"Who's Kate?"

She feels him flinch and knows it's not from the kind of pain she's spent her life's work tending to.

"It's okay," she says softly, meaning it. "You don't have to tell me."

Okay, fantastic, DiNozzo thinks.

Not good enough, DiNardo shoots back. Lie. And come up with something good.

But DiNozzo doesn't lie. He simply can't do that to Kate.

"She was my friend. I was there when she died."

Please, please don't ask me how. Please don't.

"And she also annoyed the living hell out of me," he adds with a crooked half-smile when she opens her mouth to speak. His voice goes quiet and wistful, and he's not even sure if he's lying now. "I might have loved her. But she was too much like the little sister I never had."

Is that the right answer, Alex? In the category of Painful Half-truths for $1000. For my life, my job, my heart. Please tell me it is. That seems like an awful lot to lose.

So why are you putting it all on the line?

Oh hell. I told her I'm an only child, right? Why would I lie about that?

Why would I lie at all?

"I'm sorry, Tony," is all she says.

"Thank you, Jeanne."

More silence. More sweet, blissful silence.

And he realizes that as much as he loves talking with her, as much as he loves her voice, sharing her thoughts, he loves their sweet silences more.

Because he can just be.

He can be Anthony DiNozzo in those silences and it's okay because she won't know the difference. She doesn't know DiNozzo's affinity for masks, his need to fill silences with inanity to keep people from looking at him too closely. And she can look all she wants.

Because when she looks at a silent Anthony DiNozzo, she sees Tony DiNardo.

And that's just fine with them.

"Your boss called," she says, stopping his heart as if penance to the devil for all those she has restarted with her bare hands.

He gets lucky this time because she moves her hand as she says it and mistakes his choked cry of panic for pain.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers, pressing soft lips against his side. "Did I hurt your ribs?"

Hurt DiNardo's ribs, stopped DiNozzo's heart… What's the difference, really? They're all in close proximity anyway.

"It's okay," he says and he knows he sounds strangled even though she's not freaking out and demanding to know just who the hell he is.

He's glad for that because he's not really sure anyway.

His mind is racing as fast as the pulse he hopes she can't see throbbing away like a jackhammer in his throat. Maybe Gibbs ratted my flight from the hospital to Jenny and she got someone to call me and pretend to be my boss from the university because they're all worried. That makes sense, right?

No, what makes sense is Gibbs getting McGee to trace my cell and then coming to find me himself.

To kill me.

At least I won't have to worry about an arms dealer slowly taking me apart when he finds out I'm a federal agent who's been sleeping with his daughter.

Oh, shit. McGee tracing calls would mean Gibbs and McGee and probably Ziva would know.

And if Gibbs talked to Jeanne, then Jeanne might know, too.

Why can't I figure out which one of those options is worse?

Suddenly, the hospital scene returns to his fuzzy head and he remembers all of his pain and exhaustion and his anger at Ziva's mocking. And his decision to leave before the painkillers split his head open and spilled his secrets.

He had known since watching Gibbs wincing with sympathy at his bruises and softly asking him if he was okay in that exam room that bad things were about to happen. Or had already happened.

Those were, after all, the only times nice-Gibbs reared his terrifying silver head.

And Tony knew that he had wanted to use Gibbs' out-of-personality experience to shed his disguises and spill the entire op right then and dizzy there.

And damn the consequences.

Maybe Gibbs would even get down on his hands and knees to help him pick up the shattered pieces of DiNozzo and DiNardo, and help him weave them into something whole.

And those were dangerous thoughts.

But it turned out he was saved by the belle—the Goth Southern belle, but she had a parasol so he figures that's accurate enough.

He had never been so glad to see a panicking Abby in his whole life. He had been pathetically grateful for her wide, tear-filled eyes studying the livid evidence of violence on his skin.

Because he had known where Gibbs' attention would land with those two targets in sight.

Scared Abby was the center of the bull's-eye every time.

Hey, this is the present calling. Come back before Einstein gets pissed about you bending the laws of time and space, okay?

Shut up, DiNozzo. You're the idiot who brought your cell into the realm of DiNardo and started this mess.

Oh, right, it was his, wasn't it?

So Gibbs called DiNozzo's cell and talked to Jeanne.

And the world hasn't imploded.

He felt the overwhelming need tempered only by broken ribs—and sweet sanity—to roll over and check his back for knives similar to the ones he often sees sticking from between her shoulder blades when she turns just right.

But apparently DiNardo's luckier than DiNozzo.

We'll take it, either way.

"So my boss called?" he asks, and is shocked that he sounds perfectly normal. DiNardo decides he loves painkillers.

"Mmmm," she says, and he realizes how late it is. How tired she must be. "He just wanted to check on you. He sounded worried."

Okay, definitely not Gibbs. What the hell?

But Jenny wouldn't have anyone call, you drugged, dazed idiot. She has no idea what lies you told Jeanne to explain the injuries.

Welcome back, DiNozzo.

But seriously, go away.

"Really?" he can't help asking.

Shut up. Just shut up. She's not trying to kill you so she obviously doesn't know. Maybe Gibbs knows, but you can't do anything about that right now so just shut up and take one thing at a time.

Be glad she's not going to kill you.

Unless she's waiting for you to go back to sleep.

He had forgotten that he was undercover when he was with her, forgotten why, really. Realized he had been forgetting that a lot lately. That she was a soft pawn in a hard game, and he had to be careful, had to be on alert at all times.

"He's not much of a worrier," Tony says when she doesn't answer him.

Her eyes open slowly and he thinks she must have dropped off.

Shut up.

"Well, his words weren't really worried," she says sleepily, but now she's thinking. "But there was just this undertone, I guess, that made me think he was worried."

Okay, definitely Gibbs then.

"I should probably give him a call," he says, fighting that idea with what's left of his depleted stores of energy.

But he disentangles from her sleeping body anyway.