Disclaimer: Some of the dialogue is taken directly from "Rule Fifty-One." Those words belong to the writers not to me.
Warnings: Spoilers for "Rule Fifty-One".
A/N: It's been a while since we've checked in with Tony and Kaitlin and I apologize for that. It has been a very busy time of year with the holidays and finals and birthday parties. Hope you enjoy and I hope that I have another update up soon!
Kaitlin was fussy. And there was nothing Tony could do about it.
She was too little to understand that it wasn't safe to go home, not until they had Colonel Bell and Jason Dean in custody. And she certainly didn't understand why she was lock downed at NCIS with Abby. But he had to keep her safe and the only way for Tony to do that at that moment was to keep her at work with him. Tony promised her lots of Oreos when this was all said and done.
"There's still no word on Gibbs?" Abby asked when Tony popped down to the lab to check on Kaitlin.
"No," he reported, sadly. "Not yet. But it's Gibbs... Abs, he can take care of himself."
"Yeah, I know... just how many pieces is he going to be in when he returns?"
"Hopefully not too many."
Abby glared at him. "Don't even joke about something like that!" she shouted, near tears.
Tony started to comfort her when Kaitlin cried from the office, having been woken up from her nap. Tony went to retrieve her, picking her up and letting her snuggle against his shoulder. He rubbed the toddler's back, hoping to soothe her back to sleep. "Listen, Abby," he whispered, "It's going to be alright. Vance is working with the Mexican government to find Gibbs. And he's arranging for me and Tim to go down there and find him. Just waiting for the clearance."
She bit her lip, nervously, and then she reached out, taking the little girl from her father's arms. "Okay. It's going to be okay. But you need to go! I'll take care of Katie. And if I have work to do I'll get Jimmy to help. She's really warmed up to Jimmy since turning one."
He ran his hand down his daughter's back, hating that he had to leave her again. "Hope she doesn't end up loving him more than me."
"What? Tony! That's ridiculous! You're her daddy! She'll always love you the most"
"Really, Abs? Because I leave her more than I'm here."
"Stop, Tony. It is not your fault that you're a single parent. Her mother wanted nothing to do with her!"
Tony sighed, heavily and leaned over to kiss his daughter on the top of her head. She shifted to look at him with her little hazel eyes and his heart clenched, tightly. He forced himself to smile at her. "I love you, peanut."
Kaitlin's face pulled into a grin. "Wuv you Dada."
Abby smiled at him, sadly. "See. She loves you the most."
He sighed and rubbed her soft cheek with his thumb. It was never easy to leave her, but leaving her now, when both their lives had been threatened... it was even harder. Tony knew she would be safe at NCIS. Dean was a smart man, he wouldn't try to hurt the toddler here, but still... the thought of being so far away, unable to protect her... "Daddy has to go, baby. Hopefully when I get back I have Grandpa with me."
"You'll find him, Tony," Abby assured him. "You two have some kind of six sense about each other."
"Let's hope it works this time," Tony said, kissing Kaitlin's forehead one last time. "Bye, baby girl. Be good for Auntie Abby and Uncle Jimmy."
"Dada? Bye?" Kaitlin questioned, her eyes filling with tears. "Dada, go?"
Tony braced himself for the inevitable, for her to start crying and reaching for him, but it was as if she knew that this departure was going to be difficult for him and instead of screaming, she pushed her lower lip out in a pout. He pulled both Abby and Kaitlin into a tight hug, kissed his little girl on the cheek and choked out a good-bye before turning on his heel and sprinting for the elevator.
Inside the cab he closed his eyes tightly to stop his own tears. His father's voice ran through his head, screaming at him like he used to when Tony had been small and scared of the drunk bastard. Weak! You're weak! Men don't cry! Man up, Anthony!
"Man up, Anthony," Tony muttered underneath his breath as he stepped off the elevator into the squad room. Even though his father was in jail, Senior was still haunting him. "Man up, because you have a job to do. You have to find Gibbs." Before it's too late.
Gibbs woke up with the sun on his face. He was sitting in a chair on a patio and with a woman that he recognized from police reports. Jason Dean was standing next to him, gun trained on him Everything suddenly made sense. It wasn't Bell that Dean had been working for... it had been Paloma Reynosa.
Paloma poured herself a drink and then poured one for Gibbs. "Tennessee Williams said 'We are all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins for life.' Surrounded by men with guns, I think of this often, beautiful, sad but frank. Do you consider yourself a frank man?"
He shrugged his shoulders and swirled his drink around in his glass. She took a sip of hers. "He also said all cruel people describe themselves as paragons of frankness. I would expect nothing less from the man who murdered my father."
Gibbs still didn't respond. This woman had gone after people he cared about, killed an NCIS agent. She didn't deserve a response. He'd speak when he felt it was necessary, but right now... it wasn't.
"I see you chose your words carefully Agent Gibbs, that is good. Your life depends on them."
"I don't usually drink Scotch."
Paloma kept the cool, rueful mask in place. "I do not like bourbon. Or I would have given you your drink of choice."
Gibbs sipped his drink. "You seem to know a lot about me, Ms. Reynosa."
