"Where are we going to live?"
They were laying in bed early one night, exhausted from a long day at work and he's only half listening; too enraptured in a comic book series McGee had recently gotten him into.
"Whatdya mean honey…we live here."
Ziva slaps down one out of a plethora of pregnancy books she's in the middle of reading and turns towards him, "With a baby? Tony, this place is not big enough for you, me and a baby."
"Your place." He mumbles and turns a page.
She reaches out and snatches the magazine away, throwing it across the room.
"Baby, I was reading that!"
"I'm serious, where are we going to live."
"Your place." He grunts, kicking off the blankets to get out of bed.
Ziva folds her arms tightly against her chest and glares at him as he bends to pick up the comic book.
"What?" He asks loudly when he notices her stare, "It's bigger, cleaner, nicer."
She looks at him for a second longer then juts out her chin, pouting.
"Fine."
Tony merely rolls his eyes, coming to stand up right.
"Come on, I don't understand why you don't like that place anyway, we've been shaking up in this dump for almost a year now when you've got this wonderful place only 15 minutes away."
He watches as her chin quivers, her arms tensing like she was creating a vice around herself and he drops his book back down to the floor, walking around to her side of the bed.
"What's going on?" He asks once he's shoved her gently over enough to make room to sit down.
She looks away from him for a long moment but he takes it as a good sign that she's letting him rub her back. She was getting particularly overly paranoid at being touched nowadays, Abby and Gibbs remaining to be the only ones who could without permission, or without a threat.
"Nothing is going on." She shrugs.
He bends his eyebrows up. Nothing his ass.
She meets his expression, giving herself a moment, letting him read her eyes first. Being honest with him was still something she wasn't quite used to.
"It is not my home…not like it once was. It was fine in the beginning but then it became this reminder that I had to live in, constantly, continuously and I do not want my child, our child to experience that loss."
He stares at her for a long moment, not saying a word, the memories flashing across his mind but it didn't make any sense, what she was saying, because it was a different environment, different place, different memory. But then as she looks away from him, shutting her eyes, he understands.
"You haven't told your father yet."
She doesn't move but the slow, unsteady breath she eases out through her nose gives him the answer.
"Ziva," Tony sighs, balancing his forehead in one head, "Why are you letting him do this to you, ruining whatever growth you've had since being away from his influence."
That makes her move. She shoves him over, hard with one arm and shuffles out of bed, making her way to the bathroom.
"Ziva, come on, you know what I meant."
She whirls around, her face twisted with a sudden despair and anger and there's a lump pushing against his throat almost instantly at the sight.
"I am not letting him do anything to me, Tony. I have been focusing on my new life, our new life, not his…but it hurts, to be in that house, hurts, I'm sorry you cannot understand that."
He stands too from the bed, needing to get closer to her, like it would somehow make it easier. He opens and closes his mouth several times before he can find the right words.
"Don't you want what we never had for our kids, a home, a regular permanent, safe home with two parents who are alive, an actual home Ziva, don't you want that?"
Yes, she wanted it, more than anything.
"Kids?" She breathes.
He's caught up for a moment but then he shakes his head and covers his face.
"You have not told your father." She quietly whispers but he's heard it like she's spit it at him.
He drops his arms down, tightening his eyes, "Oh, real nice. I'm not afraid to tell my father, I just don't think he'd give a shit." It's a complete lie, he knows it, she knows it but he lets his words fall around them and he moves for the light switch just to stop seeing that look on her face.
He waits for her to slowly make her way back over to the bed, not completely sure that she would, and slides over to give her room when she eventually does.
"I just want to understand. That place has no association with your father." He mutters tiredly once she's lain flat beside him.
It had everything to do with her father; she wanted to tell him, every single piece, frame, section.
But she doesn't and leaves them in the silence of his confusion and her grief.
She ends up crying quietly to sleep, vaguely aware that through the gap between them, he's somehow managed to find her hand and squeeze it.
The sun pouring through the windows, masking her entire face quietly and gently wakes her up. It had been a long, restless night, she had awoken several times with belly burn, rolling around to find comfortable positions and she remembers as she stretches slowly outward that Tony had moved to the couch.
She lies there, still, her body, for a forgiving second, not aching at all.
She knew he would be gone, she had a midwife appointment in the morning and wasn't going to head into work but their conversation of the night begins to creep into her ears and she suddenly has the urge to skip the appointment and drive down to the base instead.
But some space wouldn't hurt and as she turned her head towards the window, the sun like the lure, the longing to be outside seeped into her. It looked like a beautiful day to take a walk and her appointment wasn't for another hour. So sliding out of bed and slipping on one of the maternity dresses in her collection, a light blue one that hugged her in all the right places, she wriggles into her sandals, leaves her hair wild and steps through the front door.
She hadn't really a plan as to where to walk but she's moving in a familiar direction and once she meets the little village right by his house, marking the half way mark between his and hers, she knows exactly where she's going.
He was right. It was a wonderful place. She had found it accidentally, ironically getting lost on the way to his apartment on one of the first weekends she had been back. And though she loved her old place, it was nothing like it. It was spacious, had a balcony that wrapped around it, and it had large windows that let her into the world but could still shut her safely out of it.
It takes a few jiggles but her key turns the lock and she almost, almost reaches for her waist, where her sig would be. But shutting the door, a little too hard, she curses at herself. She didn't need to be protected in this place, not with a gun anyway.
She ignores the dust matting the counter tops of the kitchen and doesn't let her feet linger on the carpet that is practically itching beneath her feet to be vacuumed and instead heads to her bedroom.
