Chapter 4

Abby was waiting to ambush them when they entered. Something about the fierceness of her hug told Tony that, at the least, Gibbs' note hadn't been entirely reassuring.

If she suspected the truth, however, she was more interested in pelting him with questions, and not giving him the chance to answer.

"You're freezing," she exclaimed, rubbing his arms. "How did you get so cold? Right, stupid question; you decided to go for walk at six o'clock in the morning. Or were you up earlier?" She made a disgruntled noise as she steered Tony into the living room. "Never mind. Sit."

Tony could feel Gibbs gloating in the background. He'd known all along Tony wasn't going to get off scot-free.

"Ducky is so totally going to kill you for this," Tony mumbled, sulky, and he hardly knew at whom, "and I am so totally going to let him."

Before actually letting him sit on the sofa, Abby divested him of the coat.

Tony sat obediently, and didn't even protest when she wrapped a blanket around his shoulders. "Hot cocoa's next, right?" The mocking smile froze on his lips at her dead-serious expression. "Ah, that is, I'll be lucky if hot cocoa is next. Or…bread and water. Tepid, brackish water, even."

Abby was not amused. "Anthony DiNozzo, Ducky says rest, and so you go for a walk in the middle of the night? What on earth possessed you?"

"Actually, it was late night—or early morning—if we're being specific… Which we're not. Because that would be entirely unnecessary." Tony resisted the urge to duck his head under the heat of her glare. "What possessed me? Ah—sheer folly?" he tried hopefully. Sometimes you could worm your way out of these things by being openly repentant.

Abby's face crumpled. Tony hated it when she looked at him like that. If her hugs could make you feel like the world's best person, her reproach could make you feel like the scum of the earth. This was the look he'd been dreading, the reason he hadn't been able to screw up his courage and say a face-to-face goodbye.

"You were leaving us again, weren't you?" she not so much asked as accused, but in a small voice. She tilted her chin, and looked briefly past Tony—at Gibbs, Tony assumed (there was no way he was going to look for himself right then). "But the Bossman stopped you."

"He would've found his way back on his own, Abbs."

And Tony knew Gibbs was right.

Abby was good at coming up with excuses to invite people over to his house. Not that Gibbs minded. Despite what Tony might think about the presumptions Gibbs had made so far, he wouldn't have called up McGee or Ziva unless he thought Tony was ready to be set upon by the rest of the team.

Abby, though—she could get away with: "Please Tony? I hate lying to them, and they're always asking if I've heard anything from you, and it's really hard not to tell them, 'cause they're going to be so happy to know you're back, and they'll want to see you when they know, and since we've been getting together pretty often they're going to get suspicious if I keep putting them off—I mean, I'm usually the one who initiates get-togethers, and—"

Gibbs had heard the poorly-concealed disappointment in the way Tony asked, "Oh. So I'd be interrupting the teams' Saturday-night college football viewing then, huh? Or whatever you guys do on Saturday nights these days."

Abby had socked him the arm, but gently. "Don't be an idiot, Tony. We haven't had a team night since you disappeared. It couldn't be a team night without you. We've had a lot of moping marathons, though."

"Moping…marathons?"

"Yeah. That's what you do at a 'party' where no one's in the mood to party, because one of your best friends is in danger, and you can't do anything about it."

"Oh," Tony had responded, unintelligently, chagrined, and trying not to sound too pleased.

"You getting the picture yet?" Abby demanded. "We were worried sick about you, Mister. The least you can do is let me invite them over for a real, honest-to-God team night. It's about time."

The vaguely pleased look was still on Tony's face, making Gibbs smile a little as he watched them from the kitchen. Some things only Abby could get away with.

Tony cleared his throat. "Well, if you really think they'd want to come…"

"Have you been listening to a word I've been saying?" Abby reprimanded fondly. "They'll probably be here hours early."

The pleased look was still there when later that evening when—an hour and half early—Ziva and McGee came to the door, just minutes apart, as if their internal alarms had gone off in tandem, impatience winning out.

McGee gave Tony a brief, awkward hug-cum-slap-on-the-back, manly and acceptable to both, saying soberly, "It's…really good to see you, Tony." Tony even responded in-kind, with a level of near-seriousness: "It isn't half-bad to see your face again, either, Probie."

