Storytime with Rachel F Hundred

Baltimore, 2001

Tony closed the door of his apartment and allowed himself a moment of weakness as he gently rested his forehead against the wood.

Everything was a complete clusterfuck.

He couldn’t believe that within 48 hours he had found out his partner was dirty and he was moving jobs.

Tony had gone round to his fiancé’s apartment for comfort after handing in his resignation, but Wendy hadn’t been particularly comforting. She had been less than understanding about his employment situation, about the resignation and his application to become a Fed. Her attitude had prompted him into making an excuse to leave her place.

He was beginning to question whether she had only said yes to his proposal because it was expected. He hadn’t really been confident in her answer when he’d popped the question – hadn’t that been the reason why he hadn’t told Danny?

Danny.

He sighed and pushed away from the door.

Tony shrugged out of the leather jacket and tossed it on the back of the nearest dining chair. The small table was set up flush against the wall to his left. Both chairs were neatly tucked under it.

He walked slowly into the kitchenette to his right which was a single wall of upper and lower cabinets, and a cheap Formica countertop. The sink was positioned off to the far wall with a small window overlooking the wall of the building next door.

Tony opened a bottle of wine and rifled through his cupboards for something to eat. He wasn’t as bad as Danny with his rotation of TV microwavable dinners, but he wasn’t exactly a regular cook either. He found some boxed pasta and a frozen sauce he’d made weeks earlier. His Nonna DiNozzo was probably rolling in her grave but it was what he had. He mechanically made his dinner and poured a glass of wine. He turned the TV on and settled on an old Robert Mitchum movie, lowering the volume so that the dialogue was only just audible. He knew all the words to it anyway.

He sat down at the dining table to eat before he let his mind drift back to the mess his life had become. He forked up the pasta and hummed at the tangy taste of the tomato sauce and its contrast with the chalky penne. He grimaced and soldiered through.  

First things first, Tony mused. He should consider his working situation.

He had applied to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Supervisory Special Agent Gibbs had pointed him at the door and he’d walked through it but…Wendy hadn’t seemed enthralled at the idea of him becoming a federal agent and moving to wherever the Navy needed him. He’d been told by the recruitment lady that he’d also have to spend time at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centre in Quantico before formally becoming an agent himself, although his time in law enforcement would count and he’d move swiftly up through the ranks.

Truthfully, he’d only applied because he’d allowed himself to be swayed by Gibbs’ faith in him.

Don’t waste good.

It seemed like a great rule and to know Gibbs thought it applied to him? Tony was prepared to admit that he was flattered by that. Gibbs had proven himself to be a good LEO during the op and Tony had managed to get the recruitment lady talking about him easily enough. According to her, Gibbs was a living legend within NCIS; dedicated, ruthless in his pursuit of justice, and the best at what he did.

Also, Tony considered wryly, he had no problem believing her statement that the second ‘b’ in Gibbs apparently stood for bastard. Gibbs had a reputation for not playing well with others, and the lovely lady had been very curious about Tony garnering Gibbs’ attention and regard.

The question was why had Gibbs focused on Tony?

Tony was a good investigator and he was a better undercover operative. He’d originally trained as a beat cop in Baltimore before being loaned out to Peoria for an undercover to bring down a gang of dirty cops. That clusterfuck had led to another loan to Philadelphia which had ended up with a mob boss all but adopting him and giving him a death sentence but only if he ever stepped back into the city. Banishment instead of execution was Mike Macaluso’s way of showing his love. The final undercover before returning to Baltimore had been a joint op with the FBI. He’d received a job offer in the wake of it, but Tony had declined wanting nothing more than to simply go back to Baltimore and walk a beat. He’d ended up with a position in Homicide and…he loved it, had loved it.

He had loved working with Danny.

They had a lot in common. Both had lost their mothers at a young age; both of their Dads were assholes. They’d grown up with money but had no access to that kind of lifestyle as cops.

Well.

Tony hadn’t had access to that kind of lifestyle because he was a good cop. Danny, on the other hand…

Why hadn’t Tony ever questioned some of the designer stuff Danny wore? Some of the more expensive purchases he’d made?

Maybe if he had, he would have realised sooner that his partner was dirty; that he was taking kickbacks from criminals.

The only redeeming point of the whole debacle was that when push came to shove and Danny had been faced with the choice of backing up his criminal conspirator or his police partner, he had backed up Tony.

Although why Floyd hadn’t also given up Danny when he’d been questioned…

Something tickled the back of Tony’s mind and worried the investigator within him. It was a loose thread. The question was did Tony want to pull on that thread? Was he prepared to arrest Danny? Report him to Internal Affairs?

Tony winced.  

