Okay, thank you so much for all your reviews…I am writing this having gone into hiding because of your reaction to the near misses. Lol, joking, of course. I'd never hide from you guys! Anyway, one thing that stuck in my head was that this could become one of the big 'will they wont they' that movies do until it gets boring. That actually had me worrying at work all day. So, I thought I'd reveal some lovely little keywords and phrases that might keep you interested…
Undercover mission (my god, don't we love those. Think Under Covers, but fluffier…and my version!)

Someone threatening Tony's girls in a violent way…so much so that one of their lives is gravely threatened…

There's also going to be a very valid reason why you should all hate Adam with every inch of your heart.

Chapter Nineteen: Can I Have You Forever?

Two weeks passed since Tony almost let himself cross the line with Ziva. The 'incident'as he allowed his mind to refer to it, was never mentioned again. It anything, it had made them closer friends, because it revealed to Ziva that he was actually willing to open up to her. She was still determined to be there for him, and Tony was even more protective over her when Adam was mentioned. It was getting to the point where the temperature in the room went down by twenty degrees whenever he was mentioned, so she'd had to promise him that if Adam ever upset her she'd let Tony punch him first.

However, despite her help, the only help he'd allow himself to accept, Tony continued to spiral downstairs. He was still determined to get Penny from day to day with a smile on her face, and by doing this he'd begun to neglect his own health, not that he'd notice. In fact, no one except for Ziva noticed to begin with. Abby and McGee were always thinking about the baby, normally disagreeing about what Abby could and couldn't do while she was pregnant, and Gibbs was always wrapped up in a case. So, when Ziva noticed and pointed out to him that he was overtired and slowly starving himself, he just assumed it was her newly developed ability to act like a mother hen to him.

His true exhaustion was revealed to everyone, however, when he arrived in the office one morning. Penny always seemed to bounce along beside him rather than walk, so when Tony seemed to be dragging his heels with the effort to take each step, even the mail guy noticed.

"And at the end of my dream, everyone was smiling again," Penny told him chirpily.

"Good, I'm glad," Tony yawned. "Now, time for you to go and see Cynthia, Daddy has to work."

They bypassed the desks, as they did every morning, and headed up for the directors office. There, Tony left Penny with Cynthia before returning to his desk and turning his computer on. While he waited for it to load up he placed his head on one hand, tiredly examining a pile of paperwork on one side of his desk. He inwardly groaned; he'd really fallen behind, even though he'd been working extra hard to prove that he can be a good father and a good agent. Usually this was the sort of work he'd return to NCIS to do after midnight, leaving again just before Gibbs would arrive in the morning. Now, the only work he done at night was wondering how long it would be before Penny arrived in his bed for the night rather than staying in her own.

Gibbs saw the tiredness, although was more curious about Ziva's concerned watch over her partner than anything. He stood up, and while Ziva thought he was going to speak to Tony, he continued on past his desk, and ended up in the Director's office. Cynthia looked up. "Sorry, Special Agent Gibbs, the Director's in a meeting."

"I'm not here to see the Director," he said, going over to the small table behind Cynthia's desk, where Penny was sitting and colouring. "Good morning, Penny," he said as he crouched beside her.

She looked at him brightly. "Morning, Uncle Gibbs."

"What are you drawing?" he asked her.

"Me and Daddy in the park," she showed him. Of course, it looked like nothing more than lines of colour, but the colours were all there…blue sky, green grass, yellow sun.

"It's a good picture," he told her. "Did he take you to the park?"

She nodded. "Yeah, when he didn't have to work for a bit."

He nodded slowly, looking at the picture when he asked her. "Penny, what did you have for breakfast this morning?"

"We had cereal," she told him.

"How would you like to come and get some pancakes with me?" he asked her. "We'll take your dad with us too."

She looked at him, smiling brilliantly. "Yeah!"

"We better put your coat on first. It looks like it might rain today," he warned her, handing her the pale blue zip-up jumper that was hung on the back of her chair.

She put away her colours, and allowed Gibbs to help her into her coat, then they went downstairs. Naturally, she skipped ahead of him, carefully taking the steps one at a time, though, and raced over to Tony's desk. She'd developed a skill of dodging the agents around her, as had they for avoiding tripping over her. She stopped at Tony's desk, placing her hands on it so that just her eyes were visible over the top if his desk.

