A/N Thank you dear readers
Beta: mike91848
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters and am making no money (I wish)
CINDERELLA Revisited
Chapter Twenty Seven
Timothy McGee woke abruptly jarring the warm body next to him into an annoyed squeak. The phone rang again and Tim almost didn't answer, the devil with Gibbs' rule...whatever, but he was too programmed to obey the summons, it was like an itch he had to scratch. He glanced at the digital clock, one in the morning, there ought to be a law. It was their weekend off and he wasn't going!
He picked up the phone and tried once to speak than cleared his throat of the frog and tried again. "Hello?"
"Ah, hello. Is this Agent McGee?"
"Yeah. Who's this? Gregor?" He felt Abby turn over and sit up when he pushed the covers down and put his feet on the floor.
"Uh, Tim. There's something wrong...okay, I don't know if it's wrong or not but I don't think anybody should be doing what he's been doing for an hour now."
"Doing what, Greg? Is it Tony? What's he doing?" Tim had his pants and loafers on and was pulling a sweater over his head as he listened. Abby had thrown on an oversized sweatshirt over her bat pajamas and slipped into her combat boots.
"Okay, it's pretty cold and the pools not heated and Tony's been swimming laps in it since midnight. I can't get him to get out, it's like he doesn't even hear me. The neighbors next door aren't home. What should I do, Tim?"
Greg sounded not quite panicked, yet.
"I'll be right there, Greg. Don't get into the pool unless it looks like he's in trouble, okay? We're in the car now. It'll take fifteen minutes to get there so I'm going to hand the phone to Abby, don't hang up."
Tim made a normally half hour ride in fifteen minutes and only breathed again when he pulled onto Tony's street without siren blaring police cars queued up behind him ready to give him a slew of speeding tickets, if not worse. Abby was out before the car stopped, a miracle she didn't break her neck with those clod-hoppers she was wearing.
The door was unlocked as they rushed in but Tim had the foresight to lock it up tight considering all the crazy weird stuff that had been happening to Tony lately. The lights in the back yard lit the pool up like a clear night game at the Nationals Park stadium and condensation climbed slowly from the water's surface, eerily unappealing and ghost-like.
It was one twenty in the damn morning and it was pretty chilly and a little creepy watching the lone figure swim underwater, come up for air once, back under and down to the end of the pool, flip turn and back. Gregor was at the edge of the pool in his boxer's and tee shirt, shivering and wet as he stood watching the aquatic spectacle show being put on by his uncle. Tim watched also for a second and then hurriedly started to disrobe while trying the simplest method to solve their problem first before he had to brave the unknown dank and dark watery deep.
"Hey, DiNozzo! Are you crazy? DiNozzo? Tony, don't make me have to come in there after you! Please! "
Abby had already chucked her sweater and removed her boots and Tim gave fleeting thought to the beauty of her swan dive into the pool to intercept the looney senior field agent, and also an admiring glance at the Olympic-style swimming aquatics Tony was putting on as he traversed the length of the pool.
But Tim was allergic to water in his ears and up his nose and had no style whatsoever anyway so he jumped in feet first, sunk to the bottom and then with powerful strokes caught up to and passed Abby who was traveling at a pretty fast clip.
McGee's plow-horse swimming technique compared to the pedigreed racehorse beauty of Tony and Abby's swimming might have made the introspective egoist in Tim give up his bathing suit for life in awkward self-conscience embarrassment. But during his teen years, his plodding-along swimming had saved two children from drowning in a freak boating accident, keeping himself and them afloat for twenty minutes until all three were able to be rescued, whereas two other children and one adult had tragically drowned. That event more than anything made up for his ethical self-interest to be appeased at his less than pretty breast stroke and water symmetry.
Tim speedily caught up to his maniac co-worker in the freezing water and wondered if Tony was even still conscience because he felt like brain freeze and other body part freeze had set in and he had only been in the water less than five minutes. Now how to get the numbskull to apply the brakes and pull over before they all became encased in blocks of chlorinated ice.
Tim was not in the mood to go gently forward or use kid gloves as everyone in that pool was in danger from the cold so his elementary solution, which lacked finesse, was to T-bone Tony off track and floundering and grab him around the chest while Abby got him in a neck hold that, sustained, would have surely killed him if the cold water failed to take care of that first.
