Title: Providence
Summary: AU. Between McGee and Ziva's constant bashing and Gibbs' coldness, Tony finally reaches the point of no return and quits, leaving NCIS and DC behind him. On the road again, he stops by the town of Providence, Missouri, and makes a series of meetings which might change his life, whilst Gibbs moves heaven and earth to find him. But isn't it too late?
Categories: NCIS
Rating: K+
Characters: Tony DiNozzo, Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Abby Sciuto, Tim McGee, Ziva David, Dr Donald Mallard, Jimmy Palmer, Leon Vance, Agent Balboa, Original characters (Tillie Hackerman, Harvey Jackson, Father Henry Richmond, Sheriff Elliot Green, Dottie Ferris, Christina Lake, Jake Petersen, Doctor Adam Beltram).
Pairing: Tony/OFC (in the late chapters), no other pairing.
Genres: Alternate universe/friendship/hurt and comfort.
Warnings: Middle swearing, OOC and major team bashing, especially Ziva and McGee.
Spoilers: Set at the beginning of season 6. Spoilers for Dead man talking, Hiatus, Boxed in, Bury your dead, Judgment Day, Agent afloat and various other episodes.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author's note: Thanks to the wonderful badly_knitted who made it readable.
A huge thank you to those who have reviewed my work or added it to their favorites list and story alerts. You're all absolutely awesome. I can't find the words to tell you how much I love you. :D
This is the second part of the scene, written from Balboa's POV. I hope you'll like this new chapter. (Special warning: Gibbs' behavior may look a bit too OOC, but it will be explained in the next part).
To fred, patncisfan, mandy153, aa, guest, anonymous: Thank you for your support. It means a lot to me. I hope you won't be disappointed. :D
To Directionally Ch: Thank you. Don't worry. As long as someone is reading it, I finish what I start. ;D
To DiNozzoDame: Thanks. I'm glad you like the previous chapter and hope this one will meet your expectations. Not the slightest hint of TIVA in this universe. Not that TIVA couldn't lead to wonderful stories, but it just wouldn't have worked in this one. I can't imagine Tony having romantic feelings for someone who treated him so bad (it's the advantage of AU stories) :D .
To RCEpups: Wow! Thank you for your enthusiastic review. Gibbs is so used to see everybody bowing before him. It will be a brand new experience to face someone who stands up to him. He can yell and pout as much as he wants, this is not what will bring Tony back. Hope you'll like this new chapter. :D
Chapter 10 – Crossing the Ts
Washington, D.C. - September 18th – Monday morning
The door of the conference room burst open with enough force to pull it off of its hinges. The wooden panel rebounded violently against the wall with a loud bang and Balboa barely managed to catch it before it slammed into his face.
"Okay, spit it out," growled Gibbs whilst performing an about-turn to face him. "The sooner we're done, the sooner I can go get my hands on DiNozzo and slap some sense into him."
Balboa let go of the door which smoothly closed behind him. He put his hands on his hips and shook his head with amusement.
"You'll never cease to amaze me, Gibbs. For so bright an investigator, there are times where you really are the most obtuse of men."
He took a deep breath and glanced away with a shrug, before looking Gibbs straight in the eye.
"It's not that simple," he said, motioning towards the door behind him.
"You can't just... haul his ass back to give him a lecture, like you'd do with a naughty little imp. DiNozzo's gone and it's obvious to anyone but you, that he has no intention of letting you find him. Otherwise, he wouldn't have resigned without notice and terminated his subscriptions." He made a clucking sound with his tongue and chuckled. "You know what? I'm willing to wager my paycheck that, as we're talking, he is already on the other side of the country."
Gibbs squared his jaw, lifting his chin defiantly.
"He could as well be halfway around the world and it wouldn't prevent me from kicking his ass back here."
Balboa let out a chuckle. Walking around the other man, he pushed aside one of the rolling chairs neatly aligned on each side of the table and casually perched himself on the edge of the varnished wooden top.
"Come on," he said with a sly smile. "We aren't talking about just anybody here. DiNozzo is the best undercover agent this agency has ever had. If he doesn't want you to find him, you never will. Trust me."
"We'll see about that," replied Gibbs with a stubborn frown, not seeming in the least impressed with Balboa's praise of his agent.
The other man closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, forcing himself to stay calm and composed. Really, hoping to talk some sense into the infamous Leroy Jethro Gibbs amounted to trying to get blood from a stone.
Taking a deep breath, he looked up with a weary sigh.
"Honestly Gibbs, sometimes I don't understand you. Why do you persist in pretending that you want him back when we both know it's not the truth?"
"Bullshit!"
Gibb's hand slammed on the table with a loud thud that reverberated throughout the room. The ex-Marine leant forwards and angrily pointed at Balboa's chest, his jaw clenched so hard that he seemed about to crack a tooth.
