A/N: Thanks to people for reviewing and faving. I do appreciate the support and feedback.
Just to clarify Angry Guest, the plot for this story was written last year. I rarely if ever write anything that doesn't already have a detailed story outline – I'm not one of the go with the flow types, nor do I write or more to the point, rewrite based upon other people's opinions, with the exception of a very select few who have earned my trust. What people need to understand is that for every person such as yourself who doesn't want to know what is going on with other characters, I'll get plenty of other people begging to know what is happening in great detail. That being the case, an author really can't win, so as the Rick Nelson song Garden Party advises - 'See you… can't please everyone so you… got to please yourself'. I respect you have an opinion and defend your right to hold it, so please don't think this is a smack down, simply me pointing out to you that I spend a long time developing plots for my stories. I don't make them up on the fly nor to appeal to or annoy certain groups – not intentionally. And while it may not be apparent to others where I am going while I'm writing, everything serves a purpose which I've meticulously plotted months ago.
So if you only want to read about Tony, well I can live with that – you like what you like. Still I'm going to be upfront with you and say this isn't a story that you'll enjoy, none of my stories are. I don't write those sort of stories since they're not what I enjoy writing, so why would I spend hundreds of hours working on something I don't enjoy? I'd suggest to you to go and find another Tony-centric author and not in a flip you the bird sort of way, because that would be petty. But see the problem is Tony stories are becoming few and far between thanks to the constant barrage of flames from Tony haters, so personally I think we should be supportive of Tony writers, or at least not attack them if we don't agree with them. Of course the second alternative is to start writing your own stories and that way you can write what you prefer to read. It's probably why many of us started to write in the first place and we can always do with new blood.
I Shouldn't Have To
Chapter 25 Little Chapel By The Sea
Tony was at his desk working late almost a week after his return from DC and he'd been waiting somewhat patiently for the director to get back to him about his request to SecNav about Emma's surprise. He was hoping to pull this off – it would make his fiancée happy and making her happy made him happy too. Okay so that sounded totally sappy but it was the truth, nevertheless.
Besides Emma had her heart set on a wedding in an intimate chapel by the sea and it was pretty much the only thing she'd been set upon. So when she hadn't been able to find one that fit the bill in New York or that wasn't booked out, she hadn't thrown an enormous tantrum, pouted or going all bridzilla on him. Nope, she'd simply shrugged and started looking at alternative venues with an aplomb that probably stemmed from the fact that in her profession, she knew that sweating the small stuff was a waste of time and energy.
She told Tony that her dream wedding wasn't in a seaside chapel, it was getting married to the man she loved and who she'd thought she was going to lose in Milan. Tony knew he didn't deserve her – for a lot of reasons but since she refused to let him push her away and he'd finally accepted it, he'd embrace her gratefully and graciously. So it grieved him that something as simple as getting married in an intimate little chapel by the sea was out of her reach. He'd started doing some research and scheming – figuring the old adage where there's a will there's a way applied to this situation too. If he could make it through the cancer treatment then he could find a way to make this happen too.
One of Tony's strengths had always been his problem solving ability and it was this intelligence and creativity that he employed to find a way to make his fiancée's dream come true. He became engrossed in the search for wedding destinations that had seaside wedding chapels – many of them purpose built. The most spectacular places were overseas, many in exotic tourist destinations such as Thailand, Bali, Fiji, Australia, Montego Bay, Bora Bora and the Maldives - which was a favourite destination for Senior which took the gloss off that particular one and he crossed it hurriedly off the maybe list. He found several on picturesque Greek Isles and remembering the idyllic week they'd spent there following his remission after the drug trials, he'd thought it was an absolutely perfect place to get married.
The only problem was that most of the churches were Greek Orthodox and well…they weren't, obviously. Tourists generally were forced to have their wedding ceremonies conducted outside the actual chapels, granted with breath taking views of whitewashed chapels against the blue of the Aegean Sea. Totally picture postcard photographic opportunities for wedding photos but it didn't quite meet the brief he'd set for himself. Emma had wanted a wedding in a church, not outside it. He did discover one particular seaside chapel that was Roman Catholic and would let tourists get married there as long as they were of the faith and that was a problem, too.
