Sunday, 0749, Bethesda Naval Medical Center

Tony watched the door shut behind Jeanne. He could not figure out what was going on with her. Why was she here? How had her appearance so charmingly coincided with Brody's escalation? Was it all some bizarre, convoluted plot? What did she want, and why was she being so nice?

Gibbs took the seat Jeanne had vacated, and Tony looked over at him. His boss's expression filled him with the direst of forebodings. "What more could possibly have happened?" he asked, though he wasn't at all sure he wanted to know the answer.

"I called Fornell in on the case," Gibbs said.

Tony stared at him, and then closed his eyes. "Why not just shoot me now?" he asked. "Does that mean Sacks is in on it, too?"

"I gather that Sacks has been transferred," Gibbs said mildly. Tony looked up, startled. "To Seattle, Washington."

"Wow." Tony shook his head. "They tell you when they're springing me?"

Gibbs shrugged. "I could probably get them to spring you now, but there's a few things we need to talk about."

Tony didn't like the sound of that. "The Freeman case?" he suggested, more out of hope than from any real conviction it was a possibility.

"The director passed that on to Holbrook," Gibbs replied. "No, this is about Detective Harris."

Tony's teeth clenched, and he gulped down on a sudden lump in his throat. "What, you want to talk about what a complete idiot I was to be taken in by him?"

Gibbs stared at him for a moment. "None of this is your fault," he said, his tone hard and angry. "Damn it, DiNozzo!"

Tony shrugged, affecting a calm he didn't feel. "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. We passed that point a long time ago, Boss." He saw Gibbs swelling as if to deliver some new diatribe, and Tony didn't know if he could take it. He hated it when Gibbs was mad at him at the best of times. Right now it was more than he could handle. He spoke to head the lecture off. "So is this something new, or are we going to rehash the fun things we've already talked about?"

"The rehashing will come later with Fornell," Gibbs said. "I've just been to Harris's house, DiNozzo."

"You got a warrant?" Gibbs just raised his eyebrows, and Tony bit his lip. "Not that you need a warrant, not that I care, but . . . you were saying?"

"Did you ever visit him there?"

"No, never. We always got together at my place. I mean, sometimes I'd run into him at a bar, or we'd go somewhere to watch a game, but if we were being private, it was always my place."

"Did you travel in his car?"

"No, if we went somewhere, we always met there." Gibbs nodded slowly, and Tony wondered what had prompted the questions. He hovered on the edge of asking for several seconds. He wouldn't ordinarily hesitate, but his heart was speeding up. He wanted to know, but he also definitely didn't want to know. Gibbs tilted his head after a moment, and Tony got the feeling that he was waiting for Tony to pose the question he would normally ask. The silence stretched, and Tony cleared his throat. "Why do you ask?" he said finally.

"He had a sweater that belongs to you on his coffee table," Gibbs said.

"Which sweater?" Tony asked, and Gibbs shrugged. "Right, sorry, but you recognized it as mine."

"I did. Did he ever mention the idea of a trip to Europe to go skiing?"

Tony nodded, alarm growing by the minute. "I turned him down flat. For one thing, it was clearly a romantic thing, and I . . ." He closed his eyes, trying to shut out the disgust and loathing he felt any time he remembered Brody's touch. "I didn't want romance."

"He had a brochure lying under the sweater," Gibbs said.

"Fantasy fulfillment, huh?" Tony asked weakly. Gibbs shrugged agreement. He pursed his lips and Tony could tell that something really awful was coming. He felt his gut rolling. "What is it?"

"Did you ever, at any time, pose for nude photographs, for him or for anyone else?"

Tony's mind froze. The question hit him like a two-by-four in the forehead. His brain simply stopped working and resisted all his efforts to get it started again. A thump on the top of his head and a curt "DiNozzo" brought him out of it.

"Yeah, Boss?" Tony said, meeting his boss's eyes. Gibbs spread his hands slightly and raised his eyebrows, essentially repeating his question. Tony shook his head. "No."

