* * * * *

When they got into the house, Gibbs was nowhere to be seen. But as Abby climbed the stairs slowly to the guest room, Tony heard a cabinet door in the basement slam shut and then Gibbs footsteps on the stairs. As expected, Gibbs appeared in the living room with the paddle in his hand.

"Don't move," he ordered to Tony as he continued upstairs.

He walked into the guest room and closed the door forcefully. Abby stood in the middle of the room, hands clasped in front of her, head down. "You deliberately disobeyed me," he said without prelude. She nodded and he heard her sniff. "Why?" he asked.

She looked up at the tone of his voice – he sounded betrayed.

"I thought having that file would help," she said. He could see tears forming in her eyes. "I thought it would help us figure out how all that evidence fit together better." She stopped and sniffed again. "I'm so sorry."

"You thought," he said. "Abby, have I ever steered you wrong on something?" She shook her head. "Then why did you think you knew better? Why did you think it was fine to do what you wanted after I specifically told you not to? Did you not think I had a very good reason for telling you not to do that? And I mean besides the fact that what you did today was completely illegal and could not only get you fired but also quite a few years in jail?"

The questions had been asked so quickly that she couldn't even begin to answer. Instead, she continued to hang her head. Fortunately, it seemed that the questions were rhetorical.

"I have never been so disappointed in you, Abby," Gibbs said.

She looked at him as a tear slipped out of her eye. "Gibbs," she said, then choked back a sob. She stood there looking at him for a moment, completely unable to think of a single thing she could say that would make it better. Instead, she brushed past him and bent over the bed.

He turned around. "No," he said firmly. "Pants down."

Abby stood up and looked at him, eyes wide. "But Gibbs, I can't," she said pleadingly.

"Why not?" he demanded.

"Because I'm, um, I'm…" she was suddenly very uncomfortable. "I'm wearing a thong," she whispered.

"Good," he said without sympathy. "Pants down," he repeated.

Abby looked in his eyes for just a second – eyes full of hurt, sadness and even a little anger – before she turned around and slowly lowered her pants. It was true, she was wearing a thong.

Wanting to preserve her modesty as much as possible, Gibbs immediately moved to her side, put one hand on her back and with the other, brought the paddle down hard on her skin. He heard her stifle a yell and brought the paddle down again. She immediately started sobbing, but he continued to spank her, knowing full well how badly it hurt. But she had disobeyed him and had even tried to lie to him. She needed to feel this spanking as much as he needed to give it to her. In spite of the lack of protection that even normal underpants would have offered, he spanked her harder than he ever had before. He knew that a severe punishment was the only way to clear the air between them after what she had done.

The severity was not lost on her either. It had been years since she'd been spanked on her bare skin for real. The playful spankings she was used to tickled compared to what she was feeling now. And when he started to concentrate on the area where her bottom and her thighs met, she sobbed hopelessly. But in spite of the pain, her mind was still in full gear – how could she have been so stupid? And why had she disobeyed this man who loved her and continually put his life on the line to protect her? What if she was fired? Who would protect her then? And what would have happened to him if he'd taken the blame for what his team had done? As she considered that possibility, she sobbed even harder. She was dwelling so intently on the possibility that she'd put Gibbs in danger of losing his job or ending up in jail because of what she had done that she didn't even notice at first that the spanking had ended.

But when she did realize that he had stopped, she stood up and flung herself into his arms, not caring that her pants were bunched around her ankles. "I'm so sorry," she cried over and over again as he held her.

"I know. It's ok," he said quietly.

"No it's not!" she cried. "It's not ok!"

He pushed her gently away and held her at an arm's length. "Abby, it's over," he said, concern wrinkling his brow.

"But what if you'd gotten arrested for what I did?" she asked, still sobbing.

He pulled her back into a tight hug and let her cry for a while. When he sensed that she was calming down a bit, he spoke again. "That didn't happen. Do not ever dwell on what might have happened. There's no point." But as he said the words, his breath caught. It was then that he realized how much the Nicholson case had haunted him all these years. And when the image of his own wife and daughter flashed before his eyes, he finally understood the why.

After another minute or so, he pushed her back again. "Are you ok?" he asked gently. She nodded. "I need to go deal with Tony," he said as he planted a kiss on the top of her head and let go of her shoulders. She immediately climbed up onto the bed and curled up on her side – her pants still around her ankles. He looked at her backside for just a second before he turned away. That spanking had indeed been severe. He knew she'd be hurting for a while. But he also knew that it would be a very long time before she disobeyed him again. Before he left the room, he leaned over her. "I forgive you," he whispered and kissed her gently on the cheek. That made her cry again, but he knew that once she'd gotten all of the emotion and regret out of her system, they would be fine.

* * * * *

Down in the living room, Tony was perched on the couch with his head in his hands as he listened to Abby yell and cry her way through what sounded like a very hard spanking. And he listened as her cries lessened just a bit when the spanking stopped. He couldn't hear what was being said, but he could hear Gibbs comforting her as she cried. And his heart broke when he thought about the fact that it was his fault that she was being punished.

