Chapter 19

Tony was brooking no refusal this time. He didn't bother calling after he was done at the hospital, he just caught a cab straight to NCIS. He didn't really want to go home at the moment, since it was from his own apartment building that he had been abducted this last time. He rode the elevator up to the squad room and found only McGee there, and he was sitting at Tony's desk. The younger man jumped up, looking alarmed and nervous.

"Sorry, Tony, I wasn't trying to –"

Tony shook his head. "S'okay, kid," he said tiredly. "Where's Gibbs?"

"Up in interrogation," McGee replied.

Tony nodded and didn't slow down. He just kept walking to the elevator and hit the button. He'd just nip into the observation room and watch Gibbs tear whoever it was down. That would feel good. The doors opened and Tony stared in shock. Clearly Gibbs was waiting for someone, because it was Wallace and Garner with Sullivan between them. Sullivan grinned.

There was a second of silence, then Wallace said, "Going up?" Tony nodded without speaking. "I think you'd better take the next car."

Tony was willing, and Wallace reached out to hit the Door Close button. Sullivan laughed and said, "I knew you were scared of me, Tony." The jab made it impossible for Tony to follow the prudent course. He thrust his hand forward between the two doors and stepped into the elevator. He then had to force himself to turn his back on Sullivan. He could tell that his move had alarmed both Wallace and Garner, but he couldn't let Sullivan get away with it. Sullivan snorted. "Is that your name? Tony?"

"My name is Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo," Tony said without turning.

"You don't really have anything on me, you know," Sullivan said. "And most of what you do have can be argued off as entrapment."

"We have plenty," Wallace said, and Sullivan laughed again.

Tony shrugged. "Did you know that I spent my school breaks at the home of Senator Webber more often than not, all through high school?" he asked, and he looked over his shoulder to see Sullivan's eyes widening. Tony turned back to face front, his point scored.

"Really?" Sullivan drawled after a moment. "I know what that means, then," he said. "Hot chocolate in the middle of the night, Johnny boy coming into your room and staying till he was done."

Tony froze, and at that moment, the doors opened. He stepped to the side and let them hustle Sullivan out, then followed at a slower pace. Michael had insisted that they sleep in the same room every time he'd stayed, and Tony distinctly remembered his first visit. The senator had been away from home when they'd arrived, and when he'd gotten home, he'd been very put out about the sleeping arrangements. Made a fuss about how they had plenty of space for the boys to have their own rooms, but Michael's mother had told him that it was their idea, not hers, and he'd let it go.

And Michael had advised him against taking that internship. He'd pointed out that it wouldn't be any fun, but Tony wondered now just how much he'd known.

Feeling slightly distant and weird, he went into the observation room just in time to see Gibbs walking out of interrogation. Wallace and Garner stayed inside with Kate, and Tony wondered vaguely what was up. Then the door opened behind him where he stood in front of the window, and Tony turned to see a very angry Gibbs.

"DiNozzo, what are you doing here?" he demanded, and Tony just looked at him, knowing he should respond but totally unable to. "Oh, hell!" Gibbs muttered, and Tony wasn't sure why. "Come with me." He grabbed Tony by the arm and guided him back out of the observation room and towards the elevator.

After a moment, Tony's brain regained some semblance of sense. "I was going to observe," he said, gesturing vaguely back in the direction they were coming from.

"No, you're not," Gibbs replied. "You're going downstairs to spend some time with Abby."

"But –"

"DiNozzo!" Gibbs snapped.

Tony fell silent and got onto the elevator with Gibbs, who seemed uncharacteristically agitated. He was sort of pacing as the elevator descended, then, halfway down, he hit the switch to stop it. Tony turned uneasily to look at him. "What, Boss?" he asked.

"What did he say to you?" Tony shrugged and looked away. "DiNozzo, what did he say?"

"He said we didn't have anything on him," Tony said, and Gibbs waited expectantly. Tony took a deep breath. "I told him that I used to summer with Senator Webber, and he got a little more alarmed at that point."

"Okay, and . . ." Gibbs paused expectantly.

"It doesn't matter," Tony said.

"What was it?" Gibbs demanded.

"He . . ." Tony paused and moistened his lips. "He said he knew what that meant and implied that Webber and I had . . . that we had had sex."

"You mean he implied that Webber had molested you," Gibbs said.

"I was fourteen the first time I stayed there, Gibbs," Tony protested.

"It's still called molestation at that age."

"Well, it didn't happen," Tony replied, still feeling totally unreal. "Michael . . . I think Michael did a lot of things to protect me."

Gibbs was silent, and Tony thought maybe they were done. "Like what?"

"Like insisting that we share a room, and advising me against that internship when I was seventeen." Tony shook his head. "It . . . I don't believe this."

"DiNozzo, your reaction is pretty extreme," Gibbs said. "And people forget –"

"I didn't forget anything," Tony said emphatically. "It didn't happen. Don't even suggest it." He remembered too much, in truth. There were moments from his childhood he wished he could forget.

