Fic: Soul Deep - 6/12

[xanthefic]

2001

Tony pulled the collar of his coat up around his neck and blew on his hands. Damn it, he was freezing his balls off out here.

He was standing on the Baltimore docks in a foot of snow, in front of a dead body. There had been a red stain on the snow beside the body but so much fresh snow had fallen that it had obscured the stain. Even the body was half buried under the snow now.

Tony stood there, guarding the crime scene, while his captain made a call. There was some kind of brief argument, and then the captain snapped his phone shut and strode back over, his terrier daemon trotting along beside him.

"Problem, Captain?" Tony gave the man his biggest, most charming smile. The captain glared at him, and Tony sighed. Somehow, he had a feeling he'd never be able to worm his way back into his boss's good books; although that wasn’t entirely surprising given the circumstances.

"No problem," the captain growled, and his terrier daemon snapped her teeth at Shanti. "This one isn't ours." The captain nodded in the direction of the dead man who was slowly disappearing under a blanket of snow.

Tony frowned. "I don't understand. Are you saying you don't want me to start processing the crime scene?"

"Yup, that’s exactly what I’m saying. This guy's a Marine." The captain held up the dog tags he'd removed from the corpse. "So he's not our problem. NCIS are gonna send a team down."

"NCIS?" Tony raised an eyebrow. "Who the hell are they?"

"Naval Criminal Investigative Service. They investigate Navy crimes. This one is theirs."

"Aw, come on! He got killed on our turf!" Tony protested. "We can swing it that we take lead on this, can't we?"

The captain shook his head. "It's not worth the hassle, DiNozzo, trust me. I've met the head of their major crimes unit before, and he's a bastard. I do not wanna get into a pissing contest with him."

"So we just hand him over?" Tony looked at the dead marine.

"No –*you* just hand him over. You can stay here, guard the crime scene, and do the handover when the NCIS team gets here.

"Me? What about you?" Tony asked. Shanti glanced up, the snow settling on her thick eyelashes.

"Me?" the captain chuckled. "I'm going home! It's late, and it's freezing out here. No point keeping a grunt and doing the hard work myself, huh, DiNozzo?" He slapped Tony's arm heartily, while his terrier daemon gave a bark of amusement. Shanti growled softly in reply.

"Got that, DiNozzo?" the captain demanded, in a more menacing tone.

"Yes, sir. Got it." Tony sighed. "I'll just…wait here…in all this snow…until NCIS get here to take over."

"Good boy!" The captain gave him a nasty little smile. "They shouldn't be more than…" he glanced at his watch. "Well…usually I'd say an hour, but in this?" He looked up at the sky. "More like two! Hope you're wearing your thermals, DiNozzo!"

He gave another barking laugh and then turned and went back to his car. Tony watched as he disappeared into the swirling snow.

"Thanks, sir. Love you too," he muttered sarcastically.

There were a few uniformed officers over in the distance, guarding the entrance to the docks, but basically he was on his own; just him and the dead Marine. He leaned against a nearby lamp post, wrapped his arms around his body, and stamped his freezing cold feet.

"So remind me, Shanti, why *did* I decide to become a cop?" he sighed.

She settled down at his feet, the snow coating her fur. "Because you wanted to impress possible sexual conquests with stories of your heroic exploits," she replied, glancing up at him with a teasing expression on her face.

He snorted and rolled his eyes. "Well, that *was* part of it," he admitted with a grin.

"And also because of something someone once said to you," she said in a more serious tone of voice.

His grin faded as he remembered the Marine major with the eagle daemon that night back at Bethesda ten years ago.

"You did a good thing that night," Shanti said.

"Fat lot of good it did me. I didn't even get to talk to Jethro."

"You did – he just didn't get to reply. But you brought him back. I felt Tessa wake up before we'd even left the hospital."

"I should have turned around and gone back, forced them to let me in…" Tony muttered, blowing on his cold fingers again. "I'm an idiot."

"You were scared."

"Of the major's daemon? Well, she was a massive eagle, and, as I recall, she did keep pecking your ass and that hurt like hell." Tony gave a bitter little laugh.

"No. You were scared that Jethro wouldn't remember you," Shanti said quietly, leaning against his leg.

