Chapter Thirty Four: Just A Feeling

Monday morning came around too quickly for Penny's liking, and Sunday night had been long struggle to get her to go to bed, because she knew that the following morning involved preschool. Most of the weekend she had been dropping hints that she didn't want to go, and they had been throwing them back at her reminding them that she had enjoyed playing there on Friday afternoon. She still didn't want to go, though, and that had intensified when she learned that Ziva would be staying at home all day and she didn't get to stay home with her. So, when Monday morning rolled around, both Tony and Ziva stood outside the young girls bedroom, wondering how badly this was going to go. The two were already fully dressed, Ziva in a simple jeans and white blouse, while Tony was suited up for work.

"Okay, this isn't going to go well," Tony realised, peeking through the small gap in the open door to see that Penny was still sleeping.

"You have woken her up many times before," Ziva reminded him.

"This is different," he stressed. "This is…this is first day of school."

"Preschool," Ziva corrected.

"Whatever," he brushed off. "It's still a milestone."

Thinking back over the antics of the weekend, Ziva laughed lightly. "Penny does not see it that way."

"She'll love it," he said. "She'll have a great time and make tons of friends…"

"You sound like you are convincing yourself," she told him.

He pouted grumpily. "No, I'm not."

Shaking her head, she took a peek into the bedroom with her own eyes. "Somehow, I do not believe you."

"I just don't think this plan is a good idea," he complained, as though he hadn't already had this conversation with her fifty times over the weekend.

"Tony, we have been through this countless times," she told him clearly. "This plan will work."

"Yeah, it'll work for Gibbs and the FBI."

"Penny will be perfectly safe at the preschool," she assured him.

"I know," he sighed.

"We would not have gone through with this if her wellbeing was the slightest bit compromised."

"I know," he repeated.

"She is a sociable child and she will have no trouble making friends."

This time, Tony frowned, turning to her. "Now you sound like you're convincing yourself."

At his snapping, she looked at him in frustration. "What is the matter with you this morning, Tony?"

"I've gotta leave her all day, isn't that enough to be pissed off about?" he justified.

"So, you are upset?" she questioned.

"No, that wasn't what I said," he shook his head.

"But it was what you meant," she realised. At this, Tony looked away, looking into the bedroom at his sleeping daughter who, at the moment, had spread every limb in a different direction across the bed. "Change is not always a bad thing, Tony, she is simply growing up."

"I don't want her to grow up," he said unfairly. "I want her to stay exactly how she is."

"We must all grow up at some point in our lives," she said.

"But does it really have to be now?" he asked. She was silent, giving him the moment and eventually it dawned on him how much he was fighting this. He sighed, leaning against the doorframe. "I'm being immature about this, aren't I?"

"No, you are being a father," she said softly, putting a hand on his arm.

"Guess no one looks forward to this day," he remarked.

"She will be fine, Tony," she continued, stepping behind him and leaning against his back. He tried to focus on looking at Penny rather than the feel of Ziva against his body. "You know this. If you forget that for a moment, look forward to seeing how happy is when she runs to meet you at the door, excited to tell you about her new friends and how much she enjoyed herself."

He could picture the look on her face, the bright eyed expression that she always got when she'd discovered something new and magical, and he smiled lightly. "I guess you're right."

"Of course I am," she said simply, giving him a gentle push towards the bed. "No, go in and wake her or she shall be late for her first day."

"Okay," he said, not moving as Ziva moved down the hall.

When she reached the stairs she looked back, seeing how he was still standing in the doorway. "Tony!" she warned.

"I'm going," he said, jumping quickly into the bedroom.

He looked around the bedroom, remembering how on Saturday she had complained that the walls were pink instead of purple, and how he had promise to paint the room lilac just like her bedroom at home. Then he leant over her, noticing that she was deep in sleep. A simple shake for breakfast wasn't going to tempt her, so he went over to the window, pulling back the thick curtains. As sunlight scattered into the room, he burst into a bubbly routine. "Wake up!" he said brightly.

