He put on a smile, he nodded his head. He held it up with a force unknown. Their words, no matter if spoken as a joke, stung. Anthony DiNozzo didn't fight against the ever-present comparison between himself and the famous L. Jethro Gibbs. He was used to it; he had chosen his role now he had to deal with the consequences.

When he had first started to work at NCIS he had chosen to go with the laid-back jock that was a bit loud with his observations of the other gender. It had felt natural, at the time, to put on the mask as playful-playboy Tony. Years later, when Gibbs disappeared; took a hiatus in freaking Mexico, Tony would look back at that easy time with nostalgia swimming through his veins. Gibbs' well-remembered parting words had been 'you'll do'. What a parting gift, he?

Tony had damn well done his best considering the circumstances; Tony had worked his ass off to please the oblivious Gibbs – his boss who Tony wasn't even sure he would ever see again. He had gritted his teeth, bit down the emotions, and suffered through the hailstorm mostly unscathed. He had held a sobbing Abby, he had calmed an angry Israeli and he had given his probie advices and knowledge. Not that they ever acknowledge Tony's constant presence. They had wallowed in their own grief, not sparing a second thought of how Tony would feel.

Tony hadn't wanted to give the team more to agonize about; didn't want his team to hate him. He had kept them all, dumped the surprisingly naïve McGee on the Senior Field Agent spot, and kept Ziva happy with keeping her exactly where she had been since she arrived.

The choose of a new probie had been hard; he had tried to talk to Ziva and McGee about it, but was quickly ignored and met with condescending smirks –like he couldn't do it on his own. He was either met with smirks, blanks masks or soured glares in the mornings. To keep the peace, Tony chose the probie he deemed as most unlike the probie Gibbs would have chosen. Tony was his own man; he could, and would, have to develop his own leader techniques.

Tony had ignored the rising depression; he ignored the rising work load and got it done instead of whining about it like he would have done in the past. His role in the office had changed; he was no longer capable of playing the relaxed jock who lightened the mood; he needed to take the steering-wheel; and people were certainly no making it easy for him.

The first case they had worked on after Gibbs had, like some sort of dramatic teenager, stormed out on them, Tony had been so over worked and stressed he had fallen into a role he felt most comfortable with. He fell into the role which he missed the most. He had, on some unconscious level, copied Gibbs. That's was when the real ribbing started.

Whenever Tony tried something new, he was frowned at. Whenever Tony copied Gibbs, he was frowned at. But as the days past, his co-workers and subordinates came to expect him to act like Gibbs.

The only solace he found was with the previously unknown autopsy gremlin. Without really noticing it, Tony had started to speak more and more with the quirky younger male. A friendship that no one else seemed to care about; something the people who Tony cared so much about ignored – along with the bags beneath his eyes, the constant headaches and new wrinkles which appeared around his dulled eyes.

The first case hadn't been the best. That was obvious years later, when the accused stepped up behind Tony. 'Remember me?'

Of course he bloody well remembered. He remembered McGee's vicious snipes, Ziva's untrusting stares and Abby's disappointments every time he walked into her lab. He remembered the sleepless nights and spiraling emotions. He remembered.

At the time, when the damned accused man – who had spent three year in prison as an innocent – had the gall to walk around and demand Tony to fix it when he bloody well had the answers himself, Tony had wanted nothing else but to sleep. He just wanted to wake up when it was over. Did he honestly disserve this?

The only thing that made him hold his head high was Gibbs' calm and collected behavior. The older man watched him with trusting blue eyes; eyes that could bore their way into his head. He ignored Ziva and McGee's comments – which had, yet again, gone over to the more hurtful side of things, and focused instead on making up for his past blunder.

And, yet again, the hateful emotions came to the surface as both Abby and Ducky acted as if they expected a Gibbs copy to walk into the room. 'Gibbs would have known.'

Tony's emotions almost choked him this time; there were no slow build up. This time the self-conscious thoughts barreled up on him like a speeding train. His masks cracked; his toughest glue couldn't hold it anymore. Those nights he averted back into a sleepless workaholic – a man who could only think and worry about his actions and the consequences.

This time, it hadn't been Gibbs arrival that had brought him out of the spiraling nightmares, but simple words spoken from the same man with genuine warmth. 'You've been doing a great job, Anthony.'

That night Tony hadn't suffered from nightmares. It had been the first night since the hangover that Tony had slept soundlessly. He woke up the next morning feeling refreshed, if not a little worse for wear. His co-worker's behavior still stung deep within, and he would never really forgive and forget. He was that kind of person. Brush the issue beneath the rug, but never forget it. He was able to forgive, of course – an apology would be in order though. He could point out of whole Jeanne and Grenouille case. There had been no apology – there had never been any kind of mending the relationship between Tony and Jenny.

So, yet again, Tony brushed the whole incidents with snappy attitudes and comparisons beneath the thick adorned rug in his mind. He would think about it later, when it would happen again. Those emotions were only to be acknowledged when it were absolutely necessary.

He pulled out the warm feeling of Gibbs' words instead, and found that keeping the mask up was surprisingly easy, yet again.

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