Lions and Tigers and Igigi, Oh My
The END. We go back to the beginning by returning to NCIS.
Fandom: NCIS, Stargate SG1
Characters: Gibbs, Tony, Jack
Rating: TEEN (Gibbs/Tony)
Summary: Tony had never heard of goa'uld or tok'ra or igigi, and he sure as hell didn't know Gibbs had a passenger riding around in his head, but if Gibbs thinks one little alien parasite is going to make him go running, he has another thought coming. He's Gibbs' second, and that means he doesn't give up on his boss.
Ya know, just go read the old chapters on AO3 because coming up with links for every chapter is getting old.
“Okay, Abby is going to seem a little strange, so don’t freak out.”
Captain Evan Lorne looked at him oddly. “You know where I work. Do you really think one lab tech is going to freak me out?”
“Yes,” Tony said firmly. “Which is why we’re going to see the director first. Tony watched the elevator numbers as he headed back up to his familiar stomping grounds. The guards at the front doors had greeted him warmly, and Tony had to make them promise to not tell everyone he was coming. When Sec Nav had told the NCIS people to stand down, he hadn’t given them any explanations, and from what Tony had gotten from the guys at the door, that had led to some pretty wild speculation.
Not that their guesses would ever be as wild as the truth.
“Nervous?” Lorne asked.
“Hey, I’m just here to tell some coworkers to back off. I won’t get nervous until I have to face Abby.”
Lorne nodded. “It’s hard, telling people half truths about what you do.”
Tony looked over, but Lorne kept his eyes on the elevator doors. The fact was that Tony liked the man. He liked most of the people in his new job, and part of him didn’t want to. He wanted to hate an organization that kept Gibbs under guard at all times. But they were good men and women, and they’d built Samas an entire eco system and they respected Samas’ opinion as much as Gibbs’. Well, everyone except McKay, but he tended to shoot down everyone’s theories. It was kind of cute the way he blustered and bluffed and tried to make himself out to be the one with all the answers. It kind of reminded Tony of himself when he was much younger and even more insecure.
The elevator dinged. Tony plastered a smile on his face and stepped out into the room where he’d spent the best three and a half years of his life. It took a half a second, but then heads started to turn. The clacking of computer keys went slowly silent, and people started to stand up to see what had caused the interruption.
“Tony?!” Tim yelled from across the room. “Holy crap. It’s you. Where have you been? Where’s Gibbs?” Tim came trotting down the hall, his eyes sliding past Tony to look behind him.
“What’s the matter McNeedy? Are you in need of a Gibbs headslap?”
“What? No.” Tim stopped. He gave Lorne a strange look, and for one second Tony wanted to give him shit about Tim eyeing up the handsome man in the dress uniform. If they were still teammates, he would have, but now… it didn’t feel right.
“Tim McGee, this is Captain Evan Lorne. Lorne, this is McNerdy the computer whiz.”
Lorne put on one of his brightest smiles and held out his hand. “Nice to meet you. Believe it or not, Tony has a lot of complimentary things to say about you and your work.”
Tim took Lorne’s hand, but his gaze kept slipping over to Tony and giving him these little confused microexpressions. “Yeah, nice to meet you. I haven’t actually heard anything about you from Tony, but then Tony has been sort of missing for a month now.”
“Not missing, reassigned. Reassigned. I know you got the memo.” Tony put on his most superior grin. “After all, how could Sec Nav not promote me once he saw my greatness?”
“Your greatness?” Tim’s words were utterly flat.
“Well, I’m greatness adjacent, anyway,” Tony said with a shrug. “I’m good at watching the boss’s six, and believe it or not, getting recalled to active duty has not improved his disposition much. He makes seamen cry.”
“To be fair, I think that seaman would have cried without Gibbs,” Lorne pointed out. When Lorne had come to Area 51 to pick up Tony, he’d been a little shocked at McKay’s bluntness. McKay bluntness plus Samas and Gibbs bluntness had actually led to more tears than the Armed Forces normally allowed.
Tony shrugged. “Hey, if a little old civilian can deal with those three without crying, the folks in uniform need to suck it up.”
“Those three?” Tim jumped on the first real bit of intel Tony had offered.
Tony gave Tim a slow smiled, every bit of arrogance he could shoved to the forefront in order to make Tim believe the story he was going to tell. “And that would be classified way above your pay grade, Tim, although I work there so clearly I have the clearance to know all about it.”
Tim slowly reddened.
“Anyway, we were in town, and I was going to stop in and see you guys and drop in on the director before fielding the wrath of Abby. How bad is it down there?”
Tim’s expression immediately turned to sympathy. Oh this was going to be so very bad. “She’s convinced that you were sucked up into a huge government conspiracy,” Tim said. “She’s talking about blackmail and secret agencies, and things that only exist in comic books.”
Tony cringed. The worst part was that Abby’s best guesses would come closer to the truth than he could ever admit.
“She thinks a gunnery sergeant being reactivated during a national emergency requires blackmail?” Lorne asked, confusion in his voice. Tony did appreciate that Lorne was following his lead instead of trying to manage the situation himself.
“National emergency?” Tim asked, his voice going up.
“I’m sorry, Agent McGee, but I’m not cleared to talk about the situation. However, Gunnery Sergeant Gibbs and Tony have both proved invaluable, which is why we’re here.”
“I’m cleaning out the desks,” Tony said with a smile. “And I really tried to find a place for you on the team, McGee. I did. But these guys have computer experts coming out their hoo-ha.”
Lorne laughed. “Is that a technical term?”
