Sunday, 1439, NCIS Headquarters

Tony walked into the conference room to find that Fornell and his new partner had taken up one end of the table. She was a gorgeous brunette wearing a burgundy suit with a black lacy shell peeking out of the collar. Tony wondered if she had any more sense than Manton. It would be a challenge to have less. He walked in a shade uncertainly, uncomfortable with the thought of being the victim in a round of question and answer. It was one thing when Gibbs was asking the questions, and quite another when it was Fornell and a woman he didn't know.

"DiNutso," Fornell said, and Tony grinned, finding his footing immediately with that greeting. It at least gave him someplace to stand, even if he was still uneasy. "Have a seat," Fornell added.

"Sure, Toby," Tony said, pulling out a chair. Fornell's brows drew together. Maybe he was going a bit far with that one, but the man knew how Tony pronounced his last name. "And you are?" Tony said to the woman.

"Special Agent Gillian Glick," she said.

"This is Dr. Brad Pitt," Tony replied, as Brad took the seat next to him.

"We've already spoken with Dr. Pitt," Agent Glick said. "Why is he here?"

"I'm not allowed to have my first choice of person to support me through this," Tony said. "And after the crap Agent Manton said, I wanted an impartial witness to the proceedings. Thus far, I have no reason to think you'll be any better."

"Agent Fornell –"

"The last time Agent Fornell was involved in an investigation that concerned me, I was accused of serial murder, and he once dumped me on a busy freeway at night. Our relationship is somewhat convoluted." Fornell chuckled a little, but Agent Glick looked startled.

"He did what?"

"To be fair, I had just conspired to take a victim's body from under his nose."

"Take?" Fornell repeated. "Steal is the right word."

"The case was in our jurisdiction more than yours," Tony said.

"Is this relevant?" Brad asked.

"Not really," Fornell said. "DiNozzo, can you give us an account of your relationship with Detective Harris?"

Tony decided it that he liked it less when Fornell pronounced his name the way he said it. Rather like handcuffs and crime scene tape, it served to indicate that the situation was serious. He sighed. "Where do you want me to start?"

"When did you first meet Detective Harris?"

Tony shrugged. "About four or five months ago, at a bar. He hit on me, I declined, and that was about it."

"You don't recall meeting him before that?" Glick asked. Tony shook his head. "So, then what?"

"Then, a few weeks later, maybe three, but no more than five, three men attacked me."

"Can you give us the details of that attack?" she asked.

Tony described the attack again, aware of Brad growing irate beside him. He told them about letting Brody drive him home and come in for a beer, and about inviting him over the following night to watch a movie. "The Untouchables," he said in response to Glick's question. "It's one of my favorites. We had a few beers, he made another suggestion, and I agreed. He stayed the night. The team caught a case late the next morning, so after breakfast, Brody went home and I went to work."

"How did the relationship progress after that?" Agent Glick asked.

Tony shrugged, trying to conceal his embarrassment. "He'd leave notes on my windshield. Neither of us really wanted to be outed, so we didn't use the phone or e-mail."

"How did you communicate with him?" she asked.

"I . . . didn't, really." Tony looked down at his hands. "I let him take the lead. I wasn't . . . I didn't really know what I wanted, so I let him decide, most of the time, anyway."

"You say you didn't want to be outed, so I take it you were concerned about how other people would react to this relationship."

"Characterizing it as a 'relationship' seems too strong to me," Tony said. "I didn't want anyone to know I was screwing around with a guy. From my perspective it was a buddy thing, a release of tension, so to speak, and I made that clear from the outset. I told him I was specifically not looking for romance, I wanted sex with no strings."

"And he accepted that?" she asked.

"He said he did," Tony replied. "I had no reason to think otherwise until much later."

"So, what were your typical encounters like?"

Maybe having Brad here wasn't the best of ideas, but Tony wasn't going back on it now. "He'd show up at my place, we'd watch a movie, maybe have a pizza and beer while we watched, then we'd . . . have sex."

"Forgive me for being crude, but was one of you always the . . ." She seemed to run out of words.

"He fucked me, if that's what you're asking," Tony said flatly. "I never . . . he didn't . . . that's just the way it worked."

"I see." She made a note. "At what point did things start to go wrong from your point of view?"

"He started leaving clothes at my place, said it was more convenient. I gave him a key, because if he got there before I got home, he'd just hang out in the hallway, making my neighbors nervous. He started showing up on nights when we hadn't made any arrangements and surprising me – sometimes by not making his presence known till I'd been home for a while." He couldn't suppress a shudder at the memories that brought up. "He started asking me questions about my day that demonstrated knowledge of my activities that he shouldn't have had."

