Work Text:
Sandblasted
by JustJeanette
To be a good sniper you had to be patient. Gibbs had been a very good sniper. But even saints have a limit and Gibbs was fast approaching his; Tony's repeated absences were starting to tell, both on team performance, and Gibbs' temper. Unfortunately, he was hampered in his ability to do anything about the absences, or their effect on the team as Gibbs was supposed to be ignorant of the reasons. Any time machinations were in play, it never was a good thing.
To survive the machinations that make up any Federal Agency you had to be smart. To get to where you wanted to be in those same Federal Agencies you had to be more than smart; you had to be smart and cunning. Gibbs wasn't the Director of NCIS because he was very smart, very cunning, and just plain didn't want the job. He also knew where enough of the bodies were buried that no-one was going to be offering him the Directorship real soon.
Unfortunately, to deal with the machinations that were Director Shepard you and your team had to be on the ball and focused; side issues and distractions could be deadly. Gibbs had his team's loyalty, to them Gibbs was the CO; the Director was there just to look pretty. But pretty with power is a dangerous combination. Pretty, with power and a grudge, could be deadly.
But, and it was a pretty big but, even with Shepard there looking pretty you sometimes just had to suck it up like a good Marine. Now was one of those times; a joint investigation with the Army, a possible terrorist attack in the wings, and Tony, off having to play gigolo at the Director's command. The next time Jethro was tempted to go off in a fit of pique, he swore he'd remind himself of what had happened to HIS team the last time he wasn't there to protect them. Still, as he wasn't supposed to have been read in on Shepard's little op, Gibbs had to keep on keeping on as though everything was all right with his team.
Which it wasn't. Hell, it was heading so far away from all right that even Ziva was noticing.
This all meant that Gibbs was pissed. Gibbs knew what he wanted but with things the way there were at the moment Gibbs wasn't going to get them. Considering that his real wants was a small list this was not a good thing.
What Gibbs wanted was Tony. What Gibbs needed was Tony. What Gibbs had was a lot of black paint and an intruder.
"Agent Gibbs?" Footsteps in the hallway above the stairs that led down to the basement accompanied the query. Army Colonel Hollis Mann, CID (and bets were already taken on her potential to be the fourth ex-Mrs-Gibbs) poked her head around the door jamb and looked down into Gibbs' own personal ship-in-a-bottle. "I... I've been ringing your bell for the last three minutes."
Sitting down at the stern of the upended, three quarter built boat, Gibbs tried to ignore the intruder. "Yeah. Been meaning to fix that."
Ignoring the less than welcoming tone, Colonel Mann wandered down the flight of stairs. "Well, the door was unlocked, so...."
"So this would be trespassing, not breaking and entering." Gibbs kept his attention fixed on the lettering on the boat's stern. With the same level of care that he applied to his work Gibbs continued to paint in the boat's name.
"Uh-huh. Kelly?" It was amazing how many layers of meaning a trained interrogator could insert into a simple question. In this case, Colonel Mann inserted the wrong layers.
"There a reason you broke into my house?" Gibbs inserted exactly the layers of meaning he intended, and none of them were nice. Sensible people, like his team, would have been high-tailing it out of the basement at that tone; Colonel Mann was apparently made of stupider stuff.
"This is a joint investigation. I thought maybe we could share some information."
Share information, trivial information maybe, but no lead investigator worth their salt offered to share real information this early in a joint investigation unless they, themselves, had nothing. Gibbs was a past master at sharing exactly what he intended to share, nothing short of a direct order from SecNav would have him share anything, and even then it would be as little as possible. So, with his normal practice in mind, Gibbs asked, "Beer?"
The non-sequitur threw Mann for a moment, but she recovered nicely and set about opening one of the two bottles of beer left out on Gibbs' workbench. "I got the results on the swabs from the Toyota. There were traces of diesel fuel and uh... fertilizer. Same thing that McVeigh used to ... blow up the Federal Building in Oklahoma."
Standard stuff you'd expect to find on a greens-keepers truck, no surprise there, but that didn't stop Gibbs rubbing it in a bit. "Guy driving the Toyota was a greens-keeper."
"I know. He's around fertilizer and diesel fuel all day. It was a bad lead. Anything you'd like to share?"
"I've got some sardines upstairs." Gibbs didn't even bother to look up as Mann approached; Mann was trying, and failing, to push his buttons, though he had to admit she had nice legs.
