Alert: Contains speculation on various spoilers floating about the interweb. I couldn't resist trying to weave them together, though I imagine this is just wild conjecture at best. Enjoy! Unless you are a spoiler-phobe, in which case, catch you next time!
Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS or these characters, but GG seems to be treating them very well so he can keep them. Also, I don't own Peter Pan but I highly recommend the novel if you haven't read it. It's wonderful.
A plain yellow envelope lay propped on Tony's keyboard. Innocuous as any interoffice mail, but undoubtedly the blast from his past he'd been waiting for with equal parts hesitation and anticipation. Christmas come decades too late—would it be everything he'd hoped for or just another disappointment wrapped up in a shiny bow?
He stepped closer to his desk. Eyed the envelope. A cold sweat broke out over his body.
Then Ziva was there, as ever, or as of recently at least, fingers pressing into the small of his back, her arm brushing against his.
"Are those…?" She followed his gaze, kept her voice soft and unobtrusive.
"I assume. Abby said they'd be ready by the end of the day." He didn't move. Neither did she.
When it was clear his feet were stuck to the spot, Ziva took action. Giving him a gentle nudge with her shoulder, she then soothed him with a smile. "Well, what are you waiting for?"
Right. What was he waiting for? In all likelihood, he'd wasted the roll of ancient film on snapshots of himself making goofy faces. He snatched the envelope up from his desk. Scrawled on the front in Abby's loopy cursive was a note: Aww, baby Tony was so cute! His hand tensed.
Ziva stood back, watching, even though he could tell it was taking all her willpower not to insert herself into the situation. He was glad for that. Having her with him felt right, though, so before he could overthink it, he caught her gaze and jerked his head in the direction of the break room. It took her but a moment to hop to his side. The slight quirk in the corner of her mouth helped put him at ease. He winked at her.
He chose the smallest table in the farthest corner of the break room, though the room was otherwise empty. Ziva chose the seat next to his, scooting her chair closer to him. Then, she folded her hands and waited.
Tony picked up the envelope and gave it a twirl with the tips of his fingers. It was heavier than he expected. Abby must've gotten more prints from the roll than she thought possible.
"Are you nervous?" Ziva asked the third time he put down the envelope and then picked it back up again.
Tony snorted. Nervous? Him? Of what?
"Then open it already," she burst out. He raised his eyes at her impulsivity. She made a face before murmuring an apology.
"Patience, ninja," he teased as she composed herself. It proved to be the distraction he needed, though. With renewed determination, he flipped the envelope over and released its clasp.
He held his breath as an array of photos tumbled to the table, evidence of moments long forgotten. Ziva leaned forward. For a few seconds, he chose to watch her eyes flit over the snapshots instead of taking them in himself. But she gave him little reaction to work with. She kept her hands still and her face impassive. He frowned.
Forcing himself to look at the photos, he had to blink a few times to get the colors to coalesce into images, to get his brain to tie the long forgotten sights to memories and emotions.
Tony exhaled as he his hand hovered over the photos. His eyes tripped over moments from his past. His heart raced . He couldn't remember the last time he'd even seen a photo of his mother.
But now there she was in brilliant Technicolor. Smiling, laughing, and posing for the camera as she embraced his childhood self, a person he hardly remembered. He had no recollection of the words she was whispering in his ear, no clue what had delighted her so. There, alive on 4x6 glossy paper, were flashbacks to a time that seemed impossibly innocent. His hair was much lighter then, shocked into a near white-blond by the summer sun. His skin was tan and wrinkled by dimples that seemed to overpower his face, second only to his toothy grin.
He carefully lifted a photo from the pile. Ziva leaned in closer to view it with him.
There she was, his mother, Elizabeth Rose Paddington DiNozzo, a stunning woman so young and full of life.
"Your mother was beautiful," Ziva murmured, her breath tickling his cheek.
Tony nodded his agreement. "She was elegant, always. I can't remember ever seeing her without lipstick and pearls." He flipped to the next picture only to find Elizabeth planting a kiss on his cheek as he made a face of protest. His heart ached.
Ziva chuckled. "And you! Such a boy." She wound her arm through his to point out his lopsided socks and grass-stained knees.
He leaned into his partner's touch almost instinctively. He craved her warmth, any warmth really. The sun shone so bright in the photos. He remembered that feeling now—how it was never too hot to be outside spraying himself with the garden hose or climbing his neighbor's crab apple tree. But the pictures made it look deceptively easy. He was smiling, she was laughing, and his father, the yet unseen photographer, was just capturing perfection. No one brought the camera out when the mood changed.
