Silent Tears Part 3a
Thought I had posted this, but I didn't. Sorry about that. This post will be in 2 parts.
Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs took a sip of his coffee as he studied the picture in front of him. There was no doubt that she was beautiful and he wasn’t surprised that Tony would know her, but the question that remained to be answered was how well he knew her. Gibbs realized he would have that answer in a few minutes, but until then, he would have to speculate. He was already aware of the fact that Tony was an only child, so Sydney couldn’t be his sister. Maybe she was another relative such as a cousin; or perhaps she was a girlfriend. If Sydney was a former girlfriend, the team leader knew that DiNozzo wouldn’t have shirked his responsibilities to the girl and to the baby, especially considering Tony’s own scarred childhood.
He sighed in frustration. “I’m missing something, but what is it?” he mumbled to himself.
DiNozzo had come into work this morning, his appearance slightly disheveled and a weariness hung about him like a dark cloud; his usual exuberance clearly hidden bind a mask of exhaustion and worry. Gibbs had to credit the younger man with trying to put on a good front in front of the others, but the team leader had not been fooled.
He recalled how Tony’s demeanor had completely changed when he had picked up the package off his desk. Gibbs thought the younger man was going to pass out, especially as Kate continued to press Tony for answers that he was not ready to give. Kate Todd was a good profiler, but she had no clue as to how to handle the senior field agent, especially when he became guarded to the point of lashing out at those threatening to crack the façade that he had so carefully constructed over the years.
Gibbs had taken the package mainly to keep Kate and McGee from getting their hands on it, but that action had only served to anger Tony further. When confronted about the return address, it was obvious that DiNozzo felt trapped and unsure of how to answer. He knew that Tony went to college at Ohio State, so there really wasn’t anything odd about the agent receiving mail from someone in Ohio. It had been Tony’s reaction when Gibbs had asked him about the address that had told the ex-Marine that something was wrong. He would never forget the look in Tony’s eyes; within the depths of those emotive orbs were fear, heartbreak, anger, and desperation.
Tony had headed towards the restroom in search of some privacy. Gibbs had managed to catch up to him and give him back the package; now he was waiting in the conference room for his senior field agent to join him. He picked up the picture and stared at the mystery woman. In a few short moments, he would have an answer as to who she was, but he had a feeling that discovering her identity was only the first piece of the puzzle that had he had to solve.
A soft knock at the door bought him out of musings. He placed the picture face down on the table as the door opened and Tony entered the room. “Come on in, DiNozzo. Take a seat,” he softly instructed.
He watched the unusually lethargic movements of the agent as he walked over to the table and sat down, carefully placing the unopened package in front of him. Gibbs leaned back in his chair, noticing that Tony had yet to look him in the eye. “DiNozzo?” he called out. “You all right?”
“I’m…just tired,” came the solemn response.
“Been an interesting morning,” Gibbs continued, silently studying the man across from him.
Tony shrugged. “I guess so. It’s not every day that your senior field agent loses it.”
“No, it’s not.”
“I guess you deserve an explanation.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
“I’m not sure if I can give you one.”
“Why not?” the team leader pressed.
“I don’t know. Scared, maybe,” Tony admitted.
Gibbs’ brow furrowed. “Scared of what, Tony?”
“That you’ll hate me.”
“Why would you think that?”
“It’s the way it usually works. I screw up and I lose what little respect I’ve earned.”
“I’m not your father, Tony.”
DiNozzo shook his head. “No, you’re not and that’s what makes this so much harder. I finally came to accept the fact that I could never do anything to please him and after a while, I just stopped trying. But you gave me a purpose, a reason to start trying again. You push me to better myself; you’ve taught me so much and I guess that after you hear what I have to say, that I know I’ll lose what respect you may have for me.”
“DiNozzo, listen to me. Nothing that you can say is going to change the way…”
“Don’t say that until you hear the whole story,” Tony insisted. “Please, just don’t.”
