Double Bluff: Chapter 18
So, after months (months!) of tearing my hair out on where Double Bluff was going next (well okay, I know where it's going, it's just the getting it there that's an issue), I give you Chapter 18. The most difficult one to drag out into existence to-date. I'm not sure it's worth all the build up, but hopefully you all enjoy it nonetheless. Let's raise a glass to chapter 19 being less recalcitrant, shall we?
On this chapter, many thanks to Monica for beta, cheerleading/poking with a sharp stick for forward action, alee_grrl for first reading/beta and plot brainstorming sessions, Gemma for poking with a sharp stick for forward action, and Pinch Hitter for beta and putting up with my endless conversations on this as always. Couldn't do this without you, lovelies!
*Note- The title of this section really isn't as scary as it might seem. It's more metaphorical than literal.
<----Chapter 17 here (or here on LJ)
Chapter 18: When the World Ends
For the first time in three days, Tony finally had a moment to sit down and reflect. He immediately thought of Kelly. Not that she hadn’t been part of his focus the last few days already. He and Franks had had multiple conversations on how to keep her safe, finally concluding that she should just stay out of the system for the moment until they could be sure that putting her back into it wouldn’t get her killed. So she’d stayed with Abby and the nuns, but that couldn’t last forever. Though, to hear Abby tell it, the nuns were seriously considering keeping Kelly because they adored her so much.
One of the few things that they’d found out from Trip had been that Vanzetti hadn’t actually told any of the details of Kelly’s escape to the “man in charge” whoever he was. This much had been gleaned from an offhand comment Trip had attempted to cover for right after he made it. Tony privately wondered if Trip was holding what information he had for a later attempt at bargaining for his life from the big boss, because he didn’t seem intimidated at all by the thought of going to prison or any other charges they could lawfully level on him.
But after Eileen and Bierden’s confessions, Trip’s few slipped comments, and Rafferty’s refusal to talk at all, the investigation was far enough along that the only thing they had clear was how very far they had left to go in untangling the situation. Kelly was unlikely to be safe in the system any time soon, but she was just as unlikely to be safe resuming her normal life, out in the open.
Somehow in all of the chaos of the investigation, the arrests, being cleared from a whole litany of possible charges beginning at obstruction of justice and ending at trafficking across state lines with a side of murder, Tony had forgotten that at some point, he was supposed to be saying goodbye to Kelly. That she was supposed to go with whatever family of hers that the state could find.
Even though he hadn’t actually seen her in the last three days -- he’d been staying at NIS headquarters at Franks’ rather unsubtle request until the investigation unwound enough for him to be officially cleared -- he’d spoken to her a few times on the phone. He wasn’t going to ask how Abby had managed to hide the phone calls from tracing, he’d simply thanked her and updated Kelly in vague terms about the investigation’s progress. Kelly for the most part alternated between telling Tony about her adventures with the bowling nuns, and being so quiet that he wasn’t sure she was still on the phone until Abby spoke up in the background.
He was worried about her. She definitely needed counseling at this point, something she wasn’t going to get until she had a more stable environment again. Which, of course, she couldn’t get until they’d wrapped this investigation. She was going to need it even more when Tony finally got the chance to break the news to her about her dad.
Through the official channels available to them, Franks and Fornell had verified that Kelly’s dad had been missing back when Abby had passed on the message to Tony. What they’d since learned was that Kelly’s dad had been very briefly found -- so he had survived the mission, Kelly had been right -- and then he had been officially declared dead. His superiors weren’t heavy on the details, even when Franks inquired via NIS channels; all they’d managed to get was that the man had been in an undisclosed field hospital location which had been taken out by air strike. There was no body, so the funeral could be held any time family wanted. Family which, according to their records, consisted of an estranged father, period.
In light of the fact that Kelly’s grandfather was alive, when she finally did come out of hiding, Tony was almost certain she’d be placed with him. Kelly herself had told Tony that she didn’t remember her grandfather, but thought that her mom had talked to him sometimes and that she might have met him once when she was too small to remember. Though he was blood, the man would likely just be another in the long line of strangers that Kelly had to grow accustomed too from now on.
Tony looked down at himself in surprise, startled to find that he’d been subconsciously tightening his arms around himself, his hands locked on his opposite elbows. “Whoops. Not the least bit telling about your own history there, Anthony, oh no - Yeah right...,” he muttered under his breath Shaking out his arms, he assumed a more relaxed posture in the crappy government issue pretend-ergonomic chair.
