Okay, sorry to put off the start of this chapter, but I thought that this definitely deserved opening with an authors note. What turned out to be a very bad day in the end was brightened by what felt like my biggest achievement. In the space of twenty-four hours, I received SIXTY reviews for the last chapter I posted. I consider 7 a good haul, and this story has taken me from shock to shock with your response. Because of that, I promise to include EVERYTHING that you have suggested. So far this includes the following:

Tony, Gibbs and Penny interaction

A real child-like melt down followed by a Tony meltdown

Some Jenny/Gibbs

Ducky entertaining Penny with a story, and providing support for Tony

The big showdown between Gibbs and Penny's grandparents

Adam (Ziva's boyfriend) reacting to her involvement with Tony

Maternal Ziva with Tiva

The shopping - lots of you have wanted to see the shopping.

Tony and Ziva dating…hmm…might make you wait ages for this :P But, this is a Tiva story, and I can only resist for so long - so I promise that if I don't actually get them together soon I will make their interactions so sweet you'll be blaming me for your cavities.

The Abby pregnancy situation.

Penny and Palmer - I didn't actually think about this, mainly because I don't know a lot about Palmer, but I will include some if anyone wants to drop some hints about what it might be!

Something dramatic happening to Penny…yeah, definitely got that lined up!

More interaction with Abby - with the pregnancy subplot this will definitely be happening!

Lots of you have also said that you like the hurt/comfort stories - this would be a good one to read and stick with because it's a long hard journey of hurt and comfort. It is going to be a long story. I mean long, long. After we get our father and daughter team settled, we've got an undercover op to get through (major Tiva, trust me) and two other somethings to throw many spanners into all the works. Think you can stick with me that long?

Chapter Thirteen: He Was Never There

Tony hated shopping.

Of course, not many men would have been happy with the idea of following two women and a young girl around the shops, but Tony considered himself in more danger than the others. He really hated shopping. He was willing to suffer puppy dog eyes for three weeks straight, and whatever punishment Ziva could inflict with a paperclip, just to get out of shopping. However, these pleas in the car journey on the way there hadn't been heard - he was only thankful that Jenny was driving. As they'd walked around the mall, the other men looked at Tony with shared sympathy for the poor man. Penny would take either Jenny or Ziva's hand, skipping along beside them and pointing out all the things she loved and wanted while Tony shoved his hands in his pockets, grumbled about the horrors of shopping with not one, but three, women, and wished that he was back on the couch at home.

The first shop they'd arrived in was a toy store. Wow, what a great decision that had clearly been. Take a three year old child to a toy store. Penny's eyes had lit up at what lined the shelves, reaching for her dollar as if it could buy her all of it. At the same time, Tony resisted the urge to tear up his credit card so that they couldn't use it to pay for anything. He got another look of sympathy from a male store attendant as he walked in behind the others, and he could see the confused, questioning stares they gave him; all of them trying to work out how he was connected to each of the females he was with. Of course, they might have guessed from the constant "Daddy, look at this!" that he was Penny's father, but they had no idea that the women with them were his boss's boss and his partner. Oh no. It looks like some messed up day out; being dragged shopping by his girlfriend and mother-in-law. He could appreciate that these people were his family, and now Penny's family, but in a brother-sister-Gibbs-like-a-father way, not a Ziva-is-my-girlfriend and My-boss-is-like-a-mother-in-law way.

And so, the hands remained in his pockets, and the grumbles remained hardly existent beneath his breath.

It was difficult for him to adjust to the aisles in the toy store. Not just because they sold so many different things than when he was a child, but because he was now shopping for a completely different gender (and paying for it, as well. He hadn't had to do that until he was twelve years old and forced to spend his own money on himself). He'd grown up buying toy police badges, plastic weapons and action figures. Penny had known exactly what she liked and it couldn't have been more different to her father's childhood tastes. She'd wasted no time in heading over to the girls toys; eagerly pointing out the dolls, costume dresses and child's make-up sets while Tony resisted the temptation to lead her into the section containing action figures that shot out plastic fireballs and spoke three different phrases when you pushed a button.

