A/n: Thanks for reviewing you guys *smiles* ladybugsmomma, Prettycrazy, jcena'sgirl557744, Liraeyn, JET1967, Fiva4Tiva, Prettycrazy, Tempe4Booth, and jessey, really THANK YOU SOOO MUCH! :) You guys are trhe best! *hearts*
Jenny groaned as the first rays of daylight peeked through the space in her curtains, landing on her face. She rolled out of bed, running a hand through her tangled mass of red curls. Grabbing her black robe from its place in the rocking chair by her bed, and rubbing her eyes, she headed for the bathroom. She started the shower, and peeked at the clock on her bedside table, 0900. Noemi would not be in for another hour, but it was possible that the twins would be awake by then. In fact, she was sure they would be. It surprised her that Leilah had not woken her yet. Perhaps she was choosing to behave this morning.
Jenny padded down the hall to the nursery, and pushed the door open quietly, in case her suspicions were wrong, and the babies were still sleeping. But sure enough, Leilah was on her knees in her crib, her fingers wrapped around the slats of her crib, and she shrieked in delighted laughter at seeing her mother's face. "Ema!" she cried gleefully, pulling herself to a standing position in the crib.
"Hello honey," Jenny cooed, crossing the room, and groaned, lifting her daughter out of her crib. "Hello my big girl. Do you know how old you are today?"
Leilah looked at her mother with her piercing blue eyes that reminded the older red head so much of the girl's father, and shook her head, her red curls dancing on her shoulders. Jenny held up her index finger, and her daughter almost immediately mirrored her. "One year old!" Jenny gasped, tickling the little girl's tummy, sending the child into a fit of giggles. "One whole year! Oh you're so old!" She then, moved across the width of the room, lifting her son from his crib as well. "Do you know how old you are?" she asked, and the little boy, having been watching his mother and sister, held up one finger. He did so more because he realized what a reaction it elicited from his mother, more so than actually knowing the answer to her question, but nonetheless, he received the reaction he wanted. "Yes smart boy," Jenny praised, "You're one too."
She carried the children the short distance to her bedroom, and placed them in their play yards. After assuring herself that they were safe and content with their respective stuffed animals, she stepped into the shower, though she left the door open, so as to hear any problems that might arise. Once she had showered quickly, she grabbed a large, fluffy, blue towel from the closet, and quickly dried herself off before sliding her robe over her arms, and tied it at the waist. She smiled softly at her children, and grabbed the remote to her media player from her bed, hitting play.
She made her way to her dresser, laughing as 'She's A Bad Mama Jama,' by Carl Carlton started playing. Searching in vain for a decent set of bra and underwear, she was startled by a shriek from behind her, and spun around, thinking something was wrong. She laughed, however, at seeing her daughter bouncing and clapping, albeit off rhythm in her play yard. "You would like this song," Jenny teased the small child, and then turned to her son, who had joined in on his sister's antics. "You too?" she laughed.
At 1000 sharp, Noemi entered the Shepard house. Hearing giggles from the kitchen, she made her way through the living room, stopping in the doorway. Her boss was feeding the twins what looked like oatmeal and bananas. "Good morning Noemi," the redhead greeted with a smile, noticing the Latina in the doorway.
"Good morning Señora," Noemi replied, returning the smile. "I have presents for them, but I will wait until later."
"Pesent," Jacob repeated, though he was not really worried with the meaning of the word. He was simply mimicking his nanny; his mother looked at him, though she stopped feeding him, and he was having none of that. He banged on the tray of his high chair, and Jenny laughed.
"Okay," she conceded, feeding him another spoonful of the oatmeal. She then turned to her housekeeper smiling gratefully, while she fed her daughter as well. "You really didn't have to Noemi."
"Oh but it is their birthday Señora."
"Will you stay for their party instead of leaving at one like you normally do on the Saturdays?" she asked, and the younger woman nodded, smiling softly.
"Si Señora. I will stay to help if you like."
"No," Jenny laughed, realizing she had been misunderstood, "Not working Noemi. Just stay. Unless you have something else to do?" She did not want to keep the girl from something if she had other plans. "I can't believe I didn't ask you before."
"Oh no. But I do not know what I would wear."
"Well," Jenny started, wiping the food from her son's mouth, pulling a face at him. He shrieked in laughter, and she grinned, before turning back to the woman in her kitchen. "You're about my normal size I think. A four? You can wear something of mine if you like." she offered.
