Disclaimer: Ncis and all characters associated herewith do not belong to me. I do however own the nameless narrator of this story. He's mine, all mine!

Summary: Tony's life and problems, as seen through the eyes of somebody that's known him for most of it. This fic is written from the point of view of a good friend of Tony's that met him some time during their High School years. Covers both Tony's life from before NCIS till post Season-5 NCIS.

A fulfilled life

They say that the average person has a sixty percent higher chance of keeping in touch with the people they meet during their college years than the people they meet during high school. I have no idea whether this is the truth, but if it is, it's just another indication that my friendship with Tony Dinozzo has never been average.

I met Tony in our sophomore year of high school. As the new kid in town - my mom had been commissioned to the area for two years - it took me a while to understand people's fascination with "The Dinozzo". Tony had been in the Academy for a couple of years already and had developed a reputation as a slacker who could charm his way out of any trouble and into any bed. What made him different was that everybody still liked him. None of the teachers could resist his charms, the ladies for the obvious reasons and the men- well they loved his football skills.

He was the guy the girls wanted to date and all of us guys wanted to be. At least, that is the image I had of him all throughout our sophomore year, until that fateful day in middle June.

For a couple of months before that day my dad had been talking non-stop about a great kid named Matt that had started to work as a janitor during the night-shift at their company. According to my dad the guy was very bright and had even helped him with the company's taxes some times. The only thing he truly knew about Matt was that he needed the money for his studies and that he used the time after his shift took catch up on some sleep inside the janitor's closet. He had no idea where Matt actually lived, or where he studied.

All of this changed the evening I went to my dad's office and saw Tony Dinozzo, High School Prince, Star Football Player and every girl's dream date sweeping the floor of the hallway leading to my dad's door.

I'll never forget the look on his face when he saw me. Fear, pride, anger, relief; it all fought for control, before resignation took their places. But his words were what really shook me, and told me that all of my previous observations of him had been extremely superficial.

He told me: "I don't care what you think of me, I don't care what the people at school think of me, I did this to survive. The only reason I didn't use my real name was to spare myself all the questions. I grew up as a Dinozzo, but I will never be a Dinozzo."

I will never know exactly why, maybe he was just so tired of carrying everything by himself; maybe he thought I'd keep on pushing it, I have no idea, but we spent the next two hours talking. Or rather, he spoke and I listened in fascination as he told me everything about his life growing up. The rocky marriage of his parents, the death of his mom, even his dad's drinking problem. He spoke about being told at the tender age of twelve that he was no good, would end up in the gutter and to never expect a penny of his family's money. Only because he told his dad he may not want to study business practice after school.

Which twelve year old had any idea what they wanted to do after school? I know for a fact that I went through stages where I wanted to be anything from a drama teacher to an astronaut and even a sumo-wrestler when I was that age. How could a father punish a son so severely for having similar ambitions?

That evening changed my life forever. For one thing I realized how privileged I was, but even more important, I gained a friend for life.

What amazed me so much about Tony was that he never complained and he never apologized. I spent the next couple of weeks at school discretely watching him. When the teachers complained about sloppy work, or the coach told him he wasn't focused enough and should spend more time sleeping and less shagging the neighborhood floozy; not once did Tony try to set them straight about his night-time activities, but he didn't apologize either. He stood firm in his decisions, even if nobody else knew what those decisions truly were.

The following year Tony spent most of his time after school either at my dad's workplace, or at our home. My father had found out the truth one evening when I went by the office and greeted Tony by his real name without seeing that my dad's door was open, or at least, that was my story and I still stick by it. He escorted us into his office, and forced us into telling him the truth. To say that he was surprised to find out that Tony was actually still a high school student would be an understatement.

It took some time, but we were finally able to come to a compromise. Tony would eat and sleep at our place and my dad wouldn't say anything to his bosses. Tony hated the idea of charity, but couldn't afford to lose the job either, so he settled for that agreement.

In that year my love of all things cinema rubbed of on Tony and we spent about five hours each day watching movies - everything from Classics to Pulp Fiction. I got little sleep that year, and to this day I'm pretty sure Tony got no sleep at all.

For four years after high school we didn't really see much of each other. I went to the School of Cinema and TV at the University of Southern California, where I did my BA in film production, and Tony went on to major in Phys Ed, and minor in Business Studies at the local Uni. He would never admit it, but I was pretty sure that he chose that specific minor because of his father.

When Tony called me up one day and told me he had been accepted into the Police Academy I thought he was joking. For years I had assumed he was going to be a teacher, with a serious Coaching job on the side. The fact that he had applied was a complete surprise to me, and I couldn't quite understand his reasoning. The only thing he said was that he needed to keep both scum and the good guys out of the gutters. By that time I was pretty sure his dad had screwed him for life.

Tony surprisingly aced his classes in the Academy. He told me it was amazing what you could do when you had three hours a day free for studying. Apparently he had received a bursary, and could thus spend more time studying and less working, although he still worked at the local cinema-plex to pay his rent.

