Tony had changed into a snot-free suit, again one of his power suits. Gibbs didn’t care which unpronounceable designer it came from. Its charcoal gray color and elegant lines complimented the younger man’s body and the high-necked sweater added to the appeal. The ensemble had been chosen to impress and to bolster Tony’s confidence. Someday soon Gibbs would have to tell him that he thought the younger man looked best in old jeans and his Ohio sweatshirt.
At this time of the day they needed nearly an hour to reach St. Margareth’s, even with Gibbs’ nascar driving style. Enough time for Tony to relax a little bit and afterward still have time to clue his boss.
“So, tell me abut this school, what do I need to know?” Now that the younger man was fully awake, Gibbs took even less care about how he took the corners.
“St.Margareth’s is a prestigious all girls boarding school and was founded in 1976 by a religious order. It’s privately run but governmentally funded in part. The requirements for boarding are a combination of intelligence, handicap and, well, connections and money.” Tony shrugged his shoulders and checked the styling of his hair in the rear window.
“Rich man’s darling resort for children with special needs, whatever they might be.” Another driver had to jump on his brakes to avoid getting into Gibbs’ way, probably cussing at them violently.
Tony grinned. “Essentially, yes.” Then he sobered up and grimaced. “The girls are between five and fifteen. Sam has an educational fund so the fees were never the problem.”
A raised eyebrow encouraged him to elaborate. “My father’s preferred method of encouraging problems to just disappear, like unwanted deaf girls. Throw money at them as long as you don't have to do anything else.” The grimace deepened. “It’s more or less Sams’ attitude that causes friction with the teachers and other children. She’s not the daisies and dolls kinda girl. And, from what I heard, she has a problem with authority.”
“Look who’s talking.”
The younger man pouted and a very attractive pout it was. Gibbs wasn’t sure if he should be happy to have the old Tony back. The playful banter was delightful as ever, but it was also one of the younger man’s main weapons in his arsenal of deflection.
“Come on boss, I do follow your orders. I am the picture of an obedient Agent.”
“Uh uhm. Pull the other one.” Well, Tony did follow orders. He just tended to put his own spin on things. “The principal?”
“Met her two times, hates my guts. Seems like Mrs. Patricia Reynolds isn’t vulnerable to the famous DiNozzo charm. We met, we looked at each other, we talked, we agreed to disagree about everything.” Tony indicated that they should take the next turn. “School isn’t far from the the National Cathedral. Sam was never the teacher’s pet but after her mum died she started acting up.” Tony paused and Gibbs wondered if he was drawing parallels to his own childhood. “She thought more strictness and a clearly structured schedule would be better than … well, attention from the new father with his crazy work hours.”
“Hm.” Gibbs was all for clear structures but from what little he had seen girl and man seemed to have bonded quite well without whatever Reynolds had deemed to be appropriate. Tony had been able to deal with the temper tantrum and Sam obviously trusted him. “Let’s wait and see.”
Gibbs let himself sink into the case mind-frame that would allow him to project menace and calmness.
They reached the school. A pimple faced teenager greeted them at the entrance and led them to the principal’s office.
Reynolds was a gray haired, very fashionable older woman in a mauve suit. “Mr. DiNozzo, Mr-?” she raised her eyebrows.
“Principal Reynolds, let me introduce you to Special Agent Gibbs. He was nice enough to accompany me to this meeting.”
She inclined her head and judging by her pinched expression she was anything but happy to see him. “Agent Gibbs, welcome at St. Margareth’s even if it is not under the best of circumstances. Please, follow me.” She turned on her heel and lead them into her office.
Gibbs silent presence was clearly unnerving the two women. The secretary, a middle aged woman with a stylish short hair cut had taken up position behind her employer and gave her own, in comparison, far less menacing support.
They were offered seats but no refreshments and Mrs Reynolds seemed to be in a hurry to try to solve the dispute.
“You asked for the phone, here it is.”
