Apologies on the delay. Life happens! Actually had a REAL Friday night with my BFF- Then my daughter's recital was today...er, well...technically, now, it was yesterday. :)
11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11
Gibbs sat in the cell beside Tony. His senior agent was curled up, sleeping on the cold concrete floor; his back planted firmly against Gibbs' thigh as if an anchor holding him together. Gibbs felt the overwhelming need to protect him... He knew what was about to happen, but he thought somehow he could protect him this time.
The masked men flooded into the room and Gibbs reached out and grabbed Tony, holding him tightly in his arms as he yelled for them to leave them alone. But they easily pried Tony from his arms as if he'd barely been holding him at all... and when he tried to fight them off, he was powerless. He watched Tony as he struggled, flailing his limbs in effort to escape...
""Ple-he-hease!" Tony cried out as the shoved him down into the box, cruelly. "Boss, please! Help me!"
"It'll be okay, Tony...I promise you!"
Gibbs sat up in his bed, heart pounding in his chest from the memory he'd just relived in his dream. As he drifted more fully into consciousness, he made efforts to calm himself; trying to catch his breath and allow his heart to slow a bit. When he became aware that he was literally shaking, he realized that Ducky had been right...
Gibbs threw the covers from his legs and turned to push up from the bed with an insatiable need to check on Tony. He glanced briefly at the clock, seeing it was merely two in the morning, before heading toward the quest room. Tony was on his side facing away from where Gibbs stood in the doorway and he waited for the expanding of the agent's chest to indicate that he was breathing, before letting out a sigh of relief.
"Boss?" Tony turned around when he sensed his boss's presence.
Gibbs narrowed his eyes, "I didn't mean to wake you," he told him in a hushed voice.
Tony sat up to face him more clearly, "You didn't. I couldn't sleep."
"Oh," Gibbs replied simply. "You okay?"
"Yeah, I..." he squinted as his eyes darted around in the air between them. "It's just that...I didn't really wanna put myself back there," he met his eyes again. "Don't wanna dream..."
Gibbs nodded, understanding all too well. "But you really should try and rest, Tony."
"Yeah, you too, Boss," he said as he looked him over. "What're you doin' up, anyway?"
Gibbs considered, for a few moments, not revealing why he was up. But then he took into consideration the fact that trust was a two-way street; if he ever expected Tony to be open with him, he'd have to do the same. "Bete noire," he told him. Tony was surprised to hear the confession, but was doing a pretty good job of hiding it. "Needed to make sure you were okay."
Tony considered his words carefully, surprisingly not taking offense by them. Then he quickly thought of a way to attempt to keep him there. "You wanna watch a movie, Boss?" he asked with an unintentional look of plea on his face. "I was thinkin' about watchin' Enemy at the Gates. It's pretty good..."
Normally, he would have refused. But the mere suggestion had suddenly given him great comfort. "Okay," he replied and stepped a bit further into the room as Tony grabbed his portable DVD player.
"C'mon, Boss," he scooted over on the bed to make room, "I don't have cooties or anything. I got myself checked out," he smirked. Gibbs returned the smirk as he casually slid onto the bed beside him, leaning back on the headboard as Tony set up the movie. "Jude Law, Ed Harris and Rachel Weisz...it's all about snipers in World War Two. I think you'll like it." He kept the player on his lap, but turned it slightly toward Gibbs as it began to play.
It wasn't long before Tony was fast asleep; his head having fallen onto Gibbs' shoulder. Feeling him there gave Gibbs great comfort and he soon felt himself drifting off as well; the movie simply being ambient noise. But, of course, this had been their own way of talking. Without words, they managed to confess that they were both in need of each others presence as a way of affirmation and comfort. In the simple act, Gibbs had confessed that he had been just as affected as Tony, and that he needed his agent and much as his agent needed him. That fact, alone, gave Tony the much needed courage to allow himself to feel... and neither of them were troubled by anymore nightmares that night...
11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11
Monday...
"Gear up!" Gibbs called as he rounded the corner into the bullpen.
"What do we got, Boss?" McGee asked as the agents readied their bags and weapons.
"Dead Marine found in a parking garage under an office building in Georgetown," he explained as he holstered his gun and put his badge into his pocket. "You up for this, DiNozzo?" he asked as he approached the senior agent's desk.
