When the doors to the elevator opened, Tony did not expect to see Sam and Dean in the bullpen. He especially did not expect to see Dean smiling charmingly at Kate and to see Kate reciprocating.

"Tony!" Sam called, and closed the ever shortening distance between them.

Gripping him tight in a man-hug, Tony can't help but notice how tall Sam is now. The last time he had seen Sam was for a brief time when the kid was 18 (not a time he really wants to remember) and before that when he was 12. They mainly keep contact via cell phone.

"You got…gigantic, Squirt-outgrew everybody."

Releasing him, Sam laughed, "Yeah, well, I told you that I would."

Tony laughed. Sam had hated being called Squirt so much during his adolescent years that one day he practically screamed at him that he would get taller than Tony and show him who the 'Squirt' really was.

"So, Tony, you never mentioned that you had brothers."

"You never asked," Tony smirked.

"Trust me Kate, if we had known that Tony had such a beautiful coworker, we'd have visited a long time ago," Dean grinned.

"Is that so," turning to Tony, she asked, "Does Abby know?"

"Know what?" Abby asked, appearing behind Tony. The girl was a sneaky as a ghost sometimes.

"Abby! These are my brothers, Sam and Dean."

Frowning, Abby smacked Tony in the arm. "How come you never told me you had brothers?"

"Ow! It just never came up Abbs!"

Shaking hands with Sam and Dean, Abby politely said, "Nice to meet you," Handing a pair of sunglasses to Tony, she said, "You left these in the lab. You're lucky I was nice enough to bring them to you."

"Thanks."

Bidding farewell, Abby left for the elevator. It was lunch time, and she had promised to eat with Ducky.

Kate grinned, "I've got my own lunch to eat. It was nice meeting you."

"You up for a bite?" Dean asked.

"Sure. I know this great p—

"If you say pizza place, I'm going to kill you."

"Hey, my city, my rules."

The walk to the nearest pizza parlor was relatively swift and uneventful.

"So, what brings you to D.C.? Not that I'm not thrilled to see you."

A war of looks seemed to be waged between Sam and Dean. Dean looked away first, so Tony figured Sam must have won.

"I had a close call," Dean started, looking into his glass of coke.

"How close?" Tony stared at Dean, trying to decipher his facial expressions.

"As in: I'm supposed to be dead close."

Tony sucked in a breath. "Why didn't you call me?"

Dean locked eyes with him. "I tried to. But when I did, all I got was your voice mail, and that's not the kind of message you just want to leave. I would have called later, but I was already better."

"What happened? How did you 'get better'?"

"We were hunting a revenant. Have to kill it with electricity. Stupid me was standing in a pool of water. Heat of the moment, I guess.

"Anyways, Sam brought me to a faith healer. And it worked. But NOT because he had any special powers, just a crazy wife who had bound a reaper to her will. But Sam and I took care of it."

Swallowing past the hard knot in his throat, Tony asked, "How long had they given you?"

"A month tops."

A month. A whole, stinking month, and Dean could be rotting in the ground. Or maybe he would have been given a hunter's funeral. Would Dad have come out for it?

"Did you call Dad?"

The down-cast look on Sam and Dean's faces was enough answer to that.

Clearing his throat, Sam said, "The point is, Dean's okay now."

"Yeah. Wish we had beer."

"You're telling me. Soon as you get off of work, we're heading to a bar," Dean declared.

It was Friday, and because a case had (remarkably) not come in, Tony was able to spend the weekend with his brothers. But by the time Monday morning rolled around, it was time to say goodbye.

"Where are you guys heading?"

"I found something that looks like a ghost in Kentucky, and by the sounds of things, it's getting pretty bad." Sam said.

"Well, be careful. Maybe next time you visit it won't be because one of us is dying."

Sam laughed, "Definitely."

After giving goodbye hugs, Tony went to the window and waited until he saw the Impala roar to life and drive off into the foggy dawn.

He really hopes everything will turn out okay.


Standard Disclaimers

Notes: I wrote this as a follow up to the episode Faith. I thought about having Tony take leave and try to write him into the events of Faith, but I didn't want to screw up what happened in that episode, and it would be too predictable. Everyone has seen Faith: why should it be rewritten? The only thing I'm sorry about is that I couldn't figure out how to fit Gibbs into this, but I think it'll be okay. He can meet them later.