Disclaimer: Both NCIS and Dark Angel are TV shows created and owned by others. Me, I have only my dreams...
A/N: In the hope that shameless self-promotion is less heinous when admitted – and at the behest of someone who assures me that this is a good idea – I offer this cross- over as my first fic posted here in the NCIS listing. However, this isn't my first whack at NCIS. Over at the Dark Angel fiction section is an NCIS-DA cross-over that takes place in the year 2020, called "Concurrent Jurisdiction." In that world, as here, Tony DiNozzo and Logan Cale are cousins. Yes, almost-identical cousins, and they're getting a bit tired of hearing about it, thank you very much.
The following fic is a 'pre-quel' to that story, posted here since it takes place in the current era of NCIS, years before the world of Dark Angel, and dedicated to the NCIS fans who might be lured over to the Dark Angel site, just out of curiosity. I promise that Tony is still hot over there, even in 2020. After all, look at Gibbs...not bad for the other side of fifty, eh?
Tuesday,
August 23, 2005
NCIS
Only 10:20 in the morning, and Tony had finished his last report from the arrest they'd made the night before. He went back through the text as much to stall as to polish it; normally he'd rather get the report done and on Gibbs' desk and move onto whatever new project, even cold cases, that Gibbs had for him. But since May, Gibbs was even more driven to find Ari, to exact the revenge he craved for Kate's murder. So far, their own, 'unofficial' efforts, even coupled with the official ones of the FBI, had turned up little. True to form, the lack of progress just made Gibbs more driven, more hungry ... more demanding ... And since May, Tony felt the craving as well; this one was personal and even Gibbs hadn't found many reasons to prod Tony to work harder or faster or smarter on this one.
But not today ... today, he'd hit a wall; he just couldn't face another day of bashing his head against the same brick wall because, damn it, it did not feel better to stop–not when they were no closer to finding Ari ...
It would come, DiNozzo knew it would. For all his years as cop, city and federal, for all that he'd seen, somewhere, deep down, Tony remained an optimist, confident that eventually, eventually, they would catch Ari and make him pay for Kate's murder. However, also for all his years as a cop, he was equally certain of the likelihood that some unfortunate ... slip up ... would occur and Ari would be shot, trying to escape ... or attacking one of his captors ... or falling from a great height as he eluded capture... Shot. Killed. No probable cause hearings or pretrial motions or government intervention; no exclusionary rule hearings or redacted evidence or mandatory appeals. Case closed...
Tony tried yet again to shake off the thoughts, and reached in his drawer to find some Tylenol to push back the headache which never quite went away these days. Patience was no virtue in Gibbs' book; he succumbed to it rarely in any case, but most definitely not in this one, set as he was on taking all blame for Kate's death as a part of Ari's campaign against him, and every free moment brought additional projects for the team, investigations to rerun, interviews to redo, scenes to revisit, witnesses to re-question. Gibbs danced just this side of sanity in his obsession, still this side of responsible investigator, so the Director let him be a bit manic in his quest. Tony understood it, chased it along with Gibbs most of the time, and energetically did his part, for Kate, for the team, for Gibbs ...
But not today. Just a day off, just a morning, and he'd be back at it ... but just a few hours...
At least this morning, and notwithstanding the several extra projects left for his team to do while he was gone, Gibbs was off at a conference downtown through lunch, dragged along by Morrow who not only wanted Gibbs' input on the new regs to be implemented next month from Homeland Security, but, Tony suspected, also to force a change of scenery on him, maybe ease some of the intensity of single-minded purpose taking Gibbs over. Tony sighed, leaning chin heavily on hand for the moment as he stared at his computer screen. At least the one saving grace in all this was that not one person at NCIS – not Gibbs, not anyone on the team, not even the bank of psychologists each was made to see after the murder – told any of them how to grieve for Kate or demanded a specific way they should deal with her loss. No one told Gibbs to cool down; no one told Abby not to break into song or tears or giggles more jarringly than she used to; no one told Tim to stop fussing over them all, to stop running himself ragged schlepping coffee or bringing cookies or asking incessantly how they were doing, if he could do anything more to help ... no one told Ducky – especially, no one told Ducky – not to wax on with warm and lovely stories of Kate several times a day. And no one told him that he needed to decide, already, exactly what and whom he'd lost, when he lost her ... and how he could ever get past the hole left, by her absence...