He set down his fork and picked up the glass of wine. He swirled it around enjoying the rich scent of blackberry and oak. He sipped it and let the flavour roll around his mouth. Wine was his one luxury indulgence left over from his growing up with money.

Senior loved an opulent lifestyle and he’d thought nothing of ransacking Tony’s trust funds and savings accounts like they were his own. Tony had one trust fund left from his Grandpa Paddington and it was tied up in so much bureaucracy that Senior hadn’t been able to touch it. Tony wouldn’t be able to touch it much himself until he was forty.

Maybe in the back of his mind, he’d always just assumed Danny must have the same. Some kind of trust fund which he could access a little.

Or maybe he just hadn’t wanted to see.

The tickle in his brain irritated him again.

He took a gulp of wine as though trying to drown it out.

Danny had backed him up. He had brought Floyd in. In the end that was the reason why Tony had decided to leave Danny alone with nothing more than a message on his answering machine that afternoon, telling him about his resignation and adding a stern caution to get himself straightened out.

Danny had to have wondered, especially in that moment when Floyd looked at him with betrayal in his eyes, whether Floyd would sell him out.

He tilted his head thoughtfully.

So why hadn’t Floyd sold him out?

Honour among thieves?

Because he feared Danny?

Tony snorted.

He doubted that very much. Well. Maybe in that moment of betrayal because Floyd had to have realised that if he made so much as a twitch, Danny could have shot him dead and claimed the whole thing as a righteous shoot since Floyd had been threatening Tony at the time.

But once he was in the safety of the police precinct…why hadn’t he given up Danny? He could have cut a deal…

Fuck.

Tony closed his eyes.

There was someone else. Someone else in a position of power inside the police department who could have gotten to Floyd.

Which was a very short list inside their house.

Fuck.

He dropped his head into his hands, covering his face like he could hide away from the world.

Tony wished he could have gone through with his original plan for the night. Maybe he could rewind time and take himself back to Wendy’s. Maybe he could just ignore the impulse to leave because she’d seemed unsettled by his sudden decision to shift jobs. He had almost written her reaction off as a natural enough reaction. He had contemplated just ignoring it, tugging Wendy into his arms and distracting them both with sex.

It had just been that nagging voice in his head which wondered whether since he had been so wrong about Danny, since he had been so blind to the truth about Danny, then maybe Tony was also being blind about her.

Tony raised his head and sighed. He pushed his plate a bit further away and stared at the TV where Mitchum was in the car with Greer driving towards the inevitable end.

Tony felt a bit like he was in a car too already driving towards his doom. He rubbed both his hands through his hair, grimacing at the stiffness of the strands. His hair had been styled for a Vice takedown the week before; he still hadn’t been able to wash the dye completely out.

He got up and dumped the plate in the sink.

He headed into the tiny bathroom, determinedly keeping his mind blank.

He stripped down and stepped into the shower stall. The water pressure was the only really good thing about the apartment. He stayed under the steady stream of hot water for a very long moment wishing he could wash the whole week away.

Tony finally shifted and reached for his usual shampoo ignoring the fancier options Wendy had left. He lathered up his hair and focused on getting clean, scrubbing his body until his skin stung. He padded through to his cramped bedroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. He kept his mind completely occupied on nothing but pulling on his most comfortable sweats and t-shirt.

He wandered back to the kitchenette and tidied up, washing up the dishes and putting them away. He poured the remaining wine down the sink unable to face drinking it. He ended up back in front of the TV watching a DVD of LA Confidential.

His mind drifted back to Danny.

Tony sighed.

What was he going to do?

He’d thought when he’d headed into Washington earlier that day that he’d known what he was going to do. He was going to let Danny go with a few cautionary words. Danny had come through for him in the showdown with Floyd. Tony had thought that he’d owed Danny that much. And a part of Tony still believed that, even if the part of him which wore a white hat chafed at the idea of letting Danny get away with his petty thievery. Maybe Tony had spent too much time with the mob. He’d put Danny’s loyalty to him above his criminal behaviour.

Maybe Tony didn’t deserve to wear the badge.

Tony frowned.

Why hadn’t Gibbs questioned him more on his decision? Why had a federal agent let someone else make a decision about whether to bring in a criminal? Sure, Tony could assume that Gibbs was doing some kind of law enforcement brotherhood thing in leaving Danny’s fate to Tony, but Gibbs didn’t owe either Danny or Tony any loyalty beyond being a fellow LEO and Danny had dishonoured his badge. Why hadn’t Gibbs insisted on bringing Danny to justice?

And more importantly, Tony considered seriously, why had he offered Tony a job knowing Tony was going to let a dirty partner slide?

