Recap: Monday, 19th October. Back to the office^^

~ Morning Routine ~

It was barely five am when Gibbs got ready to face another day at work. About an hour later, after he had made himself his favorite beverage and had downed at least two cups of it, he decided that it was time to wake his youngest agent – in the truest sense of the word. Shrunk or not.

Silently he made his way to her room and opened the door.

"Ziva," Gibbs gently called, switching the overhead light on.

The team leader smiled as he saw her sprawled out on her bed. The covers long since pushed to the far end of the bed.

"It's morning," he tried again as he sat down at the edge of the mattress and placed a hand on her stomach in order to shake her lightly.

-"Histalek,"- Mini-Ziva mumbled and rolled onto her side, facing away from him.

Gibbs grinned, "Last chance," he warned her smiling. Though it was ignored and soon he could make out her gentle breathing as she slept on.

"Well, then," he regarded the sleeping child for a minute before he proceed to tickle her sides.

-"Lo!"- With a shriek Ziva squirmed out of his reach to the corner at the end of her bed.

"We need to leave in a hour," explained Gibbs, smiling as he saw her glaring at him, "Be careful or your face gets stuck like that."

The little girl shook her head, clearly not believing him.

"You can go back to sleep once we're at NCIS." Gibbs promised, "But till then," he picked her off the bed and settled her on his hip, "We need to get you dressed and fed."

"Me sleepy." Mini-Ziva yawned, looking back at her bed longingly.

"I know," he kissed the top of her head before opening the closet one-handed, "What you want to wear today?"

The little girl let her gaze wander over the different clothes but then decided not to help him. Too tired to care she settled her head back against his shoulder and let her eyes drift shut again.

"Not going to help me out, huh?"

He observed the sleeping girl in his arms. "Guess cargo pants and shirt will do, today."

Picking the items along with some other clothes out of the closet, he let them drop onto the bed.

"Ziva," he made her sit onto the bed, only letting go of her when he was sure she wouldn't instantly fall over.

"Ti'ed." Not being supported by Gibbs anymore, she let herself drop back onto the mattress, sighing as the soft surface hit her back.

Gibbs smirked, "You want me to dress you?"

This caused her to look at him. -"Lo."- the little girl muttered but lost the battle against sleep none the less.

With a shake of his head the team leader gave up to wake the obviously tired child and just started to change the PJs against street clothes.

"'ibbs. " She mumbled as he buttoned the black cargo pants.

"Yeah?" He made her sit up and tucked the dark green shirt over her head.

"Me have ice?"

The unexpected question elicited a raised eyebrow from him and his movements to still momentarily, "Now?"

Mini-Ziva nodded sleepily, "Me wanna have ice."

"What exactly have you dreamed off?" Gibbs grinned, "After dinner you can have some. But first we eat breakfast."

"'tay." Satisfied with the answer, she dropped back onto the mattress.

"Ziva?"

"Sleepy." In her opinion everything she had to do at the point, was already done. So more sleep was in order.

"Aren't you supposed to be a morning person?" Gibbs wondered silently as he picked the half asleep child up in order to go to the bathroom.

Still only using one hand, he then prepared Ziva's small toothbrush for her, "Time to brush your teeth."

His announcement was greeted by immense protest and lots of head shaking.

"Ziv, breakfast won't be 'yummy' if your teeth aren't clean." He tried to reason with the small child while he held the toothbrush close to her mouth.

However, with a mumbled "no like" she turned her head once again away from the offending item.

"Time for plan B then," he thought.

Since she was awake now, Gibbs sat her on the counter, unfazed when she got even more crotchety. With an utter calmness he prepared his own brush, even though he had taken care of his teeth earlier.

"Here," he handed her his toothbrush and lowered his head so they were at the same level, his hands resting on either side of her, "You do mine, I do yours."

Mini-Ziva looked from the toothbrush to him and back, "Me do alone!" She frowned at him, not happy at all with his suggestion. While they had done it before she wasn't amused when people did things for her which she already could do on her own. Though, brushing Gibbs' teeth for him was always lots of fun.

"Really?" he grinned at her, still staying in position.

The little girl nodded.

"Show me then?" Gibbs replaced his toothbrush with hers.

"'tay."

Without further protest Mini-Ziva started to brush her own teeth, watching the team leader as he began to clean his teeth also.

Occasionally he would show his teeth to her, all blue thanks to the paste, which caused Ziva to giggle in delight every time he did it.

After a few minutes Gibbs spit the paste out and filled a cup with water.

