I have been doing a little bit of maths, and I worked out that this gets, on average, 4.5 reviews per chapter, whilst 24 gets 6.8. Brown on Green averaged at 12 reviews per chapter and Her Return averaged at 5.4. Which suggests that the length of time for which I have been writing has affected my ability in no way, if we are merely using number of reviews as our data.

Anyway, it is quite literally blowing a gale outside – I would tell you the wind speed if the wind had not broken the weathervane on the roof…

LX. I Never Realise How Much I Like Being At Home Unless I've Been Somewhere Really Different For A While.

Tony cringed as the mattress depressed with his weight and he held still for a moment, checking that he had not disturbed his wife. She continued to slumber, hair a mess on her pillow and left hand clasped in a fist on his pillow as she lay on her right side. He sank slightly further onto the bed and sat cross-legged, pointing his camcorder at her peaceful face and zooming in slightly. "This is your Ima. She's a very, very special woman." He whispered, marvelling at how the thought had not occurred to him earlier that he should be documenting his life with the ones he loved. He studied her face, the exotic features older than when he had first seen them, but no less enchanting. Her golden skin shone against the crisp white of the covers, the warm sunlight streaming through the curtains haloing her face and convincing him that she was an angel. Her eyes fluttered open as the light intensity increased and she stared lazily at her husband and the lens of the video camera until the glass eye registered with her.

"What are you doing, Tony?"

"Videoing. Say hi to the camera, Ziva." He grinned his best grin, one that could usually permeate her outer walls and regulations, particularly in the few moments between sleep and wake. However, her glower suggested that this time he would not win as she reached out to block the camera's view of her. "I think Ima's a little bit grumpy. Maybe we should let her sleep some more."

"Maybe you should stop filming me, DiNozzo." She mumbled, burying her head into the pillow.

"Why? You're beautiful." He stated, an innocent smile on his face.

"I am not beautiful and I do not like being filmed."

"You are beautiful, and why?"

She sighed and stared at him, his determination and the unwavering camera in his hand. "Because you never know who will see it. You never know who will use it against you."

"Nobody is going to use this against you, Ziva. Trust me."

"Yes, because that is exactly why we have an agent positioned in our garden, one down the street and another on the opposite side of the street?"

"They are there to make certain that nobody can get to us. If nobody can get to us, then you have no need to worry about who will get hold of the video to use it against us." He placed the camcorder down on the bedside table and tilted her chin towards him. "We're safe. You're safe." He dropped a soft lingering kiss to her lips, grinning as she rolled him over and straddled his torso, one of the straps of her black camisole slipping down her arm. He used the hand that he had moved to her back to pull her down, pressing his lips to her shoulder before replacing the strap to its original position. She smiled, leaning her forehead on his and nuzzling their noses together, laying her forearms on his pillow, either side of his head, and playing with his hair. "We're safe, okay? I promise."

She swallowed and nodded, letting a grin flash across her face as she sat up and grabbed the video camera, pointing it at him. "I still do not understand why you want to video everything."

"Because I want us to be able to remember this moment, and every moment to come, when we are old and grey and losing our memories." He watched as her brow creased slightly before a wide smile spread across her lips. "What?"

"I want to grow old and grey and lose my memory."

Tony laughed, shaking his head. "You've got goals, Ziva DiNozzo." He muttered sarcastically.

"I never believed I would ever marry, or have children, Tony. To die of old age would be a dream."

His smile faded and he took her empty hand, rubbing circles on her palm with his thumb. "Ziva, I…I promise that I will do my utmost to allow for you to die of old age." He turned her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles.

"You do not need to do that, Tony."

"I do. You're my wife and we're gonna grow old together. I promise."

She smiled sadly, zooming the camera in on his face. "You are promising the impossible again."

"It's not impossible." He shook his head and grinned. "We'll make it." She touched her lips to his, placing the camcorder haphazardly on the bedside table. A piercing cry broke their concentration on one another's faces and their heads both whipped up to stare at the bassinettes before Ziva slipped from where she sat, walking over to Adabelle and picking the baby girl up, returning to Tony and nodding for him to scoot over. "Hey, this is my side of the bed!"

"Move." He shook his head and she rolled her eyes, sitting down between his legs and leaning back into his torso.

"There was that so difficult? Although it might be slightly more comfortable if you stopped fidgeting." She turned her face so their noses brushed, her eyes alight and a grin spread across her lips. "You're evil, you know that?"

"I have been told so on occasion. I have also been told that you love me."

