X. Time is the Best Counsellor.
"I heard you were down here." Gibbs said, sitting down next to Ziva. "Tony is looking for you. Done all but put out a BOLO for you."
"He was not there. When I woke up he was gone." She sat up, leaning against the brick wall next to her boss. There was a slight hum in the room as people went about their daily routines.
"He came to talk to me." Gibbs shrugged. "You find it comfortable sleeping here?" He frowned.
"Not particularly. I just did not want to have to drive home."
"Fair enough." He shrugged again.
"Why did he go to talk to you?" She swallowed.
"He wanted to know that he had gotten it right."
"Gotten what right?" Ziva frowned.
"His response. He was afraid that he didn't say what he needed to say when you told him you were pregnant."
"What did you say?"
"I told him to go and talk to you about it. He's not exactly experienced in this sort of thing." He paused. "He cares for you. A lot."
"I know."
"I don't think you do, Ziva." Gibbs said. "You came here last night because he had disappeared and you assumed that he had left you. He wouldn't do that to you." She let the tears roll down her cheeks. She had been hasty in her assumptions last night, she would admit. "Hey, come here." Gibbs wrapped and arm around her shoulders and hugged. "Congratulations." He whispered in her ear. "Now, you need to keep this a secret. As soon as Jenny finds out you will be taken out of the field, which although I can agree with, I don't want you out of the field just yet. That means that the only people to know are the people who need to know, ok?" He said, looking at her face as she nodded. "Now, dry your eyes else people will start thinking that you are growing soft." He laughed.
"But I am soft, Gibbs. I am allowed to cry." She said. "I am not a cold hearted killer."
"I know that." He chuckled. "But they don't." He nodded to the people who hadn't yet noticed Ziva's emotional state and Gibbs hugging her. "Much like my arm around you would make them all presume that I am growing kind in my old age."
"But you are kind." She shrugged, receiving one of his trademarked head slaps and grinning.
"You ever say that again and I will put you on desk duty myself." He pointed at her as he stood up. "Go on. DiNozzo is waiting, and we all know how impatient he can get. You realise that nine months is going to be hell to be around him?" He held out his hand to help her stand up, smiling when she ignored it.
"You only have to be around him during work." She laughed. "I get it twenty-four seven."
"Hey." Tony said, turning around from where Ducky was showing him X-rays as Ziva walked through the doors to autopsy.
"Ducky, could Tony and I have a second?" She asked, smiling sweetly.
"Of course, I will just, uh, take these reports up to Jethro." He nodded, holding up files as he wandered off.
"How do you get him to do that? Whenever I ask something like that he digresses into tales about how it only took a second for his first professor to be fired after inappropriate contact with a student." Ziva raised her eyebrows. "Don't even ask." He shook his head.
"I just smile."
"Yeah, that generally makes it worse for me." He gave her a crazy grin and she laughed.
"No wonder." She smiled. "Gibbs said you wanted to talk to me."
"I wanted to explain that I didn't know what to say when you told me about the baby and you know, I was stunned." He paused and thought. "I haven't had time to plan a brilliant speech, but, if I had, it would have gone something along the lines of this; Ziva David, I will do anything for you if it makes you happy, your happiness is all that I care for, along with you yourself, of course, (and not getting on the wrong side of Gibbs)." He added the last bit as an aside, making Ziva laugh. "I love you, more than I have loved anything or anyone in my entire life, which, as you know, is a very big deal, and so, with this in mind, along with the fact that I will do everything in my power to be a better father than my own, I will be there for you and our baby until the day I die, and even then I will be by your side for all that my ghostly power will allow." He smiled. "There are still some creases I need to iron out, but that is pretty much how the speech would go had I had more warning."
"I liked it just as it was. It was very…DiNozzo." She grinned.
"Well, I do my best." He grinned proudly.
"Yes, you do." She leaned up and kissed him.
"I'm sorry, I don't think I'm comfortable kissing you whilst being watched." Tony pulled away from her and pointed to a jar with an eyeball floating in it that sat next to a body laying on a slap. "I just…don't think it's…right." He said, grabbing her hand and running out of autopsy and into the elevator. "Much better." He grinned as she hit the button.