Therapy Time Part One

[spiceblueeyes]

Title: Therapy Time
Author: Spiceblueeyes
Pairing: None
Rating: R
Word Count: 20,010
Spoilers: None that I can see.
Warnings: Suicide of OC, violence, angst, brief mentions of child abuse.
Summary: The team gets a case that unsettles Tony more than he wants to admit.
Author's Notes: This is both my first ever NCIS story, and the longest story I've ever written, so I'm excited about it. The story was beta'd by devo79 who is awesome and really helped me make the story better.

Be sure to check out the totally cool art that kj_svala made for the story, she's very talented. You can find it here. The banner at the top of the page is hers as well, and I love it!

Tony walked into the therapist’s office with a fake smile. He hated these things. He didn’t have anything against shrinks personally, but he didn’t like how they tried to get inside his head, asking uncomfortable questions. He’d avoided it for as long as he could, but he couldn’t put it off any longer if he wanted to get back to work.

He shook the hand of the therapist, a man slightly shorter than himself with wire-rimmed glasses and a receding hairline. “Special Agent Dinozzo, hello. It’s nice to meet you, you can call me Henry.”

“Hey Henry, call me Tony.” He let go of the hand and sat down on the couch at the side of the room. It faced a chair in which Henry was now sitting.

“So, Agent Dinozzo, what is the reason for your visit today?” Henry asked. He held a pad of paper in his left hand and a pen in his right, though his hands were relaxed and still at the moment.

“I think you know that already, Henry.” Tony smiled and tilted his head.

“I do. However I’d like to hear it from you.” Henry saw his head tilt and smile, and raised him a hand gesture. Fine, if charm wasn’t gonna work, he’d go with blunt.

“I killed a man.” And with that Tony knew the head-shrinking had begun.

“Yes, you did.” Henry nodded, “you killed a man named Rafael Suarez.” Henry paused, “how did that make you feel?”

Tony stared incredulously, “are you kidding me with that question?”

Henry shook his head, “not at all.”

“Well doc, it felt great.” Tony glared at the man across from him. “Really, best moment ever.”

“Your blatant sarcasm is noted,” Henry chuckled. “Let’s try a different question. Why did you kill him?”

“You read the report, you know why.”

“Yes, however once again, I’d like to hear it from you.”

Tony sighed. “He was about to shoot my boss, so I shot him first.” That was perhaps an oversimplification, but Tony sure as hell was not going to give this shrink more than he had to. He glanced at the clock; it had only been five minutes. How long was this supposed to take?

“That simple, huh?” Henry asked, one eyebrow raised skeptically.

“Yeah doc, that simple.”

~*~*~*~

After a week of nothing, no leads, no idea where Rafael Suarez had hidden himself away, they got a hit on his credit card. It was at some flea-ridden motel about three hours away, that ended up only being two hours because Gibbs was driving. When they finally arrived, they pulled up into a gravel parking lot, rocks crunching under the tires. The sign that hung over the building proclaimed Sunshine Motel in flickering neon light as they got out of the car. The guy at the check-in desk looked hung over, but recognized Seaman Suarez from the picture they showed him and gave them the key to his room, 3A. Together, Gibbs and Tony walked to the room, and stopped at the door, one on each side. It was only the two of them; they’d been on their way back from interviewing the Seaman’s Doctor at the hospital for a second time when McGee had called with the credit card hit. Gibbs had made one of his heart-stopping U-turns and they’d come straight here. There was only one way in or out of the room, and that was through this door, the windows all had bars on them. With a look from Gibbs, Tony announced, “NCIS” and Gibbs kicked the door in, not even bothering with the key they’d been given.

They entered with guns drawn to the sight of Seaman Suarez sitting on the end of his bed, gun in hand and head hanging down, looking dejected and miserable. There was a moment of silence, and then he spoke. “I’m sorry guys. I meant to do this before you got here, but I’m finding it harder to pull the trigger than I thought I would.” Suarez didn’t look up at them; he just sat looking down at the gun in his hands like it was both the answer to everything and the end of all his hope.

