Don’t Leave Me Hanging
Chapter 6
by WCUGirl
There was much arguing, sputtering, cursing and gnashing of teeth, but eventually Gibbs won. Tony took the rest of the week off, much to his dismay, and Ducky backed Gibbs on the decision. Once his broken body had a week off to mend, they’d consider letting him come back for desk duty only.
Tony whined and huffed and griped and complained about being bored, being lonely, being out of the loop, and being replaced while Gibbs simply smiled and took the abuse gratefully. He was still so thankful that Tony was even here to argue with him; he’d take whatever he could get from his son.
Gibbs was hard at work at his desk, two weeks after Dafelmair’s arrest and Tony’s first week back on light active duty. He was still wearing the walking boot, so he couldn’t chase down any suspects, but he could visit crime scenes, shoot and sketch and examine evidence. There hadn’t been many cases, for which Tony and Gibbs were both grateful"Gibbs knew Tony would probably break protocol and run after a perp with a fractured ankle, and Tony knew Gibbs would have his ass if he chased after a perp with a fractured ankle, but didn’t want to leave his dad with no one on his six either.
So for a change Gibbs and Tony were both glad to be stuck in the bullpen.
Kate, on the other hand, was going to go completely crazy if DiNozzo didn’t stop shooting spit wads at her.
“GIBBS!” Kate had finally had enough, it was Friday, after lunch, and Tony had been on her mercilessly since Monday morning at 0900.
“Agent Todd is there a problem,” Gibbs asked calmly, fully engrossed in the cold case he was studying.
“Can you PLEASE tell your SENIOR FIELD AGENT to act like a Senior Field Agent and not a senior in High School?”
“DiNozzo,” Gibbs barked, again without looking up.
“Yeah Boss?”
“How’s that Bolick case coming?”
“I’m waiting on a call back from the star witness who has yet to prove their presence at the crime scene, Boss,” Tony replied.
“Think you can find something productive to do while you wait so Kate will relax,” Gibbs snarked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about Boss,” Tony said sweetly, winking at Kate.
“I mean quit shooting spit wads at Kate, DiNozzo! Find something else to do!”
“On it Boss,” Tony replied.
The bullpen was quiet for a few moments until Kate squealed in pain. “TONY!”
Gibbs looked up this time, his expression one that had struck fear into the hearts of many. But never Tony.
“DINOZZO! Did I or did I not tell you to quit shooting spit wads at Kate?!”
“You did Boss. I didn’t shoot a spit wad at Kate.”
“Then why did she scream like she’d been shot?”
“Because he shot me with a rubber band Gibbs,” Kate whined.
Gibbs rose from his desk to confiscate the projectile objects from his son and deliver a headslap when his desk phone rang. He sighed. DiNozzo’s headslap would have to wait. He snatched the phone up.
“Yeah, Gibbs,” he said tiredly.
Agent Gibbs?
“Yeah?”
This is Billy Fuentes sir.
“Hi Billy,” Gibbs said in a more friendly tone. At that, Gibbs noted that Tony stopped harassing Kate and seemed to be listening in on half of the conversation.
I was just wondering, Mr. Gibbs, sir, since you caught the bad guys who killed my daddy…if you and Agent Tony are still going to come over and help me with my tree house, the little boy asked hopefully.
Gibbs smiled. Perfect distraction. “I tell you what, Billy. Agent Tony and I will be there tomorrow morning at 0700 to help you. We had to wait a little while before doing it because Agent Tony got hurt.”
He saw Tony blink in horror at the early hour Gibbs named on a Saturday. He smiled snarkily.
Thank you Agent Gibbs. My momma said I maybe shouldn’t call you because you’re so busy, but I was just wondering.
“It’s no bother at all Billy,” Gibbs replied. “We’re glad to help. We’ll see you in the morning, alright?”
Momma said she will make cim-a-none buns for breakfast.
Gibbs smiled. “Tell your momma that Agent Tony and I LOVE cinnamon buns.”
The little boy giggled. He and Gibbs chatted for a few more minutes, before Billy put his mother on the phone so she could finalize details with the special agent. Smiling, Gibbs hung up the phone at the end of the conversation and turned to Tony.
“DiNozzo we’re meeting at Fuentes’ house in the morning at 0700 to help Billy finish his tree house,” Gibbs said.
