Prompt #90, Home: Homecoming - Dark Angel/NCIS
Title: Homecoming
Fandoms: Dark Angel/NCIS
Characters: Tony DiNozzo/Logan Cale & family
Prompt: #90,Home
Rating: G
HOMECOMING
McCabe Hall
10:07a.m., EDT
It was Saturday morning, it was a warmer than usual April, and Tony DiNozzo stood with his basketball under his arm, looking down on the empty court outside his window. It was dry and sunny; the court was his.
That was just it. The whole place was his ... and the quiet, the emptiness of the place, was unlike any of the weekends he’d been stuck there. Then, it had been nearly empty sometimes, sure - but never like this. The century-old dormitory took on a ghostly feel and he found himself walking and moving as softly as he could, so he wouldn’t gouge the silence ...
He’d gotten the news Thursday morning, between classes. He’d been called to the Dean’s office and told by an assistant that they’d gotten a call from his father. Apparently Mr. DiNozzo was overseas - extended his honeymoon, Tony had translated - and his father called that morning to ask that Tony remain at the Academy, in the dorm, through the following week.
So what had happened? Did he just now remember that next week was spring break? Tony had wondered. Did someone have it on the calendar and just now think to tell him?
... and why didn’t he let me just come home and stay there with the staff, as usual?
He’d looked at the woman and nodded, not really making eye contact, working to keep his expression unchanged. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, trying to just breathe evenly until the disappointment had passed. “Am I dismissed?”
“Yes...” The woman drew out the syllable as if she wasn’t quite sure. He had turned and had made it three steps toward the hall when she changed her mind. “Anthony...”
So he turned, more smartly than he felt. “Ma’am?”
She frowned a moment, thinking before speaking. “Mrs. Harper will be in her apartment the whole break, so you won’t be alone. And there will be two seniors on the fifth floor.” He nodded, watching her silently, having no response to learning that he’d have the entire dormitory to share with the elderly housemother and a couple guys he probably didn’t know and was unlikely to see the entire week. He’d really just wanted to go, but she had continued looking at him with a look of sad understanding. “You know, if...” she’d begun, her expression one of sympathetic concern. “If you want to have a home cooked dinner some night next week, you’re welcome to give me a call. My husband and I will be staying in town this year.”
“ ... oh ... thanks, Mrs. Carson,” he’d suddenly felt awkward at the woman’s offer, clearly elicited by the pathetic kid in front of her, who didn’t even have any place to go for break. “But I ...” He’d been at a loss to know how to decline, given she was just trying to be nice.
She had seemed to understand. “Well. If you decide ...” She jotted something on a slip of paper and slid it toward him, across her desk. “You know ... this happens, sometimes. Things come up. We’ve had some of the young men come for dinner, in past years. So, if you like, you just give us a call.”
He nodded, swallowing hard to clear the lump that had grown in his throat. “Thank you,” he’d managed, as he turned again to go. He hadn’t been able to force his thoughts away from the comparison, his own father leaving him there for a whole week, when the school emptied out, while a staff person felt so sorry to see it that she invited him to her home...
The phone brought him back to the present, replacing his memories of that Thursday morning with the image of the empty basketball court before him.
Tony turned away from the window and crossed to his desk, where his phone shimmied slightly on the slick surface, pulsing with the small screen’s light. He guessed at the caller before even looking at the caller ID - his Aunt Sarah.
He considered not answering.
He loved his aunt maybe more than anyone else he knew, except maybe for her son, his cousin, Logan, and loved that she called him so often, something she’d done much more after his parents split ... after his mom died ... after his dad sent him off to school. But he didn’t really want her to know how he’d been just left again, this time for a whole week...
... but she’d just call until she got him. And she’d worry. And he really did want to hear a friendly voice...
“Hey, Aunt Sarah,” he tried to sound normal.
“Tony, hi,” he heard her usual, cheery voice, and felt an odd little pang of something akin to homesickness. “How was your week?”
“Okay - good,” he lied. “How about you?”
“Oh, just fine, except your favorite cousin decided this week that he no longer wishes to wear shoes. Ever,” she emphasized dramatically. “The couple times I tried to insist, he made quite a scene,” she sighed a long-suffering sigh for his amusement.
The thought made him grin, despite everything else, at the thought of the bright, headstrong two year old. “At least he’s still wearing clothes, isn’t he?”
Her sudden, sharp laughter made it clear she hadn’t even considered the alternative. “Oh, no, Tony; don’t even imply that...” As always, she’d broken the ice, and as her laughter softened, she added, “So what do you have going on? Anything exciting coming up, now that basketball’s over?”
“Uh ... not really,” he said, the conversation quickly coming back to him. He wondered if he could manage not to tell her.
“Exams?”
“Huh-uh.”
“Trips? Adventures? C’mon, Tony, you usually have something in the works.” He could hear his Aunt Sarah, not really all that much older then he, as she worked to get him to talk to her. She’d done just this with increasing frequency over the years, always seeming to know when he needed her the most, and how to let him know that she cared about him, too. Just that much made him feel a little more and a little less alone, all at once...
“Nah...” He had to admit things, before it became so awkward he’d start to sound like a lonesome four year old. “Next week is spring break.” Even when he tried for casual, the words rushed from him more quickly than he’d intended.
“Really, already? How’d it get here so fast?” she joked. “Are you doing anything fun? Going anywhere interesting?”
