Rating: T
Disclosure: For the thirty-sixth I avow that I do not own the cast of NCIS, unfortunately and don't make money from this story.
A/N Well let's get this out-of-the-way straight away. I said that this was going to be the final chapter but... honestly it rounded out at almost 10,000 words and that was without the epilogue which was another 1600 words give or take. So after consultation with my Beta BuckeyeGirl00000 (thanks for the practiced beta eye over the chapter btw) we decided to split it somewhat unevenly into one smaller and one larger chapter, for ease of reading. I will also be posting the epilogue as a separate chapter too. So now that I am beet red with embarrassment, I'll get back to thanking people who are still faving and alerting, not to mention all the reviews that were left for the last chapter.
Oh and Tony's views re Arizona LEOs are not meant in any way to impune the folks of that particular state :) Just his experience with a few people.
Halloween Remembrance
Chapter 36
Gibbs had called and given Tony the address for the crime scene and told him to bring the rest of the team. It was one of their own that had been slain cold-bloodedly and Gibbs was even curter that usual, demanding they get their butts down there asap. Tony knew that this case had already become a crusade for his boss but he understood and reciprocated the burning need to make sure that their fellow agent's killer was brought to justice. They looked after their own.
Tony knew that his irascible Team Leader's temper would not be improved with his team's tardiness but Tony and Ziva were still waiting on McGee, who was late again. Tony didn't know what was wrong with him recently but Tim was short tempered, distracted, his mind not focused on the job and Gibbs had been riding him really hard lately. He also didn't get what was going on between them but the tension was palpable every time they were in close proximity.
He sighed, as he waited for Probie, anticipating the reception that awaited them when they finally arrived at the crime scene. It wouldn't be pretty, he concluded wryly. Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo winced as he pulled out his badge before he sombrely arranged the black band across the middle of it in the time honour tradition in law enforcement, signifying that one of their own had fallen in the line of duty. It was an action that Tony had had to carry out far too many times in his career but somehow he never became desensitised to the solemnity behind such a simple action. It was a sign of respect and mourning and his partner, Officer Ziva David watched on respectfully.
"Did you know Special Agent Jack Patterson well, Tony?"
He had answered that no, he hadn't been close to the special agent but still he mused, in such a small agency as NCIS, it was impossible not to run into fellow agents and he'd been with the agency for eight years now. And even when you didn't know a fallen agent, it still cut you to the quick because it was a reminder of how tenuous the hold on life and how easily it could be taken away from you. As Tony pondered the impermanence of existence, especially for someone in their line of work, the elevator pinged. He glanced up praying to the elevator gods that it contained their wayward McTardy and they could make their way down town to join Gibbs at the crime scene.
As he processed the scene, Tony glanced up to see Abby in all her Gothic glory attempting to storm the scene and the local Leo's trying to hold her back. Despite the tragic nature of the crime scene, he couldn't hold back a small smile, knowing that until they managed to catch their killer, there would be precious little for anyone to smile about. He thought about the Trans Atlantic phone call he'd received earlier while they were waiting for Probie to get his ass to the Navy Yard. Surely there was no other reason for Uncle Clive's solicitor to contact him except for something to do with his will. Oh he was under no illusions about him being a major benefactor of his uncle's estate or they would have contacted while he was in England attending Clive's funeral last month. It was more likely that he'd left him a keepsake, a family heirloom or a small bequest.
Tony wasn't a fool although he was a pragmatist. He knew that although his Uncle Clive had welcomed him that summer he'd spent in England, he was still the poor relation to the Paddington clan. His Italian grandparents' peasant heritage had tainted the precious blue blood of the Paddington's and that was not appreciated. There was no way he was going to be rewarded for that corruption to their prized gene pool so they would never leave him a significant inheritance; still he was thrilled that Clive might have actually acknowledged his existence by mentioning him in his will. It was more than he could expect from his own father and while his expectations weren't very high after a lifetime of disappointment when it came to any related to family, there was still existed that small little boy who hoped that his Uncle Clive had really cared for him a little and regarded him as a part of his family.
As he tried to contain his hopefulness, he thought about the team that had become a de facto family of sorts, although he recognised that his need for them to be a family wasn't reciprocated to the same degree by the team, as they all had some family of their own while he was truly alone. It also made him vulnerable enough that he took way more crap from the team than he deserved because he thought of them as family. Ziva though had shocked him speechless and that was quite a feat, when she'd announced in all seriousness that she'd thought he had been lying when he claimed that his Uncle had died and he had to attend his funeral in England,simply because he wanted some time off. Sure he lived his life behind a series of carefully crafted fronts that prevented people from getting too close, but how she could honestly believe that he would be so unprofessional to make up a family tragedy to get time off, and that hurt him more than he would admit. After all, he never took the full quota of his sick leave when he was injured on the job. He'd even returned a week early after almost dying from the plague a few years ago. He put in many extra hours, returning at night to deal with the paperwork that was part and parcel of seniority.
