Summary: This is part of a three-way series called Anthony's Angels. It consists of Guardian Angel Caitlyn Todd, Guardian Angel Paula Cassidy and Guardian Angel Jenny Shepard. Every chapter in each series will be a stand -alone piece. A very brief précis of the trilogy series is that each of the former NCIS Agents have been appointed as Guardian Angels and been assigned to protect Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo because he is such a trouble magnet that he requires more supervision than the average mortal. The three former agents are chosen first and foremost for their prior connection to him, although other factors are also in play and will be revealed over time.
A/N Thanks go to to the awesome Arress for Beta'ing this chapter. Any remaining errors are mine. Paula and Gibbs always had a rather antagonistic relationship over the year and it is reflected in the Paula Guardian Angel series. So be warned because this gal er Angel isn't backward about coming forward about her opinions and observations
One final note. Paula is feisty, flawed and far from the perfect character. or is pure Fanfic gold depending on your viewpoint I guess. She is extremely opinionated but I really enjoyed her character both on the show and in writing fan fiction. I hope you like her too :)
Angel Author Note: As the author of this account I think that I should warn people that this is my own account of what happened at NCIS prior to my asencion and being appointed as a probationary Guardian Angel on Team DiNozzo. Since my relationship to Tony was what you might call complex I feel that it is necessary to people to understand our history since it wasn't only that of co-workers. I should also caution readers that the opinions expressed herein, do not necessarily reflect those of the 'The Powers That Be' at Guardian Angel Central but are solely my own.
Respectfully Yours
Paula Cassidy Probationary Guardian Angel
Anthony's Angels
Guardian Angel Paula Cassidy
Angel Paula
Heartbreak and Other Urban Myths
Chapter Two
To say that L.J.G. and I didn't exactly hit it off together is a bit like saying that Republicans and Democrats disagree a little about stuff. Right from the get-go he and I clashed at Gitmo and it was all downhill from there. By the time we worked our next case together I'd been working as agent afloat on the Kennedy for a while and I was beginning to come to terms with that whole mess. I'd dropped the ball with our translator last year in Cuba and been disciplined with the sideways promotion as an agent afloat. When I heard that Gibb's MCRT was investigating the bizarre death of Commander Dornan, I was frankly thrilled that I'd be working with them again, especially since the last time had worked out so brilliantly.
Yes okay, I'm being a tad sarcastic, alright a heap sarcastic, so sue me. What – you've never encountered a sarky angel before? Well dear reader, get used to it or put my report down and read a more politically correct Guardian Angel's missives!
Still for all my lack of enthusiasm, it was what it was. The death of a Naval officer at Bethesda post op after heart valve repair surgery where he appeared to have exploded was always going to be the MCRT who would investigate rather than any other DC team. Its bizarre nature prompted some of the less prosaic members of the investigation to race to label it as a case of spontaneous combustion. Even in the face of DiNozzo and Gibbs' scorn about that rather fanciful theory, insisting it was an urban myth and demanding that they look for more mundane explanations, it was always going to be a controversial, high profile case. So yeah, it was inevitable that Gibbs was going to be assigned it, unfortunately!
Hence I was a bit taken aback when Tony showed up with Cate aboard the Kennedy to gather information instead about the murder victim instead of El Jefe. It was the first time I'd seen Tony – well any of them since the inquiry into Saleem back in DC last year. He chided me teasingly about not calling even though we'd berthed at Norfolk last week, although I knew that he was serious beneath the banter. I responded tartly that he hadn't emailed me either but to be fair because of how we had left things I'd known that he was leaving first contact up to me. Both of us knew that there was chemistry between us but because of any perception I or others might have of him stepping in to save my professional ass, he'd refused to pursue me. So even though we flirted heavily I knew the ball was definitely in my court and obviously the biggest impediment was that we were working a case.
