A/N: Well, folks, we've come to the end of the story. Next chapter, chapter thirty, will be the Epilogue. It has been a wonderful and new experience and a fun journey for me and I enjoyed writing this story very much. Thank's goes to Mike91848 for his invaluable critiquing and excellent beta-ing. Last but certainly not least, thank you readers for your support and comments, what a pleasure it was hearing from you.
Magusta68
CINDERELLA Revisited
Chapter Twenty Nine
Anthony DiNozzo, Senior had not thought this through, which was a trait he had developed and cultivated extensively to his advantage in the business world, thinking things through.
Except of course his prowess as Rodin the thinker had little to do with his failures with his eldest son but more in common with Socrates' enlightening words, 'I know that I know nothing'.
He had not failed at that skill of knowing nothing of Anthony, Jr, and barely passed the class of knowledge for his other two sons as well. So that being said, his not thinking this through when it involved his children was par for the course.
He sat in his limousine a few houses down from Agent Jethro Gibbs' front door.
"You getting out, sir?"
"Don't know yet, Hank. Don't even know why I'm here."
"To talk, sir?"
"Easy for you to say, Hank. You've been with me for what, ten years now, right?"
"Eleven, Mr DiNozzo."
"And you never knew I had an older son, did you, Hank? Anthony, Jr?"
"I knew about him, sir."
"Really?"
"Your wife, sir. Whenever I had to drive her and her friends around, she never seemed to be able to talk about anything else."
"You didn't like her much, did you, Hank?"
"I am a Christian, sir, and it's not honorable to speak badly of the dead, but your wife was evil. The depravity rotting her soul started from the inside out so there was no good in her anywhere to be found."
What? Senior stared at the back of the man's head in shocked silence. Had everyone known what Angela had obviously hidden well from him? Obviously they had and he wondered now if he had been deliberately obtuse, cowardly hanging on to the rocking boat in complacency so as to stay in it rather than try to swim ashore in shark infested waters and deal with the cold stark reality of a wife sunk in total abysmal madness.
"Shall I pull up to the door, Mr DiNozzo?"
Senior came back from his uneasy thoughts and past indecisions and made a snap decision based on what he had not thought through.
"No, I'll walk. This won't take long."
He was at Gibbs' door sooner than he wanted to be so he rang the bell and waited for the mysterious inevitable.
"Yeah, can I help you, Mr DiNozzo?" Gibbs had opened the door and immediately recognized the tall man standing there. There was no doubt that the man was the principal stock in the DiNozzo physical traits as they all resembled this man as a close family member.
DiNozzo, Sr showed an instance of surprised query at being recognized immediately as he had only a vague remembrance of what Gibbs had looked like. Gibbs answered his silent question.
"Saw you at the hostage situation with Tony and Anton. Also, your family greatly resembles each other, no doubt about who you are. Might as well come in, unless you prefer standing in the doorway?" Gibbs had stepped aside to let the man in but he realized there was a very good chance he only had a brief few words to say before being on his way.
"I apologize for my apparent social ineptness, Agent Gibbs. Not only for showing up at your door unannounced but standing here as though paralyzed and mute. Thank you for inviting me in and allowing me a minute of your time."
Gibbs understood first hand now why Greg used such formal speech and Steve to a lesser extent. Tony had not been exposed to his father for long and he also had picked up street vernacular and his own unique brand of talk.
Gibbs ushered the man into the kitchen where the coffee pot was stationed in an honored spot and offered him a seat at the kitchen table. It occurred to Gibbs that a beautiful handmade dining table and chairs were not foreign to Senior but the red vinyl covering the table was probably an eyesore. Heck it was an eyesore to him too, but when a group of men and women insist on coming to his house to eat their pizza or Chinese food and bang cold, wet beer bottles or icy cans on the surface, he needed all the help he could get to preserve the beautiful finish.
"Coffee?"
"If you don't mind."
Gibbs found a mug that wasn't chipped, poured coffee and placed it in front of Senior and pushed the sugar and a bottle of milk he had been using for his cereal at the man. Content to wait until the man felt he could talk Gibbs sat in his chair with his own fresh cup of coffee and continued reading the news section of the paper.
