Fic: Soul Deep - 7/12

[xanthefic]

Soul Deep
By Xanthe
Book Three: Pretence

Gibbs returned to NCIS to get paperwork issued for Tony, to check on the progress of the autopsy, and to do some research on their dead Marine. Then he went home to grab a couple of hours sleep, take a shower, and get changed.

“Why didn’t you tell Tony?” Tessa asked him curiously as he shaved.

He looked at her in the mirror. “Tell him what?” he asked, swiping the razor over the foam on his face.

She gave him her disapproving glare, and he winced. He hadn’t seen that expression in her eyes since the last time he got married, and he never liked provoking it.

“Why didn’t you tell him you can feel what's going on for him sometimes – that you felt it when he experienced emotional anguish and also when he hurt his knee?”

“You think I should have told him that I had a hard on in a foxhole that time because *he* got lucky too?” Gibbs raised an eyebrow.

Tessa gave a little chuckle. “Oh, I can see why you didn’t tell him *that*. But why not the rest? Why not tell him that you’ve been connected all these years?”

“Have I?” Gibbs raised an eyebrow at her. “Or is it just that you’ve been connected to Shanti? You always did like her, Tessa – right from the moment she scampered up to you and touched your nose. And you usually hate being touched. Always surprised me you took to her so easy.”

Tessa looked at him quizzically in the mirror. “Your daemon likes his daemon. All that means is that you like him, and you did from the start. You might not recognize it, because you are human and complicated even though you think you are straightforward. I work on a much simpler and more instinctive level. I see the things that you often do not want to see. I believe that is why we have rule number one.”

“Oh, don’t invoke rule number one with me!” He grinned at her in the mirror. “You just use that to win arguments!”

“Do you remember what it felt like when I was touched by another’s bare hands against your will?” Tessa asked.

Gibbs shuddered, remembering a time in combat when an enemy soldier had grabbed Tessa and tried to throttle her. There had even been a time when his father had tried to touch her when he’d been ill as a kid, and it had made him want to throw up.

“I remember,” he said quietly.

“Shanti didn’t feel that way when you touched her back in the motel room. She trusted you and felt safe with you,” Tessa pointed out.

“Yeah, but I didn’t know back then that I was creating some freaky link between us! And Tony didn’t have a choice – he didn’t consent to me poking around in his soul like that all those years ago,” Gibbs growled at her, toweling his face dry. “So no, I didn’t mention it to him. I didn’t want the kid to feel obligated to me in some way, or like I’d intruded into his damn life!”

“I think you’re missing the point,” Tessa said, getting up as he strode into the other room.

“And that is?” He turned to glare at her.

“The fact that his daemon welcomed your touch,” Tessa said quietly. “Shanti trusts you because Tony trusts you. I don’t think he’d mind being linked to you like this.”

“There’s a reason we don’t go around touching other people’s daemons!” Gibbs snapped. “I shouldn’t have done it. Tony was just a kid, and he didn’t give me permission.”

“You saved his life.”

Gibbs sat down on the bed and gazed moodily at the wall. “Damn it, Tessa, have you ever heard of a link like this being created between people as a result of touching their daemon? I touched Pell several times, but me and Shannon didn't end up being linked this way. I’ve never heard of anything like it. If someone told me about it, I’d think they were nuts.”

"I have an awareness of it, but it is rare."

"If it's so damn rare, why the hell did it happen to me and Tony?"

"We have talked about this before. I think that when you met him you recognized him immediately as pack, and that somehow it was the trauma and intensity of the terrible night in the motel room that has kept you linked ever since."

"It's weird – I feel like I KNOW him, but he's just this kid I once helped out, years ago."

Tessa sat beside him and rested her chin on his knee. “Very few people get anywhere near you, but those tiny few you allow into your soul get in deep. That is what Shannon did, and it’s what Tony did too.”

“But why?” Gibbs asked helplessly. “Hell, even Kelly didn’t get in this deep.”

“She was your cub, not your soul-mate."

Gibbs looked at her in surprise. “It’s not like you to talk that kind of crap.”

