DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of NCIS.
Chapter 9: Return to Washington
"Ziva…" Matai complained, dropping his head against her side as the customs official in Washington took them off into a holding room. "Ziva, are we in America yet?" He yawned enormously.
"Yes, theoretically, Matai," Ziva sighed, biting back the urge to snap at the official. "Both of you, come sit down. Have a bit of a sleep, you have both been so patient."
Ahava yawned and gladly sat down on the bench. "Wake me when we can leave."
"I'm hungry," Matai whined again.
Ziva rubbed the back of her neck wearily. She didn't remember Calev having been this whiny when they and Chayyim had traveled from Tel Aviv last year. Then again, perhaps the fact he had slept for most of the voyage had played a factor. Neither Ahava or Matai had slept on the plane from Tel Aviv; so neither had she, and the baby was reminding her incessantly of her lack of sleep.
"Ms David?" another official asked, emerging from an office. He pronounced the name the English way.
"Dah-veed," all three siblings chorused tiredly in unison.
"That would be me. And it's Officer David. Mossad liaison with Naval Criminal Investigative Services."
"Why are you bringing minors into the United States, Officer Day-veed?" the official asked. "You're not even a permanent resident."
"I have my green card," Ziva replied tersely. "It has been cleared already with USCIS. My husband filed the I-130s for each of us."
"Your green card expires in a week."
Ziva stifled the growl of frustration. "I have an A-2 and a K-3 visa. This is ridiculous. Do you have a pen and paper?" she asked irritably. When he set down both objects in front of her, she picked up the pen and began writing down number after number. "Mossad Director Adnan Sachar. NCIS Director Jennifer Shepard. American Ambassador to Israel in Tel Aviv Richard Jones. Israeli Ambassador to the United States of America in Washington, D.C. Sallai Meridor. Counsellor for Administration and Consul Rogel Rachman." Pausing a moment to think, she then continued. "Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, my immediate supervisor at NCIS. Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, my husband. Would you like more people to call? I can put them down…"
"Ziva…" Matai complained once more.
"No, that will suffice for the moment. Have a seat, Officer David. We'll be with you shortly." Meaning sometime in the next twelve hours. Ziva knew this routine.
Ziva glanced at the clock on the wall. 4:45. "May I turn on my cell phone and contact my husband? He is expecting us in the arrivals zone at 5. He is likely there now."
"Put it on speaker," the official ordered. Ziva dialed Tony's cell and then hit the speakerphone button, setting it down on the table.
"Hey, Ziva, where are you?"
"I am in Customs, Tony. It will be hours before this all gets straightened out, they have to phone at least four different people. Go pick up Melanie and Alexa, we will meet you at home when we are through."
"Not yet, Jen wants to see you for a second before we go home. But we filled out all the damn paperwork. No, correction, I filled out all the damn paperwork! Doesn't your governmental visa let you pass?"
"Apparently not with children in tow."
"But the ambassadors themselves signed those emergency papers! What was the point in all those damn papers if they're not letting you pass?" Tony sighed in disgust. "All right, I'm coming up. I want to go home."
"We will be here," Ziva said dryly, hanging up.
"And how long have you been married?" Ziva's charming little official asked skeptically.
Tony and Ziva looked at each other momentarily. "Two months?" Tony asked her. "She's better at keeping track of time than I am," he said to the official.
"Closer to a month and a half," Ziva corrected, casting a glance at her finally-sleeping young siblings behind her. "It was not long after I found out about the baby."
"Yeah, maybe you're right," Tony admitted. "It just seems longer because you were living with me when you came back."
Finally, after over 6 hours of sitting in that tiny room, Customs cleared Ziva, Ahava and Matai to pass into the U.S.
The two younger Davids dragged themselves along behind their sister sullenly, no longer enthused about this trip. Ziva was fighting off the drowsiness, gesturing wearily at the backseat for Ahava and Matai to enter while Tony loaded suitcases into the trunk. She slid into the front passenger and was out cold in less than a minute.
Tony drove as quickly as he dared back home to drop off all three tired Israelis, collected his daughters from his irritated mother, suffered through a fifteen-minute rant about his wayward Israeli lover, and drove home. He put Melanie and Alexa to bed and finally got to go to sleep himself at 2 AM, slipping under the covers beside Ziva and nestling her against him securely.
Ziva stifled a yawn as she woke up automatically at 5, mentally reminding herself to never go 24 hours without sleep again.
