Disgusted, the team leader slung his cell phone in the passenger’s seat after his third attempt at trying to contact Jenny. She was obviously ignoring his calls, her attention apparently focused on Tony and that unnerved him more than he cared to admit. His former lover was a formidable and dangerous woman when she had to be; self-preservation was her only priority and unfortunately, she was more than willing to sacrifice a man’s life and career to get what she wanted.
Gibbs couldn’t shake the feeling that once again Tony was about to be the pawn in a game that he didn’t understand. His infamous gut was churning, telling him that somehow the Director knew more about Tony’s disappearance than she wanted to admit. Jenny had used her position as Director of NCIS once before to satisfy her own personal vendetta. If he discovered that she had done this again, he would personally bring her down.
He gripped the steering wheel tighter as his foot pressed down on the accelerator. His mind was working overtime attempting to recall anything in the past year that would give him cause to doubt Jenny’s motives. Ever since the La Grenouille fiasco, the relationship between DiNozzo and the Director had been strained; her motives for him sacrificing nearly a year of his life had become abundantly clear to the younger man after nearly being killed by a car bomb. Tony had resented her for using him and he was angry at himself for allowing her to manipulate him.
The former Marine thought back to the argument between himself and Jenny after Rene Benoit had seemingly vanished. That night after he, Ziva, and McGee had searched the yacht, Gibbs had sought refuge in his basement, intending to unwind with a quiet night of drinking and working on his boat, but the arrival of Jenny had curbed his plans, forcing a confrontation that had been a long time coming.
***flashback***
He swallowed back a shot of bourbon as the familiar footsteps made their way down the stairs. Director Jenny Shepard was truly the last person that he had wanted to see, but evidently she felt the need to seek him out. His anger at her deception was still fresh and he had yet to work through the ill feelings that he harbored towards her, but if she wanted a confrontation, he would be more than willing to oblige her.
“I figured I’d find you down here,” she said as she descended the final step.
Gibbs poured himself another drink. “What can I do for you, Director?”
“So it’s Director now,” Jenny sighed. “Look Jethro, I know your upset about…”
The team leader’s eyes narrowed, his harsh gaze burning holes into what little of her soul that she had not sold to the devil. “Upset doesn’t even begin to cover it, Jen. You used your position as Director for your own personal grudge and in the process, you nearly got my senior field agent killed.”
“Tony knew the risks when he agreed to go undercover. He allowed too many variables to factor into the equation and…”
“Don’t!” he growled. “Don’t you try and put this off on Tony. He was simply your pawn and you were ready to sacrifice him so you could get the Frog; or have you already forgotten that he almost died yesterday?”
“I haven’t forgotten anything,” Jenny retorted. “I was right there with you.”
“Were you upset at the thought of losing an agent or were you more worried about losing your only contact with Benoit?”
Jenny placed her hands on her hips. “The welfare of my agents is always foremost on my mind, Agent Gibbs.”
“Really? You could have fooled me,” Gibbs retorted. “Why are you here, Jen?”
“Because I think we need to clear up a few things.”
“I think you’re here to try and ease your guilty conscience,” he countered.
“I don’t have a guilty conscience; I just think that I need to explain…”
“I’m not the one you need to talk to.” Gibbs knew that Tony probably didn’t want to hear what she had to say any more than he did, but he wanted her to know what her actions had cost DiNozzo.
“I’ve tried,” Jenny admitted. “He’s not answering his home phone and he hasn’t replaced his cell.”
“I gave him a couple of days off. I think he’s earned it. You’ve had him pretty much working 24 hours a daythe last year.”
Jenny walked over and leaned against his workbench. “I don’t think that it was such a tremendous sacrifice on his part; I mean he wasn’t complaining when he was managing to bed Jeanne Benoit.”
“You saw what was happening and you didn’t pull him out.”
“I couldn’t.”
His rage was beginning to consume him. “Couldn’t or wouldn’t?” Gibbs challenged.
“Tony was in too deep by the time I realized what was happening. I knew that it would end badly; that was the only way that it could end.”
Gibbs clenched his fist. Possibly for the first time n his life, Tony had been in love; he had finally allowed someone to finally see behind that mask that he so easily wore all the while pretending to be someone else. DiNozzo’s heart had not only been broken, it had been completely shattered. It would take a long time for him to heal and even longer to allow himself to fall in love again.
“No, it wasn’t the only way it could’ve ended.” Gibbs finished off his drink and turned his back on the Director. “I think you need to leave.”
“Jethro, please; just hear me out.”
“I’m not going to ask you again, Director Shepard. Leave,” he repeated, his voice tight and controlled.
“Jethro, it’s not over.”
