A Father's Love.

Chapter 1.

After a long few days of working on a case Tony was glad to be finally home and to have a rest, but there was a big shock for him to come.

As he approached the front door to his apartment he was very surprised to see that there was a box sitting on the door step, especially as he knew that he hadn't ordered anything. As he got to it he finally looked inside and he was even more shocked to find that there was a baby boy looking back at him. Before doing anything else he was straight on the phone to Gibbs, as soon as Gibbs answered he said "Boss I've got a slight problem here." Gibbs replied "What is it DiNozzo? Spit it out." He says "I've just got home to find that there's a baby sitting on my doorstep." "Are you kidding?" He answers "I'm not boss I'm deadly serious, there's a box with a baby inside it sitting here." Gibbs sighs and says "Ok I'll be right over."

When Gibbs gets there he finds Tony standing there with a shocked look on his face he then says to him "What's wrong?" Tony answers "I saw the note and took it out, this baby is supposed too be mine." Gibbs then asks "How do you mean?" He answers "It says he's mine and I'm presuming that it's his mother; can't cope with him so she's handing him over to me."

"Ok, so how do you want to play this? Because we do need to open an investigation."

"I know that we need too boss, but I think that before we do anything else I want to find out if he is really mine." Just as he says it his neighbor comes out and says "Oh sorry I heard voices and wandered what was going on. Agent Gibbs is that you?" He goes over to her and gives her a hug and says "Hi Jem, did you see anything suspicious round here or hear anything tonight?" She replies"Sorry I didn't as I'm a child minder now, but rather than having parents in & out of here I pick the kids up and take them back home. There certainly wasn't anything here when I did the run & came back again." He then asks "Look I know that this is a big ask, but would you be able to help us out? We've had a baby left on agent DiNozzo's doorstep and by the look of things he's just been left there in the box with nothing else. There's just a note saying he's the father, but we've got nothing for him baby wise."

She replies "Of course I don't mind helping. You're lucky as even though I'm not planning on going anywhere, today was my last day of work for a couple of weeks, so I'll be free to help you as much as you need me. I should think that as we don't know how long he's been left there for, he'll probably be in need of a change, bath and new clothes. I'm presuming that you'll also want everything he's in to take for evidence?"

He answers "We will be, then we'll be heading to NCIS to do a DNA test to check that he is the father."

"Ok, I'll leave the door open for you, then I'll go & get the bath sorted out while you sort him out. I've got a pushchair or pram you can use to take him back, although I don't know if it will be easier to transfer a seat from my car or if I bring him in for you. I should think that he may be in need of a feed also."

Gibbs then says quietly too her "Thank you, & if it turns out that he is the father, would you help him to learn everything?"

"Of course I will, I'm happy too do anything to help you & NCIS out."

After getting Adam (the baby whose his name they discovered from the note) washed and dressed once again, Tony and Gibbs have gone on ahead to the Navy Yard with Jem following on behind with Adam. They then meet up in the car park, before getting Adam out of his car seat she goes to get the pram out of the trunk, but Tony ends up going over to help her with it "Thanks Tony." "That's ok." She then gets Adam out, puts him in the pram and covers him over. They then go into the building and get her sorted out with visitor passes. As they then get into the elevator and because of the way she takes a deep breath Gibbs says to her "Are you ok?" She answers "I'm fine, it's just not having been in this building since you know; so it's just feeling a bit harder than I thought it would be." He then takes her hand and gives it a squeeze, then says too her "If you do start to find being in here too hard, just give us a shout and you can be out of here." She replies "Thanks, I should think that I'll be ok, but I will shout if it's not." When they get to the lab floor and walk in together, as soon as Abby spots Jem she goes over and hugs her "Hi Abs." She replies "Hi are you ok?" Jem answers "I'm fine, & I'm finally settled now after deciding to stay." "I'm glad that you have decided too, & we'll have to sort out having a catch up." "We certainly will have too."

Abby then says "So how do you want to play this?"

Gibbs then answers "I think that we should get Tony sorted out first, then it gives Jem a chance to get Adam sorted out." As Jem does so Abby gives Tony the swab and says to him "Here you go, you can do this for yourself as I remember what you told me the last time I wanted a swab." As he then starts doing it for himself he ends up making himself wretch, while Abby and Jem just look at each other with looks of 'such a child' at each other. After she gets Adam out of the pram Gibbs gets her a chair so that she can sit with him. Then as she holds his arms out of the way, plus Gibbs trying to keep him entertained and his attention held on him, so that Abby can then get the swab done. He really hates it though and once it's done he does a couple of wretches before he starts to cry. Jem then gets up and starts walking round the lab soothing him. In the end she manages to spot Burt the hippo, so she grabs him and sits back down again. Because of knowing about Burt farting she does just a light squeeze so it doesn't come out too loudly and scare Adam, after a few times of doing it the crying then becomes gales of laughter instead!

