Saturday, 1928, Bethesda Naval Medical Center

Jimmy had gone to go get himself some coffee, and Tony was glad to have five minutes to himself. Midway through his solitary time, however, the door opened. He looked up to find a very subdued looking Abby coming into the room. She had a laptop case over her shoulder and her eyes looked a little red. "What's up?"

"Yes, I've been crying," she announced suddenly. "So what? I'm not the only one."

"Why have you been crying?" Tony demanded. "What happened? Has Brody done something to you?"

"I haven't even seen him, but I'm sorry he punched you because of me."

"He didn't punch me because of you, he punched me because he's an idiot."

Abby tilted her head. "Yes, he is. A crazy, obsessed idiot."

"He is not obsessed," Tony protested.

"He is, I read his note."

"What? I haven't even seen it."

"Well, I'll tell you one thing about it." Tony raised his eyebrows. "It reminded me of the stuff Michael used to send me. Full of crap about how we were perfect together, and how he needed me, and how I was wasting my life if I didn't come back to him."

"Brody didn't say any of that," Tony said uncertainly. It didn't sound like . . . actually, it did sound like the way he'd been talking lately.

"Well, he didn't say you were wasting your life, but he called Dr. Benoit a bitch and Gibbs a bastard." Tony didn't like that, but he didn't want to talk about it. "Anyway, I'm not here about that, I'm here because Gibbs asked me to get a description of three guys from you." She tilted her head. "He didn't say which three guys, so I'm assuming that you know who he means."

Tony considered saying no, but he shrugged. "Yeah, I know."

She pulled the laptop out of the bag and started setting it up. "So, how are you feeling?"

"About the same," Tony replied. "Why do people keep asking me?"

"Because we care," Abby said primly. "Now, am I calling this 'guy number one,' or is there a name to attach to him?"

Tony pursed his lips. "Hasn't the director gotten back to headquarters yet?"

"Sure."

"Has she talked to Gibbs?"

"I don't know. Why does it matter?"

Tony shrugged. "Call this one Mark," he said. He began to describe him for Abby. As he did so, she started asking persnickety questions about details, and Tony could sense Gibbs' hand at work. He closed his eyes and called the bastard's face to mind as clearly as he could. Jimmy came in while they were working and sat down to study. When Abby was done, Tony looked at the picture and grimaced. "That's him."

"Who is he?"

"Put the next one down as Terry," Tony said, and Abby gave him a frustrated look, but obediently started the next composite. Terry and his friend were harder because he'd never seen either of them in a well lit environment, and he'd been pretty freaked when he'd seen them, but he did his best. Gibbs would expect nothing less, and since he knew the director would put an end to the investigation, he didn't think he had anything to worry about.

Abby gave him a kiss on the cheek when they were done and said, "I'll be back after work."

"See you later," Tony replied. He turned the TV back on as she left. Jimmy got up and followed her out, but he was only gone for a minute. Tony wished they would all just leave him alone.

Saturday, 2119, NCIS Headquarters

Gibbs looked up when the elevator chimed, expecting it to be Abby and Ziva. It had been about enough time for a round trip to Bethesda and it was late enough that people weren't popping in and out every five minutes. Abby emerged from the elevator as soon as the doors were open wide enough for her to fit through.

"Gibbs!" she exclaimed, marching up to his desk. "Who are those guys?" she demanded.

"Why?"

"Well, Tony really didn't want to talk about them, and Jimmy says he thinks he saw one of them with Brody Harris."

Gibbs sat up straighter. "When? Where?"

"He didn't give me an exact date, but he said it was the second time he ran into Tony and Brody."

"Go on."

Abby shrugged. "That's it. Jimmy said Brody didn't seem to be happy to see this guy, the one Tony called Terry, and they seemed to be arguing, but that the guy left the bar before Tony came out of the bathroom."

"McGee –"

"Checking Harris's history for any references to guys named Terry, Terence or anything like that, Boss," McGee said.

"Let's see the pictures," Gibbs said. Abby got the laptop out of the bag and did something arcane with it that somehow connected it with DiNozzo's computer and brought the pictures up on the plasma in the squad room. Gibbs drew closer, studying the faces. "He say anything personal about them?"

