Gibbs returned to find DiNozzo sitting facing the wall, his legs dangling over the side of the bed. He couldn't help thinking again how much younger it made the agent look. Tony seemed to be staring at his lap, and Gibbs wondered if he hadn't noticed him or was just ignoring him. It made Gibbs wonder where Tony's mood would be now.

"Will you do something for me?" he asked softly, not turning.

Well, that answers that, Gibbs thought, silently chiding himself for having doubted him in the first place. He might be sitting there all long legs swinging, in his Ohio State T-shirt, hurt in such a vital, brutal way, but he was still a trained federal agent. Attaboy, Tony.

Gibbs entered the room, really wondering about what kind of mood it was going to be. Tony never asked for anything—not before this whole mess, he'd just do it and hope for the best—and certainly not during it. Gibbs couldn't decide if it was solely out of a fierce independence or if Tony was simply afraid to be denied. It was something he'd seen plenty of times in people who were neglected or abused as children. Somewhere along the way, they learned that it was easier to just want—instead of wanting and being disappointed.

Gibbs suddenly wanted to tell Tony that he couldn't deny him anything after what he'd been through, that Gibbs would do anything if it had even the slightest chance of lifting Tony out of his hell and back into a world where he was cared for and safe from the blades of madmen.

"Sure, Tony," Gibbs said, moving closer to his agent. "Anything you wan— Goddamn."

Gibbs breathed the word, his eyes locked on the same target as Tony's. The splints and bandages were lying discarded in a pile, baring the wounds Gibbs had only imagined until now.

It hurt Gibbs to look at them.

The slightly reddened edges were pulled together with too many stitches to count, and the wounds themselves were raw, brutal, a physical reminder of the very hell he'd been put through. Gibbs stared long enough to see the rippling Ducky had mentioned a lifetime ago, and it made him suddenly realize the fallacy of their logic. Just because the rippling proved he'd been conscious during the cutting didn't mean he had done it himself.

Gibbs' knees went weak and he put a hand on the foot of the bed to steady himself as he thought about how Tony must have felt, being held down like that, feeling the blade tear open one wrist and knowing he was helpless to stop them from cutting the other. He thought of Tony's words when he told them about the attack. He had boiled down all that pain and terror into three simple words—"They cut me"—and Gibbs felt sick knowing he'd let him get away with stripping the horrifying experience of all emotion. The realization left Gibbs feeling like a complete failure.

He finally found his voice, only to be interrupted. "Tony, I—"

"Nice, huh?" Tony said, quietly, bitterly. "I went out to the Seahawk for four months and all I got were these stupid, near-fatal—"

"Tony, don't," Gibbs said, a ragged edge to his voice as he dragged his eyes away from the carnage and up to Tony's face. The agent's eyes were completely emotionless again—and that scared Gibbs more than the gruesome injuries. "No jokes, DiNozzo. Tell me what you're thinking."

Tony opened his mouth to lie, but Gibbs said, "Truth, DiNozzo."

A tiny smile touched his lips and Tony said, "Good to know the months apart didn't break your radar. … I think."

Gibbs didn't speak.

Tony sighed. "When I was in Baltimore, my partner and I responded to a call and found this girl bleeding all over her bedroom floor. It was a total mess and we thought she was dead, but we called the medics and did what we could. So I'm there with her, holding her wrists, kneeling in her blood, and she opens her eyes. She tries to pull away but she's weak as hell, which I thought I understood then. I really do now. Anyway, I tell her to stop. That we're going to help her. That she's going to be fine. She looks up at me—and she can't be more than 20 but her eyes are a thousand years old—and she says, 'Fine? I don't wanna be fine. I wanna be dead.' Then she passes out cold and I'm thinking she got her wish, but she makes it.

"I go see her in the hospital later. I don't know why, really. And she's sitting there all bandaged and lost looking. But as soon as she sees me, she starts shaking and crying. Then she screams at me, her voice pure hate. 'Fuck you!' she says. 'Thanks a lot asshole. I'm alive. Good for me. You son of a bitch. You try living with these scars.' Then she tells me as soon as she gets released, she's going to try again. Tells me as calm as asking me the time that she's going to jump off a building this time, so no one can stop her."

Gibbs waited a beat, forcing his eyes to stay on Tony's face. "Did she?"

Tony blinked, and then laughed, making Gibbs wince. "I really did miss you, Boss." He sobered quickly though. "So that's what I was thinking, looking at this hideous mess. What were you thinking about? Honestly?"

"Wasn't thinking about how bad it is," Gibbs said, drawing a disbelieving look from Tony. "All I'm thinking about is how bad I want to get my hands on whoever did that to you."

"Oh," Tony said. And he was quiet until Gibbs spoke again.

"So what did you want? When I came in, you asked—"

"Never mind," Tony said, and the sadness had settled back into his eyes. "It's stupid."

"You never ask for anything, DiNozzo. It had to be important."

Tony looked up, a rare vulnerability in his tired green eyes. "I want to go home."

Gibbs was confused—and slightly worried. Maybe he's not ready yet. "That's why I'm here. I just finished with your paperwork."

Tony's eyes hit the floor. "I mean home, home. To New York."

Gibbs couldn't help it. His jaw dropped. "What? Why? Oh," he said, the bared wounds suddenly making sense. "Your mother."

Tony nodded, still not looking at Gibbs. "I want to go to her grave." He shook his head, looking angry with himself. "But never mind. I can't ask you to go there with me."

"Tony," Gibbs said, his heart breaking at the misery in his voice. "Of course I'll take you. If you feel up to it, we'll leave tomorrow. Or the next day—whenever you're ready."

"Really?" Tony asked, finally lifting his gaze to Gibbs'.

Gibbs stepped closer and put a hand on Tony's shoulder. "There's really nothing I wouldn't do for you, Tony. Not after the hell you've been through," he said, letting the emotion bleed into his voice—not because he was particularly comfortable with it, but because DiNozzo needed to hear it. "I know I'm generally a bastard, but is that really so hard to believe?"

Guilt joined the pain in Tony's eyes. "No, I'm sorry, Gibbs. I didn't mean—"

"Hey," Gibbs said, smiling even though he was thoroughly unnerved by this ultra-quiet, apologetic version of Tony. "Don't worry about it. You can buy me a real pizza to make it up to me."

That got a small smile out of Tony, but Gibbs' chest tightened at how soft it was compared with his normal mega-watt grins. What he wouldn't give for none of this to have happened to dim that smile.

"Thanks, Gibbs. I will."