A/N: I've been a little absent, I know. Sorry to all the lovely people who review and enjoy my stories. You honestly make my day when everything else around me is a little crappy.
I hope you like this, it's quite different from what I usually do. It's the first of two parts so let me know if you'd like the continuation and resolution.
Please review :)
Oh yeah, DISCLAIMER:Do I own NCIS? Sodium Hypobromite.
You're born into this life of rules and regulations, of titles and ranks and discipline. You don't know it, because you haven't even developed long term memory, let alone the ability to understand duty, but there's this schedule that's been created just for you. It's in documents in his desk, and etched in expectations deep in the recesses of his power-addled mind. Your life is a series of goals and narrow, closed-off hallways for you to wander. Your world does not belong to you; it is his.
xxx
There's sand in your eyes. There's a cog that turns and turns and takes the place of a metaphorical 'heart' you've heard so much about. There's screws and mechanics and things that pump and keep you alive. The man above you squeezes and squeezes and pushes out everything that makes you human and feeling. He denies you love, and you often wonder at the naivety of people who claim to experience the phenomenon. Love does not exist. And as you watch marriages and dates and mothers coddling their children, you laugh at their blind, unwavering trust.
xxx
You are eight when your mother dies. That cog in your chest stops turning, just for a moment, flickers and hurts. Just for that moment, you question everything he has ever told you, and wonder how, if he is right, that this could hurt so much. But then the cog sputters to life once more and you shut down again.
xxx
On your tenth birthday, he hands you a gun. It's too heavy for you, but you raise it bravely and follow his orders. The recoil is sharp and the taste of iron in your mouth is stale and all too familiar. He looks at you with contempt but you just stare at him blankly and he finally lets out a tiny, wry smile.
He nods. "Excellent, Ziva. Do not let the anger, or the sadness, or the pain control you. You are not a slave to your feelings; they are a slave to you."
And you nod back with that same steely expression at his convoluted, cliche words and you aren't even entirely sure what he means. When you raise the gun again you're prepared for the kickback and although you miss you target, you know it's progress.
xxx
By fifteen you are one of the top rookies at Mossad. Too young to join properly, you train with new recruits year in and year out. Your name is spoken among the ranks with a strange mixture of derision and jealousy and admiration and anger and awe. Too often you are labelled a "woman" as if that somehow defines you as unworthy; as if that somehow discounts you from competition. It's an excuse, you are told by the man above you, that they use to justify their own failings. You nod, because that's all he expects you to do.
xxx
Your half- brother is felled with a shot to the head, enveloped in his own words of anger and hatred and bigotry. At twenty-six, your heart lies between you and a man with silver hair, and he watches as it morphs and oozes and bleeds. His hand grasps your shoulder and you think that must be the only thing holding you on your feet, until he lets go, and somehow you stay upright. The voice that leaves your mouth is one you can't recognise; it's not the sound that is foreign, but the raw, unadulterated grief that pounds each word you sing. On the ground, in the dust, your beaten heart sputters along to the tune.
xxx
"Right now you're thinking of doing page 57 with me." And you're flirting, because that's what you do with men like him. Men who walk the earth as if their sole purpose in life is to charm and seduce women. You toy with him, and play with him, and never give him what he wants.
And you come so close- on that night with grapes and a green dress and all that danger- but you don't. You can't.
And yet...
You enjoy the game, the rush, the way his hand sometimes hovers over your back protectively. Or the way he sometimes pushes himself between you and other men and dons that look like he's sizing them up and wondering if he could take them. He's a player, a bit of a man-whore, but no one in your life has ever treated you the way he does. It's a strange kind of subtlety that sometimes is layered and layered in thoughts and feelings and innuendo, and at other times louder than any gun shot.
He's different, and you fall.
xxx
Jeanne Benoit is a game changer.
He loves her and you overhear him say so. It's another stab to your worn heart and as he snaps his phone shut and spins around you wonder if he can see the blood as you hold your scarred, black mess-of-a-heart out to him. You wonder if he can see the horror in your expression, and the way your whole body seizes up as pain grips it. You've never felt this way.
Later you realise he wouldn't have seen any of that because it wasn't there. Because you'd laughed along and teased him and played the game. You wonder how he would have reacted if you'd been able to show the truth.
xxx
He heals slowly and it frustrates you. You don't- you can't- understand.
xxx
"LA baby!" And it's genuine happiness. He's enjoying the sun, the relaxation and your company.
Something feels off.
Bikinis and cars and that fizzing attraction is a deadly combo for two people who live with that ominous rule numero doce hanging over their heads. The camera flashes once. Twice. Three times. His hand rests on your hip and it almost burns. A few not so empty threats. And finally, in the most sultry voice you can manage:
"What did you have in mind?"
And then it's all heat and arguing, but in that kind of way where you both find yourself wondering why you still have clothes on. The car in open and as the wind pushes your hair back you can't help but think:
Something feels off.