"I still don't even know who they are," Abby said, shaking her head.

"According to DiNozzo, these two held him down while this guy tried to rape him," Gibbs said. Abby went white. McGee stopped typing instantly and stared at him, and Gibbs found Ziva at his shoulder suddenly, staring with narrowed eyes at the photos, memorizing the faces. "Harris stopped them, and that's what led to the relationship."

"But if Brody knows Terry . . ." Abby said.

"Then we've got a bigger problem on our hands than I realized," Gibbs muttered. "Ziva, start searching the sex offenders database for DC and the outlying areas. I want to know if any of these guys are registered."

"Yes, Gibbs," she said, and she sat down at her computer.

"I'm going to go see if I got any fingerprints off that note," Abby said, walking off towards the back elevator.

Gibbs was still standing in front of the plasma five minutes later when Jenny showed up at his side. "Who are they?" she asked.

Gibbs turned to look at her. "I didn't tell you that part?" She shook her head. "According to DiNozzo, these three guys ambushed him in an alley so that one could rape him." He pointed at the central picture. "Only Palmer says he thinks he saw Harris talking to that one in a bar while Tony was out of the room."

"That could be exactly what we need," she said. Gibbs scowled. She was right, but . . . "What?" Jenny asked. "I know that face. What are you thinking?"

"How the hell is DiNozzo going to react if I have to tell him that the guy he insists saved him from a gang rape actually set it up to begin with?"

Jenny blinked at him, then turned back to look at the three composites. "Not well," she said in what Gibbs thought had to be the understatement of the year.

"You think, Jen?" he asked irritably, and she grimaced. "I've got work to do," he groused, and went back to his desk.

Saturday, 2157, Bethesda Naval Medical Center

As ten o'clock rolled around, Tony wondered why he hadn't heard from Gibbs. He'd have expected an irate call at the very least right after Jenny talked to him. Finally, with Jimmy shifting uncomfortably in the chair beside him, Tony decided that he'd had enough waiting, and he called Gibbs himself.

"Gibbs," said the hurried voice on the phone.

"Hey, Boss," Tony said. "Jimmy's been here for ten hours or something like that now. Can I send him home?" Jimmy looked up, startled.

"I don't want him driving home alone, DiNozzo."

Tony grimaced. "So come take him home, he's exhausted, and I don't need someone sitting here to watch me sleep."

"I'll send someone by," Gibbs replied. "And I'll be by later."

"So . . . did the director talk to you?" Tony asked.

"She did."

"So, have you stopped the investigation?"

"No, DiNozzo, I haven't. What made you think I would?"

Tony blinked in surprise. "I asked her to . . . I mean, didn't she tell you to . . ."

"She told me to, and I quote, 'nail him to the wall,'" Gibbs said. "You're going to have to accept that the rest of us care about what happens to you a whole lot more than you apparently do."

"Boss, it's not about that!" Tony protested.

"What's it about, then?"

"There's no point in pursuing a case against a guy who's going to get off anyway," Tony said.

"I'm coming by later, DiNozzo, and I'll have more information."

"When?"

"Probably not till late. Tell Palmer to be outside in twenty minutes. I'm sending McGee for him. Ducky's got a body that evidently won't wait, and he needs some help."

Tony nodded. "I'll tell him," he said, but he doubted Gibbs heard him, the phone cut off so quickly.

"I'm fine, Tony," Jimmy said.

"Well, I guess Ducky needs you," Tony replied. "You're supposed to be outside waiting for McGee in twenty minutes."

"I can drive myself," Jimmy said.

"Gibbs doesn't want you driving alone, and neither do I, frankly," Tony said. "I can't believe he stopped you."

Jimmy's eyes widened. "Agent Gibbs told you about that?"

"Yeah." Tony scowled at the TV.

"It was pretty scary, actually," Jimmy said, and Tony looked at him uneasily.

"How so?"

"Well, the last time I saw him, he basically told me you guys were on a date and I was in the way. He also told me to stay away from you, like he actually thought I was after you or something."

Tony shook his head. "You never told me that," he said.

"I told you I thought he was screwed up in the head," Jimmy retorted.

