Title: Another Long Night
Author: I Love NASCAR
Pairing: Jibbs, Tony/Other
Disclaimer: The only profit I receive from this story is the feedback you provide. All creative rights to the characters (except Shelby ) belong to DB, not me.
Summary: With the NCIS team working late, Gibbs stumbles onto a secret and more trouble than he bargained for.
Dedications: To Elflordsmistress, who came up with the idea for the Jibbsfest, as well as the challenge; and to Julia, without who none of my NCIS fics would ever get written.
Chapter 1
Tony DiNozzo was tired as he made his way up the stairs. It was another in a long line of nights he had to work and it was getting really old really fast. It was as if Gibbs thought that if he didn't have a reason to go home, no one else did either. He found himself sighing as he opened the MTAC door, but smiling as he closed it behind him, the room empty except for the slightly younger blonde waiting on him.
"Hey." Shelby Gibbs smiled, looking just as tired as he did, but her blue eyes twinkled as she saw him. "I wanted to see you before I went home."
"When's Jenny come back?" Tony asked, sure she would know, sure Gibbs gave her a daily update.
"Tomorrow." She knew that Tony was not alone in wishing that the director would hurry and return Not only did it make work more difficult with her away attending the meeting in Europe , but she was afraid her brother was finally signing his own death warrant, trying to be NCIS director and snarling like a wounded bear, missing Jen more than the rest of them combined.
"Thank God." He sighed again, wrapping his arms around her. "Maybe we could go on vacation when things get back to normal."
"Things around here are never normal," she quipped, but smiled and kissed him. "That sounds like a great idea." She settled down in the seats with him, using MTAC as their own private meeting place, still hiding from the others, who didn't know, and, given her brother's present mood, weren't about to find out.
"A beach. Wanna go to a beach," Tony said in between kisses, feeling more awake than he had in days as he put his hand on her pantyhose, hating the feeling of the stockings she wore to work with her heels.
Jethro Gibbs looked at his watch, trying to think of a way to hide from Cynthia, wishing he'd paid more attention to everyone when they'd tried to teach him how to text message or talk on the computer, remembering his last phone call to Jenny, how he missed her.
"I see you haven't stopped answering my line," Jenny Shepherd said with a grin he could almost feel, halfway around the world.
"You have lots of lines. Which one do you want me to stop answering?" The way he phrased it, she could tell he meant more than just telephone lines and shivered with delight.
"None." She smiled. "I'll be home tomorrow."
"I know. We're working tonight so I can take the day off."
She smiled with anticipation. "What do you want me to bring you?" She was in Rome this time and, although it was beautiful there, she loved the country, she missed him, wished he could be there with her.
"You." He paused, meaning the words with everything in his heart. "I just want you."
She smiled, biting her lower lip. "You have some pretty good lines yourself, Jethro." She took a breath and slowly let it out. "Is my office still in tact?"
"Nope. I dismantled it. It'll take at least a week to put it back right," he teased her.
"Well, what do you want to do for that week?" She let her mind drift back to all the other times they'd had a day or week off together and how they'd always ended up doing the same thing.
"Go to Mexico ," Gibbs said, only partially teasing. He'd love to take her some place where there were no bodyguards, no assistants, no work, no cell phones, but such a place could never exist for them. He'd settle just to have her in his arms.
"Ah. A margarita safari sounds good about now." She teased back, trying not to remember how awful those months he had lived in Mexico had been for her, how lonely she'd been without him.
She frowned, seeing them signal that the next meeting was about to start. She should have waited until she got back to the hotel to talk to him, but sometimes she missed him so badly she couldn't stand it. It was unfathomable that this was what their relationship had been delegated to for six years, phone calls here and there, no visits, nothing but a voice on the other end of the line.
"Jen?" He sensed her silence and worried. She was too far away. If something happened, it would take him at least ten hours to get to her, more like fifteen or twenty in reality, if he got the first plane out.
"I'm fine, Jethro. The meeting's about to start. I'll see you tomorrow?" She waited for him to repeat it. "Jethro?"
"Yeah?"
"Apologize to Cynthia. And Tony."
He didn't even allow himself to wonder how she knew. He'd been in a foul mood since she left; her assistant and his second-in-command had taken the brunt of it. "Never apol..."
"It's a sign of weakness. I know." She rubbed her forehead. "Okay, I'll fix it with Cynthia," she already knew she'd owe the girl into the next millennium for being 'stuck' with Gibbs again, "but you fix it with Tony."
He smiled, knowing that would be how it would work out. While he didn't mean to, he frequently made messes with the relationships of the women in his life and she was the one who fixed them. "Deal."
After talking to Ziva, finding out that Tony had headed towards the MTAC room, Gibbs tracked him down, opened the door, and his face shot red, a thousand emotions running through his head. It was one thing to know that Shelby had once been in love with Tony. It was quite another one to walk in on the NCIS agent making out with his little sister.