“Yep,” Tony said, grinning back as though they were close. True, he respected Lorne and Lorne had been utterly professional and polite in the three days since he’d picked Tony up, but they weren’t exactly buddies.
But now Tim was looking back and forth between them, clearly struggling to figure out the relationship.
“You’re cleaning out your desks?” Tim’s voice was very small.
“These kinds of opportunities don’t come along every day, McGee,” Tony said as he gave Tim a slap on the shoulder. “We all know how many valuable skills Gibbs has, but I found a place where I can shine.” To be more precise, the artifacts he touched shined or glowed or vibrated or in one memorable case, blew up. However, it was important work. Tony understood that. “So, where Zeeva?”
“She is out with another team. Nieberbalm caught a case with a family that speaks Pashtu, so she went to translate. They just left about an hour ago, so it’ll be a while before they’re back.”
“Oh.” Tony had only worked with Ziva a couple of months, so missing her wasn’t a tragedy, but he had promised to check on her for Gibbs. Samas had finally explained the way that Ziva had shot her brother to save Gibbs’ life, and Tony now understood. Gibbs’ loyalty to her came from the same place as his unflagging loyalty to Samas-they’d all lost family. They’d lost too damn much family, and Gibbs wanted to scoop them up and protect them. Samas found the concept strange, but he put it in the same category with Gibbs’ other quirks, such as enjoying tying Tony down for sex. When Samas was in charge, sex came with much more wrestling and occasionally chasing each other around Area 51, much to the distress of Samas’ guards. Tony called them training sessions, but he was fairly sure he wasn’t fooling anyone.
“I’m sorry, Tony, but we don’t have that much time,” Lorne said in his most sympathetic voice. It was nice to have a guard that expressed sympathy.
“And here I thought NCIS was the highest stress job I’d ever have,” Tony said with a put upon sigh. “Well, at least we carved out a little time to touch base and collect our stuff. If you want to grab Gibbs’ stuff from his desk,” Tony nodded toward the desk in question. It was still empty although a new laptop was sitting on Tony’s desk.
“Did you give my desk away, McTraitor?”
“You were reassigned,” Tim defended himself. “And I didn’t let her put her things in the drawers.”
“Because the drawers are locked,” Tony pointed out, pulling his keys out of his pocket. Lorne already had Gibbs’ keys, and he’d apologized as he’d explained that he would have to inspect everything they removed from the building. After all, Samas might have hidden some technology in a place he could access it easily. Tony knew it was bullshit, but he also got the feeling that Lorne knew it was bullshit and he was following orders, so Tony didn’t let it bother him. “Go find us some boxes. We’re going to go touch base with the director.”
“But you are going to see Abby, right?” Tim asked, panic on his face. Yep, if Tony didn’t go down there, Tim would have to talk to her, and Taliban interrogators couldn’t hold a candle to Abby when she was on a mission.
“Yes, I’m going to see Abby. Now go, get boxes. Shoo.” Tony waved him off, and then headed for the stairs, Lorne falling into place next to him.
“You’ve been hanging out with McKay too much,” he said softly.
“Nah. I treated McGoo like that before I met you guys. He needs someone who won’t treat him like glass or he’ll never be able to handle the real world. That one had too much MIT. If he wants to be a field agent, he’s got to get used to people saying things he doesn’t like. A few months as a patrol officer getting called a pig and a douchebag would probably improve his performance in the field, but that’s not likely,” Tony said. They reached the top and Lorne opened the door for him. Of course, that also allowed Lorne to check the room out first. He did that a lot.
“Cynthia!” Tony sang her name as he came through the door. Normally that earned him an eyeroll, but she came around the desk and caught him in a hug.
“I heard the prodigal son had returned. The director is waiting for you.”
Tony cringed. “Oh, if the rumor mill is running that fast, I’d better make this quick and get down to the lab.”
That made Cynthia laugh. “Yes, you’d better. Go on, the director has a full schedule, and she has people on hold while she talks to you.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem.” Tony was to the door before Cynthia spoke again. “We miss you around here, Tony, you and Gibbs. It’s been almost boring.”
Tony flashed her a grin, and then Lorne was opening the door, doing his checking the territory thing again. When Tony stepped into the director’s office, he could see her shocked expression as she considered Lorne. She’d been in the business long enough to recognize a guard, but he doubted that she saw Lorne as anything more than a bodyguard. An Air Force captain who cleared rooms ahead of Tony even in the middle of NCIS headquarters. Yeah, the director had played this game long enough to know something was up.
However, Jenny Shepard was nothing if not smooth. She stood up and came around the desk, catching Tony by the arms in a sort of awkward imitation of a hug. “Tony. It’s so good to see you again.”
“Director,” Tony said, and that’s where the awkward started. He couldn’t play her the way he had to the others. Lorne’s presence made that impossible.
Jenny smiled at him and then offered her hand to Lorne. “Jenny Shepard,” she offered.
“Captain Evan Lorne. Nice to meet you, ma’am.”
“Yes, well I hope you’re taking care of my men.” Jenny looked over at Tony again.
“Doing my best, ma’am.”
Jenny looked back at Tony. “I guess the rumors about you working for another agency are true.”
Tony shrugged. “I’m Gibbs’ second.”
“Yes, you always were. So, can you tell me anything about this new job of yours? I know what Gibbs has done for his country in the past, and I would like to think you aren’t getting involved in that aspect of government work.”
Wetworks. Tony knew damn well that Jenny and Gibbs had killed together, gone on assassination missions. Tony looked over to Lorne, not sure what to say in the face of this sort of question.
“With luck, Tony will never see that sort of direct action,” Lorne said. “He has a skill set that makes him more… flexible than most.”
