Gibbs forced the air entering his lungs to move slowly; no reason to let either of these assholes know that chase had left him breathing hard.
Actually, the run shouldn't have left him breathing heavy. Could be he was just pissed.
DiNozzo seemed none the worse for wear. He handcuffed the suspect, then looked up with a cheerful grin. "Hey, Gibbs! Nice day for a run." Standing, hauled the unresisting Glenn up behind him and started towing him back towards the crime scene.
Resisting the urge to yank Tony around by the collar – or better yet, by the neck – Gibbs didn't reply. He didn't generally open his mouth when he wasn't sure he could control what words were going to spew out.
DiNozzo shot him a curious look, then shrugged and prodded Glenn into a jog.
Flashing back to a few days ago, Gibbs recalled Mallace mentioning something about Tony going out for runs. Apparently that wasn't one of the things the worse-than-worthless captain got wrong, if the detective's earlier speed and current exhilaration were any indication.
He stalked behind a jaunty DiNozzo, who kept up a running one-sided dialogue during the trek back to Ducky and the body.
"Your form's all wrong, Glenn. You can't just flail around, your arms going one way and your legs another. You gotta have form, man. Form. If you can't run and you didn't stash a quick getaway car, what're you even doing watching a crime scene in broad daylight? That's not very sneaky."
"I wasn't trying to be sneaky!"
"Yeah, non-sneaky people run all the time when the cop that questioned them about a multiple murder investigation catches them watching a fresh crime scene."
"It could happen! No, it did happen! That's what happened!"
Tony stopped as they reached their vehicles and regarded Glenn somberly. "You are one dumb dude."
Gibbs grabbed Glenn and hustled him into the back of a waiting black and white, slammed the door, and whirled back to Tony. "Dumb? You wanna talk about dumb, DiNozzo?"
The detective's face screwed up into a series of different expressions, as though trying to find the appropriate one in response to Gibb's suddenly hostile tone. "Yeeeesss?" he answered with no conviction.
Gibbs pushed forward, his face inches from Tony's surprised expression. Abby's demand that he woo DiNozzo over kept echoing in his head, but that wasn't his style. If the detective couldn't put up with the real Gibbs, then he wouldn't last even if they did sway him to give NCIS a shot.
And who said he was so sure he wanted DiNozzo at his side, anyway?
He felt himself scowl and shoved forward even further. "What do you call running after a possibly armed suspect with no backup?"
Gibbs growled and shoved DiNozzo's chest with both palms, forcing him to take one step back.
The detective held his ground, motionless two feet away, but his eyes crackled with temper. "Hypocrite."
"What did you say?" An aura of tension and danger descended, zinging around both of them, centered in the extremely narrow space between their bodies.
DiNozzo did the unthinkable.
He took a step forward.
"I said, 'hypocrite.' You would have run after him yourself if no one else was around. Hell, you did run after me when you thought I was a suspect and no one else was around."
"That's different, and not the point."
"That's not different, and is the point." DiNozzo's anger was already receding behind the normal façade.
Was it that he didn't stay mad long, or that he hid it well?
Gibbs snarled. "You know that dumbass isn't a real suspect. He's too stupid, too careless, and he already alibied out."
"Yeah, but I needed the exercise. Now I'm all bendy." Tony stretched in an exaggerated manner.
"You're a dumbass," Gibbs threw out, frustrated on two fronts now.
"Yes boss!" Tony agreed with a snappy salute as he ambled back to the crime scene, all signs of the earlier sensitive young man at the crime scene, and the anger-wrapped menacing cop now gone.
After another day of pursing leads that went nowhere, and clearing Stupid Glenn as honestly having been just a passerby, Gibbs took off for home, needing the quiet, the space, and the room to think.
He paused in the driveway, which he rarely allowed himself to do. No matter how long he left, no matter who came, who stayed, who left, the house looked the same. You could paint it, kill the grass, add some shrubs, or let the neighbor kids draw on the driveway with colored chalk, but it was still the same look, and had the same feel.
From the outside, anyway.
Gibbs entered his house through the unlocked front door, and surveyed the emptiness inside the durable shell.
There were good and bad things about any divorce – he should know, he had enough experience now – and the physical space was no exception. Gone were his latest wife's Stairmaster taking up half the living room, her throwaway magazines, her bizarrely impractical shoes covering the entranceway, and her annoying orange Fiestaware dishes. He wouldn't miss any of those things.
Gone, too, was the life. The signs that someone lived here. The sweater on the back of the couch, the small souvenirs, the pictures, and any hint of color. The sense of movement, of occupancy. He was back to the still gray austerity of a ghost house.
It suited him, but it wasn't always good for him.
Sounds, too, were a mixed blessing. There was no chatter now. No incessant phone calls about office gossip, no harping at him to "talk to me, Jethro." No boob tube.
He experienced a brief moment of happiness realizing that he could cancel the cable again.
But the chiming laughter was also gone. The soft humming from the kitchen accompanying the sound of water running, and the quiet creaks of floorboards above him as he worked in the basement.
It was lonelier this way, he internally acknowledged. Especially right after they left.
But it was lonely before, too. When he couldn't talk to them. When he was just inhabiting the space with someone he couldn't truly be with.
Stupid girly thoughts, he snorted to himself. Getting maudlin for no damn reason.
The truth was, now in the silent stillness of the gray ghost house, with only his old furniture and the shadows that softened the edges of the age of things, he could return to his true sense of home.
He turned out the light he had just turned on, and sat on the couch.
"Shannon," he murmured, then lost his train of thought in savoring the sound of her voice.
"Shannon. I fixed the squeak in the linen closet door."
