Sunday, 1029, NCIS Headquarters

Gibbs walked into Abby's lab to total silence. She had her back to him, working at one of her computers, but DiNozzo was nowhere to be seen. He felt a moment of alarm, but then he realized that Abby would have called him if there was something wrong. He walked up right behind her and started to speak, but before he could, she turned around and put a finger to her lips. He raised his eyebrows. "He's sleeping," she signed.

Gibbs looked around and gave her an exaggerated expression of inquiry. Sign language was as much body language as it was gesture. She pointed towards her inner office. Gibbs walked softly into that room and saw DiNozzo asleep on the floor behind Abby's desk. He lay partially on the futon, which wasn't nearly long enough for his frame, and he was hugging the farting hippo.

After backing out silently, he turned to Abby. "What happened?" he signed.

She glanced over at DiNozzo. "He came in here a little high strung. He talked for a while about a lot of nothing, sort of pacing around the room." She made her signs a little larger than normal to indicate that DiNozzo was loud and upset. "I just tried to keep up with what he was saying. I knew he just needed to . . ." She shrugged and he nodded. DiNozzo had needed to vent his emotion without talking about what was really bothering him. "Finally, he just leaned against the glass." She nodded towards the wall of refrigeration. "And slid down it, sitting with his knees up. He told me what happened today."

"Details?"

She shook her head. "Just that Harris showed up and messed with him. He said it wasn't more than a few minutes before you came in. He . . ." She paused, hesitating. Gibbs spread his hands inquisitively. "He kind of unglued on me." She glanced in DiNozzo's direction again. "Don't tell him I told you."

Gibbs tapped her shoulder to get her to face him again. "Even if he was looking, he doesn't understand sign," he pointed out.

She rolled her eyes. "Anyway, he cried for a while and I told him none of it was his fault, and he said he knows that now, but that he can't figure out what Brody sees in him." She grimaced. "I offered him Burt to hold and got back to work. A few minutes later, he dug out the futon and lay down in my office."

"Don't think he slept much at the hospital," Gibbs signed.

"Who does?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Call me if he needs anything."

She gave him a thumbs up and got back to work.

Sunday, 1035, NCIS Headquarters

Jeanne wondered what was going on downstairs. Presumably Agent Gibbs had gone to see Tony, but Jeanne didn't even know how to get to autopsy. The only places she knew how to get to from here were the conference room, the interrogation rooms and the forensics lab. None of those seemed likely to help her at the moment. The need to see Tony, to talk to him, to offer him comfort, it was almost physical. He needed comfort, and it couldn't all come from his coworkers. Support from that quarter was important, and she would never demean it, but he needed to know that there were other people who cared about him. From what everyone around her had said, she'd begun to develop a suspicion that the only real family Tony had were Gibbs, McGee and Ziva. Jeanne was determined to rectify that.

She tried to focus on an article on prosthetics, but ways she could make up past wrongs to Tony kept popping into her mind. Some of them were agreeable fantasies, and not all of them involved much conversation. She had long ago perfected the art of daydreaming while appearing to study, so she continued to look at the pages, turning one every so often, and contemplated taking Tony into her arms and making him feel better. A part of her knew it wasn't a realistic notion. Good sex was not the cure for rape, no matter how sleazy novelists portrayed it. He might not want intimate contact with anyone for a while. Besides, there were a few things they really needed to talk about before there was any chance of restarting a physical relationship.

First, they needed to hash out the ways they'd hurt each other. Tony both had and hadn't chosen to hurt her, she recognized that now. He'd chosen to do the job knowing that it could – and almost certainly would – hurt an innocent, but she knew now, however much her heart might want to deny it, that her father had been a criminal. Cops had to stop criminals. She wasn't sure what the goal of cultivating her had been, perhaps Tony had been supposed to get close to her father through her. Regardless, in the real world, good people sometimes had to do bad things to have a good effect. Like buying black market drugs to give sick children, even when you knew that the drugs had been stolen from the aid caravan that had been bringing them to the village in the first place. Standing on principle might be the ethical, the idealistic thing to do, but if it killed children, was it the moral thing to do? She hadn't had to make that decision, but she knew people who had.

This wasn't the pleasant fantasy she'd started out with. She sighed and sat back, stretching. They had a lot to work out, not the least of which was her own vicious attack on him. If he could forgive that, she would be grateful, but she certainly didn't expect it. He might not have chosen to hurt her for the sake of hurting her, but she had most assuredly set out with the intent of hurting him. Looking back, she evaluated her thoughts and feelings on the day she'd gotten the call that her father was dead. She didn't know now if she'd truly believed Tony was guilty, or if she'd seized on an opportunity and ignored the incongruities because it suited her.