Gibbs’ refusal to deal with anything related to modern technology was legendary. Nearly as legendary as the short life span of his cell phones. Sometimes his agents weren’t really all that bright. Reboot indeed. He was the one responsible for signing of on their expense reports and therefore knew how many he trashed. Most modern doodads were beyond him but he knew a dead cell phone when he saw one. Just because the team leader preferred to keep McGee on his toes and occupied didn’t mean he couldn’t change a cell phone chip if he needed to. Gibbs just normally didn’t want to.
The defensive attitude of Mrs Reynolds wasn’t endearing her to either Agent. She wasn’t comfortable at all with the situation and the last thing he wanted was for her to accuse DiNozzo of manipulating the evidence. That she had asked her secretary to stay in the room was telling. If she wanted to treat this as a threat against her and her school’s reputation, and that was his guess for her motivation, he wouldn’t give her ammunition. After her fuck up with Sam, Gibbs wasn’t going to cut her any slack anyway, so he pulled out his latex gloves and reached for the ruined communication device. “Let’s take a look.”
Reynolds glared at them icily. “Don’t you think that this is blowing things completely out of proportion, Agent Gibbs? Don't make a federal case out of this and don’t tell me you have nothing better to do but investigate an eight year old girl’s cell phone.”
He just looked at her and removed the back of the cell phone. The casing was battered and had cracks. Someone had done a number on the poor phone but the chip appeared to be intact. For the girl to make up the elaborate scheme of stealing Sam's phone, trashing it and then claiming that Sam had been the one to do the stealing and trashing, she must have held quite the grudge.
“Nobody tried to open the phone?”
“Mr.” She stressed the title, “DiNozzo, this is really quite ridiculous.”
“I find it frankly quite troubling that you seem to be the one here not taking the situation seriously.”
“It was a school dispute gone out of hand. I called Sophie-Ann’s parents. We came to the consensus that it would be best for all concerned to forget about the incident.” Reynolds tried to smile but it didn’t look very convincing.
Tony glared at her. “Yeah, I can believe that Mr. Gerard Coultier of Cormmain & Coultier would want that, because this is clearly the phone I got for my daughter and the chip will prove it. But you still miss my point.” Gibbs noted the unusual grim and tense expression his second in command hardly ever showed. Tony had clearly decided to forego the ‘use honey to catch flies method’ he normally favoured. David and McGee would be surprised to see him now.
A faint hint of color could be seen creeping into the Principals pale face. “Which point would that be?” she asked condescendingly.
.
Gibbs would take bets that she would have never have expected such opposition from DiNozzo when compared to the stink a rich business mogul could cause about his princess’ good name. She was revising her opinion now.
“I could care less about the classroom fight. Don’t get me wrong, I won’t stand for my daughter being called a thief and, looking at the state of the phone in question, vandalism as well. The real issue is you neglecting to keep her safe.” Tony leaned forward. “An eight year old girl alone in the middle of DC when she should have been secure inside these walls ��" no, not minor thing at all.”
“I told her she was being suspended and sent her out of the room. Michelle called the contact number for someone to fetch her.”
Michelle Juniper nodded. “The man on the other end told me he would come within the hour.”
Both agents’ heads flew up. Until now Gibbs had thought that it had been a misunderstanding.
“Once again, I never got a call today. I First knew that something happened when I saw my daughter, accompanied by a complete stranger, waiting for me at work.”
“She must have decided to go seek you independently and left the building.”
“To be picked up by a kind taxi driver when she was standing, alone, in front of your school. It could have been a child molester instead and you didn’t even know she left. She used the emergency money and address I gave to her. And that sounds all right to you?!?”
Reynolds fiddled with her pen. “We are a school, Mr DiNozzo, not a prison. Michelle told her to wait for you to arrive; Sempera must have slipped away when my assistant turned her back. We searched for her.” Her hands clenched around the expensive expensive writing tool. “It didn’t occur to us that she would do something like running away, we thought she was hiding.” The woman put down the pen hard enough to produce a hard clacking sound. “Mr. DiNozzo-“
“Agent DiNozzo.” Gibbs coldly interrupted her and his tone of voice was insistent. He did not like where this was going. His gut was clenching since she mentioned that phone call Tony never got.
