MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! Or if you don't celebrate Christmas, then HAPPY WHATEVER HOLIDAY YOU DO CELEBRATE! I hope everyone has a fun and safe Holiday! Longer chapter, but it all seemed to fit together so I couldn't break it up. Flashback in italics.

VillageVoice

Abby's newest hobby was scrapbooking. She and Ziva were visiting a lot of different cities in a lot of different countries and since they were trying to lie low, there was a lot of time spent in their hotel rooms. They spent a lot of that time in bed re-familiarizing themselves with each others' bodies, and for the first few weeks it seemed as if neither could get enough of the other. But all honeymoon periods fade, and while they were still madly in love with one another, they no longer felt the need to have sex three or four times a day. Once a day was sufficient, but weekends however, were fare game.

With so much free time Abby had become religious with her scrapbooks. She bought a new scrapbook in every country they visited. At first she had started out with every city, but then some cities didn't have scrapbooks, or didn't have scrapbooks with their names on them and sometimes they only spent a day or two in a city and since being on the run required traveling as light as possible, Abby had ditched the city idea, as well as the city scrapbooks she had already bought and started making a single scrapbook for each country they visited. With the exception, that is, with Paris. Because much like Gibbs and Jenny, they would always have Paris.

Just as she was about to dig out her new cell and call Ziva the lock turned and the Israeli walked into the hotel room holding up a brown paper bag.

"You got them?"

Ziva leaned down for a kiss and handed Abby the bag. "I got them."

Abby squealed in delight and dug into the bag, tearing through the envelope inside to get to the photos within. She caught Ziva's hand as the former Mossad officer walked back from hanging up her jacket and pulled her onto her lap so that Ziva was now straddling her thighs. Ziva smiled and brought Abby in for a long, slow kiss. "I miss you when you're not here."

"You were the one who wanted me to go get the pictures developed so that you could put them in your scrapbook, yes? It is not my fault that I did not know how to use the . . . photo maker machine." It was too dangerous to give the memory card to anyone to develop, so that left Ziva with the task of using one of the little photo machines to print them out herself. That machine was lucky that she had not been armed.

Abby smiled and leaned in for another kiss. "I love you, you know that?"

Ziva let her arms slide around Abby's neck as she played with the Goth's hair, which had been left down for her benefit. "I do. And you know that I love you too, yes?"

"Yes." Abby smiled. Now that Ziva was back she actually had someone to take pictures of and with. Although they were very pretty, it was a lot better than the pictures she took of trees and flowers, buildings and other people during her time alone in Paris. "You want to help me with it?" She did one city at a time, not going out to take pictures in a new city until the previous one's photos had been but into the scrapbook and created into brilliant pages full of life. They were heading to a new city tomorrow, so she had to get these pictures put in tonight.

"I always do, yes?"

"Yeah, but I didn't know if you had something else to do."

Ziva looked around the hotel room, still from her perch on Abby's lap. "Like what Abby?"

"I don't know – Ziva David do not sass me."

Ziva chuckled. "Sorry." She kissed Abby one last time and swung her leg over so that she could get off her lap. "I am just going to take a shower and then I will help."

"Okay." Abby nodded, turning back to the pictures. Her hair was still soaking wet from the shower she had taken while Ziva was out. "I'll sort through them and we can start when you're done."

Ziva locked the door behind herself and turned the water on, undressing as she waited for the water to warm up. It was getting harder and harder to hide this from Abby. She stepped under the warm water and slowly brought her hands to her stomach. It was nothing anyone would notice, but she could and that was enough. The longer she waited the more she knew it was going to hurt Abby. That was the last thing the ex-Mossad Officer wanted to do.

She knew that Abby tended to be a little over emotional - okay, so everyone who knew Abby for longer than three minutes knew that Abby was a highly emotional person. Ziva took her time toweling herself off to give herself some more time to think of what to say. She cursed her years of training for not allowing her to take more than a six minute shower.

"Hey Ziva you okay in there?" Abby put the photographs down and walked toward the bathroom. She turned the handle, but the door was locked. "Zi, what's going on?"

Ziva took a deep breath. "Nothing." She opened the door with a smile on her face, still toweling off her hair. "Is everything alright?"

Abby was confused. She was very in tune with people and their emotions and she could plainly see that something was wrong no matter how well Ziva thought she was hiding it. However, she also knew that pushing the Israeli about it when she wasn't ready wouldn't benefit anybody. "Yeah. I just . . ." She looked at Ziva and felt the former Mossad officer grow uncomfortable under her gaze. They both knew that Abby could see right through her. But they also knew that she would wait for Ziva to tell her. "I was wondering if you wanted to go out and get some dinner, but now I have a feeling that we should maybe call room service and order in?"

