Here ya go: Chapter 2, the follow-up to the default-teaser. Do take note of the date at the beginning - we are currently, for the time of this chapter, residing in the past, two weeks prior to the teaser-chapter. This is what some may call 'fluff', but Gauguin and I call it 'getting an idea' - or 'setting the mood' in lack of an even more hyper-used cliché-phrase.

An earnest and wholehearted THANK YOU to those of you who reviewed and a shout-out to those of you who added this story to their favorites and/or alerts - I would, of course, love to hear why you did that!

…right, BTW: I'm currently entertaining some sincere interest in the language of Ivrit or Modern Hebrew, so I meticulously try to be as accurate as possible with the few phrases I butcher with a latinised writing system. However, if there is someone out there reading this thing who speaks Hebrew or is in any way more adept at it than me (which is, frankly, not really hard to accomplish), do not hesitate to PM me! Every language deserves its proper use after all.

Chap 2 Love and red, red roses

Two weeks prior: Saturday, November 2nd 2018

West Clark Street, Apartment 7

Ziva was sitting at the desk in the little study she had been adamant they set up instead of a guest room when they had bought the apartment seven years ago. She was leaning back in the leather chair with her back almost turned completely towards the computer screen that was glowing with the most recent picture of Tali and David into the faintly lit darkness of the room. Her feet were resting on the arm of the couch that was framed by high book shelves on either side of the wall. A glass of Merlot, only a fourth of the dull red liquid left, stood near the edge of the desk where she had positioned it carefully and absentmindedly within her reach. Case files were stacked on the other side of the desk, temporarily discarded.

She was reading. She shook her head softly, a smile flickering across her face when her eyes met a particular word: פֶּרַח. She had been mildly upset when Tali had asked her for the Hebrew word for 'flower' the other day in the park and she hadn't been able to give an immediate answer, David even beating her to it. Not speaking to anyone in fluent Hebrew except her Aunt Nettie every few months was taking a toll on her translating skills, she had thought at first. But David substituting for her momentary loss had relieved her even more than it had made her proud. Both of her children had proven to be very quick and willing to grow up bilingually - very much intensifying her inclination to put her elaborate language skills to a more sustainable use than being the go-to-woman for dealing with Interpol operatives at work.

It was almost four o'clock in the morning. Both Tali and David had long gone to bed. Tali had already woken up in the meantime and had relocated to Ziva's bedroom, going back to sleep almost instantly and only vaguely thrown off by the fact her mother hadn't actually been in her own room but had come from the study to tuck her back in.

In fact, Ziva was waiting for her date to arrive. Time difference, their hectic schedules and the children's varying sleeping patterns weren't exactly making things easy for them. Even though they talked at least once a day for half an hour during her lunch break - respectively, on his way to the office - those late-night/early-morning dates were still more important. They would always be trying to squeeze them in every week and alas, would succeed in actually pulling them off once a fortnight.

Suddenly the familiar inbox-ding of an IM caused her to mark the current page in her book before throwing it onto the couch and turning around to face her computer screen. The message was from a Joe Fox: "you've got mail."

She smiled and turned on the webcam on her computer. When she found a red rose and his emerald eyes staring back at her she chuckled, "Tony."

"I tried to cram that thing into the disk drive", he sighed, gazing wistfully at the rose in his hand, "Didn't work…obviously." He turned his face into his webcam and put on his best DiNozzo smile.

"I do appreciate your effort nonetheless", Ziva smiled.

For a second he felt lost in the image that presented itself in front of him by virtue of virtuality. Ziva was clad in the v-lined nightgown he had bought her the last time he had visited - almost four months ago. In that time he had only had the pleasure of peeling it off of her body once. Her hair was down, cascading over her shoulders in loose curls. She had obviously still not had it cut since his last visit either. Her dark ambers were staring back at him intently, her brows slowly furrowing.

"Tony?", she spoke softly.

His heart gave a small jolt at the slight tremor of concern in her voice. He missed that a lot, someone caring as much as she did - or someone caring as much as anyone on his old team would. "Give a man a few seconds to admire the most beautiful woman in the world", he answered sincerely.