Gibbs grimaced. "I didn't think so."

"What have you found?"

"Honestly, DiNozzo, before we get into that, I want you to talk to Fornell so he has something to go on to request a search warrant."

"Because you want the FBI to find whatever it is you just found," Tony said, and Gibbs shrugged. A queasy feeling in Tony's stomach made him scowl. "Fabulous. Not that I wasn't fairly sure that there are already pretty pictures of my charming bruises, taken while I was unconscious and unable to object."

Gibbs knit his brows. "What do you mean, Tony?"

"Evidence photos? Or did you not give orders for them?"

Gibbs gave him an inscrutable look. "That's a little different," he pointed out.

"How they hell could he have naked photos of me?"

"Will you talk to Fornell?" Gibbs asked.

"Do I have a choice?"

"Sure, DiNozzo, you can let Harris get away with this and maybe go on to do it to someone else," Gibbs said, and Tony felt a wave of fury sweep over him.

"Over my dead and rotting body," he snapped, and Gibbs raised his eyebrows. Tony reconsidered the statement. "No, wait, better: Over his dead and rotting body."

Gibbs nodded appreciatively and picked up the phone. Tony listened to the call with half an ear. He'd been an idiot, no doubt, but where the hell did Brody get off setting him up like that? Anger and humiliation warred in his gut, but anger was winning hands down. The bastard had started off what he apparently thought would be a 'loving' relationship with a sexual assault, bought and paid for. Not only was it insane, it was insulting. Gibbs wrapped up his call and hung up.

"So, are you going to tell me now, or do I have to wait for Fornell to get here from DC?"

Gibbs opened his mouth, then closed it again. "Just a minute," he said. He picked up the phone and dialed. "Abby, assuming that DiNozzo had been drugged, would it be worth testing his hair after six weeks?"

Drugs? Tony blinked staring at the wall. Drugs . . . would explain a lot. He'd thought it was depression and booze, but . . . maybe he was grasping at straws, but Brody had gone to get the beers an awful lot. How hard would it be to slip something into the neck of an open bottle while he was in the kitchen and Tony was in the living room, popping in a movie?

"Does that strike a chord, DiNozzo?" Gibbs asked.

Tony looked over at him. "It might," he said. "I . . . I never could muster up much caring when he started . . . pushing." He shook his head. "And he was always really quick to get up and get our drinks. Damn it, Gibbs, how could I be so stupid?"

Gibbs shrugged. "How often do you think of drugs when you're hanging out with your frat buddies and drinking and you get tired?" he asked rhetorically, and Tony scowled. The analogy both worked and didn't work, but he was feeling too pissed off at himself to really be interested.

"So, what now? You chop off a hunk of my hair?"

Gibbs stood up and pulled out his knife. "Yup."

Tony looked at the knife and held up a finger to forestall him. He hit the call button. Gibbs sat back down, fiddling with his knife in his hands. The nurse came in, Ella, and she walked over. "What can I do for you, Tony?" she asked with a smile.

"Do you have a pair of scissors?" he asked.

"Sure." She reached into a pocket and pulled out a pair of bandage scissors.

Tony turned to Gibbs. "Do you have an evidence bag?" Gibbs pulled out a bag, straight-faced, but Tony could tell he was amused by the way Tony had taken over the whole process.

"Ella, could you please cut off some of my hair, all the way at the scalp, and put it in that bag?"

She nodded, knitting her brows as she approached him. With gentle fingers, she pulled some hair apart from the rest on the back of his head and snipped a few times. "Are we concerned about drugs?" she asked as she stepped back.

"Could be," Gibbs said, sealing the bag and initially it. "I don't suppose you have some nail clippers?"

"I do," she said. "I'll be back in a moment."

"Nail clippings?" Tony said.

"Worth trying, and Abby asked for them," Gibbs said.

