SF part 4 - Celebrate Me Home
12-24-07 19:15PM
They were just going to make it, if traffic held up. Tony checked the clock on Gibbs's dash, then went back to staring out the window at the holiday lights as they passed; he'd wanted to drive, thinking that they'd get there faster if he did, but Gibbs had vetoed that idea, with his annoying need to point out that Tony still couldn't curl his fingers enough to hold a soda can, let alone a steering wheel, and the senior agent was currently doing a decent imitation of Ziva's driving. Given that, the lights were sort of a multi-hued blur that would probably make a coke-snorting artist proud, but that was okay.
They'd gotten a call just after seven that the hostage situation had ended relatively well, that the hijackers were in custody, and that Ziva was back and currently being debriefed by the director; as until now none of the team members had known what Ziva's assignment had been, and none of them had heard anything about hostages or hijackers, Gibbs had started for his car before Jenny's assistant could finish her sentence, caring only that one of his people had been in trouble, and Tony had been on his heels.
The two men had elected to skip the annual Christmas Eve party this year, neither feeling like having to answer to Ducky or make things awkward for McGee; Tony had, with the help of his mysterious friend, ordered gifts for everyone and had had them delivered to the office so that he wouldn't have to deal with the packages himself (and he'd made it very clear to the vendors that there was to be no green wrapping paper involved.) But now they were headed in anyway, Ziva more important to them than Gibbs's headache or Tony's situational discomfort.
At least that was his most immediate source of discomfort tonight; the two men had compromised on pain medication, and he and Gibbs had had a couple more... stalls and restarts in the past ten days, but the last had been a couple of days ago, and the burning was gone, leaving... something in its wake, though what that something was, he wasn't ready to speculate. Oddly, he could still feel Gibbs's arm across his back during his lectures in what had, each time, seemed more reassuring than anything he'd ever gotten from his own father, but he didn't have the energy to speculate on that. Right now, he'd rather focus on the present than on the past he'd regretted or the future that he might not have.
-----
"Where are they?" Ziva glanced around the bullpen reflexively at McGee's question; he'd been so sure that Tony and Gibbs would be coming just as he had, and while she thought that they were all being a little ridiculous--after all, she was fine and she hadn't even dismembered anyone this time around--she, too, was a little concerned.
"Why weren't they already here? I thought Tony loved these stupid holiday parties." The two agents were standing in an island surrounded by a loose sea of coworkers who were all here out of a sense of obligation and all trying to pretend that they weren't gawking at the Israeli, who'd been gone for most of the month and had suddenly appeared a couple of hours ago, only to be rushed up to the director's office, and had only emerged minutes ago. She wasn't in a fantastic mood as it was, and this wasn't helping. She really didn't need her boss and her other partner showing up to gawk, too, though Tony not being here already kind of bugged her.
It bugged her a little more when she saw McGee's expression, that weird way he had of trying to figure out how to say something while trying to figure out how not to say it at the same time. On the best of days, it drove her nuts, but today... "For Paul's sake, McGee, just say it."
"Pete. The expression is, 'for Pete's sake.'" McGee sighed and dropped his head, putting his hands on his hips and chewing on his upper lip as he wondered how he'd been left to handle this. "Tony's... well, he's been... not at work lately. There was a situation a couple of weeks ago. He, uh, he's had some trouble--"
"Trouble? Not at work? What happened, McGee?"
"There was a girl--"
"Oh, of course there was." He tried to resume his story, but she held up a hand. "Stop, McGee, just stop. I've heard enough." He kept trying and she kept heading him off, really sure that she didn't need to hear about Tony and some girl. She would worry tomorrow about Tony and how much trouble he could've bought for himself with Little Miss Rebound or whomever, but for now, she just didn't have the patience.
"Ziva, would you just--" She could tell that he was getting really frustrated, much more than usual. "How is it that I always get stuck handling these things?"
"Because you're just so good at it." Everyone turned as Gibbs strode into the bullpen, making a beeline for his foreign operative. The air around him all but roiled with thunder clouds, and though his face was inscrutable, his eyes were storming. Everyone else scattered from his path and Ziva drew herself up, prepared to meet his wrath but confused about what she might've done to incur it, and she just had enough time to register that there was something besides anger there before he reached her. He looked her up and down before locking on her eyes. "You okay, Ziva?" Her eyes and her surprise grew at his low, almost soft tone, and something in her was oddly gratified by it. She just managed to remember to nod as his eyes narrowed. "Good. Did you leave any of the hijackers for me?"