With her lips pursed, her eyes narrowed slightly and her head turned a little to the side she generated a typical Ziva-look, but she could still feel her heart beating a tad bit faster than a second before. She had to admit, he was looking good himself. The Spanish sun had bestowed him with a constant tan, his hair was a bit longer still, and the scruff look he seemed to cultivate on a trademark basis now caused her to shuffle a bit in her seat. She never realized how much she was actually missing him until he turned up onscreen. Being able to talk to him while not having him close enough to touch was killing her ten times over.

He caught on to the pensive shadows growing on her face and decided to start on the actual conversation, trying to get both their minds off the obvious, "How's the crowd?"

She was glad for the distraction but her voice cooled down to sober evenness, "You missed her birthday, Tony."

"You've been saying that for weeks, sweet cheeks", Tony returned, trying hard to keep the lightness.

"It has been a month and the actual party was not until last week."

"I couldn't get away. You know I would've if I could've", he sighed, his eyes pleading with her. The fact he had missed Tali's birthday the second year in a row was eating away at him anyway. Personally, he could have contently done without Ziva's constant guilt trip. Or anybody's guilt trip for that matter: Abby glaring at him whenever her face turned up onscreen, a calendar that counted days to and from Tali's birthday embedded in each of McGee's e-mails and even good old Ducky carefully bringing up the little girl's birthday every time they had talked over the phone throughout the last month.

"I know that and part of me even understands that", Ziva explained truthfully, trying herself at some sort of reprieve.

"What with the other part?", Tony asked lightly, smiling.

"That part wants to kill you…slowly and painfully", she returned calmly.

"Ah right", he nodded, clearing his throat, "The Mossad part."

"No, Tony, the mother part."

There were moments in Tony DiNozzo's life - and really, they were few - when no quip, no remark, no quote in the world could make light of a situation. It weren't so much those grievous moments, those darkest moments in everyone's lives, those moments of crude sorrow when he found even the most ingenuous comment to be out of place. In actual fact, those were moments he believed them quite fitting for his comments seemed to be his only, midly effective coping mechanism. It were those moments when reality seemed to suck all air out of them because they were, for better or worse, truly real, that Tony DiNozzo was left speechless.

He kept looking at her intently. "I had to explain to our little girl that her daddy would not come to her birthday party", Ziva continued heavily, her tone laced with emotion, "Do you even realize what that meant…for her?"

"I do", he exhaled hoarsely, but his voice grew firmer when he continued, "I do, I really do. But I was in the middle of an investigation, I couldn't leave. I just…couldn't. Leave." He pressed the last part out through gritted teeth.

She knew his irritation wasn't directed at her, not directly at least. Maybe he was angry at fate, maybe at some powers that be, maybe at time difference or maybe at whoever had had the nerve to get themselves killed when Tali DiNozzo was throwing a birthday party on the other side of the big lake. His anger was irrational no matter what.

"David is trying for soccer in two weeks time", Ziva tried lamely, her eyes not meeting his but scanning the grain of the desk.

"I requested a two-month leave until beginning of next year", he stated blankly, staring at the screen.

This eventually re-captured Ziva's attention and she turned back into his purposefully wide, emerald green eyes. Two months would make it his longest on-end visit since his departure two years ago. He had never staid longer than three weeks - an entire month, once.

"It was granted. Yesterday."

It seemed like a distant memory to her, a dream even, now that it was coming back to her in sweet semi-consciousness. She cherished those moments at the start of a new day - a day without pressing schedules, work, school - when she could allow life to trickle down her mind bit by bit, when sounds around her were stifled by her subconscious distance to them, when she could decide to feel with every part of her body, part by part. She could hear the last remote chirping of a bird in the park outside her window - traffic appeared light enough on a Saturday morning to grant it the upper hand in the morning sound scenery. She could feel the cool of an apartment amidst winter chill surrounding her toes, but she didn't mind. She knew where her blanket was, after all. She could feel Tali tightly snuggled against her, the little girl's soft dark curls faintly grazing Ziva's bare upper arm. She could hear the three-year-old's soft snores muffled by where her face was turned into Ziva's side - snores Tony would not have refrained from pointing out were all Ziva. Then again, she would not have refrained herself from telling him that Tali's habit of snatching up the blanket all for herself was all Tony. Tony…

She had never once allowed herself those moments before she had received her second chance at life after Somalia…so many years ago. Before that she had been alert, conscious or subconscious, never letting her guard down, not once. But now, now was different. Everything around her made it to be so much different from everything she had known for the bigger part of her life. Not long and moments like these would be outnumbering her memories of a time in her life when survival wasn't the purpose but the thrill.

