Wanting for Independence: Chapter 25
DiNozzo left Ziva the car and took the bike he despised into the office and arrived long before anyone was there, his favorite time to be at the office. He liked being around people for the company, but when it came to getting work done, nothing beat the early morning hours. Even though it was a few hours earlier than he usually arrived at work, he went through his usual morning routine of checking his email, followed by the NCIS alerts from the last twenty-four hours. Sometimes it was hard to be stationed so far from Headquarters, just because of the time zone difference. Sometimes it was nice to be away from Gibbs and Vance and all of the politics that lived in the DC area.
Kim Not-Tomblin had sent him an email of everything they discussed over the phone, which was good, because he had forgotten to bring the notes he had been taking at the kitchen counter, but also annoying, because if she could say everything she needed to say in an email, there had been no need for his phone to have rang at five. He contemplated giving her a call at her five am to see how she liked it, but knowing her, she would be up and running anyway.
Working on the computer was his least favorite part of detective work, so he was glad when Special Agent Todd Freiler, his junior field agent, came into the office a few minutes before seven. "I got a job for you," he said as soon as Freiler stored his SIG in his desk drawer.
"Sure," the younger man replied, as always agreeable. It was almost no fun making fun of him or making him do grunt work, because nothing ever seemed to bother him. Almost.
DiNozzo explained the advances that have been in the case since the last time they discussed the case, which was actually quite a lot, and then forwarded the email from Kim. "Did you search the UN databases yet?" Freiler asked, his attention already focused on the computer screen in front of him. DiNozzo just gave him a silent look until he looked up. "Right. You were waiting for me to do it."
"Someday you'll be a team leader, and you'll understand," DiNozzo said sagely.
"I don't think anyone will ever understand you," Gabi Stone commented as she entered the office. "Wow. Everyone's here early today. You guys know we don't actually start the workday until eight, right?"
"Daylight savings time," DiNozzo said.
"It's June," she replied.
"Quiet, or you'll be enjoying an all-expense-paid trip to Somalia."
"I don't think 'enjoying' is the word to use there," Stone replied. "What's going on? Al-Shabaab or more of this case from Headquarters? Or both?"
"Definitely the case from Headquarters, maybe both," he explained. "Your old FLETC buddy thinks that if their dead engineer is the Al-Shabaab engineer who was playing with chemical weapons—"
"Mustards," Freiler interrupted.
"Which are chemical weapons," DiNozzo pointed out. Freiler shrugged. "If they're one in the same, she thinks it's because someone was blackmailing him because of something in his family's past. Somalian terrorists and Somalian refugees means that that past was probably something in Somalia."
"So we're trying to figure out what kind of people this family was before they were refugees," Stone summed up.
"Right," DiNozzo agreed.
"I'm going to see if I can find them in the UN refugee database," Freiler said. "It's a place to start."
"Is Mossad helping?" Gabi asked, directing the question at DiNozzo.
"Last I saw anyone from Mossad, she was refusing to get out of bed, so I have no idea."
"Is Ziva feeling okay?" Gabi asked, now concerned.
"Women claim they can do everything, but ask them to grow one person and all of a sudden they're not even capable of waking up at five to work out."
"Please say that to Ziva next time I'm around. I would love to see her reaction."
DiNozzo snorted. "Do I look like an idiot? Don't answer that," he added warningly. "Once we have a little bit more about Khalid's family, I'm going to give Chad a call to see if he's free to go to Somalia and look into things." Unlike Ziva's operatives, who worked under deep cover to blend into whichever group they were infiltrating, NCIS agents, including Chad Dunham, tended to go undercover as international businessmen: nice suits, nice hotels, and most importantly, cell phones with international calling plans. Dunham was available whenever DiNozzo or anybody else needed him, 24/7.
"Easier said than done," Gabi commented. "He's deep in the middle of an arms deal, remember?"
"That's right," DiNozzo groaned. How could he forget? It was the largest thing they had going on in this office. He was letting McGee's case and Not-Tomblin's stubbornness get in the way of the work he was supposed to be doing. The work he was supposed to be doing, and the kid he was supposed to be preparing for.
Ziva was due in less than a month, and all the kid had was one bassinet and a room full of…stuff. Stuff he didn't understand and should probably familiarize himself with before said kid arrived.
Said kid needed a name.
He frowned at the train of thought and refocused on the issue at hand, which at the moment was Somalia and the Khalid family and Dunham's arms deal. "Okay," he finally said with a sigh. "Freiler, look into Daddy Khalid's background. If there's something there that's going to require someone to actually go to Somalia, we'll cross that bridge when we find it. Gabi, what's the current status of Chad's deal?"
"He has a meeting in," she checked her watch, "three and a half hours. We should have him live in the SCIF for monitoring, if all goes through. Our SEAL team is on standby if anything goes awry. If things don't go awry, he should be meeting the head of the operation early next week."
"Good. You have the lead on that one." She blinked in surprise, prompting him to quickly add, "But I still want to know if anything does go awry and you send in the SEALs to rescue Chad or capture any bad guys. I'm going to go upstairs and see if I can trick Dardik into doing a little research for us."
"Trick him?" Freiler asked dubiously.
"You know, by neglecting to tell him that Ziva doesn't know that I'm asking him," DiNozzo replied as he rose from his chair. "The usual."
"I feel sorry for your kid already," Gabi observed.
DiNozzo ended up not seeing his wife until he got home from work that evening, only realizing as he crossed the threshold of the house that Ziva didn't bring him lunch that day. "Hey," he called out.
"In the baby's room," was the muffled reply. He followed her directions to find his very pregnant wife standing in the middle of the room, arms crossed over her chest as she studied…something.
