Disclaimer - I don't own any rights to them, I just like to imagine what they might be like if their lives didn't have to be condensed into weekly episodes.
Gibbs slowly descended down the stairs to his basement and looked at his boat. Walking across to the workbench he picked up a piece of sandpaper, rubbing his fingers against the coarse grain, before dropping it back down. Somehow he didn't think the simple manual labour was going to cut it tonight. Not when he could still smell Lyn Kily's perfume in the air, as she unwitting gave up a crucial piece of evidence, that she should never have known. Or still see Patrick Kily's face, as he played on Gibbs memories of former times to try and cover up his crime.
What the hell had happened to them?
Gibbs closed his eyes against the memories of the last few days. But they still burned behind his eyelids. Those people had been his friends. He had served with him in Desert Storm, admired the potential he had seen in the bright but inexperienced young Lieutenant enough to nurse him through some rough patches and give him a kick in the ass as required. She had sat in their kitchen, her laughter mingling with Shannon's as her boys played with his daughter. Scrubbing a hand across his face he reached for the bottle of Jack, carefully unscrewing the lid, before pouring a larger than usual measure into a mug.
He had just taken his first mouthful, feeling the welcome burn of the neat alcohol as it slid down his throat and into his chest, when he heard the front door open and the measured footfalls overhead. He tracked the sound they made as they moved purposefully down the hallway, before hesitating for a moment at the threshold of the basement. Gibbs set his mug down. Anyone with half an ounce of sense would think twice about the wisdom of just dropping by when he was in this mood. Judging by the pizza fumes and ambient sounds of bottles clinking, DiNozzo was simply trying to work out how to open the door when his hands were full.
Sure enough, a moment later the latch turned and a pair of expensive Italian shoes, made their way down the stairs as DiNozzo tried to look around an extra large pizza box, on top of which was balanced a six pack of Gibbs favourite beer, a laptop case slung over one shoulder.
"Hey Boss," Tony greeted him cheerfully, as if he had been expected, coming over without waiting for an invitation to set down his load. "So, we've got Pizza, Beer and I wasn't sure what you would be in the mood for so I picked up a few DVDs, we could watch the Game, or I could give you a hand with the boat," He frowned. "Although, doesn't usually go so well."
"Not really in the mood for company, DiNozzo." Gibbs gave fair warning.
"Or we could just talk." Tony eyed him seriously.
The look that Gibbs gave him for even making the suggestion, simply rolled off his senior field Agent. If anything DiNozzo looked even more determined than before, it was something that Gibbs had actually come to expect, even to rely upon. His relationship with DiNozzo was different to the established friendships he had with men like Mallard or Fornell but no less valued for that. The thing was, this time Gibbs knew damned well that he had screwed up. He really didn't see that there was anything to talk about.
"Or you could just go home." He suggested.
"C'mon, Boss," Sure enough, Tony wasn't ready to give up that easily. "The traffic coming over here was a nightmare. I had to go to three different stores to find the right brand of beer and then I had to wait in line while the guy in front of me ordered pizza for all four generations of his extended Italian family. And, at the DVD store .. actually I got the DVDs without any problems. But you wouldn't want all that other effort to go to waste now would you?"
"You draw the short straw, coming over here?" Gibbs wanted to know.
Part of him knew he should be grateful that his people cared enough to check up on him. But mostly he was just pissed that they thought they needed to. He was supposed to watch out for them, not the other way around. He had almost bitten McGee's head off, when he had tried to commiserate, Ziva had wisely kept under his radar, but he hadn't missed the concerned looks when she thought he wasn't looking. He had already fielded calls from Ducky and Abby under pretexts designed to see if he was alright. Even Vance had been sympathetic, which had been downright disconcerting.
"Well, McGee wanted to come but he had already promised to take Abby out to dinner to make up for the whole Cupcakegate thing. And Ziva would have come but she had already arranged to go with Ducky to the Opera and Palmer was too scared of you to even think about coming," Tony lied fluently. The truth was he had bullied, persuaded cajoled, and in Abby's case outright bribed, the others, to let him be the one to come over. "So that just left yours truly."
"Palmer had the right idea," Gibbs informed him, around his second mouthful of Jack. "You know where the door is."
He waited, without speaking, even though he knew better than to think, DiNozzo would actually leave. Sure enough, DiNozzo simply pulled out his knife and used it to pop the tops off a couple of bottles of beer, before flipping open the lid of the Pizza box and nudging it a little closer towards him. The other man raised a quizzical brow as he surveyed the enormous pizza, liberally topped with Pepperoni, Sausage and extra Cheese.
"You think ordering your favourite Pizza would guilt me into asking you to stay?" He challenged.
Even in the very early days of their partnership, DiNozzo might have had the guts to think of it, but he would have frozen like a deer in the headlights, when Gibbs called him on it, torn between genuinely wanting to help and worrying that his presence was actually unwelcome and unwanted. Eight years down the line, he simply grinned, sure of his place in Gibbs' heart, even when the man was doing his best to live up to his reputation as a grade 'A' bastard.
"I figured it was worth a try."
