Title: New Horisons
Author: reef
Rating: M
Summary: Tony's been through this before. He knows how it'll end if he doesn't leave now. Time for things to change.
WARNINGS: SLASH (mild for now)
A/N: It might not look like it at first but this really is a CSIM fic, it just starts out with an NCIS character.
New Horizons
1
Tony DiNozzo lay back in his seat and let the dull roar and vibration of the engines relax him. He tried not to think about the last couple of days, yet he couldn't help wondering how long it had taken for the rest of the team to notice he was no longer there last night.
Not that they'd care even if they had noticed.' he thought wearily, moving his arm to a more comfortable position.
Would they have cared if he hadn't made it out of that shipping container alive?
Would they have been upset if it had been him on that roof top, instead of Kate? Or if he had died from the plague?
Yesterday morning he would have thought the answer to that question would have been yes. But then yesterday morning he had also thought that he was a valued member of Gibbs' team. He'd been wrong about that, why not the other?
Tony knew how this worked, he'd been through it before in Peoria. If nobody could find fault with the way you did your job, life would be made unbearable until you were so damn sick of it that you up and left of your own accord. And that was just if nobody liked you, it start getting dangerous if someone actually hated you.
It had worked in Peoria too. What was the pointing of staying in job that was made hell for you by your own colleagues. Your own back up.
Your own partner.
The first time his calls for back up had gone unanswered Tony had known it was time to get out. There had been a lot of shit leading up to that day.
At least it hadn't gotten to that in DC. Yet. He was still up in the air as to whether he'd even give them the chance.
Up in the air.' He chuckled lightly to himself. Apt, considering his current location at cruising altitude on his way to Miami.
He opened his eyes to find the sun had started to rise out the port side window.
As Tony cleared the ramp into the hustle and bustle of the airport proper he slowed and looked around. Finding an available payphone in the near vicinity was going to be impossible, and what he really needed was five minutes on a computer with an internet connection.
A bottle of water'd be good too.' He thought, fingering the small prescription bottle in his pocket. His arm was really starting to bother him.
Finding both his needs in one place only a hundred meters up the concourse almost made up for being sideswiped along the way by a heavily made up old lady with a corgi in a cage on a luggage cart.
"Come along Petunia." She had said to the dog, as if it had a choice.
And he could have sworn it was the lady that had growled at him, not the dog.
Ten minutes later he had what he needed. He stepped up to the taxi rank, duffel over his left shoulder, left hand holding his right arm close to his body as a small measure of protection while he waited for the pain meds to kick in. Hopefully by then he'd be in a taxi.
"Knowing my luck, I'll be falling in front of one instead." He mumbled to himself, earning a strange look from the man next to him. As the guy edge slightly away he had the strange urge to start talking about dog ladies and pet Petunias but he just didn't have the strength.
"Miami-Dade Crime Lab, thanks." He said to the cab driver that pulled up beside him.
TBC