"Did you think he was following you?" Fornell asked.

"I was pretty sure he was following me, actually," Tony replied.

"So far none of this amounts to rape," Glick said. "Are you making that allegation, or does that originate with Agent Gibbs?"

Tony swallowed an uncomfortable lump in his throat. "He . . . he raped me," he said, and he felt his face flush.

"Can you describe it?"

"Which time?" Tony asked. "I don't have a good explanation of why I put up with it, I was convinced he was a good guy and that I must be sending the wrong signals, I guess. I also . . . I'd just come out of an incredibly bad relationship that was making sex with women an impossibility. I –"

"How so?"

Tony closed his eyes. "Without going into the classified details, I can tell you that I was given an undercover assignment to get close to a woman whose father was of interest to the agency. I had the bad luck to fall in love with her, and I didn't withdraw from the assignment. When the time came to reveal the truth, she took it badly. When her father was found dead about six months later, she returned and accused me of his murder." He looked up and found Agent Glick staring at him. "I felt that I had handled things poorly, and I was still in love with her. It was getting in the way of forming relationships with women, even casual ones."

"But it was different with Detective Harris," Glick asked.

"I believed it was," Tony said.

"Why don't you describe the first occasion that you think was rape," Fornell asked.

Tony took a deep breath. "I was coming home late on a Saturday night – we'd had a really rotten case that finished badly – I mean, we solved it, we caught the bad guys, but it had left a bad taste in my mouth. I wanted to kick back with a beer and watch a mindless movie, something without gray areas, and then go to bed." He paused uneasily. "I dropped my stuff by the door, walked into the kitchen to grab a beer, and when I walked out into the dining room, Brody grabbed me from behind. I told him I wasn't in the mood, but he was insistent. I told him no repeatedly, but he dragged me to my room, undressed me and . . ." Tony clamped his jaw shut.

"Were you afraid of him?" Glick asked.

Tony shrugged. "At the time, I thought that I just wasn't fighting back hard enough," he said. "I believed that if I'd just tried harder, I could have stopped him."

"You mean you could have convinced him that you didn't want to have sex?" Glick asked.

"No, nothing was convincing him of that," Tony said, shivering slightly. "When I kept telling him to stop, he took me by the neck and told me to shut up, and he threatened to . . . not to use any lubricant if I didn't stop objecting."

Glick was gazing at him with a neutral expression. "So you stopped." Tony nodded. "And this isn't the only time it happened that way?" Tony shook his head. "Why didn't you tell him to shove off?"

"I just convinced myself that it was my fault, I guess. I know it doesn't make a lot of sense, but I didn't want it, I told him no, and he pressed on anyway."

"How many times?"

"I don't know," Tony said. "I wasn't really keeping track."

"Did you ever have willing sex with him after he started forcing you?"

"Once or twice, I think," Tony said. "I started making excuses, staying at the office all night on nights when I knew he was free, any avoidance tactic I could think of, but always soft pedal. I didn't want to get into a fight, and I knew if I told him I didn't want to have sex, it would become a fight."

"When did you tell Gibbs about the relationship?"

"I didn't," Tony said. "He knew about it when I woke up at the hospital. Not details, but he knew about Brody because Jeanne had seen him and heard me call him by name."

"So, you contend that Gibbs was unaware of this sexual relationship before the incident that put you in the hospital," Glick asked.

Tony blinked at her, irritation developing over her choice of words. "Yes, Gigi, I do," he said sarcastically, and her eyes widened. "I didn't tell Gibbs because I didn't really want Gibbs to know about it."

"Harris told me that you refused to go on a trip with him because, quote, 'Gibbs wouldn't approve.' Can you explain that?"

Tony tilted his head, searching his memory for . . . "The trip to Switzerland?" he asked, and Glick nodded. "He wanted me to go away with him for a week, and I had told him several times that I didn't want to go, that I wasn't interested, that we weren't the kind of 'couple' who go on trips together, but he wasn't getting it. To get him off my back, I finally told him that Gibbs wouldn't approve the time off. It sounds like he heard what he wanted to hear. He does that a lot."

Glick nodded slowly. "How long did that go on for?"

"A month or a little more," Tony said. "I'm not sure."

"And how did you end the relationship?"