He squirmed a little. He should have known it would just be the next topic. The silence of the dorm seemed to echo with a particular taunt at his solitude, as he looked for a way to reply and move on. “Nah. Just ... hangin’ out.”
There was a bit of a pause, and Sarah spoke carefully - Tony always knew it when she was choosing her words in the hope of not saying something negative about his family. “I hope you’ll have some fun ... has your dad been there yet, since you got home, or is he away?” Even though she kept her voice light, she’d gone to the heart of it - his dad. His dad, and all the things that kept him too busy to be a dad...
“He’s ... I.. ” For anyone else, Tony would have had a glib response rolling off his tongue, spinning yet another story to explain his father’s frequent absences, but for Sarah ... he couldn’t lie, not even if he wanted to. “He’s ... uh ... he’s still on his honeymoon...”
“So you’re all by yourself, with the house staff? I know they’re the greatest, Tony, but if y...
“No; I’m... ” It was harder than he’d have thought, to put it into words, even now. It wasn’t like this time was so much different from other things he’d done, not really. But he’d never been effectively barred from the freedom of coming home, before, not for this long - and for some reason, this one was over the line ... “I’m at school. He decided that ... since they’d allow me to stay...”
“Oh, Tony...” The heartbreak in her voice - for him, and for the unfairness of all of this - made his eyes sting with threatening tears. “Is anyone else there, any other students?”
“Two guys, but ...” For a moment he debated telling her how alone he felt - she’d think he was just a chickenshit, just a whiny little kid, after all - but at the moment he needed, more than anything, the reassuring voice of someone who understood, and understood why this hurt so much. “... but they’re seniors, so have off-campus privileges. They’ve been gone since Friday morning,” he added, in a hushed voice.
There was a momentary silence, and as Tony felt the ache in his gut deepen, his aunt suddenly spoke again, softly now. “Tony, hang on a second with me here, okay? Just...” Her voice had taken on a sudden focus, and he could hear the soft, rapid clatter of typing. “O...kay...” she drew out the syllables, talking more to herself, he could hear, than to him...
He simply waited, using the moment to jab at his eyes, to rub out the sudden, offending moisture. He wasn’t sure what she was doing, but was far less concerned about that for the moment than he was at his own reaction, thrown by just how much her sadness for him made him even more lonely than he’d been ... and how angry he was at himself now that he gave a damn, that he let it hurt so much...
“Okay...” she repeated. “Tony, you’ve got about ... four decent choices here. How long would it take you to get to the airport?”
“Uh... the airport?” He blinked, his other emotions damped by his confusion. “I dunno ... it’s about 30 minutes from here...”
“That’s good, Tony, that makes things easier.” More clatter - and even a little huff of success. “Oh, this works...” A few more clicks and she said, “okay, Tony, I just sent you an e-mail with all this info ... but there are at least four commuters you can get between Providence and LaGuardia - at 12:10, 2:05, 5:30 and 7:00. From there ... I see at another ... wow, a bunch, there’s a 1:45 p.m., a 3:35, a couple around 4:00 ... and then four between 6:00 and 8:00, with another at 9:15. With the time change, five and a half hour flight - even that 9 p.m. gets in at 11:40 here. And I’m sure we can get you here a lot earlier than that.” Her words started tumbling in her enthusiasm. “It’s just 10:20 there now, right?” At his barely managed, emotional hum of agreement, she said suddenly, “please come, Tony. We miss you, and it would be so much better to have you here than thinking of you banging around that damn school alone...”
...she made it sound as if he’d be coming for them ... and not because of his own, terrible loneliness...
“Will you come?” she was asking.
He was nodding furiously as he jumped up to pull out his backpack. Yanking drawers open and pulling out handfuls of socks and underwear, tee shirts and jeans, he managed, “yeah; sure!”
“I’ll make the reservations for you; let’s figure out when you can get here.”
Tony didn't even stop to glance at the e-mail she’d sent, knowing she’d be far more likely than he would to make a sensible connection at the moment. “Whatever you think; I can call a cab, and ...” he did a little figuring, “I think I could be at the airport by 11:30, easy.” He tossed the clothes on the bed, then lunged at his desk, pulling out the now-familiar campus leave form, adding in the information that he would be staying until next weekend with the aunt and uncle already in the school’s system as his approved family contacts. He grinned widely as he wrote, as if putting it into words made it suddenly real...
“Don’t you have to pack?” she asked in surprise.
“Just did” he beamed.
At which she laughed. “Men!” Sarah laughed. “Okay, then let’s do...” She found him a flight at 12:15 that could get him into the City by 1 PM , so booked the 2:35. “Worst case, they have another ninety minutes later and could bump you up...”
“Aunt Sarah...” He managed, at a loss to know how to tell her how much this meant, in so many ways. “Thank you...”
“Oh, Tony, this will be great,” she promised.
“But ... hey, you haven’t even told Uncle Robert yet; do you think he ... I mean, maybe he’s gonna think it’s not so great...”
“He’s going to want to know why we didn’t think this up at Christmas. You have my word, Tony, you are always welcome here...” There was a pause, and his aunt then asked, all the fun and warmth he knew in her captured in just one word, “Capisce?”
And a very happy Tony DiNozzo relaxed enough to laugh. “Capisco,” he agreed.
SeaTac Airport,
5:23 P.m. PDT
“Tony!!”
