The Decision was her Own.
By AbbyGibbs.
Fandom: NCIS
Episode reference: Judgment Day part II
Disclaimer: the usual.
Tony DiNozzo's pissed at himself, his colleagues, everyone. The emptiness and the guilt feeling he has is almost unbearable. The Director of NCIS, Jenny Shepard is dead, and it happen under his and Ziva's watch.
And of course, NCIS's new director had to push the matter. Remembering whenever he had the opportunity, that Shepard had died while they were supposed to protect her. Tony, who usually acted the clown to cope with the issue he had to deal with, wasn't there. It hadn't appeared yet, and everybody suspected he wouldn't this time. He was hurtingtoo much for that. He felt responsible for Jenny's death. No matter how much Ziva or anybody else tried to tell him otherwise.
He wasn't even his usual self with Abby, snapping at her, something he rarely did.
They couldn't go on like this, someone had to talk to him.
Abby, Ziva, and even McGee decided to go and see Gibbs about it. Maybe he could get through to him.
"Gibbs!" they said in unison, as they all stood at his desk.
"Yeah?" their boss said, looking up.
"This has to stop," Ziva said.
"This what?" he asked.
Abby answered his question with one word. "Tony."
Gibbs sighed heavily. He'd feared something like this would happen. DiNozzo had become close with Jenny. Not so close that anything had happened between them, but close enough to be become friends, even though neither of them had said anything about it to anyone.
Gibbs simply knew because of little things… DiNozzo using her Christian name more often. Jenny looking at him differently, and other small details like that. No matter Vance's opinion, DiNozzo and David weren't to blame for her death. It was a sad event, but Shepard was a strong woman and old enough to make her own decisions. Tony had to understand that.
"I'll talk to him," Gibbs promised.
"Don't wait too long, boss." McGee intervened.
"McGee's right. I'm not the type that usually gets annoyed with this sort of behavior, but Tony's in bad shape since it happened, and let's say, the new director has a tendency to hit the nail on the scalp," Ziva said.
"Head. Hit the nail on the head." Tim corrected.
"Might be, but I don't think where the nail is hit is relevant here, Tim. The fact the director repeatedly says that Jenny died on our watch, isn't gonna help much."
"I see," Gibbs muttered under his breath. If that's how Vance wants to play it, fine by me, he might have a little surprise though.
"My guess..." Ziva started to say.
"…The morgue." Their boss finished for her. "Go and see him. I need to see someone else first. Tell Tony to come at my house at 8 p.m.," he said, standing up and walking toward the stairs.
"I'll tell him, Gibbs." He heard her tell him as he climbed the stairs two at a time.
The agents looked at one another. This wasn't good. It was bad enough that Jenny had to die. They all remembered how Gibbs had been when Kate died. It had taken months for him to accept it. Not to mention that weeks after the event, no other agent could sit at her desk. It was already difficult when Gibbs blamed himself for something, but when somebody blamed a member of his team for something they couldn't have foreseen, that's when all hell broke loose.
When Ziva entered the morgue, she found Tony sitting in the dark; the only light source coming from a desk lamp he had turned on when she had entered.
Just as she thought, Tony was sitting next to Ducky's desk on a chair, leaning against the wall.
"I'm surprised it took you so long. Thank god for Ducky," he said, waving a bottle in one hand and a glass in the other.
"You have not listened to a word I have said," she told him, approaching the desk.
"It's only been three years, I'm a slow learner."
Ziva hopped on the desk. "And a slow healer. You're crying over spilt milk."
"It's not milk that I spilt."
"Do not do this, Tony."
"Do what? Blow my own protection detail. Blow my undercover assignment."
"Those sound like apologies." Ziva said.
DiNozzo didn't answer at first. He pulled a drawer open next to where his colleague was sitting and took another glass from it. Once it was on the desk, he handed the bottle to Ziva, and she poured some liquid into it.
Tony looked in front of him saying, "She died alone."
"We're all alone," answered Ziva before emptying her glass.