Senior wasn't stupid and he realized that this unconventional man sitting across from him reading words off of paper instead of a computer screen would not initiate a conversation or ask him what the hell he was doing there to save his life. He could sit there making pot after pot of coffee and adjusting his glasses and turning pages until the sun disappeared.
But Senior had seen Gibbs before in different circumstances and unbeknownst to the man. When he had gotten that frantic call from a practically incoherent woman named Abby Sciuto those many years ago, that Tony DiNozzo was dying from something called the plague, he had hesitated, because no matter how he was then, he had been a monster to Tony in the distant past. Would it help or hurt if he was there?
So he flew to Washington and waited in an out of the way waiting room, getting updates from a nurse named Emma after presenting himself as an estranged father and begging for her silence that he was there. He watched as friends and co-workers came and went sometimes overfilling the other waiting room and spilling into his hideaway.
A silver haired man that he now knew as Agent Gibbs was there, a pretty petite woman, an older gentleman with an accent that they called Ducky, and they all behaved as concerned family members.
He sat there for a week, ate hospital cafeteria food, went to his hotel at night, came back and sat some more. Until the word was finally given Tony was on the mend and he was transferred to a private room. The next day after that, Senior went home knowing that his face would not be a comfort but a hindrance to Tony's recovery. Senior had been disappointed but oddly relieved. Tony wasn't that little boy hiding around the corner from his family anymore, he had a family.
"Agent Gibbs, I don't know why I'm here except my grandson has nothing but good to say about you. He says you're a good friend to Tony, and Steve doesn't say much but he has nothing bad to say either. So, is there anything I can do...I won't insult you by offering money for caring for Gregor but...I brought a credit card with me for his use if there is something he needs or must have..." Senior slowed down and came to a stop. Babbling was not something he was prone to. Why was he doing it now?
"He has what he needs. His family's with him, someone to talk to and listen to him."
Senior admitted to the truth of that having only just recently learned the lesson the hard way. He had isolated and hoarded his emotions and feelings close to his chest since the woman he had loved beyond all reason had rejected him and walked away. He shared a little more of himself than nothing with the rest of his family, and selfishly allowed his difficulty in accepting her abandonment to let a deranged woman run rampant through his home.
Again Senior brought his runaway thoughts back to the here and now as he responded to Gibbs' observation.
"Yes, that's what he needs. Though he's wont to try to spare my feelings about how things were for him so I'm not one he will talk to. Steve has already let me know that I'm not blameless in my wife's tyranny that I let happen, and he's right. And Anthony...well..."
For the first time Senior's voice turned unsure. Why was he invading this man's home and privacy? He wasn't a priest and this wasn't a confessional. Yet here he sat ready to confess his crimes to a man he didn't even know. He started to stand quickly and excuse himself for his idiotic notion of obtaining ecclesiastical forgiveness of his sins. His penitence seeking journey for his wicked neglect was not this man's problem.
Gibbs forestalled Senior's abrupt movement to leave by sharing something Tony related.
"Tony dislikes being called Anthony, hates it really. Kinda puts him in a bad mood then everyone suffers with his non-stop complainin' and whinin'." Gibbs' said it with such an undertone of hidden affection that Senior recognized the gift of friendship the two shared.
Senior sank back down in his chair. "I didn't know that."
"Don't know much about him, do ya?"
"Do you have children, Agent Gibbs?"
It didn't hurt Gibbs so much to mention her life these days. Or have the automatic response that her memory would be used against him.
"I had a daughter. When I was serving overseas, my wife saw something she shouldn't have and she was killed...assassinated along with my daughter when she was a little girl."
Anthony DiNozzo, Senior was a man who cultivated business savvy and shrewdness above all else. He could implement choices that would have worldwide effects or factor in decisions that could change the lives of a few hundred. He could look back and not be ashamed that he had dealt both decisively and honestly in that world.
Ironically, he could not say the same about his personal life. It and he were appalling failures at it. He had stalked and harassed his first wife to such an extent that if he pulled that stunt today he would have been convicted and gone to prison for what he had done. As a result the alienation his wife felt for him had interfered with the natural instinctive bond between a mother and her child and she had not been able to love her first born son because of it.
He had tormented and taxed that son and allowed a ruthless manipulator and cold-blooded child abuser easy access and control of his young life. Janes had tried to tell him she was a pathological liar but he wasn't ready to listen, not fully, not then.