They compromised instead in their life-saving attempt and each grabbed an arm and starting towing. All they needed now was for Tony to start struggling and they'd all go down like the end credits from the creature from the black lagoon but Mr Merman lay passively in their arms as he was towed to the shallow end of the pool shore and manhandled up the steps and onto the deck.
McGee got him under the arms and Abby and Gregor by the feet and they hustled the deadweight that was Tony DiNozzo into the house and its warmer air. They bypassed the stylish cold leather sofa and continued to the family room where they deposited him on the comfy wool covered couch instead.
Okay, what to do, what to do? Hypothermia, shock, fatigue. Think the Webelos Creed, McGee, and do not panic. Okay, remove the victim from danger, tend to wounds, shock and cold; warm up if hypothermic, cool down if hyperthermic. If all else fails, call Ducky.
Strangely enough, Tony was conscience and docilely cooperative though he couldn't talk due to the chattering teeth and shivering body and the muscle pain from excessive swimming now that his muscles were warming up. His blue lips were a little alarming but he wasn't too sluggish as he mostly managed with Greg's help to remove his wet swimming trunks by himself even though Abby volunteered to assist and Tim declined to even give it a thought.
A gas fire was started in the fireplace and Tim and Greg piled blankets on the floor and did some more dragging until they got a blanket wrapped Tony lying down next to the heat. Greg had found some of Tony's clean sweats and passed them out to Abby and Tim, and Abby used the bathroom to change. Tim could see she was amazed at Tony's place but for once held her effervescently loud opinion and bubbly gossipy tongue quiet and used that energy instead to rush to the kitchen to make a pot of hot chocolate for the heat and energy it would provide.
Tim and Greg pounded and rubbed the cocoon covered fish-man, stimulating the blood flow and warming up the flesh. Tony's shivering was less noticeable and his lips had turned back to a manly pink. He even managed to drink most of the warmed chocolate milk from the cup Abby provided before laying back down exhausted.
Ncisncisncisncis. Ncisncisncisncis. Ncisncisncisncis
The next morning, I woke up on the blanket covered floor next to a cold fireplace and muted voices coming from the kitchen. Blankets and pillows I remembered being thrown there last night were gone and the family room was neat and orderly.
I got my feet under me on wobbly legs and a groan and headed to the bathroom. Half an hour later, I was dressed and reluctantly ready to meet with my spectators of last night's boneheaded spectacle. What could I possibly say to McGee and Abby, and poor Gregor? What a role model I am. Flawed, pathetic and...the reciprocate of a self-administered Gibbs' slap if I didn't get off this pity party and start to address the mess I had gotten myself into.
Abby was going to expect as her right, in minute detail, the who, what and why's, and get loud and pouty when she didn't get her way. McGee would be curious but quiet, and maybe harboring seeds of doubts and loss of respect for his lead investigator.
So I braced myself when I walked into the kitchen and saw Abby sitting at the table with a coffee cup and carton of yogurt on the table in front of her. However, the first thing out of her mouth had me totally flabbergasted.
"Tony, whatever happened last night is absolutely none of our business. Thankfully, no one was seriously hurt and we were just glad we were able to help. McGee and I were just waiting for you to wake up before we took off. Oh, and Gregor was up but he didn't eat much breakfast and he went right back to bed. He was worried about you, Tony, we all were." And she started to get up to put her dishes in the sink.
I couldn't have been more shocked at Abby's complete turnaround than if Ziva had been the instigator of a 'make Tony DiNozzo investigator agent of the year' campaign while doing backwards leaps through the bullpen in a cheerleader's skimpy outfit with my face emblazoned on the front.
So totally thrown by this unexpected change, I was now utterly deflated, devoid of the prepared bravado and false wordy speech that I had intended to pepper the two of them with. I stared at her and then at McGee, who shrugged casually as though to say don't look at me, before finishing off his glass of orange juice.
McGee may have been used to the woman who acknowledged that she had no right to intrude and boss everyone around as she had had no problem in the past expressing loudly her opinion about what everybody else should do with their lives. And not only how to do it but when to do it and who to do it with including the best number one on her list, make love not war with your rotten, stinking abusive family because family meant everything.
But for me, it was going to take some getting use to.
But how could I lie to them now though in view of Abby's newfound candor? So I told them what was wrong with me and what had happened. McGee had a right to know what he was working with.