“But Boss how am I going to be able to help,” Tony implored, indicating the walking boot still on his foot.
“There is plenty of work to be done on the ground DiNozzo,” Gibbs replied, “unless you’re in the habit of disappointing little boys whose daddies have just died,” he asked innocently. “You did suggest we help, after all,” Gibbs reasoned.
Tony narrowed his eyes, but knew he’d lost. “You’re right Boss. I’m sure we’ll find something for me to do to be helpful.”
“If all else fails, you could always throw spit wads at Billy’s mom,” Gibbs snarked.
“No way Gibbs! I mean I wouldn’t"she’s a lady boss"I couldn’t possibly"”
“WAIT! STOP! Hold it right there mister,” Kate cut in. “You can’t shoot spit wads at a lady, but you can shoot them at me? Am I not a lady, DiNozzo?”
Gibbs raised one eyebrow to see what Tony would say in response to Kate’s accusation. He was amused when Tony didn’t even blink.
“Agent Todd I have a hard time thinking of anyone who carries a gun as a lady,” Tony said, “There is something about that to me that just doesn’t seem to add up,” he added, his tone indicating that he was only joking.
“I think you’re just worried that I can out shoot you, Tony,” Kate snarked. Indeed Kate had no idea about Tony’s sniper training"she had no idea the skill that he possessed when it came to nailing targets.
“I doubt that very seriously,” Tony responded. He wasn’t in any hurry to show off his skill, but he wasn’t going to mislead Kate either.
“Twenty bucks says I can shoot a target 10 times, and hit the same spot every time from 25 meters,” Kate suggested.
“Twenty bucks says I can shoot a target 15 times, and hit the same spot every time from 100 meters,” Tony retorted, “with my LEFT hand.”
Gibbs smirked at the two. It seemed to him that there would always be a competition between the two of them. They were starting to hit it off rather well; they worked well together, even if they annoyed the piss out of everyone around them.
“Enough,” Gibbs stated. “Sunday morning, 0700, NCIS firing range. We’ll see who wins that bet,” he said. He smirked when Tony’s face showed even more horror than it had when Gibbs ordered him to give up his Saturday.
This time Kate hesitated. “I um. I have mass on Sunday morning, Gibbs,” she stated. “That’s if we don’t have a case.”
“Agent Todd I expect we’ll be done long before time for mass,” Gibbs replied. “But in the interest of making sure you get to the church on time, 0600 works better for me. Gives me less time to kill between waking up and meeting up with you two.”
“0600? Sunday? Seriously?! Boss…it’s the weekend,” Tony was seriously whining now. This was not okay with him at all.
“Keep talking DiNozzo. Wanna make it 0500?”
“No Boss. 0600 works just fine for me. I’ll be here.”
“Kate?”
“I’ll be here Gibbs,” she said grimly, wishing she’d kept her mouth shut.
“Good,” Gibbs said. “Oh and by the way, Agent Todd?”
“Yes?”
Gibbs held up his own twenty dollar bill. “Twenty dollars says you miss your target on your eighth round.” He held up another twenty. “Twenty more dollars says I can shoot each of your targets twelve times, alternating between the two without ever moving my body and hitting the same spot each time on each target"”
“Oh please,” Kate said, “That’s too easy"”
“From a thousand meters,” Gibbs finished. Kate paled.
“Don’t take the bet Kate,” DiNozzo warned. “He was a sniper in the marines. You won’t win!”
Kate squared her shoulders. “You’re on.” She would just make sure she stopped by the bank on Saturday. Easy. Piece of cake.
xxx
Saturday morning found the Gibbses arriving at the Fuentes home just about the time the sun came up. The cold morning air was doing nothing for Tony’s ankle and he was walking with a bad limp, but he’d been up on time and was in the kitchen munching on a bowl of fruit loops when Gibbs arrived to pick him up at his apartment.
It seemed there was much to do on the ground, and Tony quickly busied himself with staining the boards with a water sealer to keep moisture from the weather from rotting the boards. Sgt. Fuentes had built the frame of the house before his fatal leap, so Gibbs picked up where he’d left off and was currently putting the newly dried boards that Tony had finished along the bottom to make a floor for the tree house.
