Beta: This story has benefited greatly by the awesome beta-skills and input of Arress and I want to extend huge thanks to her for all her assistance. And you all know the drill... any boo-boos are my bad :)
A/N Thanks to everyone who reviewed, alerted or faved this story. I appreciate your support and hope you'll enjoy this chapter. Just to clarify, in this story Jimmy takes on the role of narrator and is written in 1st person while everyone else is written in 3rd person pov.
I should probably warn everyone this chapter is full of angst and some tough analysis so if you subscribe to the view that Gibbs gut is infallible and all knowing then this you may find this passage hard to handle. Thanks to the reviewer that pointed out my typo re the number of post cards that Jimmy has been receiving (should have read 130 not 30.) FYI in case you are wondering, Lieutenant David Cameron appeared in season one episode 15 Enigma and I took artistic license with his name (I figured he was probably a Dave.)
An Eye for an Eye Leaves Everyone Blind
Chapter 7
Jimmy Palmer:
Lottie Dawson was a six-year-old girl who was brought in to the ER by her mother complaining of severe pain in her collar bone after falling off the top of her bunk bed and landing on her side. She was examined by my colleague, Janie Markus, who organised x-rays and determined that the child had been lucky as there was no fracture. She concluded that the injury was just a soft tissue one and sent the child home with instructions to rest and to use acetaminophen as required. A distraught Mrs. Dawson returned with the little girl about four hours later at 0330 demanding a second opinion since the child was inconsolable and unable to sleep.
When I examined her clavicle there was evidence of guarding and she seemed pretty distressed, as did her mother. Remembering how Tony had fractured his collarbone, yet it had gone undiagnosed when he was injured trying to arrest the Kidon assassin, Michael Rivkin, I suspected that something similar was going on with little Lottie. Tony's radiological films had been reviewed by the ER doc who was treating him when he went in that night, and while he diagnosed the break to his radius, he missed the fracture to Tony's left clavicle. It wasn't until the radiologist, who obviously was much more skilled in finding minor anomalies, reviewed the previous night's films, as per protocol, that he picked up the fact that Tony had a previously undiagnosed hairline fracture. Of course, when they tried to inform him, by then he was on a C130 on his way to Israel.
So, I was suspicious that six-year-old Lottie might have broken her collarbone, even if it hadn't shown up. I decided to err on the side of caution and treat her as if she had indeed fractured her clavicle and place her arm in a sling and provided some stronger analgesia. I also recommended using pillows to help her sleep and promised to have the resident radiologist evaluate her x-ray as soon as she arrived later in the morning. Sending them home to try to get a few hours of sleep, I mused about how many of my patients seemed to remind me of Tony these days.
It sometimes seemed that every second patient passing through the ER made me think of Tony. I mean have you ever had something on your mind, and it seems like you read about it, see it or hear about it constantly all of a sudden like everyone else is talking about it, writing about it or making a movie about it, too? It's really weird isn't it, and I guess out of desperation I've really been playing the 'what if' game even more than I do usually. Not so surprising though, as it's been at least 12 weeks since I received a ridiculous postcard from some frivolous festival or hick town, and I had been like the others, slowly coming to the conclusion that Tony's luck had run out.
So, going back to the minute examination of how we could have prevented this travesty from happening wasn't so unusual… it really wasn't. As a doctor, it was surely inevitable that Dr. Mallard and I turned to the events leading up to that ill-fated trip to Tel Aviv. I found it almost impossible not to second guess what would have happened if we had managed to prevent the flight, or at least delay it. Would it have changed the outcome? I guess I believe in my heart that it might have.
One thing I do know, is irrespective of the legal aspect of Director Vance dragging Tony to Israel to justify himself to Mossad's Director David, no doctor in his right mind would have ever recommended that he undertake such a journey with the injuries he had, especially not when combined with his medical history. Ignoring for a moment the undiagnosed fractured clavicle, there were enough risk factors that he should never have been on a long haul flight, especially without anyone, even a medic, to monitor his physical condition. The risk of deep venous thrombosis, of being in the air for 24 hours out of an approximately 36 hours round trip was an extremely high risk for someone who had already undergone a traumatic injury such as the beating he sustained, resulting in not just the fractures, but significant bruising to his chest and abdomen. And let's not even get into the fact that he has pulmonary fibrosis (scarred lungs), which puts him into a high risk category for an asthma attack. Add to that the improbability of him getting up and moving around during the flight to promote circulation considering that a) he would have been incredibly sore from the assault and reluctant to take any analgesia and b) that he would have been trying to keep a low profile with Ziva David and Leon Vance watching his every move. Can't say I blame him either!