All this, however, didn't mean that she had lost any of her skills. Even though she was immersing herself in a subconscious reverie, she could still hear the fine scraping of wooden door against wooden paneling when the door to her bedroom was carefully opened further. She kept her eyes closed, but she could hear him shuffle along the floor, adeptly forging his way towards her side of the bed and taking a stand next to her bedside table. She opened her eyes just in time to meet his curious if drowsy eyes. His form was blurred against the hazy sunbeams of the winter morning and she had to smile at just how much he looked like the perfect angel with his light brown hair sticking into all directions of the sun.

She slung her arm around Tali's sleeping form and drew the little girl closer to her, shifting the little girl's weight onto her torso in order to move both of them over and make room for David. The little boy gladly slipped underneath the covers which Ziva had carefully retrieved from around Tali to cover all three of them. She brushed a kiss against his forehead when he put his head onto her upper arm. Much unlike Tali, who - just like her father - could sleep anywhere and preferably all the time, David had his definite sleeping pattern: When he was awake, he was awake. He didn't need much sleep either, something that hadn't changed ever since he was a baby and something that had had both Ziva and Tony going on two to three hours of sleep every day of the week for a whole year after his birth.

It wasn't unusual to have both of her kids lie in bed with her on a Saturday morning. First of all, she didn't work weekends anymore, not since Tony had left for Spain - a happenstance she owed almost entirely to McGee's understanding and dedication. Second of all, she could count the nights on one hand that Tali had slept through in her own bed. And third of all, those were some rare moments of Tali-quietness David seemed to consciously take advantage of for (almost-)one-on-one time with his mother.

Ziva watched him play with her silver Magen David pendant for a while, drawing circles on his shoulder, both indulging in the moment. Then, suddenly and quietly, his soft voice was carried through the silence of the bedroom, "You talk to daddy?"

Their webcam-dates weren't exactly a secret to the kids, but seeing as they were mostly held at ungodly hours when both of them were long asleep, they generally didn't take much notice of them. They had their own talk-to-daddy-schedules anyway, as Tony would call every few days to talk to David over the phone or they would set up their own little video conference so that he could talk to Tali, whose attention span usually didn't last long enough for semi-sensible phone conversations. But Ziva wasn't surprised by David's observation. Her little boy was picking up on everything around him, excessively so.

She nodded her head yes. "He said he was very sorry for missing Tali's party", Ziva added softly, knowing that David didn't take his father's absence lightly either. She knew David's solidarity with his sister had caused him to refuse talking to Tony all throughout the past week. David nodded absently, resuming playing with Ziva's pendant.

"He is coming home for a visit to make up for it in ten days time", Ziva tried again, this time catching David's full attention. The little boy let go of her pendant and looked up at her with hopeful eyes.

"Azoi?"

"Bechayai, tateleh", she smiled.

Sometimes David's behavior, his observations, his bearing, his efforts at braveness and understanding made her forget - if only for a moment - that he was just a little boy. But moments like these, when a hopeful glisten would shine through his emerald green eyes, reminded her full force that he was in fact still her little six-year-old boy who was missing his father. And just like that, anger and disappointment seemed to evaporate right in front of her eyes and a small smile settled firmly on David's lips. It reassured her too that it had been the right choice to tell him up front, even though Tony had relentlessly insisted on telling his son himself. Ziva, however, knowing her own and thus her son's relentless stubbornness, had reasoned that every conversation between father and son at that moment would have ended the same way, regardless of its content: David trying to hurt Tony the way he had seen Tony hurt Tali by not showing up, probably disregarding Tony's attempt at making amends altogether.

"Christmas?", David asked at once, a most pressing issue coming to his mind.

Ziva chuckled knowingly, "Yes, he will stay at least until Christmas."

"D'day Kissmas?", a small voice perked up suddenly from somewhere beneath the covers on Ziva's other side.

Both Ziva and David turned over to look at the new arrival in the land of the awake, even though Tali hardly ever looked like she was fully awake for good an hour after waking up. Her small chocolate brown eyes were still almost entirely hidden beneath her drooping eyelids, her dark curls dangling in front of her face like a veil of sleepiness and the way her voice sounded, faint and still - much different from her usual perky enthusiasm considering her new favorite subject in the world now that her birthday was a thing of the past -, it seemed the little girl wasn't fully ready to be awake yet.

