Hey guys, sorry about the delay in update! I've had terrible internet connection all weekend and I went to update last night and the document manager was down for the updates. Anyway, here's the next chapter. Hopefully everyone's still in character. I find Ziva harder to write than I thought I would, as I'm trying to keep her in character but explore a new side to her - something that's proving easier with Tony. I hope you like this chapter! xxxxx

Chapter Four: I'm Going To Take Care Of You

People were talking to him. Gibbs was asking him questions; questions he didn't have answers to. Ziva had her eyes trained on him and he heard her say his name twice, maybe even three times, but he didn't pay any attention; he'd dazed off into a fantasy world he knew as 'this morning' where this situation didn't exist. This morning, he'd been happy, excited even. He had a date lined up for that night, a great celebration planning for his birthday that involved too much alcohol and a hangover accompanied by a naked woman in his bed the next morning. Clearly, that wasn't going to be happening now. So, he just waited for someone to shake him, for cameras to burst out from behind McGee's desk shouting, "surprise!" and tell him it was actually all a joke, but it never happened. He just stood there, wondering whether he was actually insane and had imagined the whole thing. But then again, his imagination never had been that good.

Penny was curled up in his chair, the same chair that sometimes groaned with the strain when he threw himself into it first thing in the morning. He doubted that it even recognized the fragile weight of such a tiny girl upon it, compared to himself. The desk was between her and the three adults staring down at her, but he still felt the need to whisper in case they woke her up. He didn't know what to do if she woke up. He didn't know the first thing about children. So, silently, he stood there, not knowing what else to do other than to look at this new person in his life.

She would have just turned three years old. Last month. Inside, a part of him wanted to give himself a head-slap for not being there for any of the three birthdays. He'd missed his daughter's birthdays. Three of them. Penny. Penelope. It was a nice name, he decided. It wasn't fancy and unique like some he heard of today. Now that he was actually taking the time to look at her, he could see just how much she did look like him. She had the same dark hair that he did, although hers was lank and hanging where it hadn't been washed for so long. She was obviously a child who enjoyed being outdoors, as beneath the pale skin that had set in during her stay at her grandparents house, he could see a light dusting of sun kissed freckles on her cheeks and nose. She had the same face shape as him, the same chin, the same nose...the resemblance was too great for her to be anything other than her father's daughter. She even twitched her nose slightly in her sleep like Ziva teased him for doing when he fell asleep at his desk.

"DiNozzo!" A startling head-slap brought him back to reality and out of his daze. He didn't look up from Penny even though he was now concentrating on Gibbs' presence. He was concerned for Penny, wishing for nothing else than Alicia making a miracle recovery so that he didn't have to prove how bad an idea this was, but he still couldn't take his eyes off of her.

"Yes, boss," he answered promptly, but without his usual enthusiasm.

"Where's this girl's mother?"

"Capital Hospice, downtown DC," he said, still lacking bounce to his tone.

"What for?"

He swallowed a lump in his throat; one that didn't bring tears but instead a choking panic threatening to consume him. "Leukaemia."

Gibbs was silent for a moment, and then he stepped forward in line with Tony, the two of them looking down at Penny together. She wasn't just some girl sitting in Tony's chair now, she was Tony's daughter, and he was soon to be all she had left in the world. "How long does she have?" he asked, quieter this time, a strange sympathy in his voice.

Tony shook his head. "Not long." They continued to watch Penny, who twitched her nose again, snuggling further into Tony's jacket and inhaling deeply. "Boss," he croaked out in a helpless tone that was unlike him. "I…I don't know what to do." That lump was still there. Why? Was it because he was finally facing up to the fact that Alicia was going to die, or because he was scared about being completely responsible for Penny after she was gone? He could already feel the questions, the 'what ifs', and the despair clutching at his insides and setting not to move.

After a moments silence, Ziva moved around the two men, going behind Tony's desk. Tony drew in a sharp breath. She wasn't going to wake her up, was she? But instead, Ziva crouched down beside the chair and leaned close to the little girl, scraping back some of her hanging hair to reveal more of her face. "She certainly does resemble you, Tony," she said in a soft tone. "That much is obvious."

