AN: Here's the chapter you've been asking about for the last couple of weeks. Enjoy!
Chapter 48
Tony looked at Tim as they opened the outer door to the director's office. "Maybe he just wants to tell us he knows and give us cookies?"
Tim rolled his eyes. "Haven't you gotten enough free food this week? Come on, let's get this over with."
They walked into the inner sanctum, shoulder to shoulder. Neither was going to let the other face this alone.
Vance was alone, and he didn't waste any time beating around the bush. "DiNozzo, McGee. I've been watching you."
Tony's first instinct whenever a situation got tense was to open his mouth and let the words take over, drowning out the tension and covering over whatever storm was about to break. Gibbs, Vance, even Tim... they could do the silent thing. They could watch and wait and pick their words carefully, measuring them out as if each cost its weight in gold. Not him. Words bubbled, poured, streamed from him, flowing around reality and drowning it so he could look it in the face, laugh and refuse to accept it. Facing FBI murder charges? He'd ramble. Being interrogated by Eli David? He'd babble and tap dance his way to the truth. Held in a prison camp facing certain death at the hands of a terrorist, his body full of truth serum? Tony would talk and talk until he'd said more than even Saleem wanted to know.
And yet here he held his tongue. There was nothing to say.
Tim stepped up to the conversational plate. "And?"
Tony didn't have to look to know McEyebrow was giving Vance that look, the one that appeared like he was just curious. The one Tim pulled out every time he was trying to bluff his way through something. Tony kept his eyes on Vance, muscles tensed for action.
"You did well tonight. You didn't let your concern for each other distract you from the mission."
He started breathing again, relief so great he almost missed the director's next words.
"As a result, we're going to be able to bring down this son of a bitch. I have to admit, when I first realized what was going on, I was concerned. Even though Gibbs assured me that he wouldn't let anything interfere with your team's safety, and even though I trust Gibbs, I trust my eyes more. No way to know what would happen until the two of you were out in the field. If tonight had been a test, you two passed with flying colors."
Tony felt tension drain out of his muscles, tension that had been building since Tim's glasses had broken. He had to lock his knees to keep from just melting to the floor and forced himself to focus as Vance kept talking.
"I know the regs aren't clear on whether agents on the same team can be in an extra-curricular relationship, so I've been making some discreet inquiries. Federal HR places that decision at the discretion of the supervisor and agency head. I'm placing a confidential memo in each of your files. If anybody ever presses the issue, it will show you two have proven yourselves. You two are valuable assets to this agency, two of the best agents I have."
Tony felt his throat catch at Vance's words. Gibbs had promised him that the Agent Afloat assignment wasn't punishment, that Israel wasn't retaliation. Gibbs had reassured him Vance valued his experience. But as much as he trusted Gibbs, hearing it from Vance left his heart light. Even knowing Hurricane Abby was waiting downstairs didn't worry him. He smiled. Actually, with Vance on their side, he was less worried about Abby's reaction. Sure, she would be mad — and loud. Abby was capable of alerting the entire Navy Yard even on a good day. But Vance had their back. Even Sacks couldn't file a complaint that would override Vance's decision. And Abby would forgive them. Eventually. Once her feelings were done being hurt. He hoped.
Vance dismissed them, and they headed back to the bullpen. Tony expected to find Abby waiting for Tim, but she had left. "Abby's gone?"
"I guess," Tim said. "It's almost 0200. Come on, if Gibbs wants us back here by 0700, we need to get home."
But when they got home, Tim headed for his study.
"Tim, the alarm's going off in four hours," Tony said.
"I know." Tim rubbed the back of his neck. "I just..."
Tony nodded. From the other side of the bullpen, it might have appeared like he was out of it while Abby was talking to Tim, but he'd heard every word she'd said. "Go. Write." He headed upstairs to change, but ended up going back down to the living room and lying on the couch. He knew if he went to bed he'd fall asleep, and he didn't want Tim up all night — or what was left of it.
He pulled the fleece blanket over himself. Jethro padded next to him and lay down, nudging Tony's hand with his head until Tony reached to scratch him behind the ears.
When half an hour had passed and he hadn't heard a single typewriter key, Tony sat up. "Are you coming to bed?"
"I'll be there in a minute," Tim said. "I'm just... thinking."
"I know. I can almost smell the smoke from the spinning gears in your brain, McGenius." Tony walked to the doorway of the study and looked in. Tim was slumped in his desk chair. "I heard what she asked, you know."
"You did?" Tim turned to look at him. "I didn't think you had."