When they’d arrived, Billy’s mom came outside and told them that Billy was still sleeping"apparently the kid had a rough night and there had been several nightmares about his father’s death. Gibbs and Tony nodded understandingly and told her to let the boy sleep and they would make sure there was still plenty for him to do when he got up. Mrs. Fuentes brought them each a cup of coffee and watched from the kitchen window as the two special agents worked on her son’s tree house.
Around 9am Billy Fuentes woke up and went outside, still in his pajamas. He stopped and stared in awe at the tree house being constructed by the two special agents. He watched them for a long moment before Tony looked up and noticed they had company.
“Hey Boss…we have a visitor,” Tony called up to the tree house where Gibbs was nearly finished with the floor.
Billy ran across the front yard in his bare feet and stopped when he saw Tony’s walking boot. “Agent Tony? How did you hurt your foot?”
Tony glanced at his walking boot then looked at his son. “I uh…I fell.”
Billy smiled sympathetically. “I fall down sometimes too. I thought grown ups didn’t fall down?”
Tony ran a hand through his hair while he tried to think of an answer. “Well you see Billy we were flying on a plane with the guys your daddy worked with. There was a bad storm, we were all being kind of tossed around and"”
“Did the bad guys push you out of the plane?” Gosh but this kid was insightful.
Tony smirked up at Gibbs. “They didn’t mean to. They were falling and hit Agent Gibbs and he got knocked back into me and I fell off the plane.”
“YOU FELL OFF THE PLANE?!” That came from Billy’s mother.
“Uh, yes ma’am,” Tony said, his ears turning pink around the edges.
Billy’s eyes were huge. “Agent Tony you fell off the plane and you guys still managed to catch the bad guys?! Wow…I wanna be a special agent when I grow up! You guys’re better than Superman!”
He heard Gibbs laugh from up above and Billy looked up and saw Gibbs in his tree house. “I’m gonna go put on clothes ok,” Billy called, suddenly turning tail and running back in the house, “Momma won’t let me play outside in my PJs.”
Gibbs looked at Tony. “You didn’t tell him the truth, Tony,” Gibbs said softly.
“Sure I did,” Tony replied. “You got knocked into me and it knocked me out of the plane. It was the bad guys’ fault, even if they didn’t mean for it to happen. You’d never hurt me on purpose; I know that,” Tony said softly.
Gibbs smiled. “Good boy.”
Tony grinned and saw that Billy was returning. He stopped at the bottom of the ladder.
“Can I come up, Sir,” Billy called to Gibbs.
“Depends…do you have a password?”
Billy thought for only a short moment before replying, “Yes I do. Semper Fi, Sir.”
Gibbs’ chest filled with pride at this little boy who’d lost so much, but who would overcome it. “It’s a good password Billy,” he said, “Come on up.”
Tony continued working on the ground and passing boards up to Gibbs and Billy throughout the morning and into the afternoon. When Gibbs and Billy finally climbed back down, they gazed proudly up at their very special, newly constructed tree house.
“It’ll be my secret hideout,” Billy stated matter-of-factly, “Thank you for helping me.”
Gibbs and Tony each gave Billy a big hug before leaving. They told Mrs. Fuentes that if she needed anything all she had to do was call NCIS and ask for one of them. They were filled with pride as they walked to the car"this was way more fun than catching the bad guys.
xxx
On Sunday morning at 0600, Kate arrived at the firing range to find Gibbs and Tony already there. She stopped and watched them for a moment before alerting them to her presence.
They were standing side by side, ear protection and safety glasses on, holding their sigs identically, gazing out at targets that Kate could barely see. She could see the 1000 meter mark, but the target was even out past that. The two men started firing their guns, in perfect sync with each other. Kate smirked, stepping closer, figuring that with the target that far away, Tony wouldn’t make even one shot on the target, let alone hit the center.
They emptied full magazines and the targets receded back to them. Tony smiled plucking his off of the holder. Their targets were outlines of a body. Kate paled when she saw the baseball size hole in the chest of the target Tony held with one single hole in the spot that would be right between the eyes on its head. She saw Gibbs pull his down, identical markings on his own target. She’d made a shot bet with two snipers?
Tony turned and his eyes widened when he saw Kate standing there. “Uh…Hi Kate,” he called cheerfully, trying to bite back the grimace that threatened to take over his whole face.
“You’re a sniper, DiNozzo,” Kate asked incredulously.
“Um…yeah, yeah I am,” Tony replied.
