Ok. So I have no idea where this story came from. I was just sitting at my computer listening to music and Crazy Girl by Eli Young Band came on and I thought... 'Hmm that could fit T/Z pretty well' So I started to write. It was really late at night so I have no idea if it's actually any good, so.. it might seem a little OOC but like I said, I wrote it late at night but.. Anyways. if you haven't heard that song, you really should because its AMAZING!
But as always, please read and let me know what you think! Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Crazy girl, don't you know that I love you?
And I wouldn't dream of goin' nowhere.
Silly woman, come here, let me hold you
Have I told you lately? I love you like crazy, girl.
"Where's Ziva?" Josh DiNozzo asked as he came out of his room and down the stairs to watch an OSU basketball game with his 'dad'.
Tony stopped surfing through the channels to look up at his 'son'. "Work," he answered, resuming his search to find the right channel, and taking a sip of his beer.
"Still?" Josh asked him incredulously. He looked at the digital clock near the TV. "It's almost eight thirty," he noted.
"Yeah. Another team got stuck with a suspect who doesn't speak a lick of English. Needed a translator," he explained. He finally found the channel he was looking for and set the remote down on the coffee table in front of him. He leant back in his seat and brought his feet up to rest on the table next to the remote.
Josh nodded his head and sat back on the couch next to his father to watch the game.
At halftime of the game, Josh announced that he was going to go upstairs to his room to watch the rest of the game just in case he fell asleep; it was a school night, after all.
Tony had fallen asleep with about three minutes left in the game. He hadn't realized he had fallen asleep until a loud noise awoke him from his slumber. He sat up in his chair and ran his hands through his hair, trying to remember what he had been doing before he fell asleep. He looked up and saw that the TV was still on; Sportscenter was running through the highlights of the games earlier that day. He looked at the clock next to the TV and realized it was past midnight. He then remembered what had startled him awake in the first place. Just then he heard another loud bang sounding like it came from the kitchen. Being the investigator that he was, he got up to investigate.
When he walked into the kitchen, he found that Ziva was home; and she didn't look happy. She must have sensed that he came into the room because she stopped unloading the dishes from the dishwasher and slammed another cabinet shut as she place the dishes where they should be. She looked up at him and crossed her arms, giving him the best glare she could muster after her long day. Tony was surprised to see that she was directing her anger towards him. 'What did I do?' he thought to himself. Ziva raised her eyebrows at him, and if possible, glared even harder. 'Or maybe it's something I didn't do?' he considered. "What?" he asked her, tired of being stared at in silence.
"One thing," Ziva started. "I ask you to do one thing for me while I'm still at work so I wouldn't have to do it when I got home. Well, I get home and is it done?" she asked. "No! It's not! Big surprise..." she muttered the last part to herself as she started loading the dishwasher with dirty dishes from the sink.
'I'll go with what I didn't do,' Tony thought. He continued to stand there and watch as she loaded the dishwasher back up. "Look I'm sorry," he said as he realized that was exactly what she had asked him to do. Unload and load the dishwasher. "I guess I just got caught up in the game."
"Uh huh," Ziva said under her breath, rolling her eyes.
"What do you want me to say? I'm sorry!" he said. "Can't you just wait until morning to do that?"
That was it. Ziva had had enough. She slammed the door to the dishwasher shut, and stood up straight. "I wouldn't have to if you would just do something that I asked you to do for once!" She started to make her way out of the kitchen and towards their bedroom. She walked past Tony and when she was behind him, mumbled to herself, "It's as if you don't even appreciate me and what I do for you."
Tony heard it and was furious. "Oh!" he said, turning around to look at her, causing her to do the same. "So know I don't even appreciate you, huh? Is that it?"
Ziva sighed. "Tony, you're overreacting."
"I'm overreacting?" he asked, pointing a finger to his chest with a shocked expression lingering on his features. "You're the one that just came in here yelling at me for forgetting to unload the damn dishwasher! And I'm the one overreacting?"
"Tony, this is stupid. Just stop," she told him.
"You know what, Ziva? No! I'm done! For months, you've been nagging me about doing things and then explode when I forget to do a few of them. Then you walk away and forget anything happened, holding it in until the next time. But you know what? I'm not gonna put up with it anymore!" he exclaimed, walking into their bedroom, only to come back out seconds later with a coat on and keys in hand as he put his wallet in his back pocket.
"Tony where are you going?" Ziva asked, almost sounding defeated.
"I don't know," he admitted, walking towards the door. "Away somewhere," he tried.
"When will you be back?" Ziva asked, not exactly sure what he was getting at.
"I'm not sure," he said, looking her in the eye and opening the door. "Maybe not for a while. I need some time to think," he said, shutting the door behind him as he left.
