It couldn't be. It was worse than any nightmare he could imagine; things couldn't have turned out like this! He'd always been sure that if his girls had survived that ominous day, then his life would be literally perfect! But this? Not only was this anything but perfect, it was even worse than what he had back when he was wishing for Shannon and Kelly to be alive. This was worse than anything he could imagine.

The pain was too much and this time his body couldn't take it any longer and so, it finally gave in and he collapsed to the ground.

"Son? Can you hear me?" Someone was talking and it caused Gibbs to stir. He frowned; he wasn't sure if he was the one being addressed, but the man sure sounded familiar.

"Come on; open your eyes."

It was his Dad's voice.

He opened his eyes and blinked with confusion. "Jack?"

Jackson raised an eyebrow. "That's one step down from Dad, but since you just woke up..."

Gibbs frowned and suddenly remembered and tried to sit up, "Tony!"

Jack pushed him down. "Who?"

The event of his nightmare was rushing to his head and he gasped, glad that he'd finally woken up from it. It seemed like he was settled in a hospital room, which explained the weird dream; he must've been under the influence of painkillers. That'd happened before. "What happened?" He asked, trying to find out what had landed him in a hospital this time, giving him another crazy nightmare. Although, admittedly, this one had been way worse than the previous times.

"I'm not sure; somebody called me from the hospital and told me you were found unconscious in the street." Jack sounded concerned. "The scans show nothing, though; so you mustn't worry yourself."

"They called you?" He frowned.

"Well, I am your next of kin."

Gibbs was confused again. "No, you're not. DiNozzo is."

"Who's DiNozzo?" Now his father sounded annoyed and a bit hurt. "And why would he be your next of kin when you have a father?"

"You can't be my next of kin when you live in Stillwater, Dad and what do you mean who's-" He suddenly felt cold.

"Stillwater? I don't live in Stillwater anymore." The older man stated worriedly, not noticing how his son had trailed off. "Leroy? Son, are you alright? I haven't lived there in years. Oh dear, they must've missed something in those scans."

"Dad?" Gibbs swallowed dryly. "Is... Umm... Kelly?"

His dad shook his head. "I didn't call her; figured she wouldn't show up anyway."

"She's alive?"

It was his dad's turn to frown. "What do you mean she is alive? Of course she's-" He paused. "Wait a second; you think that bastard who'd tried to kill them all those years ago is coming for her again?"

Gibbs frowned; so, apparently him killing Hernandez wasn't public news; which was strange since Kelly had no problem talking about it in front of total strangers. "What? No... Just-"

"Hang on, Son. I think I need to call a doctor; you don't sound well." He stood up to leave but his son grabbed his arm.

"Dad, wait. Can you call Ducky for me? Or Abby?"

"Who are Ducky and Abby? I haven't heard you mention them before."

"NCIS?"

"NC- What?"

"What do I do for a living?" He asked dreadfully.

His dad studied him worriedly, "Maybe I should just-"

"Dad, please?"

"I don't get it. You're a carpenter. Why?"

"Carp- I... When?"

"When what?"

"When did I become a carpenter?" Gibbs winced slightly, finding it unbelievable and too far-fetched.

"Well, you started right after you decided it was safe to settle down and you chose DC for that. You still work as a consultant for the Marines if that's what you mean."

"I do?" At least that made a bit more sense.

"Yes." The older man replied, looking even more worried that his son seemed surprised at hearing the facts of his own life.

"And you live here?"

"Well, of course; you needed help with that sneaky daughter of yours. Not that my presence helped much; her mother's death hurt her too much."

"Shannon." Jethro murmured the name sadly and bit his lip.

His father was still looking at him strangely; "I know you loved her once and that you didn't want her dead; but you can't really be upset after so many years. You didn't sound much in love with her the last few times we talked before she took her own life."

"What?" Gibbs' eyes bulged wide. That couldn't be possible.

"Come on, now, Son. You don't have to tell me everything for me to know it. You sounded miserable."

"We were on the run!" Gibbs reasoned feebly, because seriously, this wasn't his life, but there's no way he had stopped loving Shannon; no matter what; Shannon was his everything.

"I don't know." The older man sighed, "She sure didn't seem that much in love with you and you've mentioned that you'd fill for a divorce if you weren't on the run."

Divorce? From Shannon? What sick bastard had put him in this Universe and Why? Was this his punishment for being a bastard for so many years?

"Why don't you take some rest, Son? I think Kelly's problems are affecting you more than you realize and this is your body's way to make you slow down." The older man suggested, thinking about mentioning this odd conversation to Leroy's doctor; they must've missed something; why else would his son forget these things or act so strangely?

Gibbs was still lost in his thoughts when his father left the room to talk to his doctor, but as soon as he found himself alone, he disconnected the machine attached to him and quietly left the ER room. He needed answers and he needed them now.

...

As the day went by, Gibbs kept ignoring the ringing of his cellphone as he gathered information any way he could.

First thing he did, after leaving the hospital, was going to the Navy Yard and not surprisingly they didn't let him in without a good reason; he didn't even know someone who worked there to help him out; the security guards didn't know the couple of names he mentioned and he figured if he kept throwing in random names, he'd just make things worse for himself. It was so strange; he'd worked in this very building for years and was sure his name was known by every agent working for the agency, all around the world, and even by some sister agencies and yet, here, he was being looked at like he was crazy and was being kept out of the building.