I have to say though, that I was totally not prepared to have Ensign Evan Hayes be tossed into the mix. Was quite the nasty little surprise when I saw him on the Bethesda security footage when I accompanied Tony and Cate back to DC. There he was on the plasma screen in the bullpen and Gibbs was telling the newest member of the team (poor sod) to find out his name. To discover that the young sailor had visited the Commander one hour before Dornan exploded in flames – well it was always going to be a fiasco. When I gave Gibbs' team the lowdown about Hayes getting mouthy to the ship's safety officer and that Dornan had been unreasonably hard on the young man since he'd joined the ship, of course 'He Who is Omnipotent' wanted to see the case notes.
Which in turn lead to me confessing that I hadn't filed any charges against the kid because I felt sorry for him, that and Dornan requested that I let him handle it quietly. Personally, the safety officer was a real butthead and I figured he'd probably been asking for it and the last thing I wanted to do was ruin Hayes record just because Dornan was a creep. Even the fact that such an odious person was keen for it to stay off the record suggested to me that Evan didn't warrant being charged. Hayes seemed like a good kid and apart from the issue with Dornan had a clean record.
But of course L.J.G. didn't see it like that. He was furious with me turning a blind eye to the incident and went so far as to suggest that my failure to charge the Ensign resulted in Dornan's death. (Mm what about Rule # 8 Gibbs?) I felt like pointing out the possibility that my failure to charge him with insubordination might just have been the saving grace that stopped him entering that hospital room and throttling the bullying Dornan, even though many of the crew aboard the Kennedy would have applauded enthusiastically. But then again the evidence later on bore out the truth that Ensign Hayes had nothing to do with the murder of Dornan - because he hadn't actually been murdered. So perhaps Gibbs needed a refresher on his own set of rules.
Unfortunately, the moment Evan went UA from the ship after Dornan assigned him rivet duty, effectively punishing him after nine long months at sea and he went to Bethesda to confront him, even if he didn't see him, Evan still went straight to the top of the suspect list. Of course going to take him in for questioning gave him, a very trouble young kid, the impetus to commit suicide by cop because he couldn't pull the trigger himself. Poor little sod, not even his high school coach who probably knew him best realised just how desperate and depressed he really was but he'd been caught between a rock and a hard place. A domineering bully of a father who forced his son to follow him into the Navy and Dornan who had been using him to extract revenge on Evan's father was too much for the kid to cope with.
So then when he died it was inevitable that I would start second guessing myself. Maybe if I'd charged him it would have made a difference but somehow in hindsight, I doubt it very much. More than likely it would have pushed him over the edge just that bit sooner as the added pressure made him even more isolated and depressed. I hate that the poor guy thought he had nothing to live for and it totally sucks that he used Cate as his Cop-By-Suicide to top himself. But I gotta say folks, that faced with the same choices again I'd still make the same decision - even knowing what I do now - to cut his some slack. Someone needed to.
He was just a confused kid that didn't deserve the crap that his ass hat of a father or his jumped up pathetic superior dished up to him. I could understand him snapping and getting in Dornan's face – I'd have probably been tempted to put a rocket up his butt if it had been me. The bottom line was that my intention had been to help him by giving him a break – I never expected his confusion and anger to put him in the wrong place at the wrong time. I never thought it would end up getting him killed.
You know what though? Since coming to Guardian Angel Central or GAC, Cate and I have had plenty of time to rehash the whole sorry saga of Ensign Evan Hayes. Also Cate and Shannon have had some interesting things to say about the hypocrisy of one L.J.G. and his own past indiscretions and failures to observe and maintain NCIS rules and regs, not to mention a minor matter like US statutes and laws that make my decision to overlook a kid doing being disrespectful to a jerk of an officer, pretty damned insignificant.
Stuff like Gibbs giving evidence of Salvadorian La Vida Mala's (LVM) gangbanger Cesar Bernard murdering numerous other gang members including the gang's feared leader Miguel Sosa so he could replace him, all the while concealing his death, to his fellow bangers. [1] Ratting him out to his peers was questionable, knowing that he was effectively signing the man's death warrant as payback/ retribution, call it what you will because they'd been unable find sufficient evidence to lay charges and make 'em stick, despite knowing he was a murderer. Not that anyone was all that fussed about the dead LVM members because they were violent and essentially without redeeming features but Bernard also had the gall to kill USMAC First Sergeant Ryan Downing and that set him firmly in the sniper sites of L.J.G. Anyone that knows Gibbs, knows that letting Bernard walk wasn't going to sit well with him, as he's is passionate about servicemen and women but Marines are a whole different ballgame and obviously led to Gibbs choosing street justice when he couldn't do it legally. Gotta say though, that deciding to tread that path because you can't make a charge stick was extremely dangerous one but somehow Gibbs always seemed to take the death of a Marine particularly personally even if that didn't fly in the face of his rule # 10? Not even gonna get into the ethics of it.
