Chapter 58
In spite of the longer implications about what that would require, Tim was relieved. His family was more important to him than being safe.
Then, he let his mind fill in the details of his perfect life. His parents. His sister. His dog. His friends. Tony and Ziva, Jimmy and Breena, Abby, Gibbs, Ducky, all the details that made his life rich. Of course, in his perfect life, there was no figurative sword of Damocles hanging over his head, but the people in his life came before that detail.
As simple as that moment was, ultimately, it meant that he was choosing Suhayl's outlook. He would have to figure out just what that meant for the details of his life, but he was choosing to try to live his life and accept that interruptions would happen, no matter how awful they might be.
Of course, it was one thing to think that. It was another to actually accomplish it. That was the hard part and Tim wasn't sure he was ready to work that hard just yet.
So as much as he didn't want to do something so simple as take a break from all the tasks surrounding him, he would try it.
He just needed a good distraction. Something that would take up some of the space in his brain for a while.
Suddenly, Marra lifted her head and then got to her feet, alert to some sound that Tim hadn't heard. He sat up as well.
"What is it, Marra?" he asked.
She barked once. They were training her on how to bark appropriately because she could be very loud and they didn't want to annoy the neighbors. However, it was important that she knew that there were appropriate times for barking. Since she was still young, it was all right if she didn't get it right every time.
He hoped that this time was a time when barking wasn't necessary. For a few seconds, he was a little tense.
Then, he heard a car pull into the driveway and then a door opened and closed. Marra barked a few more times.
"Don't sic your dog on me, McGee."
Tim relaxed as Tony's head appeared above the gate. He was even able to smile.
"You're interrupting my Sunday, Tony," he said. "Marra and I were very comfortable before you came. I'm sure she's resentful."
Tony opened the gate and walked in. Marra ran over to him and began to jump around.
"Nope, Marra. I'm not playing right now," Tony said. "Don't you walk her at all, Probie?"
"She's just being feisty. I played with her enough that she was content to lay on me for almost an hour. Marra, sit."
Instantly, Marra sat.
"Wow. Impressive," Tony said.
Tim smiled.
"Good girl," he said. Marra ran over to him and got her reward of an ear rub that made her eyes roll up in her head. That actually made him chuckle a little.
"Looks like she enjoys it," Tony said.
"Yep. What's up?"
"Not me," Tony said and flopped down on the grass. "Feeling better than last night?"
"Well, I'm more tired than I was last night," Tim said, not mentioning his extra stop. "I didn't get to sleep very quickly."
Tony raised an eyebrow.
"That's not what I meant."
"I know...but I thought you might give me at least one day to think about things before you started asking for results." Tim didn't want to get into his current conclusions at the moment. He'd only barely started thinking them through on his own and he needed more time to think about it and get down to the details before sharing with anyone.
"Is 24 hours all it will take?"
"Probably not, but I don't really want to get into it again already."
Suddenly, Tony looked a little uncomfortable.
"What is it, Tony?"
"Well... nothing really."
"Yeah, right. It's very obviously something. Please, don't tell me you're going to try to drag me out somewhere. I'm not ready for that. I feel like I'm doing pretty well just going places where I'm alone. I'm not ready for crowds," Tim said, and that was something he meant. They always seemed to try making him go places with them whenever something happened. Sometimes the timing was right, but this would not be.
"No. No, not yet. We'll at least wait for a few days."
"Could you wait until we know more about what will happen with Ahmed?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that... now that Ahmed's been a target once, it's more likely that others will notice. He's linked with me now, but if he goes back to Egypt, he won't have any protection. He can't."
"Why not? It's not like the CIA is restricted to the U.S. In fact... they're mostly international anyway."
"Yeah, but indefinite protection of someone who isn't a U.S. citizen? It's hard enough managing us all here. If he chose to stay in the U.S., he'd be part of the family and more likely to be safe. Would someone go after him automatically? I don't know, but right now, while he's still in the hospital, we don't have to think about it, but we're going to have to talk about it soon and I'm not..." Tim tried to suppress the dread of having to worry about Ahmed in addition. "I just don't want to have to think about anything else while this isn't settled."
