Usual Disclaimer applies – I don't own NCIS, or anything like it I'm just borrowing them for a little while. I am not making any money out of this, it's written purely for entertainment purposes and retention of a certain person's sanity.
Thank you for the continuing kind reviews. If the day job doesn't pan out, maybe I could take up a career in writing…
Chapter 5The rain lashed against the windows of the all but dark office. Two figures sat on the wide windowsill, close, but not touching.
Tony and Kate, eye to eye, but silent. No teasing, no harsh words, no argumentative banter rising between them.
Just silence.
Tony dropped his gaze and then turned to watch the wind strip more leaves from the oak trees outside. "Kate, you have to understand, this is difficult for me" he stopped and took a deep breath.
"Its not exactly easy sitting here either" Kate all but whispered to him.
Tony turned his head back to look at her. He reached out and took her left hand in his right."Look, I'll just tell you and can we take it from there?"
"Sure" Kate smiled and gently squeezed his fingers for reassurance.
"See, the thing is, you know I come from a fairly wealthy family - right?"
Kate nodded
"My parents sent me and my sister to the best schools, the best tutors, we had the best that money could buy. Money, but not affection, not parents not human contact. The only time we saw our parents was at school open days, or when Sarah was riding in a competition or I was on the sports track."
Though she hated to interrupt him, Kate had to - "Sarah? Tony, you never said you had a sister. You never mentioned her, well, not to me anyway."
"Yeah, I had a sister. Sarah Maria DiNozzo. She was so pretty, it hurt - y'know? She was my older sister, but only by about ten minutes" he paused and smiled, waiting for Kate's reaction.
"Twin sister?" Kate was amazed. She had subconsciously profiled her colleague when they first started working together, and had Tony, like Gibbs, as an only child. In Tony's case a spoilt only child.
"Surprised huh?"
"No! Yes! Actually, yes Tony. So, you used the word "had" there - is she, did she?"
"Yeah, she's dead Kate. She was so full of contradictions, a wildcat at school, hanging with the in crowd, but nearly always top of her class for stats. She loved to dance; she used to sneak out of school to clubs she knew she wasn't supposed to go to, hell, she wasn't old enough to go in!
She'd charm her way in and just dance like there was no tomorrow. I used to go with her sometimes, just to keep her safe. She never realised how much danger she put herself in, all she wanted to do was… was, be free"
"Free?"
"Free from the restrictions she felt our parents put on us. Like they cared for us? Nah, it was never to protect us, just to protect them. God, can you imagine the scandal if Dad's investment brokers found out the President of the First Bank of Boston's daughter was in anyway failing to conform? Or Mom's social circle found out her children weren't perfect? They never would have lived it down. So, to the outside world we were perfect children." He smiled ruefully.
"All we had was each other when we were kids. Then I got pushed into sport and found I was good at it, and Sarah got pushed into riding, and found she was good at that. She was more than good actually; she was fantastic. She could look a horse in the eye, get on its back and that animal would do anything for her, anything. Huge fences were nothing to her, she'd point-to-point and cross country every spare moment she had."
Kate nodded, encouraging him to continue.
"I've always needed an audience, but you know that by now; we've worked together a while. Its like I'm trying to substitute parental approval, does that make sense?"
"In more ways than you thought possible!"
"Which is weird again, because I relate to and respect Gibbs way more than I ever could my father." He paused.
"But Sarah? Well, once she was focused on her riding, she didn't go dancing after that. She lived at the stables, first at school and then college. Mom and Dad were thrilled, such a talented daughter in such an acceptable recreation! They bought me sports gear and paid for college, although Dad wasn't exactly thrilled I majored in Phys. Ed., they were both so pleased with Sarah, it kinda took the pressure off me. They wanted to buy her this horse from this top breeder, name as long as your arm, but Sarah managed to persuade them she knew of a better one. So, they gave her the money and turned up to see what magnificent piece of horseflesh was occupying the stable block. " He smiled at the memory.
"I already knew, Sarah had taken me to see him before Mom and Dad ever thought about it. He was the ugliest horse you have ever seen, and had a really mean temper - kinda like Gibbs without his coffee - he was being sold for peanuts 'cause his breeder couldn't get anyone to ride him. Actually, Sarah bought him against the bids of a dog food supplier."
"Why?"
"Because she saw this horse and felt they had a connection. He was bad-tempered and uncontrollable for everyone who ever came near him, but not for Sarah. She just walked right up to him and told him she wasn't going to put up with his crap, that she wanted to help him, but he had to help her."
Kate was looking quizzical. "How?"
"Help her escape from the crap our parents put us through. Man, that horse adored her. He never messed her around; she never got thrown from him, nothing. Anyone else? He bit, kicked, basically went psycho on them, but never Sarah. Mom and Dad were appalled. Sarah was up for Olympic selection that year and they wanted her to have this gleaming perfect horse and here she was with this malformed monster! As far as they were concerned she'd blown it, big time."
"I sense a 'but' here?"
"Yeah, there's a but. Sarah and Mino - she actually bought a horse called Minotaur! - Worked really hard, every second they could. She'd send me pictures of her and this damn horse; no one else mattered to her. And they were good, they could have made it, would have made it" He fell silent, and looked out the window. He let go of Kate's hand.
"What happened?" Kate asked in a hush.
"I knew everything about Sarah, everything. Even when we went to separate colleges, we'd write, we'd call, even when I was completely wrapped up with a girlfriend or study I'd never forget her. She'd be riding, or studying, both of us completely wrapped up in our worlds but we'd always remember each other. I knew her favourite colour, ice cream flavour, songs, films, clothes, everything. What I didn't know was she was anorexic."
Silence descended between them.
Kate didn't know what to say.
"A week before she was due to have her trials for the Olympic team she was rushed into hospital. And she didn't come out again. The minute I found out I was there, by her bedside, talking to her, pleading her to get well, promising everything under the sun if only she'd get better. But she didn't, Kate, she didn't. She lapsed into a coma and never woke up. Mom and Dad sat, waiting for it to happen, but I couldn't. I just couldn't."
He looked back at Kate, a fierce expression on his face.
"When she died, I went to the stables and told Mino. He deserved to know - he was as big a part of her life as anything I ever knew was. Mom and Dad couldn't bear for him to be alive, and they couldn't sell him. He tolerated me that day, but after that he was uncontrollable. In the end he had to be destroyed. It was like he couldn't exist without Sarah, and I knew how he felt. I made up my mind then that no one was ever going to get close to me, that close that when they went away, and it would be 'when' and not 'if', I would never feel that kind of pain again."
He stood up and walked away from Kate, who sat dumfounded, staring at his back.
"Tony, it doesn't have to be like that. You can't live assuming every one is going to hurt you emotionally."
"Well, I haven't let them have I? As soon as I graduated from college, I joined the Police Force, I figured my distrust of human nature would be useful there anyway. And the uniform was cool, got me a lot of girlfriends!" he turned to smile at Kate, and for a second he was the Anthony DiNozzo she had always known.
She smiled back at him, shaking her head in disbelief.
"How do you do that? Just change the mood like that, when you've just laid yourself open to me?"
"Kate, there's no one else I could do this with; no one else I could tell the things I've just told you. I trust you like no one else. I trust Gibbs, sure, who couldn't trust that man? But you? Well, I trust you with more than my life Kate; I'm trusting you with myself. Do you think you can handle that?"