After leaving, Tony got in his car and drove. He didn't care where to and he didn't care how far; he just needed to get away. He and Ziva had fought before, but lately it had started getting worse. 'And over the stupidest things,' he thought to himself. 'I mean, really? I forgot to unload the dishwasher for her. Big whoop!' he thought, causing him to roll his eyes.
He drove until he came upon the only cafe that he knew was open this time of night. Well, morning. He went inside to get a cup of coffee and while he was waiting on his order, he heard giggling coming from one of the tables and only then did it register in his brain that there was someone else in the cafe besides himself. He looked over to see a couple sitting at one of the tables near the window, smiling at each other and gazing into each other's eyes showing nothing but love. He remembered a time when he and Ziva were like that, crazily in love and didn't care about anything else in the world but each other. He missed that. Lately it seemed like the only thing they ever did was fight. And when they weren't fighting, they probably weren't speaking. In a way, the little fight they had just had back home set them both off. Months of fighting and holding it in with no one to talk to about it will do that to you.
His thoughts were interrupted when the teenage girl at the counter handed him his coffee. He paid for it and then left the cafe, stealing one last glance at the happy couple before he left. He decided that he had had enough of driving and instead of going back to his car, he started walking to the park across the street. In hindsight, it probably wasn't the best place to go for a walk considering the memories that were held there for him and Ziva. This was the place where, just six short years ago, they had gotten the case involving Josh and his real dad. No, Josh wasn't Tony and Ziva's, but after his mother died hours after she gave birth to him and his father was gunned down one day in the park, he didn't have much of anyplace else to go. From that day on though, they treated Josh as if he were their own. Josh had been ten then, now he was sixteen, almost seventeen, and turning into quite the young gentleman.
His thoughts once again drifted when he thought of Josh and realized he had probably heard all of his and Ziva's little 'exchange' back home. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "How did I let it get this far?" he asked himself. "I mean, we fight, yeah. But I've never been so mad and frustrated that I just walked out before, ya know?" Tony asked, to no one in particular. "It's just, she doesn't talk to me anymore. How am I supposed to know what she's feeling and help her if she just continues to shut me out all the time?" he continued. He sighed again. "I guess it's partly my fault too. I haven't really been treating her like my wife, ya know? I mean, it's like I'm almost taking her for granted. Just acting like she's there and always will be so I don't need to treat her any more special than I normally do."
"Well that's where I'd say you went wrong," he heard an old man's voice say. He looked up to find that there was no one around him. He furrowed his brow. "You need to always treat your wife like she's the most precious thing you've ever had. Because the day you don't, is the day she won't be yours anymore." Tony looked up again, this time to find a dog standing not ten feet from him.
"I'm going insane," he stated, considering the possibility that a dog had just told him all of that.
"No you're not," he heard the voice again. This time, though, he saw an older man walk up behind the dog, holding it's leash in his hand. "Sorry. I didn't mean to intrude, but I overheard you and couldn't help but think this was something I could help you with." Tony gave the older man a slight smile, accompanied by a confused look. "My wife, she uh, left me after twenty years of marriage," he told Tony, who in return, slid over to give the older man a spot on the bench to sit. "She told me she was tired of me not appreciating her. For not treating her like I had when we had first gotten married," he paused, looking at Tony who had his forearms resting on his thighs and his hands clasped together near his knees. "That was the biggest mistake of my life. Don't take her for granted. Just because you're married doesn't mean she doesn't want you to stop thinking of her the way you used to. If anything, it should increase those feelings."
Tony was silent as the other man's words sunk in. "My wife, Ziva, she told me that I didn't appreciate her anymore. We had just had a stupid fight! She was pissed at me for forgetting to unload the dishwasher for her while she was still at work! I mean how could something that stupid set us off? We've been arguing like this for the past few months but I... it's just, how could something this small, turn so bad? I walked out on her tonight. I had never done that before. We always use to just be able to sit down and talk it out."
"Sometimes it's the smaller things that cause the bigger upsets," the old man told him. "But trust me when I say this. Go back to her. Apologize. Do whatever you need to do to fix it. Just don't let her slip through your fingers. Because if you do, you will never regret something so much for the rest of your life."
Tony sat up straight. "Thanks," he said to the old man as he stood up, looking as if he were about to head off with his dog.
"You're welcome," he said, fixing the dog's leash. "I hope I was of some help," he laughed.
"Yeah. You were," he said. Tony's phone then vibrated. Pulling it out of his pocket, he saw he had a new text from Josh. "I guess I had better get back to make things right then huh?" he asked, looking up. But the old man was nowhere in sight; neither was his dog. "Huh," Tony said, standing up before reading the message from Josh, which read:
I don't know what you two were fighting about, but I think you need to get back here. Ziva's in your room on the verge of a breakdown.