"Hi Daddy," she announced, when he didn't immediately react to her presence.

He looked up, his reactions slow from his exhaustion. "Hey, Princess, what are you doing down here?" he asked her.

"Uncle Gibbs is gonna buy me pancakes," she told him.

Stunned, Tony raised his eyebrows. "Well that's very nice of him, I hope you said thank you."

Gibbs walked past Penny, grabbing his own jacket from his chair. "You're coming too, DiNozzo," he said simply.

"I am?" he asked, even more shocked.

"Get your jacket."

He slowly got to his feet, putting his jacket on and throwing his cell-phone into the pocket. "Wow. Uh….thanks, boss."

--

The three ended up in a small café somewhere on base. They'd been there before, Tony remembered, but it was a long time ago. Kate used to get her coffee from here some mornings. In fact, that was why he remembered it - he'd pissed Kate off and offered to buy her breakfast and coffee as they were on an all-night case, and this is where they'd ended up. They sat inside, as it was definitely clouding over ready to rain now, so they chose a window seat so that Penny could still look around her without getting bored. Tony had ordered pancakes like Penny, but didn't move to devour them straight away like she had done. It had taken a very stern Gibbs-stare to get him to start eating.

"So, Penny, how's your bed?" Gibbs asked her.

She looked into her pancakes with guilt. "I still get into Daddy's bed when I wake up."

"Well, that's okay," he assured her.

"Really?"

He nodded. "Lots of big boys and girls are a lot bigger when they sleep in their bed on their own." He knew that, he remembered that Kelly had spent her first night in her bed alone when she was four years old. She was always getting into bed with him and Shannon, at least when he was home she was.

"So, it's okay if I sleep in with Daddy?" she checked.

Gibbs nodded. "If he doesn't mind."

Penny looked at Tony curiously, almost worried about what his reaction would be. He smiled at her. "Hey, you know I don't mind," he assured her. "You can sleep in my bed whenever you want."

Penny grinned, and went back to her pancakes. It was silent for a moment, until the chirpy girl spoke up again. "Uncle Gibbs, guess what me and Daddy did last night," she prompted him.

"I don't know."

"Daddy showed me how to make pasta and we cooked it both of us together," she said proudly.

"Wow," he said, before turning to Tony, keeping his eyes on the senior field agent when he was speaking to Penny. "It sounds like it's lots of fun living with your Dad."

Tony frowned a little, wondering what Gibbs was up to this time, but didn't say anything. Penny, on the other hand, happily talked away to Gibbs. "Yeah, but not always. Sometimes he makes me take a bath when I don't wanna, or eat yucky green foods."

Gibbs ignored her scowl. "That's what all Dad's do," he told her. "And you have to take baths and eat green foods. It's how Dad's take care of their little girls."

"Really?" she asked, while Tony was pleased that he was doing something right.

"Yeah," Gibbs nodded. "If your Dad is telling you that, it means he's looking after you very well."

Penny looked down at her pancakes and then up at Gibbs. "Does that mean I don't gotta go live back with Grandma and Grandpa?" she checked, and Tony visibly stiffened at the petrified expression on her face. "I don't like it there."

"No, Penny, you don't have to go back there," Gibbs assured her. "Not as long as you have your Dad."

She quickly turned to Tony. "Daddy, can I have you forever?" she asked him. "I don't want to ever go back there never."

He leaned forward, putting his hand on her hair softly. "You'll always have me," he promised her. "Forever and ever."

"You won't get sick and go to heaven like Mommy?"

At this, Tony realised what this was about. He looked at Gibbs, and the expression on his boss's face explained everything; this was the point that he'd brought him here to make. He had to take care of himself. He couldn't afford for something to happen to him, not when there was Penny's care to think about. Her only other relatives were her grandparents, and if she didn't go to them she'd end up in care. The whole point of taking her in in the first place was that she didn't go to Alicia's father and stepmother or go into care. He couldn't let her lose another parent, not so soon.

He looked back at Penny, who by now was so worried about what was being said that she looked like she might cry. "Penny, I'm not going anywhere," he told her. "I'm always going to be here to look after you."

"Promise?" she asked him with a trembling lower lip.

He nodded, surprised at the confidence that came with his words. "I promise."

