Recap: Friday, 20th November 2009. (Plays between Chapter 42 and 43)

~ School'z the o'ter way ~

Ziva frowned as Gibbs turned to drove into the opposite direction of her preschool.

"'ibbs?"

The agent in question looked at her through the rear view mirror, "Yes, Ziv?"

"School'z the o'ter way."

Gibbs smirked slightly, "I know."

Mini-Ziva's frown deepened and she crossed her small arms over her chest, "Where we go?"

"You'll see." He replied smiling. In hope to distract her, he started to fiddle with the radio. Though, finding a station, which played songs suitable for children, wasn't easy.

"'ibbs!"

"No such luck," he thought as he stopped at a red light and turned in his seat to look at his little passenger again, "We'll be there in a few minutes. You will know then..."

Gibbs had to grin as Ziva's eyes narrowed. "Sometimes you're too smart for your own good." He thought, while driving on - to their appointment at the pediatric office.

The team leader watched Ziva intensively as she in return watched some other children playing with the toys, which lay scattered around the waiting room.

"You want to go and play, too?"

"I want home," Mini-Ziva grumbled moodily from the seat beside him, all the while inching a bit further away from him in the process.

Gibbs raised an eyebrow, "Okay..." He had been expecting her to cling to him, but his shrunken agent had absolutely surprised him when she more or less willingly followed him into the pediatric office. There were no attempts to avoid going into the building or pleading on her part. Instead, she acted as he was the meanest person in the world and avoided him and his attempts to communicate with her, at all costs.

Gibbs sighed. It was more than obviously that his shrunken agent had decided to be angry at him, rather than focusing her energy on being scared of the doctor. While he was proud that she wasn't letting the fear of doctors rule her, he wasn't sure if he really liked this new change in behavior. He rather would have her bawling her eyes out and hugging him, than her giving him a very cold shoulder. As mean as it might sound.

"Ziva? Mr. Gibbs?" A middle aged nurse called them out to her.

The team leader rose from his seat, "Come on, Ziv." He offered his hand to her, but instead of taking it, the little girl slid from her seat and walked past him, straight to the nurse.

Even as Gibbs managed to caught up with her and laid a hand on her shoulder, Mini-Ziva showed no sign of wanting to acknowledge him in the slightest. She swiftly sidestepped his hand and stubbornly walked on her own, along the long corridor of the pediatric office.

Gibbs shook his head and the nurse gave him a small sympathetic smile as they finally reached the doctor's examination room. It wasn't the first time she had seen such a thing. With a reassuring squeeze of the agent's arm she left the pair in the capable hands of Dr. Cartwright.

If the doctor had been surprised to see Ziva walking through the door and into the room on her own accord, he didn't let it show and instead greeted the little girl with a smile.

"Ziv," Gibbs sighed tiredly, after he had exchanged greetings with the doctor and Ziva still hadn't responded to Dr. Cartwright's earlier greeting.

Briefly, Mini-Ziva glared at the agent, before she mumbled a short "Hello" in direction of the doctor.

Dr. Cartwright grinned, "Ziva, do you know why you are here today?"

For a split second Mini-Ziva looked unsure around before she timidly nodded. Together with Gibbs, she had watched videos and 'read' books about the looming checkup and since she didn't felt sick and Gibbs had mentioned the appointment a few days ago, she was pretty sure about why she was at the doctor's office right now.

"I know that you don't really like doctors, so we'll make this as quick as possible, okay?" Dr. Cartwright had crouched down in front of Ziva, with the intention to make his small patient a bit more comfortable.

Again, Ziva only nodded. Though, this time Dr. Cartwright thought he could see the beginning of a smile form on her face. "Alright, Ziva. Gibbs told me that you two have done some practicing and were looking at pictures and stuff like that. Am I right?" He asked, while giving her a bright smile.

-"Ken,"- Ziva mumbled under her breath and subconsciously inched closer to Gibbs, who stood a bit away from her, since he had decided to give her and her broody mood some space.