Ziva had a more awkward time of it, at least initially. She stared at Tony for a long moment, and Gibbs could see her cataloging the changes in him. Although he'd shaved now, under the scruff there were still the too-hollow planes of his face, and the sunken look to his eyes. After the first moment, however, Ziva showed no inhibitions about embracing him—prolonging it, perhaps, a little beyond both her and Tony's comfort-zone, but not letting it stop her.

When she pulled away, it was to push into his hands a bag of chips she'd brought, saying decisively, "You are too thin."

Abby surveyed it all with the satisfaction of a mother hen with all her chicks gathered under her wings.

McGee had brought along a small TV, which they set up in the living room, dragging in a kitchen chair to set it on. Not even Tony was particularly interested in the game, but it made a good excuse for hotdogs and chips, and Abby used her considerable enthusiasm to get everyone involved in playing the several board-games she'd brought.

No one asked Tony where he'd been, or what had happened to him, but Gibbs observed McGee and Ziva pausing periodically to watch Tony. They might not put it into words, but the questions were there, in concerned glances and exchanged looks.

Maybe they'd all been expecting him to come back more of wreck—a shipwrecked Sentinel, senses gone haywire. The thing was, he was shipwrecked, and the more hastily-flashed smiles they saw DiNozzo put on—like armor, worn from a need not to be seen not smiling—the more apparent it became. Tony had always been good at playing his cards close to the vest, locking up emotion, and throwing the key away.

Still, going by Abby's permanent grin at the end of the night, she thought her idea had been a success, and Gibbs couldn't disagree.

In the middle of the clean-up process, Tony fell asleep on the couch with his head tilted back at an uncomfortable angle. He was snoring softly when Ziva and McGee slipped out.

Abby, sitting on the floor, putting the last of the game-pieces back in their boxes, looked at him and made one of those noises she generally reserved for cute baby animals.

"He looks all peaceful, almost like our old Tony, again. Not that we won't take him any way we can get him." Closing the lid on the game, Abby hugged the box to her stomach like a stuffed-animal. "Our Sentinel's gonna be okay, huh, Gibbs."

Gibbs watched her—and Tony—from his vantage point, leaning against the kitchen doorframe. Abby didn't know how much that very question plagued him. She didn't need to know. "He will be, if he knows what's good for him."

"You tell him, Bossman," Abby said softly, hugging her box with fresh contentment. She considered Tony again. "I can tell you now, though: sitting at that angle all night is definitely not gonna be one of those good-for-him things."

They didn't bother waking him, first. Gibbs took one arm, and Abby slipped his other arm around her neck, the two of them pulling him to his feet without consulting him. Tony made a faint sound of protest, but his feet cooperated clumsily with their efforts, the pain pill Abby'd coaxed him into taking apparently putting him in a malleable temper. Or else he was just too loopy to know exactly what was going on.

Halfway up the stairs, he did become semi-cognizant, enough to try to take on one of the stairs on his own. It was a good thing they didn't let go.

With Tony already dressed comfortably in sweatpants (a sly Abby-suggestion, made after Tony'd come home shivering that morning, and one with foresight as it turned out), they simply turned back the covers and deposited one drugged-out Sentinel onto the bed. Abby smoothed the covers over him with more mother-hen fussiness.

Tony's eyes were closed again within seconds, breathing steadying out into the rhythm of the profoundly dead-to-the-world.

"That second pain pill Ducky gave you for him—it have something a little extra to it, Abbs?"

Abby was smug. "I'll never tell."

Tony hated it when he dreamed about water.

He was always dreaming about the ocean, which, in theory, sounded nice. But he never had the kind of tropical-paradise dream that took place on sunny beaches under blue skies. That would've been one thing. No, he was always in the ocean, and wearing, impractically, water-logged, heavy clothes.

Best of all, when he wound up adrift in the ocean during a dream, he always seemed to have some awareness that he was dreaming. Again, in theory, that should have been a relief. A relief, because when he swam in the ocean during his dreams, he could never see the shore—or, if he could, it was forever just out of reach, no matter how long he tried to get there.

Tonight's ocean was throwing a full-blown temper tantrum, black masses of clouds throwing everything into a moonless night.