“Flexible?” Tony demanded. “Why Lorne, I didn’t know you thought of me like that.” Tony batted his eyes, and Lorne started to blush.
“Tony,” Jenny said with a sigh, “If you’re going to work more closely with the military, you might want to tone down the sexual references.”
“Ma’am,” Lorne said, “Tony’s skill set is valuable enough that if he made a sexual game out of playing hide and seek with his male lover while running all over base and having sex on any convenient horizontal surface, we’d deal with it.” Lorne turned and gave Tony a long look, and now Tony was blushing.
“Oh.” Jenny’s voice sounded very small, and she cleared her throat.
“Lorne’s just trying to get me back for the flexible comment,” Tony said, but he couldn’t stop the blush.
Jenny waved a hand. “Right. Tony, if you ever need me or need a reference or decide to come back to the less exciting end of the pool and do some law enforcement again, we’re here.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Tony agreed. She gave a little frown. Tony realized he’d never been one to ma’am anyone before, but he’d always been a chameleon, and he was now living on a base full of military personnel. Tony wasn’t surprised he had already started to shift. “I should go see Abby. Apparently, she’s ready to call out the National Guard.”
“I vetoed that plan,” Jenny said. “Go see her. Reassure her that changing jobs is not the same as the world ending.”
Tony almost gave her another ma’am, but at the last minute, he changed that to a quick nod and a “You got it.” He turned and headed for the door.
“Tony?”
He turned back, and Jenny was smiling at him. “You always were one of our best. You hid that in Gibbs’ shadow, but the people who count always knew.”
Tony smiled. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me for the truth. Now go. If Abby finds out I have you up here, she’d going to storm the castle. It was nice to meet you Captain Lorne.”
“Ma’am,” he said with a nod, but when Tony left, Lorne hurried to get to his side. “The director of a federal agency is afraid of a lab tech?” he whispered as Tony led them to the elevator.
“Entire continents are afraid of this lab tech,” Tony whispered back as he pressed the button to call the elevator. Lorne was giving him a very strange look. “She sleeps in a coffin.”
“She what?”
Tony just grinned. He was going to miss introducing new people to Abby. You could tell a hell of a lot about a person by how they responded to her, and Abby had a good feel for people, as long as she wasn’t dating them. Then she had the worst taste in the world. But he was looking forward to subjecting Captain Lorne to a good dose of full-on Abby.
Lorne was still looking at him oddly when the elevator reached Abby’s level. As the doors opened, Tony could hear the heavy dirge music drifting down the hall. Oh that was not good.
“Did someone die?” Lorne asked.
“No, but someone is going to,” Tony said. When Lorne tried to step up to clear the room, Tony put out a hand to stop him. “I don’t know if you’re going to get a lab tech flying at you to hug you or a beaker thrown at your head, but trust me, whatever happens it’s aimed at me.”
“And my job is to take the beaker to the head, or better yet, make sure neither of us gets hurt,” Lorne said firmly, and then he pushed Tony back and pushed the door open. His reflexes were much better than Tony’s because he jerked back out of the way, but the only thing to come flying through the door was Bert, the stuffed hippo.
Lorne frowned as he looked at the stuffed toy and then looked up at Tony. Smiling, Tony grabbed Burt and hugged him so he made a farting noise and now Lorne looked really disturbed. However, he knew his job. He pushed the door open slower, sticking his head around the corner. “Ms. Sciuto?”
“Who are you?”
Tony pushed past Lorne and headed into the danger zone, Burt held in front of him like a shield. “Hey Abbs, I see you’ve met Captain Lorne. Try to keep throwing things in reserve for a second date, okay?” he asked.
Abby stared at him with wide eyes, and for several long seconds, Tony wasn’t sure how she was going to react. She might hug him or kill him, and he could see the delicate balance between those two things in her gaze. Maybe Lorne could sense that too because he edged closer. Brave, stupid man.
Then the balance tipped, and suddenly Abby was in his arms, crying as she held onto him. “I looked for you, and the director said I shouldn’t, and I hit this firewall, and Tim said he didn’t think it was a good idea to break through it because it was like NSA level encryption, but I couldn’t find you.” She dug her fingers into Tony’s flesh until it honestly hurt.
“Hey, we’re fine. We’re okay, both of us. Abby, you know how Gibbs gets when he’s on a case.”
“A case?” Abby backed off, a fierce scowl in place. “You were on a case and you didn’t call me? I’m your forensics genii. I’m your magician of the trace evidence. I’m the third musketeer.”
Tony smiled. “Yes, but it wasn’t the sort of case with trace evidence.”
Abby crossed her arms and gave Lorne the stink eye. “This is a military thing, isn’t it?”
“From Gibbs’ past,” Tony agreed, “and it’s important enough that Gibbs wants to work on cleaning up this mess, and I kinda agree. Besides, I can’t leave the boss to fix stuff on his own. Who would have his six?”
“The rest of the military might,” Lorne said quietly, but Tony ignored him. Abby only rolled her eyes in his direction before focusing on Tony. She got it. Their Gibbs didn’t take care of himself. He needed them-he needed family.
“You still should have called.” Abby punched him in the shoulder.
“Ow.” Tony rubbed the sting away. “We were chasing down bad guys, and then we got caught by bad guys and then we got rescued while doing some of the rescuing.”
Lorne made a strangled noise that was probably his nice way of threatening to kill Tony if he revealed classified information.
“Gibbs and I managed to do that sort of thing before changing agencies. She’s not going to be shocked that we’re doing more of the same,” Tony said.
“Usually only you get captured,” Abby disagreed. “And Gibbs gets you out.”