It didn’t make sense.

Unless Gibbs wanted someone who would put loyalty to his partner above the law.

That arrested Tony’s thinking for a long moment before his brain kicked back into gear.

Maybe what Gibbs wanted wasn’t Tony’s investigative skills. Maybe he wanted a loyal Saint Bernard who would follow him without question. Moreover, Tony knew himself enough to know that he would feel indebted to Gibbs, maybe indebted enough to let small stuff slide.

Looked at that way, Gibbs’ offer stopped looking like a lifeline and felt more like a fishing hook which was reeling Tony in. Even if Gibbs was genuine in the lifeline, Tony was beginning to realise that any partnership he built with Gibbs had the potential to be very toxic because of the dynamic of Gibbs rescuing him.

Damn it.

Tony closed his eyes. He couldn’t join NCIS. Not with his suspicions about Gibbs’ motivations swimming about in his mind and his own likely reactions to taking up Gibbs’ offer.

One decision down, Tony thought firmly. He couldn’t risk accepting any kind of job offer from NCIS. Maybe Gibbs was all on the up, but…maybe a few years down the line when Tony didn’t need a lifeline, when he wouldn’t feel that Gibbs had done him a favour, maybe working with Navy Guy then would be fine, but not in the immediate wake of Danny being dirty.

He was actually two decisions down, Tony corrected himself tiredly, because there was no way that he was going back on the decision to leave Baltimore PD. He couldn’t stay and partner with Danny, not knowing what he knew. Not knowing what he also suspected about why Floyd had stayed quiet. But he was relooking at his decision to let Danny off the hook, especially if there was someone else involved.

If it was who he suspected was involved…

It irked Tony to realise he was going to have to involve Internal Affairs. Tattling to the cops who policed cops wasn’t exactly the done thing in the brotherhood, despite that type of thinking being juvenile and stupid. But if he was going to do what he was thinking about doing, namely dumping the whole mess in IA’s lap, then his leaving the police department was probably not going to get him enough distance from the explosion, implosion. He would likely need to leave town.

Which brought him to the more personal snafu he was avoiding – looking at his relationship with Wendy and examining more closely whether they were really headed for the altar.

He settled back into the uncomfortable sagging cushions of his sofa and figured he might as well get cosy because there was no way he was going to be able to sleep.

o-O-o

Tony didn’t react as Danny sat down on the park bench next to him.

“I see that dye Vice used finally washed out of your hair,” Danny remarked as though it was just another day.

Tony shot him a look.

Danny withered under his glare. “I didn’t think I was ever going to hear from you again,” he admitted quietly, “not after the message you left me yesterday about resigning and heading to the Feds.”

Tony huffed. He handed Danny a paper cup of coffee. “I started thinking.”

“Well, that’s never a good thing,” Danny commented. He took the white plastic top off the coffee and took a sip. He sighed. “Hit me with it.”

“Why didn’t Floyd give you up?” Tony asked pointedly. Danny was a solid investigator. He could put it together himself.

Danny frowned. He sipped his coffee. He was almost halfway through when the penny dropped. “Oh fuck.”

“Exactly,” Tony said. He tossed his own empty cup in the trash can across the path.

“Show-off,” complained Danny. His tone lacked any heat and he was pale under his freckles. “Geez, Tony.” He put a hand on his forehead and stared at the coffee as though it could give him any answers.

“If it was just you,” Tony said, ignoring the lump in his throat. “I hate what you’ve done, but you backed me up in the field when it would have been easy enough to screw me over. I was going to let it go.”

“But now you can’t,” Danny sighed heavily. “I can’t blame you. If he’s involved…” he grimaced. “The fish rots from the head, right?”

He turned and looked at Tony until Tony looked back at him.

“I didn’t know,” Danny said firmly. “I want you to know that.”

“I know,” Tony said simply. “I figure if you had you’d have been more worried about telling him details when we were talking about the case in his office.”

Their Captain had maintained a perfect poker face about the whole thing when they had briefed him.

“He didn’t even blink!” Danny said, a hint of outrage in his tone. “God, I’m fucked! If Raimey realises I know…” he cut himself off and grimaced. “You think he was responsible for the murder and not Floyd?”

“Maybe,” Tony said. “I’m thinking that was why he was keen to tie in ballistics to Floyd.”

Danny winced and closed his eyes. He gulped down his coffee. He threw the empty cup towards the trash and missed. “If he thinks I know I’m dead, aren’t I?”

“I think there’s a good possibility that if you give so much as a hint that you suspect him, he’ll kill you,” Tony offered bluntly. He figured that Frank Raimey would kill them both without hesitation.

“You couldn’t have just walked away?” muttered Danny.

