the_navy_yard | Team Morgue Hosted Challenge

Title: The Visitor
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,000
AU Scenario: 6. Where someone didn't die. (With apologies to Messrs. Schenck and Cardea)

“You have a visitor,” McGee chortled at Tony. The smirk on the younger man’s face was disconcerting, and Tony’s eyes narrowed to slits as he regarded the Probie suspiciously.

“Who?”

“You’ll see.” The smirk got more smirky, if that were possible.

“Tell me!”

“No.” McGee was enjoying this far too much, Tony decided. This must be some sort of practical joke. Better take the high road; stay professional.

“What’s the matter with you?” DiNozzo brushed past him, out the door that led from MTAC to the mezzanine...and froze. His heart flew into his mouth, as an unmistakable faintly British voice, matched by an equally unmistakable patchouli scent, wafted across the bullpen.

“A pleasure to meet you, Agent Gibbs. Anthony has spoken of you often...he thinks the world of you, you know.” A slender hand, whose fourth finger was graced by the largest diamond Gibbs had ever set eyes on, was extended under the senior agent’s nose as he rounded the corner into the bullpen. He didn’t take the bait.

“Ma’am,” he nodded, then glanced up at his second, crouched on the upper landing, peering aghast through the wire railing as McGee looked on with utter glee on his face.

The woman, perhaps in her sixties but looking at least ten years younger (and dressed as if she were ten years younger than THAT), followed Gibbs’ gaze. She pushed her Chanel sunglasses onto the top of her head, and her hazel eyes twinkled in recognition as she exclaimed, “Anthony! Come down at once and give me a proper introduction.”

“Mom! What’re you doin’ here?”

~*~

“Mint Julep, English Whiskey, no ice,” Tony recited as he deposited the drink in front of his mother, who was enjoying the outdoor patio of the restaurant at the Adams House Hotel – his mother never passed up an opportunity to sit in the sun.

“You remembered.” Elizabeth DiNozzo tilted her head to one side and regarded her son with a critical eye. His sharp intake of breath was reflexive, ruining any attempt he might have made to appear nonchalant. Dammit. She always had this effect on him.

“Well, what would cocktail hour be without an exotic drink and an interrogation from my mother?” This was a bad idea – provoking her was definitely not the way to make this conversation go smoothly, but the words had escaped before he could clamp his mouth shut. Tony couldn’t get comfortable in his chair; he took a deep draw of his own drink, then remembered it hadn’t any buzz. No help there.

She chose to ignore his comment. “What are you drinking?”

He smiled awkwardly. “Non-alcoholic beer.”

Happy hour was whatever hour it happened to be when one fancied a drink, according to Tony’s mother. The idea of actually being unable to drink because of one’s job was incomprehensible to a woman who’d never had to work a day in her life. “The downside to law-enforcement,” she murmered between sips. “Are there any up-sides?”

Here we go. Tony braced himself for the inquisition, and went immediately on the offense. “Well, I get to carry a gun.” There was no reaction. His mouth opened again involuntarily, and words came out unbidden. “You’ve always been disappointed I became a cop.”

A look of genuine surprise came over her features. Her eyes widened (or maybe that was just her pupils dilating from the Mint Julep; Tony couldn’t really tell). She pulled in her chin, and regarded him sternly over the top of her sunglasses.

Oh boy. Here comes the lecture.

“Young man.” Tony ground his teeth. Even now, in his forties, she could still make him feel about ten years old with those two words. He took another futile draw of his beer, and closed his eyes in an attempt to ward off the childhood flashback that was crowding his mind. But he could not block out her nasally, aristocratic voice. “Your father and I provided for you in every way possible. The world was your oyster. You could have followed in your father’s footsteps, learnt the family business. You could have made your father proud. And me. But what did you do instead?”

The obligatory rhetorical question. Tony sighed, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“You did the most ungrateful thing imaginable. You threw it all back in our faces, and turned your back on everything your father had built. He never recovered from it, and it sent him to an early grave.”

Something snapped inside of Tony just then. He’d had enough. For over ten years, he’d had to listen to these accusations. Blaming him for his father’s death was his mother’s favourite parlour trick, but it wasn’t going to work this time.

“Is that why you came here, Mom? To accuse me yet again of killing your husband? Tell you what...I’ve still got my old Baltimore Homicide partner Danny’s number on speed dial. Here...why don’t you talk to him, tell him to come arrest me? You could have Gibbs do it, except Dad being a Civil War re-enactor doesn’t exactly give NCIS jurisdiction.”

Tony held his cell phone in front of her nose. Her face went ashen as she realized the phone was actually dialling Danny’s number. But then, just as quickly, she smiled sweetly at him, took the phone from his outstretched hand, and turned it off. Downing the last of her Mint Julep, she arose with characteristic grace, bent down towards Tony, and taking his chin in her hand, gave him a light peck on the cheek.

“It’s been lovely to see you again, darling. Do stay in touch, won’t you?” She turned back and blew him a kiss before stepping into a cab and disappearing from view.

Tony sat, completely stunned, attempting in vain to process the events of the past few hours. His brain was numb. Clearly, his mother was unstable. And he still had no idea why she had come to DC.

As always, though, she’d left a trail of destruction in her wake.