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Title: On the Outside
Rating: PG-13
Summary: You wonder sometimes how you got into this.
You wonder sometimes how you got into this. How you went from the
intense little girl no one quite understood to this. You're still not
sure you understand, yourself.
It was so easy, growing up. You wanted to fight the bad guys. You
wanted to make a difference. Be someone special. You convinced your
father's best friend--Uncle Mike--to take you to the shooting range on
the weekends. He taught you how to clean a gun, how to check the
safety, how to hold it and stand and brace yourself against the recoil.
Rifle first, then pistol. You were winning competitions by twelve,
against people years older and inches taller than you.
You can still remember the feel of Uncle Mike's hands around yours as
he guided you, the way he shifted your shoulders and settled your hips
and pushed the ear protectors down on your head.
Uncle Mike died of cancer two years ago. You couldn't go to the
funeral; you were busy protecting the President. You know where he's
buried, but you've never made it to his grave.
All through college, you studied. You went through three roommates who
insisted on dragging you out on weekends, trying to get you to lighten
up, date, have some fun. You didn't really want to, but you tried. You
wanted to try and belong. But it didn't work. And one by one, your
roommates gave up. The invitations became less frequent. You got used
to seeing them go out on Saturdays, all dressed up, without you.
You told yourself you didn't mind.
After college, you thought you'd try law school. It sounded like
something you'd do--you had visions of yourself as a prosecutor,
arguing in front of a courtroom, putting away the criminals. You lasted
one year before you admitted it wasn't working. Too much paperwork, not
enough action. So you left law school and joined the FBI.
You survived the twelve weeks of Hell known as basic training and came
out a federal agent. They trained you as a profiler, let you join the
Behavioral Sciences Unit. You met Dave, your ex-fiance, there. It
lasted about six months before he proposed and another three after
that. Eventually, he got tired of your dedication, your relentless
drive. You were married to the job, he told you. There wasn't room for
a husband in your life.
He didn't take the ring back. You sold it and used the money for a new
gun.
But the FBI wasn't really where you belonged. You wanted more, although
you weren't sure what it was at the time. On a rare impulse, you
applied for a position over at the United States Treasury.
They took you and turned the FBI agent you'd been into a Secret Service
agent. You fought and clawed your way into a position on the
Presidential detail, constantly having to prove yourself in the mens-only
club it was. But you made it, finally. You still remember the sweetness
of it, of knowing *you* were one of the few people in the entire world
charged with guarding the President of the United States' safety.
One lapse in judgment. That's all it had taken. You got involved again,
thinking that maybe this time it would be different, that maybe...
Only it wasn't. You screwed up, and if you hadn't resigned from the
Secret Service they'd have fired you. Right on the heels of that came
your job invitation/order from Gibbs, over at NCIS.
If you're being honest with yourself, you admit that coming to work at
NCIS felt like a step down. You'd been a Secret Service agent, for
Christ's sake, and now you were investigating missing petty officers.
So maybe you were a touch more brittle than you should have been, a
little too quick to point out your history. After all, Tony was just a
cop who'd somehow stumbled into this, and Gibbs...well.
You'd never met anyone like Gibbs before. Arrogant, impatient, a
self-confessed bastard, willing to do pretty much whatever it took to
get the job done--he was a federal agent who didn't play by the rules.
He has his own rulebook; hell, he's listed some of them for you. You
weren't sure what to make of him when you met him, and you sure as hell
didn't know what to make of him as your boss.
Following Tony's lead was a joke. For one thing, you and Tony didn't
exactly get off to a great start. He resented your presence on the
team; it didn't take a profiler to figure that out. And you didn't
really help matters, trying to play up the difference between his
uninspired cop background and your spotless history as a member of the
Secret Service.
You've learned better, now. You know that Tony's received a total of
seven commendations from the various police departments he's worked
for. You know that he's Gibbs' right-hand man, even if Tony doesn't
realize it. But it didn't help at the time.
There was Abby, too, and Ducky, and both of them are so unique that
they confused you more than anything else. You were already learning
how different NCIS was from other federal agencies, but Abby...she's
one of a kind. The first time you saw the pictures in her lab you
weren't sure if she was psychotic or just completely uncaring about
human misery. But then you got to know her.
As you settled into your work as an NCIS agent, you realized that you
liked it. That for once, you *were* doing something that mattered. You
were fighting terrorists, unraveling one-of-a-kind mysteries, things
you'd dreamed of as a little girl. Gibbs said it best: you're
protecting the people who protect the country, and there are few things
more important than that.
But you still felt like an outsider, and you weren't sure why. You and
Tony finally settled into a solid, if contentious, relationship. He's
the obnoxious little brother you never wanted, but he's also your
partner and you'll take a bullet for him any day of the week. You know
he'll do the same for you in a heartbeat. And both of you will lay down
your lives for Gibbs.
Your relationship with Gibbs is different than Tony's, but you figured
that was to be expected. Tony's been on the team longer. His attitude
is different than yours, his skills and strengths aren't what yours
are, and the way he interacts with Gibbs isn't anything like the way
you do. You hate to admit it, but Gibbs still intimidates you. You'd
never have called him Captain Ahab the way Tony did. Frankly, you're
not sure how Tony survived that one.
You asked Abby about it once. She just shrugged and said something
cryptic about Gibbs not being a complete bastard *all* the time,
especially where Tony's concerned. You didn't understand then; Gibbs
always seemed to ride Tony harder than the rest of you. Not that he cut
you any slack, but if there was an opportunity to come down on Tony, he
took it.