Then you can add to the mix, the risk that he could have thrown a fat embolism due to the fracture of a long bone, although the risk from an arm was much less than a tibia or fibula, but it was still a risk. And when it came to medical long shots and bad luck in general, knowing Tony it is something to take very seriously. Combine it with other factors, and it was more than enough for a doctor to advise caution. Then finally, there was the issue of substantial inflammation around his larynx and trachea from being strangled and the pressurized environment of the plane meant that he could have easily run into issues maintaining an airway. I seriously doubt that they would have access to supplemental oxygen therapy if he couldn't breathe.
All in all, dragging his ass on that long haul flight so Vance could placate Ziva's father simply wasn't worth the risk to Tony's wellbeing, and I believe that the director failed miserably in his duty to look out for the welfare of his agent. What might have happened if he'd actually followed protocol and sought proper medical clearance for that disastrous trip? If it had been delayed, would saner heads have prevailed?
The other thing that had really bothered me about Tony's injuries was when Dr. Mallard somehow obtained the video of Eli David interrogating Tony, I noticed immediately that when he used physical torture, that bastard immediately zeroed in on his fractured clavicle. He also grabbed Tony around the throat right where Rivkin had violently choked him. Coincidence – I don't think so! I mean, Gibbs had an unspoken rule about there being no such thing as a coincidence, so I have to say that I strongly suspect someone (for someone insert Director Vance) had leaked Tony's medical reports from the ER along with his own report on what happened after Tony informed Michael Rivkin that he was under arrest. There was no other way Director David would have known to grab Tony's clavicle and grind in right where the fracture was situated. He might have even had his own medico review the intel; call me cynic, but to me that man is a monster!
I consulted the file that I had kept on Tony's injuries and quickly found the relevant passage in his report:
… "Rivkin blocked my punch and grabbed hold of my right arm, so I tried a hook shot with my left hand which the suspect also blocked, restraining my other arm by wrapping his arms around my forearms before he bent my left arm back behind me forcing the arm back until it snapped audibly and I felt pain. At that point the suspect then flipped me around, restraining me in an arm lock and I felt a sharp pain in my collarbone. Rivkin then wrapped his right arm around my throat and I wasn't able to breathe. I backed the suspect forcefully up against the wall using his own weight to slam the suspect into it to try to dislodge him from choking me as I couldn't breathe, but he wouldn't let go and I was running out of air…"
I knew that it was a fluke that Tony's hypoxia had resulted in him going limp and catching Rivkin off balance, which was when he fell onto a glass coffee table with Tony on top of him and ending up with a glass shard in his back.
Thinking about the video I'd seen of the urbanely cruel Eli David zero right in on Tony's injuries, and I wondered why in the Hell Vance would do that to his own agent. Honestly, I have to say that the video said a lot about the three men. One that threw his own man to the wolves to make political mileage, another that would have been in a lot of pain, but refused to show any weakness (and I really don't want to think about how he could be in so much pain and still stand up to the bully). And then there was Ziva's father, and believe me, I can understand more about why the assassin was the way she was after seeing her father. The fact he could torture someone who was a fellow agent, not a criminal or terrorist, falsely accusing him of murder, when he knew full well that his daughter had ordered an emergency extraction of his rogue assassin after he'd caused the death of an ICE agent.
Presumably he'd done it to deflect attention away from that fact he caused an agent's death and that Director David had instructed the treacherous Rivkin to spy on us and sleep with his own daughter because he didn't trust her. What sort of man could do that? I guess one that could knowingly inflict torture on an innocent and injured man in order to avoid admitting his own guilt and to score political points against his so-called allies and colleagues. It was no surprise really that Ziva would immediately decide that killing Tony was the answer to her inconvenient little problem with his DNA contributing half of her genes as well as raising her. How ironic was it that her unforgivable assault of Tony in Tel Aviv was what had prevented him from sleeping? That and his stubborn refusal to take pain meds, of course, meant that he lived and she died, although I'm not sure that he wouldn't have preferred it the other way round if he'd known what the outcome would be.
