** Family: Epilogue **

After touching down in Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport, they took the same train, got on the same metro, and staid in the same hotel overnight. Tali loved the varied selection of tv channels, miming along to all the programs in the languages she could understand, so that the backdrop to Tony's and Ziva's celebratory glass on the balcony occurred to the backdrop of Spanish weather forecasts, an English sheep-shearing contest and a French outer-space kids' show. Deciding that she was still not big enough to sleep in her own bed again after all their travels, Tali then fell asleep wedged between them, arms and legs stretched wide and leaving but the farthest edges of the king-size to her parents.

They spent the next day enjoying the city as they had done so many years before — and hadn't yet, since. This time, of course, their stroll in the Tuileries involved less talking and more abiding by Tali's calls for taking every possible picture of the crowds, herself, and selfies that both involved her and, once she had taken control of Tony's phone, an exorbitant number of shots of her parents, flatteringly taken from behind and from all the way below them. Ziva got her money shot of Tali on Tony's shoulders, touching the tip of the glass pyramid, and Tony got one of Ziva and Tali on a carrousel that felt, to him, oddly prophetic.

They devoted their second day back in Paris to packing up Ziva's apartment. Neither of them commented on just how little stuff she had managed to accumulate over the past three years. Just once Tali observed, ever astute and the daughter of professional investigators, that there were more of Ima's books on their living room shelf than in the box they had just taped shut. They piled the entire stack of them into a rental car and left. On their way out of the city, Ziva put the apartment up for sale online and a new renter was found no two weeks later.

"What would Eli think, you think?", Tony asked her on the way home from signing the contract, catching a near-drop of his ice cream with the tip of his tongue.

Not taking her eyes off hers in the gleaming afternoon sun, Ziva slipped her hand into his and merely shrugged. "It's just too much to hold on to."

Tali newly demanded regular video-calls to the entire extended family and talks of US-bound traveling now involved making plans to visit Nonno along with the whole lot of them. If Bishop was to be believed, Gibbs had been dropping hints about retiring. Delilah, too, had involved herself personally in this particular mystery quest that involved long theorizing about small hints and stray comments.

"What's Tim got to say on it anyway?", Tony inquired, peering over Ziva's shoulder at Delilah's head on the screen.

"I'm not sure, actually," Delilah replied, looking behind her by sheer force of instinct. The squeals of ongoing bath time rituals could be heard all the way to their banlieue house in Paris. "He doesn't seem too keen on the job the way it is right now."

"And having a dual lead?", Ziva offered. "He sounded quite serious about that idea two weeks ago."

Delilah nodded. "He's so tight-lipped, though. I think he's been working on a concept for a while. He's been glued to his tablet even more than usual."

The PI agency was the next thing to go. Ziva had no interest in continuing it and had twisted and twirled Tony's offhand ballerina comment in her mind long enough that it came out martial arts and self defense classes for women. Three months after the Betancourt case had officially closed, they had started refurbishing their basement into a permanent training room and Ziva was well into assembling all the permits. She would work from home and Tony, in a moment of unbridled self-reflection, decided to take over from her and make it into a legitimate business.

"Of course," was Ziva's offhand and enthusiastic response to his hesitant proposition while they were preparing dinner one evening.

"You think?"

"You're good at finding people."

He flashed her a smile, leaning against the counter and utterly too close. "You. Perfect strangers. It's about the same thing," he quipped.

"Similar enough. The same impulses." She winked at him, absently stirring pasta sauce (Tali's current favorite).

"D'you think you'd ever want to go back to it?"

"No," she declared, resolute. "I've fought enough for two lifetimes."

Together the three of them decided on the school Tali would go to. In a bout of characteristic over-eagerness, they celebrated the day her acceptance letter arrived with a first shopping trip for the starter pack of bag, pens and markers, folders and notebooks and stickers. She would start in the fall, and already was the guest room a shrine to her excitement about being basically grown-up now, as they had been informed on multiple occasions.

And Ziva was there: for all the excitement, the outbursts, the bedtimes, the nightmares, the therapy sessions, the anxieties, the early mornings and Saturday evenings snuggled together on the couch, the lice that had maliciously threatened Tali's locks, the flu season right around Hanukah last year, and the mother-daughter reading night last Wednesday.

"Are you sure you want me to do this?", Tony checked for the third time that morning, kneeling in front of the gas tanks tucked away beneath the barbecue. "I'm sure Chef Gibbs would take more kindly to an undercooked organic, GM-free, farm-raised, happy-go-lucky steak when it's coming from you, sweet cheeks."

"But what would the establishment say if they saw your very pregnant partner handling fire?", Ziva teased, running a hand through the short crop of hair at the base of his neck. She smirked when a noticeable shiver ran down his back.

"Wife," he corrected her.

He drew himself back up and tapped the rhodium-plated band on her ring finger. Then he tilted his head at her, smirk and all, and caught her lips in a kiss. She closed her eyes and he rested a hand on her bulging stomach.

"Oh my!", he groaned with an air of ominous foreboding, pulling them into the next moment.