"Well, whomever your sources are, they are very reliable."

Ziva ran her index finger lightly along Ada's cheek, smiling as she leaned into the feather-soft pressure, seeking out her mother's finger. "Are you hungry, my love?"

"Yes."

"Well, you know where the kitchen is, Tony. I was thinking more about our daughter, who does not."

"Yeah, well, I think I'm quite content to sit here and watch for now. But I am serious about being hungry." He took the camera, pointing it at the profile of his wife's face as she smiled down at their little girl when she latched on, starting to suckle. "She likes that. I don't blame her."

"Tony, you do want to keep all of your limbs, yes?"

"Uh-hu." He gulped, knowing that she was fully serious.

"Daddy is a freak." She cooed softly, playing with the chubby fist that was curled on her tanned skin.

"Creep. I am a creep. Not a freak. There's a difference."

"So you admit that you are a creep?"

"No, I never…okay, so I did say that, but I was correcting you, that, that doesn't count."

She snorted, knowing she had won.


"ZIVA!"

Tony leapt out of his skin when her hot breath brushed against the flesh of his neck. "Yes, Dear?"

"Christ! Do you have to do that?" He turned so their noses touched and his hands braced against the doorframe, leaning down slightly.

"Yes. You should be wearing your sling."

"Don't want to anymore. Gets in the way. Besides, the doc said I didn't have to once I felt I was healing."

"Yes but do you actually feel like you are healing, or is this just you saying you are so you can help out more?"

"I feel useless, Ziva." His shoulders slumped and he gave a pathetic shrug of his hands.

She pinched the bridge of her nose, knowing from past experience how he felt and knowing that he would probably just make it worse if she forced him into the sling. "What do you want?" To explain he simply moved out of her line of sight, showing the triptych of canvases. She grinned, revealing white teeth. "They are perfect."

"Just how you wanted them." He nodded, watching her face as she analysed each of them.

"How?"

"My guess is Gibbs. There's also this." He walked over to the coffee table, picking up the album and handing it over. She opened it to the first page, a picture of the smiling faces of her family, sat at the table at the head of the hall. Soft cooing sounded through the baby monitor sat on the piano. "Get them changed and bring them down here whilst we have breakfast?" Tony suggested. "Who cooks and who dresses?"

"Can you cook pancakes? There is mixture in the cupboard."

"Sure. Oh, did Gibbs say what time everyone is coming over?"

"About 1500hrs, I think." She pecked him on the lips before walking out, smiling to herself as she felt Tony's eyes on her back and lower.


Tony woke from where he lay on the plush carpet of the living room to the sound of his son crying in his ear. He blinked, opening his eyes to see his wife's face inches from his own, her soft curls spilling across the cream floor. He tilted his head back to see Ada sleeping peacefully on his sleeping wife's torso, taken back momentarily to when they were on protection detail with Elsie and Mina, seeing her lying asleep on the floor with Mina in the position that Ada now held. And then he remembered the crying and looked down to see Ichabod's red face as he wailed, his place identical to his sister's. He scrunched his face together momentarily before holding Bod to his chest so that he did not fall when he sat up. "Hey, what's wrong, huh? Shush, let's not wake Ima now. What's wrong?" He held the boy up and sniffed. "No, don't need changing. You were fed," he check his watch, "two hours ago. So what's the problem?" The doorbell rang and Tony checked his watch again. 1501hrs. He clambered up, careful not to drop his son, and walked to the front door, seeing Abby's beaming face in the peephole. He shifted Bod to one arm and pulled the door open.

"Did we wake him?" Abby asked immediately.

"Or does he just cry every time he see's your face." McGee grinned as Tony stuck his tongue out at him.

"You woke both of us up."

"Ziva let you have a lunchtime nap?" Jenny sniggered as Tony let the crowd in.

"I think she was the one who fell asleep first. And she still is sleeping, so if we could just keep it down slightly."

"Too late, DiNozzo." Gibbs said, nodding behind the younger man. Tony turned to see Ziva stood with Ada, who was stirring in her sleep, rubbing her face with a mittened hand and blinking slowly.

"She okay?"

"She woke up just as I woke up." Ziva shrugged, kissing Ada's forehead, before looking at her family gathered in the hallway. "It is good to see you all."

"It's good to see you too, my dear." Ducky smiled, walking over and kissing her cheek. "How are you feeling?"