"I meant about the case. But then you knew that." Mann flushed a little at how easily she'd fallen off her stride. Gibbs was a formidable man she would admit later but right then she was off balance and she knew it. Trying to reassert control over the conversation, Colonel Mann nodded to the rear of the boat. "Girlfriend. Is Kelly your girlfriend?"
A look of profound pain crossed Gibbs' features as he looked up at the Colonel, a head shake his only answer.
"Okay, look. C.I.D. intel did a profile on you for me. I know you flaunt authority, especially in front of a female."
"A female write that, too?"' That was the politest thing Gibbs could think of to say. The fact that Mann had asked if Kelly was his girlfriend told him all he needed to know about Army CID and their intel capabilities. His rather obvious meltdown should have been flagged; the fact that it wasn't meant Gibbs wasn't about to trust anything coming out of the Army now.
Mann, oblivious to the impression she was creating, snapped, "Yeah. She also wrote you were a sniper, a good one, but your eyesight's shot. You're injury-prone, if not in a state of near death-wish fulfilment. And though you're pressured and impatient, you're also passionate and loyal, in spite of the fact that you don't trust anyone." Mann waited a moment before issuing the ultimatum, "You are going to have to trust me."
Gibbs tried not to snort, but as he hadn't been an officer, and therefore had never had to be a gentleman, it took all of his willpower not to do so. Instead, with a generous helping of snark, Gibbs asked, "Is there anything I should know about you before we get involved?"
The look on Mann's face was worth the possible complications from the snark, "Involved?"
"In the case."
Mann was putting out way too many signals, all of them on the wrong wavelength. "You can have NCIS Intel do a profile on me if you'd like." A final attempt to salvage some dignity.
"Oh, I could... But I like surprises," He said, clearly dismissing Colonel Mann and her involvement.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Tony sat opposite Jeanne Benoit and wondered, not for the first time, how his life had gotten so screwed up. The answer, he decided was women, many women. Ziva David, his NCIS partner and former Mossad operative, was pestering him about his 'supposed' illness, which at least made for a nice cover for his trips to Washington General Hospital. Jeanne Benoit, his current gray-almost-black-op assignment, was charming, and, it appeared, totally clueless about her father. Director Jennifer Sheppard, his supposed boss, and would she be happy to know where Tony's loyalties really lay, was on some mad power trip trying to settle a decade old grudge. Last, but by no means least, Colonel Hollis Mann, the latest woman to attempt to become the fourth ex-Mrs-Gibbs. Mann, at least, was clueless as to the fact that she caused any consternation to one Tony Dinozzo, but that didn't mean much in the grand scheme of things.
Pulling his attention back to his dinner partner, Tony read from the small card in front of him, "This hypothesis states that the fate of transplanted embryonic cells is independent of their new position in the embryo." Just how he wanted to spend the evening, playing jeopardy, not.
Jeanne, very sure of herself, and in need of being taken down a peg or two, smiled at Tony as she stated, "The Mosaic Hypothesis."
Since Jeanne had been the one to suggest the Jeopardy style Q&A, her failure to answer in the correct form ticked Tony off but gave him the chance for a bit of peg knocking. "I'm sorry. I'm going to need the complete answer." The charm smile worked a treat and Jeanne didn't even blink at the implied insult.
"What is the Mosaic Hypothesis?"
"Correct! Hot and smart. A female version of me." Luckily for Tony, Jeanne was not a mind reader. She wouldn't last 10 seconds with McGee, let alone Ziva; as for what Gibbs would do to Miss Benoit, well, Tony could dream about the fallout.
"Ow! So you think I'm ready for the exam tomorrow?" The approval seeking, combined with fishing for an implied compliment about her intelligence didn't really look all that good on the attractive young woman. To have gotten to where she was in her career, Benoit had to be past the need to swat study the night before an exam.
"Well, I have twenty bucks saying you're going to set the curve." Tony very carefully didn't say which end of the curve he thought she'd set.
"Okay, that's good to hear. Because that means it's my turn to ask you some questions."
Questions, just what he needed, but rolling his eyes would have been counter productive. "Fire away."
"All right, how's a... how's a kind of cute, definitely charming guy like you, who does some pretty bad impersonations...." Scarily enough it was obvious she really wanted to know.
"I don't know what that means, but I thank you." Tony dropped into a bad impersonation of Marlon Brando effectively distracting Jeanne for a moment, a short moment.
".... managed to stay single for so long?"
"Oh, you're going to ask a real question. That's a real question." Tony leaned back in the chair and though seriously about how to best answer that question. If Jeanne had been watching his eyes she's have noticed the slight dip to the left before Tony answered but she was focus on the coffee in front of her.