Tony lowered his weapon so it pointed toward the floor and was no longer aimed at Suarez. “Look, Suarez, you don’t want to do that. That’s not the answer,” he coaxed. Rafael just shook his head. “I know it seems hopeless right now, but we can get you some medicine, some therapy, you can work through this.”

“Maybe,” Suarez replied. “But she can’t. I shot her in cold blood.” He pointed the gun at his face and said, “Bang.” Tony and Gibbs tensed, but after a moment he cradled the barrel in his hand again. “I shot her, and I didn’t even see her.” He paused in stricken silence, mouthing the words “I didn’t see her” again, without sound.

“Who did you see Seaman?” Gibbs asked, seriously.

“I saw…I saw someone else.” He hesitated, as if searching for the words, “I saw the enemy. I saw the Scar Man.” Suarez squeezed his eyes shut tightly for an instant and took a deep breath.

Tony spoke up, “You didn’t see her, you saw someone else. You have PTSD. A jury will be more understanding; we’ll get you a good lawyer. You can get through this.”

“I don’t care!” Rafael shouted, still looking at his gun. “I don’t care if a jury understands. I don’t understand. I killed her.”

“It was an accident marine.” Gibbs said firmly. “You’re sick, but we can get you some help. Just put down the gun.”

“I thought it was fitting that I’d die at the end of the same gun that killed her. Karmic, somehow, you know?” Suarez mused, “But I don’t think I can do it.” Gibbs took a small step forward and held his hand out, lowered his own gun at the same time.

“That’s good Marine, just give me the gun.” Gibbs slowly took a couple more steps forward.

Suarez sat there in silence as Gibbs inched his way towards him with his hand outstretched. Then he sighed.

“I’m sorry.”

Tony saw Rafael’s hand tense on the gun just before he raised it, aiming it right between Gibb’s eyes. Less than a split second later three bullets from Tony’s own gun were in Suarez’s chest, one of them right in the heart. Rafael toppled back onto the bed and the blood bloomed across his torso, dying his shirt red.

Later Tony watched Suarez’s body zipped into a black body bag. The EMT’s were quiet, doing their work silently. After they left, Tony studied the red stain on the bed, obscuring the yellow flowers of the comforter. It was an ugly pattern, he thought. Though he wasn’t sure if he meant the blanket, or the blood.

~*~*~*~

Henry sighed. “All right Tony, I know you don’t want to be here, and you don’t want to tell me anything, but the fact is that you are here.” He gestured to the pad of paper on his lap, “I have to clear you for duty and that means knowing whether or not you’re mentally fit enough to be carrying a gun.” Henry gave Tony a long look. “Now tell me, do you think saying that killing a man was ‘simple’ sounds fit for duty?”

Tony shifted uncomfortably in his seat, “no, I guess not.”

“So how about you give me a little more than that, and we’ll try and get through this with the least amount of pain possible, okay?” Henry smiled, and Tony, despite himself, found that he sort of liked the guy.

“Okay doc, I can do that.”

“Good. Now tell me more about the case. Start from the beginning.” Henry picked up his pen, which Tony eyed warily.

“Well, we got the call on a Tuesday of a shooting on base. It was at the Nave Exchange, one victim, 26 year old female. Her name was Susan Killigan.” Henry nodded and wrote something on his notepad.

~*~*~*~

Gibbs hung up the phone with slightly more force than necessary. “We got a case Boss?” Tony asked, already reaching for his backpack.

“Civilian shot on base.” Gibbs was gathering up his gun and badge from his desk drawer.

“Are they dead?” McGee asked what Tony thought was a phenomenally stupid question. He could already tell from the Boss’s face that she was dead.

Tony answered Tim’s question, “Yeah, McGee, they’re dead.” Tim looked over at Tony with a puzzled expression on his face, like he was wondering how Tony could know that. He didn’t say anything else though.

Ziva stood, ready to go. “Where on base did the shooting take place?” She asked.

Gibbs answered, “Navy Exchange,” as he headed for the elevator. They all, Tony, Tim, and Ziva, fell in behind him.