“It is for me and it is for my team.”
“You don’t understand,” she pleaded.
“That’s where you’re wrong, Jen. I do understand. I understand that as long as you get what you’re after, nothing else matters.”
Jenny threw her hands up in disgust. “I can’t talk to you when you’re like this. Just remember this, Jethro; if we’re not on the same page, all this can come back and haunt us later.”
“Ever get tired from running from all those ghosts?”
He allowed his gaze to follow her as she made her way up the stairs. “Be sure you close the door behind you,” Gibbs instructed.
“We’ll continue this tomorrow at the office.”
“I’m not coming in tomorrow. Gave myself a couple of days off as well.”
“I didn’t authorize it.”
“I didn’t ask.”
The team leader turned away from her and began working on his boat. As soon as he heard the front door close, he picked up his cell phone and dialed Tony’s number. “Come on, DiNozzo, pick up.” As soon as the answering machine picked up, Gibbs snapped his phone shut and threw it back on the workbench. The former Marine pinched the bridge of his nose in an effort to quell his own feelings of guilt that had managed to surface.
This last year had been a difficult one for him personally as he had been forced to rebuild his life and there were times that he wasn’t sure if he truly belonged at NCIS. Tony had been the one to keep the team together and he had managed to do so while working undercover; Gibbs wasn’t so sure that he would have been able to accomplish such a demanding feat. He was proud of Tony, but instead of telling him, he had simply ignored him, believing that DiNozzo would know how he felt without any verbal confirmation. As team leader, he had missed all the signs and now Tony was suffering mentally and emotionally.
Bounding up the steps, he grabbed his keys and headed out the door. Gibbs knew he had to find Tony and talk to the younger man; he had to make sure that DiNozzo was all right. He couldn’t lose his senior field agent, his son, to a life that he would never be satisfied living. Determined to make things right, he sped off into the night; hoping that he wasn’t too late to tell Tony that he was sorry.
***end flashback***
“I’m sorry, Tony,” he whispered. “I let you down again.”
He muttered a curse under his breath as the car suddenly swerved. Lightening fast reflexes enabled him to get the car to the shoulder of the road. Getting out of the car, he walked around to the passenger’s side the vehicle to discover that there was nothing left of the right front tire. His first instinct was to take his weapon and put the car out of its misery, but logic prevailed and he simply decided to change the tire. Gibbs sighed in frustration, wondering what else could possibly go wrong.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Tony purposefully kept his distance from the Director of NCIS, unable to ignore the warning flags going off in his mind. He wrapped his arms around his gaunt frame in a subconscious effort to protect himself from the uncertainty of Jenny Shepard’s intentions. Why did he feel so nervous around her? Why couldn’t he remember anything about her? What did she want from him? Tony wasn’t sure that he was prepared to learn the answers to his questions.
He swallowed hard. “So, what can I do for you, Director?”
“I just wanted to see for myself how you’re doing. I keep getting the runaround from Jethro, so I figured I would find out for myself,” she answered.
The young man easily sensed that her tone was lacking in sincerity; she definitely had an ulterior motive for wanting to see him. Tony shifted uncomfortably as her green orbs seemingly bore a hole through his soul. His first instinct was to run but he knew that one day he had to stop running; it might as well be today.
“That’s nice of you, but that’s not why you’re here.” He prayed that his voice exuded more confidence than he felt at the time.
“I see some things never change. You still manage to get right to the point, don’t you, Agent DiNozzo?”
He involuntarily flinched at the sound of his given name. Tony wondered if there would ever come a time when he would be able to fully accept that he was Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo. “If you say so, ma’am.”
Her smile unsettled him and he struggled to hide his fear. “So, what is it you really want?” he finally asked.
“I need to know the details of what happened to you while you were being held captive.”
“Why?’
“You were missing for a year. As your Director, I need to know what happened. If you’re going to come back to work, it’s my responsibility to make sure that you’re physically and mentally fit.”
Tony crossed his arms. “I figured that would be the doc’s job; NCIS does have its own head hunter, right?”
“If you mean psychologist, yes we do. But, I have to be convinced of your ability to carry out your duties and if I’m not convinced, I have the option of reassigning you.”
“You’re putting the cart before the horse. I’m nowhere ready to even think about coming back to work. I’ve got too many things jumbled up in my mind, but I appreciate your concern.” His own voice was now dripping with a mixture of sarcasm and exhaustion. “So, why don’t you go ahead and ask me whatever it is that you want to ask me?”
The Director visibly bristled. “I’ve heard about the man that you refer to as Steve and that he was primarily the one that hurt you, but you mentioned another man being present.”
