Thanks, as always, for everything. You know the drill. :)
Weeks passed, and Tony got no closer to figuring out what was going on inside Ziva's head. After so many failed attempts of talking to her in a comfortable, every day situation about the simplest things relating to the baby, his tries grew fewer and farther between. She had pushed him so far out that now she would barely even talk to him at all. Even simply asking how she was doing had managed to become a question she would shrug off and not give him a real answer to.
He laid awake almost every night, staring at his ceiling and trying to figure out how the hell he was supposed to actually get Ziva to talk to him, especially when she seemed so determined not to do so. She was at 30 weeks now, he knew. Somehow, he'd happened to take note of the last time she'd actually mentioned how far along she was, and he'd kept up with it since, because she certainly hadn't told him. There was only 10 weeks at the most left before she had their little girl, and unless he was misreading everything, Ziva wanted to give her away.
So he knew he needed to talk to her. When he did finally get around to it, though, what was he supposed to say? Did he tell her everything, beginning with the fact that their night together had meant more to him than he'd let on? Did he just tell her that he wanted them to keep the baby and see where things went from there?
Every time he tried to work out a way to even begin saying any of those things, he couldn't come up with something that sounded acceptable, even if he did conjure up the courage to actually say any of it.
And what if she just really didn't want to keep the baby? What if her decision was final, and there was nothing he could do?
Could he keep her?
For a few days, he entertained the thought that he could keep their daughter, but he knew that wouldn't work. If Ziva didn't want to keep her, she probably wouldn't let him keep her himself, and even if she did, he was scared enough to be a parent at all. He knew he would never be able to do it alone. No matter how much he wanted to keep his little girl, he knew that option wasn't really possible.
The hopelessness he felt was the worst he could ever remember having, with only one exception. The only time he could recall feeling more hopeless than this entire situation was making him was the summer after he found out about the fate of the Damocles, and he'd lost himself in a sea of regrets, brokenness, and whiskey. That hopelessness had changed him, turned him into something that none of his friends recognized. Hell, he hadn't even been able to recognize himself.
This desperate feeling was different, though, even though he couldn't exactly figure out why. Ever since he'd admitted to Gibbs that he actually wanted the chance to be a parent, the feeling seemed to grow daily, because each day that passed seemed to lower the possibility of Ziva keeping their baby. He hadn't talked to Gibbs in his basement since that night, and Gibbs hadn't really asked if Tony had done anything yet.
Tony actually appreciated that, in a way, because he didn't want to have to tell him that he'd done absolutely nothing, even if everyone could see that things were still bad between them. It was much too obvious to even pretend otherwise. If Ziva had been allowed to anything other than sit at her desk, he knew that Gibbs wouldn't send them anywhere together. It was already bad enough having to sit across from her every day and pretend that nothing was bothering him.
He wasn't as good at it as she was, but maybe that was because she wasn't bothered by it at all. Maybe it was just him, like it had always seemed to be.
Abby was his physical conscious these days, and stared at him whenever he was around her, as if she was trying to see what was going on in his head just as hard as he was trying to see into Ziva's. One day, while he was sitting in her lab alone with her, waiting on a DNA test to finish running, she turned to him and crossed her arms over her chest. "Why haven't you talked to Ziva yet?"
He blanked, not expecting the directness of her question after such a prolonged period of nothing but stares. He hesitated, looking down at his shoes.
"I just... I haven't gotten around to it." He shook his head at how lame that sounded.
"That is not even close to being acceptable." She leaned against her desk, her eyes firm. "You need to talk to her."
"I know," he sighed, running a hand through his hair and looking back up at her. "I know I do."
"Then why haven't you done it?" Abby's tone was slightly accusing now, and she looked disappointed.
He broke their eye contact again, eyes scanning the room for something other than her face to focus on. "Do you realize that I never know what she's thinking anymore?" he admitted, feeling his throat already trying to close up. "Any time I try to talk to her about the baby somewhere that it could easily be discussed, she changes the subject. It doesn't matter how simple it is, she will barely talk to me. Before all this, we could read each other like the front page headlines." He paused, swallowing. "It feels like I've lost her. I just... I don't understand why she still seems to know what I'm thinking or where I'm going with a conversation when I can't even figure out what's going on in her head no matter how hard I try."
He let his eyes find hers again, and they were softer, sympathy replacing some of the accusation. "Because she's pushing you out, and you're not pushing her out. That's why you just need to put your foot down and talk to her. You're running out of time to do it."
"I know I am, Abby. Believe me," he muttered, feeling cold despite the warmer temperature of the room.
Abby reached out, putting her hand on his shoulder. "You can do it. Maybe it won't be as hard as you think it will."