"Good. Tired, but I doubt that will be changing any time soon. Come through, really, the living room is much more comfortable than the hallway." She waved them through, folding the blanket that lay crumpled on the couch with one hand and placing it on the floor. Everyone automatically started admiring Ichabod as Tony started exaggerating tales of their stay in hospital whilst Ziva continued to tidy one handed, Adabelle in her other arm. She was getting good at using her left hand to do things with.

"Ziva?"

The younger woman turned to face her frowning friend, smiling gently. "Abby? What is it?"

"Well, I was just wondering if I could…" She nodded to Ada and Ziva beamed proudly.

"Of course you can hold her." They moved to the sofa and she positioned Abby's arms into a cradle, carefully placing her child into the soft, tattooed cocoon.

"Hi there, little one. Hi…" Ziva felt her heart swell as she watched the woman whom she considered no less than a sister coo over her tiny baby, the child's clear blue eyes trying with all their might to focus on Abby's grinning face, laughing when Ada started blowing bubbles with her lips.

Tony's commentating voice broke through her thoughts and she looked up to see him with the camera pointed at Gibbs who was carefully holding Ichabod. "And here's Grandpa Gibbs with Bod. The next thing you know, Bod will be down in Gibbs' basement building boats, and that's not a comforting thought." He saw the smile slip from McGee's face and his skin pale as everybody else turned away, finding other things of interest and a deep sense of foreboding settled over him.

A whisper of breath in his ear had him jumping out of his skin and firm hands on his arms along with a firm body pressed to his back had him effectively frozen to the spot. "What did you just call our son?"

"Uh…Bud, as in Buddy. I called him Bud."

She chuckled and Tony felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle, his heart rate increasing with the fear that the sadistic sound triggered. "Well, I must have misheard you then, because I could have sworn you called him Bod."

"You must've, then, mustn't you, because there is no reason why I should have called him Bod."

She moved her lips even closer to his ear by reaching up on tiptoes, compensating for the last inch by running her hand through his hair and tugging his head back. "I know when you lie to me, Tony."

He laughed. "When have I ever lied to you?"

"You want the whole list or just an exert." Her voice was now almost silent, merely a soft breath into his ear canal.

"There's a list?" He gulped as his throat tightened.

"Purely for blackmail purposes, you understand, but yes, I have a list. I have many lists, in fact, focused on you: what I know you like, what I know you dislike, where you are ticklish and what turns you on…" She drifted off, as the hand that was not holding his head back starting drawing feather-light patterns on his palm with her nails, something she knew drove him insane.

"Hm, is that something that all women do when they get married, or is it just Mossad?"

"I think I am unique in that respect."

"You're unique in many respects, Sweetcheeks. One of those being that you scare me more than Gibbs."

She laughed heartily, looking around to see that the living room had emptied and catching a glimpse of movement in the doorway to the kitchen. "Well, in that case it goes without saying that you will do as I say, yes?" She grinned.

"Yeah. Of course Honey." He said in a saccharine voice as her hand started running down his chest, inching lower and lower. "But, uh, we have company right now, and, uh, your hand is getting awful close to-" He stopped abruptly when she completely disappeared from behind him and he had to whip his head around to see her hips swaying as she walked into the kitchen. He sighed and let his body slump against the baby-grand, rubbing a hand over his face before following his wife.

"…did we miss?"

"Oh, only bets on how long until baby DiNozzo number three's on its way." McGee shrugged and Abby sniggered at the blushes of everybody else in the room. Apparently McGee had not been lying.

"Well, I think we can say for now that it will not be happening for a long time."

"A very, very long time." Ziva agreed with Tony, walking over to him as he took a seat at the table and gasping when he pulled her down onto his lap. She wiggled unnecessarily with the rouse of getting comfortable and he groaned quietly.

"Don't tease, Zee-vah. It's. Not. Nice." He growled in her ear. She simple grinned and turned her head so she could quickly capture his lips before looking back at their friends. Jenny was now holding Ichabod as Ducky held Ada, angling her so she could see Abby's hands move in a slow string of signs. Gibbs was playing with Ichabod's foot in his calloused hand and McGee and Palmer were talking to one another at the breakfast bar, both content to watch the baby-stuff, as they put it, from afar. "Are you happy, Ziva?" Tony asked quietly, his chin resting on her shoulder as his hands played with the skin at her waist, underneath her t-shirt.

"Unbelievably so. You?"

He pressed his lips to her neck for a moment before turning back to look out at the kitchen and his family sitting in it. "Yeah. I am. I'm really happy."