For once, she allowed herself a few lazy minutes to wake, resting her head against Tony's shoulder. The man slept like a… what was it the Americans called it, 'slept like a stone'? And he was normally still asleep when she came back from her morning run. Well, it wasn't so much a run as a brisk walk now, if she took Melanie with her.
As if to remind her about their routine, Melanie let out a yell from her bedroom. "Very well, very well," Ziva murmured, rolling away from Tony just as he groaned.
"You're a machine," he mumbled. "It's, what,"
"0505," Ziva replied, sitting up. "I have a late start today." She changed quickly and pulled back her hair. "I will take Melanie with me."
"All right," Tony said drowsily as he turned over and started to fall back asleep. "I'll get breakfast…"
"No, I will," Ziva said quickly, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "No bacon for you for a while, Tony." She leaned over and kissed him, then lightly smacked his cheek with a hand. "I have to wean Ahava and Matai off of kosher."
"They don't have to eat the bacon," Tony said pleadingly. "You don't."
"But they will not eat anything prepared in the same kitchen as pork," Ziva replied.
"If I get it on the way to NCIS?"
Melanie shrieked again insistently, and Ziva shook her head, getting to her feet. "They are coming with us, Tony. We will discuss your sacrificed bacon later, yes?"
As she left the bedroom, she quickly retrieved her 3-year-old stepdaughter before she woke anybody else. "Melanie, you will not make many friends in this house if you keep waking them at 5," she chided affectionately as she got Melanie dressed. "You will come again with me on my run this morning, yes?"
"Ziva," came Matai's sleepy voice from the cot in the corner. "Where are you going?"
"I am just going for a run, Matai," she replied. "I will be back in a hour, no more."
"May I come with you?" he asked, sitting up.
"It will be a long route, Matai," Ziva warned.
"I can run just as fast as you," Matai insisted, jumping to his feet.
"Ziva," Matai asked when they stopped midway back to the house. "Why is nothing in Hebrew? I cannot understand any of the signs or any of the people. Yaakov said that everything was in Hebrew when he lived in America."
Ziva sighed. "Yaakov and his family lived in a small Jewish town, Matai. Not in the big city."
"But even Jerusalem has everything in Hebrew, Yaakov said…"
"Because a large number of people in Jerusalem can speak Hebrew, Matai. Most people in America speak only English."
"But why would they not put it in Hebrew as well?" Matai asked again.
Ziva watched the young boy's face for a moment as she thought about how to best explain it to him. Israel was not very diverse, particularly not the region of Tel Aviv they had grown up in: if you were not Jewish, you were Muslim. If you did not speak Hebrew, you spoke Arabic and oftentimes you spoke both like a native tongue. How to explain to a 9-year-old who had barely even left his own house in those years that there was more in the world? How to explain that there were any number of languages in Washington and it simply was not possible to record all of them? Matai just didn't understand how big the world was. "Because the Americans do not speak Hebrew, mazik," she said finally. "Come, we must return to the house before somebody gets too hungry to wait any longer."
Ziva groaned when she stepped into the house to the distinct smell of bacon. She thought she'd head-slapped it out of him that she hated the smell of pork, but apparently not. Trying not to twist her face in disgust, she lifted Melanie out of the stroller, took off her jacket and called, "Tony, I told you not to make breakfast!"
"Yeah," Tony replied, appearing in the doorway with his breakfast plate in his hands. "I remembered that about the time your sister walked in and gave me the David look. That one," he elaborated, gesturing at Ziva. "The you're-being-so-unkosher-Tony-DiNozzo look."
Ziva pursed her lips and took the plate away, the slightest twitch indicating her distaste. Dumping the bacon into the garbage, she passed him back his eggs and toast.
"Hey!" Tony exclaimed. "I cleaned up and everything! Don't throw my bacon away!"
"I am not eating anything in this kitchen until it has been cleaned again, Ziva," Ahava complained from one of the chairs.
"I know, Ahava, I know," Ziva sighed tiredly. She lifted Melanie up into her high chair and quickly set some food out for her. "Thank you, Tony, it will take all day to get the smell of bacon out of my nose."
"I'm sorry!" Tony returned, taking Alexa out of her high chair and wiping off the infant's face. "It was an honest mistake…"
"All right, what is your problem today?" Tony demanded as he followed Ziva back into their bedroom.
"Would you get out?" Ziva threw back.
"You've been nothing but bitchy since you got back," Tony retorted.