"Yeah." Tony stared into the swirling snow. "Yeah, there was that."

"And you have lost too many people you loved. You didn't want to lose him too."

Tony thought of his mom dying, and his father's many repeated abandonments and various forms of rejection. He couldn't have handled it if Jethro hadn't known him, or cared about him, or wanted him around.

"Makes me a coward then," he murmured.

Shanti gave an impatient little roar. "You are not a coward. But you are an idiot."

Tony laughed out loud and crouched down to hug her. "Ah…what would I do without you?" he asked, snuggling her ears.

"You would be dead," she replied pragmatically.

"There is that." He laughed again and kissed her forehead. "Been awhile since we last talked about Jethro."

"Yes…he is…hard to sense these days." Shanti licked his face, and he loved the warmth of her tongue on his skin. "If Tessa was not already settled in her shape, I could imagine she had grown a shell, like a tortoise."

"I can't imagine Jethro with a tortoise for a daemon," Tony chuckled. "When did we last feel anything from him, Shanti?"

"A few years ago…I think he got shot."

"Yeah." Tony remembered a swift, physical pain in his arm, but it had disappeared almost as soon as he’d felt it. Shanti was right – Jethro was all closed up these days and not much bled through. A thought occurred to him. "Do you think he feels me, Shanti? I mean, all these years I've had these moments of feeling what's going on with him. Do you think it works both ways?"

"I have no idea."

Tony felt like he was turning into a block of ice. He jumped up and down, trying to get warm.

"What would he have felt from me anyway? Nothing big ever happened to me. Nobody died, and I didn't get blown up in an explosion while fighting in a war. Man, he's led an interesting life."

"And a sad one," Shanti pointed out.

"Yeah. Poor bastard. I wonder if he got married again. Maybe he had more kids?"

"If he did, then we did not feel it. But you could look him up and find out. You are a cop," she reminded him.

"I know, and you know how tempted I've been to do just that. But it feels kind of creepy. Stalkerish."

"Yes." She shook her head from side to side to dislodge a little blanket of snow that had formed there.

“Damn it. It’s cold.” He leaned back against the lamp post and closed his eyes, trying to find his happy place in his mind. It was hard imagining himself back in the woods in Stillwater on a sunny day when he was freezing his ass off out here. He hugged his arms around his body and rocked back and forth, trying to get warm.

Stillwater was always the same in his mind, just as he’d left it. He ran through the woods with Shanti by his side until he reached the clearing by the creek. He had a sudden vivid sense of looking at the water, and he turned, slowly, and smiled as he saw Jethro sitting on the green and red checked blanket with that old picnic basket belonging to his father. His smile faded; Jethro didn’t look the way he remembered him. He was much older, his hair was completely silver, his face was thinner, and he looked a little gaunt.

It was so vivid that he felt as if he was there, and then the moment ended abruptly, and he was back in the freezing cold docks in Baltimore again. His feet felt like blocks of ice, and he stamped them to try and thaw them out.

“I’m bored,” Shanti said.

“Yeah…hey – why don’t we work the crime scene anyway? Give this bastard the captain’s so scared of a head start when he arrives?”

“The captain said not to touch the crime scene,” she said doubtfully.

“And since when do I do as I’m told?” He grinned at her.

“Well, not often – but that’s why it didn’t work out for you in Philly, or Peoria,” she pointed out.

“And it’s not working out for me here, either. So who cares?” He grabbed his bag and got out his evidence bags, sketch pad, and camera.

“It WOULD be more fun than just standing around,” Shanti agreed. She jumped up in the air, chasing snowflakes, and he gave a delighted laugh.

He did a thorough search of the area before all the evidence disappeared under the snow. It wasn’t easy, and his fingers were frozen from scrabbling around. He took a break and looked down on the dead Marine, with his open eyes and ice cold skin.

“Poor bastard. I wonder what your daemon looked like,” Tony mused. He reached into the guy’s overcoat pocket and pulled out a wallet. There was a driver’s license inside, with the Marine’s photo on it. The Marine’s name was Paul Watson, and he had an earnest expression on his face – one that was shared by his wolf daemon. “Interesting,” Tony mused, a faint memory stirring. “I wonder if our dead Marine was a sniper?”

