Rating: M
Warning: This story deals with sexual assault, grief, loss and mental illness.
A/N Thanks to Ibinkybella for her terrific job in beta reading this chapter for me and cleaning up my mistakes. I couldn't resist tinkering I'm afraid. Any remaining mistakes are mine. Just a heads up to readers, I am a proud Aussie and while I have made every attempt to use US words and terms, I have not changed the spelling of words. Spelling in my story is Australian/English (or if you like British/English spelling.)
Also thanks to everyone for taking time to review and for the alerts. They are much appreciated :)
Chapter two: Who Are You and What Have You Done to Tony?
"You're a doppelganger!" exclaimed McGee continuing on with his earlier theme of substitution to explain Tony's uncharacteristic behaviour. "There can't be any other explanation for the past few hours," he concluded somewhat hysterically as he prepared to phone in a sit rep to their boss." I mean how else do you explain your behaviour Tony?"
He kept such an eagle eye on his partner that Tony felt as if McGee expected him to flee the Bethesda Hospital ER at any second and was preparing to stop him from bolting. As if McWorrywart could really stop him if he wanted to leave, Tony snorted in amusement.
DiNozzo considered his contrary behaviour, as he had arrived at the triage area of the emergency department. He had strolled over and announced himself to the nurse and stated that he was meeting Dr Pitt and Dr Stuart there. The nurse insisted on beginning a preliminary examination of his injury while they waited for the two doctors to be paged and he acquiesced gracefully.
McGee had watched in astonishment as the usually ebullient agent, who always reverted to a churlish, adolescent type persona when confronted by any medical personnel, positively charmed the socks off the new doctor, who turned out to be a crack hand surgeon. Tony watched as McGullible finally put it together; that the two phone calls that he made at the scene of the takedown before heading into Bethesda, were to Tony's buddy Dr Pitt and probably to Ducky, his de-facto physician asking them to find him a leading hand surgeon to examine his hand.
Dr Kristina Stuart, the pre-eminent hand surgeon in Washington was a tall spare woman with mousy brown hair, gradually heading toward mousy grey and a cool competent air that made Tony feel reassured. Following a thorough examination of his injured hand, she determined that there was likely damage to several tendons and potential nerve damage too but until surgery, she was unable to determine the true extent or make an accurate prognosis with regard to regaining full functionality. Her recommendation was immediate surgery and promised to have a micro-surgeon on standby should it be required.
McGee no doubt expected to have to get the Boss and Ducky down there to help hogtie DiNozzo to the bed and brow beat him into consenting to the surgery but Tony was eager to get it over and done with as soon as possible. Although Brad Pitt kept exchanging quizzical glances at Tony and McGee, Tony smirked as he continued to charm the hand surgeon. He was amused that his uncharacteristic behaviour when it came to doctors, was making his friends crazy trying to figure out what the hell he was up to.
As a consummate observer of human behaviour, Tony understood that a surgeon that had a positive emotional connection to a patient, was likely to go the extra mile to achieve the impossible and he was hoping for a miracle here and wanted to stack the deck in his favour as much as he could. No way would he admit to anyone that he was freaking scared out of his tree but that was the case and he wasn't going to do anything that might jeopardise his recovery. If sucking up to his surgeon was going to help her go the extra mile for his hand, Tony was happy to oblige.
It was quite simple, Tony thought to himself. He needed two good hands to be a field agent. Without them it would be almost impossible to argue that he could continue to carry out his duties fully, even though he was a pretty damn good shot with his left hand too. Apart from his job, which defined who and what he was, he also needed his right hand to indulge his secret passion. Music wasn't something he shared with people and very few individuals knew that he could play piano well enough to probably make it professionally or that he could also play guitar passably well too. He never did figure out how Jenny knew about his proficiency with the guitar and when he tried to deny he could play, when she made him pose as a street busker during an undercover operation, she had called him on it. So now there were also various NCIS Intelligence Officers and Pencil Pushers who were there in MTAC that were aware of his skill, although none of them knew how much it meant to him.
Thankfully none of his team had been privy to the surveillance because he had been working off the grid for Jenny. It made him antsy to think that the late Director had known about his closely guarded secret; she obviously must have had extremely comprehensive background information on him, because there were very few people that knew about his music. Or maybe she had just been stalking him, he reflected uncomfortably. He had always been aware on a visceral level that there was something predatory about Jenny's expression when she watched him unguarded. He wasn't sure if it was something about him or something to do with Gibbs. It was almost as if she was jealous: that, or she had a serious Mrs Robinson fantasy, except he was hardly Dustin Hoffman.