Here was her choice. Abby was offering to talk. If Ziva chose not to talk now then Abby wouldn't bring it up again until Ziva did. Just like she had offered to talk after Lt. Sanders had died, she would mention nothing of it again until Ziva came to her. Ziva had kept it a secret long enough. She slowly nodded.

Abby smiled sympathetically and reached for Ziva's hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. She knew Ziva wasn't good at talking about things, but she was learning and Abby was more than willing to be her teacher. She left Ziva at the doorway and walked into the sitting room to grab the menu.

When Ziva could hear Abby ordering their dinner she crept over into the bedroom and over to the closet where her jacket was hanging and grabbed the small bag out of her pocket, quickly returning to the bathroom and relocking the door behind herself. Abby wouldn't talk to her again until their food arrived, so the Israeli had time. Abby would make sure Ziva had time to collect her thoughts and figure out what to say.

The test was done about half an hour before the food arrived, but Ziva remained in the bathroom until Abby called her. Same result, same problem. Only this problem was now 1/3rd of the way into being. She'd been hiding it from Abby for two months, but it was time for that all to end. She walked into the sitting room where the table was and sat down across from Abby. The past two months had been amazing for both of them despite being constantly on the move, but it was time to face the music.

There can never be too much good, Ziva remembered. It shifts the balance too much to one side and builds up the bad behind an invisible wall that just waits for the perfect opportunity to come crashing down. It was better to talk about the bad as it came, thus maintaining the balance. She knew in her heart that if she had waited any longer Abby would leave her. She was sure of it. Although she was having a hard time believing that Abby would want to stay with her no matter when she told her. It was her pessimistic Mossad training. Never trust anyone, prepare for the worst, let go…

"We need to talk." She began.

Abby put her fork down and gave Ziva her full attention. "I just want to tell you I'm not going anywhere. Even if you're here to tell me that you're leaving me," She chuckled; she knew it wasn't that. "You will have a pretty hard time of doing it because I'm not going to let you. I'm very likely to handcuff myself to you – even though I know you learned how to get out of them on like your first day of junior Mossad training camp or whatever when you were like ten" She joked. "I will find a way. Even if that seems all stalkerish, which thinking about it now, it does, but what can I say." She smiled, ending her rant. "You're stuck with me."

"I am not leaving you." Ziva looked down at her hands for a second, gathering strength, then back up at Abby. "Although when I tell you you will want to leave me."

Abby shook her head and moved her chair next to Ziva, reaching out to take her tanned hands in her own pale ones. "Never going to happen." She reached up and brushed the damp hair from Ziva's face. "You could tell me that on the way back from the picture place you killed twenty-five people and I would still love you. I would still stay. I would be pissed, but I would still love you and want to be with you."

"I'm pregnant." Ziva blurted out.

Abby nodded. "You could tell me that too and I would still stay."

"No, Abby." She reached into her pocket and showed Abby the positive pregnancy test. "I am pregnant."

Abby took the test and sat back in her chair. "Oh." She stared at the test. "How long have you known?"

"Two months."

Abby put the test down in front of her, her eyes still not able to leave it. "You've going two months knowing you're pregnant without anything? We need to get you prenatal care and there are vitamins, we have to schedule an appointment for tests to make sure that nothing is wrong with the baby-"

"Abby stop." Ziva took the test and put it off to the side out of Abby's sight.

"Have you even had an ultrasound?"

"Abby!" Ziva warned. While Abby was great at getting people to talk about their issues, she was also the queen of avoiding her own. Ziva being pregnant was both of their issue. However foreign a concept it was for her, Ziva needed to get Abby talking about how she was feeling and away from the topic of Ziva's lack of prenatal care.

"What Ziva? What do you want me to say?" She stood up and moved about the room. Walking around always helped Abby process things."You're pregnant."

"I am sorry that I did not tell you. We were happy, yes?"

Abby looked at Ziva and nodded. "We are happy." She continued pacing.

"It was another selfish action on my part. I wanted you all to myself and if I told you this it would have ruined that. I didn't want to start off our time like that. It was worse enough telling you about what happened in Russia."

"Bad enough." Abby corrected.

"Yes, thank-you. It was bad enough."

Abby folded her arms over her chest and stopped a few yards in front of Ziva. "Is the baby from the . . . the rape?"

