A/N: Wow – your awesome reviews just blew me away. Thanks for reading. Enjoy!
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Tim woke groggily to the sound of a telephone ringing.
It took him a moment to register why he was hearing the old fashioned bell trilling instead of one of his customized ring tones – songs that helped him to identify the caller.
Right. Wake up call – he was at a hotel.
Sighing, Tim stretched under the sheets and reached for his phone on the nightstand, realizing that he'd kept it turned off for the majority of the day yesterday.
In fact, he'd forgotten to tell Sarah that he was leaving town – even if he was just an hour or so away in Boston.
He turned the phone on and left it to 'boot up' while he went about his morning routine.
Twenty minutes later he had dressed and showered and was ready to head down to breakfast. Absently, he flipped open his phone.
37 missed calls.
Tim's eyes widened.
Sarah called him seven times, Tony a more annoying thirteen-times, but Abby took the prize with a total of seventeen. All of the phone calls were placed around the same time – some of them mere minutes apart.
That suggested that all the calls were made for the same reason.
Suddenly, McGee started to panic.
Had something happened to Sarah?
Or Tony?
Or Abby?
Tim realized, with some surprise, that he was just as worried by any of the three possibilities.
But, no, he calmed himself. If something had happened to one of them, they wouldn't have been able to call. And Sarah's call meant whatever the problem was, it wasn't case related.
Unless, of course, it was Gibbs. Or Ziva.
Someone would have called Sarah when they couldn't reach him - but no. Sarah had made four calls before Tony and Abby began to try.
Taking deep, calming breaths like Ziva had taught him, Tim decided to call Tony first.
Despite the amount of grief Tony gave him every day, Tim knew he'd always pull through in a crisis. And if it was a crisis involving either Abby or Sarah, he'd want to talk to someone who had the situation under control.
The phone rang six times before going to voicemail. Tim promptly hit redial, realizing, belatedly, that he was calling Tony at 7:00 am on a Saturday.
"Merfuggh."
Tim breathed a sigh of relief.
"Tony!"
"Easy, no need to shout McEarlybird. It's only – " There was a muffled curse from the older agent. "It's seven in the morning, McGee. Why are you calling now? Don't you have anything better to do than wake me up this morning?"
The other agent still sounded groggy, so McGee decided to let the surliness slide.
"Sorry, Tony, but – it's about Sarah…" McGee trailed off – what if Tony didn't know anything about Sarah's call? Maybe he was just overreacting.
Another muffled curse drifted over the line.
"Yeah, McGee. Right." Tony paused and McGee could here cloth rustling. "She's safe – called me yesterday around 1700 hours from the side of a road in Virginia countryside. I picked her up and brought her home."
"Why'd she call you?" McGee blurted, shocked.
"Honestly?" Tony chuckled dryly, "No idea. I think she just wanted me to get a hold of you for her."
Tim could almost hear Tony's shrug over the line. He felt a surge of gratefulness go out to Tony for again going beyond the mere call of duty. He hadn't needed to drive out personally to pick Sarah up – but McGee realized he wasn't all that surprised.
He'd given Tony a rough time while Gibbs was in Mexico – and an even tougher time when Gibbs got back. He'd been so full of resentment and frustration that he'd forgotten about Tony's more noble facets. Of course, it didn't help that Tony was very good at hiding them.
Of course Tony had picked Sarah up. Of course she was safely in his apartment –
Wait, his little sister was what?
Some of Tim's gratefulness morphed into plain over-protectiveness.
Tony was a decent guy – but not someone he'd let near his sister.
"Uh, thanks, Tony. I'll be there in a few hours to come get her."
"What about your convention thingy?"
"How'd you know about that?"
Again, McGee could hear Tony's shrug.
"Just a lucky guess."
"Well, Director Vance will understand. I'll check out here and be over as soon as I can."
"Alright, McGeek, I'll let Sarah know when she wakes up."
"Thanks, Tony."
McGee sighed and hastily hung up his phone and started packing.
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Sarah didn't wake up until just after nine.
Vaguely, she recalled Tony dragging her out of his car and up way too many stairs before she was stuffed into a nice, warm bed. It took her a few minutes to really regain consciousness.
When she finally did it was to a growling stomach. After taking stock of her unfamiliar surroundings, she realized she could smell pancakes.
Tony was cooking breakfast?
Sure enough, after a trip to the bathroom, Sarah tiptoed into the kitchen to see DiNozzo wrapped in a dark green grilling apron, frying a batch of bacon. Two plates full of pancakes already set on the counter.
"Good morning, sleep well?" Her host didn't turn around, but seemed to know she was there anyway.
"Yes, thank you." She responded politely, eyeing the food. There was enough there to feed an army, and DiNozzo was still cooking. "You think we can eat all that?"
