Thanks for the influx of reviews :) Depending on reviews I'll update again on Wednesday or Thursday.
At 7:15 on the morning Gibbs had simultaneously been dreading and looking forward to, he found a small lump curled up in his bed. He smiled, brushing hair out of her face. It was the first day of school and neither of them quite knew how to feel. It started at nine however he had been asked to arrive twenty minutes early so he could go over things with the school and her teacher. Honestly, Gibbs wasn't entirely sure what to expect. It wasn't a public school and they had received scholarship for half of the bill, the other half was being paid for out of Ziva's old inheritance from her mother. He'd been shocked when he found the huge lump sum in an account that McGee had transferred into his name. Money, and a lot of it, that hadn't been touched since Rivka had passed almost twenty years ago.
After taking a shower, Gibbs had returned to find Ziva had vacated the room. In the kitchen she was sitting at the table still in her pyjamas with a book in her hands. He was uncertain of the title and couldn't remember buying it but he put that to one side as he put on toast for her. He had been allowing her to make it herself for a while however when she tried to fish out the toast with a knife a few weeks ago, Gibbs had taken up his better judgement. The toast popped and he buttered it, placing it under her nose.
"Once you're done that, get changed." He told her, kissing her crown as he turned away to pour himself some coffee.
"C-can we make it next Monday?" She asked in a small voice. "I...I um...have not been feeling...I feel sick."
Gibbs looked at her as she met his eyes, a firm look of I'm-sticking-with-this-lie-even-though-it's-awful on her face. He sighed. He'd been expecting something along those lines. He was just grateful she was such an awful liar.
"No, Ziva." He spoke softly. "It'll be fine."-Gibbs took his coffee and sat down across from her-"We're gonna meet your teacher at twenty to nine and she's gonna talk to us, tell you what to expect."
"But I'm sick." She protested, her voice quiet and her head drooped. "I might pass on my germs to the other kids."
"It's just nerves." Gibbs clarified, even though he was sure she wasn't feeling sick in the least. "Get that down you."
The next half hour was spent with her slowly eating her toast. The second slice took a whole twenty minutes with miniscule pieces and at least fifteen bites for each one. He'd managed to get changed and clean shaven before she'd even got to that one. Gibbs sat on the couch gritting his teeth with a newspaper on front of him, his eyes focused on one word he was too frustrated to read passed. 8:03. He took another minute to steady his temper before speaking.
"Go get dressed." He managed exceptionally well.
"But I'm not finished yet."
There was one final morsel he was certain she could make last another half hour. That was one of her tricks. She did something as slowly as humanly possible-such as taking twenty minutes to get through one slice of toast-purposefully to push someone's-usually his-buttons so she could have a reason to get angry to postpone the undesirable activity even further. He was getting better at it now however he was imperfect-as all humans, especially parents-are and he let his temper get the better of him too often and participated in her screaming match. This, however he was sure, was not going to be one of those times.
Gibbs got up and knelt down beside her with an arm around her back, kissing her cheek lovingly before speaking. "I know you're scared Ziver, but I'm not gonna go until you say it's ok."-Her eyes prickled with tears but she didn't look up-"I'm never gonna leave you if you need me. This is nothing to be afraid of. I firmly believe there's nothin' you can't handle. Come on, Ziva, we'll go get you changed and then you can play for a little bit. Deal?"
It took a few moments however she did nod. He'd usually leave her to get changed herself as she was more than capable however he felt if he didn't go with her she would end up in her cubby hole for the next hour. In her room she opened the drawers and pulled out a shirt and trousers, dumping them on her bed in uncooperative silence. Gibbs knelt down on front of her and pulled her pyjama top up over her head. Before he removed it completely he tickled her and she burst into laughter, fighting both her attacker and the top that, although was not covering her head was stuck on her arms.
"Daddy, stop it!" She cried, finally working her way out of the top to try and catch his hands, still breathless from giggling.