He heard the sound of his name just a bare moment before hearing the quickly pattering feet, and just one more moment before the bundle of squirming excitement launched himself into his arms and threatened to hug the breath out of him.
He couldn’t have had a more welcome welcome.
“Hey, Logan!” He scooped up the squirming boy and returned the hug, blinking hard to clear his suddenly misty vision, his backpack barely bouncing as it bumped against his cousin’s knee. “You came out here just to pick me up?” He pulled back to look at the shining green eyes and beaming smile of his two and a half year old cousin, who nodded in adoring enthusiasm, too excited to speak. The expression on the boy’s face, the limitless, unconditional love he saw there - for him - made his eyes smart again as they welled up again. With a sort of hiccuping laugh, he managed, “did you drive or take a cab?”
“You goofball,” a gentle, feminine voice laughed, and he looked up from his cousin toward the sound just as his Aunt Sarah came close and wrapped him in a big, warm hug, somehow not even awkward despite Logan’s delighted wriggling, now seeking his way back to the floor so he could get his favorite cousin back home. “It’s so good to see you!” Even he couldn’t doubt the genuineness in her words, hearing the sound of her voice...
“Tony, welcome back.”
The male voice behind his aunt, though familiar, surprised Tony enough that his joyous arrival was shaken - behind his aunt, his uncle Robert wore as big a grin as the others did. “Uncle R ... Robert...” he stammered his surprise. His uncle so often missed out on much of his visits there, even during the holidays, busy with his work even if at home, often traveling for days at a time, so much like his own father - enough that he barely had gotten to know the man. He still felt a ripple of childish shyness around him in comparison to his comfortable familiarity with his wife and child. With Uncle Robert coming out here, too - did this mean that he changed their mind and was sending him back? What was so important that he came to the airport, too?
Tony gulped a little and remembered his manners, well drilled by both the academy and the succession of nannies and teachers he’d had. He stuck out his hand, man to man, and said carefully, “hello, sir...”
“Hello, yourself.” His uncle took his outstretched hand and shook it, then pulled him easily into a hug with his free arm. “But you still get a hug from me, no matter how big you are now.”
Tony almost failed to hug back, still a little thrown by having not only his aunt, but his young cousin and his uncle to greet him. He was much more used to seeing a rented limo or one of his father’s employees sent to pick him up, if they’d gotten his schedule straight. Sometimes it was their driver. And sometimes, when Tony had to get his own ride, it was a cab...
This is like the movies, he began to marvel. A big airport reunion - a big happy family...
His musing was broken by the grin that was starting to grow across his face - and a small tug at his hand. “‘mon, Tony,” Logan started to pull Tony toward the concourse. He beamed, finally relaxing into the welcome he was receiving, and fell into step as his aunt and uncle simply laughed easily at their son’s enthusiasm.
“Did you check a bag, Tony?” Robert asked.
“No, just this,” he gestured to the large backpack on his shoulder.
As Robert nodded, he kept his eye on his young son, who was apt to conk out any minute, given that he’s missed his nap and had been a cyclone of energy all day, bouncing around in anticipation of his cousin’s visit. “You getting tired, Logan?” he tried gently. “You want a ride?”
The boy stopped, clearly deciding that it was a good idea, but looked back and forth from his father to his cousin. Daring to press his luck, his eyes twinkled as he pointed up to the teenager. “Tony gimme ride!” he announced.
“Up on my shoulders, like before? You got it!” Tony grinned, remembering their Christmas just a few months ago, when he got a then-wobbly Logan to sit on his shoulders and ride around the living room for the first time. He swung his backpack to the floor and knelt so the boy could clamor on. Robert smirked and silently lifted the backpack to his own shoulder, enjoying the show, and looped a loose arm around his wife, who watched with her own pleased beam.
“Ready? Hang on...” And Tony stood, feeling that in the five months since they’d first tried this, Logan had gotten stronger, bigger, and knew what to expect - with his father, Tony realized, refusing to let any comparison bring down the joy he felt in being with family who wanted him there. “Okay up there?”
“Yeah!” Logan crowed, even bouncing a little to spur him on. Tony’s grin quirked higher.
“We’re so glad you’re here,” Aunt Sarah said suddenly, overcome with the moment, as she rubbed his back affectionately. “Better than just staying there at school.”
“Way better,” he conceded, blushing a little to admit how just awful it was to be left for the week, when everyone else was going home. He looked again to the blue eyes seeking his, maybe trying to see how he was taking everything. “Thank you,” he added softly.
She simply rubbed his back again, nodding once, and tugged her son’s shirt down in the back to straighten it slightly. “If you’re hungry we can stop and get you fed, but since you’ve had a much longer day we can go on home - we could manage to rustle up some food there too.”
“Did you have any lunch, Tony?” his uncle asked.
“They had a sort of sandwich, on the plane...” he tried. He really didn’t want to be a bother his first night there...
“Ugh - plane food? That’s not lunch. And you...” he narrowed his eyes with another thought as he considered his nephew, “have been stuck in that school since Christmas, with cafeteria food all that time...” He pulled out his phone. “How about I order us some pizza and we pick it up on the way home?” He was moved by how touched the teenager looked, as if he wasn’t used to people trying to think of things he would like, or to worry about how he was doing. With Tony not responding, as if afraid to make such a demand, he looked smoothly to his wife. “Sarah?”
