Warning: Not a work of shippiness. Veering on the just-barely side of AU if you squint...

Folly's Revival

When I am king you will be first against the wall

With your opinions which is of no consequence at all

Paranoid Android by Radiohead

If caught on the wrong day at the right time, Ziva will give opinions the way some people give herpes; without preface or welcome. It's like a tactless donation that the hapless recipient isn't allowed to refuse, a thing of odd shape and questionable use, lacking both context and logic. And regardless of environment, she delivers the outlook in the blunt manner in which a hammer delivers a blow. No amount of forbearance can counteract the resulting throb.

She'll say her ideas are rooted in sense.

But on the right day at the wrong time, Tony's trying to determine what sinister soil must be supporting this mythical root of sense. He'd like nothing more than to tread heavily upon it with spike-soled shoes. In truth, his partner generally plays firmly on the side of rationality while his flights of fancy seldom soar below the stratosphere.

But there are days…

On these rainy mornings of folly's revival her mouth becomes as untamable as her frizzy hair and Tony may dare to consider himself the sane one, a rare and typically laughable notion. She appears to take converse positions out of spite for the weather, the traffic and the tongue-burning properties of coffee. The fuse of the new citizen can be lethally short and her subsequent vocalizations dreadfully long. In action she is utterly succinct but frost and boredom leave her incapable of picking up a hint and putting down a topic.

She knows no quick way around a point.

It is during her impromptu dissertations on the criminal justice system, the drivel of government policies and the strain of tolerating her partner that Tony wonders how he'd dredged up the decision to like her. Looks are one thing but beauty excuses only children from brazen boorishness. And they think he's arrogant.

Of course, it's his incessant interest in touching her, kissing her, having her that keeps his responses to the north side of gentle snark instead of the terrorist-grade weaponry he'd launch at a less desirable irritant. Perhaps he should reboot his serial dating program because the fumbling equation that is his life is missing an important variable.

A woman of a mute persuasion would be nice.

Today's list of unforgivable flaws includes but is not limited to: the coffee shop attendant who mixed satanic Splenda into her drink, the security guard who checked her badge three times for confirmation of what she'd spent five minutes loudly declaring and the fact that Tony had kept her waiting one entirely unjustifiable minute as he'd reknotted his tie before interrogating a suspect. The perp's craven nature, expensive footwear and the five-inch, pink-dyed goatee received acid-dripped opinions.

Is it too late to join the circus?

Prior to this federal incarnation, no one knew Tony well enough to venture an assessment on the state of his life. Oh, there were helpful suggestions, like blind date propositions, warnings against too much liquor and the occasional dressing down from ulcer-ridden captains. On the whole, others seemed to sense his intense dislike for unprompted advice and left him to his own fixes. And normally the Rock of Israel would mind her tongue, loathing intrusion more fanatically than himself.

But there are days…

What Tony doesn't want, along with ringworm and hair loss, is Ziva's thesis on his father. Which doesn't prevent her from giving it. In the bullpen. To a live and slightly embarrassed audience. Thrice. Everyone within ten miles knows the old man is a charmer and anyone within ten feet knows he's a swindler. But DiNozzo Sr. compliments her hair and he's instantly elevated to infallible pope. Tell that to the eight year old who watched his home grow smaller in the rear view on the way to boarding school.

Derisive comments are now punctuated by a sweetly snide 'Junior.'

Junior was unplanned, unwanted and unnecessary. Though the initial sting is decades removed, there's still a scar that Tony prefers to pick at in privacy. But on these anti-world mornings, Ziva fails to acknowledge such rights. Her suggestion that father and son should re-bond, which implies they'd been close to begin with, is met with all the stoic silence Tony can wring out of his exasperated soul. It only aggravates her.

Tomorrow the sun will rise upon a reticent version of his partner, one who guards her words with an internal censor to rival a major television network. Tomorrow he'll forget that these moments chip away at his long-nursed attraction to the woman. But today Tony wouldn't touch her for all the marathon unprotected sex she could offer. Today he's just her partner. And tonight he's got a blind date. That it revives the folly of his youth matters little. She'll be tall, blond and wholly American, everything that does not currently sit in judgment of him.

Because there are days…