There are a few more details about the fight in this chapter, for those people who wanted them.

Congratulations, Sparkling Catseye, for picking up on the five stages thing. Take a gold star. That was the original premise for this story, but it's kinda grown since then.

Oh, and bethellie; if you watch the scene in Bury Your Dead where Jeanne is giving Tony a concussion check and she shines her little torch right in his eye in slow-mo (and I have, multiple times), you can see that they are blue with a splodge of gold, not green.

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Chapter 5: Caffeine and Sympathy

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Fornell entered the cell in silence, trying to gauge the condition of his friend as he handed him the extra coffee cup he carried. Gibbs had been cleaned up by a medic, but the butterfly tape closing some of the deeper abrasions only served to emphasise his injuries.

"This feels familiar," said Gibbs, after a long swallow.

"Yeah, except I was actually innocent," replied Fornell, referring to when he was imprisoned after the bone yard incident. "You, on the other hand, are not."

"Always suspected DiNozzo'd be the reason I was up on assault charges some day; just never thought he'd have to die to do it," said Gibbs, reflectively. Critically, he looked up at the FBI agent.

"Did I do that?" He asked, indicating his eye.

"You don't remember?"

"Like I told the cops, I don't remember anything after that bastard said he was glad…" Gibbs' voice choked off.

"You dived over the desk and pinned him to the floor," said Fornell, carefully. "Elbowed me in the face when I tried to pull you away."

"Sorry about that."

"Believe me, right now I'm the least of your worries. Although I must say the building security guys were very impressed when you threw DiNozzo through that glass wall. Shock and awe, they said."

"I threw him out the building? We were on the thirty fifth floor!"

"No; the wall was internal, fortunately for you. I really don't think you want to be sitting here on a murder charge."

"Don't count on it," said Gibbs darkly.

"I talked to Director Morrow. He's going to make sure the investigation is handled by NCIS."

"Good. No matter how good DiNozzo's lawyers are, they're not gonna impress a military court."

"Even if you avoid jail time, you're still gonna lose your job," said Fornell.

"Doesn't matter. I was thinking of quitting anyway."

Fornell regarded his friend carefully, worried by the defeat in his voice. "You doing OK, Jethro?" He asked gruffly.

Gibbs only met his gaze, allowing some of his grief and pain to show momentarily in his eyes.

"I've just lost Tony, Tobias. I'm about as far from OK as it's possible to get."

Briefly, Fornell placed a comforting hand on his shoulder; and then offered Gibbs his coffee cup. "Here," he said. "I think you need this more than I do."

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Gibbs finished his coffee and sighed deeply. He hadn't allowed himself to stop and think about the events of the last thirty odd hours; if he did, it would become uncontrovertibly real. At the moment, he could convince himself it was a bad dream, a trick, a hallucination; because he'd much prefer to lose his mind than lose Tony.

Gibbs had first met Detective DiNozzo of Baltimore Homicide while investigating the murder of an old friend of his, Martin Leavis. The man was a retired Marine, which made his jurisdiction a little tenuous; so he'd been forced to allow a civilian cop to tag along. Tony's captain had a distinct grudge against both Gibbs taking over the investigation and his youngest detective; he seemed to think that the best way to get back at both of them was to force them to work together.

At first, he'd been right. Gibbs had been in full Captain Ahab mode and DiNozzo had just followed him around talking about movies and being generally irritating. The NCIS agent had been less than pleasant to him; in fact he'd far surpassed his second B and was working on a third. DiNozzo had just sat back and taken every dig, insult and barked order with impossible good nature and that neverending smile; Gibbs had been forced to give him credit for that, at least.

And then the young detective had figured out the culprit, proving that he had actually been paying attention to the evidence all along. Gibbs had been ready to pull the trigger on the unarmed perp; but Tony had been so annoying he'd distracted Gibbs from his intent and cuffed the killer before the NCIS agent could decide which of them he'd rather shoot.

It hadn't been until afterwards that Gibbs realised what the young man had done with such apparent ease; he'd broken Gibbs from an obsession, something three wives and half a boat had never managed. He'd smacked the boy on the head and then offered him a job.

And as it turned out, a high insult tolerance wasn't DiNozzo's only talent. He was bright, experienced, intuitive and could more than hold his own against coworkers and criminals alike. His undercover skills were excellent, his interview technique, while unusual, was very effective and he was good fun to have around the bullpen. Within a month, Gibbs knew without doubt that Tony DiNozzo was the best agent he'd ever worked with.

He'd never told him. Not once, in almost four years, had Gibbs ever told Tony he thought he was a good agent. He'd given the younger man the occasional compliment; mostly when he'd been out of earshot, and the odd pat on the back when he was hurting. And strangely, for Tony that seemed to be enough to win his undying loyalty. Although having met the man's previous employer and now his father, Gibbs could begin to understand that it was more than anyone else had ever given him. He quickly deflected that thought; he could really do without a broken hand from punching the wall on top of his other injuries.

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Hope you liked the symmetry with Bone Yard, as well as my description of how Tony was hired…