Disclaimer : I own nothing, but the typos.
Warnings : Rated T for language.
Author's Note : Thank you to every who has read, favorited and followed so far. An extra special thanks to everyone who's reviewed. And thank you to fred, Laurie and earthdragon for your anonymous reviews. It was nice to see what you think.
Enjoy the next chapter. Tony will start getting answers, slowly, but surely.
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7:15pm – Blind Justice Bar and Grille – Judiciary Square, Washington, DC –
"Of course, I do," Tim says, laughing. "You are my neighbor, after all."
"Neighbor?" Tony squeaks, his voice jumping an octave.
Concern slowly replaces the humor on Tim's face. Based on the look in the younger man's eyes, Tony isn't sure whether Tim plans to haul him off to the looney bin or buy him another beer. If today keeps going the way it has, Tony will be tying his own straight jacket by midnight.
"Going on five years." Tim tilts his head. "How much have you had to drink, Tony?"
Two beers down and he's still stone-cold sober. "Not enough."
"Yeah." Tim sips his wine patiently. "We all have those days."
"What do you mean?"
"We all have one of those 'oh shit' moments where you look around and wonder where the hell your life went. You wonder how you could go from a single guy to a married one with kids." He shrugs as though Tony's Twilight Zone experience is perfectly normal. "You aren't the only one who gets them, but you tend to be a bit more…" he bites his lips, settles for "…dramatic about it."
If Tim were trying to be tactful, he fails miserably. Tony tightens his grip around the beer bottle until his knuckles turns white. Tim rests his hand on Tony's forearm, preventing him from taking the next slug of alcohol that he needs more than his next breath.
"Look, Tony, you and I both know you do." Tim treads as diplomatically as he can. "There's a reason why Zoe calls them, 'moments of temporary insanity.' You freak out, head to a bar, and get trashed. It isn't healthy." He makes a face. "Do you even remember getting here?"
"Nope," Tony says.
Tim stays silent, probably letting whatever point he thinks he just made resonate.
Tony drums his fingers on the bar, fiddles with a sticky ring of soda that never got wiped up. As long as there is someone here who knows him – and what the hell is going on – he could very well play along, try to find out as much information as he can. Somewhere deep within him an itch rises, long-buried and almost forgotten. The excitement that comes with an undercover job.
But how am I supposed to play myself?
Tony smiles at Tim. "How did you know where I was?"
His neighbor winks. "I'm psychic."
And I'm psycho. "No, really?"
"This is your favorite bar. Plus, we get a complimentary drink after a shift."
Tony's eyelid twitches. "We?"
"Um, yeah. Almost everyone from the station comes here. Old Scott – " Tim waves at the bartender as he passes " – got robbed at gunpoint a couple of years ago. You helped arrest the guy."
"Of course, I did."
Tony slides his arm out of Tim's grasp and polishes off the rest of the beer. He wonders how many drinks he puts away here. Back home, whiskeys would continue longer after he told the barman he was done, closed out his tab, and tried to stumble the four blocks home. Clarity tends to come to him after the bottle runs dry, when his senses grow numb, when self-doubt and insecurity abandon him for someone more sober.
But at that moment, he catches his reflection in the dusty mirror behind the bar. Staring back is the same person he saw the day Gibbs got shot. It's a face Tony has grown to hate, one that can only be exorcised by a Scotch on the rocks and a bunch of gin and tonic chasers. He looks exhausted, terrified, and old. Like a caged animal, locked up and forgotten for decades.
He screws his lips in disgust as he pushes the empty beer bottle away.
Then he looks–really looks–at Tim for the first time. His former partner is softer with no real muscles to speak of, likely from far too much time behind a desk. Gone are the wrinkles on his forehead from squinting at a computer and in their place are laugh lines permanently etched into his cheeks. Tony drops his gaze to Tim's hands. His left ring finger wears a simple gold band while his left index finger is pristine, uncalloused. Married, it seems, and no longer living at the gun range.
Tim sneaks a sip of wine, glances back at the door. His movements are easy, relaxed, and he might even be…happy. This world, dare Tony say, looks good on him.
"So are you ready to go home?" Tim asks suddenly.
Tony just shakes his head. He wants to sit here until he learns the secret to making it all work, until he makes sense of his sudden family, and more importantly, until he figures out how the hell to go home.
"Okay, we'll stay." Tim stares dead ahead, mesmerized by something in the booze selection. Probably trying to calculate how much Tony has already packed away. "Just tell me when you're ready."
"Thanks."
Nodding, Tim drinks his wine while Tony frees the condensation soaked label from his beer bottle. He rips it into long, water-logged ribbons and then, shreds them even further until there's nothing left but a pile of damp paper. He works at the task as though by its completion could restore his sanity.