Tony blamed himself for destroying the team, the people he thought of as his family and he was crippled with guilt at the thought that he might have also put the rest of us in danger. He immediately started pushing us all away, and then it was all over Red Rover when Ron Sacks scarfed down the poisoned fruit by the Looney Tunes brother of Rivkin. (In my mind I can hear Tony asking if the assassin had a Snow White fantasy, but I know that's just my rather unfortunate habit of foot-in-mouth disease whenever I am under stress and my quirky sense of humour bursts forth.) Oh, the times that it reared its ugly head around Special Agent Gibbs. And I am feeling especially stressed at the moment, hence its unwanted appearance.
Damn it, if only Gibbs had gotten himself together and gone to convince Tony that it wasn't his fault that a crazy Israeli decided she had the right to demand his life in retribution for something that was of their own damn making. But when Gibbs eventually got his act together it was too late because Tony was gone, and while I know that Gibbs has paid a heavy price for his inertia while he mourned Ziva's death, he ended up sentencing Tony to his life of purgatory.
And now after almost 13 weeks of silence, it looked as if we might finally have some good news. After weeks of dread, fear and anxiety, three days ago I received an A4 sized envelope addressed to me from Boston, and when I opened it I found over 40 blank postcards from all over the country that had either been pre-dated or were post-dated for the weeks that we had been waiting without a word from Tony. Confused about what this meant, I found a short handwritten note apologising for the delay in forwarding them on, but the sender explained that they had found them while sorting through the personal effects of her brother after his death. Hoping that this information might give us a solid clue about where Tony was hiding and if he was okay, I called Special Agent Fornell. Tobias seemed really excited to have something to sink his teeth into when he collected the evidence and we all felt an intoxicating sense of euphoria. Maybe we could finally bring him home.
And then today Dr. Mallard met me for lunch and reported that after looking like we'd finally had something to celebrate, it had been a dead end. The cards had, according to Fornell's inquiries, been in the possession of a detective with the Boston PD who used to work with Tony at Baltimore PD. He'd been killed in a shootout at work 12 weeks ago, and that was obviously why the blank postcards had stopped coming, not necessarily because something had happened to Tony. Fornell was sifting through the detective's personal life, effects and his contacts hoping to find something to help us contact Tony, and apparently Gibbs was heading to Boston to investigate.
Although it wasn't the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that we thought the answer to the postcards that we hoped it to be, I still couldn't understand why Ducky seemed so despondent. After much prodding, he confided that when we hadn't heard from him he'd been worried and reached out to his colleagues with a detailed description of Tony. Earlier today an ME in Colorado had called to say they had a John Doe that matched Tony's description. They were waiting for a formal ID of the body, but the man had been beaten to death and a man of Middle Eastern appearance had been seen by witnesses.
All of which was clearly not good news at all. So, in the space of a few days I've gone from despair to relief and back to despair again. And it left me beating myself up about not trying to stop Tony from being dragged half way around the world by a Director who didn't care about the cost to his well-being. Why didn't we do a better job of looking out for him? Woulda…shoulda… coulda. If only…
~ An Eye for an Eye Leaves Everyone Blind ~
Flashback
"Wake up Gunny!"
Gibbs felt his shoulder being shaken vigorously. Feeling the full effects of his self-imposed attempt to poison himself with the better part of a bottle of Jack Daniels, he started awake with a groan as his eyeballs made contact with harsh electric lights. Groaning, he looked around blearily, realising he was lying on his couch in the living room where he'd stumbled when he'd run out of bourbon and he come searching for fresh supplies to continue his self-abuse. He must have collapsed instead upon the couch and fallen into a drunken stupor, although he had no memory of it. Wondering who it was that dared to wake him, he searched the room grumpily. His eyes settling on the figure who sat on the old recliner chair, the man smiling at him calculatedly.
"Hey, Gunny, long time no see," The man stated seriously.
Gibbs rubbed his eyes and gulped nervously. "Lieutenant Cameron… Dave?"
"Yeah, it's me, Gunny."
"But… you're dead?" He asked confused. Was he losing his marbles like his old CO, Colonel William Ryan?
"No shit, Gunny."
