Archive of Our Own ^beta

As Leon opened the door to his outer office, he heard a phone ringing and then being answered.

"Hey babe."

Leon realized that the voice was DiNozzo's and froze, still in the shadows of the doorway. He'd seen the computer and small lamp turned on at DiNozzo's desk when he came back to pick up the files he'd forgotten, but Leon had just assumed that the lamp was left on by mistake. He'd even had half a thought to make some sarcastic comment about wasting electricity when he saw the agent tomorrow. Now, looking down at the MCRT's bullpen, he saw that DiNozzo had returned with a short stack of files with a CD on top. It seemed that he had just been elsewhere in the building, rather than gone for the day. Although, Leon shook his head to clear it, DiNozzo was supposed to be out on medical. He wasn't due in to the office until tomorrow.

Just as he was about to announce his presence and ask what the agent was doing here, Leon caught DiNozzo saying, "Yes, I actually looked at the job board." That statement was enough of a shock to freeze Leon in place again. DiNozzo was looking for a job?

"You were right, there is an opening at Pearl, but everyone wants that spot; Vance would never give it to me," DiNozzo continued. "The next closest I could get to you would be the West Coast."

Leon frowned. There was a SAC position at Pearl Harbor, but DiNozzo wasn't remotely qualified for that.

"Of course you think so, but you're biased," DiNozzo sighed. "I know we thought that once he saw my whole file he'd come around, but it doesn't seem to have made a difference."

His whole file? What did that mean? Leon had skimmed the files of all of his SSAs and SFAs when he took the job, but there had been nothing outstanding in DiNozzo's. Worse, he didn't even have all the qualifications for his current position — that's why Leon had sent him to be Agent Afloat. Now DiNozzo was implying that those records had been wrong?

"Well San Diego would be the next best choice, but none of the openings there would be a fit for me," DiNozzo continued. "LA is right out — Hetty hates me too. San Francisco doesn't have any openings, but scuttlebutt says they will in two months. Not sure I'll be able to wait that long once this all blows up."

Leon had no idea that Hetty hated DiNozzo, though he wasn't exactly surprised. Surely she was just as annoyed about him earning his position through favoritism, rather than work and qualifications. Although, if his file was inaccurate…

"You know I can't go to Seattle because of my lungs, and that's it for the West Coast. Colorado has a few openings, but I can't go there either because of the altitude. Nevada's got an opening that fits, and that's probably best case scenario." DiNozzo sighed heavily. "Of course, with my luck with directors, he'd probably send me to Alaska or something if I asked to go west."

After a short pause, DiNozzo said, "I know it would literally kill me, but he didn't care about that when he sent me Afloat either! Vance has never given a shit about medical regs and recommendations for me before, and he's sure not gonna start now. Especially once he finds out that his perfect children aren't so perfect! Although, knowing him, I'd get blamed for that too!"

DiNozzo collapsed back in his chair, coughing raggedly. Leon scowled at him; how dare DiNozzo claim that Leon didn't care about his health! The health of all of his agents was important. Frankly, if DiNozzo was healthy enough to be on the MCRT, then he was healthy enough for most assignments, including Agent Afloat. If there was something wrong with him, then he shouldn't be on the team in the first place.

Finally DiNozzo got his coughing under control and panted, "I'm okay… I'm okay…" The other person spoke for several minutes, and then he replied, "I already promised to quit if he won't take this seriously. I just finished pulling all the evidence, as it happens. I promise, I'll also quit if he tries to send me somewhere that will kill me. Happy?"

The other person said something that made DiNozzo chuckle. "I don't want the Governor to pull any strings. I'll just retire and let you be my sugar daddy." He laughed again, then coughed a few times. "Okay, I'll be your sugar daddy. Either way let's call that Plan B."

Leon's scowl deepened. Of course DiNozzo would throw around his money if he didn't get what he wanted. That attitude was so typical of him — this was exactly why Leon hated rich boys who bought their way into their positions.

"Listen, I'd love to talk more, but I've only got until tomorrow to get all this taken care of, and the depraved indifference paperwork is a bitch. Damn sick leave killed my timeframe. I'll talk to you tomorrow?"

As DiNozzo finished his call, Leon slipped back into his office and headed for his file cabinet. Perhaps DiNozzo's file would enlighten him about some of what he had heard.

Flipping through the rather thin file, Leon found everything he remembered from the first time. His yearly medical clearance to stay on the MCRT, the forms where he disclosed his trust fund to Morrow, Sheppard's note about him sleeping with Gibbs, three different times he was accused — and cleared — of murder, his range scores — better than average —, his promotion and subsequent demotion as SSA, his insanely over-valued clearance level, a note that he refused to take an assignment in Philladelphia, and then him turning down SSA for Rota, a few pages so heavily redacted as to be useless, and the brief bio outlining his PE degree and how he had hopped through several precincts before joining NCIS.

There was nothing he hadn't seen before, and nothing to support the strange things DiNozzo had said. About to close the file and put it away, Leon's eye was caught by a small note on the bottom of the top page. Someone had handwritten Full file restricted to clearance level A1-0.

Leon rocked back on his heels. A1-0 was from their internal clearance system, and was the second highest level. The only people with access to an A1-0 file were himself, his deputy, and the heads of Psych, HR, Medical, and the MCRT. Why the hell was DiNozzo's full file so restricted that only a handful of people could access it? Those files weren't even kept electronically, for fear of hacking!

Abruptly, he recalled DiNozzo speaking earlier. "…once he saw my whole file…"

Even more confused, Leon stalked over to the scanner. After verifying his fingerprints, retina, and code, he was able to open the wall safe-esque file cabinet that held the A1-0 records. He quickly found DiNozzo's file, and almost dropped it. This was several inches thick — a far cry from the handful of pages in the standard file! Leon stared at it for a few minutes, but he didn't dare open it now. If he started reading this file, he wasn't sure he could stop, and he did need to get back home to Jackie.

Closing the secure cabinet, Leon gathered DiNozzo's two files and tucked them into his briefcase beside the work he had actually come back for. Then, he slipped out the back entrance and down to his waiting car, not wanting to run into DiNozzo right now. As soon as he got home and had helped get his kids to bed, Leon would read the file and figure out just what the hell was going on.

Leon found himself staring at the blank back cover of the folder and, with great difficulty, shook himself. He was sitting up in bed, Jackie curled up into his side with an eyemask on to block out the light of his bedside lamp. Glancing at his bedside clock, Leon saw that it was after three — he'd have to be up in a few hours, but he didn't think he would be getting any sleep tonight.

DiNozzo's file… god! He didn't even have words for it. At least the first page was a note from Morrow explaining why it had all been classified. Knowing that DiNozzo had been undercover in the Mob, and that he still had an open alias there after taking down Don Macaluso easily explained the need for some secrecy. The fact that he'd used the same alias to rescue a Baltimore UC a few years back justified it even more.

It even explained Jenny's short note that DiNozzo had refused a job in Philadelphia shortly after she took the office; Leon would have refused to return to a town where there was a price on his head too. It was clear from her notes that, when she made the order and filed the complaint she hadn't looked at his full file yet either; his refusal was likely what prompted her to dig deeper. After that, she had immediately started using (and, Leon could admit now, abusing) DiNozzo's undercover skills.

The reports from the head of Psych, Marie Edwards, made it clear how much DiNozzo had struggled with Jenny's orders, and how very unsanctioned her op to catch Benoit had been. Leon also wasn't proud of the notes about his own reaction to Jenny's death, and how he had taken it out on DiNozzo.

Leon was clearly able to see some of his own mistakes, the least of which was DiNozzo's return to active duty after Jenny's death. Edwards, because of the A1-0 clearance, was the only member of psych services who was allowed to handle DiNozzo's evals, and she had been on maternity leave when Jenny was killed. DiNozzo had run rings around her temporary replacement, saying nothing of value, but all the right words to get himself cleared for duty. Edwards had been furious about the slight when she returned and was finally able to meet with him. There had been a note that, leave or not, she was supposed to handle his evals, which Leon had ignored.