"I've got a dissociate disorder that sometimes manifest as obsessive compulsive. When I'm under extreme family-related stress, I fixate on something and do it repetitively until I stop. It's been a bane of my life since I was around twelve and manifested as a result of being hated and rejected by my father, my mother, my stepmother and my half brother."
"You mean Anton?" Abby had her hand at her mouth in distress. After all, she had arrogantly paraded the man through the bullpen like she was Anna and he, the King of Siam.
"Yes Abby, the one and only Anton. He broke my jaw with a glass ashtray while his best friend Sims and another buddy held me down and burned me through my clothes with a cigarette lighter. He was pretty vicious, as were they all but...that's neither here nor there now.
"The point is my...father...and it's really hard for me to call him that. Anyway, he showed up here the other day uninvited and I felt like a virgin maiden being violated by the big bad ogre. He came into my home and now it feels...contaminated...I don't know what else to call how I feel about it and I don't like it.
"I've been stewing about it, thinking I'd have to move away again, find someplace else to live. He was evil incarnate to me, Abby. He turned his back on me on one of my most lowest points when I was a teenager. He broke my arm, dammit!"
I paced back and forth, unusual because I don't pace but I needed to move, maybe go back to the pool and do another two thousand laps and have a nice warm bed reserved for me next to Anton when I was done.
"So that's where I stand. You know it all. I woke up last night after a really vivid nightmarish dream about being devoured by bowling ball size heads with my father's snarling face and snapping teeth and felt the need to get cleansed so I got up and went for a swim. Thanks for pulling me away from the brink of death by the way. I knew I should get out of the pool when I couldn't feel my hands or feet anymore, but, well..."
I finally looked at the two of them when there was no comment to be heard from the peanut gallery. Had I shocked them both into premature senility with a loss of their brilliant mental faculties including the ability to speak?
Abby's face was devoid of makeup and thus starkly emphasized the paleness and the tears she was shedding. Need I have been so graphic? Should I have spared her the gory details of what a cretin her former boyfriend had been and was Tim angry that I had not? McGee sat stolidly next to her, mouth in a firm grim line but no accusations present that I could see. The two were grasping each other's hands on the top of the table in almost desperation, out of what, morbid curiosity, or for me not to talk about it anymore?
I heard a sound behind me and whipped around to see Greg sitting on the floor with his back against the wall. His arms were around his legs and he rested his head on his knees as he stared at me sadly. I don't know how long he had been holding up the wall, long enough, I guess, by the look on his face.
Alright, so, was there anything else I could possibly do to spoil their day? I had spilled the beans about my less than stellar childhood and my ongoing fight with feelings of ill will due to despising my father. I had even looked the word up, misopaterist, yeah, that's what I am, a misopater...whatever. Could somebody please say something?
"Could somebody say something?"
Abby and McGee did that irritating silent communicating thing staring into each other's eyes they had just recently picked up. How was an inveterate snoop like me supposed to know what's going on if nobody speaks it aloud?
"Tony, we hear you and I've got a plan." Abby jumped up from her chair with lively exuberance given the gloomy last few minutes. Obviously, she had a plan. Here's where the bossy lady steps in and...
"Tony, I'm not addressing the issue of what a horrible friend I've been. The betrayal you must have felt when I paraded those people...ugh. I can't deal with that right now. But, your home, no way are you leaving this beautiful place. We will excise the gnarly karma through fire and smoke and get it back to where you feel comfortable and safe again, I promise, Tony. Come on Tim, we need some supplies."
Gnarly karma?
Tim got up with alacrity...well, subdued alacrity to follow Abby's eccentric lead. He still appeared perturbed.
"Hey, McPutupon? What's on your mind?"
"Used to think you grew up rich and happy. Sorry about assuming that and, well, you know..."
"Yeah, I know." And he left.
"You gonna sit there all day, Greg?"
Gregor sighed dramatically like an eighty year old man on his last breath as he unfolded his limbs and got up from the floor and said seriously.
"I'm an idiot. I wanted to know. Now I know. It was a lot worse than just guessing about your family history, a lot worse for you than it was for me. At least no one ever laid a hand on me."
Sometimes with him I think I'm talking to someone my age, jadedly mature and absent rose-colored glasses of youth.
"Hmmm, now speaking for myself, it doesn't make sense to hate a dead woman so I won't. Grandfather, on the other hand, never did anything to me except ignore me. That's no reason to hate. So I guess I'm in limbo, cause I do feel your pain, bro. But I think you're on your own about this hate thing. I don't have cause and I don't think you can keep it going without negative physical and mental adverse results, and I recall to mind last night's episode of tomfoolery ..."