Tony's thoughts returned to the music that was so important to him and so terribly private. He loved his jazz and had an extensive collection of sheet music as well as his beloved CD collection but he also played classical pieces sometimes, which would bring back poignant memories of his mother before her death. Given his conflicted emotions about her, it wasn't something he planned on sharing with his colleagues anytime soon; maybe when Hell froze over.
His mother had been a concert pianist before her marriage and Tony always felt as if she might have found reasons enough to live, if his father hadn't demanded that she give up her professional career when they married. Tony knew that their marriage had been rocky from the get-go, with Senior having difficulty with fidelity issues. Even the arrival of her son Anthony Junior, the son and heir demanded by his father to continue the dynasty, had not been sufficient reason for her to find the strength to live for him; or to leave her husband and make a new life with her son. Perhaps if his mom had had a daughter instead of him, it might have been a different story, Tony had always thought.
Instead she wallowed in an alcohol induced haze of despair and apathy; increasingly living only for her music, until she could endure her life no more. An overdose of tranquilisers and sleeping pills, chased down with some super high priced gin, was her ultimate solution. Her suicide, leaving behind as a legacy for her son, not only a life without a mother but traumatic enduring memories of his eight year old self discovering her lifeless body. Any wonder he was conflicted about her!
Maybe that was why he never told anyone about his music. Apart from having to really talk and share some very personal and painful memories from his childhood which he hated, it would also have meant people knowing that he wasn't a good enough son for his mother, not just a disappointment for Senior. He hated anyone pitying him and knowing what a failure he really was. As much as he loved to play piano and remember the times he played with his mother, he also found those memories to be bitter sweet and also prompted episodes of deep melancholy for him.
It was simply too personal for him to share with even his de-facto family, much as he trusted them with his life. He just didn't trust them with what he saw as his many flaws and weaknesses. He craved unconditional love and acceptance but knew deep in his DNA that he simply wasn't worthy of it. So he hid his true self behind a complex series of facades so that people didn't see how pitiful he really was. When he did share snippets of his childhood (after all, to say nothing would provoke unwanted and inconvenient curiosity or attention) it would be some small painful detail, artfully clothed in an amusing anecdote, while managing to deflect any genuine emotion or request for addition details.
So given the importance that music held in his life, it was hardly surprising that he wanted to make sure that his hand healed properly. Without it his world would likely come crumbling down around his ears. He was scared freaking witless about the surgery, not because of the actual procedure; he was afraid of what they would discover when they got in there and what it would mean for those things he held dear. He was pragmatic enough to know that he had stacked the deck as much as possible by Brad organising for Kristina to do his surgery. Ducky had approved of her as well and the sooner he got it fixed the sooner he could start healing and begin physical therapy to regain normal function. He dreaded the thought that he might wake up from the surgery to find his life in tatters but the sooner it was done, the less agonising the wait to find out if he had a future.
He was also evilly amused by the effect his uncharacteristic behaviour was having on everyone from Ducky and Brad, to his team mates and the staff at Bethesda. He had spent enough time here earning a truckload of frequent flyer points, as well as a reputation as a giant pain in the butt; likely to go UA or when that didn't work, signing out AMA and steadfastly trying to refuse to take medications, especially analgesia. His current behaviour was seen as so out of character that several of his former doctors were recommending that he be scheduled for a head CT to check for head trauma or pathology.
One or two even half jokingly suggested getting a psych consult, the sadistic SOBs. So just to be perverse he strived to outdo even his most charming and gracious persona, to captivate every nurse, doctor, intern or orderly within sight. It was not only amusing but it passed the time and made the waiting a bit more bearable. It was fun messing with people's heads, he concluded gleefully.
Meanwhile, McGee had returned to NCIS where Gibbs was no doubt preparing to interrogate PFC McClosky about the amphetamines drug ring. After an initial softening up period in the holding cells, Gibbs was probably now subjecting the hapless Marine to his silent treatment to soften him up even further in preparation for the main game. It was pretty ironic, Tony mused to himself, that Jethro Gibbs utilised some of the same psychological techniques used in therapy that encouraged people to open up to shrinks, to break down suspects, when he abhorred the idea of anything remotely connected to psychiatry.