"Yeah," he murmured, sounding almost distracted. "Yeah, she does."

"She's a beautiful girl," Gibbs nodded, "regardless."

It was that moment, when Gibbs and Ziva had undeniably accepted Penny as his daughter, that Tony snapped. The shock that had numbed him with seeing Alicia so fragile and weak as well as the drive that had sent him to Riverdale to rescue Penny from her grandparents, had worn off. This was reality now. Not a dream. Not a figment of his imagination. Not even a movie. He was a father. He had certain responsibilities he had to face now. He knew that he wasn't ready for it, and the reality of this was what sent him into a panicked overdrive.

"What am I going to do?" he cried out, taking a step backward to distance himself. His hands found themselves holding his head upright as he looked at Penny with a fear in his eyes. "I don't know the first thing about being a father!" As if to demonstrate this, he found his voice raising considerably, forgetting that loud noises woke sleeping children.

"It will work out, Tony," Ziva assured him gently. "You will learn what you need to know."

"Well, what am I supposed to do with her?" he asked, wildly flinging one of his arms in her direction, as if he were afraid she were about to explode.

Gibbs turned from Penny to face him. "DiNozzo-"

He looked at his boss, desperation still clinging in his eyes. "Boss, I can't do this," he insisted.

"Yes, you can," he told the younger agent, "you have to."

Tony gulped loudly, shaking his head. "What happens when she wakes up? What happens when Alicia…" he stopped shirt, running his hands through this hair. "I'm going to have to be the one to tell her when she…Oh god, how do I tell her…do you think she…Oh, man, what have I gotten myself into…?"

"DiNozzo!" Gibbs barked again, stopping him mid rant. "What are you doing?"

"I just…" he calmed down, but just a little. "I know that this looks bad…"

"Yeah, you got that right," Gibbs confirmed.

"But I haven't ignored her," he defended quickly. "I haven't been ignoring her all these years, honestly."

"Then I suggest you start at the beginning and explain exactly why your daughter is spending more time behind your desk than you are today."

Tony nodded, taking a deep breath. "Alicia and I were together four years ago but then she got pregnant. She told me that it wasn't my baby and so I left. I never heard from her again but I knew that she had a daughter, Penny. A few months ago I started getting letters from her but I never opened them, and then this morning I had a card from her telling me that she needed to see me and that she…that she was dying, so I went to see her. She told me that Penny was mine but she didn't want to tell me because she didn't think I could cope with it, but now she needed me to look after her when she was gone."

"Where was she staying until today?"

"With her grandparents in Riverdale. Alicia's dad and step-mom. Which is bad," he explained vaguely. "They're not the nicest of people."

"Meaning?" Gibbs asked impatiently.

"Meaning that when I got there Penny was locked in her bedroom with food so old it could be classed as penicillin," Tony explained, feeling his hands start to shake again as he pictured what was happening back in that house. "Not to mention the fact that there are red marks on her hands."

Ziva's eyes dropped from Penny's face to her hands that were curled around Tony's jacket. She gently turned them over, careful not to wake her and gasped. "She was hit," she confirmed.

Gibbs's eyes clouded over with rage as Tony's had done when he saw the marks. "The grandparents did this?" Tony nodded. "You call anyone?"

"No," he admitted, realising that the first thing he should have done was call the police and have them locked up for child abuse. "I just got her stuff and got her out of there…that's how she ended up here. I couldn't leave her there, Gibbs, not like that. She hadn't even seen her mom for three weeks and-"

"All right," Gibbs said, cutting him off and looking between Penny and Tony. "She's your responsibility now, DiNozzo," he said simply. "You have to take care of her."

"I don't know how," he said. "I don't even baby sit. I don't have any siblings…I don't know what to do with kids."

Ziva continued to inspect Penny closely. "For a start, she needs a bath," she pointed out, looking up at Tony.