--

By lunchtime, they'd solved their case, so Gibbs had given them the afternoon off. When they were packing up to leave, Tony approached Ziva's desk. "Hey, are you busy tonight?" he asked her.

"No, I am not," she told him.

"Can I ask you a huge favour?"

"Of course," she smiled.

"I was uh…I realise that I haven't been taking very good care of myself lately," he said.

She nodded. "I had noticed."

Of course, she'd noticed. She'd noticed and told him at least a thousand times in a fortnight. "Yeah, I should have listened to you sooner."

Before either of them could lean into apologies again, she got back to the topic at hand. "What was the favour you wanted to ask?"

"I was wondering whether you could come and sit with Penny while I catch up on some sleep, since we're finishing early and all," he told her. "And I'll make it up to you as well," he said hurriedly, before she thought he was just using her to get free care for Penny. "Dinner. We'll make dinner. Or get take out. Whichever you want."

She nodded. "Yes, of course."

Relieved, he grinned. "You're a lifesaver. Thank you."

She lifted her back onto her back, carrying her jacket despite the heavy downpour of rain outside. "Let us get Penny, shall we?"

--

Tony was pleased to find that he actually managed to get a couple of hours sleep at home. Of course, that was after he spent half an hour deliberately trying to remain awake so that he could listen to Penny and Ziva. It wasn't that he was spying or at all curious about what they were talking about; he could just hear their voices drifting down the hall, and it was with an image in his head of the two of them together that send him off into a restful sleep. When he awoke, they managed to make dinner together, albeit rather disastrously, but it was fun and they'd all laughed even though it had taken a long time to clean the kitchen up after dinner. They were just settled on the couch to watch a movie together when Ziva's cell phone rang.

"Who can that be at this hour?" she asked, as she got up from the couch and took her cell phone from her jacket pocket.

"Can't be Gibbs," he realised. "He'd have called me too."

She answered the phone without checking the caller I.D. "Ziva David….Adam, hi."

Tony stiffened on the couch, looking at the television quickly before the temptation to take the cell phone from Ziva's hand and throw it into the alley outside the apartment overtook him. Ziva had gotten used to him doing that now and took the cell phone into the kitchen so that he didn't have to hear the conversation. A few minutes later she came back into the lounge and settled beside Penny.

"Everything okay?" he checked, still inwardly looking for an excuse to beat the guy senseless.

"He wished to know if I would like to go dancing tonight," she said simply.

"Do you?" he asked.

She looked at the clock. "It is late…"

"You've had later nights before," Tony rightly pointed out.

"That is true, but I have had a very nice evening and I would much rather stay here as I had planned," she told him.

"Ziva…" he started, and she looked up at him. He was about to tell her that she was making the right choice by staying here, here where neither of the people she was would ever do anything to hurt her, and then he saw the look in her eye. He remembered how she had looked at Adam when he had been on his doorstep waiting for her. Ziva was actually falling for this guy. You didn't look at someone like that unless you were really falling in love with them. Love. The word clutched at his heart and squeezed when he thought about it existing between Ziva and Adam. But still, she was falling, and she deserved to be with someone who made her happy, right? "Go," he said softly.

She frowned. Was Tony actually encouraging her to go out with Adam? "Tony…"

"Don't put your live on hold for the two of us," he told her. "We've had a good time, and it's Penny's bedtime soon anyway. You should go with him, enjoy the rest of your night."

She smiled at him. "What makes you believe I am not already enjoying myself?" she asked him.

"You love dancing," he countered.

"Yes, I do," she admitted. He'd seen her dance once before, as part of an undercover operation. It had only been a small case, but it had involved her dancing with their main suspect. It had been awful watching her so close with the man who had killed so many female marines, by first starting out with dancing with them, but the main reason Tony had been unable to take his eyes off of Ziva was because of the graceful ease she put into her dancing.

"So, what are you waiting for?" he told her. "Go home, find something amazing to wear, and go dancing." She smiled at his encouragement, but still looked hesitant. "If you don't go, I'll drive you down there myself, and we both know how much he'd love to see me," he warned her.

At this, she half-laughed. "Okay, I will go."

