A/N: Don't worry, its not another chapter full of nightmares… Thanks to all the readers and reviewers. Appreciate it!

Chapter Twenty-Five

"You look like hell DiNozzo."

"Why are you in my kitchen?" Tony said, rubbing at his eyes with his hand that wasn't currently swathed in thick white plaster.

"Relieving Abby." Gibbs answered succinctly.

"For what?"

"Tony-watch!" Abby bounded into the kitchen, handbag looped on the crook of her arm. She pecked him on the cheek. "Stay out of trouble."

"Since when do I ever go looking for trouble?" Tony called after her as she left. "And why do I need a sitter?"

"You might not go looking for trouble, but you sure do find it," Gibbs said, munching on toast. He pushed a chair out for Tony with his foot. "Sit down."

"Its not my fault," Tony muttered, scratching at the cast.

"I don't think I've ever met an NCIS agent with luck like yours, DiNozzo. Think about it. In the past two months you've had two broken bones, fallen down a hill, torn ligaments in your knee, had stitches in your head twice, had a concussion twice, broken your arm in two places and broken your hand. And it's been a relatively quiet two months."

Tony frowned at Gibbs across the table. "I never got hurt this much working at Baltimore. Or Philly. Or Peoria. Maybe it's just you."

"Must be," Gibbs grinned as he stood up and pushed two pieces of bread down in the toaster. He poured a glass of milk out for Tony, placing it in front of him on the table along with a bottle of pills.

"I know how you feel about pills, Tony. But I also know it feels to have broken bones, let alone four bones in the one arm. No-one's gonna think any less of you if you take the pills, and I'll be here if you need me."

Tony drank the milk warily, not even looking at the pills. Gibbs was just trying to help, but he didn't really understand. "Thanks but no thanks, boss. I was considering going back to bed anyway. Arm's not too bad."

Gibbs accepted that, plucking up the bottle of pills and dropping the toast on Tony's plate. "Fair enough, but you're not getting out of eating. Two pieces of toast and you can go back to sleep."

Tony glared at him, but picked up a slice and bit in gingerly. "You don't have to stay," he said through a mouthful of bread. "I can look after myself." He swallowed. "I mean, I'm just going to be here. Not like I'm planning on going bungy-jumping or white water rafting or driving with Ziva or anything else that's going to place me in peril anytime soon."

"You're one of mine, Tony. I look after my own regardless of whether they need it or not. But you – you need it." He propped Tony up as he slumped a little, falling asleep in the chair.

"C'mon." Gibbs pulled him up, supporting his un-injured arm as he led Tony back to the bedroom and sat him on the bed. "There you go." He tucked a pillow under the broken arm. "Just yell if you need something. I'll be here."

Eight hours and three concussion checks later, Tony stumbled out of the bedroom again, hair considerably tousled.

"You don't look so good," A voice said, surprising Tony as he wandered into the living room. Although 'not so good' was an improvement on looking like 'hell', Tony reasoned. He looked for the source of the voice.

"McGee."

"Can I get you anything?"

"Nah," Tony sat down at the dining table again, searching for a clock. "How long you been here?"

"About an hour. It's almost 5 o'clock." McGee said, folding the newspaper he'd been reading.

"am?"

"pm. Its Sunday afternoon."

"Oh." 8 hours of sleep had made Tony feel considerably better, the residual traces of the concussion all but gone. He was almost feeling hungry, but settled for a glass of juice. "Anything interesting been happening?"

"Nothing." McGee said, sitting down next to Tony. "It's been a while since we've had a peaceful weekend like this."

"Relatively peaceful," Tony pointed out.

"Relatively, right. But we've been on call and there haven't been any cases. That's pretty lucky."

Tony nodded slightly, smiling. Knowing Gibbs, after Tony's accident he'd probably arranged for a secondary team to be on call just so his team wouldn't be bothered over the weekend. Which meant forcing Ziva to stay in the office all weekend really wasn't necessary.

"He's a bastard for sure," Tony muttered to himself. Gibbs really was punishing Ziva. Tony's cell phone chirped on the coffee table where he'd left it. McGee grabbed it for him.

"Speak of the devil," Tony said, reading the caller ID panel. "Hey boss." He cocked his head to one side, holding the phone between his ear and shoulder and freeing up his hand to scratch at the cast. "Heh… do you even need to ask boss? ...Right."

He snapped the phone shut and dropped it on the bench. "Gibbs called to tell me I don't have to come in to work tomorrow. He does that every time I get injured, every time I tell him the same thing. No."

"Why don't you take it?" McGee wondered. "What's wrong with having the day off?"

"Don't need it," Tony replied swiftly. "Plus, it's boring."

McGee had had time to gaze around Tony's apartment while he was sleeping, and in his opinion the shelves of DVDs, racks of CDs, plasma screen, XBOX, stacks of magazines and Tony's very interesting book collection were anything but boring. Still, his idea of fun was spending the night at his typewriter so he supposed he was in no position to comment. Luckily the doorbell rang before McGee had to think of a reply.

"Who's that?"

"Delivery guy," McGee said, grabbing a couple of notes from his wallet. He exchanged them for a bag of food at the door. "Abby told me to order it. She figured the nausea from the concussion would be just about worn off by the time you woke up." He held up the bag. "I hope Thai's okay?"

"Nice work McGee!" Tony said, feeling very hungry all of a sudden. "Hope you got the spring rolls!"

TBC

A/N: I was hoping to get to 30 chapters with this story, but I kinda feel like its running out of life... Comments? Thoughts? I think I've got about two or three chapters left to write, but if anyone's got any ideas of how I can next torture Tony please let me know :) I'm not -quite- ready to lay this story to rest.