Author's Notes: Hi, everyone! Finally, I have finished this behemoth of a chapter. It is LONG, but the Legend episodes and the whole Rivkin thing in general, seemed to just drag on. I thought Tony handled it all wrong, so I fixed it. Then other stuff happens.

Song lyrics are by Rachael Yamagata, and I included some dialogue straight from one of the episodes.

You think you are such a heavy weight,

But I'm sure of something.

You don't have to be afraid to cry,

Just show me what you've got inside.

I can be your place to hide if you would just release your pride.

Win or lose, I'm by your side.

Give up your heavy weight tonight.

He doesn't mind covering for her. They're partners, after all. He covers for her and she covers for him. That's what having a partner means. They have each other's backs, always.

But this time, he knows she is lying when she says she is following up on a lead. She is a good liar, but they spend almost every day together. He knows her tells. Some subtle thing about her voice, he thinks.

It must have to do with the man who called her work phone and then her cell. The mystery man speaks with an accent similar to hers, and so he correctly guesses that it is Michael, the Israeli boyfriend about whom she says next to nothing. He knows she is a private person, but for this guy, she is taking it to a new level. And he knows she has lied to him before, but there is something different about this one. She looks worried, all the time, and she is so preoccupied that she cannot make her face a blank slate.

It bothers him enough that he goes to Ducky for advice. And that's where he learns about how she almost died in that undercover op in Morocco while he was agent abroad. He knew about the op but not the brush with death. Nobody had mentioned that part, although he currently does not have space in his brain to think about why that might be.

He begins to develop a hunch and his cop instincts know better than to ignore hunches. He watches the footage from the aftermath in MTAC. Seeing her lying on the gurney, bleeding and clearly dazed, being wheeled into an ambulance while not putting up a fight is startling. She hates hospitals as much as him. He takes a deep breath to stave off the feeling that comes over him at the thought that she might have died while he was stuck in the middle of the ocean halfway around the world and might not have found out for weeks.

As he rewinds and watches the clip over and over, feeling tiny bits of him being chipped away with every viewing, he isn't sure what he is looking for until he finds it. The Israeli boyfriend, hovering near her, with intense eyes. He must be Mossad. What other reason would he have for being there?

The pieces start coming together when he and Abby find the photo of him and Eli David. His ID says banker but that is clearly a cover for Mossad. But he still can't see the bigger picture.

Why is she lying, and why is she so worried?

He gives her an opportunity to explain. In the elevator, he oh-so-casually brings up Michael, asks without asking if he is in DC. And she lies to him again. She has to know he knows she is lying, but yet she continues to do it. She shifts uncomfortably under his scrutiny but doesn't back down from the mountain of lies she has built.

It turns out that she wasn't lying that time. Michael wasn't in DC at that exact moment. He was in LA, where he ran into the local NCIS team. Gibbs and McGee are there, working a case. He tells himself that it is a coincidence.

Except there are no such things as coincidences.

In the dim light of MTAC, he watches her reaction very carefully as Gibbs asks her about Michael. Rivkin. He has a last name now.

Then she lies again, saying that she has not worked with him in some time. He had been hoping she would come clean to Gibbs but isn't surprised when she doesn't.

When he speaks with McGee, who tells him that Rivkin is killing the members of the sleeper cell they are tracking, he knows that he has to call her out on her lies, that she is helping to impede an NCIS investigation. It won't be pretty, and part of him hopes that she will come to her senses and confess everything, if not to him, then to Gibbs. But he knows she will not. He has to collapse her mountain of lies.

It's not because he is jealous, although he is. She is obstructing the law by letting a foreign operative kill on US soil. He wraps himself up in patriotic righteousness as he sits at his desk, Mighty Mouse stapler twirling in his hand, preparing mentally for the battle he knows is coming. He tells himself that he has to do it, but that is of little comfort.

"Okay, are you by any chance questioning my loyalty?"

"I am questioning why you didn't tell them you saw him three days ago."

"Are you jealous?"

"No. I'm worried. Because you don't seem to understand that your secret friend is interfering with this agency's ability to shut down a terrorist cell."

"Interfering? How is he interfering?"

"He's already killed two suspects."

"Well, in my country, that would be cause for celebration."

"You're not in your country and neither is he!"

When he raises his voice to her, he knows that he is risking his life. Her face tightens but she merely asks, "Have you finished?"