Tony sighed. “He thinks I’m already gone chasing a Fed job. You’re due back on the job day after tomorrow, Danny. I needed to warn you in case he’s planning a friendly fire incident.”

Danny scrubbed a hand over his head. “I didn’t even think about that!” He looked over at Tony again. “What am I going to do?”

Tony grimaced. “I called Ted.”

Danny’s eyes went wide. “You…you called Ted? Ted Sheridan? Internal Affairs Sheridan? Jesus, Tony!”

“Sheridan is waiting to meet us at a diner just outside Baltimore,” Tony said crisply. “You’re going to cut a deal and tell him everything you know. You’ve asked me to come with you as support.”

“And then I come back and I die!” Danny bit out angrily. “Tony, how could you rat me out!”

“I haven’t ratted you out,” Tony said with a calmness he didn’t feel. “I haven’t told Sheridan a thing.” He paused for a beat. “Yet.” He met Danny’s furious gaze with his own. “But either we go together or I go alone.”

Danny stared at him. “I saved your life!”

“You did your job!” Tony retorted. “If you expect me to thank you for it, I don’t know what to say, Danny, because, yeah, you did the right thing, but you can’t tell me that you didn’t even consider getting there just a minute or so too late to protect your own ass.”

Danny looked away from him, a red flush suffusing his face. His jaw worked as though he was chewing on something hard. “If I do this, nobody in the department will ever trust me again! I won’t have a job!”

Tony sighed and plucked a note from his pocket. “That’s why we ask Ted to put you in witness protection. I called a friend of mine over in Peoria. They have an open position in their Homicide team.”

Danny reached out tentatively and took the paper. He looked completely bemused. “I don’t…you did that for me? Even after…”

“You were my partner, Danny, and my friend,” Tony said thickly. “I might hate what you’ve done, but I don’t want you dead.”

Danny looked away again, staring into the distance. He finally nodded shakily. “OK, OK, let’s do this.” He got up from the bench slowly, his hand clenched around the scrap of paper tightly.

Tony got to his feet. He scooped Danny’s discarded coffee cup off the path and tossed it into the trash as he led the way out of the park to his car.

One meeting down, two to go.

o-O-o

Wendy lived in a small townhouse in the most upscale part of Baltimore. It had originally been owned by her grandparents. She’d moved into it four years before Tony had transferred back to Baltimore. They’d run into each other in a music store a few weeks after he’d moved back and they’d recognised each other despite the years which had passed since she’d been the very young, very beautiful music teacher at his boarding school. She had been in her first year at college and he hadn’t barely been entering puberty when they’d last met. A catch-up coffee had turned into a solid friendship until the year before when she had invited him on an actual date.

Tony stared up at the house for a long moment before he got out of his car and walked up the path to ring the bell.

Wendy opened the door and rolled her eyes at him. “You know I gave you a key for a reason.”   

Tony smiled at her. She looked gorgeous. Her chocolate brown hair was loose around her shoulders matching the casual look of jeans and a green t-shirt. Her feet were bare revealing the shiny pink nail polish of her home pedicure. He figured she’d had a day without teaching because she was usually more formally dressed if she had students.

He ducked his head down as she tilted her head up. They kissed softly.

Wendy patted his chest as she eased back and tugged him forward.

He caught her hand as he closed the door behind him and gently stopped her in the middle of the long narrow hallway that ran the whole way down the right-side of the building.

She looked at him questioningly.

“We need to talk,” Tony said firmly.

He refused to let them get distracted by sex. Not that he wasn’t tempted because the sex was incredible but they really needed to talk.

Wendy arched an eyebrow as her hazel eyes scoured him. “You know that particular phrase is never good news.” She led him into the den at the back of the house.

She went straight to the drinks bar she had off to the side and silently offered him a whisky. He shook his head.

“Am I going to need one?” Wendy asked gesturing with an empty crystal glass.

“Maybe,” Tony said, sitting down on the sofa.

Wendy sat down right in front of him on the sturdy wooden coffee table. She didn’t have a glass and looked at him with nothing but concern. “Talk to me, Tony.”

Tony rubbed his chin. “You don’t want to marry me.”

Wendy reared back, eyes wide but there was no real shock in her expression. “Tony…”

Tony reached over and took hold of her hands in his. He raised them to his lips and kissed her knuckles gently even as he shushed her automatic denials. He shook his head.

“I realised when I was over yesterday that you weren’t happy,” Tony began, holding her gaze firmly. “I wanted to think it was just with the idea of my taking another job, the idea of moving away from Baltimore, but the more I thought about it, the more I realised looking back at everything that you were more disconcerted than surprised by my proposing and…I don’t think you’re happy at the idea of us getting married even though you said yes.”

