Well, it is 2016, at least for me anyway, I do not know about the rest of the world yet. We must all just prey for a better year than the last four. Or five. Or hundred. To be honest I think we should all just prey for a good year, or a decent one at least.
My fictions' reviews have not been loading properly, which is irking me greatly, as I do enjoy reading them.
On a better note than those last two comments I have just made, here is the next chapter of "It takes two", which should make you all happy, I hope. I have been taking some time out to write one-shots recently, some of which have already been uploaded, and so this has been on the back burner as of late.
XXVII. I Am My Father's Daughter.
"Morning." Tim smiled at Tony and Ziva as he walked into the office.
"You're in a good mood, McChipper." Tony laughed, looking up from Ziva's monitor, both his hands resting on his fiancée's shoulders.
"The snow is thawing today, the roads were less congested, and it's a beautiful morning…"
"Not sure petty officer Woodson would agree." Gibbs said, walking through the squad room and up to Ziva's desk. "You get some sleep last night?"
"Yes, thank you." She nodded.
"Abby wants us down in the garage." McGee said, returning his phone to its cradle.
"Okay, lets go." Gibbs said, tilting his head to the side. They all headed towards the elevator and filed in.
"Gibbs! Tony! Ziva! McGee!" Abby beamed as the elevator doors dinged and slid open. She had been waiting in anticipation for them.
"Abs, whatdaya got?"
"Um, a fruity smelling garage." She grinned and skipped to her work area, assuming that everyone would follow her. "So I had ten 5inch diameter cores taken of the Jell-O, the four corners, the centre and five random samples." She pointed to the long jelly cylinders lying on the table. "Fornell was right, we have the FBI's Jell-O." She stated as thought it were obvious. "But, I compared the FBI's lab results to my own."
"And what d'you find?" Gibbs prompted her when she stood and smiled.
"There were different Warfarin concentrations. The Jell-O that the FBI found had a lower concentration than the Jell-O that we found incarcerating our petty officer, but it was the same in every other respect."
"So what, whoever flooded the pool with Jell-O added more warfarin? Why?" McGee asked, frowning.
"I don't know, McGee. I thought that was your job." Abby smiled.
"Well, I…"
"Abby, there anything else?"
"Well, I have an answer to Tony's question." She grinned. "There was less water than would be used usually to make it up. And having the heating off in the house and the snow meant that the room was chilled."
"How much of our Jell-O was used?" Fornell said, stepping out of the elevator and nodding to the NCIS agent that had escorted him to the evidence garage.
"All of it."
"The whole lot?" Ziva asked, breathing solely through her mouth and still not succeeding to avoid the overly fruity smell.
"The whole lot." She grinned.
"What sort of a terrorist wastes all of their weapon on a murder?" Tony asked, frowning.
"Don't know, DiNozzo, why don't you go find out?" Gibbs turned to him.
"On it, boss."
"I thought you had gone back to Tel Aviv." Ziva said as she felt her father's presence behind her back.
"I did not want to leave without saying goodbye to my daughter." He smiled, leaning back in the rear seat of her car.
"Of course." She sighed. "Well, you have said it now, so you can go."
"Ziva, Ziva, Ziva…You are so hostile all of a sudden."
"No. I have always been like this." She stared into an empty space of air.
"Never towards me." Eli frowned.
"I should have been. You were the one who made me like this." She snapped. The foreign director sighed and shook his head, deciding a change of subject was in order.
"You are not going home with Tony tonight?" He asked lightly.
"I am, I just did not want him to get stuck between this." She scowled at the reflection in the mirror. "I asked him to pick my notebook up from my desk. It should take him only a short moment to not find it."
"You are wearing a ring. A very nice one, good quality." He smiled, craning his neck to see over the back of her seat to look at her hand resting on the steering wheel. She curled her hand into a fist and moved it to her lap, hiding it from her father's sight.
"Tony has good taste."
"So there will be a wedding? Have you set a date?"
"No." She turned to look at him. "I have to get home, we have plans for this evening."
"Everything I have done, I have done because I love you, Ziva." He sighed and placed his hand on her shoulder, retracting it when she flinched.
"Just go." She glared at him.
