Holding Onto Hope
AN: Thanks again to Debbie and my guest reviewer for your words of encouragement.
To "been done before," thanks for taking the time to stop, read, and review, but I guess since you think the summary gives away the whole story, you already know what's going to happen so you won't have to read the rest of the story.
Now, onto chapter 3….
Ch 3
To say he was shocked was an understatement. 'A child? I have a child. I have a daughter with Ziva David.
"Our, uh, our daughter?"
"Yes Tony, our daughter."
Ziva was frozen in time as she waited for Tony to speak again. She was afraid he would yell at her, be mad that she had not told him about his daughter sooner, or, even worse, kick her out and tell her he never wanted to see her or their child. She wouldn't let her mind wander into positive territory, too worried about getting her hopes up only to have everything fall to the ground.
After several minutes of complete silence, Ziva was getting up to leave when questions started pouring from Tony's lips.
"What's her name? When was she born? What does she look like? What's she like?"
Ziva was taken aback by his positive and excited response. She decided to start with the simple questions first.
"Well, for starters, her name is Tikva Armonie and she was born May 28, 2014."
"Tikva Armonie. Is it Hebrew?"
"Tikva is, it means hope. And Armonie is Italian. It means 'priceless gift from God.'"
"You obviously put a lot of thought into her name, I mean, those aren't exactly common."
"Well, I wanted her name to mean something, and it only seemed fitting that it represented both sides of her heritage. After I first found out I was pregnant with her, she gave me hope that I could become a better person; I became a creator of life, not a destroyer of it. When I had her, I wondered what you would think of her, what you would want to name her, then I remembered what you said to me when I was with Ray, 'handle with care, contents priceless' and I just knew what her middle name had to be."
"She has a beautiful name. I love it. Do you have any pictures of her?"
"Of course. I brought all of her baby photographs. I also brought my pregnancy album, that is, if you would like to see it."
"I'd love to Ziva."
At his response, Ziva stands from the couch and retrieves her bag she left at his front door. Sitting back down, this time closer to Tony, she pulls out first her pregnancy album, then Tikva's album.
"Which one would you like to start with?"
"How about the pregnancy album? I've always wondered what a pregnant Ziva would look like."
"Well then, I guess now you will see." The first picture they come to is of Ziva and a woman who was one of her friends. "This is Alvina. I met her and her husband about a month after you left. She was pregnant at the time with their fourth child, a little boy. She was the first person I told that I was expecting. They were both extremely helpful. She gave me a lot of advice about the pregnancy and her husband took all of my maternity photos."
Tony continues looking through the album, making comments here and there about how beautiful she looked, watching as Ziva's baby bump grew from non-existent until she was about to pop. He comes across two photographs that completely take his breath away.
"Wow Ziva, these pictures are beautiful, they're… breath-taking. How far along were you there?"
"That was about a week before she was born. I had realized that I wanted some intimate pictures to give to you. So, I set up the camera in my room and, well, these were the result."
"I'm… thank you Ziva, I love them. And thank you for thinking of me."
"Tony, I thought of you every day. You are the father of this child and I wanted to have something to give you whenever I came back."
"So, why did you wait until now to come back? Why didn't you come back when you first found out, or even after she was born?"
"I will answer all of those questions soon Tony, I promise. But first, would you like to see pictures of your daughter?"
"Ziva David I thought you'd never ask."