"You never mentioned that he said it was a date," Tony replied. "I . . . it wasn't a date, Jimmy. It was never a date. We paid for ourselves, we met there, there was no dating going on."

"I believe you thought that," Jimmy said. "But what you believed and what Detective Harris believed don't seem to match up too well."

Tony grimaced. "I don't know what to think."

Jimmy had started putting his books away, but at that he stopped and stood up. He walked over to the bed and leaned against it, meeting Tony's eyes with a somber expression. "You do know what to think, Tony," he said. "You know exactly what to think, you just don't want it to be true."

Tony shook his head. "You don't understand, Jimmy."

Jimmy snorted. "I understand better than you know, Tony. Sometimes people are more interested in their own desires than in what other people want or need, and Brody's one of them. Agent Gibbs is just looking out for you."

Tony shrugged. "You'd better get going. Don't want to make McGee wait."

Jimmy gave him a dry look, but then he grabbed his stuff and left. Tony lay back and tried to figure out just how he was supposed to get Gibbs to wake up and recognize that there wasn't anything to be done about Brody's problem except ride it out. He had to get bored eventually. It kind of pissed him off that not only would Gibbs not listen to him – he'd more or less expected that – but Jenny was ignoring him, too. He'd thought he could count on her to want to avoid involving the agency in a public scandal. Didn't anybody give a damn what Tony wanted?

Dial M for Murder came on at 9:30, and Tony tried to focus on it, but even Hitchcock couldn't drag his mind away from his preoccupation with this stupid case that shouldn't be a case. Maybe if he could get hold of Brody himself, he could get him to back down. At that point, Gibbs wouldn't have any reason to investigate. To do that, however, he really needed to get out of the hospital, and he still didn't have any clothes.

In The Fugitive, Richard Kimball stole clothes from a patient room, but Tony didn't think much of that idea. For one thing, God knew what the other patients on this floor had with them. There were clothes Tony wasn't willing to wear even for purposes of escape. He'd been to Bethesda many times before, though. Maybe he could filch himself some scrubs. Not great in the clothing department, but no one would look twice at someone walking through the hospital in scrubs.

It was after eleven, so things had to have quieted down by now. He got out of bed and peeked out the door. Not a lot of movement. He recognized the spot, too. There was a linen storage closet just down the hall. He waited till no one was in sight and hurried on quiet feet down the hall and into the closet. There, he took stock of the scrubs they had on offer. He selected green rather than blue, found a pair that were about the right size and pulled them on immediately, dropping the hospital gown into a nearby hamper. He snagged a pair of the sterile shoe covers, too, to conceal his bare feet. Then he peered out into the hall again. No one in sight. He started towards the elevator, but as he passed the waiting room door, he saw Jeanne. He froze, but she appeared to be asleep, lying across the only one of the couches in the room that didn't have armrests poking up every two feet. She looked cold. He contemplated her for a moment, then went back into the storage closet and grabbed one of the blankets from the section of bed linens. He returned to the waiting room, unfolded it and spread it over her.

Her hair had fallen across her face. He squatted in front of her and brushed the curls back. Her eyes fluttered open, and she stared at him. Her eyes widened and she sat up. "Tony? What are you . . ." Her eyes narrowed. "Why are you wearing scrubs?"

"I'm leaving," Tony said. "Don't even try to talk me out of it. I need to –"

"You're being released tomorrow, Tony," she protested. "There's no reason to make a dramatic escape."

"Gibbs knows I'm being released tomorrow, and he plans to take me to his place." He shook his head. "It doesn't matter, you're not going to tell on me, are you?"

She smiled. "I don't have to."

Tony started to ask her what she meant, but then saw where her eyes were directed. He turned slowly, expecting to find Gibbs behind him, but it was just a nurse.

"Agent DiNozzo, you're supposed to be in bed."

"I just wanted to talk to Jeanne," Tony said, improvising rapidly.

"Fine, then Dr. Benoit can come into your room with you."

"I'd be delighted," Jeanne said, gathering her things. Between them, they walked him back to his room and got him tucked into bed, scrubs and all, though they did steal back the booties. He sat back irritably. This wasn't working out the way he'd meant it to.