"No, tateleh, Christmas is not until another one and a half months", Ziva explained with another soft chuckle, finding the sight of her daughter wholeheartedly amusing.

Tali's eyebrows furrowed in deep consideration. She eventually sat up and looked at Ziva with big brown eyes, "Dat long."

"Christmas will come sooner than you think, no need to worry", Ziva smiled, lifting herself up into a sitting position as well now that one of her arms was free, taking David along with her.

"An' then Sanna bwings all the pwessents for me and Deed", Tali started babbling away, using the name she had given her big brother as a baby and that had somehow stuck with him - and probably would until the end of time. Though, Tali was the only one who could call him Deed without receiving a very Ziva-like death glare from the six-year-old.

Tali was now kneeling on the bed, jumping around on her knees enthusiastically while Ziva and David looked on, matching smiles adorning their faces, "An' we go da Unca 'ibbs an' make s'boat pwetty an' Unca M'ee an' Aun'ie Abby twakes us da Unca Du'ie an' we eat lotsa-"

"How about some breakfast first?", Ziva cut in softly, putting an index finger to her daughter's incessantly moving lips. Tali broke out into a grin, food being her next-most favorite activity beside sleep…and talking - all Tony.

"Yep-yep", Tali jumped up and down on the bed, letting her eager affirmation ring through the entire apartment - probably through the entire building, Ziva thought.

"No jumping on the bed, Tali", David reprimanded dutifully, while climbing out of the bed. Ziva smiled inwardly at her son's pure big-brother-ness while getting out of bed herself.

"Your brother is right, little one", Ziva confirmed calmly, a playfully evil glisten in her eyes. She bent forward and grabbed the little girl mid-jump, lifting her up into the air and holding her in place over her head, grinning at the toddler's excited fits of laughter.

"Mommy, lemme down!", the little girl called out between giggles, trying to reach the top of Ziva's head but her arms were a few frustrating inches too short.

"But I thought that is where you wanted to be?", Ziva stated innocently, her eyes wide with curio and her lips pursed so as to refrain from breaking out in laughter herself, "Way…way up." She lifted Tali a little higher even, so that her arms were fully stretched, causing the little girl to giggle even more.

"No, wanna down!"

"Down?"

"Yep!"

"Really down?", Ziva asked again, tilting her head to the side.

"Yep!"

"As you wish", Ziva said sweetly, pulling her daughter down against her chest, where the little girl immediately slung her arms around her mother's neck. Ziva could feel the little girl's heavy breaths against her skin as she recuperated from her laughter.

When Tali finally leaned back in Ziva's arms, Ziva couldn't hold back a chuckle at Tali's narrowed eyes. The little girl shook her head, "Silly mommy."

Ziva tried to keep a straight face, "Am I now?"

"Uhuuu", Tali nodded her head positively.

"I cannot believe you", Ziva said in mock-disbelief, turning towards her son, who was standing next to them, having witnessed their early-morning bustle with a grin lightening up his somber early-morning face, "Am I silly, tateleh?"

David looked back at her with raised eyebrows, laying his forehead in very Tony-like wrinkles. "You are silly", he confirmed solemnly, pointing at his little sister, "And you are silly too, mommy", pointing then at Ziva, who tried to look taken aback with that continuous smile on her face. Then he pointed at himself with both of his thumbs, "And I'm hungry."

Ziva chuckled. "Well then, breakfast it is", she announced, already following David out of the bedroom with Tali in her arms. Yes, she so much cherished those moments at the start of a new day.

Breakfast on weekends always occupied a lot of their time and in the most holistic way too. During the week eating was probably the most in-between activity of their lives. Ziva herself never ate breakfast. She usually made do with a cup of jasmine tea that she would pick up on her way to work or - as did happen fairly often considering her daughter's virulent adverseness to early morning wake-up-calls - that McGee or Gibbs would pick up for her. David would already be munching on his breakfast while Ziva would still be fighting Tali's attempts of "no yet, mommy", causing breakfast to be usually eaten in the car on their way to preschool. Lunch would generally hew to Ziva's workload, David mostly eating lunch at school and Tali, having been picked up by their nanny, Sarah, eating lunch at home. Ziva picking them both up during her lunch break, which she would habitually spend calling Tony and wolfing down take-out, was so unusual that it would usually lead to both kids begging to call it a day and go home or accompany her back to NCIS. And she would usually cave, taking them back to work with her as long as they really weren't working any cases. Dinner was probably the only fixture. If Ziva got off work early enough she would make it herself and if she didn't, Sarah would cook and leave something for Ziva. But not so on weekends.