This time Tony turned his head to give her a grin.
"Nope, but we won't need to. McGee is already on his way and I'm expecting an unexpected visit from Abby and probably Gibbs, too. Maybe I should call Ziva just for the heck of it."
"You called Tim?"
Tony snorted.
"No, he called me – as soon as he heard you and I were in the same apartment he was checking out of his hotel. He should be here anytime."
Sarah noticed Tony's slightly self-deprecating tone, but decided not to comment.
"What makes you expect unexpected guests?" She asked instead.
Tony grinned again, while fishing the bacon out of the pan.
"I had to call Abby last night to get a trace on your cell phone – if I know her as well as I think I do, she'll be along to check on you sometime this morning."
"And bring Agent Gibbs with her?" That sounded like a rather odd relationship for co-workers.
Tony shrugged, but didn't elaborate. Well, Sarah wasn't going to pry – she considered it part of her unspoken 'thank you' to the NCIS agent for not asking her how she came to be stranded on the side of the road.
She really, really didn't want to talk about Rex yet.
Especially not to someone she barely knew and had just started trusting. Rex was – well, he was a rather embarrassing mistake. More than that, though, she felt a little bit heartbroken.
It didn't matter to her how often her parents and Tim told her Rex wasn't good enough for her, that he'd only hurt her – she'd cared about Rex.
Trusted him.
Then – this. He'd been lying the whole time.
No, she wasn't going to talk about Rex.
"Don't worry." Sarah jerked her head up to see Tony watching her quietly. "I'm not going to ask."
How?
"You're not exactly difficult to read." He said gently. "Besides, I already know about Rex."
"What? How?" She spluttered.
Tony smiled sheepishly.
"McGee wigged out in the break room one time – about some good for nothing low-life that was dating his sister. So I looked him up, just to make sure he was over-reacting." Tony said it like it was the most natural thing in the world and not a complete invasion of at least three people's privacy.
She found she couldn't be angry with him – not really, not when he was right. Besides, it was so nice that somebody understood without her having to tell them.
"You – you looked him up?"
Tony grinned, clearly relieved that she hadn't started yelling.
"Yeah, just a basic work up like I do for the rest of the team's love interests."
There was a beat of tense silence wherein Tony realized just what he'd said and Sarah started wondering if the man in front of her wasn't really some kind of creep.
"You check out your entire team's dates?" Sarah spoke slowly, willing the words to sound more reasonable than they did in her mind. She had just decided to start liking Tony.
"Um. Yes." Tony ran his hand through his hair, momentarily forgetting the spatula in his hand. He sighed and turned back to the eggs.
He was quiet for so long she didn't think he was going to say any more on the subject, but after flipping over the two eggs in the pan he turned to face her again.
"Few years back Director Sheppard hired an assistant for Abby, without a thorough enough back ground check. He – I… we had a history." Tony took a deep, steadying breath. "He tried to frame me for murder – and nearly succeeded, too. I was behind bars for two days before the team managed to clear me."
Sarah's eyes widened in horror and disbelief. That was awful.
"After that, well, I started checking everybody – just to be safe. I won't let anything like that happen again."
Sarah knew, somehow, that DiNozzo didn't mean he wouldn't let something like that happen to him again. He was protecting his team.
She wondered what they'd done to deserve such loyalty. Tim couldn't possibly be aware of this – but then, he couldn't really be oblivious, either, could he?
"Why? Why do you work so hard to protect them?"
DiNozzo smiled sadly.
"I don't have anyone else, Sarah."
The heck he didn't!
"You do now, Mr. DiNozzo!" She surprised herself with the adamant exclamation.
She was even more surprised by the genuine smile that graced Tony's face.
She couldn't help returning it – it seemed as if she'd just acquired another brother.
Oh, boy.
Suddenly, she waxed serious again.
"Tony, about Rex…"
"I ran a background check – he's clean as a whistle, comes from a rich family, actually. Even so, there were charges levied against his father about ten years ago and several other mentions of scandal. He's either completely innocent or too smart to get caught."
"You did? And you didn't tell Tim?"
Tony smiled again.
"No – if McGee knew I could do that… well, things wouldn't turn out so well." He hesitated before sloughing on resolutely. "Sarah, he doesn't work for Madacorp – his uncle owns it. He lives off of inheritance."
She let that sink in – the nine to five job, business trips, work colleagues all weren't.
"What? How could I not know?"
Sarah was utterly horrified. Surely she would have noticed something, anything! Rex, didn't, couldn't…
A firm hand guided her at seat at the kitchen table.
"It's all right – that bastard was smooth. He's probably been working the play for years. It's nothing illegal, but…"
Sarah suddenly rounded on Tony. Newly adopted brother or not, he'd let her be with a known cheating bastard for two months.