“Sounds perfect,” she grinned back to Tony. “You still like pepperoni?” At his nod, Robert hit a speed dial and ordered four medium pizzas, a selection including the pepperoni Tony liked and “a sausage, pepperoni and extra cheese...” He winked at Tony when he saw the teenager’s eyes light up like the sun at the very thought of such a perfectly masculine, over-the-top, mouth-watering combination.
They walked on through the airport and, seeing the drizzle starting up again outside, Robert left the others to dash out to get the car, so only one of them would have to get wet. As they waited for him under the long, curved drive past the airport’s large glass entry doors, Tony could feel that his cousin was starting to tire a little. “Hey Logan, you want to ride piggy back?” The teenager remembered something he’d heard in one of his wilderness outdoor hikes and their lessons in first aid and first assistance training, and suspected his cousin could even sleep against him if he let him ride piggyback, supporting him back and front. At the youngster’s sleepy nod, Tony knelt smoothly, carefully let go of one hand and brought his free arm across the small back. Letting go of the other hand he easily rounded his shoulders to let Logan slide down neatly into place. With a little giggle as he slid, Logan circled Tony’s neck as if they’d done it a million times, and Tony stood again easily, firmly holding the boy’s legs against him with his elbows as he held the small hands in his.
Sarah, watching closely with a hand raised to steady Logan if needed, nodded her approval and dropped the unneeded hand. “You’re pretty good at that,” she grinned. As she continued to take in the sight of her son nestling comfortably into his cousin’s sure hold, her expression softened and she added, her voice much lower, “Tony - you know, don’t you, that if we’d had any idea you were stuck at school for the week you’d’ve been on a plane here the minute your last class got out - right?”
Embarrassed at her concern - and at the neediness she must have heard in him - he couldn’t stop the sheepish grin he felt tugging at his mouth, knowing that she was not only concerned, but dead serious about what she said. “Yeah,” he shrugged.
“...and if there’s a whiff of it again - you just call and tell us when you can be here.”
He shrugged. “It’s not so bad; I’ve been there a lot of weekends. Not everyone makes it home on the weekend...”
“But they do for a week at spring break,” she urged, gently. “Look - I’m probably pretty dumb for mentioning this before we talk to your father - but we won’t be getting visits from you like this too much longer, I bet - you’ll graduate in a couple years then be off to college, and there’s no way you’ll want to come visit your boring ol’ family when there’s college going on,” she tried a teasing tone, to make it light. “It seems to us that we should get more Anthony DiNozzo time before you’re too good for us. So ...” she tried, tentatively, “we’re thinking you should some spend the summer with us. Not just a visit this time, but the whole summer - or as much of it as you like. For as many summers as you like.”
He listened in surprise as Aunt Sarah told him that he was wanted, that he was welcome - that he had a place with them, even if he didn’t have much of one under his father’s roof. He must have been gaping because her pretty eyes shifted in concern.
“... but ... only as much as you want to stay; just so you know you have...”
“I do! I mean, yeah - I want to come...” he blurted, the grin of realization taking him over.
“As long as your father is okay with it,” she cautioned.
“He will be,” Tony brushed aside the concern. It’s more of a hassle for him to schedule me in, decide where to send me, he thought. He’ll be okay with it...
“We thought we might head up to the cabin sometime this week, if the weather allows. We need to take a look around, see if anything needs fixing or replacing from the winter - you can help see if there’s something we need to get in for you, too. We’re about due a new net on the basketball goal, at the very least.”
He thought he might burst, right there on the spot. “Yeah,” he managed, nodding, probably as energetically as Logan had earlier, for the ride on his shoulders.
“There’s Robert,” his aunt nodded toward the car Tony recognized from his visit at Christmas, and she reached toward a now drowsing Logan. “This one didn’t make it long after your arrival,” she grinned.
As Tony let his cargo shift from his back to his mother’s arms, he turned to look at his small cousin, barely rousing as he was taken from Tony’s back, but managing another smile of delight to see his cousin there and grinning at him. “Tony...” the little boy beamed, amazing his cousin once again with how good it felt to be someone’s hero.
“Ready to head home, Logan?” he asked the boy. “You gonna let me tuck you in like last time?” He saw a funny little smile cross the child’s face as the thought seemed to settle him into an even deeper relaxation. Tony chuckled as the car pulled up to the curb, and stood aside as Aunt Sarah opened the back door to put Logan into his car seat. “Want me to buckle him in? I remember from Christmas,” he offered.
“Sure,” Sarah grinned, and stepped back to let Tony fasten the straps. Getting into the front seat and watching the progress, she glanced triumphantly at her husband as Tony snapped all the belts like a pro and shut the door carefully at Logan’s side. Coming around to the other side, he slipped in the back behind his uncle, and the car pulled away smoothly.
“Won’t be much longer ‘til we pick up those pizzas and get you home,” Robert promised. “You starving?”
Relaxing with his welcome, Tony finally grinned and nodded. “Especially for pizza,” he admitted.
“Good - me too,” Robert agreed.
Tony eagerly watched the familiar landscape around him as they pulled away from SeaTac and on toward home. When he looked back again he saw that his aunt was watching him, relaxing into her own smile for him. And for the first time in more than a week, since he’d first learned about spring break, Tony felt the weight of the world lift from his shoulders. Even if it was a bit distant in both miles and in lineage, he had a family who loved him. And just a tiny bit of that could go a very, very long way...
