Summary: Men don't cry. That's what he's been taught all his life. So if he doesn't cry when they pass away, does that mean that he loves them any less? Tony's father dies, and Ziva teaches Tony a few things about grief, loss, and love.

Disclaimer: *Sobs* Nooo, I would never kill Tony DiNozzo, Sr, if I owned NCIS!

Spoilers: General NCIS up till the end of season 8, particularly regarding the loved ones of Tony and Ziva. This fic has no mention of Ray or EJ.

It's...complicated. This story has a lot of deliberately conflicting elements (cause when it comes to real life, emotions and thoughts can be as conflicting). Tony's apparent apathy is deliberate too, of course.

Also, since the main themes of this story are death and crying, this is obviously NOT a happy story.

So, read at your own risk! Lol! And if you do, please review!

-Soph

Tears for the People They Love

Men don't cry. That's what he's been taught all his life. It is a lesson he didn't need to be hit to be taught. All he needed was for his father to ridicule and demean him whenever he so much as sniffled.

By the time his mother died, he'd learnt not to shed tears, and he'd learnt to hate himself for it. Because his father did cry, the day of her funeral. He ended up searching his soul for any trace of the tears he should have, but it was as if they'd dried up before they ever reached his eyes. Because his heart did hurt; his brain hurt, his throat hurt, and his skin hurt – every single part of him hurt except for his eyes that could not cry.

As his beloved mother's coffin was lowered into the rectangular hole in the ground, his father cuffed him over the head and asked him why he wouldn't cry for his mother. What was wrong with him? Did he not love her?

Even his teeth hurt by then.

He didn't cry when he was sent away to boarding school; he didn't cry when he was sent back. He didn't cry when his first girlfriend broke up with him, or when his first love broke him. Tears didn't streak down his face when he busted his knee. He didn't cry for Kate or Jeanne or Jenny or Mike Franks. He didn't cry even for Ziva, when he'd shot the man she loved and she had had to mourn, or when he had thought she was lost to him forever.

Men don't cry. He knows that's bullshit by now. He's seen other men weep, by now.

But Tony DiNozzo, Jr, can't cry. It's as simple as that.

xoxo

He's sitting in the quietest corner of his apartment, spinning an empty beer can on the bare wooden floor. Silently challenging himself to fill it with tears. He can't, of course.

Seriously, what's wrong with him?

There's a persistent knocking on his door, and he doesn't need to open it to know Ziva's on the other side. But he makes no move to get up; he wishes she would go away. And if he knows her at all – there it is now. The silent click, click which tells him she's picking the lock.

She comes in and shuts the door after herself, hanging up her coat before walking over to stand in front of him. She looks at him. He stares at her legs. A soft sigh later, she moves to sit beside him. They stay in silence, and it feels like hours to him before he says anything to her.

"Gibbs told you."

"Yes."

"Here to pay your condolences?"

There's a split second's delay before she answers. "No. But I am sorry."

"Why are you here?"

"For you."

"I don't need you."

"Do you want me to go?"

He almost says "yes", but stops short at the sharp pang in his heart. He's just lost his father. He can't lose Ziva too. "I don't...know."

"Perhaps I need you."

"Why? He isn't – wasn't – your father."

"Yes, but I need to know that you are okay."

"I'm not okay. I can't be strong for you right now, Ziva."

"I know. That is why I have to be strong for you, yes?"

He looks at her for the first time since she entered his apartment, and is struck by how wonderfully beautiful she is, with her chocolate brown eyes watching him so concernedly. He sighs deeply and looks away. "I could use a hug."

She shifts closer and wraps her arms around his torso, and as much as he hates to admit it he feels a little warmer. Hesitantly, he slips an arm behind her back and puts it around her waist, relaxing only when she leans into his touch and very gently rests her head against his shoulder.

"You know, when my mother died..." He swallows thickly. "My dad asked me why I wouldn't cry."

She is quiet for a moment, and he wonders if she judges him too. "What did you tell him?" she asks at last.

"Nothing. I didn't know the answer."

"I did not cry when I found out Tali was dead, either."

"What did your parents say?"

"Ima grieved so much for Tali that for a long time she could not speak to the rest of us. Abba...well, you know how he is. What I do is none of his business unless it concerns work. Ari did not cry either."

"Depressing."

"I have seen enough death to know that everyone copes with grief in a different way."

"He's my father, Ziva. He was my father."

"I know. And you will cry if you need to. But-"

"I want to cry. But I keep...sitting here and...I don't cry for anything. For Kate or Jenny or you...I make myself sick. I'm this emotionless bastard who doesn't give a damn if his world is obliterated."

"Not crying does not mean you do not have emotions."

"Well, that's not what everyone else is saying."

"Tony, I love Tali. She was my sister. I believe that there are many types of bonds in the world, and that the true sisterly bond is something you cannot ever find with someone who did not grow up with you, in the same environment as you. And I will never get it back. I will never get my Tali back. I hated myself for not grieving enough when she died. I did not fall to pieces like my ima did or break everything in the office like abba did. I did not even go to the shooting range with Ari. Everyone was so angry, or so sad...and I was just numb."

She pauses and takes a shuddering breath. "I hated myself so much then. But...Tali is neither the first nor the last of those I love who died, and as bad as that sounds it has taught me one thing. Just because you shed no tears for them does not mean that you do not love them. It just means that you deal with the grief in any other way that you need to."

"Like how?" he whispers.

"When I first told you about Tali...do you remember, Tony?"

"Yeah. I remember."

"It was my way of coming to terms with what had happened to her. Of dealing with things. She had been dead exactly a year then."

"Oh."

"Sometimes...talking helps when crying cannot."

He sighs again and presses his face into her hair. "But I don't know what to say, Zi," he grits out painfully.

"It is okay; I will help you." She tightens her grip around him reassuringly. "Tell me what it was like, being raised by him."

xoxo

He doesn't notice when an hour goes by; when he hits the two-hour mark. His throat is dry when he finally stops talking, but his heart is surprisingly a little less heavy. "Thanks."

"What for?" She's long removed her arms from around him, but he still keeps his arm around her, because somehow he feels a little saner this way.

"Letting me talk."

"I like listening to you talk."

He chuckles a bit at that, in spite of himself. "So it pays to never shut up?"

"It lets me know that you are okay."

"I don't think I am, Ziva. Not yet."

"I know. But it is better than not talking."

"I miss him."

"That is normal."

"I spent most of my childhood hating him, and now I can't remember why the hell I did."

"He hurt you."

"Yeah. But I had so many years to forgive him. I mean I did, but I shoulda tried harder to get to know him or something. I don't know anything about him apart from what he told me. I don't really even know how he felt when Mom died."

She is silent.

"Guess that's a bond I'm never gonna find with someone else."

She squeezes his hand that sits on her waist sympathetically. "No."

"So what do I do now?"

"Mourn for him."

He nods resignedly and shuts his eyes. "You should go."

"Okay." She moves his hand away, but stops uncertainly when she hears his breath catch. "Tony?"

He doesn't look at her. "Yeah."

"What is the matter?"

"Nothing," he barely manages to reply. The answer is really "everything"; the answer is really that the mere thought of her leaving makes him lose his mind – but she shouldn't have to spend the whole night watching him be depressed.

She studies him, perplexedly. "Do you want me to stay?"

He doesn't answer her, because there are probably no words for how much he needs her to stay.

She stares at him for a few more seconds, and then slowly returns his hand to where it had been, as if he had any right to hold her so possessively in the first place. "Okay," she tells him tenderly. "Okay, I will stay."

And suddenly, inexplicably, he feels a tear roll down his cheek as he hugs her close.