Emma was Catholic but contrary to what most people assumed, he wasn't. This was a good illustration of Jethro Gibbs' Rule 8 – never assume. People saw only his name DiNozzo and leapt to the conclusion that coming from a good Italian family, of course he was Catholic but they would be wrong. Tony was half English on his mother's side and his mother's family came from very serious money – North Sea Oil money. Bottom line, they were filthy rich, extremely bigoted bluebloods.
Tony still wasn't sure, despite Senior's declaration that his mother was the love of Anthony Senior's life if that was indeed the truth. He suspected rather cynically, that a good deal of her allure had been that she was a young, very beautiful and an exceedingly rich father threatened her with disinheritance following her engagement if she converted to Catholicism, married in a RC Church or raised any children as anything other than Anglican and Senior agreed. Tony figured that spoke volumes about what was really important to him.
His Uncle Clive had explained to him in the summer of his seventeenth year when he stayed with him, that his grandfather felt that his daughter Arabella Paddington was shirking her birthright in not keeping the family's blood line pure by marrying an Italian. To 'adulterate' it further by converting to Catholicism was simply a step beyond the pale for him to countenance, hence the threat to disinherit her. According to his maternal grandfather, it seemed that even though the offspring of their union didn't carry the Paddington surname, they still had half of their Paddington genes and he wouldn't stand for it.
Tony figured that both families, in their own way, were as bigoted as each other since he was also looked down on by the DiNozzos because Senior hadn't married a proper Italian wife. Tony was used to being ostracized at snooty, prep boarding schools by his peers, taunting him and telling him to go back to Parochial School where he belonged with all the other wops. The rich WASPs looked down him and so did the Italians. Even before Senior disowned him, he never felt like he fit in anywhere but none of that was relevant to the current situation, except that it seemed to rule out them getting married in Greece.
There were several closer options in Mexico that he thought Emma would like, with gorgeous views and stunning blue waters but they were also situated in resorts where there would be a lot of tourists and both of them had wanted to keep their wedding small, intimate and private. Having a lot of strangers around, even if they didn't attend the actual ceremony, gawking at them would take away from the intimacy and make it feel like a circus.
There were other options in the US, in Florida, Georgia and the South Carolina Coastline but none were exactly right. He chuckled, since when did I turn into Goldilocks? Tony had even found several absolutely stunning seaside chapels in Hawaii that were magnificent. Perfection really, but something in him baulked at the notion of getting married in Hawaii, beautiful as it was.
He supposed it was because it was where Senior had forgotten him - left his twelve year old self alone in the hotel for two days after dragging him there on a business trip. Tony had always made it sound as if it had been a huge joke when he recounted the trip to the team but in truth, it had been a traumatic event that he'd never really gotten over or forgotten. Especially since within months of being abandoned in the tropical paradise, his father disowned him and packed him of to military school. Both events were traumatic and painful and became inexorably associated in his memories and he couldn't imagine getting married there even if it was paradise.
So in the end he hadn't found anything that was either doable in the time they had or exactly what they wanted. Until he stumbled upon it and it seemed perfect but he would need some assistance to pull it off. A year ago, the idea of asking someone for help would have him hyperventilating in a panic but he was okay these days with admitting he needed help. Cancer has a way of sweeping away stubborn DiNozzo pride when you couldn't even take a shower by yourself without collapsing in a heap. Asking for help to make Emma's dream come true was simply a no brainer.
Yep so he might owe favours to some people but looking at the chapel it was going to be well worth it. Emma's eyes would pop out of her head when she saw it…well if he could make it work. So he decided right then that failure was simply not an option. That had been before he'd agreed to return to DC and clean up the mess with Ziva David for the SecNav and the director. Wimps, the pair of them but convenient timing for a quid pro quo favour. Yep the gods were definitely smiling on him.
Deciding that all the planets had aligned, while he was in DC he went to see Leon Vance to explain in person his little problem, hitting the director up for a second week of unpaid leave for their honeymoon, which he'd been given. Plus he'd also had the director ask Sarah Porter if Tony could use her private jet to fly his team and Emma out for the wedding. He'd been politically savvy enough to invite SecNav and Leon, plus his kids to the wedding as a carrot. All he was waiting on was word about if he had the go ahead to use the Gulfstream so the Team could come too, since they only were cleared for a four day weekend.
