Welcome to Season 3! If you are new to the story – this is the third installment in my collection of episode filler and tags which are mainly Tony- and Gibbs-centric, but also on occasion features scenes between other characters as well. If you haven't read Seasons 1 and 2, you will likely still be able to follow along just fine if you have seen the episodes. However, I would say that since this first story is so closely tied to what happened at the end of Season 2, it may be helpful to read at least the last 7 chapters of "On It, Boss – Season 2." I will probably be referencing some things from that story, which is called "Darkest Hours."
I have received many comments regarding how I plan to handle Ziva. It is my intention to portray the main characters as a group of complex, multi-faceted individuals with both good points and flaws (yes, even my beloved Tony is not perfect…), but who at the core do what they do because they want to make a positive difference. That is what I tried to do with Kate, and what I also intend to do with Ziva. So, if you are hoping for her to be all good or all bad, I'm afraid you may be disappointed. I do have problems with many of her choices, and in my stories she will have to face more consequences than we have seen portrayed on the show. As far as Tiva is concerned, I'm not a Tiva fan in the romantic sense at all, but am also trying to stay within "canon" so whether I am forced to address Tiva in some way is probably going to depend on how it is addressed in the beginning of Season 11. I will say that if I have to go there at some point (hopefully not anytime soon), it will probably be from the point-of-view that sometimes people get involved in relationships that don't necessarily bring out their very best for a multitude of different reasons, and not from the standpoint that they are "soulmates." Because I just don't see it that way. But Ziva or no Ziva, my main focus of this story is and will remain the relationship between Tony and Gibbs and all of their ups and downs.
Sorry for the really long author's note, but I thought it best to set expectations up front. Now, for those of you I haven't lost yet, all 2 or 3 of you – haha, here is the first part of the story for "Kill Ari" parts 1 and 2, picking up moments after where season 2 left off and covering the events of the remainder of the day Kate was killed. Hope you enjoy! This will be a multi-chaptered story that will cover both "Kill Ari Part 1" and "Kill Ari Part 2" – I don't know how many chapters yet but I'm guessing 3-4 at least.
"Just Before Dawn – Part I"
The rain was coming down relentlessly now.
The ME had finally arrived, a man at least ten to twenty years younger than their own Doctor Mallard. His name was Doctor Carlson and he gave off a "strictly business "air, so Tony instantly knew there would be no small talk or long, rambling stories. He sometimes had little regard for humorless individuals, but at this particular moment it came as a relief.
The Senior Field Agent felt it was his duty to inform the Medical Examiner, a man kindly referred to them by the Norfolk PD, that their crime scene may not be entirely secure. That there was a sniper out there somewhere who hadn't been located, and that, while NCIS was in the process of searching the surrounding buildings for any traces of their suspect, it was a long process and that there may be some risk involved. Both Dr. Carlson and his assistant, a young man probably slightly older and more seasoned than Jimmy Palmer, and far quieter, seemed unfazed. Together, the three of them made their way up to that fateful rooftop.
Agent Simpson, a member of Balboa's team, was already there processing the scene, doing his best to ignore both the rain and the fact that their victim was a colleague. The rain certainly complicated things, but Tony grimly thought that the inconvenience was offset slightly by the fact that there were two still-living witnesses to the event. And neither of them would likely be forgetting the details any time soon.
Tony had promised Agent McGee to rejoin the search as soon as the ME arrived, but now that he was back with Kate again, he felt guilty at the thought of leaving her with strangers. Kate was modest, and now a strange doctor and his assistant were going to be examining her, touching her. How ironic that he, Anthony DiNozzo, was the one now tasked with guarding Kate's virtue, but it felt wrong to leave, so he remained, in spite of the fact that he could provide little assistance other than answering a stray, terse question here and there posed by the doctor.
He remained outwardly passive and expressionless, expertly masking the tempest of emotions doing battle underneath the surface. After years of practice at schooling his expressions, it was nearly impossible to discern what Anthony DiNozzo, Jr. was really thinking. Unless, of course, your name was Leroy Jethro Gibbs. Still, someone who knew him may have caught the slight wince in his features when Dr. Carlson carefully lifted Kate's head to examine the exit wound. Mercifully, no one who really knew him was around.
"Agent DiNozzo?" Simpson softly inquired, pulling Tony out of his reverie. "I'm finished processing the scene."
"Find out where the rest of the team is and let me know. I'll be there shortly," Tony answered tersely.