Senior remembered how he felt when Tony had come down that ornate staircase when he was twelve years old, and all the party guests saw him dressed in that filthy torn suit and flapping shoes, his face pale and eyes wide and frightened. It was his mother, Louisa, all over again. So he chose to believe what Angela had told him. It was easier to believe the boy was a spiteful and vindictive, disobedient and hateful child to be punished severely by beating him, strangling him and...breaking his arm than to admit that he and Angela were the real monster's in that house.
Little good it did to spend every year since then closeted in his study spent drinking and reflecting on what that event had cost him, or flinching in loathing at that staircase every time he passed by, as though that inanimate piece of wood and marble was the culprit.
And his other two boys, he had left their young lives in the care of that same wicked evilness to despoil their innocence, and because of his cowardliness, had encouraged her malignant influence to lead a young grandson to attempts of suicide.
So what was a man like him to say to Gibbs? A still grief-stricken man who had just confessed to losing his wife and child to a brutal slaying when he, Anthony DiNozzo, had so carelessly and without feeling thrown the lives of his sons away as worthless flotsam? I am sorry for your loss seemed so inadequate. But that's all he had.
"I am sorry for your loss, Agent Gibbs."
Gibbs nodded at the honest expression of sympathy in those simple words.
"And you are right. I don't know anything about Tony. You know, I saw him once in New York City... the cold of winter it was, by the big tree with the ostentatious sparkling lights.
"So many lights. I was drunk most of the time so I would notice the lights. I and some of my business associates, their wives and children were attending some shenanigan the company was putting on, most of us were drunk, but you couldn't tell, and I had my other two boys with me, ice skating at Rockefeller Center, yes that was it."
Senior's voice had become choppy, disjointed with held back emotion from hurtful memories and he was pale and a sheen of perspiration had appeared on his forehead.
"Tony appeared above leaning against the rail looking down at me, flags were billowing and those damn lights as his backdrop made his face, his eyes, just as clear, and what I thought just as condemning as his mother's had been.
"So I turned away from him arrogantly refusing contact and ordered another drink. His mother hadn't wanted me, I didn't want him. When I glanced up again, he was gone and I drank so much that night, I had to be poured into a cab and helped back to the hotel room and put to bed by my sons."
"Some time after that, I realized my arrogant assumption had been wrong, the expression on his face had not been condemnation, but supplication...to a father from his son, and I blew him away by turning away."
Senior sat back after finding himself released from the tension filled few moments that memory had brought and he continued almost to himself. "So, here I sit burdening you with my no doubt unwanted presence and lack of common good sense. Why haven't you thrown me out, Agent Gibbs? I'm sure there are more important things you could be doing than sitting here listening to me whine and bemoan the unfairness of it all."
"If I'd heard any whining or bemoaning, woulda dropped-kicked you through the front door already, Mr DiNozzo.
Chuckling lightly, he took that as tacit approval to stay a few minutes longer and Anthony DiNozzo, Sr found the courage to ask the question he had really come to ask.
"Can you tell me a little bit more about Anthony...Tony, Agent Gibbs?"
"Depends what you want to know. More coffee, Mr DiNozzo?"
Ncisncisncisncis. Ncisncisncisncis. Ncisncisncisncis
Jethro Gibbs was tempted to go back upstairs and lock his front door after the horse had gotten loose and the buggy tumbled down the mountainside. He recognized the silent footsteps as that of Ziva David and was honestly puzzled as to why it had taken her so long to show up at his door.
Anthony DiNozzo, Sr had left a few hours ago appearing somewhat less tortured than when he had arrived. Senior would have to live with his horrendous mistakes just as Gibbs would have to live with his, but if sharing an anecdote or two of Gibbs' history with Tony helped to alleviate some of Senior's self-inflicted real pain, then why not?
Gibbs wouldn't admit it out loud and denied it sometimes to himself, but sharing something with his late friend Mike or Ducky, or even Fornell helped him to feel a little less guilty, a little less hard on himself because after all, he couldn't save his wife and daughter, his family, either. How was he any better than DiNozzo in that respect?
But now, just as he had gotten set in his relaxing regime of sanding and sipping, the person he was not eager to see showed up and by the sound of her silent footsteps, she was pretty angry herself.
