FAIRYTALES
Fairytales don't happen. The prince marries the princess...and there is no happily ever after. Because that's simply how the cruel, real world works.
Tony. Middle-aged, cocky yet insecure, handsome, a movie buff. Ziva. Middle-aged, tough yet sugary sweet, pretty, a Mossad assassin. Two people once in completely different universes. Now in one.
These two people had breached the boundaries of each other's worlds, connected by the tiny, fragile thread of NCIS. They flirted and danced around each other, drowning and floating in their personal disasters. The fragile thread began to become stronger, like a cord. They didn't know that the cord was slowly slithering around their throats.
They talked of inevitability, they talked of soul mates. Everything is inevitable. There may be soul mates in the wide world. A few, but not many.
Fairytales don't happen.
You are who you are, through your actions, your words, your personality and your past. You can't change your past, nor can you forget your past. The past will always come back to haunt you, and you can't escape it. Ziva may be a slightly mellowed NCIS agent, but she is Mossad, she was Tali's sister and Ari's half-sister, and she is the daughter of the Director of Mossad.
Ziva's always losing things. She lost her 'Sound of Music' DVD on Wednesday. She lost her wallet a few months ago (yet then found it). She lost Michael several months ago. She lost...killed her half-brother years ago. She misplaced her little sister several years ago. She lost her father many years ago. She lost her sweet self when she was three.
Ziva knows that because of this, she's got to cling on to anything, any brittle straw that comes flying towards her. Tony's not brittle, but he's strong. What's even better is that Ziva likes him.
Fairytales don't happen.
When you ask people many years afterwards about what happened, they say with dreamy tearful eyes that it was perfect, it was a fairytale. They said that Tony and Ziva flirted and flirted...and it went somewhere. Ziva clutched and held on, and she got Tony. It was so romantic.
People said that it all happened so fast, the engagement, the wedding, and the soon to come baby. Their house was also so idyllic. It all seemed so blissful. The perfect family. Tony always with a big, careless grin on his tanned face, and Ziva with a small curve of her lips, and the tiny little bump on her stomach. She had only been expecting for 3 months.
They were perfect on the outside. They were polished and gleaming. But on the inside, everything began to spiral out of control.
Fairytales don't happen.
Tony was overprotective of Ziva and their unborn child. His past had caught up to him, he wanted to be a father who didn't desert or ignore his child. Ziva found his mollycoddling amusing at first, yet she began to get more and more frustrated, as he began to ban her from doing things. She hated inactivity, and tried to reason with him that she was only three months in. And she hated being idle and powerless.
At the most testing moment of their lives, the insecurities in their fast blossoming relationship began to show.
They blamed it on Ziva's hormones, yet surely Tony didn't have hormones. They blamed it on everything, everything but themselves.
"Hi, Tony," the customary 'welcome home' greeting, and Ziva would kiss Tony on the lips, before leading him into the house, to the new delicacy of some sort which she had whipped up. She found using the kitchen knives slightly easing on the tension in her muscles. She wanted to go to a gym and kick something...but, oh, she was pregnant.
Ziva never thought about being a mother. Ziva had always thought of guns and power, saccharine and untainted. Ziva wasn't shaped to be a mother, she wasn't made to be a mother. She had always thought that she was made to take away a mother's children.
After dinner, the house was always tense. Tony would awkwardly sit on the couch with his arms around Ziva, watching a movie, and Ziva would always twitch and fidget. They didn't act like a married couple. They didn't even feel like a married couple. They thick cord which they had woven had been knitted even thicker by the baby-to-come, and it was slowly reaching their necks. Hangman's noose.
Fairytales don't happen.
Finally, things cracked. Ziva and Tony, after two years, felt little affection for one another. Maybe they did love one another, but it was pressed down by their past, and the tension created because of the baby. One day, Ziva had a feeling that the child was going, that it was going back to God. And she felt a strange pang of grief, remorse, disappointment...and relief? She felt somewhat free, free from a heavy burden.
Ziva went to see a lawyer, and she got all her documents in order. It took many weeks, but Tony didn't need to know. And then she quietly packed her things, took off her glittering ring, and stepped out the doorway. She looked up at the large, brown house, a fairytale castle nestled in suburbia, and then shut the door quietly as well. She treaded on the gravel, the lunch crunch disconcerting, before opening her car door.
Fairytales don't happen.
Tony came home, his heart beating calmly. It had been a particularly hard case, and he missed having Ziva as his partner. Hopefully she had cooked up something good tonight. He would suck up to her and probably allow her to watch 'The Sound of Music' tonight...
Her car wasn't in the driveway. All the lights were off. No fairytale effect.
He fumbled for his phone and dialled her number. No answer, the phone just kept ringing, and ringing and ringing...
