I've been listening to a lot of Rascal Flatts lately and man do they give me inspiration for Tiva! This will be a few chapters inspired by RF songs that share titles with the chapters. "These Days" will be part of this series as chapter 2.
This is set about a month and a half after Tony leaves Ziva in Israel.
What Hurts the Most
"And never knowin, what could have been"
She's always enjoyed the sound of rain falling on the roof of the empty farmhouse, even the rare times the sky's opened up since he had been gone. Crying, on the other hand, has never been her thing, but she's found herself letting out more tears in a month and a half than she has in half her lifetime and she's come to be okay with that. Going on without Tony DiNozzo in her life has been harder than she ever expected but she's been pushing on, pretending to be okay.
He never thought a breakup could be this painful, especially when they were never in a relationship to begin with, but maybe that's the most painful part of it all. Every time he goes to the office he sees her empty desk an remembers what it was like when she sat there every day, their stolen glances, teasing, and what McGee not-so lovingly referred to as "eye-sex." No one mentions her at work and he doesn't understand why because she was important to each of them but he thinks it helps him keep up the façade, putting on a fake smile every day so they think he's okay. For the first couple weeks it was harder getting up and doing anything but it's getting better and he knows he would do it all again if it meant he would get to have the time with Ziva that he had.
They both regret things. They regret that they were so close to getting into a relationship before everything went haywire. There were so many things they each wanted to say to the other but then he was getting on a plane and she was standing on the tarmac and now neither can ever know what could have been. Their biggest regret, though, was that neither directly told the other they loved them.