With Jenny's death, Edwards had also added a large stack of documentation from DiNozzo about Jenny's unethical actions — something that hadn't been safe to keep in his main file while Jenny had access to it. If Leon had bothered looking, he could have prevented Miss Benoit's murder accusation before it even started. He certainly could have made headway on his mole hunt, possibly preventing the deaths of several agents. It was now crystal clear to Leon that, by sending away DiNozzo instead of Gibbs, he had hamstrung his own investigation. Lee had even been on DiNozzo's team, giving him an inside track.

DiNozzo's concerns about his own health were also thrown into stark clarity. Leon, of course, had heard the rumors about the plague incident, as they led to tightening up of mailroom security in his San Diego offices. The details, however, had been light on the ground, and full of inter-office gossip. Now, looking at the copies of x-rays, seeing the damage done to DiNozzo's lungs, it was impossible to ignore the details. DiNozzo should have been retired on medical after that incident. The fact that he had worked his way back into, not just health, but active agent status, was something of a miracle. The fact that he had outrun a bomb and saved two other agent's lives on his first (early) day back was something Leon didn't have words for.

The yearly evaluations from Dr. Mallard that Leon had assumed were routine were, in fact, proof that this agent cared enough about his job to fight like hell to keep his body fit enough to continue. There were several different recommendations through the years of fitness and training regimes for DiNozzo to follow. Specific inhalers he had to use, regulations about how often his team was on call, or how many hours they could be on call back to back. Gibbs had signed off on the recommendations early on, stating in writing that he'd rather be forced to give up a case to Balboa's team on occasion than to lose his Senior Field Agent.

The notes from Mallard and Edwards made it clear that, while Gibbs was in Mexico, Jenny had begun to let those regulations slide. Not only had she allowed DiNozzo to work longer at the office, trying to make up for the childish games of McGee and David, but she had started sending him out on those unsanctioned undercover ops.

With his bizarre health records, most of the hospitals in the area knew DiNozzo; it was something of a miracle that the doctor he was sent to seduce and all of her coworkers hadn't made the connection. If Leon needed more proof of how far back Jenny's thinking had been clouded by her tumor, here it was. Her sending DiNozzo to investigate a god-damned plague ship was a close second, and Leon shuddered at the reports from Edwards after that royal fuck up.

It was also obvious that, after his return from Mexico, Gibbs had also forgotten about the guidelines he had agreed to for DiNozzo's health, and Jenny hadn't reminded him. Mallard and Edwards had done their best to reign him in, but Gibbs had slowly bulldozed over them. DiNozzo's medical evaluations had been sliding backwards, until he had only just passed the last one. His inability to exercise regularly or eat properly, lack of sleep, and stress on the job had slowly worsened his lung function.

And then there was the Agent Afloat position — Leon's own plague ship. None of their ships had the proper equipment to deal with DiNozzo's lungs. If there had been an incident, the agent could have died before being evaced to a proper facility. Leon had also only given him 24 hours notice before his flight, which was not enough time for him to get a proper refill of his necessary inhalers before leaving. He hadn't been able to maintain his exercise regimen either, and the stress of the position, while not quite as bad as the current MCRT load, had been worse than what he had been putting up with at the time.

If Leon had been aware of DiNozzo's whole file, as the agent seemed to think — as he should have been, in all honesty — then assigning him as Agent Afloat, especially with no notice, was only half a step up from pointing a loaded gun at him. Leon didn't want to think about what his deliberate lack of knowledge equated to.

DiNozzo's own words on the phone from earlier in the night made a stark kind of sense. His surety that Leon might send him to Seattle or Alaska, despite the damage those postings would cause, was sadly understandable. As was his determination to quit if it came to that.

"I know it would literally kill me, but he didn't care about that when he sent me Afloat either! Vance has never given a shit about medical regs and recommendations for me before, and he's sure not gonna start now."

The only thing DiNozzo had gotten wrong was the time frame. Leon was going to start caring, right the fuck now. He couldn't even count the number of times and ways he had screwed over DiNozzo, but he was going to do his best to make it up to the agent. His own thoughts from earlier in the night were laughably off base.

He had thought that DiNozzo was grossly under-qualified to be the SAC at Pearl Harbor, but that was far from the truth. The only thing keeping DiNozzo from qualifying for Leon's job was lack of time as an AD. They were interspersed, but by Leon's guesstimate a third of the file was taken up with commendations and job offers across the Alphabet, including AD positions! Leon still didn't understand fully why Tom Morrow had initially hidden DiNozzo's true worth and academic achievements, but he suspected that Jenny had continued the trend due to her own agenda. Neither wanted to lose him to another agency.

Leon couldn't help but cringe when he recalled the number of times he had praised McGee's two bachelor's degrees in front of DiNozzo. DiNozzo who had a Doctorate for God's sake! DiNozzo's public file stated that he had a Phys Ed degree, and that from there he had gone into the police academy. It wasn't even well hidden, as even a glance at the dates would have made the gap obvious!

The plague wasn't the only time that DiNozzo had pulled himself back from a miraculous recovery — he was barely supposed to walk unaided again after the damage done to his knee his senior year, let alone pass an academy physical. That he had completed his double major in Kinesiology and Criminology was impressive. That he had spent those two years of rehab completing his Master's in Criminal Justice was incredible. That he had picked up a second Master's in Computer Science while a police officer was equally laudable. Not to mention the doctorate done while at NCIS. Leon had no idea what to make of the note from Edwards as to why DiNozzo had hidden those talents from his teammates. Somehow 'making them feel welcome' just didn't seem to cut it.

The full file had also more clearly explained why DiNozzo had so often "hopped" between precincts before landing at NCIS. When he first read the summary, Leon had assumed that it was a character defect, or a sign that daddy's money would only get him so far before he got into trouble and had to move on. Now, finding out that Senior had disowned DiNozzo at twelve, and never given him a cent after, learning that DiNozzo hadn't even found out about the trust fund until it was handed to him at 28, Leon felt many of his preconceived notions shattering into dust.

His fellow officers finding out he was gay and leaving him without backup was a deplorable incident, and Leon could in no way fault DiNozzo for leaving Peoria. Having a hit put out on him by the mob meant he couldn't stay in Philadelphia either, and Leon shuddered again at the thought that Jenny had tried to 'promote' him to that posting. Baltimore appeared to be a mystery, but Edwards had dug out of him that his partner was dirty, and that someone even higher up was protecting Price. Following Gibbs to NCIS was the only way that DiNozzo could escape before he was yet again betrayed by his fellow officers. It was a far cry from what Leon had assumed.

It was also a bit disturbing to find that DiNozzo's clearance level, which he had previously thought of as far over-reaching — and likely a holdover from his brief stint as SSA — had been mostly obtained before he had come to NCIS. He had been pulled by the FBI a few times while working in Peoria, and Philadelphia had seen him working with the DEA and ATF, increasing it further. There was a month in Baltimore that was so heavily redacted he could count the words on any page on a single hand, at which point DiNozzo's clearance had become commensurate with a typical SFA level. Coming to work for Gibbs as a lowly field agent had actually been a step down!

In his first few years with the agency, DiNozzo and Gibbs had been sent out on black ops with some regularity; it even appeared that Morrow had used them as fixers, of a kind, before deciding that he wanted them to create an MCRT. That was the reason they had been called out to work with the Secret Service three times — they were the highest cleared duo in the building. Morrow, Mallard, and Edwards had all noted how well the two worked together, being more like father and son than partners. Sheppard's note that they were sleeping together had been laughed at by everyone in the know, and Edwards had even noted that the very idea 'squicked Tony beyond belief.'

