An elegant mahogany casket sat poised over an open grave that was discreetly covered with a green mat. Tony and Gibbs stood hand in hand nearby, watching the service for Rory. They hung back away from the small gathering intentionally, letting those who knew him pay their respects first. Gibbs had a feeling Tony wanted to say his goodbyes without an audience of strangers.
The service concluded and the crowd gradually drifted away, leaving Ben standing alone at the coffin. He glanced in their direction, and with a smile and wave of his hand, he called them closer.
"Gibbs, Tony," Ben greeted as they stood next to him looking down at the coffin. "Thanks for coming."
"How are you?" Gibbs asked
"Adjusting, struggling. I'm still outraged that they concealed Rory's murder; I'm bitter all over again that the life we should have had together was stolen. He paused, getting a handle on his anger, righteous as it was. "Then there's Rory. It's one thing to come to grips with the existence of ghosts, it's quite another to come face to face with the ghost of the person you loved more than life. I'm trying to come to grips with the idea that his spirit was tethered to that mine, unable to be at rest because he didn't know which one of us killed him. It's devastating to know he was afraid it might have been me." Ben looked at Tony, nothing but gratitude on his face now. "Everything we know, we owe to you."
"It seemed right that we see this through to the end," Tony replied. "Rory was very persistent," he added with a smile.
Ben's heart ached at seeing the familiar face smiling gently at him like that. "That was Rory, all right." A melancholy look passed over his face. "I envy you…the connection you had with him for that short time," he said, looking at Tony. "I wish I could have said goodbye."
Tony got an odd sensation at Ben's use of past tense. He inclined his head, searching inwardly and found what he was looking for. Yes, there was a whisper of the connection still there, and it spoke of something undone. Full circle.
"Full circle," Tony repeated aloud, affirming what the link told him.
"Tony?" Gibbs questioned uneasily.
Tony looked at Gibbs and Ben in surprise. "The link…it's different somehow, but it's still there. Because there's one thing left to do."
Tony caught Gibbs' eyes. "Jeth?" He looked at Gibbs, silently asking if he was okay with this.
Gibbs nodded, hiding his discomfort. He understood what Tony wanted, even if he didn't necessarily like it. Ultimately, he trusted that Tony knew what needed to be done in order for the link to go quiet permanently.
Ben looked back and forth between the two men. Something was happening, but he had no idea what.
Tony stepped closer to Rory's coffin and laid a hand on the sun-warmed wood of the lid.
He bowed his head in concentration and reached for the link. It was easier now that he was touching Rory's coffin.
Rory slid into his head as smoothly as before. He again felt emotions not his own; the anticipation, the eagerness for what was about to happen. Those feelings were tempered by the sadness that it would only happen this once. He opened his eyes, looking down at the coffin and waiting out the odd sensory distortion caused by Rory's vision overlapping his.
Gibbs watched, now knowing what Tony meant by 'full circle'. Ben and Rory were truly about to get the closure they'd been denied for so long.
Tony turned toward Ben and let Rory take control. When he opened his eyes, Ben pulled in a shaky breath, and Tony knew they'd changed color.
"Hello, love."
Ben stared in shock and disbelief as twenty-five years melted away and he saw the Rory he remembered, beautiful as ever. "Rory…it really is you, isn't it?"
Gibbs drew back slightly, allowing them the illusion of privacy for their reunion, such as it was.
Ben reached out needing to touch, but not wanting to upset Gibbs. He looked over uncertainly, but Gibbs looked at ease. When he received an affirmative nod, he reached out again and Rory responded in kind, clasping Ben's hands firmly.
Rory sighed. "I'm sorry I left you."
"Don't. You didn't leave, you were taken."
"You should have moved on," Rory chided gently.
"I couldn't," Ben said brokenly. "I never stopped loving you."
"You know I feel the same. I would never have left you if it were in my power to stay."
"I know that now."
"Promise me you won't keep tying yourself up in my memory. You still have so much life left to live."
"I promise I'll do my best."
Rory squeezed his hand then his fingers trailed up to Ben's wrist and stroked the bracelet there.
"You still wear it."