"Go drop the girls off at your mother's," Ziva replied coolly. "I will meet you at NCIS."
"Ziva!" he snapped in frustration.
"Just… just go," she replied tersely, a dangerous glint in her eyes.
"Matai, no," Ziva ordered as the three siblings entered NCIS, her young brother preparing as though to lob the wrapper from breakfast into a distant wastebasket. "Behave yourself."
"But Ziva, what am I supposed to do all day?" Matai complained. "I have nothing to do."
Ziva sighed, broke off half of her challah and handed the rest to him. "Make it last."
"That'll give you five minutes," Ahava muttered.
"Clearly you didn't sleep long enough," Ziva muttered under her breath. She gestured at two spare chairs by her chair. "Sit. Behave. Find ways to amuse yourselves."
"Ziva, I'm still hungry," Matai spoke up through a mouthful of challah.
"Good grief, Matai, how much can one little 9-year-old eat?" Ziva said in exasperation. "You'll just have to wait until lunch."
"Morning, Ziva," McGee greeted as he walked in with drinks and breakfasts.
"Good morning, McGee," Ziva returned. "Oh, is that…" She grinned at him when he set down one cup and a wrapped burrito in front of her. "Thank you, McGee."
"No, I want that!" Matai exclaimed when his sister passed him the rest of her challah and picked up the burrito. "That smells good."
"That doesn't smell kosher," Ahava said sullenly, pulling out the portable DVD player she had been carrying and a few movies.
"Ahava, if I hear about kosher and unkosher one more time today –" Ziva lifted the burrito out of Matai's reach. "Matai! Enough! You are being such a little pest today…"
"They your siblings?" McGee asked, putting down another breakfast on Tony's desk and then on Gibbs' desk before sitting down at his.
"Astounding investigative skills, McGee," Ziva said with a hint of sarcasm. "What was your first clue, the Hebrew?"
"No, they just… look like they're related to you," McGee answered. "Have to admit, I didn't think they were that young."
"How old did you think they were, McGee? I told you I was 18 when she was born," Ziva replied after swallowing her mouthful.
McGee shrugged. "Where's Tony?"
"Not here," Ziva replied, voice taking a turn for the icy. "I do not particularly care where he is at the moment –"
"What have I told you about bringing the marital disputes to work, Ziva?" Gibbs asked pointedly as he strode past.
Ziva sighed and muttered something under her breath before she returned to her computer screen.
"What time did you arrive from Tel Aviv yesterday?" he continued, sliding into his seat.
"What time did the plane land, or what time did we finally clear Customs, or what time did we arrive home?" Ziva asked.
"All three," Gibbs replied.
"Plane landed at 4:30 yesterday afternoon, we cleared Customs at roughly midnight," Ziva answered shortly. "About 1 AM by the time we arrived home."
"All right, you're allowed to be short-tempered today," Gibbs said, just as Tony came running in late. "You're late, DiNozzo."
"Hey, um, doesn't either of your visas get you straight through?" McGee asked.
"Don't get her started on the customs guy," Tony said darkly through a mouthful of burrito. "Thanks for the breakfast, by the way, probie, seeing as somebody threw out mine."
"I did not throw out your breakfast!" Ziva exclaimed, glaring at him. "I threw out your bacon!"
"Tony, you cooked bacon?" McGee said in a reprimanding tone.
"Hey!" Tony exclaimed indignantly. "It was an honest mistake. Whose side on you on, anyway, probie?"
"I'm on the side of the one who can cause the most damage in the least amount of time from the furthest distance," McGee answered promptly. "So, yeah, I'm not on your side on this one."
"Probies truly are fickle things," Tony muttered as he pulled up a file on his own computer. "You take them under your wing, you train them, you teach them everything you know, and they abandon ship at the first threat of castration."
"Ziva, can I see you for a moment in my office?" Jen called from the second floor.
"Of course, director," Ziva called back. "You, sit," she ordered to Matai. "Don't touch anything. Ahava." She tugged one earphone out from her 12-year-old sister's ear. "Let Matai watch with you."
It didn't take very long before Matai was bored again, getting up from his chair and wandering from desk to desk, watching what they were doing.
"You'd think you were craving masculine attention or something," Tony commented to his young brother-in-law when Matai arrived back at his desk again from Gibbs'.
"Growing up with nothing but sisters, I'm sure he is, Tony," McGee said from across the room. "Either that or he's just really curious about what we're doing."