"Hey, Tony..."
"Hi, Andy..." DiNozzo looked over to watch the prematurely balding, nondescript little man slide into Kate's chair, at Kate's desk, and pull out Kate's keyboard to log himself in. "How'd the interview go?"
Andy barely looked up, his sad smirk accompanying a head shake. "Saw nothing, knows nothing, just like before." He pronounced. "She's as sorry as she can be, but her back was to everything, her baby was fussy so she'd knelt down by the stroller and was looking at teeth coming through gums, not a shooter on the roof." Andy finally looked up. "She was pretty nice about it, considering this was the third time she was asked."
"Yeah, I know..." Tony sighed. As Andy turned back to his work, Tony again had to hand it again to the folks in the psych department for their minor stroke of brilliance, at least as Andy was concerned – grieving and unfairness notwithstanding, they needed a replacement for Kate on the team. And with any team – especially one that had hit its stride in working together as Gibbs' team had done – the job of replacing a member lost in the line was an impossible task, unfair to the team and worse still to the replacement. So the pshrinks put their heads together and actually came up with a stroke of genius: they assigned a temp, a male to Kate's female, a mousy guy who made McGee look flashy, one quiet and adept and incredibly aware of why he was there and who he was replacing ... one who was genuinely nice, who also knew Kate, if only in passing, but who could appreciate how deeply the others felt her loss. He was bright, experienced, and agile in fitting in – experienced in that too, Tony would learn much later – and supportive. Somehow, they all were getting along – and slowly getting used to the idea that soon, there would be a new team member, assigned permanently ...
"Anyone else you plan to see this week?" Tony stalled again, this time with conversation.
"Yeah, a couple college kids. I need to get out there in the next day or so – their classes start up again next week and they're leaving town..."
Tony sat up with a start, suddenly remembering his own concern about classes starting up. "Shit," he spat under his breath, and turned to open an e-mail from last week, then hop over to the Internet when that wasn't enough. ...damn; this week. Not missed, but close... He sighed, audibly...
"Hey–you okay?" Andy tried. "You looked like you missed a final, yourself..."
"No, man, you saved my hide," DiNozzo scrolled back through the website's 'Class of 2009' listings of orientation schedules and placement exams and housing information, and flipped back over to the e-mail from his cousin, sent six days ago. Typical of the kid to underplay it, especially since he knew how badly Tony had been hurting. "... my cousin is heading off for his first year of college this week too, and I..." Tony wavered, looked back at the schedule, then switched to a couple other sites, his thoughts turning. "I didn't want to miss it..."
"Oh yeah?" Andy asked, affably. "Where's he goin'?"
"Yale." DiNozzo grinned proudly.
"Yale; damn." The man whistled. "This is a blood relative?"
Tony leaned around the monitor to make eye contact with Andy as he shot him a wry look. "I taught him all he knows..." DiNozzo stated flatly. "Kid's a genius...just like me."
Only three months ago Tony had been out to Seattle for a long weekend see his cousin graduate from high school – prep school, actually, he reminded himself wryly – and catch up with him, as well as with the less enjoyable members of the Cale family. Barely two weeks later, back at it, and they lost Kate. He'd fleetingly mentioned her death to Logan in an e-mail and immediately, his seventeen year old cousin had picked up the phone and called, knowing there was more, remembering more than Tony did the stories and comments DiNozzo'd made about all of the team, Kate not the least of them. He called again several times over the next weeks, more often than he usually did; Logan even asked about coming out to visit, and Tony knew damn well the kid was coming to check up on him, the older cousin. Personal loss – first one parent, then the other, followed by submission to an unfeeling, callous uncle and aunt who were always a bit jealous of his parents, not the least reason being their bright and talented only son -- made Logan Cale even more aware of others, especially those he sensed those who were hurting or powerless...
Losing Kate had reminded Tony of how fleeting life can be; the ministrations of his parentless cousin had reminded him to seize what time was left to him and to those he cared about–he'd thought. It didn't last long, it seemed; he now kicked himself that Logan was heading out to New Haven this week to start his first year at Yale, knowing no one, sent on alone by relatives who not only couldn't be bothered, but minimized his success in obtaining advanced placement because of how much it rankled to have their boys turned away altogether, even with the legacy involved...