It was apparently a result of DiNozzo's first attempt to back out of the Benoit op, citing his sexuality as a reason not to pursue the daughter as a love interest. Sheppard had threatened to expose his and Gibbs' supposed relationship and get the Gunny dishonorably discharged from the Reserves under DADT unless the younger agent fell into line. With Gibbs's mind thrown back into the past, DiNozzo had known that the discharge, or even the threat of one, would crush the Marine, and had taken the op. Leon felt sick just reading that.

Leon was completely unsurprised that, once Gibbs returned, Jenny attempted to send DiNozzo to Spain with yet another 'promotion' punishment, and that he had refused. According to Edwards, DiNozzo felt that Gibbs was still not running at 100%, and from the notes that Edwards made, he wasn't wrong. Jenny had pushed Gibbs to return before he was completely ready, and had waived several mandatory requirements to get him back into the field immediately. Without DiNozzo there to watch his back, there likely would have been some kind of incident.

Instead, Jenny had used his refusal to move laterally into a new team lead position to force his demotion back to SFA, and her wording in his public file made the implication of incompetence clear. She had guaranteed that whoever came after her would never look at DiNozzo for a promotion again. Morrow had actually been working on a position for him when the plague incident happened, putting those plans on hold. But Leon, not knowing about Morrow's earlier plans, had fallen right into Jenny's trap. He had believed that DiNozzo was incompetent, underqualified, and overrated, and he never would have considered giving him any kind of promotion.

Even after DiNozzo had gotten the better of Eli David — and that was an incident that would require a lot of soul searching sometime soon — Leon had still assumed it was a lucky one off. Now, Leon was well aware that he had vastly underestimated DiNozzo just as badly as the David family had.

Leon sent his thoughts back to the rest of the conversation he had overheard. DiNozzo was looking for a job posting because he thought he wouldn't be able to work at the Navy Yard any longer. If Leon was recalling correctly, he had been gathering evidence, and he had mentioned something about depraved indifference paperwork. Leon had no idea what on earth could have happened, but after what he had read tonight he was inclined to believe that DiNozzo was telling the truth. Whatever had happened, and whoever he was implicating, DiNozzo was pressing forward, despite believing that Leon hated him. DiNozzo was willing to be exiled to another office, or quit if it was geographically dangerous to his health, rather than let whatever had happened slide under the radar.

Now knowing exactly how much DiNozzo had been willing to put up with from teammates and directors of NCIS in the past, Leon had a sinking feeling at the prospect. What could be so bad now?

The most likely answer was that it was from his most recent case. DiNozzo had indeed been out on medical leave, and Leon was ashamed to admit that he had been amused to hear that the clown who never shut up had in fact lost his voice from an afternoon of talking. Now, of course, Leon could see the truth, the way that his hours without a break in an allergy-rich environment had led to an asthma attack, which for him could get deadly, and triggered an inflammation of his vocal cords. They were lucky, according to Mallard's report, that the inflammation had resolved itself without leading to pneumonia, which, in his current state, could have sent DiNozzo to the ICU.

When he was better able to take care of himself, before the stint as Agent Afloat, and Gibbs' recent indifference, DiNozzo probably would have been fine. But thanks to his superiors' neglect, he would struggle more and more to bounce back from each health scare. Just from this first read-through of his complete file, Leon knew that DiNozzo wouldn't be complaining about his health, meaning that the evidence he was gathering, and the hornet's nest he was about to kick, were for something far bigger. Considering that that case had involved domestic terrorism, Leon was honsetly afraid of what DiNozzo was going to present.

What he did know, however, was that when Leon dragged himself to the office in a few hours, he would listen to whatever DiNozzo presented with an open mind. And, if it was as bad as he feared, he'd probably let DiNozzo transfer to any job he wanted.

When the final audio clip finished playing, Leon stared down at his desk in shock, mind racing through the implications. This was far worse than he could have imagined. He had thought there was a new link in the case, maybe a senator's aide was part of the Military at Home group. Maybe the local police had been looking the other way. Standard corruption, slightly amplified by the domestic terrorism label. Leon had honestly assumed that the depraved indifference charge would be related to the bombing, or, if he was really lucky, a slight over-exaggeration.

He had never anticipated this. Two agents and a civilian specialist, colluding after the fact, dereliction of duty, and the depraved indifference to an agent's life. DiNozzo had even noted where, had he been injured, or the bomb had gone off before the area was cleared, then attempted murder and terrorism by proxy were also on the table. His medical condition had been exacerbated by the fact that he had been unable to take a break and that the team had never switched places. Had he been unable to convey the necessary information through his laryngitis, they might not have gotten to the bomb in time. DiNozzo's own stubbornness and refusal to go home when he was sick were the only reasons that dozens of children and their families were alive right now.

On top of that, DiNozzo had alluded in his report that this was not the first time that either David or McGee had behaved in this way, this was simply the first time that someone other than DiNozzo was at risk. It was not lost on Leon that they had systematically destroyed a good — brilliant — agent to the point that he cared less about his own life than about the potential innocent victims. Leon wanted to drop his head into his hands and scream, but he held back. He was peripherally aware of DiNozzo, standing at attention, evaluating him. Another memory from the night before floated through his mind.

"Especially once he finds out that his perfect children aren't so perfect! Although, knowing him, I'd get blamed for that too."

Leon sighed. He knew very well why DiNozzo thought he would let things slide because McGee, Scuito, and David were at fault. He had to get this right. "Go ahead and sit down, DiNozzo," he said tiredly. This was the last thing he needed after only getting two hours of sleep last night, but he shuddered to think how he would have handled this if he hadn't seen DiNozzo's whole file.

Cautiously, DiNozzo sat. His face and body language conveyed perfectly neutral attentiveness, but there was a skittish look in his eyes and Leon knew why. Once bitten, twice shy, as the saying goes, and NCIS had fucking gnawed on DiNozzo. That thought coalesced Leon's swirling thoughts, and he realized exactly how to play this.

"Let me start by saying, I believe you, and I will investigate this," Leon began, resting his hand on the file DiNozzo had turned over. Seeing the surprise in those hooded green eyes, Leon knew he was making the right choice. "I will not sweep this under the rug," he continued, "but before I do that, we need to have a talk."

"Yes Sir," DiNozzo said quietly. Leon could tell that he was baffled by his attitude, and Leon couldn't blame him for that.

Leon pulled DiNozzo's public file out of the stack on his desk and handed it over. "When I became the head of NCIS, I reviewed the files for all of my Team Leads and SFAs," he explained. "That was yours."

DiNozzo quickly flipped through the file, a frown growing as he did. When he got to the end, he paused, then flipped back through it. By the end, his frown had become a scowl. Before he could say anything, Leon beat him to it.

"As you know, I was an agent myself, which is the first reason that I owe you an apology. Every other SFA's file, save perhaps for the absolute newest, greenest one, is at least three times as thick as that." He held up the next file on the stack he had prepared — this one almost a half-inch thick and belonging to Hannigan, an SFA with almost as much time at NCIS as DiNozzo. "This is what your file should have looked like. I should have known, then and there, that that file in your hands was incomplete. I should have known that there was more I didn't know. The only explanation I have is that I was busy taking over an agency with no notice, and distracted as all hell, so I missed it. For that alone, DiNozzo, I am sorry."

To his credit, though DiNozzo looked like he wanted to say something more, instead he clenched his jaw and nodded. "Apology accepted, sir."

Glad for the small favor, Leon continued. "I assume that you knew that at least part of your file was redacted for clearance reasons, and that you have been patiently waiting since our first impression for me to get my head out of my ass and read the whole thing."