Ziva blinked a few times. It took her a moment to realize what he was really asking. "Yeah. All of them, actually. I was only a hostage for about the last five minutes before my tac team entered and the whole thing ended; for most of it, I was the one doing the negotiating."
"And that's not a scary thought at all."
Ziva barely registered the relief in Gibbs's eyes at her clarification before every head in the room turned to see Tony striding out from behind the stairs--and then all but three heads quickly turned away. She traded his sarcasm for a sour look before noticing two things--the intensity of his eyes on her, with the same relief she'd seen in Gibbs, and that there was something wrong with his overall appearance. It took her a moment to realize that he seemed too dark below the neck--Tony was in a black mock-turtleneck, black slacks, black shoes, and black gloves... no, mittens. Not only was it odd to see someone wearing any kind of gloves in the bullpen, but mittens were just not Tony's thing. Then she noticed that he looked a little ragged, and when a couple of people called out half-hearted greetings to him, he nodded once in their general direction without waving or taking his eyes from her. She couldn't put her finger on why that bothered her; it certainly wasn't because of his attention--she'd never felt quite so claimed as she did tonight, and as disconcerting as that thought was for the ex-assassin who didn't do warm and fuzzy, she was pretty sure that the temperature in the room had just risen, and she wasn't going to complain.
"Ziva!" She barely had time to look away from Tony before Abby all but tackled her. Staggering back a couple of steps, flustered, Ziva resigned herself--she gingerly returned Abby's embrace, and she was about to reassure the scientist that she hadn't been in much danger when Abby pulled back and said brightly, "Kickin' diffusal! I haven't had time to read the transcripts yet, since I only found out, like, twenty minutes ago, but Flavel, your AV tech, is a buddy of mine, and he hooked me up with the audio from the last few minutes. He couldn't believe that you told the hijackers to blow it out their tailpipes while you were cuffing them; I just laughed, and he was so mad when I wouldn't tell him why."
"Yeah, you've been around us too long. You're gonna have to apply for mental distress pay." Tony still refused to look away from Ziva, his gaze holding onto her like an anchor.
"Tony!" Abby sounded almost as happy to see him as she had to see Ziva. "You're out!" She hugged him gently, pulling back after just a moment, and it struck Ziva that there had to be a reason behind that. Tony had looked just a little panicked for a second there, and now he was looking at the floor. "Oh--did I hurt you?"
Abby sounded so worried that his eyes flashed up. "No," he said, low but firm, "it's alright. You know me, I'm always fine."
"That has yet to be determined," Ducky said as he limped in from the back. "Jethro, I can't believe you let him out tonight. I know, I know," the older man waved dismissively before his old friend could defend himself, "DiNozzo is all but impossible to control. But really, Tony, you know better. Now, let me see those." Everyone who wasn't part of the team was staunchly pretending that they were anywhere else and that this wasn't happening; Ziva filed that away.
"Ducky, that's really not necessary, I'm fi--"
Ducky planted himself in front of Tony. "I'm sorry, did you think that was a request?" Tony looked down at the older, shorter, physically unimpressive man, sighed, dropped his head, and submitted, holding his mittened hands up for inspection. Ducky nodded approvingly before carefully removing the black coverings.
Ziva gasped, her experienced eyes widening. "Those are..." she whispered in shock.
"Shrapnel wounds and contact burns." McGee stood beside her, forcing himself to look at Tony's hands, something he hadn't done since seeing the photos from the OR.
"What...?"
"Pipe bomb," he murmured. "In his hands. He was protecting--"
"The girl, yes, I know." She heard McGee's sigh and knew that he understood that she wasn't going to listen to anything he had to say about her, at least not tonight. "Tell me you caught the bombers."
"Bomber. And yes. He's gonna be spending a very unhappy six years in Federal prison; his lawyer just about spit nails that she couldn't argue it out of Federal or at least get him tried as a minor."
"Minor?"
"Yeah. High school kid. Copycatted a serial pipe bomber; didn't bother to do his homework on where he was planting the thing, even delivered it himself. Flipped Tony off in the stairwell."