When they got to the crime scene Gibbs sent McGee off to get the security camera footage from the manager, and Tony started sketching the crime scene while Ziva shot the pictures. Gibbs talked to a witness, a teenage girl who looked a little shell shocked at seeing someone killed right in front of her for the first time, hopefully the last time. The shooter was gone; he’d made a run for it right after killing Mrs. Killigan. Tony listened to Gibbs talk to the girl as he sketched.

“Hello, I’m Special Agent Gibbs.” Gibbs had his notepad out and pen at the ready. “You are?”

“Oh, um, I’m Becky Jackson, Rebecca actually, but people call me Becky.” She chewed on her fingernail and her eyes kept going back to the body still lying on the floor.

“Okay Becky, can you tell me what you saw happen here?” Gibbs said in a soft but stern voice. People always knocked Gibb’s people skills, but he could be very patient and understanding when the situation called for it.

“Um, yeah. Sure.” She dragged her eyes back to Gibb’s face. “There was a guy, a marine. I could tell from his hair cut. And right when I walked around the corner to go into the aisle he started freaking out. And then he shot that woman, and ran away.” Her eyes darted briefly back to the corpse.

“What do you mean by ‘freaking out?’”

“Oh, um, he was yelling something about the woman having killed someone named Tom and she was all like ‘no I didn’t’ but he shot her anyway.” Gibbs wrote on his notepad for a few seconds.

“Do you remember anything from right before he shot her? Anything at all?” Gibbs asked.

The girl seemed to look past him as she said, “there was a sale on pies.”

“Excuse me?” That was Gibb’s confused voice.

“There was a sale on pies; they said so on the loud speaker. Then there was this screechy noise, like feedback, you know? I remember cause it hurt my ears.” Gibbs jotted something more down on his note pad.

“Thank you Becky. If you remember anything else give me a call, okay?” He handed her a business card. She took it absentmindedly.

“Yeah, okay. Can I go home now?”

“Sure, I’ll get someone to give you a ride.” She nodded and Gibbs gestured at a nearby cop and spoke to him briefly, a moment later Becky was following him to the patrol car.

Just then Ducky and Palmer drove up in their van. They walked into the store and over to where the body lay. Both of them hovering over it and poking and prodding while Ducky kept up a continuous stream of dialogue with both Palmer and the deceased. When they were done Gibbs went over and asked “what’ve you got Ducky?”

“Ah Jethro,” the medical examiner replied, “the cause of death seems pretty straight forward, several bullets to the chest causing the dear lady to bleed out and her heart to stop. Death would have been very quick. Though I will of course do a more thorough autopsy when we get her back to NCIS.”

“What about time of death?”

“Oh, not long ago at all, rigor mortis has not even set in yet.” Ducky replied, “You know, the young lady looks rather like an old flame of mine back in medical school, she was quite the woman. Her name was-”

“Duck,” Gibbs put his hand on his friend’s shoulder, halting the flow of words. “We need to get her back to autopsy ASAP. We have a shooter on the loose that needs to be found before he kills someone else.” Gibb’s face was serious, though, to be fair, it usually was.

Tony looked up from his sketch pad, a big grin stretching across his face. McGee, who had just returned with the security tapes, groaned. “That’s right! We have a fugitive on the loose.”

“Must you do this every time Tony?” Ziva asked.

Tony looked at her, still grinning. “Yes, Ziva, Yes I must.”

McGee rolled his eyes, “here we go again.” Gibbs just looked on with a faintly amused expression. Very, very faint.

“Alright, listen up people!” Tony began, “Our fugitive has been on the run for ninety minutes. Average foot speed over uneven ground barring injuries is 4 miles per hour. That gives us…”

~*~*~*~

“The victim was married and had two kids. Gibbs took McGee to inform the family while Ziva and I went back to NCIS.” Tony said. “We identified the shooter as Seaman Rafael Suarez and put out a BOLO. We didn’t find him right away though. He was good.”

Henry wrote some more on his paper, and then looked up. “What happened next?”

“We went to his apartment, took a look around, interviewed the people who knew him. And…we reviewed his service record.”

“What about that makes you uncomfortable?”

“It didn’t then, but knowing what I know now…I feel more sympathy for the guy.” Tony ran one of his hands through his hair, “at the time he was just another murderer.”

On to Part Two