I needed to get this kid into some kind of sports, maybe two or three. He had too much time on his hands to think, introspect, and stir up his already too active brain cells, and he needed some friends. He talked on for a little bit, his own philosophy and hard earned knowledge and I let him. Why put him down and, hey, I'm not Ziva, I might learn something.
"Greg, thanks for your input but I think you're right, I'm going to have to get my act together on my own and the hate, let it go if I can. I prefer to feel nothing, just haven't figured out how to do that yet so...let's just forget about it for now and see what bizarre strangeness Abby comes up with. That ought to send us the rest of the way over the bend into serious mental illness.
"And by the way, somebody your age should not use the word tomfoolery in their everyday language...it's just not right, Greg."
Abby and Tim came back with smoke and ashes in tin pots, spray bottles of gardenia scented water and sugar crystals; for purifying, for cleansing, for refreshing odor and for sweetening tea for the palate.
We followed behind her like little cynical duckies, silently, without words or music, dispersing the smoke and spreading the ashes, spraying and sniffing the gardenia and sipping tea in tiny cups. Only Abby!
She pronounced the house pure after half an hour and she and McGee then gathered their unused cleansing ritual leftovers and departed; Abby's sense of high drama appeased and poor bemused McGee not disbelieving exactly, after all, it was Abby.
Abby Sciuto, she of the unconventional and peculiarly strange, who enriched McGee's geeky life to heights unknown.
Strangely enough, I had a good night's sleep for the first time since Senior had invaded my home and disturbed the air with his kenarly gammaray crap.
Ncisncisncsncis. Ncisncisncisncis. Ncisncsncisncis
On Monday, Vance officially announced Senior Field Agent Tony DiNozzo's promotion to Lead Agent and Timothy McGee's promotion as SFA. Agent Dorneget would be joining DiNozzo's team as would three year veteran, Lewis from recently terminated Johansen's team.
Gibbs and Tony had shared a bottle...rather a few drinks in the bourbon-boat-basement floor of Gibbs house and had their private words, reminisced, and in Tony's case made some jokes. It was time to move on, not too far, but time. They were good.
Gibbs' hadn't taken long to choose Adams' from the Oakland headquarters as his new SFA having him in mind all along. Joe Adams had requested a transfer to the East coast to be closer to his aging parents. Adams' was in his forties, was a little taller than Gibbs', and some would say was ruggedly handsome with a full head of black hair and brown eyes. Gibbs and Adams had a history together going way back. Adams' had street smarts and intelligence and wasn't afraid of Gibbs but had the utmost respect for him.
Adams', strangely enough, took Ziva in his stride as well but not for reasons that she might find complimentary. Ziva had some of the same traits as his favorite Aunt Grace. Aunt Grace was a sixty year old retired spinster schoolteacher with bun-toting gray hair, who at first glance might have appeared the stereotypically unmarried, childless, prissy and repressed woman with no inner depth who life had passed by.
But that was an over-simplified version of his dear Aunt Grace. Rough on the kids, they had to do their work or they wouldn't pass the class. And if they didn't pass the class, it was the parents fault and she went after them with a vengeance. She was loyal and would help those who tried to help themselves and their kids.
Likewise with Ziva. A prissy and repressed deadlier version of his aunt Grace. She was a former assassin with blood lust in her veins, and a 'come near me and I'll kill you period, attitude that effectively kept people at arm's length. She went after her enemies or criminals with fierce determination, and revenge if personal.
Gibbs had given Adam's a sit-rep of 'do your job and we'll get along fine', and said not a lot about the other members of the team. He got from Gibbs that Ziva was not in charge, 'and don't let her tell you otherwise'; and the other one, 'what's his name', was so over eager, he needed a locked cover head slap for his jack-in-the box jumping up and down.
Adams' was no psychoanalysis but his observations and insights filled in the rest. Former SFA DiNozzo had some kind of adverse history with David and she still had a love-hate thing going on internally although it appeared DiNozzo had moved on.
It seemed to him that if Agent David could allow herself to get beyond past history she might accept a partner she could trust and not try to control and in turn she would be a formidable partner herself. She just hadn't found the right partner yet. He was optimistic that this change in personnel would help her change as well. One thing though, he would not fight for control with her. He had no sentimental baggage with her with which to curtail his actions so If she chose to step out of line, he would have no problem in disciplining her as a rebellious agent.