The next picture revealed Elizabeth DiNozzo curled up in a lawnchair, a sweaty highball glass clutched in her hand as she pouted painted red lips at the camera. His hand trembled, so he lowered the photos to the table. Ziva kept a firm grip on his bicep.
"This was the summer before she got sick." He tried to reconcile the scraps of memories in his mind with the reality in front of him. Surely, it was just a trick of the light? The old film? Did she ever look that pale? He'd never really thought about the way those events had unfolded. He had vivid memories of his mother before her sickness and then of losing her. One day she was chasing him through the sprinkler in the yard and the next he was curled up beside her in a hospital bed, his fingers rubbing warmth into her paper-thin skin. His thumb traced the image of her arm. "She was probably sick then. I just didn't realize it. I didn't really understand what was happening, not until the end."
Ziva nodded. She rested her chin on his shoulder briefly, peering at the photo. "Her eyes are tired," she whispered. "She is putting on a show."
Tony swallowed hard. He had to look away from the evidence of that hidden truth, unable to let go of memories in his head. Not yet. "She was always good at that."
Giving his arm a squeeze before letting it go, Ziva leaned back in her chair. "She did not want you to see her suffer."
He huffed, a noise to hide the sob that threatened its way out. "No. The woman lived her life in a dream world. It was easier to pretend, I think, than to face reality—my father and all his lies, being sick."
Ziva shook her head. "How could she accept a reality that meant giving up her son?"
Though, Tony appreciated Ziva's attempts to defend his mother, he wasn't convinced. He loved his mother, of course, but she was a DiNozzo. Or she'd become one through marriage at least. And together his mother and father had done a bang-up job of introducing him to the heady power of denial.
Pushing the curls back from her face, Ziva sat forward. She helped arrange the photos back into a neat pile. Pausing, she considered the top photo for a long minute—it was him and his mother, making silly faces at the camera. Her gaze flipped back and forth between him and the image.
"What?" He asked self-consciously, a little nervous about the smirk that lit up her face.
His hand was suddenly between trapped hers. She spread his fingers wide as she matched her palm to his. A bit taken aback by her ministrations, he could only gape at her.
She finally offered him an explanation: "You have your mother's hands." She eased his hand back onto the table, giving it a gentle pat as she released it. He pouted at the loss of her touch.
"Oh," was all he could say. He considered his fingers, comparing them to the photo before him. It was true. His mother's fingers, though decidedly more feminine, were also long and expressive. He'd always known his hands were nothing like his father's; Senior had shorter fingers and wider palms.
"You never talk about her," Ziva stated.
Tony shrugged. "You never talk about your mother, either."
With a sigh, Ziva nodded. "You are right. But now is not the time for that." Her tone was kind though, a promise for later.
Tony thought for a long moment. Where to begin? "What I remember most…" He paused, letting himself fall into the memory. "She loved movies."
Ziva smiled. "Well, that explains a lot."
He laughed. "Yeah. She was crazy for classic Hollywood stuff- anything with Rita Hayworth, Ava Gardner, or Vivien Leigh. She loved all those glamorous women. And Hitchcock movies! We watched them over and over. We must've watched To Catch a Thief a dozen times." Tony thought some more. "To Kill a Mockingbird was her favorite, though."
"My mother had a crush on Gregory Peck," Ziva recalled, face brightening. He caught her gaze and, for a moment, was lost in the depths of her brilliant brown eyes. They brimmed with affection. He found himself falling deeper into their warmth and as he fell, truths began to fall from his lips. Things he had never thought to tell her or anyone.
"Towards the end…." He paused, searching for words to match the wave of memories that flooded his mind. "Well, she couldn't do much then. Not much more than reapply her red lipstick. Still, she always managed to look beautiful. Even when they told me she was sick, that she would probably die, I never really believed it. Not really. She looked frail and small, so tired, but she never stopped being beautiful. Like an actress just playing a death scene or something. It never felt real. Not until we came home from the hospital without her."
He stared at the vending machine, refusing to meet Ziva's gaze until he'd tucked that painful time back into the corners of his brain. Until he was done feeling the loss of his mother all over again.