"Absolutely, Boss," he replied as he threw his pack over his shoulder. Gibbs nodded and headed toward the elevator, his agents following closely behind.
11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11
"Preliminary examination suggests that the Lieutenant died from a gunshot wound to the heart. Which would, of course, mean that death was nearly instantaneous," Ducky explained to Gibbs and his team. "It would seem that he was shot at from a distance. I'd guess at least fifty feet."
"Time of death?" Gibbs asked.
"No more than ten hours, Jethro."
Gibbs nodded in acknowledgment. "Go ahead and get him back to autopsy," he told the M.E. "Ziva, find security and get any surveillance footage between closing last night and whenever they opened this morning. DiNozzo, McGee... figure out the trajectory. See if you can't find a casing."
"On it, Boss," Tony said for them as they packed their cameras into their bags.
*~.~*
"Lieutenant Pierson came here yesterday evening to meet with our director," the well-dressed business woman told Gibbs and Ziva as she lead them towards the security office.
"What is it, exactly, that your company does?" Ziva asked her.
"Varicon provides servers for several local small businesses."
"You mean, computer-based storage of information?" Ziva clarified.
"Yes, exactly."
"Has there been any problems with clientele lately?" Gibbs asked.
"I don't think so," she replied. "But you'd have to ask the director."
"Was Lieutenant Pierson a client?" he asked.
"No...actually, he used to work here before he joined the Corp. He was here to see if a co-worker of his still worked here. A...James Carly, if I remember correctly."
"Does he?" Ziva inquired.
"No. In fact, the director said he'd up and left a year ago. This was before my time here. No one's seen or heard from him since. Here we are," she said as they approached the security office door.
"I'm gonna go talk to their director," Gibbs told Ziva. "Call me if you find anything." She nodded and turned to open the door to the office as he walked off with the employee.
"You must be NCIS," the guard turned slightly in his chair.
"Agent David," she extended her hand and he took it.
"Nice to meet you," he said. "You can call me Mike."
"Mike," she gave him a small smile to be polite. "I need to see the-"
"Footage, yeah," he finished for her. "I've been going through everything from closing time last night on. There's no actual footage of the shooting, but I found where the Marine entered the garage," he played the footage for her.
"2300 hours," she noticed the time at the corner of the screen.
"Yeah. We can see him walkin' in toward his car, but then there's nothin'."
"Is this the only camera footage you have been looking at?" she asked.
"Well, it's the only one in parking," he defended.
"Yes, but the Lieutenant was in this building before entering the garage, was he not?"
"Yeah, but we close at nine here," he told her. "We were thinkin' he probably went across the street to grab somethin' to eat before comin' back for his car."
The screen suddenly went black. "Is that the end of the tape?" she asked.
"Apparently the camera went down shortly after he entered," he explained.
Ziva narrowed her eyes, "Whomever shot him did not want to be seen leaving." She thought, silently, for a few moments. "What about inside the building after closing?" she suggested. "Perhaps there was someone in here that you were unaware of, and shooting the Lieutenant was ridding of a witness."
"Nothing's missing, though," he told her. "No evidence of forced entry or anything else that would warrant the belief that someone would wanna be in here."
"Then the only other possibility would be to rewind the tape and see if there is another vehicle that came into the garage and did not leave before the Lieutenant came back."
"Well..." Mike's eyes darted around for a moment in thought before rewinding the tape. "There was a car that pulled in shortly before the Lieutenant came back into the garage," he said. "But the car's still down there; I checked when I saw this the first time."
"Did you find the owner?" she asked with a furrowed brow.
"No...I...I figured someone just went out and got drunk; grabbed a cab home. Happens a lot around here, actually. We give 'em till noon before havin' it towed."
"Find the plate number," she ordered.
"Alright," he said with a bit of a whine in his voice. "But it doesn't really make sense that a person would shoot a guy, then leave without his own car..."
Ziva considered that statement for a moment before her eyes widened with realization. "Unless the car...is what the Lieutenant was killed to distract us from seeing," she said under her breath, then picked up her phone to dial Tony. The call went straight to voice mail and she cursed under her breath as she felt her heart begin to pound in her chest. She dialed Gibbs.
After one ring, he answered, "Yeah, Gibbs."
"We may have a problem, Gibbs," she said. "We need to evacuate the building."
"Why is that?" he asked.
"I think there might be a bomb in an abandoned vehicle in the garage..."
11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11
Tbc...