“I killed him.”
Those words echoed in the mind of Leroy Jethro Gibbs as he watched the young man who had uttered them struggle to hold on to his warring emotions. He could see the pained expression on Tony’s face as he fought the demons that plagued him, wanting to claim yet another piece of his soul. Pushing past Palmer and Abby, he bounded up the stairs and planted himself in front of DiNozzo, his own piercing gaze searching Tony’s haunted eyes in hopes that he had misspoken out of uncertainty and desperation.
It wasn’t that Gibbs could blame Tony for killing his tormentor, but the realization that DiNozzo was driven to kill a man with his own hands spoke volumes of the sheer torture that Tony endured during his captivity. He wondered that when all of the agent’s memories returned, if DiNozzo could live with himself and the knowledge that he had taken a life out of anger and for the purpose of revenge.
He reached out and took Tony by the arm and guided him to a nearby bench. Gibbs signed to Abby to take Palmer and leave so that he and DiNozzo could talk. The team leader was grateful that the Goth didn’t protest and with Jimmy in tow, she only stopped long enough to place a kiss on the top of Tony’s head.
“Hey, Abs,” he called out.
She looked back over her shoulder, her dark eyes betraying both disbelief and sympathy for her friend.
“Not a word,” Gibbs said. “Let me handle it.”
Abby nodded and she and Palmer crossed the street to her car. Gibbs sighed as he watched them merge with the traffic. Once again, the former Marine found himself unsure of what his next step should be. The investigator part of him needed to know what happened, but the father side of him wanted to spare his child any more pain.
He tentatively put his arm around his agent’s shoulder, pulling back when Tony visibly flinched. Gibbs pinched the bridge of his nose as DiNozzo cradled his head in his hands. It almost felt like they were back to square one, reminiscent of the day that he had discovered that Tony was alive. Neither man knew what to say or what to do; he hated feeling so helpless and his uncertainty was not helping DiNozzo.
Gibbs clasped his hands on his lap and licked his lips. They couldn’t simply ignore this latest development; he and Tony had been making strides in their relationship and the team leader was not going to let the ghost of a dead man come between them.
“You want to tell me what happened?” he finally managed to ask.
Tony shook his head. “Not really.”
Allowing a small grin to escape, he realized that some things were never going to change. If Anthony DiNozzo didn’t want to talk about something, he wasn’t going to and no one could persuade him to do otherwise. Before his disappearance, Tony had led many people to believe that his life was an open book, but Gibbs knew better. DiNozzo could put on a show for his coworkers worthy of an Oscar, but the lead agent had always managed to see right through his charade. Usually over a couple of beers or a steak dinner, he could get Tony to open up to him, but right now, it was going to take more than a thick steak to even begin to uncover the depths of torment that DiNozzo had experienced.
“I need to know what happened, Tony,” Gibbs attempted to reason.
“I already told you what happened. I killed him.”
Although Tony’s voice was barely above a whisper, there was no mistaking the deliberate coolness in his tone. There was no remorse for taking this man’s life, but that was something that Gibbs could not fault him for; he had walked this road before and he knew how it felt to be driven to the point of no return.
“Talk to me, Tony,” he pleaded. “Tell me how it happened.”
Tony sat up but continued to stare at his trembling hands. “I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t take the darkness, the pain, the humiliation; I just couldn’t take it.”
“I understand that Tony. I’m not condemning you for killing him. I would have done the same thing.”
“Would you?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know? You weren’t the one who had to play his games; you weren’t the one who…”
Gibbs silently cursed when Tony abruptly stopped his tirade. “What, Tony?” he pressed.
His question was met with silence. He reached out and placed his hand on top of Tony’s in an effort to still the tremors that were consuming him. “Tony? Talk to me.”
DiNozzo refused to look at him. “Tony, I’m not mad at you for killing him. I understand why you had to do it; I just want to know…”
“He got careless.” Tony’s jaw clenched as pulled his hands free of the lead agent’s grasp. “He turned his back on me for a split second and I took the chains that he kept me bound with and threw them around his neck and choked him. I remember that I was so weak, I didn’t know if I could hold on to him long enough to get him down, but I did. I guess the old adrenaline kicked in; either that or fear.”
The older man patiently waited for Tony to continue. Gibbs knew he was asking DiNozzo to relive a nightmare that he simply wanted to bury, but circumstances had demanded that the truth be made known.
“I wanted to make sure he was dead,” Tony rasped. “I took the very knife that he used on me and I…”
Gibbs closed his eyes as he pictured Tony standing over his captor, wielding the knife that had inflicted such physical agony on his son. He had seen the scars and there was very little left to the imagination as the ex-Marine realized the pain that DiNozzo had been subjected to. “You what?” he urged.
