Chapter 5

Ziva stood on the outside of her apartment. She traced the gold numbers with her index finger. She remembered when they'd first moved in there, well more to the point, when she'd moved into his place, making it theirs. It had seemed so normal, so natural, so simple, but now she looked at the same door with in trepidation. Finally after a few minutes she took a deep breath, she knocked three times.

The knock at the door was like a defibrillator starting Tony's heart beating after weeks of being dormant. He jumped to action. He straightened the cushions as he darted through to the door, making sure everything was perfect as he went. He put his hand over the door nob and taking one last glance around the room to make sure it was perfect for her, he twisted the handle and threw open the door.

She stood waiting, she couldn't help but think that for a man who had seemed so eager for her to come back to her he was taking his time to open the door. Fear and dread started to take over her body, she wasn't sure she could handle rejection. She became petrified. She couldn't help but feel weak and petrified which were not feelings she could tolerate. She had to regain control, the only way she knew how was to walk, walk quickly away from that door and everything that was on the other side. She turned and started to walk away.

"Ziva?" Tony called from the doorway, "Where you going?" She stopped dead in her tracks, his voice, she loved his voice and it's ability to make a serious conversation lovingly light-hearted. She turned on her heels and faced him, a smile grew on her face. "You coming in?" He asked. She simply nodded her head slightly and walked towards him. Tony stood side on allowing her to pass through the threshold and back into his life.

Ziva surveyed her home. She expected it to be messy and unkempt, but it wasn't. There wasn't a pizza box in sight, not a beer bottle or a dirty sock. She really was impressed, mind you it didn't surprise her when she spied one of those dirty socks stuffed behind a cushion when she sat down. "You want a drink?" Tony asked as he closed the door and walked into the living room. Ziva's phone started to ring. She looked at the caller ID and saw Abby's name, before picking up she answered Tony, "Yes, thank you." As Tony exited the lounge room and into the a joining kitchen Ziva flipped her phone open. "Now is not a good time for me Abby." She paused obviously listening to what her friend had to say. "No I haven't… I do not plan on doing so... Because I am not... I need to work things out first Abby." In amidst her angry, hushed argument Tony called from the kitchen…

"I got a pretty fancy bottle of Cham-pagne shall I pop the cork?" he called loudly in a bad fake accent.

Before Ziva could reply Abby started yelling down the phone, Ziva had to move it away from her ear she was so loud. Still waiting for a reply, Tony walked back into the living room "Of course I will not drink it Abby." So consumed with her attempt to sooth Abby and get her off the phone, Ziva didn't notice Tony had entered the room. By the time she looked up, Tony's hands had dropped to his side and his eyes were wide. "Abby… Not now. I will have to call you back." Without even listening to her shrill rebuttal, Ziva shut her phone quickly and stood up moving hastily towards Tony. "Tony?" she questioned. He just looked at her with bewilderment on his face. "DiNozzo, what is wrong?"

Tony moved over to the couch, he reached behind the cushion on the other side of the sofa and pulled out a half empty bottle of scotch. He unscrewed the lid and took a large drink straight out of the bottle. "Is it true?" he asked. Now it was Ziva's turn to be feel perplexed. Seeing the confusion on her face he asked again, this time with more force behind his statement. "Is. It. True?"

"Is what true Tony?" she asked him to clarify.

"Abby, Is what she said true?"

"You could hear her?"

"Of course I could hear her, the Aborigines in Australia probably heard her."

"What exactly do you think you heard?" She said hoping that this would be one of those classic moments fromone of Tony's beloved movies, where he had actually heard something much different, and it was all a complete mess due to a lack of communication.

"I may not be a genious, I might not have Gibb's uncannie hearing, but I do have ears Ziva, and Abby was telling you not to drink because of the baby. What baby?"

"Tony… I…"

"What Baby Ziva?" he yelled. Ziva looked almost timid. He was shocked by this, but he refused to let it go. "Ziva are you…" she bowed her head.

"I do not know."

"Well don't you think that's something you aurter know."

"It is not that simple Tony."
"What's so hard? Peeing on a stick isn't exactly something you'd have to be an Einstein to work out."

"It is not that part that I have an issue with."

"Well what part is it? and why wouldn't you tell me that?"

"I do not know. I am confused, I do not know what to think anymore."

"What is there to be confused about? You're either pregnant or your not."

"It is not as simple as you would make out."

"Why? Why is it not as simple Ziva? What could possibly be making it be complicated?"

Ziva stared at him for a few seconds. She couldn't bring herself to tell him the truth. She knew it would devastate him and although she still wasn't sure exactly if she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him or not, one thing she did know for sure was that she did in fact love him and didn't want to cause him any pain or grief.

Tony became worried, he couldn't possibly conceive why Ziva was being so strange about all of this, He knew that she wasn't exactly a maternal person, but she'd changed so much since coming to America, and surely she would be able to see how loving and caring she had become.

Suddenly his face went pale, his eyes glazed over as if in a trace. He didn't' want to think it. It couldn't be true, though he didn't know what Ziva had been up to in the last few weeks, it could have been anything, and he wouldn't have known any better.

He could hardly bring himself to ask her. He wasn't even sure if he wanted to know the answer, not if it was a bad answer that would almost defiantly spell doom for their marriage. Before asking it he took a deep breath and pondered what he would do if she gave him the answer he didn't want to hear. He couldn't bare the hypothetical any longer, it was killing him, he had to ask, it was his right to ask.

"Was there someone else? Is it mine?"