Tessa laughed. “It is very like you to reject it though. And yet here you are, linked soul deep to this man all the same.”

Gibbs sighed. “I met him for a week when he was a child, and I only just saw him again. How can he be my…soul-mate?” He said the phrase with distaste.

“I had not seen Shanti for twenty-three years, yet when I saw her tonight I knew her immediately. Your daemon knew his daemon, instantly, as a friend. It was the same the first day we met. I just knew I liked her and felt at ease around her. Don’t ask how…just accept that it is. I love Shanti.”

“Are you saying I love Tony?” Gibbs raised a quizzical eyebrow at her. “As what? A brother? Friend? Pack member?”

Tessa laughed. “I will leave you to figure that one out for yourself.”

Gibbs got up and began getting dressed. “Might take a hell of a long time,” he muttered under his breath as he pulled on his pants.

“With you, that’s exactly what I’d expect,” Tessa growled back at him, going to sit by the door.

Gibbs was surprised when he got into work at 08:00 to find Tony already there waiting for him, still wearing the clothes he’d been in the previous night.

“I thought I said nine?” He raised an eyebrow.

“I know, but I was too hyped to sleep! I went back to the police station instead,” Tony said, bouncing along behind Gibbs as he walked towards the squad room. Shanti was dancing along beside him – she might look like an enormous lioness, but when Gibbs looked at her he saw that overly excitable puppy from years ago. “I did some digging on our dead guy.”

“You did?” Gibbs threw his jacket on the filing cabinet and turned back to Tony who had taken up position in front of his desk as if it was his natural home.

“Yes! I found out that our dead Marine – Paul Watson – was an all round good guy. All his friends liked him, and he was a damn fine Marine. Great service record – been decorated a couple of times – hey, were you ever decorated? Don’t answer that, of course you were.”

Gibbs picked up the remote control on his desk and pointed it at the plasma. Watson’s service record came up. “Found all this out myself last night,” he told Tony.

“Oh.” Tony looked crestfallen. Shanti stopped bouncing around and lay down on the floor, putting her head disconsolately on her paws. Tessa swiped a reassuring lick over one of her ears.

“Watson went AWOL two weeks ago,” Gibbs told him. “Nobody saw or heard anything from him until he showed up last night.” He handed Tony the dead Marine’s personnel file.

“Doesn’t seem the kind to go AWOL,” Tony mused as he flicked through the file. "I mean he's popular, good at his job, responsible, decorated…"

Gibbs picked up the Autopsy report that Ducky had left on his desk and began reading it. One thing in particular stood out, and he frowned.

“What? What is it?” Tony asked eagerly.

“You were right,” Gibbs said grimly, making his way to the elevator.

“About what?” Tony asked, hopping along behind.

The elevator doors shut behind them, and Gibbs turned to face Tony. “The remains of Paul Watson’s daemon weren’t at the crime scene, and they didn’t blow away.”

“So he must have been killed somewhere else and just dumped there.”

“No.” Gibbs shook his head. “Ducky’s report says he was definitely killed there – the amount of blood loss is consistent with Watson being killed where we found him.”

“Then how come there’s no trace of his daemon? That doesn’t make any sense. It’s not possible!”

Gibbs reached out a hand to touch Tessa’s head, feeling sick inside. “There is one explanation.”

~*~

Tony followed Gibbs into a large autopsy suite, where they found the man he’d met the night before busily scrubbing down his tables until they were gleaming. His owl daemon was perched on an overhead lamp, and they were holding what appeared to be a long, involved conversation.

Ducky looked up when they came in. “Ah, Gibbs, I was expecting a visit…and I see you’ve brought Detective DiNozzo along with you.”

Morag swooped down onto a table and gazed at Shanti quizzically. Shanti sat down on her haunches, went very still, and allowed the inspection.

“Not a detective anymore. He’s Agent DiNozzo now,” Gibbs said with an impatient wave of his hand in Tony’s direction.

