Thanks: girleffect, Amilyn, Chemmie.
Thank YOU for all your kindness.
. . . .
I bliss like this;
I'm one of those.
-Ani DiFranco, "Bliss Like This."
. . . .
He was late. Miserably late. Hideously late. Weather, traffic, a coked-out suspect they'd had to take to medical...but those were all excuses because Ziva was probably crying and calling him for the tenth time but his phone was dead and likely his engagement was, too. Or maybe she would just poison him and that would be that. He paused, one hand on the exam room doorknob, and straightened his tie. If she was going to murder him then he had better look good on the way out.
He pushed through and schooled his features: half-sheepish; half-sympathetic. "I am so sorry," he gushed. "We made an arrest, and then I tried to take 295 thinking it would be faster, but there was an accident and rubberneckers and the weather's supposed to get bad again so schools are letting out early and—"
Ziva stared at him, bottle of water poised at her lips, eyes wide and curious. "It's ok, Tony. Everything is fine."
He panted, suddenly out of breath. "I didn't miss it?"
She finished her water and reached for a second. "You did not. The technician is running late. I expect to wait another half an hour."
"Oh. So you're not mad at me?"
She took three big gulps and touched his hand. "I am not mad. Sit down. Tell me about your arrest."
He deflated and plopped in a plastic chair. "Couple of PFCs smuggled that Theraflu heroin on base. Caught them with it in the barracks."
She pulled a face. "Discharged?"
"No, but they will be."
"Mm." Silence. Ziva stroked the back of his hand and fingers and he relaxed. She finished the second bottle of water and put it aside. The clock ticked. "I am already uncomfortable," she admitted quietly.
He chuckled. "So this is the wrong time to tell you about beautiful waterfalls?" She punched him. He oofed.
The door opened. A technician rolled an ultrasound cart into the room and shook both their hands. "Lie down, Ziva, and roll up your shirt. Here's a towel to tuck into the waistband of your pants."
Ziva turned and lay back, exposing her round belly. Tony would swear under oath that it had grown since he'd gone to work that morning. The tech squirted some clear gel on it and readied the wand.
"So," he started awkwardly. "We're just making sure the baby's A-Okay, right?"
She didn't look at him. "Right. We'll check for abnormalities and get a better estimate of Ziva's due date."
Abnormalities. "But we don't think there's anything wrong."
She shrugged. "There have been no indications that the baby is anything other than normal and healthy."
"We want to know the sex," Ziva announced.
"We?" he echoed. "No, we agreed not to find out."
She glowered at him. "I think we have had enough surprises." She broke off to wince; the tech was pushing hard with that wand.
"Easy," he warned, but Ziva patted his hand.
"She needs to be able to see, Tony."
"I see a healthy nineteen-week fetus," the tech said. There was a lumpy peanut on the black-and-white screen. "Face, eyes, brain, nervous system—all normal. Listen—here's the heartbeat."
The room filled with a sound like water stirred in a bowl. "That's normal?"
The tech nodded, smiling. "One hundred percent."
He listened for a while with Ziva's hand still in his, pulse rising to match the swishswishswish of his baby's. "You don't see any broken bones, do you?"
Ziva squeezed his hand. The technician gave him a look, but shook her head. "No, the fetus is completely normal. I see nothing out of the ordinary."
Completely normal. Nothing out of the ordinary. Tony swallowed hard and loosened his tie. "So the baby is just a regular baby. Nothing...broken."
"A perfect specimen," she teased. "You want to know?"
"Yes," Ziva clipped.
"You sure?" he stammered. "There's no going back."
She glared. He was an idiot. "I am certain I will not want to un-know the sex of our baby, Tony."
He stretched his shoulders, popped his neck, let go of her hand to walk off some of his nerves. Finding out the sex meant the baby was A Real Live Thing and Anthony DiNozzo, Jr. was a father. He gave a little hop. "Ok," he exhaled. He clapped like he was breaking from a huddle. "Ok. All right. Let's do this."
The tech raised one eyebrow. "Are you ok?"
Tony grabbed Ziva's hand again and nodded so hard his neck popped again. "Lay it on me, Doc."
She smiled. "My name is Diana, and you're having a girl."
A girl. A girl. Tony leaned hard over Ziva's exposed belly without touching her. His breathing was deep and ragged. I'm Tony and this is my wife Ziva and this is our daughter.
"Congratulations," Diana said.
He smiled. "Thank you," his mouth said. A girl. A Girl. He and Ziva had created a human and that human was a female. "Thank you."