They spent most of the morning eating away at what they had prepared in a team-effort which consisted of David actually trying to help her prepare while Tali cheered them on from the sidelines of the kitchen table. Having a daughter like Tali, who loved talking with a passion only rivaled by her own father, lead to incessant babbling anyway, David throwing in his two or three cents at the appropriate places. Ziva mostly leaned back and enjoyed the entertainment, her part that of passive question-asking and sometimes active civilizing of their banters. The moment they had enough of eating and talking, talking and eating would seamlessly merge into a different activity, may that be a trip to the park, visiting Uncle Gibbs, playing a game,… The alternatives actually seemed quite endless to Ziva, some of them calling for her partaking, fewer not.

Today, however, Tali had opted for her birthday presents to entertain her instead of her mother or brother, most of them littered all over the living room floor in a matter of seconds. It left Ziva the chance to put away the remnants of breakfast while still keeping an eye on her energetically and now fully awake daughter. When she turned to retrieve the last of the dishes, her eyes fell onto David standing in the doorway to the kitchen, a book and writing utensils clasped under his arm.

Ziva smiled at the expectant glisten in his eyes. "Living room", she decided knowingly, answering the question that didn't need to be asked anymore.

She quickly wiped down the kitchen table before stepping into the living room herself. To her left Tali was rattling away to her army of stuffed animals, many of which were brand new additions to her collection owing to her recent birthday party. To her right David had already spread his things all over the living room table, carefully preparing everything for her arrival to the scene. She swiftly stepped over to Tali, dropping a kiss on her head which caused the little girl to look up and smile a toothy smile back at her. Then she walked over to her son and settled down on the floor, stretching her legs under the table and leaning up against the couch.

The little boy scooted closer to her and put the book in front of them. She placed an index finger under the first word on the opened page and he started reading, the words coming out of his mouth clear - even if at some points a little shaky - Hebrew. His forehead was scrunched up in concentration while Ziva listened closely, nodding along or helping him out with some of the more difficult words.

"Kol HaKavod", Ziva praised softly after an especially difficult paragraph.

"Todah", he returned, looking up at her with a proud smile on his face.

"Bevakasha!", Tali threw in excitedly, turning up next to her mother with a broad grin adorning her face.

Even though Ziva was adamant both of her children grow up bilingually and regularly talked to both of them in Hebrew, she didn't want to force anything on them. Ziva wanted them to slowly grow into wanting it. While David was already urging her on with his ceaseless motivation to learn his mother's native tongue, telling her over and over again how he liked the way her voice sounded when she spoke it, Tali was still in the catch-a-phrase kind of phase. Hearing the word for "thank you" amidst a jumble of words she would have had a hard time understanding if she had listened closely - let alone if they were merely some sort of background mumblings to her game - she couldn't help but throw out what she knew went with that word most often than not: "you're welcome".

"Tov me'od, tateleh", Ziva smiled, leaning forward to kiss Tali's nose. Giggling and obviously very proud of herself, Tali instantly returned to her own game, now offering a "bevakasha" to all of her stuffed animals.

Their late morning didn't differ much from then onwards: David and Ziva reading Hebrew fairytales with Tali occasionally joining in, showing an especially pretty new toy off for Ziva to admire exaggeratedly and ultimately settling down in Ziva's lap to make her near starvation known around lunchtime. Ziva eventually put in a movie - another passionate habit both kids had thankfully inherited from their father - to occupy them while she made lunch, joining them half an hour later and, under cheers, allowing lunch to be eaten in the living room.

While she was busying herself in the kitchen with putting away the dishes once again, the kids finishing up the movie in the meantime, the doorbell rang. Tali immediately shot up from the couch which was a rather hard thing to accomplish considering her short legs weren't even long enough to bend over the edge of the couch. Her eagerness didn't go unnoticed by Ziva's Mossad trained eyes.