"Yes." But that's a lie. At this point, they're indiscriminately flinging lies at each other. He has one last question. Would she tell him if she knew where Michael was? At last, she is honest and tells him no. A truth she spits out. Whether or not she would actually tell Gibbs like she says is more than he can puzzle out at the moment.

The elevator doors close and she disappears, and he is left with more questions than when he started. The adrenaline fades, and he is left with the deeply rooted hurt that comes with finding out that the person you trust with your life doesn't trust you the same way after all.

When the case finally closes, when the bad guys have lost like they are supposed to, it dawns on him that he handled this all wrong. Hindsight, as usual, is two steps behind. He is filled with an overwhelming urge to make it right, to make them right.

Abby tells him that Rivkin is on his way to DC for a layover on his way back to Tel Aviv, and he bolts, leaving Abby staring at his rapidly retreating back. He has to get to Ziva's and fix things before Rivkin arrives. If he does not, their relationship will be forever poisoned.

He channels Ziva's driving style and makes it to her apartment in record time. He parks a block away in what may or may not be an actual parking spot, but he doesn't care.

As soon as she opens her door in response to his knock and sees him, she looks daggers and tries to slam the door shut, but he is quicker and the door is stopped by his foot. "Wait," he says before she can open her mouth to tell him to buzz off.

"What, so you can insult me some more?" she spits at him bitterly.

He keeps his tone low, even. "No," he replies. "So I can apologize."

Her eyes narrow, as if expecting a trap. He quickly adds, "Look, I was wrong. But can I at least explain myself?"

She glares at him for another second. He looks steadily back at her, keeping his face relaxed and open. After a long moment, the look in her eyes shifts and she opens the door wider. "Fine. You have three minutes."

He hadn't had time to plan out any sort of a speech and so he goes for bare honesty, explaining to her how things looked to him and where he went wrong. When he is done, she is silent and staring past him at the wall, but he thinks what he has said is registering.

"And that was all it was? You were concerned for the agency?" she asks eventually.

In a split second, he decides exactly how honest he is going to be with her. "No," he admits, ignoring the buzzing that has suddenly invaded his ears and the bitter taste of adrenaline creeping up his throat. "You were right. I was jealous."

Her brows furrow together and her eyes dart to his face. She didn't expect him to own up to the jealousy that has been eating away at him since he first suspected that she was seeing someone. "Why?" she asks.

He had been hoping she wouldn't ask, that she would just get it, but hey, what does he have to lose besides everything? "Because it meant you let someone else in when you wouldn't let me in."

This conversation is not going in the direction she had imagined when she opened the door and saw him standing there, that much is obvious from the look on her face. "What do you mean by that? You want to be… let in?" She looks mystified, like the thought had never occurred to her that he might harbor more than friendly, work-partner feelings for her.

At last, he's standing on the ledge, about to take that final step over, and he freezes. So instead, he says simply, "We're partners."

She purses her lips. "Work partners do not care about being let in," she tells him tartly.

"I do," he replies, then to cover the fact that he still hasn't answered her question, he continues. "So why don't you?"

"I-" she starts, then pauses. When she speaks again, her voice is quieter. "Because every man I let into my life betrays me."

"And you think I will too, if you let me in." It is a statement, not a question.

"Yes." She whispers the word, as if afraid to give it more voice.

He searches her face. She looks genuinely apprehensive and this surprises him. "I wouldn't betray you, Ziva," he says gently.

"That is what they all say," she rebukes, her voice still a whisper.

Brow furrowed, he takes a tentative step toward her. "Do you trust me?"

"I-" She stops herself again. "Yes."

He takes another step toward her, then another, until he is close enough to touch her. Her breath hitches for a moment before becoming measured. "So trust that I won't hurt you, and let me in."

"It is not that easy," she replies with a rueful smile. "There are many things you do not know about me, about my past."

"I know." He looks steadily into her eyes. "But I know enough. And you don't have to do everything alone."

Slowly, he reaches up to place the palm of his hand on the side of her face. She closes her eyes and, he thinks, leans into his touch. She breathes his name and he thinks he has finally gotten his point across.

A knock on the door makes them both jump. He drops his hand, she opens her eyes and steps away. "That must be Michael." She looks toward the door, her face adopting the worried expression she has worn for the last week. "You should go."