Tony was the by-product of a plethora of revolving door therapists, counsellors and psychoanalysts during his childhood, and usually dragged there, kicking and screaming by either his parents or school. He understood pretty well the various strategies used by shrinks to elicit responses from reluctant participants. One of the most powerful of which, was silence that stretched on until the victim ... er client was so uncomfortable that they would do or say anything to fill the void, even spill their guts to the shrink. Gibbs combined this with his death-ray glare and was a master at this game of getting even the toughest dirt bags to spill their guts.
Tony hated shrinks just as much as Gibbs and submitted to compulsory psych evals at the point of a gun. Well if truth be told, it was actually threat of removal from the field but that was splitting hairs. At least, thought Tony, his childhood dalliances gave him plenty of practice in how to deflect shrinks asking personal and awkward questions during psych evals. Pesky questions which Tony didn't consider to be anyone else's business but his own. Probably the only one that might be on par with him, in his total distain of shrinks and psych evaluations would be his legendary mentor, Special Agent Gibbs who thought that his way of simply avoiding his issues was the only way to go. Tony smirked as he waited for someone to come in with his pre-op meds, thinking of the paradox that was Leroy Jethro Gibbs.
When they finally came to take him down for his surgery, DiNozzo was cracking joke upon joke and flashing his trademark grin, trying like hell to keep from thinking about what was at stake. He wished that Ducky or Abby was here with him right now to keep his hopes up. Both of his friends were such optimistic souls that they helped to chase away his demons when he was with them. Right now there was a graveyard full of demons, all chasing him down the corridor as he was wheeled away to his appointment with Dr Stuart in the operating theatre.
At least Abby has promised to stop by when he was back from surgery, he reminded himself stoically. She knew just how much he hated the feeling of being out of control, when he was under the influence of mind altering meds. It was also the reason why he made a show of being a hard drinker but rarely ever got drunk, unless the demons were winning. That and the fact that he never wanted to be like his alcohol riddled father.
In fact, Abby more than anyone, had managed to crack his code and unlock a lot of the different masks that Tony used to protect himself from the world. She saw fairly early on in their friendship, that the obnoxious, brash playboy persona was an act. An act that he believed the newer members of the team still continued to accept as being real. Why Abby was able to see his pain so easily Tony wasn't exactly sure, except that maybe she was a witch!
When he was finally returned to his room following surgery he was unaware of his surroundings but as he started coming around, he was immediately aware of the presence of his best friend. She was there murmuring encouragingly to him that it all went well, while she deftly stroked his silky brown hair. Tony didn't really like to be touched much. He was simply not accustomed to being touched as a means of expressing love and affection.
He dimly remembered that his mom used to touch him sometimes and hug him but he mostly remembered his father's hand and it was not used to show affection but to cause him hurt or humiliation. It took him a while to learn to accept Abby with all her touchy feely-ness and although he found it comforting now, especially when he was hurt or hurting, it wasn't a liberty that he normally allowed others to offer him. Apart from that, his hair was so damn fine that you don't mess with perfection he giggled, still held hostage to the hated chemical agents, which robbed him of his usual censoring mechanism.
When he was more compos mentus, he managed to open his eyes, to see her smirking at him sardonically. He wondered what he had done to deserve that look now, so he asked "what's up Abs?" And had a momentary vision of Bugs Bunny.
She smiled at him half proudly and half exasperatedly and said, " It's that famous DiNozzo charm Tony. How the hell you manage to make a conquest with a woman when you are totally unconscious and dressed in a hospital gown to boot, I'll never, ever know. Naked I could understand, but no one looks good in those gowns, even you. I walked in here when you had just got back from the recovery ward, to find your nurse mooning over you and wiping your fevered brow."
Judging by Abby's guarded words and expression, she was being somewhat economical with the details. Contrary to the popular belief that was actively encouraged by none other than Very Special Agent Tony DiNozzo, he truly found any genuine physical fussing or displays of real affection by women to be highly embarrassing and didn't welcome them.
"How do you know it wasn't one of the many nurses that I have extended my considerable charms and flirting skills on before they put me under the knife?" he joked, although he still felt a little concerned."I've been on my very best behaviour," he teased her knowing that it was expected.