"So… what? This is a dream, right?" Jethro asked nervously, hopefully. A dream was okay, it meant he wasn't about to book an all-expenses paid trip to the funny farm. A dream was just a temporary aberration in his iron-clad control; his emotional equilibrium. Gibbs didn't dream, he refused to let demons get the best of him. He told himself not to have nightmares and so he didn't. And yet… here he was… having a nightmare, or a breakdown. While either was a sign of weakness… a sign of personal failure - a nightmare was infinitely preferable, he decided.
"Whatever floats your boat, Leroy." The Marine lieutenant smirked as if he was directly privy to Gibbs' inner musings.
"So, why are you here, Lieutenant?" He inquired, still not sure if this was real or a dream.
His former Marine XO who he'd served with in Iraq during Desert Storm sniggered. "We drew straws…I lost…I get to kick your butt…happy days!" He looked scarily pleased at the prospect, too.
"You said we," Gibbs questioned. "Who's we… Shannon, my Mom?" He asked hopefully.
The Marine shook his head, wearily. "Nope, Gunny, sorry. Me, Caitlyn Todd and Chris Pacci were the ones that won the lucky lottery when it came to kicking ass. Like I said...I drew the shortest straw of all. He stood up walked over and whacked Gibbs hard over the back of his head."
"Hey, Lieut, what did you do that for?" Gibbs spluttered, shocked. How do you feel a dream anyway?
"Because, Leroy, you're being a butthead and what's good for the goose is even better for the gander. You're supposed to be the CO and here you are drinking yourself into a goddamned coma instead of taking care of your team. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING, GUNNY?" He roared, in parade ground voice that wouldn't have been out of place in Gibbs' old DI way back at boot camp. "Get over y'self before I bust your ass down to a pathetic private, Marine!"
Gibbs hung his head. "Deserve to be busted, Lieutenant. I let everyone down. Ziva …she fooled me… thought she killed Ari to save my life, but it was all a ruse. She was following her father's orders. My gut let me down, Lieutenant. Never warned me about her then or now, and Leon and Eli must have been laughing their asses off that they pulled the damned wool over my eyes." His XO slapped him again, hard, damn him. "Stop doing that! Ya don't think I haven't been doing that to myself!" Gibbs yelled at the lieutenant.
"Like I said, Leroy… GET OVER Y'SELF! Your hubris is breathtaking. Your trouble is that you started believing that your effing gut was infallible! That you were infallible, and that just isn't so, Mr. Special Agent. It wasn't just when little Miss Mossad and her old man fooled ya that your gut let you down; there's been plenty of other times, too. What about when you didn't follow protocol and sent you 2IC off to follow a suspect with no one to watch his six, and the real suspect kidnapped him because he had no backup. Hells Bells, Leroy, even your damned forensic scientist knew that it was wrong to let him go off on his own, but obviously not your gut!" He saw that the dart had hit it mark as he pushed home his advantage.
"What about letting that Rebecca Biddle who kidnapped that little girl, Sarah, hang out with the victim's mother, Laurie Niles, pretending to her sister. All ya had to do was check and you would have found she didn't have a sister. Need more proof that your gut lets ya down routinely? What about never picking up on the fact that your damned mentor was so Hell- bent on meting out his own brand of retribution that he attacked your 2IC to get away and kill those Russians. Or the fact that your precious all-knowing Gibbs-gut never alerted you that the ranger that was co-ordinating the search for a killer was the sicko serial killer or…"
"Stop it, please. You've made your point, Lieutenant." Gibbs pleaded uncharacteristically as the man that saved his life in Iraq continued to catalogue the failures of his precious gut.
"Not a chance, Gibbs. Let's talk about the failure of your gut just a few months ago when you let your damn frustration at the death of a fellow agent rule your head. It resulted in you letting a contract killer insinuate his way into the investigation and led him right to your witness and nearly got her killed, not to mention the sheriff, your senior field agent and yourself. Let's look at how your gut never gave a peep about Charles Sterling working with your team, and he was clearly a very dangerous individual. Or let's talk about how that precious gut of yours never twigged that a vicious pair of sexual sadists set up Laura Rowans as a killer, along with the help of your green rookie junior agents who convinced you that an innocent victim was a killer." The intense Marine Lieutenant paused and regarded his senior non-commissioned officer intently. "That enough yet, Gunny, 'cause there are plenty more? I can continue if you need more evidence."
