Title: The Defiant One

Author: gotmilk

Rating: PG-13

Season: Two- episode tag for "Chained."

Summary: The repercussions of Tony's undercover mission in "Chained" are a little more severe than anyone ever anticipated...

Disclaimer: I own nothing belonging to Mr. Bellisario. Please don't sue me, I'm just a penniless college student who is willing to take poor Michael Weatherly off your hands whenever you ask it of me. ::pause:: Seriously, I'm waiting here. Ask it of me…

Author's Notes: I watch an episode sometimes and the plot bunnies come out to frolic. Being the whumper that I am, and realizing that Tony's jacket was completely obscuring his neck in the end (look for yourself), little ideas begin to form. I can't promise this will be good, but I had fun imagining it. Thanks Britt.

The Defiant One
-Part 1-

"I really liked him."

"Yeah," Gibbs replied slowly, "I can see that."

The senior agent glanced over at Kate to nod a simple all clear, then turned his attention back to the car. While his tone was laced with distinctive Jethro Gibbs sarcasm, it was also filled with latent concern for his previously MIA agent.

"You okay, DiNozzo?"

"Sure, Boss," Tony mumbled wearily, eyes fixed on his lap.

Even though he knew he should be paying better attention to the ex-marine, Tony found himself intently staring down at the gun resting in his hands. The discharged weapon was covered in blood. Jeffrey's blood.

DiNozzo flexed his right hand slightly and looked at the fingers that had just been tightly clutching the gun's handle. Blood covered fingers that had been used to pull the trigger and end a man's life.

'What the hell just happened?' Tony wondered to himself silently.

One minute Jeffrey White was a meek little nerd with a fixation for antiquities and then… a cold blooded killer? Tony had always prided himself on his ability to dig beneath the surface of a criminal's mind and find out what was really going on. Sometimes his methods were a little different than what Gibbs would have done, but they were just as effective. So then, why hadn't he been able to figure out Jeffrey?

Tony sighed. There had been a moment, albeit brief, as they'd been leaving Lane's cabin that something had felt off about what Jeffrey was telling him. He'd foolishly ignored his instinct and unwisely trusted what his eyes were seeing. Something about Jeffrey had thrown him. He'd seemed so nice and so… geeky. He'd told him some sob story about an abusive father and Tony had eaten out of his hand like a newbie agent.

He'd later revealed his true identity to Jeffrey in the hopes of getting the man a lighter sentence. After all, a nice guy like that was obviously being manipulated by Lane. If Tony had the energy right now he would have laughed aloud. How wrong he had been.

Everything Jeffrey had done, falling into the stream or accidentally crashing the truck, now made him diabolical and calculating. Jeffrey had known from the very beginning that Tony was undercover, or at least had a nagging suspicion he was. Even the most elaborate trickery the NCIS could pull of hadn't been able to phase Jeffrey. The man was one of the most cunning criminal minds Tony had ever met, and an Oscar worthy actor to boot. When he had confronted Jeffrey about Lane's disappeared and finally grasped what was going on, the knowledge of his own stupidity had felt worse than a knife to the throat.

Damn Jeffrey. Damn him for being so ahead of everyone else, damn him for making the NCIS agent befriend him… and damn him for forcing Tony to kill him.

The image of the gun before him wavered and his vision grayed. To his right, Tony heard the backdoor of the car open and he knew that Gibbs was probably taking Jeffrey's pulse just to be sure the man was dead. Tony knew Gibbs would only find a corpse. The thought suddenly left him cold and empty.

Damn Jeffrey. He'd made Tony care about a murderer.

Thinking about it now, DiNozzo would bet his family's fortune on the assumption that Lane had been killed the same way Jeffery planed on murdering him. Lane had appeared to be competent in the mano-a-mano department, probably forcing the smaller Jeffrey to resorted to another method. That of course meant that the gun currently sitting in his lap was most likely Lane's. The labwork would later have to prove that, but Tony was sure Abby would end up telling him that his suspicions were true.

Jeffrey, however, hadn't used the gun to kill his partner that night or Tony would have heard it. He hadn't slept at all while at Lane's cabin, except for the few fleeting moments before he awoke to find Jeffery standing over him. So, save for hitting Lane over the head with a blunt object, the knife would have been the perfect murder weapon. Lane couldn't even scream out as he died.

Tony felt a tiny smile pull on his lips. He remembered staring at the knife in the rearview mirror as Jeffrey had apologized for what he was about to do. As the knife made its decent towards his venerable neck, time slowed, giving Tony an instant to stare at the deadly weapon. Something flashed before his eyes in that moment, but it wasn't his life and all the good and bad things he had done over the last thirty odd years.

It was the image of his mother cooking, using a knife similar to Jeffrey's, methodically cutting across some hapless vegetable. Even though as a child his family had had hired cooks for the house, sometimes his mother had insisted on fixing dinner herself, using recipes from her own mother's collection. As an adult he could still recall memories of her getting meals ready, letting him peel carrots or mix ingredients for her.

He knew it was a completely ridicules image to conjure up at such a life altering moment. But try as he might, he couldn't explain it. He was sure Kate and the others would find it hysterical and he never planned on ever telling them. On the other hand, maybe he'd tell Ducky. He wouldn't be surprised if the ME had a lecture or two about memories up in that huge brain of his. Ducky seemed to know just about everything, why not the psychology of memories?