She looked as if she had bitten into something very unpleasant. “Very well Agent DiNozzo. I am aware that, with your new responsibility for your daughter, you must be unaccustomed to dealing with the more unpleasant aspects of child care.”
“And you should be aware that, as a Senior Federal Agent, I know better than most what could have happened to my daughter!”
She opened the hard copy of Sam’s file she obviously had prepared beforehand and looked down and then up again, fixating on DiNozzo.
“Now, you will listen! We were very accommodating, we allowed you to visit your daughter whenever you wanted after her mother’s death- which is not something that is allowed normally!- we let you remove Sempera from this school for supervised meetings off campus to get to know her and bond with her.” Her flat hand slammed down on the file. “But your insistence that you didn’t get the call this midday, probably to force us to overlook Sempera’s misdeeds, goes too far!”
DiNozzo had gone cold and stiff as stone. Tony studied the file from where he sat; Gibbs knew that one of his skills was reading upside down. Tony’s hand disappeared into his pocket and removed his cell, he put it slowly and with calm deliberation onto the desk. The Principal eyed him like a mouse that had expected to face off against a gerbil and met a cat instead. Then Tony pulled out a piece of paper, snatched the pen and wrote down numbers.
“Pick up your phone, call this number, see who answers. I only have this one phone, I always have it with me and I am never, ever unreachable. Ask the office, it is registered to my name.” He leaned forward. “I was there when Sam’s contact information was updated. The one you have as first choice for contact in emergency situations-“ he gestured in direction of the file. “is not mine.”
The Principal did what he told her to do and then stared at the device which began its rendition of an old Sinatra song. She had gone gray in the face.
“Michelle, did you use a name when you called this number? Sempera’s or Mr.- eh, Agent DiNozzo’s?” she hopefully asked the other woman.
“Eh… No, I did not. I don’t think so at least, I cannot remember because, well, Sam was pestering me and shouldn’t the father know what I meant when I told him that his daughter…” The assistant nervously played with the cuffs of her blouse.
“I still cannot believe that there is something sinister going on here. It was, most probably, simply a mix up with another pupil’s file. But we will look into this and take action.” She stood up, clearly wanting to close this conversation.
“So will I.” Tony's tone was icyly professional.
Gibbs and his second in command rose too, Tony was slightly trembling, the only outward sign that he was very agitated.
“Mrs Reynolds, it might be a mix up, to be frank, I want it desperately to be a mix up. Because, if it isn’t then it is very likely that Sam’s running away and not waiting for whoever Ms Juniper called prevented her being abducted. Think about that for a moment!”
The older agent didn’t want to believe that a school principal could be so wilfully blind, after being given evidence that it was not, as she first thought, a case of a father wanting to bully her into overlooking a child’s misdeed. She had the responsibility for dozens of children.
“I do take this seriously. I agree, it looks suspicious and I will take the appropriate steps.” If her back had been one smidgen stiffer she would have been the ideal picture of an military officer facing his CO. “I will make sure that the proper authorities are made aware of the situation and investigate it post-haste and in depth. I won't let a threat to my pupils go unanswered and unsolved. I apologize for the awful situation and my assumptions but I have to ask you to leave so I can make some calls.”
Gibbs discreetly touched the younger man at the small of his back to help him focus and calm him down, he knew that the women couldn’t see what he was doing, to them it might look like he was reaching for the chair. He then glared at the principal when she made an attempt to stop him picking up the destroyed phone, still wearing his gloves, and pocketing it.
“You can always tell those ‘authorities’ that Agent Gibbs from NCIS has taken it with him, if they come to regard it as evidence.” Gibbs said. He silently began to make plans in his head.
“I will make sure that you are informed as soon as there is something to share or if your input is needed. But now I have to ask you both to leave. I would assume that you want to be near your daughter, given the circumstances?”
“You assume correctly. We will be in touch.” Tony turned around and strode out of the room, for once not waiting for his boss to take the lead.