“I stabbed him,” DiNozzo admitted. “Over and over until I was sure that he was dead. I couldn’t stop; even though he wasn’t screaming, I could hear him in my mind telling me that I better make sure he was dead or...I’d live to regret it. I had to shut him up so I slit his throat. Then when I stopped hearing his voice, I stopped. I threw the knife in a barrel that was sitting by the door and I ran. I didn’t get very far. I was so tired and it was raining. I sat on the steps and just let the rain wash away the blood.”
“Nobody saw you and offered to help?”
A tired smile escaped his lips. “I don’t guess so. I don’t really remember anything until he came.”
“Who came?”
Gibbs saw a trickle of blood streaming from his lip as Tony bit through the tender flesh. “I never saw his face,” Tony answered. “He was the one who always stayed hidden in the shadows when Steve was…all I could hear was his voice. I froze and the next thing I know, I’m lying in a heap at the bottom of the stairwell. He drug me back inside and was screaming at me. I was so scared; he kept telling me that he didn’t really need me anymore and that I had already told him everything he needed to know. He kept saying that I could never go back and I guess he was right. I knew that I was going to die right then and there. I just didn’t have any fight left in me.”
Tony wiped the blood off his chin. “When he went down in the cellar to check on Steve, I locked him in there and made myself get up and I started running.”
“Then what happened?”
“I got as far away as I could and started drinking,” he solemnly declared. “It helped me to forget.”
Gibbs felt a twinge of hope spark inside of him. The fact that Tony remembered when and why he started drinking was a good start to what would still be a long road to travel. “What were you trying to forget?”
“What they did to me. What I did.”
“How long were you out on the streets before Megan and Olivia found you?”
The young man shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“What happened to the man that you locked in the cellar?”
“I don’t know that either, but he’s still alive. I heard his voice once at the shelter and I knew I couldn’t stay there, but at the same time, I couldn’t go far away; I was worried about Megan and Olivia.”
The team leader recalled Megan telling him that Tony didn’t stay at the shelter very often but was always close by. “Do you think you could identify him from his voice?”
“Probably. I still hear it in my sleep sometimes.”
Gibbs knew all too well about Tony’s aversion to sleeping, but truthfully, the team leader didn’t blame him. The nightmares were still all too real for Tony; it would be a long time before the memory of his captivity became a distant thought.
“Why don’t we get back to the house?” Gibbs suggested, sensing that Tony had reached his limits. “We’ve got a basement to finish cleaning up.”
Tony nodded. “Might as well.”
He saw DiNozzo look back towards the stairwell that led to the resting place of his tormentor. “What are you going to do about Steve’s body?” Tony inquired.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of everything,” Gibbs vowed.
“What are you going to do?”
“Don’t worry about it,” the agent repeated. “Trust me on this.”
“Am I going to prison for killing him?”
Gibbs adamantly shook his head. “No. You’re not going to prison. You don’t deserve to go to prison.”
“You’re probably wrong there, but I don’t have the energy to argue with you.”
He grinned at his charge. “Getting that tattoo wear you out?”
Tony managed to return his smile. “Guess so.”
“So, what did you decide on?”
“A phoenix.”
Gibbs nodded his approval. Although, he would have never believed that Tony would have subjected himself to getting a tattoo, the young man had indeed chosen a most appropriate symbol. For a year, he had believed Tony to be dead and he had miraculously risen out of the ashes to reclaim what he had lost.
“Want to see it?” Tony asked.
“Sure.”
Tony lifted his shirt to reveal the tattoo of the phoenix nestled in the midst of scars, both old and some more recent. Rising out of the ashes to become stronger and more powerful than before, Gibbs knew that when all was said and done, Tony would indeed be stronger and after months of uncertainty, DiNozzo would resume his place not only as his senior field agent but as the son of his heart.
“It suits you, DiNozzo.”
“Thanks, Boss,” he replied.
The two men walked in silence towards the car, words seemingly unnecessary as for the first time since his resurrection, Tony seemed at ease. Gibbs allowed his mind to drift back to that cellar and its contents, namely the dead man, whose remains had obviously been a feast for the vermin that more than likely had taken up residence in that oppressive place. He needed to go back; maybe he could come to a better understanding of what Tony had endured during his captivity. DiNozzo had managed to reveal a lot in the last few minutes, but there were still a lot of questions left unanswered.
When he heard the click of Tony’s seatbelt, Gibbs started the engine and sped off towards his home. It wasn’t long before he heard DiNozzo snoring softly, his head lolling against the head rest. He didn’t dare wake the sleeping man; Tony’s recovery was not only going to be an emotional matter, but a physical one as well.