Fandoms: Dark Angel/NCIS
Characters: Tony DiNozzo/Logan Cale & family
Prompt: #90,Home
Rating: G
HOMECOMING
McCabe Hall
10:07a.m., EDT
It was Saturday morning, it was a warmer than usual April, and Tony DiNozzo stood with his basketball under his arm, looking down on the empty court outside his window. It was dry and sunny; the court was his.
That was just it. The whole place was his ... and the quiet, the emptiness of the place, was unlike any of the weekends he’d been stuck there. Then, it had been nearly empty sometimes, sure - but never like this. The century-old dormitory took on a ghostly feel and he found himself walking and moving as softly as he could, so he wouldn’t gouge the silence ...
He’d gotten the news Thursday morning, between classes. He’d been called to the Dean’s office and told by an assistant that they’d gotten a call from his father. Apparently Mr. DiNozzo was overseas - extended his honeymoon, Tony had translated - and his father called that morning to ask that Tony remain at the Academy, in the dorm, through the following week.
So what had happened? Did he just now remember that next week was spring break? Tony had wondered. Did someone have it on the calendar and just now think to tell him?
... and why didn’t he let me just come home and stay there with the staff, as usual?
He’d looked at the woman and nodded, not really making eye contact, working to keep his expression unchanged. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, trying to just breathe evenly until the disappointment had passed. “Am I dismissed?”
“Yes...” The woman drew out the syllable as if she wasn’t quite sure. He had turned and had made it three steps toward the hall when she changed her mind. “Anthony...”
So he turned, more smartly than he felt. “Ma’am?”
She frowned a moment, thinking before speaking. “Mrs. Harper will be in her apartment the whole break, so you won’t be alone. And there will be two seniors on the fifth floor.” He nodded, watching her silently, having no response to learning that he’d have the entire dormitory to share with the elderly housemother and a couple guys he probably didn’t know and was unlikely to see the entire week. He’d really just wanted to go, but she had continued looking at him with a look of sad understanding. “You know, if...” she’d begun, her expression one of sympathetic concern. “If you want to have a home cooked dinner some night next week, you’re welcome to give me a call. My husband and I will be staying in town this year.”
“ ... oh ... thanks, Mrs. Carson,” he’d suddenly felt awkward at the woman’s offer, clearly elicited by the pathetic kid in front of her, who didn’t even have any place to go for break. “But I ...” He’d been at a loss to know how to decline, given she was just trying to be nice.
She had seemed to understand. “Well. If you decide ...” She jotted something on a slip of paper and slid it toward him, across her desk. “You know ... this happens, sometimes. Things come up. We’ve had some of the young men come for dinner, in past years. So, if you like, you just give us a call.”
He nodded, swallowing hard to clear the lump that had grown in his throat. “Thank you,” he’d managed, as he turned again to go. He hadn’t been able to force his thoughts away from the comparison, his own father leaving him there for a whole week, when the school emptied out, while a staff person felt so sorry to see it that she invited him to her home...
The phone brought him back to the present, replacing his memories of that Thursday morning with the image of the empty basketball court before him.
Tony turned away from the window and crossed to his desk, where his phone shimmied slightly on the slick surface, pulsing with the small screen’s light. He guessed at the caller before even looking at the caller ID - his Aunt Sarah.
He considered not answering.
He loved his aunt maybe more than anyone else he knew, except maybe for her son, his cousin, Logan, and loved that she called him so often, something she’d done much more after his parents split ... after his mom died ... after his dad sent him off to school. But he didn’t really want her to know how he’d been just left again, this time for a whole week...
... but she’d just call until she got him. And she’d worry. And he really did want to hear a friendly voice...
“Hey, Aunt Sarah,” he tried to sound normal.
“Tony, hi,” he heard her usual, cheery voice, and felt an odd little pang of something akin to homesickness. “How was your week?”
“Okay - good,” he lied. “How about you?”
“Oh, just fine, except your favorite cousin decided this week that he no longer wishes to wear shoes. Ever,” she emphasized dramatically. “The couple times I tried to insist, he made quite a scene,” she sighed a long-suffering sigh for his amusement.
The thought made him grin, despite everything else, at the thought of the bright, headstrong two year old. “At least he’s still wearing clothes, isn’t he?”
Her sudden, sharp laughter made it clear she hadn’t even considered the alternative. “Oh, no, Tony; don’t even imply that...” As always, she’d broken the ice, and as her laughter softened, she added, “So what do you have going on? Anything exciting coming up, now that basketball’s over?”
“Uh ... not really,” he said, the conversation quickly coming back to him. He wondered if he could manage not to tell her.
“Exams?”
“Huh-uh.”
“Trips? Adventures? C’mon, Tony, you usually have something in the works.” He could hear his Aunt Sarah, not really all that much older then he, as she worked to get him to talk to her. She’d done just this with increasing frequency over the years, always seeming to know when he needed her the most, and how to let him know that she cared about him, too. Just that much made him feel a little more and a little less alone, all at once...
“Nah...” He had to admit things, before it became so awkward he’d start to sound like a lonesome four year old. “Next week is spring break.” Even when he tried for casual, the words rushed from him more quickly than he’d intended.
“Really, already? How’d it get here so fast?” she joked. “Are you doing anything fun? Going anywhere interesting?”