Chapter 2
It wasn't the first time that Donald Mallard had wanted to nail his friend to a wall so that he'd stay still. "I need to check your blood pressure."
"My blood pressure's fine, Ducky. Tony's won't be once I get ahold of him." The shock of seeing what he had had worn off, leaving only the anger.
Ducky privately wondered how his friend knew that Shelby hadn't started the whole thing, knowing the girl as well as he did, a younger combination of the stubbornness of her brother and the determination of Jenny mixed with a mischievous streak all her own. He knew better than to say that though, especially at the moment. He took his friend's blood pressure and paused for a moment. "A little high, but I knew it would be. You need to calm down. She's over twenty-one. And the simple fact of the matter is that if the…if Jenny were here, we wouldn't even be having this conversation."
"Don't start shrinking me, Duck." He had a strong suspicion that his friend was right about at least part of it. If Jenny was there, they'd talk it out and the simple fact of the matter was that he'd been boiling even before he'd opened the MTAC door.
"Coffee," Cynthia said, coming into the office with two cups. Ducky started to take one and she moved it out of his reach, handing him the other instead. "That coffee belongs to Gibbs."
Gibbs took the one she indicated, taking a sip. "Anything else?" Cynthia asked Ducky, not Gibbs.
Ducky shook his head. "Thank you, my dear."
"Cynthia…" It was obvious that Gibbs wasn't calm yet, although the urge to kill DiNozzo was ebbing slightly. "You can go home."
She looked at him in surprise and nodded. "Thank you." It was after midnight.
"That's all I know," Cynthia recounted to Jenny as they rode home in the limo from the airport. "He was asleep this morning when I got to work and he's slept since. That's been over eight hours."
Jenny frowned, obviously not liking the news. "Has Ducky seen him? What does he say?"
"He was running a drug test when I left. Shelby was up there with him." It was obvious that Cynthia was uncomfortable about something, but Jenny was unsure what it was.
When they arrived at headquarters, Jenny ran past the group of Timothy McGee, Ziva David, and DiNozzo, sitting at their desks, off duty but worried about Gibbs. She went upstairs to her office where she was greeted by Shelby . "Ducky and Abby are running a blood test in the lab."
"Cynthia told me a little bit of what happened."
"I thought he was going to explode, Jen. You know how he gets But now, this…" She shook her head.
Jenny started to say something, but stopped as they both heard Gibbs talking. They walked into the inner part of her office together, Jenny getting the blanket she kept, placing it over him as he lay on the couch. It was obvious that he was still asleep and, for the first moment, they thought they'd imagined him talking. When the moment was over and he talked again, Jenny smiled, brushing her hand at his hairline, listening as he talked in his sleep, not about Shannon, not about Hollis, but about her…and Paris.
Chapter 3
Tony was walking to the lab when he saw Cynthia sitting by herself in one of the hallways, her head hanging down. Although they had never been close, he approached her. "You okay?"
She shook her head. "Tony…I put a sleeping pill in his coffee. I never thought it would last this long. What if he's having some sort of weird side effect…?"
"Whoa." Tony couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Pause, rewind…you're saying you slipped the boss a mickey?"
Cynthia paused. "You know what he's been like since she left." Tony nodded. "She had some pills left from when she had insomnia during that undercover case you two were working on." Tony nodded, remembering his 'lady boss' not being able to sleep after Gibbs 'moved' to Mexico until La Grenuoille had been found dead. "I gave him one. She only used a half, but she's smaller than he is. I just wanted to calm him down…"
Tony could understand the inclination and, if he had thought about it first, he couldn't say he wouldn't have done it. "It's okay, Cynthia."
"What if he's allergic to it? I didn't even think about that, about side effects…Jenny's going to kill me."
Tony shook his head. "No. Because she's not going to know." Cynthia looked up at him. "Just go home. Get some sleep. And never do that again. I'll take care of the rest, okay?"
She nodded, still not sure about leaving him to clean up her mess, but agreeing. He walked to the lab, still thinking about what to do.
Abby turned around just as Tony was coming into her lab. "Abs, I need a favor." He lowered the music so that she could hear him talk.
"Tony, you'll never believe what I found in his blood work…" She began.
"Yeah, I will." He interrupted. "Sleeping pills, right?"
She nodded. "Valium. He was poisoned."
Tony sat on her stool, facing her. "He wasn't poisoned I just wanted him to calm down a little. You heard him. Hell, the whole building heard him. I was worried for Shelby ." He began to practice, expecting heads to roll when he told Jenny and Gibbs. "Can I get you not to tell anyone? I'll tell Jenny and Gibbs, take my punishment, but no one else needs to know."
