Monday, 1024, NCIS Headquarters

"Boss, have you looked at your e-mail?" McGee sounded worried and upset.

Gibbs looked up at him. "Not lately, why?"

"Agent Fornell e-mailed something to you."

"How do you know?"

"He copied me." McGee looked uneasy. "I think he was afraid you wouldn't see it yourself."

"What is it?"

"Two transcripts of the phone call this morning," McGee said. "Tony's version and Harris's."

Gibbs' eyes narrowed. "And?"

"Tony's is really disturbing, Boss."

"What does it say?" McGee grabbed a piece of paper off the printer and handed it to him. Gibbs scanned it quickly, damping down on his blood pressure as he read. "And Harris's?"

"Up till the stuff about beds, it's pretty much the same, but he just has Tony hanging up on him, and he blames you for all the bad stuff Tony said about him."

Gibbs rolled his eyes and handed the paper back to McGee. "You found a way to tie that website back to Harris yet?"

"Abby and I are still working on it," he said.

"What about the phone calls from Harris this morning?"

"I've got a program running to pull up the . . . here it is." He looked up. "That phone didn't get a lot of use last night, but it's had a fair amount this morning. Last night, there's one call at 8:15 to DC District 2 headquarters. I'd have to get access to their internal system to get more detailed as to who it went to." Gibbs nodded impatiently. "It was eleven minutes long. Then there was a call to . . . ah, the police union offices, it looks like he actually called for a lawyer."

Gibbs grimaced. Calling his boss and then calling his union didn't look so bad on the surface. "What about this morning?"

"Well, according to the FBI, Harris had access to that phone from around 8:25 this morning till just after 8:45." Gibbs nodded. "There was another call to District 2 at 8:26, that one lasted four minutes. Then there was a call to Tony's cell phone at 8:31 that lasted about a minute, and then at 8:35, he called his union again for almost nine minutes. I called Agent Glick to find out if there's some kind of log that shows the exact times Harris was using that phone, because there are calls both before 8:25 and after 8:45 that I don't want to spend a lot of time researching if it's not necessary. She said she'd have someone e-mail me the information, but no one has gotten back to me."

"Call her again." Gibbs glanced over at Ziva. "You got any new information about this supposed connection between Harris and Eliseo Vargas?"

"I can confirm that there is a connection, but my contacts say they have seen no sign of quid pro quo. Harris appears to do nothing for Vargas, but Vargas showers him with gifts."

"Chase that down if you can." He was well aware that he might be setting her an impossible task. The CIA hadn't succeeded in finding the source of the connections, but he had confidence that his people wouldn't stop till they'd found everything that was out there. He didn't have the same confidence about either the CIA or the FBI.

He rose and went upstairs to report their progress – or lack thereof. Cynthia put down her phone as he entered the outer office. "I was just calling you, Agent Gibbs," she said. "The director asked me to send for you."

He gave her an ironic nod, but didn't slow down even to find out why Jen wanted him. No doubt she'd tell him soon enough. He opened the door and found Agent Preston from the CIA standing in front of Jen's desk. Anger surged through him at the sight of the man who had barged into DiNozzo's hospital room to ask him to continue his relationship with the man who had attacked and raped him. Controlling his rage, he walked forward in time to hear part of what he was saying to the director.

" – convince him not to press charges? It's important that we have this man –"

"It's important that this man go to prison for what he's done," Jen said. "Agent Gibbs, I thought you'd be interested to hear what Agent Preston has to say."

Gibbs glowered at the man. Preston gave him a wary look, but he pressed on with Director Shepard. "Director, he's a contact with a dangerous organized crime empire that we've had trouble infiltrating. If he's locked away, we lose that altogether. Surely you can see the problem inherent in that?"

"What I can see, Agent Preston, is that you seem hell bent on protecting a serial rapist and stalker," Jen said.

"One whose connection with Eliseo Vargas appears to be peripheral, at best," Gibbs added.

"Maybe so," Preston snapped. "But it's the best we've got."

"Then get something better," Gibbs retorted.

Preston turned his back on Gibbs, focusing again on Jenny. "Director Shepard, I have it on good authority that Agent DiNozzo's family is concerned that it would be better for him if he didn't take this public. At this stage, it's still possible to contain –"

Gibbs closed the distance between them and stepped into the narrow space between Agent Preston and Jen's desk, crowding the CIA agent. "Did you contact DiNozzo's father?" he demanded angrily.

