Four: Rosemary's Baby

When Tony stepped out of the elevator, two coffees in hand, the office was pretty much empty. The janitor was running a small non-electrical vacuum under the stairs, and Director Vance came around the corner and went up them. Tony couldn't see anyone from Team Gibbs.

Tony headed toward the stairs, trying to ignore the burning of the coffee cups on his hands. He had one large coffee with sugar and cream for him, and a large chocolate specialty for Marcella. Reaching the stop of the stairs, Tony turned and headed toward the conference room.

Carefully shifting Marcella's coffee to his right hand, he opened the door to find Ziva at the table, sitting right across from Marcella. She was writing something on a small scrap of paper, and she didn't even look up when Tony came in. Marcella, however, looked like a deer in headlights, her eyes wide. Tony tried to smile reassuringly, and also tried to repress the urge to punt Ziva out the door with his foot. Did she have to get involved in everything?

But he didn't say anything, just walked over to Marcella and placed her chocolate coffee in front of her. Marcella muttered her thanks, then took a small sip. She was obviously relieved to get the caffeine in her system, and it showed on her face. She sighed.

Wow, maybe she's Gibbs's daughter, Tony thought.

"Ziva," Tony finally said, tapping her on the shoulder incessantly.

"I trust that you wish to keep that finger, so if I were you, I would quit," she said, pushing the piece of paper across the table to Marcella.

Tony growled, but stopped. "Ziva, may I please speak to Marcella alone?"

Normally, Ziva would have shot back a smart-ass comment, but, seeing the look on his face, said, "Of course." She stood from her chair and moved toward the door, then turned around just as Tony was settling down.

"Marcella, you may call that number any time."

Marcella nodded. "Thank you, Agent David."

Ziva smiled at her, threw one last look at Tony, then left, closing the door behind her.

"Okay," said Tony, lifting his coffee to his lips. After taking a long sip, he said, "Let's talk."

"Okay," Marcella said.

"I need to know about your mom, Marcella. Did she ever mention me? I mean, what's the story there? Did this just come up when she was dying."

Marcella shook her head. "No, she'd mentioned the men before she died. She would talk to me about them all the time. But she never told me your names. She just called you One, Two, and Three."

"Which was I?" Tony couldn't help asking.

"You were two," Marcella replied.

Tony nodded. "Go on."

Marcella sighed. "My family was always pressuring her to find out who my father was. She had a really strict Catholic family, and they were always ashamed of me because I was illegitimate. But she never wanted to find out."

"Why?"

Marcella smiled a little. "She said all three of you were equally wonderful, and it would crush her to find out which two weren't my dad," she said. "In fact, as a group, she called you the Dads."

Tony chuckled a little. "Really?"

Marcella laughed, too. "Yeah. But sometimes I would hear her crying in her room. I'd go in, and she would be looking through a scrapbook she made in college. She was looking at pictures of you, Nathan, and Patrick. She'd never tell, but she was curious as to which one of you was my father, and was ashamed of herself for sleeping with all of you."

Tony looked at her. "That must have been rough," he said sympathetically.

Marcella nodded. "It was. Especially towards the end, she was really distracted sometimes. She lost her job at the police department a year ago because she was so distracted. She just stopped living."

Tony's heart ached. He hated hearing about his poor daughter's sad childhood.

"Anyway, she never said so, but I knew that not knowing who my dad was haunted her. Especially since she claimed to be in love with one of you."

"Which one?" Tony asked.

"She never said," Marcella replied, looking down at her fingernails. She always just said, "'Marcie, I was really in love with one of your Dads. I hope that you fall in love someday the way I did.'"

Tony swallowed, trying to get rid of the lump in his throat. For some reason, he felt like he was about to cry.

Just as he opened his mouth to speak, Marcella's phone rang. Tony was surprised to hear Frank Sinatra's 'Luck Be a Lady' as her ringtone.

"Hello?" Marcella said, pressing the phone to her ear. "Yes, Grandma, I'm at the library. Yes. Yeah, I'll be home in a minute. Okay. I love you, too. Bye."

Marcella put the phone back in her pocket, then grabbed her across-the-body purse and Manila folder. Standing up, she said, "I have to go. My grandmother doesn't know I'm here."