He pulled the fresh shirt over her head before helping her out of the pyjama bottoms and reaching for the cargo pants for her to step into. He paused.
"Underwear, Ziva." She fished out a pair from the drawers and pulled them on before stepping into the trousers. Content, he nodded. "Done: hair, teeth, out."
With that final word ringing in her ears she became rigid and unhelpful again. Although they didn't really have time, he knew amusing her as they got ready was more likely to get them swiftly out the door than strictly telling her to move it. That, he knew, would result in full stubborn, two year old tantrum, screaming match mode. As he brushed her hair he pulled it up as though he were going to put it in a ponytail and swished it down into her face. Although the mass barely scraped her shoulders, he managed to swoosh it about her face effectively eliciting a laugh from both parties as she swatted at him in mild annoyance.
Eventually Gibbs had managed to get Ziva in the car with her school bag seated beside her, the corners of her lips pulled up in a smile. They were out slightly later than he would have rathered however he'd got her in the car without too much of a fuss. Personally, he would have seen that as a result. They managed to arrive at the school in just enough time to make it to the office for twenty to. Gibbs took his daughter's hand as he led her through the semi-filled parking lot and into the nice looking building. It was single storey with a three foot blue fence around it, the playground filled with hopscotch trials and benches and a climbing frame. The office was surprisingly bright and cheery with a man sitting behind the desk.
"Ziva Gibbs, we've to meet her teacher." Gibbs told the man.
"First day?" He asked then pointed down the corridor, "Make a left and then another left, second door on the right."
They followed his instructions where they found a reasonably sized classroom with a young woman at a desk. He knocked to get her attention.
"Hello," She beamed with a warm smile, "you must be Ziva Gibbs, we're glad to have you on board."
Usually not a particularly shy child, Gibbs was slightly surprised when her arm coiled around his leg. Recovering, he shook the woman's hand and took a seat.
"So, we're in a class of eleven, Ziva makes twelve. Today we'll give her a few tests to see where she's sitting right now, don't be worried dear, they're just little things, nothing to worry about." The woman had directed the last comments to Ziva as she was aware most of her pupils became worried when the word 'test' was mentioned. "We have three individual tutors in this class with four kids to each. They make sure all the work given is at a suitable level, not too easy, not too advanced. Of course, I'm the teacher and most of the time I'm teaching and overseeing but we like to keep up to date with each pupil's individual needs. Oh-wait, I'm Miss Alice Lannert. I always forget to introduce myself." She laughed herself along.
Gibbs was reasonably comfortable with the woman, sure she-and the school-was the right thing for Ziva. Ziva was sitting in the chair beside him looking around the room. In the middle were chairs slightly spaced out like any other school, the windows were large and encompassed most of one of the wall. At the back were huge bookcases stacked full, enough to put her own meager shelves to shame. Along the other wall were boxes with individual books and jotters with names above them. Above the only empty box was her own name in large font: Ziva.
"Mr Gibbs, if you could just fill out a few forms, that'd be great." Miss Lannert passed across a small booklet to him. "Ziva, you can just pop to our little library and pick a reading book for class. It'll live in your box 'til you're finished and then you can swap it."
Ziva nodded, leaving the discussion to pick out a book, most of which she couldn't reach. Gibbs passed back the forms after adding his signature to the last page. He was certain most of the information he had just given them he had also put down when they had made their application however he went along with it all the same.
"Ok, so now we're all sorted we have about five minutes before the bell rings and we can introduce you. Mr Gibbs, you can leave now, she's in capable hands."
Gibbs looked down to Ziva who gave him a firm nod. He pulled her onto his lap and kissed her cheek even though he knew she'd be embarrassed by the display of affection on front of her new teacher.
"At the other end of a phone." He assured her, kissing her forehead before letting her slip out of his grasp and heading to leave. "Love you."
"Ani Ohevet Otkha (I love you)." She replied.