Now he was impatiently waiting to book the chapel, but he was getting a little bit antsy. He'd made a cogent case for utilising the government owned resource that he thought was creative but rational. He didn't understand what was taking her so long to reach a decision. How hard could it be – yay or nay?
Meanwhile he was finishing up the report for the case they'd closed today and making sure they'd properly documented everything so there was no way an expensive lawyer could cry foul over anything the team had done. It had been a tough one, investigating a number of sexual assaults at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. It had been one of those delicate investigations that they hated since several persons of interest were International Students from the Staff Naval College. It had required extreme discretion to discover the rapist without ruffling too many International feathers in the process. The longshot was that the perp was a Colonel from one of their South East Asian allies who'd decided that American females were loose and asking for it.
Tony and his team had determined who was responsible and collected the evidence required to gain a conviction but he'd been told not to arrest the perp until after The Powers That Be had been consulted. The complicating factor other than the fact he was a high ranking officer in someone else's military was that in the course of their investigation, his team had also discovered that the Colonel had links to a terrorist cell they'd uncovered in New York. Now Tony was getting his ducks in a row in anticipation of an MTAC call to Leon where he knew they would want to know everything. He knew from previous experience Vance would call him out if his report was incomplete in the slightest detail, plus he was preparing to be the advocate for the female rape victims so their voices got heard and not lost in the 'BIGGER" pictire.
Finally, during the hook-up he delivered a succinct sit rep of the case as it stood. The video conference call included both SecNav and Sec Def as well as Leon. They listened to the report and the questions and answers between the director and his agetnt and said little, apart from stating emphatically that they would need to take this higher up the food chain before a receiving a decision on how best to proceed. Tony acknowledged this fact but pointed out to them that the rapist was escalating and his last victim had been severely beaten. Tony was concerned that the decision would be made to watch him to see if they could locate more terrorists. The ME and himself were anxious that a woman was overdue to be killed if the rapist continued the current level of escalation and they failed to act.
SecNav Porter and the Secretary of Defence Geoffrey Collier didn't like it but they acknowledged what he was saying. They had a duty of care to protect all of the female personnel who worked at the college, military or not, not just focusing on catching more terrorists. As much as they tried to depersonalise the issue by referring to the victims' collectively and generically (which Tony took as a bad sign) he made sure to speak about each of them singularly and by name. He presented before and after shots to remind the politicians that they were living breathing survivors even though he feared if they didn't stop the monster that the next one wouldn't survive.
After SecDef had signed off to go and read OHS in on the situation, Sarah Porter sighed then swiftly changed the subject.
"I hear that you want to borrow my plane Special Agent DiNozzo? I must say I appreciate your wedding invitation and I would love to attend. As you pointed out I'm yet to visit that particular naval base – should take a few days of inspection at least to be thorough, which I have always prided myself on being. I decided that your team will act as protection for the director and myself since they will be there already. That's if I have your permission to borrow them."
Tony grinned. He'd organised for his team to have Thursday and Friday off so Porter was basically giving them an extra three days. Hopefully the others who were coming from NCIS would be able to swing a couple more days as well. If not it was still doable.
"Have at it Madam Secretary but two into three agents won't go. Perhaps a couple of agents from DC who are also attending might consent to join the party," He suggested innocently.
Vance coughed, unsuccessfully hiding a chuckle. "Send me an email with suggestions, Special Agent DiNozzo. I'll handle the logistics."
"I trust you're not planning on getting hitched on Base after all this hoopla, Tony. I'm looking forward to putting on some glad rags, so I'm expecting a good spread." SecNav cautioned.
Tony chuckled and pulled out his phone and sent her the link to the website for the seaside chapel and Cc'ed it to Vance too. "Hope it meets with your approval, Madam Secretary."
"Oh my, it's really exquisite. Quite a romantic aren't you, Tony?"
