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“Ziva, Ziva!” Tony reached out and grabbed his wife’s arm, pulling her to a stop as she headed up to rush up the pathway and through the doors, into the building. “Slow down, honey. We’re not going to be late. We won’t miss it.”
Ziva huffed as she looked over her shoulder at Tony, raising an eyebrow at him. “And how do you know that? You’re not in there! You don’t know the programme!”
“Because I just know, okay?” He pulled her close, holding her against his side, and kissed the top of her head. “Just trust me, okay? We’re in time for her performance, we look good, and we’re going to watch her and cheer for her as loud as we can.”
Ziva let out a sigh through her nose. She knew he was right — Tony wasn’t often right about things, but when it came to their daughter, he usually was — and she tried to use that logic to calm herself down. They were going to watch their daughter and cheer for their daughter — Tali had been practicing playing the piano for her school’s talent show for months, and now was her chance to show the world what she was capable of. (And that made Ziva so proud.) They did look good in what they were wearing — they were just coming back from a fancy date, and Tali had spent the whole day at school practicing in the music room, telling her parents that she didn’t want them to pick her up because there was a piano at school she could practice with. And admittedly, after looking at her watch, she knew that they weren’t late. She remembered what had been said on the talent show poster. The talent show wouldn’t be starting for another five minutes — it was just that the doors had opened half an hour before. Hopefully there would be seats closer to the middle for herself and Tony so that they wouldn’t have to sit all the way at the back. After all, that wouldn’t give them a good view for the camera, and then they wouldn’t be able to give Tali the best review possible of her performance.
Those were the calming thoughts that went through Ziva’s mind as the two of them entered the main doors to the school and made their way to the school auditorium. She could hear the chattering of other parents and children coming from that direction, and when they entered the hall it was full of people mingling around and talking, some of them holding drinks or snacks that were being sold at the back of the hall to raise money for the school’s arts department.
It made Ziva smile, seeing all of that going on, knowing Tali had had a hand in planning it. And looking up at Tony, seeing the pride in his eyes, she knew that he felt the same way.
Slowly, the two of them made their way through the hall, greeting some of the other parents and stopping to chat briefly with a couple of others, until they found a couple of free seats near the front in the middle of a row.
Perfect.
As soon as they sat down, many of the other parents and children sat as well, and Tony immediately went to pull out his phone so that he could record Tali’s performance when she came on. The man beside him nudged him playfully.
“You ready for the talent show of your lives?”
Tony chuckled as he held up his phone. “Oh, I am more than ready.”
And with that, the lights dimmed in the auditorium, and one of the children walked into the stage, introducing the show.
Tony had to try very hard not to cheer loudly when Tali appeared on stage, Ziva could tell. She, herself, kept to polite clapping as the rest of the audience did as Tony got his camera ready to video their daughter playing on the piano. She was wearing a beautiful sparkly sea blue dress that she and Ziva had gone out to buy earlier in the week, and with her white ballerina pumps, she looked absolutely adorable.
At the back of her mind, Ziva told herself that she had to thank whoever it was that did her hair, because the way her braids crowned her head certainly made her look like a princess.
The little girl bowed to the audience, before pulling the microphone over to her seat.
Singing as well?
“Hello, everyone!” Tali greeted with a smile — one bright enough to rival her father’s, because it was always her father’s smile on her face. “Thank you for coming to the show tonight! I’m going to perform a Disney classics med—… medley.” When there was more applause, she gave another bow, before turning fully to the piano. And then she started.
It was only three songs that she was playing, she and Ziva had discussed it a few weeks ago so that she didn’t plauy for too long and hurt her hands, but after Tony had shown her many of the Disney classic films, Tali had been entranced with the music and had wanted to play them on a piano of her own. Finding the sheet music online had been easy enough — the difficult part had been her learning all three of the songs that they had decided on and perfecting them to the point of being comfortable enough playing them in front of a crowd. (And they couldn’t get the songs to merge seamlessly into one another without her knowing how to play them well — Ziva made sure that Tali knew that from the start.)
They were just incredibly lucky that she seemed to have inherited her father’s affinity for the piano, and picked up the basic notes of each song quickly enough, practicing every day until she deemed herself good, and even then she kept going. She kept going until she could play all three songs one after the other.
Once Upon A Dream, When You Wish Upon A Star, and A Whole New World.
Even now, as Tali finished Once Upon A Dream, Ziva felt her eyes slipping closed as she melted into the music, tears escaping from her eyes. This was her Tali. Maybe she wasn’t playing the same music that her sister had liked, the sort of thing that her sister would have wanted played at a recital so that she could dance to it, but it was beautiful all the same. There was just something very… Tali about it.
And yet, also something very Tony about it.
It made her smile, even as tears continued to slip from her closed eyes.
Her eyes didn’t open again until the last bars of A Whole New World, tears still streaming down her cheeks, and she couldn’t tear her eyes off her daughter. Her daughter who looked like she was at home behind that piano, like it was the one thing she was meant to do.
…Perhaps they should push for her to go more professional with this.
As soon as she played the last note, she received standing applause, and Ziva pushed herself to her feet, clapping loudly and cheering even louder. Though, she knew for a fact that Tony was screaming the loudest. The little girl could only grin and bow over and over, almost looking like she was going to cry at all the praise, before she eventually made her way off the stage.
“Oh my god, Tali!”
Tali could only giggle as her dad lifted her into a hug, swinging her around a few times before setting her down and covering her face with kisses.
“You— were— amazing!”
Tali returned the kisses to her face with one of her own, on his cheeks. “Thank you, daddy!” She laughed as he squished her cheeks with yet another kiss.
As soon as he’d done so, he let her go, leaving space for Ziva to give her own huge hug and massive kisses. “I am so, so proud of you, Tali,” she murmured, placing a soft kiss on the top of the girls’ head. “You were absolutely incredible.”
Tali looked up at Ziva, her eyes wide and shining. “I was?”
“You were! Look at my cheeks!” Ziva pointed at her own face. “You were so good that you made me cry!”
Tali laughed, reaching up and rubbing what had dried of the tear tracks that Ziva had tried to wipe from her face. “Ima, you didn’t have to cry.”
“Well sometimes, when people play as beautifully as you did, I do have to cry,” Ziva retorted, placing another kiss on the top of Tali’s head. “And there is nothing you can do about it.”
Tali giggled again, hugging her mother tightly, before Tony wrapped his arms around them both and kissed each of them on the tops of their heads.
“Now,” he started, squeezing them both and making them both laugh, “I think this calls for some celebration of some sort. Something absolutely delicious.”
“Ice cream!” Tali suggested.
“Oh, I can do one better,” Ziva teased. “Waffles and ice cream!”
Tali gasped. “Oh, yes, please daddy?! Please can we get waffles and ice cream?”
Tony pretended to think about it, as though it was a hard choice after the performance they’d seen tonight and all the hard work Tali had put into the talent show. “Well… I suppose.”
“Yay!” Tali jumped in their arms, making her parents laugh, before they awkwardly shuffled out of the building, still wrapped around each other.
In a way that only David-DiNozzos would.