Disclaimer: I own neither NCIS nor its characters. Also, the lines from Mellencamp's "Authority Song", Concrete Blonde's "God is a Bullet" are not mine. Nor is John McCrae's "In Flanders' Fields"

Author's Note: Thank you to Kate98 for betaing. This is the first in a series, examining the process of grief. Series also includes Talk Therapy, Heart Problems, and Life (continued)

SPOILER ALERT: 2005 Season Finale (a.k.a. Twilight)

Dead Poisoning

He hates me. He must. After all, Gibbs was smart – smarter than your average Jarhead – and a good judge of character. It was obvious, really. Look at the way he was bringing in new faces. First Kate, which was okay because they needed a body and he had to admit that hers wasn't bad, but how did you explain McGee? Only one way, really, and that was McGee's job was to take over Tony's. He knew it was coming… the second McGee's probation was over, Anthony DiNozzo would be looking for another job.

Not that it wasn't deserved… nope, he'd screwed up colossally this time. Come to think of it, if you wrote down all the screwups he'd managed, you could fill a coliseum and still have enough pages left over to wallpaper the White House. Oh, sure, he liked to pretend he wasn't dispensable, but the truth was, his days weren't even numbered… the scythe could strike at any time.

I let my guard down. He should have known better… you never relax, you never think it's over until all the bad-guys are dead and accounted for. And now… Now they needed someone to take over for Kate, because he hadn't bothered to look-see where trouble was.

He could still see the blood, every time he looked. Sure, Gibbs made him scrub his face down, but it didn't work. Everybody knew blood stained. It came off the skin but left indelible marks on the soul.

I thought everything was okay. It wasn't, though… danger was screaming right in his face and he never saw it.

Pain stabbed through his chest, but it had nothing to do with his lungs or his ribs. That was hazard of the job pain… hurts you got because you were good enough, because you survived. This pain was the reward for idiocy.

He scanned over the paperwork, checking for dotted i's and crossed t's. He wasn't going to give Gibbs any reason to hand this back – not that Gibbs would, not this.

He signed it, initialled it and dropped it in Gibbs' in-basket. Gibbs would get to it in the morning, no sense hassling him tonight when he'd be in a bad mood.

"Tony?"

He whipped his head around at the sound of a voice. What was McGee doing here, this time of night? "What, Probie? I'm going home." He tried to snap, to sound irritated. It wasn't hard… he was irritated. How dare McGee be here, this of all times? What right did he have to sound so concerned, anyway?

"I…I just wanted to see if you were all right, that's all." It sounded like he meant it, too. Like it was his idea, and not something he'd been ordered to do

Yeah, you've got a lot to learn. "Do yourself a favour, McGee. Don't."

"Don't… don't what?"

Tony narrowed his eyes, fighting the urge to smack the guy, to just keep pounding on him until he got the message. "Don't care so much. Don't waste your time feeling sorry for me." It was the best advice he could give, a lesson he, himself had learned hard and managed to forget. That was the screw-up. Not a mistake made in the heat of the moment, when adrenaline and relief clouded judgement, but a long, slow mistake made over time.

I let myself… I belonged. He hadn't made that mistake since Illinois… hadn't stayed anywhere long enough to fit in and get attached. But somehow… somewhere along the line here, he'd stopped surfing the job postings and gotten to know the people around him. Dumb, dumb move.

He turned and walked away, not seeing McGee look into Gibbs' in-box and notice the sheet of paper on top. He didn't see the look McGee threw after him, or the number he dialled as soon as Tony was out of earshot.

––

He patted his pockets, angrily. Where the hell were his keys? He had them when…

"You're not really in good shape to drive." The annoyingly innocent-sounding tones echoed in the nearly empty parking garage.

Tony growled. "I'm fine, McGee. Now give me my keys."

"Tony…" This was a rare show of courage from McGee, Tony would give him that, even if he'd never say it.

"They were shooting at you, too, McGee. I'm not trying to stop you from going home and getting some sleep." It wasn't the whole truth and he knew it.

"Yeah, but you were right there. I… I mean you were standing right there when it…"

"So was Gibbs. Baby-sit him if you're worried about someone."

"Gibbs isn't quitting." The words came out rushed, as though the probie was afraid to really say them. "I thought you liked this job…"

"I do." Maybe he should just jimmie the lock, hotwire the ignition. "That's the problem."

"I…"

"That's the problem!" Tony slammed his hand against the car, the pain outside barely noticeable over all the pain inside. It shouldn't hurt like this, it wouldn't hurt like this if he'd been smart and kept the line between co-worker and friend. It didn't matter that he never saw them outside of work, he still was stupid, still let himself care, let himself become involved. "Do yourself a favour. Don't care, McGee! 'Cause someone else is going to get killed… someone else is going to die, that's what happens. Blink once and your whole life is going to be spent at funerals, watching yourself go into the ground every time." The thoughts didn't quite fit with the Tony whom McGee thought he knew: they came from a side that rarely surfaced, a well-hidden self that only came out on dark, lonely nights when no one could see. Each meal will be cold meats, drenched in blood and flavoured in pain. Better to keep moving, not let people get close, get to where they could hurt you. His face began to burn, each little droplet of spatter that wouldn't wash away turning to acid and etching its way down.

