EVERYONE HAS GHOSTS

By

Ashleigh Anpilova

Tony has one particular ghost.

A DiNozzo-centric gen story.

Written: November 2010. Word count: 500.

Ghosts. Everyone has them, don't they?

Most people I know have them. They might not talk about them, make that they don't talk about them, but I know they have them.

I think sometimes people forget that I am a good investigator; I can read people. Oh, I'm not as good as Gibbs and I never will be, but I do notice things. I know I mess around and play the fool and the clown and make a joke out of everything, so I guess it's not surprising people don't think I pay attention - there's plenty of times I believe it myself - but I do.

Take the boss, he has ghosts. Two of them: Shannon and Kelly. No one knew anything about them for years, apparently not even Ducky (that still surprises me) but when we found out it kind of explained a lot of things. They haunt him still; I know they do. I never thought Gibbs would hang on to anything, but I guess it's different when it's your wife and daughter and they've been murdered.

Ducky has ghosts too; they're tied in with something that happened in Afghanistan. I don’t know all the details, no one but Gibbs does, but Ducky was accused of murder. Murder? Ducky? If anyone on the team is less likely to murder, it's Ducky. I saw a bit of him during the case and I saw how much what happened back then still haunted him.

Ziva has her ghosts too - probably even more than anyone else. Tali, Ari are just two of them. Then there's her time in Somalia; we still don't know exactly what happened to her. She still won't talk about it. But I know somewhere deep inside it haunts her.

Abby, McGee, Vance even Palmer must have ghosts too. Maybe not as obvious as others, but they have to have them, because everyone has them.

Then there's me. I've seen a lot in my time as a cop, I've done a lot too. I've taken lives. I've come close to death. But my ghost doesn't come from work. My ghost is personal. It's my mom; I've never told anyone and I never will. But my mom still haunts me.

I guess the little boy in me has never really gotten over her dying when I was eight. My mommy died, my world was turned upside down and I didn't understand. How could she die? How could she leave me?

For a while I hated her and I told her so. I blamed her for dad sending me to boarding schools and summer camps. I blamed her for everything that went wrong - and there were a lot of things.

As I got older I accepted she didn't choose to leave me and I guess I forgave her. I sometimes think things would have been a lot different if she'd lived; I don't mean just between Dad and me, but me in general; everything.

So that's it, my ghost. My mom.

Feedback is always appreciated

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