"Hi," he greeted again, kissing her on the cheek.
"Hi," she replied distractedly. He frowned, following her line of sight toward the box that contained the pieces that would become a crib.
"Something wrong?" he finally asked.
"I cannot figure out how the room should be set up," she admitted. "I do not know if the crib should be here and the changing table there, or if this would be a better place for the rocking chair, or—"
"Does it have to be figured out now, or could we wait until we—and by that I mean I—get some more furniture put together?"
"Well, then you should hurry about that," she declared. He frowned.
"Do you know something I don't?" he asked cautiously.
"I had a doctor's appointment this afternoon." That's right. At least he didn't have to feel guilty about missing it; he was there for the first appointment and when they found out it was a boy, but other than that, Ziva made it very clear that she would rather him be at work getting stuff done than sitting there holding her hand during yet another routine doctor's appointment.
"Did Dr. Rahma say anything I should be worried about?"
"No," she said dismissively. "My blood pressure was a little high, but she was not concerned. She just reminded me that I will be thirty-seven weeks tomorrow, and that is full term."
"Which means the baby can come whenever he wants."
"Yes. Although if he is as punctual as you, we still have a while."
"You've made that joke already."
"It is still true. She also said that I will have appointments once a week now until I go into labor."
"So you have to go to the doctor on the Fourth of July."
"That is not a holiday in Bahrain, Tony."
"I know, Ziva." He gave her a brief glower and she smirked at him. "Did you go to work today?"
"No," she replied. "I got busy with things here and I did not want to go in." He really wished he had that luxury; then again, working with Cohen wasn't exactly a luxury.
"Busy with things here?" he asked with a frown. She put on a knowing smirk and walked out of the nursery, leaving a confused DiNozzo in her wake.
It wasn't until they were almost at the kitchen that he registered that the previously-bare hallway walls now had pictures on them. "Wait a second," he muttered, stopping abruptly at a picture. "Where'd you get my official picture from Peoria?" It was his first law enforcement job, twenty-two and right out of college. He couldn't believe how young he looked in his uniform, a cocky smirk on his face. At least the picture hanging next to it was a good one—a young Ziva in her IDF uniform, looking far too sexy for eighteen years old.
"It came today," she said enigmatically.
"From where?" he asked.
"Do you want to see what else came today?" He didn't quite know what to make of that look on her face; it was almost teasing, but not the usual sexually-charged teasing she doled out when she wanted to make him suffer. She seemed almost hesitant, and that made him nervous.
"Depends," he said slowly. "Am I going to like it?"
She shrugged her shoulders and continued walking, leaving him no choice but to follow as she walked into the living room, stopping in the center of the room. "What?" he asked before his eyes fell on something that had most definitely not been there that morning. "Is that…" he began, his voice trailing off as he tried to comprehend the parlor grand piano that now stood in a previously empty corner of the room.
"Your mother's piano," she said quietly. He crossed to it, still trying to comprehend what it was doing there or why. He pressed a key experimentally, hearing a note and confirming to himself that it was real. "It still needs to be tuned, obviously," Ziva continued. "I think it looks nice there."
"How did it get here?" he finally asked.
"Your father sent it. A late wedding gift, he said. He said it would have been here sooner had you told him that we were married."
"You talked to him?"
"I called him as they were assembling the piano, to thank him," she said defensively.
"You didn't tell him…" He stopped at the look on her face. "You did, didn't you?"
"That he will have a grandson?" Ziva asked hotly. "Yes, I did."
"Ziva!"
"He is your father, Tony!"
"He certainly never has been much of one!"
"Well, it is not as if I could have told my own father!" He stopped suddenly at her words, wondering if this was one of those things he should have been able to see coming.
"Would you have?" he finally asked. She snorted.
"There would not have been much of a point," she said, almost mocking. "He would have found out probably before we did. And then began planning his career in Mossad from that moment."
"That's certainly true," he muttered.
"I do not know how he would have been with grandchildren," Ziva admitted, taking a seat on the piano bench and looking suddenly defeated. "I do not know if I can see him as a doting grandfather who would play with children."
"Unless the games were designed to train a baby to be a more efficient killer." She snorted and nodded in agreement, leaning into his shoulder when he took a seat beside her.
"I think after Tali, though…"
"What?" he prompted.
"I think he learned that life is too short and that maybe it should be enjoyed," she said quietly. "It was too late for me by then, but I think he might have been a good grandfather. When he was not at the office."
He turned his head to kiss her temple. "We can still name the baby after him," he pointed out.
"No," she said automatically.
"What about for a middle name?"
"No," she said again, shaking her head. "I do not want to remember the way my father orchestrated the end of his life every time I look at our son."
"Elijah? It's close to Eli, but not quite. Daniel Elijah DiNozzo doesn't have a bad ring to it."
She chuckled and shook her head slightly. "I will think about," she said. "But not the Daniel part."
"What do you have against the name Daniel?"
"Nothing," she replied. "I just know that the only reason you like it is because Danny DiNozzo sounds like Danny DeVito."
"Kim has friends who might name their kid James Cameron or James Taylor."
"That is unfortunate," Ziva said.
"Glad we agree about that," he said with a nod. They continued to sit together on the piano bench in silence for several long minutes.
"I am ready to no longer be pregnant," Ziva said abruptly.
"I think I need a little more time to put together furniture," Tony replied. "And I don't think we've mentally prepared ourselves for this."
She chuckled. "That is probably true," she agreed.
"At least we already know what not to do. Between my father and your parents, I think we have the basis covered on parenting techniques that don't work."
"That is true," she agreed. She turned to look up at him. "You will be a good father, Tony," she said softly. "I already know that."
He wished he had as much faith in himself as she had in him.