Chapter 3

"Probie's Ducky and Abby's playtoy? This is great! I can't even seduce Gibbs and Probie's getting his own bangers and mash." Tony turned to Abby. "Best friends share everything. Why'd ya not share this one, Abbs?"

"You never asked Tony. It turned into a competition to see if we could keep this information from two highly trained agents." Abby was glad that they had pulled it off, that no one had suspected. "I will share just about anything. But not Tim and Ducky. Hands off. And what is this about seducing Gibbs? Tony, have you been holding out on us?"

"Did Ziva know?" Ziva. That one hurt. "Tried to get Gibbs in bed. Gibbs not interested. Too bad. Want him. Want him a lot. Daddy complex, maybe. Hey Gibbsy, Could we do platonic in bed, d'ya think? Don't wanna sleep alone tonight. Gonna picture her face. All bloody and still. God dammit. Dammit! I shoulda been there. Fucking shoulda been me! Then ya'd be drinking in relief. Not sadness."

Tim winced. He'd never seen Tony like this before. "Come on, DiNozzo. You followed orders. You did what you were trained to do."

Self loathing turned to anger when McGee spoke. "Shut up, McGee, just shut up! You're a stupid probie. You know nothing. Know nothing, stupid probie." He struggled to get up, to start hitting McGee and not stop but someone had his arm in a tight grip.

"Shoulda been me," Tony whispered, near tears.

"Tony, you listen to me. This isn't your fault, it also isn't Tim's. Cut him a slack got it?" Abby held onto her friend, knowing that he was so drunk, he wouldn't be able to shake off a sober woman. "No one blames you, and you shouldn't blame yourself. If you or Ziva had been there, you wouldn't have been able to do anything. You would have ended up dead too. I can't lose you on top of Jenny. I need you here too much."

Tony shook her hand off, standing unsteadily. "Well, I'm off to the USS Gipper at oh dark hundred and Ziva's already on her way back to Israel, so you can deal, Abby. You lost us too." He stared at Gibbs, making it a challenge. "And I got nothing here no more so 'scuse me. Gotta pack up. Gotta go. Sorry, Boss. Can't do it. Got too much I want an can't have. Been real. Been fun. But it ... it..."

He just shook his head and staggered to the door, making it outside and heading for his car. He wouldn't let them see him crying.

"Excuse me, for a moment." Gibbs lurched up, spilling the remaining amber liquid in his glass. He knew someone would refill it by time he came back. Following Tony out the door, he knew he had to get to him before he made a bad situation worse. Wasn't going to let him get sent to jail on a DUI if he could prevent it.

"Come on DiNozzo, you're not leaving. Too drunk to even consider it. Come back in, we'll drink and feel twice as bad in the morning, with the support or one another. Not gonna let you just take off like this, I'm still your boss and can still make you do what I want."

"Not my boss, Gibbs. Got kicked off your team, remember? USS Gipper, remember? Jenny dead, my fault, remember?" He grabbed Gibbs' shirt in his fists. "Screwup. Better off dead. Remember? Remember, Gibbs? 'Cause I can't forget. How much I drink, I can't forget, Gibbs. She was lying there so still, and she looked so old. Gibbs..."

"Come here DiNozzo." Jethro needed to fix this as much as he needed fixing. "I'm mot losing you, not to another assignment and not to your memories. You shouldn't have had to see her like that. Trust me, she wouldn't have wanted it any more then you wanted to see it. You know Jen, if her suit didn't have the perfect crease and her make up and hair wasn't flawless, she'd hide in her office all day. She's probably sitting on a cloud, horrified to be seen not at her best. And she'd never blame you for this, I don't blame you for this. No one blames you Tony. We all love you and want to help you, but you have to let us."

"Come where, Gibbs. Where? Where is there on earth where I won't blame myself. Even if none of you do, I blame myself, Gibbs. I can't get out of my head and conscience. First Jeanne, now Jen. Now you want me to leave the only thing I was ever good at, Gibbs. My job. To ... to stay here? To be tormented by wanting you. To watch you go to work every day when I have nothing? What do you want from me, Boss?" Tony leaned on the hood of his car for a moment, before throwing up once, twice.

