Tony had read through nearly fifteen years of Gibbs’s past when the thought of the team finding out crossed his mind. When it did, he considered putting the journal back and never reading it again. But, the desire to know how the man he loved felt about him won out over the logic that that same man would find out and probably send him off to be Agent Afloat again, if he didn’t just kill him on the spot.
He was actually kind of surprised the others hadn’t already figured it out. Ziva once said that he couldn’t keep what he had for breakfast a secret and finding out the demise of the fourth marriage of their fearless leader was much more important than that.
Stephanie blames me but I have no idea how it could be my fault. How was supposed to know that she’d lose the baby.
****************
He picked up the journal that night after work and was surprised to find what he did.
Tony is so freaking childish and sometimes downright annoying. He makes jokes at crime scenes for Pete’s sake. I don’t think he could have a serious conversation if his life depended on it.
Tony nearly dropped the journal. Gibbs hates…me? He shook his head in disbelief. That can’t be it. Maybe he just hated all of us at the beginning.
He read through his first case with Gibbs, stopping himself from being too offended at some of the things he read. It was nearly ten years ago. He should at least be able to tolerate me now.
He got through Vivian, Kate, and Tim’s first few weeks with Gibbs and he didn’t sense anger or annoyance once. But, then he read through the few weeks before Kate’s death and the wheels in his head stopped turning towards how he would phrase his resignation letter.
Tony almost died today. Somebody sent a letter with a virus in it to the office and he was too much of a pigheaded idiot to give it to me. He got the plague because of it.
As he read more of the events that happened outside of that observation room, Tony’s eyes were opened. Gibbs doesn’t hate me. He told me that I wasn’t allowed to die because he wanted to keep me around, not just because he didn’t want to have to train a new agent.
He’d just begun reading through Ziva’s first day when his phone rang. He wiped at his eyes " still trying to get over Gibbs’s thoughts on Kate’s death " before answering.
“Hello?”
“Tony!” Abby said excitedly. “Guess what I just learned?”
He sighed. “I don’t know, Abbs. What?”
“Gibbs is coming home early!”
If Tony had been getting closer to sleep with every word he read a second ago, he was wide awake now.
“What? When is he supposed to get back?”
“I dunno. The next couple hours. He called me and told me his plane was about to take off and that he would probably be at work tomorrow.” Abby paused for a second. “Why do I get the feeling that you aren’t happy for him to be coming back?”
“It’s nothing, Abby. I just thought he’d be gone for a few more days, that’s all.”
It was Abby’s turn to sigh. “Fine. I’ll take that answer…for now. But, mark my words, DiNozzo, I will get the truth eventually.”
He chuckled. “If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be the Abby we all love so much, would you?”
“Okay, I’ll let you go. I still have to call Tim and Ziva to tell them they won’t have to deal with your version of the Gibbs slap anymore, they’ll have the real thing tomorrow.”
“Night, Abbs.”
He hung up and leaned back in the chair he’d been sitting in. Gibbs is coming home, he thought. At that thought, he jumped out of the chair, grabbed his keys and the journal, and ran down to his car. Gibbs coming home meant he had to put the journal back if he 1) still wanted his head and 2) still wanted his job.
So to Gibbs’s house he went. He just hoped that he had enough time to ditch the journal and leave before his boss got back.
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