A/N: Well, I can't really think of much to say about this chap. So maybe you just want to go and see for yourselves!!
Meg, random chick and all you other wonderful people: thank you so much for the reviews!!
And now enjoy!
Guilt
It's a few hours before Ducky and Jenny leave for the hospital, and Tony has been trying to reach Kate on her cell for at least thirty minutes.
Having dialled her number for the umpteenth time and sick and tired of her voicemail, he finally hears Kate herself on the other end.
"What, DiNozzo?"
"What if this was an emergency?"
He can practically see her roll her eyes.
"Is it?" she asks, sounding annoyed instead of alert, which makes him frown.
"No."
"No problem then, is it?"
Tony purses his lips in disapproval. "Could've been."
He hears her sigh, then there's a pause. When she speaks again, she sounds tired, her irritation gone from her voice. "What is it, Tony?"
"You'd never have dreamt of not answering your cell when Gibbs phoned you."
"No, but I didn't have to worry that he'd call me up while I'm on a date or something once he found out I'd always answer."
He tuts and shakes his head. "You think I'd really ruin your date?"
"Tony?" Kate prompts, warningly. "What is it?"
"Where are you?"
"It's Friday evening", Kate replies. "We closed off the case."
"Yeah, I know it is and I know we did. But I didn't ask you that."
Another pause. Then: "I'm off, Tony. And no, I don't feel like going out for a beer tonight."
Tony shrugs. "Me neither", he replies quietly.
"Then what do you want?"
He sighs in mock exasperation. "Do I have to say everything twice? I wanna know where you are."
"Why?" There it is again: she's annoyed. Briefly, he considers slowing down a bit and admitting he's just worried about her because she just left the office without saying good-bye to anyone. But then he decides a little infuriation might just as well do her low spirits good.
"Why not?"
She growls lowly, like an extremely pissed cat. Then she tells him an address and hangs up.
Ten minutes later, Tony is walking down the street with his PDA in his hand, the display showing him where he's got to go to get to the place Kate told him.
It's around seven o'clock in the evening, and Washington D.C. is as vivid and bustling as a bees' hive. It's a lot more colourful, though, not only yellow and black.
Corresponding to the month – it's early January – it's cool and damp, but no one seems to care.
The streets are wet and gleam in a pale, angry shade of gold – rain reflecting the streetlamps – and cars are skidding along by fits and starts, traffic light to traffic light.
People in all kinds of attire hurry along the sidewalks, across plazas, jump out of and into cabs, emerge from underpasses and are swallowed by them. It looks like carnival as the working days gradually slips into night, there's no fitting all those individuals together. They either all belong here because it's Washington and it's seven p.m. on a working day, or they are all out of place.
People in business suits and costumes, ties and thighs, people in uniform, the militaries and the cleaning personnel arriving for their shifts at the federal buildings likewise, pizza boys who always have a way of looking vaguely silly, people with shopping bags with no definite style of clothing at all, women in high heels already dressed for the evening, people closing off the day's business and other just starting the night's. Kids, old people and everything in between. An ambulance. The occasional tourist. A TV crew.
For one reason or another they are all in a haste, coming out of buildings or leaving them, all running somewhere or from something, bumping into each other and throwing Excuse me or Watch out, idiot across the slippery pavement as if they're playing some very ingenious, or very senseless ball game, and their embarrassment or anger's already half forgotten before they've even turned around again.
It probably looks like perfect bedlam to an outsider. But Tony hardly notices any of it. He sees this every day, and has seen the same in Philly and Baltimore. He only registers as much as he needs to navigate his way along the streets, and to avoid colliding with anyone and inevitably having to throw back that silly ball to someone.
That doesn't take much, and doesn't require his attention. It goes automatically. Whether that's got something to do with being an agent, or whether you just acquire that kind of skill when you live in a big city for long enough, he can't tell for sure.
It's not something that occupies his mind right now either, though. Because Kate is on his mind.
His eyes are firmly fixed on his PDA, and the small, pulsing dot on the screen that indicates the address she gave him.
It's been a twenty-minute-walk, but he finally arrives.
He stows away his PDA in the pocket of his windbreaker and looks up at the building in front of him.
It looks like it has dropped out of the sky someday, and by chance landed in the free space between two tall, modern buildings that tower high above it.
It's so out of place among all the office buildings and shops that it can only have been here for a very, very long time already. Someone's been taking good care of it, though: the walls are a clean off-white, the wooden door has a smooth cover of varnish without scratches and cracks, and the cast-iron handle is polished and shows no traces or rust.
"A church", Tony murmurs to himself. He can't say he was expecting this.
He tries to remember when he last was in such a place, or attended a service, for that matter. He doesn't know. It's been a while.