Gibbs groaned his head in his hands as the litany of the failures of his gut finally ceased. Subconsciously, a part of him recognised Dave Cameron's tactic, since he'd had it done to him when he was a raw recruit in boot camp, not to mention having used the tactic plenty of times himself over the years as a Marine and an NCIS agent. Raw recruits…grunts' spirits were torn down and broken in order to then be built back up again to be formidable members of the elite Marine Corps. "Sir, yes Sir. I get it. My gut sucks! I'm a pathetic worthless worm!" He recited tonelessly – damn, it sucked to be on the other end of the process!
"Nope, I don't think you've got it yet, Gunny." Lieutenant Cameron shook his head unconvinced that the message was getting through. "It's not your damned gut that's the problem, Leroy… it's you. You pridefulness, your hubris is the real problem. You started believing in your own infallibility and you forgot about the need to follow rules and regs, protocols and procedures, because you are the great LEROY JETHRO GIBBS. Hail, the mighty Gibbs! You had the effrontery to created 50 effing rules for your team to follow, but you didn't even follow em yourself, and people paid a heavy price for your arrogance, Gunny!
"When did you start believing your own crap about being a legend in your own lifetime? When the Hell did you begin thinking that you can choose who should be brought to justice when you held others to a higher standard than you are prepared to uphold for yourself, and others got a free pass because they were special? Tell me how you can arrest your fellow Jarheads and Squids for murder and mayhem, but then ya let Mike Franks kill and break the law with impunity? And let's not forget that the bastard assaulted a federal agent, who also was the one person on your team that has more integrity in his little finger than that pitiful excuse for a Marine, who has had your six unconditionally for eight years and has asked for absolutely NOTHING in return. Explain to me why you let that reprobate Franks, who is a disgrace to the Corps, break the law simply because ya think you owe him."
He glared at his gunny. "Or is it out of some misguided sense of loyalty because he's a Marine? Maybe that explains why the devil you would agree to keep the fact that Senator Kiley was screwing Lt. Commander Carrie McLellan from the rest of your team? If it had been anyone else, you would never have cut him any slack, but just because he was Marine you served with was no excuse. Make no mistake, Gunny, if he'd been a real Marine, he would never have asked ya not to do your duty. If you'd done your job, don'tcha think DiNozzo would have pegged the wife straight away and Kiley's aide would probably still be alive and kicking? Gunny, I would never ask you to break the law or compromise your principles because of any sense of obligation you might feel towards me." He left unspoken between them the fact that in saving Gibbs' life, he had paid the ultimate price for it with his own.
The Lieutenant smiled grimly. "Don't enjoy doing this, Gunny, but it needs to be done!" He paused before continuing his pitiless onslaught as he chipped away at the walls of complacency and arrogance that had always been a part of who Gibbs had been even as a young impressionable raw Marine, but whose messianic tendencies and belief in himself had strengthened to the extent it posed a danger. His absolute conviction in his own infallibility meant that he stopped listening to others or investigating properly, relying on his gut instead.
"So, Leroy," He drawled, knowing his gunny hated that name with a passion. "Let's talk about what happens when you start thinking that the rules don't apply to you anymore and you decided to start playing God. When did you decide that you were so god-damned special that you got to play judge, jury and executioner, while everyone else needed to follow the law? And then in the most breathtaking of hypocrisies, you decided to sign on with NIS so you got the right to go around arresting other people who did exactly what you had done, too? Explain that twisted piece of logic to me, huh?"
Gibbs snarled at his XO. "That dirt bag murdered my girls while I was away protecting my country looking after everyone else but them. They deserved justice and I made sure they received it. How dare you judge me, Dave!"
"Leroy, if you were concerned about justice then you would have tracked Hernandez down and dragged his sorry ass back to the US to stand trial for his crimes. With your Black Ops pedigree, it would have been a cakewalk, but you didn't want justice for Shannon and Kelly, you wanted retribution. Pure and simple vengeance, Marine! So, did it bring you closure taking away the father of two small children who subsequently grew up festering in their own hate and anger before swearing to avenge his death? Because it sure didn't contribute to making the world a better place. From where I'm standing, you are still just as angry and grief-stricken, just as closed off to the possibility of truly living your life as a testament to your girls and me as you were before you gained your 'so-called' justice. Hell, about the only thing that you've achieved as far as I can see is that you've become bitter and twisted, filled with hate, and utterly unrepentant that you've made everyone that cares about you suffer along with you, Gunny."
