I almost want to go ahead and apologize for this. But I won't. ;)
The drive to Ziva's apartment after getting the pizza took much too long, but winded up being too short at the same time. His heart somehow managed to beat in his ears and sink to his stomach simultaneously, and he found himself clinging to the sonogram in one hand while driving with the other, no longer feeling nearly as brave as before.
He parked outside her building, and sat there for just a moment, closing his eyes and trying to calm his racing heart and nauseous stomach. He let himself have a moment to feel afraid of what outcome this conversation would have and what road it would lead them down. There were two ways it could go, he reasoned, trying not to dwell on the fact that the less desirable one could already be set in her mind. He wasn't even sure he could do this. That was why he'd been putting it off for so long, after all.
Because what if his suspicions were right? What if everything crashed and burned?
"You have to do this, DiNozzo." he told himself finally, putting the picture of his daughter in his pocket and climbing out of the car. The air was colder than he expected, and he shivered, putting his hands in his pockets.
The picture was warm in comparison to the chilly night, and somehow, that gave him the strength to go up to her apartment and knock on the door despite his racing heartbeat.
She took a few moments to answer it, and he found himself staring down at his ground while he waited, trying to figure out the pattern in the carpet. She took so long, he was just about to raise his hand to knock again when she finally opened the door. She gave him a simple nod in greeting, opening the door wider for him and disappearing back into her apartment. He followed her slowly to the kitchen, putting the pizza on the counter and trying to figure out if she was going to say anything. He watched silently as she opened the refrigerator, gazing inside as if she were looking for something specific, but he knew she was just avoiding looking at him.
"Are you going to stop pretending to look into your refrigerator and actually talk to me?" He called her out for it, and she froze for the briefest moment, caught off guard. He watched closely, trying to assess her actions and decide the best way to approach her.
"Well," she hesitated, moving a soda bottle to the side to see what was behind it. He huffed impatiently, counting in his head in an attempt to stay calm. "I thought we had already... talked, Tony. What else is there?"
Anger swelled in him suddenly at her calm, placid demeanor, and before he'd realized it, he'd gone over to where she was, pushing the refrigerator door closed. She stood, facing him, her face carefully blank. "Ziva," he said as evenly as possible, trying to calm himself and failing miserably.
She seemed to realize exactly how serious he was and nodded slowly. She leaned against the counter awkwardly, her hand almost automatically coming to rest on her stomach, but then she moved it quickly, placing it on the counter beside her instead. "I... Okay, talk."
He resisted the urge to step closer to her, choosing instead to lean against her counter two or so feet away from her, mirroring her position. "Why have you been treating me differently lately?" He began, hoping this first question would be easier than those that would follow.
"I haven't," she tried, but he shook his head.
"This can take an hour, or this can take all night, Ziva," he told her slowly, eyes never leaving hers. "I really don't care, but I am not leaving until you give me some honest answers. So let's try that one more time. Why have you been treating me differently? Why have you been shutting me out?"
She pursed her lips, breaking their eye contact for a moment. When she looked back at him, he raised an eyebrow at her. She sighed, running a hand through her hair. "Because... because you kept asking about... her, Tony, and I... I didn't know what I was going to do. So, I just... decided to stop answering. I did not want you to get your hopes up."
He scoffed, rolling his eyes. "Well mission accomplished. Congratulations."
"I figured it was better that way." She glared, crossing her arms over her chest defensively. "It was easier for me."
"Well, it wasn't exactly easier to me, Ziva. Did you ever think about that?" He spat accusingly, not really caring that he was being a little harsh.
She gave him a little shrug. "I... I thought that perhaps it would be."
"It wasn't, Ziva." He replied more calmly, not wanting to push her too far. "But I need to know."
"I... " she hesitated, turning away from him and walking away from him. She opened the pizza box on the counter, picking off a piece of pepperoni and eating it slowly. He suddenly felt anxious and he tried not to scream at her to just spit it out already. "I just... I can't, Tony."
His heart missed a beat. "You can't what, Ziva?" he asked, despite already knowing the answer.
She was fidgeting with a piece of pizza, deliberating. "I... We can't... We can't keep... her, Tony."
He swallowed, willing the feeling of dread not to come. Fight back, he told himself, taking a deep breath. This wasn't anywhere near over. "Ziva, come on. We-"
"No, Tony," she rubbed a hand across her forehead, closing the pizza box back and facing him again. "I mean, do you really think we can be parents?"
"Yes," he answered with no hesitation, and he could tell his answer shocked her, but he didn't give her a chance to respond before continuing. "I do, actually. I didn't to begin with, but that changed. I want us to keep her, Ziva."
"I thought you just wanted to know what I was thinking!" She threw his words back at him, and he cursed under his breath.
"Well, people lie, Ziva. And I just don't think it's the right decision and I have the right to voice that," he snapped in return, knowing that all of this yelling probably wasn't helping his case any.
Ziva looked away from him, shaking her head, and his heart took a painful lurch. "I do not know if we should."
