AN: I imagine Tony's piano is a Baldwin, or a Yammy, but I happen to have a Kawai, an absolute growling beast, which I love, so in this story Tony's is too, because I can.

Scene setting this chapter, action later. Some OCs, two major, two minor, since this is a musical tale, and the return of Lucy.

Valentina's Lullaby

By scousemuz1k

When all the dust had settled, Tony reflected on how it had all started, and came to a conclusion he'd come to before. Several times during his long time as a law officer, in fact.

The tiniest pebble can start an avalanche...

If he hadn't looked up at the sky as he'd left work, seen the grey Fall light and anticipated the turning of the year, he wouldn't have chosen that evening to buy a new winter weight duvet along with his weekly grocery shop... If he hadn't been too busy to do that shop the previous week anyway, so that this time it had been a biggie... If he hadn't decided to carry everything up from the car in one go, a lazy man's load, as Sofia, the housekeeper on Long Island way back, used to admonish him... If he hadn't kicked the door shut behind him, and then not checked...

NCISNCISNCIS

He was tired, and still slightly rattled, not just by the case, but by the trip round the mart, so he tossed the duvet through the bedroom door, still in its carry-bag, dumped all the groceries on the island in the middle of the kitchen, and reached for a carton of juice from the fridge. He stood in the kitchen doorway with the glass in his hand, gazing idly round the room and letting the day slough slowly off his shoulders, then on a whim, he went and sat at the piano.

At first he hadn't a clue what trickled out of his fingers, but after a while he found himself segueing through classic songs of the thirties and forties, some from movies, some, well, he couldn't remember where he'd first heard them... He played it again Sam; As Time Goes By, and straight into another one that always went straight to his gut, heart, whatever... These Foolish Things. After that he came to a halt, not knowing how to follow two all time favourites, and a lightly European accented voice spoke behind him.

"That was good, Anthony. That era suits your style."

Tony turned in surprise. "Mr Welensky! I didn't know you were there..." He rose, embarrassed, to face his neighbour, who stood in the doorway, in his overcoat.

"You don't usually leave your door open my boy – I sometimes hear you playing, but never so clearly before. I hope you don't mind a passer-by stopping to listen."

"Well... no... of course not... I mean, I'm sorry I disturbed you."

"You didn't," the old man said, still on the threshold. "I wanted to listen." He nodded at the piano. "A fine instrument you have. In the old days I would have said no... don't get a baby grand, they're too short for the bass strings to produce any depth, but technology has advanced since I was young..." He chuckled. "It's had plenty of time."

Tony hesitated, and hoped it wasn't noticed. He'd wanted to chill, he hadn't wanted company, but hey... "Why don't you come in, Mr W? Take your coat off? Is your lock still giving you trouble?"

"Not at all, since you fixed it, Anthony," the elderly man said, stepping shyly into the room. "Sam came up later and said he couldn't have done it better himself."

Tony grinned. "Hey, don't go telling the building super I've been doing his job! I'll be in big trouble if I get it wrong! So, are you just going out, or just getting back? Oh... it's Thursday. You've been to see Valentina. Are you cold? Would you like some tea? Or coffee?" Now he knew why Mr W was hovering.

"Oh, Anthony, that would be lovely... a nice cup of tea. Yes, I took flowers... I never miss. She'd have liked your playing. She was far more into the modern style than I was – my parents, you see. They wanted me to study the classics, the classics alone."

"She was a pianist? And you are? Mr W, you never told me that!"

"Was, Anthony, was..." The old man regarded his gnarled hands ruefully. He looked at the shiny black Kawai, and asked diffidently, "May I?"

"Of course you can, Mr W. I'll put the kettle on and listen."

Mr Welensky wagged a finger as he moved slowly to the piano. "Danilo, Anthony, or Daniel if you like. Mr W – it's as big a mouthful as the whole name."

Tony grinned. "Ok... long as you don't think it's disrespectful! Hey, and how long have I been asking you to call me Tony?"

"You have, a while now... an old man forgets. My family came from the Ukraine, and we would have said Anton." He smiled gently. "I'll try, Tony!"

He looked solemnly at the brilliant white keys, and began to play a few chords, familiarising himself with the Kawai's touch, then he began to play, and Tony, with the kettle in his hand, stopped dead.