He frowned at her. "A bath?"

Gibbs gave Tony one of his looks. "Yes, DiNozzo, a bath. Look at her, she's filthy. Now, you take her home and give her a bath before you even think about doing anything else."

Tony's eyes widened. "You mean…me…by myself?"

Gibbs just stared at him.

"It's just that…I don't know about kids and-"

"I can go with him," Ziva offered. "If I can finish my paperwork at Tony's apartment."

Gibbs nodded. "Go."

Tony inhaled deeply, going over and awkwardly lifting the still-sleeping Penny from his chair, keeping her wrapped in his jacket. He awkwardly threw his bag and Penny's over his other shoulder and moved towards the elevator.

As Ziva moved to do the same, Gibbs stopped her, leaning in close so that Tony wasn't listening in. "He's capable of this," Gibbs told her. "Make sure he knows that." Ziva just nodded and walked after Tony, who was waiting by the elevator.

How had he gotten himself here? he wondered, as he stood waiting for the elevator to arrive. Here. Where this fatherhood thing was a serious issue? He'd left Alicia's bedside determined to only think about it, and hadn't. It wasn't as if he'd had to think about it right away, so he'd walked out of the hospice, placing the idea to the back of his head to be brought out and considered another time. Except 'another time' had occurred only minutes later when he arrived back in the NCIS parking lot.

That morning, his biggest decision was which shirt he was going to wear so that his date for the evening could tear it off of him. Now, that was just a memory from a distant age. Was that really him? Was it really him that had been planning on getting slaughtered from excessive drinking that night? Because if it was, how could he be the same person taking his three year old daughter home for a bath and seriously having to think about becoming a proper father?

Him and a child. Tony DiNozzo and Penelope Ryan. Him and his daughter. Surely this was never meant to happen.

Children had never been a part of his plan. Of course, there would always be the part of him that yearned for a mini-me, someone he could teach all his tricks to, but then he'd learnt about reality. He was barely capable of taking care of himself, let alone another human being and one so dependant at that. There had been never been children in his life growing up, an only child in his family of three that had dwindled to two after his mother died, coincidently the same time that his father had become an alcoholic. Sure, he could probably handle taking a football into the back yard and keeping kids occupied that way, but feeding and bath time and bedtimes?

You had to be prepared to give up everything for children. Everything. Time, space, affection...could he really do that?

The doors opened, and he had Ziva stepped into the elevator. As the doors shut behind them, Penny stirred, and Tony held his breath in case she woke up. A hundred different expressions flitted across her face as her dream played out in her mind, and then she settled back into sleep, pressing her face in the spot between his neck and shoulder as if she'd always known it.

Could he do this? Could he raise his daughter? He could doubt until the cows came home, but it was futile. There was no going back now. He'd taken her from her grandparents. He'd had to, of course, because she couldn't have stayed there a moment longer when she was being hurt and wasn't wanted, but he'd still taken her.

That meant he hadn't just said yes to taking her in, he'd practically screamed it from the top of his lungs.

By the time they arrived back at Tony's apartment, Penny was like an anvil in his arms. His biceps, elbows and forearms were frozen in pain because he'd had to carry her up the stairs to his apartment, as the elevator was broken. Of course, he'd drive there, not trusting Ziva to drive safely with just him in the car, let alone a child of Penny's age when he didn't even have a booster seat for her. When they got inside, he lay her down on the couch, nearly jumping out of his skin when her eyes flew open. With her dirty dark hair fanned around her, she kept her eyes trained on him, always watching and never leaving him for a second when he moved around the apartment.

She was terrified. Wide-awake and terrified. Join the queue, kid, he thought. He was terrified too. The implications of what he'd done a few hours ago were only just starting to hit him now that Gibbs had sent him home with her. He'd done something big and stupid and it was only because Ziva was there with him that he wasn't stumbling and tripping over things every time he moved.