DiNozzo's mask slipped, betraying his surprise, and Leon nodded. "You have waited far longer than you deserve for that to happen, and that is the reason for my second apology. I am required to review files at least once a year, for yearly evaluations, and I am also required to review them regularly when physical or psychological evaluations are pertinent, or when considering promotions, demotions, or transfers. There are a handful of times over the last two years when I should have reviewed your file, and realized my initial mistake. For my continued blind ignorance, DiNozzo, I am sorry."

DiNozzo was back to looking skittish behind his masks, but he nodded again and repeated, "Apology accepted, sir."

Leon hated revealing his own weaknesses and faults, but he owed this to DiNozzo. He pointed at the file the agent still held. "Read the bottom of the first page." DiNozzo obediently opened the file and skimmed the page, then paused, frowning. "What do you know about that clearance level, DiNozzo?"

"A1-0 is an NCIS internal clearance code," DiNozzo said smartly, "Following A-0, it is the highest one we have. When I was made the head of the MCRT, I theoretically should have been granted that access pending my background check, but J— Director Sheppard didn't grant it. I was fairly certain that Gibbs would come back and resume his post, so I didn't mention it. And, technically, the Head of the MCRT shouldn't really have that access anyway; the SAC should. But since we don't have an SAC here, Tom Morrow ended up using Gibbs like one, so he gave him the clearance. Director Sheppard was basically doing the SAC job herself, so she wasn't using myself or Gibbs in that capacity as much. It didn't seem important at the time, with everything else…" DiNozzo trailed off.

Leon made a mental note to pursue some of that at a later date. He had noted the lack of an SAC in the DC office, and wondered about it. He would talk to Tom Morrow when he had time and ask what had been going on back then. For now, though, DiNozzo's knowledge was adequate, though his lack of curiosity about the classified information didn't fit into his office persona. A persona — Leon was coming to realize — that was probably about as accurate as the dozen sheets of paper in DiNozzo's hands.

"It might interest you to know, then, that only a handful of employees have files that have been redacted at the A1-0 level," Leon said. "None quite so heavily or bizarrely redacted as yours—" DiNozzo snorted and glared down at the miniscule file in his lap. "But notably, most of my team leads don't even have A1-0 files. Certainly none of my SFAs. I also should have done an audit of those files, instead of pulling them out as needed. I would have immediately noticed the discrepancy, not just in your position relative to your clearance level, but physically…"

Leon picked up the next prepared file — actually two files in one folder — this one about an inch and a half thick. "This is Gibbs' regular file, plus his A1-0 file. As you can see, together, they're thicker than the average, which is fitting, as the head of the MCRT. And, had I gone looking, I would have found this— your file." Leon held up the three inch thick monstrosity that was DiNozzo's redacted file.

DiNozzo's mask slipped again and he gaped at the file.

"I'm pretty sure this is thicker than mine," Leon offered. He hadn't put them side by side, but he knew it would be close. "If I was any kind of leader, the first thing I would have done was go through every single A1-0 file in my office. For all I knew, there were sensitive missions in progress when Jenny died, that were only contained there. I could have cost agents their lives through my inaction. I am eminently lucky that Jenny Sheppard kept an entirely inappropriate list of those operations under standard clearance, instead of A1-0 where it belonged, so I was able to take care of things without looking deeper. Unfortunately, that luck was against you as it meant I did not go looking and find your file several years ago. Again—"

DiNozzo held up one hand, looking slightly discomforted and a little sick. "How about I offer a blanket acceptance now, Sir," he said, still staring at his thick file.

"If you wish," Leon offered a small smirk, but refrained from apologizing again. "Now, I need to explain one last thing. I accidentally left a file here last night, and, after promising to be back by bedtime for my children, I came back to pick it up. When I emerged from my office, I heard a phone call…"

The mask and the skittishness were both back, and DiNozzo appeared to be deliberately staring at the file instead of meeting Leon's gaze as he had earlier.

"I have to thank whoever you were talking to, as your responses gave me the kick I needed to really think. I came back in, determined to read your file before reading you the riot act, and that is the first time I noticed the clearance notation. I found, for the first time, your whole file, and took it home last night. As per your wishes, I will not belabour the point with more apologies, but I do now recognize the many disservices I did to you, especially to your health."

DiNozzo gulped.

"You would have been well within your rights to complain to SecNav about me when I assigned you the Agent Afloat position; you could have resigned with cause or even sued me for endangerment."

"No— no one else cared," DiNozzo said quietly. "I didn't think SecNav or… whoever… would either."

"Doctors Edwards and Mallard cared," Leon said cautiously. "Gibbs cared enough to make several concessions to keep you on his team."

DiNozzo's eyes immediately shuttered.

Leon bit back a sigh — he had a feeling that that was a very bad sign, coming from DiNozzo. "I got the sense that, after Mexico, he didn't quite remember all of those agreements," he said cautiously. "And that Sheppard was too tied up in her own agendas to enforce them."

DiNozzo nodded cautiously.

"I know you have every reason not to trust me," Leon said carefully, "and that isn't going to change overnight. I don't know who you're protecting, or who you're afraid of, but you are one of my agents. And though I have done a terrible job of it with you, I do protect my own. I am taking today's complaint seriously, and I want to know more about the previous incidents you alluded to. I also want to make up for the damage I have allowed to be done to you by myself and others, to the best of my abilities. I know you don't have a great track record with Directors — Sheppard screwed you over in more than one way, and I know about the blackmail—"

"You do?" DiNozzo asked before he could help himself.

"Yes," Leon flipped to the relevant section. He had added a number of post-it tabs for follow up during his second read through of DiNozzo's file this morning. "Morrow, Edwards, and Mallard had all noted the father-son relationship between you and Gibbs. Sheppard herself noted your refusal to do the op, but only said that she had 'persuaded' you to reconsider. Edwards explained the whole thing. She kept a number of things separate from your official file, only adding them to this copy after Sheppard was gone. That included the Rota set up, and your reasons for staying to help Gibbs, as well as Sheppard's plan to blackball you from future promotions."

DiNozzo let out a relieved sigh, then chewed on his lip. Finally, he admitted, "Gibbs doesn't remember everything."

Leon raised one eyebrow inquiringly, but didn't speak.

"He… he remembers people, but not all of the details about them. He wasn't 100% on procedures and law either, and Ducky convinced him to secretly retake some FLETC training, off the book, so that they couldn't throw out any of our cases. J— Sheppard didn't make him do anything, just gave back his gun and badge like nothing had happened!" DiNozzo burst out. "Our first case with him back would've gotten thrown out of court! Ducky had a long talk with him about that — I think Doc Edwards might have too — and told him that his job was to put bad guys in jail, not just to catch them. And if he couldn't do it properly, then it was better if he didn't come back at all. He read all the course material, but I think not all of it fully… stuck. Sometimes he acts like he's back in that first week, doing whatever he wants."

"The case with Maddie Tyler," Leon said quietly. He had noted it on his second read-through for the odd out-of-character actions of Gibbs, and the damage done to DiNozzo's lungs during the rescue. Dalton's team had helped with the clean up, and had put DiNozzo in for a commendation, but Sheppard had blocked it.

DiNozzo nodded miserably. "It comes and goes. But people, like I said, he remembers for the most part how he felt about us. And he's built new memories with us, so the team dynamic is mostly back to normal."

"Mostly." When DiNozzo didn't continue right away, Leon prodded, "But not when it comes to your health."

"He doesn't remember," DiNozzo admitted quietly. "I tried, at first, to stick to the old rules about getting proper meals and sleep, but with Sheppard using all of my free time on her op, even if I was leaving the office on time I wasn't actually going home to eat and sleep. After my cover was blown, Gibbs kept saying stuff like, 'if I had time to go sleep with some girl then I had time to work a damn case.' Or how 'if I wanted food there was a vending machine down the hall and they weren't going to pay for me to eat on the Agency's dime any more.' Like Sheppard actually reimbursed my receipts for her under the table op," he scoffed.