A few minutes after the spanking had ended, Tony heard Gibbs coming down the stairs. He stayed frozen in his seat until he felt Gibbs sit down on the other end of the couch. Tony slowly looked up. Gibbs wasn't looking at him and Tony took the opportunity to study him. What he saw broke his heart even more. He had never seen him look so tired or sad before. Had having to give Abby such a harsh punishment really reduced him to this state? Or was there something else?

The two men sat in silence for a long time, each lost in his own thoughts before Gibbs finally looked at Tony. He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times as if he was unsure of where to start. Tony was so unnerved – he'd never seen Gibbs unsure of himself. What was going on?

"Tony," Gibbs finally said, "who's idea was it?"

"Mine," he answered without hesitation.

"Why?"

Tony shook his head. "For a reason that seems so inadequate now." He swallowed a few times, trying to rid himself of the lump in his throat. "I don't even know what to say. 'Sorry' isn't even close to enough." Gibbs nodded, less in agreement than as an acknowledgement of what Tony was trying to say. "But Boss, why was this case so, I don't know – personal? – for you?"

Surprisingly, Gibbs answered. "Nicholson's wife and seven-year-old children were killed three months after I joined NIS. It was one of my first cases. I was…am so sure he did it, but we couldn't get the evidence to convict him. His case ended up being turned over the FBI, but they couldn't get all the pieces together either. He was let off on a technicality."

Tony looked at his boss in awe for a long moment. "Sorry," he whispered. It wasn't an apology, just sympathy. Gibbs nodded again. Tony stood up, walked to the back of the couch and bent over, putting his hands on the cushion he'd just been sitting on.

Gibbs broke out of his thoughts and returned to the present. He took his time joining Tony on the far side of the couch and as he moved there, he geared himself up for what he was about to do. As Gibbs got to his side, Tony suddenly stood up, unfastened his slacks and pushed them down – no sense in making Gibbs tell him to do what he knew he would have to do anyway. But as he bent over again, Gibbs stopped him.

"Shorts too."

Tony closed his eyes for a second then obeyed. As he bent over again, he remembered the last time he'd gotten paddled on his bare backside. It had been his senior year of high school – he'd skipped class with his roommate and a couple of his other friends, broke into the headmaster's house and put all of his living room furniture on the front lawn. They'd even run extension cords so that they could plug in and turn on the lamps. In spite of his current position, he snorted a laugh at the memory.

"Something funny DiNozzo?" Gibbs asked as he put his hand on Tony's back.

"I just remembered something. I'll tell you later," Tony answered. He sobered quickly and gritted his teeth in anticipation of the first strike of the paddle. It was a good move because a second later, it fell – hard. The paddling that followed was much worse than the one he'd experienced at the hands of an angry headmaster all those years earlier. Sooner than his pride wanted him to, Tony started crying – partly from the incredible pain building in his unprotected skin, and partly from the thought that he'd not only gotten Abby to disobey their boss and gotten her punished, but that he'd betrayed Gibbs' trust – big time!

He was sure Gibbs was planning to spank him for the next hour because there was no sign that the punishment was coming to an end any time soon. And then the paddle moved down to the area between his backside and his thighs. The pain knocked the wind out of him and he gasped continually for breath as the paddle continued its blistering assault. But just when Tony was about to wish for death in place of the pain he was feeling, it stopped.

His body went limp over the back of the couch and he stayed there for a few minutes trying to catch his breath – a task made all the more difficult by his sobs of regret over what he had done to Abby and to Gibbs. When he was finally able to take in a few deep breaths, he pulled his pants up but then rested on the back of the couch again. He almost jumped when he felt Gibbs' hand on his shoulder pulling him up. He didn't fight it as Gibbs continued pulling him to standing and then turned him to face him.

And then, Gibbs did what he had never done before – he pulled Tony into the same tender hug he had given Abby earlier. Tony hesitated for a moment before he wrapped his arms around his boss. It was the first time in his life that anyone had ever hugged him like this after he'd been punished. Usually, he'd been spanked and then left alone. Only his nanny had ever come back to comfort him like this – and that only after his parents had started their evening cocktails.

But here he was, wrapped in a tight hug, feeling, for the first time in his life, that he was truly forgiven. Immediately, the remaining guilt drained out of him with the last of his tears.

* * * * *

About an hour later, Gibbs looked up from his spot on the couch at the sound of Abby descending the stairs. As she came around the corner into the living room, he quickly brought a finger to his lips and nodded toward the love seat. Abby looked down and saw Tony curled up, fast asleep. Gibbs held out a hand to her and she went to him. She curled up on the couch next to him and he put his arm around her and planted another kiss on her head. Before long, she too was asleep.

Gibbs sat quietly, listening to them breathe for a long time before he disentangled himself from Abby. He stood up and laid a blanket over Tony. He then turned back, scooped up Abby and carried her upstairs. He laid her carefully on the bed in the guest room, covered her with a blanket and then went to bed.