"Glad you like it and I try. Now all I have to do is get Emma's boss to grant her an extra week's leave and everything will fall into place. Ducky's got a friend, some medico who invented a revolutionary endoscopic surgical device or something – became a billionaire. Anyhoo… the guy owes him one and is going lend our Dr Mallard his Bombardier BD 700 Global Express to fly there. Seats 19 but if we need any more butts on seats, can NCIS staff hop a military transport?" Tony asked, not sure if it would be needed since they were not invited a crowd but wanting to be prepared just in case.
Vance whistled. "Nice! That's some favour. Is there anyone Ducky doesn't know?"
Tony nodded his agreement. Ducky seemed to know everyone and if he didn't then he knew someone who knew someone.
The SecNav grinned. "That shouldn't be a problem if it's required, Agent DiNozzo, especially since the naval base shares its location with the Air Force. I'm definitely going to need a new outfit for this, maybe some new shoes. Be in touch. Good job."
Tony smirked; that personal titbit was not something that Jarvis or Davenport were likely to share over the video link but then again, there's no way he'd have dreamed of inviting either one of the former SecNavs to his wedding, even if he did have an ulterior motive for issuing the invitation. He liked Sarah Porter – so far she hadn't tried to screw with him and that earned her a whole lotta brownie points in his book.
Vance signed off too and Tony went home but not before calling Emma's supervisor to secure a second week of unpaid leave. Mission accomplished he indulged in some juvenile fist pumping – now he could confirm the booking for the chapel, which he did immediately. Tomorrow they could begin planning where to spend their extra week of honeymoon. They could fly back with SecNav on the gulfstream and head off from the States or head straight off from their wedding to somewhere local. He'd leave their destination up to his better half - he was all out of planning inspiration and it hadn't been that big a deal to either of them.
He headed home, calling Emma to let her know he was running a bit late but on his way and that they were going out for dinner. He'd booked a table at an Italian mom and pop style eatery that had great Mediterranean style cooking and seafood they'd discovered not long after their arrival and had quickly become a favourite. Even over the phone he could tell something was up with her, even on the phone she seemed a bit distracted. Getting home, he discovered that SecNav's answer ,had come just in the nick of time to save his ass.
Emma had opened a refund cheque from the reception venue in New York today, less the deposit of course. Oops! Tony had already gone ahead as soon as they returned from DC and cancelled the reception and the church in anticipation that SecNav would agree, since he'd given her an excellent reason to fly out there anyway. Luckily his gamble had paid off but he wasn't completely crazy. He'd made contingency plans for a wedding ceremony in Georgia on a private island if need be. Luckily that wouldn't be needed now.
After they ordered dinner, deciding to share an entrée of calamari and also ordered seafood mains since Tony mostly tried to follow a Mediterranean style diet – he decided not to prolong her suffering any longer. Pulling out his smart phone, he called up the website for the Crystal Chapel and handed it across to Emma whose eyes nearly popped out of her head as she watched the video. Personally, he thought the emo music was more than a touch overdone and if he hadn't seen the stills first, it might have been enough to turn him off the place. But then again, he doubted the video was aimed at mere males – Emma didn't seem to want to puke after watching it. Must be a Venus/Mars thing.
"That's why I cancelled the reception and the church. I wanted to give you your seaside chapel wedding since I wouldn't be here if you hadn't bullied me into fighting. I hope you like it." He kissed her chastely on the cheek since she was looking stunned. He hoped it was a good stunned.
When she finally found her voice she asked, "Where is that? I've never seen it before.'
"It's on Guam - an island in Micronesia in the South Pacific. It's an unincorporated territory of the United States and home to the Chamorro's people, the indigenous population who have inhabited it for 4000 years. It also houses a strategic U.S. naval base and is home to Submarine Squadron 15, the U.S Coastguard and it is the home base to dozens of Pacific Command units that include: United States Pacific Fleet and Seventh Fleet.
" SecNav Porter is going to coincide an inspection of the naval base with our wedding and authorised the rest of my team plus a couple of other agents from our guest list to act as her and Director Vance's protection detail during the trip. We're flying over on SecNav's gulfstream and our guests primarily are getting flown over by private jet, too. If they won't all fit then NCIS personnel can hop a military flight - since the Naval Base is also a joint one with the Air Force."
