Chapter 4: Tony's mourning

It's raining.

It's hot, hazy and the skies are pouring down water as if all faucets in heaven were open and God and all of his angels are washing all golden avenues for the first time in years.

The water still keeps coming down in buckets, and I dread the moment when I have to leave my comfortable car to run to the door of the house I have to pack and clear any and all classified documents before sending all Gibbs' things to Jackson in Stillwater.

Man, I hate this.

Yet, I have volunteered for the task when Director Vance told me he would send a team to Gibbs' house to check his papers before allowing his father in to pack everything.

Just the thought of some stranger going through Gibbs' stuff , seeing his private things and invading his inner sanctum gave me chills, as if Boss himself was in the room glaring at me ordering me to make a stand.

I made a stand, so here I am, at Gibbs' house.

I sigh out loud, and brave the wind and the rain, opening my black umbrella that tries valiantly to protect me against the gusts of water that are getting my jacket wet. I lock the car and run across the street, before stopping in front of the door that, for me, has never been locked.

Now, that's changed.

I get the keys out of my pocket and open the door, hearing the hinges moaning for lack of use.

It's been four days, and entering the living room is like walking back to a time when beer and a grilled steak were always ready for me, whenever I happened to stop by unannounced, or when I would take refuge in the basement and sit for hours on the steps, just watching him sand and cut and sand again the wood, the material slowly taking for before my own eyes.

The door closes with a click behind me, and I'm assaulted by the stillness of the place. His faint aftershave for some reason still lingers in the air, and there is a used shirt thrown over the seat of the sofa which he must have left that morning before going to work.

He had no idea he would not be coming back to have it dry cleaned.

I have no idea where to start, so I follow my instincts and go to his most used room: the basement.

Once down there, I look around it and slide a hand over the carcass of yet another boat.

This one, this time, he won't have the time to finish it.

I feel a lump clogging my throat, and I walk to the shelves where he hid his precious bourbon. In a move I've seen him do countless times, I take one of the glass jars full of nuts and turn it over, the noise of the pieces on the table sound ridiculously loud in the silence of the basement, and I pour two inches of the precious amber liquid that I'll always associate with him.

The liquid goes down burning my throat, making my eyes tear out but I bite my lip and endure it, as the good soldier I am. At least, this time I would have the booze to blame for crying, not the ridiculous pain burning in my chest.

I put the glass on the counter and start opening drawers, going through their contents. One big drawer is stuck locked, and it spurs my curiosity to see what's in there. I find a tool and after some expert fiddling with the lock I'm able to open it, and I release a loud breath when I find a sniper rifle neatly tucked in its cushioned wrapping in the drawer.

I slide trembling fingers over the body of the riffle, the same type of weapon which had taken the life of my Boss.

Ironic that Gibbs had dedicated his career in the marines to master the skills of the same type of weapon that, one day several years later, would end up taking his life.

Life sucks sometimes.

I close my eyes when the images of Kate being shot suddenly get mixed up with Gibbs being shot, the blood coming from Kate's wound mixing with the blood that pooled under my hands as I covered the tiny entry wound on Gibbs' back.

I suddenly feel dizzy and open my eyes, unable to bear the sight my memory insists on showing me. When my vision clears and my legs stop shaking, I decide that I've been down the basement enough.

The scent of sawdust is enough of a memory for me. No need to contaminate it with the metallic scent of blood that permeates my memories.

I leave the basement and venture in the upper floors, a place that I've been rarely in all these years I've worked with him. I can easily spot which is his room, with its Spartan decoration and well made bed, it's almost impersonal in a very military way. There are no happy family pictures or feminine touches anywhere to be seen, and the dark wood furniture adds even more to the somber look of the room.

I open his wardrobe and I start looking through his things, but besides his usual jumper, suits and shirts and trousers, I don't find anything that remotely gives me an inkling of the man who's been my boss for so many years.

Same thing with the chest of drawers, just socks, underwear, more shirts and so on.

After such uninspiring venture I leave that room and go to the next. I open the door and I feel a deep well of pain in my chest as I look around it.

It's a little girl's room, completely preserved as if its owner had just left for a holiday, not as if she has been dead for years. The pink walls are peeling in some corners, and the army of teddy bears is carefully organized over the duvet on the bed, as if waiting for the return of their owner.

A little girl who will never come back to play with her dollies.

I take a step into the room, and I try to imagine Gibbs doing the same thing, year after year, entering this room and staring the Strawberry Shortcake duvet and the several children books and fairy tales carefully organized on the child-sized bookcase in a corner.

The loneliness and pain this room brings to me is too much to take, and I struggle valiantly to imagine how much it must have hurt to Gibbs to enter this room, year after year.

No wonder he could never clear it. Just looking at the stuff gathered here hurt. A lot.

I walk out of that room without touching anything in it. I'm sure Gibbs would never use his daughter's room to hide anything sensitive to NCIS.

It would be tarnishing his memory of her.

I enter the next bedroom, and this one also has been stripped bare, but it seems to be more like a storage room with several boxes here and there, and a stripped bare mattress has several boxes over it.

I start checking the drawers of the chests, and find several papers. I start going through them and that's how I spend most of my afternoon.

The rain stops a few hours later, and the sun comes back with all its strength. I had taken off my jacket some time ago, and now I'm only in my shirt with its sleeves folded, separating papers in piles. NCIS related, personal, very personal.

I finish the drawers and start going through some boxes. I divide them again into what I have to take to NCIS, what I don't have to take there and what I know one of the team would enjoy having as a small memento of him.

I miraculously find some pictures of the team, most of them some goofy pictures we've taken at some crime scene or other during the years. I chuckle when I find one where Probie still had that ridiculous chubby look with that completely egg shaved head. I trace my fingers over Kate's face in full NCIS uniform, a curl of her hair stuck to her glossy lips as she looks to someone who is not in the picture. It's a beautiful picture, which had been able to capture her essence in a simple click.

There are pictures of Abby making faces of the camera, and these I'm quite sure that the Mistress of Darkness herself took those and gave them to our fearless leader.

Then I find some pictures of me. I stop and I glance at my own face, with fewer lines and much more gel in a cocky hairstyle that I had abandoned a few years back. The smartass smile in my face in the glossy picture almost makes me cry for the easy going person I see in the paper.

I barely recognize that smiling person looking back at me.

That Anthony DiNozzo is long gone.

I pocket the pictures, sure that the team will want to know that they were loved and remembered by him. I then walk around the bed and start checking the drawers of the side table, and find some more papers and a small box.

A small black tin box.

I sit down on the mattress and slowly open the box. I frown when I check its contents. It's a mixed collection of papers of different sizes and origins, a receipt of a gas station here, a boarding pass there, several cuts of paper which seemed to have been ripped in a hurry just to write down a few lines.

The rules.

Gibbs' rules.

I sit more comfortably on the mattress and I slowly unveil one by one, remembering several moments when he used one or another to teach us. My fingers touch some pictures, and my heart squeezes a little bit when I see Kelly and Shannon in them.

I find a picture in which a very young Gibbs is in his Gunny's uniform, holding a smiling Shannon by her waist and Kelly smiling a toothy grin, the happiness in the picture is simply breathtaking.

I lean back on the mattress, and I smile at the picture for the first time since this whole nightmare has started.

"You're home now, Boss."