Agent Simpson eyed him curiously. It didn't seem to him that a man who'd just recently barely survived the pneumonic plague should be standing on a rooftop in the pouring rain for long stretches of time. But, Agent DiNozzo, usually so laidback and easygoing, seemed in no mood to be challenged, and if someone was going to do that, it probably shouldn't be him. So, the NCIS Special Agent headed towards the ground level and radioed his colleagues.
The ME and his assistant had placed Kate in a body bag and were zipping it up.
"Wait," Tony suddenly commanded. He moved in closer to the body and took one last look at his colleague and friend. She was just beginning to take on the pallor of death, yet now that her eyes had been closed he may have been able to still deceive himself into thinking she was just sleeping. Like she had slept on the floor behind her desk just the night before or in the bed next to him a couple of weeks ago when he'd been in the isolation ward. But there was the problematic bullet wound in her forehead, eliminating any possibility of his forgetting, even for a moment, that she wouldn't be waking up in the morning.
I'll miss you Kate. More than you ever knew.
He stood and nodded solemnly to the doctor to continue.
"We'll deliver the body to NCIS headquarters. If your Medical Examiner requires any assistance with the autopsy, tell him to call me."
And with that, they took her away.
Ducky. Tony wondered if Gibbs had told him yet. Or Abby. Abby. This is gonna kill her. He couldn't bear to think about a devastated Abby right now. And he couldn't afford it either.
"Agent DiNozzo, do you copy?" Simpson's voice crackled over the radio.
"DiNozzo here. What's your twenty?"
"Building 3."
"Copy. On my way."
They had a murderer to catch.
"It was Ari Haswari," Agent Gibbs growled, sitting across from Director Morrow in his office, no longer particularly caring if he was crossing the line into insubordinate territory.
"Proof?" the Director challenged wearily.
"Oh, I'll get you your proof. What's left of my team is working on that as we speak," the Lead Agent spat out.
"Agent Gibbs, I know how difficult this is…" Morrow attempted.
"With all due respect, sir, I doubt that you do. He was after me. I want him."
"Jethro," Tom Morrow tried again, taking on a softer and more personal tone. "I promise you that you'll get your justice. But we have to do this the right way. A lot is at stake here. We have to allow the system to work."
An image of Shannon and Kelly flashed through his mind, followed by the face of the man who took them from him. Sometimes the system doesn't work. And I'll be damned if I let the system fail Kate.
Calming slightly, and knowing he wasn't going to get anywhere with the Director this evening without any evidence, Gibbs took on a more professional tone. "I understand, sir. But I expect to be kept informed. She was my agent. And when the time comes, I want to be the one to bring him in. ." In a body bag, where he belongs.
"Your request is noted," the Director indicated noncommittally. "Agent Todd was a good agent. She will be missed."
"Agent Todd lost her life in the line of duty, protecting me. She deserves to be recognized for it. I intend to write up a recommendation that she be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom."
"I agree. Write it up and I'll sign it." At least it was something they could agree on.
"Thank you, sir," Gibbs responded.
As he left the office, Director Tom Morrow had mixed feelings. In some ways, he was relieved to be turning this mess over to someone else. Agent Gibbs was absolutely right, and he knew he would feel exactly the same in the other man's shoes. But there were politics involved, other agencies, both foreign and domestic, terrorist cells and potentially thousands of innocent victims. It was a lot to juggle. He just hoped the young and relatively inexperienced Jennifer Shepard was equipped to handle it.
"What've we got?" Tony demanded of Agent McGee as he rejoined his teammate and Agent Balboa's team on the rooftop of Building 3.
"Nothing yet," McGee sighed just before he got a good look at his colleague. Tony was soaked to the bone and the angry dark circles under his eyes had returned with a vengeance. He couldn't help staring.
Anger and sorrow had been waging a silent war in DiNozzo's head for the past few hours, but at the moment the anger was winning. Unfortunately, rage didn't bring out his best side, and somehow the Probie never failed to be conveniently present whenever the older man was in need of a target. "You got a problem, Agent McGee?"
"I was just thinking…" Tim stammered.
"Well spit it out then, Probie," Tony commanded impatiently.
"Maybe….you shouldn't be out here. I mean with the rain and all….and you just getting over…you know…being….sick…"
Tony got within centimeters of Agent McGee's face. "And you're afraid of what, exactly? That I'm gonna melt or something?"
"N-no, just that….you could get sick again."
