Have I had anything with genuine McGee in it? I've tried to put steps towards fixing that in this chapter. I just don't feel like I write McGee very well. Anyway, tell me what you think.

Ziva usually dealt almost solely in 'boys' clothes' or at the very least, ungirly girls' clothes. This made it all the more surprising to Abby when Ziva gravitated immediately to the pale pink ballet dress with a very frilly skirt and a small bow and ribbon connecting the tank top to it. She went to the desk, leaving Ziva to rub her fingers against the frills. Locating the little bell on the table, she rung it. In under fifteen seconds a friend very befitting of Abby came round the corner. The woman was tall with a dancer's figure and multi colored hair pulled up into a messy bun. Her clothes were eccentric, the jumper matching her hair.

"Abby, I've been looking forward to seeing you!" The woman came round and hugged her. "And this must be Ziva, so you're starting ballet. You excited?"

"Yeah, I like this one. It is like the one I used to have." Ziva said without turning away. "But I had to give it to Tali."

"We'll try on the pumps first, 'kay?" Abby told her before leading them over to the seats.

Ziva took off her shoes and Abby passed one of them to the woman who then checked the size before disappearing. While she was gone, she informed the uninterested Ziva that her name was Norene. They'd met two and a bit years back at a concert when Abby had been drawn to her awesome attire. They'd been friends ever since. Ziva wasn't really listening however as she was busy looking at the dress she wanted.

"I didn't want to give it to you. Mama made me." She hissed.

"It was too small. You were almost ripping it." Tali shot back from the seat beside her.

"Well now I'm going to have it and you're not." Ziva then stuck out her tongue at the space and threw her head up airily.

Norene returned with a shoebox filled with different sizes of pumps with the label 'child' on the side of it. She kneald down on front of Ziva and pulled out one before slipping it on her foot.

"Hey, look at that, like Cinderella. I'll just get you a new pair." While she'd tested the size against her shoe, usually it took her at least three times to find one that worked. She returned less than a minute later with a pale pink pair of pumps in a cellophane wrapper. "And you were interested in the dress as well?"

Ziva's head whipped round to look at Abby in a desperate manner. Abby nodded in agreement. "Yeah but she'll need to try it on."

"Got a changing room just through there." Norene told them, pointing passed the desk and into a room round back.

With that, Ziva took the dress through to the changing room while Abby and Norene waited. Almost five minutes later she reemerged, admitting that she was struggling to get it on. Abby then accompanied her back to the changing room to aid her. Arms up, with one quick swoop Abby managed to roll the dress right down the child with no difficulties. Ziva then proceeded to brush out the crinkles by sweeping her hands down it.

"Can I see?" Ziva asked as she looked around for a mirror.

"Um, yeah. I think I saw one out front." Abby replied, melting at the utter cuteness of the little girl on front of her. Once her hair was up and she had tights and her shoes to accompany it, it would be the whole package.

Norene looked up from the desk when they came through and put a hand on her chest. She mouthed to Abby 'she's adorable' as they passed. Yes, yes she was but Norene didn't have to witness all those other times when she was certainly less-than adorable. They found the mirror and Ziva moved into first position. She didn't do anymore, just turned around to look at Abby.

"This one. This is the one I want." Ziva said before realising how spoiled that sounded and added, "please."

Abby lifted the price tag out from the back of the dress before agreeing. She then took a pair of white tights down from the shelf and almost asked her to try them on as well before Norene stopped her. "I know I shouldn't be saying this, seeing as it's my own shop, but you can get them cheaper anywhere."

Touched by her honesty, she thanked her and returned to the changing rooms to help Ziva out of the dress. When they returned they quickly purchased the shoes along with it. Ziva very much liked the bag it was placed in, a paper one with a silhouette of a ballet dancer and the name of the shop printed in swirly letters on the side. Abby then took her hand, thanked Norene for the help and steered her out of the shop.

"Thank you, Abby." Ziva looked up at her smiling. "You're the best big sister."

"And you're an awesome little sister." Abby shot back with a wide grin. "Come on, we'll head back in a little bit, just gotta pick up a few things first."

NCIS-NCIS-NCIS

Ziva burst through the door with so much excitement Gibbs thought it might blow off its hinges. She didn't stop though, just ran straight up the stairs with a paper bag in one of her hands. Abby followed suite with a chirpy grin, shutting the door behind her.

