A/N: Sorry that it took so long. I was kind of stuck, but I hope this chapter serves its purpose :) Loved the feedback from you guys. Thanks :)

Chapter Ten.

Washington, D.C., 2001.

Gibbs looked around the bullpen with a wistful expression on his face. He would never admit it verbally to anyone, but he usually loved being here. Granted, it didn't beat rushing after and catching a suspect, but it was the busy atmosphere surrounding him here that made him feel at home. Home was usually the Navy Yard these days anyway. It surely wasn't his house that was once again dark and gloomy. His latest – or soon-to-be – ex-wife had just moved out a couple of weeks ago and while Gibbs was relieved that she was gone, the silence in the house seemed to be oppressive at times. Just last night, when he had gotten home from Baltimore, it had carried the by now almost forgotten sense of impending doom again. It used to be like that right after Kelly and Shannon had been killed, but it had eased up over the years that had passed since then. Yesterday, however, Gibbs had felt like he couldn't even set a foot in there.

Part of him had wanted to stay at the hotel for another night to give Tony the chance to come visit him and talk to him, but he knew that it wouldn't happen. His insides ached at the mere thought of the younger man, but Gibbs knew that it had been the right decision to let him go. He had no business barging into his life again, had no business screwing anything up between him and his soon-to-be fiancée. It wasn't like Gibbs liked it that way, but it was the most prudent thing to do and Gibbs was old enough to see that. It didn't matter that the last two days he had spent with Tony had been better, even with the tangible tension between them, than all three of his last marriages combined. He didn't need the sex, didn't need the few sweet moments with either Stephanie or Diane and he surely didn't need the fights with them, all he really wanted was to talk to the younger man and not only apologize, but also thank him. Tony probably didn't know just how much he had helped him back then, how he had basically saved his life. Gibbs had been on the edge of telling him that the night before when he had given Tony the photograph, but he had refrained. But if he had talked to Tony about it, he certainly wouldn't have been able to walk away from the younger man.

He let out a sigh and was about to bury himself in some paperwork to distract himself when Christopher Pacci walked up to him, two files in his hand.

"Here you go, Gibbs," he said as he placed the folders onto his desk. "Price and DiNozzo. What's up with them?"

"Not sure yet," Gibbs replied, giving him a lop-sided grin.

"Gut feeling?" Pacci asked, bringing a hand to his own stomach.

"Yeah, something's not quite right," Gibbs answered, not willing to give the other agent more information. "How come you haven't taken over the case anyway?"

"Wanted to," Pacci grimaced. "But my stomach's killing me again. Guess it wouldn't be very wise to leave the indoors today. Sent Balboa instead. Hope, that's okay."

"Sure," Gibbs just replied, already opening up Tony's file. "Get better."

"Thanks. I swear, that stomach's going to be the death of me some day," Pacci just said and then went his way, leaving Gibbs alone for the moment.

He subtly shook his head and then perused Tony's file. After graduating from OSU, he had apparently been to several police departments, never quite making the two-year cut without any obvious reasons. His recommendations were numerous and all of his bosses had apparently thought the world of him and from his limited experience with him, Gibbs could tell that Tony was sharp, driven and very capable. Maybe the kid was just restless, Gibbs thought. He skipped over to the personal section of the file and skimmed it. His mother had died in a car crash when Tony had been only eleven, but Gibbs had already known that from the younger man's rant all those years ago. His father was a well-known businessman, though the file didn't reveal what kind. From what Tony had let slip back then, they hadn't exactly been on good terms and nothing in Tony's file indicated that that had changed. He had never been listed as Tony's proxy, either, Gibbs noted. He skimmed the names and realized that there were only Tony's respective partners at the force listed. Only Danny Price hadn't made the cut apparently because Wendy's name was the last one on the short list.

