Of course, when they arrived at the apartment building en masse, they had no trouble getting information. Unfortunately, it too turned out to be useless. An Emily Johnson had rented an apartment here, but had apparently sublet it almost immediately. The landlady couldn't even give an accurate description of the initial lessee.
"Sorry, Tony," McGee said dejectedly. "I really thought this might be something."
"Hey, you tried," Tony allowed. "Thanks."
"It's not your fault, McGee. It's just that apparently, Tony has a taste for women as flighty as he is. Let's hope his daughter didn't inherit that particular gene," Ziva taunted.
For that, she received a quick slap on the head from Gibbs. "Ow! What was that for?"
Gibbs glared. "Didn't your parents ever tell you to pick on people your own size?"
At Ziva's confused look, Tony was surprised to find himself gloating a little. "In other words, screw with me all you like, but leave the kid alone. She's cuter than you."
Ziva looked slightly insulted by this, but Gibbs just grinned and kept walking to the car. Tony hung back, wondering why in the world he was feeling distinctly…relieved at the way the lead hadn't panned out.
He didn't like the feeling. It made him nervous.
--
They were supposed to be at their desks, searching for any possible electronic trail they had missed of the apparently vanished Emily Johnson. In reality, it seemed to Tony that he was in fact the only one diligently attempting this. Everyone else was clustered around the baby, who Abby had brought up ‘for a visit.'
Well, everyone except Ziva. But even she kept glancing in the baby's direction slightly wistfully.
"I can't believe you still haven't named her, Tony," Abby chastised. "She needs a name. You don't want her to suffer from an identity crisis, do you?"
"She's only three months old, Abby. I think she's got awhile before the serious psychological issues set in," McGee pointed out. "Still, she's right. Have you thought about Jane? I always liked Jane."
Tony wrinkled his nose without looking up. "Too G.I. Not Demi Moore's best look, you know."
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Abby snatch the baby from McGee's arms. "Not to mention it's boring. I've always liked Desdemona. Or Ebony."
"Hardly surprising, my dear," Ducky pointed out (and really, why in the world were Ducky and Jimmy up here other than the fact that it was where the baby was?) "Seeing as they have distinctly dark connotations. But I hardly think Tony wishes to name his child something so dour. I suggest something more pleasant. Perhaps Aurora, Goddess of the Dawn? Or Iris, who in Greek mythology bathed to world with color?"
The headache Tony had finally been fighting off started to pound once again. It wasn't that he had a problem with the kid – well, besides the obvious issues, of course. It was everyone else and the kid that really drove him nuts.
"What about Francesca? Or Alexandria?" Jimmy piped in.
"Sure, if you want her name to be bigger than she is," Ziva pointed out from across the room. "I've always liked Sarah, after Abraham's wife."
Tony groaned. "Et tu, Ziva?"
"Well, they have a point. We can't just keep calling her ‘the child' or ‘the baby'," Ziva said defensively.
"Lindsey?"
"Adrianne?"
"Chloe?"
"Isabella?"
"Anastasia?"
"Rebecca?"
Giving up, Tony groaned. "Okay! If I name her, will you all just shut up?"
Judging by their silence, his tone might have been enough. But knowing them as he did, that wouldn't last long. "Give her to me."
With somewhat shocked eyes, Abby handed over the baby. He looked down at her for a few moments, wide blue eyes and that goofy expression spread across her face and suddenly remembered that first night and the Cary Grant movie that had played at ten, when she was quiet and happy. "Elizabeth."
Abby, as usual, was the first one who dared to speak. "Elizabeth?"
"Sure. After Cary Grant's daughter in Houseboat." At their blank looks, he sighed. "Houseboat, 1958. Cary Grant plays a single father with three kids and Sophia Loren is an Italian socialite trying to break away from her overprotective father. Not one of his best movies, but he's Cary Grant, so he pulled it off."
"Wait a minute," McGee said. "Did you name her Elizabeth because you actually like the name, or because in your mind, having a daughter named Elizabeth makes you Cary Grant?"
Tony didn't bother to justify the comment with a response, still holding his newly christened daughter, mind reeling.
--
If there was one face that Lt. Colonel Faith Coleman hadn't expected to show up at her door when she returned from lunch, it was Tony DiNozzo. In fact, he didn't merely show up at her door – he was waiting in her office when she arrived.