"Agent Gibbs, I hardly think it's relevant who contacted whom," Preston said, swaying backwards but not actually stepping back. "Would you mind?"

Gibbs glared at him until the bastard took a step away, and then Jen said, "Agent Gibbs?" He took a step to the side, giving her free sight of the man again. "Did Mr. DiNozzo call you?" she asked sweetly.

"As I said, who contacted –"

"Answer the question, Agent Preston," Jen said, her voice going hard.

"I called him, if you must know, and I was a little startled to discover that the man hadn't been informed of his son's situation. Agent DiNozzo was unconscious in the hospital for several hours, and no one even contacted his father."

"That's at Agent DiNozzo's request," Director Shepard said.

"He was unconscious," Preston repeated. "He could hardly make any –"

"It's a standing request," Gibbs said, and Preston gave him a puzzled look. "DiNozzo submitted it in writing about six years ago. Mind you, DiNozzo's been conscious for several days. Has it occurred to you that if he wanted his father to know about his 'situation,' he'd have told him himself?"

"I was given to understand that you might have been isolating him from outside influences," Preston said stiffly. "After all, Agent Gibbs, you are currently under investigation for possible involvement –"

Gibbs found himself speechless with rage, but Jen cut Preston off. "You of all people know what nonsense that is," Jen said sharply. "We've seen your files on Harris's behavior, as has the FBI."

"I wish to speak directly to Agent DiNozzo. It's his choice whether or not to press charges in this matter, not yours, and not Agent Gibbs'."

"I have your card. I will pass your message on to Agent DiNozzo. If he wants to contact you, that will be up to him."

"Director Shepard, I insist that you tell me how to reach Agent DiNozzo."

"No," Jenny said, standing up. "And that's all I have to say on the subject. Good day, Agent Preston." Preston stared at her for a moment, then picked up his briefcase and left. He shut the door behind himself with a punctilious click rather than slamming it, but the very care he took suggested that slamming would better suit his mood. Jen let out an angry huff of breath. "Those idiots are too used to getting their own way," she said. "What can we expect from DiNozzo's father?"

"Who knows, but I'd better let him know that his father's been informed."

"Have you got anything new for me?"

He filled her in on the latest news, which was sparse to say the least, and then returned to his desk. "McGee, can you get into DiNozzo's voice mail?" he asked, recalling several phone calls that they'd let ring through.

McGee looked up at him. "If I have to, sure, Boss."

"Do it. Anything from his father or from Harris, make a copy of and then delete." McGee glanced over at Ziva, then back at Gibbs, his brows drawing together. "Delete, Boss?"

"Did I stutter, McGee?" Gibbs demanded. McGee got straight to work. Gibbs contemplated the phone for a moment, then picked it up and dialed DiNozzo's new cell phone.

Monday, 1538, Smithsonian Archives

A clandestine phone call to a friend had netted Tony and Jeanne a private tour of the clothing and textiles archive. She'd seemed so interested in the garments on display, peering through the glass at the hand stitching and exclaiming over the beading and other embellishments, that he'd had a brainstorm while he'd waited for her to come out of the restroom. He'd told Dr. Langer where to find them and taken Jeanne to eat lunch in the museum cafeteria.

Now she was getting to look much more closely at some clothing that was being prepared for a later exhibit, and Tony watched her with pleasure as she soaked up Angela Langer's steady stream of lecture. His phone began to ring, and he stepped back from the pair of women to answer it. This time, he checked the name on the caller ID. Gibbs. Flipping the phone open, he said, "DiNozzo."

"I thought you should know, Agent Preston wants you to drop the charges against Harris, and he's trying to get hold of you."

"Great," Tony muttered. "Do you have his number so I can tell him to bite me in person?"

Gibbs snorted and read off a number. Tony jotted it down on the receipt for their entry into the museum. "But you should also know, he evidently contacted your father in his efforts to find you."

Tony blinked. "He did what?" he asked, his stomach dropping through the floor.

"I just thought you ought to be prepared."

"Has he called the office?" Tony asked.

"Yeah. McGee pulled the message off your voice mail."

Tony contemplated that invasion of his privacy and decided not to take any notice of it. "And?"

"And he wants you to drop the charges and keep your name out of the papers."

Tony could tell that there had been more and that Gibbs wasn't going to tell him the rest. No doubt the message would also have been erased from his voice mail so he'd never hear it. He let out a mirthless chuckle. "I think I'll let him figure out the bite me when he sees the news in the Times," Tony said.

"Sounds good to me, DiNozzo," Gibbs said. "You need anything?"