“Own it Tony, be proud of it,” Gibbs said whacking him on the back of the head. “You worked hard to get that good.”
Kate checked in and got her ear and eye protection and joined them on the shooting range. She took a deep breath and loaded the magazine into her gun.
“Now remember Agent Todd,” Tony called, “We have a bet.”
“You were serious when you challenged us, weren’t you, Agent Todd,” Gibbs asked.
“Uh, of course I was serious,” Kate responded.
“Line it up,” Gibbs called, “25 meters.”
Kate took a steadying breath and took her stance.
“Ten shots, Kate. You got to hit the same spot every shot in order to keep your bet,” Tony said.
“I still say you’ll miss shot number eight,” Gibbs snarked.
Kate smirked at the two of them and raised her duty weapon. She quickly fired off the first six shots, hesitated a moment, fired off four more and stopped, staring in horror at her target. Her eighth shot, while it was on the target, was slightly to the right of all the others, which were neatly tucked into the same spot. She looked at Gibbs, horrified.
“That’s twenty you owe me, and twenty you owe DiNozzo,” Gibbs commented mildly.
“My turn,” Tony called. “Line it up. 100 meters. 12 shots Kate. Same spot each time.”
Tony held up his sig in his left hand. “I told you I’d do it left handed,” he told Kate, who smirked at him. “Please you have handwriting like Chinese symbols mixed with hieroglyphics,” Kate snarked. “You honestly expect me to believe that you will hit the same spot on the target 12 times with your bad hand? Come on DiNozzo. You made those pretty shots a moment ago, but that was with your right hand. Just give it up.”
Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!
Tony lowered his gun. His target came back and he smiled at Agent Todd. “Twenty dollars please,” he said happily, showing her the target with only one hole in it. It was almost scalloped around the edges though, so it was easy to see that the spot on his target had been shot out 15 times. Dammit.
Tony hung his target back up and Kate hung hers up reluctantly.
“Line it up,” Gibbs called, “Both at 1000 meters.”
The targets began sliding out to their meter point and Tony winked at Kate. “You’re gonna love this,” he said, his eyes shining a bit wildly. “Gibbs is the best sniper I’ve ever seen.”
“Yeah but he isn’t using a sniper rifle,” Kate reasoned, “He doesn’t have a scope, he doesn’t have anything to steady his hand on, there’s no way he’ll"” She broke off at Gibbs began firing. He quickly unloaded his first magazine into the two targets"creating a new hold in each one so they’d know where he hit. Without missing a beat he dropped his empty magazine and quickly popped the next one into place before resuming firing, less than 10 seconds later, and unloaded the second magazine into the targets.
The targets came back and Gibbs smirked at it. “I believe you owe me twenty dollars, Agent Todd,” Gibbs commented.
Kate looked at the targets in disbelief. Then she looked at Gibbs and at Tony who was smiling proudly at his boss. She rolled her eyes and pulled out her purse. She opened her wallet and withdrew the cash"eighty dollars"and handed forty of it to Gibbs and forty of it to Tony.
“Guess I learned my lesson,” she quipped.
“Oh no, you haven’t even begun studying the lesson yet Kate. We’ll be spending much more time on the shooting range.”
“Aiming at a target over and over again doesn’t do anything for my skill,” Kate lamented. “I’ve been practicing for years.”
“You just haven’t had the right motivation,” Gibbs commented. He pulled her PDA out of her purse. “Maybe if you were shooting and trying to avoid something you’d do better,” he said looking at her PDA.
Kate’s eyes widened. “Boss you wouldn’t dare.”
Gibbs raised one eyebrow at her. Kate sighed. “Ok so you would dare. But I am not shooting at my PDA. Not today. I have to go home and scrub the shooting range off of me so I can be at mass on time.”
Gibbs nodded and handed her the palm pilot back. She quickly packed up her stuff, bid them a good day and left.
Tony looked at Gibbs. “You wouldn’t really make her shoot at her palm pilot, would you, Dad?”
“Not without some healthy competition,” Gibbs commented plucking the hat off of Tony’s head and holding it up menacingly.
“Oh come on Boss, that’s my favorite hat! You wouldn’t…”
“Oh yes,” Gibbs said, smirking and nearly laughing out loud at the look of horror on his boy’s face, “I would.”
End.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.