He really hated being vulnerable and unable to control his environment when he was in hospital or on pain meds. He slept with a gun close by when he was not in the hospital but he was obviously unable to do so here and it made him nervous.
Abby shook her head and said, "Because Tony-boy, the nursing shifts changed while you were down in theatre. You seduced her without even being awake and I so want to know your secrets. You know how much I hate it when you keep secrets from me," she teased.
Although he looked slightly alarmed and more than a bit uncomfortable, thankfully Abby changed the topic. Soon they began talking about other things that distracted him and he was laughing and joking while he waited for a visit from his surgeon. When Kristina Stuart finally entered his room still dressed in her surgical scrubs, he immediately became serious as he scanned her face for signs of what she had found.
Dr Stuart in her turn was checking out her newest patient and also his somewhat eccentric companion, although Tony had to admit that she tried not to be too obvious about it when it came to Abby. Still, Tony was highly attuned to his friend and would do anything to prevent her getting hurt and he was used to people making snap judgements about his Abby, based purely on her somewhat unorthodox appearance. So he immediately moved into protective mode to prevent Abby feeling like she was being observed like some sort of strange specimen in a jar.
"Hi Kristina" he grinned, "I'd like you to meet my best friend Abby Scuito who is the world's best forensic scientist, not to mention the hottest lab geek and also the kindest person I have ever met. Abby meet Dr Kristina Stuart, the world's best hand surgeon." His intense stare told Kristina that this was someone important to him and he wouldn't tolerate anyone treating her with disrespect or derision. She smiled gently at him, silently acknowledging his unspoken message.
The doctor seemed rather disconcerted to discover that even under the influence of a plethora of drugs, he had so easily read her curiosity and perceptions. What she couldn't know and Tony had no intention of telling her was he was accustomed to people making snap judgements about him based on his looks. It usually involved people seriously underestimating him and he was determined to protect his friend from this unkind fate if he could. Granted, Abby was unorthodox in the way she chose to present herself, especially for someone working in law enforcement. Her raven black hair was upswept into girly pigtails, while her impossibly long legs were clothed in clodhopper type black leather platform boots that wouldn't have been out of place on Herman Munster. Her clothes consisted of an oh so itsy-bitsy miniskirt and a shirt adorned with tiny bats all topped off with her tats and a studded dog collar around her neck and studded bands around her slender wrists.
Abby smiled half deprecatingly, half knowingly, as she extended her hand to the doctor to shake her hand. "Tony is exaggerating, but not about the BFF stuff though. I think that Tony is my long lost twin," she joked flashing her green eyes across at Tony as he reclined on the bed tensely, awaiting his doctor's sit rep on his hand.
Dr Stuart smiled at them both and said, "pleased to meet you Abby" while trying to hide her surprise at Abby's fruity contralto instead of a girlish high voice that she was obviously expecting. Meanwhile, she schooled her features into a professional expression and directed her attention at her increasingly agitated patient, even though both women could tell that he was trying very hard not to show his concern.
"Well," she began, "several of your tendons needed to be repaired which I was able to do successfully. There was minor damage to some of the nerves connecting your fingers which the micro-surgeon spent time repairing as much as he could. We can't guarantee that you will have one hundred percent return to normal function but barring complications and if you follow medical advice religiously for a change -and yes your reputation precedes you- then the chances of you being able to fire a gun again should be pretty good."
"I'll write you up for some pain meds, that you will take," she lectured, already having been given the heads up on his stubborn refusal in the past to take his analgesic meds . "Then you will also need to follow your physical therapist's orders with your rehabilitation too. No pushing too fast or too soon. There is too much at stake here," she counselled him seriously. "I don't want you to undermine my work in the OR tonight, okay Tony?"
She noted that he was concentrating on what she had to say and he nodded seriously. " Yeah Doc I hear ya. I'll be good I promise" he drawled, though his eyes belied the somewhat casual words with his focused determined expression and the pursing of his lips.
Although Abby looked rather shocked by Tony's response, he could see that Kristina knew that he wasn't playing her and would be a model patient even if it killed him. She seemed pretty pleased with herself and her patient and she wished him a good night's sleep and told him she would be around in the morning to see him before he was discharged.