"Are you okay?" he asked Penny cautiously. His fear that she might burst into tears outweighed all his other fears combined. He had no idea how to handle a crying child. He'd never babysat, but he'd held a child at parties occasionally, when he'd known that once a child started crying he could hand them back to the person responsible for them, secure in the knowledge that nothing he could do would appease them so he didn't have to try.

Penny was silent, and Ziva appeared at Tony's side. "Where is the bathroom?" she asked him quietly. "I'll go and run the bath for her."

"Down the hall, second door on the right," he told her automatically. "Ziva, I-"

"You're welcome," she half-smiled at him, and disappeared down the hall.

Tony turned back to Penny. "Where are we?" she asked him quietly.

"We're home at my house," he told her gently.

She nodded, crawling to sit on her knees beside him, looking around at the apartment. She screwed up her face. "It's messy."

"Yeah, I know," he sighed. "I'm not a very good cleaner."

She looked at him suspiciously. "Mommy's a good cleaner."

"I know," he repeated. "She used to help me with my cleaning."

"Before you went on holiday?"

Of course, she thought he'd been on holiday for the past three years of her life. He just nodded. "Yeah, before then."

She nodded, accepting this. "I watched Mommy clean sometimes."

"Do you think you can show me sometime?" he asked her, humoring her. "You can teach me how to be a good cleaner."

She nodded again. "Yeah." Her hair was so lank that it didn't even move when she nodded her head.

"When was the last time you had a bath?" he asked her. She shrugged her shoulders. "We need to wash your hair. Then we'll get some dinner."

"What's for dinner?" she asked him.

"I don't know. I can't really cook either. Do you like pizza?" he asked her.

She nodded. "I like peppa-oni," she said, sounding out the word on her tongue. Pronouncing it ever so slightly wrong, just like Ziva did with words occasionally. He found it as cute on her as he did on Ziva, not that he'd ever admit that to the former Mossad agent. She'd pick up the nearest object and kill him in twenty different ways with it if she thought he was referring to her as 'cute'. He could probably get away with 'attractive' with a light beating, but definitely not 'cute'.

"I'll call us a pizza then," he said.

She didn't move as he did his usual routine after coming home from work; thinks like putting on the television, although this time he looked at what was on the screen before he moved on to taking off his tie, throwing it on the back of the couch. He put on a couple more lights, and then Ziva poked her head out further down the hall.

"The water's ready," she told him.

He nodded. "Come on, Penny."

She followed him down the hall, and then went into the bathroom together. Ziva had pinned back the shower curtain and ran the bath half-full. There was a little amount of bubbles in there. Of course, it was a pathetic amount, but it made the water slightly more appealing to a child. "Bubbles?" he questioned. "I don't have bubbles."

"Hair shampoo," she confirmed. "Not as good as bubble-bath, but it works in emergencies." She went to turn around and leave the bathroom, but was surprised when Tony reached out, taking hold of her arm gently.

"Stay," he whispered.

"Tony-"

"I don't know what I'm doing," he admitted, and then let out a shaky breath. "Please."

She nodded silently, and then sat down on the edge of the bath. Tony bent down, crouching before Penny as he helped her to get undressed. Penny wasn't very co-operative, as her eyes were fixed on Ziva now. "Whoozat?" she asked.

"That's Ziva," Tony told her. "She's my friend. She's going to help us do bath time. Is that okay?"

Penny nodded. "Thank you for putting bubbles in my bath, Ziva."

"You're very welcome, Penny," Ziva smiled at her.

"I think Ziva's a good friend," Penny observed, as Tony took off her pink sweater.

"Yeah?" Tony asked her. "What makes you think that?"

"Because she's being nice and helping you," Penny said simply.

Tony and Ziva shared an amused look, before he turned back to the task at hand, gently tugging her grubby t-shirt over her head. He had to stop himself recoiling in horror. She was reed thin, and obviously hadn't eaten properly for weeks. Her arms were like twig branches that hung from her scrawny shoulders; her ribs producing from her skin that...

