Disclaimer: No change here. Still don't own NCIS or its characters. Bummer.
A/N: I wasn't even sure I would write a Father's Day story, but then this totally got away from me. Welp. I owe everything to the lovely Allison for keeping me chill. Enjoy!

When Tony DiNozzo was a child, his nightmares were the common fare—inspired by B-movie horror or distorted with sugar highs. One word: clowns.

Since growing up, his dream terrors have been of the real world variety, with fears and threats emerging directly out of his day job of pursuing criminals. In these grown-up nightmares, there is always someone in danger, and they are always just out of his reach.

If he doesn't first wake up in a cold sweat, the origin of need is revealed as a young Jason King, or Jason's little sister Amy, lost to the flames, or any of the kids they saved—or didn't save—over the years.

They. He and his partner. His beginning and end.

But he is alone when the nightmare descends that particular night. There is crying and darkness and open air, and all he wants is to find the source and tell whoever is hurting that it will be okay, he's here now, and that he's pretty good at making bad guys go away for a long time.

That particular night, though, he doesn't find the source of distress.

It finds him.

Amidst the careless flinging open of their bedroom door and the shrill, familiar pitch of sob shattering the silence, it is her voice that cuts through the chaos, snatching him out of one fright and tossing him into another.

"Tony!"

"Yeah," he slurs, probably too low for her to hear—or the baby is too loud—because she calls for him again. "Yeah, I'm up…I'm up!"

Tony punctuates with intent, shucking covers and hefting vertical with a groan. Talk about a rude awakening, but there isn't time for that.

Ziva's already at the bedside, streaks of orange light from the hall illuminating her and the wailing child on her hip. The deep shadows of apprehension over her features can't be the mistake of his drowsy-veiled eyes; it too closely matches the palpable anxiety rushing off her in swells.

What the hell happened tonight, he wonders, panic taking wing in his chest.

"I woke her coming in. It is that damn door, I have asked you countless times to oil it," she rants, throwing in 'sh-sh's between phrases and adding a sway-in-place to her soothing strategies.

"Huh? Just slow down…" His sockless feet meet the carpet, seating him at the edge of the mattress. The forest maze from his dream is still fighting with reality. "Tell me what—"

But Ziva moves, fast, impatient as she was when he first met her: young, exotic, completely badass. Did he mention young?

"Here, please—take her."

And the cries amplify to God knows how many decibels as the bundle of tears and snot is deposited into his lap.

"Hey there, Lilykins," he coos, cradling her into one of his arms; with the other, he reaches for the baby's mother, catching her by his fingertips. "Ziva."

It means something, saying her name how Agent DiNozzo would at work, how her partner would—it means business, even uttered from her husband, in their bedroom, with their child between them.

Her shoulders sink down from her ears before she turns, acquiescing to his grip of concern on her wrist. She wears the clothes of the job: black coat over a black top; cargos tucked into boots; and Lilia is still crying, hiccupping cries that are more show than substance now, but they are parents of an infant: he's pretty damn sure they could diffuse a bomb with their kid kicking and screaming in the background.

He persists, "Tell me what happened."

Ziva leans into him, over him, the end of her high ponytail grazing the bare stretch of his collarbone. The simple movement speaks for her; she is a woman of action, not words; he feels her tired, her tense, her burdened. Their foreheads kiss, and he draws an inhale, the unexpected scent of her crinkling his nose.

"Why do you smell like gunpowder?"

Molten brown diffuse and wander. "It was not…an easy night," she murmurs, voice splintering under the restraint of emotion.

"Ziva, honey…" He tries holding onto her, but she flips her wrist free and steps away, arms flailing emphatic.

"I am—I will be fine. I need to shower and…I can put her back down first, if—"

Tony wraps both arms around his daughter, possessive. "I got her. Deal's a deal. Go. Take your time."

You're the one I'm worried about, he wants to tell her, but after eight years of partnership—the past two as a married couple, to boot—it goes without saying that her well-being is always on his mind. That, he'd told her ad nauseam.