Chopin... the Raindrop Prelude...

Never mind that some of the ornaments had to slow down, and the fortissimos weren't quite as loud as they should be; the composer and the pianist were in total accord. Masterful... heartbreaking. Tony put the kettle down and just listened. And listened...

When the piece came to an end, the old man's hands dropped from the keyboard and he sat with a contemplative expression on his face. Tony wanted to say something flip like, 'It doesn't sound like that when I play it', but he didn't want to break the silence. One hand automatically reached out to switch the kettle on, but he stayed silent.

Danilo finally said, "Yes, a lovely instrument, Tony. We old ones should not dismiss the young too easily."

Tony finally spoke. "My mother was a fine pianist; my first teacher. She didn't have what you have. You were... are... a great pianist. Danilo, were you a concert pianist?"

The older man's eyes grew distant, and that gentle smile remained. "I was Ivan Wolinsky," he said, without ego, pronouncing it Ee-vahn in the Russian way, "until age and rheumatic problems took him away from me. No – " he held up a hand as Tony opened his mouth to sympathise, "it was time. I had a good life as a performer, and I have no regrets now; except for losing my inspiration, my Valentina of course."

Tony nodded silently, stunned; one of the best was sitting at his piano; referred to in hushed tones in the same breath as Alfred Cortot and Vladimir Horowitz. "I never knew... you never said a word!"

Danilo smiled again. "I left him behind... that life was gone, and I settled down to happy retirement! I didn't want reminders, I just wanted to spend more time with my wife, so we moved out of New York, took to using the Polish way of spelling our name, used my second name – Valia liked it better anyway – and we were happy. For almost ten years... Now," he laughed to soften the words, "I'm just a lonely old man who inveigles his way in to play a young friend's piano."

The fed in Tony stored that away for future reference; he could understand the desire of a famous person, especially one who now no longer had the virtuosity that had brought that fame, to regain anonymity, but something in the maestro's tone said there was more. The kettle switched itself off, and Tony said, "Play something else, while I make the tea?"

"Do you like Debussy?" An Arabesque followed, and Tony almost forgot to get the tin of cookies out, as a butterfly seemed to flicker round his apartment. As he carried the mugs and the plate of choc-chips into the living room, Danilo began to play something else. It was a simple, light tune in four time, with a very Slavic, or Russian feel to it, and a bass line like a wave rising and falling. Borodin? Er... Prokofiev? He couldn't place it at all, and wondered why he'd never heard it before. It was ethereal, hypnotising, like a lullaby... he thought of Lucy, whom he hadn't seen in three weeks.

Mr Welensky smiled at his expression. "No, Tony, you haven't heard it before. Few people have."

"It's beautiful. Tell me about it." He gestured towards the contents of the coffee table, and the easy chairs.

The old man came across and sat down with that measured, slow care he took over everything. "Do you really want to know? Of course you do. I've never known you to say something you didn't mean. Oh, except when I locked myself inside my apartment, and you climbed off the fire escape and in through my window to help me. You said it was no trouble."

"It wasn't!"

"And you said you weren't laughing."

"Well – I was trying not to! Have a cookie, and tell me about the tune."

"Ah, the tune... It was written in 1932, in Kyiv, by Valentina's mother, when she was expecting her. She used to sing it to her bump, and then to Valia, many, many times through her life. Right until Irina died, in fact. She didn't give it a name until Valia was born, and then it became Valentina's Lullaby."

"Does it have words?"

"In Ukrainian... it's about a little bird coming safely home to its nest before the storm comes. The storm was coming, you see, all over Europe. Irina was a singer with the Kyiv opera, a wonderful singer... Her family were all musicians. Mine were jewellers – do you know they had supplied many of the gems, and the precious metals for Faberge's eggs? We weren't poor; it was certainly quite easy for us to pack up and come to America before the storm broke on us all – we're Jews, and we all knew what we were in for if we stayed. Irina and my mother were friends, and my family helped theirs; I was a babe in arms, and they never talked about it much, but I believe they helped many others."

