AN: Thanks for the favorites, alerts, and reviews! It means a lot and I'm glad you enjoy reading as much as I enjoy writing. If you're interested, I wrote this while listening to the Band of Horses' song The Funeral. Check them out if you don't know about them! They are an awesome band!

I still don't own anything except a heart that loves the show.

Set after Kate's death... Tony is no longer I'll.

Always This Place

It's always this place.

It's thirty degrees outside without the wind, but there's bursts of it that make the dry skin on the back of his hands turn a monstrous shade of purple when it stings his uncovered limbs. He has a good coat, hell, a very expensive coat that'd do him wonders if he actually had it on, but it's made with too much material to carry on already aching shoulders. He'd shrug off the world if he could to wear his jacket, but he knows he can't so he didn't even bother opening the closet door to retrieve it before leaving his apartment.

There's enough absence of light to let him know he's out during a time that the clock ticks while people are sleeping, but not him. His clock works just fine, or it did until he gave the nightstand a good DiNozzo ass-kicking with it before he discarded it across the room with a football player's arm. It's the sleeping part that's giving him trouble. Not that he can't, because he knows that if he were to be vertical on any surface right now he'd be oblivious to the rest of the world in a matter of seconds. He can sleep. He just doesn't want to.

If he's asleep, he's not doing anything and he needs to do everything. He has to be everything. They're down an agent and he can't bring himself to acknowledge the void she's left, because he can still hear her mocking him with every inappropriate joke that spills from his mouth and he's afraid that if he accepts her death, he'll no longer be able to hear her. He already can't see her, can't remember her face without an ugly, red bullet hole in the center of her forehead and Kate was anything but ugly. So, he just continues. Never stops. Never slows down.

He picks up his running pace and ventures off the sidewalk to avoid having to weave through garbage cans placed on the ends of driveways for pick up. The music in his ears provided by his headphones prevents him from hearing the approaching car from behind, but the headlights paint his shadow on the pavement in front of him, but he doesn't bother hugging the curb just in case the driver can't see him or gets too close. He keeps his lane, doesn't even hope the driver does the same. He just keeps running from the place he started, from the time displayed on his broken clock, from the memories in his head, from the thoughts of the future. He's running with no place to go, so he isn't surprised when his legs grow tired where they do.

He's bent over at the end of a driveway, sweaty palms sliding against the material of his jogging pants covering his knees. He looks up at the house he's seen enough times to know that the air of unfamiliarity surrounding it stems from the barricades he's put up himself, and wonders if he's too tired to break them down tonight. He cracks his spine as he straightens in contemplation before giving in to his unsteady legs and advances towards the house like a stranger asking his neighbor to help him search for a missing pet. Desperate, but wary.

He's on the porch before he realizes it and wants to turn around, but knows the occupant inside has undoubtedly heard him. He doesn't knock, not because he expects the door to be opened by the owner, or because he knows he doesn't have to. It's because he suddenly feels the bitter cold on the surface of his skin, has the desire to have a heavy jacket weighing on his shoulders, and wants to have a clock tick away time while he sleeps. He knows it has nothing to do with the exercise he's just endured, but everything to do with the place he's wound up at.

The door grows taller as he feels the hard surface of the porch against his backside and finds it strange that the smell of wood and bourbon hasn't hit him yet. He's always in the basement before his legs give out, not at the doorstep like a discarded package. The smell he's use to finally swims under his nose, but it's faint, not suffocating.

"DiNozzo."

He props his arms on his bent knees and folds his hands when he looks up at the figure standing in the now open doorway.

"Hey, Boss," He lifts the corner of his mouth to smirk but drops it quickly with exhaustion. "When are you going to re-stain your porch? If you want, I could do it for ya. I once had to - "

"Why are you here, DiNozzo," Gibbs questions as he folds his arms and leans against the doorway.

"Oh. I was out for a run...in the neighborhood. Thought I'd-"

The older man glances at his working watch, "at 0300?"

"Well...my clock's broken - long story, funny story, really."

"I don't care about the clock, Tony. Why are you here?"

Tony snorts with a weird grin. "I feel like we just had this conversation, Boss."

"I meant the porch, DiNozzo, not my house."

"Eh...just wondering when you were going to get around to re-staining it."

Gibbs stares at him for a moment before stepping back inside the house only to appear out on the porch a moment later with a blanket to drop in the Senior Field Agent's lap. He doesn't ask if Tony wants to come inside, because he knows the younger man will find himself sitting on the couch in the basement eventually. He also knows that it's not the basement that's the safe haven Tony seeks.

It starts with where they are now. The unlocked door, the unstained porch, the seated position of their backs against the exterior wall of the house, shoulders barely touching - it's everything Tony needs it to be and anything Gibbs can make it for any member of his team.

"You know I don't plan on re-staining the porch." Gibbs says it, not to remind Tony but because he always says it, because the younger man always asks as if he needs to verbalize an excuse to be there even though the real reason is easy to see.

DiNozzo sighs, but Jethro does his best to act like he doesn't know why, like he doesn't know that the condition of the porch is some sentimental element to each member of his team. Gibbs knows there will always be broken clocks and missing jackets, and middle of the night runs. He knows that there will always be barriers, locked doors and stained porches along with misleading questions and redirected conversations. But among all the things that make DiNozzo his usual self, there's always a place that has a working clock, a warm blanket, and a place to sit in the middle of the night. This place has no barriers to keep anything out, an unlocked door and an unstained porch. It also has somebody who can read behind every misleading question and understand every redirected conversation. This place allows Tony to be everything he needs to be without having to do anything at all.

It's Gibbs's porch and it's always this place.