Chapter 27
AN: Mild Tim-bashing, read at your own risk.
Also, I would like to, again, thank you all for your comments and reviews. Enjoy!
With all that said, Gibbs got up and left the bullpen. He made it as far as the stairs to the fourth floor before he felt eyes on him. He looked up to see Director Vance staring at him, his face unreadable. Gibbs groaned inwardly as Vance beckoned him up.
Vance and Gibbs sat down in his office before either man spoke.
“Your…outburst down there has made me realize a few things. It’s made me think about a few things….”
Gibbs shook his head. “I can’t take another Anderson.” He admitted.
Vance smiled shaking his head also. “No more ‘Andersons’.” Vance said. “I have something else in mind. And I think you are going to like it.”
Vance paused as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “No, what I am thinking is…. It’s just what you said when Tony left…give them, exactly what they wished for.”
“We both know how much work Tony did on your team.” Then Vance backtracked. “Well, I didn’t know until I looked into it. But…give them all his work. Make them do it all.”
“But if they share….” Gibbs stated, unsure of the director’s direction on this.
Vance shook his head. “They won’t share, six months and six months.”
Gibbs sighed. “I think that is more of a punishment to me.”
“Worse than Anderson?”
Gibbs thought for a second. “You do have a point.”
“So we agree?”
Gibbs nodded.
“Effective immediately?”
Gibbs nodded again.
“Good, you’ll inform them of the change.” The director said.
Gibbs nodded. “Kate gets the first six. She joined the team first.”
Vance nodded.
Gibbs’ and Vance’s conversation, remarkably, had a calming effect on Gibbs. He returned to the bullpen and informed Tim and Kate of the new game plan. He cited lack of available free agents. Kate was thrilled to have the new responsibility. Gibbs held back from the both of them that Kate’s SFA status would only last 6 months. He didn’t want them to discover his ‘true’ reason or doing it, not until he was ready.
Gibbs threw Kate into the deep end and it wasn’t long before she was completely overwhelmed. She was up until the wee hours of the morning, rechecking evidence to make sure it had been logged it. She had to check that it was labeled correctly and checked into the log book correctly. She had to then check with Abby and Ducky to make sure each piece was accounted for with them. She had the team expense reports to fill out. She had office supply reports. She had weekly case logs to fill out, describing, in rough summary, each case and outcome, or projected outcome. She then, after each case was closed or shelved, had to go to the evidence storage locker and make sure that each all the pieces of evidence made it into storage. This also included any reports, lab results, etc. produced made by Abby, Ducky, and Team Gibbs.
Kate found the whole thing exhausting. And after many late night/early mornings, she wondered how, and why, Tony had done it for all these years. She also wondered why he had never seemed as stressed or tired as she felt right now. Maybe there was something to Tony’s ‘work smarter, not harder.’ But most of all, she really surprised herself when she realized how very happy she would be when Tony returned and she could give his job back to him.
It took Kate nearly two months to catch on to the job. It took her that long to do it efficiently enough that Gibbs rarely returned items to her for correction. The calls from supply had stopped about mistakes on their forms. But she did still get calls from accounting, though they were less frequent. She occasionally missed logging in an item on the evidence logs. And, of course, Gibbs always informed her of her mistake. But she still found the work exhausting and never ending. She felt and had even asked Gibbs to leave her in the office. He and Tim could go out and solve the cases. That was the only way she could ever get all the work done. Because, even though she as getting better at the job, it was still taking up a lot of her time. She still repeatedly marveled at how Tony had managed to leave work on time most days.
Gibbs watched Kate struggle, and in all honestly, it gave him a certain satisfaction. He felt vindicated. He had had to do the same type stuff under Franks, so he knew, very well, what Kate was dealing with. Gibbs had once asked Franks why he had had to do it all. Franks had told him that with power comes pain. The power was the SFA position. The pain was the paperwork.
Gibbs then informed Kate, much to her relief, that her 6 months was up.
NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS
Tim was thrilled to have the opportunity to prove himself. Tim had watched Kate do the job and he had seen her struggle, a little, with the job. But he was so sure of himself, in his abilities. He knew he would do a good job. Better than Kate and certainly better than Tony. He had a lot to prove, to himself, to Gibbs, but most importantly to Vance. He believed he was better, more prepared for the job of SFA. He based it on his education alone. He was, after all, as Vance had called him once, ‘the agent of the future.’ He had feared that his star was dimming in Vance’s eyes. He had to do something; he was desperate to do anything to get Vance to see him as he once had.
Tim had not talked to Kate about doing Tony’s job…because…well, if Tony could do it. Tim had thought, fully cashing in on his MIT ‘smarter than thou’ education. His delusions of grandeur were soon halted. He quickly sank into the abyss also. He, however, had an even much harder time getting control over the mound of work then Kate did. He could not or would not, let go of his superior attitude, and instead of asking for help. Something Kate had done. Tim chose to conceal his ignorance. He was shocked he would actually have to struggle with something Tony seemed to be able to do so easily. The accounting part of the job was the hardest for Tim. He had learned from the NCIS accounting department, just as Kate had, that Tony had been the one to create the report forms currently used. Tim was surprised to learn that they were actually easier to use then the earlier version. He was also shocked to learn that Tony had taken a fair amount of accounting classes. That was because, Tony had told them, one his instructors had mentioned that he was really good with numbers.
Tim struggled with the conciseness and the volume of the work of an SFA. He had no idea how Tony had kept all the minute details in his head to fill out those reports. And he had to keep it all in his head, Tim reasoned. This was based on the short amount of time it took Tony to complete the forms. He had to keep going, repeatedly, back to the case files and looking up every fact.
That didn’t even take into account the work Tony did out in the field. It was his job to supervise both Kate and Tim when Gibbs was not around. He was to protect them, as they were him. It was also his job to make sure no evidence had been left behind. It didn’t sound like a lot, until they put it into practice. It was hard, very hard to photograph, sketch, or talk to witnesses and still be keenly aware of what was around you. To have to know where your team mates are, at all times, and make sure that they were doing their jobs, without being obvious about it. They both had to admit, it took skill to be able to do those jobs well, and all at the same time.
TBC
END NOTES: I think now I have to come up with some interesting ‘meanwhile in the ER’ Dr. Anthony DiNozzo stories. So bear with me, I think Tony will have some interesting patients along the way. ;) Jackie
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