FAMILY PORTRAIT, FAMILY SHADOWS

CHAPTER 9

The Next Day

NCIS Bullpen

You could cut the tension in the bullpen with a knife. Better make that a proverbial knife, Tony thought, because Ziva looked in the mood to use every single one of hers. On him. The only noise was the clicking of computer keys and papers shuffling. Everyone was afraid to talk, even though Ziva and Tim were still kind of in the dark about the whole thing.

Tony felt like he was in the dark himself. He'd spent a good portion of last night wandering around the empty house, no sound of children laughing, no chasing AJ around to get him in the tub (which he really loved, once you got him in there). And what he'd give to be able to ask Kaity to turn down that blasted Princess Pony video game. He'd turned on the TV just for the noise, but somehow it only amplified how quiet it was. How the hell had this happened? What did he miss? Why wouldn't Abby even talk things over with him? He'd called over to Gibbs' earlier to say goodnight to the kids. The only one that would talk to him was AJ, who was having the time of his life at grampa's house. Tony scrunched up his eyes, fighting back the tears, listening to his son ramble on about the day. As he wound down, Tony asked if Kaity wanted to say goodnight, too, and listened as the young boy put the phone down and toddled off to find his sister. A tear escaped and rolled down his cheek when AJ came back and said that Kaity said 'no' and cried, she'd been crying all afternoon, and not even grampa couldn't get her to stop. So Tony told his boy to have fun, and that he loved him, to which AJ replied "Love you too, daddy," and gave the phone to Abby. He'd tried to have some kind of conversation with her, but it was like talking to a wall. And it crushed him when he'd told her he loved her, and she hadn't said anything, and a few seconds later, she'd hung up the phone. He'd eyed the liquor cabinet, but decided against it - he knew that work the next day would be difficult enough without adding alcohol into the equation. So he spent the long, quiet night on the couch, trying to not think about anything. And not succeeding. It was after 3 AM when he'd finally fallen into a fitful sleep, waking a couple of hours later for work, feeling just as lousy as he had the night before.

And now, here he was at work, feeling horrible enough about the day before, with his partners afraid to look or talk to him, and his boss/father/father-in-law glaring daggers at him. He never thought he'd be praying for the words 'grab your gear,' but he was. At least things would feel normal with those words. Tony and the other two agents watched Gibbs stand quickly, all thinking that the silence was too much for the boss so he was going for coffee - his cure-all. As Gibbs strode out of the bullpen, he called, "DiNozzo, with me." Tony knew what this meant, and he was thankful for it, actually. He grabbed his gun, tucked it in his holster as he ran to catch up.

Gibbs barely waited until the elevator doors closed before he flipped the emergency switch and had Tony up against the wall, an arm across the younger man's throat. "I told you to make sure you could handle it before you jumped into anything," Gibbs growled in Tony's face. "I also told you I would kill you if you ever hurt either one of those girls…." He was a bit surprised that Tony wasn't struggling, wasn't trying to break away. Feeling a poke in his ribs, he looked down to see the other agent's gun. Grip end digging into him. He looked up into his agent's face, confused and concerned at the seriousness of Tony's expression.

"And I promised you I never would hurt them, and if I ever did, I'd give you my own gun to kill me with." He jabbed Gibbs with it again. "So go ahead. I'm not going to stop you."

Gibbs stared at Tony for a moment, assessing the situation. Then he gently took the offered gun, and slowly released the other man. For a split second, he was proud to see his son had finally grown up, but that quickly turned to angry confusion. When Tony made no move, Gibbs held the gun back out to him - butt end first. He thrust it at the younger man again when he didn't take it right away. He paced like a caged tiger, then got in Tony's face again. "Explain."

Tony shrugged, threw his hands in the air. "How can I explain something I don't understand, myself?"

"You've been arguing with Abby for longer than everyone else thinks." At Tony's surprised look, Gibbs smiled. "Little kids have no filter - they tell everything."