"Agent DiNozzo," she said by way of greeting. "I'd say come in, but you seem to have already made yourself comfortable."
"I didn't figure you'd mind," DiNozzo said, attempting for some of his usual sleazy kind of charm. Unfortunately, the bags under his eyes ruined the effect.
She merely pushed his feet off her desk and brushed away the dirt where they had been. "You figured wrong."
"Well, sorry about that, but I need your help."
It had only been a matter of time. "What mess did your big mouth and wandering eyes get you into this time, Agent? Piss off the wrong husband? Desert the wrong woman?"
"Stop it," he said shortly. "I'm serious."
When she stopped and looked at him for longer than two seconds, that much was clear. With a nod, she grabbed a notebook and a pencil. "I'm listening."
--
By the afternoon, they had given up trying to track Emily down, knowing that a solid lead would likely be available by tomorrow. Instead, they were all using the opportunity to catch up on some old paperwork. Tony had even managed to convince Gibbs to let the freshly dubbed Elizabeth stay upstairs with them, so long as the Director stayed in that meeting upstairs and Lizzie (Elizabeth really was an awfully long name for such a little baby) stayed in a congenial mood.
As long as at least one of them was paying attention to her, she seemed more than happy to oblige.
When it was McGee's shift (which curiously seemed to last longer than anyone else's), he brought up a topic that Tony's brain had been studiously avoiding since the moment he had first opened his door and barely managed to trip over the car seat laying on the front stoop.
"Hey, Tony? Do your parents have any other grandkids?"
Trying not to show his discomfort, Tony just kept working. "Seeing as I have no other children, no, McGee, they don't."
"Well, have you told them yet? I bet they'll be excited."
That prompted a snort. "I doubt it."
McGee paused in shaking the rattle. "Really?"
"Well, my mom might. I think it's a rule or something. But my dad will likely be more disturbed that I thought it was a good idea to pass my genes on to the next generation."
"Oh, I don't believe that."
Tony glanced up at him, a wry smile on his face. "You're close with your dad, aren't you?"
"We've always had a fairly good relationship, yes."
Tony shrugged. "Well then, there are no words I can possibly say that can make you understand the dynamic you have with a father whose disapproval of everything you do is your one great constant in life."
"…That bad?"
As he had already revealed more about himself and his carefully camouflaged Daddy issues than he was entirely comfortable with, Tony just stood and walked over, scooping Lizzie up and carrying her back to his desk. "I think it's my turn now," he muttered, brushing a kiss against her forehead before nestling her back into her car seat. "Do your paperwork."
--
On the way home that evening, Tony still had to stop the car. But he somehow managed to get home before Lizzie's fussing had devolved into full-on shrieks.
He got the bottle (assembled correctly this time) in the warmer quickly enough that he had time to sweep up the mess from two days ago.
He remembered to burp her.
After a quick bite to eat for himself, they played with a new toy he had picked up – a tiny little keyboard that lit up. The sound of it was annoying and tinny, but Lizzie made that happy baby squeal when she hit a button.
The TV stayed off. Tonight was Bogart night on TMC, but hey, he had most of them on DVD already anyway.
She went down a little before 11, having been awake most of the day.
At 2:52, Tony's eyes shot open, his legs swinging out of bed before he had devoted much thought to it. With bare feet and bleary eyes, he padded down into the kitchen, fishing out a bottle from the dishwater and mixing the formula without too much trouble. He popped the whole thing into the bottle warmer on low, then mechanically climbed the stairs one more time, scooping up Lizzie just as her face was beginning to scrunch up in that position that meant screaming was certain to follow.
The comforting noises he made were almost mechanical as he cradled the sleepy infant, quickly and efficiently changing her diaper and carrying her down the stairs before she could think to complain.
The bottle was ready by the time they got to it and with ease, Tony managed to juggle both the baby and the bottle long enough to throw a rag over his shoulder and get settled into one of his leather armchairs.
He fed her.
He burped her.
And yet somehow, it wasn't until he lowered her from his shoulder and caught her sleepy blue eyes that the events of the last few hours began to sink in.
"Huh," he said thoughtfully to her. "Look what we did."
Lizzie had already drifted off. Tony, who was now wide awake, stayed in the chair, watching her sleep.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.