-10-

Like most well-laid plans, the list is slowly forgotten in the coming months. After learning a few chords on his new guitar, it is relegated to the corner of his living room with the promise of more attention when time allows. And it never does. The list itself is relocated to his desk after garnering more than a few food stains and soon disappears under a stack of bills and case files. After all, when in working 80 hour weeks is he going to take an actual vacation, and what are the chances of finding a former Miss Universe in a DC night club? (For that matter, when was the last time he actually went to a night club?)

But one chilly Tuesday morning in February, an unexpected call from Mount Sinai and the incomprehensible words massive stroke and unresponsive bring the list back to the forefront of his mind. He spends the four hour drive formulating what he will say to his father - how he will be there for the recovery, how it is an eye-opener for both of them, that he wants to make even more of an effort on their relationship. Maybe when he is feeling better, they can even do a few things from the list together.

His optimistic plans are shattered though when the doctor gives him a sympathetic look and tells him in gentle tones that they don't expect Senior to wake up again. He sits in a daze beside the hospital bed, trying to process how this larger-than-life man could look so fragile and old and still. He jumps when his phone buzzes, not needing to glance down at the caller ID to know who it is.

"How is he?" she asks without prelude.

He takes a deep shuddering breath, not realizing until that moment how much he needed to hear her voice. "They don't expect he'll make it the day."

She is silent for several beats, her voice betraying very unZiva-like emotion when she speaks again, "I'm so sorry, Tony."

"Yeah," he chokes out. "Yeah, me too."

He can hear her hesitation before she speaks again. "I...I think that there is still time to tell him that it's okay. I think he would like that." That she would remember that from one glance at a piece of paper months ago...he loves her more in that moment than ever before.

And so he takes his father's cold hand between his and talks until his voice is hoarse and broken, the vitriol of four decades of hurt and anger expelled and then forgiven. It is easier than he thought it would be, and he falls into silent musings of regret over the years wasted in stubborn silence. He isn't all that surprised when, an hour after he finally stops talking, Anthony DiNozzo Senior gives one final shuddering breath and departs the world, his face more peaceful than Tony ever remembered.

She is waiting at his apartment when he gets home late that night, returning only for more clothes and a black suit before flying back to New York in the morning. She follows closely behind him to the desk, where he pulls the sheets from a drawer and with shaking fingers, draws a line through number ten. And then she holds him as he cries.

-24-

His eyes and mind wander, because that is far easier than acknowledging the mahogany casket over which the priest pontificates. He is surrounded by a sea of Armani and Zegna and every other name that is valued by the large crowd of tycoons and New York royalty who somehow knew his father. In sharp contrast, he stands flanked on one side by his gothic sister in head-to-toe Victorian black lace and the other by a striking foreign beauty in a simple black dress that he knows conceals at least one knife and a .22. He smiles warmly in spite of himself as his gaze travels further down the line of his companions: McGee in an off-the-rack suit from Pennys, Ducky in his classic bowtie, the boss with hints of ever-present sawdust clinging to his cuffs. Even Palmer stands uncomfortably beside the steely-eyed team leader and tries to disguise the moisture in his eyes.

They are here, mourning for a man that they hardly knew better than Tony himself. But as he accepts the needed comfort flowing from both Abby's death grip and Ziva's own delicate fingers, he knows that his family is here for Junior, not Senior. And he realizes that despite his best efforts to the contrary, he let them all in long ago.

Evidence to the contrary, this won't all be an angst-fest (though the next chapter kinda is as well...hum…) But our beloved Tony seems to need repeated kicks in the pants or slaps to the head to keep him moving forward...