Tony shrugged. “Better class of bad guy, and Gibbs still got me out.”
Abby pressed her lips together and gave Tony a thoughtful glare. “And where is my silver fox? If this is all just an agency transfer, why isn’t he here?”
“Um…” Tony looked over toward Lorne, and now Abby transferred all her attention that way. Tony knew exactly what she would see. Lorne was a young captain, which meant he’d taken positions with a hell of a lot of responsibility, and he was wearing his dress uniform, so he had all his medals and ribbons on display. He hadn’t served in any of the major war zones, but he did have a number of awards that only went to those who served in active conflicts. Abby was a scientist. She would put the evidence together, even if she never would get the full picture.
“Tony?” Abby demanded as he stared at Lorne until he was looking mildly alarmed.
“Gibbs tried to order me to not take the job. He tried to order me back here, Abbs, but like I pointed out to him, I’m a trained federal agent, and I would have died several times over if he wasn’t such a stubborn bastard that he refused to give up on me, even when others would have. He ordered me to survive the plague, and I did because disobeying Gibbs just isn’t an option. If he ordered me back here, my life expectancy would probably drop.”
Abby chewed on her lip.
“But you’re not in the line of fire, and Gibbs can’t put you there,” Tony said. He was giving Abby more of the truth than he gave to the others, but he still ached to tell her about all the wonders he’d seen. He could just imagine Abby’s face if she got to see Earth from space, but that would come at too high a cost. Abby would never be safe again.
“I don’t want to lose my family,” Abby said softly.
Tony opened his arms, and she came back for another hug. He held her tight and let himself breathe the unique smells of shampoo and perfume and lab chemicals that would always mean Abby to him. “Gibbs is gone because this fight is too important for him to walk away. He’ll come see you if he can, but you can’t wait for it, Abbs. And you can’t go looking for him, because if you find him, you’ll get dragged into this mess with him. It would kill him. He needs you safe.”
“What about you?” Abby asked, her voice muffled because she still had her face buried in his shoulder.
“I had to choose what part of the family I stayed with. Gibbs needs me.”
“He needs me too,” Abby said.
Tony pulled back and looked into her tear-stained eyes. “Yes, but Tim and Ziva and NCIS need you just as much. It’s like me, Abby. NCIS needs me and Tim is still too timid and he needs me, but Gibbs needs me, and I had to decide which place needed me more.”
“How can I decide where I’m needed more if you won’t tell me anything?”
Tony pulled Abby close and kissed her forehead. “You trust Gibbs, Abbs. Gibbs wants you safe, and that’s why he took this job, to protect everyone. But anyone who’s with him isn’t safe. That’s ripping him up inside. Please, Abby, don’t keep pushing, not when he’s still struggling with the idea that I’ve given up my life to stick with him. I love him for being all protective over us, but you know how he gets when we’re in danger. Please don’t be the person who destroys him. Don’t do that to him.”
“I hate this.”
Tony closed his eyes. “Me too, Abbs. Me too.” He held her until Lorne made some comment, and Tony let his mouth make some gentle excuse. But he felt broken, disengaged from the conversation. Letting Abby go hurt more than any other part of his miserable day, and Tony couldn’t quite get his brain to fully engage as he walked out of her lab for the last time.
The visit with Ducky went much quicker. Ducky admitted that the director had called him, and apparently the two of them assumed that Tony was working undercover for covert ops people in order to cover Gibbs’ six. Ducky had loaded Lorne down with orders about watching Tony for chest colds and getting him checkups. Lorne had taken it all in stride, agreeing to essentially wrap Tony in cotton before he accepted a two inch thick medical file.
By the time they left, Lorne was smirking. “Do you need me to hold your hand?” Lorne asked.
“Bite me,” Tony suggested.
After that, Tony wasn’t sure he even noticed what his body was doing. They went back to the bullpen and he cleaned out his desk. Gibbs’ metals were all waiting in the bottom drawer, and Tony ran a hand over each before loading it into his box. Lorne was much more efficient with Gibbs’ desk, but he checked every single item inside and out, so it took him just as long.
Tony was vaguely aware of Tim and he traded a couple of barbs with him, but then before Tony could blink, they were back in the parking lot, getting into the military issue car Lorne had checked out. Tony put his box in the trunk with the one Lorne had of Gibbs’ belongings.
“We missed the lockers in the training room,” Tony said as he got in the passenger side.
Lorne glanced over. “Is there anything in there you need?”
Tony shook his head. “Work out gear. We have plenty.”
Lorne nodded as he started the car and pointed it toward Andrews. They were taking a military flight, so not even Tim or Abby could trace their flight plan, not even if they tried. Tony suspected they wouldn’t. He hoped, anyway.
No one spoke until they were on the highway. “You okay?” Lorne asked, his voice gentle.
Tony looked over, surprised at the question. “Fine. Why?”
Lorne shrugged. “You did a hell of a job in there. That couldn’t have been easy, pushing them away.”
Tony closed his eyes. Lorne wasn’t supposed to be smart enough to see through Tony’s act. “I did what I had to do. They aren’t part of this fight.”
Lorne didn’t answer, and for that Tony was grateful. After a while, Lorne turned on some soft jazz, and Tony gave himself a little time to mourn the loss of this life. He wasn’t sorry. He’d choose Gibbs and Samas any day of the week, and he understood how important the fight against the goa’uld was-both for the onac homework and for Earth. However, he would miss Very Special Agent Tony DiNozzo. It was a life that was worthy of a moment of silence as it passed.