Tony gave him a look of surprise. “Uh…already? I mean…I have a notice period, and I have to go to FLETC, and…”

Gibbs glared at him. “I need you here. The director can figure out the details, but you’re mine. You’re not going anywhere.”

Tony grinned at the idea of being Gibbs’s, and Shanti got up and did a little dance around his legs. Of course he belonged to Gibbs – he pretty much had since he was eight years old anyway.

Tony was getting a clear idea of how his new boss operated. Clearly Gibbs didn’t give a damn about rules and regulations; he had a direct and straightforward approach to his job. Tony liked his style. He briefly wondered how Gibbs could get away with it, but he figured he must be highly regarded at NCIS if even the agency director was prepared to pull strings for him.

“I looked at the report, Duck, but I want to hear the details from you,” Gibbs said.

“I thought you would.” Ducky gazed at them owlishly through his spectacles. “It’s a bad one, Gibbs, as you’ve gleaned. I haven’t heard of a case like this since the cold war. We heard rumours, of course, but I never wanted to believe them. In fact, the whole thing reminds me of…”

“Duck!” Gibbs rapped out, and Ducky nodded and went over to a line of steel cadaver storage units. He opened one and pulled out the occupant.

“Poor bastard.” Tony looked down on their dead Marine, who was naked with a row of sutures running down his chest from where Ducky had performed the autopsy. He glanced up to see Ducky and Gibbs gazing at him. “Uh…just…you know…kind of feel sorry for him. Got to know him a bit, seeing as how I spent most of last night with him, one way or another…although not in *that* way, obviously!” he added, panic-stricken.

Ducky glanced at Gibbs. “Is he always going to be like this?”

Gibbs reached out and slapped the back of Tony’s head. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure he is,” he replied. Tony grinned.

“Well, our poor bastard…” Ducky cast an amused glance in Tony’s direction, “Was in very poor physical condition when he died.”

“But he had a physical a month ago, and he was in good physical shape then,” Tony said, glancing at the file Gibbs had given him.

“Well, at the time of his death all his major organs were compromised, and he was a very sick man.”

“Compromised how, Ducky?” Gibbs asked.

Ducky shook his head. “Under severe stress and not functioning well. The poor man would have felt terrible – his entire body was shutting down.”

“And I think we know why that was,” Gibbs muttered.

“Yes indeed. I’ve read the studies, but I’ve never seen an actual case before.” Ducky shook his head sadly. “Poor fellow.” He reached up his arm, and Morag flew down and settled on it. He stroked her head gently, holding her close against his chest.

“What studies?” Tony asked blankly.

Ducky turned to him. “I’m very much afraid, Agent DiNozzo, that our poor Marine was forcibly separated from his daemon in the weeks prior to his death.”

“What?” Tony stared at him, aghast. “That’s…I’ve never even heard…I mean…that’s obscene.”

“When a person is separated from their daemon, it leaves them very open to suggestion,” Ducky continued. “I very much suspect that this Marine was captured for a reason and separated from his daemon on purpose in order to coerce him into doing something against his will. The forcible separation placed considerable stress on his body. It’s possible his captors told him he would be reunited with his daemon if he gave them the information they required or performed some task for them. It looks like he held out for quite some time…poor man.”

“And then, when they got what they wanted, they killed him,” Gibbs said.

“So he never saw his daemon again?” Tony went cold inside. He knelt down and pulled Shanti against his body, holding her tight. He remembered that night he’d spent without her at boarding school all those years ago. She’d been in the same building though – he couldn’t imagine what it would feel like if she was taken miles away and kept forcibly from him. He shivered, and she pushed her nose into his hand.

“It’s okay. I’m here," she whispered.

Tony looked up, feeling embarrassed, hoping they weren’t judging him for being so affected by this – only to see that Tessa was practically sitting on Gibbs’s feet, and Morag was still nestled against Ducky’s chest.

“Tony – with me,” Gibbs said briskly, breaking up the mood in the room. “We have to find whoever did this and take the bastard down.”

“Oh, I’m on your six, Boss!” Tony said, in a heartfelt voice. He’d been a cop for nine years, and he’d never come across anything so sick.

