CORRESPONDENCE

CHAPTER THREE

Paris, France

"Daddy?" a little girl asks, climbing up into her father's lap. "What are you doing?"

Her father swings her all the way up into his lap. "I'm checking the time in Washington, D.C.," he answers.

"What's Wash-wash—"

"Washington," he answers patiently. "That's where I used to live."

The little girl gets excited now. "With Unca Tim and G'anpa, right, Daddy?"

"Yeah, Tali," Anthony DiNozzo says. "I lived with Uncle Tim, and Grandpa Gibbs, and Aunt Ellie, in Washington. And when your brother is born, we will go back to Washington, and you can see Uncle Tim and your cousins every day."

"Time?" Tali asks, tapping the computer screen.

"It's two o'clock in Washington, and here… It's. Tali's. Bedtime!" he shouts, picking up the girl and swinging her in the air.

"Daaddyy!" Tali squeals.

"You're going to whisk her up, Tony," his newly-found girlfriend says when she enters the room to see what the noise is about.

"Stir, Ninja," Tony replies, grinning. "I'm going to stir her up. We're just havin' a little fun, Zi, relax! Trust me, I want this kid to sleep as much as you do. Say goodnight to Ima, Tali!"

"Night night, Ima, night night, baby!"

"Goodnight, Tali," says Ziva. She kisses her daughter on the top of her head and watches as her boyfriend carries their daughter to bed on his shoulders.

After twenty minutes and one very loud rendition of Goodnight Moon, Tony re-enters the kitchen and slumps in a chair. "Hey, Zi, how long d'ya bet she'll sleep tonight?"

"She is getting better, Tony," Ziva responds, pulling the computer towards her. "Are you ready?"

A pause. "Yeah. Are you?"

Ziva swallows. "It is time. You texted McGee, yes?"

"Did it yesterday. He's ready. He brought everyone down to the lab and grabbed Palmer and Duck on the way. They're ready."

Ziva closes the window with "time in D.C." open and clicks open Skype. "You know his username?"

"Yeah." Tony pulls the computer towards him now, shakily two-finger types in TimMcGee21 into the box and hits "enter." A few minutes later, Tali's shouts burst the air and Tony curses violently. "I'll go get her real quick," he says, and sprints to Tali's room.

The computer, sounding like an airplane taking off, connects with TimMcGee21 in Washington, D.C., just as Tony slides back into his chair with Tali and her toy bunny.

Tim's grinning face appears first and slowly backs away to reveal the rest of the MCRT, standing dumbfounded in the lab. Abby breaks first.

"Holy shit," she says.

"Abby!" Tony yelps. "Baby on board!"

"Sorry, Tony, I couldn't help it. Jesus, Ziva, you—you—Ziva!" she shouts.

Ziva grins. "Hello, Abby. It's been a while."

"That's a contraction," Palmer says. "Hey, guys, Ziva said a contraction!"

Gibbs is still standing there silently, staring at Ziva as if she was going to disappear before his eyes. "Ziver," he says hoarsely.

Ziva chokes up now. "Gibbs," she says.

"Aw, hell," Gibbs blurts, and ducks out of view.

"Ziva," Ducky says. "You look well."

"Hello, Ducky," she starts. "It's nice to see you."

She says hello to more people, looks on in awe when McGee shows the pictures of Morgan and John and Delilah. She nearly curses Gibbs and Tim out when she hears of their Paraguayan Expedition, reassures Abby countless more times, says more contractions for Palmer's sake, allows Gibbs to see his granddaughter, watches as Gibbs chokes up for the second time when Tali reaches out, saying "Hi, G'anpa Gibbs," chokes up herself several times watching her family, especially when Ducky introduces himself and Tali squeals "quack, quack!" at him.

She leans over once and kisses Tony on the cheek and watches as he grins widely at her and wiggles his eyebrows. Ziva leans back then as Tony is interrogated by Gibbs and Abby, as Tony struggles to control his emotions when Abby tilts the computer to show him the Christmas card and pictures of him taped to her machines. Both of them choke up when Gibbs demands answers for "Baby," as Tali puts it. After a long moment of silence, it's Tony who answers first.

"Because, Gibbs," he says, "you're the most important person we know. You've been more of a father to us than either of ours ever were, sorry, Senior, and we needed a way to express that emotion. 'Sides, Baby is pretty grumpy sometimes, and we thought the name would fit that category too."