"She loves it." Abby told him, almost bouncing up and down herself. "I'm not sure if she can get it on herself but she loves it and we found tights too and the pumps."

"How much?"

"Doesn't matter." She brushed him off. "Zee, do you need a hand?"

"No!" The little voice yelled.

Within a few seconds she was barreling down the stairs again. She had the dress on with the frills stuck out perfectly, the tights and the pumps. The only thing that took from the look of the prima ballerina were the wild curls. Ziva brushed them out of her face and behind her ear but they just fell back down again. Gibbs picked her up and kissed her cheek, filled with sheer love for the little girl.

"You're perfect, sweetpea." He told her, pulling her even closer.

"Come here, I'll show you how to put her hair in a bun." Abby said as she steered the pair to the couch and pulled out the pack of curby grips they'd stopped for. "Right, you watching? Because it'll be hard because her hair's so short and thick."

Abby pulled Ziva's hair back into a tight ponytail and tied it up before proceeding to twist the short locks round tight enough to seal with the curbies. Tentatively, she released it and it stayed put. She then turned back to Gibbs who wore a look of confusion. With a sigh, she took it down and started over, this time with running commentary. Every now and then she'd look over to the man to check he was paying attention. When it was finished, she once again took it all down before passing the buck to him.

"Ponytail." Abby instructed.

"Ponytail." He managed to efficiently pull it into the hairstyle he threw it into most often.

"Twist it."

"Twist it." When he'd finished twisting he accidently let go and it spun out of his grasp.

"Start again."

On the third try Ziva let out a long sigh, crossing her arms. This was getting very boring, very quickly. She fiddled with the frills. She pointed her toes and released, pointed and released. She stretched out her hand to survey her nails and fingers. Nope, definitely couldn't take it any longer.

"Can't he try it on you?" Ziva asked discontentedly half way through his fifth attempt. This time he had managed to almost secure it.

"Your hair's shorter and curly." Abby reminded her. "Besides, he's going to have to do it on Thursday."

She sighed again but this time stayed quite. After she felt like he'd whittled away most of her childhood Gibbs managed to secure the bun. On Abby's command, she shook her head as wildly as she could but it didn't come loose. With great excitement she leapt from her spot and up into the middle of the living room. Gibbs had never seen Ziva look so happy-ever. Not when she came to them 2005, nor when her American citizenship came through nor her official end to probation. Not when she had regressed and he taught her baseball nor the movie nights or the sleepover or anything. He had never seen that look of pure joy. Ziva had always been dedicated to shooting and her martial arts-passionate about them too-but this was something different.

"I am never taking this off."

NCIS-NCIS-NCIS

She kept true to her word as well. Several hours had passed and she was still made up as a prima ballerina. Jackson had commented how pretty his 'little darling' looked when he came in from his walk and Abby had gone away home. They'd had lunch (Gibbs had recommended she take it off incase she dropped something on it but she had been extra careful with no repercussions) and it was now getting closer to dinner. Jack was watching an old western he'd found on the shelves and Gibbs had joined him. Ziva was sitting on her knees at the kitchen table doing her homework, humming away contentedly. A knock at the door broke the calm atmosphere. Gibbs was the one to answer it, welcoming McGee in from the cold.

"Boss," McGee acknowledged before seeing Jack. "Hey, Jack. How've you been? I heard you were in town."

"Meeting my granddaughter." He smiled back.

"Shalom, Tim." Ziva greeted. "You haven't been round in a while."

"Yeah, sorry, Ziva. I've been busy." Tim said apologetically. "I'll make it up to you."

"You can help me with my homework." She replied as she pulled out a worksheet from underneath the piece she was currently working on.

"Um, yeah, sure." McGee agreed, nodding again to the two Gibbs' and joining Ziva at the table. "Abby take you ballet shopping?"

"I'm never taking it off." She made it very clear.

"So, what's the work?"

There, the pair sat diligently for the next for the next forty minutes as McGee aided Ziva with her work. Her strengths lay very strongly in social subjects: history, geography etc. and languages, and sciences and maths didn't quite fall into that category. Fortunately for her, McGee was an expect. Gibbs had to hand it to the younger man, he could keep Ziva's attention far better than he could. She was a very energetic and boisterous child and only sat still for things she was interested in, such as her aforementioned strength subjects, reading, sometimes drawing and jigsaws depending on her mood. Every time her attention wavered he brought her expertly back to the matter at hand.