Gibbs took him to a lab where a very pretty girl with a very weird taste in clothing was busy working. She twirled around as they came in and said "Gibbs!" in a loud, excited voice.

"So who is *this*?" Tony asked, taking in a pair of sparkling green eyes and some very kissable red lips.

Gibbs slapped his head – hard. "*This* is out of your reach, DiNozzo," he told him firmly.

The pretty girl giggled and held out her hand. "I'm Abby," she said, in a deep, throaty voice.

Tony grinned at her. "I’m Tony DiNozzo – and I wasn't hitting on you, honest!"

"Yeah, you were!" Abby laughed. "But that's okay. Gibbs is kinda like a dad to me," she whispered to him under her breath as Gibbs turned to look at the plasma screen. "So no funny stuff!"

Tony nodded thoughtfully. He was pleased Gibbs had someone in his life to fill a little of the gap that his lost daughter had left, but he made a mental note that Abby was out of bounds. He never usually dated anyone he worked with anyway – his relationships were so transitory that it was always a mistake. You ended up having to see your ex – or several exes – every day at work, which was just one of the many ways that things had gone badly wrong for him at Philly. Tony had learned that one the hard way.

Abby's daemon was a very energetic, capuchin monkey. He was swinging up and down on Abby's lab equipment, dashing from one piece of tech to the next. He jumped excitedly over to them and hung himself around Abby's neck, staring at Shanti inquisitively from a pair of intelligent brown eyes. He seemed quite fascinated by the big lioness that had suddenly entered his domain. Shanti stared back serenely, looking supremely unconcerned by the scrutiny.

"Don't stare, Ben. It's rude!" Abby chided. Ben kissed her cheek and then jumped down onto the floor in front of Shanti. He tiptoed forward, one step at a time, and then suddenly reached out, grabbed a handful of Shanti's whiskers, and tugged.

"Ow!" Tony rubbed his cheek.

Ben gave a chittering laugh and released his grip on Shanti's whiskers. "Just checking they're real," he said, grinning at her.

"Of course they're real," Shanti grumbled, but her eyes were alight at the prospect of a new playmate. Tony knew his daemon all too well – Ben looked liked he enjoyed mischief, and Shanti was always ready to abandon her feline dignity and be completely silly.

"Work, people!" Gibbs clicked his fingers, and Tessa made a snapping sound with her jaws. Ben fled back to the safety of Abby's shoulder, his tail curling possessively around her neck, his hands resting on her head.

Shanti came over to sit beside Tony, and they turned their attention to the forensic evidence that Abby had picked up off the dead man's clothes. As Tony stood beside Gibbs, snapping off theories and going over the evidence, he was struck by the craziness of his life. Was he really standing here, next to this man, after all those years apart? How the hell had this even happened?

"I mustn't screw this one up," he told Shanti later that night when they were alone. Gibbs had given him a measly six hours to go home, get some sleep, and get back to the office to start working on the case again.

"You won't," she told him firmly.

"I've screwed up every single other job I ever had. No reason why this one should be any different."

"There's one very important reason why it'll be different," she said. "Jethro."

"Yeah…all the MORE reason why I'm nervous. I mean…he's *Jethro*, Shanti. He's been part of my life for years without him even knowing it. He's the last person I want to disappoint."

Shanti threw back her head and gave an impatient roar. Tony put his hands over his ears. "Okay, okay, I get the message!" he told her when she was done. She licked his cheek and then snuggled down on the bed beside him.

"You will be fine."

He pulled her close and rested his face against her thick, soft fur, the way he always did. She was right. She always was, if he really listened to what she had to say.

They spent the next three days working crazy hours, chasing down every lead they could find. Watching Gibbs in action was fascinating to Tony; all the facets of his character that Tony had known as a boy were still there, just deeper now and more intense somehow.

Their investigation into the Marine’s murder led them to a warehouse in Fairfax. They had just got out of the car when Tessa gave a low growl. Gibbs stopped immediately and put a hand on Tony’s arm.