Ziva was frowning at him. "Tony? What is wrong?"
"It's a girl."
Her gaze hardened. "And that is a problem?"
"It's...it's amazing," he babbled. "We created a little girl. You and me, Zee-vah."
She smiled and stroked his hair. "I know." He kissed her hair, then her cheek, then her mouth, and she squeezed his shoulder before turning to Diana. "May we have photos, please?"
They had already been printed. Ziva took the envelope and held it against her chest. "Here. And here's a towel. Do you have any questions before I go?"
Tony straightened up. "She's normal? The baby, I mean—she's healthy?"
"Yes, yes, yes. Your baby looks absolutely perfect. She's completely, amazingly normal."
He rubbed his mouth. "She'll be late. DiNozzos always are."
Ziva sat up, belly cleaned of ultrasound gel. "Hush. You do not know that. My side of the family is obsessively punctual."
Diana shook their hands. "Congrats again. Make your next appointment at the front desk on your way out."
Tony grabbed the door before it could close. "No broken bones?"
"Not one," she promised, and rolled her machine away.
Ziva shrugged into her coat. "Do you have time to take me out to lunch?"
He checked his phone: thirteen-hundred. "Yes," he lied. He'd make up the paperwork later.
She made her appointment with the long-fingernails receptionist and followed him down to his car, detouring once for a trip to the ladies' room. He held the door for her. "You didn't drive?"
"Gibbs dropped me off. He was taking Sara to therapy."
"Oh. Bad day?"
She nodded. "They changed her service plan. She'll no longer be going to HSC for outpatient therapy. The school district did an in-home PT and OT intake and apparently it did not go well."
It was overcast when he pulled out of the garage. His sunglasses slid off the dash and landed on the floor by Ziva's feet. "How do you know?"
"Two days of raging tantrums."
"Oh. Poor Bug. What do you want to eat?"
"A burger and fries and a milkshake. Perhaps two milkshakes."
He steered toward a nouveau-retro diner in Columbia Heights that promised pure Angus beef and hand-cut fries. "Are you sure you're supposed to eat like that? Think of the baby, Zi. Would she want this stuff?"
"She demands it. And my doctor said it is fine. I am still on the low end for weight gain."
He almost choked. Low end? She grazed like a cow between meals and ate her weight in meat and potatoes at least twice a day. "Uh...ok," he muttered, afraid to stoke her anger.
She bit her lip. "I was...seriously underweight when I got pregnant. When we got pregnant. My body is still playing catch-up."
Well, damn. "Idiot," he mumbled.
She narrowed her eyes. "Me or you?"
"Me. I...forgot about that."
A hostess shows them to a red vinyl booth. She slid in and opened a menu. "We are moving forward, Tony."
He nodded and chose a tuna melt because Ayelet made them. "So, a girl. Are we painting the nursery pink?"
She plucked the cherry from atop her shake. "I'd like to move in together, but I feel badly asking you to do that."
"My piano won't ever fit in your place."
She looked down. "I know."
Their food arrived. They ate in silence. Ziva's meal disappeared faster than his, though she ate each fry individually and paused often to suck down more milkshake.
His sandwich was nowhere near as good as Ayelet's. "I'll sacrifice the piano. Maybe it's time to downsize, anyway. Could we just set up a keyboard with headphones in the living room? I can play without waking the baby. The princess."
She swallowed two more fries before speaking. "What about your television?"
He grinned. This was sorta exciting. "We can put your little one in the bedroom and hang mine in the living room. It's a flatscreen."
"Ok," she agreed, sighing. "Are you ready for this?"
"For moving in with you?"
"For raising our child together."
He stole her shake and took a long draught. The sugar made his teeth ache. "We've always been partners, Zee-vah."
She looked at him not harshly, but not gently, either. "We are not working a case, Tony. We will not finish the paperwork in a few weeks and go out for drinks."
"I know. And I'm ready. And ready to get back to the Navy Yard—it's almost fourteen-hundred. You done?"
Her plate was empty. He paid the bill, signing the credit card receipt with a flourish. Outside was cold and damp. She beat him to the door and shivered while he drove.
"You can drop me at Sara's therapist's office. It's on the way," she directed.
He nodded. It would save him at least twenty minutes if he didn't have to schlepp back to Silver Spring. "Gibbs text you?"
"Yes. Sara requests my presence."
"She's relentless."
Ziva looked down at her belly. "We forget she has a long history of trauma. She is facing many difficult transitions, and none of them were her choice."