Gibbs stared at him as if he'd like to kill the dead Marine, and Cameron smiled mercilessly, knowing that he had just one shot at this, and he wasn't prepared to lose the battle that was taking place between them. He knew that Gibbs' friends' more caring approach was doomed to failure, which was why he'd been co-opted. Desperate times and all that…
Keeping up the attack, he drew breath and began in on him again relentlessly. "Every single one of us loses people that are their sun, moon and the stars, but the true measure of a man, the true measure of a Marine, is how they deal with that pain. You've never had the courage to confront your feelings and work through them so you denied them and boxed them up, and that hasn't just made you unhappy, but affected people that love or care about you, too. Damn it, man, I did not save your miserable life only to have you throw away my sacrifice, Leroy. You are not the only one to lose a wife and daughter, so deal with it!" The dead Marine glared at the NCIS agent.
Gibbs gave a howl of fury and launched himself at the Lieutenant. "YOU BASTARD! How dare you tell me to get over it?" He swung out and delivered a wicked right cross to the dead Marine, shocked that in his dream he felt the bone-jarring reverberations as he laid his fist upon the Lieutenant's cheekbone and he felt it shattering under the force of the punch. And even more freaky was that the XO had just stood there and let Gibbs hit him without attempting to fight back, although the pain in his dead eyes filled Gibbs with even more rage, if that was possible.
Shaking his head, Lieutenant Cameron winced. "Told you, Gunny, you are hurting the people you love and people that care for ya. I'm here to kick your butt every which way and then back again until you get the message through your thick effing skull. If you don't get your act into gear, you're gonna regret it with every bone in your body, and the time is fast approaching where there's no going back, Gunny."
Looking at Gibbs, his expression a chilling mix of compassion and steely determination, he placed his hand on his shattered cheekbone. "You couldn't save your family, but you have a chance to do so this time around, if you get your head together, but time is running out. No matter how much you might wish it so, you don't get to go back and do it over when you hurt those closest to you. I know that you were wondering why I was sent to whip you into line, Leroy." He stared meaningfully at the badly hung over Marine, and Gibbs' gut gave an ominous lurch, recognising that there was more to come, and he wasn't going to like it either.
Gibbs, his voice raw with emotion, looked at his XO, his gut churning so bad he wanted to vomit up his intestines. "Why you, Dave? There's only been one person who can kick my ass comprehensively and make me listen; why didn't she come? What do ya mean about hurting those I love? Tell me, damn it!" He finished in a whisper of dread.
"Gunny, Shannon can't come to you. Your grief and anger has trapped them both between your plane of existence and ours. You haven't grieved for them and so they haven't been able to move on. Until you let them go, they can't move on with the tasks they are supposed to complete and you will never move on, either. If you need further proof of that… well, three failed marriages and a litany of failed relationships with redheads… Let them rest in peace, Gibbs. They deserve to move on with their lives, and so do you and the people that have been caught up in your pain and denial. If you can't do it for yourself, do it for Shannon and Kelly. Do it for Tony, because you are about to lose him, too."
Suddenly Gibbs was assaulted with images of his beloved soul mate and daughter locked in a limbo of his making, sentenced to a lack of existence that drove him to his knees in pain and remorse before he was overwhelmed by fresh feelings of unbearable pain… worse even than what he lived with… Hell, that he secretly relished as a way of punishing himself for not saving his family and also providing him with a tangible connection to his girls. It seemed to Gibbs like the ultimate karmic joke that his pain had managed to cause even more suffering for his beloved girls. Yet the pain that he experienced now, not his own, but DiNozzo's, which included the misplaced guilt over the deaths of Jenny and Ziva, was almost unbearable in its intensity, and he wondered how his SFA managed to live with it, and more pertinently, hide so damned well. Surely, he couldn't be held responsible for DiNozzo, too?