“Draw your gun before we go in. I have a bad feeling about this,” he whispered, drawing his own gun.

“Did you hear something?” Tony frowned, doing as he was ordered anyway.

Gibbs shook his head and glanced at Tessa. Her fur was standing up on end and her eyes were alert, her ears pricked up. “Nope. Didn’t hear anything. Just listening to Tessa.”

“Rule number one?” Tony gave a wry grin.

“Yeah – rule number one. That’s the reason I’m still alive.”

Walking into the warehouse with Gibbs, gun drawn, Tony wondered why it felt like he’d always been here, walking beside this man, even though he’d been working with him for less than a week.

“Because it's where you belong,” Shanti told him sensibly in reply to the unasked question.

Tony smiled. It really did feel like he’d come home, after years in exile.

At that moment shots rang out, and he found himself acting on instinct, throwing himself on Gibbs to get him out of the way of the fire. They rolled over on the hard cement floor, ending up behind the cover of a huge shipping container. Tony’s gun flew out of his hand, and he found himself spread-eagled on Gibbs’s stomach, looking into a pair of very pissed off blue eyes. He had a flash of memory of their second meeting, that day in the woods years ago, when he’d crashed into Gibbs and sent him flying, but he was soon distracted from that thought by a sharp, stabbing pain in his knee.

“Fuck!” he screeched, grabbing his leg in his hands.

“Damn it, Tony – get off me. That’s my knee your leg is on!” Gibbs growled at him.

Tony rolled sideways, and the pain in his knee slowly reduced to a dull throb. He glanced up at Shanti to find her shaking his head, and he realized he hadn’t hurt his knee – he was feeling the pain that Gibbs was experiencing. Gibbs’s pants were torn over his knee, and Tony could see the jagged scar from that old gunshot wound.

Tony reached for his gun, but the sound of running footsteps disappearing into the distance, and then a car’s revving engine, made it clear their assailant was long gone.

They both got up and began limping towards the door. “You busted your knee too, huh Tony?” Gibbs asked wryly, nodding at his limp.

“What? Oh…uh…yeah…dislocated my knee playing basketball twelve years ago. Sometimes flares up again,” Tony replied, which wasn't exactly a lie, but wasn't the cause behind the pain in his knee right now.

“Really…dislocated knee huh?” Gibbs looked far more interested in that information than Tony thought it warranted.

“Yeah, hurt like crazy! But man, what a night I had after that! See, there were these two people I was kind of dating at the same time, and they found out about each other so they made me watch them make love as a punishment for two timing them. Only then they took pity on me because of my knee and let me join in and man, that turned out to be one of the worst and best nights of my life…uh…this is probably far too much information, Boss!” Tony said, flushing wildly.

Gibbs surprised him by giving a shit-eating grin that spread from ear to ear. He didn’t say anything, but he and Tessa looked at each other, and then they both burst out laughing.

“So now we know,” Tessa murmured.

“Oh yeah!” Gibbs said, still laughing.

“Was it something I said?” Tony whispered to Shanti, but she seemed as bemused as he was.

As Tony watched Gibbs limping towards the warehouse door, he had a sudden flashback to him limping away from him in the rain all those years ago. He shook off the residual pain in his knee and ran to catch up; there was no way he was walking away from this man ever again.

They had only just got back to the Navy Yard when the elevator door opened, and a man stepped out into the squad room with his fox daemon slinking along beside him. Tony saw Gibbs bristle and stand up straight.

“Gibbs…looks like you’ve had a bad day.” The man nodded his head in the direction of Gibbs’s torn pants. His fox daemon came over to Shanti and circled her warily. Shanti stood up, growling in the back of her throat. “So who’s the new guy?” the man asked, without even looking at Tony.

Gibbs sighed. “Tony – meet Agent Fornell, FBI. Fornell, this is Tony DiNozzo; he works for me now. What are you doing here, Tobias?”

Tony watched Tessa, but despite the combative tone of the conversation Gibbs and Fornell were having their daemons seemed completely at ease with each other. Clearly the antagonism was more for surface show – it didn't go deep.