"Okay. Well... would you like something to distract you from all that?"
"I don't think anything could," Tim said.
"I can guarantee this will," Tony said.
Tim shook his head. "It might be nice, but..."
"Ziva's pregnant," Tony said.
Tim's brain suddenly short-circuited. He stopped rubbing Marra's ears and stared at Tony in shock. Marra decided she didn't like that and licked his ear. That jarred Tim out of his shocked state and he went back to rubbing his dog's ears, although he was staring at Tony.
"What?"
Tony smiled a little. "Ziva's pregnant."
"Ziva?"
"Well, it's certainly not me."
Tim rolled his eyes. "Tony... what? I... No offense, but I hadn't thought you... two would... want kids."
"Yeah."
Tim's eyes widened. "You don't?"
"No. It's... it's more that... what you said. You hadn't thought it was possible. We hadn't either," Tony said. He looked around the yard, clearly uncomfortable. "We hadn't planned on having kids."
"Are you... is Ziva going to get an abortion, then?"
"No. Ziva's adamant about that. And she doesn't want to give the baby up for adoption either. We're just... worried that we'll be terrible at it. You know neither of us had the best family experiences."
Tim smiled. "That doesn't mean you'll be bad parents. It just means that you recognize bad parenting. You'll know what to avoid."
Tony laughed but it didn't reflect much amusement. "Not sure it works like that."
"So... did you tell me this because you wanted to distract me or because you wanted some kind of advice or moral support?"
Tony did smile that time. "Yes."
"Well, it did distract me."
"Okay, could you shoot for the second part?"
"Um...I don't know if I'll be any good at it."
"Try it anyway."
"Okay. Um...when is she due?"
"Actually, I don't know. I haven't known for very long."
"How long?"
"Like two days."
"Oh. I'm surprised Ziva even thought of getting a test with all the chaos since we got back."
"She took it before we went to Egypt."
"Oh." Tim noticed that Tony didn't seem very happy about that. "And so she didn't tell you?"
"No, she didn't."
"Why not?"
"Because she knew that I'd try to get her to stay behind and she wanted to help find you and your family," Tony said, his voice carefully neutral.
"So...did you fight about that?" Tim asked, trying to be cautious about prodding too much.
Tony nodded. "Yeah, we did. We got through that part, though. Now, we just have to figure out how to be parents."
Tim smiled. "Actually, I think you'll be fine with that part. Sure, you might need some help, some advice from time to time, but you'll figure that out...as long as you do it together. If only one of you is trying, it won't work. At least, it won't work well."
"I noticed that you're deliberately not saying which of us you think would be trying and which one wouldn't."
Tim laughed. "I wasn't thinking of one or the other of you. I was just giving it out as general advice."
"Sure, sure."
"But I'll try to help however I can. I might be a little distracted myself though."
"Why?"
"Because Zahara is pregnant, too."
Tony's eyes widened. "Wow. When did you find out?"
"A couple of months ago."
"Before your trip?"
"Yeah."
"Sorry. I'm guessing that didn't help."
Tim tried to shrug nonchalantly. He wasn't sure he succeeded.
"It's all right. Zahara wanted to tell you all sooner, but I wanted to wait."
Tony's brow furrowed. "Why?"
"Because I didn't want you to start asking questions about it before our trip," Tim said, feeling his anxiety return a bit. "I knew people would ask about whether or not it would be a good idea or if we'd be safe and I was already worrying about it. I really wanted this to be a good trip for Zahara, a chance to see her brother and have fun."
"It was that, you know."
"Yeah. Until it wasn't." A deep breath.
"Right, but you said you didn't want to talk about that. So we won't. We'll talk about the fact that, against all sanity, I'm going to be a dad."
Tim chanced a smile. "What if it's twins?"
Tony groaned but smiled as well. "Don't jinx us, Probie. One is plenty. Actually, right now, we're just trying to figure out where we're going to live."
"I thought you said you'd never move because you'd never agree."
"Yeah, but now we're going to have a baby and one bedroom isn't enough. We're going to have to make sure the baby doesn't kill itself getting into Ziva's weaponry."
Tim actually surprised himself by laughing.
