Chapter 4 – Day of Reckoning: In Which Tony Learns about Mikey's Future
When Gibbs returned to the van, he was angry.
"What the hell happened, DiNozzo?" he yelled. "You had your gun on him; why didn't you pull the trigger?"
"I honestly don't know, boss," Tony replied. "I think the Change was already working. I couldn't help it." He looked down at his feet miserably.
Gibbs glared. "If you're not going to be stable, there are a lot of things we have to think about. Right now we need to get back to the office and begin processing this case."
It took hours, most of the next two days in fact, to process all the perps, interrogate them, and arrange for arraignments. More hours were spent examining evidence. Fortunately, the operation had gone so smoothly that no one was even injured, which meant there was no work for Dr. Mallard in autopsy. He joined Abby in her lab, helping her when there was something he could do. She was very busy.
One afternoon Gibbs stopped in front of DiNozzo's desk. "We need to talk."
"Yeah, sure, boss," Tony replied.
"We can't discuss this in the building."
"No, boss."
A while later they sat in Gibbs' car in a parking space at a fast food restaurant, chewing on hamburgers and fries. Tony seemed to be having some trouble swallowing despite his fondness for this type of cuisine.
Once the food was history, Gibbs turned to look at DiNozzo. "So, do you know why you Changed at that particular moment?"
"No, boss," DiNozzo replied with his eyes down." I don't know. Best I can come up with is that it was an automatic response to fear."
He looked up at Gibbs. "I know what that means." He paused while Gibbs waited, saying nothing. "Uh, if I'm going to Change every time I get scared, my career as a field agent is over."
Gibbs still sat silent.
"I'll turn in my resignation as soon as we wrap up the case," Tony stated quietly, looking out the window.
Gibbs signed heavily. "I don't want to lose you as an agent. You're too damned good for that to happen."
"I thought I had it under control, boss. Obviously, I don't. You won't be able to rely on me whenever you or I or anyone else on the team is in danger."
Gibbs looked at him with eyes that for once were not hard. "I have to think about this, DiNozzo. In the meantime, let's get back to work and wrap this thing up."
It wasn't until Friday afternoon, almost time to go home for the weekend, that the Director called Gibbs and his team, including Ducky and Abby, to her office. She said nothing as they filed in and found seats. For several minutes she sat silently in her chair, her arms folded across her chest, staring at them. Finally, she unfolded her arms and glanced at a file on her desk, then looked up at Gibbs.
"You can't deny it like you did the last time I asked you," she said to him. "There was a witness. In fact, there were several witnesses."
Gibbs' only response was to lift his eyebrows.
"Ziva, tell me again what happened," she commanded.
Ziva cleared her throat and sat up a little straighter in her seat. "The bartender drew on Tony, and Tony disappeared. Then there was a cat. If Tony had been standing there, the bartender's bullet would have hit him in the chest."
"Do you know what happened to Tony?"
"No."
"Have you ever seen the cat before?"
"I think so, yes. If it was the same cat, it came into the squad room one day and was staring at me. Like it was teasing me." She looked over at Tony as if challenging him to deny what she said. He looked back at her with an unreadable expression and said nothing.
"And what happened in the bar after Tony ‘disappeared' and you saw the cat?"
"Gibbs told McGee to get the cat out of there."
"Did McGee do that?"
"Yes, Jen."
"Have you seen the cat since then?"
"No, Jen."
Shepard turned once again to Gibbs, who was watching with a trace of a smile on his face.
"Well, Gibbs? It seems you lied to me before. You have been using a cat as an agent."
"No, ma'am," he said with aplomb. "There is no cat."
"Do you deny that Ziva saw what she says she saw?" the director sputtered.
"No, ma'am." Gibbs shook his head.
"Then how do you explain the cat?"
"The cat is Tony. In his cat form we call him Mikey."
Tony was scrunched down in his chair looking miserable.
Dr. Mallard spoke up. "If it's all right with young Anthony, perhaps I can explain the situation."
Tony shrugged slightly.