Tony closed his eyes and thunked his head back against the wall. Crap, their kids had heard them arguing? They'd tried so hard to keep it from them.

Gibbs crossed his arms, leaning back on the wall. "I can't knock ya' for arguing - there's a reason I'm divorced four times, I know all about arguments. But the coming into work in the clothes from the day before, the yelling at your partners. The yelling at your daughter… what the hell is your problem, DiNozzo?"

Tony chuckled sarcastically. "What the hell is my problem? Good question! Let's see….my problem, my problem….." He stood up straight and looked Gibbs in the eye. "My problem is, that I don't have a problem!"

Seeing how upset Tony was, Gibbs kept calm. "Then tell me what's wrong, Tony."

Still leaning back on the wall, Tony punched it with a fist. "I don't know what's wrong, boss. Not…really, anyway."

Gibbs could feel the distress radiating off the younger man. He couldn't help but be dad instead of 'father-in-law.' He walked over and cupped a hand behind Tony's neck showing him his support. "What's going on, son?"

Maybe it was the tone of Gibbs' voice, the concern he showed, or calling him 'son,' but Tony slid to the floor in a heap at his boss' feet, and sighed. "I don't….this is going to sound….." He ran anxious hands through his hair. "I don't know what to do, boss."

Awkwardly lowering himself to the floor next to his SFA, he patted Tony on the knee. "Talk to me, Tony. Let me help."

"I just…just don't want you to get the wrong impression….." Tony sighed and thought about where to start. "Up until the last year or so, things were great between Abby and me, for the most part. I mean, like you said, there's always an argument now and then, but we've always worked it out." He put his head in his hands. "But lately, something's been…getting worse….."

Gibbs put a hand on Tony's shoulder and gave a squeeze. "I'm listening…."

Tony sighed heavily, not believing he was actually going to voice this aloud. "Every year, around…..that time, and around Kaity's birthday…..Abby gets…." he searched for the appropriate word. "….Strange, I guess."

"Strange? Strange how?"

"Well…..at first, it was like a short…depression, almost. But some TLC, some understanding….she'd get over it. But as time went on….."

"It began to escalate."

"Big Time. All of a sudden, it was me that was the problem. If I tried to hold her, I was cramping her. If I tried to talk about it, she became defensive, said I was the one who couldn't get over it." He looked at his boss, pleading in his eyes. "I swear, Gibbs. From Day One of everything - it has never been an issue for me, except for it still bothering her. It…hurts me that….she went through everything she did, and if I could turn back time, I would. But what happened? It didn't - doesn't - change the way I feel about her. I'm in love with her, boss. Just as much now as I was back then, maybe even more so." Crap, he was sounding like a Hallmark card, but he had to make Gibbs understand.

Gibbs grimaced. He'd known Abby wasn't innocent in all this - she could be stubborn when she felt she was right. But he never imagined it was like this. "And now?"

Tony sighed. "It's lasted longer than usual. I think Kaity's graduation has something to do with that." The look in his boss' eyes was telling him to move it along. "Apparently it's not about what happened anymore, it's about me. If I smile when I thank the girl at the checkout counter at the grocery store, I'm either sleeping with her, or I want to. If I ask the waitress in a restaurant what the specials are, I'm flirting. She heard me talking on the phone to the lawyer's secretary, and all of a sudden, I'm having an affair with her. The woman's like eighty years old, boss, with a moustache and a voice like Bea Arthur's. Not even if I was single would I think of having an affair with her!" He didn't protest the head slap for that one. "I started out reassuring her that I wasn't, never would, sleep with, flirt with, have an affair with, any other woman because I love her. At first that was enough. Then Abby kept harping on it, telling me that She bets I wish I'd run the other way when we found out she was pregnant, and that I was doing all that stuff because of what happened to her, and I never forgave her about Kaity. Nothing I say or do can change her mind, and she keeps pushing and pushing….almost like she wants me to walk away."

