Technically, DiNozzo was long gone by now.

Practically, he was there in all but body.

Oh, they'd replaced him, of course, and Reeves was nice, but that didn't change the fact that Abby had a wall dedicated to the postcards she'd gotten and that most of the time when she pulled up FaceTime she wasn't doing it for work related purposes.

It also didn't change the fact that McGee was engaged in a fierce battle of wits via text messaging or that Bishop was getting new foreign recipes to try pretty much daily. Ducky got cute pictures of Tali; Palmer got desperate calls for parenting advice.

Gibbs was, well, Gibbs. Whatever he'd heard, he was keeping it to himself. He was the only one that didn't pool information about Tony. He just kept giving his team disappointed looks instead, like without DiNozzo they were never quite up to par.

Reeves was good. He just wasn't Tony.

He hadn't sold the apartment. That meant he was coming back eventually.

That was what Gibbs told himself, anyway.

He'd lost a daughter to Kort's schemes. He couldn't bear to think they'd cost him a son too.

"Hey, Boss."

"Not your boss anymore, DiNozzo," Gibbs said through the phone.

"I know." Tony paused. "Boss."

There was no one around to see it, so Gibbs allowed himself a small grin.

"Paris is good, by the way. Reminds me of the time . . . "

Gibbs let him chatter on for a while. It had been too quiet in the bullpen ever since Tony had left. Too dull, not that he'd ever admit that out loud. Saying it would just be inviting things to go wrong.

"How're things with you?" Tony asked cheerfully.

Gibbs leaned up against his boat. He'd been tracing Ziva onto the side. "Fine."

"Not so many details, Gibbs, you're overwhelming me. How's the case?"

"Just wrapped it up." He paused before finally asking the question that had been gnawing at him for months. "How much longer you gonna keep up the world tour, DiNozzo?"

"Haven't really decided yet," Tony admitted.

"You're going to have to settle down eventually," Gibbs pointed out. "Get another job."

"Yeah, about that," Tony said. "You remember my Uncle Clive?"

Gibbs racked his memory. "The one that you thought was going to leave you all that money?"

"Right. And then I told everyone that he actually left everything to my cousin Crispian." Tony sounded nervous. "See, McGee was acting all weird about it, and then you asked if I was going to leave - "

"Get to the point, DiNozzo."

"I don't actually have a cousin Crispian."

Gibbs came to the obvious conclusion. "You inherited the money."

"I did. And I know shouldn't have lied to you about it, Boss, but I saw what it was doing to the team, and no car's worth that."

Gibbs couldn't remember exactly how much money the estate had been worth, but it had been a big figure. Big enough that Tony hadn't been obligated to work since the moment he'd inherited it.

In other words, he didn't have to settle down if he didn't want to, and he could afford to just leave his apartment sitting empty in DC.

If Gibbs growled more than usual in the office the next day, then no one had the nerve to ask him why.

"You know, vacation's are great, Boss, but they kind of get boring after a while."

Gibbs had stopped trying to correct him when he said 'Boss'. "There's a reason I don't use my leave, DiNozzo."

"I thought about getting some kind of job, but it's not like I can just leave Tali at home by herself."

Gibbs could hear her babbling to herself in the background. It probably wasn't actually possible to miss someone you'd only seen for a few minutes, but he found himself doing it anyway. Tali was as close as he'd ever get to a grandkid, and he was a stranger to her.

"So I thought about how McGee used to write, and then I thought, how hard can it be, really?"

Gibbs raised an eyebrow. "And?"

"And it turns out it's harder than you'd think," Tony admitted easily. "But then I got to thinking, what kind of writing do I know I can do? And you know what occurred to me?"

"Enlighten me," Gibbs said drily.

"Reports," Tony said. "I can write a really, really good report. I mean, if it meets your standards it'll meet anybody's."

"Kind of hard to write a novel made up of reports, DiNozzo."

"Not as hard as you'd think," he said cheerfully. "A lot of writers are experimenting with document based novels now. So I just kept in all the stuff that I normally would have deleted - the complaining, the jokes, all the good stuff - added in some emails and text messages, and I put together a crime novel. I'm sending it off. We'll see how it goes."

"Anybody else know about this?"

"I got Abby to look over it for me. Other than that, not really, no." Tony hesitated. "Don't tell, McGee, all right?"

"Your secret's safe with me, DiNozzo."

"Thanks, Boss."

"Ducky's putting together another get together for the holidays. You coming?"

"Not this year. I thought I'd see what New York was like for the holidays."

It wasn't DC, not yet, but at least he was back on the right continent.

"So, Boss, my book got accepted." Tony sounded nervous.

Gibbs parked his car outside his house. "Congratulations, DiNozzo." He meant it. He was always proud of his team's accomplishments.

"How's the new team, now that it's gotten a chance to get broken in?"

"Reeves left," Gibbs admitted, leaning back in his seat. "Haven't gotten a probie to stick around for much longer than a month ever since."

"They don't make 'em like they used to, huh? How's Fornell?"

"Better." Not well, not yet, but better.

It was still too cold to stay out for long. Gibbs pushed the door open and headed up the walk. "How's Tali?"

"She's good. Really good. Super good." Tony was sounding nervous again. "Hey, listen, Boss, I was in the neighborhood, so I thought - "

Gibbs pushed the door open. Tony was sitting on his couch, Tali curled up beside him.

Tony winced and turned around, shutting his phone as he did so. "Hi, Boss. Sorry to intrude."

"I leave the door unlocked for a reason," Gibbs told him, shoving his own phone in his pocket. "It's good to see you, Tony." Really good. He couldn't quite resist the smile that was breaking out over his face.

Tali peeked out from behind Tony. She'd grown so much.

She jumped off the couch and ran over to him. "Grandboss!"

Gibbs picked her up and swung her around automatically, ignoring his creaking back. It wasn't until she started giggling that the name hit him. His eyebrows rose. "Grandboss?"

"Stories," Tali agreed, still giggling.

Tony had stood and was awkwardly scratching the back of his neck. "Yeah, um, she got bored with princesses a few months ago, so I had to get creative. I changed some of our cases into adventures. Age appropriate adventures," he added quickly.

"Grandboss?" Gibbs repeated.

A flush rose on Tony's cheeks. "I got the idea from Palmer. You're right, it's a stupid name, I'll get her to - "

Gibbs shifted Tali more securely to one arm so that he'd have a hand free.

He smacked DiNozzo on the back of the head.

"You didn't mind?" Tony guessed.

"It'll work," Gibbs said gruffly. He couldn't quite hide how pleased he was. "Want to stay here tonight until you can get your place aired out?"

Tony grinned. "Thanks, Boss."

Tali snuggled into his shoulder. Gibbs patted her back gently. "Any time, Tony. Any time."

A/N: Because the team is family, and I refuse to believe that they wouldn't stay in contact.