He pulled into the circular drive before the rehab center and grabbed her hand. "I know her tantrums can put my blood pressure through the roof. You sure that's good for the baby?"
"The baby is fine," she said firmly. She squeezed his hand, then leaned over and pecked him on the lips. "And so am I. I will see you after work."
. . . .
The autopsy doors opened with a hiss and McGee looked up from his phone. There was a single crease between his brows. "I texted you three times, Tony. Where were you?"
Could he do anything right? "Doctor's appointment."
The irritation turned to concern. "You ok? Is Ziva ok?"
"Fine," he reported. "We're all fine." He almost flapped his mouth about the baby—how perfect and whole and amazing she was already—but even he could have a sense of privacy. "Why are we here?"
"Found our cokehead suspect's girlfriend's body in Anacostia."
"Damn."
Ducky bustled about the table, collecting trace evidence and undressing the body. He teased through the breast pocket of her denim jacket—far too thin for the wintery weather—and pulled out a tiny vial. "Well, I suppose it will not take long to determine the cause of death." He swabbed it with a square of gauze and the indicator came away blue. Cocaine.
Shocker, Tony thought.
Palmer returned with the preliminary x-rays. "OD?" he called.
"Not likely. Blunt-force trauma," Ducky acknowledged. He prepared envelopes of evidence for Abby.
"Are we looking for documents? Restraining order? PFA? Enrollment in a treatment program?"
"I haven't gotten that far, Mr. Palmer. Why do you ask?"
He adjusted his Harry Potter glasses. "She was pregnant. Twenty-two weeks."
Tony went cold. Pregnant. Only a few weeks farther along than Ziva. He looked at her long dark hair and her fanned eyelashes and her protruding belly and brought his fist to his mouth. "I gotta go," he said around it.
McGee looked up from his phone, irritated again. "Tony, we have to—"
He wouldn't freak out here. "I'll do your paperwork all week."
"It's only fifteen-thirty. We have to talk to Abby about crime sce—"
Tony took the stairs. "Tomorrow, McMagnum PI."
He drove, panic burbling in his throat, and squealed into a space at the shrink's place, but Gibbs' car wasn't in the lot. He slammed the shifter into reverse, backed away, and sped across town. School was letting out in Bethesda and Chevy Chase Village. He slowed to the requisite twenty miles per hour and inched along behind buses. Kids piled off at their stops, swinging backpacks, throwing snowballs. One little dark-haired girl embraced her father beneath a flickering street light and Tony's vision blurred with tears. His daughter was already making him soft.
Gibbs' block was quiet. His and Ziva's cars were parked in the drive. The sidewalk had been broomed clean of the first fresh snow. Tony stepped out of his shoes in the foyer and padded softly around the first floor. The Christmas tree was gone, finally, and Gibbs had hung some framed photos. Most were of Sara, but there were a few of Shannon and Kelly and some of the team.
He took another lap. Sara's artwork hung on the fridge. Her tiny moccasins littered the play area. A wooden penguin was upside-down in a spider plant. There were lifts at the stairs, a child safety latch on the under-sink cabinet, and a step stool in the powder room. He paused to check for grey hairs in the mirror. Gibbs could pull off the silver fox look with a youngster, but Tony couldn't. Or wouldn't.
Ziva startled him. She gave a smile when he jumped, but it didn't reach her eyes.
He kissed her cheek. "Everything ok?"
She nodded, shrugged, and shook her head. "It was a difficult session." Her speech took on the clipped, foreign sound that meant she was tired and stressed. "But it was good for the therapist to see Sara's tantrum, rather than hear about it after the fact."
Something weird and painful stirred in Tony's middle. "What did she do?"
"Trashed her office."
A chill ran up his spine. "She what? How?"
Ziva gave him a long, slow look. "You know what rage and fear can do to a person, Tony."
His hands were freezing. "Yeah." He studied the powder room's tile floor. "Found our suspect's girlfriend dead today. She was pregnant, too."
Ziva sighed. "Tony—"
He couldn't look at her. "I had to get out of there. She was only a little farther along—"
"Tony."
He stopped talking. She held his big, cold hand with her smaller, warmer one. "I am fine and the baby is fine. You cannot leave your job every time something upsets you."
"No one else has a pregnant fiancée at home."
She raised an eyebrow, daring him. "Should I take off my shoes and go to the kitchen?"
She was going to murder him after all. "No! No, not like that. I don't mean you're supposed to be baking pies, but...you're not at work like you used to be."