“I’m here to take something away from you.” Fornell grinned. “Won’t be the first time!” he winked.

“Oh, you didn’t take Diane, Tobias,” Gibbs retorted. “I was glad to be rid of her.”

Fornell grunted, but Tony thought he actually relished the trash talking. He gave Gibbs a sly grin and then disappeared in the direction of the director’s office, his fox daemon slinking along beside him.

“Diane?” Tony raised an eyebrow.

“One of my ex-wives,” Gibbs replied.

“Ex-wives – plural? How many are there?” Tony asked, intrigued.

Gibbs glared at him. “Three. Now get back to work.”

Tony watched as Gibbs and Tessa limped off after Fornell. He found himself idly appreciating the view of Gibbs’s ass as he walked up the stairs, and he mentally shook himself. This was Jethro, not some random piece of ass, however fine that ass was!

“Three?” he said to Shanti in disbelief when Gibbs was out of earshot. “He got married three times?”

“Four,” she pointed out. “He has three ex-wives – but we know Shannon was killed. He’s been married four times.”

“Looks like he hasn’t found what he’s looking for then,” Tony said. “I know the feeling.”

“He did find what he was looking for, and he lost it. I don’t believe he cared for any of the women he married after Shannon – if he had, I think we’d have felt it,” Shanti said.

“Shannon was a hard act to follow.”

“And once you have known one soul-mate, nothing less will do.”

Tony raised an eyebrow. “Soul-mate?”

Shanti nodded. “That is what she was to him. You saw the way they touched each other’s daemons that day in the woods. Most couples don’t do that, however close they are. What Shannon and Jethro had was special. I think he has looked for it ever since, but he has never found it.”

“Well, I guess most people are lucky if they meet one soul-mate in their lifetime, huh?” Tony said, turning back to his work. “Two is probably asking for too much.”

Shanti looked at him for a moment, her golden eyes annoyed, although Tony didn’t have a clue what he’d said to upset her. Then she turned her back on him, walked over to Gibbs’s desk, and sat in the spot Tessa usually occupied. She didn’t say another word to him for the rest of the day.

~*~

Fornell was deep in conversation with Morrow when Gibbs entered the director’s office.

“Ah, Gibbs – I didn’t think it’d take you long to get here,” Morrow said, beckoning him in. His bat daemon was hanging upside down from the cupboard in the corner. Gibbs eyed her warily; he’d long ago realized that you had to watch her very closely to catch the tiniest hint of what might be going on with Morrow. The director was always well dressed and urbane, and it was hard to get much of a glimpse of what was going on beneath the surface.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to hand over your current case to the FBI,” Morrow told him.

“The hell I will!”

Morrow’s bat daemon folded back her wings, making a faint rustling sound. Morrow sighed. “I thought you’d say that, but it’s part of a wider investigation they’re already conducting. They’ve thrown considerable amounts of time and money at it already, so it makes sense that they take over this case.”

“The dead guy’s a Marine,” Gibbs said stubbornly. “That makes him ours.”

“And he was separated from his daemon before being murdered and dumped,” Fornell said. “This isn’t an isolated incident, Gibbs. We've seen it happen in various states over the past few years."

"Some kind of serial killer who gets off on torturing someone before killing 'em?" Gibbs raised an eyebrow. It would take a very sick, twisted individual to forcibly separate someone from their daemon, but he'd come across plenty of sick, twisted individuals in his time, so nothing shocked him anymore.

"Could be. Or it could be a form of coercion – like that prostitution ring we busted a couple of years ago. We don't know yet."

Gibbs remembered that case from the papers; the women involved were separated from their daemons while they were working and only reunited with them for sleeping to keep them from shutting down completely. Their pimp had said it kept them docile but seeing photos of the women, Gibbs had thought they looked half-dead.

"Whatever it is, it's way out of your league," Fornell added.

Tessa growled, and Gibbs bristled at the implication.

“Hand the case over, Gibbs. Fornell’s people will take it from here,” Morrow told him firmly. “And you look terrible by the way.”

