It is here, it is here, the one we have all been waiting for! My 50th NCIS fiction. It probably is not as good as I have hyped it up to be, but I quite like it.

So I was watching 'The Object of My Affection' with Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston and this sort of…happened. It is for once more based on Tony's feelings for Ziva than Ziva's feelings for Tony. Or at least it is in the beginning. I thought I would give it a shot.

It is in the format that I had originally intended for It Takes Two, with a couple of chapters set each month. I did my best to get the dates correct, but if there are a couple of errors then it is completely my fault.

I have bent the timeline of the actual series a bit. We start in 2007, but that means that we have to imagine Bury Your Dead had happened slightly later than it did, because this starts around five months after that, which would mean that Bury Your Dead happened in February, not September. And I want Internal Affairs to have already happened, so that probably happened around the time that it actually did. Sorry for all the messing around with the timeline, I am using artistic licence.

Chapter One

Friday, June 15th 2007

He couldn't help but stare. He was infatuated. She's beautiful and she doesn't even notice. She was just sat there, typing away at her computer, tap-tap-tapping the keys. His desk gave him the perfect view of her. Her dark hair curled around her face, like it was trying to shield her from the external world – not that she needed shielding from anything. She was Ziva David, fearless Mossad officer, all-powerful and all-scary.

But there was something different about her. There had been for the past month or so, he just couldn't pinpoint it. She was still beautiful – more so, if possible, and yet he couldn't figure it out. She was radiant. No, she was glowing. Glowing? Why does that ring a bell?

Glowing…glowingglowingglowingglowingglowing…GLOWING! His jaw dropped and his feet fell off his desk as he tumbled out of his chair. He quickly pulled himself to be the correct way up and sat back down, brushing himself off and looking around to check that he had not been noticed by anyone. He turned back to look at Ziva and frowned. No…she can't be. She's not seeing anyone. Is she? No, she would have said something. But what if…? Means there's a guy…

Well, duh, DiNozzo. God, why is it you're an investigator again?

The part of his mind that he spent so much of his time blocking out was running through a series of thoughts that went something along the lines of:

It's not mine. She's pregnant and it's not mine.

Well of course it's not you fool! Did you ever once think about telling her about all of your feelings?

Obviously I thought about it – I just knew that it would just ruin a good friendship. She doesn't feel the same way, and this is my proof.

Well then, what are you complaining about?

It's not mine.

Yes, we've been through that, can we move on to the next thought?

She's pregnant.

Hey, maybe she's not. Maybe I'm just fantasising…

Nope, she really has that whole glowy thing going on.

Well, maybe she's just using a new moisturiser…yeah, right, stupid suggestion.

So this is it then. The end of the world.

No, idiot, just the end of an impossibility.

Can you have an end to an impossibility? Particularly an impossibility that never actually had a start. Something can't have an end without having a start, can it…

Now you're just getting too deep…especially for a Friday…

"Zee-Vah?" He tossed a scrunched up ball of paper at her, smiling as she caught it without even looking.

"Yes, Tony?" She looked at him. There was something hidden in her eyes. Could it be fear?

No, Ziva doesn't know the meaning of fear, or at least doesn't feel it.

So how do you know what it would look like in her eyes, clever guy?

What does she have to be afraid of anyway?

Apart from a kid, which is something that does deserve a little fear.

But still…this is Ziva. Ziva isn't scared of anything.

"Tony!"

"Hm?"

"You said my name."

"I did? Oh, I did." He sorted through his thoughts. Why do I want to talk to her again? Apart from her being Ziva and, you know, talk-to-able, with that voice, and those eyes…so intense and…scared? Oh, right, pregnant. Ziva. Baby. Talk. "Er, yeah. Can we, er, I mean, I need to, well, I want to…er, no, we need…no, I need…oh, um, I, er, well, you…"

"Spit it out, Tony."

"Hey, you got one right!" He grinned. Pregnant. Ziva. Baby. Talk. His smile faded. "Look, can we go talk somewhere?"

"We are talking now. Why can we not talk here?"

"Because I really don't think what I want to talk to you about is something you would want to talk about in the squad room." He bit his bottom lip. She frowned but stood up and walked slowly to the men's room, letting him follow at his own pace as soon as he had realised she wasn't there to keep babbling on to about why he wanted to talk to her without actually ever saying why he wanted to talk to her.

"Why am I standing in the men's room and not finishing my report right now, Tony?"