Emma had totally lost the harried look she'd worn since learning about the cancellations, even the stunned look was fading fast. In its place was what Tony decided that the romance writers would probably describe as radiant happiness. All he knew was that his normally pretty fiancée was lit up with an inner glow that easily made her the most beautiful woman in New York.
"How did you manage this?" She queried incredulously before kissing him enthusiastically, making explanations all but impossible since there was nothing at all chaste about her kisses. Certainly it wasn't possible to carry out a conversation and if her behaviour was anything to go by, Tony figured he was going to be getting very little sleep tonight. Even if it was a so called school night, he didn't give a damn that he'd be heading into the office tomorrow sleep deprived. It seemed he'd hit a home run with his surprise and made her happy and that made it all worthwhile.
By the time that their entrée was served, she was all but sitting in his lap and Tony was more than a little flustered. Of the two she was much more inclined to indulge in personal displays of affection in public bordering on raunchy since Tony was definitely not accustomed to expressing real emotions and tended to be more reticent when others were around. Their server, Delphine who was also the owner smile coyly at them, having adopted the pair who usually come in to eat a couple of times each month. Putting their pan seared calamari down in the middle of the table so that both of them could share, she quipped that it was as well they hadn't ordered the oysters, before sashaying off chuckling. Well as much as a stout, middle aged Italian mama could be described as sashaying, he supposed.
As they discussed the island and the accommodation options, Emma's smile refused to dim. By the time Tony had announced that he'd managed to get them a second week of leave, albeit unpaid, and he broached the topic of honeymoon destinations, she was high on happiness. He pointing out that they could head out to the Greek Isles, Europe or someplace in the Caribbean or they could head off to Fiji, Thailand, Bali or the Barrier Reef in Australia which were all just a hop, skip and a jump away from Guam.
Emma seemed dazed by the subject and Tony told her to think about it and decide so they could organise accommodation and flights. Judging by her expression when he'd mentioned heading off somewhere from Guam he had a feeling that he'd needing board shorts, shades and sunblock. It would make for pretty light packing but he was finding it hard to focus on the finer details ever since she murmured in his ear that he was getting really lucky tonight. He knew what that meant alright - Emma was probably going to be donning her French maid outfit and her barely there underwear.
When people found out that he was living with a nurse, there'd be much ribbing and suggestive comments. Often when he'd leave the office at night he'd get asked if he was going home to play doctors and nurses with his fiancée? Emma fortunately understood his horror at anything faintly resembling medical procedures and hospitals and since she rather enjoyed role play had bought a naughty French maid's outfit – not that she was ever in it for very long. Yep, he was a lucky guy.
I Shouldn't Have To
Two months later:
McGee sat alone in a darkened apartment getting progressively drunker. When he'd received notification that the corporation were planning to make 12 episodes plus a two hour pilot into a weekly TV show he'd been horrified and kept pinching himself, believing it had to be a nightmare. Unfortunately his lawyer confirmed it was very real. He'd just returned from an appointment and been told the bad news that the contract he's signed for the film rights to his book Deep Six had indeed contained a clause that included an option to turn it into an ongoing television series. There was nothing he could do to prevent it going ahead except remember to get a real lawyer to read any contract he signed next time, he been told portentously by his legal representative.
They'd outline a few changes that were planned for the series – that was in addition to the wholesale massacre they'd already carried out on the book, including the title for the show which at the moment stood at 'The NCIS Family' or 'The Tibblets.' Seems that they weren't satisfied with the saccharine sweet rewriting of the characters they'd already done. No... now they'd decided they needed a chaplain to appease certain interest groups and picked the McGregor character to be it.
McGregor was no longer a field agent, he was a computer IT genius with a theological degree gained whilst at MIT in his spare time. He mostly wandered around the set, spouting off homespun homilies and quoting scripture at everyone. McGregor was no longer bad ass although to be fair, no one was, which was kinda the problem with Abby and Tibbs um Gibbs, even the term 'piss tests' had been censored to become 'pee test.' How ridiculous was that, plus they'd decided that Pimmy Jalmer should be anglicised into a WASP character called Jimmy Palmer and given a significantly larger part as the comic relief. He wasn't just recurring cast but now was in the opening credits.
