OMG! Is the next chapter REALLY chapter 30? How is that even possible?
"You ready for this?" Jethro looked at the ceiling of the ascending elevator rather than at the hard set of Tony's jaw.
"No." DiNozzo let out the breath he'd been holding since somewhere in the parking garage in an explosive sigh. "But is there another choice?" Their eyes had met only briefly since arriving one behind the other in the subterranean catacombs of the building, the moment that Gibbs had pushed the button that would carry them immediately to its highest level, passing right by the bullpen and their working relationship up to this point.
"If I thought there was…" Jethro left the sentence intentionally unfinished, knowing Tony understood. They'd spent the previous day and half the night discussing exactly what would be said, what their individual parts would be as they finally approached Morrow and made the irrevocable announcement that would surely change the lives they had grown accustomed to over the past few months and perhaps the course of both their careers.
"I know," Tony said quietly, looking solemnly at Jethro. "Hey," he said, waiting until the older man finally met his steady gaze. Gibbs' eyes were heavy, resigned and yet still somewhat hopeful. "I know," he said firmly making sure he understood.
Jethro nodded as the lift dinged its announcement of arrival at their destination and the doors slid open. With one last deep breath he and DiNozzo exited side by side and walked without hesitation toward the Director's office.
Tony nearly blew right past Jethro when he stopped unexpectedly at Morrow's assistant's desk.
"Need to see him," Gibbs addressed her flatly and her eyes went wide when she realize he was actually waiting for a response.
"I'll check in with him. It's early. I believe he has some time before his morning meeting over at the Pentagon," she said somewhat incredulously. In all her years at NCIS she wasn't sure Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs had actually waited to be announced more than a half dozen times and each of those occasions had resulted in barely controlled explosions that shook the entire agency. This did not bode well. To top that off, Tony DiNozzo wasn't smiling or even flirting, something she thought impossible from him. No, this was definitely not going to be a good day.
Pressing the button on her intercom and picking up the phone, she announced her visitor, trying her level best not to sound alarmed. "Agent Gibbs is waiting to see you, Director Morrow."
Jethro could see the tiny tremor in the young woman's hand and the nervous smile she flashed him as she listened to Morrow's response nearly made him laugh out loud at the utter ridiculousness of the entire situation.
"I did say waiting, Sir," she confirmed. "Agent DiNozzo, sir." She glanced up at Tony curiously. "I will, Sir." A single resigned nod as she set the phone back in its cradle with tremendous care and precision. "You can both go in." Why was there this feeling that she had just heralded the apocalypse?
Gibbs acknowledged her with a tip of his head, looked over at Tony and then walked resolutely toward the point of no return.
Tom Morrow stared stonily at the two men standing in front of his desk. A tiny headache had started right between his eyes at the news that Gibbs and DiNozzo were there to see him and it had rapidly begun to spread outward to his temples. After five days away the appearance of the pair at 8am on a Monday morning could mean only one thing.
"Let me stop you before you start, Agent Gibbs," he cautioned firmly, holding up a hand. But something about the men before him softened something inside him. Perhaps it was the slight angle of DiNozzo's body, shoulder behind Gibbs', hip toward his desk, that spoke of protection and steadfastness, perhaps it was the noticeable growth of the older man's pregnancy swollen abdomen or the way his hand cradled it gently, unconsciously. "Jethro," Morrow continued more lightly, "you can't take this back once you do it."
Gibbs studied the Director, could tell that Morrow was approaching him now not as his boss, but as his colleague, his friend. "I know."
Tony watched as the two locked eyes for a moment and something passed between them. A moment later those eyes turned on him, only slightly less soft.
"Agent DiNozzo, you understand the consequences of your actions right now? Understand that past this point I have an obligation to this agency? To the US Government that I cannot-will not ignore?"
"I do, Sir," DiNozzo said firmly.
