Tony awoke to more darkness beyond the glass of his bedroom windows.
But there was no nausea this time, no lingering exhaustion.
In fact, he felt better than he had in a while—except for the pain knifing him in the shoulder and side with each inhalation.
He looked at the clock, glowing 7:42, and realized he felt better because he had slept through the day and worse because he had missed a dose of painkillers… or two. He lay there for a moment, not looking forward to forcing himself upright, and he realized there was a pillow tucked under his right elbow that he didn't remember putting there. Not that it was something he would have done. It was the gesture of someone who cared about him and didn't want him to wake up hurting.
Gibbs.
And suddenly, the morning came rushing back at him, both his mystery illness and Gibbs' soft, faraway words. He knows, Tony thought wildly, shoving the pillow away and feeling increasingly confused. He knows about the photo, and—
Tony sat up too quickly and ended up huddling into himself on the edge of the bed, just trying to breathe through the pain. He wanted to scream, but it wasn't entirely from the burning of either of his injuries.
"Here."
Tony's head jerked up and he just stared at his boss, who had suddenly appeared beside him and was holding more pills out to him.
"Just painkillers this time," Gibbs said, obviously reading the wariness in his agent's eyes.
Tony blinked and frowned hard. "You drugged me?"
"Yep," Gibbs said, taking Tony by the wrist and dropping the pills into his palm. "Take these. Then we'll talk."
But Tony just stared.
Gibbs gave him a look. "Don't even try to tell me it doesn't hurt."
"Hurts like hell," Tony whispered, not sure if he was referring only to the physical damage. He swallowed the pills, his eyes snapping to the door as he heard a noise from down the hall. He turned to his boss, feeling hurt and beyond betrayed. "Gibbs…?"
Blue eyes closed, stealing Tony's breath. But Gibbs just sighed. "You honestly think I slipped you something so I could call the cops to come pick you up?"
Tony didn't speak.
"It's the team," Gibbs said, making Tony look more confused. "We need to talk."
No shit, Tony thought, fighting irrational giggles. He tried to calm his breathing, to will the pain away.
All of it.
"But not right now," Gibbs was saying. "You need to get the pain under control first."
Tony couldn't help it. He laughed shakily. "I'm just supposed to lie here until it doesn't hurt anymore?" His smile died. "Gonna be a long fucking time, Boss."
Gibbs ignored the epithet. "Calm down, Tony," he said, calmly.
"You want me to—"
"Hey," Gibbs said, turning to look his agent in the eyes. "No one's arresting anyone. We need to talk to you, and you're in no condition to be dragged down to the Navy Yard to do it."
Tony put a hand on his belly. "Not entirely my fault," he said quietly.
Gibbs winced. "Ducky said I probably didn't get you to eat enough before I dosed you," he said, drawing an incredulous look from Tony. "I'm sorry about that," Gibbs said sincerely, ignoring Tony's shock. "Didn't mean to make you feel worse. You were just supposed to sleep while we took care of a few things."
Tony stood abruptly, shrugging off Gibbs' steadying hand. "Gibbs, please," he said, locking eyes with his boss. "Please."
Gibbs studied his agent's pale face for a moment and decided Tony could handle what was coming.
At least physically.
He nodded, trying not to sigh when Tony shrugged off the supportive hand under his elbow. They went into the living room, where the team, plus Ducky and Abby, were waiting, all seated or perched on various furniture—except the big overstuffed chair near the balcony doors.
Tony glanced at it and went willingly, dropping into it and turning on a bright smile. "Is this an intervention? 'Cause I'm not a drunk," he said, his grin falling flat as he glared at Gibbs and put a hand on his churning stomach. "Though I kinda feel like I've got this massive hangover going on."
"Ah," Ducky said, the tips of his ears turning red. "That was not our intention, Anthony. I am sorry for your reaction this morning." He paused, looking Tony in the eyes. "And for drugging you in the first place. But we felt it necessary, to give us time to get our ducks in a row, so to speak."
Tony just stared at the doctor, settled on the end of his couch with a cup of tea. Tony glanced around at Kate and McGee and Abby and realized they all had cups nearby.
"This is the craziness damned tea party…" he mumbled. He looked straight at Gibbs. "What 'ducks'?"
"We spent the day teleconferencing with Landry's next of kin. A cousin in California," Gibbs said.
"Presenting him the evidence," Abby offered with a brevity that had Tony even more unsettled.
"He was having a little trouble believing Landry would have killed himself," Kate said. "He asked if anything about the death was suspicious. If someone could have killed him. But we told him the evidence doesn't support that."
"And we don't believe that's what happened," Abby said, moving to Tony's side and crouching at his knee. She took his hand in hers. "Because we know you didn't kill him."
"Abigail and I confirmed that the prints on the knife and the angle of the blade's penetration suggest suicide," Ducky said, his kind eyes patiently taking in Tony's distressed state.
"I scanned the diary and the cousin is reading it now," McGee said.
But Tony barely heard him. All he could think about was that photo.
"We explained how he slammed his face into the wall," Abby said, her hand on Tony's knee. "How he wiped the blood to make it look like someone attacked him."
"I wasn't going to," Ducky said, "but he asked for the autopsy photos showing the vertical bruising. So I sent him the photos that explain everything."
Tony stopped breathing, looking around the room and wondering if they had all gone insane. If this was some sick joke. "And how exactly did you explain how he kicked himself in the back with a boot he doesn't even own?"
He expected shock.
He didn't get it.
"What boot?" Ducky asked, meeting his eyes steadily.
