Title: The DiNozzo Diaries: Moving Right Along
Author: rekkidbraka
Rating: T
Pairings: Tony D. and Ziva D.
Category: Romance; Humor
Disclaimer: No infringement intended.
Spoilers: None
Summary: Tony's most private thoughts and desires revealed, chapter by chapter
-------------------- The DiNozzo Diaries: Moving Right Along ---------------------
Lemme set the scene for you...
It's around 8 o'clock Friday night, my favorite Italian restaurant in Georgetown (great view of each year's fresh crop of coeds running to class from the front window booths) and I'm already done for the night. Through. Crashed and burned. Finito.
Oh, she'll say everything's FINE, just FINE, but it's not. She's already picking at whatever the hell salad she ordered, you know? Acting like croutons are suddenly just the most fascinating food created by mankind and I'm sitting there across the table, playing 'Jenga' with the breadsticks. Then comes the little moment when we look at each other, grin like idiots and in about fifteen minutes I'm saying "Check, please." I pay up and we walk out. I offer her the ride home and she's Miss Manners, with the "Thanks, Tony, but I don't want you to go to any more trouble, REALLY, and gas is so expensive. I'll just catch a cab." I tell her I'll call her, but I won't. She says that would be great but she's praying I'll forget her phone number and she can't wait to get away from me.
Just another night in the hot dating life of Anthony DiNozzo, single guy who used to not SUCK at this.
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I blame Jeanne.
Falling in love with someone just wrecks you for trying to date other women.
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OK, so it's not really fair to blame Jeanne for my being a screw-up with women now. Because I was a screw-up when I dated her. But she didn't bail on me. Then again, even if she'd tried, I'd have had to keep after her because of the whole 'You Don't Know This But My REAL Boss, The NCIS Director, Hates Your Gun-Running Old Man Who You Also Don't Know Is Running Guns And, Oh By The Way, Here's Something You ALSO Don't Know -- I'm Not The Guy I'm Pretending To Be Because I'm Really A Federal Agent Who Was Assigned To Date You' thing. I mean, that did kinda impact the decisions I made about our relationship. With her, I got to where I didn't screw up. Until I screwed up bigtime by actually telling her the truth about everything. Most women love it when a guy does that but, to be fair, their boyfriends haven't spent a year lying to them about their name, their job and... pretty much their whole reason for being with them in the first place. You can see why she was less than impressed.
But hey, Jeanne hates me because - ha! - I'm such a liar and she's gone for good. It's over. For the best. Probably wouldn't have worked, anyway. I loved her but... truth is, it never felt totally right between us. The whole 'lying to her' thing might've had a little something to do with that. And I hated lying to everyone at NCIS about my relationship with her, especially Ziva... I hate lying to Ziva about anything. MAN, she was jealous of Jeanne -- and they never even met when I was telling everyone I had a girlfriend. Ziva just hated that I was seeing someone, you know, seriously for a change. Yeah, she tried to act like it was no big deal but I could tell. She was jealous. Hated me being with another woman. I have to say I didn't mind her wanting what she couldn't have.
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Couldn't ever tell Jeanne about Ziva. Well, I mean, obviously I couldn't because Jenny would've killed me for blowing cover and the whole mess with Jeanne and her father would've blown up in my face sooner than it did but still... I think if Jeanne had known what I really did for a living, if she knew I was NCIS and had a partner? She'd have been pissed about me spending so much time with Ziva. GOD, I'd have never heard the end of it about being with Ziva day in and day out. If Jeanne had gotten one LOOK at Ziva... Cue HELL breaking loose.
They don't call it a 'partnership' for nothing, y'know. You get close. Really, I'm probably closer to Ziva than any other woman I've ever known -- yeah, even Kate and Kate and I had gotten pretty darn close. Even closer than Paula and I were and Paula and I... well, yeah... WE were close.
Ziva, though... She just gets me. Yeah, I mean, Jeanne 'got me,' too, which was always weird to me because she seemed totally out of my league. Not that I didn't think I could land a smart, hot doctor but she could get... I don't know... kinda freaky and it didn't seem like she was that type - the freaky type. The whole 'tagging' thing? Freaky. Cute and I liked it but freaky. Creepy, even. Maybe. She liked my fuzzy handcuffs a little too much, actually. Weird.
Ziva doesn't do freaky so much. I mean, I don't think she does. OK, I don't know if she does. Maybe Abby knows. I'll ask. But I respected Ziva right off the bat when I first met her and we both were admiring the centerfold of the month's... uh... positioning... in the September 2005 issue of GSM. I had to hide those mags around Jeanne and no way in HELL would she have ever backed up my claim that chicks really DO enjoy that kind of... uh... positioning. See, Ziva is cool with that and she doesn't back down from it and it's one of the things I ... um... it's...
... it's something that's special about her. Kinda like the way she sleeps with that Glock under her pillow. Crazy chick.
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Guess I should get over the whole 'Jeanne's gone' thing and move on. I think I have and I think I started the healing process when Vance made me Agent Afloat on the USS Seahawk last year. Little tough to spend your days whining about a broken heart when you're showering with 20 other hairy guys every morning, trying not to think about your... um... possible shortcomings.
Those three bikini shots of Ziva I kept in that hot box they called my 'office' on that tub? They helped, too.