The Senior Field Agent moved impossibly closer into his junior teammate's personal space and whispered dangerously, "Yeah, well I also could've taken a bullet through the forehead earlier but that didn't deter Kate from doing her job, did it?"
McGee's eyes widened at the blunt and insensitive reference to their teammate's death, but before he could speak, Agent Balboa interrupted from several yards away.
"Agent DiNozzo? I think I've got something…."
Tony was immediately snapped out of the furious trance he'd seemed to be in moments before and backed away from McGee. "What is it?"
"It's a bullet casing. I think we've found the location of our sniper. And he didn't police his brass. Maybe a lucky break."
Lucky? There were probably a lot of words to describe this day, but the word "lucky" certainly hadn't come to mind.
Careless. That doesn't seem to describe Ari Haswari. Either Gibbs' gut is wrong – or he wanted us to find it. Since Tony was almost as certain of his boss' gut, particularly in this matter, as he was that the sun would rise in the east every morning, he had to settle on the latter. That arrogant SOB was taunting them.
"I want every millimeter of this roof searched. Agent McGee and I will take any evidence back to the Navy Yard to start processing right away. I'll need you to keep searching. We still haven't found the bullet that killed…." He couldn't quite use "killed" and "Kate" in the same sentence. Not just yet.
"We still haven't found the bullet yet," he amended quietly.
Gibbs stood at the window in the squadroom watching the rain fall.
This time, instead of the soft snoring of his slumbering team behind him that he'd been comforted by just the night before, he was met only with an eerie silence.
He'd always hated waiting. For one, he was a man of action. But mostly it was because waiting meant time to think. And thinking rarely led him any place good.
The guilt that had been knocking louder and louder on the entryway to his consciousness for hours finally broke down the door.
He wanted you. It should have been YOU.
His gut had been nagging at him for weeks now. He'd mistakenly thought it was related to Tony's recent bout with the plague. He had continued to believe it, in spite of the dream he'd had just before his Senior Field Agent had come in contact with that envelope. The one that had involved Ari Haswari.
Which one, Agent Gibbs?
Ari's voice had taunted him, threatening his agents – not him – in the dream. And asked him to choose. At the time he'd wondered how he could ever make such an impossible choice. He was now wondering if that had been exactly what he'd inadvertently done.
Ever since Tony had become ill, the younger man had been almost the sole focus of his attention and his worry. Hadn't he been the one who had sent Kate along to the hospital with Tony, not even considering the possibility that she could be in more danger of contracting something from Tony than she had been in from the initial opening of that envelope? Was he truly looking after Kate's best interests, or had he secretly been concerned primarily with Tony's?
Then, after she'd made the decision to place herself at further risk by staying with Tony, he'd been relieved. Not angry or upset with her for recklessly endangering her own life. Oh, she had expected to be chewed out for it. Instead, when she asked, he'd told her that he understood. And that he was glad. Was she disappointed that I wasn't more concerned about her? She hadn't seemed so at the time, of course, focusing most of her attention on Tony's recovery. But in retrospect, he couldn't help feeling that maybe he should have been just the slightest bit angry.
He hadn't even hesitated when Kate was assigned to his protection detail. They had all been focused on protecting him as soon as they'd learned Haswari was back in the States. And in spite of the fact that he'd worried over his team the previous night, somehow he'd still let his guard down on that rooftop. They all had.
How could Haswari have missed me and hit Kate? He would have taken the man for a more accurate marksman than that. I knew he was still out there. I should have been in front of them. It should have been me.
Every line of thinking led him back to that one thought. He'd ended up back at his desk, staring aimlessly at the empty chair behind the desk next to his. Now, not only his own conscience was blaming him. Kate was here, blaming him as well.
He was interrupted by the arrival of his agents. They had evidence, and finally they were getting somewhere. His mind switched back to Lead Agent mode, relieved to find an outlet that didn't involve the vicious circle of blame, guilt, and remorse trying to hold him hostage.
But he was momentarily stopped in his tracks. Tony was in front of him, pale, thin. And absolutely soaking wet.
He'd done it again. First he'd focused on Tony and somehow forgotten to protect Kate. And now he'd focused so much on his need for justice for his dead agent, that he'd nearly forgotten the ones who were still here, and the fact that they very much still needed him.
Particularly a still unwell Senior Field Agent who was apparently determined not to take care of himself.
"I don't think I've ever been shot at before," Abby said pensively as she and Tony put the final touches on the incident report.