"Abby identified the tread pattern. Ducky, I saw the photo…" Tony trailed off, realizing what the doctor had done for him. And why Gibbs had drugged him. They all knew he never would have agreed to let them destroy evidence.
Ducky was smiling softly. "You're starting to understand, aren't you?" He reached out and patted Tony's suddenly shaking hand. "And I don't mean how that photo disappeared or how the body has already been picked up for cremation by now—his ashes to be sent to his cousin. You're starting to realize how much we care for you, my lad. And perhaps even more than that, how much we believe in you, Anthony. I destroyed that photo for the same reason Abigail wiped that ring: We care about you, we want to protect you, and we know you. We all know you're not capable of cold-blooded murder, and there is no way we would ever see you sent to prison for something we know you did not do."
But Tony still wasn't finished asking questions. He was, after all, just getting used to being part of a family. "But didn't you have to explain that Landry was setting me up to explain everything else? Doesn't that in itself make me a prime suspect?"
"No one knows you were there Saturday night," Gibbs said, lifting a shoulder. "And you did manage to piss off Landry on Friday. It's all in the incident report you filed after I hurt you."
"But I never…" Tony said, shaking his head.
Gibbs just gave him a look and flopped a file down on the coffee table. "That's your signature."
Tony glanced down and then back up at him with a wary half-smile, unable to believe he still knew how to form the expression. "Should I start checking my credit card statements more carefully, Boss?"
"Don't ask me," he said, flicking a glance across the room.
Tony followed his eyes to find Abby smiling mischievously.
"What?" she said, an innocent grin curving her black lips. "I am—among my many, many talents—also a handwriting analyst. And if I might have picked up a few skills along the way that no one knows about…" She shrugged. "The point is, we explained that Landry probably saw suicide as an admission of his guilt over Brian, so he decided to fake his murder. If we were to try to guess who he wanted to go down for that murder, I suppose you might be a candidate—among everyone else who had ever 'wronged' him in his life. People like that are always trying to blame someone else for their problems. It could have been anyone."
"But," Kate said, "even guessing would be pure speculation. There's no way of knowing who he might have been trying to frame—or if he even had one specific person in mind."
"And as I told his cousin, there's no physical evidence," Abby said. "Except Landry's own palm print on the knife."
Tony frowned, trying to think through the fog in his head that had nothing to do with drugs. "But I still could have—"
"You forgetting I finished dislocating your shoulder on Friday night?" Gibbs asked, his blue eyes steady, even though he was still having trouble dealing with Tony hurting himself so deliberately.
"As your attending physician," Ducky said, "I can vouch for the fact that there is no way you could have overpowered and killed a Marine with only one good arm."
"And," Abby said, "you're alibied for the entire weekend."
"Not exactly the entire—"
"Yes, Tony," Abby said. "The entire weekend. When you weren't with Gibbs, you were with me."
"Abby, I can't ask you to lie—"
"And when you weren't with me, you were with Julia," she said. "That was smart, DiNozzo. And thank you for giving me an out—not that I would have taken it. You're a good person, Tony."
Kate nodded. "And I can say, as a profiler, that you really are, Tony. You were pissed as hell at Landry for what he did to Brian. But you still kept an open mind about my PTSD theory. That's not the mark of a vengeful killer, Tony. Any profiler worth her salt could tell you that."
McGee finally spoke up. "And don't forget the alarm, Tony," he said without hesitation. "The alarm was never tripped, and I was the only one Landry gave the code to."
Tony looked around the room, at the faces of these people who were all willing to step out on a limb to protect him. And he couldn't quite figure out why they would do that, why they would take that risk, for him.
But he was starting to.
"Thanks, everyone," he said, feeling like those words were hopelessly inadequate to express the depth of his gratitude. "I really don't know what to say," he said honestly.
"That you'll keep letting us in," Kate said. "That you'll tell us if you're thinking about doing something crazy." She shot a mock-glare at Abby. "Even if it's just getting a tat on your bum."
Tony smiled and nodded, feeling like everything just might be okay.
And then Gibbs' phone rang.
And Tony felt the tension grab him by the throat again.
"Yes, Director," Gibbs said, his eyes on Tony's bloodless face as he listened to the man on the line. "Yeah. Got it," he said, flipping the phone shut.
"Gibbs…?" Tony asked, the snap of the phone hitting him like a gunshot.
"Director just spoke with Landry's cousin," Gibbs said, still watching Tony carefully. "He was still having doubts—until he read that last diary entry. 'Guess there was always something a little off about Kenny,' the director quoted him."
The tension fled Tony's body, leaving only a bone-deep exhaustion. "So it's over?" he managed, wanting to curl up and sleep for days—but unwilling to kick his friends out to do it.
"Officially," Gibbs said, his eyes moving from Tony to Abby. He saw both of them brace for the onslaught, but all he said was, "Either of you ever risk your damned careers over a piece of scum like that again, and I'll shoot you both."
Abby blinked at the threat, but she knew that it was born of a deep concern for both of them. She grinned, only slightly uneasily. "Uh, Gibbs. Technically I risked mine for Tony. And he's not piece of scum."
Tony found himself suddenly tense again, his insecurities springing up despite what everyone had done for him. It was a sad truth that a few acts of kindness—even of this magnitude—couldn't erase a lifetime of pain and abuse. He looked at Gibbs, waiting for him to disagree.
But Gibbs just nodded at Abby. "Got that right."
Tony smiled. Okay, so he couldn't erase his painful past.
But he could start looking forward.
Ducky reached out and patted Tony's knee. "So, my boy," he said, smiling and tightening his grip. "About that surgery…"