Shanti dug around in the snow with her nose and then looked up, a puzzled expression on her face.

“What is it?” Tony asked, getting up and going over to her.

“It’s…I might be wrong – it has been snowing very hard – but…I can’t find any trace of his daemon.”

Tony frowned and looked around. “Well there must be a pile of dust around here somewhere. Like you said, it’s been snowing pretty hard. Let’s go take a wider look.”

~*~

Gibbs finished his plastic cup of orange juice with a grimace; the stuff tasted bad, but he was, technically, still on duty until 22:00…which was in five minutes.

"Enjoying the party, Gibbs?" Director Morrow asked, coming over to him, his bat daemon hanging upside down from his arm.

"Not a party without bourbon," Gibbs grunted, screwing up the little plastic cup and throwing it in the nearest trash can.

"Which is Gibbs-speak for you're going to miss him," Morrow said, glancing over at where Stan Burley was standing, surrounded by a little gaggle of colleagues. It was Stan’s going away party – one last drink in the squad room before he left to take up a new job as an agent afloat.

"Well sure. I'll have to get my own damn coffee until I can find a replacement," Gibbs retorted.

Morrow laughed. "You can have your pick of agents. What about Pacci?” He motioned to where Chris Pacci was involved in deep conversation with Stan. Pacci’s lemur daemon was sitting on his shoulder, her long, striped tail wrapped around his neck.

Gibbs shook his head. “Pacci’s a good agent, but he’s on Vance’s team and there’s no way Leon will let him go without a fight.”

Gibbs glanced at Leon Vance, who was standing to one side, watching proceedings with his usual intense stare, a toothpick sticking out of his mouth. His daemon, a chameleon lizard, was standing beside him, watching just as intently. Her tongue occasionally darted out, mimicking the toothpick.

“True,” Morrow conceded. “Vance has assembled a good team there, and he’ll want to hang on to them. He’s ambitious.”

“Oh yeah.” Gibbs shot his boss a mischievous glance. “You should watch out, sir. He’ll be after your job one day.”

Morrow laughed out loud. “The way I feel some days, he’d be welcome to it!” His bat daemon folded her wings and gave Tessa an inscrutable look. “Okay then – why not promote that probie from the Norfolk office?" Morrow suggested.

"Pike? Can't stand him," Gibbs said moodily, watching as Stan's hare daemon hopped out of reach of the chameleon lizard’s darting tongue.

"I have a feeling you won't like anyone who isn't Stan," Morrow said.

Gibbs grunted again. "Just got used to him."

"After five years, I'd hope so!" Morrow grinned, and his bat daemon fluttered down onto the ground and sat on one of his shiny shoes. "And Langer left just a few weeks ago too – any luck replacing him?"

"No," Gibbs said shortly. "I keep hiring people, and they keep leaving."

"I wonder why?" Morrow asked. Gibbs glared at him. "Time to train someone new, Gibbs," Morrow told him an undertone. "Don't drag your feet. I know you don't like it, but suck it up, Marine."

Gibbs gave a wry grin. "Yes, sir!" He shot a mock salute in Morrow's direction.

A call came through from dispatch, and Gibbs glanced over to where Stan was standing by the elevator, saying his final goodbyes.

"Problem?" Morrow raised an eyebrow.

"Dead Marine – Baltimore docks."

"Burley is, technically, still on duty."

"Yeah, but he has to report to Norfolk for his new posting tomorrow – and that dead Marine isn't going anywhere. I'll log the call as coming in at 22:01 and handle it myself."

"Going soft in your old age? I thought the second 'b' was for bastard?"

Gibbs gave a little laugh. "Oh, it is. Ducky left for home an hour ago – he'll have just gotten there. I'm gonna call him and have him haul his ass out to Baltimore."

He flicked open the phone and made the call, chuckling at Ducky's grumbles of annoyance.

"Very well, Gibbs, but in these weather conditions I cannot promise a speedy journey."

"Body's not going anywhere, Duck. I'll meet ya there."

"Be prepared for a long wait. I have to fetch the truck, and I do not possess your lack of self-preservation when driving in dangerous conditions. In other words – I drive slowly when it’s snowing."

"I'll see you there, Duck."