Wendy squeezed his hands gently as she looked down and away from him. She took a trembling breath and shook her head. “I’m sorry, Tony.”

Tony gave a humourless chuckle. He’d wanted so much to be wrong. His heart felt like it was physically breaking. He blinked back the tears stinging his eyes. He refused to cry. “I guess I don’t need to get the ring resized after all.”

He went to draw his hands away from her and she kept hold of him, her gaze flying frantically back to him.

“I love you,” Wendy said fiercely.

“You just don’t want to marry me,” Tony rejoined, anger stirring at her assertion.

Wendy gripped his hands tightly. “I know it’s a cliché but it really is me and not you. I’m just not ready!”

Tony looked at her earnest expression. She sounded and looked sincere. He shook his head. God. It was such a cliché. The old ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ gambit.

“You are wonderful, Tony,” Wendy continued quietly. “You’re funny and smart. You make me feel beautiful and loved. I’ve never been as happy with anyone as I have this past year with you.”

Tony swallowed around the lump of emotions in his throat. “But you’re not ready.” For their relationship to move to the next stage; to be engaged and then married.

Wendy shook her head. Tears shone in her eyes. “I wish I was.”

Tony nodded sharply and looked away from her.

“I thought…I thought if I said yes then maybe by the time we got married, maybe I would feel ready,” Wendy confessed. “But then yesterday you were talking about getting married within months and moving to D.C. and I realised that you were planning for soon and I was planning for later, much, much later.”

Deep down he’d known it, but Tony still felt each word stab another wound into his heart.

Wendy sighed. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“I want to say I’ll wait for you,” Tony admitted.

“But?” prompted Wendy.

“It feels like a terrible decision for both of us,” Tony managed to say eventually.

He’d thought about it in the early hours of the morning. He was ready and she wasn’t. He wanted a family. He wanted the normality of domesticity; of being loved by someone wonderful and loving them in return. He wanted the TV family ideal that he had never known.   

They looked at each other for a long moment.

Tony saw his own heartbreak reflected back at him in her eyes. She gently removed her hands from his.

Tony got to his feet. “I’ll get my things.”

It didn’t take him long to gather up the few clothes he’d left in the bedroom; a dozen DVDs he’d left on a shelf; the book he was reading placed on the bedside table. He dumped the toothbrush he had been using in the trash and eschewed taking any of the toiletries he’d stored in the bathroom – he had the same ones at his own place.

Tony accepted the cardboard box Wendy offered and packed it all up. In the end it felt like the meagre pile of belongings was underscoring the true state of their relationship; a lack of entanglement that he had been wilfully ignoring.

Wendy waited for him in the hallway. She grimaced at the sight of the box. “You don’t have to do this.”

“If I stay, we’re going to end up resenting each other,” Tony pointed out. “Maybe this is better than getting all the way to the altar and making the decision then.”

Wendy huffed a little. She pushed her hair back behind an ear. “I would have said something way before then.”

Tony hummed. He wasn’t so sure about that, and even though breaking up was already agonising, he knew that he would only end up hurting worse staying and facing that scenario. He drew level with her and handed over his key.

She took it from him with a wince before untangling her copy of his apartment key from her keyring to give it to him in return.

Their eyes caught.

Tony ducked his head and she rose to meet him one last time. The kiss was unbearably tender.

“Goodbye, Wendy,” Tony said roughly.

He walked away, out of the door, back down the path. He stowed the box on his passenger seat and drove away without looking back.

He was only a street away when he had to pull over because his vision was too blurred with tears to see.

o-O-o

Washington D.C., 2001

Tony followed the agent up to the bullpen and over to Gibbs’ desk.

Gibbs looked up at Tony with a frown before turning to the stoic agent with a nod. “Thanks, Don.”

“Chatty guy,” commented Tony idly.

Gibbs tilted his head. “I wasn’t expecting to see you back so soon.” The hint of the unspoken question of why Tony was back in the pumpkin monstrosity two days after submitting his application sang out from Gibbs’ curious gaze.

Tony nodded. “You have somewhere we can talk in private?”

“Sure,” Gibbs got to his feet. His phone rang and he tossed it onto the desk.

Tony pressed his lips together as he considered he hadn’t gotten to the altar, never mind needing a divorce. He followed Gibbs as he led him back to the elevator. They got into the empty metal box and…

Gibbs reached out and shut down the elevator.

Tony’s mouth dropped open a touch before he snapped it shut. “Uh, Gibbs, I don’t think you’re supposed to…”

“Somewhere private,” Gibbs cut in. “Best place.”

There was no alarm. No-one called on the intercom.