He does recall Sunday mornings, though, when his nanny forced him into a stark white dress shirt with a starched collar and a stiff black suit, slung a tie around his neck and almost strangled him with it. He remembers his mother admonishing him to keep away from puddles and everything else that might spoil the perfect shine of his shoes while she put on her black fur coat, and asking him three times in a row whether he'd washed his hands. She'd fuss about his hair as if it were out of order although there never was any bloody way it could be, shocked into utter immobility by a pound of pomatum as it was.
Standing in this church, he can almost smell the perfume she used on Sundays (only on Sundays, and holidays, for a reason he can for nothing figure out) again.
He hated churches. All they ever meant to him were being rigged out like a doll and being considered insufficient for some silly, trivial reason all the same. Dirt underneath a fingernail. A hair that actually did manage to escape the iron grip of pomatum. A splash of muddy rain water on the tip of his shoe. His cousins always managed to keep their shoes and white thighs magically clean, whatever the weather, as though there was some invisible shield surrounding them.
The last time Tony has been to a church was for the occasion of a Christmas service, but he can't remember when that was. If he had his way, people would be free to believe in whatever they wish and practice their faith in whichever way they want to (as long as they don't start killing others along the way, that is), but his childhood memories only ever caused a feeling of contempt in him when it comes to Catholicism. Strictness, disapproval and stiff black suits are all he ever related to it.
And that is why he's rather surprised at how comfortable he's feeling as soon as he steps through the heavy door. Granted, he can't quite get rid of his mother's far too heavy perfume in his nose, but he really expected to have a stronger urge to run out of the church again right away.
Maybe it's because this place is so small and, in contrary to the stale chill he remembers from the cathedral of his childhood, quite warm. The lamps emanate a diffuse, soft glow and the silence is peaceful rather than so majestic that it's sole purpose seems to be to intimidate and remind you what a sinner you are.
Maybe it's just the fact that he came here for Kate, however.
Tony's eyes instantly find her sitting on one of the benches, unmoving, gaze resting on the candles on the altar, of the cross chiselled into the white stone it was cut from, or something only she can see.
She was tense all day, but now she seems relaxed, as if this place has calmed down the turbulent emotions that were absorbing her since the morning.
When he first learned about her religiosity, Tony didn't quite know what to think about it. He'd never made any effort to approach the church or some deeper kind of faith, he'd just developed too thorough a dislike for it all. It was difficult for him to believe that, or even understand how faith, and dressing up on Sunday mornings and Our Father and pray for us sinners fit together with a smart, young and independent woman who wore a Ralph Lauren-coat and Jil Sander instead of Chanel no. 5 and a dead mink.
They obviously did though.
Tony decides he's been there in the back of the tiny church for long enough and strolls down the row of benches, sitting down next to Kate. She gives no sign of having noticed his appearance, but he knows she has. He studies her profile for a while, then he asks: "You praying?"
Kate smiles and shakes her head. "Just thinking", she answers quietly. "I haven't been praying in a while."
She inclines her head and looks down at her hands, instinctively folded in her lap. "Since I started working – especially since I began at NCIS – I've seen so many murderers, rapists, dead bodies and destroyed lives that the words in the prayers just can't express it all any more." She tips her head to one side. "Sometimes I think that no words can, at all. They're too small and simple for all those monstrosities."
She turns to him and asks back: "How 'bout you? You pray?"
Tony draws a face. "Nah, I never cared much for churches. Always found those figurines quite intimidating. They look contemptuous."
Kate stifles a chuckle. "They probably do to you."
He shrugs with a small grin, but they both quickly school their faces into solemnity when an old lady walks past them to the front row.
"What've you been thinking about?" Tony asks after a while, when the lady's out of earshot.
Kate releases a deep breath and seems to contemplate the question, as if she's not quite sure what's been going through her head all this while.
"The Secret Service", she eventually says, and after a pause explains: "We never worked together for more than one assignment. It's just common practice there, and also a security measure." She runs a hand through her hair and tucks a few strands behind her ears. "I mean – I had my friends there, still have, but … I guess I just hadn't realized until now how different it is … how close you grow when you always work as a team."
Tony nods. "Yeah, especially when you work in Gibbs' team. When you're together twenty-four-seven, you probably can't help growing close."
Kate laughs quietly. "True."
They both fall silent for some time, until Kate rubs her eyes with the back of her hand, sighing, as if she just remembered something very unpleasant.
"This morning was just horrible", she states. "I don't know. I just feel –", she breaks off and shrugs helplessly, her eyes wandering around in the church as though she thinks she might find the right words spelled out somewhere on the walls. Eventually, she makes a resigned gesture with her hand. "Completely empty." She draws a breath. "And guilty."