Tony sighed once more before realizing he really did need to get back home to settle things with Ziva. Heading towards his car, he felt a new sense of determination creep into his body. Determination to not let the best thing he's ever had slip through his fingers.
After Tony had left, Ziva didn't know what to do. Sure they'd fought before, but never to the point where he just walked out. No. This was new. And she didn't like it. Not at all. She stood there staring at the shut door that he had walked out of, tears streaming down her face. She didn't know how long she was standing there or what brought her out of her reverie, but she realized she hadn't been standing there for a short amount of time. She finally mustered the strength to walk into their bedroom. Without turning on any lights, she changed and got ready for bed. When she finally lay down, she grabbed her pillow and held it to her chest.
She wasn't laying there long before she heard a knock on her bedroom door. She knew it wasn't Tony; he would've just walked right on it. "What do you want, Josh?" she asked, making her voice sound stronger than it really was.
She heard the door creak open and saw Josh stick his head through the crack. "Are you okay?" he asked, coming into the room. "I heard you two fighting and then heard the door. I didn't know who left though," he told her.
"He's never walked out before," she voiced, rolling over to lie on her back.
"Are you two going to be okay, though?" Josh asked, slightly worried that things could change.
Ziva shrugged. Not sure if Josh saw it or not, she spoke. "I don't know Josh. I really don't," she told him. "I'm sorry we woke you. Go back to bed."
"Well I'm sure you will be," Josh reassured her, ignoring her last comment. He was met with silence so he took this as his cue to leave. He decided to text Tony. To tell him to get back here to be with Ziva. Because from the looks of it, she really needed him.
When Tony opened the door to their house, he was met with nothing but the silence of the night. It was dark, so he quietly and carefully made his way towards their bedroom. As he got closer, he could hear the soft sobs coming from his wife. He instantly felt a wave of guilt wash over him for doing this to her. He took a deep breath before slowly opening their door. He walked into the room and either Ziva didn't hear him, or was acting like she didn't, because she didn't move.
She was lying on her side with her back facing him, so he couldn't see her face. But it didn't matter, he already knew enough to know that she was hurting. He didn't need to see her pained face to confirm it. He walked around to her side of the bed. He sat on the end of the bed near her head. She opened her eyes to look at him. She didn't try to turn away from him so he knew she was tired of fighting as well. She wanted to fix this as much as he did.
"Hey," he said softly. He brought his hand up to the side of her face, brushing her hair away and caressing her cheek.
That was all it took. She was so tired and exhausted that she couldn't take it anymore. She broke. If possible, she started sobbing harder than she had when he first walked in the door. Tony reached down to pull her into a sitting position, wrapping her in his arms. "I'm so sorry," she sobbed. "I didn't mean to yell at you. I was just so frustrated..."
"Shh... I know, I know," he said, burying his face in her hair, trying to hide his own tears. He pressed his lips to the side of her head and rubbed her back gently, doing what he knew would calm her down. "I'm sorry too. I should just... learn to do what you ask for once," he admitted. "You were right. I don't appreciate you nearly as much as I should."
She pulled back from him, keeping her sobs at bay. "I'm sorry," she sniffed, "I shouldn't have accused you of that. I know you get frustrated as easily as I do and I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry..."
"No," he stopped her. "You were right. I know I don't treat you like I should, and I'm sorry. But from now on, I'm gonna do the best that I can, okay?" he asked, bringing his hand back up to her cheek. Her eyes fluttered close as she nodded. He knew she was about to cry again from the way her chin dimpled. "Hey, hey, hey," he said, bringing his forehead down to hers. "What's wrong?"
She opened her eyes. "I thought you weren't going to come back. You had never walked out before," she told him. "It scared me. I mean, I know we fight a lot. And we've fought more in the past few months than we ever did while we were dating but.."
"Shh," he interrupted her. "I know. I'm so sorry. I just needed to clear my head. Sometimes, I need time to think about things so I don't take them out on you or Josh. I would never forgive myself if I did that. I would never even think about leaving you. I love you too much, Ziva," he told her, lifting her chin to bring his lips down on hers.
With that, the tears in her eyes started to flow again. But this time, they were happy tears. "I love you too, Tony."
"Come here," he said, bringing her back to his chest. She continued to cry, so he decided to move, to be in a position where he could hold and comfort her better. He maneuvered himself to sit back against the headboard, Ziva in his lap. She laid her head on his chest, under his chin. He reached down to pull the blankets up over them. He wrapped his arms around his wife and kissed her head, never to let her go again.
How was it? I wanna know! Review? :D