"Why didn't you say anything?! How could you –"
Tony held up his hands in surrender.
"Now, wait a minute – McGee told you not to trust the guy. Sometimes you have to make your own mistakes."
Sarah frowned. She really had no response to that.
She just didn't know what to feel at the moment. She was angry and hurt and confused and terrified. She felt tears forming in the corners of her eyes, but didn't really know why she was crying.
"Shh." Tony pulled her into a comforting, brotherly hug. Somehow he managed to make it not awkward even though he was standing and she was still sitting in the kitchen chair.
She didn't think too hard about that, though. Instead she buried her head into the proffered apron, not really listening to the soothing words Tony was spouting.
Sarah had no idea how long they stayed like that – just that it was long enough for Tony to burn his eggs.
It was comforting, being here in DiNozzo's kitchen, watching him cook breakfast. She felt safe, no matter what had happened yesterday or what she had just learned.
"I can't go back home, can I?" She knew she couldn't, but she wanted Tony to make this better, too. As soon as she said it, though, she felt weak and helpless and pathetic.
She shouldn't burden Tony with this – even if he seemed willing to bear it.
"No, that's probably not a good idea. You can stay here if you need to, but I'm sure McGee will take you in."
"So I can sleep on his sofa?" Sarah asked dryly. Tim had recently converted his spare bedroom into a writing studio. The change made her feel unwelcome, even though she had rarely visited her brother.
"Hmm." Tony carefully started frying another set of eggs. "I see your point – you really ought to talk him into getting a new place. Or, at the very least, a new couch."
That last bit had been said with the air of one who had experience.
"You've slept on his couch?"
"Nah." Tony snorted. "Not likely, that. But I tried to watch a movie on it – the only thing more uncomfortable than the couch was the way McGee kept trying to throw me out every five minutes."
Sarah couldn't help it – she laughed. The mental picture was just too funny – especially when she imagined Tony's smug, confident I-know-better-than-you expression (one she was coming to be quite familiar with.)
Tony grinned at her as if he'd just won a medal.
"You're talking about that time he was nearly charged with shooting a cop, aren't you?"
Tony nodded, turning back to the eggs.
"McGee was stationed outside, alone. He was ready for the assignment, but –" Her host was growing melancholy.
Sarah frowned. Everything had turned out okay – so why did it still bother Tony?
Then, suddenly, a light bulb flickered on – guilt.
She was steadily coming to realize that Tony considered Tim and the rest of his team to be a family that he needed to protect. His loyalty and protective bent wouldn't let him not feel guilty for letting anything threaten his family.
"It wasn't your fault." She said softly, not needing to know all the details of the incident to know that she was right. She was getting to know Tony well enough that she could count on some things to be true.
"Now you're channeling Abby. And Gibbs. How freaky. I wonder, you don't listen Hatchets, do you?"
Sarah laughed again, shaking her head to deny his almost-accusation.
"You already know that I listen to classical music, mostly."
"Ah, right. You have a favorite composer?" Tony asked, with what seemed to be genuine curiosity.
Sarah wrinkled her forehead before answering. Chopin was her favorite – but when had they started talking about music? It just seemed a little surreal to her.
Then –
"You changed the subject!" She accused, pointing her finger at Tony to emphasize her point.
"He does that, you just have to be persistent."
Sarah jumped.
"Hey, Gibbs," Tony greeted from the stove. "You're right on time, Boss."
Tony's first guest didn't have a chance to react to the sudden expected unexpected visitor before she was encased in a hug.
Well, this was a familiar experience, at least. Otherwise, she might just have freaked out a little.
"Oh, Sarah, how are you? Are you okay? Was Tony a gentleman, like I told him to be? He didn't pester you with movie references, did he? Cuz I told him not to." While Sarah slowly digested Abby's rapid fire questions, the Goth used the time to glare reprovingly at Tony.
"Abby, why don't you and Sarah help yourselves to breakfast – you know where everything is."
Abby was more than happy to help Sarah around the kitchen while Tony finished cooking. Gibbs was already settled at the table with a plate full of pancakes and a cup of coffee.
After they'd loaded their plates, the slightly older woman dragged Sarah into the living room and plopped them both down on the couch – to watch the news, she said.
Sarah had a feeling, though, that the move had something to do with the way both Abby and Agent Gibbs had been eyeing Tony speculatively since they'd arrived.
She had only followed Abby because she was pretty sure she didn't want to be in the kitchen right now – even if she had no idea what was going on.
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A/N: Oh, no, now everybody's involved. Well, except Ziva, that is. And I've locked Tony in a small room with Gibbs – I guess that was rather cruel of me. Anyway, thanks for reading and please review!