Tony’s first birthday with NCIS passed unnoticed, a fact Abby realised when he walked into her lab with a dozen black roses (which he’d been assured she would love).
“Hey, Tony, when’s your birthday?” she asked idly, placing the roses in a vase of water. Tony couldn’t help noticing the three other vases already strategically placed around the lab. “It must be coming up soon • I mean you’ve been here nearly a year and we haven’t celebrated it yet.”
“I don’t celebrate my birthday, Abbs.” Tony said, his voice and body language telling Abby that this was not a topic he wanted to discuss.
“How can you not celebrate your birthday? Birthdays are amazing! You get lots of presents, and everyone has to be nice to you and…” Abby’s voice trailed off as she realised Tony had become even more tense than before, his expression stony. But it was the look in his eyes that almost brought tears to hers, a look that managed to be bleak, weary and defeated all at the same time. She was a highly empathetic person by nature anyway, but something had clicked between her and Tony from the first time they met, and the look in her friend’s eyes tore at her heart. “Tony?” she whispered, reaching towards him, forgetting that he didn’t like to be touched • something she’d discovered the first ten or so times she’d tried to hug him.
Tony put a hand up to ward her off and backed away. “I … I gotta go, Abbs. Gibbs’ll be wondering where I am. I’m sorry … I’m sorry my present wasn’t more original…” With that he fled from the lab leaving her shocked and even closer to tears than before. When Gibbs strode in five minutes later, jumbo Caf-Pow in hand, she couldn’t stop those tears from falling.
“Abby? What’s wrong • Dinozzo said you needed to see me right away.” Gibbs put the Caf-Pow on the desk and took Abby in his arms, trying to comfort her.
“Tony, he… Gibbs, I didn’t know… Tony…” she sobbed. Gibbs’ arms tightened around her.
“Dinozzo did this to you?” he asked, his voice tight.
“No!” Abby pulled herself out of Gibbs’ arms, hoping to calm the ex-marine down before he stormed off to no doubt commit mayhem against the man he thought had hurt Abby. “Well, yes, but he didn’t mean it. And I hurt him first. I don’t know how I did, but I did. And I don’t know how to fix it, and you’ve got to help me fix it, Gibbs.”
Gibbs smiled slightly, relaxing a bit at Abby’s rambling. “Abby, slow down • let’s take it from the top. What happened?”
Abby took a deep breath. “Tony brought me roses for my birthday. Oh, Gibbs, now he thinks I don’t like them, and I don’t want him to think that, ‘cause I do and I know that everyone always gets me black roses for my birthday but this is different…”
“Abbs!” Gibbs gripped her arms to try and get her back on track.
“Oh, right. Anyway, I asked him when his birthday was and he said he didn’t celebrate his birthday and I asked him how he could not celebrate his birthday and, oh, Gibbs, the look in his eyes • it was so sad…” her voice trailed off as she remembered the look. “Gibbs, what should I do?”
Gibbs sighed. He knew that Tony’s reaction had something to do with his childhood • a childhood Tony never discussed, and that Gibbs knew very little about. Even the extensive background check he had conducted when Tony joined NCIS failed to turn up much beyond the bare facts, and Tony had made it clear more than once that the topic was out of bounds. “Give him some room, Abbs. If I know Dinozzo, tomorrow it’ll be like nothing happened.”
“But…”
“Abby, he made it clear he doesn’t want to talk about it. You have to respect that if you want to be his friend. All you can do is be there for him if he ever does want to talk about it.”
Abby frowned mutinously, but the next day, when Tony came down to the lab smiling and joking, she bit her tongue and didn’t say a word about what had happened the day before. When she saw the look of relief in his eyes, she knew Gibbs had been right.
Author's Chapter Notes:
"Things do not change; we change." Henry David Thoreau - Tony doesn't celebrate his birthday.