As she walks past him, he grabs the crook of her elbow. "Hey," he says, his voice still quiet. "Remember, you're not alone, no matter what happens." He gives her a small, almost shy smile, then lets go of her. She looks up at him, her eyes soft and gives the tiniest hint of a smile, before she continues on to the door.

She opens it to reveal Michael. "Ah, Ziva," he says in greeting, moving in to kiss her. She turns her face slightly and he ends up kissing her cheek.

"Michael." Her voice is tight.

As Rivkin steps into the apartment, he finally notices Tony standing somewhat awkwardly in the middle of her living room. "Oh, I did not know you had company," he says. Tony detects a slight slur and wonders if he had been drinking again.

"Michael, this is Tony DiNozzo, my… partner." Ziva hesitates slightly on the last word. If Rivkin notices, he says nothing about it.

Instead, he focuses his eyes on Tony, as if sizing him up, and then holds out his hand. "It is nice to meet you, Tony. Ziva has told me much about you."

Tony shakes his hand and replies, "Can't say that Ziva has mentioned you much." He can't help the slight edge in his voice. He doesn't think Rivkin notices, but Ziva does. She narrows her eyes from behind Michael. A warning to him.

"Are you here to discuss work?" Rivkin asks, sitting down on the couch. Making himself at home in a way that gets under Tony's skin.

Quickly, Ziva interjects, "Yes, but he is just leaving."

He gives Rivkin a tight smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "Nice meeting you," he says, not really meaning it. Turning to Ziva, he adds, "I'll see you at work. Remember what we discussed." Then, without looking back, he walks out her door. He shuts it quietly behind him and ignores the urge to eavesdrop on their conversation. He said what he had come here to say, and he hopes he got through to her. The rest is up to her.

He goes back to the office to finish the paperwork he had abandoned earlier. Neither Gibbs nor McGee is there. To keep himself from wondering what Ziva is doing now, he concentrates on making his latest report a masterpiece. His cell phone sits on his desk, quiet. She didn't say she would call and he didn't ask her to (why didn't he again?), but he keeps an eye on it anyway.

An hour and a half later, his report is finished and sitting on Gibbs' desk. No call. He decides to head home, where his couch and movies await.

He has comfort movies the way other people have comfort foods, and tonight, he relies on them. They are the perfect blend of comedy, drama, and action, all with happy endings neatly wrapped up.

Nothing like reality, but if he wanted reality, he'd just take stock of his own life.

Horizontal on his couch, a throw pillow smushed perfectly under his head, one of those comfort movies on, and his phone finally buzzes, alerting him to a text message. It's from her.

Still awake?

He quickly types back, yes.

Can I come over? I am just leaving Gibbs'.

He squints at the screen, wondering why she went to see Gibbs. Maybe she broke up with Rivkin, and told Gibbs what she knew about him and his mission. (Maybe maybe maybe. Hopefully.) His pulse quickens as he responds, sure.

He sits upright and turns on a light. "Well, Kate, it's the moment of truth," he says out loud to the goldfish swimming leisurely in its glass bowl. The movie is still playing on the tv and he tries to distract himself with it, but he can't help glancing at the small clock that sits on his piano. At this time of night, it should take about 20 minutes to get from Gibbs' to his place, not taking into account driving style. So for her, maybe 15.

Just as he is forcing himself to not look at the clock, there is a knock on his door. He jumps up, then hesitates. He has been waiting for her, maybe since forever, and now she's here and he hesitates? Shaking his head at himself, he goes to the door.

She is there, looking weary, as if it's the middle of the night and she hasn't slept. Which is the truth. "Hey," he says, unable to come up with anything else to say.

She blinks at him. "Are you going to let me in?" she asks.

"Oh." He opens the door wider and steps aside, allowing her to slip past him. She stands in the middle of his living room and turns around slowly, seeming to take in everything.

"So this is your place. It is nice. Not what I had imagined."

He forgot that this is the first time she has been to his place. It's one of his rules, after all. Never bring the ladies over to his place, where they might overstay their welcome. The thought that Ziva would overstay her welcome is almost laughable. He shrugs. "This is Casa DiNozzo. Want anything to drink?" He moves toward the kitchen, happy to have something to do other than stand there and watch her look at his stuff. "I have beer and, uh, well, water."