Tony heard someone say his name and it drew him from his thoughts. Something told him he should look over, but he was too tired to bother. The voice continued to drone on endlessly and he wished it would leave him alone.

Long moments passed, and as the sound continued to bombard him, he realized his chest felt wet. He wondered if he had spilled something on himself, despite the fact that that he didn't remember drinking anything. He contemplated looking down to find the problem, but again the movement seemed to much an effort to make.

He could only stare at the gun as it wavered in and out of his vision. The gun covered in Jeffrey's blood.

"Damn him," DiNozzo mumbled to himself as his vision dimmed. A coldness seemed to wash over him and he sank into it, welcoming the feeling.

It felt good to finally rest after so many days of running.

Agent Jethro Gibbs crept around the side of the blue vehicle, every instinct honed for the unexpected. He paused before the right backdoor, carefully gripping the handle, and mentally counting to three. With a quick motion of Gibb's hand, the door squeaked open to reveal the blood covered body of Jeffrey White.

Though Gibbs had his gun aimed at White, all his years of experience told him the man sprawled in the seat hadn't survived DiNozzo's shot. To be completely sure he carefully slid his left hand onto the man's neck and waited silently. No pulse. White was dead.

Jethro lowered his weapon, clicked the safety and put it back into its holster. Jeffrey's knife lay in the floorboard and his hand dangled above it, his fingertips just brushing the metal that had earlier ended Lane Danielson's life. It looked liked DiNozzo had taken him out just in time.

The veteran NCIS agent looked up towards the front where Tony sat. The other man had seemed a bit lethargic when he'd talked to him, but Gibbs would take a lethargic agent over a dead one any day. He'd told Kate that DiNozzo wouldn't be his first undercover agent to die, and he was right. Tony has proved once again why he'd been hired at NCIS. Another person could have easily gotten themselves killed in this very same situation. Gibbs didn't even want to fathom McGee going up against a killer like White. But under the jovial exterior, Anthony DiNozzo knew how to take care of himself.

"You see the size of that knife?" Gibbs asked lightly.

He waited for the usual blithe remark from his teammate. What would it be this time? "Oh, he's obviously compensating for something, Boss." Or, "Ehh, Emeril's is way bigger."

But the response Gibbs was waiting for didn't come. Tony just… sat there, staring down intensely into his lap.

"Yo! DiNozzo!"

When that didn't work, Gibbs narrowed his eyes slightly and came around the vehicle.

"Tony?" he asked with a bit more concern as the other agent refused to acknowledge him.

Behind him, Kate was just making her way towards the car. She had already cuffed the Japanese buyer and handed him over to the cops who had appeared seconds after their own speedy arrival.

"What's going on?" she asked, her pace quickening at the sight of her boss' face.

"He's not responding," Gibbs replied, reaching a hand into the car to gently slap DiNozzio's cheek. Still nothing. The man was awake, but staring fixedly down at the gun.

Something suddenly occurred to Jethro and he began to pull Tony's open flannel jacket away from his neck and chest. Blood.

"Sonofabitch!" Gibbs yelled. "Kate! Call an ambulance! DiNozzo's hurt!"

Kate pulled her cell phone free and began rapidly dialing as Gibbs drew the collar of DiNozzo's jacket further away from the left side of his neck. As he suspected, there was a jagged cut three or four inches down from DiNozzo's ear. It looked like Jeffery had managed to get to Tony before he had been shot. Gibbs couldn't tell how deep the wound was and it didn't look too wide, but it was bleeding profusely nevertheless. Already the top of DiNozzo's tee-shirt under the jacket was stained with blood.

Gibbs cursed himself for not noticing it before. He'd looked at Tony when he'd first opened the car door and the other agent had seemed fine. Because of the high collar on the hunting jacket, the blood and wound and been concealed from view. Tony had seemed a little sluggish but Jethro hadn't expected this.

Pulling a clean handkerchief from his pocket, Gibbs pressed the white cloth to Tony's neck and applied pressure. DiNozzo's sight was still fixed on the gun but his eyelids were slowly drooping closed. He was going into shock.

"DiNozzo!" Gibbs yelled, hoping for a response. Usually his gruff call always invoked the younger agent's attention. He thought for a moment he saw Tony's eyes open a bit wider, but soon they were sinking again.

"An ambulance is on the way," Kate called from behind him. "What happened?"

"Oh, looks like White got a piece of DiNozzo before he was shot. Damnit! Why didn't I notice this before?"

Jethro thought he heard DiNozzo say something but the words were said so lightly he could barely make them out. Before he had time to ponder Tony's mumblings, DiNozzo's eyes closed. He would have probably slumped onto the wheel if Gibbs hadn't been pressing so hard on his neck and keeping the injured man pinned against the seat.

"He's unconscious," Gibbs called, again trying to wake Tony up by lightly slapping his face. Nothing was working. "Where the hell is that ambulance, Kate?" He felt for DiNozzo's pulse and found it to be rapidly beating. The younger man was also clammy to the touch and his forehead was soaked in sweat. None of this boded well.

"They said they were a few minutes out," Kate replied. "They're coming."

"Just not fast enough," Gibbs murmured quietly to himself. "Just not damn fast enough."