Since I have no witty disclaimer I'm going to be downright boring and say yup, sad but true NCIS is not mine and the whole disclaimer doo dad is on the first page.
Once again, I'm sorry it's been taking me a bit longer to update. I'm a slow writer. But I'd rather post something I'm happy with than anything at all just for the sake of posting quickly. Thanks Again for reading! Jeanne
X
Tony pushed through the foyer and bumped into Gibbs and Calloway coming through the front door.
"Food run?" Gibbs asked with a smile.
"Pad Thai." He said humorlessly.
"Get a couple of other things." Calloway said. "She's probably going to change her mind by the time you get back."
"Okay." As long as it's not about sex she can change her mind all she wants.
His mind drifted back to Ziva, nude, fingering the bed ties. How much longer would she be thin enough to fit under him? And how exactly did one make love to a heavily pregnant woman anyway? There was probably some strategy involved. Spooning, perhaps. Or she'd have to get up on all fours. Although something told him there was only so long she'd go for that. Probably, almost definitely, it was going to have to be spooning. Unless he just relinquished the top to her for the months to follow. He made a mental note to ask Abby if there was something worth trying, and immediately scrapped the idea. He didn't want to have to picture a nude McGee in all his glory.
The sharp report of gunfire snapped him from his reverie, two sets of two shots reverberated down the stairs.
He took the steps two at time. He stuck his key in the lock and twisted the knob. The heavy door didn't budge. He backed up to slam it with his body. Gibbs joined him. Together their combined weight popped it open and they half fell into the empty room.
Tony's hand went immediately to his service revolver. "Ziva!"
"Here." Shouted Sarah from the bathroom. "Call an ambulance."
"On it." Camie said.
Ambulance? His heart knocking against his ribs, he raced into the bathroom.
Ziva lay nude, sprawled on the damp bathroom tile. Inches from her pale body, James Liptak slumped against the wall. He groaned and clutched his chest. Blood burbled at his lips.
Sarah trained her pistol him. Her eyes darted between him and Ziva. "Call an ambulance." She repeated, her voice eerily steady.
"Done." Camie called from the bedroom. "On the way."
With a raspy wet cough Ziva rolled herself onto her side. She coughed again, hard, drawing her legs up to her chest.
Gibbs trained his gun on Liptak. "DiNozzo. Sarah. I have him. Help her."
Tony eased her upright. He waited for another round of coughing to stop before helping her to her feet.
"I'm okay." She mumbled into his chest. Then she felt it: warm, sticky, viscous liquid trickling down her inner thigh. Please tell me it's not what I think it is, right in front of Gibbs and my mother. You'd think the bath would have taken care of that. This just keeps getting better and better.
Tony steered her to the bed. "You need to lay down."
"Left side." Sarah said. "Put her on her left."
He stretched her out on the bed and helped her pull a nightshirt. "Camie get a towel. I want to try and stop the bleeding.
Ziva touched her scalp. "Head wound. Always bleeds a lot."
"No. Honey. That's not what I mean."
She reached down to touch the substance on her leg. Her fingers came up bright red. Don't. Panic. Don't panic. Don'tpanicdon'tpanicdon'tpanic. "Oh God."
"Here." Camie handed him a bathsheet.
"Ungh." Ziva grunted as Tony applied pressure. He had no idea if it was helping but it gave him something to do. He stroked her cheek with his free hand."Have you thought of any names?"
"No." The light hurt her eyes. She let them flicker closed before forcing herself to reopen them.
"Where do you want to look for an apartment? How about something by a park? It would be nice to have a place to run around with…"
She yawned and closed her eyes.
"Hey. Don't fall asleep." He shook her shoulder. Where the hell were the paramedics?
The jangle of the gurney brought his attention to the corner. Thank God. "They're here." He lifted her shirt and kissed her abdomen before kissing her full on the mouth.
She returned his kiss lightly. "Don't say it."
"I love you."
X
"My handcuffs are tight."
"Did you hear something Special Agent Calloway?"
"I think he said he needs me to tighten his cuffs." Camie got up from her plastic chair beside Liptak's hospital bed. She seized his wrist and tightened the bracelet connecting him to the bedrail. He didn't make any sound but to her delight his eyes watered. "You're going to love it when they do the cavity search every night before lights out in Leavenworth. That's if you don't fry for it. Personally, I'm on the fence with which I like better."
Gibbs sipped his coffee. "The chair or nightly cavity searches? Tough call."
"You don't scare me." Liptak said.
"Didn't think we did."
Sarah appeared in the doorway. She strode silently across the room and halted by the foot of Liptak's bed. She reminded Gibbs of a serpent: Calm, cool, collected, anticipating the strike. "Has he answered all of your questions to your satisfaction?"
"One more time. For the record." Calloway said. "Tell us how you evaded Mr. Teeth."
"The bitch slipped." He jerked his head at Sarah. "When the two of them caught her I swam away. They never saw me."
Gibbs smiled. "Well I'm satisfied. Are you Calloway?"
"Quite." She stood and scooped her backpack off of the chair. "Can I interest you in the cafeteria? I hear they serve a mean tuna casserole."
Alone with Liptak, Sarah fingered her Star of David. Her hand dropped to her side. "The bitch is my daughter."
X
Tony sat with his head in his hands in the little waiting room adjacent to the ICU. He'd been kicked out of Ziva's room by a flurry of nurses and doctors who'd refused to tell him anything. He could hear them now jabbering in low urgent tones. For one of the few times in his life he felt small, powerless and alone
Sarah sank into the chair beside him. She placed her hand between his shoulder blades. "It wasn't your fault."