Okay maybe I do need to mention ethics. A lot of people wouldn't get bent out of shape over a vicious, ultra-violent, murdering gang leader dying at the hands of his own gang member – rough justice they'd say, but it is a very slippery slope for any cop or a fed to venture out upon. Once you've decided to become judge and jury, it was easier the second time that you couldn't make a case or it went against you, to just dole out vigilante justice. And as imperfect as the system was, at least it had checks and balances. Deciding to circumvent those failsafe's was as dangerous as handling gelignite and equally likely to blow up in someone's face.
Then apparently approximately one year after he reamed me out there was a case where Gibbs was investigating the interference with a body of a Marine, one William Danforth Junior which, ironically turned out to be an attempt to deflect attention away from the cause of death although this time it wasn't because of a doctor's negligence. [2] The family of the decedent wanted to conceal the fact the Marine had had a kidney transplant since it was against regs and would cast a slur on their son's reputation. Then there was the matter that it would quite possibly lead to awkward questions about the identity of the donor – who was another Marine and their dead son's friend, selflessly donating one of his own kidneys. Seeing that it was against regs to serve in the Corp with only one kidney (and as a transplant survivor obviously) the family was keen to protecting the secret and the donor Corporal Kenneth Merrill and his father had tried to destroy their son's body to protect the secret so that NCIS and the Corp would never know about the deception. When Gibbs, courtesy of Tony and Abby, discovered the situation, Danforth's father had appealed to him as one fellow Marine to another to protect a serving one and Gibbs had destroyed evidence so that Merrill could remain in the Marine Corp.
There were certain parallels between the Hayes case and this one but yet Gibbs seemed to have no trouble with the fact he had actually tampered with evidence – not just decided not to pursue an insubordination charge. Apparently when I exercised my discretion and cut the sailor some slack that was the height of evil and unprofessionalism, yet when Gibbs looked the other way and let rules and regs be broken that was different. Even though the rule about requiring two functional kidneys to be a Marine had obviously evolved for everyone's protection, including the Marine. Commander Dornan had made an unsound medical decision about the options for his heart valve repair based not on merit but his irrational desire to stay in the Navy. Just like the Marine might want to remain in the Corp but there were probably some damn sound reasons why he would be discharged if they knew. Like I said – a lot of parallels. But for a law enforcement professional to not just look the other way but to interfere with evidence like Gibbs did according to my GA colleagues, is a massive transgression. Actually it's anathema to cops and agents and of course it's also highly illegal to boot.
Then there were his threats and psychological intimidation of suspects, especially when he softens them up before getting them into an interrogation room which is absolutely against rules and regulations. The TPTB and especially the legal eagles would have apoplexy over his tactics should they find out about it. Threatening to kill a suspected terrorist by faking his suicide and engaging Ducky to take part in the process – demonstrating how he would conduct the victims' autopsy, cracking open a cadaver's chest to demonstrate what awaited him was most definitely unethical. [3] Gotta say that I was surprised to hear that Dr Mallard would take part in such a questionable act.
Oh yeah, no doubt Gibbs would argue passionately and vehemently that since the dirt bag was trying to kill the Naval Aviator Lieutenant Commander Miki Shields and her family. That he was trying to solve the case before her terminal leave kicked in a couple of days later and that time was critical. Or he might argue that FBI Special Agent Lena Reyes didn't give a rat's ass about the L.C. Shields or her two kids and husband, that they were just collateral damage so he had no choice but to do what he did to solve the case before NCIS had to hand over responsibility for their safety and protection to the Fibs. But the truth was that once you start using the hackneyed and consequentialist argument that 'the ends justified the means' implying that if a goal was important enough then any method of achieving it is morally acceptable – once again that is a highly dangerous act, especially for someone in law enforcement. And really if you start using such justifications then how different are you to zealots, dictators and despots who have argued the same thing to justify unspeakable acts of horror?
