This story idea has been bouncing around in the back of my mind for some time now, ever since something similar happened to a real-life friend. I knew that her experience would make for a good NCIS fic, but I just couldn't decide where in the series to set it. Finally, I settled on 10x24 "Damned If You Do." That episode also marked where I stopped watching new episodes of the show, so writing this was kinda bittersweet for me. I hope you enjoy it!
(For my own reference: 81st fanfiction, 36th story for NCIS.)
When Abby finds out that the three of them turned in their badges, she doesn't exactly take the news well. After they leave Vance's office, they all go downstairs to Abby's lab and tell her together... and once she realizes that they aren't joking, she bursts into tears. They reassure her, telling that they'll still be a family, that nothing will ever change that. They just won't be an official NCIS team for a while, that's all.
Tony and Ziva leave after she's calmed down; McGee just nods, and they both understand that he wants to stay with Abby a little longer. They say goodnight, promising to call Abby tomorrow, and exit the building together. Ziva can't believe how strange it feels to leave the Navy Yard without her badge. It doesn't make any sense; her badge wasn't large or heavy, so not having it shouldn't make such a noticeable difference... but it does. Ziva feels like a part of her is missing, and she wonders if Tony feels the same way.
They walk across the parking lot together, and Tony's pace slows down as they approach her new car. Ziva is caught by surprise when Tony turns to face her and suddenly says, "You know, Ziva... what you said earlier, about valuing our friendship, was that-"
Ziva's breath quickens at his words, but before Tony can finish the sentence, he's interrupted by Gibbs. Their boss - Ziva realizes with a jolt that he's technically their ex-boss now, since they've turned in their badges - charges from out of nowhere in the darkened parking lot, looking as angry as Ziva has ever seen him.
"I just got a call from Vance," he says accusingly, almost yelling, as he comes to a stop in front of Tony and Ziva, "saying that all three of my agents had just turned in their damn badges."
Tony narrows his eyes and raises his head at Gibbs. Ziva gets the feeling that he's been waiting for this moment. "That's right," he answers, and the anger in his voice is quiet and controlled, but still there. Ziva can hear it. "What, I guess you're pissed that we didn't tell you beforehand?" His voice rises steadily as he goes on. "Kinda like how you didn't tell us that you were going to hand yourself over to Parsons and take the fall for our entire team?"
He stops to take another breath, and Ziva takes the opportunity to put in, "Gibbs, we all agreed that we could not let you take all the blame for our actions. It would not be right."
Tony and Gibbs are both silent for a moment, but still glaring at each other and practically seething with anger, and Ziva's dark eyes dart back and forth between them, waiting for one of them to burst.
But Gibbs surprises her. He's still angry, but instead of bursting, he must be thinking over what Tony and Ziva have just said, because he turns away from them and starts to pace the parking lot. But he hasn't paced more than a few steps before he stops, very abruptly, and the expression on his faces changes to something strange - something that Ziva can't quite name.
She exchanges a look with Tony, who follows Gibbs's gaze to the open backseat of Ziva's new convertible. Gibbs is staring fixedly at a large shopping bag on the seat, from a department store whose name Tony doesn't recognize. He steps closer, cranes his neck to glance inside, and then he suddenly understands their boss's reaction... because the entire bag is full of baby supplies. There are diapers, bottles, pacifiers, something that he thinks is a teething ring, and a pack of onesies in newborn-size, barely bigger than Tony's hand.
Newborn-size! Tony is so stunned that for a second, he think his legs will go right out from under him. There's no way... Ziva isn't... but why else would she have bought this many baby supplies? Newborn baby supplies, no less? No... she can't be... but why else... oh God, she must be.
Tony suddenly flashes back to what Ziva said to him earlier, when they were alone outside Gibbs's cabin in the woods. I have always taken responsibility for my own actions, and this is no different. I'm sorry if I hurt you. God, had she really been talking about... this? Is that why she hadn't told him, or Gibbs, or anyone else on their team? She'd said that they were her family, but how could she have kept this from them?