Vance was just happy that his teams were back and everyone was in his place.
Ncisncisncisncis. Ncisncisncisncis
Tony worked hard with his new team. Getting to know them and trust them and endeavoring to prove they could know and trust him by example. Let's face it, was Tony's irreverent thought, he and Donerget were the oddballs on this team. They were lively and sometimes behaved stupidly at work, but never work related stupidity.
Tony and his harmless jokes and pranks, which made him into a mere part of who he was. What was it Ziva had called him, the class clown? That observation issued as though great thought had gone into it and was uttered as a form of compliment from her mouth but in fact was just another put down.
And Dorneget, so sincere to do well it was sometimes painful to watch; come on, what armed agent forgets his gun. It was something to laugh about after the fact when no one had gotten hurt. Donerget was cynically aware of his own klutziness, but rock steady with a gun when he didn't forget to bring it.
Tony finally figured out that McGee was really a man of few words who appeared to talk more than he did because he mostly always had the right answers to most questions but preferred listening and staring rather than talking. McGee had figured something out about him also one night in the bullpen as they collected their bags to leave.
"Hey, Tony? Remember a few years ago when we went to that case in Stillwater where we met Gibbs father Jackson for the first time?"
"Yeah?
"He gave you that sweater, he really liked you. And by the way, Ziva was not happy you and Jackson had formed a connection and she wondered what made you so special with the Gibbs men."
"Yeah, so what McJealous? What's your point?"
"Ziva and I were making fun of you that day because you got left behind and we laughed at you in the elevator. Later on the video cam we said you couldn't come to Stillwater unless you had information about how anyone knew LaCoombe was alive and you said they knew because of the video link you had found with him on it, and that obviously someone in Stillwater had seen it. When I asked how you got it, you said you googled it?"
"Yeah, I did, dammit, McGee, would you quit plodding the plot along. I'm leaving unless you start acting like you're on the Chimera and spill your guts. Now!"
"Okay, Tony. Something about that always bothered me. You weren't supposed to be able to get that information at the drop of a hat like that. You always claimed computer illiteracy, remember?"
McGee seemed disinclined to hurry and Tony was too curious to leave like he threatened.
McGee started walking to the elevator with Tony trailing behind him for a change. "It took all these years later but I finally got it.
"The other day at your house the next morning after you decided to play Leviathan, Greg, Abby and I were talking in the kitchen. Greg said his family's sanity was not in question, every family member was insane. It seems he's got a one-tract mind about that. But anyway, he thought that the insanity was balanced out by the Mensa charter of which you, Tony, were a member along with other family members, which, he said, didn't make it better just understandable, you know genius versus insanity? And I'm ashamed to say, I had a Ziva moment, while I laughed hysterically in my head about you being a member of that high IQ club.
Tim rolled his eyes and huffed at Tony's blank stare. He insulted Tony loudly under his breath, "High IQ my foot, more like idiot savant."
"I heard that, McSnooty, and should I be insulted? I'm not an idiot. But you're babbling and I'm tired so goodnight since you're not making any sense..."
"Why didn't you tell us you belonged to Mensa all these years? I remember your face on the video cam when I told you that computer illiterate Gibbs could have found that information about LaCoombe. You started to say something but you stopped yourself, pulled back, let it slide. Why the secrecy, Tony?
"You weren't laughing at us, at me behind my back were you because if you were, well, me, back then, I can't say that I blame you much what with my M.I.T. and John Hopkins degree's shoved down your throat every other word out of my mouth. And Ziva, sometimes she acted like she thought you were just above imbecile grade level and I'd go along with her but I knew it wasn't true. So...why? That's all I'm asking.
Tony knew Tim's uneasy questions regarding Tony's well-kept secret's and motivations involved Tim's pride at being made a fool of and his trust, and his doubts that he and Tony were in fact friends and not just co-workers to be laughed at and put down to other's behind his back. By this time they were in the parking lot paused at Tony's car as Tim waited expectantly for his answer. Tony played with his keys jingling them on the key chain absently while he decided what truths to tell.