Tony grimaced and glared at the wall across the room. "So, what did you find, Gibbs?"

"Naked photos of you, DiNozzo," Gibbs said without batting an eye. "You look unconscious in all but one of the twenty-seven photos, and that one looks like it was taken while you walked away from the photographer, and like it was done really fast."

Tony's brows rose. "He took twenty-six photos of me while I was asleep?" Ella returned with the nail clippers and left them to it. Tony started cutting his fingernails and looked expectantly at Gibbs.

"Well, I'd guess that during at least twenty-five of them you were drugged, because the positions aren't remotely natural."

"Great," Tony said. "Am I going to get to see these pictures?"

"Not today," Gibbs replied. "After that it would be up to the investigating officer."

"Fornell," Tony said sourly. Gibbs shrugged. "Did you find anything else?"

"He wants to kill me," Gibbs said.

Tony snorted. "That's only news in the intensity," he said. "He's been trying for weeks to convince me that you're an asshole."

"Really?" Gibbs said, favoring him with a curious look.

"I told him you were a bastard, not an asshole," Tony said. "He didn't know what to make of that." Gibbs actually laughed at that, which made Tony feel a little better. Gibbs couldn't be truly pissed at him if Tony could still make him laugh. "Anything else? And how do you know he wants to kill you?"

"Remember the Wharton case? Where the girl kept scribbling out her stepmother's face in all the family photos?"

Tony nodded, remembering with a shiver of unease how unhinged Vanessa Walters had been. After her mother's death, her father had remarried a Naval lieutenant, and she had become convinced that her new stepmother was ruining her life. She'd attacked her, left her for dead, and had finally wound up admitted for schizophrenia. It had not been a pleasant case. His mind seemed to be working slowly. It took several seconds for him to make the connection to what Gibbs was telling him. "Brody did that to you? What pictures does he have of you?"

"He has pictures of you working," Gibbs said, and Tony blinked. "He has pictures of you from a lot of sources. Some of them he could have taken himself, but he's . . . well, obsessed."

Tony processed that information. "You found a lot at his place, then."

"Actually, we found most of the pictures somewhere else," Gibbs said, and Tony looked up, a disturbing notion entering his mind. "He has a website – .org."

"Mawher's site had a more creative name," Tony observed.

"It was also markedly easier to tie to him," Gibbs pointed out. "This one has no obvious pointers to who made it. There aren't any words at all, the pictures are grouped by theme, and –"

"Theme?" Tony interjected. "What theme? And are you saying there are twenty-seven photos of me naked online?"

"Only two of them are at this website," Gibbs said, and Tony noted that he wasn't saying the others weren't online. Hard to prove that, really. "The two least objectionable and least identifiable as you."

"But if they're grouped with other pictures of me, it's not hard to make the link," Tony said, and Gibbs shrugged sympathetically. "What other themes besides naked Tony?"

The door opened and Fornell came in with another agent. This one was a woman, and Tony had never seen her before. She had light brown hair and hazel eyes, and her looks could have made her a spectacular undercover operative. Her features were pleasant but ordinary, and her height and build were average. Her personality, on the other hand, would be more difficult to hide. Even though she didn't speak when she entered, and stood appropriately behind the senior agent, her suspicion and level of attitude were hard to miss.

"DiNutso, how are you feeling?" Fornell asked.

Tony looked up at him uneasily. "Great," he said sarcastically. "Why?" Fornell gave Gibbs a speaking look, and Gibbs shrugged. "So, who's the new tag-along, now that Sacks has been sent where it rains ninety percent of the year?"

Fornell turned and glanced at the woman, and Tony got the feeling that the older FBI agent wasn't any too pleased with the younger. "This is Special Agent Justine Manton, FBI," he said. "Agent Manton, this is Special Agent Tony DiNozzo, NCIS." Agent Manton nodded at Tony. "She was assigned to the Harris case before I got to the office this morning," he added, giving Gibbs a look that made Gibbs straighten slightly.