Tony was pretty sure he'd been struggling against choppy waves for hours. He wasn't sure if the line on the horizon was land or just a row of more oncoming clouds, but he was fixed on his course, in either case. One direction was as good as another when you didn't have a clue where you were, or how you'd gotten there.

He had the distinct feeling that he was being followed by someone, even though every glance around showed him wide-open waters. Whoever it was, he knew they'd get him if he ever stopped swimming.

Of course, if he did stop swimming, he'd have drowning to contend with, too.

So he swam, spray hitting him the face, and with ice for blood, and lead for bones. He was pretty sure he wasn't being melodramatic in drawing analogies—but, then, his brain felt like mush, too, so he couldn't vouch for his judgment.

Every one of his senses—every stupid "hyper-active" one of 'em—was bound and determined to drive him mad. No matter what Sandburg and Abby said, there were times when super-powers just weren't all they were cut out to be.

The wind was shrieking. Yeah, that was another stupid analogy that definitely fit right then. The noise made him wish he had an extra pair of hands, just to cover his ears with. Don't listen to it, DiNozzo, he told himself, a thousand times. But he couldn't stop. He grasped at images in his head, trying to conjure that mental "dial" Sandburg had tried to teach him about. He found it, but his control was sloppy, and in the end he simply put all his energy into one big twist, and—bam—just like that, the shrieking in his ears was gone. Of course, along with the shrieking had gone the sound of the waves, and everything else. It was worth the small surge of panic, though, to get rid of the wind.

Now he could focus on swimming. And on telling himself a thousand times not to pay attention to how the waves pounded him with hundreds of glass-shards of spray, over and over again. Or how his sodden clothing was beginning to chafe like sandpaper on his frozen skin. He searched for the dial that belonged to his sense of touch, finding the image more quickly, and latching on, jerking it down desperately.

It was strange, to say the least, not to feel pain, and know it was there. Tony knew which muscles to use to continue stroking the water, but the ocean's cold touch no longer affected him. It made him feel giddy to have mastered another challenge the elements had thrown at him. Take that. I can deal with anything you can throw at me. It felt good to taunt back.

He should've known better.

The wave caught him square in the face, like a punch. Although he didn't feel pain, the blow stunned him, salt water filling his mouth, and blind panic filling his mind as he began to sink. Disoriented, he flailed numb limbs in the direction he hoped was up.

Without hearing, breaking the surface was a confusing process; he blinked a few times, gagging, treading water, trying to see shore.

Even the far-off line on the horizon had vanished—or else, the rain was simply making it too obscure. He almost hadn't noticed the rain, and he found he couldn't dredge up the will to care about it, either. It wasn't like he could get wetter.

It wasn't like he was going to make it to land, either.

Just a dream. A stupid dream, he reminded himself. The hopelessness felt real enough, though, and he didn't have a dial for that.

After another few minutes of struggling, a realization began to dawn on him. If this was a dream, then all he had to do was wake up. Duh, DiNozzo. You really are brilliant, you know that? You could've figured that one out a while back.

He stopped to tread water, ignoring the sensation that that unknown someone was about to catch up with him, and considered the all-important how of waking up from this. When telling himself to snap out of it didn't get him anywhere, he decided the only recourse left him was to ignore the situation until it went away, and returned him to reality.

Here goes.

He stopped swimming altogether, and let himself sink. At first it was peaceful, a relief, to let the waters roll over his head without fighting them, and to allow darkness to take his vision.

No sound. No sensation. No sight.

And then, lack of oxygen hit him, too, and his body rebelled against it, even while what remained of his rational mind tried to reassure him that it was only temporary. He'd wake up, any minute.

Any minute. C'mon, c'mon… He wanted to cry out, as the pressure around him began to become unbearable, his lungs burning, pleading for air. A dream. Just a dream. But what if it wasn't?

Tony woke to the sound of himself finally crying out—an inarticulate noise of blind terror—as he jack-hammered up in bed.

"DiNozzo."

He almost hit Gibbs, only recognizing the shadowy figure too late. Thankfully, Marines weren't trained to have slow reactions to assault. Tony's fist was firmly belayed by a strong grip around his wrist.