Matai looked at Tony, leaning on the desk and asked him something just as Ziva returned with an assortment of papers in her hands.
"Sorry, kid," Tony apologized. "I don't speak Hebrew, remember?"
"He wants to know where all the soldiers are," Ziva said distractedly, still reading one of the papers. She replied something back to him, and Matai returned with another question.
"Are you sure he's not ADD, Ziva?" Tony asked. "He's been going from place to place for an hour."
"ADD?"
"Attention Deficit Disorder," McGee clarified.
"Ah. Yes."
They met up at home once again, Ziva having sufficiently cleaned the kitchen to appease her sister.
"So am I forgiven yet?" Tony asked, coming up behind her and kissing her neck lightly. Ahava and Matai were entertaining Melanie and Alexa in the living room.
"Mmm…" Ziva mused, twisting around momentarily and breathing in the smell of his skin. Blessedly pork-free. "Yes."
"Do I get an explanation as to why you went so completely nuts on me this morning?"
"Were you expecting one?"
"Well, no, but it would've been a nice bonus," Tony shrugged, kissing her again. "So what are we going to do about Ahava and Matai, for school?"
Ziva sighed. "I managed to find an old friend from Tel Aviv who runs the Mitzvot Academy. She's agreed to let them into the Academy for the remainder of the school year and through the summer to try and get their English up to par for public school in the fall. It's a goodwill program they run for new immigrant children. Plus, Rachel owed me a few favours."
"So when are they starting?" Tony asked, attempting to filch a cookie from the jar on the edge of the counter. He yelped when she whacked his hand with the side of her knife sharply.
"You will ruin your dinner," she said sternly. "And on Monday. Not soon enough for me."
"So what happens if I decide I don't want to go to the American school, Ziva?" Ahava asked at dinner. "If I want to stay at the Jewish school?"
"We'll see, Ahava," Ziva sighed. "Mitzvot is an expensive school. I don't know that we have the money for it."
"Ziva, can I go to the American school?" Matai asked. "Yaakov said that sometimes the soldiers come into the American schools to tell them about the army."
"You have to learn your English first, Matai," Ziva replied with a slight smile.
"I don't want to learn English," Ahava announced. "I just want to speak Hebrew."
"You're not going to make it very far with no English, Ahava," Ziva said.
"I don't care, I don't need to go very far."
"So what was the whole conversation about at dinner?" Tony asked that night after they had put everybody under the age of 14 to bed.
"Mmm… school. English," Ziva replied with a chuckle as she wrapped her arms around him. "Inane pieces of conversations," she murmured into his ear.
Tony chuckled in return. "Oh, you keep talking, Officer David, because you have no idea," he paused to kiss her, "what your inane pieces of conversations do to me."
"Oh, I think I have an idea," Ziva replied smoothly, pulling him back towards their bedroom.
Tony groaned as he woke up to surround sound screams. "Ziva," he said, shaking her awake roughly. "Ziva!" He pulled her into his arms as she awoke, shaking almost uncontrollably. "Ziva, you okay?"
Ziva nodded distractedly, snuggling her head against his neck briefly before she broke away. "Just… nightmares. That's all. Goes with the territory." She sat up and reached for her robe. "I'd better go calm down Matai and Ahava before they wake the girls."
"I'll come, too," Tony murmured, sitting up.
"Hey, hey, Matai, wake up, wake up," Tony whispered, reaching out to gently shake the young boy into consciousness. "Matai, it's all right, it's just a nightmare."
Matai woke up with a final scream of terror and flew into an upright position. Fatherly instincts honed over the last three years had Tony wrapping his arms tightly around Ziva's brother, rocking the boy lightly.
Instinctively, Matai fought against his arms. Then, slowly, the fighting stopped and Matai melted back against his chest, crying into his shoulder. Not knowing what was wrong, Tony had no choice but just to rock him, whispering soft soothing words that Matai didn't understand.
He wasn't sure how long he sat there, when exactly Matai had fallen asleep. He just knew that eventually, he lifted Matai back into his cot and crept back to the master bedroom. He could still hear Ziva and Ahava talking quietly in Alexa's room, and to him it sounded like they would be a while yet. So he slid to the ground against the wall, trying to remember what exactly he had signed up for two months ago. He was pretty sure that terror-traumatized Israelis hadn't been in the wedding vows. Maybe just one.
Tony was just about to fall asleep when he felt the massage stop and Ziva lean down towards his ear and murmur, "Tony, I need to talk to you."