"Whatever," Tony said, not sure what the subtext there was and truly not sure he cared. "Ask me your questions Fornell, or do you just want me to make a statement?"

Fornell opened his mouth to reply, but Agent Manton spoke before he could. "I'm afraid, Agent DiNozzo, that we're going to have to ask Agent Gibbs to leave the room before you can make a statement."

Tony blinked at her. "Why?" he asked blankly.

"Detective Harris alleges that Agent Gibbs has created a hostile workplace for you through intimidation and harassment due to your relationship with Detective Harris, and that Agent Gibbs is coercing you to persecute your lover in order to keep your job."

Tony stared at her for a long moment, anger crashing like waves through his mind. Gibbs started to speak, but Tony held a hand up. He forced his anger under control and gave Agent Manton a tight smile. "So, I allege rape, and because my rapist makes ludicrous claims about my being forced to make those allegations, you want to send my boss and the only man I trust enough to decide whether it's time to pull the plug or not out of the room while I tell you what happened?"

"Detective Harris has told us that Agent Gibbs has objected to your relationship from its inception, and that –"

"Gibbs has known about the 'relationship' you're referring to for less than forty-eight hours," Tony said. He glanced at the clock. "Yes, in fact, under 40 hours. The 'relationship' ended six weeks ago. Not only did Gibbs not object at its inception, he didn't even know about it when I ended it."

"That's not what Detective Harris told me," Agent Manton said with infuriating assurance.

"Brody still hasn't met Gibbs," Tony said. His face felt tight and ugly. He knew he had to be scowling.

"And Agent Gibbs is still in the room, so he could be seen as offering intimidation and coercion at this moment."

Tony glanced over at Gibbs, who looked utterly astonished. "Yeah, he looks terrifying with his jaw dropped like that," he said. Gibbs snapped his mouth shut, but Manton looked a little like she got the point. "Look, lady, I don't care what Brody said. If you insist on Gibbs leaving, you're being the tool of a stalker and a rapist. I don't think that's part of your job."

"DiNutso?" Fornell said, and Tony turned to him. "Look, I totally understand everything you're saying, but may I offer two points?" Tony's eyes narrowed, but he didn't object, and Fornell seemed to take that for assent. "In some cases, the law is less about facts and more about appearances. In this case, I'd say appearances matter a fair amount." Tony's eyes narrowed further. "And we're not going to ask you anything that Gibbs doesn't already know about."

Tony closed his eyes and turned his head away. Both points were valid, but what it summed up to was that Brody was getting his way. By making it impossible to both appear fair and allow Tony to have his boss – and by extension anyone connected to his boss – in the room, Brody had neatly carved away Tony's entire support network. He grimaced and shrugged. "Fine. We play it Brody's way. Gibbs, please don't leave the hospital."

Gibbs rose to his feet. "You got it, DiNozzo," he said, and he left the room.

Tony watched the door shut, then turned towards Manton. "So, now what? Do you guys want to sit down, or would you rather loom over me?" Fornell had already walked over to get the chair by the window, but he gave Tony a dry look. He pulled it over to the window side of the bed and started to sit down, and Agent Manton took the chair that Gibbs had been sitting in. Tony looked back and forth at them on either side of the bed and shook his head. "Choose a side. I'm not playing this game."

Fornell snorted and drew his chair around beside Agent Manton. "Don't blame you."

Manton leaned closer. "Look, if you want moral support, we could go get one of your friends to come in."

"You just kicked one of my friends out."

"Agent DiNozzo, you surely understand how this works."

Tony rolled his eyes. "Tell me, Agent Manton, you're in the FBI." She nodded, looking puzzled. "You got much of a personal life?"

"That's kind of a . . ." He raised his eyebrows and she broke off. "I see your point, but surely you have friends."