Morrow sighed and pressed his thumb to the pulsing artery just above the bridge of his nose. "Okay," he sighed and pulled a file from a locked file in the bottom of his desk. It contained several forms and a notebook on the front page of which 'Gibbs and DiNozzo: Plan B' was clearly written in bold black letters. "It has come to my attention that the two of you were briefly involved in a physical relationship prior to Agent DiNozzo's hiring by this agency. I take Agent Gibbs' word that you were not romantically involved in any way when you were assigned to his team, nor were either of you aware that your union had resulted in Agent Gibbs' pregnancy. In fact, he did not inform anyone of this knowledge until this moment." He looked at both of them to emphasize the need to keep the story straight. "Here's what will happen when you leave this office: For now and beginning immediately, Agent DiNozzo will report directly to me. You are officially no longer his direct supervisor."
Gibbs opened his mouth to object but Morrow continued.
"Of course this will be considered highly unusual by the other Agents and that will be your issue to deal with. I trust you will handle it in your usual discreet fashion. I will choose his assignments until such time as I feel I have an appropriate opening on a team which will allow NCIS to reap the maximum benefit from his many skills. In addition to that, he will continue to work with you on all classified foreign operations and intel until such time as you eventually go on personal medical leave." Now he left an opening for either man to speak up but when both simply looked at him as if anticipating a blow, he continued. "I assume you'll also be asking for some leave around the time Agent Gibbs is due to deliver his child, Agent DiNozzo?"
"What? I mean yes, if I can," Tony fumbled. Of course he had planned to ask eventually but it had seemed like they needed to get through this rather crucial step first and he was sort of unprepared to be confronted with the question at this exact moment.
Morrow nodded. "One more reason to keep you floating for the time being" He turned back to Gibbs. "I won't show him favoritism, Jethro, but I think the work you've been doing together is valuable and of great benefit to the Agency. I'm not foolish enough to throw that away and I hope you're not either. Any sense of impropriety between the two of you on the job is going to look bad and will result in termination of Agent DiNozzo and possibly yourself, Jethro. Do I make myself clear?" He moved on without allowing a response this time. "The spin on this will be completely up to you. I've taken the actions I need to take to remove Agent DiNozzo from your supervision and free up myself and NCIS from any culpability in this matter. But you know as well as I do that it's going to be a rough road when people find out why it's been done. If there's too much dissension in the ranks or he's not able to function effectively in his new capacity, I'll have no choice but to terminate him or farm him out to another agency. Hell, if I wanted to make my life easier I'd reassign him to a satellite office somewhere starting tomorrow if I wasn't certain he'd just quit."
Tony wanted to object to being talked about like he wasn't even in the room but Morrow hadn't really said anything he could object to and he found himself rather in awe of his Director and new supervisor.
"Today I want you with Pacci's team, Agent DiNozzo. He's running a 24 hour surveillance detail and he could use another body. I'll brief him privately on the why's and let him bring you up to speed on the Op. Gibbs, I've got a secure call coming into MTAC from Syria I want you in on." He reached in his desk and tossed a file at Jethro. "Read this first. I think that will be all for now, gentlemen. Please try not to cause me anymore headaches at least for the time being," he said by way of dismissal.
"Sir, if you have just a minute," Tony began, awkwardly swinging the backpack that he been trying to keep from slipping down his shoulder around to the front and fishing out the cold case files he'd been pouring over in his spare time in Stillwater.
"Please don't tell me you have more bad news in that bag, Agent DiNozzo. My patience is just about worn thin already this morning." His heavy eyes were a warning all in themselves.
"No…I don't think so anyway. Agent Gibbs had me go over these files, Director. And I think I found a few things I'd like to follow up on. And since you're my new supervisor I was just wondering…" He set the files on Morrow's desk and the older man looked at them as if they gave off a vile stench.
Morrow sighed and shook his head. "What in the hell did I just get myself into?" he asked no one in particular. His head came up and he glared at Gibbs. "You gave him the files, you deal with them. I have to be at the Pentagon in a half hour and I don't have time to play babysitter today." He pulled his jacket from the back of his chair. "Don't make me regret this decision, Jethro." Morrow grabbed his briefcase and started for the door leaving them standing in the middle of his office.
"What in the hell just happened?" Tony asked, his head still spinning. All the rehearsal, all the planning, and in the end, they hadn't had to say more than two words.