Filled with his own unendurable sense of guilt about the pain he had caused Shannon and Kelly, he wondered if the easiest way out of this FUBAR situation was to end it all. Then Shannon and Kelly would be set free from the prison he'd created for them. Freakily, the Lieutenant glared at him.
"Don't even think about it, Leroy! It won't free them if you take the coward's way out, and you will simply sentence DiNozzo to endure even more guilt over your death than he already feels for Jenny and Ziva's. The Marine I used to know would never take the easy way out by topping himself. You have to accept responsibility and begin to make amends."
Gibbs scowled at him, cursing that he couldn't escape from the pain he'd inflicted. "I saw Kelly last year when I drowned. She told me to go back." He confessed.
"Because until you let them go, Gunny, they cannot leave their indeterminate existence; they can't go where they are supposed to be and do what they are supposed to be doing. There are no shortcuts, no get out of jail free cards. You have to do the hard yards and finally find the courage to do what thousands of other people face every day. You need to come to terms with their deaths and mourn them properly and say goodbye. You have avoided it, but no more. Be a hero and set them free," he instructed, laying his hand on Gibbs' shoulder and guiding him down to the couch, situating him so he could sleep. As the lieutenant touched him, Gibbs was overcome with a sense of bone-weary exhaustion as he felt his eyes grow heavy and his breathing deepening as he drifted off to sleep, wondering if it was normal while having a dream to dream that you were drifting off to sleep.
~ An Eye for an Eye Leaves Everyone Blind ~
Fornell had been at the safe-house for a little over an hour debriefing his team who had taken it hard. Especially his Probie, Bridie Reilly, who seemed to have bonded with DiNotzo… aw Hell, Tobias, why don'tcha call a spade a spade! She had a massive crush on the guy. Ordinarily, he wouldn't have been surprised to have the NCIS agent run amok through the female population of any protection team since he had a reputation as a player, not to mention he'd seen him in action, but really, the man was a shadow of his former self.
He didn't joke, smile or flirt at all. In fact, he barely even spoke and seemed almost unaware of what was going on around him, but Reilly had fluttered around him like a moth to a flame. With him escaping from their supposed protective custody overnight, she was inconsolable, and he knew damn well that it wasn't because Tony had lead her on. One of the more experienced female agents had smiled cynically and whispered in his ear that Bridie seeing him hurt, vulnerable and near naked in the hospital was pretty much bound to be a crush worthy experience and guaranteed to spark fantasies of nursing him back to health and happiness.
Shaking his head at that analysis as he debriefed the team, he was still trying to figure out how he was going to avoid the FBI Director for the next decade or two. He was guessing that he was going to be majorly pissed at Tony's insistence at self-sacrifice and self-reliance. Fornell was hoping that he didn't end up sent to the field office in Death Valley as a result, and he was already mentally deciding what he would need to pack when there was a sharp knock on the front door. Motioning to the team to get into position since they were hoping that the assassin might still believe that DiNotzo was in the safe house, he pulled his Glock out of its holster as he opened the door a crack to check out who was on the other side of the door.
He'd already decided that they would maintain the illusion that Tony was still under their protection for a while in the hope that it still might cause the assassin to make another attempt; not likely, but they had to try. In truth, he probably was just trying to delay heading into the office and face not only the Director, but the bunch of squawking politicians who had demanded that they protect DiNotzo.
Seeing who was on the other side of the door he signalled to his team to stand down and he opened the door and glared at the interloper allowing him entry, grudgingly. "What the Hell are you doing here?" He scowled.
Gibbs, taken back at his friend's vitriol raised an eyebrow neutrally. "You begged me to come, Tobias. So I'm here."
"No, Jethro, I pleaded with you, I appealed to your better nature, I entreated you to come here YESTERDAY to help DiNotzo. But you blew me off. I guess you were just too damned busy, so I say again, what the Hell are you doing here now?" Fornell stared daggers at his old friend, although he was rethinking their relationship, all things considered. He was seriously wondering if it was worth the effort and angst.
Looking uncomfortable, Gibbs ducked his head. "I know, Tobias. Something came up, but I'm here now, so point me in his direction and I'll deliver the prerequisite head slap."
"Damn it, Gibbs, it doesn't work that way. You can't see him."
Now it was Gibbs' turn to scowl at the veteran Fibbie. "Get over it, Tobias. So I didn't drop everything when ya wanted me to, but I had other things to see to. But I'm here now, so stop acting like a spoilt brat who didn't get their way. I demand to talk to my senior field agent, NOW."