--

Penny had been in bed for just over an hour. Tony had sat with her for a long time, reading and trying to settle her, but a fever had been creeping up on her throughout the evening, and she'd not taken kindly to going to bed at all. Eventually, though, she had settled, and Tony had been checking on her every time he got up ever since, slowly creeping to her side and checking her forehead, prepared to ring Ducky or the hospital the second he thought it was too high. However, it seemed to stay steady, and not worryingly high at all.

Just before midnight, as he was about to go to bed himself, he checked in on her again. She was sprawled over her blankets, half of them gathering on the floor beside her. He always thought this was amusing. When she slept in his bed, she curled up against him, tight in a ball, but in her own bed she took up as much space as possible. He lifted the blankets back onto her, checking her fever once more, and then went towards his bedroom.

However, he was stopped in the hall by a noise outside his front door; a shuffling of feet following by a gentle, unsure knock. He frowned, pulling Penny's bedroom door to but not shutting it completely in case she called for him in the night. He went to the front door, pulling open, shocked with what he saw before him.

"Ziva?"

She stood there, a complete wreck of her usual self. She was so broken that it was impossible to remember her laughing on his couch a few hours ago. She wasn't crying, but it was clear that she had been from her red eyes. Her make up was running down her cheeks, her clothes ruined and clinging to her from the torrential rain outside. He didn't even know if she'd taken a jacket out with her, let alone where it was. She looked up at him, her expression scaring him because it was one he'd never seen on her face before.

Betrayal. Pain. Disbelief.

"Ziva, God, what happened?" he asked her, bringing her into his arms without a second thought. She didn't fight him as he embraced her, wrapping her arms around him. She didn't even feel bad about getting his shirt wet. He held her, feeling the trembling of her body, either from shock or rage, probably the latter, until he ushered her into the living room. "Wait here," he muttered. He disappeared, leaving her in the living room but returning a few moments later with a pair of his sweat pants and a warm sweater, a towel slung over his shoulder. He handed them to her. "Here, you're soaked," he pointed out. "Get into these and I'll put those clothes in the dryer."

Once again, he stepped out of the room kindly as she got changed. When he came back in, he was sitting on the edge of the couch., staring at the coffee table. He went over, taking her wet clothes from her and placing them on the ground, kneeling before her on the carpet.

"Ziva…" she looked away from him. "Ziva, did he hurt you?" he asked her.

She shook her head, but he thought differently. He knew that this had something to do with Adam. He knew that this would end badly, he knew that he'd hurt her.

"He must have done something," he pressed on.

"Please…do not ask me what happened…" she whispered.

"I have to. If he's done something-"

"Please, Tony," she repeated.

He looked at her for a moment, realising who it was before him. This was Ziva. Ziva David, Mossad Liaison Officer. She wasn't going to tell him anything she didn't want to, no matter what the situation. He bowed his head for a second. "I'll get you something to drink," he said.

He went into the kitchen, taking some deep breaths as he poured a glass of water. Something had happened when she was out with Adam, and it had to be either Adam's fault or Adam was the one who had done it because she wasn't with him now. She was with him. He went back into the living room with the glass, handing it to her. She drank half the glass and then put it down on the coffee table before her. Tony settled on the couch beside her, sitting sideways so that he was facing her.

"Please, Ziva, talk to me," he half-begged, but his voice was soft.

"There is nothing to say."

"You can start with why you turned up on my doorstep, soaking wet, in the middle of the night," he prompted her.

She shook her head. "I cannot tell you."

"Why?"

"Because I was foolish," she revealed, looking away and starting to speak to herself. "I should have known better, I should not have let my emotions cloud my judgement, but…"

"Ziva…"

She continued shaking her head. "Do not ask me again. I will not tell you."

He took her hand in his own. He'd realised this properly now after that day in the elevator; they could make things better for each other by doing this. Just a simple gesture of holding hands got them on their way to solving the problem and getting past the hard part. He'd seen a quote like that once. I feel like I could conquer the world with one hand so long as you were holding the other. Her hand was not warm this time, though. It was freezing. How long had she been out in the rain? He placed his other hand over it, taking both of hers and rubbing them gently, trying to encourage the warmth to return to them.

"Just tell me that he didn't hurt you," he asked her.

She shook her head. "Not physically, no."

"Are you sure?" he checked. "Because you know I'll go over and kill him right now if he even thought about laying a hand on you."