"Yes." Ziva replied not even trying to hide the irritation in her voice. "That was the only time." She couldn't help being irritated. She had told Abby she did not have sex with anyone with the exception of what happened in Russia. She was supposed to be the one with the trust issues, not Abby.

"I'm sorry. It's just . . . you're pregnant Ziva."

"I found out the day I left Israel. Somehow my father found out and that was the last . . . stick- pencil, no . . . wood . . . hay?"

"Straw."

"Yes. It was the last straw. I didn't know what to do. I was alone and I was pregnant, from a . . ." Ziva bowed her head in shame. She was Mossad. She'd used sex as an interrogation technique, had sex with people she hadn't wanted to and even been forced a couple of times. But this was the only time that was refusing to let go. Ziva had learned pretty much right away how to cut herself off emotionally when she had sex to further a mission or an assignment, but the fact that she was currently carrying a child from one of these sex acts was throwing her into the deep end with a bunch of sharks waiting and no escape. It was refusing to let her cut herself off when that was all she wanted to do. "I was hoping it would all go away. That I would lose it and the decision would be made for me. It was stupid."

Abby walked over and sat back down in her chair next to Ziva.

Ziva bit her lip. She tried not to cry, but her body was not cooperating. "I was alone. I didn't know-"

Abby swallowed back her own tears and took Ziva in her arms. "Shhh, sweetie it's okay. We'll figure it out. You're not alone anymore. You're not alone."

"I couldn't have an . . . abortion. I couldn't. I made an appointment right after I found out, but I couldn't." She sobbed into Abby's strong arms. "Why can I so easily put a gun to someone's head and pull the trigger ending their life, yet I couldn't kill something that does not yet technically exist?"

"Because that something is a part of you Ziva."

"I am a trained assassin, a killer trained to act and not think."

Abby ran her hand along Ziva's damp, curly hair and placed a kiss on her forehead. "Not anymore you're not. You left Mossad and that life behind when you faked your death. But you are also a woman Ziva. This isn't something for Ziva the former Mossad agent." She brought her hand under Ziva's chin and guided her face up. "This is something for you, Ziva David, the woman I know and love."

"How can you still love me?"

It broke Abby's heart to hear Ziva saying such things. "I will always love you Ziva David." She kissed Ziva and pulled the former Mossad back into her arms. "We'll figure it out."

"Abby what are we doing?"

Abby pushed Ziva through the door. "We are figuring it out."

"By doing what, exactly?"

Abby pushed her into the elevator and pressed the button for the seventh floor. "We are getting you an ultrasound."

Ziva immediately jammed down on the emergency stop level. It was a habit. "It is too dangerous."

"Ziva, we have fake identities. And I called and booked you in under a different name than the other different names we're already using. We're leaving this city after the appointment anyway. What's the harm?" Ziva paced around the elevator. Abby reached out an arm and stopped her. "You need to see this baby. It will help you bond."

"What if I do not want to bond?"

Abby let out a slow breath. "Well then, if you're planning on giving the baby up for adoption-"

"I am not planning anything."

"I'm just saying that it would help to monitor the baby. To make sure that everything okay, that it's healthy. No matter what you're planning to do."

Ziva considered her words for a minute. She didn't want anything she did or didn't do to harm the baby. She flipped the switch back up. "One ultrasound. No tests or anything that would leave any trace that we were here. And once we get the picture I expect you erase all the information from the machine and the computer while I steal the file."

Abby smiled. Partly because Ziva wanted a picture of the baby and partly because she was actually doing something kind of like her work at NCIS. There was no evidence, no forensics or anything requiring processing, but there was a computer to be hacked and information to be deleted. And she would take it. She wrapped her arms around Ziva and squeezed as tight as she could without causing harm to the woman before her. "I thought you'd never ask."

"Many first time mothers also notice some difficulty with their emotions. More intensity to your feelings, many experience what we call 'the weepies' where they find themselves crying a lot more than is normal for them."

It clicked. "That is why I have been crying!" Ziva exclaimed. "That was not like me, I said it."

Abby nodded. "She did."

"This isn't going to last the entire time is it?" Ziva asked.

"Unfortunately there is no cure for that and as cruel as it sounds, you're just going to have to learn to manage. It's the hormones. Hopefully your body will get used to them as you get further into your pregnancy, but there is always the chance you won't. And as a first time Mom everything is new and unknown so it tends to confuse your body more than it would a mother who already has a child or two, although they can still experience such things."

