Title: Riding in cars with boys
Disclaimer: Characters belong to some people with a whole lot of money. Title also not mine.
Summary: Gibbs drives Tony to the airport. Post Judgment Day.
XxX
Gibbs informs him before he heads home that night that he'll take him to the airport. Tony doesn't bother to argue. From the tone of Gibbs's voice, he knows there's no point.
Gibbs picks him up at 09:30 prompt. A few words of greeting exchanged, Tony collects a small number of bags and places them in the back of the car.
He sits in the passenger seat, looking out the window at the passing streets, people, vehicles. He tries to commit this all to memory; he won't see any of this for a good few months. It's almost as if he's seeing it for the first time, though he's passed these streets hundreds of times before.
It reminds him of the time his father drove him to a new school. He didn't want to go; he'd been happy at his other school. He had friends there, knew the routines, knew where his place was. One bad report, a few too many times messing around in class, achieved lower grades than his parents had expected and his father had decided that he needed to be moved.
"You'll never get into law school with that attitude, Anthony," his father had said.
"I don't want to go to law school," he'd replied. His rebuttal was pointless. His father ignored him – he'd known better.
Sitting in the car back then, he'd sullenly watched the cars drive by. They drove past his old school and he'd wanted to cry but he didn't. At the age of 8, Anthony DiNozzo knew better than to cry. It would have been the worst reaction – his father would sigh angrily, tell him to pull himself together, grow up, be a man.
And so he'd remained quiet, trying to think instead of ways to get round his father's stubborn attitude. In the end, nothing had worked.
He hasn't thought of that moment in years.
This time, Vance is playing the part of his father, and he knows that there's no changing his mind.
He looks over at Gibbs, his features impassive, his eyes concentrating on the road.
"I spoke to a buddy of mine at Philly PD last night," Tony comments almost conversationally.
This gets Gibbs's attention. "You're not a quitter, DiNozzo." It's a statement.
Tony looks out towards the window and smiles slightly. "Actually, before I joined NCIS, that's exactly what I was."
Before I met you, he means. Before everything changed. Gibbs understands this.
"Maybe I still am," he continues.
Gibbs ignores this second comment. "Quitting won't change a damn thing, DiNozzo."
"I wouldn't have to waste the next few months of my life on a damn boat though," Tony argues. His voice is laced with bitterness, frustration, resignation.
"And you want to give Vance that satisfaction? Fine. Quit," Gibbs responds. His voice gives away no emotion.
Tony sighs. "It's just… we finally get all that La Grenouille stuff behind us and things start to get back to normal. And then Jenny dies and then… Does it ever end?" His voice gets progressively louder, more agitated. "McGee gets moved across the street, I get to go sail the seven seas on a damn boat and Ziva gets shipped off back to Israel!" He takes a moment, calms himself down. "She came over last night. Helped me pack. I doubt I'll see her again. As for the rest of the team…" he pauses, a bitter laugh escapes, "maybe I'll stop by the office when I'm next in town. Hey Abbs, Probie, how's things going? Yeah, just back for the day, maybe we could meet up later? Oh that's right, it's been two years since I last spoke to you and you've got better things to do."
"Stop feeling so goddamn sorry for yourself, DiNozzo," Gibbs commands.
Tony looks over at him, almost shocked by this instruction. He'd not planned on being that guy and yet he'd just fallen into it, somehow not remembering that they were all equally as affected by this decision.
He watches out the window again, trying to put into words what he wants to say without it seeming too trite. "It's just… I'm gonna miss everyone." Possibly a little trite. "Maybe even Palmer."
Gibbs gives a small smile at this admission. "Ya really think that I'm not gonna try to do something about this, DiNozzo?"
His head whips round to see the smile on Gibbs's face. He eyes him suspiciously. "What d'ya got planned, boss?" he asks.
The word boss hangs there a moment, both realising immediately that the word is no longer really applicable.
"Boss?" Tony questions again, reusing the word almost as a lifeline; clinging to the hope that everything will return to normal.
Gibbs merely smiles cryptically. "In good time, DiNozzo."
"Not too much time, I hope," Tony responds.
He gets a glance of the airport building in front of them, a sign that currently things will be changing.
Minutes later, Gibbs has parked the car. Tony grabs his bags from the back, stands next to the car, door still open.
There's a moment of silence as Tony considers what to say. "Thanks, boss, for everything," he settles on. And then, almost as an afterthought, "see ya soon, boss," he grins.
"Damn right, DiNozzo."
XxX