moment in her childhood.” 

Ziva may have rolled her eyes so hard at him they could have gotten stuck in her skull, but she still found herself slowly traipsing behind Tony to the nursery. 

It was all a ploy. 

Ziva David should have known better. 

Sitting across from the doorway, perfectly placed against the wall, was a stunning crib. It was stained a dark color, contrasting the white dresser and light pink walls, but it seemingly was made for the space it occupied. It was literally made for it. A man who had said nothing, never mentioned it, managed to get into their house, carry a crib up their flight of stairs and now Ziva was feeling the all too familiar quiver of her chin, string at the creation straight from Gibbs’ basement. 

“How?” 

“A spare key and McGee’s help.” 

“Why?” 

“Because he’s Gibbs. You really thought we’d have a baby and he wouldn’t twiddle his thumbs in that basement to make us a crib?” 

The most important detail though, was not how he did it or why he did it or when he did, it was that in the far right bottom corner, etched in the most Gibbs way, was Tali’s name. Like him naming a boat that they all still did not understand how he got out of his basement, this project had a name too. One that belonged to a little girl who had no idea yet what this meant. 

“I…” But Ziva was too stunned to finish whatever thought she had.

“Grandpa Gibbs, you know?” Tony kissed the top of Tali’s head. “You have a lot of people who really love you, Tal.”

She did. A well loved two day old. 

Ziva would have been remiss to not remember all the nights she would lie awake feeling their daughter kick and wonder who she would have. Of course, she and Tony would be there always, but they were her parents, the people in charge of her very being. There were so many to miss, mothers, a sister whose namesake did not make up for her missing the life of her niece, a father who should have still been there, even if he was a flawed man with things to make up for. But there were also so many to help fill gaps: Abby, who would spoil her every chance she got, Uncle Tim, Ducky that would share his wise soul and Gibbs, a man who would never speak of it, but that would step into the role of Saba with every part of himself and would go to the same length as Tali’s parents to protect her. 

“You’re pretty lucky,” Tony added.

“We are pretty lucky,” Ziva corrected. 

“That we are.”