"I think you'll have some time before that's a worry."
"Not enough."
"So does that mean you'll be looking to become suburban?"
"Oh, I hope not."
Tim smiled. "It's not that bad."
Tony grinned. "Maybe I'll have to see if there's a house on this street."
"I don't know if I want you that close."
"But then our kids could play with each other! I think this is a great idea!"
"There aren't any houses for sale, Tony."
"Hmmm... Who can I kick out?"
Tim laughed at Tony's fake scheming expression, but he could see that this playfulness wasn't completely genuine.
"Tony...do you not want to have any kids?"
Tony laid back on the grass and didn't say anything.
"Hey, no judgment here if you don't. I just can't tell if you're nervous about being a dad or if you're dreading it."
"Honestly...I don't know," Tony said. "Ziva is determined to see it through and I agree with her mostly, but... there's a part of me that isn't sure we can handle it. It took years before we were ready to get married. Even if I was planning on having any kids, I would have waited until we were a little more settled with actually being married."
"Did you tell Ziva that?"
"No."
"Why not?" Tim asked.
"Because Ziva is scared. She's actually admitting that she's scared and that means that she needs someone to step up and let her lean a little bit because you know that she hates being afraid...of anything. She's the kind of person who would have wanted to beat up the monsters under the bed when she was a little girl rather than huddle under the covers and hide." Tony smiled a little but he was still very serious. "If I'm still vacillating so much, she won't feel like she can get support from me and she'll pretend everything is fine when it's not and that's no good for anyone."
Tim could see that this was not the same kind of nerves he'd had when Zahara was pregnant with Salma. He was simply nervous about being a father with the additional stress of worrying about keeping another person safe. Tony wasn't even sure he wanted this and he was even less sure he was ready for it. But it was coming anyway and if they intended to keep the baby, then, it was important that they didn't look on it as something to dread.
"Tony, you were going to get married once before, right?"
Tony furrowed his brow, obviously not following.
"What?"
"In Baltimore. Weren't you engaged?"
"Yeah. So?"
"So...was that going to be a childless marriage?"
"You know, Tim, I didn't actually get married at that point. We didn't have a chance to get that far."
"I know, but Zahara and I talked about having kids. We decided we were going to wait but we wanted children. Did you?"
"Not specifically."
"Generally?"
"I guess... I assumed that we'd be having kids. I was a lot younger then, though."
"Yeah, but at that point, you were assuming that marriage meant children and that didn't throw you off. It shouldn't now. You can handle it. Probably better now than you would have then."
Tony's eyebrows went up. "You calling me immature even before you met me, Probie?"
Tim smiled. "No, but there's no reason to think you'd do worse than you would have 20 years ago. And more importantly, you guys never have to do it alone. Zahara will love to help Ziva and I'm sure Breena would, too. ...and when you tell Abby, she won't be able to give advice but she'll be excited."
Tony laughed and then groaned. "Oh, man. I am not looking forward to telling Abby. We're not telling her yet. Got it?"
"Got it."
"Good, because you and Zahara are the only ones who know."
"Oh, Zahara knows already?"
"Yeah. Ziva told her before we got back to help her think of something other than worrying."
For some reason, Tim was really touched.
"You both decided to share something you're not sure about just to help us not worry so much?"
"Yeah... I... guess we did," Tony said and shrugged a little.
"Thanks."
Then, the door opened.
"Baba, can I be up?" Salma asked. "Mama said to ask you."
Tim made a show of looking at his watch and then nodded.
"Yes, Salma. You can be up."
Salma clapped and then ran to the sandbox. That attracted Marra's attention and she ambled over to investigate, freeing Tim from having to focus on her. Then, the door opened again.
"Baba, I up?" Jonathan asked.
"Yes, Jonathan. You can be up."
Jonathan jumped. "Yay!"
Then, he went over to the sandbox as well.
"Let Jonathan play, too," Tim said.
"Yes, Baba," Salma said.
"Hey, Tim," Tony said, seriously.
Tim looked back at him. "Yeah?"
"You're not alone in this, either. Got it?"
Tim looked at his kids and his dog playing in the sandbox and then back at Tony.
"I'm trying," he said.
