Okay, here's the next chapter!

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Chapter 9

Jeanne pushed the phone down into the cradle and leaned back in her chair. Her shift was almost over and she had been trying to reach Tony all day. She had been thinking about the thank you card and wanted to make sure that he was really okay.

She shut her eyes. She had probably tried to call him a million times and each time, after the fourth ring, Tony's cheerful voice told her to leave a message. It was obviously a message he had recorded before the death of his wife.

But what got to her wasn't the message. It was the fact that Tony always carried his cellphone with him. It was his responsibility as a special agent to keep it on him at all times. He needed to be able to be reached. She knew this as well, as when she was on call she needed to respond when her beeper went off.

Standing up, she decided she couldn't take it any longer. She rushed into the locker room and grabbed her bag before signaling to George, who was now at the desk with one of the nurses, that she was heading out. He waved in acknowledgment as she strode toward the elevator.

It dinged in arrival and she ducked in once the way was clear, pressing the button that would direct the elevator to the ground floor. She rested the bag against the railing and reached inside. When she withdrew her hand, she held a small scrap of paper. She unfolded it and read it twice, memorizing the letters and numbers.

The scrap of paper had been attached to the note Tony had left nearly a week prior. On it, he had written his cellphone number and his address, along with the words make yourself at home. She read over the words one more time before the elevator doors opened and she shuffled out as a group made their way in.

She walked quickly to her car and set her bag down, leaving the scrap on the dashboard so she could make reference to it when needed. She placed her hands on the wheel and took a few deep breaths, telling herself that Tony was probably fine. But there was still a nagging feeling in her stomach that told her to check on him.

With the radio on quietly in the background, Jeanne drove twenty-five minutes to the D.C. suburb of Silver Spring, Maryland. Her eyes glanced back to the paper every once and while. She knew her way around fairly well as her mother lived there while she was in college. She was quickly in the residential section and she found herself slowing down to find the exact street.

Finally, the green street sign with the same name as the scrap of paper hit her eye. She turned left and slowly drove down the street. A few boys were playing basketball outside a brick house and two girls were running around with dolls in a yard whose driveway held a minivan. She stopped the car at a house toward the end of the street and looked up at the number. It matched that of the one on her paper so she parked on the side of the road.

She stepped out of her car and could hear the noise of her shoe hitting the brick of the walkway. The birds were chirping in a large tree in the front yard near the sidewalk. She took in the view of the house and thought about when she had talked to Tony about buying a house. As she neared the front door, she wondered if his fear of commitment in their relationship had been because of what was in front of her, what Tony already had in his life.

She walked up the stairs and noticed that the door closed. She pulled her cellphone out of her pocket and began to dial when she heard someone call out to her. Looking up, she noticed the woman next door. Tony's neighbor, who looked to be in her early sixties, was sitting with a friend and held a teacup in her hand.

"Are you looking for the DiNozzos?" she called out from the wrap-around porch of her home.

Jeanne nodded her head and took a step closer to the neighboring house. "Yeah," she said. "You don't know if Tony's home by any chance, do you?"

The woman shook her head, setting her teacup down on the railing. "I don't know if he's gone back to work yet, but if he did he usually leaves fairly early in the morning, before I'm awake." Then she sighed. "Poor thing. I take it you've heard about his wife."

Again, Jeanne nodded. "I have," she said. "Actually, I just wanted to check up on him for that reason."

"If it helps, I haven't seen him leave for a couple days," the woman told her. "He's not taking it too well, as you probably know. But, I'm glad to know he has a friend that will come to check on him."

She smiled at Jeanne and picked up her tea. She took a sip before holding up a finger, signalling Jeanne to wait. "You wouldn't be Jeanne Benoit, would you?"

"Yes," Jeanne said, wondering how the woman knew her name.

Tony's neighbor set her tea down on the small, round table on her porch and walked down the stairs. When she met Jeanne at Tony's driveway, she pulled a small note out from the pocket of her skirt and handed it to the younger woman. "About a week ago, Tony said that if you stopped by and he wasn't home, to give this to you," the woman said, patting Jeanne's hand as she passed her the tiny envelope.