"You don't know anything," he snarled, accompanying his words with a murderous glare which would have made the most thickskinned criminal wet his pants, but barely earned him a raised eyebrow from the other SSA.
"What? Truth hurts?" quipped Balboa without flinching.
Gibbs' expression darkened even more and Balboa would have sworn he could see the proverbial smoke coming out of his ears.
They stared at each other for a moment, until Gibbs finally took a step backward.
"You're talking nonsense and wasting my time," he grumbled scornfully, before turning on his heel and heading to the exit.
"What's the matter with you?" Balboa called out, stopping him as he reached for the handle. "Ever since your sensational come back, it has been as if Tony was just an inconvenience for you. A dead weight, as David would say."
Contempt was clearly audible in his voice as he quoted Ziva's words and the corners of his mouth twitched with disdain.
"The only time you acknowledged his existence was when you decided to deliver one of your famous headslaps. You couldn't even speak to him without yelling and you made it pretty clear to everyone within this building, and especially to DiNozzo, that he didn't meet your expectations anymore. Why can't you let it be? He's out of your hair now, enjoy!"
Balboa waited, looking the older man up and down in search of the thinnest hint of acknowledgement. To no avail. He wearily shook his head with another sigh. They were going nowhere and he started to wonder if it wouldn't be better to simply let the former Marine bask in his delusions.
"Do you have any clue what I'm talking about?" he asked, not really hoping for an answer.
And for a moment indeed, Gibbs remained silent, staring down at his hand still gripping the knob.
"I didn't make him quit," he finally muttered without turning around.
"Really? You could have fooled me," sneered Balboa, torn between anger and frustration. "Excuse me, but you didn't give him any reason to stay. He gave his all to this job and to you, for eight years. And you thanked him by treating him like trash every single day."
"I didn't treat him worse than anyone else," objected Gibbs fiercely. "If he couldn't take the pressure, then..."
"Take the pressure?" Balboa flared up. "Who are you trying to kid? I know your way of going on. I've seen you doing it countless times. You play with them like a cat would do with a mouse. You push them over and over, until they crash down. So that when you are finally fed up with your little game, they are almost grateful to you for kicking them out of your team." He paused and took a deep breath to calm down. "What really upsets you isn't that Tony has left. It was only a matter of time before you got him transferred or fired anyway. No, it's the fact that he pulled the rug from under your feet and spoiled your fun."
As he caught his breath, Balboa looked closely at Gibbs, expecting him to deny outright his accusations or at least to say something in his own defense. But the man said nothing, so he went on, determined to make his point, even if it was in vain.
"Dammit, he shot two armed guys at a run, dived into a river and dragged you out of a submerged car, before carrying out CPR on two persons at the same time. Not only did he save your damn life, but also Maddie Tyler's. His lungs are permanently scarred. If he had swallowed any of that culture broth, he might have died. Did you even thank him for that? No. Did you put a commendation in his file? No. If it had been for McGee or David, you would have had no problem getting them a medal. But it was DiNozzo, so it wasn't worth the effort."
Without a word, Gibbs moved away from the door and went to stand arms crossed in front of the large window, his face remaining completely blank, so much so that Balboa was wondering if he had even been listening all that time.
The room was silent for a few moments, neither man saying a word, then Balboa looked down before speaking again.
"But what must have hurt him the most, is that you didn't even trust him to watch his six during all that mess."
Gibbs snorted derisively without taking his eyes off of the window.
"The same way he trusted me with the Frog op?"
Balboa's head snapped up and he narrowed his eyes.
"Don't go there, Gibbs," he warned him. "It was need to know and you, more than anyone, are aware of what that implied. He was caught between a rock and a hard place and you know there was no way for him to tell you."
"Yeah, I do," admitted Gibbs reluctantly after a moment.
Balboa rubbed his hands over his face with a sigh.
"So, what is it? Vance doesn't like him, I can get that; he is a tight-ass. But you? What the hell did DiNozzo do to make you hate him so much? When did he suddenly become a ne'er do well?"
Gibbs merely stared ahead through the window and continued to purposely ignore him.
"If Shepard was still alive…" started Balboa. From the corner of his eye, he saw the line of Gibbs' jaw harden and a nervous tic shake his eyelids. The rest of his sentence died on his lips as realization hit him.
"It's about her, isn't it?" he inquired, though he already knew the answer. "Please, don't tell me you blame DiNozzo for her death and all of this is some sort of sick revenge."
Gibbs didn't answer him, but the glimpse of guilt that passed through his features was enough to tell him what he wanted to know.