Ziva rolled her eyes. "Fantastic." Abby rubbed Ziva's arm and offered her a smile.

"I sent the prescriptions for your prenatal vitamins down to the pharmacy as you asked." He began as he put his palm pilot away and rolled himself over to the ultrasound machine. "And if I can just ask you to lift up the gown, we can get a picture of your baby."

Abby was the first to see the baby. Ziva was looking in the other direction, right at Abby as she watched the reaction play out across the scientist's face. As a tear slid down the Goth's pale cheek Ziva reached up to brush it away. Abby took Ziva's hand in her own and placed a kiss on her knuckles, looking at Ziva until the Israeli slowly turned her head toward the monitor.

"Okay, first I am measuring how long your baby is and judging by that I am estimating that you are just entering your thirteenth week of pregnancy. Does that sound correct?" He looked over at Ziva.

Ziva took the hand Abby wasn't holding and wiped her eyes. She nodded. "Yes."

"Now there are a battery of other tests I am going to perform-"

"Tests?" Ziva looked at Abby alarmed. "What tests?"

The good doctor thought nothing unusual of the new mother's reactions. They heard test and automatically thought something was wrong. He chalked it up to that. "Just a few things that need to be checked for between the eleventh and thirteenth weeks and some that need to be checked between the tenth and fourteenth weeks. You have come at the perfect time."

Ziva relaxed and just stared at the monitor. The doctor was talking and explaining the measurements he was taking of the baby for the tests; one was used to detect genetic problems, another was checking the collection of fluid beneath the baby's skin in the area under the baby's neck to check for a plethora of chromosomal abnormalities, also one checking the spine to detect any serious case of spina bifida, there was another one checking for a visible nasal bone, one measuring the femur to detect any chance of chromosomal trisomy, and a bunch of other tests measuring the baby's head, its brain, heart and lungs and other vital organs, but Ziva wasn't listening to him. She was too wrapped up in the tiny life on the screen. Abby was into the science, so Ziva was sure that she would remember every little detail. That and the doctor was writing everything down on the chart she was going to steal later.

"If you would like to know the gende, the baby is in the perfect position."

"You can tell the gender this early?" Abby asked, clearly amazed with the machine.

The doctor nodded. "With modern equipment it is possible to find the gender as early as eleven weeks."

"No." Ziva interrupted. "I do not want to know."

"Okay." He turned back to the machine and went to write the sex down on the chart.

"And can you please not write it down on the chart? I do not want to be tempted to look."

He nodded and went back to the screen to measure something else. "Nice thick umbilical cord."

Ziva turned to Abby. "It looks so real." She whispered.

Abby chuckled. "It is real."

"No, I just . . . I didn't think it would look so . . . real." She turned back to the screen. "There's really a baby in there."

"You are hardly showing, but don't be surprised if you wake up one morning in the near future and it looks like you've swallowed a small watermelon. A lot of women just 'pop.'" The doctor said.

"Oh look, its sucking its thumb." Abby pointed out with a smile.

The doctor quickly pressed a few buttons. "I'll have that printed in no time." He handed Ziva a towel to wipe the gel off her belly and stood up. "This printer here isn't working so I'll just go pull the pictures up in another room and print them out. I'll be but a minute."

They waited until the door was shut to spring into action. Abby ran to lock the door, but there was no lock. "What kind of door doesn't have a lock?" Not knowing how much time they had and not wanting to be caught Abby sat down in front of the computer and started typing.

Ziva grabbed the file off the desk and shoved it into her bag, zipping it shut and putting it back down beside the exam table she was laying on. "How's it going?"

"He just printed the ultrasound pics, so I am deleting . . ." Her fingers were going a mile a minute. "Right-"

"Abby he's coming."

Abby whipped around just as the door opened.

The doctor walked in and handed the small black and white pictures to Ziva. Then he looked confused. "It seems that I have misplaced your chart."

"You took it with you when you left." Abby said, looking over at Ziva with a wink.

"Oh. Then I probably left it in the other room. Why don't you get dressed Ms. Todd and then I will meet you and your sister in my office in a minute." He turned and walked back out the door.

"That was close." Abby breathed a sigh of relief and turned back to the computer. A couple of keystrokes later she was done. Then she moved to the ultrasound machine and even though she had never worked with an ultrasound machine before, it was not hard to delete Ziva's name and all of the pictures. All of the measurements had been written down in the chart, so there was no need to keep all the pictures or print them out. They had the really cute ones the doctor had printed out. "Done."

