"Better the Devil You Know?" by thefannishwaldo
Title: Better the Devil You Know?
Character: Fornell
Genre: Gen
Word Count: 975
Fornell had a whole new appreciation for the word ‘fuming’. He’d come back to the Wichita FBI Office and commandeered a desk.
NCIS was not taking over an investigation of this importance. It was one thing for them to go after kids who were AWOL or UA or UVA - or whatever they called Marines and sailors who ran away from home these days. It was fine for them to bust their own for smoking pot or having a bar brawl that got out of hand. But they could not have his investigation into a possible assassination attempt on the President of the United States! Over his dead body.
Gibbs, he knew. They’d actually gone toe to toe once before and even given that, Gibbs had been gracious enough to call and warn Fornell when word trickled down that Diane and he were dating. He’d thought Gibbs full of shit at the time, but had learned better since.
The last time he’d seen Gibbs at work there’d been a different kid nipping at the older agent’s heels. A kid named Steve something. No, that wasn’t right. Gibbs had called him Steve, but the kid had later told him his name was… Stan. Stan Burley. That had been his name.
Fornell checked his watch. The plane back to D.C. would be ready in about an hour. That gave him enough time to do a little digging before he had to report in and explain how an ancient NCIS M.E. had managed to abscond with his dead body.
Fornell turned to the computer screen and began digging. Twenty minutes later he had a name and a jacket. Anthony D. DiNozzo. “DiNote-zo,” he pronounced out loud, recognizing an Italian name when he saw one. “Like ‘pizza,’” he mumbled. “Two ‘z’s make a ‘tz’. DiNote-zo. Stupid name, stupid kid,” Fornell kept muttering under his breath. He had the image of the kid smiling at him through the window of Air Force one as the plane had taxied, burned into his retinas like the afterimage of a camera flash.
He couldn’t imagine what the hell Gibbs saw in a kid with jacket like that. Phys Ed major at Ohio State, Police Academy in Illinois, followed by sixteen months in Peoria. Apparently he was pretty good at the job, but had less than stellar relationships with his co-workers. It looked like the kid hadn’t learned that there were some gray areas in police work when he’d first gotten out of the academy and didn’t care to look the other way when a veteran cop took a liberty or two. He’d moved to Pennsylvania after that and lasted about eighteen months before he’d agreed to resign before some extremely rich rape suspect could get him terminated for excessive force. Baltimore had taken him and apparently things had gone reasonably well there since he was able to quit to go to NCIS before they found a reason to fire him.
Fornell still couldn’t figure out what Gibbs wanted with him. The kid didn’t work or play well with others. He wasn’t a model cop. Unless NCIS counted throwing a winning three-pointer a specialized skill these days, he wasn’t particularly gifted in anything investigation related.
But he knew Gibbs better than that. Besides the one other time their professional paths had crossed, and the one phone call about how screwed he’d be when Diane left, they’d had a few conversations. When Diane cleaned him out and left him, Fornell hadn’t known quite what else to do, so he looked up Gibbs and dropped in on him. He found the guy awake at midnight, sanding a strut to something that vaguely reminded him of a dinosaur skeleton in his basement. Neither of them really wanting to talk about their shared mistake, they’d talked about work. And Fornell had left, three hours later with a grudging respect for the other man and the first spark of understanding of what NCIS did and why and how. Not that that would excuse them for being the pain the ass they were becoming on this case.
And then there was that little old country doctor they had for an M.E. Polite and British and not above lying through his teeth for Gibbs and NCIS. Fornell had known exactly who Gibbs was the moment he’d stepped aboard Air Force One. But the little guy kept on rambling about the body and calling and treating Gibbs as his assistant and Fornell hadn’t known what to make of any of it, so he’d stayed quiet until he could get a better angle on their… angle.
Fornell heard someone clear his throat and looked up from the computer to see the driver he’d been assigned waiting for him. “Agent Fornell, your car is ready to take you back to your plane.”
Fornell sighed and deleted his search. He knew that once he was airborne he’d have to call in and explain that he was having a turf war with both NCIS and the Secret Service. And he was afraid he was losing. After all that DiNozzo kid had practically shoved him off the plane and shut the door in his face. He would be a long time living that one down.
He grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair. Better to get this over with. He could hear the call now, “Sorry, Director, but I seem to have let the dead body get away…” This case was going to be interminable, he was sure of it. Because of his ex’s ex, some kid who couldn’t hold a job and an M.E. who’d be getting ready for his own autopsy any day now.
He wondered if a day could actually get any worse.