"Still feels like it."
"Always will."
A loud beeping sounded from Liptak's room. Nurses with a crash cart rushed by, their crepe soled shoes making little noise on the tile floor.
Sarah smiled her half smile. "He outlived his usefulness."
Any other day he would have laughed. "I hate this."
She pulled a bottle of water from her backpack and offered it to him. "I don't think there's a person on earth who doesn't."
He drained the bottle and tossed it into the near by bin. "How did you know she was in trouble?"
"I heard her talking to you, and then it was too quiet. And she didn't answer when I called her."
"I wasn't in the bathroom with her."
"I know. Like I said. It was too quiet."
He looked quizzically at her.
"You make a lot of noise when you have sex."
"I'm not sure which is weirder. That you know. Or that I'm not weirded out that you know."
She fingered her Star of David. "Ziva's my daughter. The banana didn't fall far from the tree."
"The apple. Although. I guess with what we're talking about you could say-you know what? Never mind."
A doctor who looked entirely too young to be saving lives entered the room. He adjusted his stethoscope around his neck. "I'm Doctor Miles. Are you Mrs. David's husband?"
Tony stood and rubbed his sweaty palms against his jeans. "We're not married I'm her... I'm her boyf…" he gulped. "The baby is ours."
"My mistake. She's got a mild concussion and her English was a bit difficult to understand."
"How is she?" he asked.
"Both mother and baby are doing well. She has a tiny tear in the placenta that should resolve itself in a few weeks. Until then, she's on bed rest. No getting up except to use the bathroom, and no activity of any sort. Now if you'll follow me, she's asking for you." He led them down the hall.
The entirely too young Dr. Miles pulled aside the curtain. "Miss David, your family is here. Miss David?"
A blanket lay discarded on the bed. Her nightshirt was still crumpled on a chair in the corner.
"She was due to be moved. They must have already come." Dr. Miles squinted at his chart.
"They haven't." Tony lifted a small black and white picture from the tangle of the blankets. He traced his finger gently across the baby's profile. It had her nose. "Close down the hospital. She's been abducted. She never would have left this behind."
"Abducted?" Dr Miles said. "Impossible."
Sarah grabbed him by the front of his lab coat and hauled him up on his toes. "Close down the hospital."
"I'll alert security." He gushed. He hurried from the room.
Sarah seized Tony's arm and steered him down the hall. "We're going to find her." Stress and fatigue made her accent thicker.
"We don't even know where to start." He was surprised to hear the pessimism in his voice.
"We'll think of something." She flipped open her phone and spoke in rapid Hebrew. He couldn't understand the words but the meaning was clear. Help.
"Gibbs." He said.
She tightened her grip on his elbow. "He can catch up."
She pushed him into the elevator and punched the button to close the door. "There is good news."
"I'm listening."
"Hannah wants the baby."
"Which means she has to keep Ziva alive."
Sarah nodded.
"And the bad news?"
"Bad news?"
"The bad news you're not telling me because you're doing the same little expression thing Ziva does when she wants me to guess but doesn't want to say anything. Yes. Give me the bad news."
"Still and Rest are not words that spring to mind when you think of Ziva. She might not be pregnant for long."
He lifted the picture and stroked it lightly with his fingertip. "Hang in there kid."
X
The snapping sensation deep in her abdomen woke her. "Knock it off kid." She groaned. "I hurt." Hurt was an understatement. Her entire body felt stiff and sore. Her head throbbed. Her eyes felt entirely too big for their sockets. She forced herself to open them and squinted into the light. She sat up. Something was off. She wasn't in the hospital.
The haze of pain cleared as adrenaline took over. The bedroom was not hers. The black maternity nightgown she wore was not hers. I must be dreaming. This has got to be a dream. Unarmed, alone, pregnant. It's a dream. Has to be.
She made a cursory inspection of the room. Double bed with fluffy bedspread. Closet full of maternity clothes she'd never shopped for. No window.
She tentatively pushed open the bedroom door. It gave onto a well lit loft apartment. By the look of it, it had once been the attic of an older home. Thick wooden beams ran between the brick walls. A small window let in the early morning light. A black leather sofa stood out against the white fluffy carpet. A piano occupied a chunk of the far wall, a large potted cactus in a heavy ceramic pot sat atop it. A pale wood coffee table held stacks of her favorite classic books and a pair of binoculars. Cold fear knotted in her stomach. This is not a dream.
She fled immediately to the apartment door. She ran her hands around the edges of the door in frustration. There was no lock to be picked. The hinges were on the outside and could not be forced apart. She pulled on the handle as hard as she dared. Bed rest. Flashed in her mind. Think of something else.
She turned her attention to the window. She pressed her face to the glass. No fire escape in reach of the window. No drainpipe to shimmy down. Just sheer brick. She tugged at the window sash only to realize it was bolted shut.
She snatched the cactus from the piano top and flung it against the glass. The ceramic pot erupted in a shower of pottery shards.
Cold hard rage kept the fear at bay as she wiped the dirt from the window. She pressed her face to the glass once more and focused on the street below. Five stories down, on a familiar tree lined street, life went on without her.
X
There's more Tiva coming up. And more Tiva sex. No worries. This is just the angsty part that makes the whole naked and sweaty part really good.
As always thank you for reading and thank you thank you for leaving a review. Let me know what you think! Jeanne