Shaking his head at his friend's hubris, he responded sarcastically, "I hope whatever it was that was so important that you couldn't make time to talk to DiNotzo was worth it, because you're too late. He's gone!"
His eyes narrowing dangerously, Jethro growled. "What the Hell are ya talking about, Fornell? Where's he gone, another safe house?"
Fornell looked at the rest of the team who all looked chastened and guilty. "No, you idiot. I told you he was threatening to go off the reservation. I told you that he blamed himself for Ron getting killed, and he said that he wasn't going to let anyone else die because of him. He says he's left instructions with his lawyer to pay for Ron's funeral, even though we've already taken up a collection at the office for his widow."
Gibbs looked shattered by the revelation, but typically for the former Marine, he reacted in anger. "Damn it, Fornell you were supposed to be protecting him. That maniac is obviously trying to kill him, and you let him just walk out of protective custody? Are you a fool or just incompetent?"
"Both I guess, Gibbs, for taking you at your word when you said you'd come and talk to him. I should have dragged you're ass back here yesterday, because honestly, there was only one person that had a snowball's chance in Hell of ordering him not to run…well, that he'd actually listen to and it damn sure isn't me. If anyone could convince him to stay it would have been you, but it's too late. Ya waited too long and he obviously decided that you couldn't forgive him for killing that traitorous partner of his. He's resigned and he's on the run, and I don't need to tell you what that means. With his undercover skills, it's going to be damned difficult to find him if he doesn't want to be found – and he doesn't want to be found. Thinks it too dangerous for you all if he stays, so he snuck out when the team had their guard down."
Fornell looked at his probie, who looked close to tears. What with the death of Ron and her being sweet on DiNotzo and him giving them the slip, it had been a trial by fire for the idealistic young agent. Bad enough to have a subject give you the slip during a protection detail when they were a criminal, but to have a fellow agent, wounded no less, slip away so that they didn't place anyone else in danger and sacrificed themselves, that was a sure fire way to make the whole team feel guilty. Even knowing it was in the cards, he still felt really guilty about it, and he had a lot more mileage on the odometer, and he didn't have a crush on DiNotzo either, he snorted mentally.
She was watching her boss trade insults with Tony's boss - ex-boss, and Bridie interjected hopefully. "Do you know where he'd go?"
Gibbs obviously realised that he needed to focus on finding his wayward senior field agent and knock some sense in his head, because he nodded. "He's not going anywhere," He asserted confidently. Pulling out his cell phone he called McGee, ordering him to start co-ordinating the search for DiNozzo.
Fornell handed him numerous envelopes and he glared at them as if they might explode. Fornell explained, "There's one there for Abby, McGee, Jimmy and Ducky. Says here that there's another one that's a copy of his letter of resignation, and the last one is for you. Apparently, he didn't want to leave without saying goodbye." He didn't mention that Tony had left a private letter for him, too. He wouldn't betray his trust like that, and he was surprised that Tony had decided to entrust him with the information that he had. It was kinda sad that he'd felt that Fornell was his last best hope, but he wouldn't let him down.
Gibbs dropped the letters like they'd burnt him. "Don't want 'em, Tobias. Gonna find him and bring him home so you keep them and give them back to the idiot when I drag his ass back here again. And this time, ya better not lose him. Eli David is not going to give up easily."
Fornell looked at Gibbs, who might be doing a fine job of sounding confident, but Tobias knew that it was all a lot of hot air. The man looked like he'd aged ten years overnight, his eyes were haunted and his complexion was sickly. Even allowing for the extreme alcoholic self-flagellation he'd inflicted on himself, Tobias wondered if Gibbs' grief following Ziva's death was enough to justify the level of pain he saw reflected in the eyes of his friend. The FBI agent hoped that they found DiNozto as easily as Jethro had predicted, but honestly… well, he had his doubts. After all, this was the same man who had brought down a Mafia Don working undercover for a year without backup and then a few years ago spent almost 12 months working undercover. And he'd managed that feat while continuing to work as an agent right under the noses of a bunch of federal agents without them suspecting what was going on. In his book, that made him far too good to be found.
But God-damn it, he hoped he was wrong!