There it is. Stole out from between her lips and now it's hovering in the fuzzy, incense-tinged air like a little insolent ghost.
Someone had to say it, at some point. Someone had to bring the topic up. It isn't such a surprise that Kate's the one to finally do it. He just didn't see it coming now, here, in the middle of all this calmness and peace.
Briefly, Tony closes his eyes, as if he could blink her last words away, but when he opens them again, the ghost it still there, waiting to be openly examined, discussed and then carried around for a long, long time; waiting to receive the attention it thinks it deserved all along.
He sighs. "You know, this reminds me of a movie."
Beside him, Kate blinks a few times. "Which one?" she asks, much more because she can't think of anything else to say in her current state of amazement. It's fascinating just when Tony will come up with his movies.
Tony seems to consider the question for a moment, then he replies: "Any that's got a death in it and isn't Terminator or one of the Saws." He turns to her and continues: "There's always some character that'll at some point start crying It's all my fault! I'm guilty! It's all because of me!" Kate actually is getting trouble stifling a giggle at his wailing tone. "And the audience will always go saying: No, it's not your fault. Just what makes you think it could possibly be, you masochist. You know what I mean, don't you."
Kate clears her throat and tires to sober up a bit. She thinks about what her friend just said, and eventually, recalling a few movies that fit Tony's description, she has to acknowledge he's right. She nods.
"And you think", Tony goes on, "there's something the movies can teach you. If I ever get into a situation like that, I'll remember this movie and won't feel guilty." He leans back again and returns to studying the overflowing ornaments and paintings that adorn the altar, the walls that flank it and the ceiling above. "Seems that doesn't work, huh?"
No, Kate thinks as they sit in silence for a while, doesn't work.
At length, Tony shakes his head. "For what, Kate?", he asks earnestly, apparently jumping back to Kate's statement about feeling guilty. As if the movie-part of their conversation never occurred. "We didn't shoot Gibbs."
He tries to make it sound encouraging and natural, but it doesn't really work. Not for Kate, at least. She knows what her friend's probably been thinking, because she's been thinking much the same.
She shakes her head. "No", she concedes softly, "but perhaps we could have prevented it."
"Yeah", Tony replies, and suddenly he sounds exhausted. His words really come out worn and faded now, like they've been turned over and over a million times already, repeated and pronounced in every possible intonation, order and volume. Like they've already been said a hundred times without affection, and now they're all worn and used, long overdue to be thrown away. "If we'd been more thorough, or more alert, if we'd scanned the containers in the back more carefully, or reacted quicker. If we'd given God knows what a second thought and approached the whole thing differently, maybe we'd never have ended up in that storehouse in the first place."
Kate groans and drops her head into her hands. "That's not what I wanted to hear, DiNozzo", she mumbles through her fingers.
"Yeah, me neither. But it's true. I mean - 'course we feel guilty, Kate. I feel guilty for what I told Ducky this morning. I'm pretty sure, though, that we'd all get a head-slap for that." He shrugs and rubs his eyelids. "Gibbs would say we did what we did and it turned out the way it did. No one wanted it, but that's beyond our power and also beyond our guilt."
Kate straightens up again and stares ahead miserably for a few moments. Then she looks at Tony and says: "I'm sorry."
Tony frowns. "For what now?"
"That we left it to you to tell Ducky."
He smiles. "That's alright Kate. It's my place to speak for the team after all. And how would you have had it otherwise, anyway? Count three-two-one and all say it at the same time?"
Kate chuckles at gives him a playful slap on his upper arm, but then she sobers and looks at him earnestly. "But that's nothing to feel guilty about, Tony."
Tony purses his lips and redirects his gaze to the lead glass windows above Kate's head, although the descending darkness outside already turned all their colours into a dull, dark grey and erased all the pictures through which they told their stories.
Eventually, Tony says: "Well, it will kill him."
Kate squeezes his arm until he's looking at her again. "Firstly: I could say such a load of things to that now, but I think you know that what you perceive as guilt there is just reluctance to accept. And secondly: you're right. Whatever can we do? I mean – if there's a miracle somewhere in the world that's still free, let's go get it, but – I doubt there is one."
She smiles at him. "And now let's get out of here. I feel like going somewhere for a beer." Tony grins.
They both rise and step out into the aisle, but Kate doesn't seem to be ready to leave the church just yet.
Instead, she walks to the front and stops by a brass candle holder with numberless branches. Ten or twelve candles have been lit, some of them still fresh and tall, others almost burned down already.
There's a clattering sound when Kate drops a coin into the tin box next to the candle holder, then she picks up one of the white candles, lights it and lingers for another few moments before turning and following Tony out of the small church into the cold evening.
TBC
What do you think??