He gave her a small, hopeful smile, even though he knew deep down in his gut that she was wrong.
"You haven't talked to her yet."
Unlike Abby, when Gibbs finally does bring the subject up to Tony in a nearly empty squad room that night, he doesn't ask any questions.
"No. I haven't," he states, staring at the paperwork on his desk, not feeling like being chewed out again. He's exhausted and knows that he doesn't have it in him to hear disappointed words from his boss, too.
He hears Gibbs stand, and looked up to see Gibbs standing in front of him. "You need to."
Gibbs face isn't judgmental, and his gaze isn't nearly as accusing as Abby's was earlier in the day. Tony nods, sighing. "Yeah. I know I do."
"Running out of time," came his simple reply.
"I know that, too," he nearly snaps, the weight of the situation suddenly feeling ten times heavier. "I'll..." He hesitated. "I'll do it tonight. I'll talk to her tonight."
Gibbs nods, accepting this. "Okay."
And then he walks away, not saying another word to him.
Once Gibbs has disappeared into the elevator, Tony puts his head in his hands. He'd just told Gibbs he would talk to her tonight, so he had to, now. He hadn't planned on it, and suddenly he felt like being shot in the chest would probably be less painful than what he had to do.
Abby and Gibbs were right, though. It was time to stop avoiding it. No more running needed to be done.
He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, dialing her number and putting the phone to his ear. It rang several times, and for a moment he thought that she wasn't even going to answer his call, but finally, she picked up.
"Hello?" Her voice was timid, and his heart jumped so hard he almost hung up the phone.
"H-hey," He stammered. "I was just... I was just going to ask if you had ate yet, and uh, if you hadn't, I was going to, uh... bring a pizza over o-or something for you."
"I already ate, so you do not have to worry about it." she answered, too quick for his liking. Part of his mind tells him to forget about it, but he tries again.
"Well, I was... just offering bec-"
"Well, I have already had my dinner, but thank you." she said again, much quicker than she did the first time, and then the line went dead.
He stared at the phone in his hand for a long moment, thinking that she had somehow known where he was going with that and ended the conversation before he could get there. How would she have known that, though? Maybe she just really didn't want to talk to him, and he would just have to accept that.
He opened up his desk drawer, pulling out the single sonogram that he had of his daughter. He had gotten a copy from the doctor when they'd gone to find out the gender. Ziva didn't even know he had it, and he honestly hadn't wanted her to know, anyway. He stared at it for a long moment, picking out the various parts of her: her nose, her fingers, her feet. He remembered the sound of her little heartbeat, so vivid in his mind, and he picked his phone back up.
He wasn't just accepting this. There were a lot of things over the years that he and Ziva had simply forgotten about and never discussed with each other again, but he wasn't going to let this be one of them. This wasn't just something that had happened and could be forgotten. This was different.
She doesn't answer the first time he calls, or the next few times, but it doesn't stop him from redialing her number over and over. Every time the phone stopped ringing, he dialed again, staring at the sonogram in his hand the entire time.
Finally, long after he'd lost count of how many times he'd called, she answered. "What do you want, Tony?"
"We need to talk." He said, his voice firm. His grip on the picture in his hand tightened the slightest bit.
She stayed silent for a long moment, but he didn't say a word. He let her take her time with whatever it was she needed to, knowing that she was probably going through a list of questions similar to the ones that he'd been asking himself over the past few weeks.
But no matter what questions she asked herself, she knew he was right. It was the first thing that he'd been sure of about her in such a long time that he felt a small sliver of the hopelessness he'd been feeling dissipate. It gave him the smallest bit of hope back that maybe, just maybe, he hadn't lost her completely.
Finally, she sighed. "I... I guess... Yeah, y-you're right." she struggled for a moment, but he waited patiently. "We can talk later or-"
"No," he cut her off, shaking his head for an emphasis the she couldn't see. "We're not putting this off anymore. We need to talk, and we're going to. Tonight. Now, have you really eaten, or were you just telling me that so I wouldn't come over?"
She took a sharp breath, and his suspicions are proved correct. "I didn't think so." He continued, not waiting for her to conjure up another lie. "So I'm going to pick up a pizza, and I'm going to come over, and we're going to talk."
The line stayed eerily quiet, but he could hear her breathing steadily, and his heart beat so hard inside his chest he was afraid it might burst out. "I... okay."
"See you soon." he said, hanging up.
He put his phone back in his pocket and picked up his stuff, taking the sonogram with him. Somehow, he felt like having that single picture in his pocket would give him enough inspiration to do anything.
So he figured that having it with him when he talked to Ziva would give him the inspiration to keep going no matter what she tried to throw at him.