What Have You Done?
by iheartGibbs
Rated: T (PG-13)
Warnings: Character death
Spoilers: Season Four
Written in response to the A/U I Love You Fanfiction Challenge on NFA – ncistvdotcom.proboards77.com
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Withdrawing even further into his thoughts, the man turned slightly and pulled his knees closer to his chest. He lay on the floor: wounded and left for dead. He struggled to keep his mind off the pain, as he focused on survival.
‘Abby will get my email and will send the team. Gibbs will find me. Or Ziva… she is always curious. Surely she'll come. Even if Abby doesn't understand what my email means…'
His mind shifted from thoughts of one coworker to another. 'Probie… he is expecting me early this morning. And Jenny… she'll get suspicious. She'll send someone to locate me.' He laughed bitterly to himself. 'She'll probably be too scared of jeopardizing the mission. The mission.'
Such were the man's thoughts as he continued to attempt to apply pressure to his own wound. His strength was quickly fading. 'Hurry,' he thought as he slipped into unconsciousness.
---
"He's late again, McGee," Ziva said pointedly, nodding toward Tony's desk.
"Third time this week. And he was supposed to be here early this morning to go over those case files with me," McGee replied. "Gibbs isn't going to like this."
"What will I not like, McGee?" Gibbs asked, suddenly appearing behind the edge of McGee's desk.
"Oh! Um… sorry, Boss. I meant…" his eyes automatically flitted toward his coworker's empty seat.
"Did you try to call him?" Gibbs asked, turning his frustration onto McGee.
"Well… actually… I..."
Ziva interrupted, saving McGee from having to admit he hadn't thought that far ahead. "I've tried. Multiple times. He isn't answering either his home or his mobile phone."
"Keep trying," Gibbs ordered. "I don't have a good feeling about this."
"Gibbs!" Abby's voice burst loudly into the room via the videophone.
"What is it, Abby?" Gibbs asked, his worry for Tony coming across as irritation.
"Has Tony made it in yet?" Her voice trailed off in worry, as she gently pulled the left side of her bottom lip between her teeth.
"What do you know, Abs?" Gibbs asked, giving the young woman the benefit of his full attention.
"Nothing specific," she said quietly. As much as Abby wanted to give this information over to the team in case Tony needed her, she was not fond of the idea of giving Gibbs a bunch of false or unconfirmed information. "He sent me a weird email last night. It didn't make any sense at all. It was something about trees and frogs."
Gibbs cursed softly under his breath as he quickly made his way to the stairs.
---
Cynthia saw Gibbs and recognized the determination in his stance. She wasn't sure why she tried, but heard herself speaking, "The director is on an important call, you can't…" She shook her head as he gave her a long look and disappeared into Director Shepard's office, shutting the door soundly behind him.
---
Not even waiting for his superior to terminate her telephone conversation, Gibbs rounded on her.
"I want to know what is going on with DiNozzo, and I want to know NOW." His tone was steely and defiant.
"I'm not sure what you mean, Jethro, but if you'll have a seat, I'm sure we can…"
"If you're going to lie to me, at least give me credit for my intelligence. I know he's doing some undercover work for you. I know it involves ‘The Frog'. I know he sent Abby a cryptic email last night and has since dropped off our radar."
With each statement, Gibbs had pressed in closer to the director. He now stood behind her desk with her, his face inches from hers. She could feel the heat of his breath mixing with hers. The eyes that met hers were blazing with intensity.
He continued, "I know you know something, Jen; I can see it in your eyes."
Director Shepard stepped slightly away from him and turned toward the window. Almost to herself she began to speak, "Surely he wouldn't… I didn't intend..."
She turned back to face Gibbs, her face reflecting her fear. "I'll tell you anything you want to know about Tony's involvement in this. Just bring him home," she acquiesced.
---
Jenny Shepard sat in MTAC, alone with her thoughts. La Grenouille was a truly evil man. As she allowed herself to remember the damage he had done to her family alone, she began to get her verve back. But then her thoughts would go back to Agent DiNozzo. Tony had been so willing to go to bat for her with this mission. She began to wonder if she'd been too hard on him. Of course she knew she had been too hard on him. But you can't change the past.
She had just received word that Tony had been located and was being rushed to the hospital. It was touch and go, and the next several hours would be a waiting game. Her mind traveled back to the conversation she had with him the evening before.
