Tony's Salvation - Chapter 22
"I'm wondering if I should quit NCIS."
"What would you do instead?"
He sighs as he admits, "That's my problem. I've been with NCIS for so long now that I don't know anything else."
She gazes into his emerald green eyes, liking his honesty as he continues.
"I'm not sure I trust myself, my instincts anymore. I just don't know if I can read people the way I need to in order to do my job."
Laurie touches his cheek. "Then let's do this a simple way: we take the next week off. Neither of us will worry about anything aside from what to eat, and where to sleep. At the end of that time period if you want me to, I can either put you through a psych analysis or arrange for the testing you feel necessary in order to accurately do your job."
"And if I can't do my job?" this is the question that he's dreading an answer to.
"There's always Wal-Mart." The twinkle in her eyes and humor in her voice tells him that she's not serious. She continues in a more serious tone. "We can talk to Gibbs, or Abby or even Vance if we need to. We'll figure this out Tony. I promise you that we will figure this out together."
He sinks down lower on the bed so that his head is lying on her chest, relieved by her words. He's trembling and she knows that it's not from cold. The uncertainty of what his future might bring is almost terrifying to him.
"It's okay Tony. I'm here, I've got you."
Her hand drifts up to caress his face and he grabs it, needing to feel her grip in his; needing to touch the scar that reminds of someone…sometime.
"What is it about my scar that has you so fascinated?"
"I don't know, it's like I've seen it before many years ago and I can't think of when we might have met."
"It could have been in passing like we did at the airport."
"Mmm…maybe, you ever have trouble using a weapon because of it?"
"All the time. My hand starts cramping at the most inopportune times too. It's the main reason I'm retiring from the SEALs; the pain gets more frequent with the longer missions."
He can feel a tremor in her hand as the muscles in her hand contract. She hisses slightly but gives no other indication of the discomfort she's going through. Tony massages her hand and uses his own healer's gift to ease the pain and tension away.
"I could always recommend you for a consultant healer, or a massage therapist."
"You're the only patient that I'd want." The words slip out before he realizes he's said them and she kisses the top of his head.
"Come into my mind again?" the request makes her blink but she complies with it. as she steps into his mind she finds it swirling with uncertainty. Without thinking twice she puts her hand out and all the commotion stills; Tony's mental crawls out from under a desk.
Physically he slumps against her, finally able to rest. Mentally he pulls her into his embrace, holding as close as he can.
"Would you like some help making sense in here?"
"Please, I just don't know where to start."
"You trust me, don't you?" At his nod she continues, "then sit here on the desk while I go make some sense of all this for you. When I'm done you should feel two or three things: tired, whole or mostly so, and maybe hungry."
Three mental hours later she's finished. Everything is neatly categorized and in a fashion that Tony can easily control and understand. She's also found the remnants of the bond between Tony and his twin.
"Tony, do you want me to repair this or help you to repair it?"
Tony walks over to where she's at. The slight green thread is growing dimmer and Tony shakes his head.
"No, he's dead; let him rest in peace."
Tony looks beyond that bond and sees a small shimmering lavender string, slowly becoming entwined with a dark emerald one. "What's that?"
"That's our bond. As you can see it's still developing, but in time it could be as strong as or stronger than the ones you have with Tim, and the rest of your team."
She leads him to several more strands and he knows instantly by the color that the bright emerald is Tim and the silver blue is Gibbs. Smoky grey is Ducky, while a chocolate brown and a red almost black are definitely Ziva and Abby. These strands are solid and almost pulsing with individual life of their own.
"That's how Gibbs knows when we're hurt or lying to him. He uses our bonds."
"Yep, it's kinda sneaky but at the same time it's a good indicator of how much you guys care about each other. In a way it's like having Gibbs as your Papa bear and you all are his cubs. Tim and Abby and maybe even Ziva could be considered your sisters."
He wanders deeper, checking out all the sections that she'd cleaned up and finally, in a remote corner he finds the memory he'd been searching for. The elusive memory of when and where he'd seen that scar.
*flashback*
It had been his senior year at Ohio State. Tony and several of his buddies were celebrating their last days of mid-terms when the entire campus came down with the flu bug. Due to their inebriated state, most of the football team including Tony, managed to avoid it until the final game before the play-offs.