"Stay in touch, Ziva. You may not like it, but I am your father." He smiled. She stayed icy, avoiding his gaze. "I do not want to hurt you any more."
"Yet you still do."
"I am sorry, my dear child." He swallowed heavily. "Goodbye." He stroked her chin slightly before clambering out of her car that was, in comparison to his rather large yet elegant size, very small. She stared at the book in his hand as he began to walk away before registering what it was that her father was reading.
"Abba, where did you get that book?" She jumped out of the car.
"It was on a table in the hotel I have been staying at, I decided to read it. It is very imaginative." He held up the copy of Deep Six. "I especially like Officer Lisa and Agent Tommy's relationship." He smirked.
"Abba, you must stop reading that. Now." She hurried over to him, her face falling when she saw that his bookmark was almost at the end.
"Why?" He laughed and shook his head. "It would do very little good, I have almost finished reading it."
"Ziva, I couldn't find your…" Tony said as he walked over to his fiancée, pausing as he saw the man standing just out of the glow of the street lamp.
"Agent DiNozzo." Eli nodded and smiled. "I have been enjoying one of your American novels, although my daughter appears to be rather upset about it. Have you read it?"
"Have I read it?" Tony laughed and shook his head. "Of course I've read it, it's about mgphsd…" Ziva's hand clapped over his mouth before he could finish.
"My father has been enjoying reading about Officer Lisa and Agent Tommy's relationship." She raised her eyebrows as Tony cringed.
"I find myself hoping that she tells him how she feels." Eli said, ignoring the scene in front of him.
"Yeah, I think we all were." Tony shuddered at the thought of his future father-in-law reading about the fictional manifestation of his and Ziva's life. "Er, don't we have that thing tonight?" He said to Ziva, trying to come up with an excuse to leave.
"Elsie and Mina are coming over." Ziva smiled and nodded slightly.
"Great. Excellent. Brilliant. I'm so sorry to cut this short, Director David, but we really must be getting home." Tony held his hand out for Eli to shake. They shook and Tony nodded.
"I will be there in a second." Ziva whispered to him. "I would like to say goodbye."
"Ok." He smiled, walking over to her car and climbing in, watching as Ziva inched closer to the older man.
"I am sorry, Abba." She sighed.
"What for?" He frowned, placing his hand on the top of her head.
"For not telling you. I am sorry, I should have."
"And I am sorry for all I have done." He smiled sadly. "If you ever do want to come back to Mossad…"
"My life is here now, father." She said hurriedly, shaking her head.
"I am just saying that there will always be a place for you." He wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. "Goodbye, dear child."
"Goodbye, Abba." She closed her eyes as he wrapped his arms around her and held her to his chest. He released her and walked away, leaving her standing in the cone of luminosity emanating from the artificial lamp above her. She trod the path back to her car carefully and climbed in next to Tony.
"D'you need a hug?" He asked, frowning as she sat in a stony stillness.
"No." She said quietly and shook her head slightly, the tears over spilling from her eyes. "I do not know why I am even crying."
"Because he's your father." Tony shrugged. "You want me to drive?"
"No." She sighed, laughing when Tony groaned slightly.
Elsie laughed as Tony ran around the living room with her slung over his shoulders. Ziva smiled, holding the sleeping infant in her arms. This was what she wanted, a family, laughter, an absence of war and violence. She looked at her watch and sighed, knowing that Alison was going to pick the children up at any moment. They were getting a new house, and they would have three single bedrooms. No, they were having twins. They would need four bedrooms if they were to take the girls in. And then there was the logistics behind the whole legal side.
"Hello? Earth to Ziva?" Tony waved his hand in front of her face. "You okay? You were off in a daze."
"Yes. I was just thinking." She smiled.
"Careful - that could be dangerous." He flashed a grin. "Or so I'm told."
"No, Tony, that is advice just for you." She took his hand in hers and smiled.
"You want to talk about it?"
"No." She flicked a look towards Elsie, who had settled onto the sofa. "Maybe later." He followed her gaze and nodded in understanding.
"You're thinking about ways that we could adopt them, aren't you?" He sighed quietly as Mina stirred from her sleep.
"No. How did you know?" She looked at him as the child gurgled.