Her blood was starting to boil. "Here's your sign." Out of the corner of her eye, she caught McGee's startled look. "What? The radio kept picking up a country music station." Personally, Ziva was starting to wonder what kind of girl could be worth Tony almost losing his hands.
"I told you that they needed air to heal--I did not say that they needed to be exposed to air that is four degrees above zero!" Ducky sounded tired, more resigned than angry. "I know you care for our Ziva, as do we all, but really..." Ziva understood that Ducky wasn't discounting her but was simply mother-chickening Tony, and personally, she agreed with the older man. She couldn't take her eyes from Tony's hands, which were apparently all but non-functional.
"McGee, when?"
"Couple of weeks ago. Director Shepard wanted to get a message to you, but she said that we couldn't risk your cover."
Two weeks. Two weeks, and he had little to no use of his fingers. Ziva winced and tore her gaze away; she'd seen enough bomb victims to know that Tony was lucky to be alive, especially if the bomb had been designed by a hormonal amateur, but if he hadn't recovered some function by now, she could guess at the odds. She thought that maybe she understood now why Tony hadn't wanted to look away from her--up until a minute ago, she'd been the only normal thing left to him. Among all of the tinsel and bright lights trying to turn the bullpen into a place of cheer and hope, Ziva thought she might be sick.
"Mr. Nose?"
Ziva, McGee, and Ducky turned at the sound of the small, surprised voice. Ziva blinked, trying to make sense of why she was seeing a uniformed guard from the security checkpoint in the parking lot, a very uncomfortable-looking teenage boy standing on the other side of the foot of the stairs, one hand holding something gauzy and fur-trimmed, the other holding tightly to the hand of a tiny girl whose black hair contrasted sharply with her red nose, her blue coat, and her white dress. Her dark eyes were so wide that Ziva was afraid they might pop right out, and her gaze was fixed on what little she could see of Tony over Ducky's shoulder. Everything in the office had fallen still, all heads turned toward the children. For a moment, no one moved, no one made a sound.
"I'm sorry, sirs, they, well, they ran right past us and insisted on coming in. We called the director, and she said to bring them up." The uniform stood stiffly at attention, though one hand lay firmly on the teenager's shoulder.
"S-sorry," the boy said quietly, obviously wishing that he could disappear into the floor. He shrugged inside his brown coat. "We were on the way to my uncle's church for the Christmas thing, and I told her this is where you guys worked, and she made me stop here; I told her we're gonna be late, and that no one would be here on Christmas Eve, but she wouldn't listen." His eyes skipped over Tony before he focused shyly on Gibbs. "She just had to ask you something."
Out of the corner of her eye, Ziva saw Gibbs move to Tony's side, and she turned to see him subtly helping Tony don his mittens again. "It's okay, son, but I think what she really wants is to ask him." Gibbs patted Tony on the back, then rocked back on his heels as Tony gave him a grateful look and strode powerfully over to the kids. Whatever uncertainty had plagued Tony before was gone as he knelt in front of the little girl.
She gasped a little as her brother freed her hand so that she could rest her white mittens on Tony's black shoulders. "You're here."
He nodded. "Yep, I'm here. It's kind of my home away from home. Do you know what that means?"
She nodded. "Uh huh. But..."
He smiled gently and leaned in a little, not even flinching as he rested his black mittens on the sides of her shiny white dress. "What is it, Bit?"
Her chin started to tremble. "Do you hated me?"
Tony's shock was palpable. "No, of course not! I could never hate you, Marie--you're my little bit of heaven! Why would you think that?"
"'Cause you went away, I made you go away, and you never camed back--I thought I made you go away forever." Her words ended in a half-sob, and without even thinking about it, Tony pulled her close, one arm snugged around her waist, the other mitten covering most of her back.
After a moment, he pulled back, his hands returning to her sides as he locked his eyes on her. "Baby, no! I want you to listen to me now--are you listening?" She nodded, wide-eyed. "Good. I want you to remember this." He leaned a little closer. "You didn't make me go away. You didn't do any of this." He glanced up at her brother meaningfully. "Neither of you did," he said firmly. Tony turned his eyes back to Marie. "And I haven't gone away forever. You know my boss back there, Mr. Gibbs? You remember him. He told me how you kept your promise to me." She nodded, flicking her eyes up to see Gibbs wave at her.