"Science is just so boring." Ziva complained after the umpteenth time of being brought back on topic. "I will never need it and it doesn't even make sense."

McGee, after trying to explain something with no luck, suddenly stopped. "Have you got any empty soda bottles and fizzing tablets?" He asked, placing the paper down on the desk.

"What?"

"Erm...like Alka Seltzer or..." With better thought, he turned the question to Gibbs instead who verbally directed him to a cupboard. "And we'll need that soda bottle and some food colouring."

Ziva fished out an almost empty soda bottle and poured the half cup worth into a mug. She brought it to the table and returned to root about for the food colouring.

"Will this do?" She asked, holding a tiny blue bottle as far away from her dress as possible.

"Yeah," He took it off her, completely absorbed in what he was doing. While Ziva went to wash the blue that had seeped into her fingers off, McGee got together vegetable oil and and some water. When she returned he began setting it up. He poured in the water then the oil, followed by the food colouring and finally he passed the tablet to Ziva. Tim gestured to her to drop it in and she did. The insides of the bottle looked like a lava lamp.

"See, oil is less dense than water which is why it'll stay above the water. The oil and water don't mix because of intermolecular polarity. Molecular polarity basically means that water molecules are attracted to other water molecules. They get along fine, and can loosely bond together...erm, similar to magnets that are attracted to each other. Oil molecules are attracted to other oil molecules, they get along fine as well but the structures of the two molecules don't allow them to bond together."

Ziva watched in fascination and awe that McGee had managed to pull that off completely on his own. She'd been learning about some very rudimentary physics however McGee's demonstration really brought it to life. She decided she'd ask him every time she had maths or science homework which was boring.

"Can you take a picture of it?" Ziva asked. "I want to put it at the bottom of my homework so Miss Lannert sees 'learning in action'. I heard another teacher talk to her about it for ages and ages."

McGee took a picture on his phone while Ziva answered the questions that he'd just explained to her. All the while, she looked up to see her pretty lava lamp. It reminded her she'd always kind of wanted a real one.

Ziva put the work to the side when she'd finished it. "Do you know how to do anything else cool like that?"

"Erm...I can make a volcano." McGee replied, glad he had managed to bring Ziva on-side with the 'science is cool' gig.

"No." Gibbs picked up on that from the living room. "No volcanos. Ziva, go put your homework in your bag."

Huffily, she dragged her completed homework down from the desk. "Next time you're going to show me more."

Gibbs nodded to McGee in praise with a grin. Tim beamed before ducking his head, embarrassed. Still, he tidied up the table and put everything back where it belonged. Gibbs watched his youngest agent as he did so. He hadn't just stopped by to help Ziva with her homework. There was something wrong but he wasn't sure what it was. As soon as the stuff was cleared up, Gibbs stood.

"Hey, Tim, help me with the boat."

"Uh, ok."

Gibbs led the man down to the basement. He directed Tim to the frame of the boat and began sanding it down. Without complaint, he complied. The pair of them worked like that, sanding down the frame, the rough wood beneath their hands, until Tim was ready to speak. McGee had almost finished an entire rib before he sighed and ran his hand through his hair but instead of speaking he simply continued sanding. Gibbs didn't push him. He waited. Eventually, he spoke.

"Um, boss." McGee began tentatively.

"Yeah."

"I finished my book." He mumbled. "My publisher's read it and the editor and it's going to print soon."

"Uh huh."

"That case where a woman was murdering those people because they were characters in my book…" He drawled. "And then there was that stuff with Abby-"

"McGee." Gibbs interrupted, trying to get him to get to the point.

"It's just...I'm nervous something like that could happen again." Tim admitted. "And I was wondering if you could read it over for me before it goes to print."

He figured that's where it was going. "Yeah. Drop it off."

"Thanks boss."

"No problem."

"I can e-mail it when I get home." Gibbs shot him a look. "Or...I'll give you a paper copy tomorrow because you don't use e-mail."

Quick note, I know nearly nothing about physics or science-y stuff and everything related to that field has been copied and pasted from various sites with minor adaptations to try and make it more fluent.

Thanks and REVIEW.