Disclaimer: The weight of the knowledge that I don't own NCIS is so heavy that it's pressing me down :P halp meh!

Spoilers: None.

Dedication: To 1Styx and Stones1, who's a lot crazier than she gives herself credit for :P

Setting: Future family-fic. Ben is eighteen-years-old now, so Tony is in his early sixties (yeesh, I can't imagine him that old) and Ziva, around fifty (because if you're as anal as me and actually calculated their birth dates, you'll know that Ben technically won't be born yet for two more years :P).

This fic is more Ben than Tony and Ziva, but it does still have cameos of our beloved characters in it. Jennifer (Ben's girlfriend), by the way, is from England.

Please enjoy!

-Soph

Introduction

A strong breeze sent the leaves of fall skittering across yards and walkways, and Ben lifted his eyes away from the dancing splotches of orange and yellow long enough to notice his girlfriend clinging onto her library books with one hand and desperately flattening down her hair with the other.

"This is not good," she muttered, seemingly to himself rather than to him. "This is not. good. I need a brush."

"You need to chill," he informed her, relieving her of her books. "Your hair's already curly anyway; they're not gonna notice if it's a little messier than usual."

Jennifer shot him a glare. "Firstly, I seem to remember your liking my 'messy' hair. And secondly, I am not going to introduce myself to your parents as the hobo who's dating their son."

"My mum calls them 'homos,'" Ben mused aloud absent-mindedly, and she rolled her eyes.

"My point is that I need to look presentable."

"You're not interviewing for a job, y'know."

"Well, I happen to think that dinner with your parents as your girlfriend is quite a big deal."

Ben smiled shyly. "Being your boyfriend's a big deal, too," he told her as he tugged on her arm to get her to stop walking. "So, I'm not gonna care about what they think."

"You're a mama's boy and a papa's boy, Benjamin," she teased, even as she leant in to kiss him on the cheek. "You wouldn't be able to handle their disapproval of me."

"They're not gonna disapprove of you. No one could disapprove of you."

"That's sweet. But your opinion of me is biased, I presume."

He chortled. "First day of junior year, you walked up to me in Chemistry and told me that you were gonna sit beside me 'cause I looked like I didn't have a lab partner. I don't think anyone annoyed me more than you at that point."

"Well, you see what I mean, then."

"No. What I mean is that you win people over, 'cause you're just that good."

Jennifer beamed. "I am, aren't I?"

"Not lacking in the narcissism department, either."

"Shut up." She laughed, tapping his shoulder playfully. "Let's go and meet your parents before I lose my glow of narcissism."

Taking back her books, she looped her arm around his and allowed him to lead her down the leaf-strewn street.

xoxo

"And this," Ben announced proudly, "is my house."

"That is a very big tree on the front lawn," Jennifer remarked.

"Seriously? I show you my house, and that's what you say?"

"It's very eye-catching…"

Ben sighed and grabbed his girlfriend's free hand. "C'mon."

"Wait!" Jennifer's lip trembled as he turned to her. "I'm not ready."

"Why not?"

"What if they don't like me?" She casted her eyes carefully towards his house, and he shifted a bit so that his body could block whatever prying parents there were in the living room from her abruptly teary expression.

"Jen, you're impossible not to like," he murmured softly, stroking her hand.

"I didn't feel very welcomed the first few months of school last year."

"Yeah, but that's high school, and you found your own group of friends to hang with after that."

"Yes, but … this is different. You mentioned that your parents are overprotective, and … I don't think my usual 'I'm going to make you like me anyway' approach is going to work with them. And I don't blame them. If I had known you while you … went through what you'd gone through, I would be overprotective, too. In all honesty, I would be."

"My parents aren't going to think you were one of the bullies, y'know."

"I know. But I am your girlfriend, and that would make them protective for a whole different reason."

"They'll be overjoyed to find out that you're just as protective as they are, in that case."

That made the mousey-brown-haired girl laugh. And then she sniffled, shaking her head. "I wouldn't want them to think that I was staking an unrightful claim on your heart."

"I think my heart is mine to give," he pointed out, squeezing his eyes tightly shut against the overwhelming cheesiness of his sentence. "Look, they know I like you. So … they're gonna like you, too."

"Do you promise?" she asked, her voice small and the look on her face more vulnerable than he had ever seen her.

