Chp. 21

In contrast to the morning, the rest of the day had passed uneventfully for team Gibbs and Section Eight. The two groups's rotated watches and Jake went off watch for the second time at 2015 hours. He entered the bedroom he was sharing with his parents and Tony quietly, and laid down on his rack, glad for a few hours of rest. Sleep when you can, eat when you can, so you won't need to when you can't.

Just as his eyes closed, the door opened and it occurred to Jake that no one had been in the bed when he'd come in. He lay there and pretended to be asleep. He heard what sounded two people lay down on the bed. His mother and Tony, he guessed. "Shannon?" Tony asked, confirming Jake's suspicion.

"Yeah, honey?"

"Is Jake gonna kill my dad?"

Jake felt his veins turn to ice and wondered if his mother knew he was in the room. Jake mentally cursed in five different languages. He was pissed, at his mother and at himself. Why hadn't he just told the agency no? It wasn't like they couldn't have found someone else to do the job. He could have, and most definitely should have he saw now, cited conflict of interest. It might not have worked, but he could've at least tried. He'd tried to convince Mike initially, but he let himself be swayed by his sense of loyalty to the man, and that was a mistake. Then, the more he'd learned about his team's target, the more he'd wanted Dinozzo Senior's head on a spit. From the little he'd seen, Tony was a good kid and he didn't deserve to be marginalized and have his self worth questioned by a self centered egotist of a father who only saw him as a piece of property.

Mere feet away, Shannon fought to control her emotions. She wanted to kill Dinozzo herself, mostly to give Tony peace and make a futile 'too little, too late' attempt to assuage her own guilt. But she wasn't naïve enough to think she had what it took to kill someone. In a life or death situation to protect herself or her family, yes, she could. But she pictured Dinozzo dying by her son's hand, Jake standing over him, gun extended in his hand, the bastard cursing or begging and Jake not caring and….

She stopped herself. She couldn't allow herself to think of the child she and Jethro had created thirty six years earlier and nurtured and watched grow and mature, as a cold blooded killer. She simply couldn't! Instead, she forced herself to focus on Tony and his needs.

"Tony, sweetheart, your daddy…" Shannon sighed. She didn't know how to explain this. It wasn't as simple as child abuse and neglect, she knew that. The government wouldn't have green lighted a hit on Dinozzo Senior using four highly trained killers for something that, and she hated how jaded this sounded in own mind, that mundane.

"Your dad's not a nice man, kid." Said the dark lump in the corner. Both Tony and Shannon jumped. As her eyes adjusted, Shannon watched a figure sit up and recognized her son.

"But I'm guessing you already knew that." Jake continued.

"Doesn't mean you have to kill him.." Tony said, and both adults could tell he was crying.

"You'll have to take that up with the U.S. Government, I'm afraid." Jake said, his tone surprisingly gentle.

"What'll happen to me?" Tony asked, and the wall around Jake's heart cracked just a bit and the plaintive request.

"I don't know. Sorry, Kid." Jake said. Suddenly feeling like a bastard, he stood and left the room, Tony's sobs assaulting his ears.

When his buddies had asked him what the second B in Gibbs stood for, he'd said Bastard and they'd all thought it was hilarious. So it had become a running joke for his team, both in Special Forces, Delta and even Section Eight.

But, suddenly, Jake found the joke decidedly less funny.

000

Jake found his way to the back porch and found Ziva on watch. He suddenly craved a smoke, but resisted the urge to light one. "You look like you have the pressure of the world on your shoulders."

He didn't both to correct her mistake. "You could say that. I was in the rack and Tony and mom came to bed. I was still awake, and Tony asked mom if I was going to kill his father."

"And did you respond?" She asked, and he nodded.

"I said that his father wasn't a nice man, but that I suspected he already knew that. Tony said that didn't mean I had to kill him and I said he'd have to take that up with the U.S. Government and then he asked what would happen to him. I said that I didn't know and I was sorry." Jake said and they stood in silence for a minute, Ziva waiting patiently for him to continue. "Did my Dad tell you what the second B in Gibbs stands for?"

"Bastard, but you…"

He cut her off. "Yes, I am, Ziva. Tony's father might be a traitor, a pedophile and a hundred other things that make him worthy of eating a bullet. But Tony didn't need to know that. I…"

But the rest of his statement was drowned out by Ziva's mouth closing over his and pressing down hard. It surprised him at first, but it had been so long and it felt so good that he just decided to go with it.

000

A/N: I've rewritten this chapter about ten times, ten different ways. Didn't like 'em. I liked this one. Let me know what y'all think, please.