Without having the backing of being in charge of a case they couldn’t do more at the moment but ensure Sam’s safety. They hurried back to their car. Tony was speaking into his phone as soon as they were outside. Unsurprisingly it was Ducky he called.
“Ducky, you’re still with Sam?” he asked urgently and his relieved sigh telegraphed the nature of the given answer. “Don’t let her out of your sight, not for one moment, please.” He listened and then grimaced. “Might, yes. We don’t know for sure. We’re coming back as soon as we can.” Tony closed the phone and looked at Gibbs with worried eyes. “Please tell me I’m overreacting.”
“Would love to, but no.” Gibbs took Tony’s hand and pressed it reassuringly. “But I’ll tell you what I’ll do.” He pulled out his own phone and threw the car keys to Tony. “Drive. I call Vance. And recall the team. We don’t know much and there’s the chance that it has something to do with her mother, which puts it clearly in the jurisdiction of NCIS. My jurisdiction.”
.-#-.
Splash! Only his superb reflexes saved Special Agent Gibbs’ shirt from being soaked with fruit juice and the can met the wall behind him harmlessly, clattering to the floor. Liquid dribbled out and formed a sad frizzing puddle.
Tony had entered just in time to see the last act of the drama. His growling girl and his boss faced off over poor Dr. Mallard’s desk. Ducky was standing at the side, staring at gray haired man and child in turn.
“Hey, anyone want to clue me in?” Tony was happy to see his daughter safe and sound but this was not a scene he had expected. They had returned to the yard and separated. Gibbs to go down here and Tony to follow nature’s very insistent call. That had given those two menaces three minutes head start. Gibbs looked at him, calling Sam’s attention to his arrival.
“I have no idea Anthony, they signed something and Sempera ��" well, you’ve seen.” Ducky fiddled with his glasses. “She has been very patient with me but one hour of learning sign language is not enough to understand maestros at the art. You have to ask them, I’m afraid.
“I don’t know either DiNozzo. She blew up at me.” Gibbs was generally hard to read. His agent had to catch the tightness of his shoulders and the carefully modulated voice to draw conclusions. “You have to ask her yourself. She looks like she’s going to throw something else if I try.”
Tony had grown accustomed to being greeted with enthusiastic hugs but at the moment he was reminded of the suspicious stares and anxious glares of their first meetings. Sam was standing there, trembling, with her hands balled to fists at her side.
“Sam?” He rounded the desk and crouched down in front of her. “Why? You could have hurt him, you know?”
Instead of answering him she crossed her arms and looked down mulishly. Tony felt as helpless as the one time he went with her to the zoo and she did something similar to a little boy who had ridiculed her because of her deafness. It hadn’t been fun then either, trying to keep Sam from compensating with her fists for her frustration at not being understood when she signed wildly and apologizing to the mother of the boy. It had been quite the scene and he doubted that his stuttered and halting lecture about violence not being a good solution for problems had fallen on fertile ground afterwards. Parenting books made it sound easy. OK; no gawking crowd, no disapproving mother here, he had time. “Sempera Danielle Peltier.” He finger-spelled.
A heart-braking howl split the air and Sam threw herself against him, pulling at his sleeve and frantically signing.
‘Michelle was angry and Sophie-Ann said they will put me in jail no one would care, nobody believed me and he’ ��" she glared venomously at Gibbs ‘took you away - You weren’t there when I woke up and I feared that the principal would tell you I am a thief too and you would believe her and leave me as well. And I woke up and you weren’t there, and I thought…’ She hiccupped. “And then he came back alone and-.”
Oh oh. Some issues rearing their ugly heads. Tony caught her small fingers in his hands to still them and mouthed ‘breath’ to her until she calmed down again. “He helped me; I didn't go with him, he went with me. And I believed you when you told me about the phone, I told you before. Ducky showed you the letter, didn’t he?”
She nodded but still glared at Gibbs. Grey-green eyes glanced at Tony from under wet lashes. ‘He is mean,' she signed.
