Pictures of You

Baby?

I really should be working on homework right now, but I feel bad for leaving you guys hanging for so long (even though I still don't have any ideas for what to write next...).

Here goes a weak attempt to make it up to y'all.

*****

Ziva's heart dropped when Gibbs walked out of the house with a bundle in his arms. He ducked under the crime scene tape, careful not to drop his cargo.

She didn't move, dreading that Gibbs would have bad news.

But as he got closer, he glanced down and a silly smile crossed his face. Ziva released the breath she didn't know she'd been holding.

Everything was okay.

"Do you want to hold her?" Gibbs asked, stopping in front of her.

Again her pulse went haywire. "Um..."

"Here." Gibbs held the baby out to her.

She cautiously took the little bundle into her arms and stared down at it, her heart fluttering oddly in her chest.

She looked up in time to see the bittersweet look on Gibbs' face before he walked away to rejoin the investigation.

Ziva was at a lost as to what to do next. She couldn't possibly go collect evidence with a baby, and it wasn't like she could pass the little sleeping angel off to anyone else either.

Oh well.

She returned to the car, resigned to waiting in the backseat for the rest of the team to finish up without her.

The baby cooed suddenly, startling her.

What was she supposed to do if it started crying? What if it got hungry? How was she supposed to know if it was hungry?

She figured that most of motherhood was supposed to be instinctual, and Ziva was always very attuned to her instincts, but she wasn't a mother.

She could piece together a hundred tiny clues into one urge to dive away from an explosion, but she had no idea how to handle a baby.

This was way beyond her expertise.

A shadow fell across the car, and Ziva immediately looked up.

"How's it going?" Tony asked.

She started to shrug before remembering the tiny life in her arms. "Fine...?"

He nodded and then gestured for her to scoot over. He sighed as he sank into the seat.

"Tough scene?" she asked. She'd hardly gotten to see anything before they got news of the lone survivor.

"Same old, same old," he said, but she knew it wasn't. They usually dealt with only one murder, not doubles. Especially not the parents of a newborn.

"She will never know her parents," Ziva said softly, again lowering her gaze to the baby she held.

"Maybe it's better that way. Hard to miss something you didn't know you had."

That was true. "It is still not fair."

"It never is."

She struggled to put the next few words together. "What do you think will happen to her?"

He shrugged. "She'll be put into the system, maybe adopted right away, maybe not. I think she'll find a good home quickly."

Ziva couldn't help but think how that made the baby sound like a dog or a cat. Just a pet that's being rehomed. Or doomed for a life in the shelter.

She couldn't let that happen.

"How can you be so sure?"

His gaze hung onto hers. "Can't. Just have to hope for the best."

She wasn't so sure she could do that. She didn't think she could hold this baby and then just let her be taken away to an uncertain future. She would always blame herself if this little girl's life didn't turn out perfect.

She wasn't even aware of the tears welling in her eyes until Tony brushed her cheek. "Hey. It will all work out in the end."

"I need to know that for sure."

He seemed to be at a loss for words.

Why was she being like this? It wasn't even her child, she hadn't even known the child for ten minutes, and she already had this attachment, this unwillingness to let the baby out of her sight. She needed to know that everything would be okay. Mere assurances, guesses, weren't enough for her.

"You'd make a good mother," Tony murmured.

She wiped at her eyes, partially annoyed with herself, partially embarrassed, partially touched that he thought that she'd be a good mother. "I do not think-"

"I think you could do it."

Her pulse skyrocketed yet again as she looked at him.

"We could do it."

What?

"I think we could raise her and have her turn out relatively normal."

Was she hearing him correctly? "You think...?"

"Yeah." He gave her a small grin. "What's the worst that could happen? Me and you decide we hate each other, she gets argued over in court and then sent to live with a neutral third party where she spends her days writing about how she hates our guts... Still better than foster care, right?"

She kind of hated herself for it, but she laughed. Really hard.

It was probably a lot more to do with nerves than amusement, but it was still laughter.

"What do you think?" he asked.

What did she think?

She stared down at the sleeping baby and then back up at her partner. "I think it is worth a shot," she said finally.

He smiled. "Alrighty then. It's settled. Congrats, Ms. David, you just became a mother."

*****

Hahahahaha I bet that went a little differently than you thought it would. What do you guys think?

Seriously, if you actually really liked this update, I would consider writing a full-on fanfiction about it.

But please let me know in the comments because I can't read minds!!!  I'm really excited right now so that's why the bold.

I love you guys!!!

P.S. Don't forget All Your Fault updates Friday and depending on I don't know what, I might publish the beginning of The Assassin's Daughter.

In which case, All Your Fault is an NCIS spinoff. The characters are based off the NCIS characters and the story reads like the show does. So if you like NCIS (which obviously you do if you're here reading this) you should check that out.

The Assassin's Daughter, on the other hand, is about a girl whose parents were murdered and now she's out to get revenge. It deals with bullying and family and yeah. I've got about ten chapters of this ready to go whenever I decide to publish it.