After the doctor left the room, Tony could feel Abby studying him with an intensity that was normally reserved for examining the specimens under one of her microscopes. Finally she could contain herself no longer and she turned to Tony and said, "okay Mister where is my Tony and what have you done with him? There is something hinky and so not Tony-like going on and I want to know what it is."
Anthony DiNozzo smirked and waggled his eyebrows at her while managing to execute an impressive eye roll, which was incredibly infuriating but was also equally cute. "It's simple Abbs," he explained in a measured voice that you use for the seriously deranged when you don't want to rile them." I don't want to be out of a job because I can't fire my gun any more or pl... um do stuff. So I am going to be a good little patient and do what I'm told, so I can come back to work again and be with my favourite forensic scientist," he quickly deflected because not even Abby knew his secret.
Sure she knew that he had learnt how to play piano when he was a child but he never told her how much it still meant to him. He occasionally goofed off for her on the piano when she was over at his place but he never played anything that was truly meaningful or that he had played with his mother. Although Abbs knew that the piano in his apartment wasn't an affectation or decorative piece, she thought that it was probably more of a keepsake from his childhood. It made him feel bad that he was keeping this secret from his friend but it was simply too painful for him to talk about. He knew that if he refused to play at all then Abby would scent out his secret and not rest until he spilled his guts. So he fooled around for her sometimes just to throw her off track, while admitting to her that no one else knew he could play a bit.
Everyone else thought the piano was just for show because of his appearance of being a person of style over substance, although occasionally when Ducky was over, he did catch him eyeing him knowingly. Ducky was a wily old bird but never tried to pry information out of Tony though. He would simply lay a hand on Tony's arm and tell him "if you ever need to talk to anyone young Anthony, I would be honoured to listen." Ducky would give his arm a gentle squeeze and give him a smile that warmed his mild blue eyes; eyes that were a world apart from Gibbs' piercing arctic glare.
So he and Abby spent a few hours together talking about work and the current case as Tony became more and more alert while he continued to metabolise more of the anaesthesia drugs out of his system. Abby wanted to stay the night to keep him company and take him home again in the morning but Tony was attempting to assure her he would be fine on his own for one night.
"Tony I know how much you hate being in hospitals," she pouted.
Tony sighed dramatically and acknowledged the truth of her statement, "I know Abbs, I know but it's just one night. So I think I can cope, although I won't be sorry to get out of here, I admit."
As he was trying to convince her that he would be fine tonight because she had been pulling several all nighters at the lab and was looking rather wan and tired, a nurse came into the room. Noticing Abby's slightly sardonic grin, he concluded using his special agent skills that it was the nurse that Abby had found with him when she arrived. He examined her more closely and noticed that she was extremely attractive. Her hair was a soft hazelnut brown and her eyes were a deep sapphire blue but while stunning, they betrayed a hint of pain and suffering that Tony easily recognised as a fellow soul in torment. Her lips were wide and generous and at the moment were engaged in a friendly smile as she introduced herself.
"Hi, I'm your nurse tonight and my name is Sonata Gordon but most people call me Sona. Well except for a couple of Aussie nurses who always call me Gordo," she giggled. She must have noticed the slight inclination of his eyebrows and hastened to explain. "I had a mother that was a classical musician," she explained patiently. Probably not for the first time, Tony felt sure. He wondered why parents did that to their kids, anyway? If he ever had a kid which wasn't looking all that likely, he would make sure they had a name that didn't require an explanation every time they had to introduce themselves.
"I did meet you earlier when you first got back from your surgery but I guess you don't remember much about that?" Sona joked.
Tony smiled somewhat uneasily and admitted that he didn't recall her before noticing that she had some pills in a cup ready to give him. He quirked an eyebrow at the pills and she said brightly, "yes I have some analgesics here that the doctor prescribed for you and a couple of sleeping tablets to help you get a good night's sleep."
Tony took the pain meds reluctantly, remembering how he had promised to be a good patient but he waved away the sleeping tablets. "Trust me, I won't need those to sleep. The pain meds are enough to knock me out."
He swallowed the pills and chased them down with the water that Sona was holding out to him. Just as she was preparing to do his night obs starting with his temperature, Abby's pager went off. She smiled at Tony and explained her phone was switched off. She excused herself to call into NCIS and returned a few minutes later with a slight frown on her face.
