"I'm just asking, Boss. If you had to pick an actor to play you in the movie of your own life, who would you pick?"
"Damnit, DiNozzo, not the time!" Gibbs spared a moment to glare at his subordinate, before ducking a chair on a direct path to his head. Tony flashed him a shit-eating grin, lazily sweeping his leg out and knocking two interlocked brawlers into a neighbouring table with an almighty crash.
A pub full of angry, drunken men intent upon doing each other harm wasn't anything that Gibbs would call challenging but even so, he'd rather his partner wasn't jack-arsing around throughout it.
He really didn't want to draw his weapon and escalate a bar fight into a riot if he didn't have to.
DiNozzo did a strange side-stepping move more suited to a stage of ballerinas than a hardened federal agent, narrowly avoiding a flailing arm whistling past his ear, and chuckled. His face was alight in the kind of life Gibbs only ever saw on him when he was out in the field doing what he loved. "Awh, come on Boss. Use your imagin-"
He fell before Gibbs even registered the splintering crack of the pool cue belting into the back of his head, his smile dropping into a slack-faced unconsciousness that burned itself into Gibbs' memory like a brand.
Gibbs' gun was in his hands in a moment, a bellowing roar that he hadn't used since he'd left the Corp freezing the men near him into petrified statues.
One look at the expression on his face and the brawl melted away into nothing, everyone drawing back into a frightened huddled ring about them and looking down sheepishly on his insensible agent.
Gibbs leant, pressing two fingers against the pulse thudding strongly in Tony's neck, tension he hadn't even been aware of melting away with each beat.
"Ow," murmured DiNozzo without opening his eyes. "Didn't know you could shout like that, Boss."
"Didn't know you had such a hard head," Gibbs grumbled. "Glad of it. Don't move." He straightened, icy gaze flashing across the sorry lot of drunks surrounding them.
He wasn't sure when his job had become saving DiNozzo from himself, but surprisingly he didn't really mind.
.
.
Ducky turned his coat collar up against the brisk May breeze, shrugging his shoulders to settle the material evenly. "Come on then, Jethro," he said calmly, locking the door of the car and looking at his friend with a wan smile. "We have a lady awaiting our company. It would be rude to dawdle."
Gibbs returned the smile with a twitch of his own mouth. "Don't think she's much for keeping time anymore, Duck."
Ducky chuckled, a sad note to his voice, leading the way across the grassy slopes of the carefully manicured lawn. "Yes well, she was never quite the one for keeping time." Gibbs nodded distractedly, eyes scanning the tree-line with a practised gaze.
"Ahh, here we are!" Ducky exclaimed, stopping in front of their destination with a bright smile. "Hello there, Caitlin. Lovely day. Now, I had a man on my table recently whom I think you would find very interesting. You see…"
Gibbs listened silently as Ducky settled himself onto his knees and plucked at the stray weeds around Kate's grave, detailing the 'interesting' case in precise detail for her benefit. He shoved his hands into his pocket, rocking back onto his heels and huffing air through his teeth.
He wasn't the type to talk to the dead, that was Ducky's deal, but he figured it couldn't hurt to chime in.
Heya Todd, he thought silently. Not much changed since we saw you last. DiNozzo's still DiNozzo. You'd like Ziva I think…
His duty to his teammate didn't end with her death.
.
.
The knock on the door was as welcome as it was expected. After cases that dragged the whole team through the wringer like this, it was the nights that the knock didn't come that had Gibbs pacing restlessly throughout his house.
The nights that knock didn't come were the nights he knew that DiNozzo was trapped in his own head, thinking himself into a drunken stupor. Alone.
He pulled the door open, scowling, his gruff expression meeting DiNozzo's sheepish one. There was a bag of half-defrosted, dripping steaks clutched in front of him like a shield against his boss's temper.
"I bring the steak, you bring the cheer and goodwill?" DiNozzo asked hopefully, adjusting the bag so the drips avoided his shoes.
Gibbs hummed slightly in his throat, stepping back to let Tony in. "Beer in the fridge." Nothing else needed to be said. They both knew the parts they played in this dance.
And if Gibbs talked his senior agent into having just one more beer tonight, making it irresponsible for him to drive home… well that was just another step.
Ziva looked lost, standing at his door way with a shell-shocked expression. He stepped aside to let her in, frowning in concern at the oddly meandering way she entered his home, looking about as though it would be the last time she'd ever see it. It wasn't often that Ziva 'meandered'.
"Tell me David, what exactly did they say?" he asked carefully, eyeing the phone held forgotten in one white-gripped hand.