And as she steps through the door, she takes her hand away from her stomach and brings it heavily to her heart and practically sways against the door. She had forgotten the photos.
A line of them cover the desk just in front of her bed. Some of them she remembers framing, some of them she can't and some of them are just resting against one or two, as though they can't fit or don't want to.
She didn't need a picture to remind her of her sister's face, her brother's, her mother's, her father's and yet, having them all there, was the aching remembrance of their presence in her life, reminding her that they were apart of something that belonged to her. That they were her. She breathes out again; this was why she hadn't come back. This, them.
And as she traces the cheeks of her baby sister, Ari's arm slung easily over her own, she remembers. Letting the memories wash freely over her.
Sleeping beside her sister, wedged on either side of their father on the night their mother had died, his voice like their blanket, I miss her too, my darlings, I miss her too.
Her brother's laugh and encouragement when she had tearfully told him at the age of 8, that she had been punished at school for beating one of his friends up for liking her.
The night Ari had left, kissing both of her cheeks and it being the only time she remembers him telling her that he loved her.
Her father telling her he was proud of her. She can't remember why or what for but as she thinks, standing so close to the picture of him sitting at his desk, that maybe she just didn't want to, a small, tiny, defiant jolt gets to her right down in her belly.
"My child," She whispers, practically gasps out loud as she circles her tummy, the kicking growing stronger, "I love you so much already."
There's music quietly playing in the background, dinner cooking in the oven and the sun disappearing over the city, the air still warm when he walks through the door after work.
He drops his keys and his jacket, tugging off his tie a little too roughly. It had been a miserable day, dead body after dead body and she hadn't been there to be that stabling force, to be his partner, and as he spots her, lounging on one of the deck chairs out on his balcony, he can't help but smile, despite it all.
"See anything you like?" He asks her lightly as he steps out onto the patio, leaving the screen door wide open.
She turns her head, prying her fingers away from her mouth to smile back at him, "Too many things."
He shifts another chair closer and leans back, the lowering sun warming the parts of him that felt pale beyond relief. One of the bodies had been a 13 year old kid, a girl by the name of Amy and he couldn't stop picturing her face.
"How was your day?" She asks and passes him her glass of apple cider.
He takes it, squeezing his eyes open and shut before he takes a long sip, "Same old, same old. Abby missed you."
Ziva hums in reply, shutting her eyes and just looking at her, being so close, is already enough, bringing him back to the surface.
They're quiet for a while and he could smell their lasagna she had made (his favorite) and the familiar breeze of a disappearing season; spring was becoming summer, their baby was going to be born right in the midst of it all.
But he looks at her again, her closed eyes and just see's Amy's.
"Do you ever wonder what things would've have been like…you know if we wouldn't have gotten together in the end?" He asks quickly, wanting to reach out for her hand.
She doesn't reopen her eyes but she moves her hand for her stomach and he doesn't even think she realizes it.
"Sometimes." She replies quietly.
He nods, readjusting himself further along the chair. The distraction was working.
"Eventually, I think, you would have moved on, found another woman to be in love with, play with, tease with. Make a baby with."
He turns to look at her, surprised because that was not what he had meant by the question nor expected to hear. He wonders how often she actually thinks about it. He forgets, sometimes, maybe too easily, how long those four years were, how painful.
"I was just as lonely for you as you were for me, you know. I wouldn't be happy, not like I am now."
She smiles quietly and reaches for his fingers, looping them through hers and it's all he can do to not reach for her altogether, "I know." She whispers and she sounded impossibly sad.
"Ziva –" He starts.
"She kicked today."
He almost drops the glass. "What? Here?"
She looks away, hesitating, "No…I went to my place."
He sets the glass down and sits up right, moving from his chair to hers.
"Are you okay?"
She looks at him for a long time before answering but he can see it all in her eyes.
"She kicked." She repeats methodically and she reaches out one hand, brushing her thumb against his cheek so softly that his head falls a little, and she knows, reading his defeat, that his day wasn't a normal one but was one of those haunting ones, those days you had where you questioned why packing it all up and running wasn't the better solution, wasn't the answer.
"How did it feel? He finds himself asking though he's not really sure what the question is in relation to, their daughter or her.
She opens her mouth, hesitating, her face suddenly exposed and it reminds him, so vividly of that night they had watched that movie together, both lying about having dates. He had seen, from the corner of his eye her trying to communicate something to him, something honest but had chosen to ignore it. It had broken his heart, again.
"Tell me." He whispers almost desperately and his phone still shoved in his pocket, begins to ring.
He ignores it as she pushes herself forward, encircling her hands around him the best she could.
"You don't have to go." She whispers against his forehead and he shuts his eyes, seriously considering it for a moment but he gently detangles himself away from her and reaches for his phone.
"Gibbs needs me. I'll come back the second I can."
She weakly nods and lets him kiss her own forehead and walk back into his apartment.
"Before it's too late, Ziva. You should tell him." He whispers and he's shut the door.
She breathes it aloud, repeats it even after the suns gone down, long after he's left. Like home, it felt like home.
When he gets back, nearing 3 in the morning, the lights are all out with a candle burning in the living room and he just knows.
"What did he say?" He asks softly as he slides into bed behind her, curling an arm all the way around her stomach, splaying it out against her belly button, his favorite spot.
She breathes in and out and he can feel it against his chest, the ease of the rise and fall.
"That he was happy."
They don't speak again for the rest of the night but her breathing is as steady as he remembers it 8 months ago when she wasn't beating a heart for two, but for one.