Neither of them speak and Tony savors the normalcy, just him and his friend–Tony hopes to G-d they're friends here too–at the bar sharing a drink. He doesn't have to close his eyes to pretend they're finishing out a case, pretend they're celebrating the arrest of that asshole, Petty Officer Mulroney and carting the hellhound to the pound.
Goliath, my ass.
Somewhere over their heads, one of the bar's many televisions plays a syndicated sitcom–the one where nothing always turned out to something. The canned laughter reminds him that it wasn't funny the first time around. It bleeds into another and another still. Great, a marathon.
Eventually, someone changes the channel to an infomercial as though someone here might need to order a pan that shapes bacon into flowers. Tony considers it, even reaches his for a cell phone. Maybe it would be a way to win back Zoe's heart–if he even lost it, but who knows? Does she still like bacon?
Instead of learning how to make a bacon rose bouquet for his…wife, Tony orders a rum and coke. Extra coke, hold the rum. The bartender looks at him as though he's gone crazy, but brings it anyway. Sobriety taught Tony that it's easier to blend in with the barflies if he drinks soda out of a highball glass. People tend to ask less questions, be more open when they think you're neck and neck with them in the race to alcohol-infused oblivion. Plus, it just makes him feel more normal.
Tim tosses him a sideways glance.
"I figured I didn't need another beer." But Tony doesn't think it's that, so he asks: "Something on your mind, Tim?"
His friend flags down the bartender for another glass of wine. While he waits for it to arrive, he grips the bar and his knuckles blanch against the wood.
"I was just thinking about the last time we sat here like this." Tim's voice is so quiet that Tony has to lean closer to hear him.
"What do you mean?"
"The last time we just sat here drinking, not talking about a case or the kids." The very thought makes Tony's eyelid twitch. "It just reminded me of that night."
While the bartender drops off Tim's refill, Tony has a moment of silence to rack his brain for anything that could've possibly happened in this world, to this Tim. He comes up empty because here, his friend is a stranger. Silence curls around them like a cat, settles down between them. Minutes pass under the guise of hours as Tony stares at Tim with rapt attention.
Lost in his own mind, Tim swirls his wine. His hazy, absent eyes stare at it without seeing.
"Do you want to talk about it, Tim?" Tony asks.
Even though his face clearly says he doesn't, Tim half-nods anyway. Tony rubs the back of his neck, thankful for the chance to learn something about this place and apprehensive at what could come from the conversation. He swigs of his soda and it tastes watered down.
Tim sighs quietly. "I just can't believe it has been six months since the accident."
Tony schools his face with concern, says like a confused idiot: "I'm sorry."
Tim shrugs like nothing really matters. "Time heals everything, right? Look, Tony, I know you always tell me that it wasn't…" he swallows hard, cheeks going ghastly white "…isn't my fault, but it's so hard seeing Delilah in that wheelchair every day. Sometimes I can't help but think…" His voice trails off as he retreats back into his guilty conscience.
Tony elbows his friend's shoulder. "Think what?"
"That if we hadn't been coming back from that conference so late, I might not have fallen asleep at the wheel. That we might not have crashed, that she might still be walking..." Tim's heartbroken smile sneaks out in full-force. "Most days, I have no idea what I'm supposed to do."
"Stay strong. For her."
"And that is what's so hard."
Memories of Gibbs' hard-lived recovery after the gunshot come flooding back to Tony. Vicodin mixed with bourbon only soured his boss' perpetual foul mood. Tony's daily visits were met with anger and derision and rage, but Tony understood the mental anguish of a bullet was far worse than the physical. So he kept at it, showing up with a smile and steady hands until Gibbs got over himself. Before Tony got transported here, they still hadn't made it over the rainbow.
"I've been there too, Tim. You just take it one minute at a time," Tony says, earning him a welcome smile. "Don't forget to be grateful that neither of you were killed."
"Believe me, I am. And I'm so thankful that Matty stayed with you and Zoe that night." His expression turns panicked. "Because if something had happened to him, I never - "
Tony grips Tim's arm and squeezes hard. "But it didn't."
Tim's features relax ever so slightly, his head bobbing like a wind-up toy. "You're right, Tony, I know you're right. That's exactly what you told me when you brought me here after we got the news. Back when I couldn't look my son in the eye."
"And now?"
"Not perfect, but it's better."
Better, maybe that's all Tony could've ask for. Instead of taking every nasty word and every insult Gibbs hurled at him to heart, maybe Tony was supposed to remember that his boss was under the influence of whatever pills and booze he swallowed that day. Maybe he should've been glad for the days Gibbs asked him to help plane the boat hull or meditate on why black coffee wasn't a delicacy the world over, not focusing on how many times the door slammed in his face.
"You've got to start somewhere," Tony says as much for Tim's benefit as his own.