The diner is the final hit. Bullet holes lead to drawn weapons. "Clear!" leads to an incredibly misguided relief. A bloodied arm and a swash of red hair leads to the most painful phone call you ever have to overhear.
Leon Vance's unfortunate promotion leads to a family reunion you never wanted to have.
Something feels off.
xxx
The dress you wear to please the Moroccan bar patrons does nothing to shield you from the bomb.
The pain is worth it as it catalyses your return to the US. To them. To him.
xxx
"DiNozzo-itis. Sounds venereal," you muse, giving him a loaded smile. You're with him, talking to him, teasing him, and it's not at all like you'd imagined. He's so, so different.
"Older," you tell him, and his face kind of shudders for a moment as he processes the word. You didn't mean to be offensive, but it wasn't a compliment either.
You fall back into a routine you know so well. It's familiar; reliable. And yet, so unsatisfying.
It would be so easy- "Tony, I care about you. Let's be something." It would be so easy for two people that were emotionally healthy and not scarred and broken and ruined.
So you dance around eachother. Twist, turn, sashay, bend and flip. Feelings and thought and emotions and masks. You master the most complex of maneuvers, of lies, of deceit, of pretence... but neither of you can take that tiny leap.
You stay static.
xxx
Jeanne 2.0 appears in the form of a rugged Israeli called Michael Rivkin. Except you're not with him because of a mission, and your feelings for him are nowhere near as deep as Tony's were for Jeanne.
He's right for you. He knows your world, he gets the lifestyle, and most of all, your father approves.
He said it to you once, in not so specific terms:
"You have been working with Officer Rivkin, yes?"
"Yes," you answer, and somehow you know where this is going.
"A good officer, he is. Stick by him, Ziva."
"Yes," you repeat. And you do.
When you open your apartment to dead Jeanne 2.0 and the man you've cared so much about grasping the murder weapon, you brain fires a million different ways at once.
It's sadness and anger and regret and a strange, awful sense of relief that you- in your ever increasing guilty state- convince yourself is grief. And you turn that grief into venom. White, hot, raging venom that you spit all over that man you care about so much.
xxx
"Home" is exactly how you'd expected it to be- not home at all. Your "father" is an actor playing a role. He looks at you with pity and sympathy that is oh, so, fake. It makes you sick.
You push your SIG into Tony DiNozzo's chest and if it were filled with your conflicting feelings and emotions you would have shot it, just so he could know how it feels to be you. The cold, metal bullet never leaves the barrel but the gun feels strangely empty in your hand as you return it to your waist.
"For you." The words ring and ring and ring in your head and the more you think about it, the more you recognise that those two words made up the only sincere sentiment on that trip.
xxx
Somalia is too hard to think about, too hard to reflect on. In short, it went like this:
They touched you, and burned you, and cut you, and froze you, and hit you, and whispered sour nothings in your ears.
Then, "Couldn't live without you, I guess." And his face, his voice, his eyes touching your heart, healing it, putting you back together.
Saleem dies, but there are pieces of you stuck inside of him that even Tony cannot return to you.
xxx
Returning to NCIS is everything and nothing like you expect it to be.
McGee says something about a nutter butter as you and Tony DiNozzo engage in what can most tastefully be described as marathon eye-sex.
Later, you corner him in a bathroom and smile nervously, and stumble over your words as they fall from your mouth to the floor and surround you both. When you kiss him on the cheek, you feel his whole body seize up and then seem to fall in on itself. Your chest brushes against his- for just a moment- and some of the scars on your heart fade for a second.
You're not prepared for the burning intensity with which they return when he leaves you standing in the men's room, alone.
xxx
He doesn't attend your citizenship ceremony and your heart fractures in a way it never had before.
It wasn't even that important, you reason, it was nothing as big as undercover girlfriends or dead boyfriends or being deserted on an Israel tarmac or months of torture.
But it's different, and it's painful in a way you can't understand, because this time it feels like he hurt you because he didn't care, and not because he cared too much.
xxx
Paris becomes one of those silent acknowledgements and nothing more.
For a few days, the two of you had existed in this perfect little bubble, isolated from all the drama and heartbreak and rules of home. You hadn't intended to sleep with him that night, but in that room, with that lighting, and those deep green eyes that said 'I'm here, we're here, and this is perfect', it had simply happened. You can't, and won't even try, to explain it any more than that. It was simple and easy and safe.
And afterwards you had just lay there in his arms and thought that you could quite honestly lie there forever.
You feel both hurt and relieved that neither of you dwell on that night.
A/N: So I know that was possibly really confusing, but thoughts? Too weird for you? Too OOC? What did you think of the style?
Drop me a line and let me know :) How the weather? Write me a poem? Constrictive criticism welcome.
And, as always, favourite lines por favor? I love that! :)
Please review, it's kind of sad, but it really does make my day! Thanks for reading and let me know if you want more.