"Yeah."
"Um.... what are commitment issues?" The game of Jeopardy was still in play.
Laughing at Tony's antics, Jeanne looked at the man across from her. "Not buying it."
"Really?" Even to himself Tony sounded disappointed.
"Mm-mm."
"And why is that?" Tony was kind of used to the whole 'frat-boy', careless and carefree, persona working for him that he hadn't really considered how to answer when it wasn't.
"In the last hour...."
"Yeah." The eyebrow lift, Tony thought, was a nice touch to the interrogative.
"At least a dozen hot coeds have walked by. Your eyes haven't wandered once." Jeanne looked rather smug at the pronouncement, and under normal circumstances she would have been justified in that look. Luckily she was unaware that it wasn't normal circumstances, otherwise Tony might have been finding out if Jeanne Benoit possessed the fiery temper mode of the European.
"Really? Well, obviously yours have." Tony was curious to note that Jeanne obviously noted his lack of interest in the wandering parade. Given what he hoped was waiting at home, the wandering parade didn'treally rate a notice.
"Don't get your hopes up. I'm a very um... traditional girl."
Pity, as Tony wasn't your um... traditional boy. "Oh, so is Anne Hecht."
"You still haven't answered my question, Tony."
"Okay. Okay." Tony placated, "Well, I suppose that I am patiently waiting to find the right girl."
"You think you'll ever find her?" The question was obviously not will you find her but will you find me.
"I'm getting more and more confident by the day." Tony spoke the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But you can still lie by omission even when telling nothing but the truth.
Jeanne leaned back in her chair, sipping the last of her coffee, happy with Tony's answer.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Tony wandered into the house and headed straight for the kitchen. He hadn't really eaten much for dinner; having to verbally dance with Jeanne had put him off his appetite. But he was hungry now, hungry enough he'd even eat those blasted sardines, if he had to.
"Hungry?"
Tony tried, and failed, not to jump. The floorboards should have creaked; they did every time he went down into the basement. It just wasn't fair, no matter how light his tread, and Tony could tread lightly, the house always gave him away. The Boss, however, never. On further consideration Tony wasn't even really surprised at that fact; only a fool, sentient or otherwise, would give Gibbs away.
"I could even eat those sardine's you have there, Boss," Tony leaned back into the embrace of the man standing behind him.
"You're lucky, Tony. I nearly had to share them with Colonel Mann." Gibbs, sensibly, tightened his grip when Tony stiffened, and not in a good way, at the mention of the Army Colonel. "She was here trying to 'share' information." Gibbs reassured his second.
"Bet that wasn't the only thing she wanted to share..." Tony sniped as he dropped his head back to rest on Gibbs' shoulder. No ulterior motive there, just because the move put his ear into nibbling range had nothing to do with the action.
"She might have. But all she did share was that army intel, to use one of Abs' phrases, sucks."
"Huh?" Gibbs didn't sound real pleased with that; which was kind of funny given they'd both assumed that Army's intel would 'suck'. Curious, and having finally noticed that Jethro was practically vibrating with anger, Tony turned in his lover's arms to look him in the eye as he asked, "How'd she do that?"
"Asked if Kelly was my girlfriend?"
Oh hell, of all the questions to ask that was probably the worst the Army Colonel could have asked. "Shit. No wonder you're pissed."
Kelly and Shannon remained sensitive subjects, though Gibbs had actually started filling Tony in on that time in Gibbs' life. Madame Director would probably be more than pissed if she knew how much Tony knew about Gibbs, and his history; not just his history with Jennifer Sheppard, but all the woman that had been in Gibbs' life. Only one other subject that was as touchy as the topic of Kelly and Shannon, and that was Gibbs' 'retirement'.
"Do we have to work with her?"
"Madame Director's orders."
"Great." They were screwed. Madame Director had already proven, well and truly, that she was more interested in appearances and politics; staying silent when the Cape Fear was 'accidentally' blown. Nineteen lives, ended for the sake of appearance. "Any other nasty surprises?"
"None that I can think of."
"Good, then let's get you to bed." Tony dragged Gibbs after him. "You need a good back rub and I know just the masseuse..."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Later, as Jethro finally slept, Tony thought back on the old saying 'if you love someone let them go...' He'd let Gibbs go. He'd let Gibbs have the time he'd needed to start healing in Mexico. And, like the saying went, 'if they were yours they'd always come back'. Gibbs came back.
END