=] Is NCIS on this Tuesday? Sucks if it isn't.

Anyway, Chapter 14 for you! Hope you enjoy. x

Chapter Fourteen

It was five weeks since Tony and Ziva had made out in the elevator and the time for McGee and Abby's wedding was closing in. Tim had chosen Tony for his best man and Abby had asked for Ziva and several of her other friends out of NCIS to be her bridesmaids. Abby had also requested that alongside her own father she wished for Gibbs to give her away. All of them had accepted gladly. Abby had been adamant for several weeks that Ben should carry the rings but as Abby hadn't yet taught him how to keep the pillow upright while he stood she had reluctantly allowed Tony to look after the rings.

Tim had been coming in to work extremely tired of late due to the stresses of having an overbearing future wife who couldn't decide on the colour of the flowers. Tony had found this extremely funny until Tim had made a point that Ziva might want to get hitched although Ziva seemed to be more concerned about his comment than Tony it nevertheless shut Tony up, temporarily at least. The team had long since decided the wedding would have been perfect if those they had lost had been there. Abby had fixed two picture frames for the wedding one containing a photo of Kate, the other a photo of Jenny the picture frames were currently gracing Abby's desk.

It was closing in on September when Ziva got an unusual phone call, although it seemed unusual she had been receiving the call from the same person on and off for over a year now. She had been confused the first time it had happened merely a woman's voice she recognised giving her a date and time to meet. Ziva did and was met by a most unusual sight. She was now used to the phone calls, although they rarely asked for a meet as the person was rarely in the same country as Ziva. However this time the caller gave Ziva a date, time and location but before the caller could hang up Ziva managed to get out a sentence.

"DC? You are in DC?" She shot out over the phone, Tony and Tim both looked over to her trying to gauge her reaction, she had only ever used that tone of voice when Darren had called once to tell her that Lissy had taken Ben to the park Ziva was obviously panicked and demanded Darren go with her.

"Yes, I am. You are not very subtle Ziva."

"Sorry Lexi, You shocked me."

"Shocked you? Motherhood made you soft Zee. Give my love to Ben but I must go. Blue belle café, Saturday 10 A.M." Lexi said before hanging up the phone, Ziva grumbled before putting her own phone down. Tony and Tim were still watching her.

"Who was that Zeevah?" Tony asked her.

"Old friend who got back in contact last year, we meet up sometimes." The two nodded at Ziva's answer it satisfied both of them sufficiently. Although Ziva had been telling them the truth it had not been the whole truth and she felt her 'friend' was putting her in a rather awkward position. Ziva put it to the back of her mind, it was less than 48 hours when she could see her long lost friend and let her know this. She faced her paperwork and began typing away on her computer.

The next two days passed by quickly and soon Ziva was getting ready to go out on Saturday morning. She got Ben ready and headed downstairs to go and get him some breakfast. Darren had offered to take Ben to the Zoo but Ziva had told him she would be taking him to the Blue Belle café to meet a friend. He had asked the friends name and when Ziva told him he frowned about to begin a lecture but she put her hand up to silence him while going to check on the bread she had thrown in to the toaster.

By 9.30 she had left the house, Ben was secured in the back seat. It only took twenty minutes to get to the café and so Ziva was early. She decided to buy Ben a drink while she bought herself a coffee, she sat at a table at the back of the café her eyes focussed on the door. Ben was happily sloshing chocolate milkshake everywhere. At exactly ten o clock a tall and thin blonde woman walked in to the room. She was wearing a pretty blue pinafore dress with tights. Her long blonde hair was curled falling past her shoulders. The woman put her hand to her eyes pulling off the large aviator sunglasses disguising her eyes. She smiled when she saw Ziva and swiftly made her way towards her.

Ziva stood up to greet the woman, embracing each other in a hug. The woman smiled at Ben and stroked his hair before commenting on how big he was. The two women sat down at the table and the newcomer hailed a waitress to order a coffee with milk and cream.

"Although I could do with bourbon." She joked as the waitress left to get her coffee.

"Actually, I think a trip to the hairdressers might be more useful. Your roots are showing." Ziva smiled pointing to the top of the woman's head where a subtle hint of red hair was beginning to show through.

"Oh I don't like being blonde anyway. I'm going to dye it to my natural colour." Ziva raised her eyebrows.

"Um, Lexi? If you do that and then start walking around DC somebody will recognise you."

"I'm so fed up Ziva." Lexi stopped talking as the waitress came back with her coffee; she smiled and thanked her handing over a handful of notes to pay for the drink. "I want to be me again."

"You can not just be you again. Did you not go through all of this for a reason Lexi?" Ziva asked of her friend. Lexi shrugged taking a sip out of her coffee. The two were silent for a while as Ziva tried to distract Ben as he had begun fussing, she tried to clean him up from the milkshake he had consumed but his waving arms made it too difficult so she gave up and turned back to Lexi.