"The last movie I remember watching with her was Peter Pan," he recalled, trying to focus on a happier time. He remembered the itchy hospital bed sheets against his legs as he curled up beside his mother in her bed. Her breath was shallow and her chest rattled, almost like she had a cold, but still she smiled and wore that lipstick and they had clapped together to revive Tinkerbell. He grinned at the thought of it. "She said there is nothing like a good movie to lose yourself for a little while. At worst, you just forget. At best, you find yourself again."
"Words you took to heart, yes?" Ziva said, voice soft. Tony met her eyes again, surprised to find them glittering with unshed tears.
"Yeah," he admitted. Then, trying to lighten the sudden emotion heavy in the air, he added, "I just wish we would've been watching something with a little more substance."
Ziva smiled. "Really? But Peter Pan is a wonderful story."
Tony raised his eyebrows. The conversation path was set. All he had to do was set her up and she'd spike it home. He was walking straight into an insult but he'd followed her into far worse.
"To die would be an awfully big adventure," Ziva recited, grin teasing at her lips. She paused for a second. Reconsidered. "Or perhaps I should've said, to live would be an awfully big adventure."
Well. That wasn't where he thought she was taking him. Something quite the opposite, actually. "Ziva David. Did you just quote a movie?"
She shrugged, looking mighty smug with herself. And somehow still as stunning as ever. "No. I quoted a book. That was made into a movie."
A grin cracked at his lips. "Movies, actually. A quote? I thought I was headed for a wisecrack about the boy who never grew up."
For a moment, Ziva looked struck. A pang of regret hit him; he didn't mean to offend her, just lighten the mood a bit. Besides, wasn't it the obvious joke? How far off was he from that little boy sitting in a hospital bed with his dying mother, his heart breaking a little more with every stilted breath, wishing that time never had to pass so that it wouldn't hurt any worse?
Eyebrows drawn together, Ziva titled her head. She cleared her throat. Her eyes forecast something heavy on her mind. His heart fluttered in his chest. He braced himself for whatever she was about to say.
When she finally spoke, her voice was low and brimming with emotion. "I think your mother would be very proud of the man you have grown up to be."
She placed her hand on top of his, rubbing her thumb across his knuckles. He stared at the simple gesture, speechless.
Ziva, too, seemed unsure what to do or say next. Her hand stilled over his. Her eyes darted between his face and the table.
He forced himself to speak, fighting against the giant lump in his throat. "Ziva, I—
"Tony! There you are!" McGee strode into the room. Ziva snatched her hand away, lightning quick. But Tim wasn't an idiot and felt the tension in the room anyway. He glanced between them curiously.
"Oh, sorry," he apologized though didn't seem to understand just what the apology was for. "Uh, Abby said she dropped the photos off and I had to see them? But it's okay if you'd rather I didn't…"
Tony cleared his throat. He shared a look with Ziva. She urged him on silently.
"No, go ahead," he nodded at his teammate, pushing the photos in Tim's direction. Ziva shot him an approving smile and when he wasn't as quick to defend himself against Tim's lighthearted teasing as he normally would be, Ziva jumped to his aide, cooing and fussing over the rest of the pictures. Unfortunately, his eight year-old self had yet to learn the value of classic style. He was quite sure he would regret McGee knowing that he once wore such short shorts.
Later, once he'd shown off the shiny images of his childhood to the rest of the team, he was flipping through his stack of photos again in the dim glow of the bullpen. Everyone else had long since gone home. He paused on a photo of himself sporting a crooked smile, squinting into the sun, and performing some sort of superhero pose. He didn't remember the moment at all. He didn't remember what he'd been thinking or even who he'd been trying to imitate. He couldn't remember the sound of his mother's laugh anymore or recall if his father would've been amused or annoyed at his antics. But he did remember the smile on Ziva's face when she'd found the photo a few hours ago, the startling affection in her eyes as she'd held his past reverently in her hands. He remembered the words she had said to him just as a fresh wave of regret and guilt had threatened to overcome him.
He grabbed a post-it pad and a pencil and scribbled a quick note. Then, before he could rethink the impulse, he propped the photo on her pencil holder so she'd see it first thing when she sat at her desk in the morning. When she looked up at him.
Peter Pan could not have grown up without you.
Then, he turned off his light and went home.
Well, here's hoping, right? Mostly this was just me wondering what movie Ziva will quote at Tony. Any other thoughts? Anyone want to start a pool? Hee. Well. Thanks for reading!