~~~~M~~~~
The elevator doors slide open returning a furious Gibbs to the bullpen.
After a tense moment Tony steps out and states, clearly beside himself with anger but at a regular volume, “Then maybe I shouldn’t be on your team anymore. Since you don’t need me and all.” He takes the stairs, presumably down to the garage.
Gibbs stares at the stairwell door as it slams shut.
I glance at Ziva before asking an admittedly timid “Boss?”
“Reports on my desk by quitting time,” He instructs and returns to the elevator.
Tony’s anger at Gibbs going in without back up isn’t new. The shouting match we could hear, though not make out the words of, in the elevator is however.
I can’t help it, after gesturing for Ziva to stay put I slip into the stairwell and stop a flight from the bottom, knowing Tony’s probably sitting on the bottom step.
Sure enough after a few seconds of waiting the ground floor door opens and Tony sighs.
“Did you mean that?”
“I dunno Jethro. Did you mean that shit about not needing me on your six all the time?”
“I was letting the fact that you were angry make me angry.” It isn’t an apology but it’s far closer than I’ve ever heard from Gibbs before.
“You have any clue why I’m so pissed off?”
“Because I put myself in harms way again.”
“That’s why I was mad when we got on the elevator. Care to try again?” There’s a brief silence. “You basically told me back there that it’s none of my business if you want to go and get yourself shot.”
“You know that’s not what I-”
Tony just overrides him, “You get shot on the job it’s my fault as your partner. Then there’s that whole second in command thing. And the house. And the boat. And the life insurance. You’re my business on so many levels Jethro. Or you’re supposed to be.” I missed something here.
“Tony,” Gibbs actually sounds hurt. “Of course I’m your business and you’re mine. In every way. All I meant was what I know you already know, sometimes in our line of work the innocent lives involved are more important than ours. And if I had you in line of sight I would have signed my intentions but I couldn’t risk a verbal signal, not with a ten year old’s life on the line.”
“I know,” Tony just sounds defeated. “But you get that for me the ‘to have and to hold’ stuff was about keeping you around, not taking half your stuff and leaving, right?” He can’t mean what it sounds like he means.
“I know, and I love you right back but it doesn’t change who we are and what we do.”
“No, but before I married you it would never have occurred to you to deny me the right to back you up.” This has to be a set up. Tony and Gibbs married? They must know I’m ease dropping.
“I guess now that you’re officially mine I’m even more afraid of losing you.”
“We do a dangerous job. We could lose each other to it every day. But you keep pushing me away and one day you’ll succeed.”
“I am trying.”
“I know. I just wish you’d learn to think before you speak when we’re in private. Or as close as we’re going to get in the middle of the day.”
Gibbs chuckles, “Why don’t you go grab lunch for the team on us? You know how it upsets the kids when Mommy and Daddy fight.”
“I’ve told you time and again Jethro I am not your wife. Call me something like that again and you can sleep in the basement.”
“Daddy and Papa then?”
Tony finally chuckles back, “You do have a point. When I said I shouldn’t be on the team anymore Probie went white as a sheet. And frankly I’m shocked little miss Mossad didn’t follow me.”
“I barked at them about their reports. Knew we weren’t finished with this yet.”
“You know there is another incentive to you not getting yourself beaten, bloodied or shot.”
“And what’s that?”
“Every time you do it I find it harder not to out us spectacularly.”
“Just one more month Tony.”
“I still can’t believe you insisted on telling SecNav.”
“Knew he‘d agree keeping us on the same team is the most important thing. Go on now, no Thai though.”
“Fine. But at least mention that I am coming back. You’ve already got them stressed nearly to heart failure.” The door to the garage opens nosily. “Oh and for the record I expect a proper honeymoon once they all know.”
“Got a friend who owes me a favor, has a house with a private bit of beach he‘s going to lend us. And I expect you to wear your ring once we’ve had our honeymoon.”
“I’d be wearing it now if we weren’t skulking about in closets.” Tony must be determined to get the final word because the door shuts with an echoing bang behind him.
I’m not convinced it wasn’t staged to teach me a lesson about spying on my team mates so I hurry back up stairs and pull up the public records database through a back channel. Not wanting to be too obvious to anyone paying attention to the query history I check the list of all the marriage licenses issued in the past month rather than searching for Tony or Gibbs’ name specifically.
A quick skim of the list is all I need to confirm that their names aren’t on it. But then a nagging voice that sounds a bit like Abby and a bit like Sara reminds me that Vance was upset with Gibbs for speaking to SecNav without telling him almost seven months ago. I pull the records for a month in either direction of that day and sure enough there it is, plain as day.
