Chapter 4: Autumn - DiNozzo
Your mind is like Central Park in New York during autumn. It is the place to be, to see the color of the season. - Buchanan to DiNozzo
DiNozzo could feel eyes burning on the back of his head. Again. He turns around and glares at the brown eyes staring fixedly at him.
"Stop profiling me, Buchanan!" he growls, irritated.
Buchanan blinks, smiles politely and turns back to the report she is reading, sitting beside McGee in the bullpen. The last week had been very calm, no new cases, so Gibbs had them going through cold cases and reviewing them to see if they could pick something they might have missed.
It was a really boring task and tempers were a little bit frayed around the edges. Ziva was nervously snapping paper clips while Tony read listlessly the old reports. By now he already knew them by heart.
Buchanan and McGee were sitting side byside. He reviewed searches previously done while she read for the first time, old cases from when she hadn't been part of the team. She was doodling on a paper but sometimes she would zone out, staring at something or, in this case, someone.
The afternoon dragged on slowly, with no phone calls to the hotline informing them that someone, anyone, was dead, killed, maimed or kidnapped. Even Gibbs was feeling a little claustrophobic, taking three outings for coffee, two visits to Abby to bring her Caf-Pow and a long visit to Ducky, just to hear him rambling about an old story he had already heard.
Finally, five o'clock rolls in and Gibbs signals that they should close down shop. The agents hurry to finish whatever game, story or website they were looking at on the internet and slowly get ready to leave.
Buchanan smiles for a moment and stares at Tony who is closing his computer game, getting ready to leave. She walks up to his desk and stands before him, before asking something that had been bothering her the whole day.
"Why do you get so mad when you think I might be profiling you?"
Tony fixes his jacket, grabs his gun and his badge from the first drawer and stares at the short agent, who is looking at him with a small smile on her face.
"I don't like the idea of a shrink going around my head, looking around my secrets. So stay out of my mind."
Joy nods, shrugs and goes to collect her purse, nodding to Gibbs on her way to her desk.
"It's a pity, you know. I like your mind."
That freezes Tony, who looks at Joy as if she had sprung a second head.
"You like my mind?"
She glances up at him as she looks for something in her purse.
"Sure, why not?"
Tony keeps staring at her astonished, and even Ziva grabs her backpack and looks at the two agents waiting for the punch-line of a joke that's she's sure it is coming.
"So you do not think that he should be admitted into a tunes bin and left there to rot?"
Joy glances at Ziva, who is throwing a malicious look at Tony, who is looking at her with his best puppy face.
"Not funny. And it's loony bin, Ziva. Loony." He glances then at Buchanan, "Why do you like my mind? Don't you think that I need years of therapy or something like that?"
Joy looks up at Tony, laughs and shakes her head, her curly hair hitting softly her cheeks.
"Tony, in my line of work I've delved into the sickest and scariest minds out there. I've seen horrible things done by monsters to innocents and there was no explanation for their deeds. No excuses. No nothing. Your mind is…" she smiles and scratches her chin, trying to find a definition to what she sees.
Even McGee is standing beside them, waiting to hear what Joy has to say. Finally she seems to find the definition she was looking for.
"Your mind is like Central Park in New York in autumn. It is the place to be, to see the color of the season."
"Central Park?" McGee looks from Buchanan to Tony, who is looking at Buchanan confused.
"Really?"
"Yeah. There are plenty of people and laughter and beautiful colors. Of course, once the sun sets it is dangerous to walk in some corners of it, as you might not be safe alone in there, but during a sunny day, walking by the tree lanes... It's pleasant. Colorful."
"You really think that?"
Joy smiles a Mona Lisa like smile, nods and leaves, all the time with Tony's stare burning at her back.