Leon managed to keep his expression neutral, but inside he was furious with both Sheppard and Gibbs, and he was mentally adding to his list of things to investigate.

Fortunately, DiNozzo continued slowly, still avoiding eye contact. "When we were on the Chimera, I was… fuck it. I was freaking out a little. He told me to just die quietly. After Maddie… Brad — my specialist — wanted me to take three weeks, because of the pneumonia. Gibbs told me if I took more than two he'd find a new SFA — one who didn't whine so much. When I used my inhalers, McGee and Ziva would slam me, say I was holding them back in the field, or looking for attention by using them. Ziva said a real man wouldn't need them and she should just throw them away. I stopped bringing them into work. G— Gibbs would just smirk with them, or frown at me, or tell me to stop wasting everyone's time."

"He didn't even— I expected not to hear anything from McGee or Ziva, back when I was Aloat. I was never really close to Ziva, and McGee has changed a lot since I first started training him. But Gibbs… I thought that even though he didn't remember much about my health, or about how close we used to be, I thought we were still friends. I thought we were still… you know, partners. But I didn't hear a word from him. Then, you sent him to the ship, and all I heard was how I should have been a good enough agent to solve the case on my own, without needing them to come help me."

Leon mentally added to his list of reasons to kick Gibbs' ass.

"Then, when they were leaving, he told me to come back at the last second. Just, oh, by the way, since we're already leaving in ten minutes, why don't you come back and piss off the director while you're at it. I barely had enough time to tell Captain Owens, and to let him know he'd have to get a new Agent, and to lock up my files and office. I had to leave the key with him, even though SOP is to give it to the new Agent, because I didn't know who you'd send or if we'd cross midair. I didn't even have time to get back to my bunk and pack my medications and things — my… friend onboard packed everything for me and sent it once he was in port. And when we got back…"

"He told me that you'd 'tagged along', like it was your idea, directing my anger at you instead of him," Leon remembered vividly.

DiNozzo nodded miserably. "That's when it started to really go downhill. I didn't have his support on anything anymore, and the SFA position has as much authority as a probie when it comes to the junior agents. I don't know why he still keeps me on the team at all, other than it pisses Abby off if anything changes, and he can't handle her crying."

"Which, with a detour through Israel and my own mistakes, leads us here," Leon concluded, patting the file on the Military at Home case.

"Yeah," DiNozzo admitted quietly.

"Those other incidents?" Leon prompted.

DiNozzo went slightly glassy eyed, thinking back. "McGee and Ziva were both extremely insubordinate during my time as SSA. Tim didn't have the qualifications for SFA, but Jenny forced me to give him the promotion and take a Probie. He wouldn't train her — I had to do it — and he wouldn't do the SFA paperwork, because he claimed I was passing my work off to him. He also wrote that book — I'm not sure if you've read it?"

Leon shook his head. "I knew he disclosed his second income, and that he was a novelist, but I assumed it was some science fiction thing." Jenny had already approved of all of that long before he took the office.

"Not quite," DiNozzo scowled. "True crime masquerading as fiction. I couldn't even think straight back then, I was being pulled in so many different directions, but I talked to a friend later. He's got a law background and FBI clearance to read the case files, and he said that the cases McGee used were way too close to the original, to the point that it probably breaks his oath of confidentiality. Then there's the fact that he based every character on a caricature of the MCRT, sometimes with barely a name change, and even matching the physical descriptions. It put all of us in danger when going undercover, and it led to at least one case where someone did connect the books to Tim. Jenny had Tim make an appearance as his author self, with Abby, Ziva, and my probie Michelle Lee on his arms, so beyond the book descriptions everyone now had pictures of their faces."

Leon knew he was gaping, but he couldn't help it. What kind of clusterfuck had Jenny allowed?! DiNozzo looked up, saw his expression, and snorted.

"Yeah. It's an open secret in all the Alphabets that if you work with the MCRT, your case and your agents might end up in his books, and that we're all burned for doing anything undercover. The only reason I still get calls is because my work persona, which McGee based his caricature on, is so far from my usual undercover ones that the similarity is discounted. Though there were two FBI cases I had to turn down because the risk was too great. I'm a lot more choosy about what jobs I take, and what part I'm supposed to play, and your unwillingness to loan me out recently has put some distance there too."

"Jesus," Leon murmured, giving in to the urge to rub his temples.

"I suppose you don't want to hear the part where he's also persona non grata at all the Alphabets because of his rampant misuse of NCIS resources, hacking into everyone else's databases, and burning at least two operations that I know of?" DiNozzo asked with a light smirk.

Leon had no words for that. Fortunately, DiNozzo interpreted his silent stare as permission to continue. "He does this thing where he leaves backdoors into their system, because Gibbs asked him to hack into places like the FBI before, and he has now decided to just do it all the time, so he leaves these backdoors, to make it easier to get in every time. Except someone else found his backdoor into the DEA and waltzed into classified information, burning an op and at least one UC, from what I learned. It happened a second time with… ATF? I think it was? It might have been ICE… Not sure. Anyway Morrow specifically had Homeland ward against him, and after the first incident the FBI sent their team against him to cover his tracks. Metro hates him for the same reason. They don't have a lot of resources, tech-wise, like the Feds do, and what little they do have has been compromised all to hell by him. It's gotten so bad that most LEOs won't work with anyone on the team but me. Not that I really blame them."

"I know Gibbs doesn't like to share jurisdiction…"

"He used to, you know," DiNozzo quickly interrupted. "That's literally how he and I met. Joint op. I'm not saying he was a picnic, but he knew how to play nice enough to get the job done. He and Fornell, at the FBI, had this friendly rivalry thing going, but they were both just trying to get the job done. Once I became his partner, it was easier for him, because I'd play the middleman. Gibbs wouldn't have to deal with people who didn't know what they were talking about, but I'd keep him in check about things that really weren't our cases."

"Really?" Leon almost couldn't imagine that.

"Yeah. Like, we had a case where the BAU was looking at a serial killer, and one of the victims ended up being a naval spouse. Gibbs knew that we weren't the best choice to work a serial killer, especially when none of the other victims were related to the military at all. We liased for the afternoon, so they could figure out any quirks about the scene — with it being off-base housing — and the particulars of the deployed family community, and then we left them to it. I think they called once or twice with follow up questions. 'Would a deployed spouse do x' kind of things. When they caught the guy, they turned over her body to us, and we were able to take care of things for the sailor. We used MTAC to give him the news that his wife's killer had been caught. The FBI even told the press that they had 'worked with other local and federal agencies'. The press liaison called to apologize to me personally because they actually said NCIS, but the papers cut our name."

"They do that a lot," Leon said, well aware of NCIS's little brother syndrome.

"Yeah, well it used to be like that. Gibbs only had no patience for LEOs or other feds who'd make a mess of a crime scene before we got there, or bluster in and try to take over something that was clearly our jurisdiction. Sometimes he'd get pushy if it seemed a 50-50 split on who should take it, but if we had another open case or something, he'd let it go without much of a fight. And there were plenty of locals with Metro — especially once I joined — who understood him. As soon as they realized it was NCIS jurisdiction, they'd boot out their own people, cordon off the area, detain the witnesses, and have it all ready for us. We could do a handoff in fifteen minutes flat, no arguments at all."

"But that changed after Mexico?"

"Slightly before," DiNozzo admitted. "Cate wasn't so bad, or McGee at first… McGee stepped on a few toes, when Gibbs asked him for things that… Gibbs didn't know enough about technology to know what was on which side of legal. He kind of trusted McGee to know the difference and stick to this side of things. But McGee was so intimidated that he thought that he had to do whatever Gibbs said. I tried to train him, to help him see the difference, but he didn't seem to pick it up very quickly. I had to make excuses for him a couple of times: 'oh he's new', 'he's just a probie,' 'you know how they are'. But he never developed the guts to stand up and say, 'No, that's illegal, we have to wait for a warrant or play nice.'"

