Leroy Jethro Gibbs was not a man to readily admit he was in trouble.
However.
If there had been someone handy to admit it to, now would be an acceptable time to make an exception.
Where the hell was DiNozzo?
Big doe eyes watched him patiently as the girl repeated herself once more. "All I want is my fiancée back. If you can just give me some little piece of information about where he is – a phone number, an address, even a city – then maybe we can take you home." She placed an imploring hand on his forearm. "That's all I want, Agent Gibbs. That's not such a bad thing to want, is it?"
He tried to be sincere in his response. "No, Siri, it's not. But he's dead. You saw him in our morgue. Do you remember that?"
"I saw some horribly mutilated man. Poor man… And I was upset. I was led to believe it was my fiancée. But I've had time to calm down, and think it over. It wasn't him. He's still coming back to me."
"He's dead. I promise you."
"No, I know he's alive. He would never die and leave me alone. Someone must be keeping him from me."
Right. This about the guy who had been engaged to at least three women at one time, and bilking money from the entire lot. Surely he would be the one to overcome death all for the love of one woman.
At some point in the past two years or so, Siri Albert had gone bat shit crazy.
"Siri, if you truly believe that, then you let me out of this chair and we'll go investigate together. I believe he is dead. But maybe you can convince me. Maybe we'll find something you can use to track him down." If truth wouldn't work with the crazy girl, maybe giving her some part of what she wanted would be the best way to handle this.
"I'm sorry Agent Gibbs. But I just can't believe that. You know something. You know where he is."
She rose daintily, wringing her hands together and pacing in front of him. Her face took on a mournful cast, and she pleaded, "Please talk to me. Give me something that can be checked. I can't let you up, let you go, until I know for sure you've been honest with me."
Gibbs kept silent.
There was a brief flash of something in her eyes, and then her face returned to the mournful look. "Oh, please tell me. It would make it so much easier for both of us."
She walked over to the coffeemaker, lifting out a fresh, full pot, and came towards him.
Coffee through a straw, perhaps? It sounded degrading.
It was worth a try.
But she didn't have a cup or straw in her hand. She didn't have anything else at all.
Gibbs had a very bad feeling about this.
Siri put the coffeepot down on the small wooden table next to him.
He let out a small internal sigh of relief.
She walked back to the fridge, taking a ruffled peach apron off of a hook, and tied it around her waist. Then she walked back to Gibbs, picked up the coffeepot, and started pouring.
First on his right wrist. Slowly up to his elbow, then back down to his wrist again.
Damn. This girl was certainly not trained in torture techniques. There were any number of implements in this kitchen that could have been used much more effectively. And a hot beverage was hardly the worst thing this Marine had encountered in his life.
Her big (crazy) eyes stared into his as she moved the angle of the pot over, so the coffee splashed onto his right knee, and onto his foot and ankle.
His muscles tensed as the steamy stuff moved up his thigh, approaching territory he'd rather not burn, thank you.
The pot ran out.
Unfortunately, the coffee had soaked through his clothes, and the burn continued in intensity since it was just sitting there without being washed away.
Out of ammo, she leaned over and pressed the bottom of the hot coffeepot into the back of his hand.
Yeah, she had no idea what she was doing.
But that didn't make it any less painful.
DiNozzo checked the clock. Vance's five minutes started now, and once they were up he was outta here. He was antsy with the knowledge that the team must have something more by now, even if he himself wasn't there to help the investigation at the moment.
Five minutes.
Not a second more. And he begrudged even these. He was on a case. This was throwing off the focus he was delicately hanging on to.
He needed to find Gibbs, dammit.
If Vance knew what was what, he could get just about any piece of information he wanted out of Tony just now. Five minutes of honesty in return for being left alone to pursue this case as it needed to be pursued. With single-minded, wholehearted wild intensity.
Wherever Gibbs was, he wasn't in good shape. He wouldn't just sit around, waiting for his team to rescue him. He'd be pissing off his captors, trying to escape, provoking everyone and every situation.
Five minutes…
Vance was annoyed. Displeased. Put out.
And, if he was honest with himself, indecisive about what to do. And possibly intrigued. You couldn't get straight answers out of anyone in this damned place, especially Gibbs' little posse. Five minutes of straight answers might be a nice change of pace.
But damn DiNozzo for making his own director feel like he wasn't the one in charge. Maybe the senior field agent wasn't the right choice to lead this investigation. Maybe it should be given over to a cooler mind. Maybe he should take it over himself.
Except Leon wasn't stupid. If he benched DiNozzo, he'd lose David and McGee, as well. And Scuito and Mallard wouldn't be far behind.
Again, he cursed Gibbs for managing to tie the best computer hacker, the best forensic scientist and the only medical examiner NCIS had so tightly to himself.
He eyed DiNozzo. Given the pattern, David and DiNozzo must excel in some arena as well. Ziva, perhaps in sheer physicality – in tracking, fighting, planning an attack. DiNozzo, though, did not have such skills.
"Why you?" The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them.
Damn. Now that he had engaged, he had best play this out as best he could.
"Why me what?"
Vance wanted to shove the leg DiNozzo had swung over the arm of the chair back onto the floor. It felt rather emasculating to want to slap someone so much. Shouldn't he want to punch him? But slapping him just sounded so very satisfying.
