texted you a picture where you looked pretty
@indestinatus @coffeedepablo @ncisjes
all day long I waited for my phone to ring
I counted every glow star on my ceiling
texted you a picture where you looked pretty
and wondered if you saved the ones you had of me…
[illuminati hotties – (you’re better) than ever]
The first time Tony sent Ziva a picture, she’d only been gone a week.
He hadn’t left the apartment for anything other than work since getting back - first because of jetlag, and then out of plain exhaustion. It didn’t help that both work and home were full of things that reminded him of her, of them, so much so that it was beginning to feel like a strange form of self-flagellation to stay cooped up there.
It was easy to convince himself he wasn’t thinking about her, talking himself into thinking about any and every other topic on the planet until he was lying in bed wide awake staring into space wondering where it had all gone wrong. It was then, and only then, that he allowed himself to obsess: to think over things he should’ve said, things he never said, or ways he could try and fix what he knew deep down was unfixable.
This particular night was worse than most – someone at work had stopped him in the elevator and asked him what was happening with Ziva, and if she was coming back – and he’d found himself seeking out reminders of her rather than pretending he wasn’t hyper-fixating on them. His phone was a great source for that: text messages and phone records and her name, over and over and over. His photos and videos, too, were full of her, and his tired fingers paused on one she’d never known he’d taken. The most recent one he’d taken of her - asleep, wrapped in sheets, the Israeli sun hitting the bare skin of her shoulders and back. Her hair was spread out over the pillow and her hand was spread over the vacated side of the bed, as though reaching out for him.
He couldn’t bring himself to scroll past it even when it caused a ball to form in his chest that made it hard to swallow.
It was 2am and he found himself opening a conversation thread and dropping the photograph into it, pressing send quickly.
He typed the words with nervous fingers and pressed send even quicker still before throwing his phone in a drawer and turning away from it.
He woke up three hours later and saw she hadn’t opened the message yet. He deleted it, and thanked the gods of modern technology that she never would.
The next time was a month later, and he thought he’d been doing better until he found a stack of old photographs piled at the back of his top desk drawer. They had been collected over the years and though some pre-dated her arrival in the States, she was a prominent feature in most of them.
Though they still hurt, he was finding himself increasingly able to appreciate them for what they were. He found one, near the bottom of the pile, that even had a smile threatening on his lips. A doctor-themed party from a lifetime ago that had to be up there with the more ridiculous ideas of his life.
The picture had been taken not long after Gibbs had left for Mexico and Tony had relented into Abby’s plans for a surprise party for Jimmy’s birthday, still keen to make sure that people didn’t stop seeing him as a friend instead of just a boss. It was him and Ziva, posing, with Jimmy’s drunkenly sleeping head face-down on the table inbetween them.
He remembered everything about that night: how her hand kept brushing his leg under the table, and every time he’d snapped his neck up to look at her but found her looking in a different direction. How they’d shared a cab home and he’d insisted on walking her to her door, in spite of her drunkenly listing a handful of ways she could kill any man who approached her with only the costume on her back. How she’d invited him upstairs and there was no pretence but he’d said no, trying to be diplomatic, though they’d only lasted another week of summer before that had all came tumbling down.
He opened a message again and snapped a photograph, the edge of his fingers visible holding it up to the camera.
“Remember this? Do you still have that picture of me piling stuff on top of him?”
He didn’t get a reply. Then again, he hadn’t really been expecting one.
He flipped the photograph over and placed it back on the pile.
The next time he sent her a photo, it had been over 9 months since he’d last seen her and she’d been on his mind all day.
It wasn’t unusual for him to get wrapped up in thoughts of her but it had been plaguing him in a way it hadn’t in a while – starting with a dream in the middle of the night that woke him up startled and coursing through his brain all morning. When it wasn’t better by night-time he’d gone for a drink with the team to take his mind off it, and when that hadn’t helped he’d found himself scrolling through old messages and photos and videos that he’d sworn he was going to delete (or at least put on a flash drive, out of sight out of mind).