Tony shrugged. "I wanted to see what was going to happen, and then Vance called us in. When you didn't bring it back up, I figured I'd let the McBrain work on it for a bit."
"Yeah, well, my brain's as exhausted as the rest of me. I knew I needed to tell her, but I was hoping she might already have a clue. She's Abby! How did she miss everything? The hug, OK, but everything?"
Tony reached out a hand and pulled Tim to his feet. "She wasn't looking for it. If what Ziva said is true, she's been thinking about getting back together with you for a couple months now. And if that's where her mind is — looking for signs you might be interested — she wasn't going to notice signs that we're together. Especially since we tried to hide it for so long."
Tim groaned as he followed Tony up the stairs. "That's what happens when she forgets her own philosophy on evidence."
"Her what?"
"When we were sorting through all those Damocles electronics, she told me that when it comes to evidence, don't plan. Just go. Find along the way. Because if you look for something specific, then there's only one right answer."
Tony set the alarm and started pulling off his clothes. "And she just proved that in spades. Not that I think we should tell her that."
Tim snorted. "No, definitely not." He climbed into bed and settled against the other man. "So what do we tell her?"
"I don't know, but let's figure it out tomorrow. Sleep now. Think later."
The ring of a cell phone woke Tim the next morning. The bedroom was still dark, but he could tell the sky was starting to lighten outside. He turned his head to see Tony had picked up the phone and heard him garble out a greeting.
"OK, Boss. We'll check in at noon." Tony flipped the phone closed.
Tim blinked his eyes a few times. "What did Gibbs want?" His voice was heavy with sleep.
"We get to sleep in. Balboa and Johnson's teams busted Ringpolle. Rescued the women. Several are in bad shape, but they're alive. Found enough evidence to link Ringpolle to Damon, so they were able to pick him up, search his car. Got some hairs and fibers from the trunk they think match Murchinson. Gibbs called Abby back in to run the forensics while Damon's cooling his heels in interrogation. Gibbs is pretty sure he can break this guy. So we have to check in at noon, but as of now, we have the rest of the weekend off. There are still some loose ends, but Fornell and Sacks will come by Monday to tie those up."
Tim felt his muscles relax as Tony explained. "Do we need to call Mom and Dad, let them know the op is off?"
"Probably," Tony said. "Gibbs didn't say he had." He looked at the alarm clock. "It's barely even six." He reached over and switched the alarm off. "Come on, let's enjoy the morning off. We can call them later, when we're actually awake." He pulled Tim close and snuggled under the covers. Tim rolled them so he was half-lying on Tony, long limbs sprawled across him, and leaned in to kiss him.
"I like the way you think, Tim," Tony said, pulling away to breathe, before tugging Tim's head down to his again.
The sun was high by the time Jethro finally dragged them out of bed.
"I'll go let McMutt out, then start breakfast," Tony said. "Eggs and bacon sound good?"
Tim stopped to look at Tony. "Is bacon ever a bad idea? You know better than that."
"Good point." As Jethro whined, Tim tossed the other man a sweatshirt and sweatpants from the dresser.
"Go on or we're going to have puddles to clean up," Tim said, shooing them out of the bedroom.
By the time Tim got out of the shower, he could smell breakfast and realized he hadn't had anything to eat since before they had left for Annapolis the previous day. When he walked into the kitchen, Tony set a plate of eggs and bacon on the table for him.
"Not to ruin a day that's started off so well, but what do we do about Abby?" Tim asked after they had eaten their fill. "We need to tell her. I need to tell her. Knowing her, she's going to call or stop by as soon as Gibbs lets her leave today."
Tony scrubbed his face with his hands. "I don't know, Tim. I was thinking about it while the food was cooking, and I don't know of any way to tell her at this point that isn't going to hurt her. For all her leather and spikes, Abby's got a soft heart. And we're about to bruise it, big time."
Tim nodded. He could feel tension seeping back into his shoulders, and he rolled them to try and keep them loose. "Why don't I-"
Tony's cell phone rang. "It's Abby," he said, looking at the screen. "Hey, Abbs. You nail this dirtbag yet?"
Tim watched Tony's face change. "Sure, Abbs. No, we're just eating breakfast. It's not every day Gibbs lets us sleep in. I'd be surprised if Ziva or Palmer have been up long either." He paused. "OK. Six o'clock. See you then." He paused again. "No, I'll tell him. He's sitting right here."
Tim smiled as Tony hung up. "You got her to come over so we can tell her?"