" They need me back at the lab, Tony," she pouted, crinkling her lip adorably thought Tony in amusement.
"I'll be fine Abbs, I promise. I'll go straight to sleep and I will see you in the morning," he grinned at her. "Go, before the Bossman spontaneously combusts," he teased, knowing that she would rise to the bait and defend her beloved Silver Fox. Sure enough, she glared at him, ready to rebuke him when the nurse interrupted.
"No need to worry about him, I'll look after him for you," the nurse promised Abby reassuringly, who she could see was torn between leaving and staying with Tony.
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Abby hugged her friend and grazed her lips across his cheek, glancing at him one last time before saying goodnight to Tony and Sona. All her intuition was screaming that she should stay with Tony but she wasn't sure why. Was it Sona and her mooning over Tony? Abby had spent enough time around Tony to get used to women flocking to him like moths to a flame, especially when he was injured. For some reason he always seemed to bring the protective gene out in anyone with an double X chromosome whenever he was hurt. Funny really, because it made him so darned ansty whenever women fussed around him, wanting to look after him. The only time he ever really relished this super power of his, was when he wasn't really injured and was bunging it on; when he was in control.
Abby remembered how distressed Tony had been when she had mentioned his lustful nurse mooning over him and was glad that she didn't tell him that her ministrations has been bordering on the X –rated. Although he would have been horrified to know the details and wasn't even comfortable with her vague hints, Abby couldn't help smiling to herself. Truth be told, she had a pretty good idea what had prompted the lovesick nurse to be feeling up her best friend's muscular abs in a way that was not exactly therapeutic. Tony was almost unbearably good looking with a smile to die for and lips that begged to be sucked on, eyes to lose ...
Well moving on she concluded, when he slept there was a fragility about him, possibly because his many masks were absent. The absence revealed a childlike quality that made women of all ages want to mother him, which was pretty darned ironic because that was precisely the type of attention that made him uncomfortable. She knew, because she was not exactly immune to the DiNozzo physical attributes herself but had long ago learned to temper her reactions apart from hugs. She understood of course that he found fussing all too confusing to cope with, unless it was in a teasing, superficial fashion that including flirting. So when he allowed her to fuss him like no one else could, she realised just how much he had come to trust her with his deepest secret nature.
Abby almost wished she had kept her observations about the nurse to herself. She had thought that it might cheer him up to hear he had made yet another conquest but it seemed to just freak him out for some reason, "Good one Abbs" she mentally castigated herself. "You were supposed to be cheering him up not creeping him out." So she had set out to take his mind off things by giving him a hilarious account of how her bowling teammates Sister Rosita et al plus herself, had kicked ass against a bunched of local LEOs in the bowling league last night. Tony had been amused by her antics and those of the colourful nuns and seemed to forget about creepy nurses, damaged tendons and finding a new job.
So it wasn't as if Nurse Gordon's attentiveness was all that unusual. It wasn't as if she was jealous of her or anything. Was it because of Tony's bizarre antics since he was injured because everyone had noticed his behaviour, it was so un-Tony-like? Sure it would be considered normal, even reasonable for any other person but Tony wasn't normal and when he started behaving that way, it was just wrong. Or was it that he almost said something important when his defences were down due the chemical concoction of drugs still in his bloodstream? Sure he did his usual job of deflecting attention away from what he had almost said but Abby hadn't been fooled by his tactic although she had chosen not to pursue it ... then.
Whatever it was that was bothering her, it was definitely hinkiness of the highest order and Abigail Scuito didn't like hinky one little bit. Not even a slight case of hinky when it came to those she loved, let alone the force -ten- hinky, something really, really bad was going to happen vibe that she was picking up in Tony's room. Unfortunately her hinky radar was not enough to convince Gibbs that she needed to be here with Tony rather than processing evidence back at the lab.
Abby thought that this was kind of ironic, as the Bossman had no problem backing his own gut but her gut had proved right before when Tony was trapped in a sewer by a serial killer and Cate had been shot by a sniper. So it wasn't as if Abby's gut didn't have form. So even though she headed back to the lab, she couldn't help but think that she would regret ignoring the hinky feeling. It was going to be another long night. In the months to come Abby had no idea just how prophetic her thoughts would prove to be.
A/N Appologies to people who may get a doubling up on alerts because it has had to be reposted due to difficulties.