Gibbs just squeezed Tony's shoulder again, not sure if he wanted to but knew he needed to hear the rest of it.

"Boss…..I love my daughter. Love her just as much as if I had had anything to do with her existence. Was I crushed when Abby told me that Bensonhurst had gotten her pregnant? Hell, yeah! But not because….Abby was devastated, boss. She thought I could never love her when she was carrying someone else's baby, especially when it was a child of rape. It bothered me, yeah. Bothered me that Bensonhurst had managed to continue to hurt Abbs from the grave. She tried everything she could think of to get me to leave her, and broke down when I told her I wouldn't. I wanted to marry her right away, thought she'd feel better if everyone else saw her married before telling anyone she was pregnant, but the stubborn woman insisted we wait until after the baby was born. She wanted to give me time to change my mind, because I would, and she'd have no hard feelings when that happened. Those were the longest nine months of my life, Gibbs. I did everything I could think of to show her I wasn't going to leave, that I was in this forever. Then Kaity was born, and I asked Abby again to marry me. It was 'New Baby Syndrome,' she called it, said the miracle of birth had blinded me, that once things had calmed down, and the baby was doing all the regular baby things like spitting up and dirtying diapers, I'd realize what a chore it was and want out, so she wanted to wait. I asked how long did she think it would take for me to show my true colors, and she settled on six months." Tony looked over at Gibbs with a small smile. "You didn't know it, but you played right into it, boss, insisting all the time we had to get married."

Gibbs chuckled a little. "Yeah, I'm just glad you finally told me it wasn't you with the cold feet!" He cupped Tony's neck again. "I knew that you wouldn't leave Abby in the lurch. Knew you loved her. I couldn't have chosen a better man for my little girl if I tried. I'd thought that maybe all my stories of my failed marriages had kind of put you off the whole marriage thing."

Tony shook his head. "It was your stories of your first marriage….Shannon." He looked sheepishly at the older man. "That's what I wanted with Abby - what I still want with Abby. Sitting in rocking chairs on the front porch when we're old, telling the great-grandkids how great-great-grampa got his daughter -their great-grandma - to marry me by withholding her Caf-Pow - and absolutely forbidding anyone from getting her one - until she said yes."

Gibbs shook his head, remembering the battle. "Longest six hours of my life!"

With a small chuckle, Tony agreed. "I'm actually surprised she held out that long!" He and the older man shared a quiet moment. "Um, there is one…..not-so-nice thing….." He got the Gibbs Raised Eyebrow. "Just…promise you won't be mad, at me or anyone else…..it was done with the best intentions."

"Who, what was it, and was it legal?"

Tony cleared his throat nervously. "um…..it was me….and, uhhhh, McGee," he muttered. "And I'm pretty sure that it was….kinda', sorta', not legal…." He waited for the head slap, but it never came.

Gibbs pinched the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger. "What did you threaten McGee to do for you?"

"There were no threats involved, boss! Some begging…..on my part, for a change. He didn't want to do it, but…..well, when I told him it was for Kaity…" He wilted under Gibbs' stare. "Well….to start with, my adoption papers for Kaity are fakes….." Before Gibbs could strangle him, Tony shot up off the floor and flew to the other side of the elevator. "It's not like that, boss, honest! You know I begged Abby to put my name on Kaity's birth certificate as her father, I wanted that more than anything, so no one would ever question it. She was my child the minute Abby first told me about her. But Abbs wouldn't do it, said if I ever changed my mind about being a father, I could walk away free and clear."

Gibbs sighed. "What else did you have McGee falsify for you?"

"Falsely? Nothing. Not legally…..?" He cleared his throat again. "Nothing major…..he just…changed a little something for me."

"I do not want to know…."

Tony shuffled his feet like a little boy. "Ummm, you know, on a birth certificate, where it says 'father's name,' and how Abby had had 'unknown' put in there?"

Gibbs closed his eyes and shook his head. "You didn't….."