“No sleep for days, not enough agents on the ground, and being shot at will do that,” Gibbs snapped at him.

“Then get more agents on your team!” Morrow told him. “You do a good job, Gibbs, but you’ll be useless to me if you’re exhausted. Give the case to Fornell, and go hire some damn recruits!”

Gibbs had to concede that he had a point. A couple of months ago he’d had a team of three, but Langer had left to join the FBI, and Burley had wanted to be an agent afloat for some reason. Now he had Tony, but he needed at least one more agent, maybe two, to really get his team back up to speed.

Fornell grinned at him, and his fox daemon laughed in Tessa’s face. “You win some, you lose some, Gibbs,” he said silkily, before leaving.

Gibbs stomped back down the stairs, still limping on his bad knee, in a thoroughly bad mood. He hated having cases taken away from him.

Tessa went over to where Shanti was lying in her spot by Gibbs’s desk. She didn’t stand and glare like she usually would if anyone was in her spot. She just sat down beside Shanti and leaned into her. Shanti moved her head and gently nuzzled her ear. Gibbs barely gave them a second glance.

“Bad news, Boss?” Tony was by his side in seconds. Gibbs felt somehow soothed by Tony’s presence, although he wasn’t sure why. He might be in a bad mood but there was something about having Tony around that just made him feel better.

“Yeah – we lost the damn case.” Gibbs explained what had happened to Tony, who looked just as pissed off about it as he was.

"Rule number two – never trust the FBI?" Tony suggested.

Gibbs couldn't help laughing at that. "It's not rule number two, but it sure as hell should be a rule!"

"Where did the rules come from, Boss? Did your dad teach them to you?" Tony asked.

Gibbs felt his smile fading. "No," he said shortly. "It wasn't my dad."

Gibbs saw the realization in Tony's eyes that it was Shannon who had first given him the idea of making rules. So far, Tony hadn't mentioned her – and Gibbs wanted to keep it that way.

"We need more people on the team," he said briskly. "Go down to HR and get me some resumes."

"Uh, what kind of people are we looking for, Boss?"

"People who won't damn well annoy me, DiNozzo!" Gibbs snapped.

Tony nodded and made a swift exit towards the elevator. "How the hell are we gonna find anyone fitting that description?" Gibbs heard him mutter to Shanti as he went.

Tessa came over to sit beside him. "He does have a point."

"You think I'm grouchy?" He briefly rubbed one of her ears.

"Hell yeah!" She laughed at him, and he smiled down at her ruefully. "Don't worry – I'll never let you take yourself too seriously, even when everyone else is scuttling around in fear of you."

He raised an eyebrow. "'Scuttling around in fear of me'?"

She tilted her chin upwards, a 'don't even *try* and fool me' expression in her eyes.

He sighed. "Okay. I'll be nicer to Tony."

"Well, that would be good, but he isn't one of those who are afraid of you. He understands you. He always did, you know."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

She sat back on her haunches with a sigh. "Imagine you're an eight year old boy, pretty much all alone in a strange town, and you bump into a moody, short-tempered Marine with an injured paw."

"Leg," he corrected. "And what's your point?"

"My point is that most eight year olds would have run a mile. You were in a permanently bad mood while your knee healed."

"I was worried my career had come to an end. And living with Dad was driving me nuts."

"I know." She gave an impatient shake of her fur. "But Tony didn't see the wolf with the sore paw – what he saw was the man who let him use the restroom in his father's store, and played boats with him in the woods, and who knew how it felt to lose a mother."

"Oh." Gibbs sat back in his chair and glanced across the room to where Tony usually sat, with Shanti lounging on the floor beside the filing cabinet next to him. Tony had been with him for less than a week, and yet Gibbs felt like he could barely remember a time when he and Shanti hadn’t been sitting across the room from him.

"Like I said..." Tessa lay down, put her muzzle on her front paws, and closed her eyes, "he understands you."


~*~

End of Part Seven
Part Eight
Friendly Feedback Adored!