"I told Brody I wouldn't be available one night but I didn't tell him why. I guess he didn't trust me or something, because he came to my place while I was out. The friend, Abby, she's our forensics tech, let me out in front of my building because my car was in the shop. She was kind of giddy, hepped up on caffeine, and she gave me a pretty solid kiss before she left. Brody was watching from the window of my apartment. When I opened the door, he clocked me, then slammed me against the wall. I didn't even know it was him till I managed to hit the light switch. He demanded to know why I was cheating on him with a 'transvestite slut.' Those were his words."

"A transvestite?" Glick repeated. "This was a woman, I thought."

"Abby is a very tall, statuesque woman, and she's a Goth, so she wears fairly heavy make-up, especially when she goes out. I explained to him that she was a woman, and that seemed to piss him off even more. Finally, I convinced him that Abby and I are like brother and sister – which has the virtue of being true – and then he started feeling up my ass and asking for sex."

Brad let out an appalled sounding snort, and Tony looked at him uncertainly. "I told him to get the hell out and stay the fuck away from me."

"And he left?"

Tony nodded. "I think he was still embarrassed about the mistake, and we'd never left the foyer, so I got him to leave. It's the only time he ever listened to me when I told him something he didn't want to hear."

"Then what happened?"

"I didn't see him for a week, but I kept thinking there'd been someone in my apartment. I had the locks changed the following weekend. After that, I started finding notes in my mailbox that detailed sex acts that an anonymous writer wanted to engage in with me. It wasn't hard to put two and two together, but I still thought I'd led him on somehow, so I wanted to handle it myself. I checked the paper for fingerprints and bagged them, but I put them in my desk at home. McGee and Ziva collected them night before last, I think. The same night they found the notes in my DVD cases."

"We've got someone checking through your apartment again now," Glick said, and Tony grimaced. Cleaning up after them would no doubt be fun. "So, you thought someone had been in your apartment. Go on."

"Half the time, if I went out in the evening, Brody would just happen by, and he'd start bugging me to get back with him. A week ago, he actually grabbed me and pinned me to a wall, insisting that I just didn't remember how good we were together or something like that. I didn't report it, but I still have the bruises."

"And then, Friday night?"

"Friday night I went to Hanrahan's. I told myself I shouldn't go out, but I can't stay locked up in my apartment every night. I was there maybe ten minutes when I looked up and saw Brody coming in. I slipped out the back door, but he must have seen me and circled round, because he met me about halfway down the alley. He grabbed me, shoved me up against the wall, and started groping me. I told him to stop, but he told me that I belonged to him, and I needed to learn that. Then he kissed me, and it was then that I noticed Jeanne."

"Dr. Benoit?" Glick asked.

Tony nodded. "She produced a taser and ordered Brody to stop. There was an argument during which he figured out that Jeanne and I already knew each other. This pissed him off and he smashed my head into the wall, knocking me silly and requiring three stitches."

"He smashed your head into the wall because you already knew her?" Glick asked.

Tony shrugged. "What would you think when he's saying 'Do you know this bitch?' at the same time?"

She pressed her lips together, made a note, then said, "So, then what?"

"Then Jeanne tasered him, he left, and I fell into a limp puddle." He grimaced. "And I told Jeanne not to call an ambulance, but she ignored me."

"Right, then at the hospital. What happened there?"

Tony grimaced. That was still too close in his memory to be comfortable to talk about. "I was asleep, and I woke up to him leaning over me. I . . . I couldn't speak, but I tried to punch him."

"You tried to punch him before he did anything?"

Tony glared at her. "He was the reason I was in the hospital, and I'd just learned that he'd hired men to attack me so he could rescue me from them. Hell yes, I punched him. I just couldn't get any real force behind it under the circumstances. He grabbed my wrists and held them down and started to kiss me. I turned my head and was about to yell, and he put his hand over my mouth." Tony rubbed his jaw. It was still rather sore, and, if Ducky could be believed, there were visible bruises. "He started nuzzling my neck and telling me how much he missed me, and how Agent Manton had gotten his restriction lifted. That's when Brad came in. I heard him yell, and he tried to pull Brody off, but Brody shoved him into a wall." Tony paused. "I didn't ask. Brad, are you okay? Did you see a doctor?"

"I'm fine, Tony, I was just dazed."

"Please go on, Agent DiNozzo," Glick said.

Tony gave her a dark look, but he didn't argue. He'd gotten the answer he wanted. Grimacing, he said, "I got off the bed, too, and told him to get away from me, but he followed me and . . . and he grabbed me. What was it he said, that it was Gibbs talking. I confronted him with what Gibbs had told me, about hiring the guys, and he said, 'Sometimes you need a catalyst. Guys like you, something needs to happen to show you what you need.' I told him he was crazy, and that's when the cavalry showed up." He let out a heavy breath. "I told him over and over again that I didn't want to see him, but he wouldn't leave me alone."

