Fandom: NCIS
"Are you lonely, Gibbs?" Ziva asked
Jethro just smiled as he shook his head, "You're never alone when you have kids." He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Ziva's forehead, "Night, kid."
Ziva smiled as Jethro turned to walk away. She watched him leaving.
Jethro may not be her father, at least not by blood, but he really is her dad. He's the one she should have had growing up. But she has him now and over the last six years, he's been healing her heart from the damage that Eli caused.
Jethro is the closest thing that she has to a true dad, and just as he called her, she is his kid.
That night, Ziva went home and those words still echoed through her mind, replaying over and over again.
"You're never alone when you have kids."
Mostly because she couldn't believe the words that were said next.
"Night, kid."
The shock wasn't so much about the fact that Jethro had called her kid. It wasn't really a secret that he thought of his agents as his kids, but it was more of an unspoken thing than a spoken thing.
Jethro, as Tony had once described him, was a functional mute. He was a man of few words, but his actions spoke plenty. His kids knew that he loved them.
As she laid in bed, Ziva wondered if Jethro knew that his kids loved him too.
As she fell asleep, she thought, 'Goodnight, dad'.
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