Gibbs reached out and turned the picture over. “Does what you have to tell me have anything to do with this girl?”
He didn’t miss the tremor in Tony’s hand as he picked up the picture, nor did the choked back sob go unnoticed by the team leader. “Where did you get this?” DiNozzo wanted to know.
“It was taped to my door last night along with a letter,” Gibbs explained. “I brought it in to see if Abby could get me an ID and…”
“Abby knows about this?”
“She didn’t get an ID; but she did manage to lift your fingerprints off this photograph.”
“I guess she would. It’s my picture.”
“Your picture?”
Tony nodded. “Her name is Sydney and in this picture, she’s eight months pregnant.” The agent weakly smiled. “She hated that picture; she fussed for a week after I took it, but it was always one of my favorites.”
“How do you know her, Tony?”
The former Marine stared at his senior field agent, patiently waiting for an answer to his question. He could see Tony drawing on his reserves of inner strength; a strength that DiNozzo had been forced to call upon many times throughout his life. As his eyes met Tony’s defeated gaze, Gibbs knew without a doubt that the younger man was about to reveal a pain so deep that it had taken years for Tony to accept the familiar ache as part of his being.
“She was my wife,” Tony whispered, struggling to hold back the tears that threatened to fall.
Of all the things that Gibbs had expected, he would have never imagined that this girl in the photograph was his wife. He had always suspected that one day, someone would capture Tony’s heart, but he had no idea that someone did that a very long time ago.
“Your wife?” Gibbs repeated.
Tony nodded. “Yeah. We eloped the day after she graduated high school. I had already finished my freshmen year at Ohio State and…”
Gibbs squeezed Tony’s shoulder as he buried his head in his hands. “It’s all right, son. Take your time.”
“I don’t know if I can do this,” the young man mumbled, cradling his head in his hands. “I’m not sure what’s harder; telling you about Sydney or losing your respect.”
The former Marine lifted Tony’s chin until the agent was looking him in the eye. “You could never lose my respect,” he assured DiNozzo.
“Like I said, you shouldn’t say that until you hear what I have to say.”
“Tony…”
“I didn’t protect them, Gibbs,” he confessed, his voice laced with sadness and remorse. “I didn’t save them.”
Gibbs swallowed nervously as those words echoed in his mind, recalling a time that he had uttered those very words. Images of Shannon’s and Kelly’s smiling faces assaulted his senses causing him to pull away from Tony. Quickly tamping down the memories that threatened to overwhelm him, he saw DiNozzo staring at him, his pained expression clearly indicating that he thought Gibbs was disappointed in him.
“I’m sorry,” he quickly apologized to DiNozzo. “I was just…uh, thinking of someone who once said those exact same words.”
“Who?” Tony inquired.
“It doesn’t matter right now,” Gibbs replied, knowing that sometime he was going to have face his own past, but at the moment, his priority was helping Tony. DiNozzo was carrying a heavy burden and had been for a long time; Gibbs was determined to help lighten the young man’s load.
“Who couldn’t you protect Tony?” he wanted to know.
Tony stared at him, his eyes telling of the emotional agony that was consuming him. “Sydney. I couldn’t protect Sydney or Michael. He was our unborn son,” DiNozzo painstakingly recalled. “Michael Sean DiNozzo.”
“What happened?” Gibbs couldn’t hide the uncertainty in his voice. He couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever happened to Tony’s wife and child was horrific, forcing DiNozzo to reopen old wounds that had started to heal over the years.
DiNozzo’s gaze fell to the floor. Gibbs waited patiently for Tony to continue, knowing how difficult it was for him to face the past. The team leader’s heart began to ache for the man he considered to be a son.
Tony closed his eyes and blew out a pent up breath. “They were murdered,” he quietly began, speaking so softly that Gibbs had to strain to hear what DiNozzo was saying.