"So that's it." Balboa shook his head with dismay. This was even worse than he thought. "For God's sake!" he cried out indignantly, his anger suddenly boiling over.
Balboa stood up to come behind the other man.
"She is the one who lifted the protection detail. He was only following orders!"
"He knew something was up and he didn't do anything to save her," shot back Gibbs in a clipped voice.
"There was nothing to do," countered the other SSA. "She made her bed and she lay on it. When will you finally admit that she was unstable and obsessed? If it hadn't been this time, it would have been another one."
"He could have made a difference," insisted Gibbs.
"Oh, yeah. One more dead body on the floor. That's the only difference he would have made."
Balboa ran a frustrated hand through his hair and searched Gibbs' sullen face with disbelief. The customary 'bastard' behavior wasn't a surprise at all. In fact, it had been fully expected. A certain level of bad faith and stubbornness was fair game coming from the ex-Marine. But such a degree of coldness and detachment towards a man with whom Gibbs' had worked for more than eight years was beyond Balboa's understanding.
He felt a shiver run along his spine and the hair of his nape standing on end at the sensation of someone watching him. He didn't need to look around though to know who was spying through the crack of the door.
McGee and David, of course.
He sighed inwardly. Those two were worse than sharks smelling blood, but since they seemed to want to join the party, he would be more than happy to sit them down and read them the riot act.
"Nobody ever taught you it's impolite to listen at keyholes?" he called out over his shoulder.
As the two other members of Gibb's team stepped inside, Balboa looked them up and down. Unsurprisingly, McGee looked slightly paler and more bewildered than usual, whereas David was already in 'spy' mode, assessing the situation and trying to find out what would be the best next move.
"Feel free to join the fun," he smirked, motioning them to take a seat. "As they say, the more, the merrier."
McGee sneaked a worried look at Gibbs who had neither moved an inch nor acknowledged their presence.
"Huh, Boss… Is everything okay?" asked the young man hesitantly, but the older man remained unresponsive, stubbornly peering out.
"Don't worry, McGee," snickered Balboa. "Your boss is fine. So am I. You won't have to help hiding the corpse."
He went back to sit on the edge of the table and gave the Junior Agent a wicked grin.
"How rude of me. I forgot to congratulate you, McGee."
"Congrat…" stammered the younger man, looking puzzled.
Balboa nodded still smiling.
"Yes. DiNozzo is out of the way now, so you're in the front line for the SFA position."
McGee's mouth silently opened and closed several times, his eyes passing frantically from Gibbs's back to Balboa's smiling face.
"I… Well… I don't think… I..."
"If I can give you some advice though," the Senior Agent carried on, openly flouting his discomfort, "you'd better make sure your forms are perfect, because I doubt Martha will be happy to hear DiNozzo has resigned."
With undisguised pleasure, he saw McGee recoil at the mention of the chief accountant in charge of all the requests for supplies for the Agency. Not only was the woman built like a woodcutter, but she was also well-known for her habit of bluntly rejecting any request that wasn't perfectly filled in. Yet, for some unknown reason, she had always seemed to have a soft spot for Tony.
"Guess she's gonna miss him a lot," added Balboa with a pointed look.
"She'll surely be one of the few," sniggered Ziva smugly and he had to fight the urge to slap her. "Most of the women over here would more than likely see it as a relief."
She winked at her teammate who instantly perked up and giggled in return.
"Would certainly help if he hadn't spent half of his time knobbing every bit of skirt around."
Balboa's face broke into a wolfish smile. Swallowing the anger which was threatening to overwhelm him, he slowly shook his head with contempt.
"It's so easy for you to say that, McGee. You had a loving family, a mother and a sister to teach you how to behave like a perfect gentleman. All DiNozzo had, when growing up, was household staff and a stream of trophy-step-mothers." He paused to see the effect of his words. "Excuse me, but I don't think he was doing so bad, for a guy who raised himself by watching television."
McGee quickly sobered at the reminder of Tony's no-so-happy childhood and lowered his eyes bashfully.
"How do you know so many things about Tony's life, anyway?" asked Ziva nothing daunted. "You barely spoke to him at work."
Balboa whipped his head around and sent her a dirty look.
"Maybe, because when we went out for a drink after work, I actually listened to what he said, instead of making fun of him."
McGee was about to say something, when the door swung open once again. All the heads, Gibbs' included, snapped around to find the unmistakable pig-tailed figure of a tearful Abby standing out on the doorstep. She was clutching her stuffed hippo and what looked like a DVD box against her chest and the mascara smearing her pale cheeks created a vision which would certainly have elicited a horror movie reference from Tony, if only he had been there.
She stared at them one at the time with wide eyes before finally settling her gaze on Gibbs' bleak face.
"Gibbs!" she choked out. "Where is Tony?"
To be continued