"Listen to Mr. Nose, now." She responded to the gentle command in his voice, turning back to Tony.
"Thank you. I know Mr. Gibbs is your friend, and he's sort of mine, too; he's been helping me to not be lonely while I get better, and he makes sure that I don't do too much and hurt myself, so he's letting me stay at his house for awhile. I'll be back soon, though, and you'll see me again."
Marie shook her head sadly. "But I won't."
Brow furrowed in confusion, he looked up at her brother.
"We're leaving on Wednesday. Mom and Dad don't want her," he paused and then scornfully added, "us, near a place where stuff like this happens, so we're doing Christmas with my cousins tomorrow and then we're moving back to Ohiothe next day. They're probably right, too; I never got involved enough there for anyone to get mad at me, so I can't get her blown up again." The misery in his voice was hard to take.
"You're the one who's not listening, Ross--you're not responsible for what happened, or what could have happened; the boy who did this didn't let anyone get close enough to him to tell him to stop before he did something hurtful, but you do. You have your parents, and your sister, and now you have me."
"Us." Gibbs's tone was solid stone.
"Us. You're a good kid, Ross, and a good brother. You got past the scared and the mad and you helped us catch a bomber. You're making good choices; you're making a good young man. Don't stand here and tell us that you're gonna let some misplaced sense of guilt unmake you; trust me, that is not a road you want to go down." Tony waited until he saw the kid swallow hard and nod in acknowledgement. Ziva wondered why Gibbs was smiling.
Tony turned back to Marie, his eyes gentling. "And as for you, young lady," he leaned in and kissed her forehead, "I will miss my Marieness." He looked her in the eye again. "But you know what? I gave you something, a card with my name and phone number on it." She nodded as she remembered. "Do you still have it?"
Marie's eyes filled with tears; she looked down and shook her head slowly. "I losted it," she whispered brokenly.
Tony used the side of his mitten to raise her chin. "That's okay, you can have another one." He didn't even have to hold out a mitten--McGee had a card from Tony's desk in Ross's hand in seconds. "Ross will hold onto it for you, and then both of you can know where it is." He leaned close, looking up at her seriously through his lashes. "If you ever need me--either of you--you can call me, and I'll come. I don't care what's going on, if you call me, I'll come." He pulled back. "I'm sorry it's not something fun all wrapped up in nice paper, but they don't let me shop--I'm a little dangerous." He winked at Marie, watching the glimmer of a smile through her tears.
"You saved her life--you guys saved both of our lives. Who cares about paper?" Ross sounded close to tears himself; he'd come here tonight sure that no one understood how broken he was over what had happened, and he was going to leave more whole than he'd been before this had started.
"But... but I don't have a present for you. I sorry, Mr. Nose, I love you but I can't give you anything." The tiny girl sobbed, and Tony cuddled her, letting her nestle into his shoulder.
"Do you both promise to keep making good choices and to be the best you you can be?" He saw Ross's nod and felt Marie's. "Then you just did." He held the girl for another minute, letting her calm down, and then he glanced at Ross's other hand. "Well, I'll sure miss you, but I've gotta let you go now--looks like you have some glorifying to do. We can't have our angel showing up late for her announcement, now, can we?"
Marie obviously didn't want to leave his arms, but she shook her head, drew herself up straight, and took a deep breath. "That's my girl," Tony said, smiling proudly. He stood up, kissed his right mitten, and 'passed the kiss' to the tip of her nose. "Do me a favor, Ross--don't leave her alone again for a long, long time."
Ross looked sheepish again. "We won't. No one's real sure how that happened, but after all this, she'll be lucky if she even gets buried alone." He took his sister's hand again, her mitten gripped in his bare hand.
"Forget your gloves, son?" Gibbs came to stand next to Tony.
Ross shrugged. "I think they got packed somewhere."
"Well, here, take mine." Ducky hobbled over, holding out a pair of gloves that were very likely genuine English leather. When the wide-eyed teen shook his head, Ducky pressed. "No, don't shake your head at me; come on, dear boy, it's better than freezing out there! Look, I'm a doctor, and I do not want to see you losing your fingers to the cold! Go on, take them!" He didn't feel it necesarry to clarify that he was a medical examiner, at least not where he'd have to explain what that meant to a five-year-old.