Ziva slipped her shirt over her head. "Me too." She stuffed the hospital gown into her bag alongside her chart. They could leave absolutely no trace that they had ever been there. "The prescription."

"Ready in the pharmacy, but other than the actual bottle I deleted every trace."

Ziva kissed Abby. "We make a pretty good team."

Abby wrapped her arms around Ziva's neck and laughed. "That's what I've been trying to tell you."

Abby slipped into the hotel room as quietly as she could. Thirteen weeks with no nausea or vomiting at all. Three days on the prenatal vitamins and that seemed to be all Ziva could do. For now she was sleeping soundly and Abby tried her best to be quiet. Ziva was also getting really bad headaches which were preventing her from sleeping, so Abby was determined to be quieter than a mouse. But as much of a night owl as she was, it was hard to move around in the unfamiliar, pitch-black room.

"Maybe you should stop taking the pills."

"I want to do what is best for the baby."

"Yeah, well, whats best for the baby probably doesn't include you throwing up all the time."

Ziva pulled away from the toilet bowl and took a deep breath. "Perhaps it is just late morning sickness."

"Or maybe it's the pills." Abby insisted.

Ziva took another deep breath and took the bottle of ginger ale Abby was holding out and took a tentative sip. Their conversation ended as she was overcome with an overwhelming urge to throw it right back up."

"I missed you."

Abby turned toward the bed. "I'm sorry. I was trying to be quiet."

"You were." Ziva said, laying still on the bed and not even opening her eyes. She found a position in which her headache and nausea was gone, so she was quite content to spend the next few months in that very spot. "I was very thoroughly trained."

"I'm sorry." Abby apologized again, carefully taking the things out of the bag so that the wrinkling of the bag did not make too much noise. "How are you feeling?"

Ziva slowly opened her eyes, locking them on Abby's across the room. "Something's missing."

Abby was on it. "What do you need? I just got Ginger Ale and crackers and-"

"Abby." Ziva interrupted.

Abby stopped. "Yeah?"

"Come here."

Abby set the Ginger Ale and crackers aside and walked over to the bed.

"Take off your shoes."

Abby chuckled, but took off her shoes all the same. Then she crawled in behind Ziva and gathered the Israeli in her arms. "Better?" She asked.

Ziva melted into Abby's arms. "Yes."

"I picked up something else while I was out."

"Hmm?"

"I got the baby a scrapbook."

Ziva smiled, but sleep was calling her so that was as much of a reaction as she could give.

"We don't know what the baby is, so it's light blue with a yellow duck in the center and lots of bubbles all over." She looked at Ziva's sleeping form in her arms and closed her own eyes. They hadn't seriously talked since the night Ziva told her she was pregnant and Abby hadn't expressly told her, but they were in this together. "I'm here for you Ziva. We'll get through this together."

Ziva moved within Abby's arm, turning so that she was facing Abby. Sleepily she leaned up and placed a soft kiss on Abby's lips and snuggled deeper into her embrace. "Thank-you."

"Am I being selfish?"

"Uh," Abby pulled the covers down and turned on her side to face Ziva. "What do you mean?"

"Am I being selfish having this baby? We don't get to go around telling all our friends, we don't get to paint a nursery, who knows how long we are going to have to keep moving. Is it selfish bringing an innocent child into this?"

"I think that all this baby really needs is you. I think all any child really needs is their mother. And yeah, when he or she gets older it would probably be a good idea for us to settle down somewhere, but we have time. Maybe someplace warm. Ooh, maybe on the beach. But far enough away from the water so that, you know, it's not dangerous for the baby. Or in the woods. I love the woods. Less chance of nosey neighbors or passerbys if you're surrounded by hundreds of trees. Children are amazingly adaptable."

Ziva pinned Abby to the bed, swinging her leg over to straddle the Goth woman and brought her own lips down to meet Abby's. She was feeling much better this morning. "We'll figure it out, yes?"

Abby reached up with one hand on either side of Ziva's face and brought the Israeli's lips back down to hers. "Oh yeah."

A/N: I wasn't originally planning to turn this into a baby fic, but I like babies and I like baby fics. I work with little ones, so it's only natural I can't get them out of my mind. My muse likes them too. She thinks they're cute, but likes them much better in fics than in real life. She thinks they're too noisy in real life - which is sometimes true. However, since she gave me this idea and she tends to go on week or even month-long vacations if I don't listen to her I just went with it. Hope ya'll enjoyed this chapter!