He laughed. "We all settled down in a Ukrainian enclave in New York, and certainly my mother and father were well liked there. We brought our piano over with us, and there were many friendly evenings spent around it. I only ever spoke English at school until I was about twelve! Valia taught me to play her lullaby when she was six and I was seven, and I was smitten with her and the whole idea of being a pianist. I never got over either smiting!

"We thought one day we might teach it to our children, but at first we were too busy haring round the world on concert tours. I never wanted to leave Valia behind, and she never would have stayed! Then when we slowed down, it simply never happened. It's a regret..."

The longing in his voice was painful, and Tony said quietly, "I have a god-daughter, Lucy, not quite one year old; I think she's as close to a child of my own as I'll ever get."

"Was there never a Valentina in your life?"

"I've been close a couple of times... my job makes it difficult."

Danilo nodded wisely, hearing the finality in his younger friend's tone. "The lullaby has never been written down, or given to anyone. But I'll teach it to you for Lucy if you'd like that."

For the second time that evening, Tony's eyes widened in surprise. "Mr W! I've done nothing to deserve that!"

"Does Lucy deserve it? Oh... I can see she does. You've gone all sentymental'nyy, for a grown man. Tony, you only met Valia a few times..."

The other man nodded; when he'd moved into the apartment Valentina Welenska had already been very ill. He'd helped as best he could.

"But she was an excellent judge of character. She liked you; that's all there is to it."

"Thank you," was all Tony could think of to say.

NCISNCISNCIS

It was getting on for midnight; Tony was loading the dishwasher and thinking about relaxing over some nice cold cases tomorrow, always assuming they didn't catch a hot one; and maybe a free weekend so he could go on up to Sandybacks and show Lucy her new tune, if he could adapt it for guitar. He should be asking Polly about a suitable birthday present too...

It hadn't taken long to learn the tune; his ear was quick for melody, and he'd written the chord sequence on the back of an envelope, complete with inversions, and his own code for block chords or arpeggios. Playing guitar was a big help when you had to think in harmony sequences.

He'd ended up cooking; it seemed like a good idea to thank the old maestro for giving him such a unique gift, and anyway, Danilo's stories of life on tour were funny, and by the end of the evening he was clearly lifted out of the melancholy that visiting his wife's grave had left him in.

DiNozzo-the-fed was very active right now, even though common sense was telling him to shut his brain down and go to bed. There were many intriguing points to ponder in Ivan Wolinsky's story, not least the gaps – the things he hadn't said.

Tony had been inside the old man's apartment a few times, and it was neat and clean and taken pride in, with good furniture and a warm style. But although there was a large, German looking piano against one wall, and a cabinet that might have held music, there was nothing to suggest the home of someone who must have been one of the highest paid musicians in Europe in his time.

No children, or grandchildren to lavish money on; no suggestion that it was being lavished anywhere in fact, so either Danilo was sitting on a fat bank balance somewhere, or there wasn't one, and what you saw was what you got. Add to that the way that whenever the subject of family was touched on, the old pianist steered it firmly away again, and Tony found himself wishing that he'd known his neighbour before he'd come to DC, to become anonymous. To disappear?

Maybe he'd been an investigator for so long he saw mysteries where there were none, but there was something off here. He'd switched his laptop on, meaning to do a spot of weeding in his inbox before he turned in for the night; he shook his head, shut it down again and headed off to his bedroom.

NCISNCISNCIS

A busy week went by; he'd skyped the Hastings family but still hadn't had time to visit, and it wasn't until the following Thursday that he thought about the Wolinsky mystery again. He arrived home as it was already getting dark, and saw Danilo's tiny Fiat in its parking slot. His neighbour had told him some time ago that he didn't like driving after dark any more. "The lights dazzle me," he'd said. "I'm eighty-one, it's a miracle they still let me drive at all."

He was turning his key in the lock when the old man's voice said tentatively, "Tony, I've made coffee. Do you have a minute to spare?"

"Sure. Let me just put the ice-cream in the freezer." Mr W smiled and stepped back into his own doorway, and a few minutes later, Tony joined him. "Now, what can I do for you?"

"A big favour, Tony."

"Of course, if I can. How big?"

Danilo pointed towards his big, solid piano, and said, "That big."