He squirmed a little. He should have known it would just be the next topic. The silence of the dorm seemed to echo with a particular taunt at his solitude, as he looked for a way to reply and move on. “Nah. Just ... hangin’ out.”
There was a bit of a pause, and Sarah spoke carefully - Tony always knew it when she was choosing her words in the hope of not saying something negative about his family. “I hope you’ll have some fun ... has your dad been there yet, since you got home, or is he away?” Even though she kept her voice light, she’d gone to the heart of it - his dad. His dad, and all the things that kept him too busy to be a dad...
“He’s ... I.. ” For anyone else, Tony would have had a glib response rolling off his tongue, spinning yet another story to explain his father’s frequent absences, but for Sarah ... he couldn’t lie, not even if he wanted to. “He’s ... uh ... he’s still on his honeymoon...”
“So you’re all by yourself, with the house staff? I know they’re the greatest, Tony, but if y...
“No; I’m... ” It was harder than he’d have thought, to put it into words, even now. It wasn’t like this time was so much different from other things he’d done, not really. But he’d never been effectively barred from the freedom of coming home, before, not for this long - and for some reason, this one was over the line ... “I’m at school. He decided that ... since they’d allow me to stay...”
“Oh, Tony...” The heartbreak in her voice - for him, and for the unfairness of all of this - made his eyes sting with threatening tears. “Is anyone else there, any other students?”
“Two guys, but ...” For a moment he debated telling her how alone he felt - she’d think he was just a chickenshit, just a whiny little kid, after all - but at the moment he needed, more than anything, the reassuring voice of someone who understood, and understood why this hurt so much. “... but they’re seniors, so have off-campus privileges. They’ve been gone since Friday morning,” he added, in a hushed voice.
There was a momentary silence, and as Tony felt the ache in his gut deepen, his aunt suddenly spoke again, softly now. “Tony, hang on a second with me here, okay? Just...” Her voice had taken on a sudden focus, and he could hear the soft, rapid clatter of typing. “O...kay...” she drew out the syllables, talking more to herself, he could hear, than to him...
He simply waited, using the moment to jab at his eyes, to rub out the sudden, offending moisture. He wasn’t sure what she was doing, but was far less concerned about that for the moment than he was at his own reaction, thrown by just how much her sadness for him made him even more lonely than he’d been ... and how angry he was at himself now that he gave a damn, that he let it hurt so much...
“Okay...” she repeated. “Tony, you’ve got about ... four decent choices here. How long would it take you to get to the airport?”
“Uh... the airport?” He blinked, his other emotions damped by his confusion. “I dunno ... it’s about 30 minutes from here...”
“That’s good, Tony, that makes things easier.” More clatter - and even a little huff of success. “Oh, this works...” A few more clicks and she said, “okay, Tony, I just sent you an e-mail with all this info ... but there are at least four commuters you can get between Providence and LaGuardia - at 12:10, 2:05, 5:30 and 7:00. From there ... I see at another ... wow, a bunch, there’s a 1:45 p.m., a 3:35, a couple around 4:00 ... and then four between 6:00 and 8:00, with another at 9:15. With the time change, five and a half hour flight - even that 9 p.m. gets in at 11:40 here. And I’m sure we can get you here a lot earlier than that.” Her words started tumbling in her enthusiasm. “It’s just 10:20 there now, right?” At his barely managed, emotional hum of agreement, she said suddenly, “please come, Tony. We miss you, and it would be so much better to have you here than thinking of you banging around that damn school alone...”
...she made it sound as if he’d be coming for them ... and not because of his own, terrible loneliness...
“Will you come?” she was asking.
He was nodding furiously as he jumped up to pull out his backpack. Yanking drawers open and pulling out handfuls of socks and underwear, tee shirts and jeans, he managed, “yeah; sure!”
“I’ll make the reservations for you; let’s figure out when you can get here.”
Tony didn't even stop to glance at the e-mail she’d sent, knowing she’d be far more likely than he would to make a sensible connection at the moment. “Whatever you think; I can call a cab, and ...” he did a little figuring, “I think I could be at the airport by 11:30, easy.” He tossed the clothes on the bed, then lunged at his desk, pulling out the now-familiar campus leave form, adding in the information that he would be staying until next weekend with the aunt and uncle already in the school’s system as his approved family contacts. He grinned widely as he wrote, as if putting it into words made it suddenly real...
“Don’t you have to pack?” she asked in surprise.
“Just did” he beamed.
At which she laughed. “Men!” Sarah laughed. “Okay, then let’s do...” She found him a flight at 12:15 that could get him into the City by 1 PM , so booked the 2:35. “Worst case, they have another ninety minutes later and could bump you up...”
“Aunt Sarah...” He managed, at a loss to know how to tell her how much this meant, in so many ways. “Thank you...”
“Oh, Tony, this will be great,” she promised.
“But ... hey, you haven’t even told Uncle Robert yet; do you think he ... I mean, maybe he’s gonna think it’s not so great...”
“He’s going to want to know why we didn’t think this up at Christmas. You have my word, Tony, you are always welcome here...” There was a pause, and his aunt then asked, all the fun and warmth he knew in her captured in just one word, “Capisce?”
And a very happy Tony DiNozzo relaxed enough to laugh. “Capisco,” he agreed.
SeaTac Airport,
5:23 P.m. PDT
“Tony!!”