"Look, McGee. Gibbs thought I was smart and 'good' and he never wasted good. He hired me and we became a team and the best MCRT at NCIS. That was enough. Then we found Kate and Gibbs asked if I could work with her. Sure, why not, so she was hired and I honed my undercover skills on her because even though she was a profiler, she never figured me out, and what she saw on the surface was what I was to her.
"Then you came along, the newest Probie of the new, but Gibbs saw the good in you and so did I so we added you to the team. And I fooled you too, Mr M.I.T. braggart and superior being with the big brain intellect that made you curl your lip in supercilious arrogant uppityness like that character Khan Noonien Singh, remember him? Sure you do, Mr Trekie.
"And Captain Kirk sneered at his supposed superior intellect as he bested him time after time. Sure, I admit I had a lot of fun besting the two of you and Ziva when she came along with her underestimating Mr Meatball. That's all it was, fun for me. IQ was not a big deal to me like it was for you. But after Gibbs left and came back from Mexico it changed into a survival technique I had used while growing up. Don't show a homicidal stepmother or ruthlessly hateful uncaring father your soft underbelly for them to slice open and eviscerate. So no way was I competing with you or Ziva on an intellectual level. That would not have been in my best interest, not with the kind of attitude you two had at the time. Everything, every mistake would have been blamed on me as the oh- so-smart Senior Field Agent. No way was I putting myself in that position.
"Then after things got better between us, what was the point? It suited me the way things were and you seemed to have caught on but you left Ziva floundering in your dusty wake because she is still clueless.
"I'm not laughing behind your back Tim. Well not about that anyway, though your technique in trying to get a date is pretty hilarious, and I've been known to laugh in your face when that happens. So, is that enough of an answer for you McGee, cause that's all I got? To me, secrets mean self-preservation."
Tony looked at Tim's profile as the man had turned his head away from him after he made the witless slur about Tim's M.I.T. braggart and big brain days and waited for his response. "I understand secrets, Tony. I was an awkward friendless geek with a disappointed father."
Tim turned back to eye Tony speculatively when a lightbulb went off in his head. "So is that why you won't play chess with me? You think you're so good that you can beat me hands down, right?"
"In a nutshell, McAnand wannabe."
"You're on, DiNozzo, keep this weekend free. I'm going to kick your ass."
"Ooh, bossy, McGee."
Ncisncisncisncis. Ncisncisncisncis. Ncisncisncisncis
The next time Steve DiNozzo was in town he and Tony arranged to meet at the mansion. Steve had agreed to abide by Tony's wishes to split their grandmother's estate between all the cousins, including uncle Fred's two daughters. They were then to decide whether to sell the place or keep it in the family. Tony didn't want it and wouldn't live in it. Too many bad memories. Steve hated the place. Anton was not in a position to make decisions.
Steve and Tony were sitting across from each other at the long ostentatious dining room table. An empty pizza box and soda cans had been pushed to the side of the table to make room for the box of paper's the two were sorting through pertaining to the estate.
"How's Greg doing Tony, I thought he'd be here?"
"Greg? Our hyperactive nephew is too popular with my teammates and former boss and he had already had plans for the day. Once we're done here, I'll find him and we can have dinner together. He wants to see you. You going to be able to stay around for a few days? By the way, where's that spooky team of yours anyway?"
"Couched in the forbidden rooms upstairs on the unpopular side of the house, what do you think?"
"Really?" Tony wouldn't put anything past Steve's delta force black hawk down persona and his elite deadly rangers of the unknown branch of the US military.
"God, you are so dumb. They're around somewhere hiding in the bushes. But I have decided to take some time off from the latest mission to save the world. Things are always heating up and simmering down, little difference if I'm there or not.
"I haven't seen my kids for most of the year, a few days here and there when I come back doesn't count. Then there's Greg, and Father isn't getting any younger and I understand Anton can have visitors now. Then of course there's you, you need all the help you can get from my stable influence."
Tony bopped him on the head with an empty soda can and laughed as it hit him square in the forehead, then held up his hands as Steve started to retaliate.
"I give up and our time is short. The love of my life is flying in and I'm not letting your pinheaded fooling around distract me. I think it's great though that you're taking some time away from the war-like atmosphere that seems to pervade the whole earthly population. It's no different on the home front. Make war not peace in the twenty first century seems to be the prevailing motto of the day.
"And you need to talk to Greg about his choices. He's starting to romanticize the idea of men and women in uniforms with guns."
