A/N: Hey all! I forgot to say anything about it last chapter, but a big thanks to all of you who continue to vote. As you know Halloween took up three chapters, originally I planned for two, but that didn't happen :) That also means that I have no idea what chapter this story will be ending, but I can tell you that in about 5 or 6 chapters I will be closing the poll.

Someone *cough* conservativegirl *cough* has already asked if I'm looking for baby names ;) As of right now I think I've got it narrowed down to a few for each gender, but if any of you have ideas I'd be glad to hear them.

Hope you enjoy this chapter and thanks for reading!

Chapter Twelve

"We are most certainly not naming our child Fabio!"

Tali glanced up the basement stairs from her spot on the couch, hearing her mother's voice from two stories above she had to bite back a laugh.

"Why not? I've been perfectly open to all the names you've suggested, even if I can't pronounce some of them! Fabio is a great name; several people in my family are named Fabio!"

"That is my point!"

Tali rolled her eyes and went back to the book she had been trying to read for the past hour. She'd retreated to their partially finished basement when her parents' voices had started growing louder. Since she had done so they had gone from topic to topic, arguing the whole time. First it was the unfurnished nursery, and then it was how long Ziva had to wait before going back to work. Tali knew that her Mom's hormones really must've been out of whack when she started yelling at her Dad for forgetting to replace the roll of toilet paper in their bathroom. She honestly had no clue how they had gone from that to baby names, but when it came to naming her baby brother, that was her guess as to what her little sibling would be, she wasn't going to let them make any final decisions during a fight.

Though she did agree with her Mom, Fabio was a horrible name.

Tali grabbed the piece of scrap paper she'd been using as a bookmark from the floor and tucked it in her book. She set the novel she'd been reading for English class on the end table and jogged upstairs. She made sure to keep her steps silent as she went up to her room to grab her phone. She unplugged it from its wall charger and then rifled through school work and other miscellaneous papers on her desk until she found a blank piece and a pen to write with. She left the note explaining where she'd gone on the kitchen counter and grabbed her coat off the rack by the door and slid her jean clad legs into her calf-length boots before slipping quietly out into the brisk November air.

She shivered a little as she stepped out onto the sidewalk, she could see her breath coming out of her nose in puffs and it made her laugh, causing more air to appear in front of her in little translucent clouds. The winter weather seemed to be moving into D.C. and the surrounding area early this year, it hadn't snowed yet, but it wouldn't be long before it did. Tali crossed her arms over her chest as she neared Gibbs' house, glad that the walk to his house was short because her cheeks were starting to sting from the chilly air.

Tali jogged up to his front door, not bothering to knock she entered his home, and left her coat and shoes by the door before heading down to the basement. But when she got all the way down the steps and found that he wasn't where she expected him to be, she wrinkled her nose in confusion and walked back upstairs. She checked the living room and the backyard but there was no sign of him in either of those places. The man she thought would be able to help her get her parents back into their right minds was nowhere to be found.

His car was in the driveway, so the only place left to check was his bedroom, which was the last place she thought she would find Gibbs at nine o' clock on a Saturday morning. She shook her head and made her way up the carpeted stairs and down the hallway to the door at the end of it. Standing just outside the room she could hear his snoring and slowly cracked the door open. As she expected Gibbs was in his bed asleep, what she didn't expect was to see Jenny Sheppard asleep in the bed beside him.

Tali slowly backed down the hall and went back downstairs, creeping quietly down to the basement to find something to do with her hands while she contemplated this new…situation. Studying the last piece of furniture Gibbs had made for the baby's room, a change table, she found that he had stained the wood, but had yet to varnish it. She went about finding a can and a brush, popping the metal lid open she got to work, her mind split between making sure her strokes against the wood were even and thinking about how she'd just found her grandfather and Jenny in bed together.

She dipped the brush back into the varnish, but as her thoughts became more consumed with confusion, she knew if she continued to work on the piece of furniture she would do something to mess it up, so she left the brush in the can. Tali walked over to Gibbs' work table, picked up a scrap block of wood, a carving tool and found an empty stretch of wall to sit against. She carved the block without looking, just wanting something to do with her hands while she tried to get her thoughts in order. She knew from the way her parents told stories about Gibbs and Jenny that their partnership as NIS agents had, at one point, involved a trip to Paris that had turned from work based to something else entirely.