Shocked at the mixture of talking and sunlight, Penny snapped up from the pillow, looking around her in confusion. "…huh?"

Tony went over to the bed, pulling down the bedclothes and standing her up on the mattress. "Come on, princess, up we get."

She leaned forward, putting her arms around him for a cuddle. "Tired," she complained sleepily.

"I know, but you'll be nice and awake once we get some breakfast," he assured her, releasing her to go over to the closet. When he returned with an outfit for her, she was rubbing at her eyes.

"Hungry," she mumbled.

"I thought so," he told her. "Ziva's making you a nice breakfast. A special breakfast for big girls," he tempted.

"'kay," Penny mumbled, allowing Tony to dress her.

After dressing her and brushing her hair (making no attempt to put it up in any way) they headed down into the kitchen. Ziva was making pancakes, the special breakfast that had been promised to her, and after some building up from Tony and Ziva she was actually starting to warm up to the idea, and began looking forward to heading off to preschool. While Penny was eating, Ziva took charge of her hair, pulling it back into a neat braid. As she did this, she noticed Tony's eyes suddenly whip up to the clock.

"Is something wrong?" she asked him.

"I've got to be at work in twenty minutes," he realised.

She shrugged. "That is plenty of time," she assured him.

"It's a thirty minute drive from here," he pointed out.

"Maybe if you are driving."

He groaned. "Gibbs is gonna kill me." At that moment, his cell phone rang, showing up the familiar name on the call I.D. Tony looked at it, wide eyed. "Oh no. That's him. He knows in advance that I'm going to be late."

"Just answer the phone, Tony," Ziva told him tiredly.

He flipped open the phone, raising it to his ear. "DiNozzo….yes, boss…no, boss…but-…okay…yes, boss." He hung up, grinning stupidly and kicking off his shoes with such force that they ended up flying across the kitchen and hitting the opposite wall.

Ziva looked at him, her face covered in exasperation. "Was that really necessary, Tony?" she asked him.

"Yes," he grinned.

She glowered at him. "Had you no best be leaving for work?" she asked calmly.

"No," he continued to grin. "Gibbs' instructions are to stay home for a few days and make sure all the surveillance is working properly."

"I could do that myself," she told him.

"Maybe, but you won't be a lonely housewife for a few days," he reasoned.

She was inwardly seething at the word 'housewife', but refused to show him the satisfaction. "And you will be able to go with me to take Penny to preschool," she shot back at him.

At this, Penny grinned. "Daddy's coming too?"

"Yes, he is," Ziva answered for him, turning her voice into a sweet tone. "And we are leaving soon so he had best fetch his shoes from where he threw them and put them back on."

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The enthusiasm that Penny had when they left the house had disappeared by the time they got to the preschool. Several of the younger children were crying when their mother's left them there, and seeing this had only made Penny worse. Ziva was especially glad now that Tony had also been with them, although, if he hadn't been, she might not have been trying to pry Penny away from where she had wound herself around her father's leg.

"Penny, come on, princess…" Tony tried to convince her, unable to bend down to her level like Ziva had done because of the tight grip she had around his knee.

"No!" she insisted, her eyes tightly shut.

"You will have fun…" Ziva told her.

"No!"

"You'll make new friends…" Tony tried.

"No!"

Tony and Ziva sighed, looking up at each other helplessly. "I told you this was a bad idea," he mumbled to her.

Ziva was saved from answering when Michelle, Penny's primary carer at the preschool, came over to them, seemingly not noticing the problem they were having. "Good morning, Penny!" she announced brightly. "Are you looking forward to your first day?"

"No!"

Tony looked at her awkwardly. "She's uh…"

"It's okay," Michelle smiled. "Not a lot of children want to be separated from their parents, especially on their first day."

"This happens a lot?" Tony asked.

She nodded. "On every first day we have." She bent down to Penny's level, as Ziva had tone. "Would you like to come and play a game, Penny?"

"No."

"How about ready a story?"

"No."

"Lisa was going to sing some songs, would you like to join in?"

"No."

"We could get the princess castle out and play with the costumes?"