He had grown fond of that phrase, more so in Hebrew than in English. She'd never had any problem with English but the most natural, most familiar words rolled off her tongue in Hebrew.
Ziva stood at the front with Miss Lannert when the bell rang and her handful of classmates entered cheerfully. They were all aged about five or six but she was painfully aware she must be the youngest in the class. As they sat down she located her desk, middle row closest to the window.
"Hello class, I trust you had a good weekend. This is Ziva, she's joining the class." She beamed then turned to Ziva. "Tell them about yourself."
Never a good public speaker, the child shuffled about on the spot before starting in as small a voice as she felt appropriate. "I am Ziva. I'll be five on the twelfth. I was born in Israel."
Ziva looked up to the teacher to see if that was enough. She was told to sit down and she released a breath of absolute relief. After ten minutes or so of shuffling about and kids getting work out Ziva was given a few tests to work through. Some of them were as basic as adding and subtracting, others she could tell were to check her reading and writing abilities such as telling her to continue a story from the passage above. After a while her tutor came over, a man she was told to simply call Lewis.
"I heard you're multilingual." He greeted. "I love kids like that, we have a few in here. How many languages you got, kid?"
"Ten." Ziva replied with complete confidence. He laughed in disbelief. "You do not believe me?"
"No, kid. I've been here long enough to believe just about anything you guys tell me." He continued laughing, pulling up a chair to sit at the other side of her desk. "Well I'm the language tutor here but I doubt there's much I can teach you, huh?"
She smiled. She liked this man. He was kind and easy to talk to which allowed her to lower her guard. "What do you speak?"
"English, Spanish, Italian, French, German, Russian and Chinese." Lewis replied. "Which do you wanna use today?"
The grin stretched across her face as though someone had just given her free range in a mall. "Italiano?"
He continued their conversation in perfect Italian. "Where did you learn your languages?"
"My Ima taught me but she died a while ago. My new father adopted me." She replied, internally cringing at the mention of her mother.
"Sorry to hear that. Emily is your only competitor for languages. She is fluent in four right now and has the basics of another three." Lewis called a girl she presumed to be Emily over. She was a tall girl with long dark hair. "Emily, Ziva. Ziva, Emily. I think you could be friends. Emily's in our tutor group as well."
"Hello." Emily greeted in Italian as well before switching to Hebrew. "My grandmother lives in Israel. She taught me Hebrew. I'm six."
"And now we're out of my capabilities. I'll let you two geniuses bond for a while." With that Lewis left to go and catch up with one of the boys from his group.
"It gets better. I did not like my first day either." She told her as she pulled round the chair their tutor had left behind. "Lewis is nice. He is helping me learn German. Right now I know Italian, Hebrew and French but I am learning German, Spanish and Russian."-Suddenly she switched back to English-"Jack also knows Spanish but nobody else knows any other languages but Jack's not really my friend. Sophie's my best friend, you can play with us at playtime if you want."
"Toda." Ziva said as her new acquaintance returned back to her desk at the front of the class. She supposed school wouldn't be too bad. A wall of books; a climbing frame; others with an encyclopaedia of languages; she could cope with all that.
NCIS-NCIS-NCIS
With two days left of sabbatical Gibbs was unsure of how to spend his time. His basement workshop was often left unused for days now he had a child to fill up his time however the beginnings of a boat (one of which would have been finished by now in his previous life) sat ready to be worked on. Every five minutes or so he glanced down at his phone. No news is good news. Gibbs was well aware that wasn't true however he had left her in a school, not a death camp. She was fine. Probably. He knew for a fact that if she had any complaints-any in the very least-he would be made aware of it immediately.
Sanding the frame work of his boat brought him back. Despite the fact it was now November and he had had Ziva living with him for months now he probably wouldn't be surprised if he saw the adult Ziva slouch down those steps to sit with him in silence for a while. Comfort, he would muse, silent comfort.