It was painfully obvious to both men that Mini-Ziva was clearly becoming more and more uncomfortable, the more they talked about the checkup and the closer it came. So Dr. Cartwright stood back up and walked over to a counter, where he opened Ziva's medical file, letting his gaze run over it once more.

Meanwhile the team leader didn't wasted any time and approached the scared looking child. "It's not going to hurt, Ziv," he whispered, causing Mini-Ziva to look up at him in surprise.

His gentle smile and tone of voice making her wonder how he still could be so nice to her after the behavior she had shown earlier.

Gibbs watched as different emotions flicked through her eyes. "Come," he held his hand out to her, "The sooner we let the doc take a look at you, the sooner we can leave and the sooner you can select some new toys from the toy store..."

Not pushing Gibbs away anymore, she trustingly let him led her over to the small examination table, where he then gently lifted her on. Her attention was immediately drawn elsewhere as she heard the name of one of her favorite places. "Toys?"

The agent chuckled and started to help her undress, "Yes. Exactly like we did after our last trip here. I even raise the number of toys you can pick out to three, if you try to be very good."

"Me good!" Ziva exclaimed. Her voice muffled as Gibbs had been in the process to lift her sweatshirt over her head.

Dr. Cartwright smiled at this. He could experience moments and conversations like this every day, without ever getting sick of them.

"Okay, Ziva. You were very brave and we're nearly done now." Dr. Cartwright gave his little patient a reassuring smile.

Though, the little girl looked warily at him. While measuring her height and weight had been pretty harmless, she could have lived without the prodding and the light shown into her eyes. Not to mention when Dr. Cartwright had tried to have a look into her ears. She had contemplated to bolt out of the room right then. Luckily for the adults, Gibbs had intervened, before she could have followed through with such a movement and had taken her into his lap as the doctor did his work.

Dr. Cartwright turned to Gibbs."We're finished here. Let's move to another room for the hearing screening and then we can talk about the rest in my office."

The team leader only nodded and assisted Ziva back into her clothes. "Sounds good, Ziv?"

"No 'eedles?" she eyed the instruments on the counter warily. She had expected to be pocked and pricked by them during this whole check-up thing.

The men laughed slightly and shook their heads. "No." Dr. Cartwright answered with a smile, "But if you want..."

"NO!" Ziva squeaked loudly, moving her head rapidly from right to left.

"Then there will be no needles." Gibbs assured her. Dr. Cartwright, Ducky and he had discussed this matter several times, after their last trip to the pediatric office.

Neither man had been hundred percent sure of what would be the right curse of action. Any injections might mess with her aging back to her real self, might not or may be part of the trigger. Since the last option seemed less realistic, they finally had decided to leave those injections out – for the moment.

(hearing screening)

Once Dr. Cartwright had made Ziva sit in front of the electronic device, he started to explain the next-to-last part of their appointment to her. "Alright, Ziva. Next, we'll play a little game. I'll give you those headphones to put on and then I'm going to play sounds in different volumes. Every time you hear the sound, I want you to signal it to me, immediately. Can you do this?"

"Uh huh!" Ziva grinned. The next part promised to be a lot of fun.

"Okay, then let's start." The doctor gently secured the headphones on Ziva's head before he took a seat across from her.

Gibbs watched the process from the corner of the room. While he knew that 'Adult'-Ziva heard things most people didn't, he felt slightly on edge about how good Mini-Ziva would be able to hear after her ordeal with the cracked ear drums.

Though, he didn't have to be worried about it as Dr. Cartwright gave him a approving nod the moment the last test was done.

"Very good, Ziva. You hear like a batty." Dr. Cartwright grinned at the small girl across from him.

The little girl looked quizzically. "Batty?"

"That's the animal you had as a candy bucket. You remember that bucket?" Gibbs explained as he came over to her.

Ziva nodded happily and watched the doctor shut down the electric devices with interest. "We done now?" She sweetly asked.

"Nearly. Gibbs and I still need to talk for a bit."