At this, Penny opened one eye, observing Michelle warily. "Princess castle?"

"Yeah, we love our princess castle," Michelle told her brightly. "We can dress up in the costumes and pretend to be real princesses."

"Princess dresses?" she asked, opening the other eye as well.

"Lots of princess dresses," she assured her, looking at what Penny was wearing. "You look like you like purple. We have a really pretty purple dress."

"Really?" she asked, turning her head to face Michelle.

"Really," she grinned back. "Would you like to try it on?"

Penny was quiet, turning her head to face Ziva, who was on her other side. "They have princess dresses," she told her, as if she had not been listening to the conversation.

"They do," Ziva confirmed with a smile. "You can dress up and pretend you are a real princess in the castle, that sounds fun."

Penny looked up at Tony. "Daddy, can I go wear the dress?" she asked him quietly.

"Of course you can, honey. In fact," he said, bending down to her level when she let go of his leg. "How about you stay here and play dress up with Michelle while me and Ziva do our work, and we come by and pick you up this afternoon?" he suggested.

At this, Penny hesitated. "That's a long time away."

"I have an idea," Ziva said. "You can stay and play until lunchtime, and if after lunch you wish to come home, we can have Michelle call us and we will come and collect you. How does that sound?"

Penny thought about this for a second, looking between the adults but then seeing the other girls playing with the dresses. "Okay. I stay."

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Tony and Ziva had soon been undercover for several days. Penny had never needed to come home after the lunchtime, and she had willingly returned the next day. Tony and Ziva soon started to experience cabin fever inside the house, however, despite how well they kept up their cover when in front of their neighbours. A few of the neighbours were presented on the camera to MTAC when Ziva invited them in for coffee when they had brought round welcoming gifts for them. Gibbs and Jenny were in MTAC during a quiet moment, observing the cameras. Tony was in the living room, watching a movie as always, and Ziva had just finished showing out two of the women from down the street.

"Is it worrying that their cover is so believable?" Jenny asked, as the door closed and they fell back into their usual behaviour on screen.

"They're good agents, Jen," Gibbs reasoned.

"I mean when no one is around," she added.

"Someone's always watching," he pointed out. "Even if it's just us."

On the screen, they watched on one camera as Ziva picked up a discarded sock in the hallway. She picked it up, looked at it, and then walked off screen. On another screen, they saw her enter the living room and stand between Tony and his movie. "How many times must I tell you not to leave your dirty laundry on the floor?" she complained. "We have a hamper, Tony!"

"Oh, go back to your baking," he dismissed, moving around her to try and see the television. He found himself with a sock covering his face and when he removed it, she was looking at him dangerously. Realising what he had just said to a trained assassin, he doubled back. "Uh…I mean….I'm sorry, I'll use the hamper?" he tested. She just glared at him and walked off.

Gibbs laughed at the exchange, but Jenny shook her head. "They bicker like a couple, they argue like a couple, they convincingly live together like a couple…"

"Am I going to like where this point is headed?" Gibbs asked her.

"Probably not, considering your firm stand on rule twelve," she realised.

"They're not together, Jen," he said firmly.

"It's only a matter of time, Jethro, and when they give in to the inevitable, it'll be us to blame."

He glanced sideways, taking in her expression and then looked back at the screen, watching as Tony walked over to the hamper and put the sock in it, as promised. "Not everything is inevitable," he said quietly, drinking some of his coffee.

"We've put them in a situation-"

"It's not a situation, it's an undercover surveillance mission," he corrected.

"They're living together," she reminded him. "They're going to bed beside each other every night. They're waking up beside each other every morning. They're basically raising Tony's daughter together. They've been forced into being a family and neither one of them seems to be complaining about it."

"You authorised this op, Director," he reminded her coldly.

"That doesn't make me blind to the consequences," she shot back.

"There are rules about relationships with co-workers," he pointed out.

"Rules that have been broken before." Their eyes, met, both knowing what she really meant by that remark, but she covered her tracks well enough as always. "After all, I seem to recall a pregnant forensic scientist that has something to do with one of your agents."