Gibbs was silent for a moment, then he cleared his throat. "I won't be the only one to wonder," he said. "Not if Sullivan said that in front of –"

Tony reacted before he realized. His hand made no dent on the elevator door, but his knuckles would be remembering the feel of it for a while. He didn't feel the pain immediately, just the sudden burst of anger. "Son of a bitch! If those two so much as breathe a word of speculation about that, I will . . . I will . . ."

"I'll speak to them, DiNozzo. They know better."

"Lots of people 'know better,' Gibbs," Tony snapped. "It doesn't stop them from doing stupid things."

"No, that's true," Gibbs said dryly. "How's your hand?"

At that moment, Tony started to feel the pain. He grimaced and shook his hand. "Fine," he muttered, but the remark had hit home. Instead of acknowledging it, he changed the subject. "I thought we were going to see Abby."

"We are," Gibbs replied, and he hit the switch. He watched DiNozzo anxiously, wishing he could be certain that Tony's memory was as complete as he thought it was. The younger man's mood slipped quickly from the fury that had led him to smash his fist into the elevator doors back to the numb blankness that he'd exhibited at the moment Gibbs had entered the observation room. He seemed to have taken one too many emotional body blows in the last forty-eight hours.

He led the way into Abby's lab. She looked up with a grin. "Hey Gibbs," she said. Her eyes widened, though, when she saw who was with him. "Tony!" she cried, and she barreled past him, flinging her arms around DiNozzo.

He let out a grunt when she hit, but he wrapped his arms around her. Abby drew him further into the lab, and Gibbs nodded. A dose of Abby would be good for DiNozzo. Gibbs caught Abby's eye when DiNozzo was looking the other way. He mouthed words at her. "Keep him here." She blinked at him, then nodded. Satisfied, Gibbs left to go back to his interrogation.

When he reached the hallway, he ducked first into the observation room, checking to see the situation with Kate and Sullivan. It appeared that Garner and Wallace had not left, Gibbs wasn't certain why not. Perhaps they mistakenly thought that Kate couldn't handle Sullivan on her own, even cuffed as he still was.

"Has he said anything, Jack?" Gibbs asked the technician running the recording equipment.

"Yeah, but I think he believes DiNozzo's still in here," Jack said.

Gibbs scowled and stepped to the window, hitting the switch to let sound through. Sullivan was leaning back in his chair, smiling lazily at Kate. ". . . are bad looking, exactly, but Tony makes them look like mongrel dogs," Sullivan said to Kate. Gibbs revised his original impression. Given their positions and the sheer rage emanating from Kate, it looked like Garner and Wallace had stayed to protect Sullivan from her. The bastard was clearly getting a kick out of needling her, and she was letting him get to her. Sullivan leaned closer across the table. "I'd give him a much more serious collar than that play one he was wearing, one with a handle so I could yank him backwards while I thrust into him."

Kate came to her feet as if propelled, but Gibbs was pleased to see that she checked herself and didn't respond directly to Sullivan's taunt in any other way. "I'd better go check to see if any problems have cropped up," she said smoothly after a second, and she left the room. He waited, and, sure enough, the door behind him opened. "Gibbs!" she said, sounding startled. "Where's Tony? I thought he was . . . wasn't he here?"

Gibbs turned and looked over his shoulder at her. "He was. He's with Abby."

"Good," she said emphatically, walking over to join him at the window. Gibbs raised his eyebrows. "That man is a piece of garbage, utter filth. Tony shouldn't have to listen to any more of his crap."

Gibbs shrugged. "If we do our jobs right, he won't ever be coming out," he said.


It took Tony two hours to realize that Abby was subtly heading off any thoughts he might have about leaving her lab. It wasn't until he said something about going to the bathroom and she offered to accompany him that he started wondering. He declined the offer but found her waiting for him outside when he emerged. "Abby, did Gibbs tell you to keep an eye on me?"

"No," Abby said, but from her manner it was clearly some form of untruth. Since Abby wasn't given to lying, Tony guessed that it was less a lie than a strict interpretation of his question.

"Did he ask you to keep me occupied?" he asked, and she dimpled at him.

"Nope," she said, and he could see that she'd decided to treat the Q & A as a game.

"What did he say, then?" he asked as they entered her lab again.

"Technically, he didn't say anything," she said with a grin.

Tony let out an exasperated sigh and sat down on the chair from her desk. "Fine, what message did he communicate to you by whatever means he used?"

She blinked at him, clearly trying to come up with a way to sidestep the carefully worded question when they both heard a familiar ring tone. Tony's head came up, and his hand reached immediately for the pocket where he usually kept his cell phone. It wasn't there, and Abby walked over to the tub of evidence she still had to go through and fished out a little plastic bag.

He stared at the evidence bag. "My phone is in evidence?" he said blankly.