"Because I know."

"You know what?" She snorted, wondering if he had finally gone round the corner. Corner? Turn? It definitely is not 'world'. Round the…Round the…Bend! She was wondering if he had finally gone round the bend!

Or maybe he has just become more observant all of a sudden?

Shut up! She smothered the little, taunting voice in the back of her head.

"I know about the baby." He blurted.

"What baby, Tony?" She visibly paled. Definitely more observant. Wait, how can he know? You do not even know yet! "Have you been drinking?"

"No, Ziva. You're pregnant, aren't you?"

"No. What makes you think I am?" She turned away slightly, making her voice sound aloof.

"You're all glowy."

"I am all glowy?" She repeated sceptically, a frown creasing her face.

"Yeah. And you look…scared. Not that you are scared…I mean, I would forgive you if you were…not that I'm upset or angry or anything because you're scared, or that you need my forgiveness for being scared, or any forgiveness really for being scared, which you're not, but if you were…I wouldn't be…" He trailed off, repeating his words in his head and physically flinching when he heard them. "Sorry. Look, I just want to make sure you're alright, you know, have someone to help you and stuff, not that I think that you'd have chosen a bad guy to father your child, not that I think you chose the guy for the specific reason of having a kid…or that you have a bad choice in men…I just want you, my friend, to be okay." He stood and nodded awkwardly.

"There is a box…in the top drawer of my desk. It contains two home pregnancy tests. I was going to take them yesterday, but I could not." She leaned back against the wall and exhaled slowly, puffing her cheeks out and staring at the floor. Tony looked at his watch.

"Come on. Go get them from your desk."

"What?!"

"I'm gonna take you home. I'll stay with you for moral support. If that's what you want, of course, I mean..."

"Tony, it is midday."

"I'll tell Gibbs you have a stomach bug and I'm gonna take you home and look after you. I wanna be a good friend, Ziva."

"You already are." She smiled slightly. "Thank you."

He looked at his watch and groaned. "We've got three minutes left. You know, I don't understand why they make the wait so long, because it just stresses expectant mothers out, and that's not good for you or the baby." He watched as she crossed over to where he was sat on the end of her bed. She had placed the two tests on the edge of the sink whilst they sat the long wait.

"Tony, the wait is that long because that is how long the test takes."

"But with all that technology, surely they could make it a shorter wait. I mean, pregnant women get stressed enough as it is, why do they need to make life even more stressful for you."

"If you group me with pregnant women and expectant mothers once more, Tony, or suggest that the stress is not good for me, I will personally make sure that you never have to feel this stress again. Are we understood?"

"Yeah." He gulped and nodded.

"Besides. I may not even be pregnant." She looked hopefully at him. He just smiled sadly back.

"You wanna talk about it?"

"I guess I have to." She sat next to him and stared intently at the floor.

"No, not if you don't…"

"Tony, I have to." She sighed. "I was at the bar with everyone, and McGee and Abby had been called into work, and Palmer and Lee had disappeared off somewhere and it was just me and Ducky."

"Dear Lord, please tell me it's not Ducky's?" He smirked, receiving a thump to the arm. "I deserved that." He grinned before his smile faded, dropping with the mood. "Where was I?"

"Not there." She refused to meet his gaze. "Ducky had offered me a lift home. Actually, he said he would not take no for an answer, but in the end I convinced him that I would catch a cab. I wanted to drink and have meaningless sex with the first guy who offered and forget about everything." She ran a hand through her hair, frowning slightly when she saw Tony's jaw tighten out of the corner of her eyes. "I sat at the bar and got very, very drunk. There was a guy was sat at the opposite end of the bar and he had been watching, so I decided – he looked okay, what the hell. I staggered over and told him my master plan – more alcohol and a very forgettable one-night stand. And he said he would take me home. I thought he meant to carry out my 'master plan' but when we turned up at my apartment he tucked me into bed, gave me a glass of water and slept on the sofa. He reminded me of you in that way. He would never have taken advantage of my drunken state. And I guess that is what I liked about him. His name was Matthew. I think you would have liked him. He was a Marine, deployed to Iraq last month. Their convoy drove over an IED on their third day there. No survivors."

"I'm sorry." Tony placed a hand on her shoulder. "I really am." And he was, although he wasn't certain what he was sorry for, whether it be her loss, the fact that she may or may not be pregnant, or that he hadn't been there.