"So, what are you doing?" Lexi just stared at Ziva, not sure how to answer her. Eventually she uttered a response in to her coffee cup.

"I don't know. I didn't exactly think this whole thing through. I mean I did think about it, for twelve hours. I don't know, I should have come back sooner but I was enjoying the freedom the ability to walk down a street without feeling the need to carry a gun. I just want that back now. Life isn't the same now."

"Tell me about it." Ziva muttered who was trying once more to clean up Ben, although this time she was doing a better job of it. Lexi laughed at Ziva, which startled Ziva into looking at her friend as if she had lost her mind. "What?" She asked.

"You. You're a mother. I mean you're actually a mother. Ziva David who knows how to kill with almost anything and she is currently trying to raise a child. Never thought I would see the day."

"You and me both. Actually, most of NCIS too."

Lexi smiled before her face fell. She pondered something internally for a while as Ziva managed to clean the rest of Ben enough for him to respectably go out in public. By the time the two old friends had finished their coffee Lexi had come to a decision. She persuaded Ziva to go with her to a salon on the edges of DC so she could get her hair dyed. Ziva agreed reluctantly.

In the salon Lexi had persuaded Ziva to get her own hair cut and styled she actually bribed her telling her she would pay for it and that it would make her feel so much better about herself. Ziva eventually caved and a little while later had about three inches chopped off the bottom of her hair and had plenty of layers cut into her hair. The stylist had washed blow-dried and straightened her hair Ziva was immensely happy with her new look and seemed to be glad Lexi had made her get it done. Next was Lexi's turn.

She sat in the chair and asked to see the hair dye colours. When they came around she immediately flicked to the red section, picked out a lovely deep coppery red. The stylist nodded her head and went to go and mix the colours. Ziva and Lexi talked for a while as Ben played in the corner with several toy army people the receptionist had supplied for the boy. When the stylist came back Ziva left to go and sit with her son as Lexi got her new hair colour. When the stylist had dyed and washed her hair she gave it a quick trim but kept most of the length on it as Lexi had said she much preferred having longer hair to her shorter hair.

When she had dried and curled Lexi's hair, Lexi went over to the receptionist to pay for their appointments. Within a few minutes the three where in Ziva's car heading back across town, Lexi kept looking at herself in the mirror and smiling. Ziva kept glancing at her out of the corner of her eye and laughing at her.

"Stop laughing. It's good to be red again." Ziva laughed more.

"I'm not laughing at you. I'm happy you are happy." Lexi grinned at her friend glad they were that now, friends. They had gone through a phase a few years ago were their relationship had become much more professional instead of friendly. Lexi regretted this and she knew Ziva did too, they had put their lives in the other's hands entirely and had therefore becoming incredibly close. Lexi knew most of Ziva's past and Ziva knew most of Lexi's. She regretted lying to her friend, she had put her through hell for a year and she knew it.

Although the thing she regretted most was not knowing about Ben until three months after he was born. Lexi looked in the mirror and saw as Ben wriggled in his car seat attempting to make himself more comfortable. Lexi had timed Ziva's pregnancy and realised that the last time she had seen her she would have been pregnant, yet Ziva had never tried to tell her. This had hurt Lexi but she had long since decided she had done a much worse thing to Ziva and several other people who she loved and who had once loved her.

Ziva stopped the car outside of a hotel. Lexi looked up frowned and then looked back at Ziva.

"Please. Like I didn't find out where you are staying. I tried to keep tabs on you after last year just in case you did not call again." Lexi laughed before stepping out of the car. Ziva followed suit leaving Ben in the back. She walked around to the other side of the car and gave Lexi a hug, which Lexi reciprocated.

"Please do not do anything stupid Lexi." Ziva said hugging her friend all the harder.

The newly redheaded Lexi laughed flicked her hair out of her face before replying to her friend.

"I won't don't worry Zee. Don't do anything stupid yourself; you have that gorgeous little boy in there to live for." She added pointing to Ben in the backseat who was starting to whimper wanting to get out of the car as well. "You will see me soon, sooner than you might think. So just be safe, look out for everybody for me."

"I promise." Ziva laughed, feeling like her mother was giving her a lecture. "Though I can not promise not worrying. I do that a lot these days."

Lexi laughed before giving Ziva one last hug and turning her back on her friend to walk in to the hotel she pulled her bag up on to her shoulder and turned her head back over her shoulder smiling at Ziva.

"Bye Lexi." Ziva said with a jovial wave.

"Jenny." Lexi replied.

"What?"

"Call me Jenny, Zee. It is my name."