The bullpen was empty, silent and dark, save for the lamp on Anthony DiNozzo's desk. The senior field agent sat in his swivel chair, vexed, turning an amethyst cuff bracelet around in his hands. He had stayed long after it was time for him to go home, trying to come to terms with his failure, with the loss of life that was his fault and his fault alone. Gibbs had put him in charge and he had failed: now McGee was injured and an innocent girl was dead.
He clenched his jaw against the wave of emotion that threatened to overtake him as Gibbs came charging through the office, obviously having forgotten something at his desk. He stopped when he saw his agent still there.
"What are you still doing here, DiNozzo?"
Tony cleared his throat. "Nothing, boss. Just thinking."
"Is that painful for you, or something?" Gibbs asked, maybe as means of a joke—Tony had a hard time telling when his boss was joking, as it rarely ever happened.
"What?"
"You look upset," Gibbs clarified.
His voice threatened to break if he responded aloud, but he couldn't lie to Gibbs, so he shook his head once, rubbing his chin to disguise it quivering.
Gibbs was in front of Tony's desk in three long strides. "Listen to me." When Tony didn't look at him, he leaned forward, both hands on the desk. "Hey! DiNozzo! Listen to me." Tony struggled to keep it together as he met Gibbs' eyes.
"That girl dying was not your fault."
Of course it wasn't, Tony scoffed inwardly, looking away as tears clouded his vision, which was rather embarrassing around his superior: why couldn't it have been Abby, or McGeek?
"Hey!" Gibbs demanded, and Tony held his fist against his mouth in an attempt to keep his composure. "DiNozzo, you did everything you could to save her. It is not your fault that she didn't make it out of there alive."
Tony finally found his voice, although it was shaky. "Gibbs, I am the one person in the world that could have saved her. The one person. She called my phone. Not yours, not anybody else's. Mine. And now she's laying in the morgue in a damn drawer, dead. How can that be anyone's fault but my own?"
Before he realized it had happened, he felt the familiar sting of a head slap, which was somehow comforting.
"Are you even listening to me? People die, DiNozzo. It's a miracle we got to her before she died. But that girl was already weak. It's not your fault that she couldn't make it, it's not your fault that her heart gave out so fast."
"Twenty-nine years old, Gibbs."
"I know, DiNozzo. But you blaming yourself can't save her. Nothing can."
Tony nodded and looked away from his boss's eyes, tears finally spilling from his own.
"And it's alright to be sad about that."
He looked up at his boss, surprised. Gibbs smiled sadly, and then he was gone.