Gibbs shook his head again, wondering why he even cared as he closed Tony's file and went on to read Danny's. He wasn't quite sure why he wanted to. But he hadn't lied to Pacci earlier that his gut was telling him something wasn't quite right. Granted, he had only requested Tony's file for personal reasons, but his interest in Danny Price was indeed professional. He didn't want to hire him, if anything Tony would be much more qualified for the job, but there was something off about Price and if Tony's refusal to make him his medical proxy was anything to go by, Gibbs probably was on to something. There weren't any blatantly obvious signs that caught Gibbs' attention right away. It would have been pretty hard to find some anyway because he didn't even know what he was searching for in the first place. Danny had basically spent his career at Baltimore PD, apparently the model of a perfect cop. But Gibbs knew that the record was too clean. Nobody working for the police, had never overstepped one boundary or two and having met Danny, Gibbs knew that he wasn't the kind not to take any risks.

Closing the file, Gibbs placed the two folders next to his paperwork. He had no business looking into their files, had no business investigating something just because his gut told him to. But that usually didn't stop him either. He subtly shook his head, vowing to himself to get off their cases and carry on with his life and only maybe check in with Balboa at the end of the case to make sure that there really wasn't anything to investigate.

.

Gibbs walked into his house late that night. He had done more paperwork than he could remember having ever done in an attempt to distract himself from one certain detective and to avoid going home to that cold house. It was already well after midnight as he entered his kitchen without switching on the light, grabbed a bottle of beer from his fridge and then made his way down into the basement. He didn't even try to lie down on his couch and sleep because he knew that sleep wouldn't come tonight and even if he managed to fall asleep at some point during the night, he would wake up from one nightmare or another anyway. He always did when he was alone.

He switched on the light in the basement and descended the stairs, taking a sip from his beer. He looked at the almost finished boat with a pang of guilt that it would soon be burned to ashes. He still wondered why he had let Stephanie help him build it, but she had insisted and in a last attempt to save his marriage he had let her, never realizing that the peace of the basement would be lost as soon as his wife had grabbed the sander. He shook his head and then only just held back a scream as he saw someone sitting on one of the sawhorses in the back of the room. He stared at the man for a moment or two, desperately trying to get his heartbeat under control.

What the hell?

"Breaking and entering, are we now?" he finally managed to choke out, but that only earned him a slight scowl.

"Not sure it's breaking in if the door's unlocked," Tony answered, crossing his arms over his chest.

Gibbs looked at him more closely now. His hair was a mess just like it used to be ten years ago, the rings under his eyes told him that he hadn't slept last night and his usual restlessness had vanished for the moment if the stiff way he was sitting on the sawhorse was anything to go by.

"How do you know where I live?" Gibbs finally asked as he came to a stop in front of his workbench.

He wanted to ask so many things, wanted to tell him so many things, but he suddenly had no idea where to even start and why the heck Tony was even here now.

"I'm a cop, Leroy," Tony answered, the name only reluctantly leaving his lips. "I have my ways."

"It's Jethro," Gibbs replied. "Or Gibbs. Only my dad calls me Leroy."

"Okay, Jethro, then."

They stared at each other for a long moment until Gibbs started to fidget and averted his glance from the younger man's eyes. He was never nervous, hadn't been overly nervous the day before or when he had given Tony that picture of the two of them, but he felt jittery now. He finally took another sip from his beer before he perched himself on the workbench, eager to put as much distance between Tony and himself.

"Why are you here?" he finally broke the overwhelming silence that hovered over them.

"You're seriously asking?" Tony let out a bitter laugh. "You leave like that and you wonder why I can't just let it go?"

"Yeah?" Gibbs shot back, slightly taken aback by Tony's aggressive tone of voice.

"Okay, if you really don't know, let me make it clear for you, Jethro. First, you're like I won't back down from the case because it's too important. Then you suddenly decide to leave. Doesn't make much sense to me, so I follow you and you have the nerve to tell me it's because you want to make it easier for me. Are you really that self-centered to believe that it only took you showing up after ten fucking years to throw me for a loop?"

Gibbs blinked. He hadn't thought about it that way before. Tony was right, though. He had no reason to believe that it had been because of him that the younger man hadn't asked his girlfriend to marry him. But that didn't explain…

"Why are you here, then?"

