The Piano
Little Anthony DiNozzo smiled as he watched his mother sit by the piano, her pale fingers dancing across the ivory keys smoothly. The soft song came floating through the huge room, the lulling tones reaching even the darkest corner. Tony loved watching his mother playing the piano. It brought out the happiness he knew excised, but rarely felt.
The song continued, his mother hadn't noticed him standing in the doorway – she usually didn't anyway.
Gabriella DiNozzo only played the piano when she was sober; an occurrence which happened less and less nowadays. Her soft brown hair was braided into a loos plait, falling softly down her narrow back. She was clad in a white summer dress, even though it was still early spring.
The song came to a stop, and Gabriella turned around and smiled her most dazzling smile as she spotted her eight year old son. She waved him over, beckoning him to sit beside her.
Tony hesitated a little. Of course he had taken piano lessons; he was, after all, the son of a very successful, and rich, businessman. The point was that the piano lessons hadn't been the happiest time of little Tony's life. On the contrary, he had hated his piano teacher with a vengeance; and her stupid cane as well. But he had endured, for he refused to disappoint his mother. He was proud to say that he could now play very well at the piano, and walked quite willingly over to his smiling mother.
Gabriella put her slim hands over Tony's own smaller, and brought them to the keys. She softly started to teach him a song; a song he had never heard before. His mother laughed softly into his ear as she taught him with utmost patience.
"Don't rush, baby. Just take it slowly, and you will remember," she said, smiling.
That was the last time little Anthony DiNozzo spoke to his mother. The next day he found her on her bed; the only rooms beside the parlour, his bedroom and the kitchen Tony were allowed to enter. She was clad in the same white summer dress, her hair still in the loos plait and her lips painted deep red.
She was smiling. She wasn't breathing.
Tony calmly walked out of the room and away; he didn't speak until he met his nanny in the hallway.
"Mother is not breathing."
Tony DiNozzo smiled calmly as he sat down in front of the shining piano. He stretched his fingers carefully, shaking his shoulders before he gently touched the keys. He started to play, slowly at first, but gained confidence as he played. The song came calmly out of the piano, the same piano it came out of 35 years earlier.
Tony ignored the man in the doorway as the song progressed, a bittersweet smile dancing across his sun kissed face. The black suit jacket held him back from keeping his movements completely fluent; he ignored that too. He hadn't changed his attire since the funeral.
The song came to an end; a bitter end, completely different form the end 35 years earlier. Tony turned around and smiled a dazzling smile at the grey haired man in the doorway.
Gibbs smiled back.
Edited 12 July, 2011