Tony shook his head. "No, she only called me because she couldn't reach you on your phone."
Tim winced. "It's still on the nightstand upstairs."
"I think she was calling to see if you were around. And since she had me on the phone and since we all have the day off, she figured tonight would be the perfect time for the game night we promised to host. What was I supposed to say? 'No, we can't do game night until we tell you we're dating?'"
"True." Tim rolled his shoulders again. "So do we call Ziva and Palmer?"
Tony shook his head. "She's calling them. It's not like we can call behind her and ask the others to watch what they say tonight because she doesn't know yet. You know they'll all think we need to come clean with her. And we know we need to tell her. I think at this point we just have to let things happen. Because she's going to be at NCIS until she comes over, and you can't really call her there and tell her over the phone."
Tim thought about it, then shook his head slowly. "No, you're right. I don't like it, but you're right."
Tony was halfway through assembling the lasagna when he heard the doorbell ring. He grabbed a towel and wiped his hands off as he went to open the door.
"Hey, Tony!" Abby's arms were piled high with games, and her pigtails bounced as she practically vibrated with excitement. "I know I'm early, but I couldn't wait."
"Come on in, Abbs." He stuffed the towel in his back pocket and grabbed the top of the towering stack. He couldn't have asked for a better set-up, but that didn't make him dread it any less. "I'm just finishing up dinner, and Tim's out running with Jethro so hopefully he'll be too worn out to want to play with us tonight. Grab a seat, chill out. I'll be done in a few minutes. Just need to get everything assembled and in the oven."
He put the games on the coffee table and headed back into the kitchen. He should have known Abby would be early, but it was probably just as well it turned out this way. He knew Tim felt like it was his responsibility to tell Abby about them, especially since he was the one she wanted, but Tony didn't agree. He loved Abby like a sister, and he had a few things he wanted her to understand — things he knew Tim wouldn't be able to bring himself to say. Things he might not even realize needed to be said.
Tony finished the classic Italian dish on autopilot and put it in the oven to bake. He washed up and headed back to the living room. When he didn't see Abby there, he felt a twist in his gut. Walking through the front entryway, he stood in the doorway to the study. Abby was sitting on the floor, looking at the "Family" photo collage the McGees had left for Tim — the one that definitively showed the two men were more than co-workers and roommates. Unlike Gibbs when he saw it, Abby wasn't smiling. She wasn't crying, which Tony thought was a good sign, but she definitely wasn't smiling. She just stared, her knees drawn to her chest, arms wrapped around them. He figured the spikes on her leather cuffs had to be hurting her in that position, but he didn't think the pain on her face was from that.
Tony walked in and softly dropped to the ground beside her. "Abbs?" He waited for her to turn and look at him before reaching over to hug her. She pulled back, and Tony had to force down the hurt of rejection. "Abbs, I'm sorry. We meant to tell you."
She looked up at him, wide pale green eyes so like Tim's and yet not. Her black and red makeup was stark against her white skin, a study in contrasts, just as the spiked goth now looked like a shy child as she chewed her lower lip. "How long?" Her voice was almost inaudible, and somehow that made Tony realize, more than anything, that they might have irrevocably damaged their relationship with their best friend. Abby was never quiet. That was like Gibbs babbling incessantly or Ducky giving just the facts or Ziva completely relaxing. It was a sign the world had tilted on its axis, perhaps never to return to normal.
"Come on, let's go sit in the living room. We can at least be comfortable." He eased himself up and offered her a hand. She took it, but when they got to the couch, she sat on the far end, putting as much distance between them as she could.
"How long?" she repeated.
Tony sighed. "Since June. Just a few weeks after we got back from Israel. I had gotten my cast off a few days earlier."
"But... I know Timmy goes both ways, but you're straight, Tony."
He just shook his head. "Not completely. Working in law enforcement, you get good at hiding it. We both did. I think... If we hadn't been so good at hiding it, we might have realized sooner." He voiced the thought that had been buried since the beginning. "If we hadn't hidden from each other, we might have realized it before I killed Rivken... before Ziva stayed in Israel."
Abby just stared at him. "You... I thought... Rivken?"
He nodded slowly. "I didn't go to Ziva's apartment because I was worried about her. Well, I was, but I was more concerned about Tim — and Gibbs — considering the strings Rivken had pulled while they were in L.A." He huffed out a breath. "After Ziva left, I realized something had to give. I couldn't keep pretending Tim was just a friend. The team was already fractured with her gone. I had always known if anything happened between Tim and me, it would either bring us all closer together, or it would be the last straw and Gibbs would be building a new team from scratch. It wasn't worth the risk before. But once Ziva was gone, I figured there was nothing left to lose." He needed Abby to understand.
