Author's Note: I'm not sure why I take so long with my updates to be honest. It just does. Although I'm sure Jess will back me up that I was strugglin with this chapter. I have the others already written and seeing as we're not at school this week, I should get them typed up too. Oh and I really do want to say thank you to Jess, 'cause she helped me with this chapter, so thank you my goat-loving amigo.

Disclaimer: Once again, I own Isobel Sasha Todd, and I'm proud of her. That's all. Although I have NCIS season 2 on DVD and I have an mp3 of when Sasha sang 'Outrageous' in Terminal Leave... yes be jealous, for I am weird.

Tony sat at his desk pretending to be doing his paperwork. Truth was, he couldn't even remember what case the forms were about. He was staring at his watch every five minutes and checking that it matched the clock on the wall. That's why he didn't notice when Ziva walked up to his desk. He could just see her towering above his desk and looked up.

"What do you want?"

"You're being quiet. Solemn, even. Y'know, Tony, girls like that."

"Look, could you just leave me alone? Oh, forever, maybe?" Tony knew immediately that he shouldn't have said that. Not because he cared about how Ziva felt, but because he felt a sharp pain in the back of his head.

"Ow, Boss."

"What? I'm sure you deserved it. Anyway, you can go for your lunch now, Tony. Be back in an hour, no more, and preferably no less. I need some DiNozzo free time." Tony barely even heard the last part because he had gotten up and left as soon as he heard the words 'you can go.' It may have been seen as being rude, but he had a reason. Earlier that day, he'd had a phone call that he thought might make him need more than hour for his lunch break.

FLASHBACK.

Tony had been sitting at work, doing the paperwork for a recent case. A young girl, Debbie Marlin had been kidnapped by Petty Officer Adam Trent and they had discovered her body near a dumpster three days after she was reported as missing. Ziva had been staring at him on and off for the past hour and he was at the stage where he pretty much wanted to pull out his gun and shoot her in the face. He figured that then she may be more attractive. He was thinking about the easiest way to kill Ziva and make it seem like an accident when his phone rang.

"DiNozzo."

"Hey, it's Izzie."

"Hey, somethin' wrong?" Tony surprised himself with how much he cared about this girl, considering he'd only known her just over a month.

"No, just wondering if we could hang out another time. Only, I'm gonna be busy tomorrow."

"Yeah, doing anything today?"

"No. Lunch?"

"Yeah, sure, the usual place?"

"Yeah, the usual place, at one?"

"Yeah, one. Seeya later, Fizzie."

"Haha. Seeya later, Tony." He hung up the phone and saw Ziva looking at him.

"New girlfriend, Tony?"

"No."

"Then who was that?"

"I really don't see why this is any of your business."

"Only asking."

"Well, don't." He thought about the connection he had made with Izzie in the past six weeks. They'd had lunch twice a week, always at the diner she'd taken him to the first time they'd met. At first, they would just share stories about Kate. But now they'd started to talk more about themselves. Izzie had told him about her school, and he'd learnt some things about her. She wrote, edited and was the photographer for her school newsletter. She was in her senior year, as she skipped two grades. She was an all-around over achiever, like her mom, but in a different way. She didn't seem to be pushing herself as Kate usually did. Overachieving seemed to come naturally to Izzie. Not only this, but Izzie had learned things about Tony. He'd told her about when he was a cop in Baltimore. He'd told her about his childhood, which was something he had only ever shared with Kate. And they were building this amazing connection. Which was why today, he had built up the courage to ask her something he'd wanted to ask for a while. Now, he just wanted to get to the diner so he could spend his lunch hour with her.

END FLASHBACK

He was sitting in their usual booth, waiting for Izzie. He glanced at his watch nervously, she was 10 minutes late. He was just about to call her when the door swung open and she walked over.

"Hey, sorry I'm late. Ooh, you already ordered for me, nice. Thanks, Tony." She sat down in front of her veggie burger and curly fries. She took a sip and smiled at the fact that Tony had remembered that she hated Diet Coke with a passion. For the simple reason that it tastes disgusting and doesn't actually taste like real Coke.

"You're welcome." He looked at her for a moment.

"I know that look, you want to ask me something. If it's why am I late, It was snowing and my mom always tells me to be careful in snow." He shot her a suspicious look. "She always told me. I'm always doing that."

"That's not what I wanted to ask you. I don't want this to seem too much like I'm invading your privacy and I don't want to upset you or anything."

"Well, you don't know if you will until you ask, right?"

"Right. Here goes nothing. I was wondering what you know about your father." Izzie stopped mid-sip.

"Well, not a lot, to be honest. Mom's always kinda quiet about him and even if I ask, I just get brushed off about it." Izzie was interrupted by her phone. "Sorry, hold up a sec, 'kay?"

"Sure" Izzie got up and smiled into the phone. Tony couldn't hear a lot of the conversation but what he did hear definitely caught his attention. Until Izzie walked out of his hearing range with the phone, he heard something about 'not risking it' and 'they could be really dangerous if they caught you.' She came back up to the table and placed her phone on the table.

"I, sadly enough, am gonna have to leave. Something's come up with a friend of mine. I'm gonna use the restroom then buy some mentos for the road, and then I gotta leave, sorry."

"Hey, its, uh, its ok." As soon as Izzie had walked into the bathroom and she was safely out of sight, Tony grabbed her phone to see who she was talking to. He looked at her call log and his heart skipped a beat when he saw the last caller ID.

Last Call: 12/02/07 1:25pm 'Mom'