"What can you expect I guess, look at his role models." Steve and Tony sat glumly for a moment thinking of Greg's life choices following in their footsteps.
"Anyway, where did you say he was?"
"Can you believe that I left him at Gibbs house this morning so he and Gibbs can work on some mysterious thing they're building in the basement and do some other things involving hand tools and a junk yard that I have no idea what and don't want to know. It's funny how the two of them get along. Greg babbles on and on and Gibbs will sometimes answer him in words or grunts and everybody's happy. Go figure."
"I'm glad. I didn't know the extent of mother's deceitfulness regarding Greg and... just about everything else really. Poor Gregor shunted off thousands of miles away...I should never have believed her about his being so ill but I had no reason to doubt her veracity about that. I know..."
"Steve, come on. She screwed everybody. Gregor's okay, we've got him now. He's a smart kid and he's not blaming anyone. She's dead in her grave and I vote we leave her there with maggots for company rotting away forever."
"Yeah okay, you're right. Just one other thing and we'll let it go. Janes was here when mother died. I think he helped her down the stairs head first."
"What!?"
"Yeah, I found a clump of blue wool clutched in her hand like it had been yanked from that old dilapidated blue sweater he usually wears to putter around in. I got rid of it, burned it.
"Well, I'll be, the old coot. He saved my ass many a time from that conniving shrew bitch mother of yours...sorry, Steve." Though he didn't sound sorry and Steve hadn't taken offense because he had hated his mother passionately and for a long time. Just then Steve's cell phone rang and he checked the number before getting up and moving away from the table to answer it.
"Hello."
The person on the other end had Steve surreptitiously glance at Tony before turning away, saying a few words and then hanging up. He returned to the table but did not reclaim his seat.
"That was father. He said he found some more papers pertaining to the estate that might be useful."
Tony just shrugged and continued reading a heavy document. When Steve didn't sit down again and he remained silent, Tony paused in his reading to look at him.
"What's up?"
"His chauffeur drove him here and he's outside in the car." Steve watched Tony's face suffuse with color.
"What the fuck! Are you kidding me?"
Steve held up his hand. "Never mind, never mind. Don't get hysterical."
"Son of a bitch, bastard!" Tony jumped from his seat and made a beeline for the front door. He jogged furiously down the echoing hallway even his footsteps sounding loud and angry. He would have been out the front door and down the pebbled driveway in quick angry strides if it hadn't been for something that felt like a Mack truck colliding into his back effectively putting a halt to his furious rush to the door. Steve had stalked up behind and grabbed him around the chest pinning his arms to his sides.
After the first halfhearted attempt to get free from Steve, Tony stopped struggling. This whole situation was ridiculousness and futility combined. He had to face the fact that he and senior were just going to have to share this planet's oxygen supply no matter how much he wished otherwise. He would have to let this hate go for his own sake and quit resorting to violence at the mere mention of senior's name or the sight of his face.
Gregor and Steve, he wanted them in his life. If he murdered Senior the man would be dead and gone for good but he'd be in a cell waiting execution or worse, a permanent home in that same cell for life.
Tony shrugged out of Steve's hold. "Let go of me Steve, and I'm not hysterical, jerk."
"Coulda fooled me, asshole. You and your knee-jerk reaction. You're so predictable it's pathetic, like a salivating dog..."
"Argh, shut up! Why don't you go kiss the old man's hairy ass and tell him...you know what, never mind, I'll tell him myself. That is unless you think you're bad enough to stop me."
"You just want to talk, go talk. Who's stopping you? But you can't hit an old man, you'll kill him and his chauffeur will end up beating you to death."
They stepped out into the cool late afternoon air and walked a short distance to where Senior's car was parked behind Tony's car and Steve's motorcycle. Senior was standing beside his car holding a thick portfolio. There was his ever present briefcase open on the trunk of the car.
He was talking to a short stout older man with grey hair and beard who was dressed in a suit and tie, and smoking a long cigar. The man had sat behind the wheel of his car too long driving senior around for his exercise, or he drank too many tall cans of beer evident by his beer belly gut.
"His chauffeur?"
"Right, ex-junior welterweight champion, 1965?"
"Beat me to death? Him?"
"Yeah, he keeps in shape for a senior citizen."