"Why are you on Gibbs' team? Why do you keep coming back to each other, over and over again? Why was it you that he wanted back so urgently when I split up the team; not David or McGee, but you? What's so special about you that he can't do without?"
"I'm sure he can do without me. He's just used to me." DiNozzo shrugged. "Easier to keep me around than train in a newbie."
Vance was startled. Was the jerk being modest now? He sounded sincere. He tried a slightly different tact. "How did Gibbs pick each of you?"
DiNozzo seemed somewhat startled at the line of questioning himself, and willingly replied, "Abby he saw at her interview here; I wasn't here yet but I'm told he talked with her for about an hour and then told Morrow we had to have her. Morrow usually listened to Gibbs, when Gibbs bothered to make a recommendation. Me, we worked a case together and he had just lost a couple agents. I was ready to move on, he needed someone, seemed like a good fit. McGee we ran into a few times on other cases, and it was clear we needed another tech expert. Abby couldn't keep doing all the forensics and all the e-geek stuff, so we tried him out a few times and added him on."
Vance got the sense that he wasn't getting all there was to get. "What are you not telling me?"
DiNozzo shrugged again. "Maybe adding McGee was a little more my idea than Gibbs to start with. But he was a good kid, and Gibbs came around pretty fast once Tim actually worked on a few cases with us."
Vance didn't want to hear this. He didn't like it. "And Ziva?"
"Gibbs never actually picked Ziva. Jenny assigned her to our team shortly after – shortly after we lost an agent."
It did not escape his notice that this field agent referred to his previous director by her first name. "That's strange. Ziva's file doesn't indicate she was assigned by Sheppard."
"I don't know everything that happened then. We all had other things on our mind when we first met. But Gibbs took to her rather quickly, whatever the reason. Almost everyone did."
Vance raised an eyebrow, inquiring.
"Abby resisted Ziva's charms for a while. It was interesting to watch, at times. Sometimes it was just…tense. Ziva wore her down eventually. But if those two had really formed a rivalry, I'm not too sure who would have been the victor in the end." A brief flash of a real grin accompanied this last, as though this was not the first time DiNozzo had enjoyably imagined that scenario.
This wasn't getting him any closer to what he wanted.
"Dr. Mallard has said multiple times within my hearing that you and Gibbs are peas in the same pod. I can't say I see the similarities. Do you?"
DiNozzo swung his other leg over the arm of the chair and leaned back, as though emulating being on a shrink's couch.
"Yes and no. Gibbs and I are very different people, I agree. We have very different backgrounds. At heart, he's a marine and I'm a cop. Certainly our daily demeanors are polar opposites. But my guess is that Ducky means we're both stubborn asses who have a bad habit of disregarding certain rules and procedures if they infringe on a case."
Vance grunted.
"I don't just mean those kinds of rules. I mean things like ignoring medical advice, or refusing medical care. Ducky sees that kind of stuff from both of us and he's not a big fan." He continued more slowly, "I suppose we're also tenacious when it comes to work. We may have a lot of outward dissimilarities, but our work is the most important thing in either of our lives. So…" He gestured outwards with his hands and furrowed his brow, apparently unable to articulate the rest of his point.
This still wasn't getting him anything useful. And his damned five minutes were almost up.
"Forget why Gibbs keeps you here. Why do you stay? There must have been opportunities for advancement. If you don't feel like you can speak on Gibbs' behalf, at least speak on your own."
"Director Sheppard offered me some other positions when Gibbs came back from his Mexican hiatus. Didn't feel like leaving the team."
Vance stared. Clearly that answer was half-assed.
DiNozzo gave in. "She offered me some really good positions, actually. Lead in Rota was the only one that made my head turn."
Rota? This guy didn't jump at the chance to lead his own team? In Rota?
"Look, it's not an easy thing to explain, this team. Half the people around here think I'm Gibbs' dog. And that's okay. I don't care that they think that. But it's not exactly accurate. I don't always obey. Probably half the rest of them think our team stays together because we've formed our own little dysfunctional family. And they're right in a way. This team feels like a home. But people do leave home. Family's not the only reason we stick."
DiNozzo looked uncomfortable. Finally.
"I think the rest of the office thinks that I in particular stay from some sort of masochism – that I like being tortured by Gibbs. But that's stupid. I would never stay somewhere I felt unwanted, or abused, or…" He trailed off, and rubbed a hand across his bottom lip several times. Vance had seen that habit in the man before, though he was still unclear exactly what it indicated.
He continued in a quieter voice. "I am capable of leading my own team. I am capable of working as a solo agent." He paused again. "Have you ever completely trusted someone, director? And I do mean completely trusted someone? I didn't even know that existed before I met Gibbs."
DiNozzo stood.
"Five minutes is up. And Gibbs is trusting me to find him."
"What makes you so sure of that?"
"Director, if you have to ask me that question then you've never really trusted anyone either."
And with that, a sober Anthony DiNozzo strode out of the director's office and returned to his team.
You are all very undemanding readers; besides demands to update more quickly, I had very few requests! I tried a bit of hurt Gibbs which made me wince to write, but there are so many things in the kitchen a crazy kid could turn to...who knows what'll pop up next. And what the hell is Vance's problem, anyway?
I've decided to follow the majority rule based upon your comments, and focus on updating quickly, whether or not I am pleased with the chapter. You guys seem to like 'em okay, and that is the most important part.