"Anything harder?" she asks.

He remembers the emergency vodka in the freezer. "Vodka?"

"Yes."

After pouring vodka into two short glasses and adding two ice cubes each, he carries them into the living room where she has taken a seat on his couch. The sight of her sitting on his couch, leaning back against the plush cushions, looking so completely at home almost makes him trip. Instead, he pulls himself together enough to hand her a glass and take a seat on the opposite end of the couch.

She downs half of her glass in one long sip, then looks him square in the eye and remarks, "I am surprised you have not yet asked what happened after you left."

"I figured you'd tell me when you were ready. And if you don't, then you don't." He is learning, is what he wants to say. The angry Tony of earlier in the day would have pushed her, but it would have just led to her pulling away from him, and that is the last thing he wants.

Raising her eyebrows, she responds, "That is very mature of you." She takes a small sip from her glass, then continues. "Michael was drunk enough to tell me more about his mission although likely not everything. I cannot tell you all of the details because it is a Mossad mission, and I could not tell Gibbs either. I am employed by Mossad, not NCIS, am I not? I have obligations." She sounds defensive and he works hard to keep his face neutral, even though he disagrees. "He did reassure me that he has not gone rogue like Ari. All of his actions have been sanctioned by my father."

"All of them?" he repeats. "That's not good."

"If Michael is telling the truth, then Mossad is violating international law. This is why I told Gibbs. I imagine he will tell the new director." She breaks eye contact to watch the way the remaining liquid in her glass swirls as she moves it, ice cubes clinking.

He opens his mouth, then closes it. It must have been difficult for her to tell Gibbs that she suspected her father was violating international law. For possibly the first time, he appreciates the difficulty of her position, of being loyal to two agencies that have different agendas. It's easy for him. His loyalty is to Gibbs and NCIS. He silently watches her struggle to keep her face emotionless. '

"That must have been hard," is all he can think of to say after a long pause.

She takes a deep breath. "Yes." After another silence, she adds, "It is over with Michael. I clearly cannot trust him."

He isn't completely certain how she got from point A to point B, but he likes point B, so he lets it go. Again, he doesn't know what to say, so he offers up, "I'm sorry."

"It is not your fault," she says, shrugging a shoulder.

"It's not yours either."

This earns him a rueful half smile. "Is it not?"

He gives her a pointed look. "No, it's not," he says emphatically.

"I keep trusting the wrong people. My father, Ari, Michael. I am not exactly pitching a thousand."

He can't stop himself from automatically correcting her. "It's batting a thousand. But you also trust Gibbs." And me, he adds silently.

"Even so. You should run very far away from me, Tony."

"Not gonna happen," he replies quickly.

She shakes her head. "I am not…" She pauses, clearly searching for the right word. "Safe."

"If I wanted safe, I'm in the wrong profession," he counters with a smirk. He reaches over and lifts her chin with a gentle finger so she is looking at him. "You are exactly who I want."

His admission, finally stated. A weight he didn't know he had been carrying is lifted from his shoulders. She searches his face almost desperately, as if expecting to find a hint that he is lying. "Tony," she says quietly. "Do we really want to open that door?"

He gives her a soft smile. "I think we already have."

He moves his hand up to cup the side of her face, his thumb brushing lightly over her cheek. As before, she leans just a little into his touch and closes her eyes. This time, there is no knock on the door to distract them. He leans forward and softly brushes his lips against hers, a whisper of a kiss. Then he rests his forehead against hers and there they sit silently, breathing the same air, adjusting to this new reality.

After what feels like an eternity, she pulls back and yawns. "Can I stay on your couch?" she asks. "Michael is still in my apartment. He was too drunk for me to kick him out."

"Yeah. You take the bed, though. I'll sleep on the couch," he says. "It's um, a twin. But really comfortable. You've had a long few days."

For the first time in what feels like years, she smiles. "A twin?" she repeats, her voice tinged with teasing. "The famous Anthony DiNozzo, Junior, sleeps in a twin bed?"

He shrugs. "I don't bring women over here. It's my sanctuary."

"But you let me come over."

"Because you're different." He smiles and taps the tip of her nose. "Come on. It's a school night."

