As always, you guys are the absolute best. But you knew that ;)
The following Monday, Tony went over to Ziva's apartment after an uneventful, shorter day at work and was sitting across the table from her when she called the adoption agency back, letting them know that the baby's father was, in fact, on board with the decision she was making, and wanted to be as involved as possible in the choice of who the adoptive parents would be. The conversation started out with the adoption agency doing most of the talking, leaving Ziva playing with her fingernails or running her fingers over the smooth surface of her table. She seemed to be doing everything she could to avoid looking at him, only a few feet away from her.
He waited rather patiently, staring at his hands on the table as she talked with them, catching next to nothing of what the other end of the conversation was, his heart telling him he shouldn't be going along with this. His hand twitched several times throughout the conversation, and he wanted nothing more than to rip the phone from her hand and hang it up, tell them that they weren't interested after all. Part of his mind was screaming at him, demanding to know what he was thinking, being cooperative when he didn't have to be.
He had to make himself look away from her face, so blank, so serious. He'd told her he wouldn't stop trying to get her to change her mind, and he'd meant it. However, when he combined the unemotional look on her face and her professional tone, he wondered if telling her that had only hurt his case. What if she saw it as a challenge to be taken? He knew how she could get when she was challenged on anything. It usually made her work that much harder to beat it.
He hadn't even planned to tell her that in the first place. The night before he'd come to talk to her, while he'd been tossing and turning, he'd realized that if Ziva really was going to let another family have his baby, he should at least be able to approve of whoever it was. Then, when he'd found himself standing at her door the next morning, his heart racing and his palms sweating, he'd had blurted that out, and suddenly realized that, even though he was being cooperative, he wasn't anywhere near giving up. Now, though, he was worried that he hadn't helped himself at all by throwing that possible provocation at her.
He caught sight of a picture on a shelf a few feet away, and found himself staring at it. It was of them, at their office Christmas party from just over a year ago. You could barely see the sleeve of his father's coat on the edge of the picture, sitting in the seat beside himself. Gibbs and Ducky were in the background, laughing at something, looking cheerful in the light of the movie on the screen. Abby had taken the picture, pulling out her camera halfway through the movie and telling them to smile. They had, of course, because it was Abby and it was Christmas. Something about those two things being combined made them willing to do nearly anything.
It was a good picture, he thought, and one he had only seen a select few times. He knew Abby had a copy of it somewhere, and he knew that Ziva had one, and he even knew where it had always been. Somehow, however, seeing it in light of the current circumstances made him have to fight tears.
He looked back at Ziva, and she was watching him. Her eyes were glossy, and when his eyes met hers, she quickly looked away. She rubbed at the corner of her eye, and he sighed, trying not to look too deeply into that. She cleared her throat slightly, replying to whatever the person on the other end of the line was saying. "Yes, I understand." Nobody else would have noticed the slight hitch in her voice, but he did. She repeated her previous statement again, and her tone was back to normal this time.
He looked back at the picture for the briefest moment, recalling how happy they had been then. Somehow, getting stuck in an elevator together a few months prior had done wonders for their relationship, and when he remembered that time, he remembered being really happy with where they were. It had taken them a while to get back to a genuinely good place after everything that had happened after he shot Michael, and that was the year they'd finally put those last few pieces back together, he thought. That had been the year they'd grown closer, the year they'd connected in a way that he wasn't entirely sure he could explain, but he didn't want to, anyway. Trying to explain might take away the magic of it.
It was a time that they'd needed each other more than anything, because it wasn't exactly the easiest year for either of them. They'd been each other's strength when they'd needed it, and their laugh when they'd needed that. And throughout it all, that was the year he'd realized how deep his feelings for her really ran.
He looked back at her, barely catching her watching him again. She stuck to her routine of looking away hastily, and said a simple "okay" into the phone that sounded final, and he was shocked to see that the conversation had winded up being so short. He waited as she said a quick goodbye and hung up the phone, pursing her lips and looking back at him.
"So?" he asked, twining his fingers on the table in front of him.
