Disclaimer: I own neither NCIS or the characters involved. This is for entertainment purposes only and I make no money from these efforts.
Spoilers: 2005 Season Finale (Twilight... I believe) if there's that small chance that anyone in the universe doesn't know what happened.
Thanks and Credits: Thanks to kate98, the only one of my beta readers who (a) is not on an environmental mission to India and (b) watches the show, so has the faintest idea what I'm talking about.
Author's Note: This is part 3 of a series examining the process of grief, the first two being "Dead Poisoning" and "Talk Therapy". However, each story can stand on its own, there is no reason (aside from either interest or my ego) to read the others. I wouldn't mind if you read the others though. Writing a series was not my original intention... but it has developed since I wrote the first one.
The phone rang, but he ignored it. It rang again, and he pretended he couldn't hear. A third time and then a fourth and then silence as the answering machine picked up. Thirty seconds later, the phone rang again. They'd been doing this for an hour now, you'd think whoever was on the other end would get the message, or leave a message and go the hell away.
He picked it up but said nothing.
"DiNozzo? Get your ass in he…"
"I'm sick." Tony cut Gibbs off mid-word, not caring that this was Gibbs to whom he spoke and it would be safer to tell God to shut up and go away. He hung up, barely reflecting that it was a little ironic that Gibbs would play phone games like this, given the way his ex-wife kept doing it to him.
The phone started ringing again, so he took the receiver out of the cradle and laid it down on the counter-top. He hadn't lied. He was sick, and the phone was driving him crazy.
He left the kitchen and Gibbs swearing at the Formica, and wandered into the living room where he flopped down onto the couch, the steel pipes that made up the frame digging through the well-worn stuffing and into his body. They hurt, but then again, so did everything else. His head hurt, his stomach hurt, even his joints hurt. He was tired, despite ten hours sleep, two cups of coffee and a glass of orange juice. He hadn't eaten. He wasn't hungry.
This place is a garbage pit. He stared blankly at the coffee table, nearly invisible under the piles of newspapers, magazines, journals (Journal of Law and Economics… now wasn't that a heart-thumper), coffee-cups, old dishes covered with the remains of meals, potato chip bags, take-out containers and a pair of socks. The rest of the room wasn't much better – his television supported a colony of mouldering juice glasses and a highly desiccated sandwich. On the plus side, the trash obscured the fact that his thread-bare carpet was the kind of puke-green rarely found outside of amusement parks where junk-food and vertigo created things you really didn't want to walk on. If he got up and moved to the bedroom, there'd be the two months worth of laundry on the floor and sheets that could only be called crisp because they needed a good bleach and starch. As for the third room of this three-room apartment (or so they called it), well, he didn't want to think about what might be living in his bathroom. He needed to hire a cleaning lady. He needed to rent a blow-torch.
He levered himself up off the couch and headed for the bedroom anyway, taking a slight detour into the kitchen to drop the phone back into its cradle. Gibbs was probably done swearing anyway. It was a favour, really. The man had an extensive vocabulary and rarely got the time to display it.
In the bedroom, Tony crawled into his bed and cocooned himself in the covers, despite the fact that it had to be nearly seventy-five degrees outside. Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe the weather had changed – Tony hadn't bothered to look through the grimy windows and check.
He heard something. It sounded like the door. Maybe someone had come to kill him. That would be a relief. Maybe it was Gibbs come to kill him. That would be justice.
"My lord." Well, that wasn't Gibbs' voice unless he'd gotten very sneaky. "Tony?" Ducky didn't sound like he expected to find a live body in this mess. At least the old man was prepared.
Hell. This would be an approximation of the underworld for someone as fastidious as Donald Mallard M.D. Tony remembered that rambling house, so perfectly cared for, despite the nut-case mother and her yappy brood of dander factories. Gibbs must be extremely pissed off to send his favourite M.E. into a place like this. The question was, how had… right. Gibbs must have raided Tony's desk and grabbed his spare keys.
"Tony?" Ducky was closer this time, probably at the bedroom door. "Jethro said you weren't feeling well. I've come to see how you're doing."
