Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Chapter three
Gibbs showed up later that day, bringing much needed supplies to his senior field agent’s apartment. He found Tony in his living room with a pack of ice over his foot and Abby in the kitchen, unsuccessfully looking at the cupboards for food.
“Hey Boss!” Greeted Tony from the couch, smile brightening at the sight of groceries bags.
“GIBBS!” yelled Abby “You brought food! Thank God. Tony cannot grasp the concept of food shopping.”
“Hey! I resent that comment!” Tony protested.
“And I resent the fact that there is nothing here to eat or drink… Well, except water… but even the water seams hinky in this building.” She rambled on.
“Come on! This is a perfectly nice building…”
“Yeah! To dump a body.” Gibbs interjected. “I brought you enough food for today. Ducky saw your exams and you are on sick leave for the next three days.”
Tony was mortified “Three days? What I’m suppose to do in here for three days?”
“Suck it up, Buster!” Abby said to him “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time!”
“I didn’t to it on purpose Abby!” As Tony thoughts considered the day’s events and pointed him the only responsible for his bad luck, he uttered venomously, “Probie! He is so paying me for this!” Gibbs slapped Tony’s head before he could continue. “Ouch Boss! What was that for?”
“For whatever you were thinking to do with McGee. Don’t” He said looking straight into Tony’s eyes and handed him a slice of pizza. “What are we watching anyway?”
“The Air Up There. Tony is reviving his days in College.” Abby told him happily, while sitting in the couch with Tony.
Gibbs shook his head in amusement and prepared himself to another movie night with Tony and Abby.
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Tony was having a dream about his mother and couldn’t stop himself from surrendering to the dream’s sensations.
His mom was there with him in his room and she was caressing his hair, her gentle voice calming and soothing him, sending him to a deep slumber. The same loving way she did when he was seven years old and got a nasty cold from playing outside in the snow. He had developed a fever during that night and couldn’t remember much just that his mom had stayed with him the whole night, singing a long forgotten lullaby. He couldn’t force his eyes opened, but he could call her; his sleepy voice resonating in the room like a small child “Mom…”
She kissed him in the head and said whispering to his ears “Shhh baby…”
Tony woke up gasping in the morning with his mother’s words ringing through his ears. He used his shaky hands to wipe the excess of cold sweat from his forehead, trying to stop the words from echoing in his ears. He felt physically ill, unable to comprehend why one of the sweetest memories of hi mom was causing such a strong reaction in his body.
Knowing he wouldn’t be able to fall sleep again, he rummaged through his drawers looking for a clean shirt and a pair of socks in his drawers. He needed to get out in the open get rid of the energy accumulated during the days he was forced to stay at home in sick leave as ‘courtesy’ from Ducky and Gibbs.
Running didn’t help him relax, quite the contrary: he felt unnerved by the unshakable feeling he had been watched all the time he was jogging. He tried to identify a reason for his paranoia but couldn’t find anything.
Tough the minute he crossed NCIS front doors, the feeling disappeared and he was able to relax a little. It was still early in the morning and the only people around were the security guards, minding their own business. Tony smiled a good morning for the agent operating the scan and put his badge, gun, knife and backpack in the small tray.
He was already feeling better and blaming his recent bout of paranoia to the boredom of being stuck at home for too very long three days. ‘Gibbs rubbing of on me, now I know for sure. I’ll probably end up sleeping under a boat on my basement…’ Horrified at the prospect, he thought ‘Thank God I don’t have a basement! That and the fact that I don’t have the slightest idea on how to build one.’
Moving to his desk he threw his backpack over his desk, powered up his computer and went for the coffee room to look for something eatable to have for breakfast.
Gibbs arrived in the Bullpen half an hour later to find Tony reading details on all the cases he had missed during his “sick leave”. He looked discreetly at his watch to check the time and realized that the younger man had come too early to work.
He knew the younger man could never stay still for too long, so he was honestly amazed by the fact that Tony had waited the whole three days before return to work. He had visited Tony a few times during the younger man leave, mostly to make sure that he had something to eat and company to keep him sane.
Yesterday he had found him asleep on the couch with his door unlocked. That feat would normally earned him a dressing down for his careless in such a suspicious neighborhood if Abby hadn’t showed up a few minutes later and explained to him that she probably had forgotten the door opened when she had gone out for ice cream. Since it was Abby, he satisfied himself with giving her an exasperate look.
It was odd that Tony hadn’t wake up to his entrance in the apartment. The younger man has a keen sense of awareness even in his sleep, instinctively knowing when there were people around him. The fact that he had woken up disoriented and gasping made it even more estranger.
Back to the present and looking at his agent, Gibbs concluded that Tony still looked a little anxious. ‘Probably because he was stuck at home…’ As he went for his sacred cup of coffee, Gibbs thought amused that looking over Tony and Abby was a full time job.
Gibbs was returning to the bullpen with a cup of coffee when Tony phoned him to warn him that they had a case. “We got a dead body, Boss. McGee went to bring the truck around while Ziva is contacting Ducky”
“Good. I’ll meet you downstairs.” Gibbs said and abruptly finished the call.
It was a short drive to Patuxent River State Park where the crime scene was located. The body had being pulled by two fishermen from the river. They had noticed it floating down the river around 6 a.m. in that morning with no id or any identifiable evidence on it, except the gray shirt and black trousers similar to the ones wear by the navy sailors.
As the team spread around the area to process the scene and Gibbs went to interrogate the fishermen and the LEOs in the area, only Ducky and Palmer remained with the body.
“Very well Mr. Palmer.” Ducky said while supervising the young man’s work “Now, what can you tell me about time of death considering the post mortem findings?”
Palmer never got the chance to answer the good doctor as a shot coming from the woods hit the older man on his shoulder, the impact force sending him to the ground. Before the younger man could understand what had happened, a second shot hit the area between Ducky’s right arm and the astonished man’s feet.
Gibbs threw himself over the standing man to protect him from other shots while McGee, Ziva and Tony took off in the direction where the shots were coming with their guns drawn.
Gibbs heard Ducky groaning and looked at his old friend’s shoulder, blood seeping from the shot. “You alive Ducky?” Then he shouted for an ambulance.
“Yes, of course, Jethro. Mr. Palmer, please, bring me a towel and begin to apply pressure in this wound… I’m afraid I won’t be able to perform this autopsy Jethro...”
“Not a problem Ducky…” He said looking at the trees, trying to find anything.
The ambulance didn’t take too long to arrive and take Ducky to the hospital. Gibbs had taken the time to order McGee to come back to the crime scene and accompany the ambulance to the hospital, in order to provide protection to the old ME.
Gibbs’s suspected that the body had being used as bait to attract his old friend to the local, since the sniper had waited his team to spread around the area before targeting Ducky.
A second NCIS team had been sent by the Director to help process the scenes, some agents were snapping pictures while other were re-interrogating the LEOS and the fishermen in hopes they had seen anything.
It took a whole hour before Tony and Ziva returned from the woods with nothing. The frustrated look in their faces told him what he needed to know. “Sorry, boss” Tony said. "We looked everywhere, but we haven’t found any casings or footprints.”
“I can't even tell where the sniper took the shot from without a ballistics report.” Ziva added, seeing the furious look Gibbs’ face was assuming “I'm gonna go take a look over there.”
“What do you think, Boss?”
“That we were lured here and the sniper intended to kill Ducky. The sniper waited until we were far away from Ducky start the shooting. But he missed, which means he or her has no expertise.”
“Her, Boss?” Said Tony.
“Well, I always believed Ducky had his share of ex-wives.” Gibbs said before turning to supervise the other NCIS team’s work.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.