The instructions register slowly, animating her stalled limbs by increments; she is miles away, and he is selfishly relieved to have already been freed from his own nightmare.

Vaguely, Tony recalls the phone call from a few hours earlier, the first of two disturbances to his sleep so far that night.

"It's your turn," he muttered after Gibbs' sparse bark of orders faded from the air: I don't care which one of you it is—I'd better see someone down here, now! "I went last time with the, uh, the murder weapon in the swamp and—"

Ziva's pillow muffled most of her irritated growl. "Two of three, yes?"

Half-asleep, they dueled to determine who would pacify Gibbs and who would stay with Lilia, but the outcome wasn't altered. (He also knew her preference for scissors.)

"Damn you," she seethed, slapping his winning fist aside and rolling out of bed as he slipped back into slumber, a triumphant grin hanging suspended.

Now, with his wife visibly shaken as a result of the call-out, Tony wishes he'd gone in her place, regardless of whose turn it was to take an off-hours crime scene or the deciding fate of a childish game. He still doesn't know what's wrong, but past experiences warn him it won't be anything good.

"See, all you needed was a fresh diaper. Was that worth all the tears, kiddo?"

From the padded changing table, Lilia goggles up at him with the tawny brown eyes of a lion cub; the newborn blue melted away a month earlier. A spit bubble forms and pops around the fist wedged between her gums. Teething. She put her mouth—and burgeoning pearly whites—on anything these days.

"Including Daddy's fingers sometimes, huh?" Tony's affected falsetto nudges the corners of her lips upwards, but the gnawing continues. An achy mouth was known to bring about fussing, too. "Maybe we'll get you a cold washcloth to chew on. That's what Momma gives you, doesn't she?"

Or maybe you'll go back to sleep.

It's wishful thinking. His daughter is too alert for 3 a.m., her pudgy legs thrusting out and colliding with the container of wipes, sending it careening to the nursery floor.

"Whoa there, baby ninja. Easy on the karate-chopping."

Lilia squawks, babbling gibberish with consternation, as if she'd suspected his plan to lock her back up in the crib, and full-heartedly disapproved.

"Okay, I hear you, loud and clear, but this is your room, crazy chick-a-dee," he jabbers while picking up the wipes; before he can go on, the faint hum of running shower water filters into the room from the en suite. And label him crazy or overprotective or even jaded—too many years in law enforcement, too many calls made to child services—but he wants both his ninjas, his girls, where he can see them.

Sighing, he scoops up the young David-DiNozzo before she crawls off the side of the changing table and sticks her onto his chest like a baby monkey; he chooses against a half-hour session in the rocking chair and instead swings them down the hall—towards the master bedroom.

"Just a little while in Momma and Daddy's bed, 'kay Lillykins? Just until you fall asleep…"

"Tony…"

Once again, it is her voice rousing him—but the quiver of fright has been replaced with a melody that soothes, rather than startles, his heart.

"Hmm? 'M up," he mumbles, eyelids shut.

"And so is she."

A funny giggle near to his ear further revives him; then he remembers with a start—the baby! An attempt to rise is met with a light shove to his shoulder, returning him to the sheets.

"I have her," Ziva purrs, and the warm presence against his abs is removed; a chill immediately fills the absence, inciting a shiver from his lonesome body.

Tony blinks, imprinting snapshots to his memory: Ziva nuzzling her nose into Lilia's puffy cheeks, the infant burrowing her face into her Momma's neck before they are down the hall, out of his sight; and he almost stops them—he wants them close—but fatigue is heavy, heavy...

It seems just seconds pass when a slender arm snakes around his torso from behind; a lithe form soon follows, aligning to his thighs, hips, and back. Hot whispers caress the ticklish nape of his neck.

"The baby is asleep."

Had sexier words ever been spoken? Tony can't think of any instances for proof—especially not with what feels like a swath of silk separating him from every honey-smooth inch of his wife. But they are parents, and it has been a long night, and their combined warmth lulls them. They doze together for moments uncounted, their room hazy and still.