"I had Tim hack into the records….and change the 'unknown' to 'Anthony D. DiNozzo, Jr." He watched Gibbs bang his head on the wall. Several times. "I did it for a good reason, Gibbs! I wanted the world to know Kaity is my daughter, in more than just name! She may not have been conceived in the best of circumstances, but she's my daughter. Mine. I wanted her to know I always….." Tony slid to the floor again, saddened. "I always wanted her. I always loved her." He snorted. "Yeah, good job on that one, DiNozzo." He head slapped himself.

"I never heard anything about that, DiNozzo," Gibbs ordered, sighing when Tony agreed. "Look, Tony. I know you love Abby, and I know you adore both of those kids. I know what Abby's been doing is unfair - to both of you. And I know now that all the problems in the last few months are because of this. I'm going to talk to Abby about this." He had to head slap Tony to get him to be quiet. "Yes, I have to talk to Abby - you two can't go on like this. She's not a fragile, little girl anymore Tony. She's a wife, a mother. She's old enough to accept responsibility for her actions. And she has no right to be accusing you of things you haven't done."

Tony pouted, but agreed. "Just…..go easy on her, ok?"

Gibbs rolled his eyes, and he and Tony got up from the floor. Before Tony could flick the switch to turn the elevator back on, Gibbs had him back against the wall, arm across his throat. "If you ever….ever treat that little girl the way you have been again…..there won't be enough of you left for even Abby's forensics to identify. Understand me?"

"If I ever do, then that will be more than I deserve, boss," Tony ground out. Gibbs slowly released him and re-started the elevator. Both men walked back to their desks quietly, ignoring the curious looks from the rest of the team. As Gibbs passed by McGee's desk, he reached over and gave the younger agent a head slap, and continued to his own desk.

"Ow!" McGee rubbed the back of his head. He looked at Tony. "You get called into his office, but I'm the one getting a head slap?"

Tony smirked and smoothed his hair. "He couldn't bring himself to mess with the perfection of this hair."

A snort from across the floor had them looking at Ziva. "More like he did not want to hit the unprotected bald spot on the back of your head." Even Gibbs smiled at that, while Tony immediately pulled out a hand mirror and began trying to see the back of his head.

Things finally seemed to be back to what they called normal, in the bullpen.

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A/N- THE TRUTH HAS COME OUT! KAITY IS NOT TONY'S BIOLOGICAL CHILD! HOPE ONE OF YOU FOUND TONY TO BE TOO OOC IN THIS CHAPTER -WANTED TO SHOW HIS LOYAL, FAITHFUL SIDE, THE KIND OF GUY EVERY WOMAN WOULD WANT IN THEIR LIVES, TO SHOW THAT HE'S NOT THAT SHALLOW, "ME, ME, ME" GUY ANYMORE.

MORE A/N - SHOUT OUT TO EVERYONE WHO ALERTED, FAVORITED, FOLLOWED, ETC., ESPECIALLY THE USUAL SUSPECTS - THEY KNOW WHO THEY ARE.

DISCLAIMER - NCIS - NOR ANYTHING RELATED TO IT - DOES NOT BELONG TO ME. I, HOWEVER, AM A SLAVE TO TUESDAY NIGHTS AT 8 PM. CURSE YOU, DONALD BELLISARIO!

SHAMELESS BEGGING - PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASEREVIEW AND LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THOUGHT OF "IN-TOUCH-WITH-HIS-FEELINGS TONY"! AND IF YOU'RE A LURKER WHO'S FOLLOWED, ALERTED, FAVORITED, ETC - THINK ABOUT REVIEWING, TOO! IT DON'T HURT, I PROMISE! AND I DO MY BEST TO THANK YA'LL INDIVIDUALLY, SO IF I HAVEN'T YET, I'M SORRY, AND CONSIDER THIS YOUR PUBLIC THANK YOU! SO PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE REVIEW! MAKE THIS STARVING AUTHOR SMILE! ~~THANKS!