Gibbs shook his head slightly at the audacity, even as he capitulated to the extent of picking up a slice and lowering it into his mouth. As he walked across the room to lean on the boat, he left the box open, knowing that DiNozzo would take that as the invitation he intended. Behind him, he heard Tony hop up on the workbench as he helped himself to a slice. For a few minutes, they chewed in companionable silence before Tony looked up.
"You weren't wrong, you know."
Somehow the unequivocal assurance just made Gibbs feel even more annoyed at himself. Because he had been wrong, he had been wrong to hope that his friends wouldn't lie to him. Wouldn't take his trust and loyalty and use it for their own ends. That they would always be the people he wanted to remember them as, a loyal comrade and a supportive friend, rather than a pair of cold blooded killers. Why the hell couldn't DiNozzo see that?
"Getting a bit old for this hero worship crap, aren't you?" He retorted bitterly.
Even as the words came out of his mouth he wanted to take them back. DiNozzo knew more than most people about his feet of clay. Gibbs had lost count of the number of times they had butted heads over the years, when Gibbs had lived up to his second 'B', or simply been too pig headed to recognise good advice when he heard it. He trusted Gibbs, he respected him, but Tony had never been one to follow him blindly, from the very beginning he had never hesitated to question his orders or contribute his opinions when he thought it was required.
"This from the man who held out for my return to the team, like I was the only senior field Agent in the whole of NCIS," Tony mocked. "I know I'm good, Gibbs, but I'm not actually irreplaceable."
That was a matter of opinion, Gibbs reflected. Much as he'd liked Langer and had expected good things from him, working with him again had only served to make Gibbs realise how much he valued DiNozzo's insights and enjoyed working with him. He hadn't been lying when he told Vance that the team needed him. He complemented them, he completed them, but most of all he was one of the few people on this earth that Gibbs couldn't imagine not having in his life.
"You heard about that, huh?" Gibbs supposed he shouldn't be surprised. DiNozzo had the damnedest ways of finding things out.
"Ed Fraiser has been bucking for a transfer from San Diego to Washington for almost a year now, been waiting for a Senior Field Agent spot to open up. He's a good Agent, solid undercover, good people skills and good looking in a blond, surfer dude kind of way. He was pissed as hell to hear the scuttlebutt that you wouldn't even open his file."
"What makes you so sure I never looked in those files?" Gibbs raised a brow.
"Because the other 'good man' that Vance was offering you?" Tony grinned. "Was a woman, Trudy Carlton. She was pissed too in case you're interested."
"I'm not." Gibbs confirmed.
"I always knew you'd get me home," DiNozzo agreed. "You've never left me hanging, Boss, even when I screw up, you chew me out, kick my ass and then go toe to toe with anyone else who dares to suggest that I'm not up to snuff. I'm pretty sure that is what friends are supposed to do for one another."
"Even if those friends turn out to be cold blooded killers?" Gibbs asked, genuinely curious now.
"When Chip had me framed for murder everything pointed to me being the killer. Even Abby couldn't work out how the forensic evidence was anything but cast iron proof of my guilt, McGee could barely look me in the eye, Ziva had no clue what to say, even Ducky was lost for words," Tony reminded him. "For a while there, I really thought I was going to spend the rest of my life in jail."
His paused for a moment as the memory of those dark days hit him full force. Every new piece of the picture they uncovered just seemed to seal his fate, Fornell being almost nice as he took him in, enduring the cold looks of the other LEOs as he was walked to his cell in that dehumanising jump suit, long hours, waiting in his cell, the indignity of using the stainless steel head, paling in comparism to the helplessness he felt as he saw his fate closing in upon him.
" You never once asked me if I did it, Boss.," Tony met his gaze, his eyes dark and serious. "You never even considered that I might be guilty and even when I began to loose faith in the system, the team, even in you, Boss, you never stopped digging until you had cleared my name," Tony swallowed hard. "I don't want to imagine what my life would have been like, any of it, if I hadn't had you in my corner."
Gibbs had his own memories of that time. In all the years that he had known DiNozzo, all those times he had been kidnapped, tortured, shot at, chained to a serial killer, infected with plague, and whatever the hell else had happened to him, Gibbs had never seen him truly afraid before. The look of hopelessness on his senior field Agent's face as he had concluded he wasn't getting out of this one had cut Gibbs to the quick. There was no way in hell he could ever have turned his back on him. With a wry smile he finally recognised what his partner was trying to do and he was grateful for it. But to his mind, there was one important difference.
"You're not a murderer, Tony."
"The point is you can't let this change who you are, Boss," Tony counselled. "Sure, they let you down by not being the people you thought they were. But you never let them down, because that's just not in your nature. For what its worth, Boss, I think that's something to be proud of. I know it makes me proud to be your friend, Jethro."
Gibbs pressed his lips together as he considered that. He hadn't actually thought anything could make him feel better tonight. But then DiNozzo had always been full of surprises. Turning back to the workbench he put down his mug of Jack and without making eye contact with DiNozzo, picked up the beer Tony had brought, together with a piece of sandpaper and took both of them back to his boat.
"Um, Boss?" He heard Tony offer diffidently behind him, painfully aware that woodworking wasn't his strong suit. "Do you want me to help?"
"You already did, DiNozzo," Gibbs told him, without turning. "You already did."