The agent leaned back in his chair slightly. Being with Abby had been good for him somehow, even if they had just been shot at. "You don't think you've ever been shot at? You mean you're not sure?"
"I've never been shot at that I was aware of. But you know, all kinds of stuff happens around us that we don't even know about. It's like, if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" she rambled nervously.
"I'm pretty sure you'd know if you'd been shot at before, Abs," he informed her with a patient smile. "It's okay to be scared. I still get scared when I get shot at," he admitted.
"You didn't seem scared. Actually, you were pretty awesome the way you tackled me and dragged me out of harm's way."
"It's my job, Abby. Besides, I'm not about to let anything happen to my favorite Goth. Or to Gibbs' favorite person in the whole world."
"He was worried about you, too. Did you see how fast he grabbed you when you almost stood up in the lab?"
Night vision scope. He had to admit, although it had seemed a little paranoid at the time, that it was a good point. One he'd have never even thought of. "Gibbs is a little freaked out about everything right now, Abby."
"Yeah, well, so am I," she said with concern.
"You're gonna be fine, Abs. You're safe here," Tony assured her.
"That's right, and you're not leaving here 'til we have Haswari," Gibbs directed as he strolled into the squadroom, McGee happening to have also arrived at the same moment.
"That's okay with me. I really didn't want to go home anyway," the young forensic scientist asserted.
"McGee, why don't you take Abby down to the break room and get something to eat," Gibbs suggested.
"I'm not really hungry," Abby answered.
"I'm not either, but we should really eat something anyway. We could be here a long time," McGee suggested. "C'mon."
Reluctantly, the young forensic scientist followed after another nod of encouragement from Gibbs.
When they were alone, the Lead Agent scrutinized Tony closely. "What about you? You have anything to eat lately?"
"I haven't been hungry in three weeks, Boss," his agent answered honestly.
"Didn't ask that. I asked you if you ate anything, but I can see the answer is no. What do you want?"
Tony sighed audibly. "I'll just get something out of the vending machine. Once Abby and McGee are done. They could use some time alone. Abby's pretty shook up and McGee…" Tony tiredly ran a hand over his eyes. "I've been pretty hard on him today."
"Noticed," Gibbs observed.
"I'll fix it," Tony promised.
"I know you will," his boss indicated with the tone of issuing an order. Then he took a closer look at the younger man. "You didn't do what I asked you to," he observed without anger, indicating the almost-dry clothes Tony was still wearing from earlier.
"I took the jacket off. And I got a towel from the locker room to dry off. I'm fine, Boss," DiNozzo insisted.
"You're still sick, DiNozzo. That hasn't changed, even if you are trying very hard to forget about it. We're gonna find you someplace to sleep tonight that isn't at your desk."
"Now where would that be? We can't go down to Abby's lab. And autopsy's out of the question. I'm not sleeping down there with…" he stopped short when he realized that his partner was one of the deceased currently occupying their autopsy room.
A brief look of understanding passed between the two men. Then Gibbs' expression turned thoughtful. He had an idea.
With a slight smirk he suggested, "MTAC."
Though Gibbs knew he wouldn't be getting any shut-eye himself, he strolled up to MTAC at about midnight to check in on his charges.
Ducky was safely tucked away in autopsy, also knowing he wouldn't be getting any sleep, and burying himself in his work for the night.
As Gibbs entered the secure room, he paused momentarily to allow his eyes to adjust to the darkness.
Looking around, he spotted McGee and Abby. They were curled up together in a corner of the room, the young woman resting her head on the Probie's shoulder, and McGee's arms both wrapped protectively around her. In spite of the tragic events of the day, the scene brought a tender smile to the Lead Agent's face.
Continuing to search, he found DiNozzo. He was off to himself. Tony had attempted to stretch himself out awkwardly across two chairs, his legs dangling over an armrest and his head rested uncomfortably in the crook of the other armrest. Gibbs found himself simply shaking his head. He thought he saw Tony's eyes open, but they quickly closed when the younger man sensed his boss' presence.
No need to fool me, DiNozzo. I know you're awake.
Without thinking, his eyes searched the room for Kate, expecting her to be close by Tony. Looking after him the way she had been for the past two weeks. But of course, she wasn't there, and he mentally kicked himself for the lapse.
He'd told Tony earlier that there was nothing they could do for her. But maybe that wasn't entirely true. He could keep her colleagues, the people she cared about, safe. The people he cared about.
By killing Ari Haswari.
To be continued….