"It is not like it was true love or anything. It was just nice to come home and have someone to talk to, you know, without having to worry that it will stray into the territory of work. And the sex was not too bad either." She grinned.

"Okay, I'm here for moral support. I do not need to know the ins and outs of how this happened." He shook his head as she smirked before her face fell.

"How long left?"

"A minute and a half." He smiled sympathetically as she flopped back onto the bed and covered her face with her hands.

"I do not want anything to change. I want to be me, and I cannot be me if I am pregnant, or caring for a child." Her voice was muffled.

"If we didn't have change then we would all still be bacteria and amoeba and stuff. Change can be good."

"And it can be bad."

"Yeah." He sighed, not having an answer to that one. How could he deny it if he believed it? He took one of her hands in his. "But hey, you might not be pregnant. And if you are, then I'll be here for you. I can be whoever you want me to be. I could be cool Uncle Tony." He nodded, imagining it.

"I shall have to think about it. I am not sure I want you corrupting any child of mine." She said in mock seriousness.

"You wound me, Ziva." He clutched at his heart then looked down at his watch. "Time's up."

"Can you look at it for me?"

"No."

"What?! Tony, you are supposed to be here to help me!"

"And I wish I could, but I'm kinda nervous."

"You?! You are nervous?! You are not the one who is about to find out if in nine months you are going to be holding a child in your arms with the inability to hand it back to its parents after ten minutes!"

"Okay, I think I see your point, I just think you might want to look at it yourself first, you know, to compose yourself. I don't want to give you bad news. I don't want to hurt you. That's all."

"Please?" And that's all it took. The simple utterance of one word in one heart wrenching tone of voice and he was in the en suite looking at the result and wondering if he should find some more protective clothing before telling her.

"Tony, stop staring!" Ziva snapped as she lay on her back on her living room floor. He was laying perpendicular to her on his front, his chin propped on his palm as he stared at her stomach.

"But it's brilliant! There's a tiny little life in there. Don't you think it's amazing?"

"No, Tony. Quite honestly, at this moment I do not find it amazing. Right at this minute I find it a bloody big inconvenience!" She hadn't meant to be so harsh, but his excitability was grating on her nerves. "I cannot be a mother and work. Oh, God! My father is going to kill me. And probably you too."

"He won't…Wait. Why's he gonna kill me?!" Tony looked at her face.

"The whole of Mossad has some strange notion that we are sleeping together." She sounded so blasé; as if it were common knowledge that they were in some sort of sexual relationship that he himself was unaware of.

"Be kind, rewind. What are you talking about?"

"Back when Gibbs left, you started visiting my apartment, yes?"

"Yeah. But nothing happened." Not that I didn't want it to.

"Well, my father had been having me 'observed'. Some photographs were taken. Just you regularly entering my place, me taking your hand, flirting, you remember?"

"Yeah." He nodded. "But wait, that was ages ago."

"That phone call to my Aunt Nettie you hijacked? She wanted to know why she was not invited to the wedding. I managed to convince her that we were not married, but she said that your tone of voice implied that we were at least sleeping together. And of course, if anyone in my family, or Tel Aviv for that matter, wants gossip, they go to Nettie, and she is more than happy to supply."

"Well, can't you correct them?"

"No. No point in trying. They will not believe me." She shook her head. "You have never met my family, Tony, nor do you want to."

"Oh, I don't know. I think I would."

"No, Tony. Trust me." She brought her knees up and folded her hands behind her head. "What is Gibbs going to say to all of this?"

"I think he'll understand. Might even smile." He chuckled, making her laugh slightly. "When are you gonna tell him?"

"I do not know." She sighed and shook her head, taking one of his hands in hers. "He will figure it out."

"Ziva, you need to tell him. He has to know. What happens if something goes wrong in the field and he still doesn't know?"

"I will tell him in a week. I just need some time to think about it."

"Okay. You promise you'll tell him though?"

"Of course." She smiled, squeezing his hand.

"Ziva, you know I'll be here for you, don't you?"

"You know that you do not have to worry about me?"

"Yes, but..."

"Then there is your answer."