But he wouldn't change their current situation for anything. He just prayed that his little girl was doing alright on her own. She was strong, independant and sure of herself. If Ziva couldn't tough out a class of twelve children no-one could.
NCIS-NCIS-NCIS
It was lunch time and Ziva wasn't quite sure what to do with herself. Her sandwich and juice had been finished in the canteen and now she was standing at the far end of the playground watching the tens of other children playing. Emily and Sophie were off with skipping ropes. She had tried to get along with them however Sophie had taken an immediate dislike. She was the only one in the playground completely on her own. By a tree there were two boys reading comic books, together without being together and by a bench there were three kids involved in their own activities. Ziva however was alone alone.
She looked around trying to find something to distract herself from her apparent loneliness. There were four trees dotted about in the grounds however the lower branches of all of them had been cut off to stop them from climbing. Ziva was undeterred. She could scale one of them as it was thin enough for her to wrap her legs around it properly for long enough to reach the first branch. It took her about twenty seconds to reach the lowest branch. There had been a surprising amount of places to put her hands. It took her another few minutes to get up higher, successfully weaving in and out. Once comfortable with her height, she sat down with confidence. From there she could see out on the playground and the school. Ziva had just decided to sit there everyday when a teacher rushed over in panic.
"Young lady, get down from there, now!" She called up in near hysterics.
"No, thank you. I'm good." Ziva replied.
"Get down, now!" The woman shouted, gesturing for another teacher to come over. "What is your name? I'm calling your mother!"
"You are going to need a seance."
By this time Miss Lannert had come over and three or four boys were watching her in apparent awe. In other news, Emily and Sophie were sending her disapproving looks and whispering behind hands.
"Ziva, honey. I don't want to call your father to pick up on your very first day." Lannert told her in a kind but firm voice. "Come on, love."
Ziva sighed as the bell rang which dissipated the crowd of all but the two teachers and three of the four boys. The thought of trying to teach Lewis basic Hebrew was enough to draw her back down from the tree. She was well aware that in a few days he would want to teach her and she was determined to make the most of her 'settling in' time while she had it. She returned down the tree. When she got to the bottom branch she hesitated for a moment which was enough to get Miss Lannert to step forward to lift her down.
"Class now." The older, meaner teacher she hadn't met before snapped. "We'll be talking with your parent or carer when they pick you up."
Obviously she had been offended by the seance comment. On her way back to class she was met by approval by two of the boys, the third one shooting forward to class now the drama was over.
"We're in Mr Bridge's class." The taller of the two told her despite the fact the information was irrelevant to her. "That was pretty cool. My brother says you've to always make a big stunt on your first day so they know who they're messing with. I was going to but…"
"He chickened out," The other boy laughed. They got to the building. "Bye."
She waved goodbye to them as she entered her own class. Immediately she noticed the sharp contrast between those who approved with her 'stunt' and those who didn't. She had definitely made an enemy out of Sophie however Emily was still up for grabs. With an air of natural confidence she swept passed the lot and dropped herself to her seat with a strong smile.
NCIS-NCIS-NCIS
Gibbs entered the office with a discontented sigh. He'd received a call saying the deputy head wanted to speak to him after school. He could only imagine what Ziva could have done on the first half of her very first day. After the bell rang kids filtered out around him. Eventually Miss Lannert came out with Ziva trotting along beside them. Both were smiling and seemingly chatting about something positive. He wanted to hope that this was a normal part of every first day at this school however he was very certain that he wasn't quite that lucky.
"Hi daddy." Ziva lulled, looking up at him with the most innocent look she could muster.
"Don't you 'hi daddy' me." He sighed without too much negativity behind it. Gibbs turned his attention to her teacher. "What did she do?"
"You have a very intelligent little girl with a very natural tree climbing ability." She grinned. "I'll see you tomorrow, Ziva. The deputy head, Mrs Stephens will see you shortly."
Ziva waved a cheerful goodbye at the teacher she'd evidently taken a liking to. To be fair, it could have been a lot worse.
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