SOME THINGS COME EASILY

By

Ashleigh Anpilova

Some things come easily to Tony; others are more difficult.

A DiNozzo centric gen story.

Written: February 2011. Word count: 400.

Tony sighed.

Some things came easily to him. Things like playing the clown; ribbing and playing pranks on McGee; teasing Ziva about messing up the American language; laughing at Palmer; finding movie references in everything; doing idiotic things; annoying Gibbs enough to get him to head slap him; one-night stands; playing the field; not taking anything seriously; moving on when his latest conquest started to make settling down noises; having fun; living for now. All those things, the non-important things, came easily to him. Maybe too easily.

Other things were far more difficult. Being responsible; being grown-up; being serious; showing he cared; putting other people first; admitting he was wrong; letting people get close at more than a superficial level; thinking about the future. All those things, the important things, didn't come easily to him. They never had done.

But there was one important thing that was much more difficult than anything else: commitment. He had tried it once, even if to begin with it'd been a fake, and look how that had turned out! He'd hurt the woman he'd fallen in love with and he'd hurt himself. After Jeanne, he had never thought he'd find or want to find a person he was willing to commit to again. But he had. For many that would be easy, nothing simpler, but for him it was so hard.

The hard part wasn't the fact that he'd be breaking Rule #12. It was odd, but for him that didn't seem to be the difficult part. Sure Gibbs might throw him and/or the other person off his team, but that's about all he could do. No, the difficult part was that he just didn't know how to go about telling the other person how he felt. He didn't know how to tell someone he'd worked with for several years that he now cared beyond just a coworker; that he wanted more; a lot more. And even if he could think of a way to tell them, he didn't know for certain if he could commit.

Commitment wasn't in his nature; it wasn't in his genes. And he wasn't going to take a chance until he was absolutely certain. He cared enough about the other person, he loved them enough, not to do that.

Tony sighed.

Love, commitment and a shared future. It should be so easy. So why was it so damned hard?

Feedback is always appreciated

Go to NCIS General Series Gen Fiction Page