Then there was McChurlish this morning. He'd made them late to the crime scene and Gibbs was ready to blow a head gasket by the time they'd finally reached the crime scene. Knowing that Tim was acting hinky and Gibbs was ready to kill him, Tony had decided to commit suicide-by-Gunny and tell his Boss it was his fault the team was late getting to the scene and save McThankless' scrawny neck. It wasn't the first time he'd taken the heat for either of the juniors and he didn't think it would be the last either. After all, he put his body on the line countless times, willing to take bullets for his teammates and even taking their place when a car bomb had been detected and detonated, so it seemed entirely logical to him that when Gibbs was on a tear, he would also place his body between him and the rest of the team. Yet today when he'd taken the heat out of Gibbs by covering up for McGee, Mr MIT looked totally shocked and later on had asked him cynically why Tony had covered up for him.
Just as with Ziva, Tim's reaction had shaken him to the quick. Did they really not know him at all after working with him for so long? Sure he had his masks but Gibbs saw past them, maybe not to his core but enough to know that there was actually a fundamentally worthwhile individual within. Abby had had his measure almost as soon as he started working at NCIS and Ducky and Palmer had quickly come to see that he was much more than his many guises. So what did it say about his teammates, the people he'd come to regard as family that they weren't capable, or didn't care enough about him, to look past his masks and know that he was so much more than he seemed. How the hell had they earned a place on Gibbs team or was it simply that they disliked him so much that they simply never bothered to waste the energy on him?
While he was hurt and irritated in equal measure, he also knew that what was going to be more difficult was to deal with the case at hand which had to take priority, while dealing with the uncertainty and hope that he might finally have achieved some measure of acceptance from his mother's family. He was going to have to watch that he didn't show any of his vulnerabilities in front of Ziva and McGee, while he waited to hear what was going on with Clive's estate. There was no way he was going to let them know what was really going on so he resolved that if they thought he was so obnoxious and superficial, then that was what they were going to get. No one did insufferable and annoying like Anthony DiNozzo and at the least, it would be a distraction to the waiting and not knowing. It would also rile up Gibbs to new heights even if he saw past the act, and a riled up Gibbs would make Probie and the Ninja suffer and as far as Tony was concerned it would damn well serve them right.
HRHRHRHR
Tony was appalled when he learnt that he would have to go back to Arizona. He really was stunned when Gibbs announced that he was accompanying him to track down the artist Dina Risi. Normally, he loved field trips especially when it was just him and Gibbs and lately, they'd seemed to be getting on better. He still caught Gibbs looking at him with that damned pity face when he thought no one was watching and it make Tony feel like a weak impotent child again. Gibbs also growled and scowled any time he slipped and mentioned anything to do with Darryl Amos, his training sessions or the baby Dees he was mentoring, which was why he tried to avoid talking about the friendship that had been developing between him and the Metro cop but it made for a certain awkwardness between Gibbs and himself.
He'd taken to having dinner once a week with Darryl and discovered that he was lonely and grieving but unlike Gibbs, Darryl actually talked about his feeling. He told Tony a little about his son and he could empathise with the guy since his mother had battled depression for as long as Tony could remember. It was tragic that his son had never talked to his dad as he seemed to be pretty approachable and loving. As petty as it sounded to be jealous of a depressed suicidal kid, one that was dead to boot, Tony couldn't help wishing that he'd ended up with a father like Darryl. He wasn't naïve enough to think that Amos was a saint or the archetypal Father Knows Best but he sure would have been a vast improvement on Senior, even if Tony had been a problem child.
In the end though, it wasn't the thought of having to deal with Gibbs one on one, even if their relationship was still striving to get back to a semblance of what they'd once shared. No, it was that Tony really, really didn't want to head back to Arizona. Once had been more than enough for him, thank-you very much, after he and his Philly partner had gone chasing down a suspect and failed to hit it off with their Arizona cop compadres. He'd found a few of the local LEOS he'd come across there had been straight up, ethnocentric jerks, openly disparaging about his heritage, so it was no wonder the place held plenty of unpleasant associations. Honestly, their idea of Italians had been the Mob and spaghetti and meatballs and the contempt was hard for him to tolerate although he guessed he should be used to it.
It was the type of bigotry that had caused Senior to abandon the correct Italian pronunciation of their family name. When the gravel voiced John Wayne wanna-be Sheriff Clay Boyd had made that offensive comment about him being Eye-talian, he had bristled but schooled himself to not respond to the insult the way he really wanted to. After all, he was used to being taunted about his heritage even if in truth he was a second generation American and he also held a dual English passport because of his mother being English.
He may be a proud American but it didn't make him less proud of where his grandparents had come from. He forced himself not to snark back at the guy that the European part of his bloodline was immersed in literature, language, music and cultural pursuits at least a millennia longer than that of some cowpoke sheriff. Tempting as it was to vent, they still had to work together, so he did what he did best and sucked it up, deflecting his anger and showing him where they thought Dina Risi was holed up.