Tony grasped for awareness. Even knowing the dream had been a dream, it was hard coming all the way back, especially with Gibbs watching you. His ears still felt plugged, his sense of touch tingling. Tony knew the feeling well enough to know that, at least for a while, he'd had the dials turned dangerously low, and not just in his dream. He had a bad feeling Gibbs hadn't just said his name the one time.

"I didn't realize it was you, Boss."

Gibbs let go of Tony's wrist. "Well, yeah, DiNozzo, I figured that."

"Thanks for, ah…waking me up. That was sure some dream."

"I didn't."

"Come again?"

Tony could barely see Gibbs features in the moonlight, but he was guessing Gibbs wasn't in a relenting mood. It was usually a good guess with Gibbs.

"Couldn't wake you up."

"Oh." Wait for it, wait for it… But Gibbs didn't ask the standard question that Tony was expecting. Gibbs never really did what you were expecting. Trying to keep his panting to a discreet rasping noise—no piece of cake in the quiet dead of night—Tony goaded, "Is this where you ask me if I'm all right? Or do you ask me if I wanna talk about it, first?"

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"I was swimming. And then I wasn't. That about sums it up."

"You all right?"

Tony swallowed at the open concern he heard. Gibbs showed concern for his people in a lot of ways, so it wasn't like him being concerned came as a surprise. Tony was just more accustomed to receiving Gibbs' concern head-slap style. This was like being thrown a curve-ball. He didn't know what to do with it. In the end, he said, "Sure," an uninspired answer he wouldn't have expected to convince the least-discerning with, much less Gibbs.

Tony waited for a reprimand as the sweat rolled down his back, and his gasping finally reached a quieter level.

"Is this where you tell me to try and get some more sleep?"

"Could you sleep?" Gibbs asked mildly.

"Not going to try." Quite frankly, he had a bit of a grudge against sleep right then.

"Coffee?"

"You're not supposed to offer coffee to someone with insomnia."

"Tea?" Gibbs offered, not missing a beat.

Tony ran a hand through his hair. "No way. Coffee."

Gibbs left, doubtless breaking another rule-of-thumb by leaving the insomniac with nightmares alone to regain his composure. Who made up these stupid rules anyways? Not Tony. He certainly had a lot of composure to regain, and appreciated the space more than Gibbs knew—or maybe not.

The aroma in the kitchen was almost enough to clear away the cobwebs in his head on its own, and the mug of coffee Gibbs handed him was as strong as Tony'd expected it to be. He drank it black, anyways.

"Me and sedatives, we don't mix to so good these days, Boss," he confessed, as he arrived at the dregs of his coffee, examining the bottom his mug.

"Ducky's just trying to help."

"I know."

Gibbs drank more coffee. "Duck'll understand."

"About the nightmares? Not telling him," Tony said mutinously. The last thing he needed was to give Ducky another thing to worry about with him.

Gibbs let it rest.

Tony gave the dregs a good swirl. This whole situation was reminding him a topic he'd meant to bring up earlier. "So. I was thinking, maybe I could start the apartment-hunt tomorrow."

"Nope."

Tony was really beginning to get fed up with Gibbs casually forbidding things he didn't actually have a say in. "You're not my boss anymore."

"Try again."

"I quit, Gibbs. And even if I hadn't, I think being AWOL the better part of three months might have earned me a little more than a slap on the wrist."

"Didn't hear anything about you being AWOL. According to Vance, you're still on leave."

"What?"

"Vacation. Sick leave. R 'n R. Whatever you want to call it, DiNozzo. You had a lot of time coming to you."

"You assumed…" Tony trailed off, gripped the mug-handle hard. The truth was, he'd just been considering the complications of getting back in the game—and wondering if it were even possible. It still stung his already much-battered pride to hear the facts keep stacking up, testifying to the fact that Gibbs had been expecting him to come crawling back like this all along.

"I hoped," Gibbs said quietly, "and so did Abby. Which is why she's been keeping up your apartment for you."

Tony eased up on the mug-handle. "Boss…" Funny, he probably couldn't have stopped calling Gibbs that even if he had been fired. Some habits died hard. "You don't suppose a Sentinel could go and get his head messed up beyond what his Guide could figure out? Theoretically, you know."

"Nope."

Okay, so maybe some of Gibbs' assumptions weren't so hard to live with.

To Be Continued...