Without hesitation, the footsteps proceeded down the stairs to the bottom where they finally paused but not in timid uncertainty no, Ziva knew precisely what she came to say. Her brief pause was more likely to gather her thoughts so as not to rush or jumble her words, her idioms or her meaning.
"Gibbs?" Gibbs hadn't swept the floor of sawdust for a few days and it made her want to sneeze. She considered sneezing weak like crying or pity wallowing so the sneezy noise never left her mouth. A sneeze could betray a position or alert a sentinel.
"Over here, Ziva." And in fact, he was on the other side of a boxy looking wooden hulk thing that was not clearly a boat. Greg seemed to be the only one privileged to know what they were building and it was a solid mystery to everyone else.
Gibbs observed Ziva the moment she came within his view. The face she presented, beautiful and somewhat tragic and saddened, reminded him of her return from Somalia. Her eyes were wide and sorrowfully resigned then too but as soon as she saw him her mask was firmly in place, and the look told him that her thoughts might not be as respectful as they might have once been.
One thing for sure, she was certainly not inclined to beat around the bush under the circumstances since politeness and etiquette were superfluous when he wasn't her boss any longer and she wasn't there to ask for anything that wasn't her due, especially not the terrible surrogate father he had turned out to be.
"I was not offered a transfer or alternative position, Gibbs. I killed my brother for you." Accusation and blame were to be her strategy, a game he wouldn't play for long.
"Thank you again for saving my life, Ziva, but we both know that you were following Eli David's explicit orders to kill a rogue operative. He was a walking dead man."
He saw her flinch at that truth and bringing it to her attention. Had she forgotten that he knew of her web of deceit and lies pertaining to that op? That Jenny Shepherd had been an insignificant part of and that Leon Vance had known about?
He'd been made to look foolish putting his trust in her, believing that she had sacrificed her brother to save him, only to find out that her brother was just an assignment to her on her assassins' hit list. She had never really gained his trust back after that.
Ziva was quick to make a defense. "Still, I did not hate my brother, rogue or not, and killing him deadened some small part of me that I will never regain. Is that not worth something?" She questioned so coldly Gibbs shivered involuntarily as though watery ice was running down his back.
Not appreciative of that uneasy feeling, he stopped sanding and faced her directly.
"Ziva, there was nothing I could do at that point. You'd already been warned, and on more than one occasion, to toe the line...to follow the chain of command. That was all you had to do."
"That is not what I wanted to do, Gibbs!" She hissed spitefully.
"Well, yeah, that was obvious." He couldn't help being a cynically amused second B at the all-important I-ism in her equation. He never knew her to be so insistent in getting her own way but he now realized she had hidden that stubbornness from him with her agreeable, yes Gibbs, at his orders, and had given DiNozzo the flak and back-talk instead. Another 'being made a fool of' pill he had to swallow.
But she still had more to yell at him. "You should have had my back, Gibbs! I deserved better than a seat, a desk and a subservient position to one hopelessly inadequate Senior Field Agent after another!"
Well, now she was calling in question his skill as a judge of character and fitness to do his job. That couldn't be true because he actually had chosen Tony and specifically had requested Adams, but he never would have chosen her to be on his team in the first place. That she was forced on him by Jenny seems to have escaped her one-tract mind at the moment, and out of all the agents on his team, she was the only one who had gotten herself fired.
"Ziva, you had a fresh start with Adams, things could've worked out with him. If he had been in Mossad, he would have outranked you when you left that agency.
"Instead, the first thing you do is disobey a direct order from him then pick a fight with him in the bullpen. Come on, Ziva, even I don't have enough 'get out of jail free' cards to get you out of that." He tried, he really was trying.
Gibbs would remain resolutely reasonable with her for as long as he could bend over backwards without actually breaking his back, and as long as he could stomach being a spineless jellyfish. When he ran out of patience, she would be out of time and out of his house.
She became more furious that she was being outwitted and made a joke of by him. She did not come here for that, nor did she expect him to grovel on his knee for her forgiveness, but to show some sincere repentance that he had let her down would have gone a long way to ease her disappointment and yes, hurt.
"You are not admitting to any culpability in what happened to me at NCIS then, Gibbs? I was told DiNozzo was the SFA but there was a certain lack of respect in your treatment of him before and after Mexico, was there not? I, however, get penalized for treating him the same way? Tony led me to believe we had a future together and yet when I accuse him of harassment, you dismiss it as fabrication on my part."