He heard the sound of his name just a bare moment before hearing the quickly pattering feet, and just one more moment before the bundle of squirming excitement launched himself into his arms and threatened to hug the breath out of him.
He couldn’t have had a more welcome welcome.
“Hey, Logan!” He scooped up the squirming boy and returned the hug, blinking hard to clear his suddenly misty vision, his backpack barely bouncing as it bumped against his cousin’s knee. “You came out here just to pick me up?” He pulled back to look at the shining green eyes and beaming smile of his two and a half year old cousin, who nodded in adoring enthusiasm, too excited to speak. The expression on the boy’s face, the limitless, unconditional love he saw there - for him - made his eyes smart again as they welled up again. With a sort of hiccuping laugh, he managed, “did you drive or take a cab?”
“You goofball,” a gentle, feminine voice laughed, and he looked up from his cousin toward the sound just as his Aunt Sarah came close and wrapped him in a big, warm hug, somehow not even awkward despite Logan’s delighted wriggling, now seeking his way back to the floor so he could get his favorite cousin back home. “It’s so good to see you!” Even he couldn’t doubt the genuineness in her words, hearing the sound of her voice...
“Tony, welcome back.”
The male voice behind his aunt, though familiar, surprised Tony enough that his joyous arrival was shaken - behind his aunt, his uncle Robert wore as big a grin as the others did. “Uncle R ... Robert...” he stammered his surprise. His uncle so often missed out on much of his visits there, even during the holidays, busy with his work even if at home, often traveling for days at a time, so much like his own father - enough that he barely had gotten to know the man. He still felt a ripple of childish shyness around him in comparison to his comfortable familiarity with his wife and child. With Uncle Robert coming out here, too - did this mean that he changed their mind and was sending him back? What was so important that he came to the airport, too?
Tony gulped a little and remembered his manners, well drilled by both the academy and the succession of nannies and teachers he’d had. He stuck out his hand, man to man, and said carefully, “hello, sir...”
“Hello, yourself.” His uncle took his outstretched hand and shook it, then pulled him easily into a hug with his free arm. “But you still get a hug from me, no matter how big you are now.”
Tony almost failed to hug back, still a little thrown by having not only his aunt, but his young cousin and his uncle to greet him. He was much more used to seeing a rented limo or one of his father’s employees sent to pick him up, if they’d gotten his schedule straight. Sometimes it was their driver. And sometimes, when Tony had to get his own ride, it was a cab...
This is like the movies, he began to marvel. A big airport reunion - a big happy family...
His musing was broken by the grin that was starting to grow across his face - and a small tug at his hand. “‘mon, Tony,” Logan started to pull Tony toward the concourse. He beamed, finally relaxing into the welcome he was receiving, and fell into step as his aunt and uncle simply laughed easily at their son’s enthusiasm.
“Did you check a bag, Tony?” Robert asked.
“No, just this,” he gestured to the large backpack on his shoulder.
As Robert nodded, he kept his eye on his young son, who was apt to conk out any minute, given that he’s missed his nap and had been a cyclone of energy all day, bouncing around in anticipation of his cousin’s visit. “You getting tired, Logan?” he tried gently. “You want a ride?”
The boy stopped, clearly deciding that it was a good idea, but looked back and forth from his father to his cousin. Daring to press his luck, his eyes twinkled as he pointed up to the teenager. “Tony gimme ride!” he announced.
“Up on my shoulders, like before? You got it!” Tony grinned, remembering their Christmas just a few months ago, when he got a then-wobbly Logan to sit on his shoulders and ride around the living room for the first time. He swung his backpack to the floor and knelt so the boy could clamor on. Robert smirked and silently lifted the backpack to his own shoulder, enjoying the show, and looped a loose arm around his wife, who watched with her own pleased beam.
“Ready? Hang on...” And Tony stood, feeling that in the five months since they’d first tried this, Logan had gotten stronger, bigger, and knew what to expect - with his father, Tony realized, refusing to let any comparison bring down the joy he felt in being with family who wanted him there. “Okay up there?”
“Yeah!” Logan crowed, even bouncing a little to spur him on. Tony’s grin quirked higher.
“We’re so glad you’re here,” Aunt Sarah said suddenly, overcome with the moment, as she rubbed his back affectionately. “Better than just staying there at school.”
“Way better,” he conceded, blushing a little to admit how just awful it was to be left for the week, when everyone else was going home. He looked again to the blue eyes seeking his, maybe trying to see how he was taking everything. “Thank you,” he added softly.
She simply rubbed his back again, nodding once, and tugged her son’s shirt down in the back to straighten it slightly. “If you’re hungry we can stop and get you fed, but since you’ve had a much longer day we can go on home - we could manage to rustle up some food there too.”
“Did you have any lunch, Tony?” his uncle asked.
“They had a sort of sandwich, on the plane...” he tried. He really didn’t want to be a bother his first night there...
“Ugh - plane food? That’s not lunch. And you...” he narrowed his eyes with another thought as he considered his nephew, “have been stuck in that school since Christmas, with cafeteria food all that time...” He pulled out his phone. “How about I order us some pizza and we pick it up on the way home?” He was moved by how touched the teenager looked, as if he wasn’t used to people trying to think of things he would like, or to worry about how he was doing. With Tony not responding, as if afraid to make such a demand, he looked smoothly to his wife. “Sarah?”
