"Beer, DiNozzo?"

Tony shrugged and brought the illicit bottle to his lips once more.

"Won't that—"

"Don't say it," interrupted Tony. "I'm tried of doing all this ... shit to improve my health."

"Your vision has improved."

"Doubt a lack of beer had anything to do with that."

Gibbs retrieved his own bottle from the refrigerator and settled across from his recalcitrant houseguest. "So, how come you don't talk about it?"

"About?" queried Tony.

"The MS."

"I don't think you're the type to ask me that, boss."

"I'm not?" questioned Gibbs flatly.

"Well, no. You're not exactly loquacious there yourself, Gibbs."

"Loquacious?"

"Gregarious?"

"Gregarious?"

"Talkative."

Gibbs raised an eyebrow.

"Give me a break, I'm running out of synonyms here."

"Gregarious?"

"You." Tony poked a finger in Gibbs chest, emphasizing each word. "Talk. Little. Kemosabe."

"Aren't you a little young for The Lone Ranger, DiNozzo?"

"I spent most of my childhood in front of a Sony," dismissed Tony, fingering the bottle of beer.

"So, how come you don't talk about it?"

"And talking about it would do ... what? Don't tell me you're actually advocating a guy examining their feelings."

Gibbs crossed his arms against his chest. "Actually, I am."

"Do that a lot in the Marines, do you?"

"You're not a Marine, DiNozzo."

"Nope, but I've learned from the best."

"I'd talk about it," protested Gibbs.

"Suuure, you would," drawled Tony. "And who would you talk about your declining health to? Me? Todd?"

"Probably Ducky."

"You're kidding me."

"No, I'm not. I talk a lot to Ducky. He's a very smart man. You could try him."

"Look, if I'm going to talk about it to anybody, it would be you, okay? But, I'm ... not."

"Why not?"

"'Cause talking won't solve anything."

"Make you feel better."

Abandoning his bottle, Tony got shakily to his feet, the effects of the beating still painfully obvious in his slow shuffle.

"Where you going?"

"To look for pods. Someone's taken Gibbs and replaced him with an alien life form."

"Hang on." Gibbs latched onto Tony's forearm and settled him back down on the sofa. "No pods."

"I'm not so sure, boss."

"Can you be serious for a moment?"

"Ah," reclutching the bottle, Tony worried with the edge of the paper label. "It would probably be better if I wasn't."

"Try," ordered Gibbs.

"Okay. Uh, serious. How's this for serious? Your freeloader is a trust-fund baby, born with a gigantic silver spoon, not to mention a golden cup. A product of the finest boarding schools in the northeast. My parents always called me 'Anthony', by the way, when they called ... long-distance. According to my father, it was always my fate to 'wind up in the gutter', which, also according to my father, was pretty much what Ohio State was and will always be. Never mind what he thinks of the Baltimore PD. What he'd say about you, boss, will fortunately go unrecorded as I haven't spoken to him in over three years." Tony tore a strip from the loosened label and wrapped it thoughtfully around a fingertip. "I can guarantee you it wouldn't be complimentary."

"My father," said Gibbs, taking the bottle from DiNozzo's long fingers and impounding the strip of paper, "was a Marine. Enlisted. A gunnery sergeant."

"A real military kind of guy, I bet."

"Oh yeah."

"You ever see him?"

"He's dead. Been dead for quite a long time now."

"Sorry," Tony shrank back into the couch.

"Gotta let them go, Tony," advised Gibbs. "Still blaming your parents into adulthood can be a very ugly thing."

"You think I've got some kind of ... father fetish, don't you?"

"You have a strong need to please authority figures."

"You got that from Abby, didn't you?"

"Maybe," admitted Gibbs. "Abby's a pretty smart girl. I tend to hire smart people -- they don't get on my nerves as much."

"So what you doing with me, boss?"

Which was, mused Gibbs, the question indeed.

The ME stepped from the lab into the autopsy room with a small, pleased smile lighting his face that did not go unnoticed by the room's other occupant.

"Flirting with Abby again, Duck?"

"Whether or not Ms. Sciuto compels my aging libido to new heights is not a proper topic for discussion." Ducky glanced sideways at the impertinently breathing body lying on his autopsy table. "I am old enough to be her grandfather."

"Love knows no age."

"Or gender," added Ducky somewhat enigmatically. "You've got that 'I want to talk' look on your face, Jethro."

"According to DiNozzo I never want to talk."

"It may seem so to young Anthony. I, however, have the wisdom of age and experience."

Gibbs heard the light box power on with a click and a wheezing sizzle, heard the snap of x-ray films being lined up against the illumination.

"Do you know that practically everything they have ever said about English boys' boarding schools is true?"

Gibbs frowned up at the ceiling and waited for Ducky's often-circuitous mental path to connect this to something vaguely applicable to his lying there.

"What I'm saying is that even though I have never personally experienced coitus with a man, that I am neither unfamiliar nor uncomfortable with the concept."

"You telling me you ... dabbled, Ducky?"

"As much as any testosterone-laden schoolboy in the sole company of other testosterone-laden schoolboys. My preference, however, was always for the female form." Ducky snapped one of the x-rays off the light box and held it above his head, squinting at it. "And you, Gibbs?"

"I don't think this is the kind of discussion I had in mind when I came here, Duck. I wanted to talk about DiNozzo."

"We are talking about DiNozzo," rejoined Ducky, frowning at whatever he saw in the translucent film.

"No, if we were talking about DiNozzo we would be talking about his propensity for screwing around, not yours or mine."

"Ah," Ducky frowned even more deeply at the exposure, "perhaps I was mistaken then; they do say the mind is the first thing to go."

He replaced the film and moved to study its neighbor. "What of our Anthony, then – who has he bedded lately?"

"No one that I know of," admitted Gibbs, his brow suddenly furrowing worriedly. "I figured the MS—"

"If Anthony has experienced a sudden turn toward the ... celibate, I do not believe you can place the blame solely on disease processes."

A long sigh rose from the direction of the table. "If you have something to say, Duck, at least say it in English."

"If you want to look for the cause of Anthony's newfound abstinence, my dear boy, I think you should perhaps look no further than your own backyard."

Gibbs rolled over. "Oh thank you, that was much, much clearer." He logrolled back onto his back and muttered "not".