Mini-Ziva frowned slightly before she suddenly grinned again, "But me done?"

Dr. Cartwright and Gibbs chuckled, "Yes, Ziv. You're done."

"You can draw something, while I talk with Gibbs." The doctor offered. At the back of his mind he wanted to know how developed her mind was. A drawn picture was perfect for this.

"Like what?" Ziva asked as she followed the men across the hall and into the doctor's office.

"Anything you want, Ziva."

Gibbs thought for a moment, "How about you show the doctor how good you can draw a house and garden?"

Happy with this suggestion, Mini-Ziva nodded and quickly took the offered paper and crayons from the doctor. Getting comfortable on her seat at the doctor's desk, she got to work. The world around her becoming almost non existent as she focused on her drawing.

With Ziva occupied, Gibbs sat down with the doctor, a bit further away from his shrunken agent, ready for the questions headed his way.

"Alright, first of all." The doctor flicked through his findings. "She's healthy. She could be a bit taller and weight more, with 2'11" and 26.44 lb, but at the moment I don't see any problems with it. Does she eats properly?"

"Yeah, mostly she eats everything what I dish up."

Dr. Cartwright quickly wrote the new information down, "Good, does she have any particular favorite foods?"

"Now you're asking," Gibbs joked, making the doctor chuckle, "She likes quite a lot actually. She eats her vegetables, some of them under duress but she eats them. I would say her favorite food was ice cream, having said that she loves potatoes and melons, bananas, apples..."

Dr Cartwright nodded. "She likes her vegetables and fruit, then? Good."

"Yeah... but not Brussel sprouts." Gibbs said with a grin.

"Even I don't like them... I don't blame her." The doctor smirked before looking back at the file in front of him. "What about her sleeping patterns? Does she still takes naps in the afternoon? Sleeps through the nights?"

"If she's tired, she still sleeps one to two hours in the afternoon. But always willingly. I'm not forcing her to do it. Night is a different matter. The nights where she wakes up are more than those where she sleeps through."

The doctor nodded, "Do you know why she doesn't sleep through?"

Gibbs shrugged, not really wanting to discuss it. "Nightmares, noises from outside or just not wanting to sleep alone in her room... We're working on it."

"I see. Her file states that she's already toilet trained. Any accidents?"

"Not many and only at night." Gibbs said, being completely honest. It was true. Ziva never had accidents, unless she had had a really bad nightmare, and even then, it wasn't often.

The doctor nodded and added a note into the file. "Right... so there no problem. How about trips to the ER or to the doctors?"

Gibbs frowned in thought for a minute. One trip to a hospital coming to mind. He made sure his shrunken agent was completely absorbed in her drawing before answering. "Just a trip to you and Bethesda, after she ran away."

"The matter with the orphanage?"

Gibbs nodded and Dr Cartwright wrote down more notes. "Alright, apart from that, she's been healthy?"

"Yeah, no problems that would have needed any medical help."

"Good. Can she ride a tricycle?"

Gibbs smirked, "Not sure... the first thing she rode was a bike, she turned her nose up at the trike."

Dr Cartwright looked at Gibbs, an eyebrow raised. "And she can ride it?"

"Yeah, she even tried to ride it while standing up, but I explained her why she shouldn't do that and she didn't tried since."

"Traits of her older self, I presume?"

Gibbs smirked even more and nodded. "Ziva was always one to run before she could walk," he looked at his shrunken agent with a tender smile, "Still is."

The doctor smiled and pressed on. "Has she started preschool?" Gibbs nodded and as he did Ziva stood up and walked over to the adults and held out a colored picture to Gibbs.

"A house, 'ibbs!" She smiled toothily at him.

Gibbs picked it up and examined it with a smile. "That's a really good drawing, Ziv. Can you go draw me another picture?" Mini-Ziva tilted her head before nodding and running back to her crayons and paper. "Yeah, she's in preschool."

"And does she like it?" Dr. Cartwright inquired as he looked over Ziva's drawing with a smile.