Gibbs grinned and closed the phone. He glanced up at the clock. Twenty-two hundred hours. Stan was now, officially, no longer on his team.

"You and Dr. Mallard can't work the crime scene alone," Morrow said. "At least take an agent from the pool with you."

Gibbs thought about it, but then he felt Tessa's nose pressing against his hand, and he shook his head. "Be faster alone. Don't want anyone I'm not used to getting in the way." He couldn't explain that he'd just lost Stan, and the lone wolf in him wanted to lick those wounds alone.

He grabbed his gun and badge, picked up his gear, and went over to his old probie.

"So long, Steve." He gave Stan a sly smile and batted him awkwardly on the arm.

"You've got a job?" Stan glanced at his crime scene bag.

"Call just came in."

Stan looked anxious – Gibbs was used to that look after five years working with him. Stan's hare daemon, Molly, stood up on her back paws, her ears flicking nervously.

"You want me to come with you?" Stan asked.

Gibbs laughed. "No. Go home, get some rest. You’re starting a new job tomorrow. I can handle this by myself." He looked at the ground and then back at his former protégé. "Take care, Stan. Don't do anything stupid."

“You too, Boss,” Stan said softly. “You too.”

Tessa nudged Molly with her nose for the briefest of seconds and then she followed Gibbs into the elevator. The doors closed behind them, and Gibbs leaned back against the wall with a sigh.

"It was time for him to move on," Tessa said.

"I know!" he snapped at her.

She glanced up at him, a wry look in her eyes. "I know you know."

He rolled his eyes but nudged her ever so slightly with his knee all the same.

“Where the hell did the years go, Tessa? Seems like only yesterday Franks was slapping my head and yelling at me, and now another of my own probies is flying the nest.”

Her tongue lolled out of her mouth as if she was laughing at him. Maybe she was. He gave a grunting laugh of his own.

“Just wish I could find someone I like to take his place; someone I can trust,” he said. He'd never found it easy making friends and finding people he could trust to have his six and do a good job was just as hard. Trust didn't come easy to him.

“You will.” It was always the same with her; such a calm simplicity. She was like a tonic; she never failed to make him feel better, even when she said the things he didn’t want to hear.

The conditions on the road were treacherous, but Gibbs made short work of the drive out to the Baltimore docks all the same.

"One day, you will get us killed with your driving," Tessa told him.

"Well, we all have to die somehow," Gibbs replied with a shrug. He wasn't going to actively seek death, but he knew he'd welcome it when he came. It wasn't as if he had a whole lot to live for. He was surprised he’d lived this long – after his family had died he’d never thought he’d make old bones himself. He took too many risks and cared about himself too little.

"Do you regret coming back?" Tessa asked curiously. "That time when you were in the coma…do you regret it?"

Gibbs thought about it. All he could remember about being in that coma was darkness, warmth and a sense of being at peace. He’d been happy to stay there right up until that nagging voice had started talking to him. He never had been able to remember what it said, but he knew it had given him a convincing reason to return. Someone had wanted him to come back, but he had no idea who, or why.

"No," he said finally. "I don't regret it."

Gibbs pulled up at the docks and flashed his badge at the uniformed officers guarding the entrance. They waved him through, and he peered through his windshield to find the crime scene. The snow was relentless; the entire landscape had been turned into a white wilderness and it was difficult to see anything. Dispatch had told him that a Baltimore detective had been left in charge of the body and would perform the handover, but he couldn’t see any sign of him.

"Wonder who the poor bastard pissed off to get that assignment?" Gibbs drove the car down towards the water's edge, wanting to get as close as possible.

He got out of the car and took a deep lungful of freezing cold air. "Shit, it's cold," he muttered to Tessa, as she scrambled out beside him. He took a look around and then froze. Over there, by the water’s edge, a man was kneeling in the snow, disturbing *his* crime scene.

“Hey!” he yelled, striding over there. “What the HELL do you think you’re doing?”

The man looked up, his face hazy amid the swirling snow. Gibbs could just about make out the shadowy shape of his daemon, standing behind him in the dark.

“This is my damn crime scene, and…” Gibbs paused as a sudden shiver passed up his spine; all the hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end.

