Sorry if Authors Notes annoy you. This is my first time story that I typed up really fast and really late. Sorry if there are errors. Guess there is nothing else to say, except that I hope you enjoy!
After a month he stops expecting her every time the elevator stops at their floor. He knows it won't be her.
At the end of two months, he stops checking his email everyday right after he wakes up and every night before he goes to bed. He knows she won't contact him.
At the end of month three, he delete her contact number from his phone. He has it memorized anyways, and she disconnected it long ago.
Month four breaks him. He decides that he needs to clean his apartment, after months of it being barely habitable for a fish, much less a human being. He hadn't seen the need before. The only people who showed up at his apartment were food delivery guys (they are starting to know him by name-he wonders if he should worry about that), his annoying neighbor who can't seem to get it through her head that he is not interested, and the occasional Jehovah's Witness. One man gives him magazines every month, and he always saves them. She used to tease him about that-asked him why he saved something that he never read nor got any use from. He never told her, but he thought it was nice that someone believed in something so much that he just had to tell everyone he met. Maybe he should have. Maybe it could have changed things. Sometimes he wonders.
As he is cleaning, he stumbles into the stack of magazines by his bedroom door. They crumple to the floor in a messy heap. He starts to straighten them up when a piece of paper catches his eye. He would recognize the messy writing anywhere. It's almost as familiar to him as his own. He is overwhelmed, and turns the paper over and over in his hands, the mess forgotten. He debates whether to read it, the whole time knowing that he will, that he has to. Not doing so would ruin a part of him. Not doing so would destroy him.
It's dated a few months after the elevator incident. The note isn't long, rather short in fact. Only a few paragraphs. He can hear her voice in his head as he reads it, and wonders if that will ever fade.
Dear Tony,
Do you ever wonder about choices? The ones we have made, the ones we have yet to make? I do. I wonder about the choice I made to stay with you, to go in the elevator. It might not have been our wisest choice, but think of what it led to. I am opening up to you, more and more each day, and you do the same. Was it a good choice? I guess only time will show.
I wonder about other choices as well. Some not so good. Many not so good. I have hurt many, many people with my choices. The men I have killed. The families I have destroyed. In some ways, my own family. People I care about. You. Gibbs. Abby, and McGee. Ducky. Palmer. Jenny. Many people have hurt me with their choices also, but do I deserve that? Because of who I have hurt, do I deserve to be hurt back? I wonder. I do not know.
Choices are funny things. Like my choice to leave you these notes. More than likely, you will never find them. Maybe someday I will tell you about them. Maybe someday you will accidently find them. Or maybe these notes will never be read. That's okay. It is interesting, not knowing their fate. To not know what this choice will bring. I like it. It is a mystery.
You will be home soon, so I should stop writing this. Besides, I am hungry for the pizza you are bringing, and looking forward to the movie. I have never seen it, but I trust I will like it. You know me. As I do you.
-Ziva
He is overwhelmed. It is a short note, a confusing note, and a deeply personal note. Yet he understands what she is saying. He has felt those same feelings. In fact, he remembers a conversation they had once about choices. He didn't know she was still thinking about them.
The note alludes to more notes that she had written, and as he looks through his stack of magazines he finds six. All were written on varying days, and all were almost as personal as the first one he read. He reads them, and they take him back to memories of her. And they bring him hope. The very last note, the most recent note, tells him that she cannot leave him. It is written before they all resign, but it was almost as if she had known. Maybe part of her had. Maybe she had an idea of what would happen. Because the very last line of the very last note says that "I cannot leave you forever. Somehow, we will always find each other again."