Ziva laughed loudly, her eyes wide and panicked, putting on a ridiculous falsetto voice. "Regrettably, we've lost your records. You are officially a persona non grata. Have a nice day." She paused, looking down at the phone and then up again, blinking rapidly. "They are sending me back to Israel, Gibbs. Sending me away."
Gibbs pushed her down onto his couch before stalking to his door and grabbing his coat and keys. "Stay there," he growled, reaching for the handle.
"Where are you going?" she asked softly, voice plaintive in a way she'd never allow DiNozzo to hear.
"To fix this."
Later that night he returned home with the paperwork telling her she was still an American citizen and a signed disclaimer from Vance that this would never happen again. He found her asleep on his couch, curled around a battered cushion and looking younger than he'd ever seen her.
He lay a plaid blanket over her, tucked the paperwork under her slack hand and quietly padded down to the basement to work on his boat. If he ever got hold of the useless bureaucratic egg-head that made her look like that, the woman would wish she'd never learnt how to use a damn phone.
.
.
Gibbs eyed McGee from inside the car he was surveying his youngest agent from, watching him trying to gather information on their recent case from people walking along the busy street. His tongue burned slightly from the hot coffee he'd just sipped and he crankily ran it along the roof of his mouth, the pressure soothing the scald.
McGee looked flustered by the women he was talking to, notebook held crookedly in one hand and pen in the other, poised frozen on the page. Gibbs rolled his eyes at the flushed redness to the tall man's ears, clearly thrown off by the flirtatious posture one of the women had adopted.
For a moment, Gibbs considered rescuing his agent, but leaving him to struggle through seemed like a character building exercise. Plus, DiNozzo was sprawled on a bench across the street with a clear view of the hapless McGee, and the probie would never live down having to be rescued by his boss from some overly touchy ladies.
One of the ladies leaned in and brushed a hand against McGee's arm and Gibbs saw a flash of movement from near the agent's arm that had his eyebrows knotting together.
Damn McGee was going to have his arse kicked for missing that. A quick squint in DiNozzo's direction showed that his senior agent was just as oblivious. The earwig in Gibbs' ear crackled, Ziva's voice cutting in.
"McGee just got floosted, Boss," she said calmly. "I can apprehend them if you would like. With minimal visible damage."
"The term is boosted, Zee-vah. And no he didn't I would have seen," DiNozzo replied smarmily through the line. "Also, you don't do minimal damage." Gibbs sighed as they began to bicker, stepping out of his car and jogging up the street after the woman strolling off with McGee's wallet.
Damn team need babysitters.
.
.
There was enough alcohol in his system to drown DiNozzo, his basement seemed to have decided to tilt violently to the left every time he tried to stand up, and his mouth tasted like a mix of socks and cheap bourbon.
None of it was helping the pain.
He wisely decided to stay prone on the soft layer of sawdust on his basement floor, staring at the roof and running through the thousands of intersecting possibilities of that night.
So many possibilities and somehow they'd taken the one that had led to Mike Franks walking out the front door to his death.
A creak above his head and he closed his eyes and groaned. DiNozzo no doubt, come to try and peel him off the basement floor. The light in his basement flickered on, burning his retinas and he opened his mouth to swear at the light, at DiNozzo, at anything really, ended up gagging on the words.
"Gibbs?" said the soft voice. The soft, female voice.
He didn't want Abby to see him like this but her hands were on him, gently rolling him over onto his side and brushing against his forehead. There was a bowl in front of his mouth, and even drunk out of his his mind, that was one more hand then there should be.
"Didn't think you should be alone," said another voice, and that was definitely DiNozzo this time.
"Don't need cheerleaders," he grumbled into the bowl, his voice echoing back up at him. A clatter upstairs had him lifting his head and glaring blearily at the two most obstinate of his team.
"Ducky," DiNozzo explained with a smirk. Another clatter and Ducky's voice floated down from the kitchen, scolding. "And McGee. They're making dinner."
Gibbs went to snarl at them, realized he couldn't possibly snap at Abby, and slammed his mouth shut. He settled for glaring, communicating with his eyes at DiNozzo. DiNozzo looked away, refusing to meet his gaze, and slung a steady arm around his shoulder to heave him up.
"Glare all you want, Gibbs, if you want us out you have to tell Ducky," Abby supplied, putting her hand on the small of his back and pushing him up as Tony heaved.
He reached for the words that would make them leave him to wallow in possibilities and bourbon, and failed to find them. "Why?" he asked finally.
The last voice had him lifting his head, tilting slightly into DiNozzo as he did so. Ziva stood at the top of the stairs, looking down on them with a knowing smile. "Because that is what family does, Gibbs. They are there for each other."
Abby took his hand and squeezed it gently.
He squeezed back.