"Tali, you know what to do!", she called after her daughter and hoped to have heard a lazy "ken" float back to her when she re-entered the living room. David appeared unfazed by the commotion around him, completely immersed into his umpteenth time of "WALL-E". Ziva had to chuckle at his perfect TV-face.

Tali meanwhile eyed the front door of the apartment with curious suspicion. "Who's 'ere?", she exclaimed dutifully, trying to make her voice sound as authoritative as possible.

"It's Auntie Abby, Tally-Wally", Abby's chipper voice was carried in from outside the door using Tali's nickname that nobody seemed to use but Abby. In the forensic analyst's logic, seeing as Abby's was the only name - except for mommy and, on occasion, daddy that is - Tali could currently pronounce correctly, it was only fair of her to distort Tali's name.

Ziva had just turned up behind her daughter where she was instantaneously greeted by Tali jumping up and down in front of the door, informing her enthusiastically that "Abby, Aun'ie Abby, Aun'ie Abby!" was waiting to be let in. Ziva found Abby's unannounced visit a little odd as she had expected her best friend for later in the evening. Still, she had to smile at the ten million ways in which one could arouse her daughter's enthusiasm and opened the door to reveal an abundance of hats and gloves and jackets and sweaters, beneath which she was sure to find Abby Sciuto…somewhere.

Abby had just stepped into the apartment, Ziva locking the door behind her, when one last "Aun'ie Abby!" announced Tali instantly tackling Abby, demanding to be picked up.

In the matter of incessant talking Abby had absolutely found her match in Tali. "Aun'ie Abby?", Tali asked endearingly the moment she had settled into Abby's arms.

"Yes, Tally-Wally?", Abby answered sweetly.

"Shim has lotsa new fwiends now", Tali assessed earnestly, both adults trying to stifle their laughs at the mere cuteness of the toddler.

Shim was practically a replica of Abby's stuffed hippo Bert (sans farting noises) that Tali had gotten from Abby for her second birthday. In lack of a more creative name McGee, unnerved by them endlessly throwing around the craziest names, had suggested to name the hippo Bert Two and get it over with. Two being shta'yim in Hebrew and Tali missing a few teeth too many to pronounce that word correctly, Bert Two had eventually become Shim - and staid that way ever since.

"An' d'ay all wanna meet Aun'ie Abby", Tali continued, already shuffling in Abby's arms into the direction of where her animal-army was garrisoning the living room.

"Tali, let your Auntie Abby at least take off some of her clothes first", Ziva interjected, putting a loose curl of Tali's hair behind her ear.

"No need, I won't be long anyway", Abby threw in quickly, looking from Ziva to Tali and back, "I just came by to tell you we'll have to take a raincheck…if that's okay with you that is?"

"Yes, yes, of course. Is something wrong? You could have called me on the phone", Ziva answered, worry ringing through immediately.

"No, no! Nothing's wrong", Abby assured her, "It's just… That adoption agency assessment woman comes by tomorrow and you know how Tim can get when it comes to that whole adoption craziness…"

Ziva nodded knowingly. After finding out that they could not conceive naturally, Abby and McGee had eventually agreed upon adoption. And even though they were both thrilled to adopt and Ziva personally could not think of any child that could be more lucky than to get her best friends and colleagues as their parents, McGee still obsessed about it whenever he could. Both Ziva and Abby rightfully suspected that he was blaming himself for their difficulties, despite them both having undertaken fertility exams and refused to find out whose infertility and/or sterility was cause.

"And I didn't wanna call 'cause it was already three when I left the Navy Yard and I didn't wanna wake Tali in case…you know…the little munchkin was actually taking her nap already", Abby added the last part upon pinching Tali's cheek. Tali smacked at Abby's hand in obvious discomfort but her slight smile told a slightly different story.

"That we still have ahead of us today", Ziva said, looking at her daughter who was rubbing her eyes as if on cue, "But soon, I think."

Abby smiled. "You sleepy, little sleepyhead?", she asked Tali, tilting her head forward so that her forehead was touching the toddler's.