"Talk away, Ziva," he replied.
He heard her sigh softly and nestle against his back, folding her arms across his shoulder blades and resting her head by his. "I am pregnant, Tony," she whispered into his ear.
"What?" Tony asked, thinking that maybe he was hearing voices now.
"Pregnant, Tony, as in baby," Ziva repeated, a slight hint of irritation in her voice.
"Oh," Tony said, still a little drowsy. "When did that happen?"
"Your guess would be as good as mine, my love," Ziva sighed. "Most likely, it was Tel Aviv."
"Of course."
"What exactly is the purpose of a bachelor party?" Ziva asked about two weeks later as she double-checked the folder filled with papers. Melanie was jumping up and down excitedly around her, and Alexa giggling happily at her sister's antics from her spot on Ziva's hip.
"What, you've never heard of a bachelor party?" Tony's old college friend Ryan Hanson asked incredulously from the entranceway to the living room. "What country are you from again? And how long have you been living here?"
"Israel, and long enough," Ziva replied curtly. "I asked what the purpose was, not the definition."
"Oh, that explains a lot," Ryan muttered as he spotted the Star of David necklace. "Explains the shotgun wedding, at least. Afraid that Papa's going to find out what his daughter's been doing in America?"
"Hey, where are you three going?" Tony asked, interrupting Ziva's retort as he slipped in past Ryan and leaned in to kiss her and then Alexa.
"I have to go renew my visa today at the Israeli consulate," Ziva replied. "Must be done today, or you, my love, will marrying me in Tel Aviv." She returned his kiss. "And you are apparently having a bachelor party."
"All right, see you later then," Tony said, scooping up Melanie for one last kiss before setting her down. "Ti amo."
"Ohev otach," she returned with a final evil eye in Ryan's direction. "Can you help me get the girls into the car?"
"Sure," Tony said, pulling Melanie's coat on for her and buttoning it up.
"So that wasn't so bad," Tony muttered under his breath to Ziva as she rolled her eyes and returned,
"No?"
"Ryan actually remained awake the whole time. You ought to be flattered, he passed out with Jeanne." Tony bit his tongue at mention of his ex-wife. Hot-button topic, shouldn't have gone near it…
Ziva was quiet only a moment before finally saying, "I think he was more curious to see if the Jewess would go through with it, or if fire from heaven would rain down and smite her."
"I thought it would for a second this morning," Tony replied, sneaking a kiss from her. "Did you see those clouds overhead?"
"Where are the girls?" Ziva asked.
"Last I checked, Abby was going after my mother for them. Said she had some kind of wedding shower present for them." He let out a strangled yell of surprise when Abby popped up, along with the rest of the NCIS crew. "Abigail Sciuto, what did you do to my daughters?" he demanded weakly, as Ziva started to laugh uncontrollably along with the rest of NCIS.
"I made them Mini-Mes," Abby said brightly, grinning as Ziva, still howling, took Alexa back from her. The infant was clapping her gloved hands happily, with a gorgeous black lace dress and little leather boots. Melanie, meanwhile, was giggling along with her Aunty Abby in a two-piece skirt and t-shirt set with a pair of red and black striped tights, her reddish-brown hair pulled up into two tiny braided pigtails and a headband pulled around for effect.
Finally, Tony gave in and laughed, hoisting Melanie up onto his arm. He would remember that picture for a lifetime: Ziva, her face glowing in the moment of joy, the way her eyes had met his and had transmitted pages of wordless love.
Tony woke up when he heard Ziva's soft voice by his ear. "Wake up, Tony. Come back to bed." Reluctantly, he got to his feet, her hand gentle on his arm. "Everyone is asleep again. Except for us."
"I was asleep," Tony yawned defensively. "I was having a pretty good dream."
"Really?" Ziva asked coyly, pulling him back towards the bed. "About what?"
"About our wedding," Tony replied as she curved comfortably into him. "And our wedding night."
"Ah, yes, the, um, shot – shot – shotglass wedding? Is that not how they referred to it?"
"Shotgun," Tony corrected. "The term is a shotgun wedding. Means it's quick and everybody assumes that the bride is pregnant and that's why they're marrying."
"Mmm…" Ziva laughed lightly. "They would be right, yes?"
"Not that they know that," Tony said, kissing her once more.
"They will soon enough," she replied, and Tony saw the same happy sparkle in her eyes as he had the day of their wedding.