She smiled, wryly. "I believe it is important to know your enemies." Leaning forward she put her glass down and studied him for a moment. "I know where you grew up... who your parents were... who your co-workers are..." She paused and pulled something out of her pocket. "It is important for one to have leverage. when one needs their enemy to cooperate."
He continued to sip his drink, the Scotch reminding him of Jenny. "Leverage? I don't know what you could possibly hold over me that would get me to cooperate with you."
Paloma smirked and dropped what was in her hand on the table. It fluttered in the gentle breeze, landed face up. She relished in the pale expression that crossed over Gibbs features and she knew she had him. "Such an adorable little girl," she said, pointing to Kaitlin's smiling face as she ran and played in the front yard with her father in the photograph. "I know that you would hate for anything to happen to her."
"If you hurt that little girl... you'll have more than me to answer too," Gibbs snarled, underneath his breath.
"Her father... yes... you've molded him very much in your image... like a father would a son," Paloma taunted.
"Is that why you had Dean cut his brake lines?" Gibbs snapped, fists clenched into tight balls. "Were you hoping that Tony and Kaitlin would die in a crash?"
"If death was the outcome it would have been acceptable. But cutting the brakes was meant to send you a message."
"I don't know what you're after but you might as well put a bullet in my head right now because you're not going to get anything."
"It's never easy to turn someone, to change them. A federal agent in Washington D.C., you have value. I don't want your death, I want your life."
Hours had gone by between the time Tony and McGee climbed onto a military plane and the time that Gibbs vanished in Mexico. It had been a whirlwind of hours at that, too. Vance needed to approve their trip, Tony had to make sure that Kaitlin was safe at NCIS... along with Erin, Abby and Ducky because Tony wasn't convinced that they were entirely safe from Colonel Bell too.
Tony's head was pounding by the time their plane landed in Mexico. He'd pounded about four painkillers throughout the course of the day but his stress level was through the roof rendering the medicine useless.
As the plane touched down, Tony grabbed the crash webbing and pulled himself to his feet. "We get in, get Gibbs, and get out. Agreed?"
"Yeah, agreed," McGee said, standing himself. "Vance said he ordered the plane to stand by."
"Hopefully this doesn't take too long," Tony muttered as the doors shuddered and lowered. "Katie's going to learn to say I hate you by the age of two at the rate I leave her."
McGee felt for him but with Tony being the senior most agent on the team with Gibbs off the grid, Tony had to go to Mexico. And of course Kaitlin hadn't been too happy about that. "Rivera said he had his men out looking for Gibbs... maybe he'll find him by the time we get to the Justice Department."
Tony led the way off the plane. He had to wonder how many pieces they would find Gibbs in. During the time they were waiting for approval to go to Mexico they had dug up some interesting things, mainly that Jason Dean had received phone calls from another number, one that they couldn't trace to Bell or his annoyingly feisty lawyer, M. Allison Hart. And somehow... it all linked back to Pedro Hernandez and Gibbs killing him all those years ago to avenge his family. "Let's get this over with," the senior field agent mumbled when he saw the black SUV's waiting for them.
Alejandro Rivera stepped out of one, smiling in greeting to the two agents. "Special Agent DiNozzo, Special Agent McGee, welcome to Mexico. I wish I was welcoming you here under different circumstances."
"So, there hasn't been any sign of Gibbs?" Tony asked, with a frustrated sigh. "Or Mike Franks?"
"There has been no sign of either of them, I am sorry, Agent DiNozzo."
"Don't mind if we head out to Franks' house and poke around do you?"
"No, no suit yourself. Although, I do not know how much you are going to find. The house was destroyed by Bell's men."
Tony saw something flicker in Rivera's eyes and as McGee opened his mouth to say something, the senior field agent cut him off, "Have any idea where Colonel Bell is hiding out right now? I have orders to extradite him to the U.S to stand trial."
McGee shot his partner a funny look. They did have any orders of that kind. Vance wanted them to get Gibbs and get back to Washington safely. What was Tony playing at? Before he could get any answers, Rivera was ushering them into a car and driving them back to the Justice Department. Tony shot him a look that told him to kept his mouth shut and he would fill the younger agent in when they were alone.
At the Justice Department they were given the keys to a car and allowed to head out to the site of Mike Franks' house. Even then Tony didn't trust Rivera and didn't speak, like he was expecting the car to be bugged. Now, Tony had McGee's curiosity really peaked.
When they arrived at Franks' destroyed home, Tony parked the SUV and got out. McGee followed suit and headed off in the direction of the ruins. "So... are you not going to talk to me for the rest of this trip."
"I was worried Rivera was listening in on our conversation," Tony confessed.
"Why would he?" McGee asked, honestly.
"Never told him about our concerns about Colonel Bell. How did he know that?"
"Maybe he talked to Vance before we got here."
Tony shook his head. "No, Vance made it perfectly clear that he wasn't going to let it slip that we were here because of Bell. Didn't want to deal with all that messy foreign policy crap. He wanted to wait and lure Bell back to D.C so we could arrest him."
McGee felt a horde of uneasy feelings grasping him. "So... is Rivera in on this? Does he knew about Gibbs and Hernandez?"
"He knows. It was why he assigned that case to Abby."
"What do we do now?"
Tony checked his weapon and gestured towards the hoof trail. "We find Gibbs and end it."