"Because I keep thinking about it too." He placed his hand on her shoulder as someone knocked on the door.
"I will get it." Ziva stood up and pecked him on the cheek, glaring at him when he started to protest. "I can open a door, Tony. It is probably Alison, you might want to start getting Elsie ready."
"You're right." He said, nodding.
"Tony, I was just wondering if… Oh, you're not Tony. Where's Tony." An older woman said as Ziva opened the door.
"I am sorry, who is asking?" Ziva said, adjusting Mina in her arms slightly. The small child cooed and began sucking her fist.
"Jennifer. Hi." Tony smiled sickly sweet. "Neighbour." He hissed in Ziva's ear.
"What a beautiful child." She walked into Tony's apartment, ignoring the expressions of Tony and Ziva.
"Jennifer, what do you want?"
"I was wondering if you had a bag of icing sugar that I could use, I'm baking and, silly me, I ran out."
"I don't bake." His face creased into a contorted frown. "I don't even cook."
"I think there might be a bag in the cupboard." Ziva smiled. "Tony, could you take Mina." She handed the little girl to him when he nodded. He bounced her in his arms and kissed the top of her head, making the child laugh more.
"I didn't know you had children." Jennifer said, smiling as Elsie ran over to Tony.
"We don't. Yet." He shrugged as Ziva walked back in with a bag of sugar.
"But that is soon fixed." She picked Elsie up. "They are friends." The child in her arms yawned. "We need to get you ready to go home." She exhaled, her shoulders slumping slightly.
"But I want to stay with you and Tony!"
"But you cannot." Ziva brushed Elsie's fringe out of her eyes. "Alison and Dave are nice, are they not?"
"Yeah." She pouted.
"Then what is the problem?"
"I like you and Tony better. And so does Mina." She opened her eyes wide. "Please."
"No." Tony shook his head. "Sorry, Kiddo." She pouted. "Time to get ready to go."
"But please…"
"No." Ziva said, smiling slightly. "Come on."
"Is it because you do not want us?" She looked sadly between the two people she so desperately wanted to live with. Tony and Ziva sighed simultaneously and looked at one-another.
"Of course that is not it." Ziva sat down on the sofa and placed the elder of the two children on her lap. "Elsie, you know that me and Tony both work."
"To protect people."
"Yes, to protect people. And even though we are moving house, we will still only have three spare bedrooms." Ziva sighed.
"And you are having two babies." Elsie folded down two of the three fingers that Ziva held up. "Which means that you still have one room."
"But two of you." Tony said, closing the front door behind his annoying neighbour, who very nearly refused to leave.
"We can share a bedroom." Elsie said hopefully.
"When you get older you'll want your own room, for privacy." Tony said.
"Maybe I won't." She pleaded with her eyes.
"What if Mina does?"
"What if she doesn't?" The child argued.
"We shall never know." Ziva shook her head slowly and bit her bottom lip. "Where did you leave your shoes?" She said shakily, changing the subject to prevent herself from crying.
"Bye-bye." Elsie grinned as she high-fived Tony.
"Seeya soon, Kiddo." He smiled, tousling her short hair.
"Bye-bye, little babies." She whispered, patting Ziva's flat stomach. "Bye-bye Ziva." She said to the woman who was still holding her baby sister.
"Goodnight. We will see you next week." She said sorrowfully. She kissed the back of Mina's little hand that was clenched around her index finger. "Goodnight, little one." She handed her over the threshold of the apartment to Alison, who nodded slightly.
"Same time next week?" Alison asked.
"Same time next week." Tony smiled and wrapped his arms around Ziva's waist. "We'll see you then. Goodnight, sleep tight." They waved and the girls waved back, Mina's thrashing motions imitating her sister's wave rather inelegantly. "Ziva, there is no way that we can take them in." He closed the door and hugged her.
"I know." She nuzzled her face into his chest.
"But you still want to." He rubbed her back gently as she cried. "It's been a long day. Lets go to bed." She nodded slowly, inhaling before shaking with a few more tears. "I'm sorry, Ziva."
"Do not be sorry. It is nobody's fault." She let him gently brush the moisture from her cheeks, leaning into his hand when it lingered. He slipped his free hand into hers and pulled her towards the bedroom.