"He just gave us a gift," Gibbs smiled. "And a damn generous one at that."
"I'm still a little lost here. You're gonna have to explain that." At the very least he knew he was grateful to still have a job.
"The Director gave you an assignment, Probie. Go find Pacci. Let's not fuck this up before he's even out of the building." Gibbs grabbed the files from the desk and moved to pull open the double doors that had shut behind Morrow. "See you at home tonight."
The next four days were a hellish blur for Tony but it might just have been the best thing to happen to him. He pulled night shift duty on surveillance which meant 12 hours a day hopped up on caffeine fighting the urge to drift off while he listened in on comings and goings in the warehouse district of the Navy yard. There had been a series of meth overdoses in the enlisted population and Pacci's team had tracked the drugs back here. Now their job was to try and figure out who the hell was letting them through and plug the hole up for good.
The gig wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't for the fact that, predictably, news of DiNozzo's reassignment and, more importantly, the reasons behind his reassignment had circulated like wildfire through the entire NCIS building before lunchtime that first day. Oh sure, no one said anything outright, they were still far too afraid of Gibbs' retribution for that, but it was impossible to miss the snickers and whispers that followed him through the halls, the tables that cleared out mysteriously when he sat down in the cafeteria, or the sudden lack of invites to the bar at the end of his long shift. Not that he would have taken the guys up on them but he was being not so subtly ostracized by those who had quickly befriended him and it sure as hell wasn't any fun.
And so it was that his 12 hour shifts with Balboa turned into 12 hours of cold shoulder mixed with intermittent spurs of barely contained curiosity. Sometime on the fourth night, curiosity finally won out.
DiNozzo had just bitten into his still warm meatball sub when Balboa decided it was time for 21 questions.
"So…you and agent Gibbs…" the dark haired agent began somewhat hesitantly, "you knocked him up, right?"
Tony set the sub down slowly and wiped his mouth and hands slowly and intently. His first instinct was to stonewall but in the end he decided that the only way to get through this was to hit it head on. Balboa was his friend-had been his friend anyway-and ultimately, the guy felt betrayed. Tony knew he would have felt the same if the shoe were on the other foot. Of course that didn't mean he had to make this easy. "Certainly seems that way." He tried to keep his voice neutral.
"So how did that…happen, exactly?"
"You never took health class Balboa?"
"You know what I mean, DiNozzo. You guys were fucking?" There was really no reason to be delicate about it.
"We were and we are," he said carefully. "What do you want to know?"
"What's that like?" Balboa hedged.
"You never fucked anyone before? Maybe you better start there before you get involved in my sex life." DiNozzo wrapped his sandwich back up regretfully. He was pretty sure this was gonna take awhile.
"Yeah but its Gibbs. That's gotta be…insane." He managed to sound slightly awed.
"He's just a man," Tony shrugged. "In my defense I hadn't really seen the scarier sides of him when we did it the first time. He wasn't my boss, he was just some Navy cop working an undercover case on my beat. And there was just something…" He couldn't keep the wistfulness out of his voice but quickly cleared his throat and moved on. "It was over. Just that one time. We agreed to stop, to put the job first when I came to NCIS." Now he felt like he was apologizing and maybe ultimately that's what needed to happen. "Kid kind of came along and changed things though," Tony admitted.
"They do that." Balboa sounded thoughtful. "So all that stuff with the women, all that flirting…that's just show? And Gibbs is gay? Hasn't the guy been married like, 10 times or something?" It was clear this was something he was completely unable to wrap his mind around.
"No and no," Tony objected. "And it was only 3 times." That was the count Jethro owned to publicly and it wasn't his place to out him about his first wife. Neither did he feel the need to explain his sexuality or his choices. "Things aren't always black and white, you know that. Sometimes it's just about people. Never had a relationship with a man before. Never expected to and neither did he. But things happen."
"Yeah, but you're still fucking each other. I mean, I don't get it."