Again, such actions kinda made my decision not to pursue insubordination charges against a poor disturbed young seaman look positively petty by comparison. Even Director Morrow after reading my report, didn't react violently or vehemently, not like Gibbs did in the bullpen. He simply informed me that in future I should document every complaint and investigation and that I would be wise to stick to protocol in future. As he pointed, out they were there for everyone's benefit including mine. When I repeated that if I had charged Evan he wouldn't have committed suicide by cop, he had shaken his head in denial. Ensign Hayes was an accident waiting to happen, he declared roundly, before finishing up expressing admiration that Tony found the clues that cracked the case, finally.
And you know, up until that point I'd been too pissed off with Gibbs, feeling guilty over the Ensign's death and Cate's involvement in it to really give any consideration to Tony pulling a rabbit out of the hat. Truth to tell, I was still too out of sorts to give it more than a cursory consideration. I couldn't wait to get back to Norfolk and away from Gibbs and anything connected with him including the rest of the MCRT yet DiNozzo's brilliantly bizarre thought process changed saved my bacon because Gibbs wouldn't have given up until he had my ass on a plate. Instead Tony turned an unorthodox murder investigation into a simple case of interfering with a corpse. Of course Dr Janice Byers was probably facing charges of medical negligence perhaps even loss of her medical license but that was outside the purview of NCIS.
Back on the Kennedy I was tucked up in my berth, feeling massively sorry for myself and cursing the fact that I'd ever had the misfortune of meeting Leroy Jethro Gibbs or his agents and wishing heartily that DiNozzo would stop bugging me every five minutes. Okay so I admit I might have been working myself up into a tirade starting with the thought that L.J.G. probably came out of the womb with a steely eyed scowl and an arrogant sense of certainty that he always knew best and was never wrong. Wondered how he'd dealt with the humiliation of his mamma and his pappy changing his diapers when he messed himself, although if you asked Gibbs he'd probably swear up and down he'd been born with extra-large balls and didn't get embarrassed. He probably head slapped any kids that tried to boss him around and I bet he made his nursery school teachers cry at least once a day. (Okay so it sounds unhinged – and I'll grant you that I was a bit hysterical but the bastard really got me worked up.)
Finally, exhausted I looked at the clock on the wall of my cabin, noting that it was just after 2300 and I wasn't able to sleep because I was still fuming over everything that had gone down today, when HE called…again. Man was he persistent, I'll give him that much. That's when I realised that I'd never bothered to thank Tony for watching out for and saving my sorry ass for the second time, this time by seeing the physical evidence in a way that no one else had. Wow what a spoilt princess I was being.
Weird how not even the forensic experts had seen what he had and I conceded he was absolutely correct when I finally bothered to listen to the voice mails to see what he wanted. I was taking my shittiness with his damned butthead of a boss out on him when he hadn't done anything wrong, far from it in fact. Bitch that I am, I wasn't being fair to the guy who had solved what Dr Mallard, Dr Scuito and the self-proclaimed MIT genius McGee had all genuinely felt could spontaneous human combustion, for Pete's sake. (Wonder who the Hell Pete was? No doubt Dr Mallard would know.) Yep it was Tony- 'I'm just a Phys Ed major' who put all the physical evidence together in a creative fashion and come up with the answer and just who the Hell did DiNozzo think he was fooling with that crap anyway? Sure he might have seen it on some obscure damned movie but it took a very keen intellect to remember and apply it to the Commander Dornan situation.
I knew that apart from acting incredibly churlishly towards him, I was also cutting off my nose to spite my face. As I already knew, he was incredibly caring and empathetic – the fact he kept ringing to make sure I was okay and I bet my last dollar he was doing the same for his partner too – was ample proof, even if he pretended to be a frat boy. By taking out my pique on him since I couldn't tell Gibbs to go and do something anatomically impossible, I was making us both miserable. What an idiot! So I called him to apologise and thank him for his help today, figuring he'd probably be still up and watching videos since the last text message I received was only fifteen minutes ago.