Tali faintly nodded her head, her smile replaced by a worn-out look on her face, her arms shooting towards Ziva at once. Both women smiled a knowing smile as Abby gently handed Tali over to her mother, where the little girl settled her head against Ziva's shoulder, looking drowsily at her Auntie Abby from beneath her fallen curls. Ziva chuckled inwardly, still taken aback by how effortlessly Tali could go from hyper-active persistence to dead-tired equanimity. It could happen in the blink of an eye. It would only take a moment of failed anticipation, a moment of unavailable occupation and exhaustion would take over. It was simply amazing how different her two children were - in many aspects, true, but most evidently concerning their sleeping habits. As a toddler David would never go to sleep during the day. Putting him down for a nap had proven inane by the time he had hit the landmark thirteen months. He had been completely alert to everything going on around him, refusing to miss but a second of it. Tali, when in familiar surroundings, would wear herself out with merely satisfying her relentless need to occupy herself. And Tali absolutely always found something to occupy herself with, very well alone when no one was on hand to abide by her wishes. Again and again Ziva found herself thanking her Mossad training and thus her uber-par sensoring abilities for allowing her to keep Tali out of trouble - or at least dangerous trouble, as the former did happen fairly often anyway.

Abby on the other hand was always reminded of a clockwork toy when it came to Tali - quite the fitting description if you thought about it. You could wind up the toy at the beginning of the day - preferably with food - and watch it go along with the ebb and flow of it - or sprint along in Tali's case - and then at some point that toy would just keel over with no sap left. Whenever that happened the three-year-old would either retreat to her room and lie down herself - Sarah already knowing where to look for the little girl if things were getting too eerily quiet - or get Sarah to tuck her in one way or another. If Ziva was available, however, Tali would opt for way more theatrical décor. For Abby those were - in her semi-blinded world of continual Tali-cuteness - easily the cutest moments to watch between mother and daughter.

On her way out, Ziva holding the door open with a hardly free hand, Tali's eyelids were already halfway covering her glassy eyes. In a spur for more privacy the little girl had turned her head into the crook of Ziva's neck, breathing shallowly against her mother's skin. One tiny hand was clutching the rim of Ziva's neckline, the other dangling lazily from Ziva's shoulder. Abby smiled at the pair one last time, bidding her goodbye and promising thrice to call later in the evening or at least the next day for a detailed account of their meeting with the woman from the adoption agency. Closing the door behind her best friend Ziva lingered for a moment, hoping that their meeting would go well. She knew with her heart that Abby wasn't postponing their weekly coffee for McGee's anxieties - at least not for McGee's anxieties alone. Ziva had detected those slight traces of nervousness in the Goth's voice. She knew Abby was scared of anything that could jeopardize their chances at adoption.

Ziva heaved a sigh and eventually returned to her present task of putting her daughter down for a much-needed nap as she felt Tali growing increasingly heavy in her arms. By the time they reached Tali's room, soft snores proved that the little girl was already far off in dreamland. Ziva pulled the blankets back that were still crumpled from the other night and gently laid her down on the bed, tucking the sheets tightly around the little girl. She brushed her hair from her forehead and placed a quick kiss on the three-year-old's head before drawing the shades, leaving the door slightly ajar on her way out.

It was almost half past four when David's movie ended and Ziva, having joined him on the couch for the grande finale, suggested a game of his choice. They hadn't been playing for long when the phone rang and Ziva rushed to get it so that it wouldn't wake Tali. Even though the little girl could be the epitome of cuteness and self-entertainment, her cranky version was neither a sight nor an equivocal pleasure to behold. She wasn't surprised to hear Tony's voice on the other side. He knew that their weekends in were usually uneventful, hence they didn't sojourn long on general topics, Ziva briefly mentioning Abby and McGee's progress in the adoption process before complying with Tony's request to talk to his son.

"Your daddy wants to speak to you", Ziva informed her son, handing over the phone and trying to reassure the traces of uneasiness on his little face with a benevolent smile.

"Hello daddy."

That's all Ziva heard before leaving the living room for the study in order to give David some privacy. But the easily detectable delight in her son's voice upon receiving his habitual daddy-call assured her that everything would be alright - at least in the David department. Granted, Ziva had had to deal with David's increasingly ambivalent feelings towards their living arrangement for quite some time now. He wasn't letting it on too much, but Ziva knew her son. She had noticed some kind of minor shift in his behavior, sometimes not often, but evident enough for her: He was gradually starting to build up defensive mechanisms so as to keep himself from hurting too much when his father would leave once more. Again and again Ziva had been left to explain the concept of duty to her six-year-old son - and to say the least, it wasn't her favorite part about motherhood.