Hours later, as the sun is beginning to make its appearance, they head out the door together. He's wearing one of his suits, a grey one that she says she has always liked on him, she's wearing yesterday's clothes. Outside the entrance to his building, she pauses, reaches out to grab his hand and give it a squeeze. "I will go to my apartment first to kick out Michael and change my clothes. Cover for me?"

He squeezes back and smiles. "Of course. What else are partners for?"

She slips behind her desk quietly, about an hour later. He keeps his eyes on his computer screen and tries to watch her in his periphery. When he can't get a clue as to how things went back at her apartment, he heads to the men's room to see if she follows to give him an update. She does not. He returns to his desk and wills her to go to the ladies' room so he can corner her.

Before he is successful in his endeavor, Gibbs gets a phone call. "Gear up. Dead navy officer in Rock Creek Park," he barks in the familiar manner. "DiNozzo, David, meet us there with the van. Start processing the scene. McGee, with me. We gotta make a detour first."

They grab their gear and head for the elevator. He swears Gibbs gives him a pointed look but has no idea what it could mean. Gibbs can't know that Ziva stopped by his place after she left his house. Can he? He keeps his most innocent face on throughout the elevator ride, staring at the space above the doors.

Alone at last in the garage, cleaning out the van, he finally is able to ask her, "Everything okay?"

She pokes her head out of the back of the van to smile at him. "Yes." She does not say anything else, but he can hear her humming as she continues to make sure the van is properly stocked.

Once they are on the road, she asks, "What are you doing Friday night?"

"Assuming we're not working this case all weekend, whatever you're doing?" he replies, keeping his eyes on the road, but raising his eyebrows hopefully.

"Come over, and I will make dinner. We can watch a movie after."

He grins. "It's a date."

"If you behave."

He crosses his fingers and almost cheers when Gibbs sends them home for the weekend at 8pm on Friday and tells them that he'll see them on Monday. They let McGee leave before them, both pretending to still be running through potential matches on license plates. Once he has left the bullpen, Tony makes eye contact with her.

"Are you really still running through your list of partial matches?" he asks her.

She smiles at him and begins packing up her things. "No. Are you?"

"No." He grins at her and shuts down his computer.

They keep their evolved relationship out of the office, and for the most part, out of the work week. When they work weekends, they shoot pained looks at each other, but no one thinks it out of the ordinary because they had always done that. Only they know that those looks now have deeper meaning. Like we can't spend the whole day snuggling on the couch watching movies, his preferred method of spending a Saturday. Or, if it is nice out, we can't spend the day hiking that trail I told you about, her preferred method of spending a Sunday.

(They have a long running argument about which activity expends more calories. She says it is obviously the hiking, but he counters that snuggling on the couch almost always leads to lots and lots of sex, which also consumes calories. The debate is never resolved.)

Gibbs begins threatening to assign Tony to be agent afloat again, and Tony takes this as evidence that he knows. She tells him he is being paranoid until Gibbs begins giving her pointed looks and she joins Tony in the paranoia.

McGee mostly looks puzzled and occasionally thoughtful when he witnesses these interactions. He decides that ignorance is bliss and doesn't inquire.

The first time they break their unspoken "non-working weekends only" rule is when she receives word that Michael Rivkin is dead. The team is in between cases so they are at their desks doing the usual paperwork or, in Tony's case, playing solitaire. Gibbs is in MTAC with Director Vance.

At noon, as the team is arguing good-naturedly about where to order lunch, Gibbs emerges from MTAC and, from upstairs, catches Ziva's eye and signals for her to join him. They go into the Director's office, where Vance breaks the news.

Rivkin was sent to take down the terrorist organization. In Somalia. Saleem Ulman, the leader, killed him, but not before Rivkin fatally wounded him in return. Eli David calls the mission a success, although he regrets the loss of Rivkin.

Vance and Gibbs explain all this to her with unusual gentleness. Her walls go up automatically and she nods to them, thanks them as if they just told her that a stranger had died. Michael Rivkin was a stranger to her. In a non-stranger way.

She goes back to the bullpen, sits down at her desk, and stares at her computer screen. Tony notices the change in her demeanor immediately but something on her face tells him to proceed carefully. He goes so far as to text her, as discreetly as possible, everything okay?

She does not respond and says nothing for the rest of the day. Gibbs sends them home at 5pm, a ridiculously early time by their standards. As he does so, he gives Tony a pointed look and a barely perceptible nod toward the still-silent Ziva.