Ah well, this was not the time for ‘Second B is for Bastard’ quips.
“Not to little girls, he's not.” A glance in Gibbs’ direction showed him that the other man had come sneakily nearer, observing the interaction between them. Tony saw no judgement in his eyes. The older man didn’t interfere so maybe Tony was doing something right? But he could do with some pointers.
‘He is.’ She stomped her foot. ‘He was rude.’ Maybe a teeny bit of diplomacy would help.
“Ah well, he can come across as rude, but still, I like him.” Tony dared a sneak peek up at his boss. Gibbs lips were twitching. “What was he rude about?”
Sam sniffled pathetically. And loudly. Sugar and spice and everything nice? Poets should have included snot in the rhyme. Tony pulled out a fresh hanky and offered it to his daughter. Hey, he was teachable and now he had some use for the pack of fine designer hankies his cousin Pete had sent him for Christmas, even if it would make some sales man weep if he could guess what they were used for. That didn’t mean that he knew what to do with them afterwards, now he had two to his collection. Maybe he should carry one of the evidence bags in his pocket.
‘He didn’t ask permission.’
“Permission?”
‘To use my special name-sign!’ She made the eternal sign with her right hand.
“I use it and-“
Another stomp. ‘You are my daddy, you are allowed. The’ a gesture combining the sign for bird, cloth and straw ‘I can do nothing about.’ Sam nodded at Ducky. ‘He asked for permission. And I like him.’ The last words was signed with heavy emphasis and she glowered at Gibbs, the in contrast to unsaid but not unheard between them.
Ouch, that was likely to hurt. Tony repeated the mysterious second name-sign and looked at Gibbs catching his attention and drawing him into the discussion. Just his luck that the one child not falling for the charms of his enigmatic boss turned out to be his daughter. Murphy must be laughing his head off somewhere.
“I think she means a scarecrow.”
“The principal.” Tony took a guess and groaned. What to do… “Ok.” He unbent and could nearly hear his knees protesting. “Sam? He only saw me using the eternal sign and he didn’t know that it has special meaning for you.”
‘My mum told me that she called me Sempera, that it was her very special name for her and me so I would always know that she loves me even if she isn’t always there. And that I should be very proud of having such a very special name and not anybody could have it.’ Tony was far better at understanding than signing so he could follow the agitated and defensive gestures. His darling daughter with her snotty nose and untidy hair resembled an agitated porcupine, all defensive and ready to form a ball of spikes.
Come to think of it, he hadn’t known how serious the little girl took the name issue either.
“That still does not make it ok for you to throw something.’ The raised chin and angry eyes didn’t look promising. He looked at the other adults in the room, beseeching them with his eyes for a hint at what to do. The doctor was smiling back at him and looked pointedly at Gibbs, who had raised his eyebrow and gave no other clue as to what he wanted Tony to do, the bastard.
Hell, at the moment he could draw definite comparisons between the gray haired man’s stubborn silence and his little menace’s stubborn expression. They had to learn to accept each other and they could start with it now.
“Sam, you will apologize for throwing that can and you will ask Dr. Mallard to show you where his cleaning supplies are stored. It was very nice of him to look after you and you do not want to repay him with a sticky floor. You caused it, you clean it.” Something must have penetrated because Sam wrinkled her nose. The girl turned, gazed at the mess on the floor and then at her host and nodded reluctantly. She didn’t want to offend her new friend.
“You two? Sort it out, what to call each other and what-not. Without punches.” That was directed at Sam. “Or I will be very, very disappointed. I think we have enough problems without surliness contests.” Now both were staring at him, Gibbs definitely amused and Sam surprised. “My mother always said that an honest private apology was worth two public ones. I will wait outside the door. Have fun!” Hah, that took care of the amusement.
Tony waved and turned to leave the office, he didn’t know why, something was niggling in the back of his head, but he got the impression that his presence wouldn’t help. With Gibbs as company Sam couldn’t be safer. He just hoped Gibbs was safe as well with Sam.
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