A lovely, heartbreaking gem of a ficlet.

My favorite section:

"Ziva is such a dangerous orange monarch, lithe, graceful, untouchable. You wouldn't want to touch one; it's wings are fragile. His hands are rough. He can't deny it."

One small correction: In the above quotation, "it’s" shouldn’t have an apostrophe, as in that context it is a possessive pronoun rather than a contraction of "it is".

This was amazingly beautiful. And fragile, somehow. I love the way you get Tony and that we see what went on in him when Ray said THAT.

very good your story, that we saw in toni when ray told him the older brother ... and it is obvious that the girl is more to experience ... as long as the ray passes ... that joke with these lovebirds tive. .. but .. oh well enjoy it while it was a great episode that really ... .. tive shippers happy ...

. in the romances are roses with thorns as well ... let's see what happens .. the tiva is there still...yessss

This was very good. I could definitely see Tony feeling like this. His look when Ray said the brother line just crushed me! As did the look Ziva had when Tony told her he understood EJ. Silly people; don't they know they belong together? (Oh and I loved the episode). Thanks !

Whoa. This was intense and beautiful and awesome and captured the scenes of the episode totally. You truly are an artist.

Love,

Katie

Good story!

I personally do not like E.J. However, I really liked Ray. Of course all I want is Tiva, but if E.J. and Tony is still going out, Ray and Ziva should get back together!

I agree with you on the Gibbs-subject, though.

Oh you tricked me into thinking this could end well...lol okay, you didn't. This WAS pure angst. OMG it's so sad :(

I love this line: "Tony's always loved her eyes." And the ending? Broke my heart. How do you make such good work out of something I'm so unwilling to accept?

So sad. And yet so far...so very true.

I hate truth :P

This was good! :)