DiNozzo's patience was beginning to wear thin and they still had another 6 hours of their shift to go. For better or for worse it was time to stop handling the whole thing with kid gloves. "Maybe if you tell me exactly which part of this thing is bothering you the most I can help you?" He tried to keep his voice level. "Is it the guy thing? The work thing? The Gibbs thing? You want details? Because I've got details, Balboa, lots and lots of details. But it's not about the details for me. It's about falling in love with the man who's carrying my child. We didn't want it, we didn't plan it, and maybe it really is the craziest thing in the world to think two guys like us could make this work but it's happening, it's not going away and neither one of us could pretend it wouldn't affect our jobs any more. That if it really came down to it, we wouldn't compromise a case if it meant protecting the other person. I guess I deserve people talking about me and whispering about me but damn it, I have a fucking job to do and I put that first. And people are either gonna get over it or they aren't but I'm not going anywhere so they're damn sure gonna have to learn to live with it," Tony finished forcefully, looking straight at Balboa as if daring him to object. The other man's eyes suddenly flew wide but they weren't focused on him.
"Shit, I think it's going down," Balboa launched himself out of his chair toward the bank of video surveillance monitors and grabbed a set of headphones.
Tony was quick to follow. Indeed, from the look and sound of things, their elusive prey had finally come to call. Four men had gathered in the warehouse that had become the focus of their operation after an unscheduled shipment arrived there 2 days ago. "I've got movement on the target. Need backup right this second," DiNozzo called into his mike. They had teams at the base on call but it would take them some time to get into place.
"Shit, this is gonna be over in five minutes," Balboa stood and began strapping on his vest and gear. "It's you and me, DiNozzo. You up for this?"
"You're the senior Agent, I go where you lead." He studied the monitors for a few minutes. "Looks like all four are armed but this guy's in charge." Tony pointed to a figure hanging back from the others just slightly. "If we go in from this side we get decent cover, element of surprise. And if we take him out first the others shouldn't be an issue."
Balboa paused in the act of checking his weapon and pocketing an extra clip to study him for just a minute. "Maybe I should be following you." He was impressed by DiNozzo'a ability to read the scene so quickly and make a decision. "Maybe Gibbs made the right choice after all," he said respectfully.
"Call 'em like I see 'em," Tony did up the last Velcro strap on his vest. Whatever was passing between them right now, his mind was 100% immersed in the task at hand, focused with deadly precision on his goal now that he had one. The two radioed up so they could keep the arriving team apprised of their situation in case things didn't go to plan and he followed the other man from the parked delivery van that had been their cover. He and Balboa made eye contact one last time and then began to move like fluid shadows toward the building that was their target.
Tony gave one passing thought to Jethro, safe and likely in bed at home and immediately pressed down the apprehension the image evoked, the fear of loss he had never had to face when putting his own life in danger. In that brief second he understood exactly how much his life had changed and the necessity of the decisions he and Gibbs had made.
"Go," Balboa mouthed silently as they reached the side entrance for the warehouse.
Tony nodded a second before his foot met metal. "Federal Agents, don't move," he announced at the top of his lungs as he dove through the entrance and rolled for the cover he knew to be immediately to his right, hearing the zip and ping as a bullet flew over his head and embedded itself in the steel frame of the building.
It was over in less than a minute. Balboa took a shot and missed, drawing fire and DiNozzo took out the man they had identified as the leader from his position behind a row of heavy crates before any of their targets had a chance to take cover. The man would survive but his knee was destroyed as well as his right hand which had held the weapon he'd fired at Tony. Thinking themselves surrounded, the others had thrown down their weapons without firing a shot and by the time the backup teams arrived all three were in cuffs.
Three hours of paperwork back at NCIS and Balboa approached him just as he was preparing to leave.
"Pretty damn good job out there tonight," the other agent praised him sincerely. He looked down at the carpet for a few seconds before meeting Tony's eyes again. "Couple of the guys and I are heading out to catch last call. Thought you might wanna join us?" he offered somewhat hesitantly.
In truth, Tony wanted nothing more than to go home and crawl in bed beside Gibbs, to fall asleep to the feel of warm skin beneath his hands and the sounds of the older man's gently snores, but an olive branch was an olive branch and he was a big enough man to know you didn't swat it away when it was extended to you. "Could use a beer or two to wind down, I guess," he said, trying not to sound too eager.