"Spit, don't swallow," advised the agent as he handed Ziva the cup in order to rinse her mouth, while he took hold of her brush.

"All done?" Gibbs asked, grinning as Ziva opened her mouth for him to look, "Aw, no mashed potatoes or pizza visible. Very good."

The little girl giggled, "All clean!" she told him proudly.

"Not all." With a grin he took a towel from the nearby stand and deliberately covered her whole face with it, gently whipping the toothpaste off her nose, cheek and mouth, which caused his miniature agent to break into another fit of laughter.

"Now you're clean," he smiled and lifted her off the counter to place her onto the floor.

"Go downstairs. I'll be there in a second." He turned the water back on in order to rinse out her toothbrush.

Mini-Ziva was about to run out of the bathroom when she stopped and took the end of her braided ponytail into her hand, looking questionably at him.

"I'll do your hair while you eat," answered Gibbs the silent question.

"'tay!'"

(Kitchen)

"Ziva," warned Gibbs, not able not to shake his head anew at the sight in front of him.

The little girl had dragged a chair from the kitchen table to the counter and was about to climb onto said counter in order to get something out of the wall cupboard.

"'ibbs." She looked unfazed at him.

"No climbing onto the kitchen counter."

"Me wanna f'akes." Mini-Ziva protested weakly. The stare of the team leader telling her not to protest too much.

"Then ask me to get them for you. Okay?" He instructed gently.

"O'tay."

Gibbs blinked, surprised at the sudden change in her pronunciation of okay. "Guess I'll need to pick up my efforts to correct her."

"'ibbs?" With a leap she jumped down the chair, landing more or less gracefully back on the floor.

"So chocolate cornflakes?" He got a bowl and spoon out of the cardboard, along with the milk from the fridge.

"Uh huh!" She gave him a toothy smile.

"No pancakes today?" Gibbs checked, slightly flustered about the 'Uh huh'. "I hope she doesn't use it at the office. I'm never living it down otherwise."

"'ibbs!" A tiny hint of annoyance could be heard in her voice. After all, now that she was awake she was hungry and had no time for his silliness.

With a smirk Gibbs got her cereals ready and walked over to the kitchen table, where he sat it down. Mini-Ziva, who had followed him closely, barely was able to thank him so fast she had taken the first spoon full of chocolate flakes into her mouth.

"Don't chock on it," the team leader laughed and got her a glass of milk and a coffee for himself before he sat down next to her. The hair brush, which he had taken with him from the bathroom, coming to rest on the table too.

Since he had pushed her chair closer to the table when he had returned with their drinks, it was easy for him to reach her plait. Carefully he then proceed to loosen the hair tie before he untangled the single strands of hair from each other.

Meanwhile Ziva kept scarfing down her breakfast.

"Hey, slow down a bit or you'll get sick."

"Hungry, no sick," she told him matter-of-fact before she continued to wolf down her meal.

"At least you don't talk with a full mouth," he thought dryly, mentally promising himself to drive a bit slower today. Vomit wasn't an odor he wanted in his car. Even when the car technically was only borrowed from NCIS.

"Tell me when it hurts." He slowly started to brush her hair. Taking his sweet time to untangle knotted wisps of hair.

More than once he was thankful not to have forgotten to braid her hair the night before. The one time he had forgotten it, he had been presented by a seemingly unsolvable mess of knotted hair, which had taken him forever to undo. Not to mention that it hadn't been as painless as Ziva or he had wished for.

"'ibbs?"

While he had been lost in thought, the little girl had finished off her cereals and was now looking expectantly at him.

"Book's on the coffee table," he stopped to brush her hair and stood up, pulling her chair away from the table so that she could stand up as well.

Mini-Ziva immediately run the few steps to the living room to sit cross-legged on the green couch, her side to the back of the couch so that Gibbs could sit behind her in order to fix her hair, like they did every morning. The book, which she had hastily thrown on the green soda was now lying open in front of her.

Thanks to Abby's thoughtfulness, they were presented with a book of different hairdos fairly soon after the 'incident' had happened.

Not only contained the book very detailed pictures of each hairdo, it also described every step to it in great detail - much to Gibbs' relief, since they tried out a different one every day.

"You found one?"

Gibbs sat down on the couch, facing the other side of the book, while he silently prayed that she would select an easy doable one.

Mini-Ziva bobbed her head and pointed to the style she wanted.

"That's all?" Gibbs checked, slightly stunned that his agent just wanted a small single braided strand of hair on one side of her head.

Though, he figured that Mini-Ziva might be too tired to sit still for any other style anyway. After all the last hairdo had taken him over two hours to finish and it didn't even lasted till the afternoon.

