I can’t remember anything, baby girl. I mean, I know why I can’t remember anything now, but it’s still a little unsettling. It feels like yesterday that Mike retired. And it was nine years ago. Or, at least that’s what they told me.
Tony could barely handle the scared feeling that Gibbs’s words left with him. Thankfully, even post-coma Gibbs still got straight to the point.
I had to leave. I couldn’t do my job knowing that I’d forgotten so much. Tony’s in charge of the team now and, even though I don’t really remember working with him, I know he’ll do a good job.
There was no mention of his adventures in Mexico and Tony was a little upset he didn’t get to know what Gibbs did for those four months. But, he got some insight when the bossman came back to help Ziva.
How could I’ve left this job? I mean, besides the whole memory loss thing. Looking back on it now, I could’ve probably worked through that with some help.
That’s weird, huh? Me asking for help? I don’t think I do that very often. Even when I know I should.
Tony read through the night. He made it to just after Jenny’s death before the alarm went off. He couldn’t remember reading this much in such a short amount of time. Even in college he didn’t read this much.
Gibbs noticed how tired he was though, which wasn’t exactly good. No active case meant paperwork for cold cases and when Tony’s head fell onto his desk for the third time, the boss all but dragged him into the elevator. The doors closed after them and the switch was pulled the next second.
“DiNozzo,” Gibbs growled, “what’d ya think you’re doing? Don’t you have enough sense to sleep when you need to work?”
“Boss, I had to get as far as I could.”
“Why?”
That one word question and the weird stare that he couldn’t remember seeing Gibbs give anyone made Tony a split second away from spilling his guts. But, the silver-haired man held up his hand and started talking again.
“Never mind. Just answer this. How far you’d get?”
“Jenny just died. The alarm went off before I could finish your rant about Vance splitting us up.”
Gibbs sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. Tony was pretty sure that he heard a grumbled curse as he turned to pull the switch again.
I’m probably hearing things, Tony thought when he got back to his desk. Gibbs should be happy that I’m almost done prying.
He went back to typing quickly and hopefully appeared to be hard at work to the rest of the room. But he was actually typing an email to Abby.
He got as far as typing “I think I just screwed up horribly” before he realized that letting anyone know about his slip up would mean he’d have to explain the whole story. And he liked NCIS too much to cause an IAD fiasco. He deleted the message and got back to his actual work.
****************
Abby just gave me a deadline. I have to have Tony, Ziva, and Tim officially back in less than two weeks. I wanted to get them back before now but I already know that Vance doesn’t like me and I can’t do my job with him looking over my shoulder constantly. If I caused a fuss over them leaving, that would’ve happened.
Tony laughed. True. Very true.
And, just like the night before, he didn’t sleep. Tomorrow was Saturday and, if he finished it, he could have a chance to talk to Gibbs and then update his resume before going job hunting on Monday. He was bound to spill his guts when he showed up to return the journal and, after that, he would either be dead or jobless.
He hoped for neither but, when it came to Gibbs and his rules, those were the choices when anyone considered fiddling with the infamous number twelve.
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