Noemi smiled gratefully. "Thank you Señora," she thanked the older woman gratefully.
Jenny smiled I acknowledgement , and lifted her son out of his chair, sitting him on her lap. "Could you get Leilah for me?" she asked, moving to her feet.
"Si. I will take Jacob too. You must need to get things ready."
Jenny nodded, smiling gratefully. "Thank you."
Several hours later, Jenny stood in front of a strawberry cake, the twins' favorite, that Noemi had made, wearing a black romper, silver sandals on her feet, and a birthday hat on her head. A twin on either hip, she leaned over, helping them to blow out their candles. Everyone clapped, and Jenny laughed as the twins followed suit. "Okay, let's open presents huh?"
Five minutes later, everyone sat in Jenny's living room gathered around her and the twins, a pile of presents in front of them. Leilah crawled forward, reaching for a large, rectangular box wrapped in 'Happy Birthday!' paper, marked for both twins, from their aunt. She fumbled with the paper, eyeing it intently, until her mother, gently slid it from her hands, pulling the paper off, to reveal a Fisher-Price Animal Sounds Farm. Jenny pulled the toy from its box, setting it out for the twins to experiment with. "Look!" Jenny cooed, squeezing the cow so that it mooed.
"Oooh," Leilah squealed in awe an delight, taking the animal from her mother, squeezing it. She shrieked in delight when the cow mooed again. Jacob took the pig, giggling when it squealed.
"Say thank you Auntie Hevy," Jenny prompted, "Thank you." They were too absorbed in their toy to be paying much attention to her though. She snorted and grabbed two larger boxes, appearing to be identical. After going through all of the presents; two walker wagons, a multitude of books, two sets of blocks, clothes, shape puzzles, a keyboard, a rag doll and a toy phone for Leilah, a set of toy trucks for Jacob, and even two sets of tennis balls for the both of them; Jenny handed the twins to Ziva, announcing softly that she would be back.
Several minutes later, the hum of chatter filled the room while the twins played contentedly with their gifts. Jenny was noticed first by Ziva, who smiled, and grabbing Leilah and Jacob's attention, pointed in her direction. Both children's eyes immediately lit up, and they bounced happily on the floor. "Doggie!" Leilah shrieked gleefully, grabbing everyone's attention. All eyes turned to Jenny as she made her way back into the living room, a tan puppy with black ears, and blue eyes, in her arms. Both twins had been practically begging her for a dog for at least the past two months. She knew that she would be the one to primarily care for the dog for at least the next four years, but seeing the smiles on their faces would pacify her for now.
"Hi doggie!" Leilah cooed, petting the puppy just a little to hard.
"Be careful honey," Jenny, cautioned, "Like this," she demonstrated, stroking the puppy's fur.
"They called her Peanut Butter Oreo, but we can just call her Oreo."
"Owo" Jacob tried, looking to his mother for approval.
"Good honey," she praised, smiling, and the little boy grinned, petting the dog.
Later that night, after the twins had been put to bed, and the puppy in his crate in the den, Jenny changed into one of Jethro's old dress shirts, and pulled her hair into sloppy bun on top of her head, tying a silk scarf around her head as a headband. She grabbed falling streamers from the banisters as she descended the stairs. As she reached the bottom of the stairs though, she slowed. Something was off. She looked around suspiciously, but found nothing out of the ordinary. Cautiously, she continued through the house, and for some reason was drawn to her study. She stopped in her tracks, her face darkening at the man in her house. "Where have you been?" she growled.
"Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!" Tony cheered, watching the Giants' quarterback run down the field, dodging tackles left and right. "Oh yeah!" he cheered, jumping out of bed.
He looked back to Ziva, to see her looking up at him from her book, eyeing him in irritation. "Must you be so loud Tony?" she sighed.
"It's the Giants Zi," he defended weakly, and she rolled her eyes.
"I do not know why you call it football when you do not use your feet."
"We use our feet…I mean sometimes. Yeah, we use our feet."
"Abby?" Tim called as he stepped into his apartment.
"What?" she growled, seemingly coming out of nowhere, and he winced internally. She had murder in her eyes. If he had mixed up her request even the slightest bit, he was dead.
"I um…I got what you wanted," he said, holding a plastic drugstore bag out to her. She snatched it out of his hand, inspecting the contents. She seemed to have been satisfied, and he sighed in relief, until her face darkened, and he tensed once more.
"Where's my chocolate Tim?" she asked.