Gibbs now knew why DiNozzo used to spend so much time in the men's room with an apparent frequency of urination syndrome. He needed a place to hide out if even for a few minutes from an obstinate woman with a one-track-mind-love-hate-attitude who stalked him so persistently that eventually even the men's bathroom wasn't sacrosanct enough to keep her out.
Still trying to be not unkind and patient, after all it was Ziva, was like biting on a handful of his boats stainless steel siding nails and looking in the mirror to watch his teeth crack and crumble, and his gums bleed. But she was partly right. She and McGee had followed his piss-poor example when his brain had been mushy and forgetful. If he and DiNozzo hadn't been able to talk it through, DiNozzo would have been long gone after that time, but he turned down Rota and other promotional opportunities since then and stuck around.
Gibbs had finally remembered 'don't waste good' and McGee had finally caught on that the best wasn't always spelled M.I.T.
Ziva had apparently learned nothing.
"Ziva, none of that matters in view of the circumstances you're facing now..."
"What circumstances am I facing, Gibbs, that is not your fault? You and Tony DiNozzo's fault? Admit that you are to blame because of your poor leadership. Admit that your debt to me has not been paid for saving your life!" She slammed her hand on the side of wood while ordering him around.
Thing is, he wasn't one to kow-tow, even though she wasn't asking for much. Admit he did everything wrong and her getting canned was his fault and she would probably go away in triumphant vindication. Most likely, though, she'd stay around just to try to beat him over the head with it.
He wasn't admitting to anything! "We all make our own mistakes, Ziva, all of us. Face yours, deal with them and move on!"
"You are telling me to..."
Enough already! Gibbs released his own hot temper held at bay because he was a closet sentimental old fool. He was hoping Ziva would back down and they could still remain friends but she wasn't getting the hints and he was going to actually have to talk.
"I'm telling you to quit lying to yourself, David, and blaming everyone else for your stupidity!
"As far as DiNozzo is concerned, let me put my two cents in. I don't know his motives and I don't care. He flirts, that's what he use to do, true, but let's face it, he stopped that when he met Margret and that seems to have gone right over your head.
"So, you went into this with your eyes open. When you figured out he was taken, you chased after him like a lustful teenager with recently discovered hormones ready to latch onto and control him.
"He pulled the wool over your eyes, saw right through you and played the game, but he never had any intention of you being his ball and chain forever and now you want to play the aggrieved woman?"
He'd seen that look in Ziva's eye before, set and ready for the kill.
"How dare you,Gibbs!" Said with pinched nostrils and squinted, almost closed eyes, and hands clenched tightly into fists.
"How dare I? Ziva, come on, you're in my house, throwing around accusations and blame. I'm surprised you don't blame me for that mess with Rivkin, but then again, I'd need to get behind DiNozzo for that honor, wouldn't I?
"Now you...you need to quit lying to yourself, David! You wanted out of NCIS that was on you, and believe me you didn't fool anyone with that in-house fighting. It was just a ploy to get your ass booted out of there, it's what you wanted, not something Tony or I caused to happen, otherwise, you would have let go of that oversized ego and still had a damn job!
"Now that's my humble opinion Ziva, for what's it's worth and since you barged into my house, I felt free to give it. So shoot daggers at me all you want but do it somewhere else, it's about time for you to leave!"
"You are throwing me out?" In her steamrolling push ahead to her objectives she forgot that the man she was attempting to exert force on, the man in front of her, would push back, and hard.
"I'm asking you to leave, Ziva, there is a difference." Gibbs was thinking what the hell was wrong with her to act surprised that he wanted her gone? He couldn't give her release or absolution, something he'd already been through that day. So he said nothing, just watched her as though he was on the other side of the looking glass and she was a perp in the room with the red glass eye.
All he had said was all he could offer her. She expected more but he had run out of sage wisdom and advice for the day and he never could do empty platitudes. He picked up the hand sander and turned back to his wood.
Silence. Ziva felt alienated now from all of NCIS. It wasn't long after he showed her his back that Ziva's footsteps sounded up again, decisive and oddly final as she left his house. She would not be back.
Gibbs acknowledged and mourned the end of an era as he raised his glass to her in absentia and saluted what had once been.
