This is a one shot based on the episode 'Flesh and Blood' and my one shot 'The Weekly Report' Thank you, Alice, for beta reading again.
A Skyline View
The drapes were open allowing the lights of Manhattan to paint the inside of the high rise condo gray and silver. Papers and file folders strewn over the tabletop were unreadable in this pale atmosphere but each one had been read with more than the quick skim they usually got. He had always been too busy to double check the facts in these files; too busy to do anything other than take the condensed version of the information in one ear and let it leak out the other. Now that he had read them thoroughly Anthony DiNozzo Sr. wondered if he would have done anything differently.
A tumbler filled with Crown Royal landed next to his elbow on the table. He turned his head and smiled at the woman behind him.
"You looked like you were down a quart."
"Thank you, Joanne. You've always known what I want before I even knew I wanted it."
"You were never that hard to read, Anthony." The tall, silver haired woman sat opposite her boss and raised her own glass of whiskey to him. "Is it time to rent another office?"
"Not yet; we'll still use the P.O. Box until client meetings are necessary. I'll have to fly to back to the Middle East to make sure that all my ducks are in a row before we set up an office again." He took a long, slow sip of his drink, "maybe just open up the house on Long Island for a party or two and keep running everything out of here. You don't mind being the offices of DiNozzo Enterprises again, do you Jo?"
"No, wouldn't be the first time. I have to admit I didn't expect the market to bottom out the way it did last year. I'm getting too old for this nonsense. After this deal I'll be ready to retire."
DiNozzo nearly lost his grip on his drink. "Joanne Harper, you've seen me through five wives, three bankruptcies and seven booms; you can't leave me now." He rose and walked round the table until he was behind the only woman who had stood behind him through thick and thin. Gently he caressed her shoulders and bent to kiss the top of her head. "If you weren't such a damn good secretary I would have married you years ago."
She tilted her head up and smiled at the man she had managed for thirty five years. "You tried, right after the British one died. I said no then, I said no after every other wife and I'll say no if you ask me again. I like the job with 'fringe benefits'. I get to be a bitch at the office and a pussycat in the bedroom. Thing is, Anthony, I just got another offer I don't want refuse. So after this deal I'm shuffling off."
"Buffalo," he smirked as he massaged her shoulders.
"Albany, Jim Munford asked me to marry him again and this time I said I'd give it serious consideration."
DiNozzo nodded, "not a bad choice. At least he was smart enough to hide at least ten percent of his capital at all times. Can he stay out of jail?"
"More likely to stay out of jail than you, Tony DiNozzo," she laughed as she pushed him away. It was then that Joanne checked out the papers on her dining table. "So you're finally reading all the reports I've been giving you every Friday… well, at least every Friday we were together. Junior looks a lot like you."
He didn't turn around when he answered. "I know; I saw him when I was in Washington."
"You did?" She rose and reached for her boss. "How is he? I haven't been able to get anything on him since we lost our contact in the Senate."
"He's doing well. I found out I'm not listed anywhere as his next of kin."
"Oh, Tony," it was her turn to rub his shoulders.
"Hell, I kicked him out when he was a kid; but he wouldn't do anything I told him to. I always figured he come back, hat in hand, and ask for help." DiNozzo dropped his chin to his chest, "I did what my father told me to. I went to the right schools, made the right contacts and kept the business going for my son to take over."
"Junior has too much of his mother in him. Stiff upper lip and stiff backbone; with only ten years she managed to make her little boy a man. That's not a bad thing. Did you really want Junior to be like most of the little bastards who play fast and loose with other people's money?"
"Like me," Anthony DiNozzo's chin came up but his did not see the view in the window. He was looking inside himself.
"You were born for this life. Junior was born for his. I believe in destiny."
"He almost died of the plague and I never knew."
"It was in the report that week. He's been blown up, shot, stabbed, arrested for murder and yes, he's had the plague. It was all there for you to read."
"Why didn't he phone me?"
"Why didn't you phone him?"
Anthony DiNozzo stood silent for awhile. Joanne Harper waited for him to say something, and hopefully it would be something that showed her Tony was finally deciding that he was ready to stop his mad race with risk and accept what he already had.
"When I get this deal finished maybe I can get Junior involved with my next one. Something really big he could sink his teeth into, maybe with Sheik Daoud as the chief investor?"
"Oh Tony, I think its time to go to bed. I'll clean up these papers and be with you in a minute." Joanne Harper watched as her boss 'with benefits' headed to the bedroom of her little Brooklyn condo. He would never change. He would be Peter Pan with a touch of arthritis until the day he died. Turning on the light over the stove she managed to put all the papers that told the story of Anthony Michael DiNozzo Junior back in order. When her Tony left in the morning she would hide these files with the birthday and Christmas cards she got from Junior every year. She turned and headed to the plate glass window that framed her private picture of New York City. She loved the view from here. Her Tony bought her this condo during one of the boom times and she had held onto it with all her might. If she became Mrs. Joanne Harper-Munford she would miss the view from here. Maybe she should change her will and leave it to little Tony. He was the DiNozzo that never disappointed her or broke her heart.
With that Joanne Harper shut the drapes and went to bed.
FIN