When faced with a choice, and reminded that Daddy's credit card was not magical enough to buy it all, she'd decided that she wanted some new dolls. 'Some' had quickly turned into 'several', and 'several' had soon become 'as many as her hands could carry'. She'd walked straight past the stuffed animals because she was content with the bear she had already, the one that she had sat down on the couch when they had left, assuring the inanimate object that they wouldn't be long and that he should behave and look after the house while they were gone, even if it was a mess. Tony was glad that she had passed on the stuffed animals, but not too thrilled when she passed him all the dolls to hold. This left her hands free to do more shopping, as she led Ziva and Jenny further into the toy store, and Tony was left to follow them obediently, gazing longingly at a stand of build-your-own hovercraft sets.

But all in all, he realised that Penny was actually happy as they walked around the store. Up until Jenny and Ziva had mentioned the words 'shopping' and 'mall', Penny had been nearly silent, only muttering as little words as she needed. She'd clung to Tony in a way that he had never felt so needed before, and while it had scared him, he could now look at her, skipping amid the toys with her new found family, that he had liked it. He'd liked holding her close, knowing that she wanted him and no one else. Needy women were different from dependant children. Because of this, he made no comments about the growing pile of price tags he was carrying. He let her look at the toys for as long as she liked, and to take all the time in the world deciding whether she wanted the doll with the green ball gown or the mermaid's tail. He let her get the accessory set for the doll she eventually chose (the mermaid, because she liked the hair) even though he knew that half of it would probably be lost somewhere in his apartment by the end of the week.

He let her stay in the place that brought her happiness as long as she wanted because her mother had died yesterday, yet she was smiling. He didn't know how long she'd be smiling for, and he wanted to be as long as possible.

However, their next shop still had him biting back a groan. A clothes store. Not just any clothes store. Not a store that sold expensive suits, silk ties and Italian leather shoes…the children's clothes. He might have been shopping for toys as a child, even though they were for himself, but he had never been clothes shopping before. His mother always brought his clothes for him, because she knew his sizes, if not always his tastes, but after her death he'd been made to suffer hand-me-downs from one of his elder cousins. That is, until he'd discovered the joys of wearing handmade finery.

The store was surprisingly empty, but it was a weekday so there wasn't going to be a lot of children dragged around a store by their mothers. Parents were working, and children were at school, the ones that weren't had ended up in the store in the form of stressed mothers' looking through the racks of clothing, checking sizes as their toddlers had twelve fits of tantrums in their strollers; trying to escape the binds that prevented them leaving the store while their mothers were preoccupied with other matters.

Thankfully, Jenny and Ziva had taken charge of looking through the clothes. Tony wasn't sure why he was more thankful, because he was holding four bags from the toy store already, or because he really knew nothing about what little girls wore. And so, the endless racks of outfits had began to be searched, Penny telling them colours she liked, and what clothes she wanted. Jenny had checked the labels in what she was wearing so that they knew the sizes (something Tony hadn't even thought of doing) while Penny proceeded to point out a rather sparkly t-shirt that she liked to Ziva. Dresses and skirts were and instant no; at least the ones that the sales attendant had pointed out to them were.

"Too short," he'd announced, as he threw himself down into one of the chairs nearby and laid the bags of toys on the ground beside him. He was more than happy for them to shop and spend his money if he could sit back and relax while they did. "Way too short for a three-year old."

Jenny smiled at him, that strange smirk that she usually challenged Gibbs with. "It hasn't taken long for you to become an overprotective father," she commented innocently.

"There's nothing overprotective about not wanting Penny to go out looking like a lap dancer when she isn't even old enough to know what one is," he defended. "That," he said, gesturing to the skirt Jenny was holding, "is too short."

"Relax, Tony," Ziva smirked. Why did they keep smirking at him? Was it because they knew how uncomfortable he was with shopping? "I do not think she will be getting into the back of a boy's car anytime soon."

That hadn't made him feel any better. "Penny will never be getting into the back of any boy's car, romantic intentions or not," he told them simply.

"Were your intentions romantic when you took a girl into the back of your car?" Ziva asked him.

He gave her a look. A look that explained everything; particularly that when a girl had gotten into the back of his car all words of a romantic nature had been to simply lead on the more censored actions that followed. "The skirt's too short," he said, choosing not to answer her question.

In retaliation, he'd been forced to actively join the clothes hunt.

