Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who celebrates that - I don't, but I've got our national holiday on the 5th of december coming so there is plenty to do. I don't expect my mailbox to be stuffed with reviews in the morning, it's Thanksgiving after all and that's supposed to be a familything, right? But if you do read this, please give me a little review. Just a little one, and I'll be glad (:

Tony was happy to get out of the helicopter that had flown them back to DC. The pounding noise had denied him sleep the entire flight and had given him a headache. For several hours, he had been watching how Ziva tossed, turned and sobbed in her sleep. He had been strapped to a chair, while Gibbs had spent those hours sitting on Ziva's bedside, stroking her still tangled hair and musing calming words into her ear. It had given him the thought of Gibbs as a father again and for some erratic reason, he had suddenly wanted Gibbs to be his own father.

They had been transported to the hospital by ambulance, Ziva's with sirens, Tony's without. The other ambulance was quickly out of sight, as all the cars made way. Tony's ambulance hoovered behind. He hadn't seen her while he was thoroughly checked out by a young, blond nurse. Her badge told him her name was Angela and she smiled at him with a slightly sensual edge. All of that was registered somewhere in Tony's brain, but he didn't act like it as he usually would.

She opened his shirt for him, and when she listened to his heart and lungs, her fingertips lingered just a little bit too long on his bare chest. The message did come in now, but it was like a phonecall during a thunderstorm, most of it was unintelligible. Confused, Tony looked up at her. She stared back into his green eyes with her big brown ones. But they didn't have the depth that Tony expected them to have and longed for, so he turned his gaze away, disappointed.

When she was done, and gave him a card with an appointment for the next day – another check, they probably thought he was made of porcelain – she asked if there was anything else she could do for him, and the stress on anything was so overdone that it was consciously noticed by Tony. He gave her a puzzled look, and after a few seconds, his face brightened in understanding, then fell.

'No, I'll be fine.' he said, and wondered what was going on with him. Was it the hospital-scenery and scrubs that were bringing back bad memories, or was it that he was still not really recovered from the lack of food? Or maybe, just maybe, something else that had nothing to do with one of those?

Tony jumped off the table, trying to behave like his normal tough self, but had to catch himself on that same table. His knees were still a little unstable which made Tony feel very vulnerable. Oh, he wanted to get home, get a hot shower, a big pizza, a good movie and a soft bed. There was just one thing that needed to be done first.

After spelling her name three times – 'Daahveed, written just like david, dee-aa-vee-ee-dee. Yes, like the-star-of. No, not with tee-ah. Like Delta-Alpha-Victor-India-Delta. That's right. Zeehvaah. With a zee. No, not a wy. How many tortured mossad-liason officers do you have in here?' – Tony finally discovered where he should look for her, and found the right elevator not long after that. Gibbs was sitting on a typical plastic hospital-chair next to a closed door, staring a hole into the soft-yellow wall facing him.

'Is she in there?' Tony asked, wondering why Gibbs wasn't with her. Was she all alone now?

'Still in surgery.' Gibbs said, without taking his gaze off the wall. A pause followed.

'You need to get home.' Gibbs then said.

'I need to see her.' Tony contradicted.

'Tomorrow. She'll be out anyway.'

There was no way to argue, but Tony still felt like it. It wasn't like he wanted to see her, he needed to see her, to make sure that she was fine.

'I'll drive you home.' Gibbs said, reading his thoughts as he always did. That was one thing that hadn't changed.

'I am perfectly capable of driving myself home.' Tony said, still feeling like a stubborn child.

'You've got no car.'

'I can call a cab.'

'You've got no phone.'

And when Tony interjected that he could borrow one: 'You've got no money.'

Finally, Tony gave in. It was all true, after all. He had practically nothing, except the clothes the hospital had given him, ill-fitting and itchy. And he did want to go home.

Not long after that, he reached for his spare key hidden behind the ugly golden house number and finally opened his very own door.

'Thanks for dropping me, boss.' Tony called after the grey-haired man who was already walking back to his car again. Gibbs gave him a nod, and slammed the car door shut before racing back in the direction they had come.

Tony had imagined coming home many times. Seeing all his stuff, all the memories caught up in them, had seemed like the ultimate way to make him feel better. Now he was there, at home, and it felt so empty. Like you walk into a house were a bunch of kids used to live that always filled the house with their high voices, and suddenly they're all gone, leaving the house quiet as grave.

It had to be the fatigue, Tony thought, while gathering some food – a microwave pizza, a quarter of a gallon of coke and a half package of cookies – and putting on a movie. He took a long, hot shower, not caring at all about the CO2 he would produce, and felt how some of his worries washed away with the water. His shoulders finally relaxed and by the time he got out, he could smell the burned pizza in the microwave. Great. Now he was down to cookies and coke. He did eat all of them, though they were old, and when he leaped into his very own bed, it didn't matter that the film was one of his favourites. Sleep took him the moment his head hit the pillow.

He woke up from the bright light, shining through his window – last night he hadn't taken the effort to close the curtains. His clock revealed that it was seven in the morning and strangely enough, he was wide awake. Tony took another shower because he still felt like the sand was everywhere and decided to eat out today. He had a stack of spare money somewhere, for emergencies like this. Somewhere, yes. But where?

Over thirty minutes later, he found it in an empty dvd-box of Speed. He had three copies of it, just in case, and had apparently once decided that two would still suffice. A cab was called with an old cell phone, also stuffed into the back of a drawer for emergencies, and Tony was on his way.

Not long after that, he got breakfast and a big cup of coffee at Starbucks. Oh, he had missed that. The coffee with all its additional flavours, creams and milk was a meal by itself, but Tony had concluded from his image in the mirror that morning that he could use some extra food. He ate the oatmeal in the café and drank his coffee while walking. The hospital was not far from where he was, and he still had three hours left before his appointment.

It felt good to be out in the fresh air, even when it was the smoggy DC-air. Tony found he actually enjoyed the walk and watched all the people coming by: a grey-haired man that looked suspiciously like Gibbs but was wearing a pink flowery shirt, so it couldn't be him, an old lady who scowled at him for no reason at all, a teenage boy so caught up in his music he almost ran into a stop light, and so on. Barely any time seemed to have passed when he entered the hospital.

This time, he had to spell her name only twice before getting the right room number. Yeah, he probably should have written it down or learned it by heart, but he found that being held prisoner and being almost starved to death was a good excuse for a lot of things, including this.