"You slipped Gibbs a Valium." She looked at him in shock, something not fitting right, thinking he was covering for someone, but the only suspect she could possible imagine would be Shelby and Abby wasn't sure that Shelby would do it either.
"Yes." He could already feel the slap on the back of the head and wished Cynthia had used anything but Valium, an OTC one, something that would make it just a little bit more acceptable. "Abby, I'm sorry, okay? I'll never do it again."
Abby was torn between her love for Gibbs and her love for Tony, but nodded. "Okay."
Tony turned, not aware until that second of the person in the doorway. " Shelby "
"We need to talk."
He cringed at the words, them never being good in any of the 'relationships' he'd been in, but nodded, walking with her to an interrogation room, sitting on the side where the suspects sat, Shelby where the agents did. "You gave Jethro a Valium."
"I was trying to get him to relax. It was wrong. I know it was wrong. I'll never do it again."
Shelby gave him the patented Gibbs stare, her hands locked on the table. "Where'd you get the Valium?"
"Jenny had it. From the La Grenuoille mission." It was obvious that she didn't like that piece of news either. "I wasn't trying to hurt him. I was trying to help him. You know what he was like. If he didn't calm down, by the time Jenny came home, he'd blow a fuse and either kill someone or have a heart attack."
"So you're trying to say you medicated him for his own good. Why didn't you let Ducky?" He had no answer. "How did you know she had the Valium?" Again, no answer. "How much did you give him?"
"One," he finally answered
"Go home. Get some sleep and I'll call you." She kissed his cheek. "And never do this again."
" Shelby ." He started to confess what had happened, but stopped, deciding he wasn't going to, but then again two seconds later it was all out on the table. "And she was so upset that I didn't want to feed her to Gibbs."
She looked at him in disbelief and then started to laugh, trying to hide it. "And you were going to cover for her and I was going to cover for you…"
He managed a smile, able to see the humor in it. "C'mon. I better face the music."
"I'll go with you. Talk to Jen."
Jenny was pouring a pot of fresh coffee, Gibbs awake but not yet oriented, when the two came in. "Welcome back, Jenny."
The redhead smiled. "Thanks." She was glad to be back, even under the circumstances.
"Is the boss awake?"
"He's conscious, but he hasn't had coffee, so I don't know if I'd say awake." She paused. "Is something wrong?"
Shelby answered, "It's about what happened."
"Let me get him this coffee and I'll be right back." The redhead disappeared and then reappeared a few seconds later, sitting in one of the chairs. "What was in the blood test?"
"Jenny, I gave him one of your Valiums," Tony said straight up, taking responsibility.
Jenny grew pale and bit her lip, obviously upset about something. "How did you know I had them?"
"I was snooping around and found them. I thought they'd calm him down. It was wrong and I'm sorry. The last thing I'd ever do is anything to hurt Gibbs. I just wanted him to calm down."
It was obvious that Jenny didn't believe him. "Tony, there is no way you would have found them snooping around. Only myself and Cynthia knew where they were." He paused, not having an answer for that. "You're covering for her, aren't you?"
He paused, not knowing what to tell her. "Tony," Shelby said. "Tell her the truth."
He looked at the blonde, taking her hand, and nodded. "Yes. Cynthia was so upset about it, especially when Gibbs didn't wake up. You know, better than anyone, how he can be. I'm not saying it was an excuse, but I am saying that I can see where it could get to that point." Jenny nodded. "Don't be angry with her."
"I'm not." Jenny took a deep breath and slowly let it out. "I should have thrown them away a few months ago. I don't know why I didn't." She studied both of them. "I'm not going to say anything about it to him. There's no need. The drugs are about to come out of his system, so all it did was give him a nice long nap."
"You're not going to say anything?" Tony asked in surprise.
"We're all guilty. If he hadn't walked in on you two, he wouldn't have been as 'surprised'. If I hadn't left him in charge, he wouldn't have been so stressed. If I had thrown the pills out, Cynthia wouldn't have had them accessible We're just as guilty as she is." She paused again. "Does anyone else know anything about this?"
"Abby ran the blood test, but she thinks I did it and she's not saying anything," Tony said, still holding Shelby 's hand.
"Go home. Get some sleep. I'm going to drive him home and do the same." She walked into her office again, seeing him a little more coherent. "Jenny."
"Hey." She kissed his forehead and then his lips, tasting the coffee. "Feel better?"
"What happened?"
She didn't even hesitate. "You were working so hard, not sleeping, that you finally crashed." He looked doubtful, but didn't really care, as long as she was there. "C'mon. I'll drive you home."
"And stay?" He hoped he didn't sound too hopeful, but the best thing in the world for him right then would be to lie beside her with her in his arms.
"And stay." They walked out together, holding hands when they got on the elevator, and Gibbs fell back to sleep on the way home.