"I'm good," Tony replied. "Jeanne and I are at the Smithsonian."

"Have fun." The phone went dead and Tony pocketed it. He turned to find that Jeanne had moved up beside him. Dr. Langer had vanished.

"Something wrong?"

"Not really," Tony said, doing his best to jettison the mood the news had forced on him. "Weren't we talking about pin tucks?"

Jeanne wisely decided not to pursue the question. Dr. Langer came back at that moment with a cup of coffee which she put down on a table far away from the fabrics they were looking at and began her lecture again. Tony felt Jeanne twine her hand into his, and he squeezed, grateful for the unquestioning support.

They had started with a selection of women's clothes from just prior to the Civil War, but when they'd finished looking at that, they moved on to mixed family groups from multiple eras. "We have trouble finding children's clothes from most time periods before the 1940s," Langer said. "Children's clothes tended to be passed from child to child until they wore out, and then they were used for things like quilts. So these few examples were a fortunate find."

Tony wandered over to look at some men's clothing that was being placed on a manikin. The waist of the man's coat seemed incredibly small, and the trousers extremely tight. The man who was dressing the dummy looked up and saw Tony's expression.

"Ah yes, Regency period men's fashions could be outlandish," he said. "From signs like the stress on the seams and wear patterns, we think the owner of this garment wore a corset to fit into it."

"A man in a corset?" Tony said, disturbed by the idea, though he knew of men who wore girdles to fit into their old military uniforms. Gibbs wasn't one of them.

"I'm Alan, by the way," the man said. "The wasp waist was much desired," he explained with a smile, gesturing to a nearby picture from a period magazine. The man did, in fact, look a bit like a wasp with a bulbous chest and the spreading skirts of his coat. Giving Tony a once-over, Alan added, "You would have been considered greatly oversized by the fashion elite of this era."

"How did he move in those pants?" Tony asked.

Alan laughed. "That's a good question."

Tony watched for a few minutes more as Alan arranged a cravat around the dummy's neck, then returned to where Jeanne was having a lecture on mid-nineteenth century corsets from Dr. Langer. "– why fainting was such a common occurrence, with the lungs so compressed by the displacement of other organs."

"Charming," Jeanne said.

"But women today stuff their feet into shoes that are too small for them, and starve themselves to have slender figures." Dr. Langer shrugged.

"And some endure insane amounts of plastic surgery," Tony added.

Dr. Langer nodded. "Every generation has its unhealthy tactics to look beautiful."

"It makes me want to go have a huge steak dinner with all the fixings," Jeanne said.

"That sounds good to me," Tony replied. That would also involve sitting down, and little as he wanted to admit it, he was growing very tired and achy. He looked at his phone. "It's getting towards dinner time. Are you –" His stomach let out an embarrassingly loud rumble.

"Well, whether I am or not, you are," Jeanne said with a smile. "Dr. Langer, thank you so much, it's been fascinating."

"You've been a good audience," Dr. Langer said. "Thank you for giving me an opportunity to lecture."

When they were outside again, Jeanne said, "Do you have any place in mind?" Tony shook his head, and Jeanne looked more closely at him. "Why don't we go back to the hotel?" she said. "We can decide there."

Tony nodded, and she raised her hand to call a cab. He needed to pick up his car from his apartment, but he didn't have the energy required to do that right now. In fact, he actually fell asleep in the cab on the way back to the hotel. He awoke to Jeanne shaking him gently. "Time to get out," she said with a smile in her voice, and Tony dragged himself out of the backseat.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to conk out like that," he said, more than a little embarrassed.

"You're getting over a fair amount of trauma," she replied, putting an arm around his waist. He put his arm around her shoulders automatically. "It's normal for you to be a little tired."

"I didn't do that much today," Tony muttered. "Not enough to fall asleep like that."

"Don't worry about it, Tony," she said as they got onto the elevator.

He stopped talking about it so she wouldn't worry, but it bugged him that he kept getting so tired so quickly. He'd had plenty of traumas over his lifetime. Why should this one be hitting him so hard? "I guess the warranty is running out."

"They say it runs out at thirty," she remarked. "Don't worry about it. You can't expect to bounce right back from something like this."

"Oh, I can," he said. "I do expect it, but it doesn't seem to be happening."

She leaned into him. "So, that gives us a few more days of quiet, is that such a bad thing?"

At the moment, he had to admit that it wasn't, and since Gibbs and the others were no doubt investigating Brody, he didn't particularly want to be there for it. He couldn't participate, and listening to it would probably drive him nuts.