Well, that was a waste of time. Ducky should have waited. It wouldn't be long now before Tony was a suitable patient for a pathologist. He hoped.
On the other hand, Ducky was a stubborn son-of-a-bitch. Tony knew, he'd met the man's mother. Hours of being poked with a cane, confused with a gigolo, a furniture mover and a dog-groomer had him convinced: he never wanted to see another old lady in his life.
Tony grunted. Then he sighed and rolled over, staring at the ceiling.
Ducky made his way forward and gingerly sat down on the edge of Tony's bed. "Good lord, I've seen people with dementia living in neater places than this." Pulling out a thermometer, he popped it into Tony's mouth then grabbed Tony's wrist to check his pulse. Tony didn't move. Whatever Ducky did, it wasn't going to change anything. I'm sick. Hearing the news from a doctor didn't change that fact. Making it official wouldn't make Gibbs any happier, either. Gibbs seemed to think that all you had to do was order someone to get better, and it would happen. Okay, so it had, but that didn't mean it would happen every time. After all, what if he didn't want to get better? What if he just wanted to lie here and rot? It wouldn't make much difference to the smell either way.
"Well, your temperature seems normal." Ducky consulted the thermometer then tucked it away. "But your heart-rate is somewhat elevated, unsurprising given the amount of stress you've faced…"
"I'm not stressed." Stressed was when people were in the process of shooting at you, or when you had to testify in court, or when…
"Tony. It's always difficult to lose a colleague and a friend." Ducky gave him what, for Ducky, could be called a stern look. He was, however, well named. Tony didn't flinch.
"I'm just sick. That's all. I don't go to work when I'm sick."
"Tony…"
"I deserve sick days. Did I come in when I had the plague?"
"No, but only because Gibbs threatened to break your arms and your legs and fire you if you did."
Tony sulked. Why couldn't Ducky go senile like an old man should? Why did he have to remember things like… well, details? And why did he have to be so goddamned sympathetic? "I've lost colleagues before, Ducky. I know how it goes." You went to the funeral, you went back to work and you did your job. This wasn't related to Kate's death at all. "I'm sick."
"Tony…"
"Go away." Tony closed his eyes. "You're not doing me any good, so just leave me alone."
"You need…" Ducky didn't give up easy. He never did.
"Goodbye, Doctor." Tony sneaked a peek and caught the pain on Ducky's face. The old man got up and left, and Tony felt his chest constrict suddenly with a new pain of his own. He sucked in a breath that didn't want to come, wondering if this wasn't the plague back for another round, Death come to claim what he'd been cheated.
Oh, God. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. The last words on Kate's lips had been an insult. They'd picked on each other until the end. He never told her the truth.
I was jealous. Jealous because she was a natural, picking up detective work faster than anyone had a right to. Jealous because she fit in so easily, making friends with everyone, impressing Gibbs from the start. He wondered if she'd ever known that. If she'd figured out that Gibbs offering her that job was high praise indeed, that despite NCIS' reputation as the dumping ground for burnt-out law enforcement, Gibbs only took on smart people, bright people, tough people.
He'd admired her, the way she stood up to them all, ready with the comebacks and refusing to be cowed. Tony had respected that… he hated it when people let him walk all over them, and so many people did.
God, how it hurt to breathe. Tears burned at his eyes then escaped, fleeing down his face and soaking into the pillowcase. They began a chain reaction, turning each breath into a sob that shook every piece of him, jacking his heart-rate until he could feel it pounding in his chest, his head, his arms and his legs. What was happening? He shouldn't feel like this; he was a cop, and cops were supposed to be able to handle little things like death and dying. Gibbs could handle it. Gibbs wasn't bawling his eyes out in some dead-end trash-pile of an apartment like some baby that wanted a soother and his mommy. Why the hell hadn't Gibbs let him quit? He should have. Gibbs didn't suffer screw-ups. He didn't like weaklings. McGee was made of sterner stuff than Tony. McGee wasn't lying around crying.
This was all wrong. He hadn't cried when his mother died, so why was he crying now? Surely not just because Kate's death had been sudden and violent and so close Tony felt it. He'd chosen to live a life that involved violence; shouldn't he be able to deal with it? He'd never had a problem with it before, so why now?
