Hey guys. That premiere episode was so many kinds of awesome. I had to write about it. So! Enjoy.
Some things: I couldn't remember all of the dialogue. So there's only one line of it in there and I'm not sure it's verbatim anyway. Um. I think I managed to only swear once? There are a few vague images of death, nothing that you don't get more of in the actual TV show.
It's pretty much Tiva, although you could argue that it isn't. I prefer in this instance to leave it kind of open-ended.
Okay, also, I have a really bad habit of not proofreading. So, I make typos. But I promise I'm not dumb.
Disclaimer: Don't own it.
Posted: approximately 12:35 AM EST Sept. 23, 2009.
And as she asked him again (Why are you here? in her soft, insistent voice) he tried, oh, he tried so hard to keep his damn mouth shut. But whatever truth serum he had been injected with wouldn't allow it.
Before that moment, the spouting of secrets he'd taken part in hadn't bothered him, because he knew Saleem would soon be dead. But Ziva, Ziva, who was sitting in front of him alive and breathing and he could hardly believe it—Ziva would go on to remember everything he said.
"Couldn't live without you, I guess," he blurted, hating the way the words just popped out from between his pursed lips. It was an admission that left him tasting bitter humiliation and guilt.
Because, honestly, when he stepped out into that hallway after being denied by Vance, he was already planning a rogue solo mission for either Ziva's life or revenge. And of course he'd known that he couldn't possibly have survived. But… he'd meant what he said (and how couldn't he?). He didn't mind dying if the alternative was living without Ziva.
And, before Saleem had brought her scrawny, hooded figure in the room, before he had seen her alive, he'd been planning something else—suicide by terrorist, if you will, though he would have preferred to be less dramatic about it. Just snap off some smartass comment like he usually did, only with a little more bite to ensure that the job got done, and bam, he was dead before he hit the ground. No more interviewing replacements, no more sitting at his desk and trying not to stare at the empty desk across from him. Life lacking Ziva had gotten old fast.
In hindsight, he felt a gut-wrenching guilt. What about McGee, his Probie who had become his friend since Ziva had gone, and who had followed him without question on this, his suicide mission? How could he end it like that, when McGee had trusted him so readily?
Was there any doubt that they would have seen exactly what he had done?
Would they have ever forgiven him?
He had screwed up for even thinking about it.
But it didn't matter now, not with Ziva in front of him, still alive. She had saved him just by surviving. And if anyone asked him right now how he felt about her, he would say, God, I love her. His heart hurt with it.
When Saleem came back in and held the knife at her throat, the panic, the need to save her life as she had saved his, made him spit out the truth, just to give Gibbs time.
And when he saw Saleem's eyes widen in fear just before the killshot, well, that made him believe that he wasn't such a screw-up after all. He could save Ziva, and McGee. He didn't have to leave them always recalling the image of his bloody corpse, wondering where he had gone wrong, cursing his memory.
He was the wild card; no one ever knew what he would do next, not even himself. His thoughts and desires, if they were strong enough, overrode the truth. Maybe someday this quality would land him in Ducky's morgue (God knew he had come close many, many times). But for now, it had saved the day.
He could be content with that.
Well, I like this one, but I think I needed to spend a little more time with it. But whatever! Review!