In the end while they wait for the results, so that they're a bit more comfortable they move things to the conference room. Gibbs gets Jem a coffee and as he puts it down in front of her he says "You sure you're ok too be in here?"

She answers him "I'm fine. This actually hasn't been as hard as I thought it was going too be. Although in a way it's making me regret that I'd cut everyone off now, because it's made me realize how much I've missed you all."

He replies "At the time you did it you thought it was for the best because you were leaving for another country. Just remember that now you're here, settled and staying here we will all be here for you no matter what."

"I will do anI promise that I will now stay in touch with you all, even when this case is over."

He says "I hope that you do. I shouldn't think that I could persuade you to come back again to work with us?"

She gives him a wry smile as she answers "I don't know it's been very hard getting the business set up and I do love my job, but I suppose that being an agent does slightly have the edge over it. But I don't honestly know after having been away for so long if I could do the job now."

He says "Well you know where to come if you ever change your mind."

"I do and I will do."

A little while later Abby comes up to them with the test results and it does prove that Tony is Adam's father. So he gets up and takes Adam from Jem, then sits and holds his son for the first time. After a while Gibbs calls it a night and tells them to go home before it turns into a really late night. He also says that Tony should take some personal time off so that he can have some bonding time with his son as well as getting himself sorted out. Plus it would also work out well seeing as he couldn't be involved with the investigation either. Although they would need from him a list of the people that he'd slept with in the last year or so, which he could also guess that they could probably exclude one person from that list. Which Tony says they could take her off the list, seeing as in the time frame he'd only slept with her and also Paula Cassidy. Although if it was her how could they prove it with her now being gone. Plus of course up until now who'd had Adam and why had they given him up now. The other thing was why hadn't Paula told him anything about it, as he didn't think that she would be the kind of person too do something like that. Gibbs does a light pat on his shoulder and tells him not to worry because between them all they would get everything sorted out.

During the drive home Jem asks Tony if he wants to take the spare bedroom at hers rather than taking her sofa or trying to sort things out at his apartment. He says that if she doesn't honestly mind having himself and Adam as house guests then he'd like to stay with her. Plus if she didn't mind looking after Adam if they got him settled, he could then go to his apartment and get some stuff. So once they get in at hers she watches Tony as he does his first nappy change along with putting Adam into some pjs, which she does help him when he needs it. They then put him into the cot that they put in the spare room so that Tony and Adam can be together, after that she sorts out the baby monitor along with taking the other one into the lounge with them so that they can hear him.

When Tony comes back after getting some stuff together, Jem gets them both a drink which they then sit on the sofa with, he then all of a sudden says "So if you don't mind me asking how do you know Gibbs so well and with him saying about having you back again, does it mean that you were once an agent?"

She answers "I was many years ago now, if you want to know the truth I was his first probie when we came over to the Navy Yard for the first time. Just before that I was with him and Mike Franks for a short time before the move over. It was then at the Navy Yard that I would met Ed. We dated for a while and then finally got married. We then transferred to New York for a while, before transferring to Rota where we were for quite a while, before we finally came back to the Navy Yard once again. He was sadly killed in a car crash last year. Before we found out about the crash though Jenny had Gibbs bring me in because of Ed at that point just being missing. That was why Gibbs was concerned about me being in the conference room because it was in there where he broke the news to me about the crash and that Ed had been killed. It was a genuine accident so that was why I never got to meet you or the rest of the team."

He replies "I'm sorry. I know that back then things were so very different because when I first joined it was just me and Gibbs on our own, then Kate came and joined us and then finally McGee. Hey does that mean that you and Ed broke rule 12?"

"It did, but with the way we ended up proving to him that we could make our work and relationship be separate from each other. Gibbs eventually came round to us being together."

He then asks "If you don't mind me asking , I know that you've moved round a bit, so why did you give up on being an agent?"

She answers "Initially it was down to the move to New York, but not long after the move I found out that I was pregnant and due to that it made me feel like I wanted out. Sadly though it wasn't too be because I lost it. In New York it also made me feel like I needed a change so I did a child care and psychology degree. With me doing that we put the family plans on hold. So in Rota after finding out about the move back here and knowing that it was going too be a permanent move back we had started trying again when he was killed."

He then asks "After everything that happened why did you decide to cut everyone out?"