"But with Sheppard and Ziva… Sheppard kept pushing at Gibbs to get more attention for NCIS, bigger crimes, more publicity for the take down… that kind of thing. We didn't have an SAC or a media liaison to do those press conferences, so she wanted herself or Gibbs to do them. I flat out refused. Never mind that not all our cases are such big news. Nevermind that we're supposed to be undercover operatives too — she would have burned us all. She wanted to drag NCIS into the light." He scoffed.

"And Ziva… she didn't know about US laws or care to find out. Sheppard never even sent her to FLETC. It was all I could do to keep her from lockpicking every door she saw and beating confessions out of every perp. She had never had any investigative training and she still hasn't to this day. I tried, but I was still training McGee, and she had no respect for me, so she didn't listen anyways. Eventually, she got McGee to act the same."

"And then, yeah, Mexico. When he came back, like I said, Gibbs wasn't quite right, and Sheppard was still pushing, and Ziva didn't care about laws, and Tim wouldn't stand up to any of them, and was just hacking everything anyway, so I became the only one disagreeing. Every case became an NCIS case, everyone who wasn't us was against us, every LEO was an idiot, and every Fed was trying to steal our glory. I was just a glorified LEO myself, so what did I know? Between them they burned about every bridge we had."

"Jesus," Leon repeated. Looking down at his desk, he saw the file and CD case that DiNozzo had given him this morning. Was it still just this morning? He needed to finish getting to the bottom of this, before he could do anything about all the other clusterfucks in the past. "I'm getting the picture behind McGee's actions," he said, "And I'm guessing that my own preference for computer-literate agents didn't help with his developing attitude."

DiNozzo actually smirked. "I see you got to that part of my file. Would you like me to sate your curiosity?"

"I would," Leon admitted.

"It's twofold," DiNozzo explained easily. "Director Morrow wanted us to expand from a two-man team to a full MCRT. He had given us TADs, but he was kind of getting on Gibbs' case about picking someone. Of course, Gibbs didn't want to be pressured into anything, and some of the folks we were given were just horrible fits. Then we got a case on Air Force One. The FBI had jurisdiction because of the president's involvement, we had jurisdiction because the deceased was a marine. The Secret Service just wanted it solved and the danger fucking dealt with. Gibbs and Fornell were playing their little jurisdiction games, pretending not to know each other in front of the Secret Service chick."

"She asked me why I was doing sketches and measurements instead of just photographs, and I grabbed the closest thing to hand to explain about proportions, which happened to be some travel mag with a girl in a bikini on the cover. Cate decided I was a pervert, instead of understanding what I was explaining about proportions. Then when Fornell threw me out of a van on the beltway and dislocated my shoulder—"

"What!"

"Oh, yeah, Gibbs decided to yank his chain by putting me in a bodybag instead of the actual body, so he could steal it. He kept Cate by his side because she was his in with the Secret Service. But instead of waiting until we got to the FBI building, he called me once the body was at NCIS, blowing my cover. Fornell got pissy and threw the body bag out of the van, while I was still in it. I got a dislocated shoulder and a mild concussion, which grounded me, but thankfully I didn't get run over. Gibbs and Fornell both got chewed out royally afterwards and they had to stop pretending they didn't know each other and stuff. But that's beside the point."

DiNozzo plowed ahead before Leon could make any comment about him being thrown out of a moving vehicle and how not alright that was. "I was medically grounded, so I couldn't be there, but I figured out that the bad guys were basing the whole thing off of the plot of the movie Air Force One. I was right, you know. The problem is that Cate took those two things — the bikini model example and the movie reference — and decided that I was some stupid mysogynistic frat boy who didn't know what I was talking about. Back then, my education wasn't classified, and the standard employee book said that you had to have a Masters to be an SFA, but she didn't seem to make the connection."

"It started as a bit of a bet. She was on probation for six months, and she was supposed to be a profiler. Gibbs wanted to give her a chance, because he felt a bit bad about her getting fired from the Secret Service, so we bet. If she made it to the end of her probation and still hadn't figured out who I was, she was out. Morrow would put her somewhere else, or send her for profiling training or something. It was like how he had us do target practice with our favorite stuff to keep us sharp."

"I gave her all kinds of contradictory information: I did all the SFA work, and some of Gibbs' because he really was that bad at computers. I had to have a Masters to be the SFA. I had been there for a couple years without Gibbs running me off, and I had almost 7 years in the police before that. She knew I went undercover and was a completely different person when I did so. And yet, I was a flirt, I supposedly went out drinking with my frat buddies all the time, and had a date every other night with a different woman. Never mind how often we had cases, or that I always got in before her and left after her. Hell, I was taking classes, at that point, for my psychology doctorate. Gibbs knew and wouldn't make me work late those nights."

"She never saw through it. Worse than that, she got taken in by a suspect playing victim, and she didn't kill Ari when she had the chance because she decided he had kind eyes. She was a total prude, and had some really odd ideas about motive based on her own Catholic faith. Like refusing to believe that a Catholic would commit suicide, because clearly all of them had to have such a strong faith that they'd never risk hell for it or something. She would listen to me training her about… half the time, but not about other things. Some of the things Gibbs and I teased about she took seriously. She wasn't the right fit for the MCRT, and Morrow was actively looking for a better place for her when I opened the plague mail bomb. Because I was out for so long recovering, Morrow held off on transferring her. Right after I came back, she was killed."

DiNozzo inhaled deeply, then continued. "We got McGee partway through Cate's probation. I was busy investigating and trying to train her at the same time and didn't always have the time to do all the computer stuff. We'd normally send down to Cyber when we were that busy, and they'd send up whoever. We got McGee a few times, and he wanted to be a field agent, so with Morrow trying to flesh out the team, Gibbs and I decided to try him out. If we had a second agent who was both field and computer savvy, then he and I would be able to split the duties. He was a stuttery mess at first, puking at crime scenes and trembling when Gibbs barely growled, but I thought we could wear off some of the shiny and make a decent agent out of him. But it also meant I was training two probies at the same time."

"A lot of Cate's assumptions and prejudices rubbed off on him. She had field experience with the Secret Service, so she felt she was more my equal than my subordinate, and for some reason he picked up on that too. Gibbs didn't really care about enforcing the chain of command, as long as shit got done, so I let it slide. They'd still listen if I gave a direct order, so what did it matter if they backtalked or tried to steal shotgun or whatever, you know? Gibbs and I made this plan, which was to downplay my computer skills, to kind of give McGee a boost. He couldn't sketch to save his life and could barely shoot, so he needed something to feel like he was contributing while learning. That's usually why probies start on smaller teams and work their way up to Major Case — we never should have been given green agents to start with. I did something similar with Michelle Lee when I had her, emphasizing her legal background and how it could help."

"And somewhere along the line, McGee's head got so big he forgot that you had taught him most of what he knows, and he made assumptions that what he saw — and what Cate told him — was what he got." Leon summarized, seeing where this was going.

"Basically." DiNozzo squirmed. "Then Sheppard assigned us Ziva. She— I have no idea where she got her information. It was like she had read my redacted file and no more. She thought that anyone who hadn't served in the military was weak, I think because in Israel all adults have served? She respected Gibbs, but didn't respect his choice of SFA or probie. She made it clear that she only knew about my Kinesiology degree, though all three of them insisted on calling it a PE degree, like some kind of elementary school crap. She believed, like Cate did, that I was a womanizer and a player, and tried to honeypot me."

"She did?" Leon's jaw dropped. That hadn't been in any file he had seen.