"Yes."

"Alright, which side?"

The little girl thought for a moment before she pointed to the left side of her head.

Gibbs smiled to himself, "Turn around then."

After she had done so, he carefully got to work, not wanting to cause Ziva any pain as he braided her hair.

"All done." The team leader announced after less than five minutes.

"Toda," she smiled sweetly at him.

"Go to the bathroom. We'll be leaving soon."

With an "O'tay" Ziva slipped off the couch and run upstairs.

Though a minute later she was downstairs again, "'ibbs?"

The little girl fumbled with the button of her pants. A frown on her face.

Gibbs, who was stuffing some snacks into Ziva's backpack, bent down to her level and helped her to loosen the button.

"There you go," he smiled at her and sent her upstairs a second time.

Gibbs had noticed the difficulties in fastening the button himself when he had dressed her. The buttonhole plainly was sewed too tight.

In fact when he thought about it, it was the only pair of pants with an actual button. Every other pants having pants hook and allowing the kid some independence.

It wasn't long before Ziva once again stood in front of him. This time with an annoyed look on her face.

If it wasn't for the hair particular hanging in front of her eyes, he could have sworn she was also glaring at him. Gibbs smirked and fastened the button, "I'll fix it once we're in the office." He promised while picking up their backpacks.

"No like," the little girl mumbled as she followed him to the front door.

"Tomorrow you can pick out your clothes alone," he was openly grinning now as he put the yellow scarf around her neck.

"'ibbs!" She frowned at his cheery tone. The stupid button having killed her mood.

The agent just kissed the top of her head before helping her into the jacket. Gibbs then left her alone to put on her shoes while he grabbed his own jacket and shoes.

Only when he zipped his jacket, he noticed that his agent still hadn't put on her shoes.

"Ziva."

"Me no wanna!" She gave him a defiant look.

"Fine then." With a sigh he threw her over his shoulder, grabbed the backpacks and one pair of her outdoor shoes before walking out of the door to the car. With a work day ahead, he had no time or desire to go over the shoe topic again. Plus, Ziva's lack of proper sleep had caused more complications than normally.

"Gotta make sure to sent her to bed early today." mused Gibbs as he crossed the wet driveway.

"'ibbs!" Mini-Ziva meanwhile protested loudly into his back.

"You can't walk around outside with only your socks on." He explained as they neared the car.

However, as they had reached their destination he made a move to set her down on her own two little feet.

"'ibbs! Me no shoes!" She tightened her grip around his neck now that he held her more comfortably in front of him.

"So?" Gibbs chuckled.

"'ibbs! Me no bath!" Ziva looked at the large puddle right in front of them.

"Will you put on your shoes when I make sure to get you into the car, without setting you down first?" He asked with a raised eyebrow after having settled her properly on his hip.

-"Ken,"- she looked at him, not amused at all about his trick.

"Good," he kissed her cheek and first placed her shoes on the roof of the car, before swinging the backpacks from his shoulder to place them on the roof also.

With some of the additional load gone he then was finally able to grab the car keys out of his trouser pocket.

"Me do?" Mini-Ziva quietly asked as she felt slightly queasy after the sudden changes in position.

Gibbs grinned and held the key out to her. "Sure, Ziv."

The moment she took hold of it, he made sure to secure her with both of his hands in order to keep her from falling over as she had loosened the grip around his neck to turn her upper part of the body, in order to fumble with both hands with the remote.

"The other key," he advised as he saw her aiming for the lock key.

A second later the car lights blinked once.

"Well done," he tightened his hold in an impromptu hug.

"Toda." She grinned at him and wound her arms back around his neck, which gave him enough room to open the rear door side of the car.

"Remember what you promised," he gently placed her inside the car, right next to her booster seat.

The little girl nodded and waited patiently for her shoes, which he handed her a second later.

"See, that wasn't so hard," he praised after she had successfully put them on.

The little girl just shrugged but then pointed to her feet, "No twinkle. Me no like."

"I know, Ziv," he gave her an apologetically smile.

The team leader had tried to find her a new pair of light ups, but his search stayed fruitless since every store told him that this particular sort of shoe was sold out, not sold in their shop or plainly at the moment not deliverable due to supply bottlenecks.

With a sigh Ziva climbed into her booster seat. A yawn escaping her just as Gibbs fastened the last of the harness.

"Sleep," he gently stroked her cheek. Happy, when she closed her eyes and snuggled into the seat.

~ Fin ~

Histalek = Go away

Lo = No

Toda = Thanks