Even though you felt like an outsider, you were still part of a team.
And maybe it was just that you'd gotten so used to being on the
outside, of never fitting in. So you dismissed it and did your job and
fought with Tony and bonded with him over firefights and crimes that
left you both sick to your stomachs and Gibbs' behavior.
And then you found out *why* things were different. Why you were never
going to fit in the way you wanted.
It was a sunny Friday afternoon in April. You remember the breeze
ruffling your hair as you headed to your car, free of work for the
weekend unless someone died. Your heels clicked on the cement garage
floor as you dug your keys out of your purse. You remember thinking
that you were going to go home, open a bottle of wine, order some Thai,
and have a relaxing evening at home--nice way of saying that you didn't
have a date, you hadn't *had* a date in months, and the way things went
you weren't going to have one anytime soon.
You wondered how Tony managed to have such an active social life. He
was always talking about Lisa, or Debbie, or whoever this week's flavor
was. You shook your head, deciding that Tony's love life was *really*
not a subject you wanted to think about on such a beautiful day.
You heard it before you saw anything--a soft, low sound, behind one of
the walls in the garage. You couldn't see anything unless you went
around. But you weren't sure what it was, so you waited, listening to
see if someone was in trouble.
It was Tony's voice you heard first, softer, a little huskier. "I'll
follow you home?" he asked.
You had no idea who he was talking to, and you had to admit, you
wondered why he was arranging an assignation in a blind spot in the
NCIS garage. So you listened some more.
"Do you want to stop at your place first?"
To this day, you swear your heart skipped a beat when you recognized
Gibbs.
"Nah. I've got stuff at yours, remember?"
Gibbs laughed softly and you had to put a hand on the wall to steady
yourself. "C'mon, DiNozzo," he said fondly. "Let's go home."
You heard the soft, unmistakeable sound of a kiss and your stomach
twisted. You couldn't help but picture it, Tony's mouth on Gibbs',
brown hair against silver, strength meeting strength, and then you--no.
You weren't going to think about what would happen when they went home.
God. It wasn't any of your business. *None* of this was. So you left as
quickly and as quietly as you could, and prayed they didn't hear you.
The bottle of wine ended up more than half empty before you were able
to sleep that night. You felt angry, and betrayed, and you had no idea
what you were going to do about work on Monday. How you were going to
face either of them, knowing that they were--you groaned and reached
for the wine bottle again.
Somehow you made it through Monday, and Tuesday, and the rest of the
week. And you managed to act like nothing had happened, like everything
was normal.
It wasn't. And you're pretty sure you didn't fool Gibbs; you caught him
looking at you more than a few times that endless week. You're less
sure about Tony. He's good at reading people when he wants to be, but
he can be startlingly obtuse in some ways.
Either way, you don't want to know. You don't want to know if they know
that you know, and that's just so convoluted it makes your head hurt.
You want to pretend that you never saw anything (which, technically,
you didn't), that you never heard anything, and you wish to God you
didn't know anything.
You've caught yourself studying the two of them unobtrusively since
then, trying to see where you'd missed the signs. But the truth is,
there aren't any. If you hadn't overheard what you had, there'd be no
way for you to know anything. You have no idea how they manage to do
that; it's a skill you wish you had, in some ways.
You wonder, sometimes, if you're destined to be alone, to be the
outsider in any group. Sure, you joke around with Abby and you give as
good as you get with Tony, but...Tony has something with Gibbs that you
don't. Something you'll never have.
And it's not that you want Tony, because while you're not immune to his
looks, you've managed to bypass the rest. It's not even that you want
Gibbs--in the beginning, maybe, but now. There's a reason the man went
through three wives.
But when Tony comes into work one morning with a plain white gold band
on his right middle finger and an elaborate story about his latest
girlfriend, it takes everything you have to roll your eyes and cut him
off and tell him how much you don't want to hear it. Because you know
the truth. You know that Gibbs gave him that ring, that there is no
girlfriend, that there hasn't been one for months.
You hate him just a little in that moment, because it's not supposed to
be like this. He's supposed to be the ladies' man, the eternal
skirt-chaser who'll sleep with any female dumb enough to go to bed with
him. He's not supposed to have something this solid, this *real*. And
you hate Gibbs, too, for giving it to him. Gibbs is supposed to be the
eternally divorced bastard building a boat in his basement who's
completely out of touch with popular culture. He's not supposed to be
with someone again, and certainly not something this solid, this
lasting.
You pretend not to notice that Tony's still wearing the ring weeks
after he stops talking about whatever fake girlfriend gave it to him,
just like you pretend not to notice that Gibbs has a faint, almost
imperceptible smile every time he looks at it.
Weeks turn into months and somewhere along the line you make the
unconscious decision to stop noticing. The ring is just part of Tony
now, just like his gun and his attitude. Gibbs isn't any less of a
bastard, and while you wonder how Tony puts up with him at work and at
home, you really don't think you want to know the answer.
You dreamed about them one night, about Gibbs' callused hands on Tony's
skin and Tony's smile against Gibbs' mouth. You woke up with soaked
panties and a a combination of desire and embarrassment so strong you
came as you were trying to untangle the sheets.
One of these days, you tell yourself, you'll find someone. You'll find
a man who doesn't mind your dedication to your job, who's willing to
love a woman who sleeps with a gun under her pillow and buys clothes
tailored to hide her holster.
You will. |
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