She took a breath, placing the phone carefully on the table. "They want to meet with both of us, and they... uh, they said that once they've talked with us they can start getting us a list of potential parents."
He nodded slowly, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment, fighting to keep himself together. "Okay," he said carefully, taking a deep breath.
Ziva nodded, too, chewing absentmindedly on her bottom lip for a moment before speaking again. "Tony..."
He met her eyes, and there were questions burning in them. "What?" His voice was scratchy, and he cleared his throat, keeping his eyes on her with some difficulty.
She broke eye contact, though, her eyes finding a random spot on the wall and staying there. For a moment, he thought she was going to shrug off whatever it was, say it was nothing, let it be forgotten like the never-ending list of things they never talked about again. Then, she looked back at him.
"Why... Why are you doing this?" she asked, her voice level.
He took a moment to assess her, trying to decipher what she was thinking. Failing at that, he sighed, running a hand through his hair and shrugging. "I just... I figured if you were going to be so stubbornly set on doing this, I might as well get to help pick who she winds up with."
"Can I ask you a question, then?" Her voice was quieter now, and she was looking down at the table, picking at a random fingernail.
"Yes," came his simple reply.
"If you are so set against this option, why do you not take her? I know you said that you think she needs two parents, and that is true. I believe that. But I know you do not want to do this, so why are you?" She still wouldn't look at him, and she was still picking at the fingernail without doing anything to it.
His eyebrows came together as he processed what she'd just asked. "Exactly that, Ziva. The knowing she needs two parents that will take care of her outweighs the want I have to keep her." He stopped, thinking of a way to explain his motives when he knew that he didn't technically owe her anything. "I know... I know what it's like to grow up without one parent there. It's tough enough when that parent... passes away. I can only imagine how it would feel if you had to have your dad try explaining to you that your mom... that she... you know..." He waved his hand, not wanting to say the words aloud for fear of them being upsetting. "I would never want my daughter to have to go through that."
Ziva nodded slowly, pursing her lips. She stopped playing with her fingernail and instead picked the phone back up, turning it over in her hands. "Oh."
He stood, and her eyes met his for a fleeting moment. "I'm, uh, going to go. Just... let me know when you want to... meet with them, and I'll make sure I clear up a spot in my schedule."
She nodded again, and he suddenly felt like the biggest jerk in the universe. "Okay."
He gave her a polite smile and went to leave her apartment, feeling drained. All she had done was call the adoption agency, but that by itself had made everything all too real. He hadn't even been able to hear the exact words on the other side of the conversation, but just being able to hear the murmur of whoever was talking on the opposite line of the phone was enough to break his heart even more.
He heard Ziva get up from the table when he got to the door, and her footsteps went into her bedroom. He briefly thought about apologizing, but he knew that no matter how guilty he felt, he didn't owe her an apology for what he'd said. He put on his coat, reaching into his jacket pocket and realizing that he'd left his phone on her table.
When he went back to get it, he heard Ziva's voice coming from her bedroom, and curiosity got the best of him. He walked down the hall and stood outside of the door, listening closely.
"This isn't easy to me. He probably thinks it is, but it isn't. This is what's best for you. I know there are going to be times when you're going to question it as you grow up, but I promise... this is the best decision for everyone." Ziva's soft voice reached his ears, and he found himself shocked at the affection there.
Ziva was right- it did seem like this decision was easy for her, but he knew in his heart that it couldn't be. He had told her as much when they'd fought, telling her that he knew she wanted to be a mother. That was one of the things he'd used to try to get through to her. That had been one of the things he was almost sure would work.
Except it hadn't, yet.
He slowly backtracked, feeling as if he was intruding, and left quietly, not alerting Ziva that he was still present in the apartment. Once down in his car, he sighed, leaning his head back against the headrest. He had left his sonogram in his car, and he picked it up, staring at the image that he had memorized by now. It was strange, he thought, the emotions that hearing Ziva's words had given him.
Somehow, in those few seconds, he had reignited a hope that maybe, just maybe, this entire situation wasn't a lost cause. Maybe, if he just didn't give up, he could get Ziva to keep their baby after all.