"It all began long before you or Officer Ziva came to NCIS," he went on. "Agents Gibbs and DiNozzo were trying to arrest a suspect. The suspect rushed Agent DiNozzo, and as he did, he…well…hard as it is to believe…in mid leap he turned into a wolf. A werewolf."
"There is no such thing as a werewolf, Dr. Mallard," Jenny said with ice in her voice. "They are creatures of myth and imagination."
"Of course," Ducky hastened to assure her. "Except that Jethro and Anthony saw the transformation themselves, and you certainly wouldn't call them backward or superstitious, now would you?"
"Is that true, Jethro? You saw someone…a person…being transformed into a wolf?" Shepard asked.
"Yes, ma'am, I did," Gibbs replied, lifting his eyebrows again. "But there's more to the story."
"Go on," she ordered.
"Tony was unable to avoid the werewolf. It landed on top of him and bit his wrist severely. Then it got away. Obviously, so did the suspect. Not only was Tony hospitalized for treatment of his wounds, he had to receive shots against rabies. That's in his medical file if you don't believe me."
The director's expression was a mixture of disbelief and anger. "Where's the suspect now?"
"He was later shot in human form during an arrest by other LEOs and died without regaining consciousness."
Dr. Mallard picked up the story. "Jethro and Anthony came to me for help because they weren't sure whether the myths were true about a bitten person being infected with…whatever it is…and becoming a were-animal themselves. We prepared carefully for the next full moon. I won't go into all the details, but suffice it to say that Tony was infected and did Change, only he became a werecat instead of a werewolf."
Shepard sat silently, absorbing the information. "How do I know this isn't some elaborate story the three of you have cooked up to…to…have me on?"
"Perhaps Anthony wouldn't mind demonstrating," Ducky suggested.
Shepard turned her gaze to DiNozzo. "I'm willing to be convinced, even though I still think this is just a crock."
"I saw it happen too," Ziva reminded her.
"There was a lot going on in that bar," Jenny replied, implying, to Ziva's discomfort, that maybe she hadn't really seen what she thought she saw. "DiNozzo?"
Tony wriggled a little in his seat and got a faraway look in his eyes. As the others watched, the air around his body began to shimmer like the disturbance heat creates in the summertime. Gradually the shimmer became hazy and opaque, spreading out to conceal all of Tony's body. Suddenly it disappeared without a sound. DiNozzo had disappeared as well, leaving his clothes on his chair in a limp heap with Mikey sitting on top of them.
Shepard and David both looked at Mikey with amazement, their mouths open. The others looked smug, their point having been proved.
"I remember you," Ziva cried. "You *are* the one who came to my desk that day."
"DiNozzo?" the director asked. Mikey jumped from the chair onto the director's desk with a loud meow. He sat down in front of her, his tail waving.
"No need to think you can take liberties, young man," Shepard told the cat. Mikey lifted a paw, showing half-extended claws, which caused Shepard to draw back.
Jethro had a mirthless smile on his face. "I take it you're convinced that Tony is a werecat," he asked her.
She hesitated before answering. "Yes, I guess I have to be in light of the evidence, although it's difficult to believe." She looked at TonyCat. "Now can you Change back?"
"I'm not sure you want to witness that," Ducky stated. "You'll notice that his clothes dropped off when he Changed into Mikey, and if he were to Change back now, he'd be naked."
"Abby, stop drooling," Gibbs muttered under his breath.
"Gibbs!" she hissed back.
Shepard thought a moment. "He can use my private bathroom to Change back." She got up and opened the door to the room. Mikey followed her but stopped in the doorway. "Meow?" he asked.
"Give him his clothes, McGee," ordered Gibbs. McGee jumped up and after dropping Tony's clothes in the bathroom, stepped out again and closed the door behind him. The group sat in silence for a couple of minutes until the bathroom door opened again and a fully-clothed Tony stepped out.
The silence continued after Tony sat down while everyone waited for Director Shepard to say something.
She was staring at Tony with a speculative look in her narrowed eyes.
Finally, she took a breath, clasping her hands together on top of her desk.
"This is extraordinary," she stated. "Do we have to reconsider all the old myths and stories?"