"You're really clueless, are you?" Tony snorted. "I want… closure, I guess. I wouldn't have bothered, but that photo actually did throw me off course a bit, to be honest. I mean, logically I knew that you picked it up two nights ago from somewhere around here to show it to me or something, but then I realized that it wouldn't make sense coming back here if you had booked yourself into a hotel in Baltimore. So then I got to thinking why you had it with you in the first place."

Gibbs stared at him, feeling his heart sink. The kid was smart and apparently a really good investigator, too. Feeling like he owed him the truth this time, he finally shrugged.

"Had it in my wallet. And before you ask, yes, I always had it in my wallet."

"All this time?" Tony almost whispered now, his hands falling to his sides in obvious surprise.

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"I don't know," Gibbs replied and meant it. "I knew that I screwed up when I hit you, but you already know that. But… I… uh. I don't know. I just couldn't let go of it."

They remained silent for a long time after that as they just stared at each other. Gibbs tried almost desperately to read the younger man's expression, but he wasn't able to. The green eyes were brighter than usual and his eyebrows were forming a tight line, while his lips had started to form the slightest of a smile. It was an odd expression and it didn't help to get rid of Gibbs' nervousness.

"You really are bad with words, man," Tony finally said and for a moment he sounded exactly like the carefree kid from ten years ago.

Gibbs just shrugged, waiting for the younger man to continue.

"Okay, so, you say you couldn't let go of the photo, huh? Why? I mean… was it just to remember some kid you had sex with or to piss off your wives?"

"How do you know…?"

"Please," Tony replied. "It's all in your file. Divorced two times, third one is pending. And from the looks of your house, there isn't anyone else in the picture right now either."

Gibbs just grunted as Tony stood up from where he had been sitting on the sawhorse and started to approach him.

"So, you wanted to piss them off, then?"

"No," Gibbs replied. "I just wanted to remember. I wasn't myself back then."

"You already said that," Tony said as he came to a stop directly in front of him. "But why would you like to remember a time when you were a mess?"

"To never forget what it felt like," Gibbs hesitantly answered despite himself.

Hell, he didn't want to tell the kid anything, didn't want to rip open that particular wound again. It was enough when he did that once a month whenever he had had too much bourbon and his mind would wander towards Shannon and Kelly and their deaths. He had never shared it with anyone before – well, except for that one night he had cried and Tony had managed to console him somehow.

Gibbs closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, inhaling Tony's scent. It was still a weird mixture of his spicy aftershave and hazelnut and Gibbs wondered briefly how he managed to smell exactly like he had ten years ago.

"What it felt like," he finally continued barely above a whisper as he locked eyes with Tony. "Being that lost and what it felt like being… being saved."

"Saved?" Tony replied just as quietly as he took a hesitant step towards Gibbs, so that they were mere inches apart now.

"Yeah."

"By me?" Tony asked breathlessly.

Gibbs just nodded.

"From what exactly?"

"Myself," Gibbs said. "I was this close to… And then you came along and, well, threw me off course. I suddenly realized that there was more out there than my own gloom. That's why you saved me."

Tony blinked once and twice and just when Gibbs wanted to continue, maybe tell a joke to diffuse the situation, Tony's eyes glazed over. Gibbs couldn't avert his own from the younger man's and Tony seemed to have the same problem because he just continued to stare at him so intently that Gibbs felt his heart pick up pace again. And just as Gibbs was finally able to break the eye contact and was about to step away from the younger man, Tony moved towards him, closing that last remaining gap between them and pressed his lips to Gibbs'.

The older man didn't react. He just stood there, his hands hanging loosely by his sides, his heart about to burst out of his chest. Before he could do anything, though, Tony had stepped away from him again and looked at him in silence for what seemed to be a very long time.

"Sorry," he finally mumbled and then just stepped around him and all but ran up the stairs, leaving Gibbs standing there, staring after him.