"Of course I do; we were meant to be forever, Rory."
"We can't have our forever, but we can have farewell."
With that, Rory leaned forward and brushed his lips against Ben's, and then pulled back, one hand lingering over the bracelet for a moment. "It's time to let me go."
"I know," Ben replied, his voice quaking with repressed emotion.
Gibbs watched the tender scene between the two men, his own eyes bright with unshed tears. His throat was too tight to speak and he was glad speech wasn't required of him right at this moment. As he recalled the events of the last few days, he felt overwhelmingly grateful he wasn't in Ben's position, mourning a lost love once again.
He could have been; maybe even should have been, if not for Rory's intervention. Tony had nearly died more than once in the last few days alone, and on the boat, he actually had been dead for a few minutes that had felt like an eternity. He hadn't really had time to come to terms with that.
The two men separated and Gibbs edged closer. He saw that strange shimmer in the air that seem to precede Rory's ghost form.
Ben watched in fascination as Rory's eyes changed back to green and he could now see the minute differences from the face he knew as well as his own. This was Tony now. The air next to Tony distorted, and Rory appeared at his side, though not quite solid.
Tony looked at the spirit and asked, "This is it, huh?"
"Yep," Rory replied. "It doesn't seem like nearly enough, but thank you for everything, Tony."
He started to fade as he turned to Ben. "Goodbye, Ben. Remember your promise, love."
"I will," Ben whispered.
Rory grew more opaque as they watched, until finally he was gone.
Ben kept staring at the spot where Rory had vanished.
"He's gone now, Ben," Tony confirmed softly.
Ben sniffled and nodded, then met Tony's empathetic gaze. "I know. Thanks for what you did. You have no idea what a gift that was. For both of us."
"You're welcome," Tony replied simply.
Ben turned away from them, and back to the coffin. Gibbs slid an arm around Tony's back and looked back toward the truck meaningfully. Tony didn't speak but he moved away with Gibbs, understanding Ben's need for privacy.
They reached the truck and before they got inside, they both looked back toward Ben. As they watched, he reached in a pocket, retrieved an item and placed it carefully in the flower arrangement atop the coffin. He fumbled at one wrist briefly, and then placed something else in the flowers with the first item.
"The bracelets," Tony said.
"Yeah."
"Full circle," Tony said as they watched Ben's shoulders heave with sobs. "It's done. He's finally letting go."
Unable to watch any longer, Tony got in the passenger seat and quickly pulled the door shut.
Gibbs got in on the driver's side and looked over in concern. Tony had wrapped his arms around himself as if cold, and was trembling slightly.
"Tell me what's wrong, Tony."
"He's gone," Tony said, shaking with delayed reaction. "He's really gone." Tony sounded desolate.
"That's what you wanted right? For him to finally be at peace?"
"Yes, it was," he stammered, shaking in reaction to the loss of the powerful connection. "But Rory was as real to me as you are. I feel like I've lost him too."
He pulled Tony across the seat and into his arms, and he felt his partner's hands clench in the fabric of his shirt. "It's going to be all right, Tony," he said in quiet sympathy, stroking a hand through the soft brown hair. "What can I do?" He asked helplessly.
"Just this." Tony buried his face in Gibbs' neck, breathing in his scent and letting it sooth him as he tried to make sense of his reaction.
"You think it's possible you're feeling some kind of residual effect of Ben's grief?" Gibbs asked. He kept trailing fingers through Tony's hair and rubbing his back soothingly, and Tony's harsh breathing slowly calmed.
Tony pulled back and blinked at Gibbs. That actually felt right. "You embracing all this supernatural, existential weirdness now, Jeth?"
A light smack to the back of his head, as if the very notion was ridiculous. "God, I hope not," he replied with a rueful grin.
"Well, you did when I needed you to." Gibbs had been a rock through this, even when he didn't understand or believe in the supernatural character of the events at first. "You trusted me, when you had every reason to haul me off and have my head examined. I know damn well going along with what I needed to do couldn't have been easy for you."
"Trusting you was the easy part, Tony. It always will be. The hard part was seeing you in danger, you being hurt. Losing you."