Marriage license for Leroy Jethro Gibbs and Anthony Michael DiNozzo applied for on May 16, 2012, issued May 21st. Signed, witnessed and re-filed with the court on May 22nd.
They’ve been honest to god legally married for six months and none of us had the faintest clue. Hell Ziva’s still batting her eyelashes at Tony and talking about soul mates.
At the moment though she happens to be staring at me, silently demanding answers. I’m in no condition to give them. I’m too caught up in looking at all the, in retrospect of course, obvious signs. The Boss becoming less quick to anger, though no less intense. The instructions to “go home already.” Gibbs’ changing his hair style. Tony turning his babble to sports, and increasing his dating advice to me. Even Tony failing to respond to Ziva’s jabs about his personal life seems like a blaring sign now that I’m looking back on it. Come to think of it even Gibbs’ wardrobe has changed, the same basic styles but better quality and different colors.
Ziva asking “Where is Tony?” brought my attention back to the situation at hand.
Suddenly I could see that the angry set of Gibbs’ jaw at the question was put on, “Went to grab lunch. He knows where he belongs.”
Due to the extremely limited roles we played in the morning’s hostage situation I’m done by the time Tony arrives with pizza and a tray of cups, presumably soda. Gibbs scowls but Tony just smiles and pulls the cup nearest himself up to revel the logo of Gibbs’ favored coffee shop, “Still think it’s unnatural though Boss. Coffee and pizza just don’t mix.”
Watching them it becomes clear to me that I at least was being somewhat willfully blind. Yes they’re bantering as they always have but the tone is different, their attitudes toward one another are easier, warmer.
Around mid-afternoon the chance to find out if the blindness is localized to the bullpen comes when Abby calls up for help reconstructing lines of sight for the case we’d been trying to heat up before this morning’s call out.
I wait for an opening, and get it when Abby asks if I’m busy Saturday night. After a brief discussion about a band called Weak Sauce I wait a few beats before asking, as distractedly as I can manage, “Do you still do movie night with Tony on Wednesdays?”
“When we can.”
“You’ve been to his new place then?”
“New place?”
“Somewhere north I think.”
She pouts, “He didn’t say anything to me about moving.”
“Maybe he‘s just got a new girlfriend up in Takoma Park or something.”
“He’d have mentioned a new girlfriend.” She seems to consider it, “Unless he’s serious about her.”
“You don’t think he’d talk about a serious relationship?”
“He never talks about the things that really matter to him Timmy, at least not on purpose.”
Thinking about it she’s right, and not just because of how surprising the idea of Tony and Gibbs is. When something matters to Tony we only find out about it if Gibbs calls him on it in public. Or it somehow shows up in the bullpen.
I decide to play dumb but push just a bit, “If he’s serious about her it must have been going on a while…”
“We moved movie night to my place about a year back.”
That surprises me enough that I don’t have to manufacture a reaction, “A year? That really is serious.”
“He’s seemed different longer than that though… More settled.”
“He’s only been acting different with us for about five months,” Citing the start of the changes I realized earlier.
“He always plays a part with you and Ziva,” Abby murmurs dismissively. She turns to a different screen and pulls something up, “Personnel has his current mailing address as a PO box.”
I had been curious but I hadn’t thought to pull up Tony’s personnel file. “Maybe he has moved,” I offer wondering how to get her to tell me when without showing too much interest.
Abby solves the problem for me, “About thirteen months ago if the date of the change means anything.” She scans the file a bit more and makes an upset noise, “Says here he’s being promoted as of January 1st, does that mean he’s leaving team Gibbs?”
“I don’t think so. He would have mentioned that,” And Gibbs said as much, but that’d give my little misdeed away.
“I hope so,” She doesn’t mention Tony again but I can tell I’m not the only one letting the gears turn on today’s discoveries.
~~~~A~~~~
Timmy is cute when he thinks he’s being sneaky. All those pointed questions, he’d found out something about Tony and wants to know if I know anything. Really, he should know better. All he really accomplished was telling me that Tony’s move- which I totally knew about- had more to it than a better neighborhood and utilities that work all the time.
A few quick commands bring up the keystroke log for Tim’s terminal but it takes a bit of deduction to figure out which bit of snooping is about Tony. But a work around of normal channels for public records is just plain odd. I duplicate his second search and almost fall out of my chair.
Tony and Gibbs are married! No wonder Tim is trying to be sneaky, this is huge.
And I am so busting them for it, but not tonight. Tony needs a little time away tonight. I saw his face on the video feeds when they re-entered the building, he’s just too stressed for teasing now. And no matter what they’ve hidden from me the well being of my family comes first.
Author's Chapter Notes:
McGee overhears something during a fight that leads to a series of discoveries.