Eventually the attack faded, his breathing slowing down, the tears ceasing to flow. He heard a noise and looked up to see Ducky standing in the doorway, a steaming mug in each hand.
"Darjeeling… I'm a little surprised." Once again, Ducky navigated the minefield of clothes between the door and the bed. "It was going to be hot-chocolate, but your milk is the wrong colour. Blue, I've seen, but I don't think it's quite healthy when it's green. Interestingly, this is probably how you managed to survive the Y-Pestis, now that I see this place. Your immune system has had quite the opportunity to build itself up, if this is what it deals with on a daily basis."
"Why are you still here?" Tony sat up and took the proffered mug, sipping the tea and finding it heavily laden with sugar. The hot liquid soothed his raw throat and helped warm him inside-out. There was no recrimination in his question, just curiosity. What had possessed Ducky to stay, and to brave the lurking monster that was Tony's refrigerator?
"Gibbs has been rather concerned about you, Tony. We all have. I know you think you're supposed to 'hold it together' like you imagine that I do and that Jethro does… but that is not a natural response, nor is it a healthy one."
"Why, Ducky? We didn't get along, we fought all the time, so why should I feel so goddamn miserable about it?" The words came out before he could stop them and once they were said, he realised he really did need an answer. Who better to ask than someone who'd lived enough and lost enough to really know?
"Because she was a very large part of our lives, and now she's gone and we can't get her back." Ducky sounded very subdued, like he hurt from the same pains that Tony felt. Maybe he did. Maybe you didn't get used to things like this, no matter how much death you dealt with. "And despite what you may think, this has affected Jethro, too. Everyone deals with things differently. He's very concerned about losing you, as well."
"Why?" His voice still scratched, and it caught against his sore throat.
"Because he has three ex-wives and no living relatives," Ducky said, dryly. "His team is the closest thing to family he has… and aside from myself, no one has stuck with him longer than you have."
"I…" He'd never realised that. He'd stayed because… because well, when it came down to it, Gibbs was a good boss. Gibbs put up with Tony's quirks and had never made fun of his background, something other supervisors had seemed unable to resist. And he'd learned a lot from Gibbs. Where else was Tony going to find someone willing to mentor him? Gibbs was the irreplaceable one, not Tony.
"When was the last time you spoke to your father?" Ducky's question seemed to come out of nowhere.
"I don't know. A couple of years ago, maybe?" Not much, just a quick phone call at Christmas or something.
"When's Jethro's birthday?"
Tony answered immediately. "Come on, I got him that carving knife, remember? Because he's so into building that boat of his that…" He stopped, seeing the half-smile on Ducky's face. "You're saying that I'm closer to Gibbs than I am to my own father. I can name my father's birthday, too." He shook his head. "But what does that have to do with Kate? I mean, I understand that Gibbs feels responsible for his team and what happens to us, but why can't I deal with it?" He felt his heart race, skip, then slam hard against his ribs. "What's wrong with me?"
"Nothing, Tony. This is a perfectly normal response to loss. You've been through a lot these past few months, not only with Caitlin's death, but with some close calls of your own. It's small wonder your body is trying to tell you to take a rest."
"You're saying I'm sick, because I'm sad?" What kind of sense did that make?
"More because you're not letting yourself be sad." Ducky finished his tea and stood up. "I'll tell Jethro that you're alive and that I've recommended that you do take the day off. I don't recommend you stay here, though." Ducky's nose wrinkled with distaste. "This place is enough to depress even me."
Tony laughed, hollowly. "It's always like this. I figure if I ever die here, I'll give Abby the present of the most complicated crime-scene possible." He felt guilty as soon as he said it. How could he talk of death to this gentle man who cared so much for people's lives? How dare he say things so callously? What kind of monster was he?
Ducky just smiled. "Give it time, Tony. Let things happen as they do."
Time. That was the problem, though, wasn't it? How much time did they have? To say the important things, the ones no one got around to saying? If Kate's death could teach him anything, it was that the answer was 'not much.'