The Cascade Effect Chapter Eighteen/??
The Cascade Effect
Rating: R(Will Go Up to NC-17)
Summary: One Event, One Minor change in the way something happens can change a lot of events in the future.
Disclaimer: I don’t own so no sense suing.
Chapter Eighteen
Since that night Jeanne had shown up at his apartment building in some very suspicious clothing Tony had taken to Spending more and more time at the Gibbs residence. Oddly enough he had more belongings there then he did at his own apartment and he wasn’t even dating the man. His guitars, keyboards, sheet music and song books, DVD’S, clothes, and even a drum kit in the garage were all there instead of his own apartment. It was kind of surreal to him, having all of that at Gibbs’ house and not his own apartment. If he wasn’t careful he’d end up spilling his feelings to his boss, something he knew would get him either beat up or fired, if not both.
Jeanne had ‘accidentally’ run into him several times, either at restaurants or near his apartment building. She’d even been his attending ER doctor once when he’d gotten a concussion, he’d immediately signed out AMA. It was just too weird to be a coincidence, never mind the fact that he didn’t believe in coincidences.
Of course their easy caseload just had to start getting complicated. A Marine was killed during a gathering of all of the important players in the whole Alphabet soup not to mention Senators and Politicians. It lead them to a human slave trafficker who was trafficking underage girls from China to use as sex slaves for wealthy people like politicians or their aides. During that time Tony had had to get a secondary cell phone, a burn phone, because Jeanne kept calling his personal cell phone. So he’d had to get a burn phone as his personal one and get the other one turned off. Hopefully that would get her to leave him the hell alone. He was getting run down from all of the dodging of that obsessed psychopath and even Ziva was noticing it. The only time he actually got rest was when he went straight to Gibbs’ place from NCIS but he couldn’t keep imposing on his boss either, Hopefully something would give soon and it wouldn’t be him.
Gibbs had noticed it long before Ziva did and was worried. He had decided that if the shit really hit the fan Tony would move in with him, to hell with NCIS’s rules and regulations and possibly his own Rule 12. Not to mention what the director would say, which she would inevitably say something. Tony was becoming too run down and that was not good, especially with Tony’s lungs in the condition they were in since the plague. Tony was a field agent and great at undercover work but that could suffer if Tony were to get run down any more than what he already was. Gibbs could only hope that something would happen before his agent’s life was put in even more danger.
Of course something would happen. McGee’s sister was a suspect in the murder of a sailor; Seaman Jeff Petty. McGee had emailed in sick; Laryngitis. They were called out to the scene, which was at he quad on Waverly Campus. They had collected the evience, including ten goldfish that were dead. Gibbs was down getting the results from Ducky with Ziva. They had gotten the cause of death for both the Sailor and the goldfish.
“We didn’t find any knife. All we bagged was trash.” Ziva said to Gibbs once Ducky had given them the cause of death on Seaman Petty.
“Tell DiNozzo to keep looking.”
“Well, Tony went home.”
“He went home?”
“He wasn’t feeling well. Thought McGee might have gotten him sick.
“So he went…Home?” Gibbs said, confused. Tony wouldn’t have gone home even if he was sick. Plus he was avoiding his apartment as much as possible. Gibbs knew something was up.
“Well actually…the director told him he could go.” Ziva told him. Gibbs knew she was up to something again.
Gibbs headed out of Autopsy and called Tony.
“DiNozzo.” Tony answered, his voice showing his tiredness.
“You went home? Why’d Jenny send you home?”
“She’s been talking with Ziva and Kate. They said I looked too un down so she sent me home. I decided to just get some extra sleep here. That is I’m actually not home, I’m at your place instead. I was gonna go to my place till I noticed a light on and Benoit’s car in the lot. That a problem Gibbs?”
“Hell, Tony. If you were that run down I’d have let ya go home. Next time let me know first, got me?”
“Yeah. I’m gonna lay back down Gibbs. I’m getting a migraine.”
“Take your meds Tony. Be back at work as soon as you can.” Gibbs told him.
“Got it Boss.” Tony said, hanging up. He had already taken his meds. He’d suffered too many concussions and every once in a while he got a migraine because of it. It wasn’t enough to hinder his performance as an NCIS Field Agent thankfully.
Gibbs headed the director’s office before searching all over the building for Shepard. He found her in Abby’s lab where he went to berate her about sending one of his Agent’s home but Abby beat him to it. She did her own impersonation of him and the director before making a smart ass comment. He managed to keep his disgust at the thought of him and Jenny hidden rather well. Abby was working on the cell phone that was found on their Seaman’s body.