Tony stared at the NCIS agent with bemused horror. “They actually allow you to shut down the elevator?”

Gibbs shrugged. “You wanted to talk?”

Tony debated protesting about the elevator for a moment before he wrangled himself back on track. “I came to say thank you, but I’m withdrawing my application.”

Gibbs blinked. “Why?”

Tony grimaced and paced back a step to stand close to the opposite wall of the elevator. “If Mike Franks asked you to cover up a murder, would you do it?”

Gibbs’ eyes widened almost imperceptibly as he registered the question. A flicker of confusion stormed across Gibbs’ impressively passive expression for a millisecond before anger lit up his blue gaze. His mouth tightened as though he wanted to say something but he stopped himself. His jaw worked for a moment.

“If Mike asked me to cover up a murder, he’d have a damned good reason,” Gibbs finally shot back.

Tony pressed his lips together and nodded. “And that’s why I’m withdrawing my application.”

Gibbs stared at him, anger giving away to bafflement.

“I got to asking myself why you’d offer me a job even though you knew I’d let Danny walk away from a crime,” Tony explained succinctly.

He saw the moment Gibbs understood.

It was a shame that they weren’t going to be partners because he’d never managed to click with someone on deductions as easily as he had with Gibbs, Tony mused.

“Rule one,” Gibbs said quietly. “You don’t screw over your partner.”

“Even if they’re wrong?” rejoined Tony in the same low tone. “Even when they’ve done something criminal?” He held Gibbs’ gaze. “It’s a great rule, Gibbs, until it starts to ask a cop to put the partnership above the law.”

“You change your mind about Price?” asked Gibbs caustically.

“Had to,” Tony said tersely. He grimaced and pushed a hand through his hair. “It wasn’t just Danny.”

Gibbs rocked back on his heels. “What?”

“Got to asking myself why Floyd hadn’t rolled on Danny,” Tony said.

Gibbs got it immediately. “Because there was a bigger inside fish he didn’t dare to roll on.”

“Exactly,” Tony said, “and that’s a short list in a precinct like mine.”

Gibbs grimaced and shook his head. His gaze was a touch contrite when it met Tony’s. “I’m sorry it fell out that way.”

“Me too,” Tony agreed. “Floyd cut a deal this morning and they arrested Raimey.”

“Price safe?” asked Gibbs with enough genuine concern in the short sentence that Tony felt he was sincere.

“He’s in protective custody and after he gives evidence in the trial against Raimey, he’ll go into witness protection,” Tony said.

Gibbs nodded slowly. “This doesn’t have to change your application. I get it.”

“Do you?” asked Tony bluntly. “Because my loyalty is to the badge first, Gibbs.” His lips twisted ruefully. “I almost forgot that because I was so relieved to be handed a lifeline. Maybe my gratitude to you wouldn’t mean I’d compromise that loyalty eventually, maybe I wouldn’t end up loyal to you above the badge and maybe you wouldn’t even ask that of me, but I don’t know since you made that rule, your rule number one.” He held Gibbs’ gaze. “Maybe Franks didn’t teach you the right lesson there.”

Gibbs’ flinch was minute but it was there. “You…”

“What I know is that Franks offered a talented Marine a lifeline once,” Tony stated firmly, holding Gibbs’ gaze. The background check Tony had done had been very revealing. “Maybe Franks thought he knew a secret, maybe he thought that the Marine would work out better as his partner if they both believed that they shared this fucked-up secret the two of them.” He shrugged as he registered how Gibbs was reeling. “All I know is that you were cleared in the murder of the man who killed your family by an independent review, Gibbs. You gotta hope that’s never coming back to bite you on the ass if it was the wrong call.”  

He waited a beat before he turned away from Gibbs and pressed the button he guessed would get the elevator moving.

The elevator lurched back into life.

Gibbs moved suddenly, reaching over and stopping them again. He paced away from Tony to the opposite side of the elevator. He shook his head and turned back.

“Rule number five still stands,” Gibbs all but growled. “Take the lifeline, no strings attached. You don’t even have to partner with me.”

Tony lifted his chin a touch as he peered at Gibbs. “I think you might actually mean that.”

“I mean it,” Gibbs replied. He gestured at him. “Nothing you’ve said changes my mind about the fact that you’re the best young investigator I’ve worked with so…rule five.”

Tony nodded slowly as he registered Gibbs was serious. “I don’t have to work directly with you?”

“Nope,” Gibbs said.

“You’ll still support my application?” checked Tony.

Gibbs nodded.

He frowned as something else occurred to him. “This isn’t some kind of backward payoff because you think I now know something about you?”

Gibbs’ eyebrows rose a little at that but he shook his head.