Tony grinned. "Hey, it's not too big for a DiNozzo to move. Where do you want it?"

"It's more than that, Tony. I want you to take it."

"But –"

"Yes, I know you have a piano already. And I know it couldn't stay in your apartment for long, it's too big. But I want you to take ownership of it, and decide what to do with it."

His tone was so earnest Tony couldn't deny him. He decided instantly, even though it meant he was going to have, almost literally, an elephant in the room. His bedroom, to be precise. There was just about space along one wall, as long as he didn't expect to get into bed from that side. "OK, I'll do it. If you explain why. Is it a deal?"

"It's a deal. Valentina told me to do it."

He poured coffee from a large pot into bright red mugs, and told his story. His parents had helped other family members, and many poorer people to get to America and settle, and at first that was good. Families were grateful, and although it was never accepted, some made attempts to pay back the money they'd been 'lent'.

Not everyone was grateful, and not everyone was satisfied with what they were given. It wasn't until Ivan and Valentina returned to New York from one long tour of the USA and Canada to discover that his father had had a heart attack, that the whole picture emerged. His parents were ageing, and unable to resist the continual demands for help that amounted to extortion. Their workers were afraid and had left the business, (some with pockets full of the stock, worth hundreds of thousands;) it had foundered and the elderly couple were in severe financial difficulties.

"My father's health bill was mounting, so of course I paid it. I got them out of the area, to DC, and paid off all their legal debts. Papa's health never really recovered, he was broken by how he'd been treated by those he tried to help. I've often wished to catch up with a few of them... He died fifteen years ago. It was around then that I decided to retire; my hands weren't up to it anymore, so Valia and I moved into this apartment with Mama."

Tony didn't need to resist the urge to feel smug; he'd known there was a mystery, but the solving of it left him feeling hurt and angry on behalf of good people, harmed by heartless bad ones.

"You're wondering about the piano," Danilo went on. "My mother used to play it; so did I from time to time, it was the instrument of my childhood... it's a very good piano, or was, but it's suffered from hard work and too many moves... it needs some restoration work, and if I could afford it I probably still wouldn't have it done because I play so seldom. It reminds me of them... Mama loved it, and made me swear I'd never sell it, and always look after it. 'It's special, Vanya... it's part of our history... it's like our photographs... precious...' anyway, she made me swear never to part with it. But I can't keep it, I've no heirs... Valentina suggested you as a compromise."

"Do you always ask her advice?"

"Always." He tapped his temple. "She speaks such good sense to me in here."

Tony nodded gravely. "She didn't mention Lucy by any chance?"

The virtuoso laughed and smacked his hands together. "Ha. She may have done... you're a smart one, Tony. Do you think..."

"Ten minutes ago I didn't know what to get for Lucy's birthday. I'll buy it, Danilo... never let it be said I scrounged a present for my god-daughter."

He half expected Mr W to say no, but he agreed almost eagerly. "That would be an excellent way to do it; I'll give you a bill of sale. Twenty dollars."

"Come on, Danilo, times ten. Two hundred."

"One hundred."

Tony huffed. "Done. You drive a hard bargain... But why is it important? Why now?"

The old man sighed. "I said you were a smart one, Tony. This morning... I got a phone call. I said 'Hello?' A man's voice said, 'Is that Mr Ivan Wolinsky?' Ukrainian pronunciation. I told him there was no-one here of that name, but I didn't think to disguise my accent. He hung up. I'm afraid that part of my life's about to return. I don't want them smashing up my old piano while they look for jewellery I haven't got."

Tony shook his head. "Danilo, I'm more concerned about you! We'll have to see Sam about bumping up your security. We'll have to look after you." He thought for a moment. "Right, you write that bill of sale out, while I make a phone-call... McGee? You back home? Course I want something... but there's beer and pizza in it for you... my place... yes, now."

It took Tim less than fifteen minutes to get there, but Tony had already paid for the piano, stored the bill safely, borrowed some tough hessian matting from Sam so that nobody's lovely woodblock flooring got gouged, and ordered the pizza.

"Hi Tony... hello Mr W – so how am I supposed to earn this beer?"

He paled slightly as Tony pointed to the big Edwardian piano. "You and me, McMuscles, are going to move an elephant."