“Sounds perfect,” she grinned back to Tony. “You still like pepperoni?” At his nod, Robert hit a speed dial and ordered four medium pizzas, a selection including the pepperoni Tony liked and “a sausage, pepperoni and extra cheese...” He winked at Tony when he saw the teenager’s eyes light up like the sun at the very thought of such a perfectly masculine, over-the-top, mouth-watering combination.
They walked on through the airport and, seeing the drizzle starting up again outside, Robert left the others to dash out to get the car, so only one of them would have to get wet. As they waited for him under the long, curved drive past the airport’s large glass entry doors, Tony could feel that his cousin was starting to tire a little. “Hey Logan, you want to ride piggy back?” The teenager remembered something he’d heard in one of his wilderness outdoor hikes and their lessons in first aid and first assistance training, and suspected his cousin could even sleep against him if he let him ride piggyback, supporting him back and front. At the youngster’s sleepy nod, Tony knelt smoothly, carefully let go of one hand and brought his free arm across the small back. Letting go of the other hand he easily rounded his shoulders to let Logan slide down neatly into place. With a little giggle as he slid, Logan circled Tony’s neck as if they’d done it a million times, and Tony stood again easily, firmly holding the boy’s legs against him with his elbows as he held the small hands in his.
Sarah, watching closely with a hand raised to steady Logan if needed, nodded her approval and dropped the unneeded hand. “You’re pretty good at that,” she grinned. As she continued to take in the sight of her son nestling comfortably into his cousin’s sure hold, her expression softened and she added, her voice much lower, “Tony - you know, don’t you, that if we’d had any idea you were stuck at school for the week you’d’ve been on a plane here the minute your last class got out - right?”
Embarrassed at her concern - and at the neediness she must have heard in him - he couldn’t stop the sheepish grin he felt tugging at his mouth, knowing that she was not only concerned, but dead serious about what she said. “Yeah,” he shrugged.
“...and if there’s a whiff of it again - you just call and tell us when you can be here.”
He shrugged. “It’s not so bad; I’ve been there a lot of weekends. Not everyone makes it home on the weekend...”
“But they do for a week at spring break,” she urged, gently. “Look - I’m probably pretty dumb for mentioning this before we talk to your father - but we won’t be getting visits from you like this too much longer, I bet - you’ll graduate in a couple years then be off to college, and there’s no way you’ll want to come visit your boring ol’ family when there’s college going on,” she tried a teasing tone, to make it light. “It seems to us that we should get more Anthony DiNozzo time before you’re too good for us. So ...” she tried, tentatively, “we’re thinking you should some spend the summer with us. Not just a visit this time, but the whole summer - or as much of it as you like. For as many summers as you like.”
He listened in surprise as Aunt Sarah told him that he was wanted, that he was welcome - that he had a place with them, even if he didn’t have much of one under his father’s roof. He must have been gaping because her pretty eyes shifted in concern.
“... but ... only as much as you want to stay; just so you know you have...”
“I do! I mean, yeah - I want to come...” he blurted, the grin of realization taking him over.
“As long as your father is okay with it,” she cautioned.
“He will be,” Tony brushed aside the concern. It’s more of a hassle for him to schedule me in, decide where to send me, he thought. He’ll be okay with it...
“We thought we might head up to the cabin sometime this week, if the weather allows. We need to take a look around, see if anything needs fixing or replacing from the winter - you can help see if there’s something we need to get in for you, too. We’re about due a new net on the basketball goal, at the very least.”
He thought he might burst, right there on the spot. “Yeah,” he managed, nodding, probably as energetically as Logan had earlier, for the ride on his shoulders.
“There’s Robert,” his aunt nodded toward the car Tony recognized from his visit at Christmas, and she reached toward a now drowsing Logan. “This one didn’t make it long after your arrival,” she grinned.
As Tony let his cargo shift from his back to his mother’s arms, he turned to look at his small cousin, barely rousing as he was taken from Tony’s back, but managing another smile of delight to see his cousin there and grinning at him. “Tony...” the little boy beamed, amazing his cousin once again with how good it felt to be someone’s hero.
“Ready to head home, Logan?” he asked the boy. “You gonna let me tuck you in like last time?” He saw a funny little smile cross the child’s face as the thought seemed to settle him into an even deeper relaxation. Tony chuckled as the car pulled up to the curb, and stood aside as Aunt Sarah opened the back door to put Logan into his car seat. “Want me to buckle him in? I remember from Christmas,” he offered.
“Sure,” Sarah grinned, and stepped back to let Tony fasten the straps. Getting into the front seat and watching the progress, she glanced triumphantly at her husband as Tony snapped all the belts like a pro and shut the door carefully at Logan’s side. Coming around to the other side, he slipped in the back behind his uncle, and the car pulled away smoothly.
“Won’t be much longer ‘til we pick up those pizzas and get you home,” Robert promised. “You starving?”
Relaxing with his welcome, Tony finally grinned and nodded. “Especially for pizza,” he admitted.
“Good - me too,” Robert agreed.
Tony eagerly watched the familiar landscape around him as they pulled away from SeaTac and on toward home. When he looked back again he saw that his aunt was watching him, relaxing into her own smile for him. And for the first time in more than a week, since he’d first learned about spring break, Tony felt the weight of the world lift from his shoulders. Even if it was a bit distant in both miles and in lineage, he had a family who loved him. And just a tiny bit of that could go a very, very long way...