"You're pouting," Jeanne said.

"I am not pouting," Tony protested.

She smiled at him in a way that he recognized as her doctor face. "I stand corrected. What do you call that expression?"

"Annoyed."

"I see." She sounded amused, and he scowled.

"What are you doing here, anyway?" he asked, and her face grew wary.

"I don't think we should talk about that."

"I don't mean . . ." He shook his head. "I meant what are you still doing here? You could be in Vegas, or back in Africa, or in Paris or something. Why are you still hanging around in a hospital with nothing to do?"

"Ziva hasn't picked me up yet."

Was she misunderstanding on purpose? "But why didn't you just leave town?"

She looked at him for a long moment. "I was worried about you."

"I'm fine."

"I'm not," she replied frankly, and he scanned her anxiously.

"What's wrong? Did something happen?"

"Yes, something happened," Jeanne exclaimed. "A man assaulted you, right in front of me. I was frightened half to death."

Tony blinked at her. "Oh." He bit his lip. He didn't want to think about that. "If it's any consolation, I don't think he would have hurt you. He's not quite that far –"

"I wasn't frightened for me, Tony, I was frightened for you."

"For me?" He didn't quite know what to say. "Jeanne, I –"

"I have seen you in some pretty extreme situations. I saw your face right after your car blew up, and when you were down there in the morgue with that guy holding a gun on us, when he had it between your legs, and after he knocked you cold . . . you were never scared. You were angry, you were alarmed, but you were never scared."

Tony shrugged. "So?"

"You were scared in that alley, Tony," she said. He shook his head, trying to deny it, but she wasn't done. "You were scared, and you were trapped. It was disturbing."

Tony shivered and tried to repress the reaction. He cleared his throat and sought a subject change. "Bernie's doing very well these days."

Jeanne raised her eyebrows. "Bernie? The girl from the morgue?"

"Yup, Bernadette Watkins. I made sure she got into rehab and away from Nick Kerry."

"Nick," Jeanne said, nodding. "That was his name."

"Yeah, he got life without parole," Tony said with a grin.

"How'd you swing that?" Jeanne asked.

"Annie and Carly testified that he had plenty of opportunity to tell the doctors that the kid was body-packing, but chose not to. Bernie, all cleaned up and sober, testified that he knew and that he'd set the arrangement up."

"So he went away for murder?"

"In the first. I convinced the court that Bernie would respond well to rehabilitation, and they made her a deal. Probation, court ordered rehab, and boatloads of therapy. She finished her high school diploma last month."

Jeanne thought back on the poor girl she remembered from that night. "Good. She deserved better."

"I check up with her every so often."

"You should be careful," Jeanne said. "That might be construed as harassment."

Tony shook his head. "She calls me as often as I call her. She actually asked me to help her when some of Nick's friends tried to pull her back in. I took a friend and we had a chat with them."

"What friend?" Jeanne asked. "Agent Gibbs didn't know anything about it."

"I told Gibbs," Tony said, and Jeanne raised an eyebrow. "Well, not the details, but he had to know why I went to court. No, it was a guy I knew from the Baltimore police – I wanted to be certain that she had back up if things got bad again, so I made sure a couple of friends on the Baltimore PD knew her situation and had her back."

Jeanne stared at him, stunned. "That's . . . that's really great, Tony," she said. She'd lost track of that whole situation, and hadn't, in fact, even considered that she might be needed to testify. She was glad that Carly and Annie had been able to stand in for her. And Tony.

"She'd love to hear from you, by the way," Tony said, and Jeanne tilted her head. "She asks after you from time to time."

"Why me?"

Tony shrugged. "You were kind to her when her brother died, she's had precious little of that in her life. And after she'd gotten some help, I explained some of the stuff that happened in the morgue that night, stuff she didn't really understand at the time. She's decided she wants to be a rehab counselor. I think she'll be good at it. She's starting junior college in the fall."

Jeanne sat back. "Wow, that's spectacular. I'm so glad you could help her out."

"I made help available to her," Tony said. "She helped herself."

There was a lot more to this man than Jeanne had ever realized. She leaned forward. "So, how long have you worked for Gibbs?"