"Yeah. I turned her down, which pissed her off, so she constantly ran hot and cold with me. I don't think she'd ever been turned down for that before, so she was determined to succeed, but also punish me for saying no. She immediately started playing games with the team. Like I said, she had no FLETC training, let alone legal or investigative experience. I even asked about her clearance levels, but Sheppard shot me down. She wanted everything to be just how it was in Mossad, and didn't think I had anything to teach her. She listened to Gibbs, barely, but she was trying to split the team up from the beginning."

"It— it sounds petty, but it was the start of it all, at least that I saw. She had a team dinner. Invited everyone except me. McGee knew I wasn't invited, but I know she told Gibbs and Ducky that I couldn't make it. Even Palmer was invited. She made sure to bring it up the next day, to rub it in. That was the start of her isolating me. That case, she and I were in a firefight, and she didn't hit a single target. We got trapped in a shipping container, and she flipped her lid. Tried to shoot out the lock despite me ordering her not to. I got a ricochet in my arm for my trouble. Then she burned some of the counterfeit money, filling the container with smoke, which won me another trip to Bethesda for my lungs. I never did figure out if she knew that would happen or not. Like I said, her dossier on me seemed kind of spotty. She knew that the best way to get to me was isolation, but not that I was gay."

"When I was in the hospital that night, getting stitches and lung treatments, Brad — my doctor — called Gibbs. That's when the truth came out: Ziva told everyone I'd gotten a scratch. Completely left the shooting out of her report, and claimed to have hit some of our attackers, even though the ballistics didn't match. Abby had the forensics but didn't call her on it. That's the first time I know of that Abby covered up something like that. Or, that isn't quite the right word — ignored might be better."

"That night I told him about the dinner too. We knew Ziva was playing some kind of game, but with Sheppard forcing her onto the team, we couldn't get rid of her. So, like with Cate, we decided to play out the line a little and see who nibbled. I was already toning down the frat boy thing, since that was for Cate's benefit, but we weren't sure of Ziva's angle. That's when Gibbs admitted to me that she'd come at him through the daughter thing, though he thought it was genuine at the time. We worked out that she was playing him too."

"Later it became obvious that she was poking at McGee's insecurities and playing to his ego. She played the only-girls-in-the-boys-club card with Abby, and the strangers-in-a-foreign-land card with Ducky. She utterly ignored Palmer, and when I got Lee as a probie, she threatened her with some alpha-bitch thing."

"And then Mexico… one of the things Gibbs forgot was our plan. He remembered that Ziva thought of him as a father, but not that it was an angle. He remembered that McGee was good with computers, but not that I was too. He remembered that I was an undercover specialist, but not that we were using that against the team and Sheppard. He remembered head-slapping me, but not that it was a game we played; he started doing it for real. He didn't remember that I was doing his paperwork, or training the probies, or that we had a plan to keep Sheppard from destroying the MCRT, or to toss back both McGee and Ziva when their probations were over. He had lots of flashes, like still pictures, but not the motivations or backstories or plans behind them. It was like he started taking everything at face value, when before he used to see layers."

"Like forgetting why you were supposed to eat real meals or go home at a decent hour, barring emergencies, or why you were more nervous than most about a plague ship." Leon said softly.

DiNozzo scoffed gently. "For example."

They sat quietly for a moment before Leon prodded. "So you knew Ziva was isolating you, and you thought she might be trying to compromise your lungs…"

"Oh yeah," DiNozzo rubbed his eyes. "Uh, with Rivkin, we had evidence that she was his handler, she was colluding with him at least with the espionage, if not the murders. That's why I went to talk to her that night. Gibbs had been suspicious of Rivkin, so I thought he'd back me up on that. Instead, he let you drag me to Israel instead of IA. And Abby made the evidence disappear."

Leon winced. He knew he was entirely to blame for that. Although this was the first he was hearing that Ziva was involved in espionage. That would be something else to add to his 'later' list.

"After Daddy dearest fucked up my shoulder again, as we were leaving, Ziva threw me on the ground: turned two of my cracked ribs into fractured ones. She pressed her gun into my chest and threatened to kill me. Bruised my sternum. That was hell on the transport back. Palmer found me almost unconscious in autopsy, waiting for Ducky to come back, and dragged me to Bethesda. Luckily the ribs didn't break enough to mess with my lungs. Anyway, before we left she gave Gibbs an ultimatum — her or me — and he remembered enough to pick me. Or he was punishing her; I'm still not sure."

DiNozzo shrugged, once again avoiding eye contact. "She blames me, you know, because he picked me. Blames me for Rivkin too, even though Daddy dearest admitted to using her through him. I'm to blame for that too, I guess. After Somalia, because of that unknown drug cocktail, they—"

"What?!" Leon burst out. DiNozzo met his eye, confusion evident, and studied him for a moment before continuing.

"In Somalia, I was injected with a drug cocktail. Some kind of homemade mashup truth serum. Ziva and Gibbs both knew. Once we got back he tried to make me do paperwork, and I told him to fuck off. I was going to Bethesda and he could either give me a ride or get the fuck out of my way while I caught a cab. He chose the latter. They did tox panels, to figure out what the hell I'd been given. Then they had to run a bunch of tests, to see how the drugs affected my lungs, and I couldn't use my inhalers until they checked for dangerous interactions. I'm assuming from your reaction now that that didn't make it into the final report, though I put it in mine."

He ducked his head again. "That night, she came to my hospital room. Said that me getting her out of Somalia might make us even for me putting her there in the first place, but that was it. At the time, I was exhausted and still slightly high on the drug cocktail, so it didn't really register. I thought she meant that now we were even, but I shouldn't expect a thank you, that kind of thing. But I have this friend…"

"The one who called you last night?" Leon asked neutrally.

"Oh, yeah," DiNozzo shrugged. "Yeah, that one. He thinks that she might still blame me for Rivkin's death. Like, getting her out of Somalia paid back putting her there, but I still haven't paid back for killing Rivkin, in her twisted score-keeping, anyway. After they left me without backup last week, she came into the bullpen while I was finishing up my paperwork before heading out to Bethesda, and she walked in, looked me up and down, and said, 'Oh, you're still here? Pity.' Then grabbed her things and left. It was kind of odd phrasing, but it wasn't until I was messaging my friend the next day, since I couldn't talk, that we put the two incidents together. Seeing them there in black and white… He thinks she's trying to get me killed."

DiNozzo met Leon's eye for a long minute, assessingly, before giving a small sigh. "I'm not sure he's wrong. He made me promise to report it to you, first thing once I was back off medical. That's why I came in last night to get the reports and the recordings. You can see that Abby was going to cover it up again, since the evidence is obvious, but nowhere in her reports. I promised I'd give it to you and then ask for a transfer for my own safety."

Leon nodded and then leaned back in his chair, mind whirling. He remembered several other things from DiNozzo's conversation last night, and he thought he knew how to begin making reparations to the agent, but first he had one last mystery to unravel. "If you'll indulge my curiosity, why do you believe Hetty Lange hates you?"

Shock slipped across DiNozzo's face, and Leon realized that he wasn't masking his emotions as much as he had at the beginning of the meeting. "Uh, if you're asking why I think so, it's because she's made her attitude plain during our few joint ops. If you're asking why she hates me?" he shrugged. "I have two guesses. The first is because of Director Sheppard. There are a few people who think I should have disobeyed her direct order and accompanied her to that diner. Basically that I should have died instead of or alongside of her. I don't know why they'd prefer I be the kind of agent who didn't obey orders, but…" he shrugged again.

Having been one of the people who felt that way, before finding Jenny's personal notes where she detailed her plan to evade her security and go out in a blaze of glory, Leon could understand why he would draw that conclusion. "And your other guess?"