"I just couldn't say it. It's one thing to tell a girl what she wants to hear in order to get laid, but it's quite another to lie when someone looks at you with that much emotion in her eyes." Tony met her eyes expecting to find understanding. Instead, he saw impatience. "Jenny, I've never had a woman love me like that before. I couldn't say it. I just couldn't," he explained.
"Can you mend things now?" Shepard asked him, not willing to give up their best "in" for this mission.
"Are you not listening?! She knows! She can see that my feelings aren't the same. It's over," he said with finality.
"You are not in the position to make that choice. This is your job; your life, Tony! Don't risk that over the feelings of some woman that is merely a means to an end," Jen encouraged him. The passion for her dream began to show itself more as obsession.
Tony looked at her as if she were a stranger, "Can you hear yourself, Jenny? You don't sound like the good guys. The end doesn't always justify the means."
Jen sighed heavily, knowing he was right, but not wanting to give on this issue. "But we've worked so hard. We're so close…" her voice wavered as she lost herself in her thoughts.
Finally, she met his eyes. "If you don't want to use Jeanne, that's fine; but find another way.
---
Maybe Gibbs was right. Maybe she had misjudged DiNozzo. Maybe he wasn't the hardened, worldly man into whose mold she had forced him. Maybe she HAD taken a young man with his whole career ahead of him and forced him to put it all on the line for HER agenda. Again, her thoughts pulled her into the recent past. This time, it was the end of the conversation she had just had with Agent Gibbs.
Gibbs listened intently as Shepard filled him in on the details of the undercover op DiNozzo had been working. After hearing the details of how her last meeting with his senior field agent had gone, he finally spoke.
"My God, Jen, you're obsessed. DiNozzo's a good agent, but he's too innocent for this assignment."
Jen looked at Jethro in disbelief. "Innocent?" she scoffed. "Tony is no innocent."
"I'm not talking about ‘that kind' of experience. I'm talking about his heart," Gibbs looked and Jen and shook his head. Where had the woman gone that he once knew so well? "I'll be surprised if this doesn't break him. Or worse."
He gave her one last disgusted look and stormed out of her office to find his missing team member.
---
Reflecting, Jen knew she would remember the look on his face for as long as she drew breath.
She started as the door opened to reveal the very man she had been thinking of. Her guilty eyes met his, which will full of righteous indignation. Her breath hitched as she took in the sight of blood smeared on his shirt and dried on his hands.
"The next time you decide to use one of MINE on a dangerous op, you better darn well inform me, Lady. If not for that email to Abby we might never have found him."
Tears spilled from Jen's eyes, partly from the situation and partly in reaction to the fury resonating in his voice.
Gibbs continued, "Apparently Tony's way of making things up to you was to try to infiltrate La Grenouille's network another way. I know he wouldn't step directly into the line of fire without back up. He's too good for that. Too smart for that," Gibbs' voice broke with the emotion behind his words.
"But you did find him?" Jen asked, her eyes showing genuine concern.
"Yeah, we found him," Gibbs said softly. "Unconscious and barely breathing." His voice took on a suspicious quiver unlike she had ever heard in his voice before. "We lost him on the way to the hospital."
Tears now flowed from Director Shepard's face. She shook her head in disbelief. "No, that's not possible." There's no way she was responsible for this young man's death.
"He regained consciousness for a minute or two," Gibbs informed her, his voice unreadable. "Told me he was following a lead. His last words were ‘Tell Jenny I'm sorry'," he said, as she turned away from him.
Shepard's body shook with the force of her sobs. She felt Gibbs' hand on her shoulder, and attempted to lean back into his comforting embrace. Instead he used the force of his grip on her shoulder to spin her around to face him. His eyes were colder than she had ever seen, and sent a shiver down her spine. She had felt many things for Agent Gibbs, but she had never feared him. Until now.
"Expect a call from the SecNav. Tony's death is on your hands."
Gibbs left the room with the slam of the door, as Jen sank to the floor – finally facing the music of her own orchestration.
Story Notes:
Warning: Character Death
Author's Chapter Notes:
What if Jeanne had broken up with Tony over the I Love You fiasco?
Written in response to the A/U I Love You fanfiction challenge on NFA.
Written in response to the A/U I Love You fanfiction challenge on NFA.
Chapter End Notes:
Warning: Character Death