“Might be time for another trip to the gym,” he announced to the empty room. He’d been doing that a lot too, in the past three days - pretty much instead of sleeping. Sleeping in a government office building while waiting on eggshells for news of the investigation on which his and Kelly’s lives pretty much depended wasn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, something that could be called ‘restful’ anyway. Another few days of this, though, and he’d be absurdly low on mental and physical reserves, he knew from experience. Falling asleep on any even remotely horizontal surface such as tables in briefing rooms, even during briefings, low on reserves.
He quashed the sudden desire to call up his dad, Harry, even Kelly - anyone that would understand a tiny part of his current situation and emotional state. Of course, his dad would just tell him to suck it up and trust Franks. Harry would probably be sympathetic, but awkward over the phone, the relief in his voice that he’d been cleared and allowed to leave two days ago tangible. Harry still felt like he’d abandoned Tony to the wolves even though Tony had asked him to go when he’d gotten the opportunity. Harry had gone, with many lingering professions of willingness to testify to anything and everything whenever required.
Kelly... Kelly would just be scared. He was in no state to maintain what he was starting to think of as his “Dad” facade. He had to be strong in front of her, positive, he had to be the only rock she had left in the maelstrom that her life had become. He’d picked up that responsibility and now he wasn’t sure he could ever put it back down. Every time he tried, he worried about what would happen to Kelly if he did.
Even thinking of her safe with her grandfather didn’t stop the worry. Would her grandfather be a good man, someone to get her the help she needed, to love and support her? Would he think she was resilient, funny, smart, and kind of amazing even in the face of crisis like Tony did? Would he want to smile every time she did? Would he try to vault over a car hood just to catch a frisbee and fall on his ass, just to make her laugh like Tony did? Well okay, Tony mentally allowed, that was probably not something a grandfather was required to, he might throw out a hip or something. This was a man who didn’t talk to his own son - was he a person who should be raising a 6-year-old girl? Not that he had the monopoly on not communicating with family for years at a time, Tony was forced to admit, if only to himself. But that was different. Tony’s father hadn’t been fit to raise a child within Tony’s memory of the whole of his childhood.
Oh no - what if Kelly’s grandfather was like his own dad? Memories of being left alone in expensive hotel rooms and figuring out room service at an early age popped into the forefront of his mind. Suddenly, Tony couldn’t help but smile at the thought of Kelly in her princess persona in charge of a line of hotel staff, deftly charming them and ordering them to place dishes in particular places in the room, perhaps coaxing sundaes and movies into appearance by adorableness alone. Okay, so maybe she was adaptive like he’d been back then.
They had a surprising amount in common, actually. He hadn’t been much older than she was when he’d lost his mom. There hadn’t been anyone chasing him, nor had his mom been murdered, but the loss of his mom had been devastating. Her situation had to be worse. But at the same time, the comparison gave him a place to look at her trauma from and really examine it to the best of his ability for the first time. His dad’s helpless inability to say two words in a row to him after his mother’s death suddenly made a scary kind of sense it never had before. What could you say to a child about that? How could you explain the unexplainable? How could you ever feel worthy to be the only person they had left to depend on? But how could you give the responsibility to anyone else?
But... how could he not? They wouldn’t let him keep her. He was nobody. Just the wrong person in the right place at the right time to save her. Maybe. He hoped to keep saving her. But maybe to save her, he had to make sure she got safely back to her grandfather.
Tony shook his head and rested his chin on his hand. He slumped and caught his face in his hands, rubbing his palms against his eye sockets. His eyes hurt. So tired. With all the speed of a glacier melting, he fell against the table top, his head coming to rest on his arm.
“My job,” he hesitated, shooting a hand out to grip the side of the table in deference to the insistent feeling that he required an anchor of some kind. “My job... is to catch the bad guys.” Pushing through the exhaustion, he painted a rakish grin on his face. “It’s what I do.” His smile melted onto the table with the rest of his energy.
“... halfta catch the bad guys....” he whispered and closed his eyes. The image of Kelly, false blond hair just starting to show her red roots near her scalp, her smile wide, flickered past his eyelids for a moment before sleep hit him with the force of the oncoming storm he’d been dodging for weeks now.
When Franks came looking for Tony a few minutes later, he stopped in his tracks. Turning around quietly, he left the room in the same state he’d found it, Tony’s soft snores following him into the hallway. He could tell DiNozzo his news in a few hours. The kid needed sleep more right now.
