"Waow, uh a stapler? What is that?"
"Mighty mouse"
"Mighty mouse?"
"Bought it in a garage sale, all I could afford on my salary"
2011
He eased himself back behind his desk, he never had thought that Major Raimey would've been capable of murder.
Cold blooded murder nonetheless.
The guy had treated him with respect, had given him a warm welcome into the Baltimore Police Department and had never as far as he could remember done something to give him a reason to distrust him yet he had murdered his old partner in cold blood when Danny came seeking for redemption.
Danny Price the dirty cop, yet his old partner.
He knew it had been wrong to say nothing, to just let a dirty cop wander around – it could've been very dangerous yet he hadn't been able to bring himself to do it.
To rat his partner out.
Because there was this sort of trust between partners that went deeper than he had experienced with anybody else – the relationship between partners was something to cherish.
He picked up the mighty mouse stapler that Frank Raimey had given to him then, it held so many memories – happy and now dark memories.
He remembered the support Raimey had given him, the good natured humor, when he had won the pool office for the second year in a row.
How Raimey had murdered Danny.
If you added all things up he was a pretty bad detective, he missed the fact that his major and his partner were both dirty although spotting it by his major would have been considerably harder but still…
He couldn't exactly put it behind him easily, he had never thought that his past would haunt him – although Gibbs had already proved that even the deepest secret could get out easily.
He was pretty sure Mcgee and Ziva both were suffering from a whiplash by now, having spent half the case wondering what the heck was going on and the other half of the case giving him and Gibbs weird glances.
He rolled the mighty mouse stapler in his hand, he had the huge urge to throw it against the nearest wall and see it break but he didn't – partly because he didn't want to scare the cleaning crew who probably were already wondering what the hell he was doing here and partly because he didn't want to feel… out of control.
He still couldn't quite grasp the fact that his former boss had murdered his former partner, he closed his eyes for awhile and rubbed his temples trying to coach away the headache he sure as hell was developing.
He felt a hand on his shoulder, a big callous hand squeezed his shoulder – he didn't even need to look up to know it was Gibbs.
It always was Gibbs.