David wasn't worrying her the most, though. She knew in her heart that David would try to understand. It was too much to ask from a six-year-old, she knew that as well. She would have rather had him cry and scream and curse them for having to live with a part-time father, but he always tried to understand. David always tried to understand. Tali, however, was too young to try. She had never known Tony the way David had, she had never known Tony for the father he could be. It was almost ironic that Tali was so much like her father, so much like Tony - just not around Tony. She was shy around new people or rather: She was observant. She didn't trust easily, but unlike Tony wouldn't hide behind jokes and pranks. She would "observe and asses" as Gibbs had once called it.

Ziva knew that she had been putting off telling Tali about Tony's two-month-leave for the sake of not knowing how to say it and, what's even more, for the sake of not knowing what the little girl's reaction would be. She sighed heavily, sitting down at the desk and absentmindedly pulling the only picture on it towards her. It had been taken right after Tali's birth, one of their few four-people-family-pictures: It showed Tony kneeling beside Ziva's hospital bed with a three-year-old David perched on his shoulders, the little boy's hand resting on his baby sister's head while Tali was sleeping contently in Ziva's arms. She put the picture back on its usual spot, discarding her heavy thoughts upon David entering the study in search for her. Ziva immediately scanned the little boy's face for clues as to what father and son had talked about. He seemed unfazed enough, though. Ziva knew not to pry for David would come to her and talk about it in his own time if something was bothering him.

Mother and son went back into the living room to resume their game until Tali waddled into Ziva's lap over an hour later, innocently inquiring about dinner. After letting both children help with its preparation, dinner itself consisted mostly of Tali babbling on about the dream she had had, gathering opinions from her mother and brother as to the possibility of it actually coming true - it did include giant hippopotami, so Ziva tried to phrase her doubts as carefully as possible. After having given both children their baths and left David to the task of selecting movies to watch or books to read with Ziva after his little sister's bedtime - one of the few perks of being the older one as he liked to point out - Ziva was tucking Tali in for the night.

They had just finished their customary chapter of Tali's favorite book, the little girl tightly snuggled into her mother's side, when Ziva eventually decided to tell her daughter. She closed the book and put it on the nightstand, tilting her head a little so that she could look directly into her daughter's chocolate brown eyes. "Tali?", she inquired softly, first wanting to make sure that the little girl was awake enough to process the information.

Tali immediately lifted her head up, their eyes meeting in curious anticipation. "In a few days your daddy will come to visit again", Ziva said, choosing her words delicately. She knew telling the three-year-old how incredibly sorry her daddy was for missing her birthday would be entirely redundant. Ziva had felt like a broken record all throughout the last two weeks.

"For Kissmas?", Tali asked shyly, her eyes dropping to the pink pattern of her sheets.

"Yes, for Christmas and because he misses all of us very much", Ziva affirmed gently, lifting a finger to her little girl's cheek to stroke it, adding decidedly, "Just like we miss him very much as well."

Tali took some more moments to mull this new piece of information over in her mind before raising her eyes to meet Ziva's once again. "Otay", she stated plainly.

Not knowing what else to say and seeing Tali's eyes starting to droop, Ziva simply nodded her head at her daughter, smiling and standing up from the bed. She held the blanket up so Tali could get comfortable, Ziva whispering a soft "Layla tov" before tucking the blanket in around her daughter. Shim tightly clasped under her arm, Tali's eyes were already closed and her breathing was already evening, when Ziva switched on the little nightlamp and exited the room, leaving the door slightly ajar.

Downstairs in the living room David greeted her with his movie-choice. Ziva took a brief d-tour to the kitchen, retrieving smores and sweets, a tea for herself and a cup of cocoa for David and put them down on the table in front of them. When she settled down on the couch David instantly scooted closer, cuddling up to her while she put a blanket on top of them. She adored those moments of quiet and quite simple bliss, but when a coral reef turned up onscreen, surrounded by a light flooded, deep blue ocean, Ziva couldn't help but be carried back to Tali's completely unperturbed reaction. The simplicity of the little girl's "Otay" resounded in her head. Throughout his sporadic in-between visits Tony had never given Tali enough chance to fully get to know him. They would start from scratch each time around. And when a barracuda appeared amidst the ocean on their TV and David's sudden tensing caused her to put an arm around him, Ziva just hoped those two months would be enough for Tali to get to know her own daddy - for real, this time around.