If you haven't gotten enough of these two, go check out "Lions and Igigi and Wraith, Oh my," on AO3
Fandom: NCIS, Stargate SG1
Characters: Gibbs, Tony, Jack
Rating: TEEN (Gibbs/Tony)
Summary: Tony had never heard of goa'uld or tok'ra or igigi, and he sure as hell didn't know Gibbs had a passenger riding around in his head, but if Gibbs thinks one little alien parasite is going to make him go running, he has another thought coming. He's Gibbs' second, and that means he doesn't give up on his boss.
Ya know, just go read the old chapters on AO3 because coming up with links for every chapter is getting old.
“Okay, Abby is going to seem a little strange, so don’t freak out.”
Captain Evan Lorne looked at him oddly. “You know where I work. Do you really think one lab tech is going to freak me out?”
“Yes,” Tony said firmly. “Which is why we’re going to see the director first. Tony watched the elevator numbers as he headed back up to his familiar stomping grounds. The guards at the front doors had greeted him warmly, and Tony had to make them promise to not tell everyone he was coming. When Sec Nav had told the NCIS people to stand down, he hadn’t given them any explanations, and from what Tony had gotten from the guys at the door, that had led to some pretty wild speculation.
Not that their guesses would ever be as wild as the truth.
“Nervous?” Lorne asked.
“Hey, I’m just here to tell some coworkers to back off. I won’t get nervous until I have to face Abby.”
Lorne nodded. “It’s hard, telling people half truths about what you do.”
Tony looked over, but Lorne kept his eyes on the elevator doors. The fact was that Tony liked the man. He liked most of the people in his new job, and part of him didn’t want to. He wanted to hate an organization that kept Gibbs under guard at all times. But they were good men and women, and they’d built Samas an entire eco system and they respected Samas’ opinion as much as Gibbs’. Well, everyone except McKay, but he tended to shoot down everyone’s theories. It was kind of cute the way he blustered and bluffed and tried to make himself out to be the one with all the answers. It kind of reminded Tony of himself when he was much younger and even more insecure.
The elevator dinged. Tony plastered a smile on his face and stepped out into the room where he’d spent the best three and a half years of his life. It took a half a second, but then heads started to turn. The clacking of computer keys went slowly silent, and people started to stand up to see what had caused the interruption.
“Tony?!” Tim yelled from across the room. “Holy crap. It’s you. Where have you been? Where’s Gibbs?” Tim came trotting down the hall, his eyes sliding past Tony to look behind him.
“What’s the matter McNeedy? Are you in need of a Gibbs headslap?”
“What? No.” Tim stopped. He gave Lorne a strange look, and for one second Tony wanted to give him shit about Tim eyeing up the handsome man in the dress uniform. If they were still teammates, he would have, but now… it didn’t feel right.
“Tim McGee, this is Captain Evan Lorne. Lorne, this is McNerdy the computer whiz.”
Lorne put on one of his brightest smiles and held out his hand. “Nice to meet you. Believe it or not, Tony has a lot of complimentary things to say about you and your work.”
Tim took Lorne’s hand, but his gaze kept slipping over to Tony and giving him these little confused microexpressions. “Yeah, nice to meet you. I haven’t actually heard anything about you from Tony, but then Tony has been sort of missing for a month now.”
“Not missing, reassigned. Reassigned. I know you got the memo.” Tony put on his most superior grin. “After all, how could Sec Nav not promote me once he saw my greatness?”
“Your greatness?” Tim’s words were utterly flat.
“Well, I’m greatness adjacent, anyway,” Tony said with a shrug. “I’m good at watching the boss’s six, and believe it or not, getting recalled to active duty has not improved his disposition much. He makes seamen cry.”
“To be fair, I think that seaman would have cried without Gibbs,” Lorne pointed out. When Lorne had come to Area 51 to pick up Tony, he’d been a little shocked at McKay’s bluntness. McKay bluntness plus Samas and Gibbs bluntness had actually led to more tears than the Armed Forces normally allowed.
Tony shrugged. “Hey, if a little old civilian can deal with those three without crying, the folks in uniform need to suck it up.”
“Those three?” Tim jumped on the first real bit of intel Tony had offered.
Tony gave Tim a slow smiled, every bit of arrogance he could shoved to the forefront in order to make Tim believe the story he was going to tell. “And that would be classified way above your pay grade, Tim, although I work there so clearly I have the clearance to know all about it.”
Tim slowly reddened.
“Anyway, we were in town, and I was going to stop in and see you guys and drop in on the director before fielding the wrath of Abby. How bad is it down there?”
Tim’s expression immediately turned to sympathy. Oh this was going to be so very bad. “She’s convinced that you were sucked up into a huge government conspiracy,” Tim said. “She’s talking about blackmail and secret agencies, and things that only exist in comic books.”
Tony cringed. The worst part was that Abby’s best guesses would come closer to the truth than he could ever admit.
“She thinks a gunnery sergeant being reactivated during a national emergency requires blackmail?” Lorne asked, confusion in his voice. Tony did appreciate that Lorne was following his lead instead of trying to manage the situation himself.
“National emergency?” Tim asked, his voice going up.
“I’m sorry, Agent McGee, but I’m not cleared to talk about the situation. However, Gunnery Sergeant Gibbs and Tony have both proved invaluable, which is why we’re here.”
“I’m cleaning out the desks,” Tony said with a smile. “And I really tried to find a place for you on the team, McGee. I did. But these guys have computer experts coming out their hoo-ha.”
Lorne laughed. “Is that a technical term?”
“Yep,” Tony said, grinning back as though they were close. True, he respected Lorne and Lorne had been utterly professional and polite in the three days since he’d picked Tony up, but they weren’t exactly buddies.