He shrugged. "A little over six years," he said. He snorted, an odd look of self deprecation on his face. "It's a record. Never lasted more than two years before NCIS."

"Baltimore, Philadelphia and . . . anywhere else?"

"Peoria, Illinois," he said. "Where every vaudeville show started out on trial."

Surely he couldn't mean that how it sounded, like he was drawing a comparison between his law enforcement career and a vaudeville act. "Why Peoria?"

He shrugged. "Why not Peoria?" he asked.

"Well, you're from New York, right?" He nodded. "Why didn't you apply there?"

"I did, but my credentials weren't sufficient to grant me an interview." His expression suggested that the question had struck him in a vulnerable spot, but Jeanne didn't know enough to know why.

"So, what are your credentials?" she asked, assuming that the educational biography she'd been given had been fiction.

"Ohio State University, physical education major," he replied promptly. "I played sports, joined a frat and had all the usual college excitement."

She blinked at him. "I was a med student," she said. "College excitement for me was having drinks with the girls after my finals came back."

Tony snorted. "I could bong a beer in under six seconds."

She laughed. "College was play time, then, huh?"

"After six years of prep school, I should say so," Tony replied. "Sex, booze and rock and roll, one never ending party."

The act was good, but she could see that it was an act. It wasn't so much that he wasn't telling the truth as that he wasn't telling all of the truth. "Now, why don't I believe that?" she asked.

"Natural paranoia?" he suggested with a bright grin.

"That must be it," she said, rolling her eyes. "Tell me about your father. Your real father."

His face closed down abruptly. "Go read The Wall Street Journal. His name is Anthony Leonard DiNozzo, Jr. You can find out whatever you want there."

"I see." And a line was drawn. Jeanne could see that questions about his father were way out of bounds. She wondered why, but obviously asking wouldn't get her anything but a more closed off Tony.

"So, Africa," Tony said, changing the subject.

"Yes, Africa," she replied. "Médicins Sans Frontières. It's been incredibly rewarding."

"When I heard, I wasn't at all surprised," Tony said with a softer smile. "How many dozens of people did you make life better for?"

"I don't know that I did," she replied frankly. "At least not long term. The amount of work to be done is overwhelming. You help people, but the need is so great that there's no real way to meet it. Between poverty, violence and cultural issues that prevent people from looking for help, it becomes very difficult."

"Tell me about it," Tony said, and she gave him a startled look. "Law enforcement is a constant struggle with those very problems, Jeanne. And I may not have been to Africa much, but I've been to Iraq and South America. We go wherever the Navy goes."

"I hadn't thought of that," she said, knitting her brows. "I know you're law enforcement, but I can't help thinking of you teaching people about the history of film."

"Oh, I do that," Tony said airily. "For one thing, you'd be amazed by how often a random fact from a movie can provide the right connection to solve a case. Drives Gibbs nuts, sometimes, but that can be fun, too."

"He does seem very goal-oriented," she observed.

Tony snorted. "That's like calling the Hindenburg a minor accident with a small fire," he said with a chuckle. "Gibbs is focused. Determined. You might even say obsessed." He looked quickly towards the door in case his boss had arrived in time to hear that.

"What?" Jeanne asked, glancing at the closed door with a quirked eyebrow.

"He also has a habit of showing up just in time to hear me something say like that, or at the first moment I've taken a break after hours of nonstop work. It's like that parent/teacher thing. The one thing you most don't want him to hear or see is the one thing he winds showing up just in time to hear or see." He shook his head. "And then he smacks you on the back of the head."

Jeanne's brows rose. "He hits you? That sounds –"

"No, it's not like that!" Tony interjected hastily. "He's not remotely abusive. It's just a little light tap, more to let you know you've gone beyond the boundary of what's acceptable." He leaned over and gave her a token Gibbs-tap. "Like that."

Jeanne's eyes widened when he gave her an extremely light blow to the back of her head. "Tony!" she exclaimed, mildly outraged by his effrontery.

His eyes went round. "I didn't hurt you, did I? Please say I didn't hurt you. I didn't mean to hurt you. I would never hurt you, not on purpose. Did I hurt you?"