He fell against the side of the car, his body betraying him, giving out. DiNozzos do not pass out. Just another little hypocritical, braggart's lie. That was the real Tony DiNozzo, bluff and bluster and no substance beneath. The eternal kid, because Mellencamp got it right. 'Growin' up leads to growin' old and then to dying…' and every now and then you got a reminder that you didn't even need to grow old. 'God is a bullet…' He wondered if Abby ever listened to Concrete Blonde, or if they were too old for her. Neither would he, were it not for another friend… from a group where the same disease held sway, that fatal combination of too many holes and not enough blood to fill inside and outside.

Dead poisoning. He remembered that line, back from a time when he was too young, too naïve to know what it meant, kind of like McGee now. Just words from an old man in a bar back then, an old man too drunk and too stoned to be taken seriously, just another whacked-out Vietnam vet. "It'll get you, boy." The old man singled him out – the kid, the rookie. "The dead poisoning'll get you too." Jack Daniels prophecy, come to pass, the curse finally realised.

He slid down until he could sit, his legs unable to hold him. McGee came over and sat beside him, saying nothing.

"Dead poisoning, McGee. If you're not careful, you'll get it." Too many people on the deceased list, too many funerals. It coulda been, it shoulda been me. Survivor's guilt, they called it, but guilt wasn't toxic like this.

"Maybe you should see a doctor." McGee must have heard wrong, thought 'dead' was 'lead'. Doctors couldn't cure this.

Tony shook his head. Nope… not even Ducky could fix this, and Ducky was as good as they came.

Cellophane crinkled beside him and McGee held out a chocolate bar from the vending machine in the hall. "Gibbs said you should eat something."

Tony stared at the candy. Wasn't that long ago when McGee and Kate were hassling him over food, making fun of the fact that he was always eating something. Garbage disposal, DiNozzo. "I'm not hungry."

"Gibbs said that didn't matter. He's right, you should eat."

"Look, Probie…"

"Eat, DiNozzo." This time Gibbs' voice echoed off the cement. He who must be obeyed. What was he doing here, anyway? Gibbs didn't coddle and he never had time for self-indulgent misery.

"Boss, I…"

"Eat, because I'm not dealing with you on an empty stomach. And you're not quitting."

"Yes, boss." No sense in arguing, reality moulded itself around Gibbs' view, coming out the way he wanted.

"McGee, get him home and keep an eye on him. Make sure he sleeps. I expect to see you both in the morning."

"You got it, Boss." McGee scrambled up, hauled Tony to his feet. "Now you've gone and made him mad." He dropped his voice so only Tony could hear, or so would run the theory. Gibbs probably heard it anyway.

"Me… it was you who phoned him in the middle of the night." The words came without him having to think. The bickering, the recriminations. Things you'd never say to outright strangers or people you just worked with. They latched onto the toxicity, started pulling it out of his body.

"You were the one who was going to quit. You should have thought about that." Probie was getting good with the comebacks… he'd be okay, someday.

He let McGee manhandle him into the passenger seat. He'd regret it later, he knew, but for now McGee's prediction had come true: he couldn't drive like this, he wouldn't know how to hold the steering wheel. "That still didn't mean you had to call him."

"Oh, I was supposed to just let him find out in the morning and yell at me? I am not as stupid as you like to think I am, Tony."

"Whatever, McGee." Tony closed his eyes. McGee was right, though. He couldn't quit, not until they trained up someone to take McGee's place, now. No way Gibbs would leave McGee on probation; Gibbs liked to train people from scratch and they needed someone full time to take over for Kate. Not replace Kate, McGee could never do that, for one thing, Tony doubted he could convince McGee to date any of his, Tony's, old frat brothers. "I hope you can handle it."

"Handle what?" McGee was kind, drove slowly over the speedbumps.

"We're going to be getting a new probie, McGee. You think you can handle it?"

"You taught me well, Tony." McGee sounded like he meant that, too, though just what he meant, Tony wasn't sure.

More words drifted into his head, a poem. 'To you, from failing hands we throw the torch, Be yours to hold it high…' a soldier's poem, about death and continuing onwards. 'If ye break faith with us who die, we shall not sleep(1)…' Kate needed her sleep, she got cranky without it.

"I promise…" he muttered. If he couldn't save her life, then he'd just have to let her have her death, not make her haunt him, not make any of them haunt him. McGee and Gibbs were right. He couldn't quit. It was the debt they owed. Rest well, Kate. We'll handle it here.

"I know." Her voice whispered in his ear, memory or hallucination, he didn't know. And then it was gone, and some of the poison and pain gone with it. He let his head fall against the window and the cool glass take him into sleep.

1 In Flanders' Fields by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae MD. (Canadian Army) (1872-1918)
For anyone interested, the fulltext of McCrae's Poem "In Flanders' Fields" can be found at http/www.vac-acc.gc.ca/general/sub.cfm?sourcehistory/firstwar/vimy/vimy1a