When he heard a dead body answer a cell phone a few hours later, he found out that it could.
Character: Fornell
Genre: Gen
Word Count: 975
Fornell had a whole new appreciation for the word ‘fuming’. He’d come back to the Wichita FBI Office and commandeered a desk.
NCIS was not taking over an investigation of this importance. It was one thing for them to go after kids who were AWOL or UA or UVA - or whatever they called Marines and sailors who ran away from home these days. It was fine for them to bust their own for smoking pot or having a bar brawl that got out of hand. But they could not have his investigation into a possible assassination attempt on the President of the United States! Over his dead body.
Gibbs, he knew. They’d actually gone toe to toe once before and even given that, Gibbs had been gracious enough to call and warn Fornell when word trickled down that Diane and he were dating. He’d thought Gibbs full of shit at the time, but had learned better since.
The last time he’d seen Gibbs at work there’d been a different kid nipping at the older agent’s heels. A kid named Steve something. No, that wasn’t right. Gibbs had called him Steve, but the kid had later told him his name was… Stan. Stan Burley. That had been his name.
Fornell checked his watch. The plane back to D.C. would be ready in about an hour. That gave him enough time to do a little digging before he had to report in and explain how an ancient NCIS M.E. had managed to abscond with his dead body.
Fornell turned to the computer screen and began digging. Twenty minutes later he had a name and a jacket. Anthony D. DiNozzo. “DiNote-zo,” he pronounced out loud, recognizing an Italian name when he saw one. “Like ‘pizza,’” he mumbled. “Two ‘z’s make a ‘tz’. DiNote-zo. Stupid name, stupid kid,” Fornell kept muttering under his breath. He had the image of the kid smiling at him through the window of Air Force one as the plane had taxied, burned into his retinas like the afterimage of a camera flash.
He couldn’t imagine what the hell Gibbs saw in a kid with jacket like that. Phys Ed major at Ohio State, Police Academy in Illinois, followed by sixteen months in Peoria. Apparently he was pretty good at the job, but had less than stellar relationships with his co-workers. It looked like the kid hadn’t learned that there were some gray areas in police work when he’d first gotten out of the academy and didn’t care to look the other way when a veteran cop took a liberty or two. He’d moved to Pennsylvania after that and lasted about eighteen months before he’d agreed to resign before some extremely rich rape suspect could get him terminated for excessive force. Baltimore had taken him and apparently things had gone reasonably well there since he was able to quit to go to NCIS before they found a reason to fire him.
Fornell still couldn’t figure out what Gibbs wanted with him. The kid didn’t work or play well with others. He wasn’t a model cop. Unless NCIS counted throwing a winning three-pointer a specialized skill these days, he wasn’t particularly gifted in anything investigation related.
But he knew Gibbs better than that. Besides the one other time their professional paths had crossed, and the one phone call about how screwed he’d be when Diane left, they’d had a few conversations. When Diane cleaned him out and left him, Fornell hadn’t known quite what else to do, so he looked up Gibbs and dropped in on him. He found the guy awake at midnight, sanding a strut to something that vaguely reminded him of a dinosaur skeleton in his basement. Neither of them really wanting to talk about their shared mistake, they’d talked about work. And Fornell had left, three hours later with a grudging respect for the other man and the first spark of understanding of what NCIS did and why and how. Not that that would excuse them for being the pain the ass they were becoming on this case.
And then there was that little old country doctor they had for an M.E. Polite and British and not above lying through his teeth for Gibbs and NCIS. Fornell had known exactly who Gibbs was the moment he’d stepped aboard Air Force One. But the little guy kept on rambling about the body and calling and treating Gibbs as his assistant and Fornell hadn’t known what to make of any of it, so he’d stayed quiet until he could get a better angle on their… angle.
Fornell heard someone clear his throat and looked up from the computer to see the driver he’d been assigned waiting for him. “Agent Fornell, your car is ready to take you back to your plane.”
Fornell sighed and deleted his search. He knew that once he was airborne he’d have to call in and explain that he was having a turf war with both NCIS and the Secret Service. And he was afraid he was losing. After all that DiNozzo kid had practically shoved him off the plane and shut the door in his face. He would be a long time living that one down.
He grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair. Better to get this over with. He could hear the call now, “Sorry, Director, but I seem to have let the dead body get away…” This case was going to be interminable, he was sure of it. Because of his ex’s ex, some kid who couldn’t hold a job and an M.E. who’d be getting ready for his own autopsy any day now.
He wondered if a day could actually get any worse.
When he heard a dead body answer a cell phone a few hours later, he found out that it could.