"Yeah, thanks for that," he said, taking a zip from his own beverage then he clarified, "I just meant she never got married. Never had any children. I never even heard her talk about it."
Ziva smiled and looked away.
"Paris, that's where it must have happened."
"The two them alone in another world," she said.
"Putting their lives in each other's hands every day."
"Not to mention too long nights…"
"It was inevitable."
"Nothing's inevitable." Ziva corrected, looking him in the eye.
Tony briefly wondered what she meant by that but didn't push the matter. He wasn't in the mood and didn't want to risk any argument with her, not now, not tonight. It had been a long day. A day he would like to forget. It was a futile wish he knew… he would never forget it for as long as he lived.
Meanwhile in Vance's office…
"You shouldn't do this."
"Do what?" asked Vance.
"Repeatedly tell Tony and Ziva Director Shepard died while they were assigned to her protection."
"Well it's true, isn't it?"
"You wouldn't say that if you'd known her."
"They were assigned to protect her, and they failed to do so."
Vance said nothing more.
Gibbs started at him menacingly. "They've lost a member of their team. That is what matters, not who's at fault. They're feeling guilty enough as it is. Blaming them won't bring her back." And with no further words, he left the office.
All Vance could do was stare at the closed door.
Now he needed to talk to DiNozzo. It wasn't going to be easy to convince him it wasn't his fault, Gibbs knew, because he would have acted the same way. Jenny's death was something he felt guilty about as well. She was the NCIS director, and acted it. The last few months their relationships had shifted, she had put distance between them for some reason; hiding things form him like her illness or feelings.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs couldn't be sure, but he thought Shepard had still had feelings for him, even though she wouldn't say so. What happened in Paris between them had stayed in Europe, but the memories were something he'd never forget. People always made some sort of resolution when someone died, but in the end nothing really changes. They hadn't talked, and in the end, he was left with regrets.
If it was as Ducky had said, she was dying and she would suffer, she had probably chosen to cheat fate, and decide when or how she would end her life, and what better to die in the line of duty?
"Oh Jenny," he sighed.
Gibbs stopped for a coffee before going back to his desk. McGee and Ziva looked at each other without exchanging a word.
"I haven't had the chance to talk to him yet," he told them.
"She was stubborn," Ziva said suddenly.
"She was." Came his answer.
"Boss?"
"Yes, McGee."
"We don't blame him."
"I know," he told his agent before taking a sip from his coffee, then went back to some of the paperwork and so did the two others.
Tony was surprised to see his boss standing at his doorstep.
"Boss, what are you doing here?" DiNozzo asked.
"We need to talk," Gibbs said, before he stepped past Tony, and entered his apartment. Anthony didn't say a word and closed the door, and followed his boss to the living room.
"What is it you wanted talk to me about?" Tony asked, pretending not to understand why his boss wanted to talk to him.
He received no answer from Gibbs, only a look that told him not to play that game with him.
"I shouldn't have listened to Jenny. I should have gone after her, we should have gone after her, traced her cellphone." Tony started to say.
"Then what?"
DiNozzo eyed him, surprised by what Gibbs just said. "She might still be alive if we had."
"She might still be or not. You and Ziva could have been killed, too, if you'd gone and disobeyed her orders," Gibbs told him.
"Something we'll never know now."
"Stop it."
Gibbs approached him. "She chose not to tell you to protect you. It was her fight, DiNozzo, her decision. It's not because you don't understand their choices or think it should have been handled differently. She made the decision she thought was best for her and that moment in time. Just like you decided to obey her orders. It had a tragic outcome, yes, but that doesn't mean you are to blame for it. Is that clear, DiNozzo?"
Tony nodded. "Want a beer?"
"I won't say no to one."
That said, Tony went to the kitchen to fetch two bottles of beer. Two minutes later he handed one to his boss. They both sat on the couch and drank.
"She was pigheaded, strong; she always wanted to be in control and there was a part of herself she wouldn't reveal."
"I couldn't have said it better."
"To Jenny!"
"To Jenny!"
Both men leaned back against the back of the sofa and drank their beer, both lost in their own thoughts about their former director.
THE END.