The next best thing he could do was going to a library. There, he went through old and new newspapers, reports and articles and at that moment, he more than anything, wished he still had Abby to do her magic and find the information he needed with a computer and wished he still had a team to count on; but apparently he didn't have that; so he kept skimming and scanning reports, the old fashioned way, taking in every information he could and at the end, he'd been able to do a simple internet research on the Agency.

The information he found just added to his dread; some of them were confusing, some bad and some were terrible.

He found out that a guy names Jenkins was the Director of NCIS, now and just like the director no one else sounded familiar in the reports he was checking.

Among the bad news he saw a piece of familiar yet impossible news; in year 2004, two members of the agency's MCRT had died in a car blast, which was familiar because it was clearly the one he'd experienced with his team the day Tony had come back from his sick leave after the plague. This time, though, they hadn't had a DiNozzo to save them and two agents, a Rebeca Fisch along with the probationary agent Timothy McGee had died in that blast; their lead agent, Stanly Burley, had resigned after that. So, Stan wasn't with the agency anymore and McGee was apparently dead and damn, he'd died so soon.

There were some terrible news there; like the news of Abby's death; it was something that caused Gibbs' heart clench in his chest and he had to walk around for a few minutes to calm down enough to be able to read more. The article said that the NCIS' Lab Tech., Abigail Sciuto, had been the target of a sniper and had died while working in her lab. Again, it was something that he'd been part of the first time around and clearly Tony had prevented it from happening back then.

He wasn't able to find anything specific on Ducky or Kate or Ziva or even Vance; there were a couple of things about Jenny in some old reports but one was about her father's death and the other about her own death in LA; clearly, she'd become the agency's director here, too and she'd died the same way as in the other reality.

But what mattered more was that the more Gibbs looked, the less he found about Tony.

So, no Ducky, no Abby, no McGee and no anyone else who could help him. There was definitely no Tony and it was the thing that was bothering him the most; because that one, he still felt responsible for.

A thought occurred to him and he changed his sources and decided to go through the reports that went way back; like when Tony had been too young to be a cop or an agent and that's when he found it. The death certificate of one Anthony DiNozzo Jr. and it it dated back to 1991; he'd been pretty much a kid and he'd died in the hospital from internal bleeding and multiple injuries after getting hit by a speeding car when he'd tried to save a young woman and her toddler.

There were more news about his death, because apparently being a DiNozzo mattered a lot in this universe, too and it was mentioned in many of those articles when the funeral of the young man, who was pretty much a hero in their eyes, had only been attended by strangers- the young woman, whose life Tony had saved with her family and friends-, and Tony's few friends; it seemed like an important piece of news that DiNozzo Sr. had only paid for his only son's funeral and hadn't shown up himself; it hadn't sat well with the media that a self-sacrificing young man like DiNozzo Jr. had had no relative or family member attending his funeral.

Gibbs felt sick; the date of the day Tony had died matched that of the day his girls had had that accident and this time they'd survived. That guy, Kab-... Kab-something, had said that Tony'd traded his life for his little girl; and that he'd shaken the universe to make it happen.

So, could it be true? Could this be his new reality? Could the guy be right and his girls had died for a reason in his universe? Like, if they had lived, they'd all be miserable and hate each other? Was it possible that they'd fall apart down the road, had they not died in that crash?

And Gibbs couldn't forget that all the people that Tony'd saved, one way or another, were now apparently dead.

He guessed if that was all true, then the only reason he was alive was because he hadn't become an NCIS agent; because Tony had saved his life, too, more than once, and if he'd gone to NCIS, then now he'd be dead, too.

Swallowing the bile in his throat, he buried face his in his hands and tried to calm his erratic heartbeat.

He didn't want his reality. This couldn't be right, because these things only happened in Tony's movies; if even in them! So, no, he couldn't believe it; his little girl wouldn't become this bitter, hateful stranger who wished him dead every single day; his wife, his beautiful Shannon, wouldn't have killed herself because she was sick and tired of him. And he wouldn't end up like this. No, he refused to accept that this could be his reality. He didn't know why his mind was playing this kind of trick on him, but it was probably guilt and while he couldn't and wouldn't accept this as the outcome of his girls not dying that day, he couldn't deny that the world needed Anthony DiNozzo; that if Tony had been alive, then 'Two Kids Dead in Fire' in Baltimore would've been just a 'kid' dead; or rather, it'd be the kid rescued and the news would be focused on his survival, because a man, whose face no one saw or remembered, had pulled him out of that fire, saving his life.

He knew if Tony lived so many other people wouldn't have died; the people whose survival depended on Tony and to think he'd told the younger man nobody cared if he'd died and nothing would differ for anybody! He just knew if Tony was alive, he'd find a way to help him now, too; it was possible that he'd even find a way to help Kelly.

No, he'd never wish for Tony to trade his place with Kelly or Shannon or anyone else; he wished he'd take their places; heck, he'd wholeheartedly trade his place with Tony now; because the world would, no doubt, be a better place with him in it; a much better place.

"You never learn, do you?"

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TBC ...

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A/N: So, what do you think?

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I don't own the show and its characters and all mistakes are mine.