The year Tony moved to Peoria, I permanently moved to Los Angeles, in the hope of building my own film-empire. We all strive to be the next Steven Spielberg, or George Lucas, don't we?

Thus, with a distance of more than 2000 miles between us, we were only able to keep in touch via phone calls and email. We made a point of seeing each other at least once every year, whether it was during the Holiday season or just at some point where we both had more than a weekend free.

So the time passed by. Tony moved on to Baltimore and I struggled to get a permanent job in Hollywood. I was finally able to get a semi-permanent job as a director's assistant on a television show that started in 2002, and could breathe a bit easier. It wasn't what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, but it was a start.

Whenever I heard from Tony he sounded happy but unfulfilled, always complaining that his bosses saw him more as their puppet than a good cop. The only times he said he could truly be himself was when he went undercover, I always found that reasoning to be all kinds of wrong.

One day he phoned me out of the blue, saying he'd quit his job and was moving to DC. Tony always could surprise the heck out of me. Apparently he had butted heads with the wrong guy, and was offered a job. By the same guy! I couldn't help but think that maybe being a fed was what he had been working towards the whole time, but none of us, not even himself, had realized it.

Since he started working at NCIS I heard even less from the man. Apparently his boss was a hard-ass that worked them to death. Well, it wasn't as though Tony wasn't used to getting by on little to no sleep. The times that he did phone me he mostly sounded tired but happy, as if something that he had been missing had been found.

I learned all about the characters that made up Tony's new family at NCIS. The goth girl that claimed Tony's heart and soul, and whom Tony would die to protect. I heard about the loveable Englishman that loved the sound of his own voice, but loved those around him even more. Tony told me about his new boss, a man that was hard to get along with, but who would fight for you through thick and thin. A man that became more of a father to him than Tony's dad ever was or would ever be.

As the years went by, I learned of more people joining that family. About the ex Secret Service Agent that loved to tease Tony, but would never truly know the real man. I learned about the young MIT graduate, whom Tony loved to tease, but respected and envied more than he would ever care to admit. And then one day I received a call from Tony that shook me to the core.

Having been at a TV shoot I wasn't home to take his call, but the message he left was enough to get me on a plane to DC within thirty minutes. I still have the message saved on my answering machine, it acts as a constant reminder of how quickly things can turn to shit in any person's life. The words had reverberated through my mind many times since that first time I heard it…

"Hi… Uhm… Look, Kate's dead. I, I'm sorry I haven't been in contact with you these past few weeks, but I got the plague at work, and well, then Kate died, and Ari almost killed Abby. Cough. I gotta go, Ari's dead, so now we can bury Kate. Kate… she's dead… Just, wanted to let you know. Should have been me, was right there, but I did nothing… Well, sorry to bother… Got to go now, Gibbs is probably going to be here any second. Picking me up for her funeral. Kate's dead…"

I had never heard Tony sound as confused or lost, as he did in that message. If it wasn't for that defeated sound, I might not have believed him, I mean, he said he had the plague!

The next couple of weeks I spent at Tony's place, trying to help him through everything. He had a lot to deal with. None of them took any personal time. Thus I didn't see much of him even though it was his place. But when I did see him he looked haggard, broken…

That was also the first time I met Gibbs. Got to say, he's scarier in person than Tony ever made him out to be. But I could see his parental worry when he looked at Tony; he cared about the man, even if he would never overtly show it. Those two weeks were some of the most difficult I've ever had to face, seeing Tony the way he was heart-breaking. Years later he told me that I had helped him, but I'm still not sure how…

The next couple of years passed by quite quickly. I heard from Tony sporadically, mostly when he had some interesting updates to give me, things like: "Gibbs blew up, I'm the boss till he returns. He will return!" He let me know when he was framed for murder, again. I didn't even know about the first time! He called me to let me know that Paula Cassidy had been killed, I knew she had meant a lot to him and that that was a tough time. He told me about a great girl, who's heart he was going to break. When said heart was broken he let me know why.

So the years went by, he kept me up to date with his interesting, dangerous and fulfilled life, whilst I kept him up to date with my non-interesting, non-dangerous and non-fulfilled life. He always gave me strength to continue in this forsaken business, kept telling me that I would one day get my big break…

I just wish my break hadn't come at such a price…

You see; Tony Dinozzo died four years, three weeks and five days ago, in the line of duty.

His final words had been spoken to a devastated Gibbs.

"I hope they make a movie about this someday."

Thus here I am at the premier of my first independent film. I am here, to make sure that those final words are fulfilled.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

A/N - This was a new venture for me. Trying to delve into the life of Tony Dinozzo by means of an OC. Please let me know what you think. Hope the ending wasn't too melodramatic.

PS. English isn't my first language, so please forgive any errors, or point them out to me so I can learn! Thanks!