That's how I ended up at his place at 0100 hours with a go-bag since he'd offered me his couch as he knew that I didn't have anywhere to stay in D.C. while the Kennedy was in Port. Instead of sleeping we ended up watching Bogart and Hepburn in The African Queen cuz neither of us was tired enough to fall asleep. Seems Tony had been worrying (his word) obsessing (mine) over both me and Cate - who also wasn't answering his calls either. After the movie finished we exchanged war stories about our own suicide-by-cop experiences although he trumped my paltry two times with his five, four of which occurred before he'd joined NCIS, while he was a cop. The first one was when he was just a baby beat cop three months into the job and fresh out of the police academy.
He'd been involved in a child custody dispute, he said that devolved into a hostage situation. Luckily he and his partner had managed to convince the distraught father into releasing his two children safely back into their mother's arms again. Unfortunately he'd been convince that he would never get to see his children anymore and aimed his gun, a .38 Smith and Wesson at Tony's partner and was pulling the trigger so DiNozzo had no choice but to shoot him. Of course as a rookie cop, the 'what if he wasn't really going to fire' scenarios had plagued him unmercifully along with the knowledge that two small children were now fatherless by his hands which obviously had been really hard to live with.
When he was telling me about it, he let something slip that I never truly understood the relevance of until I made my grand and rather dramatic appearance here in GAC. He said that even though he felt incredible guilt about taking away those children's dad he couldn't help but feel a little jealous that both of their parents had loved them enough to fight about who should raise them. Now I know that he is referring to the fact that he felt unwanted and a burden when he was a kid and I have to say that given his crappy upbringing it's a wonder he turned into such an empathetic and caring person despite his attempts to conceal his so called heart of gold. Cate reckons he is a modern day knight and the more I scratch the surface, the more I agree.
Of course back then I didn't realise the wounds and scars he was hiding – all I knew was that he was good-damned good at making people feel better and that whenever we were together I had fun. Listening to some of his cop stories also made me realise that some of the superior airs feds feel when we compare ourselves to cops is pretty darned arrogant. I'm not sure that I could deal with all of the crap that they do on a daily basis. I might have had my own experience with suicide by cop which nearly broke me by the way, but I'm not sure how Tony managed to cope with so many incidents. I think if it had been me I would have probably resigned. So I'll say again that cops really do one Hell of a job when you stop and think about it.
I ended up staying at his apartment for most of my shore leave and like a perfect gentleman he insisted that I take his bed and he camped out on his couch – said that he often couldn't sleep and ended up out there anyway watching DVDs. Despite his reputation as a player and his constant flirting with me, he made absolutely no move to be more that platonic and I concluded that he was either gay or he was leaving the first move up to me. My gaydar was pretty darned good so I decided to take a chance and make a move on him and yep gaydar was definitely working just fine. Once we got the preliminaries out of the way and ended up together he proved to be attentive and generous, which okay, that did kinda surprise me cuz guys that look like him in my experience are usually much more self-absorbed. (Wait, what you thought I was going to give you a blow by blow description of what went on beneath the sheets? Nope, not going to happen – so not my style and I respect Tony too much too. Irrespective of that, this is a report not some Harlequin novella or piece of porn – shame on you!) [4]
Moving right along, I also discovered fairly recently that rather than a bachelor pad he made it a habit of not inviting people to his apartment – no not just lovers but friends and acquaintances and workmates as well. He likes to keep it as his sanctuary so letting me stay with him was a big deal for someone so obsessively private. Of course being an incorrigible cynic, I could probably argue that he let me stay because he knew I only had my cabin on the Kennedy and had nowhere for us to go but his place except that he didn't put the moves on me, I seduced him!