The man stood up, and from behind him there emerged a massive lioness, her ears pressed flat against her skull. The man and his daemon both stood perfectly still in the snow, looking at Gibbs and Tessa, and Gibbs and Tessa stood just as still, looking back them.

Then the lioness let out a deafening roar, and, without warning, she began running across the snow towards them. The sound of her roaring was so loud that it drowned out everything else. Gibbs wondered why this man’s daemon was attacking them, and he was about to draw his gun when suddenly Tessa raced out from by his side, like a streak of lightning.

“Tessa!” he yelled after her, but she took no notice – she was too busy giving the kind of excited, high-pitched yelps that he hadn’t heard from her in years. She ran forward to meet the lioness, yelping her head off as she raced across the snow.

Tessa met the lioness in mid-bound, and they threw themselves at each other joyfully. The lioness was going crazy, roaring, baying, and throwing herself up into the air. Tessa jumped on her, and they rolled over and over together in the snow, bellowing with excitement.

Gibbs took a step forward, and then another, peering into the swirling snow, trying to get a better view of the man in the distance. And as he walked, the man walked slowly towards him.

They met somewhere in the middle…and stopped. Gibbs found himself looking into a pair of green eyes that he remembered from a very long time ago.

“Tony?” he whispered, his warm breath clouding the cold air in front of him. “Is it you?”

Those green eyes lit up – and Gibbs remembered a small boy excitedly asking him how he’d got himself shot.

“You remember me, Jethro?” Tony’s voice was octaves deeper but the inflections were still the same, and the surprise in his voice made Gibbs ache. “After all this time? You know who I am?”

“Of course I remember you.”

Gibbs stood there, staring, completely shocked. He didn’t know what to say. He’d become accustomed to the dour drudgery of his life since he’d lost his family. He had never expected that anything good could actually happen to him again, after all this time.

“Jethro.” Tony was gazing at him as if he couldn’t believe this was happening either. “How is this possible? I mean, what are you doing here?”

“I’m the NCIS agent here to collect your dead Marine – and you, I’m guessing, are the poor bastard left here to hand him over.”

“Yes, but…it’s *you*. After all these years…it’s YOU. And why here? Why now? I mean, it’s so random…”

“Don’t know, don’t care.” Gibbs shrugged.

He held out his hand in greeting, and Tony took it. They were both wearing gloves and it felt cold, impersonal, and somehow not enough. Tony suddenly moved forward, pulling Gibbs in close, and wrapped his arms around him, enveloping him in an unexpectedly warm hug. Gibbs usually hated people touching him, but, much to his surprise, he found himself returning the hug. He held on tight for one long moment, and then he pushed Tony away so that he could get a good look at him.

Tony had grown into a big man; tall, broad, and strong. He was handsome, like his father, but unlike his father his smile was warm and genuine, and reached all the way to his eyes. “Damn it, Tony…you went and grew up!”

“And you. You’ve gone grey.” Tony grinned at him. “You’re getting old, Jethro.”

Gibbs slapped the back of his head for that, and Tony’s entire face broke into a delighted grin.

He laughed out loud and did a little jig in the snow, and Shanti danced around him, her chest heaving with deep, rumbling purrs.

“I always wondered what shape she’d take when she settled,” Gibbs said, watching the lioness romp. “Thought it might be this one; the one you tried so hard to keep everyone from seeing.”

“Can’t stop them seeing her like this now,” Tony said ruefully. “Although sometimes I’d like to, ‘cause people see this giant lioness coming towards them and freak out. I have to get Shanti to chase her own tail and jump in the air after butterflies to convince them she’s just a big pussycat really.”

“Oh, I think she’s a hell of a lot more than a big pussycat,” Gibbs said, looking at Tony searchingly.

Tony flushed and looked away. “I wasn’t sure if she’d go with the golden retriever or the lion,” he said, shuffling his feet. “She swung both ways for a hell of a long time before settling when I was about sixteen.”

Gibbs watched as Shanti and Tessa trotted around each other, roaring and howling in pleasure as they played in the snow.

Then he glanced up at the skies. The snow was still falling – not as heavily before, but most of the crime scene was now obscured.