This was bad – really, really bad. Was Jimmy going to make trouble about the name change? Not as if he could get blood out of a stone and Tim was all tapped out. His lawyer said he'd approach the producers about the name change, suggest they avoid a law suit by going with Jack Palmer or Jamie Chalmers. He warned there'd be financial repercussions from this mess, and suggested the next time he wrote a book to be a bit more creative with character names. Tim didn't appreciate the patronising lecture.
He'd barely weathered the fallout from the telemovie but a weekly TV show? Gibbs would kill him if even if Abby or Jimmy didn't. He envisaged endless hours of dumpster diving and gassing of the truck, bagging and tagging twice the normal average crime scene perimeters, especially when they got cases in Rock Creek Part or downtown alleys. He didn't want to think about ways Gibbs could torture him in the gym or on the firing range – resolving to carry a cheap throw away phone with him on visits to the range so he didn't end up shooting his smart phone.
If only Delilah was here with him so that she would help take his mind of his woes but she was pouting. Everyone in the office had been all abuzz with excitement about DiNozzo's stupid wedding when she'd stopped by the office for lunch earlier than week. Since her return they often ate together and it was most definitely a case of really bad timing running into them. Ducky, Jimmy, Balboa, and that grumpy shrew Delores Bromstead had been invited but not one of Tony's former team mates. Delilah had been alternating between pleading and haranguing Tim to make peace with Tony ever since Tony started being mentioned around the various alphabet water coolers as being Director Vance's eventual successor and pick for the job.
Delilah had been pissed at him for blurting out about her making fun of DiNozzo with her girlfriends, telling Tim several times how stupid he'd been not to bite his tongue. She urged him to apologise to him and renew their friendship. Tim had refused, not being able to move past the fact that DiNozzo had cost him the senior field agent position he'd coveted, basically since he joined the team. That he'd earned but lost just because five damned years ago he'd turned off a radio when he got tired of listening to DiNozzo's drivel when he was collecting voice prints for comparison in a swanky gated community.
Talk about an overreaction. It had been a joke; nothing bad had happened to the prima donna, apart from losing his voice because he was such a motor mouth. Even his voice had clearly been pissed off with having to spend so much time with the incredibly annoying agent and decided to take a vacation. There was no way McGee was apologising to him since Tony should be the one offering an apology – screw Rule 6. He'd become a pariah and an object of mirth in the office, all thanks to DiNozzo.
Delilah had calculatedly pointed out that if he had any hope of salvaging the career he'd invested over a decade in, then he really needed to just bite the bullet and repair his relationship with DiNozzo. If speculation about Vance's successor was correct, there was an excellent chance that he could be Tim's boss one day and it was the smart, the politically expedient thing to do. She also told him he was damned lucky not to have lost his job after he and Ziva David stopped listening to DiNozzo during a domestic terrorism case. That he'd clearly chosen the wrong partner to side with since Ziva stiffed him for the surety he paid to get her out on bail. Yeah she was pissed about the money they'd lost.
He'd ignored the advice, even knowing that what Delilah said made good sense. He just kept thinking that if DiNozzo had been a friend, he'd have kept his big mouth shut. Tim would be the senior field agent now and with Gibbs battling to hold on as SSA, McGee would be staring down the barrel of getting the job he really wanted. After a decade he should be leading his own team.
When Delilah heard Ellie and Palmer discussing the details of DiNozzo's wedding and going gaga over photos of the wedding venue, she'd reacted badly. Okay so he had to admit it was like something out of a fairy tale and with the wedding was taking place on a pacific island, she was pissed… mightily. She claimed that they could have been heading off as guests too if he'd done what she wanted, swallowed his pride and apologised.
Jimmy had been childishly excited about flying to Guam aboard the private jet of some billionaire buddy of Ducky's. He'd also let slip in Delilah's presence that the bride and groom were flying to Guam aboard the SecNav's gulfstream, along with his team, Sarah Porter and Leon Vance. Delilah had been furious and she still wasn't talking to him.