Now that I know him better and it says much about the guy that I had to die and become his probie GA to find out some of this stuff, I think his lack of invitations to his apartment should be viewed in terms of him trying to prevent people getting too close. He might prefer for people to think he was a jerk, a jock, a joke and a womaniser (yeah I know, I was aiming to complete the alliteration but I couldn't, so sue me) but his empathy for Cate and me today and at Gitmo when he was certain I was innocent of treason belied what everyone thinks of Gibbs SFA. That sort of faith breaks down barriers pretty darn fast, especially in the face of such hostility as a pissed off and vitriolic former Marine sniper rapidly bringing us together. Well that and the fact that Gibbs was so openly disapproving of us being together sort of backfired by pushing us together even more.
Honestly, what is it with Gibbs and his no dating rule, anyway? Anyone would think that instead of him being their boss he was their dad or something (and confidentially he would be one Hell of a scary assed pater) rather than the lead agent of the MCRT. So okay I can understand why he didn't want his team to date other people on the team – that could get really messy very quickly especially when you broke up but not dating a co-worker? What was the problem with someone that wasn't on the same team or even stationed in the same office or country, for crying out loud.
N.B. Shannon and Cate have just read me in on the antecedents of L.J.G's Rule 12 and I'm shocked. Seems that he had an extremely ill-advised and torrid affair with his probie while they were doing wet work in Europe.
Euww - him and Shepard – gross but explains the tension between them. Silly me, I thought there was a reg against a supervisor and their subordinate sleeping together but hey this is Gibbs. The original 'Do As I Say Not as I Do' special agent who then decided because his libido was so dumb that everyone else would make the same mistake he did or that everyone was as cold bloodedly ambitious as Shepard. So I can see it is a bad idea to date a team member, seeing what happened in Paris (and I'm not just talking about what occurred between the sheets because Shannon has given us the lowdown of Jenny's failure to fulfil her task and certain betrayals that occurred subsequently, but I'm getting ahead of myself.) Yep I can see how Gibbs thought it was wrong for him to date people he worked with – like his probie and who could argue that anyway but he was way out of line demanding his agents not date anyone they worked with. But… then again I also take issue with his Rule 6 as well. Anyone that's afraid to apologise when they are in the wrong is an ass. Actually not being able to say you're sorry when you are in the wrong make you a weak fool, not being courageous enough to say you're sorry and I don't think that there are many people that would argue about that.
So in conclusion, the case of Commander Dornan's untimely death was due partly to Dr Janice Byers' negligence but also ironically his own bloody-mindedness in refusing to allow his surgeon to do a valve replacement rather than repair because he didn't want to retire from the Navy proved to be rather mundane in the end. A far cry from the fanciful imaginings of Gibbs young probie Timothy McGee but far more tragic was that both he and Byer's held a degree of culpability for Ensign Hayes demise because they were both too busy worrying about their own professional careers. I wish it had been possible to make them both pay for their selfishness but if wishes were horses.
Probably the only good to come out of the whole messy tragedy was that DiNozzo and I, by the end of my Leave had officially become an item, much to L.J.G's ire and disgust. Did I start dating Tony because I knew how much Gibbs would hate it, I hear you ask? Absolutely not! I wouldn't do it to him – not after I hurt him like I did out at Gitmo and he still stood by me. Did it worry me that I had made an enemy of Gibbs? No not really – we were never going to be bosom buddies but I did have qualms about Tony being the meat in the sandwich. Okay, truthfully I started seeing Tony because I was attracted to him and he is a great person and we were damned good together. We got each other but I'll admit that I got a perverse sense of satisfaction that our relationship was something he couldn't control. It was like an added fringe benefit but it didn't influence why I started seeing him. Like I said, Gibbs and me- oil and water – poor Tony caught as he was in the middle.
End Notes:
[1] LVM is a pathetic organisation that has no redeeming features. It is violent and corrupts far too many young, impressionable kids, using them to perpetuate misery and pain on a fresh generation of impressionable youngsters whose only crime is to be born into poverty and despair. I don't think anyone could argue that La Vida Mala deserves special treatment or that they have a code of honour that makes it difficult to stop their illegal activities and trust me, I realise the irony of even using that word. Still, that should not encourage us to throw away the tenets of justice and everyone's right to a fair trial. If we throw away the rules for one group, are we any better than the scum we are trying to stop?