“It’s late, and I’m freezing my ass off here,” he said. “My ME should be here soon. In the meantime, why don’t you help me process this crime scene so we can get outta here and catch up properly?”

“Me? You want me to help process your crime scene?” Tony sounded stunned.

“Well yeah, Tony. Seeing as you already made a start without my permission, you might as well continue with it.”

Tony grimaced. “Uh…sorry about that…I was just bored, and it was a long wait, and damn it, I needed something to do. Although the captain did warn me you’re an ornery bastard who doesn’t like sharing jurisdiction.”

“I never share jurisdiction if I can damn well help it.” Gibbs grunted. “But I could do with a hand, and you seem to know what you’re doing.”

“I do!” Tony picked up his camera and sketch pad and began working. It wasn’t easy in the snow, but the two of them moved around the crime scene methodically, doing their jobs.

Gibbs was impressed by Tony. His crime scene sketches were excellent – some of the best Gibbs had seen.

“There was one thing that Shanti noticed – we couldn’t find the remains of the dead guy’s daemon,” Tony told Gibbs.

Gibbs glanced around the crime scene. “Well it has to be here.”

“I can’t find it, either,” Tessa told him, looking up from where she was snuffling around in the snow. Tessa had always been extremely good at sniffing out the remains of a dead person’s daemon, so that was unexpected.

“Look again,” Gibbs rapped out.

Tony exchanged a glance with Shanti, but he did as ordered, without question.

“Something bad happened here,” Tessa told Gibbs quietly. He looked down on her with a raised eyebrow. He always trusted her opinion on crime scenes – he’d long since realized he did his job better when he listened to what she had to say and followed it.

“What kind of bad?”

She gave a shiver, the snow shaking off her thick fur coat. “Something obscene. An abomination.”

It wasn’t like Tessa to use such words, and Gibbs gave her a curious look, but she was unable to explain further.

“I thought our dead guy might be a sniper,” Tony said.

“What makes you think that?” Gibbs knelt down beside the dead man.

“This.” Tony showed him a photo ID. “He had a wolf daemon – and someone once told me that forty-three per cent of snipers have wolf daemons.”

Gibbs rocked back on his heels and looked up at him quizzically. “You remember that?”

“I remember everything,” Tony said quietly.

The dead Marine’s wrists were tied tightly behind his back with a piece of rope. Technically he should wait for Ducky to deal with the body, but in these conditions, who knew how long it'd be before the ME arrived? Gibbs leaned forward to try and untie the rope, but his gloved fingers slipped on the frozen knot. He reached into his jacket to get his knife…and stopped when a knife appeared, as if by magic, in front of him. He looked up.

“Never go anywhere without a knife,” Tony told him softly. “Rule number nine.”

Gibbs took the knife with a rueful shake of his head. “I had no idea I made such an impression on you.”

“Are you kidding? I was eight years old, and you were this scary Marine with an exciting bullet wound in his leg. I’d never met anyone like you.”

Gibbs laughed softly to himself. He removed the rope from the victim’s wrists and examined the stab wound in his back.

“Any luck on finding the remains of the daemon?” he asked Tessa. She glanced at Shanti, and they both shook their heads. Gibbs exchanged a grim look with Tony. “Was the wind strong enough to disperse the remains before anyone got here?”

“Nope. There hasn’t been much of a wind all night,” Tony told him. “Maybe he was killed somewhere else and dumped here?”

“Maybe,” Gibbs said thoughtfully. “Let’s keep working.”

“On it!” Tony returned to his search.

“So, what did you do to piss off your captain?” Gibbs asked as they worked.

“What?” Tony looked up, a guilty smile on his face. Shanti covered her eyes with her paws, and Gibbs remembered how she’d once turned into a porcupine and done the exact same thing. He raised an eyebrow.

“You sure as hell pissed someone off to be left guarding a dead guy for hours on end on a night like this.” Gibbs grinned. “So what did you do, Tony?”

Tony’s face went a deep shade of pink. “Uh…well…I might have seduced his daughter,” he muttered, kneeling down in the snow, avoiding Gibbs’s gaze.

Gibbs shook his head, amused. “Oh yeah. That’d do it.”

Tony looked up, wincing. “And also his son,” he added.