"Try hard to find a little peace in whatever you end up doing, Ziver. I'll miss ya'." He whispered the sentiment even though she was long gone and couldn't hear him.
Ncisncisncisncis. Ncisncisncisncis. Ncisncisncisncis
Tony and Margret's engagement party was still swinging at two o'clock in the morning. Tony's fingers were going numb and so was his ass. Not only that but he was having a hard time keeping ahead of the little punk who was tickling the ivories, or in Greg's case, plastics, on his fancy piano keyboard, trying hard to show Tony up.
Tony had years of neurotic obsessive practice on the piano while growing up and it wasn't hard to figure out why what with the 'perfect' family life he had had. So his neurosis, that which gave him the very gifted, creative energy and sorrowfully inspired power, and the control he needed, also gave him that little bit of edge on Greg's happy abandon and lighthearted youthful enthusiastic musical genius.
Greg and Tony had been playing for hours along with Tony's band of buddies that made up the small rhythm and horn section of this lively, home grown jazz band. The large group of intense and eager aficionados of the jazz and blues genre that had invaded Tony's house by invitation only applauded and loudly expressed their enthusiasm at the excellent music spilling from this ragtag team of musicians.
McGee and Abby were there and Abby had been the bands loudest supporter even though jazz was not her favorite type of music. Steve had brought his two kids, Peter and Petra, who Tony had nicknamed Pete and re-Pete-ra, boy and girl very polite, over-active, over-achieving DiNozzo terrors.
Gibbs had shown up with a dark haired beauty on his arm which caused everyone who knew him to gasp in surprise at the lack of red anywhere. It was grand central as Fornell, Vance and Jackie, Ducky, Palmer and Breena came and went and finally just the true diehards remained who Tony had to threaten arrest if they didn't get out of his house, party was over.
Tony's friend and attorney CC had flown in to DC to personally deliver papers transferring ownership of the grandmother's estate to Tony. Which was something CC had been waiting to do for years even though he was disappointed to not have a go in court at the vampiric, bloodsucking, man eating freak of nature stepmother, euphemism's CC had called Angela DiNozzo among other things for years, due to her timely death down a flight of stairs.
CC had had a bone to pick with the bitch since he was seventeen and being beaten up by three strangers after a game. He was told to keep away from Tony DiNozzo; that he was bad news and anyone befriending him would not fare well.
He was holding his own, but there were three of the punks and CC wasn't a prize fighter. Just in time, Tony shows up with two other guys from their team. They thrashed it out until the punks had had enough and run off.
What the hell did they want with me? CC had asked Tony as he wiped away blood and sweat from his lip and brow. Angela the bitch goes after anyone who is my friend. She usually sends Anton and his creeps. You'd better stay away from me CC. Like hell! CC had answered. His dark face was fierce with righteous indignation and youthful thoughts of retribution.
That was CC's introduction to the witch widow spider bitch and her underling creepy loopy son Anton and his posse, who had been a thorn in Tony's side since he and Tony had first met up at the academy. The woman had died a violent ugly death and CC had no choice but to accept that she was beyond his reach to take his revenge out in court and he had to move on. But that didn't mean he couldn't celebrate.
So celebrate he did in jubilation for his friend by playing his trumpet improvisations with the DiNozzo piano twins free-form jazz and the rest of the band's excellent renditions. He had to admit the band was pretty good and the kid Greg was giving DiNozzo a run for his money on those keys. Good times.
Tony also signed the paperwork CC had brought to finalize the settlement Tony had set aside for his old coach Trent and Ms Betty. They had anonymously paid for his education after the bitch had gotten his scholarship revoked. Coach Trent had used his retirement fund and cashed in some investments to get him through college, unbeknownst to Tony.
This had forced the couple to forget early retirement and they had continued to work to full retirement age. Now they lived happily in a retirement community with a golf course in Florida on a modest retirement income, which was supplemented by a like sum deposited in their checking account anonymously every month. They wanted for nothing.
Tony hadn't known the sacrifice the couple had made for a kid who wasn't their own, not until years later. And when he made the decision to cut them out of his life for fear of the bitch hurting them, it had been as though he had cut off his own arm.
When he eventually found out what they had done, he had sent them money when he could early on and then on a regular basis set aside from his grandfather's trust fund to share with them anonymously. But for some reason, the fear was still there even though he was an adult. He could not contact them in person and he attributed that to the fact that Angela DiNozzo was still alive and they were still not safe from her vindictiveness. Now that Angela was dead, he had contacted them and he and Margret would fly to Florida after they were married to see them.