"Ahem," began Ducky. "I think we ought not to dismiss them out of hand, having had our own little demonstration of the veracity of at least one of those myths. However, we still don't have any information on any other such myths. As you know, the origins of myths go back to the time before humans learned to write using symbols for language. We humans love to tell stories"—his listeners exchanged meaningful glances—"but without a means of recording them permanently, they are subject to mutation. There may well be truth behind all of the myths we're aware of, but even truth is mutable, and inevitably it's been changed over the millennia."
"Like the old game of telephone," Abby interjected.
"Exactly," Ducky confirmed.
"That's all very interesting, Dr. Mallard," Shepard said, "but we need to consider what to do about Agent DiNozzo and his…gift—or is it a curse?"
All eyes turned once more to Tony.
"I've been reluctant to use that gift," Gibbs stated, "but it has been useful."
"How many times?" Shepard queried.
"Twice; this last case and the Jody Silverton case."
"Yes," Shepard said, nodding. "That's when I first started hearing about a…hmm…feline agent." She paused. "What is the reason for your reluctance, Jethro?"
"I feel we should be able to solve cases without using extraordinary means. There's no question that using Tony, in his undercover guise of Mikey, was useful in those cases. One of Tony's strong points as an agent has been his ability to go undercover, but we've never had an advantage like this before, and we've still had the same degree of success. And if for some reason Tony has to leave NCIS…well, we'll still have to go back to the normal way of investigating." He stopped for a moment to consider his next statement. "And that brings up another problem."
"And that is?" Shepard asked.
Tony himself was the one to respond. "I'm not sure why I Changed at the bar. It may have been a fear response to the threat. Since I became a werecat, I've never faced a direct threat like that."
"And if you're going to Change automatically every time you perceive a threat…" the director began, catching his drift immediately..
"I'll be worthless as a field agent," Tony concluded unhappily.
"Dr. Mallard?" Shepard turned to the ME. "You're as much of an expert on werewolves as we have here. What are we going to do with TonyCat?"
Ducky straightened up and went into lecture mode again. "I'm not sure that it's really going to be that much of a problem. Anthony was startled by Harry's threat at the bar, and obviously the were element in his body responded automatically. However, don't forget that originally, when he was first bitten, he had no idea of any of the properties of his new status. He worked diligently, and ultimately successfully, to learn how to Change at will, and I have no doubt that he will be able to learn to control this seemingly automatic response to being startled and threatened."
Dr. Mallard turned to Tony. "Isn't it true that you have very specific indications of when the Change is beginning?"
"Yeah," Tony replied. "So what you're saying is that, if I'm in a situation like that again, I should be aware of the Change starting and can learn to control the response and prevent it from happening?"
"Exactly," Dr. Mallard exclaimed, beaming triumphantly.
Shepard looked skeptical. "There's no guarantee, is there?"
"No, no, of course not," Ducky answered, "life doesn't come with a five-year warranty, like a refrigerator, but if Anthony was able to learn to Change at will, I have no doubt that he can extend that control, through practice, to prevent himself from Changing when it isn't prudent to do so."
Both Gibbs and Shepard had looks of doubt on their faces.
"Don't we agree," Dr. Mallard argued, "that Anthony DiNozzo is an excellent special agent, a talented detective, not to mention a good and wonderful man? He has more gifts and abilities than just being a were-animal. In short, he's an asset to NCIS, as well as to his friends and colleagues here. Let's give him a chance to continue to learn about his strange and unsolicited gift—I refuse to consider it a curse, although I'm sure, if he could, he would give it back. Are we going to discard him just because it's a difficult thing for *us* to deal with? Think of what he's going through!"
Gibbs leaned forward, putting his hand on Tony's arm and clearing his throat. "Ducky's right, ma'am."
Tony looked at Ducky. His eyes were sparkling with unusual brightness. "Thank you, Dr. Mallard," he said in a quiet but gruff voice. He was deeply touched by the doctor's eloquent defense of both his were-ness and his humanity.
There was a long pause. During Dr. Mallard's impassioned speech, Abby, who had tears in her eyes as well, had taken Tony's hand and squeezed it firmly. McGee and Ziva were also visibly shaken.