She put an arm around his waist. "Do you miss me?"
He blew out a breath. "Yes. More than you know. But coming home and you're there...that's much more important."
Ziva gave a feline smile. "So my place is home?"
He'd walked right into that one. "Yeah, it is."
"I'm happy to know that. We can talk about consolidating our furniture."
"Ok," he agreed. He brought his head to rest on hers. "We can do that. And think about pink for the nursery."
She growled deep in her throat. "I do not like that princess stuff, Tony. That is no way to raise a self-reliant child. My father treated Tali like—"
"Shh. I know. But I'm not him and our kid is not Tali. She's...Merida."
Ziva scowled. "Who?"
"Brave? She's the headstrong, longbow-toting anti-princess."
She gave an approving look. "Longbow?"
"We'll start with Nerf."
She tugged his hands. "I'm tired and there is chicken marinating in the refrigerator at home."
It was always food these days. "Ok. Let's head out."
Gibbs was on the phone in the dining room, scratching notes on a legal pad. He looked exhausted—haggard, even—as he hung up and tossed the receiver on the table. "Got a PTSD diagnosis. It'll go on her IEP."
Ziva nodded. "What about her therapy intake sessions?"
"We'll get to the bottom of it, Ziver."
"I know what she was doing!" a tiny voice called down the stairs.
They looked up; Sara sat on the top riser, hair a mess, face puffy and streaky from crying. There was still a red mark on her chin from the cervical collar. She glared at all of them, green-eyed and furious. "I know!"
"What was she doing, Saraleh?" Ziva asked. She didn't go up, but stood with one hand on the railing.
Sara leaned forward. Her face was almost purple with rage. "I know what she was doing!"
"And what was that?" she maintained. Silence. No one moved. Ziva tried again. "What was she doing, Sara?"
"Tests!" she shrieked.
"Who was doing tests?"
"That lady."
Gibbs peered up at her. "The one who came here?"
Her temper cooled just a tiny bit. "Yes. I hate her."
"Sara—" he bargained.
She threw a toy down at them. It bounced harmlessly off the spindles and landed on the sofa below. "I hate her!"
Tony had never seen Sara so furious. "She was doing tests, Bug?" he asked, hands in his pockets, tone light and even.
She sat up and leaned back on her hands. "Yes."
"Why are tests so bad?"
Sara launched another toy. Was she aiming for his head? "Because!" She started to cry. "Because she was going to tell."
"Tell what?"
She exhaled, doubling over. Gibbs started, but Tony caught his arm and gave a minute shake of his head.
"She was going to do tests and I would do bad and she would tell Daddy and then he would send me back."
Gibbs grunted and swore under his breath. "Sar, you know that's not—"
She let out a wordless cry and wept hard into her hands.
"No, she doesn't," Tony warned. "Not if she reacting like this."
He grunted. "Sara? Wanna come down, sweet pea?"
"No," she said through her tears. "I'm going back to bed." She scooted away from the edge of the stairs and disappeared from view.
He turned to Tony. "I gotta deal with this. You two go home."
Ziva nodded. "Call us if you need. Goodbye, Shaifeleh. Get some rest."
Gibbs plodded heavily up the steps. "You, too. Both of you."
Tony shrugged into his coat. "Surprised you don't want to stay and help."
Ziva pulled her boots back on. Snow had fallen. The streets were unplowed. An SUV slid through an icy intersection and Ziva sighed. "She needs her father. We should walk. It is only a few blocks, but..."
He took her hand. They made their way back to her place with snow squelching beneath their shoes. Ziva shivered in her big black coat. "Our child will never belong to anyone else," she said after a long silence. "She will be only ours."
"Yeah," he said vaguely. "Almost everyone we know was raised by...not their folks."
"Our daughter will know only one set of parents," Ziva carried on, speaking at him rather than to him. A strange look crossed her face. Snow had fallen on her hair. "God willing."
He hummed. "Feeling superstitious, huh?"
She unlocked her front door and peeled off her parka, blinking in the low light. "Doda has very Jewish notions of pregnancy and parenthood. They rubbed on."
He hung their coats and helped himself to a beer. "Rubbed off. Is that why we can't have a nursery?"
"We will when she comes." She yawned. "I need to lie down. Dinner will have to wait."
He followed her into the bedroom and waited while she got comfortable beneath the duvet. Tully the sheep sat on the dresser, his faded smiling face ever-watchful. "Cozy?"
"Yes."
He lay next to her, head propped on his hand. "A girl, huh?"