Heart beating faster, he closed the car door and opened the front door, turning on the lights. His fairytale castle seemed haunted, eerie without Ziva's warm glow. He walked down the hallway, and into the dining room, where a perfect ring lay on a crisp sheet of paper, glinting mocking back at him. He picked up the paper and thought like he fell into an abyss. Printed neatly was his divorce documents, the sheet covered in black typed letters, with one line which required his signature.
He sucked in a deep breath through his teeth, and seemed to hold the breath forever. He found a fountain pen, and sat down at the silent table, the pen poised shakily in his right fist.
Sign, or not sign?
He loved Ziva, nothing would change that. Nothing. He would sign the piece of paper because he loved her, and that's what she wanted, even though it broke his metal heart.
But he wouldn't sign it because he loved her, and to sign it would alluding to the lie that he never wanted to see her again. No. He wouldn't sign it.
Yes, he would.
No.
Yes.
NO.
His hand slacked, and the pen tumbled gracefully out of his fingers. He wouldn't sign it. No, no, no. Not for his life. No.
He tucked the documents and ring into an important bedside drawer. He walked back to the table, heating up a microwave meal, before noticing a yellow post-it note on the table where the ring had been.
All it said was: "Bye. Forget me." No love, no hate. Not even a 'Dear John'. Just forget me.
And for the first time in DiNozzo history, Tony cried.
And he signed the document.
Fairytales don't happen.
DiNozzo and Gibbs were peas in a pod. DiNozzo got engaged four times and married once, Gibbs looking on silently and sadly, seeing his reflection in the younger man. DiNozzo became a fantastic investigator, and he was going to be promoted to Gibbs' Senior Special Agent position after a case, because Gibbs was retiring.
The last case was a naval crime, involving a Midshipman, and a civilian. Much to DiNozzo and Gibbs' disgust, they were to be working with FBI.
They both internally cringed at the sight of the FBI at the crime scene, their blue uniforms were rather deterring. Yet DiNozzo wasn't ready to start a turf war.
It turned out that the FBI dudes weren't so 'Slack-like' after all, Collins was rather a good conversationalist, and DiNozzo and Collins got on fine.
They sat at a bar one night, knocking back shots, when Collins pulled out his phone and showed DiNozzo a picture of his 'girlfriend'. Tony, pretty much knocked out, couldn't focus his eyes on the picture. He saw a blurry flash of brown hair before his head hit the table.
The civilian in the case had been discovered to be involved in drugs, and DiNozzo went over to the FBI building, as they held the evidence. Gibbs and Tony navigated through the many paths and down the elevator to the laboratory. It was kind of strange, as there was no Gothic, heavy metal music blaring out of the speakers.
The door whizzed open, to reveal their scientist, and a very dark brown-nearly-black haired woman conversing with her. The scientist looked up and smiled at DiNozzo and Gibbs, and the very dark brown-nearly-black haired woman also turned around.
It felt like Tony had been electrocuted. He stared at the very dark brown-nearly-black haired woman for what seemed like eternity. The woman was thinner, and had a different hair-colour, yet it was definitely Ziva.
"Ziva?" he whispered, the noise shattering the glassy air. Ziva looked down, then back up into his green eyes. She opened her mouth then shut it, before turning on her heel and making for the exit.
Tony caught her arm and refused to let her go. She struggled, she could have easily flipped him over, but she didn't. Her hand unconsciously fell to her flat stomach.
"Ziva," he whispered again, his eyes hungrily boring into his ex-wife's. Ziva didn't even fidget. She looked back, her eyes round with sadness.
"Why'd you leave?" he asked, holding her waist. At that touch, she pulled away sharply, clutching her hand.
"We could never work out, Tony. We were not a movie. You were so overprotective that...that I couldn't stand it anymore. I'm not cut out to be a mother. You tried to make me something I wasn't. I loved you...but..." She looked back at him sorrowfully, regret and shame for simply leaving him a post-it washing over her. He tried not to think about her past tense usage.
"Come back, then. Come back to me, Ziva. I still have the house, and we can be everything that we were before," he held out his arms. She shook her head, and then went promptly out the door, and he didn't stop her.
Fairytales don't happen.
A week later, they had finished the case. Tony was going over to the FBI headquarters to celebrate with Collins.
What he didn't expect to see, was Ziva kissing someone, a silver ring glinting off her fourth finger. Kissing George Collins.
He slumped down onto the pathway, head in his hands. The glass bottle of bourbon shattered onto the drainage grate. He didn't care. Ziva was worth more than a bottle of bourbon.
If you ask someone about Tony and Ziva, they'll say to you with dreamy, tearful eyes
"Fairytales don't happen."
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