Anthony DiNozzo
Post Hiatus

Walking

He may annoy the rest of his team by not walking as fast as they do, he only walks at a steady pace. By doing so, he watches as they run in circles, while he walks the line. Gibbs hates that he refuses to rush the process and doesn’t chase the end first; he doesn’t get false confessions that get thrown out later. His evidence stands the tests.

He gets smacks for moving slowly, but steady wins in the end. He moves steadily so they don’t fall.
He watched Gibbs and those like him fall towards burn-out and eating their guns. He watched those who were steady build platforms that don’t shake. And he knows which path he follows as they all ask why he never says a thing. He just keeps moving forward at his own steady pace. Getting the job done for the victim’s sake and not as a competition to see who is the best.

Everyone talks about his boss’s long service in the agency but forgets that Tony started in law enforcement not long after Gibbs did and his run was varied but not in wet work for most of that career.
Kate talked of having a longer service in a federal agency, but not as an investigator. While he walked the beat, literally, at first, and did crowd and individual assessments from a younger age then worked his way up the ladder to be an investigator. Putting what he learned on the streets to use in solving the crimes that came across whatever desk he worked at as a detective.

Ziva and Gibbs talked of being better when most of their careers were in killing others or spying on nations. Not in solving the crimes they committed. And McGee and Abby think everything is done with technology.

He works slow but steady and watches the hares around him fall on his way to the finish line. He has also been on the team the longest and seen the boss in all his madness and best. The same boss he knew would walk away when their boss and the brass let politics kill men rather than do something.
The same boss who had ridden his case for not working it the way she wanted, and the same boss who went behind his back to get his teammates to betray him and their oaths. The same boss who told him she had him by the proverbial balls if he didn’t do the undercover assignment she was ordering him to. And the same boss, his slow investigation, came up with enough evidence to prove she had a big hand in the murder of the sailors that drove Gibbs away. Enough that Morrow personally came in to arrest her before everyone that was on the floor. Homeland’s Forensic specialists are now going over her office and home.
His team being taken by the elbows off to be questioned themselves.

The old saying that slow and steady won this race and now everyone knew it, as he was the last man standing in the end.

Fin
6/26/2026