"Okay," said Tony, standing, too. "Should I…should I call you sometime, or-"

"Um…" Marcella bit her lip. "Would it be okay if I came back next week? I mean, I just feel like…like we should…"

"That's fine," Tony said quickly, eager to put the poor girl out of her misery. "Just drop by anytime."

"Okay," Marcella said, smiling shyly. She picked up her coffee, headed toward the door, then turned around. "Oh, I almost forgot…" She shifted her coffee to the other hand and dug through her purse, finally pulling out a small stack of DVDs in pastel colored sleeves. "I brought these for you. I mean, for my dad, if I found him…I just…here."

Marcella hurried to the table, set the DVDs down, and rushed to the door. She walked out, pulling the door shut, but not before sticking her head in one last time and saying, "By the way, your girlfriend was really nice."

"Who-?" Tony started to say, but Marcella had already closed the door behind her.

Tony watched the door for a moment, then turned back to the DVDs. All of them were written on in bright blue Sharpie. He shuffled through them.

1 year.

2 years.

3 years.

4 years.

5 years.

Tony stared at the stack for a second, then left the conference room, heading down to his desk. Once there, he pulled his desk chair over to the TV and popped the first disk into the DVD player. After a minute or so of stalling, a video finally began to play.

The first thing that Tony saw was a baby, sitting in a highchair, a woman picking white icing out of her dark curly hair. The baby was looking at the woman, presumably her mother, and Tony felt a jolt go through them when both people turned to look at the camera, and he saw Marcella's baby face and the face of her mother, Rosemary Burmont.

"Is that a camera?" Rosemary kept saying. "Seriously, Rebecca, is that a camera?" Even as she said this, Marcella's toothless grin just got bigger and bigger, and before Tony knew it, she was giggling.

"Rebecca, turn the damn camera off!" Rosemary said. Then, looking at her baby, she said, "Oops, turn the darn camera off. Beckie, come on!"

"Alright, alright," said the woman behind the camera, and the shot went black. Tony was jumping out of his chair and had his finger on the 'replay' button when another shot opened, and Marcella was sitting in a car seat on a picnic table, a big pink cake in front of her. In it was one candle.

"Happy birthday to you!" the party guests were singing as Rosemary kissed and touched her baby. "Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday, dear Marcie! Happy birthday to you!"

Then everyone cheered, and Rosemary took Marcie's little hands in hers and clapped them together gently, and the baby giggled more loudly than Tony had ever heard a baby giggle. His eyes felt prickly.

The video went on for about ten more minutes, showing Marcella stuffing the cake in her mouth and ripping into a couple of presents. When it was over, Tony didn't wait: he went right to the next video.

An hour later, Tony had seen so much. A two-year-old Marcella trying desperately to take the party hat off of her head. Riding a tricycle around a green yard the next year. Playing with two baby dolls, one boy and one girl, the year after. And finally, he was finishing watching a five-year-old Marcella dancing around a heavily decorate kitchen singing "Luck Be a Lady".

"Wuck be a wady tonight!" Marcella yelled more than sang. "Wuck be a wady tonight!"

Tony smiled as Marcella waved frantically goodbye to the camera, and finally, the screen went black.

Tony had just seen Marcella's, his daughter's, first five birthdays, and he had had no part of them. None. Zip. Nadda. And to Tony's surprise, this gave him the most intense ache he'd felt in a long, long time.

Putting the last DVD back into its green sleeve, Tony stood from his chair and began gathering his things. Tony felt as if he were drunk: nothing seemed a hundred percent clear. But he understood exactly what was going on.

Tony flung his backpack onto the passenger seat of his car and got in, turning the keys in the ignition. Once he was safely out of the naval yard parking lot, he finally quit fighting the lump in his throat and the prickling in his eyes, and let the hot man tears slide freely down his face.

Whew. That's it for tonight. I wanted to squeeze that out before I go to bed. It's the middle of the night now, and I am going to pay for this tomorrow. :/ Oh, well! I really hope you guys enjoyed this and will keep reading! It's gonna start getting pretty juicy from here on out!

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