"Penny," Tony called her over, after what seemed like an age of shopping. Penny looked up from where she was standing impatiently beside Ziva, who was looking at a rather ugly pink shirt with a look of repulsion on her face, no doubt wondering how any parent could dress their child in it. "Pen, come here, you'll like this one."

She frowned at him. "You said that last time," she protested, but going over to him anyway. Shopping wasn't quite so fun now that she remembered she was still hungry.

"It's different this time."

"You said that last time, too," she reminded him.

He lifted her up when she reached his side, and he showed her the outfit that was on display on one of the mannequins. "What do you think?" he asked her. She gasped. "Did Daddy do good?"

"Daddy, I want it!" she exclaimed, looking at him with awe.

Tony looked over his shoulder at the women, pride beaming over his face. "Daddy did good," he confirmed.

--

When they got back to Tony's apartment, she had pulled a chair up to the bathroom mirror, the legs of it scraping dangerously against the hardwood flooring of the hall, and stood up to see her reflection. Tony stood just down the hall, close enough to be able to see her but unseen by her as she admired her reflection. As she was still short her legs weren't visible in the mirror, but he could see the knee-length denim skirt, patterned with butterflies and flowers that were embroidered by the right knee. Autumn was starting to kick in, so Jenny had insisted on a pair of thick winter tights for her to wear beneath it, crème in colour. In the mirror, Penny could see her long-sleeved navy blue shirt, which had similar patterns as the skirt around the wrists and neckline. It was covered by a sleeveless jacket, which had a suede body and a faux-fur trim. As both Ziva and Jenny had insisted, no outfit was complete without a pair of shoes, which had turned out to be two new pairs. One was a pair of sneakers to replace the shabby pair she'd arrived in, and the other was a pair of black suede boots without a heel to match her new outfit.

A beautiful little girl...and her mother would never see her like this again.

"Does she know you are watching her?" Ziva asked him, as she came up to his side in the hall.

He shook his head, looking down for a moment at the shampoo bottles he was holding; the ones he was supposed to be putting away. "I've missed too much of her life already," he murmured, raising his eyes to Penny again, who was now pursing her lips as if she were getting ready to put make up on. "What happened yesterday took her innocence away...I thought I should savour every bit I see now."

She smiled at him, nudging his shoulder. "Here," she said, taking the shampoo bottles from him. "I will put these on the shelf, and you can continue your savouring," she told him, walking into the bathroom before he could even put up a fight. She went into the bathroom, Penny watching her appearance in the mirror. She stopped posing and watched as Ziva set the shampoo down on the wire shelving unit beneath the shower head. She frowned, tilting her head to one side as she looked back at herself. "Is something wrong, Penny?" Ziva asked, as she saw the little girl's intense frown.

"I dunno how to do them," she said with a huff.

"What are you trying to do?" she said, going to stand beside her. The fact that Penny was standing on the chair brought her to Ziva's shoulder height.

"A girl at the mall had her hair all twisty like you did yesterday. I can't do it," she complained.

Ziva smiled softly. "You would like a braid in your hair?" she asked. Penny nodded. "I can help with that."

Penny's eyes widened. "Really?"

She nodded. "Yes, really."

Tony watched almost fondly as Ziva finger-combed Penny's hair, separating it into three sections and then braiding it over itself. He didn't know what surprised him more; the fact that a week ago he'd never have dreamed of a scenario like this taking place in his own bathroom, or the fact that the woman who smiled gently as she braided a little girl's hair was Ziva. Of course, it wasn't that he thought Ziva wasn't capable of doing this, it was more the shock. There seemed to be two alternatives to the Mossad officer: the work orientated, dangerous and mysterious woman that he'd come to recognise as a part of his life, and the more domestic, softer side of her that she had revealed since Penny had become a part of his life.

Penny, bless her. Her mother only died the day before. Perhaps she still thought that Alicia would be coming back from the hospital, no matter how many times he had to explain to her that she wasn't. That saddened him, as he watched his partner playing with her hair in the mirror; the two of them comparing their hair. Alicia wouldn't get to see her like this anymore.

