"Why do we have to do this?" Tony groaned as he sped down the highway. "Why couldn't you just do it?"

"I do not know, Tony," Ziva said from the passenger seat, sifting through the bag in her lap. "Perhaps Gibbs thought it was a job for two people."

"What if it-"

"What did I tell you about calling Isabella an it?"

"What if she wakes up?"

Ziva glanced over her shoulder at the toddler sleeping in the backseat. "Then she wakes up, Tony. Honestly, are you afraid of a three-year-old?"

He sighed. "Kids just make me… a little…"

"Nervous."

"No!"

"Yes. Very small children make you nervous, Tony. The older ones, you can handle, but you avoid the young ones like the sage."

Tony tore his eyes away from the road just long enough to glare at her. "Plague. And how much longer am I stuck in this car with you?"

Ziva glanced at the GPS on Tony's console and cheerfully announced, "Two hours and thirty minutes." She smirked, kicked off her shoes, and propped her feet up on the dashboard. "My little hairy butt."

They were on their way back from a small town in Virginia. They had gone there to get Isabella, whose single father was a suspect in a current investigation, and take her to her grandmother's house in D.C. Tony had begged Gibbs to send McGee instead of him, but McGee was apparently needed to do some computer thing.

And so here they were.

"Oh, no," Tony said as Ziva leaned her head back. "You are not going to sleep. No way am I listening to your snoring for two hours."

"I am just resting my eyes, Tony."

"Uh-huh," he said warily. "Keep 'em open, Ziva."

For twenty minutes, it was pretty quiet; every time Ziva closed her eyes, Tony reached over and poked her in the side, and his "ouch" when she slugged him in the arm was the only thing anybody said. At least, until a small voice said, "I'm hungry."

Tony groaned under his breath; Ziva hit him, in the gut this time, and turned around to smile at Isabella. "I have your bag right here. There's animal crackers and cookies. Do you want them both?"

"Yes, please."

She took out the two packages, opened them, and gave them to the little girl. Isabella munched happily for a few seconds before saying, "Why doesn't Daddy take me to Grandma's?"

Tony looked at Ziva, who said, "Your daddy asked us to please take you for him. He's a little busy."

"What's he doing?"

"He has a lot of work to do."

This seemed to satisfy Isabella, who hummed as she finished her Oreos. Tony exhaled, relieved. At least, until the child said, "I need to use the bathroom."

Ziva turned to Tony, grinning at the look on his face. "You heard her. Let's go."

0000000000

Tony sat in the parking lot of a busy gas station, watching the swinging glass doors. Many people had entered and exited the building in the ten minutes since Ziva had taken Isabella inside. He would be worried, except that he saw them pass by three times. Each time, he started to turn the car on, only to see them disappear once again.

They passed by a fourth time, but, again, did not leave. Tony, completely fed up, yelled, "What the hell are they doing?" and lay on the horn, not caring that everyone within a fifty foot radius turned to stare at him.

Sure enough, ten seconds later, Ziva came hurrying outside with Isabella on her hip, giving Tony a very nasty look. She opened the door to the backseat and began to buckle the little girl in. "Cut it out, Tony."

"You were in there for ten minutes! What were you doing?"

Ziva handed Isabella another package of Oreos and shut the back door. Then she crawled into the passenger seat beside him and said, "I braided my hair while we were in the bathroom, and she saw me and begged me to braid hers too. A French braid. Those take longer."

"Uh-huh," Tony said, as if he knew the differences between types of braids.

"And then we left the bathroom, and I asked if she wanted something else to eat, and she wandered around for five minutes trying to figure out what she wanted. And she just got Oreos again! After all that, she could have gotten something a little more original," Ziva ranted, lowering her voice toward the end so Isabella wouldn't hear her.

He grinned and finally started the car. As he backed out, he said, "You know, you're pretty good with kids. For an assassin."

"I am no longer an assassin," she snapped.

"For a former assassin," he quickly amended.

Ziva lowered her eyes and looked out the window. "I have always been good with kids."

Her soft voice and sudden inability to meet his eyes alerted Tony to the fact that they were venturing too close to her past, too close to hard topics. They talked about them sometimes, when they were alone. But now, with a three-year-old in the backseat and the possibility of Gibbs calling any minute, was not the time.

So he settled for reaching over and seizing her hand, lacing his fingers through hers and squeezing tight. Ziva managed a tight smile and squeezed back. They kept their hands there, in her lap, and Isabella began chattering happily in the back.

The innocent conversation of a toddler was not anything Tony had appreciated before, but he saw Ziva's face light up, and so now he did. Anything that made her eyes shine like that was fine by him. And, really, she was right to find comfort in it… the longer he listened to Isabella, the more peaceful he felt.

That is, until she paused briefly, then declared, "I gotta go to the bathroom again."

Hope you liked. Just something that came to me while I was hiding in the bathroom at a wedding reception the other night. Review, please!