Gibbs stared at him. Maybe he should have been surprised to find out that Tony was bisexual, but somehow he wasn’t. It seemed very…Tony. He let out a loud guffaw. “Aw hell, Tony, when you screw up, you really screw up, don’t’cha?”

“They were both in their twenties, so I wasn’t cradle-snatching or anything!” Tony protested. “And man, they were cute. Both blondes. Big blue eyes. Much cuter than their old man. Of course it didn’t end well. Then again, it never does.” He gave a rueful grin. “Uh…how about you?” he asked. “You…uh…married?” He gave Gibbs a searching look.

“Divorced,” Gibbs grunted. “More than once.” Tessa came over and sat down beside him. She nudged her nose against his boot.

“Right.” Tony chewed on his lip, looking thoughtful. Gibbs hoped he wouldn’t mention Shannon; he hoped he’d assume she was one of his divorces.

He was saved from any further conversation on the topic by Ducky drawing up in the NCIS refrigerated truck. Not that they exactly needed the refrigeration on a night like this.

“My dear Gibbs, what a simply abominable night to be out working!” Ducky said, getting out of the truck, his owl daemon swooping eagerly over to the dead body. “I cannot believe how long it took me to get here. And who is this young man with the rather striking daemon?” He glanced at Tony and Shanti, who were standing over the corpse.

“Ducky – this is Detective Tony DiNozzo, and his daemon Shanti. Tony – this is Ducky – our ME, and his daemon Morag.”

Tessa looked up at him as Ducky and Tony exchanged pleasantries, and Gibbs smiled back down on her. He could feel an ache inside his chest easing, as if he'd been holding his breath for years, and now, finally, could release it.

After ten long years, he wasn’t a lone wolf anymore. He had a pack again.

~*~

They finished up at the crime scene, and Gibbs’s ME drove away with the corpse and evidence in his truck.

Tony turned, not wanting this reunion to end. He could still hardly believe this was happening.

“Coffee,” Gibbs said, jerking his thumb in the direction of his car. Tony got in beside him, still in a daze. “Anywhere open this time of night?”

“There’s an all night coffee place down over there.” Tony pointed.

The warm air of the coffee shop felt so good after standing around in the freezing cold for hours on end. Tony took off his coat and gloves and unwrapped his scarf from around his neck, and then he sat down and waited while Gibbs got them coffee. Now they were alone together, and the first joy of the reunion had worn off, he felt strangely shy.

“Idiot,” Shanti told him, nudging him with her head.

“Yeah, I know.” Tony gave a rueful grin.

“Why did he lie about Shannon?” Shanti asked.

“I don’t think he did – he just allowed me to put two and two together and make five,” Tony replied thoughtfully. “I got the impression he didn’t want to talk about her – but one thing’s clear.” Shanti gave him a questioning look. “He doesn’t know that we know anything about his life,” Tony told her. “It’s like I said earlier – we might have felt all this stuff that’s been going on with him, but I don’t think it worked both ways – and he doesn’t know I know.”

“He definitely doesn’t know that you brought him back from the coma, or that he got his revenge on whoever killed his family."

"Ssh!" Tony glanced around anxiously.

"So what should we do?” Shanti asked. "Should we tell him?"

“Fuck no! It’s freaky enough knowing all this stuff about him as it is; like I’ve been eavesdropping on his life or something.”

“You didn’t do it on purpose.”

“I don’t think that matters.”

Shanti shook her head. “He once told you that you didn’t have to hide who you truly are. I don’t think you should hide this now.”

“Damn it, Shanti – I’ve only just met up with the guy for the first time in twenty-three years! Let’s just drop it.”

She gave him a disapproving glare and then placed her head on her front paws with a resigned sigh.

Gibbs returned to the table with two steaming mugs of coffee, and Tony took a happy sip and then sighed. “Damn that’s good. I was freezing my ass off back there.”

Gibbs sat back in his chair and looked at him over his coffee mug. “So tell me about it, Tony.”

“It?” Tony said stupidly.

“It – you, your life, all of it. What happened after you left Stillwater?”

Tony dug a spoonful of sugar out of the little bowl on the table and stirred it into his coffee. His life. His stupid fuck up of a life. He wished he could say something that would make this man proud of him, but all he had was a career he kept screwing up and a trail of broken hearts and bad love affairs that he’d left in his wake.