After the weekend of great music, a houseful of people, beer, a ton of BBQ wings, an obscene amount of boxed pizza's, and his housekeeper-next door neighbor's railroad car full of burrito supremes, the quiet house was a relief. It was just him and his best girl Margret.
He filled Margret in on Angela DiNozzo and the things she had done over the years to try and ruin his life. The efforts he had made while at the academy to keep his grandmother free and safe, and hidden from the bitch and how guilty he had felt when he failed in the long run to protect her because his grandmother had died alone in a motel room just because she had come to see him.
He told her how he could never forgive his father for allowing that to happen to his beloved grandmother, or that he was forced to cut off his friendship with the Trent's because he feared for their lives also.
He told her things he had never shared with anyone else. Some of the real reasons why it seemed he couldn't keep a job when he was younger; the pizza parlor burning down due to arson the fire Marshall had said, the Mom and Pop store that had been vandalized with a note left behind that had warned, 'fire DiNozzo or it'll happen again!'
The anonymous letter to his girlfriend threatening acid in her face if she stayed around. He knew who was behind it but was impotent to do anything about it. No one would believe him and he was doomed to fail at everything he tried if Angela DiNozzo had anything to say about it.
When his sports career failed, he joined the police force and was desperate not to fail at that. So he learned about preemptive strikes and avoiding video cameras. One night he added a little vinegar to a filled water bottle, just enough to give it an allusive scent.
A big fundraiser, one he knew Angela DiNozzo would attend, was being held in his city at a hotel and conference center, and she liked to exercise by herself late at night at the hotel gym.
His alibi would be solid, drunk on the couch with other rookies after passing their entrance exams. Being with the police, he knew where the security entrances were and the cameras, so he went down to the basement of the big hotel where the workout rooms were located and waited.
Sure enough, she came down late dressed in her fancy workout attire. He grabbed her from behind with his hand covering her mouth and pulled her into a dark utility room he had forced the lock off and let her go. He made sure she saw his face and he saw fear for the first time when he pulled out the spray bottle. When she started to scream and even beg, he covered her mouth with his gloved hand again and sprayed and sprayed the liquid into her face until her hair and face were sopping wet.
Taking a page from her book, he growled a warning what would happen the next time. It would be the real thing; corrosive acid that she had threatened his girlfriend with, burning her eyes like fire first, and then dribbled on her face and breasts, leaving pock marked holes and gouges that no plastic surgeon could ever fix, and no man would ever look at her again in admiration.
He hissed in her ear in his most threatening voice, "Come after me again, you filthy bitch, come after me again! Even if I'm in jail, I'll find some way to hurt you. I'll hire a hit man to take you out so watch your back!"
He left the way he had come, invisibly. He got back to the party, went in through the bathroom window and to his spot on the couch. The police never came. The bitch left the conference a day early and he was never threatened with losing his job again.
And although that didn't stop Angela DiNozzo from her obsessive fascination with him, at least he could support himself. Unbelievably, and unknown to Tony at the time, her boy toy Matthew Simmons was persuaded to get a job at NCIS and to spy on him for her, so that she could appease her lustful wrong desires that way.
Margret listened to his confessed, and as he saw it, criminal behavior and thankfully didn't censor his actions, but recognized it as a young man at his wits end, desperate to get relief from a woman out to destroy his life.
Tony shared with her about the money he had, the trust fund set up by his grandfather, his grandmother's estate that he was divvying up with the cousins, the children's scholastic scholarship fund he had set up, everything he could think of so there would be nothing hidden between them including his mental malady when under extreme duress.
Margret had wanted to share her past life as well but she considered it dull and ordinary compared to his. A loving mother and father who were killed in a car accident. No siblings, just indulgent, doting grandparents who finished raising and educating her.
Her run in with the few male, good-old boy's mentality of the pilots who resented a female invading their domain, and the breakup with her long-time boyfriend, who continuously put off a marriage date and worse, cheated on her. There was no trust fund and her parents' insurance money had been used for her education.
Tony said they made a perfect couple.
Ncisncisncisncis Ncisncisncisncis. Ncisncisncisncis
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