"It was found in someone's pocket," she said sympathetically. "I can't release it yet, but . . ." She dropped the phone back into the tub and went to her computer. He walked over to the tub and looked down at it in dismay. "Don't touch!" Abby said sharply.

"I wasn't going to. What are you doing?"

"Calling up your phone records. I can find out who it is that's calling, and you can call them back from here. That is if you want to call them back."

Tony went to stand behind her shoulder, watching Abby do the magic that he barely understood. After about thirty seconds had passed, his phone stopped ringing. A moment later, a list of phone numbers scrolled down the screen and Tony scanned it, recognizing most of them. Abby double clicked something and a little dialog box popped up.

"This is your last incoming call," she said.

Tony knew the number, but he was having trouble remembering whose it was. Once they were programmed in, he never really thought about them again. He picked up the phone and dialed, remembering just as the phone began to ring exactly who the number belonged to. Suddenly, he wasn't sure he wanted to talk to him, but he was committed. "Michael Webber," answered the voice on the other end.

"Michael?" Tony swallowed nervously. He had no idea why Michael was calling. It could be good, or it could be bad. "This is Tony."

"Hey," Michael said, sounding sort of tense. "I'm outside the Navy Yard right now, trying to get past the gate guard, but not having much luck. My dad called me and said he was here and asked me to come, so here I am. Can you help me?"

Tony blinked. "Sure. I'll call down and have them pass you through. They'll escort you up to our squad room, and I'll meet you there."

"Thanks," Michael said, and Tony hung up, then dialed the gate.

"Who is Michael?" Abby asked after he was done.

"You know the guys who kidnapped me?"

"Senator Webber and his flunkies."

"Michael is his son, we've been friends since high school."

"You need back up?" Abby asked.

"McGee's up there," Tony replied. "I'll be fine." He left and went to the elevator, hoping he was right. Upstairs, he found that McGee had shifted to the tiny desk that he usually used when he visited, and Tony was glad not to have to oust him. He sat down, logged in and started looking through his e-mails. They'd sort of piled up what with the undercover op and all. Within ten minutes, Michael was coming out of the other elevator with his escort. Tony stood up and walked around his desk, not at all certain how Michael was going to be feeling about him at the moment.

Michael seemed similarly reticent right up until he got a good look at Tony. Then his eyes widened, and he said, "You look like crap, man."

"Nice to see you, too," Tony replied, leaning back against his desk with an attempt at nonchalance.

"My dad didn't do that to you, did he?" Michael asked, gazing at the injuries he could see with concern.

Tony was about to answer when he realized that he really couldn't. The case was still classified, he didn't know what was possible to release, and Michael wasn't here as a friend but as the family member of a perp. It made things very awkward. "Um . . . I can't really go into . . . things are a little . . ."

Michael flushed. "Right, no, I wasn't thinking." He took a deep breath. "We're going to have to talk later, when this is all over, though."

"Yeah," Tony said. "I . . . uh . . . Gibbs said you called."

"I did. Dad called me Monday night and asked me a lot of questions about you. It made me really nervous, the kinds of questions he was asking, like where did you work, and how could he get hold of you."

"Well, he did that, all right," Tony said.

"DiNozzo?"

Tony looked up, startled to see Gibbs coming into the bullpen. "Gibbs, this is Michael. I guess you and he spoke . . . yesterday?" He glanced out the window at the lowering sky. Morning from the angle of the bright spots in the clouds.

"Yes, we did," Gibbs said. "Mr. Webber, I assume you're here to see your father?" Michael nodded. "I'm afraid I'm going to want to ask you a few questions first."

"Of course," Michael said.

"Kate, would you take Mr. Webber to the conference room?"

Tony hadn't noticed Kate coming up behind Gibbs. She gave him an odd look as she guided Michael towards the stairs. Tony closed his eyes and waited for the lecture, but, though Gibbs didn't leave, he also didn't speak. Finally, Tony opened his eyes and looked into his boss's face. "What?" he asked.

"Why don't you go home?" he asked, and it was a genuine question, not a suggestion or a thinly veiled command.

Tony sighed. A real question demanded a real answer, and he wasn't sure he was up to real. Still, it was Gibbs. "I don't want to think," he said finally. "There's nothing to do there but think. Besides, that worked out so well last time."

Gibbs grimaced, an acknowledgment of the truth of what Tony had said. "Could you try to stay out of trouble for five minutes, then?" he suggested.

"He's an old friend, Gibbs, he called asking for help to get in. What else could I do?"

"You could have referred him to me," Gibbs said. "Or at least called me."

"You were in interrogation," Tony pointed out.

Gibbs shrugged. "If I leave you here, will I find you here when I come back?" he asked.

"Unless I go to the head," Tony replied.

Gibbs nodded and went up the stairs. Tony went back to his e-mail. There was enough of it to keep him busy for a while.