"Your point?" he grumbled.

"For someone who is so against relationships with co-workers, you're having trouble noticing that most of your team are having relationships with a co-worker," she said simply.

Gibbs was silent for a moment, watching the screens. The screen that showed the kitchen revealed that Ziva was fixing dinner, and just at the edge of the frame, they could see that Tony was standing there, watching her from behind. He then walked away, and after that, Ziva turned. She hadn't known he was standing there, but he was gone when she looked. "DiNozzo's learned his lesson about falling in love during a mission," he said. "Ziva, too."

"What if they were already in love a long time before the mission began?" she asked hypothetically.

"Then they picked the wrong time to do anything about it."

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That night, the pair lay in bed. It felt strange that they had to share a bed, considering that this room wasn't under surveillance, but neither one of them had complained about it. Still, it didn't feel right to Tony that when they got into bed each night, Ziva made herself comfortable on the edge of the mattress. Tonight was no different, and she lay too far away from him, with her back facing him. In the centre of the bed, just off to his designated side, Tony lay facing her, propped up on one arm and waiting to see if she knew what he was doing. She remained silent, though, and eventually he spoke into the darkness.

"You asleep?"

"I am trying to be," she mumbled back, without turning.

"I can't sleep either," he complained.

"That is what is causing the insomnia," she moaned. If she couldn't feel his eyes burning into the back of her head, she would have been asleep an hour before now.

"I didn't know you got insomnia?" he said.

"I do not usually," she told him, "but I cannot sleep when I know I am being watched."

"Who says I'm watching you?" he said. She rolled over to face him, proving her own point. "Okay, you caught me," he surrendered.

"Tony, please go to sleep," she urged. "I am exhausted, and I cannot sleep with you floating."

"Hovering," he corrected.

"I do not care," she shook her head against the pillow. "I just wish to sleep. Being your pretend housewife is more exhausting that it should be."

He was quiet for a moment, noticing that she did look exhausted. He supposed that he hadn't exactly made things easy for her the past few days. "I'm sorry I'm such a terrible fake fiancé," he apologized, strangely finding that his words were sincere.

"You are not terrible," she assured him, shifting closer to the centre of the bed so that she was now placed in the middle of her pillow. "You are just a little hopeless."

"I go back to work tomorrow," he reminded her.

"Yes, you do."

"You gonna miss me?" he asked, attempting to flash her a grin, but in his current state of mind he found that his heart wasn't in it.

"I will not miss the extra laundry from you changing your shirt five times a day," she teased him back.

"Twice!" he corrected. "I changed my shirt twice!"

"But yes," she continued, as if he hadn't interrupted. "I suppose I will miss the company."

He looked at her, seeing how their hands were laid in the space between them on the mattress. It would be so easy to reach over and take her hand, like a real fiancé would, but he didn't. "It'll be weird with you not being there," he admitted.

"Be careful, Tony," she suddenly whispered.

He frowned at her. "I am careful," he defended.

"You know what I mean," she mumbled, not wanting to repeat it.

He looked at her strangely. "You always worry about me this much, or is it a special occasion?" he said, only half teasing her.

"I usually do not have to worry," she revealed. "Because I know that I have your back covered."

He found his gaze falling on their hands again, sighing. "It's not my back I'm worried about," he admitted.

She frowned a little. "Then who's?"

"I don't know, just a gut feeling."

She offered him a small smile through the darkness. "You are becoming Gibbs with all these gut feelings."

"Yeah, well, he's always right, you can't deny that," he realised sadly. "I just hope I'm not right."

"Bad feeling?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "Real bad."

"This will be like any other mission, Tony," she tried to assure him. "We get in, we get out, and we do not leave one another behind."

"No, we won't." Of that he was sure.

"Now, sleep, or you will not be waking up with all your fingers in the morning," she threatened.

He had to smile at her sleepy threat, and he removed the hand propping him up so that he was laying down properly on the pillow. His smile only grew when she shuffled closer to him and lay her head on his shoulder. "Goodnight," he whispered.

"Layla tov, Tony."