“Have you got the call log off the cell phone we found on Seaman Petty?” Gibbs asked, walking around the table to stand next to Abby.
“There was damage on the dc run to the SIM chip, probably from the fall.” Abby said, before turning the phone on. “Okay. Wow! 15 missed text messages. Someone’s really trying to get a hold of…” Abby trailed off as the cell began ringing. “Oh no what do I do? Should I answer it?” Abby said, looking at Gibbs.
“Put it on speaker.”
“Hello?” Abby said after hitting the speaker button, effectively answering the call.
“Finally! Where the hell are you?”
“McGee?” Gibbs questioned.
“Boss?! Why do you have my sister's cell phone?” McGee’s confusion was obvious.
“I got a better question for you. What is your sister's cell phone doing on my dead body?” Gibbs asked, something was obviously hinky.
Gibbs had McGee come in and wait in the elevator. Tony had already arrived along with Kate and Ziva. The meds had done their work and kicked his migraine. They put a BOLO out for Sara McGee, citing a Bench Warrant for Grand Theft Auto. They got a hit, Sara was at the Library on campus and Tony and Kate went to pick her up. They brought her in and almost as soon as they did Abby had found something down in the evidence garage. The murder weapon stuffed between the back seat and the backrest. All of the evidence was pointing to Sara. After following the evidence Abby found out that Sara had been drugged with GHB. They found the woman who had drugged her, it was a cheerleader named Maddison who was friends with the cheerleader that their Seaman was dating. It turns out the cheerleader had drugged Sara and set her up to be raped. Her co-conspirator, a campus security guard was the one that was supposed to rape her but Seaman Petty saw Sara struggling with the campus security guy and had attempted to break it up. The guard killed him and fled, ultimately ending up framing Sara in the process.
Once the case had been closed and their reports written Tony went to Gibbs’ house and waited for Kelly to get finished with her evening classes. He’d promised to teach her how to play a new song on the Lead Guitar. Plus it was a weekend and they weren’t on call for once. Kelly had decided to make plans for the three of them; which included dragging Gibbs out of the basement for some pop culture learning. Gibbs was already grumbling about it but it wasn’t as much as what most would have thought.
While Tony waited for the two Gibbs’ to get home he went about making dinner. He knew they both liked his Lasagna Bolognese; which was actually his grandmother’s recipe. He’d made it before and it was one of the few meals that he could cook. He wasn’t a good cook like his friend Speed down in Miami. Which reminded him he needed to check on Speed’s recovery; he’d been damned lucky that the bullet hadn’t hit a few inches lower and was still recovering. This wasn’t the first time his childhood friend had been shot and almost killed. He wasn’t sure if his job or Speed’s job was more dangerous. While he cooked he’d put on some music and so hadn’t noticed Gibbs come in. The older man had stayed later at the office to tie up some loose ends and confront the director about something or another.
“Smells good. Lasagna Bolognese?” Gibbs asked, startling Tony into spinning around with a knife in his hand, ready to be used against an intruder,
“Damnit Gibbs! You’re lucky I already secured my gun otherwise you’d probably have gotten shot!” he exclaimed, much to the amusement of his boss. “Yeah, Lasagna Bolognese. It was that or Chicken Cacciatore.” Tony told him, turning back around to finish chopping something.*
Shortly before Tony was ready to pull dinner out Kelly showed up. Her class had run late so she was late getting home. Once they had eaten dinner and stowed the left overs Tony made his phone call before teaching Kelly some more chords. The three of them then worked on the boat for a bit before Tony called it a night and went to bed. Kelly and Gibbs following not long after. It would be a long relaxing weekend for the three of them Kelly had no classes and her dad and Tony weren’t on call.
TBC…
AN: Hope ya’ll liked this chapter. Yes, the Speed I mentioned IS in fact Timothy Speedle from CSI: Miami. I happened to be watching the episode where Eric thinks he’s been seeing Speed and at the very end I noticed that Speed was born in 1973 and Died in 2003. Tony was born in ’72 and so I made the connection. Yes can you tell I do NOT like the fact the Speed’s dead? As Always reviews, comments and constructive criticism is welcomed. Flames will be sent to the deepest pits of hell and Flamers to the La Brea Tar Pits.
*I shortened the chicken recipe name. The name on food network is Chicken with Cacciatore Sauce but that’s too much of a mouthful. No I’ve never made either of the dishes, just simple Lasagna with plenty of meat, sauce, and plenty of Ricotta, Mozzarella, New York Sharp Cheddar and Parmesan cheeses. I guess you could say it’s the simple way.
Chapter Nineteen>