But now Tim was looking back and forth between them, clearly struggling to figure out the relationship.
“You’re cleaning out your desks?” Tim’s voice was very small.
“These kinds of opportunities don’t come along every day, McGee,” Tony said as he gave Tim a slap on the shoulder. “We all know how many valuable skills Gibbs has, but I found a place where I can shine.” To be more precise, the artifacts he touched shined or glowed or vibrated or in one memorable case, blew up. However, it was important work. Tony understood that. “So, where Zeeva?”
“She is out with another team. Nieberbalm caught a case with a family that speaks Pashtu, so she went to translate. They just left about an hour ago, so it’ll be a while before they’re back.”
“Oh.” Tony had only worked with Ziva a couple of months, so missing her wasn’t a tragedy, but he had promised to check on her for Gibbs. Samas had finally explained the way that Ziva had shot her brother to save Gibbs’ life, and Tony now understood. Gibbs’ loyalty to her came from the same place as his unflagging loyalty to Samas-they’d all lost family. They’d lost too damn much family, and Gibbs wanted to scoop them up and protect them. Samas found the concept strange, but he put it in the same category with Gibbs’ other quirks, such as enjoying tying Tony down for sex. When Samas was in charge, sex came with much more wrestling and occasionally chasing each other around Area 51, much to the distress of Samas’ guards. Tony called them training sessions, but he was fairly sure he wasn’t fooling anyone.
“I’m sorry, Tony, but we don’t have that much time,” Lorne said in his most sympathetic voice. It was nice to have a guard that expressed sympathy.
“And here I thought NCIS was the highest stress job I’d ever have,” Tony said with a put upon sigh. “Well, at least we carved out a little time to touch base and collect our stuff. If you want to grab Gibbs’ stuff from his desk,” Tony nodded toward the desk in question. It was still empty although a new laptop was sitting on Tony’s desk.
“Did you give my desk away, McTraitor?”
“You were reassigned,” Tim defended himself. “And I didn’t let her put her things in the drawers.”
“Because the drawers are locked,” Tony pointed out, pulling his keys out of his pocket. Lorne already had Gibbs’ keys, and he’d apologized as he’d explained that he would have to inspect everything they removed from the building. After all, Samas might have hidden some technology in a place he could access it easily. Tony knew it was bullshit, but he also got the feeling that Lorne knew it was bullshit and he was following orders, so Tony didn’t let it bother him. “Go find us some boxes. We’re going to go touch base with the director.”
“But you are going to see Abby, right?” Tim asked, panic on his face. Yep, if Tony didn’t go down there, Tim would have to talk to her, and Taliban interrogators couldn’t hold a candle to Abby when she was on a mission.
“Yes, I’m going to see Abby. Now go, get boxes. Shoo.” Tony waved him off, and then headed for the stairs, Lorne falling into place next to him.
“You’ve been hanging out with McKay too much,” he said softly.
“Nah. I treated McGoo like that before I met you guys. He needs someone who won’t treat him like glass or he’ll never be able to handle the real world. That one had too much MIT. If he wants to be a field agent, he’s got to get used to people saying things he doesn’t like. A few months as a patrol officer getting called a pig and a douchebag would probably improve his performance in the field, but that’s not likely,” Tony said. They reached the top and Lorne opened the door for him. Of course, that also allowed Lorne to check the room out first. He did that a lot.
“Cynthia!” Tony sang her name as he came through the door. Normally that earned him an eyeroll, but she came around the desk and caught him in a hug.
“I heard the prodigal son had returned. The director is waiting for you.”
Tony cringed. “Oh, if the rumor mill is running that fast, I’d better make this quick and get down to the lab.”
That made Cynthia laugh. “Yes, you’d better. Go on, the director has a full schedule, and she has people on hold while she talks to you.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem.” Tony was to the door before Cynthia spoke again. “We miss you around here, Tony, you and Gibbs. It’s been almost boring.”
Tony flashed her a grin, and then Lorne was opening the door, doing his checking the territory thing again. When Tony stepped into the director’s office, he could see her shocked expression as she considered Lorne. She’d been in the business long enough to recognize a guard, but he doubted that she saw Lorne as anything more than a bodyguard. An Air Force captain who cleared rooms ahead of Tony even in the middle of NCIS headquarters. Yeah, the director had played this game long enough to know something was up.
However, Jenny Shepard was nothing if not smooth. She stood up and came around the desk, catching Tony by the arms in a sort of awkward imitation of a hug. “Tony. It’s so good to see you again.”
“Director,” Tony said, and that’s where the awkward started. He couldn’t play her the way he had to the others. Lorne’s presence made that impossible.
Jenny smiled at him and then offered her hand to Lorne. “Jenny Shepard,” she offered.
“Captain Evan Lorne. Nice to meet you, ma’am.”
“Yes, well I hope you’re taking care of my men.” Jenny looked over at Tony again.
“Doing my best, ma’am.”
Jenny looked back at Tony. “I guess the rumors about you working for another agency are true.”
Tony shrugged. “I’m Gibbs’ second.”
“Yes, you always were. So, can you tell me anything about this new job of yours? I know what Gibbs has done for his country in the past, and I would like to think you aren’t getting involved in that aspect of government work.”
Wetworks. Tony knew damn well that Jenny and Gibbs had killed together, gone on assassination missions. Tony looked over to Lorne, not sure what to say in the face of this sort of question.
“With luck, Tony will never see that sort of direct action,” Lorne said. “He has a skill set that makes him more… flexible than most.”