"All right, Agent DiNozzo, that all seems very clear," Glick said. She looked down at her papers, made a note, and looked up again. "So, what do you know about photographs?" Tony shuddered. "You are aware of his taking photographs of you?"

Tony realized abruptly that this was a minefield. Letting on that Gibbs had already known about the photographs could seriously derail the case. "Abby found some on the internet that they thought were linked to Brody. I know there's some pictures of me naked on the web, and I didn't voluntarily pose for them."

Glick stared at him, seeming momentarily discomfited. "I don't know anything about photographs on the web."

Tony blinked at her. "So, what photographs do you mean?" he asked. He didn't look at Fornell, who surely knew that Gibbs had actually mentioned it to him.

She pulled a folder out of the pile in front of her and slid it across to him. "Please take a look at these," she said. Fornell raised a hand briefly, but then subsided.

Tony opened the folder with a little trepidation. He stared in shock at a photo of himself lying buck naked on his bed, flat on his back, his arms and legs splayed wide. He shook his head and shuffled that photo to the back to reveal the next. In this one, he was on his stomach, still naked, his hips propped over a pillow, and there were bruises on his thighs. From the feel of it, there were several more photos, but Tony couldn't take any more. His stomach was twisting painfully, his hands were shaking, and he . . . he stood up abruptly and hurried out of the room. Thanking his lucky stars that it was a Sunday and the building wasn't jammed with people, he ran into the bathroom, flung a stall door open and threw up, then leaned against the side of the stall, his heart beating rapidly, his skin clammy. He felt wretched.

A moment later, he heard the door open. Expecting Brad, he flushed the toilet and turned to exit the stall. Gibbs stood there. "You okay, DiNozzo?"

"I'll live," he said, and he walked over to the sink. Running his hand full of water, he took a mouthful and rinsed. After spitting it out again, he took a sip to try and settle his stomach. Then he leaned on the counter and stared into the sink, not particularly wanting to look at himself.

"What happened?" Gibbs asked.

"She showed me some photos," Tony said as neutrally as possible. He looked up and saw Gibbs in the mirror. He looked furious as he turned towards the door. "You can't have seen them, Gibbs," Tony added in an undertone. "You don't know about them."

"You just told me, didn't you?"

Tony sighed. "Yeah, I guess I did."

Gibbs nodded once, then left the bathroom. Tony sagged to the floor, leaning against the wall beside the sinks.

"Are you insane?" Dr. Pitt exclaimed as Gibbs approached the open door to the conference room. "How could you spring a series of pictures like that on him?"

"What the hell is going on here?" Gibbs demanded. He gave Fornell a narrow-eyed glare, but the other man didn't meet his eyes.

"Agent Gibbs, you're not supposed to be here," Glick said primly.

"Not while DiNozzo is, but he's not here now, is he?"

"No, I suppose not," Glick said. "I showed Agent DiNozzo some photographs that Detective Harris took, simply to confirm whether he knew about them or not. I'd say he most definitely didn't, given his reaction."

As she spoke, she gestured to an open file folder on the table, and Gibbs walked forward. He glanced down at the one on top and saw a rear view of a naked DiNozzo, propped up and bruised. He flipped the folder shut and glared up at her. "You showed this to him?"

"No, she handed him the folder with a vague mention that there were photographs, and let him open it for himself," Pitt said harshly. "She didn't bother warning him what the nature of the pictures was."

"He already knew there were pictures taken of him naked," Glick said.

"Those are more than naked," Pitt snapped. "Those are vile and abusive, and you have contributed to his . . . where is he? I'd better check on him."

"Turn left, there's a restroom around the corner," Gibbs replied. Pitt left the room, his whole body radiating his anger. Gibbs watched him go, then looked down at the folder on the table. His thoughts were roiling in fury. "Fornell, you knew what was in that folder?" Gibbs demanded abruptly, turning on his old friend. Fornell nodded curtly. "And you let DiNozzo open it cold?"

"We had to know if he was aware of them having been taken," Fornell said.

"What's this about the FBI perpetuating the abuse of Agent DiNozzo?" Jen's voice was sweet in a way that Gibbs recognized as foretelling danger. Both Glick and Fornell seemed to pick up on the subtext as well.

Gibbs picked up the file of photos and handed them to her. She was going to see them sooner or later in any case, so it might as well be now. "Glick handed these to DiNozzo, warning him only that they were pictures of him."