When he was done, a little more clarity returning, he spoke again.

"I burned too many bridges. Peoria, Philly, Baltimore, NCIS. What's left for me, Gibbs? Rent a cop at the mall? The Gipper? I loved her, Gibbs. I could have made it work with her. Then it all fell apart and now I don't have anything left."

"You're going to have NCIS again. I meant it Tony, the bastard won't know what hit him, and not even a mall will hire him when I'm finished." He refused to watch Tony destroy himself. Jen wouldn't have wanted it and he Jethro wouldn't allow it. "You want a job, you're hired. You're responsible for watching my six, you need to make sure that Vance doesn't get me. He took out Jen, indirectly, but still did. I need someone I can trust, and that someone is you."

Tony snorted. "And how ya gonna pay me, Boss? You aren't paying in what I want. Guy has to live, and eat ... and pay his way." He leaned over, retching again. "Gibbs, don't you understand. If I stay here ... it wouldn't work. I've got too much frustration and need and ... heartache. Seems okay for me to drink like this. Don't like feeling. Don't want to feel anything right now."

He had to be trashed, he knew it, despite him throwing up everything he'd drunk recently. There was no other explanation for what he did. And Gibbs just stood there as Tony grabbed a bottled water and rinsed his mouth out, crunched on an altoid and then leaned in to brush a kiss over Gibbs' mouth.

"That's what I want. You."

"You're drunk, and I think that's got a lot to do with it DiNozzo." The kiss hadn't been bad, brief and soft. If he closed his eyes, he could almost believe it was someone else, someone curvy and definitely female. He'd never had any interest in another man, but he wouldn't turn his back on one, especially not one of his team members.

"Tony, you won't remember you did that in the morning and I'm not going to bring it up. We'll sork out payment and how you're going to survive until I get you your proper job back. This is an insult, best agent on the east coast being sent out to sea. You were offered a leadership postion in Span, you should have at least been offered the equivilant. I could understand losing you to that. But not to this, and I'm not going to let you go. So come back in DiNozzo. We have more drinking and more toasting to do before the night is up. Lots of liquor to honor a damn fine woman, need you there with us. Need to keep you with us."

"You're wrong, I will remember, because Gibbs, I wanted that. I wanted it. And I want it again and again damn you. Why'd you have to make yourself at home in my psyche anyway? I could have done fine, but there you were with headslaps and life lessons and dammit making me a better investigator. And somewhere along the line I fell for you, Gibbs. Not in a boss and subordinate way or a authority figure way, but in a we've saved each others lives way and I don't want anyone else watching my six, way. And my fuckups, latest in the long line, took a woman away from you, and if I'm not too trashed to understand, a baby too. You can't ever respect me, and I can't ever respect me so it's better for me to be on the Gipper, or to just start over in another city, probably one beginning with a P would work. But ... Gibbs? How do you thank the person who more than anyone else made you the man you are today? How do you ... say ... goodbye?"

"You don't Tony. You let that person do the one thing he knows how to do, protect the people he loves. I've done a pretty shitty job of it lately, but I won't let you down this time." Tony was set on leaving, but Jethro had to try and stop him. "You didn't take anyone away from me. You didn't do anything wrong, and I wish you'd stop punishing yourself. If you want to take the job on the boat, I can't stop you Tony. If you want to spend a couple of years chasing down drunken sailors and running down stolen Iwhatchas, go right on ahead. But I need you here to have my six, and I don't trust anyone else to do that.

"No, I don't want that, Gibbs. But the temptation of being here ... God." Tony did the only thing he could think to do and started pounding his fist into the hood of his beloved car. "Checked out Ziva. Should have been there, Gibbs. Just as responsible as the guys who pulled the trigger, Gibbs."

"No you're not Tony. Maybe you should have been there, but you'd be dead too. Professional hits, don't usually miss their target. Would have been you and Jen together. I can't see you leaving her to go get water. Would have lost the both of you and it would have killed me. Would have lost Ziva too, and I couldn't have done it. Couldn't have faced another day at the office. You came home and made it possible. Can't lose you too DiNozzo."