The day before Tali's actual birthday; Tali ended up coming home from school early which meant two things. It first meant that Tali would be spending the day with Gibbs. Secondly it meant that Tali had been given an out of school suspension from school for the next three days. As soon as Tali had settled in at Gibbs', Gibbs had excused himself to the basement where he called Tony and Ziva to fill them in.
"DiNozzo." Tony said when he answered his desk phone once the call had been transferred to it from the switchboard desk.
"DiNozzo, it's Gibbs."
"Yeah boss, what's going on?"
"Before I say anything, get Ziva over to your desk. She needs to hear this too."
"Okay, boss." Tony said as he signaled Ziva to join him at his desk.
A few minutes later, a very pregnant Ziva was beside Tony who had put his desk phone on speaker phone.
"I'm here, Gibbs." Ziva said so that Gibbs knew she was there with Tony."
"What I am about to say concerns Tali." Gibbs said.
"Is she okay?"
"From the looks of it, Tali fine mentally and all of that. Physically, on the other hand is a different story."
"What do you mean by that, Jethro?" Ziva questioned as she was now in protective mama bear mode.
Everyone from the original team knew full well that Ziva only ever called Gibbs by his other names when it was a serious situation.
"From what I was told when I picked her up at school, Tali was in a fight with another student after the other student had made a number of derogatory remarks that offended her. Tali is banged up pretty good, the other kid is a little more banged up."
There was silence after Gibbs had clued Tony and Ziva in.
"I'll keep Tali here with me until you two are done for the day."
"Thank you, boss." Tony said.
"Thank you, Gibbs." Ziva said.
After that, the phone call ended. Tony and Ziva then set about figuring out what they were going to do once they picked their daughter up and returned home that night. Gibbs quickly noticed that Tali was standing at the top of the basement stairs much like Dr. Cranston had all those years ago when she had first made her existence known to Gibbs and his team.
"They know now." Tali said.
Gibbs nodded.
"I had to tell them."
"I know that you did. It was either going to be you or the school."
With that, things were left as is with that subject matter. The Marine and the teenager parted ways for a while to do their own things before they got back together to have lunch together.
Hours later, Tali was back home with her parents. The three of them had sat down together in the living room so that Tali could tell what happened at school earlier that da and what had led her to get into a fight.
Tali told her parents everything that had happened along with the derogatory things the other student had said. After Tali had said everything that need to be said, Tony and Ziva had done the whole parenting thing which included grounding Tali. That night; Tali went to bed knowing that although standing up for the religion that she had shared with Ziva had been the target of the other student derogatory remarks was the right thing to do, the way that Tali had handle the whole situation was not the right thing to do.