Tony glances at Gibbs again, and from the look on his face, he can guess at what Gibbs is thinking. He's thinking that they slept together when they were in Berlin, and that Tony is the father. Tony half-wishes that his suspicions were right... but they aren't. He and Ziva never slept together in Berlin. Ziva did sleep with Eschel, though, when she went back to Israel for her father's funeral. Tony was right there in observation when she all but admitted it to Parsons. She'd slept with Eschel, right after Tony told her you are not alone, so if she was pregnant now, it must be with his baby.
But... Tony calculates backwards in his head. Eli's funeral was months ago. How could Ziva have been pregnant for months without any of them noticing noticing? She would at least be showing by now, if she were that far along, and there would be other signs, too. No, there was no way she could've been pregnant since she'd been in Israel. But if not Eschel, then who...
Tony's head starts to spin. Without meaning to, he and Gibbs both tear their eyes from the bag of baby supplies to Ziva's waistline, and Ziva, in the few seconds that this has taken, suddenly realizes what the two of them have noticed, and what they've assumed. She blushes and snatches the bag up out of her backseat, folding the top closed.
"What..." Gibbs starts to ask, but Ziva interrupts him.
"I am not - this is not - " she fumbles in a rush, flustered and a bit embarrassed. "These things are not for me," she finally snaps. She can feel herself blushing, which only makes her more frustrated. Ziva David doesn't blush. She tightens her grip on her bag, holding it close over her stomach, and says slowly and deliberately, "They are for Abby."
They both gape at her as if this is even more shocking. Tony's jaw actually drops open, and Gibbs's blue eyes go wider than Ziva has ever seen them. Under any other circumstances, she would probably find their expressions hilarious.
"I mean, they are not for Abby, either," she corrects quickly. "They are for the nuns on her bowling team." And before either of them can look shocked by that, she explains, "They are holding a, um..." Ziva pauses, trying to remember Abby's exact words. "...a community baby shower, for needy new mothers."
She pauses again, and Gibbs slowly lets out the breath that he didn't realize he'd been holding, while Tony's shocked-stiff body goes weak with relief. Ziva glares angrily at them for jumping to conclusions. Neither of them have said it, but she knows exactly what they were thinking.
"Did Abby not mention it to either of you?" she demands. "I thought she had asked us all to make donations."
Tony's mind still feels shell-shocked, but at Ziva's words, a recent memory comes back to him - Abby talking a mile-a-minute, as always, holding a Caf-Pow with one hand and handing him a list of baby supplies with the other. "Literally anything," she'd told him, "any baby supply you buy, no matter how big or small, they need it. It's a seriously good cause. Sister Rosita has been organizing it for, like, months. You'll donate something, won't you, Tony?" Tony remembers now that he'd smiled, nodded, and promised Abby that yes, he would.
But then Parsons had reared his ugly head, coming straight after Gibbs and their team, and with all the shit that had gone down, Tony had completely forgotten about the nuns' community baby shower. He swears to himself to buy something - he doesn't know what, but something - tomorrow and give it to Abby. He supposes that he'll have plenty of time to shop for it, now that he doesn't have his badge anymore.
Ziva is still glaring daggers at him and Gibbs. "In fact," she says, sounding both angry and embarrassed, "I had better go back in and give these things to Abby right now." She turns sharply, still clutching her bag full of baby supplies, and begins walking back across the parking lot to the Navy Yard.
Neither Tony or Gibbs say anything as they watch her go. Tony takes a few deep breaths to steady himself. Ziva isn't pregnant, he tells himself over and over. Ziva isn't pregnant, not with Eschel's baby, or anyone else's. All the fantasies that had run through Tony's head during those few seconds when he thought that she was - Ziva's belly growing large, her decorating a nursery, her cradling a tiny baby in her arms - burst like a bubble. She isn't pregnant at all. The baby supplies weren't even for her.
Yet as Tony watches her back as she walks away from him, he doesn't know whether he feels relieved or disappointed.
FIN