But as far as she knew, nothing had happened after that. They appeared to be on friendly terms now and though it wasn't entirely impossible for none of them to have picked up that maybe they were becoming romantically involved again, it wasn't like the Gibbs or the Jenny that she knew to keep something like this from them. She didn't know why they would, as she knew everyone would be okay with it, happy that old grizzly bear Gibbs had found someone. Tali continued her carving absentmindedly, hoping they would wake up soon so that she could get him to help her and chastise him for keeping secrets from his family.


Gibbs slowly opened his eyes, squinting at the sunlight that streamed through the window on his right. He looked down, smiling at seeing Jen curled up against him using his chest as a pillow. Waking up to this sight every morning was his favorite part of the day and had been ever since she moved in a couple months ago.

The flame between them that had always been sitting on the sidelines, waiting for the right moment to catch fire, had been lit at Tony and Ziva's wedding last year. It had been a beautiful wintery wedding, held on January 12th at a fancy hotel in town as neither party was very religious, although there were a few Jewish additions to the ceremony here and there that Ziva had requested. Gibbs had walked her down the aisle and Abby, Tali, and Izzy were her bridesmaids. It was a small affair, with only family and close friends in attendance, making it all the more special. When the wedding party left for pictures the room was transformed for the reception; a dance floor was set up in the middle and round tables were scattered throughout the rest of the room. It was on the dance floor that their romance heated up again.

After Tony and Ziva had shared their first dance the floor was opened to the rest of the guests and in a rare moment of chivalry Gibbs had asked Jenny to dance. The song was slow and he swayed them back and forth around the dance floor, the whole time transfixed by her beauty. She'd let her hair grow out again and it flowed down her back in perfectly manicured curls. Gibbs thought her face looked beautiful without makeup, but she did have a splash of mascara on her lashes and the shadow on her eyelids highlighting her green-grey eyes. She'd been making small talk about how beautiful the wedding was the whole time they'd been dancing and he'd only been half-listening when he interrupted her thoughts on the bridesmaids' dresses with a kiss.

It wasn't long, but it was full of love and he didn't regret it in the least. The shock on her face was evident when he'd pulled back and she had glanced around the room quickly, trying to figure out if anyone else had seen what had happened because she didn't really believe it herself. No one had seen and she'd looked back at him confused, he merely smiled and kissed her again. Gibbs had realized while dancing with her, just listening to her talk about nothing in particular, that maybe it was finally the right time for them to try again. They spent the night together at the hotel and in the morning they both admitted their feelings for each other for the first time since Paris.

Gibbs smiled reverently because he knew that after that night the rest was history. Every moment they weren't at work or otherwise occupied, they started spending together. Gibbs took things slow on the emotional level, not telling her that he loved her until he was absolutely sure of it, because he sure as hell wasn't going to mess up his second chance with her. They'd been living together for the past two months in perfect harmony…and secrecy. He pushed that thought away, they hadn't meant to keep this from the team, his family, but they kept their relationship out of the office and it wasn't his fault if no one had yet to pick up on anything.

Gibbs carefully slipped out of bed, replacing his body with a pillow so she wouldn't wake up. He grabbed a t-shirt and sweats out of his side of the dresser and put both on before heading downstairs to start coffee and breakfast. When he entered the kitchen and he was surprised when the clock on the oven read 9:12, having not slept in that late in ages. He grabbed the container of coffee from the cupboard and was about to start scooping out the grounds when he heard a noise coming from the basement.

His hand went to his hip automatically, but he wasn't wearing his holster and he shook his head at his knee-jerk reaction. Gibbs went back into the hallway and caught sight of a pair of shoes and a coat he recognized as being Tali's. He was relieved and confused at the same time. Usually when anybody visited him it was because they needed to talk, but she was just sitting in his basement when she usually would have been looking for him. Unless…Gibbs sighed and rubbed a hand over his face, she probably had gone looking for him and had found him, found him and Jenny.

A second later, said woman descended the stairs tying her light purple silk robe together, "Good morning Jethro."

She greeted him with a smile and a kiss on the cheek, "Mornin'."

Jenny studied his face and found a less than pleased look on it, "What's wrong?"

"Tali." He grunted, moving back in the kitchen to finish making the coffee.

"What about her?" She snaked her arms around his waist and laid a cheek against his back.

"She's here." He turned around, resting his hands on her hips. "And I'm pretty sure she knows."

"What? How?" Her eyes grew wide with confusion.

He sighed, "Her stuff's by the door, I heard her in the basement and usually when she comes over, if I'm not down there, she looks around the house for me."

"Oh, I see. You think she went looking and found not just you but me as well?" Jenny said, connecting the dots.