Ziva stirred as the menu screen of From Russia With Love played repeatedly on the small flat-screen. Tony had gotten it for a reasonable price for her from his neighbour, after he declared that not having a television was the reason why she was so uneducated when it came to American culture, and so it was therefore his job as her friend to teach her about America in the only way he knew how. That had been when Gibbs had left, and the TV was only ever used when he was round. Her eyes fluttered open and she twisted slightly, suddenly noticing that the dead-weight of Tony's arm was pressing down on her shoulder. She carefully eased herself out from where she was nestled into his side, his arm wrapped protectively around her, and turned the TV off, silence descending on her living room, disturbed only by the quiet snores that Tony was emitting. She carefully padded around her apartment, looking into each of the rooms as if she had never been into any of them before, as if she had not lived there for the past few years.

It suddenly felt a lot smaller than it had done when she moved into the apartment paid for by her father. When she had arrived, the kitchen had seemed large, and so had the lounge and the bedroom. The bathroom had appeared big as well, and at first she had worried that she would never be able to fill it all on her own. But now she had, and all of a sudden she had to think about fitting a baby in as well. The realisation that everything was going to change hit her like a tonne of bricks, and it felt as if she had been winded as she slipped down to sit on the floor, leaning against the door frame between the kitchen and her living room. She cradled her head in her hands and looked over to where Tony was snoozing on her couch. Her heart melted at the sight and she felt immediately calmer, just by knowing that for now he was there.

He had been the reason she had stayed at the bar in the first place. He had blown the team – her – off, again, for Jeanne, and she had been angry and disappointed and upset. So she had stayed at the bar after Ducky had left and gotten even more drunk and searched for something, or someone, to help her forget him, if only for the night. And then Matthew had happened – she had spoken the truth earlier, it would never have been true love, but they had both liked being able to see someone who almost understood them, if only on the surface. It had lasted four months, longer than most relationships she had managed to maintain, but then he had gone to Iraq, and not returned.

She stood up carefully, suddenly aware that there was a life growing inside of her and her ruthless lifestyle was going to have to drastically change, and walked to her small linen cupboard, where she removed a blanket and a spare pillow. She took the bedding and walked over to Tony, where he still lay sleeping on the couch, as oblivious to her feelings towards him as he always had been. She froze when he grunted slightly and shifted, but relaxed when she realised that he had actually rolled over and settled further into her sofa, his feet now hanging off one end and his arms dangling off the side. She couldn't help but chuckle silently at the way he had easily made himself at home; it was in his nature. After a moment of watching him sleep, admiring the childlike innocence that replaced the charming yet cocky expression that was nearly always etched into his face, she slipped the pillow under his head and covered him with the blanket as well as she could, knowing that she would never be able to find a blanket big enough to cover all of his extremities. She knelt down beside his head and sighed sadly, tracing a finger over his features. She had always hoped for a chance, a possibility that they could maybe have a future together at some point, but now that chance was gone, lost to another man's child, ruined by her own impatience and anger. She ran a hand through his hair and pressed her lips softly to his forehead, whispering a quiet goodnight before turning off the lights and making her way to bed, her mind focused fully on the child growing inside of her and the man sleeping peacefully on her couch.

I really like writing as the little voice in Tony's head. It is funny. And it makes a change from me focusing more so on Ziva's thoughts. Although, we are still going to see some more of Ziva's point of view.

I started writing this quite a while ago, and I hope that by the time I have uploaded this first chapter I will have the story completely written up. I also hope that there will be 24 chapters in total. I realise now that since I have only written ten chapters up, I still have a long way to go. It is mid February 2016 as I write this Author's note, so I wonder how long it will be until this is actually uploaded. I know it will definitely be sometime in the future. Hello future! What is it like compared to what it was like when I wrote this?

Okay. I am uploading this today, November 13th 2016. I have all but three chapters complete, and they are the penultimate three, so I have plenty of time to complete them. I do not actually know how frequently I will update this, since I already have the chapters written up. Maybe once every week or so? I do not know. I am still continuing with It Takes Two, but I have been spending an awful lot of time doing this and not that, so I still need to start the next chapter. I think I will finish off the three that need finishing for this first thought.

UPDATE: I have just broken the last block up on the recommendations of someone who commented as a guest. Sorry, I tend to forget that it is not so easy to read when it is in a large block of text like that. I guess I have just gotten used to reading large blocks of text over the years, due to work and text books through the years that I did my A-levels (trust me, the authors of philosophy text books do not know the meaning of the word paragraph) and I forget also that FanFiction has a different font and size to what I use on Word, so it is more difficult. I will try and remember for the future.

For my reference: 50th NCIS fic (Who would have guessed?)