Ziva looked up and followed his eyes all the way across the patio, beyond the glass doors and back into the house, where she noticed Tali toing and froing in the living room.

"She's wearing the dress."

"The dress" had been a present from Nonno on his latest visit: sunshine colored, short-sleeved and slick beyond Tali's years, finished with an elaborate, multi-layered overskirt of light yellow taffeta. As of late, the dress had been her telltale sign that something serious and absolutely essential was about to happen: a show-and-tell at preschool, the stuffed animal theater night that had been put on for Tony and Ziva the other day, or any dance recital of late. In her logic, Abba always looked really, really nice when he went to work at the office (a rented two-room around the corner from Gare de l'Ouest), so the same had to be true for her. Despite Tony's deep frown, Ziva knew that their daughter's affinity for exuberant performance had a parental source, readily identifiable.

"She has a whole routine prepared," Ziva explained nonchalantly. "Auntie Jack and Uncle Jethro have never seen her perform before. Didn't you realize?" She smiled, matching her daughter's matter-of-fact tone and tilt perfectly.

"Maybe the new one will turn out more like you," Tony said, still staring at Tali. "The stealthy bits."

She offered a light "Ha" before turning on her heel and walking back into the house. Over the threshold, she almost lost her balance tripping over the toys and stuffed animals Tali had "cleared away." They had found her busy at work well ahead of her usual wake time, making room for her stage in the middle of the living room where she would be in full view of the couch. In the time Ziva had spent laying the table, the couch had been decked out with separate name tags for guests and family that included hand-drawn portraits of their owners.

"Taliah!", Ziva called, shaking her head and only barely succeeding at suppressing her smile.

"Ima?", the newly minted six-year-old responded, all innocence and glory. Her head peeked out from behind a tower of couch cushions.

"Can you please take these up to your room? Leave at least a path for us to walk in and out of the house?", Ziva requested.

Tali sauntered over and planted herself next to her mother. She angled her body just parallel to Ziva's and surveyed the collection of her assorted downstairs possessions. Weighing her mother's suggestion for a moment, chin tucked in, a finger pressed to it, she observed, "But then I have to bring it all back down when I'm done."

"Art, my love, means suffering," Ziva retorted, bending down to drop a kiss on her daughter's head and brush a hand over her curls. "Right away, please."

Tali sighed an exasperated sigh that rung with everlasting bohemian plight, but started the first of a number of trips up the stairs with full hands and a heavy heart. She was halfway through trip number three when the doorbell rang and called their little family to attention at once.

"They're here!"

Tali dropped her stuffed trio of wise monkeys on the floor, hear-no-evil monkey falling head first, and flew past her parents to answer the door.

"It can't be." Tony scoffed. "I told him I'd pick them up from the station."

Ziva frowned. "Did you really think Gibbs would wait to be picked up?"

"Well, no. Hey there, munchkin— Hold your badgers."

Tali was already working the keys in the lock but stopped short. "Who's there?," she asked dutifully, hands still itching on the doorknob.

"Will you open up, DiNozzo?", came Gibbs' frustrated grunt.

"That well clears it up." Tony smirked and threw open the door.

Ziva just shook her head, standing back as Tali dashed forward and awarded bear hugs to Jack and Gibbs, who were sporting matching duffle bags. She thought better than to comment, keeping her grin to herself.

Gibbs crouched down, holding out a neatly wrapped package. "This is for you, princess."

"Thanks, Uncle Jethro," Tali squealed, throwing her arms around his neck once more.

"And these are for your Ima." He got back up and handed a bouquet of wildflowers to Ziva.

"Thank you, both of you. They're beautiful," she replied, visibly touched, as she stepped forward for her own round of hugs.

"Let me find a vase," Tony offered, taking them from her. "Drinks everyone?"

They nodded, but lingered in the hallway. Both Jack and Gibbs had stilled to take in how clearly pregnant Ziva had become. It had only been four months since she and Tony had announced it in one of the fewer video calls Jack had been able to make Gibbs sit through.

Ziva laughed, noting their stares. "I know. The pictures don't do it justice."

"Christmas you were still thinking adoption, weren't you?", Jack asked, remembering the exact conversation at Senior's Washington apartment.

Ziva nodded, one hand cradling her protruding belly. "And we even started looking into it. And then it just happened. Which is apparently how we do things in this family," she remarked and brushed her other hand over Tali's curls.

Her little girl was already well through the two layers of newspaper wrapping paper. "Look Ima, it's a football!", she gushed, holding the box up to Ziva's face.

"Your dad mentioned you've started playing at school," Jack remarked, looking to Ziva for confirmation.

"She has."

"Can I try it, Ima? Can I, please?", Tali begged, her green eyes wide and well-proven cajoling shape.

"After we eat," Ziva dodged their powers expertly, her eyebrows rising as Tali's face fell. "You will have all afternoon, ahava. Now put it with your other things, please." With a short-tempered "humph" Tali set off towards the kitchen.