Oh God, her skin...tears actually punched his eyes when realized that this was his daughter's skin he was looking at. This was his little girl's beautiful skin that was blotched all over with dirt and bruises. His mind caved in on itself and his heart thumped in his ears. How could they do this? How could anyone do this? He knew that this sort of treatment went on in the sickest parts of society, but he never expected it to happen so close to home. It partly reminded him of when Kate died. They knew the risks every day when they went into the field, particularly when dealing with terrorists, but they never considered what would happen if one of them died. He knew that Alicia's stepmother was capable of this, and that her father of much worse, but he'd only ever heard the stories. He couldn't actually believe it until that moment.

He finished undressing her, and lifted her into the bath. She was oblivious to Tony's shock and, for the first time to Tony's eyes, she grinned, slapping her hands into the bubbles as she giggled. "I like the bubbles," she laughed.

"I can tell," Tony said, unable to hold back his smile.

Of course, the bubbles were only from shampoo, and they soon began to fade. Thankfully, Penny sat obediently still as Tony attempted to wash her hair, occasionally with Ziva prompting that she needed to tilt her head back further. However, the last large clump of bubbles remaining was, at this point, piled onto the top of Tony's head in attempt to give him a bubble wig.

"Now you've got more hair!" Penny said proudly.

"Very …bubbly hair," he observed, feeling the water running down the back of his neck from when she had dumped them on his head.

"Mommy doesn't got hair no more," Penny said sadly.

"No, she hasn't," Tony confirmed.

"The medicine made it go away," she remembered. "It all started coming out so she cut it all off and wore scarves instead. Mommy had pretty hair."

"Yeah, she did, didn't she?" He also remembered.

Penny looked up, observing Ziva deeply. "Ziva's got pretty hair too," she said, touching her own hair. "It's like my color."

He was glad that bath time went without any hitches. As he finally got the hang of washing her hair, Ziva kept her more than occupied, chatting away to her about anything and everything to keep her mind off of what was happening, and what was still to come. Tony joined in when questioned, but in the end he was just sitting there, focusing on the task at hand, worried that if he took his eyes off of her for just a second she might drown. When he lifted her out of the bath sometime later, he bundled her into a warm towel, one of his new ones that had barely been used so was still soft. Ziva had gone to pay the pizza deliveryman, so father and daughter were alone in the bathroom together. He dried her skin carefully, not wanting to hurt her, but she still winced when he touched one particular bruise on her side.

He frowned, looking at her with concern. "Penny, did your grandparents do this to you?" he asked her gently.

She just stared at him, her previous chatter abandoning her.

"It's okay, Penny, you can tell me," he assured her.

She nodded.

He stopped drying her and enveloped her into his arms. Together, they stayed like that for some time, sat on the bathroom floor, both warmed by the steam in the air and each other's embrace. Penny snaked her arms out from the towel and wrapped them around his neck, burying her face into his shoulder.

"Daddy," she whispered.

"You'll be okay, Penny," he told her. "I'm going to take care of you now, okay? I'm going to take care of you."

She lifted her head from his shoulder, putting her hands on his chest and forcing herself up. He let his hand drop from her wet hair and let it fall to her side, whilst the other still remained on her back. She looked at him with curious eyes, frowning as she tried to figure him out. She kept herself propped up with her hands sprawled on his chest.

"You're not going on holiday again?" she checked.

He shook his head. "No."

"You look like me a bit," she observed.

'A bit' was an understatement, of course. They were almost duplicates, save for gender and size. Yet, there was still the fact that her eyes screamed of Alicia. "I guess I do," he agreed.

"You're gonna look after me for mommy, right?" she asked him.

He took a deep breath, feeling the responsibility piling onto his shoulders as he nodded. "Yeah, I am." His hand came up to the back of her head, placing his palm against it and stroking down her hair, the locks curling slightly as they began to dry. It felt cleaner now, softer.

Penny was silent for a while, watching him with curious eyes once more, until she spoke in a tiny voice. "I don't think I mind that."

Sneak peak of what's to come:

Penny gets to see her mom again (bless her)

Penny meets McGee and Gibbs

Abby is hiding something