she fell first
found this in my drafts, re-read it and thought it actually deserved to be read by other people.
just a little throwback on tony and ziva’s relationship.
You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and you’re trying not to tell him that you love him, and you’re trying to choke down the feeling, and you’re trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you don’t even have a name for.— Richard Silken, You Are Jeff
ao3 ⎜289 words ⎜angst with a happy ending <3
She falls in love with him first.
She does not see it coming, is lured by the tenderness of the green of his eyes. Before she knows it, her heart smiles when he greets her with his usual “Good morning, ninja”. Flutters, even, when his hand kindly finds the small of her back, sits there comfortably.
Shatters in a terrible sound when he falls in love with someone else.
She waits for him for two years, afterwards. Picks up herself the bits of her heart she can save, glue them back together. But, he simply does not see her.
He is engulfed in his own grief, the grief of losing the first woman he’s ever loved.
She leaves for Israel. She makes up her mind, decides it is high time for her to move on. And she does.
Doesn’t mean her heart does not skip a beat when she sees him again.
.
Seeing her with someone else is oddly disturbing. Painful, even.
He falls in love as she falls out of love with him, in love with someone else.
And when all of Somalia is behind them, when they both know they cannot live without each other, he is very well aware that he is in love with her. But she’ll never jump into love with him again.
She is terrified. She must protect herself from their love. She cannot control it.
He waits for her.
.
She dates other people, tries to find in them the same passion she feels for her partner. Fails miserably.
Eventually, she realizes there can be no one else but him for her.
He waits for her all along, patiently, with the same kindness she fell in love with him first.