"As if," Tony said pulling away and rubbing his stinging eyes. "I'm not going anywhere, and you better not either."
"I mean it, Tony. It would be good if I never had to through that again."
Aw hell, Tony thought. He'd been hoping to avoid the inevitable conversation about his out of body experience for a while longer. Like maybe forever.
"We're talking about this here?"
"I thought you were dead," Gibbs said bluntly. "For nearly five minutes, you were dead and I had a front row seat. Do you get that?"
"It's a damn shitty feeling isn't it?" Tony said. His voice was tight and unhappy. "I do get how you felt. After all, you did it to me first."
Gibbs had the good grace to flush at the harsh reminder of his own drowning incident, a result of his own stubbornness and stupidity. Tony had not only saved him, but Maddie Tyler, the civilian caught up in the fallout of his poor judgment.
It occurred to Tony that he nearly joined Shannon as a murder victim, and how that would have affected Jethro suddenly struck home. The fact that he'd been so distracted it hadn't occurred to him before now made him feel guilty. He remembered those out of body moments standing there with Rory, looking at his own lifeless body on the floor of that boat, Gibbs working desperately to revive him. That perspective, and having seen his own blue lips and sightless eyes staring upward, he knew those few minutes would haunt both their dreams for some time to come.
Tony didn't want to dwell on that painful incident any more than he wanted Gibbs to. "I came back, just like you did," he comforted. "That's what's important."
"Thanks to Rory. He saved you, you know."
"I think you had a little something to do with it," Tony disputed.
Gibbs snorted in disbelief.
"Did Rory get me out of the water?" Tony asked.
"Rory led me to where you and Rhianne were. She wanted to die and she nearly took you with her."
"Did Rory give me the kiss of life?"
"Don't be flippant about this, Tony."
"I'm not," Tony protested. "Rory helped, but you saved me Jeth. You brought me back. Rhianne had every reason to go and I had every reason to stay. Even Rory's mojo couldn't have changed it if that weren't the case."
Gibbs looked away from Tony, back toward Rory's grave. Tony's warm hand trailed along his jaw and gently turned his head back to face him.
"Rory told me I was at a crossroads; that I could chose to move on, or come back. I came back for you."
"Thank God you did. I got a taste of what life would be like without you, Tony. I know how it feels and I don't ever want to know it again."
"You won't."
"Good."
Tony being Tony, he had to lighten the moment of emotional bloodletting. "Now let's get this road trip back on track. Jack is probably thinking we aren't coming now."
"Oh, he knows all about our little delay; he's probably going to give me holy hell for letting you get so banged up."
Tony chuckled. "It'll be nice to have an in-law in my corner," he said smugly.
Gibbs raised an eyebrow in challenge. "You think you and my old man are going to gang up on me?"
Tony stifled his laughter. "The thought crossed my mind."
Knowing Jackson, it probably would happen that way at times, Gibbs thought with some chagrin. Tony didn't need to know that though.
"Laugh it up, Spanky," Gibbs said, starting the truck. "You think I'm overbearing when it comes to you taking better care of yourself and not getting yourself hurt? Who do you think I got that trait from?"
"Oh," Tony frowned, rethinking his strategy.
"Yeah…oh." Gibbs said as he pulled onto the road out of town.
Gibbs being Gibbs, he smiled widely at the thought of Tony being subjected to Jackson's homespun version of TLC for the next few days.
~Finis~
End notes: Well, I hope you enjoyed taking this leap outside another writing box with me :) It didn't always come easy, but ultimately it was a fun story to watch unfold from a writer perspective. A little bit case story, mystery/suspense, and a ghost story all wrapped up in one package. Seemed fitting with Halloween coming up, too.
I'd like to add a couple final things that might be of interest. I've got a fascination with true crime documentaries and the reference about trace evidence in the Borden murders that Tony used is actually true. Also, for those who have read my 'drabbles', there is sort of an Easter egg in this story. After I wrote the first drabble, I got quite a few messages and PM requests to expand it. It took a couple years, but request granted! It's incorporated and hiding in plain sight within this story, should you wish to amuse yourself by trying to find it :)
Thanks for reading!
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