Panic gripped him, but not as much as it had done over the past few days. It was more a panic for Penny. After all, what would the future hold for the two of them now? He couldn't depend on the kindness of his team forever. Jenny and Ziva wouldn't come over and remind him to go shopping, and Alicia wasn't there. She wouldn't be there on Penny's first day of school - he'd have to find a school for her, and kindergarten too. She wouldn't be there to cook dinner - which would have been a bonus, considering the mess they were making with empty pizza boxes alone. No walking into a kitchen to see Penny baking cookies with her mom - isn't that what girls did with their moms? Alicia wouldn't be there to remind him when Penny needed her hair cut - how long was too long? Who would tell him he was over reacting when Penny brought home her first boyfriend - when she was fifty, of course - and he threatened to kill the poor guy? Who would help Penny do her hair, pick out her prom dress...the sex talk, oh God, he'd have to give her the sex talk!

But Penny had a new family now, he realised, as Penny turned to Ziva on the chair and began trying to braid her hair. Ziva would later regret this, judging from the amount of knots that were already forming, but Penny had a cute look of concentration on her face as Ziva's hands - hands that had been covered in bloodshed - now guided her tiny fingers with such delicacy through the hair. He supposed that his family, his team, would be as much a part of Penny's life as he was. Gibbs would give Tony the morning off - hopefully - so that he could be there on Penny's first day at school. They'd struggle through making dinners together, but what better way to learn, right? Baking cookies...Ziva liked to cook, right? Maybe Penny would mention cooking and Ziva would offer. With so many women around NCIS he was sure someone would notice when Penny's hair needed cutting - or maybe even Penny herself would tell him. Prom dresses could be covered - more than likely with his credit card. Abby and Ziva were covering the hairstyles...

As for the boyfriend? He was sure that the women would tell him he was over reacting - but he was pretty sure that all the guys - even docile old Palmer - would join him in interrogating the unlucky boy.

"Like that?" Penny asked hopefully, securing the band at the end of Ziva's messy braid.

Ziva nodded. "Yes, exactly like that," she praised.

Penny grinned. "I'm gonna go show Auntie Jenny and Daddy my braid," she said proudly, jumping down off the chair and running into the hall - so quickly that she barrelled head first into Tony.

"Whoa, slow down there, Speedy Gonzales," he told her, steadying her before she toppled over on the hardwood floor.

"Daddy, Daddy, look!" she bounced excitedly. "Ziva did me a braid."

"Wow, that's pretty, Penny," he told her.

She grinned, and ran off again before he could say another word. Ziva stepped out of the bathroom, smiling after the little girl. "She certainly has your attention span," she teased him.

"She certainly has no career as a hairdresser," he told her, indicating the mass of tangles on one side of Ziva's head.

However, Ziva touched the braid fondly. "We all start at the bottom, Tony, before we reach the top."

"Really?" he asked her. "So, you never used to pull wings off of flies and torture baby birds as a child?"

She frowned at him. "Is that what children do in this country?" she asked.

"No," he said, when he clearly didn't understand his meaning. "Well...maybe the wings off flies part, but not the baby birds."

She shook her head slowly, listening to the faint cries of 'look what Ziva did!' coming from down the hall. "Practice makes perfect," she said, almost to herself. "I was not much older than Penny when I attended my first dance class," she remembered. "I was so nervous, all the other girls were so much prettier and much better dancers than me. I suppose the negative thinking overtook me."

"What happened?" he asked her, unable to believe that the other girls in her dance class were prettier than she was.

Her eyes glazed over, something that was always happening when she was divulging her past. "I slipped during a twirl," she admitted. "Collapsed to the ground in front of all the laughing girls, all their fathers who looked at me, glad I was not their daughter."

"What about your father?" he asked them. "Can't imagine he'd have let them do that, being Deputy Director of Mossad, and all."

"He was not there," she said, her voice soft. He only then noticed that she was looking everywhere except for his eyes. "He was never there."

He reached out his arm and put it on her shoulder, a little surprise when she didn't shove his gesture away, but instead placed her hand over his. "Ziva," he began, but she cut him off.

"If Penny chooses to dance, make sure you are there to watch her," she told him simply, as if Penny's childhood would make up for her own. "Because you are the only person she will search for in that audience, and it will break her heart if she cannot find you."

"She'll find me," he whispered, before he realised the words were toppling out of his mouth. "And so will you."

Their eyes locked, and he was about to lean in to embrace her when footsteps stampeded towards them. "Daddy, I'm still hungry!"

A/N: Also, thank you to everyone who has set their well wishes for my mum. Things aren't good, but for the moment she's smiling.