Her eyes filled. "Yes, a girl."
He reached for her. "She's real now."
She put her hand over her mouth. "I prayed for a girl, Tony." She curled up, embarrassed. "You know how I feel about...but I could not imagine having a boy. A son. Male children have gone terribly wrong in my family."
"He would have been part of me, too, Zi. You can't count that out. Our daughter will be, too. Hopefully she'll get your looks, though. This nose on a baby?"
Ziva snorted, laughing through tears. "You have a perfect nose. And we will think she is beautiful, Tony."
He stroked her cheek. "Yeah."
She sighed and closed her eyes. Tony lay awake for a few minutes, but the bed was soft and her breathing lulled him into a stupor. A girl. A girl. She would wear ribbons in her hair and brandish a sword. Or a switchblade. Ziva would have to teach her proper knife handling skills. And he would teach her how to play the piano and do headstands and ride a bike as fast as lightning.
Tony dreamed their daughter had cinnamon curls and quick, running feet and woke to the telephone ringing in the dark. Ziva was still out cold. He fumbled in the living room, squinting as he flicked lamps alight, and found the cordless just as the voicemail was about to click over.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Tony," Sara said. "I need to say sorry for being so bad today."
"You sounded angry and scared."
He could hear her playing with something in the background. "I don't want to go back."
He hurt for her. Hell, he hurt a little for himself, too. "Your dad's not going to send you back, Bug. Adoption doesn't work like that."
"Me and Daddy talked about the judge again."
"That was a great day."
She sighed. "Yeah. Are you going to catch the guy who killed that lady and her baby?"
His stomach grumbled. "Did you hear us talking about that?"
There was a brief silence. She was playing again with her toys. "Did I do a good job of saying sorry?"
"Apology accepted."
Gibbs' voice came across the line. "Thanks, DiNozzo. Is Ziver around? I need to ask her ab—"
"Soundin' pretty whooped there, Boss."
"Put Ziver on."
Tony's mouth flapped without his permission. "Hey, let us take the Bug for a weekend. You sound like you need a break."
"You don't know what you're getting into, DiNozzo."
"Yeah, I do. We'll pick her up next Friday night. Slumber party."
The line was muffled. He could hear Gibbs asking Sara, providing stipulations, a stern warning. "Ok," he said to Tony. "She's in."
"Great. I'll pick her up after work. It'll be Weekend at Bernie's, but without the dead guy."
Ziva appeared, wobbly and sleep-creased, and scoffed at his analogy. Gibbs sounded a little ashamed. "Thanks, DiNozzo."
"Sure."
They hung up. He plopped down on the sofa next to Ziva. "Did you hear we're taking Sara next weekend?"
She nodded fuzzily and yawned. "Yes. That should be fun. I should make dinner."
"I'll do it," he volunteered, but neither of them moved. It was cozy on the couch with the lamplight low and the television off. Tony almost dozed off again, but the open guest room caught his eye. "Pink nursery," he slurred.
Ziva sat up. His cheek bounced off her shoulder. "No," she said tartly. "No pink."
He narrowed his eyes. "Purple, then. Lilac."
"No. Yellow or green. Something soft and warm. Pink is...inappropriate."
"Not for a baby girl."
"It is a color used to calm violent prisoners."
He huffed. "I don't meant Drunk Tank Pink, Zi."
She studied the rings he'd given her. "I do not care. No pink. You may choose yellow or green, though I must say I love the shade you painted Sara's bedroom. It's so soothing."
Tony harrumphed. "Fine, we can do something like that. But we need to get her something ruffly."
"When the time comes," she evaded.
"Pink crib bumpers."
Ziva shook her head. "No, nothing in the crib. Risk of SIDS."
He went to the kitchen, pulled the chicken from the fridge, and preheated the oven. "Pretty scared, huh?"
She didn't get off the couch. "I have only taken life, Tony."
He skipped he cauliflower and reached for some pre-washed salad mix. "You're going to be a great mom to our daughter."
"Our daughter," she echoed, and chewed her lip. "We can get rid of the television stand if we're going to mount yours on the wall. That should give you enough room for a full-size keyboard." She stood with some difficulty and brushed one hand down a tall, overfull bookcase. "And some of these can be moved to the bedroom to make room for your DVDs."
Tony smiled. "I think we can do this, Zi."
She looked at him with those wide, dark eyes. He warmed. Maybe she believed him. "I do,too," she acquiesced, smiling. Would their daughter get that from her? "I believe that we can do this."
