Warnings: Angst, lots and lots of angst, Spoilers for "Short Fuse"
A/N: I blame the thunderstorms for this... it made my muse dark, and moody lol
Goddess Athena and E, thanks for leaving your reviews :) Hope you continue to read and love the story :)
Natalie could feel the distance between them. Tony barely looked at her all morning and she felt like crying. Maybe Gibbs was right about Rule 12...
She had tried to call him the night before after they had been sent home for the evening. Gibbs had placed a call into Fornell to figure out who the number belonged too and he didn't need the rest of the team. He was also a little peeved at Tony for bringing Ron Sands along to the Barry but that was another problem for another day. Tony had not said a word to her when he left, didn't even say good night to her.
McGee had somewhat cornered her in the elevator—in his soft spoken, didn't want to be intrusive way—and asked if everything was okay between them. She had told him that she had said something stupid, hurtful... McGee had bought it and offered to pay for dinner. Natalie had accepted, because she was starving and she wasn't in the mood to be along that night. Besides, McGee was excellent company when someone was feeling down. And she was. She had hurt the man that had done nothing but support her and love her and she had thrown his trust in her back in his face. It didn't matter that she thought Wendy was the real issue, Wendy was the problem in the relationship, that Wendy was the bad guy—not Tony. The words had left their mark...
Natalie hugged herself while she stood alone in the corner of the Observation room, watching Gibbs conduct another interview with their shooter. Abby still had not been able to trace the gun, or get identification on their intruder. Ducky discovered that the intruder did have a liver transplant some years ago which according to Jimmy was a rare time for someone to receive such a transplant. It was going to help narrow down their search.
The door to Observation opened and Natalie looked over to see Tony step in, holding the door open for Executive Assistant Director Gary Tolin and Fornell. Once the two FBI agents were inside the room, Tony shut the door. Natalie noticed that he kept a safe distance from her and she felt tears well in her eyes again. Thank God it was dark in that room or all three men would see she was on the verge of crying.
"You weren't alone Sergeant," Gibbs' voice said over the intercom.
"Really?" Dempsey countered. "Your people keep telling me that. Who was I with?"
Both Tony and Natalie watched Tolin's reaction as Gibbs said his name, as he stepped forward slightly, looking embarrassed that he was even there. Natalie glanced away and back into the Interrogation room. If anyone was an ass in that room... it was Tolin for cheating on his wife...
Dempsey was glancing at Gibbs with a smirk, answering his questions with her own. "What do you think was going on?"
Gibbs wasn't facing them but Natale knew he was getting pissed. His shoulders were stiff. "I'm tired of the games, Sergeant. Answer the question."
"He was speaking at seminar on terrorist threat assessment," Dempsey replied, still smirking. Natalie wanted to smack it off of her. "We met afterwards. Had a drink at the Cocktail Hour, talked, found out we had some things in common. Found him sort of cute. I brought him back to my place—for coffee, Agent Gibbs. How detailed do you want me to get? We're consenting adults. Him being there had nothing to do with the robbery. After I shot the guy, Gary panicked, told me he was married and I told him to go home. I'd cover. That was it."
Tolin had heard enough. He looked at Fornell and asked to speak to his agent outside. After they were gone, the door had clicked shut, Natalie braced herself for the icy silence between herself and Tony... but he crossed the room and went to stand behind her, bracing his left arm on the wall above her, his body lightly brushing against hers. "I don't buy it," Tony whispered in her ear.
Natalie was afraid if she turned to look at him that he'd step back, end the smallest bit of physical contact they'd had in the last twenty four hours. "Don't buy what?" she asked, coyly.
Tony sighed and moved in closer. She could smell his cologne and feel his body heat entering her small personal bubble. "Them. Her with him? She's young... hot... a marine bomb tech. He's an old suit."
She bit down on her lower lip. The hot remark was clearly to make her hurt. And she probably deserved it. Her jaw tightened. "You think she's hot?"
He didn't leave his spot, stayed right where he was. "Yeah. Something sexy about a woman that faces that kind of danger, must like the adrenaline rush... she's probably wild in bed. Bet she looks smoking in some black, silky lingerie."
"Maybe you can stop by her place and ask her to model it sometime," Natalie hissed, ducking out from underneath his arm and wiping at her eyes.
"What? No comments about how much of an ass I am? How it's no wonder I was left the night before my wedding?" Tony snapped at her.
"Do you want me to get down on my knees and kiss your feet? Beg you for forgiveness or something?" Natalie threw at him, a single tear escaped and made a path down her cheek. "I said I was sorry! I said it was uncalled for! What more do you want from me?"
"Thought I could trust you, Natalie. That you wouldn't judge me based on past experiences," Tony spat. "I was wrong. You're no better than all the other women in my life that have hurt me. Wendy, Jeanne... Ziva. I was foolish to think I was never going to add you to that list."
Natalie felt like he had reached into her and squeezed her heart. "Tony... I never wanted to hurt you..."