"Don't get me wrong, I do really love Gibbs and Abs and if I'm really honest I don't think I would've got through everything without Gibbs. He kept me strong at the times when I thought and felt like I couldn't keep going and just wanted to give up. I know that he and Ed were also really good friends, so he was also dealing with his own grief. Plus with watching what I was going through he knew how I was feeling because of him having gone through it himself. So when I got offered the chance of getting a new life in the UK running a friend's nursery school, I thought it was easier to cut them out. Luckily I only went to the UK on a visit, but everything with the nursery fell through. I suppose in a way I felt slightly ashamed that everything had fallen through and couldn't face Gibbs or Abs and telling them about it. Luckily I eventually found this place after I was starting to think that I wasn't going to find anywhere I could go. I then set up the business and I'm really enjoying everything again. Look I know that you've got a few decisions to make, but when you do go back to work again if you want me to I will look after him for you. That also includes if you get a call out in the early hours, as even though it has been a year since I lost Ed. I still haven't got the early call outs out of my system, as I do still end up waking up at times. I also won't do like I do with my other clients and put time limits on you."

He replies "Thank you and thank you for your help. I don't mean this in a horrible way, but this does just top off a very hard year."

She asks "why what's happened?"

He sighs and answers "The reason why why we excluded someone from the list is because I was only with her for undercover purposes, but I made the stupid mistake of falling in love with her. I realized it on the day that the person that I did say could be his mother was killed. With Paula we originally met on a case where we were investigating her, which turned out to be ok. When she became an agent afloat we decided to make a go of things. The weekend that I think she could've conceived him on was the weekend we decided on ending things. We lost Kate from the team as she was killed in action which hit us all hard, so that was some of the reason why we ended it. Or I'm thinking that it could've been a couple of months later when she joined us just temporarily before Ziva joined the team and despite having ended it, we stupidly went and slept together again. Since that weekend we hadn't seen each other again until the day that Paula was killed. She survived the explosion that killed her team, then got killed herself when the suicide bomber had another go at killing the people he was after. During the day we were together we never talked about us, but she knew that I was in love with someone else, so I told her about Jeanne and Paula told me to tell her how I felt. If it is Paula that is his mother I'm never going too know now if she was ever going to tell me the truth about him on the day she died. I did tell Jeanne the truth about how I felt, but then a couple of weeks later it all came crashing down and my cover got blown. She did ask me to choose between staying in the job or giving it all up too be with her. Even though I was in love with her, I just couldn't give the job up so let her go and I stayed."

She replies "I made that same mistake, obviously it was before me and Ed met. Gibbs got me out because he knew that things had gone too far. But it was still too late because Steve sent me a letter saying that I had to choose and I didn't really know what to do and if I wanted to stay in the job. So once this is all over do you think that you'll be out there trying to find someone, or do you think you'll wait?"

He answers "I think that not only for Adam's sake and getting a a bond with him is more important at the moment, but if I'm honest after having lost two women on top of each other that I loved and in a way I do still love Paula. So I think it may end up being a while before I start looking for someone else. What about you?"

"It's hard to say because part of me would like to find someone special, but after having been married for ten years it's going too be difficult not trying to match them to Ed. Although I do know that I don't want too be like Gibbs with making the mistake of getting re-married over and over again. The thing is it's only been a year and I don't really know how long it is too be acceptable to start dating again, even if I know that Ed would also want me too be happy again." They then get interrupted by Adam crying so Tony says "He can't be hungry again surely?" She answers "Nope that's a needing to be changed cry. And I have a feeling that Mr DiNozzo you may be about to experience your first dirty nappy."

He then asks "How can you tell the difference between cries?"

She answers "I suppose that some of it is a woman's intuition thing, but if you listen carefully you can learn it by the tone of the cry you can start learning the difference between them." As they go in and get set up for the changing she then let's Tony take control and do it for himself, she just gives him a few pointers here and there when he needs it. Once they've got Adam sorted out he is of course wide awake once again. So she then says to Tony "You know one of the best ways to get a bond between you is skin to skin, that's why babies are put onto their mothers as soon as possible after birth. So take your shirt off." He does so and then adds "Ok now pick him up and put him so that he's against you as much as possible. If you can manage too do that a few times a day you might find that the bond might come to you quite quickly. As you may find that if Paula was his mother and whoever has ended up with him following her death didn't bond with him and that's why they've given up to you. Because they perhaps couldn't cope with him. Plus of course doing it also helps him to learn your smell and because babies do have a really strong sense of smell he'll know it's you as soon as you come into the room. I'll leave you two alone, as I can get my bond with him when I'm looking after him for you, so that he knows that I'm a safe person. If you need anything don't hesitate to give me a nudge. You'll know when it's safe to put him back down again without waking him again." She then says "Goodnight." To him and leaves him too it.