Then her breath hitches as he bobs above the surface, and again, he remembers—the case.

Tony rolls over gradually, giving her time to adjust as well. In the blush of early-early morning glowing through the blinds, she is remarkable, as young, exotic, and badass as when he first met her. Maybe she's a little older now, with her talents coming in all forms, both as an investigator and a mother, but he is awed the same.

"'S alright I hold you?"

A dizzy smile answers him as much as the press of her body forward, fitting to him like a key in one of the locks she takes great pride in picking at warp speed.

"You do not have to ask, you know."

Where gunpowder lingered, now something sweet permeates from the crown of her still-damp head resting under his nose. He drapes an arm across her waist, bunching a handful of silk robe at her hipbone, exposing skin all up her thigh. But that is not his risk.

"Can I ask you something else?"

Ziva stiffens in his embrace, and her rebuff is blunt. "I do not wish to talk about it."

"I'm gonna force it out of McGoo tomorrow if you don't."

"Tomorrow is Sunday."

"There are such things as cell phones. And hey," Tony snaps in mock-anger, "you're getting us off the point."

"You noticed." Heaving a weighted breath, Ziva spools out of his arms and flat onto her back, leaving him on his side—his gaze never giving her up.

"It'll feel good to talk about it."

She sighs again, but doesn't pull away when he runs his fingers up and down her arm, drawing her out; her eyes stay on the ceiling as she speaks, a hollow vibration: "I do not understand…how we do these things to each other."

A ravenous mutt, Tony pounces on the scrap. "We, as in…you and me? Gibbs and the Probie?"

"Parents."

It doesn't escape him that she uses that term. Not husbands and wives. Parents. Those with children.

"Ahh," he drawls out the note of discovery. "This was a rough one, wasn't it?"

"Yes."

And she utters no complaint when he slides most of his body over her, planting his face deep in the crook of her neck, the way he watched their only child do earlier. He can almost smell the baby power there, under her ear.

Maybe he didn't need the details of her night, at least not right then; he'd read the report or bully it from their teammate soon enough. Anything he heard would go straight to his nightmares, anyway. And there isn't a question of who needs him right now.

Sometimes in his dreams—same as in real life—Ziva is the one he saves.

"Not everyone is like that," Tony offers from the velvety skin below her jaw. "Not all parents are the same." That was true of their own, wasn't it?

Birds chirp beyond the walls of their room as she shifts, lining him up with an earnest gaze.

"You are a good father, Tony. I do not tell you that often, but I should."

He ignores the sudden, almost painful pounding of his heart at the words. "Well, I do make a good chew toy for our daughter." It's a poor shot of humor, and she plays goalie.

"Shut up."

"Yes, ma'am," he laughs and does what he realizes is long overdue for the night: kisses his wife. It begins lazy, all rugged lip and tongue, so the fractional arch of her low back surprises him, almost as much as her feminine moans and willowy legs pretzeling as they please below his waist.

Tony kisses her, greedy, and seizes high up on her thigh, greedier. "Quick, before the teeny tiny wakes up."

Musical chuckles trill from her already swollen lips, but ahead of their purely adult Mommy & Me time, he pauses to soak her in: beneath him, safe, a hunger in her tawny brown eyes, dark curls everywhere. His partner in life, his beginning and end.

It feels right to confess—"I'm only as good a dad as you've made me. You should know that, too, Ziva."

"How is that exactly?"

Tony palms the side of her quizzical face, relishing the instant lean of her cheek into his touch. "'Cause you're an amazing mom. I'm just trying to keep up."

"Hmm," she hums, more distracted by desire than fatigue, and guides his laughing mouth down over her smile, soft and gracious in the light of his love; and with the spark of their lips, he senses the only 'keeping up' he'll be doing until sunrise will take place between the sheets.

But when the nightmares return, as they always do—on another night, after another case strikes too close to home—it will be the gentle cajoling of his wife from the other side of their bed that brings him back to their reality, one some people can only dream of living.

He has nothing to fear.

fin