I'm not completely pleased with how this story turned out, so if you enjoy it, please let me know!
(For my own reference: 49th fanfiction, 31st story for NCIS.)
The night is chilly, but Tony can detect a hint of spring in the air as he and Ziva make their way down Vance's front sidewalk to his car. A few lone, brave crickets – undeterred by the big city and lingering winter temperatures around them – are chirping in the hedge, and the front porch light throws their long shadows across the grassy front lawn.
"Well, that wasn't so bad," Tony admits as he pulls out his keychain and presses a button to unlock his car. Ziva looks at him over its roof, her brow drawn over her dark eyes, puzzled. "Baby-sitting for Vance's kids, I mean," he explains to her, and Ziva nods but says nothing. She still doesn't respond as they climb inside and he turns on the ignition. She's been so quiet lately, and it worries him.
"I thought..." Tony hesitates, then goes on, feeling almost obligated to break the silence, "well, I thought those kids would be little miniature Vances, complete with little miniature toothpicks in their teeth. But they were all right. Even if Kayla is a fan-girl for the Disney Channel."
Ziva smirks, remembering how quickly the conversation with Kayla and Jared had turned to movies. When Tony asked the kids what their favorite movies were, Kayla responded brightly, "The Hannah Montana movie. I watch it every time they show it on Disney Channel." Tony just nodded politely, not wanting to hurt the girl's feelings, but Ziva knew that he would have more to say about this later.
Sure enough, Tony now goes on, exasperated. "You would think a guy like Vance would be more careful about what he let his kids watch. I mean, those kids just lost their mom. They've suffered through enough without having to watch crap like that. When I have kids, I'm going to make sure they grow up watching good movies. Classics."
He doesn't understand why Ziva looks over at him with such surprise. He doesn't realize that he's just said when I have kids, not if I have kids, and she doesn't know how to point it out to him, or if she even wants to. Does Tony really mean that? And how did the issue of children go from if to when for him?
Fortunately, Ziva's cell phone beeps just then, breaking the awkward silence, and she pulls it out of her jacket pocket and flips it open. She laughs a bit as she reads the message onscreen, and Tony smiles, his heart lightening. Vance and his children aren't the only ones who haven't laughed since that awful Friday evening two months ago. Tony has barely even seen his partner smile since her father's death – no matter how many jokes he made at Deputy Director Craig's expense – and he's certain that this is the first time she's actually laughed.
"I got a text from Gibbs," Ziva tells him, still smiling. "He wants to know where we are. Apparently Vance told him that he sent us on a field assignment."
Tony bursts out laughing. "A field assignment," he scoffs. "Is that he calls baby-sitting for his kids? He just didn't want to tell Gibbs that he was using us as his own personal childcare service."
That makes Ziva remember something that Tony said when they first arrived at the Vance home. "When did you ever spend the afternoon in a childcare clinic, Tony?" she asks, looking at him quizzically. And why had she not heard about it until today?
"Oh, yeah, that," Tony says after a pause, grinning nervously. He'd only mentioned that in passing and thought that Ziva had forgotten. He knows that she feels left-out that he didn't tell her about it sooner, or even that he didn't take her along with him, so he explains, "It was, uh, when you were out-of-town. I went with Chaplain Burke – it was her idea – while you were in Afghanistan with the Boss."
"Oh" is her only response, and then she looks away from him. Finally she says, her voice almost too low for Tony to hear, "That is a... coincidence. I, um, spent some time with children too, while I was there. Two little girls. They'd been taken captive by the same people who had Lieutenant Flores. Gibbs and I had to ask them about it to find out where she was."
Her face is drawn and turned away from him now, staring out the window but not seeing anything. Tony forces himself to tear his eyes away from her and look at the road before he crashes the car. The thought of Ziva interviewing little girls who'd just been held captive and tortured makes his gut churn. Why hadn't she told him about it before? But then, it was only a few months ago that she finally opened up to him about her sister, and him about his mother.
"That must've been tough," he says, his voice gone suddenly quiet, like it always does when he's serious.
He glances over at Ziva again as she opens her mouth, then closes it – as if she wanted to tell him one thing, but thought better of it. She says carefully, "Well, it was really Gibbs who talked to them. He is... better with children than I am."
"Hey, give yourself some credit, Zi. You're good with kids. Franks's grandkid adores you."
Franks's grandkid. Ziva used to correct Tony whenever he referred to her like that. Her name is Amira, she would say sharply, until she finally realized that Tony knew the girl's name as well as she did. Calling her that was his own way of paying homage to Mike Franks, of keeping the man's memory alive. Their whole team had tried to spend more time with Leyla and Amira since they moved to DC.
She smiles a bit at the compliment and the change of subject. Tony watches some of the tension leech from her shoulders. "And I think you were quite a hit with Kayla and Jared," she replies. "That pizza-box shark idea was brilliant."
"Well, those kids just seemed so bummed," Tony says, shrugging modestly. "Of course, I can't blame them. But I had to do something to lighten the mood in there."
She couldn't blame them, either. Ziva pretty sure that she and Tony both had a good idea of what Kayla and Jared were going through right now. She thought of the towheaded little boy and his beautiful young mother, going to the movies together for the last time, in the old photograph that Tony had showed her. She thought of herself and Tali, saying the kaddish for their dead mother. Even though, on the rare occasion that their family went to services, they attended an Orthodox synagogue where women didn't say the kaddish, Ziva had tugged her little sister's hand to stand up beside her, and they said the ancient words together, in unison with the mens' deeper voices.
Yit'gadal v'yit'kadash sh'mei raba...
She looks over at Tony. Is he remembering what it was like for him after his mother died too? Probably. His face is strangely distant as he stares out the windshield. They're almost back at the Navy Yard now. The Anacostia is visible below the freeway bridge, its waters inky-black in the darkness.
They were lucky that as adults, they'd found a surrogate family in their team, and a surrogate father in Gibbs. He's been a better father to her and Tony than either of the ones they were born to. Ziva gets pangs of guilt for thinking such things about Eli now that he was gone, but it was true.
And now, Gibbs was a surrogate grandfather to little Amira, too. He built elaborate toys for her in his basement – a dollhouse, a rocking horse, a ride-on dog. He'd even painted it to look like a dalmatian. Leyla protested that he was spoiling her.
"It can't become a regular thing, though," Tony says suddenly, interrupting her thoughts. "Vance working late and us watching his kids for him. Sure, we handled it okay, but they need their dad right now, and they got stuck with us instead. That's probably why they were so bummed. And if Vance ever asks us to baby-sit again, I'll tell him to his face to put his damn priorities in order." In his voice, Ziva can hear the hurt and anger of the little boy in the photograph, who spent years in hotel rooms and boarding schools because his mother was dead and his father could never find time for him. She suddenly aches to comfort that boy.
"Agreed," she answers immediately. Yes, she and Tony were lucky to have found a father figure in Gibbs, but as they pull into the Navy Yard, she says a prayer that Kayla and Jared will never need to go looking for one.
FIN