Disclaimer: I don't own anything
I wrote this for 365 drabble over at ; don't worry I am still working on "Stops."
Ziva didn't understand sports; Tony hadn't expected her to. Why simulate fighting when it is going on all around you? One rainy Sunday afternoon he asked her to play some football ("The American kind," he explained, "not soccer"). His frat brothers raised an eyebrow but he promised she would win it for them. She was the first to tackle, the guy walked with a limp for a week. They won without a fight. The best part though, was not the faces of the team beaten single-handedly by a girl ("woman," he corrected them.), but getting off all of that mud.
She didn't have dreams, just goals, missions to be accomplished. "Dreams are for those without means," her father would say. "They're goals without work behind them." She did not dream of becoming a stellar fighter, liar, and killer, that was just a goal she worked for. She not only worked she sacrificed for her goals. She gave up who she was to take out a terrorist. Two months of work and a starring role as a bartender (the play: mission 12) took out the arms dealer in Frankfurt. She hardly remembers it now. Why had it been so important then?
She liked spicy foods, the hotter, the better. The kind of food that would make her taste buds numb and cause tears, never to be shed, to well in her eyes. She would never back down from a challenge. So when Tony bet she could not eat a whole bowl of his friend's five-alarm chili, she picked up her spoon and shoveled it in as he watched in amazement. She took his ten dollars and the fiery, free meal. Her lips buzzed for hours but it was the kiss stolen from him afterwards, not the jalapeños, which caused the sensation.