Chapter 19 (and here on LJ) ---->
_________________________________________ This entry was originally posted at http://riazendira.dreamwidth.org/65873.html, where there are
comments. Please comment on either journal as you please.
On this chapter, many thanks to Monica for beta, cheerleading/poking with a sharp stick for forward action, alee_grrl for first reading/beta and plot brainstorming sessions, Gemma for poking with a sharp stick for forward action, and Pinch Hitter for beta and putting up with my endless conversations on this as always. Couldn't do this without you, lovelies!
*Note- The title of this section really isn't as scary as it might seem. It's more metaphorical than literal.
<----Chapter 17 here (or here on LJ)
Chapter 18: When the World Ends
For the first time in three days, Tony finally had a moment to sit down and reflect. He immediately thought of Kelly. Not that she hadn’t been part of his focus the last few days already. He and Franks had had multiple conversations on how to keep her safe, finally concluding that she should just stay out of the system for the moment until they could be sure that putting her back into it wouldn’t get her killed. So she’d stayed with Abby and the nuns, but that couldn’t last forever. Though, to hear Abby tell it, the nuns were seriously considering keeping Kelly because they adored her so much.
One of the few things that they’d found out from Trip had been that Vanzetti hadn’t actually told any of the details of Kelly’s escape to the “man in charge” whoever he was. This much had been gleaned from an offhand comment Trip had attempted to cover for right after he made it. Tony privately wondered if Trip was holding what information he had for a later attempt at bargaining for his life from the big boss, because he didn’t seem intimidated at all by the thought of going to prison or any other charges they could lawfully level on him.
But after Eileen and Bierden’s confessions, Trip’s few slipped comments, and Rafferty’s refusal to talk at all, the investigation was far enough along that the only thing they had clear was how very far they had left to go in untangling the situation. Kelly was unlikely to be safe in the system any time soon, but she was just as unlikely to be safe resuming her normal life, out in the open.
Somehow in all of the chaos of the investigation, the arrests, being cleared from a whole litany of possible charges beginning at obstruction of justice and ending at trafficking across state lines with a side of murder, Tony had forgotten that at some point, he was supposed to be saying goodbye to Kelly. That she was supposed to go with whatever family of hers that the state could find.
Even though he hadn’t actually seen her in the last three days -- he’d been staying at NIS headquarters at Franks’ rather unsubtle request until the investigation unwound enough for him to be officially cleared -- he’d spoken to her a few times on the phone. He wasn’t going to ask how Abby had managed to hide the phone calls from tracing, he’d simply thanked her and updated Kelly in vague terms about the investigation’s progress. Kelly for the most part alternated between telling Tony about her adventures with the bowling nuns, and being so quiet that he wasn’t sure she was still on the phone until Abby spoke up in the background.
He was worried about her. She definitely needed counseling at this point, something she wasn’t going to get until she had a more stable environment again. Which, of course, she couldn’t get until they’d wrapped this investigation. She was going to need it even more when Tony finally got the chance to break the news to her about her dad.
Through the official channels available to them, Franks and Fornell had verified that Kelly’s dad had been missing back when Abby had passed on the message to Tony. What they’d since learned was that Kelly’s dad had been very briefly found -- so he had survived the mission, Kelly had been right -- and then he had been officially declared dead. His superiors weren’t heavy on the details, even when Franks inquired via NIS channels; all they’d managed to get was that the man had been in an undisclosed field hospital location which had been taken out by air strike. There was no body, so the funeral could be held any time family wanted. Family which, according to their records, consisted of an estranged father, period.
In light of the fact that Kelly’s grandfather was alive, when she finally did come out of hiding, Tony was almost certain she’d be placed with him. Kelly herself had told Tony that she didn’t remember her grandfather, but thought that her mom had talked to him sometimes and that she might have met him once when she was too small to remember. Though he was blood, the man would likely just be another in the long line of strangers that Kelly had to grow accustomed too from now on.
Tony looked down at himself in surprise, startled to find that he’d been subconsciously tightening his arms around himself, his hands locked on his opposite elbows. “Whoops. Not the least bit telling about your own history there, Anthony, oh no - Yeah right...,” he muttered under his breath Shaking out his arms, he assumed a more relaxed posture in the crappy government issue pretend-ergonomic chair.