"You heard the doctor, Ross--put them on." Oh, if only his own team obeyed as quickly as this kid responded to Gibbs's order. He was pretty sure that particular tall order wouldn't fit in Santa's bag. Or the sleigh. Possibly not the North Pole.
Seeing that Ducky was satisfied now, Gibbs crouched for a moment in front of Marie. "Thank you for stopping by to see us; I couldn't think of a better Christmas present." He stood and pinned Ross with a look. "Find yourself some good friends in Ohio. You'll need 'em, and they'll need you." The boy didn't understand, but he did nod, and that was good enough for Gibbs, who handed over his own card.
The senior agent glanced at Tony and then nodded to the uniform, and the young Marine saluted and then started to guide the children to the elevator. Marie was busy waving to Tony, who waved back with his mitten and blew her another kiss; just before she'd have disappeared behind the stairs, though, she stopped altogether, jerking her brother to a surprised halt. She worked her right hand free of her mitten and out of his grasp, then ran back to throw herself at Tony. He caught her, picked her up, and squeezed lightly, once, needing the hug as much as she did. "Gotta go, Bit. You take care of you."
"You take care of you, too, Mr. Nose! I love you!" She twisted and looked over his shoulder, nailing Gibbs with dark eyes as she raised her left mitten to block her mouth from Tony and said in a stage whisper, "Remember--lots of baths." Being a Marine, Gibbs kept a serious face as he nodded solemnly, but Ziva, who was more confused than ever, heard McGee snort behind his hand. Ross came to take his sister, settling her on his hip as he rolled his eyes and shot the adults an apologetic "What can you do?" look.
Everyone watched until the two children and the Marine disappeared with the dinging of the elevator. "That's the girl," Ziva said softly.
McGee nodded. "That's the girl."
She turned to face him. "Tell me."
McGee was quietly catching her up, Ducky and Abby were wondering where Palmer was, and Gibbs was murmuring something to Tony, who was gazing at his own black mittens, when they heard someone say, "DiNozzo!" Everyone turned to look up at the director, who was standing on the landing outside of her office suite, looking tired and somber. She looked at the stairs, and Tony started up, Gibbs a step behind and to the left. When the men reached her level, they stopped, a world of unvoiced questions hanging in the air.
Jenny sighed. She'd watched from her landing as the brash young agent had shown just how powerful a leader he could be. "I'm surprised to see you here tonight."
Tony held her gaze. "That makes it pretty much unanimous. There something I can do for you?"
Jenny glanced at Gibbs, caught the storm in his eyes, the promise that they would have much to discuss. 'I'm sure we will, Jethro,' she thought. "DiNozzo... Tony... I wasn't going to do this until after Christmas, but since you're here now, I don't see much point in putting it off. I've, uh, been in contact with your doctor..."
She was hesitating. Jenny Shepard didn't hesitate. Tony sucked in a breath but waited--he had nothing but time.
Seeing that he wasn't going to react, and knowing that Gibbs wouldn't wait long before erupting, the director plunged on. "I'd like to see you in my office, Tony. We have some things to... we need to talk."
There it was. She wouldn't look him in the eye, but she wanted to talk. Tony closed his eyes, just for a second, then opened them again and nodded once.
He was about to start forward when he felt a hand on his arm. "You need me?" Gibbs asked softly. Everyone from NCIS up to the SecNav knew that Jenny wouldn't keep Gibbs out if Tony said yes, even if only the two men understood why he'd asked, or why he'd bothered to ask.
"No. Thanks." He hooked his right thumb under the elastic of the left mitten and worked it off, then did the same to the right, eyes still fixed on Jenny. He offered his mittens to Gibbs, preparing to meet his fate whole and unfettered. Tony started to move, and a heartbeat later, he found himself stopped, turned, and pulled into a fierce hug. It was over almost before it began, but there was nothing awkward or obligatory about it, and neither man was likely to forget it. As Gibbs pulled away, he gently palmed the handgear. Tony gave him a calm, collected nod. "Save some party for me." He followed Jenny through the door.
Gibbs stood at the top of the stairs, holding the mittens that had guarded Tony's damaged hands against a cold world, and understood that Tony had just told him that he'd be okay.
Downstairs, dozens of agents and staffers, before unable to look at Tony and now strangely hard-pressed to pull away from him, silently wished him all the best for Christmas and the new year, and then they slowly turned back to a party that was suddenly more than it had been.