When Tony realised that they were going to have to proceed on horseback he was dismayed, although he had honestly been prepared for that possibility and the horse trailer had pretty much sealed the deal. He'd made a dumb joke about calling up a helo because he knew it was expected of him and he was always happy to oblige. He'd already decided that if worst came to worst, and he was forced to ride with Sheriff Cowpoke and Gibbs, whose idea of cinematic brilliance was Alan Ladd in Shane, that they would crap themselves laughing if he revealed his childhood and hours of endless riding instruction, including European dressage, show jumping and later polo when he was a teenager, staying with Uncle Clive one year.
Both men had so much male machismo going on and were into the whole dying with their boots' n' spurs on mentality, probably growing up in the saddle and riding before they could even walk. No doubt neither of them had ever had a riding lesson in their life, so he decided to save himself the mocking and make out he was a newbie or in their parlance a tenderfoot. Actually that was a stupid misnomer if ever he heard one because it was much more accurate to call it a tenderbutt.
So rather than open himself up for a trip of ribbing and ridicule, he was going to keep his ability to ride strictly mum and play the part of a clueless idiot. One thing he wouldn't need to fake though would be a tender butt after this little jaunt. It had been years since he'd gone on a long ride like the one that they were about to undertake and he was fully expecting his butt and other muscles to go down fighting. At least it would add verisimilitude to the role of greenhorn that he was playing. When all was said and done, while he could easily hold his own when it came to handling a horse, in reality he was out of his comfort zone when it came to trail riding and camping out in the desert so that also helped in his efforts to appear totally, utterly clueless.
HRHRHRHR
Gibbs had impulsively decided to drag Tony off to Arizona to spend extra one on one time with him because he was concerned that if he inherited a fortune from his Uncle Clive, he might decide to leave NCIS. He was hoping that if they spent some time together, he might be able to convince DiNozzo to stay, because apart from any inheritance, the six month grace period he'd granted Gibbs to fix the team dynamic was rapidly approaching. And while he'd done his Marine best to fix things he had discovered the hard way, that it was much easier to break things than it was to try to fix them once they were broke. The junior brats had been incredibly slow when it came to learning that things were going to change in the way they worked as a team and he was getting fed up with them both. McGee was being particularly aggravating lately and he was in danger of throttling him.
Not that DiNozzo seemed to be all that thrilled with the prospect of heading to Arizona and Gibbs wasn't sure if it was because they would be alone together or because he hated Arizona. He really hoped he could change his mind about moving on because now that Ducky had finally forced him to pull his head out of his ass and acknowledge what everybody already knew, he had come to realise just how empty his life would be if DiNozzo decided to move on. He knew he was being selfish, that Tony was more than ready to lead a team of his own, had been for some time now but he couldn't imagine what it would be like if he didn't have his goofy senior field agent watching his six anymore.
Gibbs recalled the events that had unfolded and thanked the gods that Tony was such a thorough professional that when he'd directed him to call up the person whose card had been clutched in Special Agent Patterson's cold dead hand, DiNozzo had called the Homeland Security guy's office line and left a voicemail message. When, in his typically impatient fashion he'd directed him to call up the cell phone number scribbled on the back of the card, they'd been suckered into inviting the killer into their investigation as he'd used them to try to find Dina. When the real Bartholomew Lemming turned up at NCIS to find out why Tony had been calling him, they were luckily alerted just in the nick of time to avoid ending up as victims of the assassin for hire, although it had been a close thing. This led Gibbs to recall some details about DiNozzo's actions during their riding trip, which simply didn't add up.
Even though DiNozzo acted like a complete klutz and looked absolutely clueless when it came to saddling up his mount, he noticed that when push came to shove as the assassin came after them in the helo, Tony manage to sit his horse easily with a damn fine seat as they took off at breakneck pace without falling off, which was pretty unbelievable for a novice. His dismount was pretty damned elegant and rapid under the circumstances and seemed much too practised for a beginner and he sure didn't look like he was anywhere near as saddle sore as he'd made out.
He also thought about how the two of them had worked together to handle the threat. How Tony had been totally focused on protecting Dina Risi and then automatically covered Gibbs six like normal, without sign of the stiffness he been complaining about either now that he thought about it. He'd been the consummate professional using his sig to create a diversion so that Gibbs could chase after the sheriff's horse and get hold of his trusty rifle and take down the helo. Gibbs really couldn't imagine not having DiNozzo watching out for his six anymore, they'd worked together so seamlessly, just like in the early days. He hoped like Hell that his senior field agent didn't inherit a cent so he'd stay on his team and they could keep working together.
Returning to the puzzle of DiNozzo and his riding, Gibbs knew that something simply didn't add up and his gut was screaming at him that he was missing something. He resolved to ask Ducky when they got back about Tony's riding background. He figured if anyone would know something like that, it would be Duck. In the meantime, he leaned back in his seat and decided that he would sleep as their plane headed for home.
Next chapter: Secrets revealed and Ducky lends an ear.