A voice startled her out of her contemplation. "Where's Gibbs?" She looked over and saw a man in a suit and trench coat standing at the other end of the row of desks. He had salt and pepper hair and a ferrety face, but it was clear that both Ziva and McGee knew him, and knew him well. Beside him stood a tall woman with blond hair. She, too, wore a suit, and she wore it well.

"He went down to talk to Abby," McGee said. "I can call –"

"No need," Gibbs said, walking in between the desk Jeanne inhabited and McGee's. "DiNozzo is asleep, Fornell, and I'd just as soon leave him that way."

"That's what you said at two this morning."

"Well, I'm saying it again now."

"That's fine," said the woman unexpectedly. "I think we should start with Agent Gibbs." She held out her hand and Gibbs shook it. "I'm Special Agent Gillian Glick."

"Special Agent Gibbs," he replied. "So, where do you want to talk to me? I can take you to our interrogation rooms if you'd like."

"I assume they have all the recording equipment one expects under those circumstances?" Gibbs nodded, looking slightly bemused. "Then that would be ideal. I think it would be best for all concerned if we kept a clear record of these proceedings."

Gibbs nodded. He turned to Ziva and spoke in a low voice. "DiNozzo's asleep in Abby's office. You and McGee stay away for now. I don't think he slept much last night."

Ziva nodded. "Yes, Gibbs," she said.

"Agent Glick, Tobias, follow me." He led them towards that back elevator again and Jeanne bit her lip. Abby's lab. She knew where that was. The trouble was, she wasn't sure how easily she could get away from her minders. She glanced at both of them. McGee might actually be pretty easy. He had the focus that really intense computer geeks tended to develop. If she murmured some excuse about the restroom when she got up, he'd probably never notice. Ziva was the real difficulty. She was on the phone, but even so, her eyes were never stationary.

Her voice rose slightly, making it harder to tune her words out. "You cannot send it?" she demanded, sounding irritated. "Very well. I will be there shortly. It had better be waiting for me."

"What's up?" McGee asked as Ziva rose.

"Detective Harris worked a case with NCIS three years ago," she said. "I am pulling the file to read the agent's notes in case there's anything that might be pertinent, but apparently it involves some classified project or other, and I have to pick it up personally and sign for it."

"Bummer," McGee said, and turned back to his computer.

"Yes, it is indeed a bummer," Ziva replied, her tone making it clear that she wasn't altogether comfortable with the idiom. "You will need to keep an eye on our guest while I am gone."

Jeanne looked down at her journal as Ziva left, hoping that the other woman's reminder would not, in fact, make Agent McGee more vigilant. She skimmed an article on skin graft techniques. It wouldn't do to get up immediately. For one thing, he'd just had that reminder. For another, it might look a little suspicious. On the other hand, she daren't wait too long, because she didn't know how far Ziva had to go.

She let out a sigh, stood up, and stretched. McGee looked up. "Little girl's room," she said, and he nodded, returning his attention to his monitor. She walked in the direction of the women's restroom, then made for the door to the stairs instead. The elevator would make noise, and there was always the chance she'd run into someone. No one seemed to use the stairs much.

When she arrived on the right floor, she paused on the landing, peering out the window in the door to see if anyone was in the hallway. Not a soul. She opened the door and started walking along as if she belonged. At least she hoped she looked like that – she might just look self conscious and weird. It occurred to her as she drew near the open doorway that she had no idea what she was going to say to Abby. She walked into the little entry way, clearly designed for complete biochemical hazard lockdown, and saw that Abby was standing in front of a computer, a pair of headphones on her ears. Jeanne could faintly hear the music coming from them. She stepped inside and looked around. Tony wasn't visible, but the glass door opposite where she stood clearly led to an office. The sliding glass door was in the open position.

Just then, Abby turned away and went to one of the cabinets along the wall between the windows. This put her back to the door and Jeanne. Jeanne seized the opportunity and hurried across the room into the office.

There she found Tony, lying on his side on a futon that was a good six inches too short for him. In his arms he held a stuffed hippopotamus, and his brow was furrowed. He was making those faces and half-formed gestures that Jeanne associated with his bad dreams. She knelt immediately and started stroking his arm and rubbing his back. That usually calmed him, and this time was no different. Once he was calm, she shifted sideways so that she was sitting with her legs bent beside her and kept stroking his arm. She'd like to stroke his hair, but she was afraid of hitting his stitches.