Tony hummed. He could still say no except…it was a lifeline. Taking the job kept him clear of the fallout in Baltimore, both professional and personal. But…

“Hey, don’t let my mistakes keep you from making a good move for you,” Gibbs said quietly. “NCIS needs agents like you, but if you start here and you’re still not happy, I’ll introduce you to a friend of mine at the FBI. He’d offer up his right arm for someone with your undercover experience.”

Tony’s mouth quirked into a rueful smile. He considered Gibbs for a long moment. The Navy Guy was serious.  He was really offering a lifeline with no strings attached.

“OK,” Tony agreed. At least he was walking in with his eyes wide open.

Gibbs reached over and started the elevator.

o-O-o

Epilogue

“Hey, Simon,” Tony greeted the Senior Agent of the Major Case Response Team as the other agent stopped next to his desk.

Simon Cade was a tall, solid, and intimidating agent with a history for being a straight-shooter, honest and righteous in the pursuit of justice. Tony had been tempted to nickname him Captain America. He’d been Gibbs’ Senior Agent since Tony had reported back from FLETC. Simon was a good agent and a good man. He’d gotten engaged to Abby Scuito, the forensic scientist assigned to the MCRT, a couple of months before. He was a braver man than Tony given Gibbs was disapproving.

Tony knew Gibbs was disapproving because he and Gibbs had built something of a weird friendship outside of work, and Tony knew that the older man was very fond of Abby and apparently had rules about dating co-workers that Simon and Abby were breaking.

“Tony,” Simon stopped and gestured at him with a folder. “Hey, you got time for a consult on a cold case?”

Tony blinked back his surprise. Gibbs had kept his word. Tony had been assigned to partner with Chris Pacci after a temporary duty stint in a Resident Unit down in New Orleans. Soon after his arrival, Director Morrow had announced Tony’s team team as a specialist criminal investigative unit while the MCRT was repositioned for international cases and foreign terrorism. The two teams rarely worked together.

“Sure,” Tony pointed at his screen, “give me five to submit this?”

Simon nodded. “That the report from the Singer case?”

“Yep,” Tony nodded, smiling as satisfaction at putting away Commander Lindsey rushed through him again. In the end it hadn’t been a particularly difficult case for him and the rest of his team, even though Lindsey had tried to frame Commander Rabb.

Pacci had listened to Tony’s concerns about a potential frame-up right off the bat. When Tony and the third member of their team, Tina Larsen, had tracked down additional evidence, it had been relatively easy to pinpoint Lindsey as the murderer. Tony was just glad they’d managed to avoid arresting Rabb, not least because the Commander was one of Tony’s favourite JAG officers. The team worked a lot with JAG and good relationships between them all were important.

“Good job on that,” Simon said. He lifted the folder. “I’ll be at my desk.”

Tony nodded.

The MCRT had the desks on the other side of the divider. Their space was a little bigger than that allocated to other teams in the bullpen but Tony wasn’t particularly envious. He was used to working in cramped police department spaces and he liked that he, Chris and Tina were close. He’d volunteered to finish up the paperwork since Chris has Little League and Tina had a date.   

He reset his shoulders, ignored the horrendous colour on the walls, and set about finishing his report. He hit send with another surge of satisfaction at a job well done.

Tony shoved his chair back and headed around the space to Simon’s desk. He approved of the positioning which gave the Senior Agent of the MCRT a good tactical view of the bullpen.

Simon was alone.

There was a light on at Gibbs’ desk showing he was still in the building, but the other member of the MCRT’s desk was dark indicating Agent Blackadder had left.

“Hit me with it,” Tony said, dragging over a chair from the empty desk next to Simon.

Simon handed him the folder. “Rape case, February 2001. Pacci was the investigating officer. Thought you might be able to fill in a few holes.”

“Before my time,” Tony said, lifting the folder a touch. “You still want me to take a look?”

Simon nodded. “Yeah, two heads? This type of case really isn’t my forte.”

“How did you guys end up with it?” asked Tony, as he opened up the folder and began scanning the information. He used the empty space on the side of Simon’s very organised desk to start placing pictures and documents.

Simon snorted. “A request from SECNAV which was an order from SECDEF. The victim’s mother is threatening a lawsuit. Gibbs and Blackadder are fully focused on mission prep right now, you guys were on Singer, so Gibbs tossed it to me.”

“Hmmm,” Tony tilted his head as he started to process the information in the folder and put the picture of what happened together. He tapped a finger against a photo of the bed with the ties that had been used to restrain the victim visible.

“Any thoughts?” asked Simon, a hopeful lilt in his voice.

“It all seems like it was a solid investigation which ended in a dead end,” Tony commented briskly.

