Time Gone By ✡ NCIS TIVA Fanfiction

Chapter 27

"I CAN'T DO THIS!" She screamed, nails digging into her fiancés hand. "You can. I'm here with you. Just keep pushing." "I'M NEVER HAVING A BABY AGAIN!" Sweat was rolling down her face as she cried out in pain again.

Abby and McGee awkwardly stood at the side of everything, crouching together in some hospital chairs. "I feel sort of bad" McGee whispered, "Shouldn't we help her?" "I'm pretty sure it doesn't work that way, Timmy." "I'm really glad I'm not a woman right now." Abby softly punched his bicep, then grabbing a hold of his arm again, intimidated by her friend's screams. "I'm re-thinking if I want to have a family right now." "You wanted to have a family?" "Yeah, sure. A boy and a girl, I thought, but now I'm not so sure. Seeing this in real life is freaking scary." She turned to find him looking at her weirdly. "What?" "I never thought you wanted..." "Don't you?"

"ALRIGHT, IT'S ALMOST THERE, JUST KEEP PUSHING!" The midwife shouted for some reason as loud as Ziva, which didn't improve the mood. "I AM PUSHING, DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!" Gibbs sat in the other corner of the room and looked almost as cowed as McGee and Abby, which Tony never would have thought possible. "THE HEAD'S OUT! GOOD JOB, MISS. ONE MORE PUSH!"

Abby looked away because it was way too weird to watch one of your best friends give birth. McGee seemed to have the same issue, because their heads accidently banged together in the middle. They both apologized at the same time the baby came out and the room was filled with crying, clapping and plain awkwardness.

"It's a –" "I want to hold her." Ziva breathed, clearly exhausted. Her bound back hair was wet with sweat and her face shiny. Gibbs had never seen such a relieved expression on Tony's face. As the midwife handed the tiny child over to its mother, each and every tense emotion that had been expressed in the past hour seemed to fly out of the room to be replaced with something else. The baby stopped crying and Ziva stroke its forehead. "She is beautiful." Tony blurted out, stunned. We made that, he realized. All of it seemed so surreal.

He looked at Ziva with the tiny girl held tightly to her heart, whispering how much she loved her in Hebrew, and he knew that he'd chosen rightly to put that ring on her finger. This was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Ziva looked up and their eyes met, and strangely he felt as if he were a twelve-year-old that had just been caught staring at his crush. But that was okay. Carefully, she handed him over the baby, wrapped in a blanked like a tiny Jesus.

For a second, an ocean of fears seemed to drown him. What if he dropped her? What if he was an awful dad? What if the child hated him? What if she vomited on him? What if – but as soon as he held her, all of that disappeared. He wouldn't drop her. He would protect her with his life. And if she hated him or vomited on him, that would be alright, there would be a solution. Strangely, he felt a grin on his mouth. The baby opened its tiny eyes and reached up to pull at his bottom lip, which made him smile even more.

"I'm re-thinking what I just re-thought again" Abby silently told McGee and he squeezed her hand. "Does that beautiful girl have a name?" Gibbs asked. Tony gave her back to her mother, though he kept stroking her meagerly haired head.

"It's Kelly." Ziva said and looked at her former boss. "Her name is Kelly DiNozzo David." Gibbs swallowed hard, trying to overcome the sudden wave of emotions that thinking of his dead daughter still made him feel after all those years. Then he smiled. He knew Ziva had named her child for him, thanks to him. And that was good. That was a way to finish with the past and begin with making new memories. And he knew this tiny creature was the start of something big, and something beautiful.

"Can... Can I hold her, too?" Abby had stood up and smoothed down her black lace dress. Ziva smiled and carefully gave her the baby, the white towel wrapped around it shining bright against Abby's black coat. Her lipsticked lips stretched into a big grin and she turned around, first to McGee, then quickly to Gibbs, obviously proud to be this kid's godmother. The baby giggled and reached for her nose, and Gibbs had been right. The start of something big and beautiful.