"So nobody knew?"
Tony shook his head. "We didn't tell anybody," he said. "Well, not anybody on the team. I let it slip to Brad — sneaky Wolverine that he is — and Tim told his parents. Sarah figured it out before anybody else knew. She said something when we came back from Somalia."
Abby nodded. "Who else knows?"
Tony winced. There was no way to say this without hurting Abby more than she was already. He decided to use the Band-Aid method. "Everybody. Each of them has told us at some point this week that they know. That's why Vance called us up to his office last night. He was the last one. Tim went down to the lab yesterday morning to tell you, because we realized we needed to be the ones to let you know. And then the DNA results came in and things got crazy and..." He could see her eyes filling with tears and crawled across the sofa to pull her into his arms. "I'm sorry, Abbs. We never meant to hurt you. We just... we didn't know how people would take it, how Gibbs would take it. And then once he told us Sunday he knew and he was OK with it, it seemed like everybody was beating down our door to tell us they knew. And before we knew it, it was just you and Vance." He hugged her to his chest, rubbing small circles on her back.
She stayed there for a minute, then pulled back. "I just... I didn't realize until a few months ago how much Timmy had changed since he joined the team, and I realized I had changed, too. And I thought we might be able to make it work this time."
Tony took a deep breath, knowing he had to say this, had to get it off his chest. Knowing he couldn't go back once he said it.
"I think you would be a lot better together now than you were then," he said. "You're right. You have changed, and so has Tim. But so have I. You and Tim fit together in a lot of ways. I watch you in the lab, and sometimes I'm jealous of how the two of you seem to share a brain. But Tim and I have more than that. You can't bring yourself to need him. I can. It scares the hell out of me sometimes, and I almost completely screwed us up because it does scare me so much. Tim even had to beat some sense into me. And he did, because he knew he could. He knew I wouldn't walk away if he tried." He took a deep breath. "You're good for him, Abby, in so many ways. You're good for both of us, and neither of us can imagine not having you as a friend. And knowing you two had that special connection was one reason I never thought Tim could be interested in me. But you weren't willing to risk it. I was. It took a lot for me to take that step, to dare to stand in your shoes. And I'm not moving aside. If I thought you were better for him than I am, I'd do it in a heartbeat. But as good as you two are together, he and I are better. We're not complete without each other anymore.
"When Gibbs came over last Sunday to tell us he knew, he said he was OK with it. That meant a lot. You know he's more a dad to me than my father ever was. But if he had invoked Rule 12, I would have left NCIS. I don't know what I would have done. But if I ever have to choose between the best job I've ever had in my life and Tim... I'll choose him every time. And I don't want it to come to this, but the same applies to you. You're the little sister I never had, and if anything happened to you... It would be a million times worse than thinking Ziva was dead or watching Kate die, worse even than watching Gibbs get blown up. But Tim is as essential to me as breathing, and as hard as I'm fighting to keep doing that, I'll fight a million times harder to keep Tim."
Tim slowed to a walk as he and Jethro approached their home. At the sight of the red hot rod parked in front, Tim felt an icy shiver that had nothing to do with the cold weather. He detoured to the backyard and put Jethro there, before quietly returning to the front of the house and letting himself in. He could see Abby's dark hair against Tony's shoulder as they sat on the couch and decided to hang back a bit and figure out what was going on before he walked into a mess.
He watched her pull away and could just barely hear her words to Tony. And then Tony started talking and his first words were about Tim and Abby together, and Tim was suddenly glad he had stayed in the hallway. Did Tony really think... But his partner kept talking, and Tim just listened. He heard things he never thought anybody would ever say about him, things he never thought Tony would ever say about anybody. He thought of everything Tony was going through with his lungs and of all the effort he was putting in to stay healthy. And when he tried multiplying that by a million, he shorted out the calculator in his brain because it couldn't handle a number that big.
He decided he needed to let them know he was here, that Tony needed to know he had heard. He stepped into the room and found Tony's arms wrapped around Abby, whose body was shaking with sobs as she curled into him. Tim caught Tony's eye and moved to sit on the arm of the sofa where he could put his arms around them as well.
He didn't know how long they sat there before the doorbell rang.
AN: OK, that was the scene you were waiting for. Did it live up to your expectations? Leave a review and let me know. :)