Director Shepard stared at Tony for several long seconds. "You're absolutely right, Doctor," she said. "In light of DiNozzo's long and extremely valuable service to the Agency up to now, we owe him the benefit of the doubt." She looked back at Dr. Mallard. "However, we're dealing with something none of us really understands. I want you to continue working with him, Doctor. Make sure that this…this gift…of his is under control and that it's never used inappropriately."
She turned to Tony. "I expect you to make every effort to follow through with Dr. Mallard on this."
"You can count on it, Ma'am," Tony responded.
The director continued, "That being said, like Jethro, I am not in favor of using the supernatural to deal with situations in the here and now, and this incident provides at least one very good reason not to. I'm not going to say that the agency will *never* make use of Mikey in the future, but for now we will continue to do our investigating in the old-fashioned way. And of course, when I say old-fashioned, I mean with all the means that modern criminological technology has to offer us." She nodded to Abby.
Shepard went on, "If at some time in the future there is an occasion when having Mikey go under cover can be useful for some reason, we *may* consider it. However, I expect those occasions to be rare, and any such operations will have to be cleared with me first. We'll also have to take every precaution to insure that Mikey isn't exposed to any extra danger, not to mention the rest of the team or civilians."
The team let out a collective sigh of relief, not realizing that they had been holding their collective breaths.
Before they could relax, though, there was another issue the director wanted to deal with. "What about Harry, the bartender? Do we have any reason to believe that he's been infected with the were element?"
Dr. Mallard answered, "I'm not sure. The myths talk about the *bite* of the werewolf, not about being clawed. However, we have already made arrangements to keep the man under observation at the time of the full moon."
Gibbs noted, "And don't forget that where he's going he's probably not going to see much daylight, let alone moonlight."
Abby piped up, "And he got a rabies shot."
Tony winced.
Director Shepard had one more thing to say. "I understand the reason you chose not to tell me about this before, although I'm not happy about your lack of trust in me. I believe that keeping it under wraps, on a permanent basis, will be best for everyone, especially Tony. As far as I'm concerned, no one in this room at this time will ever reveal this to anyone else. Ziva, do you agree?"
Ziva said, "Yes, ma'am."
"The rest of you?"
There was a murmur of consent.
Jen Shepard looked at DiNozzo again. "Are you okay with that, Tony?"
"Absolutely," he told her.
"Good. That means no showing off."
"Wouldn't think of it, ma'am," he replied, with a spark of his usual joie de vivre beginning to light up his face.
Director Shepard stood up. "Now that that's settled, let's everybody go home and have a restful weekend. Despite the…um…unusual aspects of this case, you all did good work, and you deserve your down time. Not only did we help in shutting down a drug operation that's been targeting shipboard Navy personnel, we also took out a major Mafia cell."
There was a collective murmur of "thank yous," "good nights," and "have a good weekends" as the team trooped out of Shepard's office.
With Tony's future at NCIS no longer in serious jeopardy, he knew that he would indeed be able to continue learning about the were-animal part of him. The director had been right, of course—it was nothing he'd asked for, but now that he had it, he had to learn to live with it. In the meantime, the Tony part of him was ready again to play, and there was more than enough mischief for anyone, werecat or not, to get into.
As they were walking down the stairs back to the bull pen, Tony caught up with Ziva. His gave her his warmest, most inviting grin.
"So, Ziva, what're you doing this weekend?"
"I have plans," she replied curtly.
"Would you like Mikey to come over and keep you company while you get dressed?" DiNozzo pressed, giving her his best and most flirtatious leer.
"No," Ziva answered, stopping on the step and looking directly at Tony without smiling. "Don't you remember? I hate cats!"
Even Tony joined in the group's laughter—that is, until he felt Gibbs' hand connect with the back of his head.
"Thank you, boss," he said with a fervent note of gratitude that he could not keep out of his voice.
Author's Chapter Notes:
In which Tony learns about Mikey's future.
Chapter End Notes:
Rereading James' Issums Bunny, I ran into a major problem that required completely rewriting this chapter. Once I thought about it, it worked itself out rather well. This is the end of Mikey stories for now, but I can't guarantee he won't be back.