"Yep, I'd bet on it." He gave her a quick peck on the lips and headed towards the hallway. "Wish me luck." He threw over his shoulder as he turned out of the kitchen.

"I'm hoping you won't need it."

Gibbs smirked at her answer. The door to the basement was open so he went right on down and found his granddaughter sitting on the floor whittling at a block of scrap wood. She didn't acknowledge his entrance so he turned his attention to the halfway varnished change table and started where she had left off.

He was almost done when she finally spoke up, "I'm not mad."

"That's always a good thing." He commented dryly, dipping the brush in the varnish for the last couple of spots.

"I'm just confused." She sighed and looked up from the finished carving in her hand. "Why'd you hide it from us? I mean aside from being a little annoyed you kept it a secret, I'm happy for you, both of you."

Gibbs fastened the lid back on the metal can and set the brush on a rack on his work table to dry before sliding down on the floor beside her, hands resting on his knees, "Didn't mean to hide it. Wasn't sure if I'd be smart enough not to screw up again, so I didn't announce anything. If any of you had asked, me or Jen, we wouldn't have lied."

"Guess we've all been too preoccupied to notice anything." She said, leaning her head against his shoulder. "Well, I don't know if it matters since it sounds like you two have been together for a while, but I'm cool with it. She's already overprotective enough to be my grandma anyways."

A rare full blown grin spread across his face and he leaned down to kiss the top of her head, "It matters, thanks Tal."

She nodded, then moving her head so she could look straight at him she fixed him with a glare, "Jake told me what you said to him last week at the Halloween party."

He raised an eyebrow at her innocently, "Really? What was that?"

The glare she was giving him was one that could rival his own, "I really like him, Gibbs. So I'd appreciate if from now on you didn't threaten to kill him."

He held back a laugh and nodded, "I'll do my best."

"Thank you." She leaned back against his shoulder and rubbed her fingers absentmindedly over the wood in her hands.

Gibbs glanced at it and eased it out of her hands. She didn't protest and watched him as he looked over her impromptu carving. In the foreground was a large bird, its wings spread-eagle, the detail on the feathers was extraordinary. He studied that for a long time before noticing that the left wing that was slightly curled appeared to be shielding a baby bird with its wing. Some would expect the smaller bird to be less detailed because of its size, but it seemed to be just as elaborate as the larger bird, if not more so.

"Where'd you learn to do that? It's beautiful." He commended handing it back to her.

She shrugged, "I didn't really learn. Mom says I've always had a knick-knack for drawing and stuff."

"Knack. You've got a knack for drawing." He corrected with a smile.

"Oh, well either way I don't really think about what I'm doing, my mind just pictures something and then my hands make it happen." She set the piece of wood on the floor beside her and turned back to him, a serious look on her face. "How long will that table take to dry?"

"Not long, why?"

"Mom and Dad are fighting about stupid stuff. I think they're both just overwhelmed with the fact that there's only a month left until she has the baby and we have hardly anything ready." Tali stood up and walked over to the other various pieces of furniture Gibbs had made to put in the nursery and pulled the sheet off that was covering them up. "So I think it is time to enact Operation Nursery."

Gibbs stood and walked over to stand beside her, "Operation Nursery?"

"Yeah, ya know, getting Mom out of the house so we can surprise her with all this stuff." She replied, looking over at his confused face.

"No, I got what it meant, I was just questioning your code name." He chuckled and she punched him lightly in the arm.

"I'd like to see you come up with something better." Tali pouted, leaning her back against the crib.

He turned and did the same, wrapping his arm around her shoulders, "Nah, I'm not very creative, yours is fine."

"That's what I thought." She nodded her head firmly and smiled.

Gibbs took a step away from the crib and pulled out his phone, "You get your Dad over here. I'll call Tim and Abby."

"On it," She was going to say 'On it Gibbs' but changed her mind at the last second. "Boss."

Tali grinned widely at him and he barked out a laugh, "Be careful, I've got enough head slaps in me for more than one DiNozzo if you start acting like your Dad too."

"Eh, I'll take my chances."

Thwap.

A/N: I'm hoping you all know what I meant with that last word ;) So it seems I was in the mood to update on Saturday again, so I'm hoping this will hold you all over for a while because I can't 100% guarantee a chapter next Saturday. Band Camp starts Monday, bleh -_-, so I'll be pooped and I don't know if I'll have the energy to write out the next chapter. It saddens me just as much as it saddens you ;) Hope you enjoyed this chapter, review and let me know how I did with my first stab at a Jibbs relationship!