“They were murdered,” Tony repeated, his voice a little stronger, “and I wasn’t there to save them. I let them down,” he cried. “I was supposed to protect them… look out for them, and I didn’t. I heard her…scream my name…as I got out of…my car and…”
Gibbs rose from his chair and knelt down beside Tony. He reached up and began stroking the back of his hair as Tony continued to weep. He knew the younger man well enough to know that DiNozzo would be embarrassed by what he deemed to be his failure to control his emotions, prompting Gibbs to simply allow his physical presence to serve as source of comfort. He knew what it was to lose a wife and child, but he couldn’t bring himself to share his pain.
The two men sat in silence. Something about Tony had always drawn Gibbs to the younger man. He and DiNozzo were opposites, but alike in so many ways; but now they had one more thing in common. They had both experienced a loss so great that it had taken years of forcing one foot in front of the other just to survive. They had both experienced true and unconditional love that had been destroyed by the cruelty of another, and they had both been left behind to pick up the pieces. Now, they were both being forced to acknowledge a past that had been buried but not forgotten because someone was obviously determined to destroy his son.
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“What do you think is going on?” Kate wondered, her gaze fixed on Tony’s empty desk.
“I don’t know,” McGee admitted. “Gibbs didn’t look too happy.”
“Neither did Tony,” she recalled, taking a sip of her hot tea. “Did you by chance catch a glimpse of the return address on that package?”
“Not really. Gibbs said something about Ohio and I know that’s where Tony went to school. I can try and access some of Tony’s school records to see what we can come up with.”
Kate shook her head. “That would be invading his privacy.”
“Oh, and he never does that to us,” McGee reminded her.
“You have a point, but I think that this is much more serious than him wanting to know what we had for breakfast and who we’re dating.”
“We won’t know until we look though.”
“No McGee. We wait,” she insisted.
The junior agent sighed. “You’re right. I guess I just don’t like being left out of the loop.”
“I don’t either, but right now I think we better finish up our paperwork until Gibbs tells us otherwise.”
“All right, but you do know that if it were either one of us, Tony wouldn’t think twice.”
“Yeah and he wouldn’t get fussed at by Gibbs, either. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re not Tony.”
“Thank God,” Tim quipped.
“Tim!”
“I…uh…didn’t mean that…uh the way it sounded.”
“You better not have, McGee!”
Kate watched in amusement as Abby appeared from around the corner and glared at McGee. “I don’t want have to give you that lecture again,” the Goth warned.
“What lecture is that?” Kate asked.
“The lecture that involves me explaining to him that he is not to badmouth Tony ever!” she exclaimed. “You have no idea what Gibbs would be like if Tony wasn’t around to act as a go between for you two. Trust me, being Leroy Jethro Gibbs’ senior field agent isn’t an easy job.”
“You don’t have to lecture me again,” Tim assured her. “I still have a bruise from the last one.”
Kate rose from her desk and joined Abby and McGee. “So, what brings you up here?” Kate pried.
“I need to see Gibbs,” Abby eagerly replied as she looked around. “Where is he?”
“He’s in the conference room with Tony,” Kate replied.
“With Tony?”
“Yeah, it’s been an interesting morning.”
Abby chewed on her lip for a few seconds. “I’ve got to see him. Tell him the minute he comes out to come and see me.”
“Is there something we should know?”
“No, at least not right now.”
“Abby, Tony and Gibbs are acting really strange; do you know why?”
“I gotta go!”
Before Kate could utter another word, Abby was headed back down to the lab. She stared after her until she was out of sight and then turned her attention back to McGee. “Do it,” Kate snapped.
“Do what?” McGee asked, obviously confused by her sudden change of heart.
“You know. That thing we talked about earlier, but don’t get caught.”
She rolled her eyes as realization dawned upon McGee. “Oh, you mean the…thing. I’ll get right on it.”
“I’ll be on the lookout for Gibbs and Tony. Let me know when you find something.”
Kate had barely started back to her desk when McGee called out to her. “Kate, I’ve got something…”