When he still had that feeling that something was missing, that he was categorically in the wrong place right now, he got out of bed and walked into the living room in search of a cure.
He remembered, later, one photograph he’d never been able to take down. He lifted his head upwards to the top of his DVD shelves and grabbed for the card, bringing it down and sitting on the sofa with it in his hands.
A Paris street. Years ago now. She looked like a 50s movie star, frozen in time, and he could remember how enraptured he’d been as he’d approached her - watching her in her own world, flicking through postcards and wrapping her coat tighter around her.
Him capturing it in a photo had been what alerted her to his presence, but instead of asking him to delete it like he’d expected she’d simply rolled her eyes and told him with a smile that he was late.
He thought so fondly of that weekend even now. They’d both been overcompensating in the dust of everything that had happened, nervous and eager and hurting deep down, and Paris had come along at the perfect moment to show them both that the thing they’d been orbiting around for four years wasn’t lost. Could be stronger, even. And it was.
Before he could change his mind he went to grab his phone and snapped a photo of the image, opened the long-gone conversation thread and ignored his previously unanswered message.
“Weird day - you’ve been on my mind. Hope everything’s good. Open invitation: call if you need me.”
Almost two years down, he got a social media reminder of something he tried not to think about.
He didn’t have a photograph of the actual day Ziva became an American citizen. In spite of his promises he’d be there, he’d ended up in another country entirely as she swore her loyalty to his.
He’d felt sick even now that he’d missed her ceremony, knowing how much it had meant to her, even if she tried to play it down when he’d told her. He looked at the photograph that had popped up in his notifications, the two of them smiling with her certificate, and ran his hand over it. Her eyes were so bright and he could barely remember her looking so young.
He remembered how proud she’d been. Wondered if she still was, after how it had ended.
He found himself wondering, selfishly, if he still crossed her mind sometimes too.
“Happy anniversary Miss America”
Part of him was worried it would sound spiteful, but hoped she still knew him well enough to see the good meaning behind it. He pressed send and turned off his phone.
The first time he thought about sending a photo but didn’t, he was holed up in a small Paris apartment wringing his hands.
He’d known he wasn’t going to hear from her often – she’d took great pains to explain that, voice shaking, reminding him over and over that it was for his own safety. But Tali had been asking for her for days and Tony couldn’t stop looking at the photo they’d taken in Cairo, the one he swore he’d destroy soon, where Tali was curled up in Ziva’s lap and Ziva was looking down at her like she’d hung the moon and stars.
It was the same night, as if by magic, that his phone beeped. He scrambled around for it in the dark, heart in his mouth. A withheld number flashed on screen.
“Checking in. Everything is OK. On my mind tonight and always.”
The first and last time Ziva sent Tony a photo, he hadn’t been able to sleep all night.
When Ziva had been away he’d been non-negotiable on work trips and conferences. Now she was back he’d considered it a miracle he’d managed to get 18 months out of the way before being offered a spot on a 3 day conference that was taking place in London. Two hours in it became clear that nothing being shared was particularly relevant to his role, and any number of other members of staff could’ve been sent in his place. He knew he had no more right to be at home than any of them, but it made being away that much harder.
It was 3:18am in London and he knew it was even later in Paris but he couldn’t help himself as he flicked his screen on.
“You sound like a teenage boy.”
The photo she responded with was a simple one from her slightly pixelated front-facing camera on the phone she refused to upgrade. She was sat up in bed, hair tipped over one shoulder. Wearing one of his t-shirts.
“How is it possible you’ve got even more beautiful in my absence?”
“Never leaving again. Can’t wait to be home.”
“Pizza and movie night. Your pick.”
“Maybe the gigantic block on my finger in that photo did not give it away, but unfortunately I am already getting married 3 months from now.”
“That’s too bad. Lucky guy.”
“(Just so you know, it’s a rock. Not block.)”
“Goodnight, Mr DiNozzo. X”