"I think we should," he countered swiftly, trying desperately to think of a way to make her listen to him. "You know I've been having nightmares ever since all this started? I keep seeing you, all happy and pregnant, and... and then suddenly... suddenly, you're not, and she's not there with you. It's just you, and you're looking at me so... so coldly, and you walk away, and she's not there, Ziva. Every single time I see that, it... I... I don't like it, Ziva. It's not..." He snapped his mouth shut, realizing too late that he had been rambling. His eyes pleaded with her to understand him.
"Tony." She whispered, breaking off their eye contact and looking at the floor. She looked like she was in physical pain and he felt a quick flash of guilt that he shook off. "Look at us. We are fighting all the time! Everything is so stressful, and... I just think this entire... thing... has made us... too complicated."
Thing. He winced at her choice of words. "Ziva, we've always been complicated! Things between have never been easy or simple or anything like that, so what does it matter? We're complicated. So what? I thought we'd just learned to accept that."
"Perhaps," she agreed, leveling her eyes at him. "But this has made it much worse, and I just do not think we should do this. With our jobs and our past and everything, maybe we should give her to a more stable home where she will be taken care of, and move on. I believe that would be best for... everyone."
He shook his head, blinking away his sudden desperate tears. He took a step closer to her. "No. We can take care of her, Ziva. We can. People with our job do it all the time, and our past is in the past. It doesn't have anything to do with this other than the fact that it's gotten us to where we are," he paused to take a breath before addressing the last part of her statement. "And.. and that wouldn't be better for everyone. That wouldn't be better for me."
"Maybe it would!" she snapped, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "You do not know that! How can you say that it would not be best for you when it has not happened?"
"Because Ziva, I just do. Call it a gut thing." He returned harshly, rubbing a hand over his forehead and trying to figure out another approach despite the headache he could feel starting.
"You are not Gibbs," she replied coldly.
"He's taught me a lot, Ziva," he responded. "I've been working for him a long time."
"I have, too," she sneered. "Maybe I can listen to my gut, as well."
"Don't even try to tell me that you're listening to your gut, Ziva. I'm not buying that," he told her tensely. He could feel himself losing any of the patience he still had, and he was trying his hardest to stay calm.
"Tony." She replied, suddenly looking much more exhausted. "I have thought about this a lot. Do you think that I'm making rash decisions without thinking them through? Because I would not do that. I have thought this through several times. We are not risking the... the wellbeing of a child-"
"A child?" He spat incredulously, shaking his head. "Wrong. Our child, Ziva."
She sent him a glare that made some of her exhaustion seem to disappear and started over. "We are not risking the wellbeing of our child just because we..." She stopped suddenly, closing her eyes.
"Messed up." He finished for her, beginning to feel defeated. He put his hand back in his pocket, letting his thumb run over the smooth surface of the sonogram. He sighed, deciding to try one more time. "Ziva." Her eyes snapped open at the tenderness in his voice. "You want to be a mom. I know you do. You had almost given up on that possibility, and now you have it again. You can be a mom, and I know you want to be. So why are you doing this?"
For the briefest moment, her eyes glistened and he let himself think that maybe he had gotten through to her, but then she walked past him, going to her sink and turning on the faucet. He stared at her back while she ran her hand under the water, willing her to turn around and say something, anything. "Ziva..." her name slipped past his lips, but she didn't turn back around.
"Tony," she began slowly, her voice resigned as she reached for a glass on the counter, turning it over in her hands. "I've already written down the name and number of an adoption agency in another area that has a pretty decent success rate for adoptions. I... I've made the decision."
He could feel himself grasping at straws that weren't even there, "But what about me, Ziva? Don't I get any say in this?"
She was staring out the window, and he could see her eyes were glistening again in the reflection. "I... I thought it was my decision."
"Who told you that?" he asked, incredulous.
"You did." She stammered a bit, looking uncomfortable. "Or you implied it. And it is my decision, because... we... because we aren't... together."
He tried to get her to look at him in the reflection of the window, but she was persistently avoiding his gaze. "Ziva, please," he pleaded, desperate for anything.
She didn't say anything for the longest moment, and he waited for her to respond with his heart pounding. Finally, she glanced at him over her shoulder, her face void of any emotion. She'd pushed him back out after only letting him inside her head long enough to break his heart. With a start, he realized that he didn't even recognize her anymore, and then he knew that the conversation was over.
"You should go."
And there it was. In one statement, she'd managed to make all of his suspicions, fears, and nightmares a reality. In one statement, she had finalized what he had been so terrified of. His stomach dropped, his throat closed up, and his heart gave a painful tug as she turned back to the sink.
He closed his eyes tightly, trying to swallow past the lump in his throat, trying to will it all away, like it was just another nightmare, but it wasn't. He had tried, and he had failed. He'd listened to Gibbs and Abby, and he'd talked to her, only to have what he was afraid of happen. He'd done everything he'd known to do, and it hadn't helped. She was going to give their baby away, and he'd never get the chance to know her.
He nodded slowly, even though she couldn't see him, and walked out of the apartment, not once looking back, despite the fact that with every step he took, his heart begged him to go back and keep trying.
But there isn't any point in him doing that.
When he got to his car, he climbed in, leaning his head back against the back of the seat, feeling like there was a knife in his stomach that was being turned every few seconds. He put his cold hands into his pocket, and then pulled the sonogram out. Staring at the fine details of the picture, he let himself cry for the daughter that he hadn't even met, but somehow had already lost.