You know what really annoys me? When the temperature is correct for snow, but there is no snow! It is not fair!

I know the White Christmas that DC had was in '09, but I really would like to use my artistic licence again, because I love snow. Or at least I do for the first half an hour. Then it goes all grey and slushy and messy and it is just cold.

I do not like this chapter.

Chapter Twenty-One

Wednesday, December 24th 2008

"Dada. Ima. Dada. Ima. Dada. Ima. Dada. Ima." Evita's voice filtered through into their bedroom, waking both Tony and Ziva up.

Tony looked at the clock, rubbing his bleary eyes. "A year ago, we were just arriving at the hospital." He pressed a kiss to her cheek and wrapped his arms around her.

"Mmhm." She melded into his body, rolling over to face him. "I will go and get her." She pecked him on the lips before squirming from his grasp. Before she left she pulled one of Tony's OSU t-shirts over her naked torso. "Hello, Baby. Are you awake already?" Her voice crackled through the baby monitor and Tony smiled, closing his eyes and listening to mother and daughter as they chattered away. "Shall we go and see Daddy? Yes?" Their voices started to drift away from the monitor and grew in volume as they walked down the hall.

"Hey, there're my two girls." Tony beamed, sitting up. He reached his arms out, pulling faces when Eva was passed over to him. "Who's my big Eva? You are. You're my big Eva. You're a big girl today."

"She is still Ima's little baby." Ziva sat next to him, curling her feet up beneath her and playing with her daughter's hand.

"Of course she is, and she always will be." Tony nodded as he supported Eva, keeping her steady as she wobbled, her feet unstable on the duvet that covered his legs. The child stared at him as he pulled funny faces at her, laughing at some and pawing at others with a chubby hand. The other hand had been yanked away from her mother and stuck in her mouth, coating her small fist in saliva. When Tony stuck his tongue out she grabbed it, a move she had witnessed Ziva doing on the odd occasion. "Like mother, like daughter, hey?" He mumbled, his tongue still being pinched.

Ziva watched as they interacted, their laughs filling the small bedroom as Evita slapped a sloppy kiss on Tony's cheek and he retaliated by blowing a raspberry on hers. She squealed and bounced, tumbling backwards to sit down. A look of shock passed over her face at the soft yet sudden landing and she looked around the room. Something caught her eye out of the window and she pointed, cooing. "What is it, Baby?" Ziva asked, wiping a dribble of slobber from the child's chin in the process.

Eva placed her hands on the bed and leant on them, twisting her torso to face the window and trying to stand up on the soft surface. "Ima. Ima."

She craned her neck to see what was outside that fascinated the child so much, a grin suddenly lighting up her face. "What?" Tony asked, the window out of his view due to the heavy curtains that hung in his line of sight, as his daughter was removed from his arms and carried over to the window. He watched as the child reached out and pressed her hand against the cold glass, retracting it quickly.

"Snow, Tony."

He simply groaned, falling back against the pillows. "You know what problems snow caused us last year."

"She has never properly seen snow, Tony. Not consciously." Ziva grinned out at the snow on the street before running out of the room, her daughter sat on her hip.

"Remind me again why she has a snow suit? Particularly a black and red one?" Tony stared down at his little girl, who hesitantly stood in the snow, reaching her hand out to touch a snowflake as it fell.

"Abby thought it would be a good early birthday present, considering the weather over the past few days."

"Any reason it had to be black and red?"

"Abby." Ziva shrugged, watching as Evita scooped a mitten full of the cold, white substance up and threw it, completely awestruck by the sudden flurry of flakes that tumbled down around her.

"Fair point." Tony agreed, walking over to her mini and brushing a chunk of snow off. He then crouched down for a moment before turning back to face her, a wicked grin plastered across his mouth. Before she had a chance to react, a snowball – cold and wet – hit her in the middle of the face and she squealed, a noise he never thought he would hear from his ninja. She bent down and made her own frozen projectile, flinging it at him with perfect aim, smiling proudly when he ducked just before it hit his chest, hitting him in the face instead.

Evita's attention was pulled from her new favourite toy when she watched her parents running around the street pelting balls of snow at one another. The blanket came up to her knees, and as she tried to move towards them her foot caught the top of the layer of snow and she tumbled backwards, falling on her backside into the cushioned layer of frozen rain. Ziva looked up and hurried over, sighing when her child started laughing. "Hey, I have a great idea!"

"And what would that be, Tony?" She asked as she righted her baby girl.

"Let's build a snowman."

"A snow…man?"

"Please tell me you have built a snowman before." At the look on her face he groaned. "You have missed out on so much! It's a man. Built from snow. You use a carrot for the nose and two lumps of coal for the eyes. Really, it's standard winter stuff."

The family crowded around the circular table, the biggest the restaurant had to offer, creating a bit of a tight squeeze with the highchair along with the eight adults surrounding the six-seated table. It being Christmas Eve, it was the only restaurant in the area that had a table free. Laughter erupted around the table at one of Tony's jokes. As the noise quietened down, Ziva looked around noticing a few heads turned their way. They were, admittedly, quite an oddball group. A silver haired fox and his redheaded companion, a young(-ish) couple and their child who looked like only one of them, a Goth and her computer geek, an old Scottish doctor with a bowtie and his young, spectacled apprentice. To look closer, one would notice that five of the nine people around the table were armed.