"We were all lucky not to have been injured that day. As it was…"
As it was, Tony had ended up at the bottom of the pile after scoring the winning touchdown. He'd felt the snap of his leg breaking as he went down. Two hours later he'd regained consciousness to find himself in traction at the campus hospital. One of his buddies, Steve Pittman, told him the bad news.
"They say that due to the way it broke, it's possible you'll never walk on it again. You're definitely out for the rest of the season. Sorry, man but you needed to know and no one else was willing to tell you."
"Where's Samantha? I thought she'd be here."
Steve had looked at the floor as he struggled not to tell Tony what he thought of Tony's current girlfriend.
"She couldn't make it Tony, she…"
"She didn't wanna be seen with a cripple." Tony finished for his friend and Steve nodded, clearly not happy with the way things had happened.
"I'm sorry man, I –,"
"It's okay Steve. Dude, I'm alive and we won right? The Buckeyes are in the Bowl Games!"
Steve smiled at Tony's attempt to lighten the mood. Soon the other man left and Tony fell into a restless slumber. At some time during the night, Tony had woken from a nightmare. He'd grabbed for something to hold onto and he'd found himself holding a hand; a hand with a raised scar that had a unique shape to it. A soft voice had reached into his groggy mind assuring him that he'd be all right; that he would walk again.
*end flashback*
"How did you know to be there?"
She sighs and runs a hand over her face, wondering just how to explain about that part of her healing skills.
"Lemme guess part of your ninja skills?" He's not expecting her nod.
"In a manner of speaking, yes." His jaw drops as she keeps explaining. "The day that you were injured is the same day that we almost lost two members of Dawes Guys." She briefly glosses over the details that led to an ambush of the two youngest men, Taz and the Kid, on that team.
"I almost lost them twice. I did lose Rhett, our Tazmanian Devil for almost 30 seconds. Once they both stabilized enough to breathe and live on their own, I basically collapsed. I'd been working on the two of them for over 48 hours, trying to keep them alive. I managed to take a quick shower before I passed out."
She tells him that Thomas Stormwind had come in that night to check on not just his fiancé, Dawes, but the men as well.
"Tom is more than just her fiancé; he's the number one ranked N/S in the world and I did something that night that he's never seen or heard of before."
According to Stormwind, she'd teleported to an unknown destination and came back three hours later.
"I don't remember teleporting out of camp. Tom says that I'm a 'sleepwalking medic'. If a situation is dire enough I'll get up out of a deep sleep long enough to help or heal someone and then go back to my original location."
"My situation wasn't dire though. I just had a broken leg. What would have made you come to me?" Tony's confusion is almost equal to Laurie's. She still has no idea why she'd left the camp that day.
A new voice enters their conversation. "It was necessary and it could have turned dire."
"Rick!"
"Hello darling, hey bro good to see you again." Richard DiNozzo holds out a hand to his brother who shakes it absent-mindedly.
"Dire? I had a broken leg. How could that have been considered dire?"
Rick says, "It was a compound fracture and they didn't set it right the first time around. If she hadn't come, you would have eventually lost your leg to gangrene. That would have ended the majority of your careers. Our lady here knows just when to step in and save the day."
"I couldn't save you." Her soft mutter brings a smile to his ghostly image.
"I needed you to live sweetheart and you would have died trying to save me. My injuries were too great for even your mighty ninja skills. We needed you to live so that Tony could find you. He just didn't find you as soon as I thought he would."
"You sent me to him." She's staring at her former husband, not quite sure what to think of this news.
He nods and says, "Yes, but you were both so far out of it that recognition never had a chance."
"We were supposed to recognize each other 20 years ago?" Tony looks at Laurie who shakes her head at the question.
"Well, if circumstances had been better, yeah."
Tony's really starting to feel irritated by his brother's attitude. Rick is saying that he died so that Tony and Laurie could meet, yet he seems to have no idea of the grief that he'd caused with his death. Tony pulls her close, and she lets him hold her as he says, "No offense, but I'm kinda glad that we didn't meet that long ago."
"Especially considering how many of the ones who have gone through recognition ended up pregnant…" she shudders at the thought.
"What do you mean?" Tony has no idea what she's talking about.
"Almost all of Dawes Guys ended up recognizing someone within ten years of the war. Of those, all of them are now parents."
"I see what you mean. I think I have to agree with you…I'm not sure I'd want a lot of mini-me's running around underfoot. One maybe but not a handful."