DiNozzo had more vacation time racked up than about anyone other than Gibbs. Nothing much was going on – or, at least, no new investigations. Nothing that he'd miss if he took a four day weekend ... given their summer, given in the circumstances, he didn't think Gibbs could mind. And before he'd even cleared it with his boss, Tony started up his travel agent's website and punched in his request...
Tuesday,
August 23, 2005
Rural
Washington state, thirty miles outside of Seattle.
There was barely a sound.
Or, rather, human sound – the woods were full of the sounds of nature, birds and squirrel chatter and rustled undergrowth, a flip and splash as a fish jumped to catch a bug. The wind made the leaves in the trees along the water's edge patter against themselves in a hushed applause...
And the only 'human' sound was the muted scratch of pen on paper...
The lanky boy–young man, really–sat cross-legged on the pier where he'd learned to dive as a youngster, hunched over an open, leather-bound journal in his lap, writing steadily. The sun played across his shoulders and he shifted as finally, his thoughts were accomplished on paper and he felt the strength of the sun insistent on his shoulders. Laying the journal aside, he untangled his legs to dangle them in the still-cool water, and looked out over the private lake, all the more private mid-day, mid-week. No one knew he'd come up here to say good-bye – no one would care, really, he mused – nor would they understand his connection to the place. He was used to it by now, he told himself, used to their distance, and maybe even toughened by it. But this was and always would be his place ... his favorite memories all came from here, the first summer he remembered with his older cousin Tony, learning from him to swim in his early years and sink hook shots a bit later; his long summer weeks there with his mom and, on the weekends, when he could get away from work, his father joining them...
He made himself homesick, thinking of leaving this place; more so than the thought of leaving Seattle for Connecticut. But he could never be as 'homesick' as he'd been as when his mother died ... or when he was only fourteen, and his father had packed him off to boarding school, with Uncle Jonas' son, his cousin Bennett ... never so homesick as when his father died not fifteen months later, leaving Logan to answer to his Uncle Jonas and Aunt Margo, who never found much he did acceptable...
The stillness was broken by the all-too human sound of his cell phone, sticking out of his backpack. Upon leaning over to pop the grid open and check the caller ID, Logan's face split wide with a grin and he hit the receive button. "Tony!" he grinned into the phone.
"Hey, cuz, you packed and ready to go yet?" DiNozzo's voice bounced in his ear, carrying his usual enthusiasm and cheer.
"Almost–enough to get started. Anything I forget, they probably have in Connecticut..."
"Smart ass. When are you getting there?"
Logan stretched his long, lanky form out along the dock, lying on his stomach and propping his cheek in his hand. "There's a red eye that leaves Seattle for Kennedy at 11:00 Thursday night; with the time change and all, we get in about 7 AM. I have a connection to Hartford that will get me there around 10:00 local time."
Tony heard the pronouns Logan chose for his arrival: 'I' ... 'me'... So neither Jonas nor Margo had reconsidered ... it made him even more glad that Andy had jarred his memory, in time that maybe he could step in. "Hartford?" Tony frowned. "Aren't you overshooting New Haven?"
"Yeah, well ... Uncle Jonas found out that Daphne's dad was arranging a car for her–you met her, when you were here last time..."
"Right – and off to Yale too, you said..."
"Uh-hmm. Jonas decided he couldn't have rumors coming back that the Seattle Hamiltons' Yale student had a car and the Seattle Cales' didn't..." Logan tried to keep it light; he knew how lame it would sound, to complain about having a brand new car bought, paid for, and waiting for him on his arrival ... but given the circumstances, he'd just as soon have taken the train out from the City ... " it just ended up being easier to pick up a car in Hartford."
"Well, once in a while Uncle Jonas stumbles backward into doing a good thing..." Tony drawled. "I'd suggest you drive away smiling."