Gibbs smiled. "Yeah, I know, you don't mind a little noisy character to the house. But the hinge was getting rusty. Might have to replace the washing machine soon. Damn thing breaks almost every time you use it."
He leaned back, with his arm along the back of the sofa. He remembered the feel of having someone there to wrap that arm around. The right someone. It never felt the same with anyone else.
"Got divorced again." He imagined her exasperated look, and smiled. "Probably should stop trying to get married, huh?"
The shadows allowed him to see her drifting through the house, and the screamingly loud silence echoed with the sounds of Kelly playing with her stuffed animals in the room above. It sounded like her favorite fantasyland, where the princess had to rescue the inept prince.
"Abby started bowling with nuns, of all things. Might just have to go out one night to see what that looks like."
He mused over what she would find interesting. Ventured near a work topic, though he usually tried to keep his cases out of the home. "Working with a new guy, young kid, detective. Bratty, but good. Not sure what to make of him. Not used to not being sure. What do you think I should do with him?"
There was no immediate answer, but as he'd found before, that didn't mean he wouldn't get one later, in some odd way.
His investigator side shoved that thought aside. If he got any answer at all, it was just wishful thinking on his part.
His mood shifted sharply. It wasn't the same. Gleaning answers, imagining what she'd say, it wasn't the same. He had no family, no tribe. He'd grown up with a tight group of family and a few friends. He'd moved on to the Marines, and the broadest sense of belonging and brotherhood he'd ever known. He'd settled into a small center of two, and then, later, three.
He knew he couldn't fill the void of their loss because there was no void. He didn't understand the large, gaping holes others said they felt when they lost people. He still felt the same for them, even now. He still loved his girls. He felt them near. He talked to them. He trusted them. They were his. But they weren't here, and he couldn't hear them, not exactly.
He missed them. Their exact presence, and personality. The little, every day things normally taken for granted. Small snippets of conversation that was actually welcome; leaving presents for Kelly on the bathroom counter; eating meals together; sitting quietly in the living room, everyone's attention on something different but still all together.
He'd tried to recreate some sense of family, but the divorces proved it wasn't a winning concept. At least not for him.
Gibbs knew he was a strong man, in many different senses of the word. But sometimes it was nice to be strong for someone. And once in a very great while, it was a relief not to have to be strong at all within the safety of where you belonged.
He remembered the feeling of having that someone who he had his arm wrapped around turning the tables, and wrapping her arms around him, making him feel small for a moment – not small in a diminished way, but small in a human, amazed way.
He rose and turned the light on, disgusted with himself and his flight of self-pity. But as he moved towards the basement, he remembered old words uttered in this room, in a lighthearted tone after a few petty officers stopped by for an unremembered reason. "I swear, Jethro. No matter what happens, even if you leave the Corps one day, you'll always have people like that. Just because you're a leader doesn't make you any less a pack animal."
So where was his damn pack now?
No answer.
He awoke with a start, the worst form of the dreams having plagued him all night. The one where they were here and then they weren't. They were dead, and then they were safe, and then they were in danger, and he couldn't discern what reality was. He couldn't figure out the truth.
Waking up seemed like it should bring some relief. Like having an answer should make things better.
But it didn't. Fear and uncertainty were nasty things. But uncertainty allowed hope for a future that returned them to him. And reality did not.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed and scrubbed a hand across his face, deciding he should give up on sleep. Lurching up, he went downstairs in his boxers and t-shirt to start a 3 a.m. pot of coffee.
At the bottom of the stairs, he hesitated. Going with his gut, he went to the front door and opened it, letting in a blast of cold winter air. Goosebumps raced up his calves.
He stared at the form standing on his front step, leaning on the door frame. "DiNozzo. What the fuck?"
"Hey, Gibbs. What're you doing up?" The innocent face – could it be truly innocent, or just a damn good act? – stared up at him with apparent puzzlement and a very red nose.
Gibbs grabbed the man's collar and yanked him in, tossing him inside and slamming the door. Tony could've easily stayed upright, but he chose to let momentum take him to the floor, and sat cross-legged against the wall, peering up at Gibbs with a quizzical expression.
Gibbs paused. Should he have slammed the door with the precocious detective on the other side?
"I think," he said slowly, "you might be the dumbest dumbass in all of dumbassville."
"Wow," Tony said, affecting big cartoon eyes as he patted his hair back into place. "You could be the modern day generation's Dr. Seuss. Can you make it rhyme?"
"Don't fuck with Dr. Seuss, DiNozzo. Whoville is sacred."
"Fail on the rhyming, but kudos on the sentiment." He leaned his head back against the wall, seemingly comfortable. "I bet Abby can rhyme with the best of them."
Gibbs thought about tossing Tony out.
He thought about turning off the light and going back to bed.
He thought about getting dressed and heading back to the office. Any office.
He thought about asking Tony why he was here.
What he ended up saying was, "The door's always unlocked, Horton. You get frostbite on your ass, don't come to me for help." He turned and went into the kitchen to make his coffee, looking inward for an image of Shannon's face.
"Really? This is what you're giving me to work with?"
He remembered the sound of her laugh.
Thanks to all of you who keep re-reading, keep pestering me, and keep suggesting this story to others. It's really amazing that you've all stuck around after all this time! It is still my intention to finish this story, though updates may be slow. I apologize for the long delay; real life kicked my ass. Though this chapter may not include much case progression, I hope it still feels like a natural fit to the story and resonates to those who still feel that ache a major loss continues to cause even after time has started healing the wretchedness.
As always, I welcome your comments, not just on this chapter, but on any other. Knowing the sections you loved and the ones you want elaborated on may help me navigate back to purposeful writing.
May we all have a new year better than the previous one.