“I call it the same, but the mother thinks there was a cover-up,” Simon sighed, pointing at a printed letter.

Tony frowned as he read through it. “Maybe not the cover-up she thinks it is.”

Simon looked at him quizzically.

Tony started to gather everything up again. “My first year on the beat as a cop, we had this case. Senior prom night, kid gets attacked leaving a motel, taken back to the room he’d hired for himself and his date, tied up and raped. Maid finds him unconscious in the morning and calls the cops and emergency services. He’s already at the hospital when we interview him for first time, his Dad is just outside of the room. Kid states he doesn’t remember much just being tackled and then nothing until waking up tied to the bed.”

Simon cocked his head, his eyes intent on Tony.

“Anyway, the evidence is not really adding up. I went around to the kid’s place, a couple of days later, find him lip-locked with his very male best buddy,” Tony continued. “They admit that the girls they took to senior prom were mutual beards. They’d had very consensual sex in one motel room while the girls took the other, and the kid had been tied up as a consensual act. The buddy left to take the girls home and was going to return only he got into a car accident and ended up in the ER for the rest of the night. By the time he got released to go back to the motel room and untie his boyfriend, the cops were involved. Kid ended up stating that if he told the truth, he’d be back in the hospital and disowned.”

Simon frowned. “You think this was the same thing?”

Tony shrugged. “I think her story doesn’t add up. The desk clerk noted she entered with a male laughing and joking; that they looked friendly. He gives one description. She gives a completely different description and she says she met this someone in a bar but can’t remember the bar. All she can remember is that he tells her he’s a midshipman. She doesn’t remember anything after leaving the bar, but her bloodwork doesn’t have any traces of the usual date rape drugs. She’s tied up using her own belongings and, objectively, her worst injuries are to her wrists trying to get herself untied, rather than to the assault itself.”

“You think she had a consensual kinky experience but the guy left her tied up and didn’t return,” Simon concluded.

Tony nodded. “Or she knew exactly who her attacker was and lied about the midshipman connection for some reason.”

Simon blew out a breath. “Pacci and Yates didn’t push her on her inconsistencies.”

Tony nodded. “They accepted that it was exactly what had been reported, and truthfully, some inconsistency is not unusual in victims of a violent assault who have been drugged in some way. I can see when the DNA came back with no matches and there were no other leads why they closed the file on it.”

“Me too,” Simon admitted, scratching his head.

Tony handed back the folder. “My advice is to take it over to the FSV team. Maybe Alder and Cabot will have a take. They’re probably best to reinterview the victim anyway. If it is a false report, she needs to tell her mother. Maybe we’d be able to get Lowell to back off a lawsuit without her daughter coming clean, but my take on that letter says she’s the type who isn’t going to just drop it. If she doesn’t have enough for a lawsuit, maybe she goes to the press next or does some other insane thing trying to get an answer which doesn’t exist.”

Simon took back the folder with a sharp nod. “Thanks for the assist, Tony.”

Tony went back to his desk and he wasn’t surprised to see Simon head to the stairs a moment later. The Family and Sexual Violence team were on the floor below. He tidied up and shut everything down, it was time to head home.

He smiled as he remembered how Pacci had helped him find a decent apartment in a not-too terrible part of town and close to where Pacci himself lived.

He got into the elevator and pressed for the ground floor. Just before the doors slid shut, Gibbs slipped into the elevator and pressed for the labs.

“Thanks for helping out Cade,” Gibbs said without preamble.

Tony nodded. “You’re welcome, Gibbs.”

“And good job with the Singer case,” Gibbs said, shifting a touch.

Tony glanced over at the older agent, noting the slight tension in his face. “Your call in MTAC go OK?”

Gibbs grimaced. “We’re leaving first thing in the morning.” He cleared his throat. “You want to come round for steaks and beer on Friday? Should be back by then.”

Tony shook his head. “I, uh, have a date.”

Gibbs looked over at him speculatively. “With Pacci’s college friend? Isn’t this your fifth date with her?”

“Fourth,” Tony corrected even as a small smile stole over his face. Emma was a feisty political aide to one of the new Senators. It was early days, but Tony was hopeful.  

“Good for you,” Gibbs said succinctly. The elevator stopped and Gibbs moved to leave. He paused in the middle of the doors, holding them closed. “Rule five, Tony.” He left before Tony could reply which was classic Gibbs.

The doors slid shut.

He was kind of touched again by Gibbs’ words, Tony mused as the elevator resumed its journey downward. In the end, he was glad he’d made the move. He had a great team, he was doing work which mattered, and his personal life was finally back in a good place.

Tony couldn’t wait to see what else his future would bring.

fin.

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