Jeanne smiled and thanked her, but the woman just shook her head. "No, thank you for what you're doing for him. I'm just being a good neighbor."

She turned and shuffled back across the yard. Jeanne turned her attention to the letter and opened it. A key fell out into the palm of her hand. There was no note inside, just the key, which had been wrapped in lined paper. Jeanne smiled as she walked back to the door and slid the key in the lock. She heard it click softly and pushed it open before letting herself in and closing the red, wooden door behind her.

She walked around quietly. The entry way was a terrible mess of boxes. Curious, she knelt beside one and opened the cardboard. Various items were stacked on top of each other but one in particular caught her eye. Reaching in, she pulled out a scrapbook. She couldn't imagine Tony, or Ziva from what Tony had told her, making it and decided to take a look

Leading herself to the living room, she sat down on the couch and opened the front cover. On the inside, it read in nice script: To Ziva and Tony, hope your lives together are filled with happiness. Love Jenny.

Jeanne thought she recognized the name from what Tony had told her and continued to flip through. It was a beautiful scrapbook that looked to have had many hours spent on it. There were pictures from what looked like dinners and office parties, followed by wedding photos. She reached the last page and looked at it for a moment.

There was a picture of just the bride and groom, looking extremely happy, as well as a picture of the two with a few others. She recognized Gibbs but the rest looked foreign to her. She could only assume that the younger man beside Tony was McGee. There were two women, one redhead and one goth. Also in the group was an older gentleman.

She set the scrapbook on the coffee table and looked around the living room. On the mantle of the fireplace were a few pictures that were flipped over. She stood and walked to them, taking one in her hands. It must have been taken just after their daughter was born, as the two proud parents were smiling at the camera, Ziva holding a small pink bundle. Jeanne set it down so the picture was visible and turned.

On the floor was a piece of construction paper. She lifted it in her hands and felt tears come to her eyes. There were little doodles of stickmen and women. A tall stickman was labeled 'Grandpa', and another labeled 'Uncle Probie'. A shorter stickman was labeled 'Ducky' and beside him was as black stickwoman labeled 'Auntie Abby', with two lines coming from her head for hair. Beside Abby was a stickwoman with scribbles of short red hair and the name 'Auntie Jenny'. There was also a smaller one in the corner with the name 'Palmer' over it.

In the very middle of the picture was a tall stickman and woman labeled 'Daddy' and 'Mommy', whose hands were holding the hands of a small stickgirl with the word 'me' over it. At the top were the words 'my family' in multi sized, childlike letters. There were also a few words of what Jeanne thought was Italian and a few marks of Hebrew. She deduced that it was probably the different ways of saying 'my family' in the two languages of her parents.

Feeling the tears come to her eyes, she sat down on the hardwood floor, leaning again the coffee table. The picture had been so innocent, yet it reminded her that Tony's daughter was four. The age was much too young to go without a mother.

She wiped the tears away and stood up, putting the picture on the table. She decided to see if Tony was upstairs. As she climbed the stairs, she couldn't help but feel a little weird roaming through Tony's house without him. But, the more she thought about it, the more she realized that this could help her. It would help her get to know what he was like and how to help him.

And, the first thing she decided to do was to help him unpack all the boxes. She couldn't let him just box up all of Ziva and hide his sadness. He needed to remember her, if not for himself, for his daughter.

The first door on the right was a spare bedroom and the door beyond that seemed to be the master bedroom. She looked in both but didn't see Tony in either. She opened the door across from the master bedroom and walked inside. The walls were shades of blue and purple with white furniture and a small bed. On the wall was large letters that spelled out the name Tali. She frowned, wondering why the name seemed so familiar to her, because she didn't know how she knew the name.

A soft, sniffling noise filled her ear and she walked around to the back of the bed. Tony was sitting on the ground, his head in his hands. Jeanne knelt beside him and took him in her arms, feeling hot tears of sympathy falling down her cheeks.

So, what did you think.

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