Tony gestured towards the Interrogation room. "Funny you should mention that... wasn't that long ago that Ziva sat at that table and told me the same thing. She told me you were going to hurt me one day, that one day I'd wake up and wish that it was her next to me instead of you. Well, she was right about one thing. You have hurt me. And I don't know if I can ever trust you again, Natalie."
"Are you... are you breaking up with me?"
"I don't know what I'm doing."
Natalie stood there and watched as he walked past her, opened the door and stepped out, slamming it shut. The sound vibrated off the walls. She immediately covered her mouth with her hand to muffle her cries as she slid down the wall and sobbed. She taken out a dagger and clearly plunged it right through Tony's heart. Now, she was watching, as their relationship seemed to slowly be bleeding to death.
Tim could sense the tension had only gotten worse between his partners since that morning. What the hell was he supposed to do? Natalie had admitted to saying something hurtful and stupid in a fight the couple had the previous night but she wouldn't talk more about it. He wasn't even sure what she had said...
Tony worked silently at his desk. Compiling information on their intruder for Gibbs who had brought Heather Dempsey back to base. And Natalie, well, she looked like she had been crying for a good while and tried to cover it up with make-up in the ladies room.
I'm not cut out for this, Tim thought. I don't want to have to chose sides between my friends!
"Alright, talk to me," Gibbs said as he arrived in the bullpen.
"Abby managed to identify our intruder using a transplant database," Tony said, getting up from his desk and grabbing the clicker. He pressed the button and brought up a decades old mug shot. "This was taken from a Baltimore booking in 1980. Explains why we didn't get a hit on facial recognition, boss. Files weren't digitized yet."
Gibbs noticed that Natalie had stayed behind at her desk. Her complexion looked pale, eyes red. Something had happened between his agents the night before and he prayed that his misgivings about agents dating were not coming true. "What do we know about him?" he asked her.
Natalie stood slowly. "Born in 1952, on a farm in Maryland and moved to Baltimore as a teenager. He had an extensive juvenile record."
Tony glared at her slightly. "That's putting it mildly. Arrests for petty theft, assault and battery in the seventies and then graduated to the big time in 1978 for attempted murder, did ten years in Jessup, where ironically he got his liver transplant courtesy of the State of Maryland."
"He stopped checking in with his parole officer a year after his release," Natalie informed him.
"Disappeared, never to be heard from again," Gibbs supplied.
"Not exactly," Tony said with a smile at Gibbs. "This is the part you're going to love, boss. His finger prints were found at the scene of two murders."
Tim joined them at the plasma. "Good reason to remove your finger prints."
Gibbs nodded in agreement. "Who did he kill?"
Tony answered, "A union boss in Philly and a playboy billionaire in Palm Beach... both suspected contract killings."
"Glover Reese wasn't a burglar," Gibbs mused, "He was a hit man."
"Looks that way, boss," Tony said.
Gibbs gestured at Tony and Natalie. "You two, go find Dempsey and talk to her. See if she knows anyone that would want to put a hit out on her," he ordered, when he noticed that the two looked reluctant to go together, he snapped, "Hey! Work out whatever is going on between you and get the job done! Do you hear me?"
Natalie's chin trembled slightly and she quietly went to grab her gear. Tony put his file down on his desk and grabbed his gun and badge. He followed his partner into the elevator and hit the button for the garage. He'd rather be going home for the night, not going to stake out Dempsey's apartment until she got home... of course... this was probably all a part of Gibbs' plan to get them to talk and make up.
Tony wasn't sure if he wanted to make up at this point. His trust in her was... faltering...
When the elevator grinded to a halt he wasn't surprised that she had flipped the switch. He stared ahead, not wanting to discuss anything else with her because quite frankly their conversations were ending up in heated arguments the last two days.
She hovered, just outside of his personal space not wanting to intrude. "Please, Tony..." she begged him.
He set his jaw, still not looking at her. "I don't have anything to say to you. Let's just get this over with so we can both go home for the night."
"Will you... will you come by tonight?"
"No. Not a good idea."
"Why not?"
Tony turned and looked at her. "Because," he whispered, "I don't think we should see each other anymore Natalie. Turns out, Gibbs was right. Romantic relationships between agents never work out. Rule 12 was there for a reason."
Natalie felt her heart breaking, the walls being erected around him that she could no longer scale. "Tony it was one, stupid mistake," she sobbed. "Please... please... don't do this... I love you..."
He flipped the switch and started the elevator up again. "I can't be with someone that I can't trust."
She stood there and watched as he left the cab, as he went to find Dempsey by himself. Natalie, instead of going with him, disappeared.
Tim was surprised to see that Natalie was not at her desk that morning. He was even more surprised to learn that she had called in sick. "Everything okay with Natalie?" he asked Tony as he started up his computer. "She looked a little pale yesterday."