"Good," Balboa smiled genuinely. "Oh, and we could use you back on the court Saturday morning. New guy from tech is a friggin' baller. If anybody can keep him away from the net it's you, DiNozzo."
And just like that it was over. For the most part anyway. A few guys still looked at him sideways, gave him a wider berth in the locker room or at the gym but generally he was back in the fold. What really mattered was that he was a good man to have at their backs and it didn't really matter who's backside he was on outside the job.
Three or four hours later after they'd closed down the bar and then hit Balboa's apartment for a few shots and a game of pool, a cab dropped a very pleasantly buzzed DiNozzo at the curb in front of Gibbs' house. His house now. He needed to start thinking of the place that way but it wasn't an easy transition. Especially right now when his thoughts were more than a little muzzy.
Entering the house as quietly as possible, Tony toed off his shoes, managed to lose his balance only once in the process, and crept slowly upstairs. When he pushed open the door to the bedroom he was surprised to find Jethro sitting up in bed with a book spread out on his lap. He hadn't noticed the light from outside but he quickly remembered that the heavy curtains were drawn so that he could sleep in in the mornings. "Hope you didn't stay up for me." Guilt stabbed at him through his buzzing head.
"Nope." He patted his belly. "She's been up for an hour. Think she knows when you're not here. You're home early." Gibbs cocked an eyebrow at him in question.
DiNozzo began to step out of his pants and took an awkward side step, catching himself on the dresser. "We got the bad guys." He grinned.
"You drunk?" Jethro asked, though the question was basically rhetorical at this point.
"Pshhh," he waved off the accusation. "Okay, maybe a little." Tony crawled up the bed as Gibbs set his book aside. "The guys took me out."
"I'm glad." Tony had tried to pretend that the whispers and cold shoulder treatment he had been getting from the other agents wasn't bothering him but Jethro knew better. Tony was a frat boy, used to being part of the in-crowd and Gibbs knew how much it hurt him to be on the outside even for a few days. He ran his fingers gently through the younger man's hair as Tony curled up next to his stomach and began to rub it lovingly.
"What's the matter in there, little girl? You miss your daddy? Why don't you let Dad number one get some sleep now that I'm home." Tony pushed up the light t-shirt Gibbs wore and kissed the bit of exposed skin gently.
"She's got the hiccups. Again," Gibbs complained lightly. He'd been feeling the tiny spasms in his belly for a couple of months but she was big enough now that there was no sleeping through these little bouts.
"Poor kid." Tony stroked the swollen mound of his partner's stomach.
"Poor kid?" Gibbs objected. "Poor me. It's like Chinese water torture in there."
"You drunk in Daddy's tummy like your old man?" Tony hiccuped in imitation of the little rhythmic hitch-jerk motion he felt beneath Jethro's skin and earned a playful swat from Gibbs.
"Go brush your teeth and get back in bed and kiss me. I can smell the bourbon from here." In truth he desperately missed the taste but it was one of two things that were still guaranteed to make him nauseous.
"On it, Boss." Tony made a fairly straight line to the bathroom and took care of business. By the time he came back, however, Jethro had curled up on his side and flipped the light off already.
"Hiccups stopped," Gibbs muttered around a yawn as Tony crawled in behind him.
"Mmm..." Tony whined a little disappointedly as he draped an arm over Jethro and nuzzled into his neck.
"Sorry. Gotta sleep while I can," he apologized. "But don't be surprised if I wake you up in a few hours." He pressed back against the reassuring warmth of Tony's chest and rolled his bottom against the hint of erection he could feel against his hip.
"Deal." Tony nosed at the older man's earlobe.
Gibbs was quiet for a few seconds. "Missed you," he grunted grudgingly, still unaccustomed to the feeling.
Tony tightened his grip on Jethro's shoulders in acknowledgement. "You are the very best thing to ever happen to my life, Jethro Gibbs," he murmured when he was almost certain the older man was on the very edge of sleep.
Once again, thanks so much for following this story so far down it's path and for continuing o let me know that you enjoy it! You are all amazing!
KK