Jen's eyes narrowed, and she opened the folder. Her lips tightened as she quickly shuffled through the photos. "What was the purpose of this?" she asked.

"Detective Harris told us that Agent DiNozzo was aware of and consented to this photo shoot. I had to verify that one way or the other."

"So you chose to confront the victim with evidence of his victimization?" Jen asked.

"If Detective Harris is telling the truth, then Agent DiNozzo had a long term relationship with him, then accused him falsely of rape in order to please his boss. Not knowing either party before meeting them today, and given the sterling records both men show in their work histories, I found it a little challenging to know for certain whom to believe."

"And knowing that Detective Harris put Agent DiNozzo in the hospital didn't sway your opinion in any way?" Jen asked acerbically.

"That proves he has a temper, not that he's a rapist," Glick replied.

"A temper?" Gibbs exclaimed incredulously. "A temper is raised voices and slamming doors, not cracking a man's head open against an alley wall while trying to rape him."

"Agent Gibbs?" That was Jen using her director voice. He turned and glowered at her. "Will you please step outside?"

If the circumstances had been different, he would have had a few things to say about being asked to leave, but he didn't dare give the impression he expected Jen to give him his way. After all, he was accused of influencing people, including the agency, into persecuting Harris. He walked out onto the mezzanine and slammed the flat of his palm down on the railing. Leaning on it, he tried to bring himself under control.

He was aware of McGee making his way up the steps, but he didn't acknowledge the younger man until he spoke. "Boss?" McGee said, and his voice had an unusually steely note.

"Yeah, McGee?" Gibbs asked, not looking at him.

"I broke into the CIA files." He held out a file folder and Gibbs turned to meet his eyes. The anger he saw there told him that McGee had made the adjustment from dismay about the homosexual relationship DiNozzo had engaged in to anger at the man who had abused his coworker and friend. Shaking the file slightly for emphasis, McGee said, "I have here the names of the other victims."

Gibbs looked at the file, but didn't take it. "Victims?" he repeated, emphasizing the plural.

"Five men over an eight-year period," McGee said. "All of them law enforcement officers with limited recourse unless they wanted to come out publicly."

"Do you have information about what he did to them?"

"I have observation transcripts in PDF, but I thought you'd want to see this right away. It does have summaries of the relationships."

Gibbs took it and flipped it open. Five sheets of paper, five descriptions of men being courted, abused and then hounded. He scanned the reports quickly. "You see anything noteworthy about this?" he asked McGee.

"Um . . ." McGee cleared his throat. "There's a pattern of escalation evident," he said, his voice ending on an upward tone, like he was asking a question.

Gibbs nodded. "Go see if you can locate these guys."

"Their current addresses are on the back," McGee said.

Flipping over the page on top, Gibbs raised his eyebrows. "Good work, McGee."

Leaving his agent standing at the railing of the mezzanine, he walked back into the conference room where he was clearly interrupting some kind of tense discussion between the two women. Fornell looked like he wished he could become part of the wall, or better yet, melt through the wall and disappear. They all looked up at his entrance, eyes widening.

"Agent Gibbs –" Jenny started, but he handed her the file.

"Thought you should have the latest information." It was up to her whether to show illegally gained evidence to the FBI. "We just got this."

She looked at him suspiciously, but then she opened the file and started scanning the contents. Glick looked impatient, but she was canny enough not to interrupt an agency head. When Jenny was done reading, she glanced over at Gibbs and raised her eyebrows. He shrugged. Jenny looked down at the unexploded dynamite in her hands, and he waited to see if she would light the fuse.

Turning it around, she handed it to Glick. "What's this?" the FBI agent asked, glancing back and forth between them.

"Evidence of a pattern of behavior," Jen said coldly. "Evidence not gathered by this agency or yours, so it can be trusted to be impartial in this matter."

Glick opened the file and began to read. Fornell stood up and went to stand behind her so he could look over her shoulder. Glick started nodding, flipping from page to page. Fornell's head came up, and he gave Gibbs an appalled look. Gibbs grimaced and shrugged. Glick finished perusing the file and closed it. "We can't use it in court," she said.

"No, but it does rob Detective Harris of credibility," Jenny said sweetly. "Or don't you agree?"

Glick shook her head. "It casts strong doubt on his truthfulness, absolutely."

"I've already got people looking into Harris's past," Fornell said. "After all, the kind of crap he's been pulling on DiNozzo doesn't come out of nowhere. I knew he had to have done it before. I hope we'll be able to find at least one of these guys independently."

Gibbs nodded. "Director," he said, nodding to her, and he left the room.