I Shouldn't Have To
Abby was sitting in her lab, hugging Bert for comfort. She'd blown it big time. Ever since Tony had left them she'd tried to fix things between them. Admittedly, some of her attempts had been less than smart, she concluded, thinking of the foolish plan to bring Ziva home so that their Gibblet family would be reunited. That had turned into nothing short of a disaster. Still Abby took heart that when Tony came home to DC to read the riot act to Ziva and Gibbs since scuttlebutt had it that he'd told Gibbs to take his job and stick it where the sun didn't reach, he hadn't ripped her or Timmy new ones. Perhaps all was not lost and she could mend fences with him.
She'd sent a congratulatory card acknowledging his engagement but otherwise had respected his need to maintain his distance. Ducky had even broached taking her to the wedding as his plus one since he knew how much she missed Tony. Tony had called her one Sunday, stating if she was to be invited then Emma wanted an assurance that she not try to outshine the bride. She wanted understated elegance, an intimate ceremony and reception and had vetoed guests wearing black, leather or over the top outfits. Abby thought that Emma seemed rather anal and controlling but had decided that she would wear a Barbie doll outfit if it meant that she had a chance to repair their relationship.
She really should have heeded the warning when she asked about Anthony Senior attending the wedding by Tony's growled. "Just drop it Abby. I've got to go. I'll talk to you before the wedding." And hung up.
Still Abby couldn't let it go. Anthony Senior was so much like Tony, handsome, suave and could charm the pants of anyone he wanted, but he was old and alone and that was just so sad. Who knows how much time Tony's dad had left but she knew with every fibre of her being that when he was gone, Tony would regret not inviting him to the wedding. She'd give everything that she owned to be able to spend just one more day with her own father; she had to save him from himself. Bitterness over past mistakes would just lead to more tears and guilt when it was too late to reconcile.
Besides, Senior seemed nothing like the stories Tony had let slip over the years. He might not have been Father of the Year but he was hardly the devil incarnate, either. Tony did have a tendency towards being a bit of a prima donna and Abby suspected that much of Tony's grievances were inside his head. So she called Senior to let him know that Tony was getting married.
"Abby, to what do I owe this great pleasure?" She shivered a little at the way Senior accented the word pleasure. Not sure how she felt about being aroused by Tony's dad although she had to admit that he'd almost charmed the pants off her on several occasions. She was after all attracted to older men – always had been – even Gibbs, which was just plain hinky since she saw him as a father figure.
"Well we haven't really talked for a while, not since Tony went into remission and came home. And I thought you might like to know that he's engaged to a Former Navy Lieutenant, Emma Ingham."
"You're a real doll, lovely lady. I appreciate you thinking of me but Junior already informed me. He was wanting to borrow some of his mother's jewellery for the wedding – a diamond choker and matching earrings plus the tiara Arabella wore on her wedding day."
"Oh that's awesome. She'll make a beautiful bride, I can't wait to see her dress and tiara," Abby gushed.
"I'm afraid you won't be seeing it Abby. I told him I sold all his mother's jewellery after I disowned him, when he was twelve and used the money to build a resort at Vail."
Abby felt as if someone had karate chopped her in the solar plexus. Tony had said once or twice that his father disowned him and sent him away to school but she'd thought he'd exaggerated or made it up. Especially after meeting the 'Real Anthony DiNozzo.'
"OMG how could you do that, Tony? He was just a little boy."
"Oh don't fret that pretty little head of yours, my dear. You'll end up with wrinkles. I didn't sell my wife's jewellery, I may have been drunk back then but not that drunk. I just didn't want to lend them to that gold digger he's marrying. She's a nurse you know, not worthy of the DiNozzo name. This is what comes of him working in a job below his station I knew he would end up in the gutter.
"I told him he should dump her and marry Ziva. She comes from quite a wealthy family, even if they are nouveau riche. She inherited her father's estate recently. Quite the catch and although she's a Jewish she isn't practising, so I'm sure she'd convert to Christianity for the sake of any Anthony Juniors." Senior enthused.
"I meant, how could you disown your own son, a little boy, especially one that had lost his mother?" Abby spat, her teeth gritted to keep from cussing him out as only a Louisiana gal could when she belatedly realised that Senior wasn't as bad as Tony had always hinted…he was a hell of a lot worse.