And doesn't it make it easier the next time to rationalise that it is too difficult to stop an individual or group lawfully to flaunt the law again, but that the ends justify the means? As cops and feds we are too close to a situation oftentimes and can't see the forest for the trees. Prisons including Death Rows across the country are full of prisoners wrongly convicted, especially convictions occurring be before the advent of DNA but even now mistakes still occur and even with such a robust appeals mechanism in place, I have to reveal as a probie angel, that people are still wrongly executed occasionally. So if the system can makes errors that cost innocent people their freedom or lives, how much easier is it for us cops and feds at the coalface, with our faces smooshed up against the disgustingly putrid, BO riddled armpits of scumbags, pain, poverty and misery for us to make mistakes? Unlike Gibbs who acts like he is unassailable, most cops/feds are mere mortals.
[2] The case of William Danforth Junior might have seemed to have been innocent enough and a one off incident that was essentially a victimless one. The guy dies accidently in a senseless and tragic accident and if investigated fully, the heroic actions of his fellow Marine could have been discovered and cost him his career which would have been catastrophic for him. Many might argue that Gibbs, in choosing to conceal evidence, was just doing a good deed for Corporal Merrill and the Corp by burying the proof that Tony had uncovered of the transplant by locating the anti-rejection medication at the accident scene. Kenneth got to stay with the Marines which he desperately desired and could pass his knowledge about IEDs on to a fresh generation of jarheads, which was obviously a good thing. But then again, who's to say that the Corporal at some point in the future under extraordinary circumstance, wouldn't accept an overseas deployment, potentially placing himself and teammates in peril? Was Gibbs going to keep a 24 hour a day surveillance on the kid? I don't think so!
Then there is the concerning trend that Gibbs seemed surprisingly ready to bend the rules, look the other way or in this case, to destroy evidence under some circumstances. The common denominator in every case was a former Marine calling on Gibbs for a favour because of the solidarity of the Corp. William Danforth Senior pulled the 'as one former Marine to another, I'm asking you to do this' crap. Further down the track L.J.G. even failed to investigate serious crimes like murder and assault because the former Marines in question were friends and I gotta wonder if he hadn't decided to bend the rules for Corporal Merrill, would it have been so easy to look the other way for his buddy and mentor?
[3] Again Gibbs' desire to protect Naval Aviator Lt Cdr Shields and her family is most praiseworthy and no one can argue that she deserved the best that NCIS and the FBI could offer in protecting her after her long service to her country. But we have laws, rules and regulations, procedures and protocols for a damned good reason – to protect the innocent and the weak. Don't get me wrong, I know exactly how difficult it can be when you are frustrated that some piece of scum seemed to be laughing in the face of all your efforts to stop them hurting others. Of course we want to protect people and I understand than overwhelming drive but then you have to remember that people like Miki Shields have risked their lives and too often sacrificed them to defend the United States and our way of life. That includes freedom and justice for all, not just the nice guys and it seems like we are betraying their sacrifices by not defending all our principles to the death.
[4] For people who were expecting moi to go into lurid graphic details of our relationship – I have just one thing to say – get stu… er lost! I'm a Guardian Angel… well a probationary one but still… and yeah I might not have managed to curb my colourful language yet and continue to use profanities that TPTB have counselled me on. Still it's not easy to become a paragon of virtue all of a sudden, especially when you've always had a potty mouth. But revealing details of what went on in the bedroom…and the kitchen and bathroom and couch and… well all I'm going to say is that we were well matched in terms of our libidos and leave it at that. Get over it – this is a serious attempt to document my observations, experiences and analysis of Anthony DiNozzo junior. Hopefully it will help future GAs if they take over responsibility for him. But if your motivation for reading this account is voyeurism, prepared to be disappointed. Neither one of us will kiss or tell!
A/N Hopefully I'll be adding to this series in the not to distant future. I have seven chapters that should be ready in the not too distant future. They just need a final draft and beta and then they're good to go. They will take us up to the season five episode Grace Period. Personally I was really sad to see Paula killed off - I always enjoyed her rather antagonistic relationship with Gibbs. Think the chemistry would have made her a great replacement for Sasha Alexander and we would have been spared some really convoluted and implausible story arcs involving the Davids and Mossad.