“Flexible?” Tony demanded. “Why Lorne, I didn’t know you thought of me like that.” Tony batted his eyes, and Lorne started to blush.
“Tony,” Jenny said with a sigh, “If you’re going to work more closely with the military, you might want to tone down the sexual references.”
“Ma’am,” Lorne said, “Tony’s skill set is valuable enough that if he made a sexual game out of playing hide and seek with his male lover while running all over base and having sex on any convenient horizontal surface, we’d deal with it.” Lorne turned and gave Tony a long look, and now Tony was blushing.
“Oh.” Jenny’s voice sounded very small, and she cleared her throat.
“Lorne’s just trying to get me back for the flexible comment,” Tony said, but he couldn’t stop the blush.
Jenny waved a hand. “Right. Tony, if you ever need me or need a reference or decide to come back to the less exciting end of the pool and do some law enforcement again, we’re here.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Tony agreed. She gave a little frown. Tony realized he’d never been one to ma’am anyone before, but he’d always been a chameleon, and he was now living on a base full of military personnel. Tony wasn’t surprised he had already started to shift. “I should go see Abby. Apparently, she’s ready to call out the National Guard.”
“I vetoed that plan,” Jenny said. “Go see her. Reassure her that changing jobs is not the same as the world ending.”
Tony almost gave her another ma’am, but at the last minute, he changed that to a quick nod and a “You got it.” He turned and headed for the door.
“Tony?”
He turned back, and Jenny was smiling at him. “You always were one of our best. You hid that in Gibbs’ shadow, but the people who count always knew.”
Tony smiled. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me for the truth. Now go. If Abby finds out I have you up here, she’d going to storm the castle. It was nice to meet you Captain Lorne.”
“Ma’am,” he said with a nod, but when Tony left, Lorne hurried to get to his side. “The director of a federal agency is afraid of a lab tech?” he whispered as Tony led them to the elevator.
“Entire continents are afraid of this lab tech,” Tony whispered back as he pressed the button to call the elevator. Lorne was giving him a very strange look. “She sleeps in a coffin.”
“She what?”
Tony just grinned. He was going to miss introducing new people to Abby. You could tell a hell of a lot about a person by how they responded to her, and Abby had a good feel for people, as long as she wasn’t dating them. Then she had the worst taste in the world. But he was looking forward to subjecting Captain Lorne to a good dose of full-on Abby.
Lorne was still looking at him oddly when the elevator reached Abby’s level. As the doors opened, Tony could hear the heavy dirge music drifting down the hall. Oh that was not good.
“Did someone die?” Lorne asked.
“No, but someone is going to,” Tony said. When Lorne tried to step up to clear the room, Tony put out a hand to stop him. “I don’t know if you’re going to get a lab tech flying at you to hug you or a beaker thrown at your head, but trust me, whatever happens it’s aimed at me.”
“And my job is to take the beaker to the head, or better yet, make sure neither of us gets hurt,” Lorne said firmly, and then he pushed Tony back and pushed the door open. His reflexes were much better than Tony’s because he jerked back out of the way, but the only thing to come flying through the door was Bert, the stuffed hippo.
Lorne frowned as he looked at the stuffed toy and then looked up at Tony. Smiling, Tony grabbed Burt and hugged him so he made a farting noise and now Lorne looked really disturbed. However, he knew his job. He pushed the door open slower, sticking his head around the corner. “Ms. Sciuto?”
“Who are you?”
Tony pushed past Lorne and headed into the danger zone, Burt held in front of him like a shield. “Hey Abbs, I see you’ve met Captain Lorne. Try to keep throwing things in reserve for a second date, okay?” he asked.
Abby stared at him with wide eyes, and for several long seconds, Tony wasn’t sure how she was going to react. She might hug him or kill him, and he could see the delicate balance between those two things in her gaze. Maybe Lorne could sense that too because he edged closer. Brave, stupid man.
Then the balance tipped, and suddenly Abby was in his arms, crying as she held onto him. “I looked for you, and the director said I shouldn’t, and I hit this firewall, and Tim said he didn’t think it was a good idea to break through it because it was like NSA level encryption, but I couldn’t find you.” She dug her fingers into Tony’s flesh until it honestly hurt.
“Hey, we’re fine. We’re okay, both of us. Abby, you know how Gibbs gets when he’s on a case.”
“A case?” Abby backed off, a fierce scowl in place. “You were on a case and you didn’t call me? I’m your forensics genii. I’m your magician of the trace evidence. I’m the third musketeer.”
Tony smiled. “Yes, but it wasn’t the sort of case with trace evidence.”
Abby crossed her arms and gave Lorne the stink eye. “This is a military thing, isn’t it?”
“From Gibbs’ past,” Tony agreed, “and it’s important enough that Gibbs wants to work on cleaning up this mess, and I kinda agree. Besides, I can’t leave the boss to fix stuff on his own. Who would have his six?”
“The rest of the military might,” Lorne said quietly, but Tony ignored him. Abby only rolled her eyes in his direction before focusing on Tony. She got it. Their Gibbs didn’t take care of himself. He needed them-he needed family.
“You still should have called.” Abby punched him in the shoulder.
“Ow.” Tony rubbed the sting away. “We were chasing down bad guys, and then we got caught by bad guys and then we got rescued while doing some of the rescuing.”
Lorne made a strangled noise that was probably his nice way of threatening to kill Tony if he revealed classified information.
“Gibbs and I managed to do that sort of thing before changing agencies. She’s not going to be shocked that we’re doing more of the same,” Tony said.
“Usually only you get captured,” Abby disagreed. “And Gibbs gets you out.”