The silence gave him time to contemplate what his next move would be. Gibbs knew that more than likely Abby, and possibly Palmer, would be waiting for them when they arrived at his house. If that were the case, then Tony would be in good hands and he could do what he needed to do.
As he turned down his street, he saw Abby and Palmer sitting on the front porch. Gibbs parked and cut off the engine, which roused Tony from his slumber. “Are we home already?” DiNozzo muttered.
Gibbs heart soared upon hearing Tony refer to his house as home. There had been many times over the years that DiNozzo had stayed with him due to different circumstances, and his house had become a second home to him. Tony had told him once that as long as Gibbs was around, he always had a place to go that he felt both loved and wanted. Not for the first time, Jethro Gibbs found himself cursing DiNozzo Sr., for instilling those doubts in Tony’s mind when he was a child.
Forcing the disturbing thoughts out of his head, he nodded and pointed to the porch. “Looks like your fan club is waiting.”
As they got out of the car and started walking towards the house, Gibbs was nearly bowled over by Abby, who flung herself at Tony, pulling the exhausted man into a fierce hug.
“Oh my god, Tony. I was so worried about you!” she exclaimed. “Are you all right?” Abby glared at the team leader. “You’ve been nice to him, haven’t you? I mean you didn’t yell at him or head slap him or anything?”
“Abs,” Gibbs began to protest.
“Never mind. Don’t answer that. Tony doesn’t like it when you’re nice to him,” the Goth informed him. “It freaks him out.”
Gibbs pulled Abby aside allowing Tony to make his way towards the front door. “Abs, you and Palmer stay with Tony. Get him to eat something and if he won’t rest, tell him to go downstairs and work on cleaning up the basement,” he instructed.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said, offering no further explanation.
Abby eyed him suspiciously. “Did Tony really kill that man?”
“Says he did. I’ve got no reason to doubt him.”
“But Tony wouldn’t just kill anybody in cold blood.”
How could he explain to her that even men like Tony had their breaking point? Gibbs had discovered his years ago and had taken a life without a second thought. He had yet to discover everything that Tony had endured at the hands of his sadistic captors, and he wasn’t sure that he would ever know all the details. One thing was for certain, he didn’t hold Tony responsible for his actions; if anything, he admired DiNozzo for having the courage to put an end to his suffering, knowing that he would have to live with the consequences for the rest of his life.
“He did what he had to do, Abs,” Gibbs stated, hoping his conviction erased her doubts.
“Did he tell you um…how, I mean why…”
“Abs, go stay with Tony, please. I’ll be back soon.”
He smiled as Abby kissed him on the cheek. “Don’t worry, Bossman. He’s in good hands. I might be able to talk him into another tattoo.”
Gibbs gave her arm a gentle squeeze. “Let him get used to this one first, Abs.”
“Do you like it?” she wanted to know.
“I think it’s…appropriate.”
Heading towards his car, he pulled out his cell phone and for the second time in a twenty four hour period, he called the one man who could help him figure out what to do. “Hey Duck.”
“Jethro!” the cultured voice rang out. “How was the doctor’s appointment?”
“A disaster,” he sighed. “But that’s not why I’m calling.”
“Oh?”
“I need your help with something.”
“And what would that be?”
Gibbs spouted off the address of the alley where he and Tony had left earlier. “Remember Panama?”
“Of course I do,” Ducky replied. “It was where…Jethro, are you telling me we have a similar situation?”
“Be discreet Ducky. I’ll meet you there.”
The team leader sped off towards the alley that led to the tomb that DiNozzo had been held in for several months. He wanted to look around before Ducky arrived to see if he could figure out the mystery of Tony’s captivity. Why had Tony been taken? Why were they so intent on convincing him that no one would ever come to help him? What had they done to him that persuaded Tony that his life no longer mattered? What was the final straw that rendered DiNozzo capable of murder?
He wasn’t sure if he would discover any of the answers to these questions, but he had to try. Maybe then he could understand what drove Anthony DiNozzo to become Todd Gibbs and why Todd Gibbs couldn’t accept the fact that he was Anthony DiNozzo.
It was then that a thought occurred to him. What if Todd was protecting Tony? Tony DiNozzo, being an ethical man couldn’t in his right mind, murder another person just for simple revenge; but perhaps Todd could. Todd was as different from Tony as night was from day. Todd dealt with his memories by drinking and Tony was so beaten down, that he was content to allow his doppelganger to take over.
Gibbs scrubbed his face. If that was truly the case, then things just got a lot more complicated.
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