Tim sighs like nothing in the world will ever be right again.
I'm right there with you, Probster.
Glancing in the mirror, Tony surveys the nearly empty bar over his shoulder. Only a few older, sallow-faced men sit at the tables alone nursing bottles of beer and whiskey in highball glasses. He even catches the ghost of himself haunting the corner. In a designer suit and crooked tie, the specter hunches over a drink and what might be case files. Their eyes meet and Tony holds his stare, waiting for some reaction. The man just turns back to his work.
"Ready to go home, Tony?" Tim asks quietly, pleadingly.
Tony nods. "Yeah."
As he rises from his seat, Tim chucks several bills next to his nearly full glass of wine. Mechanically, Tony follows his neighbor out of the bar.
The muggy summer night leaves the sweat slithering down the small of his back, but it's a welcome change to the icy tundra of the bar. Tony glances up to watch the moon play peek-a-boo behind the thick clouds. It's so close that he swears the man in the moon is laughing at his predicament. Bastard.
Tony heads for the van – half-parked in the street, half-berthed on the curb. A passing car slows down to avoid its bumper and Tony pangs with regret that the damned thing doesn't get hit.
Tim catches his arm, leads him away. "Nice try, Tony, but you don't get to take the Batmobile home tonight."
Tony blinks. "The what?"
"Batmobile." Tim laughs. "That's what Riley called it after you dressed up like The Joker for Halloween."
Riley must be my daughter's name.
The very thought of her, that scowling baby, those freaking Barbie shoes, the very pissed-off Zoe brings acid to the back of his tongue. He coughs into the back of his hand, ready to bolt down the street.
"Do you think Zoe could help Matty with his Halloween costume this year?" Tim smiles at some happier memory, his teeth glowing under the sulfuric glow of the streetlamps. "Zoe did such a good job with Riley's Robin costume last year. And while Delilah tried her best, Matty really didn't like wearing a towel for a Batman cape."
Stopping in his tracks, Tony sizes up whether Tim could catch him when he makes a run for it. Maybe he would have been better off sleeping in the NCIS holding cell rather than a house with his – what the hell is he supposed to call those people? At least, Zoe wouldn't be able to kick his ass if he were locked behind steel bars.
"I bet it was fine," Tony says, carefully considering an exit route.
"Yeah, kind of like the face paint she bought for my Mr. Freeze costume."
Scratch the alley. "I thought it was great…"
"I know you did. You only made fun of me for months afterwards."
Tony turns back to Tim, his escape momentarily forgotten. Now, he has to know.
"Refresh my memory," he says. "It's been a long day."
"She bought professional strength movie make-up off the internet. Don't you remember how it wouldn't wash off? I was blue for over a week." Tim shakes his head. "You got all the guys in the squad room to call me Smurfette."
Tony wishes he knew what the hell Tim is rambling on about, almost wishes he could've been here to experience it with them. The moment sounds so mundane, so ordinary, so much like something he never had growing up with his family. Batman and Robin costumes sounds infinitely better than when his mom let him dress up like that astronaut. That's one of the only things he still remembers about her. Oh, and her weird obsession with shrimp cocktail after she chugged his Sea Monkeys during a bender.
Despite the heat, Tony hugs his arms to his chest.
He never got to experience a real family. Okay, so he got the kind that shipped him off to military schools because it was convenient or forgot to pick him up at the airport or skipped every single sports game. But what good was his dad anyway? And yes, he had an adopted group of coworkers who bonded over cases and grew as close as siblings. Okay, so they would always be his real family.
But he always wanted a real, honest-to-G-d one with shared genetics and huge dinners and Christmas mornings and trick-or-treating…and happy memories.
Maybe I could see what all the fuss is about…just until I figure out how to get home.
Further up the block, Tim pauses by a silver Audi station wagon.
"Hey, Tony," he calls, "are you coming?"
Tony catches up in time for his friend to unlock the car. When he slides into the passenger seat, he gapes at the interior. It has top of the line everything. Huge navigation screen, sports package, leather bucket seats, carbon fiber accents. Sticking out of the steering wheel are a bunch of levers that would look more at home on a space ship, not a car for soccer moms.
"Did you bring Delilah's car?" Tony asks.
Tim shakes his head. "I just wanted to give her to be able to drive mine, if she wanted. But you know, she'll never give up her Jetta."
"She probably likes how it feels." Tony glances back at the bar. "Normal."
Tim's smile is thin, at best. "I bet it's something like that."
When he starts the car, its engine purrs to life. The navigation screen's glow rivals the moonlight and both bask the interior in a soft, ethereal glow. An odd sense of peace rolls over Tony as he zones out at the sight of the on-screen map. But even though the street names, the intersections, and the turns are all familiar, the destination is as much a stranger as the person driving him there.