“Might be time for another trip to the gym,” he announced to the empty room. He’d been doing that a lot too, in the past three days - pretty much instead of sleeping. Sleeping in a government office building while waiting on eggshells for news of the investigation on which his and Kelly’s lives pretty much depended wasn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, something that could be called ‘restful’ anyway. Another few days of this, though, and he’d be absurdly low on mental and physical reserves, he knew from experience. Falling asleep on any even remotely horizontal surface such as tables in briefing rooms, even during briefings, low on reserves.
He quashed the sudden desire to call up his dad, Harry, even Kelly - anyone that would understand a tiny part of his current situation and emotional state. Of course, his dad would just tell him to suck it up and trust Franks. Harry would probably be sympathetic, but awkward over the phone, the relief in his voice that he’d been cleared and allowed to leave two days ago tangible. Harry still felt like he’d abandoned Tony to the wolves even though Tony had asked him to go when he’d gotten the opportunity. Harry had gone, with many lingering professions of willingness to testify to anything and everything whenever required.
Kelly... Kelly would just be scared. He was in no state to maintain what he was starting to think of as his “Dad” facade. He had to be strong in front of her, positive, he had to be the only rock she had left in the maelstrom that her life had become. He’d picked up that responsibility and now he wasn’t sure he could ever put it back down. Every time he tried, he worried about what would happen to Kelly if he did.
Even thinking of her safe with her grandfather didn’t stop the worry. Would her grandfather be a good man, someone to get her the help she needed, to love and support her? Would he think she was resilient, funny, smart, and kind of amazing even in the face of crisis like Tony did? Would he want to smile every time she did? Would he try to vault over a car hood just to catch a frisbee and fall on his ass, just to make her laugh like Tony did? Well okay, Tony mentally allowed, that was probably not something a grandfather was required to, he might throw out a hip or something. This was a man who didn’t talk to his own son - was he a person who should be raising a 6-year-old girl? Not that he had the monopoly on not communicating with family for years at a time, Tony was forced to admit, if only to himself. But that was different. Tony’s father hadn’t been fit to raise a child within Tony’s memory of the whole of his childhood.
Oh no - what if Kelly’s grandfather was like his own dad? Memories of being left alone in expensive hotel rooms and figuring out room service at an early age popped into the forefront of his mind. Suddenly, Tony couldn’t help but smile at the thought of Kelly in her princess persona in charge of a line of hotel staff, deftly charming them and ordering them to place dishes in particular places in the room, perhaps coaxing sundaes and movies into appearance by adorableness alone. Okay, so maybe she was adaptive like he’d been back then.
They had a surprising amount in common, actually. He hadn’t been much older than she was when he’d lost his mom. There hadn’t been anyone chasing him, nor had his mom been murdered, but the loss of his mom had been devastating. Her situation had to be worse. But at the same time, the comparison gave him a place to look at her trauma from and really examine it to the best of his ability for the first time. His dad’s helpless inability to say two words in a row to him after his mother’s death suddenly made a scary kind of sense it never had before. What could you say to a child about that? How could you explain the unexplainable? How could you ever feel worthy to be the only person they had left to depend on? But how could you give the responsibility to anyone else?
But... how could he not? They wouldn’t let him keep her. He was nobody. Just the wrong person in the right place at the right time to save her. Maybe. He hoped to keep saving her. But maybe to save her, he had to make sure she got safely back to her grandfather.
Tony shook his head and rested his chin on his hand. He slumped and caught his face in his hands, rubbing his palms against his eye sockets. His eyes hurt. So tired. With all the speed of a glacier melting, he fell against the table top, his head coming to rest on his arm.
“My job,” he hesitated, shooting a hand out to grip the side of the table in deference to the insistent feeling that he required an anchor of some kind. “My job... is to catch the bad guys.” Pushing through the exhaustion, he painted a rakish grin on his face. “It’s what I do.” His smile melted onto the table with the rest of his energy.
“... halfta catch the bad guys....” he whispered and closed his eyes. The image of Kelly, false blond hair just starting to show her red roots near her scalp, her smile wide, flickered past his eyelids for a moment before sleep hit him with the force of the oncoming storm he’d been dodging for weeks now.
When Franks came looking for Tony a few minutes later, he stopped in his tracks. Turning around quietly, he left the room in the same state he’d found it, Tony’s soft snores following him into the hallway. He could tell DiNozzo his news in a few hours. The kid needed sleep more right now.
Chapter 19 (and here on LJ) ---->
_________________________________________ This entry was originally posted at http://riazendira.dreamwidth.org/65873.html, where there are
comments. Please comment on either journal as you please.