Tony eyed Steve dubiously then the chauffeur. He realized what a ridiculous scenario it would be if his agents found him on the ground being pulverized into the gravel driveway by a seventy year old pissed off cigar smoking ex-boxer, and how stark raving mad Steve was for even suggesting it. But it distracted him from his ugly thoughts and lightened his mood as Steve had probably intended and he couldn't help the chuckle that escaped as he felt Steve's answering grin.
Senior stopped shooting the breeze with Hank the chauffeur and his longtime friend to watch the approach of his two...of Steve and Anthony. Both boys were grinning at something that had amused them; probably Steve had said something irreverent about his father to cause that smile on Tony's face. He vaguely remembered Anthony smiling even laughing as a child but it was a very rare thing and never in his presence.
He watched as they got nearer and Anthony's face shut down and his eyes shuttered hiding his thoughts. He appreciated Anthony's efforts to curtail his animosity towards him, something he certainly had not been willing or able to do for Tony when he was a boy thus upending his frustration and violence, and blame on a mere child. Alcohol free now, Senior could face his faults truthfully. No doubt about it, the son was better than the father.
"Steve, Anthony. The lawyer's office called regarding the estate. The final paperwork is ready regarding transfer of ownership, and they'll be sending them to your lawyer. I had instructed them before that all correspondence should be with you and your lawyers but they keep insisting on CCing me." He handed the portfolio to Anthony who took it silently, having nothing to say. Senior removed more papers and what appeared to be maps from the open briefcase.
"I found these schematics and maps with Angela's things, some renovations she had been planning a long time ago. They might help if you're going to sell the place and..."
"My mother Louisa sent me a letter it's been a little over fifteen years. She begged for my forgiveness and to have mercy on her sinning soul. I wrote back that I would never forgive her and I hoped she rotted in hell for what she did to me. And by that, I mean leaving me with you, just so you know.
"It took me that long to feel I could actually let go of my hate towards her and forgive her so I recently wrote her again stating she was forgiven, and she was very happy. Now we, my girlfriend and I, have made arrangements to visit Italy this summer. They live in a beautiful villa surrounded by a vineyard. I'll get to meet her and my half brothers and sister. One big happy family and actually, I am looking forward to it with some enthusiasm given my history with her.
"You've been in touch with Louisa?" Senior's voice was husky and in the dim fading light the man's face had turned ashy.
"Yep, the love of your life. And boy she didn't have anything good to say about you except how happy and blessed she was in having the courage to get away from you and your tyranny. Her only wish was that she could have had enough love for me to take me with her. But she's very happy now with her husband and children.
"She did mention that farewell letter she left you that you took a great deal of delight in sharing with me, making my eight year old self read it out loud and even giving me permission to keep it among my other treasures. She said she never meant for me to see those hateful words where she wished I was dead and how thoroughly disgusted she had been to be forced to have sex with you in order to conceive me.
"So, my point being in my melodramatic soliloquy, fifteen years is a long time to wait around for forgiveness if that's what you're hanging around here for. I need to be able to forgive you for what you did to me and I can't see that happening anytime in the near future. You're an old man now, you think you've got those fifteen years? Maybe it would be better for you to pursue other interests and stay away from me, make all our lives easier. I won't have to see your hated face and you won't have to see my unforgiving one. What do you say?"
Senior closed his briefcase and opened the back door to throw it on the seat then closed the door before turning back to the two men who were standing at parade rest as though waiting to be dismissed. He had no right but he was proud of them anyway. And now he had a clear goal set in front of him to pursue.
"Thank you for being so candidly refreshing, Anthony. I'm glad to hear Louisa is happy. She certainly deserves happiness with the man she loves and her children, she never had it with me and it wasn't her fault.
"One good thing I gleaned out of all your word's just now is that at least you admit my mistakes can be forgiven, and who knows Anthony, my grandfather lived to be ninety and my father would have lived longer if not for the accident. I'll eat right; do a little exercise for a man of my declining years. I understand swimming is good for old bones. I don't drink anymore and never smoked, hell, I could be healthier than you right now. I finally have a woman who loves me the right way and I love her, and they say having sex is a great fountain of youth.
"I'll aim for the fifteen years you've given me and hope all will be forgiven by then. Then I'll expect us to sit down for a meal together if I still have my teeth and we'll shake each other's hand in friendship."
Senior opened the front car door and climbed in the front seat with his friend. He grinned boyishly at the surprised looks on his boy's faces and they drove off.
Ncisncisncisncis Ncisncisncisncis Ncisncisncisncis