His alarm was so extreme that it made her laugh. "No, you didn't hurt me," she said, and he relaxed. "But that does seem very odd. Your director doesn't object?"

"My director was trained by Gibbs in the long distant past," Tony said. "I'm sure she got a few headslaps of her own. And we all very carefully don't mention it when the workplace sensitivity and sexual harassment seminars come up, though that's a laugh anyway. I mean, they actually told Abby once that she shouldn't hug people because it was sexual harassment."

Jeanne's jaw dropped, but then she remembered a couple of the sexual harassment lectures she'd heard at the hospital. "Abby's a sweet girl," she said.

"Well, yeah, Abby's kind of the definition of sweet girl. And affectionate. And really, really, really demonstrative."

"She was very nice to me earlier," Jeanne added, thinking back on that very embarrassing moment in the waiting room. Things that Abby had said came back to her then, making her think again. "Though I'm not sure she meant to be."

"What do you mean?" Tony asked.

"Well, I was . . ." Jeanne realized abruptly that she hadn't intended to tell him this, but he was waiting expectantly. "I was crying earlier," she said, "and she –"

"What?" he exclaimed. "You were crying? Why were you crying?"

"Why do you think?" she asked. "That's not the point of this story."

"What's the point of the story?" he demanded.

"That I don't think Abby intended to be –"

"Yeah, well, I think the 'you crying' thing might be just a little more important," Tony said. "Why were you crying?"

She raised her eyebrows and started into an explanation. "Well, I witnessed a man I care about getting att –"

"Never mind!" She broke off, looking at him with innocent eyes. "Don't go there."

Jeanne smiled at him and immediately reverted back to her original point. "When Abby came in, she said, 'I can't say what I was going to say if you're crying.'"

"Oh," Tony said, a wealth of understanding in his tone. "Abby can be kind of defensive of us."

"I got that impression when she called you her Tony last night," Jeanne said, and Tony blinked at her. "But the fact that I was crying seemed to change her mood, and she was really nice." Tony nodded. "And then, of course, I made her cry and that –"

"What did you do that made Abby cry?" he demanded.

Jeanne's brows went up. "I see that Abby isn't the only one who's defensive of her friends," she said, and Tony gestured for her to answer the question. "I just told her that I thought the man you described to me as your father was Agent Gibbs."

Tony's eyes widened. "Oh, no, that's done it. She went all melty, didn't she?" Jeanne nodded, amused. "It's not true, anyway. I never mentioned Gibbs, not once."

"You told me your father was retired military and that he was hard but fair," Jeanne said, and Tony colored slightly. "That sounds like Agent Gibbs. And I asked him how much that description matched your real father, and he said that your real father was hard."

Tony's mouth twisted in a bitter grin. "Yeah." He stopped, then, though, and looked at her. "Wait, you didn't tell Gibbs you thought I was describing him, did you?"

"No, of course not." He heaved a sigh of apparent relief. "I'm still not altogether comfortable with this hitting thing, though. Does he hit Abby?"

"No," Tony said, looking appalled.

"But it's okay for him to hit you?"

"He does it to Ziva, too," Tony pointed out. "And McGee."

"And Ziva puts up with it?"

"I think she thinks it's funny."

Jeanne shook her head. "She seems a little too militant for that," she said, and Tony shrugged. "I don't know her, though, really."

"Seriously, Jeanne, there's nothing out of line about it," Tony said. "It's like . . ." He paused, and he looked like he was casting about for a comparison. His eyes lit and he grinned. "Think of it like 'spontaneous violent love.'"

Jeanne stared at him for a moment, remembering Elijah Wood talking on the appendices to The Two Towers, and she felt amusement bubbling up. "Like head-butting?" she exclaimed through a laugh.

Tony chortled. "Not exactly. I mean, he doesn't grab your head and say something nice. He's far more likely to yell at you or say nothing at all, but he doesn't waste his time on people who aren't worth it."

Jeanne had a vivid image of Orlando Bloom describing his reaction to having been head-butted by one of the stuntmen. "'White light, white light!" she exclaimed, and they both burst into giggles. It wasn't nearly as funny as that, truly, but they'd both been under a lot of stress and it was such a relaxing moment that neither of them could stop.