"I've heard the steak house here is very good," Tony commented. And easy, and quick to get back to the room from, but he didn't say any of that, though he had no doubt Jeanne picked up on it.

"I'll call and see if we need a reservation."

Sleepy as he felt, Tony decided that he needed something to help him perk up, and he knew himself. Feeling crappy could normally be countered by looking good. He went into his bedroom and dug out one of his nicer suits, found the shoes that went with it, and made sure nothing was crumpled. He selected a shirt and a tie, unearthed a suitable pair of socks, then stepped back to contemplate the outfit for a moment.

"Tony, they can't fit us in for an hour," Jeanne called through the door. "Can you wait that long?"

"I'm good," he replied. "I think I'll take a shower." He gave himself a quick scrub, then turned off the hot water right at the end. The burst of cold water woke him right up. He got out, put on the luxurious robe again, and quickly blow dried his hair. It occurred to him as he did so that he might want to let Jeanne know that he was dressing up. She'd be justifiably annoyed if he outshone her in that department. Combing his hair, he walked out into the living room of the suite. She was on the phone, listening, and she was wrapped in a robe identical to his. She looked adorably tiny in it.

She looked up when he came out of his bedroom, and her expression was one of fond exasperation. "Yes, Mother, I've talked to him. In fact, I'm looking at him right now." Mother? Tony froze on the spot. Her mother had to loathe him after what he'd done. "Yes, he's speaking to me. What?" She glanced over at Tony again. "He . . . he's wearing a bathrobe." Tony's brows went up, startled that she was sharing that information. In fact, Jeanne seemed flustered by her own indiscretion. "Mom . . . no, he . . . me? I'm . . . in jeans, why?" She flushed, and Tony wasn't sure if it was a result of the fib or if her mother had said something to occasion the embarrassment. "Mother, you have a dirty mind." Her mother, then. This was being a fascinating conversation to overhear, if not altogether comfortable. Jeanne grimaced. "He's just staying with me because there's something wrong with his apartment." She shook her head. "No, you can't talk to him. No. Mother, I'm hanging up now. Good bye." She placed the receiver on the cradle a little more forcefully than was strictly necessary.

"What was that about?" Tony asked.

"My mother is a voyeur," Jeanne said irritably. "Sorry about that. She's been hounding me for updates ever since I came back to the city. So far I've managed to ignore her because she always called while I was out."

Tony shook his head. "Updates? On what?"

Jeanne flushed deeper. "On how things are going with you," she said.

"I would have thought she'd want you to stay away from me," he replied. "She didn't seem to think much of me when I met her."

"That was before you turned out to be a secret agent," Jeanne said, rolling her eyes.

"I'm not . . . I mean, I was undercover, but I'm not a –"

"I know," Jeanne shrugged. "And she does, too, but she likes a federal agent better than a film studies professor."

Tony wasn't sure what to make of that, so he decided to ignore it for the time being. "I thought I'd get dressed up for dinner if that's okay with you." It occurred to him that she might feel obligated, and he tried to figure out a graceful way to back down if she looked disinclined.

"Oh good," Jeanne said with a grin. "I've got a fabulous dress that I haven't had a chance to wear. Mom sent it for my last birthday, apparently not caring that my need for evening clothes was limited where I was." She bounced over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "I'll be ready in ten minutes."

As she disappeared into her room, Tony reached up and touched his cheek. A second later, he dropped his hand to his side, cursing himself for a sentimental ninny. He went back into his room and began getting dressed. He hoped devoutly that her dress would not clash with his tie.

She was out before he was. A mildly irritating snafu with his shoelaces had required him to raid another pair for less worn laces. He paused in the doorway to stare at her back view appreciatively while she fiddled with her earrings in the mirror. Her hair was caught up in a loose bun, tendrils escaping to curl at her neck. The dress was crimson, a close-fitting sheath with narrow straps and a small kick pleat. Her shoes were silver strappy sandals with three-inch heels, which did incredible things for her legs.

She finished with her earrings and turned around, smiling when she saw him. "As always, you look dapper and handsome," she said. The front of the dress was even better. There was some kind of pleating at the bustline, and the neckline was square, enhancing an already perfect figure.

"You look amazing," Tony replied. "You're right, that's a fabulous dress, but you make it stunning."

She blushed. "Well, I'm ready when you are," she said, picking up a beaded evening bag. For answer, he merely walked forward and offered her his arm.