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NCIS

"DiNozzo. NOW!" Tony dutifully followed into Gibbs' personal office, while the others stayed in the squad room.

"Why were you here and not at home?" Gibbs said as he flipped the emergency stop switch.

"I get my best work done at night," Tony told his boss, only to receive a glare that made him squirm every time his boss gave it to him.

"Okay, so I needed a little break. I've only known about Lexi for six months Boss, and what little time I'm not working I'm with her. Don't get me wrong, she's a blessing, but sometimes I just wish it could go back to the way it was."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he realized what he said, "No, that's not what I mean…"

"DiNozzo." Gibbs' voice stopped him short. "That's normal, but next time make sure she has someone close."

"Jimmy was there and she's not 6."

"Jimmy wasn't there when she called McGee panicked. She's not any normal kid Tony. You are a special agent."

"What do you mean Palmer wasn't there?!?"

NCIS

Timothy McGee looked between the teenager and the Mossad Officer.

Experience told him not to ask difficult questions of Ziva without either Tony or Gibbs close by to either save him or distract her. So, for the moment, McGee ignored the obvious pregnancy.

Instead, McGee turned to Lexi. "Why were you alone at Tony's, Alexis?"

"You're Ziva then, right? Ziva David?" McGee just answered, annoyed at her completely ignoring him.

"Lexi, why were you alone?"

"I'd like to know the same thing," Tony said as he rounded the corner, poking at his phone. Palmer wasn't answering.

"The Ziva that everyone talks about?" Lexi continued, ignore both her father and uncle.

Tony sat down right in front of her, "Yes that Ziva, now where the hell was Palmer?"

Alexis's face looked at her father, trying to figure out why he had been so emphatic about this. "All you had to do was ask. Jimmy had a date, and he was about to miss it."

Tony's eyes widened a bit, before he bit out, "He left you alone for a date."

"Not exactly, I kind of pretending to call him," she said, pointing to McGee, "and convinced Jimmy to go on that Uncle Tim would be over in a few minutes. It wasn't Jimmy's fault."

"Uncle Tim?!?" Ziva's voice brought Tony back to the room.

"Ziva, I'd like you to meet my daughter, Antonia Alexis Coffman."

Ziva was genuinely surprised. Of all the things she had imagined since she heard the door in the back of her partner's house, this hadn't even occurred to her.

"It is nice to meet you Alexis."

"Glad to put a face to the name, you've been missed around here. They talk about you all the time. I'm going to leave you and dad to talk. Come on Uncle Tim, we can go listen to music in Aunt Abby's lab." She grabbed both McGee and Gibbs by the hand and basically pulled them down to the lab.

NCIS

"You have a daughter, Tony?" Ziva asked trying to hide the fact that she was completely thrown off-balance by this development.

"Yea, it's new. Her mother and stepfather died and I was on the birth certificate. Abby even checked the DNA. She's my daughter with a woman I was with in high school and college."

"She is a pretty girl, yes?"

"And too smart for her own good." DiNozzo added, before asking and trying not to look as uncomfortable as he felt. "How did the mission go?"

Tony had learned several things as an agent afloat.

He didn't do well with death.

He was on the verge of being a drunk when the guilt for what happened to Kate and Paula happened to Jenny too.

He realized that Abby and McGee had become his closest friends, because he missed them greatly the whole time he was on the ships.

Gibbs was the closest thing he had to a father in his life, and Tony saw just how much he needed that.

Most of all, though, Anthony DiNozzo realized he had never been in love with Jeanne Benoit. Jeanne was not the woman that he prayed for on the long nights when he was drowning in his own guilt.

"Gibbs asked the same thing. Is that what NCIS was told? I was on a mission for Mossad?" Ziva questioned. She had yet to stand up and Tony had not seen that she was pregnant.

"That's what Vance said, but I don't trust that guy as far as the Autopsy Gremlin could throw him," Tony answered showing that he was a little upset that Jimmy left Lexi alone.

"Tony," Ziva said, standing where Tony finally saw that she was pregnant, "When Abba found out I was pregnant, he locked me in a room with guards. It took months for me to get out. Mossad is coming after me. I thought I could hide in your house, but apparently…"

"We'll make room." Tony cut her off.

"You are just getting to know your daughter Tony. I cannot get in the path of that."

"Way," Tony added automatically. "Lexi's a smart kid, and I'm sure she won't mind." Not that that would make much of a difference if Ziva's in danger.

"I can find somewhere else Tony."

"Not a chance Zee-vah." It was almost easy to fall back into their normal bickering.

NCIS

Alexis watched Tony and Ziva interact from behind the stairs. They seemed to fit perfectly. She had been told by Abby just how well they worked together, and McGee said one without the other was pretty much insufferable.

Lexi knew it was selfish, but part of her wanted to latch onto her dad and not let go. Everything that happened to her mother just made her want to grab onto the only family she had left and never let go.

She knew now what she had guessed from the journal entry. Her dad, Tony DiNozzo, was in love with Ziva David.

Ziva looked nice enough, and she had heard so much from everyone from Abby to Ducky. The problem came in the fact that the last time she had someone romantically involved with a parent he killed her mother.

When they had left the squad room, Uncle Tim had expressed wildly how annoyed he was that she had ignored him. Lexi had simply told him she didn't hear him, and it wasn't a lie. She hadn't quite told her new family everything about her yet.

Especially the full extent of what had actually gone on with her step-father. They didn't know that he had deafened her one night in the middle of his rage, not completely, but there were certain things that she just could not hear.

Her doctor said that she was going to slowly lose her hearing. He had nearly destroyed her eardrums. She was already getting better at reading lips.

She'd also asked Abby to help her learn sign language under the slim chance that she might meet Abby's parents someday.

No one knew she had as much trouble as she did, especially when her dad starting ranting about some movie. He spoke way too quickly for her to catch everything.

NCIS

Gibbs had been calling out to Lexi from behind her for a couple of minutes. Sometimes he wondered if she inherited the DiNozzo gene for daydreaming or if there was something more going on with her.

He finally sat down beside the teenager, "What are you looking at, Lexi?"

She smiled, "You're not going to give them a lecture about one of your infamous rules, are you Uncle Gibbs?"

"Should I?" Gibbs asked, probing her like he did Abs when she was upset.

"They love each other." Gibbs stare told her to go on. "Is she coming back to work at NCIS?"

"Right now, no. She's going to be in protective custody, but it can't be with me. I took her last time. They will look at my place first. So, it goes to either your dad or Tim."

"Dad would be better at protection detail right?" Gibbs nodded a little. "Well then I'll sleep on the couch tonight."

"Lexi?" Gibbs voice always seemed to ask questions and somehow she understood this one. He'd been watching her closely and most everything she understood was by staring at his lips.

Lexi chose to ignore the question, and pretend he was asking something else. The best defense is the easiest: deny, deny, deny.

"I'm okay with it, Gibbs. They obviously care for each other. It's in the way they interact. A two year old could figure it out. Anything else would be really selfish. It's okay."

Somehow she knew she was trying to convince herself rather than her dad's father-figure.

Gibbs shouted down to the squad room. "DiNozzo, protection detail. Go home. It's one a.m. and your daughter has school tomorrow."