"Oh yeah," he remembered, pulling the candy bar from his pocket. He had put it there when he had entered the other store.
She took the smaller bag from him, pulling the Kit-Kat bar from the bag, and peeled the wrapper back. He waited in anticipation, and groaned internally when she glared at him. "It's melted," she announced, in a deadpan. "You gave me melted chocolate Tim!" she shrieked, disgusted.
"I'm sorry Abby, I just, I put it there when I went into the other store, and I just forgot. Look I'll go buy you another one okay?"
"No," she insisted, "No Tim! I don't want another one. I wanted this one." She turned on her heel, heading in the direction of his bedroom, but stopped at the door, turning back to him. "There is one week out of the month Tim! Not even a week! It's like, four days, that you don't mess with Abby. That's my new rule. Abby rule number thirty, Do not mess with Abby on the days of the fifteenth through the nineteenth every month!" she screamed, ending her rant, and slammed the door so hard the house shook.
He sighed heavily, dropping to the couch. He had the feeling he would be sleeping there anyway.
Jenny glared at the silver haired man sitting in her study, an infuriatingly unapologetic look on his face, and spat her query once more. "Jethro where the hell have you been?"
"Where do you think I went Jen?" he grumbled, and something in her snapped. She had had a long day; a good day, but nonetheless, a long one. She was not in the mood for snippy replies. She wanted the truth.
"I don't know Jethro! Why don't you tell me! Do you think I would be asking if I had any goddamn idea where you've been for three goddamn weeks? I woke up, to cold sheets, some half assed explanation letter, and a leave-time application. So you know, I don't care where you think I wanted you to be. You obviously don't have that right," she spat all in one rush of breath, though she managed to have venom drip from every word. "So don't beat around the fucking bush. Tell me the truth. Where did you go?" she demanded.
He looked at her, shocked for a moment, before he answered. "Mexico."
"Mexico?" she scoffed, "Of course."
"Jethro," she sighed wearily in a mix of utter disbelief, and pure unadulterated fury. "Jethro what the hell is the matter with you? Jethro you missed your children's first birthday. What does that tell you?"
"No," he contradicted her fiercely, shooting to his feet. "I may have missed the party Jen, but I did not miss their birthday. I made damn sure I was back for that."
"It doesn't matter Jethro. They won't know that you were here on their birthday. They're asleep. Do you know how many times over these past three weeks they've been asking me where their father is? And I couldn't tell them. I had to tell them, 'mommy doesn't know,' because you couldn't manage to do me the courtesy of telling me that."
"Jesus Jen! I didn't want to stress you out. You're thirty-five weeks pregnant. You were at thirty-two when I left."
"You didn't want to stress me out?" she spat in disbelief. "Jethro. Did you not think that not knowing where you were. If you were dead. Hurt. Or just never coming back at all, was going to stress me out?" she shrieked.
"Dammit Jenny! I did what I did to keep you safe. Keep them safe!"
"You sure did a hell of a job," she muttered.
"I got him didn't I?"
"Is that supposed to make me happy? You've killed two men now Jethro. In cold blood. Do you honestly think Shannon would have been happy eitherto know that you abandoned your life to murder, her and Kelly's killer? Jethro you are no better than he is."
"I am nothing like him," he spat, but she cut him off.
"Jethro! He came after you because you killed his father. His family. You did the same! Not to mention! You abandoned the family that supposedly means so much to you to track him down! Jethro I begged you not to go after him! You-" she stopped, her face instantly showcasing the fear she felt. "Jethro," she whispered.
"What?" he spat, spinning to face her, his eyes full of fire. But his face soon softened at the expression on hers. That soon morphed into concern at the fright in her eyes. "Jenny what is it?"
"I think my water just broke," she choked.
A/n: Oh snap! Lol. Hope you liked it guys. I had to switch up Jenny's pregnancy timeline a little for those of you who caught it. So I'm sorry. But still, I really hope you liked it! I'm planning on the chapter after this one being the last before I start the next, and most likely the last, installment for this little trilogy. Kay! Thanks for reading guys! :)
S/n: To jessey, I can't reply to you via PM, soooo, yes I know Pedro Hernandez was Snannon and Kelly's killer, but if you've read the story from the beginning, cuuz some people don't lol, about half way through, Jorge Rodriguez was introduced as Pedro Hernandez's son. He was the kidnapper that got away. Sorry if I confused you! Thanks for reading and reviewing though! :)
Monkeys :)