Tony shrugged. “Better class of bad guy, and Gibbs still got me out.”
Abby pressed her lips together and gave Tony a thoughtful glare. “And where is my silver fox? If this is all just an agency transfer, why isn’t he here?”
“Um…” Tony looked over toward Lorne, and now Abby transferred all her attention that way. Tony knew exactly what she would see. Lorne was a young captain, which meant he’d taken positions with a hell of a lot of responsibility, and he was wearing his dress uniform, so he had all his medals and ribbons on display. He hadn’t served in any of the major war zones, but he did have a number of awards that only went to those who served in active conflicts. Abby was a scientist. She would put the evidence together, even if she never would get the full picture.
“Tony?” Abby demanded as he stared at Lorne until he was looking mildly alarmed.
“Gibbs tried to order me to not take the job. He tried to order me back here, Abbs, but like I pointed out to him, I’m a trained federal agent, and I would have died several times over if he wasn’t such a stubborn bastard that he refused to give up on me, even when others would have. He ordered me to survive the plague, and I did because disobeying Gibbs just isn’t an option. If he ordered me back here, my life expectancy would probably drop.”
Abby chewed on her lip.
“But you’re not in the line of fire, and Gibbs can’t put you there,” Tony said. He was giving Abby more of the truth than he gave to the others, but he still ached to tell her about all the wonders he’d seen. He could just imagine Abby’s face if she got to see Earth from space, but that would come at too high a cost. Abby would never be safe again.
“I don’t want to lose my family,” Abby said softly.
Tony opened his arms, and she came back for another hug. He held her tight and let himself breathe the unique smells of shampoo and perfume and lab chemicals that would always mean Abby to him. “Gibbs is gone because this fight is too important for him to walk away. He’ll come see you if he can, but you can’t wait for it, Abbs. And you can’t go looking for him, because if you find him, you’ll get dragged into this mess with him. It would kill him. He needs you safe.”
“What about you?” Abby asked, her voice muffled because she still had her face buried in his shoulder.
“I had to choose what part of the family I stayed with. Gibbs needs me.”
“He needs me too,” Abby said.
Tony pulled back and looked into her tear-stained eyes. “Yes, but Tim and Ziva and NCIS need you just as much. It’s like me, Abby. NCIS needs me and Tim is still too timid and he needs me, but Gibbs needs me, and I had to decide which place needed me more.”
“How can I decide where I’m needed more if you won’t tell me anything?”
Tony pulled Abby close and kissed her forehead. “You trust Gibbs, Abbs. Gibbs wants you safe, and that’s why he took this job, to protect everyone. But anyone who’s with him isn’t safe. That’s ripping him up inside. Please, Abby, don’t keep pushing, not when he’s still struggling with the idea that I’ve given up my life to stick with him. I love him for being all protective over us, but you know how he gets when we’re in danger. Please don’t be the person who destroys him. Don’t do that to him.”
“I hate this.”
Tony closed his eyes. “Me too, Abbs. Me too.” He held her until Lorne made some comment, and Tony let his mouth make some gentle excuse. But he felt broken, disengaged from the conversation. Letting Abby go hurt more than any other part of his miserable day, and Tony couldn’t quite get his brain to fully engage as he walked out of her lab for the last time.
The visit with Ducky went much quicker. Ducky admitted that the director had called him, and apparently the two of them assumed that Tony was working undercover for covert ops people in order to cover Gibbs’ six. Ducky had loaded Lorne down with orders about watching Tony for chest colds and getting him checkups. Lorne had taken it all in stride, agreeing to essentially wrap Tony in cotton before he accepted a two inch thick medical file.
By the time they left, Lorne was smirking. “Do you need me to hold your hand?” Lorne asked.
“Bite me,” Tony suggested.
After that, Tony wasn’t sure he even noticed what his body was doing. They went back to the bullpen and he cleaned out his desk. Gibbs’ metals were all waiting in the bottom drawer, and Tony ran a hand over each before loading it into his box. Lorne was much more efficient with Gibbs’ desk, but he checked every single item inside and out, so it took him just as long.
Tony was vaguely aware of Tim and he traded a couple of barbs with him, but then before Tony could blink, they were back in the parking lot, getting into the military issue car Lorne had checked out. Tony put his box in the trunk with the one Lorne had of Gibbs’ belongings.
“We missed the lockers in the training room,” Tony said as he got in the passenger side.
Lorne glanced over. “Is there anything in there you need?”
Tony shook his head. “Work out gear. We have plenty.”
Lorne nodded as he started the car and pointed it toward Andrews. They were taking a military flight, so not even Tim or Abby could trace their flight plan, not even if they tried. Tony suspected they wouldn’t. He hoped, anyway.
No one spoke until they were on the highway. “You okay?” Lorne asked, his voice gentle.
Tony looked over, surprised at the question. “Fine. Why?”
Lorne shrugged. “You did a hell of a job in there. That couldn’t have been easy, pushing them away.”
Tony closed his eyes. Lorne wasn’t supposed to be smart enough to see through Tony’s act. “I did what I had to do. They aren’t part of this fight.”
Lorne didn’t answer, and for that Tony was grateful. After a while, Lorne turned on some soft jazz, and Tony gave himself a little time to mourn the loss of this life. He wasn’t sorry. He’d choose Gibbs and Samas any day of the week, and he understood how important the fight against the goa’uld was-both for the onac homework and for Earth. However, he would miss Very Special Agent Tony DiNozzo. It was a life that was worthy of a moment of silence as it passed.
If you haven't gotten enough of these two, go check out "Lions and Igigi and Wraith, Oh my," on AO3