"Ichabod, Sweetheart, you need to hush for me. You are going to wake your Daddy and Daddy needs to sleep." The child in her arms screamed harder and she closed her eyes, touching her forehead to his and inhaling his unique baby-smell. She ducked into the hallway outside their bedroom, slowly pacing along the landing above the stairs. "Sweetheart, what is wrong? Tell Ima please." She sighed, stroking his cheek. "You are not hungry, you do not need changing, what is the problem, Ichabod?" She pressed a kiss to his soft tufts of jet-black hair before pressing the back of two fingers to his forehead. "You do not have a fever, I do not know what is wrong. Do you just want some company?" She walked through to the nursery, closing the door behind her to create another barrier between Tony and the noise. "Hush now my little Bod. Your crying will wake the dead, and there are too many dead that we do not want to be woken." She sighed as she tried desperately to think of something to sing. In her search for something age appropriate and soft enough to lull her child into a slumber, her mind tumbled back to a flickering image of Tony singing to her, and with a little more probing she remembered standing behind the stairs with him, jealousy oozing from his pores like pheromones. And she remembered later, after everything, sitting in the bullpen alone searching Google for a film with Al Pacino and Ellen Barkin, trying to recall the name of the song he had sung. She flicked the little nightlight that projected stars on the walls on and hummed the first few bars, smiling as her son's wailing calmed to a softer whimpering. "Come with me,

my love,
to the sea,
the sea of love,

I wanna tell you,
How much,
I love you,

Do you remember,
When we met,
That's the day,
I knew you were my pet,

I wanna tell you,
How much,
I love you,

Come with me,
My love,
To the sea,
The sea of love,

I wanna tell you,
How much,
I love you," Ziva smiled as her little boy's eyelids drooped shut, her low, quite singing trailing off. "There, that was not so hard now, was it Bod?"

"That sounded more like the Cat Power version, as used in the film Juno, than the original, but I think it possibly works better as a lullaby like that." Tony's voice made her jump slightly and she had to check she had not woken her son before she turned to her husband.

"Sorry. I tried to keep the noise down, but…"

"It's fine, Ziva. You should have woken me."

"No, you are grouchy when you do not get a full eight hours of sleep." She smiled and shook her head, turning the nightlight off and walking over to him, tucking herself under his arm as they made their way back to the master bedroom, careful to avoid squeaky floorboards.

"I am never grouchy." He murmured quietly as she placed their child in his bassinette, dropping a kiss to the top of his head.

"Sleep now, my little Bod." Tony smirked, keeping his thoughts to himself as he pressed a kiss to Ichabod's forehead whilst Ziva checked on their daughter. Content that both children were asleep, they crawled back into bed, meeting in the middle and assuming their standard position of her head on his chest and letting their legs automatically entwine them together.

"Bod?" There was the soft expulsion of air as Ziva's fist came into contact with his stomach.

"Mention it to anyone and you will be sleeping on the couch for a month, understand? And there will be no sex for two months."

His audible gulp was answer enough to her and she grinned as she slipped off to sleep, knowing that they were both empty threats.

Does anyone else think that Tony and the Noise sounds like a really cool band name? – maybe they would be able to find a good song to sing as a lullaby. When I was a baby, my dad never sung lullaby lullabies, he used to sing whatever song would come into his head – I was sung a lot of Bowie and a lot Eagles tracks when I was younger, which explains my taste in music now. So I really know no lullabies, and then looking through my phone I could not decide on a song for Ziva to sing, so I plugged the phone into my speakers, closed my eyes and waited for a good song to come around on shuffle. The bit about Ziva struggling to come up with a song was actually my struggle to come up with a song, and my thoughts on the matter.

I found a note yesterday that I left myself whilst writing chapter 1 that simply read 'camcorder'. I had intended for Tony to start wandering around with a camcorder and recording everything, starting in maybe chapter 5 or 6. And then the note got lost in amongst a pile of paperwork and I completely forgot about my intentions.

You know, really, Ima should not be capitalised. Because in Hebrew there are no 'capitals', per se. If you write a letter the same way you type, it is sort of like a capital letter, but words are not capitalised. An aleph is an aleph, and looks the same when it is at the beginning of ima as it does when it is at the end. However, five characters do have final forms, which are sort of like capital letters for the ends of words, but they are there whenever you end a word with that letter, so not really. Ima is spelt aleph-mem-aleph, though. Aba is spelt aleph-bet-aleph. Fun fact.