"No, Tony, he did not touch me," she said quietly.

"Well, whatever he did, he'll pay for it," he told her. "Seriously, Abby can cover for us and everything. We could go right now and throw a brick through his window or something. If you want. Maybe if we're lucky we'll get his head…"

His attempt at bringing a smile to her lips failed, however. "It does not matter," she told him.

"Yes, it does," he told her, all seriousness back in his voice. "It matters to me. It matters a lot."

At this, she rested her head against his shoulder. He released her hands so that he could get a better hold of her, and he leaned them both against the back of the couch. He was partly glad that Adam had pissed her off enough for her to fall into his arms like this, but this isn't how he wanted it to be, so he just held her. She'd done what he needed so that he wasn't as broken anymore, so he would do the same for her.

"Tony, I came here because I did not want to be at my home tonight," she revealed. "Adam and I had a ….a disagreement, and if I know him as well as I know I do, then he will surely come to my apartment and try to speak with me."

Tony nodded slowly at her words. "Sounds like there's more to it than that," he picked up.

She nodded in reply. "There is. I am just not ready to tell you yet."

"Well, I'm here for you when you are ready," he told her. "The whole 'here for you' thing works both ways. Remember that."

She nodded against him. "I shall."

They stayed there for a moment, just holding each other. He loved the feeling of her being in his arms, knowing that just by holding her he was helping her. He could feel her breath hitting the skin of his neck, his pulse beating against her temple. Surely she could feel it, and how fast it was beating? He'd never felt this comfortable before, not just holding a woman. He felt like he could stay there for weeks, just holding her; no words needed, just bodily contact that didn't end in sex….wow, did he really just think that?

"Daddy…"

The whine from the doorway startled him, and they both looked up to see Penny standing there, clutching Bertha in her hands. She was as pale as a sheet. "What's wrong, Penny?" he asked her softly, getting up from the couch and going over to her.

"My tummy hurts," she complained as he crouched down before her.

"You feel sick?" he asked her. She nodded, and he stood up, taking her hand. "Okay, come with me," he told her gently. He turned back to Ziva. "Sorry, Ziva, do you mind getting me a glass of water?"

"No, of course," she said, getting up and going into the kitchen.

Tony, on the other hand, took Penny into the bathroom, sitting down on the floor with her before the toilet seat. She sat in his lap, and he checked her fever again. It was higher again - must have been a stomach bug. As he brought his hand down from her forehead, Ziva came in, setting the glass of water on the floor close to him. He thanked her, Penny looked up at Ziva.

"You came back," she observed simply.

Ziva nodded, sitting down on the ground beside Tony. She combed back Penny's hair with her fingers. "Yes, I did. I missed you."

Penny looked like she was about to say something else, but must have suddenly felt worse as she began to cry a little and squirmed uncomfortably in his arms. "Daddy…"

"It's okay, it's okay," he assured her, his voice nothing more than whispered breath into her ear.

They sat there for a while, Tony whispering into her ear, using one arm to rub her back and the other to keep her hair out of her face whilst she leaned over the toilet bowl. Ziva watched him, not once taking her eyes away from his face. The tenderness that overtook him whenever Penny was near now had a strange effect on her. She couldn't deny that she was attracted to Tony, because he was certainly an attractive man, but her main draw had always been to much physically stronger men. Men who could intimidate her, over power her. Men who could take control away from her after she'd been exerting it all day.

Now, however, she was starting to doubt that. She looked at Tony, watching as he whispered gentle words into his daughters ear to prevent her feeling scared on top of unwell. She clung to him, almost painfully sometimes, but he let her, and never asked her to loosen her grip. He allowed her to cry and let out her fear of being ill. At one point, she saw a shadow of fear cross Tony's face when Penny asked if she'd be going to heaven because she was sick, and he'd spent a lot of his whispers of assuring her that she was his, and that she was never going to heaven because she was his angel, and he needed her there with him.

Tony DiNozzo, a man who had been broken severely but was too focused on putting Penny's heart back together to take the time to fix his own.

And it was then, when an exhausted Penny collapsed against her father, weakly whimpering as he helped her to slowly sip the water beside them, that she realised that the strongest men weren't always the ones who were physically powerful.

Who hates Adam? I do! I do!