The table closest to them contained two couples, one older, one younger, and Ziva spotted a baby seat on the end chair. "Are we being too loud?"

"No, you're fine." The older of the two women smiled. "Your daughter is beautiful."

"Thank you." Ziva blushed, brushing the curls of Evita's hair away from her eyes.

"She's one today." Tony boasted proudly, puffing his chest out slightly.

"Her eyes are lovely." The younger of the women said in a quiet voice. She seemed to be a lot shier than the older woman, although the resemblance was clear. Both had quiet smiles and similar facial shapes. Ziva craned her neck as discretely as she could, yet it was still obvious to what she was looking at. "Toby. He's four weeks old."

Ziva blushed at being caught. "Sorry, I…"

"It's fine. Beth." The young woman, the closest to Ziva, held her hand out. "My parents and my husband." She nodded to the others at the table.

"Ziva. This is my…" She hesitated, looking around the circular table and smiled. "This is my family." There was a chorus of 'hi's 'hello's as her gaze returned back to the small child. "It feels like only five minutes since she was that size."

"Do you miss it?"

Ziva sighed and turned to her daughter, sat in the highchair between her and Tony. "Do I miss you being that small, Sweetheart? Sometimes, I think. But I like seeing the changes that I see every day." Evita gurgled and waved her tippy-cup around. The waiter appeared and each table turned back to their own conversations.

"And what for the child?"

"She'll be happy to eat the vegetables from our meals if we can just have another plate."

"That's fine, Sir." The waiter nodded, adding a note to the bottom of his notepad and turning to leave them.

"Hold on a minute, is it possible for you to get a picture of us all before the food?" Abby asked, holding out her silver point-and-shoot and grinning.

"Sure." He accepted the camera and stood back slightly, waving to Palmer to move in slightly before hitting the shutter button.

"Thanks!" The goth grinned and turned back to the table.

The conversation resumed, its prior vigour still present, and yet one voice was not heard as frequently as it had been before. Tony, Gibbs and Abby all noticed Ziva's attention focused mainly on her daughter, smiling and pulling faces, whilst a small portion of her mind clearly not at their table at all. Her gaze would flick over to the table behind them, the occasional glimpse of a mittened hand, or a blue bootie. Her attention returned when their food arrived, focused mainly on helping her daughter eat a piece of carrot, softened through boiling, whilst picking at her own meal. Once dinner was finished, and Eva had a face covered in vegetables, Tony ruffled her curly dark hair. "Shall we get you cleaned up?" His eyes flicked over to see Ziva turning her head back to the table.

"I will go." She smiled.

"Let me. You cleaned her after breakfast." He shrugged, unclipping the child from the highchair and taking Ziva's bag, heading in the direction of the bathrooms. Without her daughter to maintain her focus, her mind drifted to the table next to theirs again.

"Do you want to hold him?" Beth asked, catching Ziva looking again.

"Oh, I…"

"She wants to hold him." Beth's mother said, carefully picking her grandchild up and handing him to her daughter. Beth grinned proudly and passed him to Ziva, watching as the other woman smiled softly.

"Hello there. Hi. You are so tiny." Conversation resumed quietly around Ziva, along with laughter, as they each watched their friend coo over the small child in her arms.

When Tony walked back through, Evita's face now mostly cleaned, he sighed at the sight of Ziva with the baby, although he could not help but keep a small grin off of his face when he saw her smile. He knew what she wanted. "Thanks, I think you've just got my fiancée pregnant." He joked across to the other table whilst sitting Eva back in her highchair.

Ziva rolled her eyes and handed Toby back. "Thank you." She said sincerely before turning to kissing her daughter's now clean cheek and brushing her dark curls out of her warm brown eyes.

Tony sighed as Ziva rolled into his arms. "You sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Somehow I don't believe you." Tony chuckled, pressing his lips to her hairline and skimming his fingers across her bare stomach. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, I-"

"Don't give me that, Ziva. What is it?" She tucked her head under his chin and turned her face into his chest. "You want another baby, don't you?"

"I…" She hesitated. You saw the way he reacted when he found the pregnancy test the other month, and his sarcasm at dinner this evening, he does not want another baby.

Well, the test the other month was a bit of a shock, and he is Tony, sarcasm is his first language.

Yeah, but he practically had a heart attack, that is not how someone who wants a baby should react.

"You want another baby." She pulled away, staring at his smile.

"I never said that."

"You didn't have to. I know you, Ziva. I saw the way you looked at the baby today." He watched as she looked down, fiddling with her fingers. "It's okay, you know."

"No, it is not. It is not something I should be wanting. I have you and I have Evita and that is enough. I should not want more."

"But you do. And it's fine that you do." He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, trailing his fingertips down her jaw and putting a slight pressure on her chin and tilting it up to face him.

"No, no it is not, because you are happy, and that is what matters." She forced a smile and settled back down beside him as he rolled his eyes.

"You don't get it, do you? I'd do anything for you, Ziva. I'd give you as many babies as you want. We could have ten thousand babies if that is what you want." At the horror on her face, he smirked. "Or we could stick to two."

"I always wanted two. One of each." She said softly, kissing the corner of his mouth before settling her head on his chest. "I am tired."

"Okay." He said softly, dropping a kiss to the crown of her head and laying his head back, letting his arms wrap around her as he felt her breathing slow. "I love you."

I do not know if I actually like this or not. I think I am indifferent.