So he said, "I promise," and she nodded. "C'mon," he gently urged again, and it wasn't lost on him that her grip was tight enough to break all the bones in his hand as he led her up the driveway to his house.

xoxo

His mum was the one to emerge in the hallway when he first opened the door, and he was relieved.

While he was younger, his mother had been the protective one, and he had been told that it was because his poor physical health had kept him in the hospital for most of the first two years of his life (and the subsequent colds he kept catching had frequently kept him in bed after that). Ever since his transfer to a different high school —a fact which still injured his pride a lot—at the beginning of sophomore year because of the bullying he experienced, though, his father had been the warier of the two towards whomever Ben hung out with.

"Your father's in the kitchen," his mum now whispered in answer to Ben's unasked question as she approached them, and then she turned to Jennifer and extended her hand. "Shalom. You must be Jennifer Hardy."

Jennifer, having somewhat hidden herself behind him as they entered the hallway, now slipped beside him with a tiny bow and returned the handshake. "It's nice to meet you, Mrs DiNozzo."

His mum smiled. "Please, just 'Ziva.'"

Jennifer hesitated for a split second, and in that moment Ben realized that she probably wasn't used to addressing her friends' parents by first name yet: She never did have that habit where she came from. But before he could speak up, she nodded and said, "Alright. I hope you're well, Mrs—Ziva."

Jennifer cringed, but things got even more awkward when Ben's dad's head popped out through the doorway leading into the kitchen. "Party in the hallway?" the older man called out jovially, but Ben could practically sense former federal agent sizing Jennifer up. "So, you're Ben's—"

"The next word to come out of your mouth had better not be 'girl,'" Ben's mum warned sharply. "Get out here. Introduce yourself properly."

His dad muttered something and disappeared for a moment before reappearing. "I'm Tony," he announced, grinning.

"Uhm, I'm Jennifer Hardy."

"Ooh, you're a Brit!"

"Dad, I already told you she was British!" Ben cried in exasperation.

"I was making small talk!" his father protested, and both Ben and his mother heaved long-suffering sighs. "Come into the living room, Ben's Jen. Tell me a little more about yourself."

And with that, Ben's dad led the way. Stepping through the doorway, Jennifer shot Ben a look behind his parents' backs; he shrugged. It didn't go that badly, in his opinion.

Knowing his parents, it could've gone much worse.

xoxo

At the end of the evening, Ben noted jubilantly that he was right—it was impossible not to like Jennifer.

His dad had lost the passive-aggressive stance halfway through dinner, thankfully, and had ended up being quite sincere while conversing with Jennifer; his mum, for her part, had drawn her aside after the meal for a one-to-one talk. Ben still wasn't sure what they'd talked about, but Jennifer's eyes had lit up when he'd entered the living room after cleaning up with his dad, so he supposed it couldn't have been anything bad.

Now, he was walking her back up the street, and she was humming under her breath as she swung their entwined hands and skipped every fourth step. Eventually, he laughed and ran a little—whilst trying not to drop her books—to catch up with her.

"How can you act like such a kid at eighteen?" he teased, and she made a face at him.

"That, I'll have you know, is called 'being young at heart.'"

"Lil' too young."

"There's no such thing as being too young. Besides, your mum seemed to think I was mature for my age."

"She did?" he asked with interest.

"Yes. And she said that's why I'm good for you."

"Because I'm not mature for my age?" Ben guessed with a narrowing of his eyes, and Jennifer waved a finger in his face.

"It's confidential. But I will tell you that your mum approves of me."

Ben chuckled. "I told you so!"

"Well, I believe you now." Jennifer's eyes sparkled as she stepped in front of him with a smile. "It all went wonderfully, I think."

"It did."

She kissed him on the lips lightly. "And I think I shall live to spend another day around you."

He felt his cheeks heat up. "Around me, huh?" he asked, feeling warmth spread through his chest.

"Around you, with you. It's all the same to me."

He moved a little closer. "Is it?" he asked softly.

She scrunched up her nose and stole another kiss from him. "No. I think the latter sounds better. But we are not having this conversation where your parents could still see me if they were to stand in the lawn."

He burst out laughing, and she moved back to his side and continued skipping forward while dragging him along.

Yeah, maybe 'with you' sounded like too-big words for a couple of eighteen-year-olds, after all.

But for now, he was just happy to have this bold, sweet, crazy girl skipping alongside him.