“Not much to tell. I’m a cop – you know that. Not married – you know that.” Tony shrugged.

“What happened with your father?” Gibbs asked quietly.

Tony closed his eyes, remembering that terrible night when his father had attacked his daemon. Beside him, Shanti started to shake. Tessa licked her cheek gently, and Tony opened his eyes again.

“Well, you were right of course,” he said bitterly. “There was no fresh start or ‘just the two of us’. He was making plans to send me away to boarding school before we had even left Stillwater.”

He looked up in time to see the flash of fury in Gibbs’s eyes.

“I barely saw him for the next ten years. Occasionally I’d get myself suspended or expelled on purpose, so he’d be forced to spend some time with me. We *did* go on some interesting holidays together.” Tony laughed out loud. “Like the time we went to Hawaii when I was twelve, and he took off to ‘do business’ and left me behind on my own in the hotel room for days on end.”

“Sounds like the same old bastard he always was,” Gibbs growled. “He was leaving you to fend for yourself when you were eight.”

“He is who he is.” Tony shrugged. “How’s your dad?”

“Wouldn’t know. Haven’t seen him in years.” It was Gibbs’s turn to shrug.

Tony wondered what the hell that was all about. He sensed there was something there, but he could tell by the way Tessa was sitting, her ears pricked up and her body stiff and anxious, that it wasn’t a good idea to pursue it. It was a shame – he’d always liked Jackson Gibbs, finding in him the warmth and affection that he'd never received from his own father. But even back then it had been clear that things were tense between Jackson and his son, for whatever reason.

“Well, what about you, Jethro? What have you been doing?” Tony held an anxious breath, wondering if Gibbs would tell him anything about Shannon and the child he’d lost, or about being injured in action.

“Was a Marine until ’91. Left and joined NCIS.” Well that answered that question.

“Sounds dangerous. You get shot again?” Tony tried to turn it into a joke.

Gibbs gave a wry grin. “Took a bullet to the arm a few years ago. Not much more than a flesh wound though. You? Any, uh…injuries?” He looked almost embarrassed as he said that.

“Me? Nope.” Tony shook his head. Gibbs made a little grunting sound and took another sip of his coffee. “I thought about you sometimes. Wondered how you were doing,” Tony said, which was such an understatement that Shanti shot him a look of incredulity. He nudged her with his toe.

“Yeah.” Gibbs took a sip of his coffee. “Me too.”

Tessa sat up and looked at him, but Gibbs ignored her and concentrated on drinking his coffee. Tessa gave an annoyed little whine. She turned her back on Gibbs and gazed at Shanti expressionlessly. Shanti sighed heavily and rested her head on her paws again.

Gibbs finished his coffee and then glanced at his watch. “Well, it’s late, and you should get home. I’ll be expecting you at the Navy Yard at 9 a.m. sharp.” He got up and began shouldering himself into his coat.

“Uh…you will? Why?” Tony frowned.

“Because I need a new second on my team, and you’re a damn good crime scene worker,” Gibbs said with a shrug, wrapping his scarf around his throat.

“Wait…are you offering me a job?” Tony asked, stunned.

“What does it sound like, DiNozzo?” Gibbs grinned at him. “It’s not like your career at Baltimore PD is going anywhere by the sounds of it, and I don’t have any offspring for you to seduce. So the sensible thing is for you to come work with me.”

“You mean it?” Tony felt as if he’d burst from sheer happiness. Shanti threw back her head and roared loudly to show her approval.

Gibbs put his hands over his ears. “Yeah – but I hope my eardrums can stand working with ya.”

Tony laughed out loud. He grabbed Shanti and kissed her nose, and Gibbs shook his head, chuckling to himself.

“Thank you! Thank you, Jethro…Leroy…Gibbs…uh…what should I call you?” Tony asked in confusion.

Gibbs grinned and slapped the back of his head. “Boss,” he said. “You can call me Boss.”

~*~

End of Part Six
Part Seven
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And I think now is an appropriate time to post the amended story graphic *g*. Many thanks to Bluespirit for making me two versions :-). You can click on this one to see it at its true size and in all its glory!