"But are you feeling okay? You're past the worst bit now?", Jack resumed her line of questioning, following Ziva inside.

"I will be past it when he's born," Ziva admitted since it was no use and the exhaustion in her eyes could not be kept a secret from anyone. She found no reason to be coy. "But he seems happy and healthy and we only have two more months to go." She each handed them the beer Tony had placed on the counter.

"L'chaim!" Jack raised her bottle and they clink-clink-clinked, smiling.

"And this time," Ziva added, the smile persisting on her face, "Tony's there."

"Hey, Ziva?", the man in question called, sticking his head in from the patio. "Gonna go play ball with Tali for a bit. Gibbs, you don't mind keeping an eye on the steaks, do you?" Flashing her a big knowing smirk and without waiting for an answer, he was gone.

"Sure is," Gibbs remarked dryly, taking a sip from his beer.

Just then, Tali scurried past them, now dressed in socks, shorts and a t-shirt (backwards in two places), and toting her trainers by the shoelaces. She pushed her sunshine taffeta dress at Ziva.

"I dunno how to do it like you," she urged.

"Not so fast—"

"Imaaa!"

"Your shirt, ahava," Ziva clarified, laughing at her patented impatience, and wrangled Tali to her side. Jake wordlessly accepted the dress and neatly folded it over the back of a dining room chair.

Ziva pulled the shirt over Tali's head, turned it over and smoothed down a crumpled sleeve. She rolled it up around the collar and held it out expectantly. Tali quickly stuck her head through, curls flying and skipping out of a haphazard ponytail, and off she went, red fabric wafting after her, out into the yard. Ziva only laughed. To the six-year-old everything was urgent and life advanced promising and wide-eyed. Her daughter would do, of that Ziva would make sure, whatever her heart desired.

She led Jack and Gibbs out underneath the white sun sail Tony had installed the day before. He had placed the wildflowers amid an already richly decorated table, bearing Tali's stamp of approval. She motioned towards the barbecue and Gibbs went to work right away as she took a seat in the shade; too much time on her feet again, as with her last pregnancy, sure to wear her out quickly. They watched Tony call instructions to Tali across their small backyard, all grass and no bushes, nor trees. The patience to start gardening still evaded them both.

After a while, Tali came rushing over, grinding to a halt by Ziva's chair and out of breath. "Water?", she guessed and Tali nodded eagerly.

Ziva filled a glass from a crystal carafe — a joke present for their quiet wedding that they had found on their doorstep and ultimately quite useful — and handed it to her daughter.

"Todah," she gulped out between sips.

"Careful, ahava," Ziva cautioned, chuckling. Suddenly a flutter radiated through her, eyebrows quirked in surprise and a smile bloomed on her face.

"Kicking?", Tali asked, recognizing her mother's reaction. Ziva nodded. Tali reached for her mother's stomach with both of her hands, palms up front. Ziva placed hers on top, guiding her. Tali giggled.

"Are you excited to become a big sister, Tali?", Jack asked.

Tali tossed her head up and down excitedly, now perching on Ziva's chair with a steadying arm around her mother's shoulder. "I picked all the colors in his room, so he can decide what he likes later," she explained, all business-tone. "And I get to help decide what his name's gonna be, too."

"You are?"

"Yup. Ima says it's only fair cause she got to decide mine." Ziva laughed at her daughter's utmost candidness. Tali just shrugged, like, "You said so."

"I like Levi a lot," she informed them.

"We done playing already?", Tony asked, coming up from the yard and tapping his daughter on the shoulder.

"Nah-uh. Just thirsty," Tali protested and jumped back up.

"You okay?", he then asked, crouching down by Ziva's feet and kissing her hand. "Hot? Tired? Hungry?"

"He's definitely getting hungry," she remarked, hand on her stomach.

"Give me twenty," Gibbs announced, closing the hood on the barbecue with a clunk.

"Enough time to teach your boy some technique," Jack proclaimed, getting up from her seat and offering her hand to Tali, who eagerly grabbed on. She turned back to Gibbs. "Hold my beer?" She winked, he obliged, and they smiled.

They heard Tony mumble something about "basketball" before practice resumed, Jack now kneeling beside and coaching Tali with a big show of hands, arm flying over her shoulder, first without a football, then with. Suddenly Ziva felt Gibbs standing behind her, bracing against the back of her chair. She reached up and took a hold of one of his hands, big and calloused.

"Here," she instructed, placing his palm just right. "Hungry and restless."

She could feel him relax against the baby's rally of impatient kicks, smile and all. "Tony reads to him every night, in all of our languages," she recounted, looking up to find Tony watching her, always, with a smile.

A moment passed, still and quiet, then Gibbs retrieved his hand. "Ziver?", she heard him ask and turned, peering up at him. His head was tilted to the side, a question in his eyes.

"Yes?"

"You happy?"

She nodded. "I am, Gibbs." He bent over and, to the sound of Tali cheering, placed a gentle kiss on her temple. She nodded again, certainty a sure force.

"I really am."

The end.