Tony ground his teeth, but then he got an idea. "Actually, I do, and I think I need an impartial witness in this situation. Give me a minute." He pressed the call button, and Ella came in. "Is Brad on duty today?"

"He's on call," Ella said.

"Could you call him?" Tony asked.

Ella's brows drew together. "Is it an emergency?"

"Look, I don't remember his cell number and my phone is in an evidence bag somewhere. I just –"

"I'll call him," she said with a smile. "Can I give him a message?"

"Tell him I need his services as a friend, and ask him why the hell he hasn't been by to see me. I'm feeling very unloved."

Ella laughed. "I can answer that," she said. "He's been at a conference in Houston."

"Oh, okay, I feel more loved now." He paused, considering the implications of that statement. "Or at least less unloved."

"I'd better go call him," she said, and she left.

"Why don't you two go get some coffee while we wait?" Tony suggested. He picked up the remote and turned on the TV. He flipped through several channels and settled on I Love Lucy. He watched through a couple of minutes, and when the commercials came on, he looked over at the unmoving FBI duo. "Are you going to go?" he asked, and Manton looked startled. "Sorry, I guess I phrased that as a request. Now I'm telling you, I won't talk to you until Brad gets here, so you might as well leave. Fornell, why don't you go share ex-wife stories with Gibbs?"

"I can wait," Agent Manton said.

"You can wait outside," Tony replied, an edge creeping into his tone. He watched them file out and sat back to watch his show. Maybe he'd calm down before they came back in, but he wouldn't bet on it.

Gibbs walked down to the nurse's station and called Jenny. "How's DiNozzo?" she asked.

"Pissed off."

"That's a good sign," she said.

"Yeah," Gibbs said. "But the FBI are here. Evidently Harris contacted them last night to report me for harassment and discrimination, so I've been booted from the hospital room while they get DiNozzo's statement."

"What?" she exclaimed. "Fornell kicked you out?"

"No, it was an Agent Justine Manton."

"I see." She paused for a second. "I'll get back to you." She hung up before he could speak, but he was good with that. He knew her next move would be to call the director of the FBI and twist his tail.

He cajoled the nurse into giving him DiNozzo's exit paperwork so he could get it started in the waiting room. He was working on page two when he looked up and found Fornell entering room. Manton walked by the door towards the ladies restroom, looking irritated. "What are you doing out so soon?" Gibbs asked.

"DiNutso threw us out. Since he can't have you, he wants an impartial witness."

Gibbs contemplated his options and wasn't honestly sure what barring NCIS from consideration left. "Who?"

"Someone named Brad. I guess he works here."

Gibbs nodded. "Dr. Pitt. That makes sense."

"You know I didn't have anything to do with this, right?"

"I do," Gibbs said. Fornell sat down with a sigh. "I told the director as much."

"Oh, damn." Fornell looked at him sideways. "I don't want to be anywhere near that pissing match."

Gibbs grinned, then he glanced back the direction Manton had gone. "She as out to lunch as she seems?"

"She's a crusader," Fornell said.

"Oh crap," Gibbs muttered. "Perfect."

"Out to right wrongs and aid the oppressed."

Gibbs rolled his eyes. "I'm surprised she didn't campaign to have you removed."

"She doesn't know about our history, I don't think. You should have seen her face when DiNozzo suggested we share ex-wife stories. I'm sure she doesn't realize it's the same ex-wife."

In a low voice, Gibbs said, "You need to get into his house, Tobias."

"There's no way I'll get a warrant right now," Fornell hissed.

"You need to get in there quick before he wises up and hides the evidence."

"Evidence?" Fornell's eyes narrowed. "What evidence?" Gibbs gave him a dour look, and Fornell let out an exasperated sigh. "Right. Fine. I'll do what I can. DiNozzo sure seems to be cooperating like gangbusters now, though."

"Yeah, well, he had an epiphany." Gibbs hoped that he wouldn't break down in front of Fornell and Manton. It would humiliate him beyond bearing.