Gibbs growls at them, grunting some nonsense about "not worth that kid's name," "he's got two perfectly fine parents and they name him after me," until Tony finally tells him to shut up and accept it, and Gibbs does.

After another pause, Abby and Tim jump on Ziva and once again, start shaking answers out of her about Israel, and the fire, and Tali. When Ziva runs out of answers, Gibbs orders the two to stop and then he and Ducky begin talking to Ziva about Paris, and Tony and Tali, and when Tony found her.

Tony, for the most part, sits there and watches, a mega-watt grin on his face as he sees his friends, his family, standing in D.C. welcoming back his best friend and their kid. Tali yawns then, reminding him of how it's really past her bedtime. He begins to take her to bed, but realizes that she needs to be there for what he's going to do. He sets her on the ground, tells her stay there, you can say goodnight to Ima and Baby and Grandpa Gibbs soon. Tony fishes in his pocket for the small box he picked up on his errands last weekend, the one he's hid in Tali's room, and goes over the words he's already gone over a thousand times. "Ziva," he voices softly.

She turns around.

Tony gets down on one knee, opens the little box and starts speaking, ignoring the shout from Abby. "Ziva," he says. "I honest-to-God don't know where to begin, Zi. You're my very best friend, my Ninja Chick. You're going to be a fantastic mother to Tali and LJ, hell, you already are. I don't know what I would do without you and I never want to be without you again in my life. So, to reuse a cliché, Zi… will you make me the happiest man in the entire world and let me have the honor of marrying you?"

Ziva stands there, hands over her mouth, first tears since Tony's found her trailing down her cheeks. "Yes," she says. "Yes, Tony. I love you so much, hairy butt. Yes."

Tony stands up, crying himself, and hugs her, kisses her, slides the ring onto her hand. They stay hugging for a long moment, relaxing in each other. Then he leans down and picks up Tali, who's still standing there tired and confused, and kisses her head.

"Daddy?" she asks. "Crying?"

"No, Tali, this is good crying. Like when Ima told us about Baby. You remember? Good crying, sweetheart," he tells her.

She pats his face. "Yay, Daddy!"

A sharp "DiNozzo!" from the computer yanks him back to reality.

"Yes, boss!" he responds quickly, and then grins.

Gibbs stares Tony straight into the eye. "You hurt her ever at all, you get to answer to me. You hear, DiNozzo? You hurt her, you answer to me."

"I hear you loud and clear, Gibbs," he replies.

"OhmyGod ohmyGod ohmyGod TONY!" Abby shouts at him. "You just proposed!"

"Damn straight, Abs," he grins. Then he pales at the whack on his shoulder from Ziva. "Oops. Sorry, Zi."

"Congrats, Tony. Delilah and I can't wait for you guys to come back," McGee says, and looks genuinely pleased.

Ducky and Palmer congratulate Tony and Ziva profusely and Jimmy promises to babysit Tali and LJ whenever they need it. The new guy, Torres, doesn't have much to say, but tells them that he'll always look out for their kids. Ellie is already thinking of food: "what's your favorite kind of cake?" and promises to get the baby a little OSU hat: "the real OSU," she says to Tony, who immediately rises up in outrage.

Tali stirs in Tony's lap. "Daddy, night," she pleads.

"Okay, honey," he says. "Say goodnight."

"Night, Ima and Baby. Night, Unca Tim. Night, G'anpa Gibbs," Tali says. "Night!"

"Goodnight, Tali," a chorus of voices say.

He puts her to bed and gives her the stuffed bear Tim sent them and returns to the computer, where a flurry of activity is taking place in the lab.

"They caught a case," Ziva says to him. "Rock Creek Park, of course."

"Aw, crap. Sorry, Gibbs," Tony says.

"You take care of yourself and your family. Write me sometime, Anthony," Gibbs finishes, and strides quickly out of the lab.

"On it, Gibbs," Tony says quietly, and shuts the screen.

Yikes! I'm incredibly sorry the next chapter took so long and I hope y'all haven't given up on me. The next chapter of The Beginning of Always should be up hopefully late Saturday. It's nearly finished, but my school has a huge football game that I'm gonna be going to. Thanks so much and have a great day/night!