Tony pushed the memories that were constantly vying for his attention to the far recesses of his mind. He had already allowed Gibbs to see the darkness of his heart and it had cost him dearly; Tony had killed Steve and despite the older man’s protests, he wasn’t sure that the team leader would actually want a murderer as his senior field agent.
“Yes,” he sighed. “Sometimes, there was another man present, but I never saw him.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. I never saw him. I just heard him.”
“You heard his voice?” she questioned.
“Yeah…I’ll never forget it.”
“What did it sound like?”
“What does it matter? What does this have to do with me coming back to work?” he challenged.
“I’m concerned about…”
“Don’t go there, Director Shepard. Living on the streets taught me a few things such as learning how to spot a load of B.S. a mile away. Stop trying to feed me a line of crap and tell me what you’re fishing for.”
“I assure you that…”
Tony never heard her response. He staggered and blindly reached out for the support of the wall. Cradling his head in his hands, he managed to clumsily sit down on the porch as random images assaulted his mind. In one vision, he was making love to a beautiful woman and in the next scene, he was in a limousine and watching another car exploding; another image of him firing a gun was quickly replaced by a man pinning him against the wall demanding to know the whereabouts of someone called La Grenouille.
He forced back the sudden nausea at the sound of the familiar voice. He knew that voice; it was the voice from his nightmares. Tony would listen to this faceless voice as Steve mercilessly tormented him, asking him questions that he could not answer. He remembered wanting to answer, but something inside him had forbid him to speak and unfortunately, his silence had cost him dearly. It had cost him his identity and his integrity.
“Tony?’ Jenny called out to him. “Are you all right? Are you remembering something?”
Tony pulled away when he felt her hand on his arm. “Go away,” he rasped.
“Let me help you,” Jenny pleaded.
He scrambled against the door. “You knew. You knew what was…happening to me.”
“What? No Tony; it wasn’t like that.”
“You knew.”
“Tony, you’re confused. You’re mind is playing tricks on you.”
“Leave me alone!” he roared.
The door swung open and suddenly the commotion around him became too much for him to process. He could hear Abby demanding to know what the Director had done to him and Jimmy was repeatedly saying his name. Their voices were becoming muddled with the voices from his past and his ability to distinguish between realities was becoming next to impossible.
“Get back!”
The voice of reason broke through the fog of his mind. Gibbs! Gibbs was here and the former Marine would have his six; he had made a vow and right now, Tony had every intention of making the team leader keep his promise. Suddenly the cacophony of noise dissipated and a pair of strong arms were pulling him to his feet. “Boss,” he whispered.
“I’ve got you, DiNozzo,” Gibbs assured him. “Let’s get you inside.”
He vaguely recalled hearing the lead agent order Abby and Jimmy to stay with the Director. Tony held on to Gibbs’ arms for dear life as he shakily walked across the floor. “I know…I know who was…with Steve…”
Gibbs lowered him on to the cushion of the couch and then sat down beside him. His hands were trembling and his stomach was still queasy as he fought to gain control over his warring emotions. “I know, Gibbs. I can hear his voice; I don’t know his name, but I know his voice.”
“All right, Tony. You just take it easy and pull it together. I’ll be right back.”
“Where are you going?’
“To have a few words with the Director.”
Tony grabbed the team leader’s arm. “No! No! She knows who it is. She knows who was in there with me,” he informed the older man. “She kept trying to pull something out of me and then I had a flashback of some kind and I made the connection.”
“All right, take it easy,” Gibbs quietly urged. “Tell me what you remember.”
“The voice. He had an accent and I remember him having me against the wall, at least I think it was me,” Tony added. “I looked kind of different, but it was my face. I think I was coming out of an elevator and...” Confusion reigned in his mind as he attempted to make sense of the past and the present. “I don’t know. I can’t get it straight in my head.”
Gibbs shoved a glass of water in his hand and ordered him to drink. “Just relax, Tony. I’ll only be a minute and then we’re going to sort this all out.”
“I’m not sure I can.”
He felt his chin being tilted up until his eyes met the team leader’s own concerned gaze. “You’re not going to have to do it alone. I’ve got your six. Abby and Jimmy will be here if you need anything and I’ll be just outside the door.”
Tony lay back against the couch and closed his eyes, silently willing the memories to get back in the box that they had escaped from. He heard the door slam and knew that Director Shepard was about to be on the receiving end of Gibbs’ wrath, but he didn’t care. The young man found himself hoping that the former Marine would have her sniveling like a green recruit. Her extended presence had forced him to remember when he lacked the confidence to handle the memories that surfaced and now, she was going to have to answer to Gibbs. That realization brought a tiny smile to his face as he strained to listen to the argument now taking place on the front porch.
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