She is gone from the bullpen and pulling out of the parking lot before Tony can make it out of the office, but as he is getting into his car, he gets a text message. I do not want to be alone tonight.

(Even in text messages, she doesn't use contractions and he loves that about her.)

He drives over to her place, where she gives a terse explanation of what had happened. Unsure of what to say, he wraps his arms around her and holds her for a long time. He makes chicken soup from a can and makes her eat it.

They get into her bed, fully clothed, above the covers, at an early hour. She lays on her side, facing away from him, and he isn't sure if he should touch her, but then she reaches back for him and draws his arm around her, holds on to his hand with both of hers.

He instinctively knows that she is feeling more guilty than sad, and in his mind, Jeanne Benoit's hurt and bewildered face appears, and he understands. They lay there for hours, neither sleeping, the only sound in the room their quiet breathing.

She clings to him like she is in an ocean, unable to swim, and he is a lifeboat.

One day in the future, she finds herself becoming increasingly tired and fighting back nausea throughout the day. Tony shoots her concerned looks but she shrugs it off as the flu, which she gets every year. "It is the season," she explains when they are alone in the elevator.

One morning, as she sits at her desk, stifling yawns and looking particularly green, Gibbs drops a rectangular box onto her desk without pausing. A pregnancy test. Her eyes dart to Gibbs, who isn't looking at her, then to Tony, who is. They exchange panic-riddled glances before she shoves the box into her purse.

That night, they sit on her couch, staring silently at the pregnancy test sitting in front of them on its wrapper. The display clearly states pregnant, 3-4 weeks.

"I have to tell my father," she says, her throat sandpaper dry. "He will terminate my liaison position and recall me to Tel Aviv."

He grips her hand, heart thudding in his throat, and tries to wrap his head around this development. They are careful. Two types of birth control careful. And yet, somehow, they created life.

"We'll figure it out," he says.

Haltingly, she suggests an alternative. They and Gibbs are the only ones who know. This is the US, there is no need for a committee as there is in Israel. He starts feeling a little queasy, but says that he will support whatever decision she decides to make.

The next day, she makes an appointment with a clinic for that Saturday.

On Thursday, the Director calls her into his office and informs her that the nature of her liaison position has changed. She is now needed as an intelligence officer working the Middle East. It has been cleared with her father.

The Director gives her the smallest of smiles and she blinks, thanks him. She walks out of the office feeling like a huge burden has been lifted.

She calls the clinic back that afternoon and cancels the appointment, holding tightly onto Tony's hand as they stand in the elevator, bathed in the emergency blue lights.

Her new job doesn't give her the same rush of adrenaline, and she misses working with Tony, but at least they are in the same office, and they see each other in the evenings if neither are working. The work is complex and nuanced, and over time, she finds herself enjoying it. A lot of her time is spent in MTAC, briefing agents overseas.

The nausea thankfully abates before the end of her first trimester, although the exhaustion is a constant struggle. She continues her morning runs, despite Tony's dubious looks. Triumphantly, she emails him article after article, explaining the benefits of continuing to work out during pregnancy.

He asks once whether they should get married. The look she gives him is so comical that he would have laughed if he wasn't half serious. She pats his cheek and tells him that she is not ready to take that step, but moving in together might not be such a bad idea.

They find a two bedroom apartment and move in together. Despite her protests, he refuses to let her carry anything larger than a duffel bag.

Although they never formally announce their new status as impending parents, just the way they never announced their dating status, Abby has a constant cat-that-ate-the-canary grin and it is obvious that both she and McGee know. Ducky shares various pregnancy anecdotes, and it is clear that their secret is definitely not a secret.

She doesn't tell her father, although she is certain that his spies have told him about both her relationship with her former field partner and her changing body shape. She is ready for his angry phone call, but it never comes. In fact, he doesn't call her at all.

She finds that it doesn't bother her as much as it probably should.

One evening, when her belly is so big that she can no longer see her feet when she stands, she sits on the couch with Tony. The tv is on, but neither are watching. Instead, they are looking at her midsection, waiting.

Suddenly, she says, "Okay, now!"

And she watches his eyes get round as the baby, a girl, runs her heel across Ziva's belly, making it move. He puts his hand on her stomach and feels the baby kick him.

"A ninja, just like her mother," he says.