She dropped her hand to her side. He was all she wanted in a man. Had she screwed things up beyond recall?

The twitches started up again, this time with accompanying vocal sounds. If he'd been awake, she thought he'd probably be yelling, but as it was, the sound was muted. Jeanne lay down behind him, pressing herself against his body and stroking his arm. On occasions in the past when his dreams had proven intractable, all she could do to stop them was take him in her arms. She hugged him tightly and was relieved to feel a cessation of the tremors.

The warmth of his body so close to hers felt wonderful and reminded her of other times, better times. She snuggled closer and before she knew it, her own exhaustion caught up with her and she fell asleep.

Sunday, 1041, NCIS Headquarters

Gibbs gave instructions to the technician in the observation room, then went to join Fornell and Glick. He sat on the witness/suspect side of the table facing the two FBI agents and waited.

Glick sat forward. "Agent Gibbs, can you tell me when you first became aware of the relationship between Officer Harris and Agent DiNozzo?"

Gibbs looked at his watch. "Approximately forty-one hours ago," he said.

She made a note and looked up again. "Were you aware that Agent DiNozzo was in a homosexual relationship?"

"Nope," Gibbs said.

"Did you know he was in any kind of relationship at all?" Gibbs shook his head. He was irritated with himself for not knowing, for not being as aware of DiNozzo as he should have been. "Would you have had a problem with the relationship if you'd been aware of it?"

"Yes," Gibbs said, and the pair exchanged startled looks.

"What do you mean?"

Gibbs rolled his eyes. "Look, I don't give a damn who any of my people sleep with, so long as their partners aren't abusive," Gibbs said. "Harris was abusive.

"But you didn't know about Harris?"

"Not until I got the call from Dr. Benoit."

"Why did you put Detective Harris on the no admit list at Bethesda?"

"DiNozzo had just told me that Harris had been stalking him for six weeks," Gibbs replied. "That he had changed his locks because Harris had a key to his old locks. It seemed prudent."

"Did Agent DiNozzo ask you to prevent Harris from getting in?"

"No, he did not."

"So you took it upon yourself?"

"I did."

"Do you think the fact that Agent DiNozzo didn't make that request implies that he didn't want Harris kept away?"

"No, I think it implies he was suffering the aftereffects of a head injury and trauma," Gibbs said. He glanced at Fornell, and the other FBI agent simply spread his hands as if to say Gibbs should just go with it. "I take care of my people," he said.

"Yes, so I have heard," Glick said, nodding. "You keep tabs on their movements, you require them to follow a series of rules that you made up, you demand that they be available twenty-four/seven, right?"

Gibbs scowled at her. "The job we do requires they be available twenty-four/seven, just as yours does, the rules are common sense practices that regard the job, and I don't keep tabs on anyone's movements unless I have a valid investigative reason."

"According to Harris, you always seemed to know where Agent DiNozzo was," Glick replied, tilting her head curiously.

Gibbs shrugged. "Have you ever met DiNozzo?" he asked. She shook her head, raising an eyebrow. "Everyone in range of his voice tends to know where DiNozzo is going on most evenings."

"Did you know he was going to Hanrahan's on Friday night?"

"No." Gibbs looked down at his hands. "Friday he was pretty quiet." That had been one of the warning signs he'd noticed. DiNozzo went gradually silent about after hours stuff over the past week or two.

"Could you give me an example of these 'rules'?" Glick asked.

Gibbs rolled his eyes. "Rule one," he said. "Never let suspects stay together. Rule two, always wear gloves at a crime scene. Rule three, never be unreachable. Any of those sound unreasonable?"

"There are more, aren't there?"

"Like rule 12," Fornell said, his eye twitching with amusement.

Gibbs glowered at him. "Never date a co-worker. Good advice wherever you work."

"Very," Glick said dryly. "Are you having a sexual relationship with Agent DiNozzo?"

Gibbs blinked at her, then turned to Fornell. "So, have you decided yet?"

"Jury's out," Fornell said.

Glick watched them without expression, apparently just waiting for Gibbs to answer. "No, Agent Glick, DiNozzo and I are not having a sexual relationship. We have never had a sexual relationship, and we will never have a sexual relationship. For one thing, I don't swing that way, and frankly I don't think he does either."

"But he had this relationship with Detective Harris," Glick said.

"It is possible to have a relationship with a member of the same gender and not be gay," Gibbs pointed out.

"Bi?" she suggested, tilting her head.

"I don't give a damn what you call it."

"Has Agent DiNozzo ever had a homosexual relationship before?"

