The Man Behind the Masks Ch2/?

When Tony woke, it was to find himself lying on his back on a couch, Jeanne wedge between his side and the back of the couch. She propped herself up on one arm and looked down at him. "Hey," she whispered.

"Hey. You're still here," he stated, unable to keep the shock from his voice.

"I promised I would be. I found your envelope. I was up all night reading."

"So you know everything now?" He asked, his face open and vulnerable, the same as it always was when they had a serious discussion.

"Not everything. We still have things to talk about. Why don't you go get cleaned up and I'll make us some breakfast. I'm not running yet," she said as she leaned down to kiss him. Tony wrapped his arms around her and just held on for a few minutes.

"Crap!" He shouted as he bolted upright, forcing the both of them into sitting positions. "I need to get to work. What time is it?"

"Don't worry about it," Jeanne said as she grabbed his arm, forcing him to stay seated. "I sent your boss a text last night saying that you weren't coming into work today. So go get changed. Then we eat. Then we talk."

"Yes doctor," he replied with a smile. He gave her one last quick kiss and disappeared into the bathroom. Jeanne allowed herself a tiny smile as she moved into the kitchen. She grabbed the hazelnut creamer, hot chocolate packets, and the quiche that was in the fridge. She threw the quiche in the microwave to heat while she made the hot chocolate with the creamer instead of milk. Tony liked it better that way. He said it tasted like Baci – his favorite candy.

Half an hour later, the food was gone and the two were simply sitting there, staring down into their mugs. Neither was really sure how to start, even though they both knew they needed to. Suddenly the phone rang, breaking the silence. "That's not mine," Jeanne said. "I thought I turned yours off."

"You did. I turned it back on earlier to check my messages," Tony said as he pulled it from his pocket. "DiNozzo."

"The team's off rotation for the weekend," came the response. No hello, no how are you, just an order.

"Thanks boss. See you Monday."

"You get the weekend off?" she asked as he closed the phone.

"Yeah, my boss took our team off rotation this weekend."

"Can you tell me exactly what your job is? There wasn't much information about that."

"Well, I'm a Senior Field Agent. I work on the Major Crimes Response team, which is what we investigate. We do have set work hours, but a lot of times when we have a tough or important case we pull overnighters. It's a four man team. There's my boss, the supervisor senior agent, then me, then our junior field agent, and we also have a Mossad officer liason who works with us."

"And this is just for navy crimes?"

"Navy and marines mostly. The army has its own criminal investigative division."

"So your assignment with me…what's the deal?"

"A few months ago, my boss was injured in an explosion. He lost more than ten years of memories. He didn't remember me, my team…A few days after he woke up, some of it started to come back, he remembered a vital piece of information about an attack on a ship. When he told who he needed to, they didn't listen and the ship blew up. 23 people died unnecessarily. My boss was so pissed he quit. He left me in charge of the team. He handed me his badge and his gun and just said 'You'll do.' It was unbelievable, but they don't call him Gibbs, second B for bastard, for nothing. I held the team together as best as I could. And that included my two other team members, and our forensic scientist who worships the ground he walks on. Our ME had been friends with him for a long time, but Ducky was pissed at Gibbs and took it out on his assistant. Jimmy and I became good friends in those months while the boss was gone. We could commiserate with each other. He was also the only member of the team not to constantly tell me I wasn't Gibbs. It was an impossible situation. If I ran the team the way I wanted, they ignored me or ridiculed me. If I tried running it the way my boss did, they constantly told me I wasn't him. So when our agency director asked me to do a possibly long term undercover op, I jumped at the chance. I needed the escape being someone else would bring. It didn't even matter what the mission was.

"I can't really explain what the mission was. Just that it involved your father."

"But my father's a business man," Jeanne said shocked.

"And our investigation has to do with his business. I'm sorry, but if you want to know more you have to ask him."

The two of them took a few minutes to process everything before Jeanne urged Tony to continue.

"The mission I was given was to seduce you so I could get information on your father. By our fourth date, I knew that you didn't know anything about his business. I also knew then that I was starting to fall for you. When I go undercover, I usually take a week or two coming up with the details of that person's life, memorizing them. With this one though, I didn't have to do any of that. I decided to just be myself for once. I could actually be myself because my cover was a regular person. And if I had to choose a job other than being a cop, I'd choose film professor. I actually have a doctorate in Film Studies. I also have one in criminology and I have a masters in music, phys ed, and computer programming. All those private tutors paid off. After my year in the R.I.M.A., I took a state placement test since I'd never been in school and I placed in eleventh grade. Which I found ironic at the time since I was eleven. By the time I was twenty, I had earned a masters in all 5 subjects. When I was injured in our championship football game, it wasn't pretty. It took me two years to fully recover. So while I was recovering, I got my doctorates in my two favorite subjects.

"And I have veered very far off course," Tony said taking a sip of his hot chocolate. "So back to what I was saying. When I was given the cover of Tony DiNardo, film professor, I decided to just stop pretending. I decided I was going to be my true self. The one that only one other person has ever fully seen. So everything I've told you about myself has been true, Jeanne. I stayed away from relationships because I didn't want to open myself up enough to be hurt. I didn't want anyone to have that power over me. But then you came along and you got under my skin. I think the thing I love most about you is that you don't push. You gently nudge," he said with that charming smile of his, "but you never push. You understand things. When you asked me about sex, I told you the truth. You didn't push me. You understood and let me move at my own pace. You have no idea how much that meant to me. I didn't want to rush things with you because you were different and I didn't want to risk ruining us. Please tell me I didn't ruin us," he whispered, his head dropping to his chest.
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A/N: Baci are the most delicious Italian chocolates made with hazelnuts. And RIMA stands for Rhode Island Military Academy.