Tony didn't look up from his work. His shoulders were still tight with tension from the day before. "Wouldn't know. I didn't go over to her place last night and I didn't call her this morning. She called Vance, Vance called Gibbs."
Wow, they're really fighting this time, Tim thought as he waited for his computer to boot up. "This has nothing to do with the fact that the two of you seem to be fighting, does it, Tony?"
His lips pursed together and he looked over at Tim. Tony's green eyes were dark with a hundred different emotions, anger, sadness, and regret... "I wouldn't know that, Tim, you'd have to ask her when she comes back... which is hopefully tomorrow. I've been going through Tolin's files to find out who would hire a killer to take him out... feel like I should be handing out tickets..."
"Dempsey was our target," Gibbs announced as he entered the bullpen. "Abby found photographs of her in Reese's car. McGee can you run a cross search of Dempsey and see if the name pops up on anything related to Tolin?"
"Yeah. That shouldn't take too long if I do it on Tony's computer since he has the file," Tim said getting up and making his way over to Tony's desk. The senior field agent got up and gave him access. "Just give me a second, boss."
Tony went and joined Gibbs. "Gut turning, boss?"
Gibbs glared at him, "Oh yeah, about a lot of things, DiNozzo. The case, Callahan not being here..." He slapped his agent on the back of the head and Tony cringed, Tim paused his search, briefly. "I would have hit that ridiculous cardboard cut out of you if it were closer!" He snapped, gesturing towards the life-sized cutout of Tony that Ron had dropped off earlier. "I told you to work it out last night!"
He ground his teeth. "We did, boss," Tony said, tightly.
His boss turned on him. "Oh yeah?" Gibbs snarled. "Why isn't she here today?"
"Ah, boss... found something," Tim said, breaking some of the tension up in the room. "Heather Dempsey's brother was shot in the back, got caught in the middle of a gang dispute. The shooter... was arrested but talked, named names and was granted immunity. Guess who approved it?"
"Gary Tolin," Gibbs hissed when the EAD's photograph came up on the plasma screen. "Find Dempsey!" he barked before stalking out of the bullpen. "We have work to do and we're down a man!"
Tim glanced at the hard look on Tony's face. "So, um... want to fill me in on what's going on?"
Tony turned and shooed his partner away from his desk. "Gibbs is pissed at me."
"I can see that. Why?"
"I broke it off with Natalie last night."
He blinked, stunned. He had never seen Tony care so much about one woman before... what the hell had happened that Tony had felt the need to end the relationship? Tim stepped closer to Tony's desk. "Why?"
Tony looked up at him that same hard look in his eyes filled with regret. "Turns out... she's just like every other girl out there, Probie. Can't be trusted."
Tim shook his head. "Don't buy it. Come on, it's Natalie! You love her!"
"Sometimes," Tony sighed, "love isn't enough."
"Well... what's gonna happen to the team?" Tim asked, nervously. Were they going to have to find a new agent again?
"Nothing. I vowed to myself that Natalie and I will remain professional while on the job," Tony stated. "One thing I do know is that she'll have my back out in the field."
Tim didn't feel like peeling apart the complexities of Tony's brain. How could he trust Natalie with his life out in the field but not with his heart? Deciding that it was best to lay off, he went back to his desk—after all, they still needed to track down Heather Dempsey.
Tony sat stiffly in the driver's seat. They were stuck on traffic on the Beltway. And they hadn't said anything to each other since they left the barn. "Are you going to keep giving me the silent treatment, Tim?"
Tim shifted and glared at his partner. "I just don't get it, Tony. What did Natalie do that was so horrible?" he asked. When Tony refused to answer, he pressed on, "Did she cheat on you? Because I find that really hard to believe..."
"She didn't cheat on me," Tony said, feeling a few tears pushing at the backs of his eyes. "It doesn't matter, McGee. Okay?"
"Doesn't matter?" Tim repeated, clearly picking up on the hurt in Tony's voice. "Couples fight all the time. Why are you running?"
Tony grumbled. Tim knew he had him cornered in the car, he was going to keep pressing him about the issue. "I got too close, I cared too much... I'm not meant for commitment, McGee. Which, by the way, Natalie pretty much pointed out to me when calling me an ass and basically telling me it was a wonder any woman wanted to be with me."
Tim rolled his eyes. "Please, Tony, you can be an ass... somehow it's part of your charm."
I got scared, Tony really wanted to say, I was scared how much I loved her, how close I was getting to her. Being an ass, pushing her away and pouncing on her first hateful remark... "Great. Are we done with this conversation? I think I preferred it when you were giving me the silent treatment."
He let the conversation drop. Tim turned and went back to looking out his window. Tony couldn't really hide from him, they had known each other for too long now. His partner was afraid... afraid of how close he got to Natalie, afraid of what being that close really, truly meant. This break-up wasn't going to last long, Tim was sure of it, because Tony would get jealous of the first guy that looked Natalie's way and realize he loved her still, and they'd get back together. And everything will go back to the way it was...