Senior really was a monster, all dressed up in his nice clothes who'd charmed them all…fooled them and they were supposed to be crack investigators. Now she was going to be scrapping egg off her face for the foreseeable future, thinking of all the earnest lectures she'd delivered to Tony about making peace with Senior. Ever since Senior started turning up at NCIS and embarrassing Tony in front of his work mates.
Abby defended Emma to Senior, although she barely remembered her from those dark days in Bethesda when they almost lost Tony to the plague. Still she obviously made him happy and that should be all he was concerned about. Unfortunately, while defending Emma to Senior, she'd also let slip that Ziva was currently incarcerated and facing some serious time in jail for her exploits and not such a good catch after all. And that proved to be a fatal error since Senior had started using his influence to have the charges dropped and Tony heard about it and confronted him. They'd had a bitter argument with their Tony (except he wasn't theirs anymore) telling his father if he thought Ziva would make such a good wife then he should ask her to marry him.
Of course Senior dropped Abby in it about how he'd come to learn about Ziva's situation and Tony immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion, thinking that Abby had been trying to interfere and have Ziva set free. That or stop his marriage to Emma. He'd been mad, so mad but in a scarily, icy cold way that was worse than being yelled at. She'd tried to explain but she couldn't blame him since she'd been the one responsible for calling Ziva back to DC in the first place. It made sense that he would think she was trying to free her but to be honest, even if he had believed that she wasn't siding with her, the alternative wasn't a whole lot better.
She'd been arrogant enough to interfere in the relationship between Tony and his father. She had known Tony for at least twelve years and he'd saved her life and the lives of everyone on the team more than once. He saved the lives of countless victims over the years he was a cop and an agent – even saved that kid Jason who was an arson investigator when he'd been just a college kid. He was kind and cared about people and been a good friend to her, to all of them. Yet she'd been seduced by Senior after one freakin visit and discounted all Tony had let slip over the years.
Dumb ass! If he'd been exaggerating like she'd convinced herself after meeting and spending time with Anthony Senior for a handful of visits, why had he been so sparing with the details over the years, laughing them off as a joke. That was the behaviour of someone who was a victim…survivor she told herself. Tony was a survivor, brave, resilient and when he was in pain he always denied it.
It was only when some minor irritant like a paper cut or a scratch occurred would he make a production out of it, pretending to be a drama queen. How much more had he never revealed, not wanting to be pitied? Then after Senior had done such a bang up job of hi-jacking Tony's workmates – his family – of course there was no point in sharing since they wouldn't have believed him anyway.
Abby couldn't believe how incredibly stupid they'd all been when it came to Senior and how much they must have hurt Tony when they all took his father's side. She remembered the Christmas Senior came to visit. The Goth cringed at the thought that Tony had finally overcome his innate tendency to turn the other cheek and forgive no matter what. How he'd stood up to his dad when he abused his hospitality and couldn't keep his fly zipped up and they'd been arrogant enough to second guess him. They'd dragged Senior back after he got his marching orders, bringing him along to the screening of It's a Wonderful Life when Tony was at his most vulnerable. They deliberately guilted him into a reconciliation with his father thinking they knew better. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb!
And now she'd pushed him too far. Her Tony used to forgive them for anything they said or did. All they needed to do was say they were sorry and even if they did it again, they knew that Tony couldn't hold a grudge to save his life. He was incapable of it. But that was then….and this was now. He'd changed. Abby wasn't sure if it was his fiancée or his illness but he no longer was quick to turn the other cheek.
This time her meddling was a step too far, even if she hadn't meant to cause trouble. This time she was sure that it was the end of their friendship. The last time he'd talked to her it was to tell her she was no longer welcome at the wedding.
That adage you don't know what you've got til it's gone was never more apt when applied to this situation. They'd all taken Tony for granted for years and now they were suffering the consequences. Most people would probably say that it was not before time
End Notes:
Okay not sure if this works or not but here is the link for the video that Tony sent to Porter and Vance and showed Emma at dinner. Since won't let you post links this is the best I can do. If you want to see it then you'll have to close up the gaps and replace the word dot with periods (full stops). Fair warning guys, really I wasn't kidding about the sappy music!
wwwdot youroverseasweddingdot com/guam-crystal-chapel-weddingdot htm