"She's in charge of OSP, and I know they do a lot of undercover work. I assume it has something to do with me being something of an undercover specialist here. Either she wanted me for her team and didn't get me, or she thinks I overshadow her team, or she's worried about me working a joint op with her team without her knowing how good I am, or… I don't know exactly, but all I could figure was that if it wasn't Jenny, it had to be something about me being undercover."

"I know she's got Callen on her team, and he's friendly with Gibbs, but Gibbs isn't the kind to blab about his own doubts or annoyances, and neither is Callen, for that matter, so I ruled out the whisper gossip game. For a little while I thought it might be because she used to be CIA, and I don't have the best history with them. But last year, I consulted on an op for Mathison, and she assured me that, despite my less than stellar relationship with Trent Kort, the rest of the CIA doesn't hate me. In fact, some of them are annoyed that I refused to be loaned out to them anymore thanks to him. I only helped Mathison as a favor to a friend. So I don't think it's the CIA angle…"

Leon nodded. "Well, I'll look into it, but at least it sounds like she wouldn't be a problem for you on par with Ziva, or, god forbid, Kort…"

DiNozzo snorted. "No, I don't think she's actively trying to kill me, sir."

"Good, one less thing to worry about," Leon said firmly, having made up his mind. "Now, I have one more personal question for you."

"Sir?"

"From what I heard last night, you'd like to be transferred to Pearl Harbor."

Shock with a hint of fear quickly lanced across DiNozzo's face, before his neutral mask slammed back into place.

"Your friend was correct: now that I've read your whole file you are more than qualified for the SAC position there," Leon continued as though he hadn't seen anything. "In all honesty, you should have reached that level already, if you'd continued on as team lead under Jenny's tenure. I know why you turned down Rota," Leon held up his hand to forestall any comments, "and I think you were right about Gibbs returning too quickly. Had Jenny followed procedure, he could have recertified, gotten up to speed, and then taken back the team lead when he was fully prepared, allowing you to move laterally to another team. Jenny did both of you a disservice there. And I know her vindictiveness over Benoit is what cost you future promotions. I have every confidence that you would succeed as SAC."

Leon saw a mix of hope, pride, and several other emotions flicker through DiNozzo's eyes. "That said, I also overheard your concerns about your lungs. I'm aware that I am partly to blame, such as my actions when sending you afloat, and several people are responsible for not maintaining the schedule that Gibbs agreed to. Not just for your sake — no team member does their best running on junk food and five hours of sleep 365. And now that I've seen that, I'm going to be doing something about it, agency-wide. There's no reason not to have a second MCRT; the military population has grown, thus military related crime has grown, and yet our agency has not. It is also true that this office desperately needs a SAC of its own, and I have no idea why we don't—"

"Gibbs," DiNozzo said quickly. "He kept fighting with the old one; hated to have anyone looking over his shoulder who he didn't respect, and Kingsley was one of those guys just counting down the hours, waiting to retire. Gibbs drove him so nuts he asked to transfer away for his last thirteen months. Took a slight demotion in terms of location, if I recall correctly. Anyway, Morrow offered the position to Gibbs, who laughed in his face and said he'd leave the field when they dragged his cold dead body back to Ducky. Morrow tried a few people, but none of them were good fits, for one reason or another."

"One of them hated Gibbs because he had a thing about snipers, of all things. He hadn't started at NCIS, but moved laterally from somewhere else, and he never should have been in a military setting. One of them was this total penny-pincher: he wanted us to account for every bullet, and it was actually Balboa who finally blew up at him, not Gibbs. I don't think anyone won the pot on him, because who would expect that of Rocky of all people… anyway, the only one Gibbs could tolerate and vice versa ended up out on medical — cancer, I think — and eventually Morrow just gave up and left the position empty. He gave some of the responsibility to Gibbs, without making him deskbound, and I think split the rest between himself and some ADs, or let it slide."

"That explains a lot," Leon sighed. "Well, I'm going to choose one now, whether Gibbs likes it or not. Anyway, I tell you this because there are two openings here that you might consider; SSA of the second MCRT, or SAC. Both would have drawbacks with regards to your former team, but I wanted you aware of them."

"The disrespect and insubordination wouldn't end if I was SAC," DiNozzo appeared to be thinking aloud. "I'd be fighting all three of them every step of the way. The second MCRT might not be too bad, though I'm not sure Ziva wouldn't still try to get me killed. Abby has already proven that she'll cover evidence for Gibbs and Ziva, and she didn't respect me when Gibbs was in Mexico. I know she wouldn't respect me in either position…"

"After hearing the details of the last few years, I tend to agree, but I wanted you to know," Leon agreed. "That being said, I am more than willing to give you Pearl Harbor, but I wanted to check one thing, which is where that personal question comes into play." DiNozzo was wary, but not closed off, so Leon continued. "From the sound of it, and now knowing that you're gay, I'm guessing that this friend of yours is a little more than a friend?"

DiNozzo met his gaze and then nodded, "We're lovers, yes."

"And he lives in Hawaii? Or was that just the closest you thought you could get? I heard some of your alternate locations. If he's in San Diego or somewhere else I would be willing to work with you on other positions." DiNozzo gaped at him, so Leon continued. "The Assistant Director who replaced me in San Diego is coming up on retirement in a year or so, and you could be trained to replace him. I'd also be willing to send you to San Francisco early for the positions you noted there. I have a lot to make up for, with regards to you, Agent DiNozzo, and that starts now. Tell me where you want to go, and wherever that is, we'll make it work."

DiNozzo was silent for a long moment, judging him, and Leon hoped that his sincerity showed. Finally, he smiled slightly and said, "Steve lives in Hawaii. That is where I'd like to go."

Leon smiled back. "I see. So the Pearl opening is actually perfect for you: a geographical fit and a well-deserved promotion." He slid a small file out from underneath DiNozzo's monstrosity. "Let's see…" he had the Pearl report on top, with the other transfer options beneath it, in anticipation of DiNozzo accepting. "The current SAC, Frank Peller, is set to retire in two months. He's one of Jenny's placements, and I'm not sure why she promoted him to SAC. I know the closure rate of the Pearl office has dropped steadily during his time. I expect you to fix that, DiNozzo," he said sternly. "I'm well aware of what your closure rate has been here."

That brought a grin to DiNozzo, and Leon mentally patted himself on the back. "Actually, there's something else that you're uniquely qualified to handle on this assignment, given your history liaising for Gibbs. There's a bit of a situation with the local LEOs that I'm hoping you can resolve; in addition to HPD, there's some kind of task-force created by the governor, who seem to have claimed jurisdiction over several cases that should have been NCIS's. I know you don't have the contacts in Hawaii that you do in Baltimore and Metro, but—"

Leon broke off when DiNozzo laughed. As the agent practically doubled over, it occurred to Leon that he didn't think he'd ever heard him laugh this honestly. Finally, DiNozzo calmed down enough to say, "The Hawaii 5-0 task force is run by Steve McGarett; he's a SEAL, and friends with Sam Hanna from the OSP in LA. When NCIS didn't even show up at the first crime scene with naval personnel, Steve took offence and decided to take care of the service members himself, since Peller couldn't be bothered. As a SEAL, he was deeply offended by that office's lax attitude."

DiNozzo chuckled again. "We met on the Seahawk, actually — he's the one who had to send me my gear when I bugged out without notice. If you didn't listen to me and I had to quit, he offered me a spot on 5-0. If I take over Pearl, I'm fairly certain he'll trust us to do our jobs again. But either way I'd say I won't be quite as lacking for local contacts as you might think, Sir."

Belatedly, it occurred to Leon that McGarett's name was in some of Peller's reports, and DiNozzo had said his partner's name was Steve. Local contacts indeed. Leon grinned. "I guess I don't need to give you the hard sell; I imagine we're in for a new era of inter-agency cooperation on the Islands."

This time they both laughed.