"Yeah, she was annoyed that we weren't going there today." The team leader grinned.

"Is she doing well?"

"Oh yeah, definitely. There are teachers who speak Hebrew and English, so she gets taught both. She's settled in quite well too, has a couple of friends and her teachers are pleased with her progress."

Dr. Cartwright nodded, "Got it, almost done Agent Gibbs, just a few more questions to go. What games does Ziva like?"

"Any, as long as it's fun. She likes hide and seek, tag... anything that involves outdoors or running around."

"How about make-believe games? Most four year old have a very active imagination."

Gibbs stayed quite for a moment whilst racking his brain for anything he thought he should mention. "Yes. Found her playing in her room, with her toys and teddies around her. She was speaking to them in Hebrew and she was putting on another voice, so it sounded like one of the toys were speaking to her." He grinned, knowing exactly where it came from. He had had a gut feeling that Tony showing Ziva 'Toy Story' would affect the kid in some way.

The silver haired agent watched as Dr. Cartwright wrote down a few more notes before looking up. "Alright, we're through. I appreciate your time and patience, Agent Gibbs. I can safely say that Ziva's progress is pretty damn good, if I do say so myself." As both men stood up, Dr Cartwright extended his hand and was met by a firm shake.

"Good, I'll see you at the beginning of April, then?" Dr Cartwright nodded and pulled a lollipop out of his shirt pocket.

Gibbs turned around and looked at Ziva. "Hey Ziv, time to go..."

Mini-Ziva immediately jumped up and grabbed her drawing, running the short distance to Gibbs, just to hide behind the agent's leg as she extended the piece of paper out for the kind doctor to take it.

"Thank you, Ziva." The Doctor said as he took it and held out the lollipop for Ziva at the same time, "I'll put it on my wall above my desk."

"Toda." The little girl replied happily, while taking the lollipop and beaming at the doctor's comments.

"Thanks again." Gibbs commented, before holding out his hand for Ziva to take, so that they could finally leave the doctor's office.

"No worries... have a nice day."

Ziva waved at the doctor before skipping out of the office, her hand in Gibbs'.

Once Mini-Ziva was safely strapped into her seat, they were on the road. There was a comfortable silence in the car, only broken by the occasional slurp from Ziva and her lollipop.

"'ibbs...?"

"Yeah, Ziv?" Gibbs looked at Ziva in the rear view mirror, a 'trick' that made her smile.

"Me o'tay?"

Gibbs frowned for a second before he understood what she meant. "Yeah, you're a healthy four year old.".

Ziva gave him a toothy grin and she giggled. "Me healthy!" she exclaimed happily before slurping on her lollipop some more.

The car went back to the comfortable silence until Ziva's voice filled the silence again. "'ibbs?"

Gibbs smirked, he had a pretty good idea at what was coming now. "Yeah?"

"We buy toys now?"

"Toys?" He feigned ignorance.

"Uh huh! You pwomi'zed!"

Even without looking, Gibbs could feel her staring at him."Sure," he replied nonchalant, before looking at the dashboard clock, "There still will be a lot of time afterward, you want to go to preschool?" He looked at her through the rear view mirror.

Ziva thought for a moment before she shook her head, slightly. "No wanna..."

"Okay. We'll meet Max and Daniyel later in the afternoon, anyway." Though, a tired sigh made him look at Ziva again, "You don't feel like playing with your friends, today?"

"Jus' wanna home..." The little girl quietly admitted, playing with the hem of her jacket as she did so.

Gibbs smiled at her, "That's okay. We'll find something nice to do " He guessed that he could still drive her to the playground if she changed her mind in the afternoon. Luckily he had warned McGee that he might not be coming in today, after all.

"Can you read book 'bout 'nights?" Mini-Ziva suddenly asked as he was about to drive into the parking lot of the toy store.

The team leader let out a short laugh. "Leave it to Ziva not to want to hear about princesses but knights..."

~ TBC ~