I watched Ziva's last episode for the first time since it aired originally and I'm all teary again, so I decided to finish the fic I started back then to give myself some closure. Set some nonspecific time after Ziva left.
"I'm just saying they make headphones that completely muffle the sound of music no matter how loud you want to play it."
"Please, McCritic, you should be grateful I bestow my taste in music on you," Tony said, following the rest of the team out of the elevator into the squadroom. "Maybe some exposure to the classics will refine your own palate a bit."
"I listen to plenty of good music."
"Video game soundtracks don't count."
"Oh, but movie soundtracks do?" McGee countered dubiously.
"Of course they do! Soundtracks for movies aren't just repeating in the background to make hitting yet another orc with a sword in a vaguely homoerotic way more exciting. They're elements of the story. They're complex and emotionally meaningful and—"
"Mail," Gibbs commented.
"Okay, maybe they're produced a bit too often by male composers," Tony conceded, "but there are great female ones too. Bishop and I were just talking about—"
"No," Gibbs interrupted. "You have mail, DiNozzo."
"Oh." Tony looked at his desk to see a large manila envelope sitting on it. "Ooh, not bills either."
"You order something to your work address again, Tony?" McGee asked.
"No. And that was one time. Purely a mistake, boss, hasn't happened again" Tony turned the envelope over, reading the return address. "Who do we know in Paris?"
"There's no name on it?" McGee asked.
"No." Becoming a bit wary, Tony leaned the envelope away from him as he carefully tore it open. One bad encounter with mystery mail in his life was more than enough. He turned the envelope over and dumped the contents on his desk. A pile of tickets fell out and scattered across the desktop. "What the—?"
"Are those tickets?"
"You got a side business you didn't tell me about, McScalper?" Tony asked, picking them up to examine them.
"Yeah, there's a big market here for tickets to a French…amateur ballet performance? At a regional community theatre?" McGee frowned, reading over his shoulder.
"I think somebody got their addresses mixed up." Tony noticed there was something else in the envelope. He put his hand in and pulled out a pamphlet showing a picture of a pair of dancers on the front beneath the title "Giselle". A sticky note inside marked a page. Tony flipped it open and froze.
"Tony?" McGee asked, seeing his expression change.
The sticky note pointed to a biography with the name "Natali Antonio, ensemble".
The note itself, in writing he hadn't seen for over a year, read, "I know I said I needed to cut all ties, but if I haven't burned too many fridges, tell Gibbs I would love for my father to be at my recital for the first time."
"DiNozzo?" Gibbs asked, walking over.
Tony realized his hands were shaking on the paper and his vision was clouding with tears. He looked up at his worried team and smiled as he showed them the note.
"Ziva got her fresh start."
*I picked Giselle for a few reasons. It's a classic ballet that was one of the easiest go-to choices in my mind, but also the plot seems like something that would be emotionally resonant for Ziva and the spirits in it called the Wilis sound like the 'wills' that were so important in Ziva's final episode.
*Since most people are commenting on this as guests, I'll try to answer questions here since I can't reply to them personally.
First, thank you for all the kind words! Very glad people are enjoying this and still feeling as bittersweet about Tiva as I am.
When I first wrote this it was intended just as a one-shot to leave the rest open-ended, but now that I've been thinking on it a bit, I really want to write more, so I may do another chapter or two following up on this idea. (I'm behind on recent NCIS episodes so I'm not sure what's going on anymore, but I think I could write it vague enough it would work.)
Also, if it wasn't really clear, she sent enough tickets for everybody, not just Gibbs. She just sent them through Tony a) probably mostly for sentimental reasons, and b) because she knew he would catch on to her codes and hints right away, especially with the name she chose.
So, keep an eye out, because I'll try to write follow-ups for this soon, depending on how the work schedule and creativity goes. Thanks again for the lovely responses!