"You two…."
"Can it Rick. If we're meant to be together and kids are part of that then we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. If not, we'll survive, won't we Laurie?"
"Mm-hmm." She's lost in thought and Tony turns her to face him.
"What is it?"
"I miss him…the baby."
Tony says nothing as he pulls her closer and lets her mourn. Knowing the life that she's led since her marriage to Rick, he knows that she hasn't had much opportunity to do so. A soft voice tells Tony that if they want to, recognition can happen without the risk of children.
Tony gives Laurie a quick hug and places her on a quickly conjured chair before turning on his brother in fury that the other man would even suggest such a thing.
"That's our choice to make together. If we decide to. No one has the right to dictate the life of a child! I thought that our father would have taught you that much!"
Tony's trembling, he's that angry and Rick wisely disappears. Laurie comes over and puts her arms around Tony's waist.
"Tony, Tony calm down. Look at me, it's okay Tony, look at me. You're right, that is a decision that we'll make together once we decide whether or not to accept recognition."
Tony turns to her shocked, "Don't you want me?"
"Of course I do, I just didn't want to be recognition influenced. I want your love, not just sex with a good looking NCIS agent. I want you to want me, not my body. And I don't want it to be forced upon us."
Tony frowns at that thought. He's never been one to force a woman to do anything against her will. His cop instincts start to rise as he wonders if someone tried to force her into either marriage or a relationship she didn't want. Thinking back on their conversations so far, she's avoided saying almost anything about the former team called Dawes Guys.
He tentatively reaches out to the cord he knows to be McGee's all the while keeping Laurie in his embrace.
*McGee can you hear me?*
*Hey Tony, we haven't talked this way before.*
*Hush Probie, I need your help. Can you do a quick check on a former black ops team called Dawes Guys? I want you to find out how many are currently married and of those how many have children. I also want to find out just what Laurie Fields position was concerning the unit during the war and afterwards.*
*I'll need a code to get into those files Tony.*
Tony relays Tim's request to Laurie who tells him the user name and password he'll need to access the accounts.
Tim tells Tony that he'll contact him as soon as he has an answer.
Laurie tells Tony that "they just won't accept that I know who I'm supposed to be with and it isn't one of the guys."
"Was it supposed to be?"
"In all honesty, maybe. When I was growing up my martial arts master wanted me to marry the son of his closest friend. We fought against the marriage and won. Then due to the bond that we still have between us everyone is saying that the bond we have is recognition and it's not. We're just friends, close friends made closer due to the fact we're both SEALs. After the war everyone started expecting us to make plans."
"Why didn't you?"
"I think we both know the answer to that."
Laurie looks at him and reaches out to the lavender cord. Even in the time they've been there the cord has gotten brighter.
"For a two day acquaintance, that's a solid bond. If we had ever been formally introduced, it's possible that it would be as thick as any three of those others combined." She nods to the ones he has with his team. "I've seen recognition bonds and a true bond is at least three to five strands thick depending on the level of trust between the two lovers."
"Would you," Tony clears his throat and tries again, "would you want another child this late in life?"
She nods shyly as she says, "If the child were to be conceived with love, I wouldn't mind another one. I just don't want to be turned into a baby factory."
Tony can almost picture her pregnant with a little DiNozzo and that makes him realize that he couldn't have done that with any of the other women in his life…not even Jeanne.
"Maybe I was following my instincts after all," he muses.
"It's not a crime to love someone Tony."
"I know, it's just that until today I couldn't picture that house with a wife and 2.5 kids and a dog. Well, the dog I could."
He sighs and takes her head between his hands as he kisses her.
"It's okay though. We have time to think, to sleep and who knows maybe even fall in love. Like you said earlier, we have two weeks so let's not rush it. For now, we'll sleep perchance to dream. Come on pretty lady, let's cuddle like we are physically. We can talk more in the morning."
He conjures up a bed, one that resembles their makeshift bed in her living room and lays her down. He then lies down beside her and she cuddles close to him, needing to be near him.
"It's okay, we'll get through this. One day at a time. Go to sleep pretty lady, go to sleep."
The softly murmured words and gentle caresses calm her as nothing else can. As her breathing deepens, she slips into sleep and Tony is left wondering if they could have met at any other place or time. Gradually he too falls asleep and he's still caressing his pretty lady.