"Not that I am aware of."

"But he didn't tell you about his relationship with Detective Harris."

"No. He didn't."

"Why do you think that is?"

"You'd have to ask DiNozzo the answer to that."

"I asked you what you think, Agent Gibbs."

"I think . . . you'd better ask DiNozzo." Gibbs had his own opinions about the answer to that question, and they were none of Glick's business.

She nodded. "Well, I think that should be all for now. Can you check if Agent DiNozzo is awake yet? If not, we should probably talk to Dr. Benoit."

Gibbs gave Fornell a glare, but he rose. "I'll be back shortly." He left the room and went straight to Abby's lab. He wasn't at all certain he thought Agent Glick needed to talk to DiNozzo, unless she took a different tack with him than she had with Gibbs. He walked into Abby's lab and found her listening to music on her headphones. Disregarding her, he went into the office and stared dumbly at what he found. DiNozzo now lay on his back, the stuffed hippo forgotten beside him. His arms were around a much more attractive figure. Dr. Benoit lay half on her stomach and half on DiNozzo, her head cushioned on his chest, her arm across him, their hands entwined together, fingers interlaced.

Gibbs backed out slowly and tapped Abby on the shoulder. She looked over at him, eyes wide. Gibbs raised his hands. "Did you know you had another guest?" he signed. Her brows knit and she shook her head. "Benoit," he fingerspelled, and then he pointed.

She went to the window and peered in, then turned, her eyes wide with astonishment. "How sweet!" she replied, her gestures large enough to make it an exclamation.

"Don't wake them," Gibbs signed, and he went out of the lab. Upstairs in the bullpen, he found Ziva and McGee hard at work. He walked into the space and looked around. "Anybody know where Dr. Benoit is?" he asked loudly.

"She went to the restroom," McGee said absently, his eyes on his monitor.

Ziva looked up, glanced down and her eyes widened. "It has been twenty minutes since you told me that," she said, rising. "We had better find her." They both started to go into panicked search mode, McGee starting in one direction, Ziva in the other.

"Oh, I know where she is," Gibbs said once they'd gotten to the opposite ends of the bullpen from each other. Both turned in surprise.

"What?"

Gibbs gave them an amused grin. "I just wondered if you did."

"Where is she?" Ziva demanded.

"In Abby's lab."

"She's with Abby?" McGee asked. "Why didn't Abby tell us?"

Gibbs shrugged. "Abby didn't know." He started to walk away. He'd have to come up with someone else to throw to Fornell and Glick.

Ziva followed him. "What is she doing there?"

"Sleeping," Gibbs said, getting on the elevator. Ziva's eyes widened as the doors closed between them. He went to the interrogation room and opened the door. He beckoned to Fornell, who rose and came out.

"Where's DiNozzo?" Fornell asked.

"Still sleeping," Gibbs replied.

"And Benoit?"

Gibbs shrugged. "Also sleeping."

"Gibbs, how –" Fornell broke off, and Gibbs saw the suspicion awake in his eyes. "You don't mean –"

Gibbs snorted. "Oh yeah."

"But she accused him of murder!" Fornell exclaimed.

Gibbs nodded. "Yeah."

"Glick is going to want to talk to one of them," Fornell said.

"How about Hamlin and Simons?" Gibbs suggested.

"The two who attacked DiNozzo at the beginning of this fiasco?" Fornell nodded. "I can probably sell her on that, but you can't keep DiNozzo incommunicado for too much longer without feeding into Harris's claims."

Gibbs shrugged and went to give the orders to send Hamlin in to be questioned. Then he placed himself squarely behind the mirrored glass in the observation room. He wanted to see this for himself.

Please note: For those of you know and may find it irritating to see sign language spelled out in plain English, as if Abby and Gibbs use SEE sign, I want you to know that I'm well aware that sign language does not use either English syntax or - often - word usage. However, it would be beyond me to write in actual ASL syntax, variable as that can be, and it would be difficult for the average reader to understand.

For those who don't know, ASL does not function in the same way as spoken or written English. Many sentences are truncated, and sometimes subject and object are indicated more by kind of pointing at the person you mean than by actually stating names or descriptions. The order of words may be entirely whimsical by written English standards, and are largely comprehensible because of extra gestural elements to the language.

I have written what they meant rather than what they actually signed. Oh, and SEE sign is 'Signing Exact English', something folks who don't understand that ASL is and should be regarded as a separate language have tried to force schoolchildren to do for reasons that make as little sense as it would make to insist that you follow every hard word in your text with a definition in parentheses. Happy day!