But Logan grinned, now, into the phone. He could always depend on Tony to see things as he saw them, assure him that he wasn't the one off-kilter. "I'll remember that." Logan peered between the dock slats down to the rippling lake surface as he did as a child, when Tony was there to teach him to swim and ski and preen for the girls always fawning all over him. The latter, Logan regretted, he never did as well or as naturally as Tony DiNozzo could ... "So how are you doing? The investigation ... still pretty much the same?"
"Yeah, but we've got some good leads..." Tony lied, honestly trying to muster the energy to convince the teenager he had something positive to pursue.
The voice in response was noncommital. "You're still working nonstop, aren't you? Even you could use a break, once in a while."
"Problem is...you can't really sleep til the job is finished in a case like this ... so the more we focus on it, the more we do now...the faster we'll get answers and can put it and all of us to bed."
"Tony..." Logan sighed, again, as he had over the past weeks, sounding as if he were the older, wiser cousin, trying to shepherd along the misguided younger one. "You're gonna explode..."
"Yeah, well ... get settled into school and come see me, some weekends, get me out of the house." Tony challenged. "But only after you do all the school things you need to do to get to know people..."
"Sure thing, mom." Logan laughed.
"So back to you and Yale, you smart ass. They going to let you move in Friday, when you get there?"
"Yeah, they open the residences that morning, and have all sorts of ... festivities ... starting that day."
"You sound a bit jaded for such a new student." DiNozzo chided. "The 'festivities' could lead to all sorts of interesting new adventures ... new ladies ..."
"Adventures," Logan's tolerant chuckle, again sounding as if he were the adult and Tony, the teenager, was relaxed and easy, the agent noted in some relief. True, he was leaving for a place and people unknown to him, but leaving behind a home where he'd never been made to feel welcome – no wonder he sounded fairly centered with this move. "It's a stodgy old place, Tony, college or not. I suspect the 'adventures' will come from outside the officially sanctioned activities."
"Gotta start somewhere, cuz." DiNozzo knew his cousin well enough to know that if he went out there alone, he'd be fine; hell, he'd flourish at school. But for all the cool talk, Tony knew, Logan was still hurting for family, the loss of his loving, supportive parents abrupt enough to still smart – and Tony envisioned a quieter, shyer Logan avoiding the non-mandatory events, alone in a crowd of parents and relatives during the orientation weekend... "So humor me and e-mail me your travel itinerary, will you?"
"Okay – why, you want to have them peg me for another 'random' search?"
The grin in his cousin's voice was apparent, and Tony rolled his eyes at the teasing resurrected from his cousin's June visit and the security check he'd been through. "I'm still touched that you think I have such clout that I could get the TSA to do anything, let alone to pull a gag on someone." Logan had had a field day with that one; insisting that the 'brothers in blue' thing would extend even there, NCIS to TSA and back...
"You ever been to New Haven, Tony?"
The abrupt change of topic was unexpected, and made the young man's voice suddenly sound lonely – abandoned. Maybe Logan wasn't as strong as he wanted his cousin to believe, Tony realized. He was again relieved that he hadn't messed this up by forgetting – and that Gibbs had so easily given his blessing for him to take off Friday and even part of Monday... "Nope." He'd stick with his decision to make this a surprise, although he wasn't as certain as he'd been before that it would be more fun for his cousin this way. "Is there anything to see in New Haven other than Yale?"
DiNozzo was glad to hear the chuckle, even though it was a bit grudging. "I have a feeling the town would be offended to hear you say that..."
"'Breaking Away,' 1979. The Townies always did feel overshadowed by the university..." Another snort from his cousin, sounding a bit less alone, and Tony felt better to hear it. "I could show up some weekend or two, you know, check it out. Do you suppose Yale will be like other schools–or do you think bright girls really are dogs?"
This time the snicker at his cousin's hopelessly chauvinistic reference – all a part of his facade, Logan would always believe – was again grounded, certain of the family connection he had with the agent who now promised he'd come to visit. "If they are, be careful who you're talking to," he grinned. "Just my luck, you'll insult one of my profs, and there goes the semester..."
more
to come...
If you made it this far, thanks for reading. I'd very much like to hear from you: Hate it? Love it? Barely tolerate it or not sure what to make of it? Interested in more here, or shall I slink off with the boys, back to Dark Angel, from whence we came? Feedback helps those of us poking our noses into new territory to know if it's safe...