5

He was back sitting in the dark again. The coffee had given way to water, but after a brief flirtation with Mozart he'd dismissed the Austrian as altogether too cheery, and had reverted to Russian melodrama. One step forward, two steps back. He should have been a dancer.

Needless to say, he'd heard nothing personally from Boston. Not that he'd really expected to get such a neat, quick solution to the mess that he'd managed to make of this particular life, but it would have been nice. For once. Realistically, it would have been far too easy an option for Dame Fortune to take – not when there was a let's kick Tony when he's down alternative.

Anyway, given the furore they had unwittingly unleashed on him he was rapidly going off Boston PD as an option. It had been way past late by the time he'd gotten home, after being grilled by what felt like half the building. He hadn't known that gossip could spread so damn fast. If one more person told him what an idiot he was, how he was throwing away the best thing that had ever happened to him, or that he really should think first, he wouldn't be responsible for his actions.

The fact that nobody considered he might have done nothing but think about this for the last three weeks just served to underline it was the right decision.

If every cloud had a silver lining, his was that Gibbs had not been seen since his earlier dramatic exit. He didn't think he would have survived a confrontation where he was expected to actually participate with his self-image intact.

He hurt all over, and most of it was from blows you couldn't see.

"If you're determined to throw your future away Tony, far be it for me to interfere."

"What in God's name do you think you're doing? Are you trying to piss Gibbs off?"

"Do you seriously think you can do better for yourself in Boston PD?"

His temper, and his control, had got worse and worse as the day had gone on. He'd told Kate that if she spent as much time worrying about her own life as she did his, then she might manage to get laid more than once in an eternity. That had gone down every bit as well as it was meant to, and led to a spectacular argument that quickly turned really vicious, and only ended when she called him a self absorbed child who didn't know how to be grateful, and he responded that it was a step up from cold hearted bitch, and he was sure that he wouldn't be the last man she drove away.

Ruth from Dolan's team got suggestive comments about cleavages, which while it was an obvious topic where she was concerned, was never a prudent one. Within minutes of her stalking out after slapping him in the face, Dolan was told to mind his own business, stay out of his way – and failing that, feel free to report him, and let's see who would win that one.

Ducky got a terse, and unforgivably crude, comment about Boston women and how they might relate to his own University years that earned him no answer except for a single look of disappointment and reproach which was far and away the most painful point of the whole day.

And Abby, with impeccable ability, was still not talking to him, whilst sending a whole string of messages varying from "Is it my fault?" to "Come here so I can knock some sense into you." He was ignoring them.

All in all, the temptation to call it quits and not go back again was a siren song to his beleaguered soul. But that would be incredibly unprofessional, and he'd be letting himself down. No, worse than that – he'd be making a conscious decision to take a path that he knew was wrong, just because it was easy. Switching horses to cut his losses was one thing. Not taking his job seriously because it had gotten too hard was quite another, and he refused to live down to people's expectations just to smooth the way.

Of course while it was all very noble to say that this was never really a decision that needed to be made, he couldn't actually see how he was going to manage to get through another day like this one, much less a couple of weeks, or even more. He needed things to be settled, and soon, so he could find his footing again. He was so sick of everything crashing around his ears, an endless tumbling that meant he could never grasp on long enough to start rebuilding.

Wanting to derail that train of thought before it could lead him into darker places, he looked to the clock in the hope of distraction. He'd been sitting in the dark for over an hour, apparently. It was getting to be a habit.

***

A sudden pounding in the hallway had him leaping a mile in the air and frantically checking his weapons yet again, before he reminded himself that it was just somebody knocking on the door – albeit very loudly. And the door was locked, and he had no intention of answering it, so it wasn't an issue.

Then he heard the key turn, and his heart hit the floor, hard, before bouncing right back up to his throat. Only one person that wasn't himself had a key.

"You'd better be in here DiNozzo!" It was a bellow that made his knees shake, and he decided against standing up. Looked like Gibbs was seeing himself in anyway. "Fine." At least the volume was dropping, even if the owner was coming closer. "I'll wait".

He squinted up as light flooded the room, reawakening his headache. And there loomed an ogre, brandishing an unopened bottle of bourbon and a killer temper. "Why the hell are you sitting in the dark? And why didn't you answer?"

"Because it's my home and my choice?"

He didn't dignify that with a response, stalking past and into the kitchen. With a sigh, Tony heaved himself off the couch and followed. His (soon to be ex) boss had found himself a tumbler and poured a generous measure by the time he got there, and they eyed each other up silently for a moment.

The fact that he would crack first was never really in any doubt.

"What do you want?"

"What do I want?" Low, incredulous, and still very, very menacing. The contents of the glass vanished in one swallow, and the glass banged heavily back onto the side. "I want to know what Boston PD has that we don't. I want to know why I had to find out about it from the Director. I want to know why he had to find out from the FBI. In short, I want to know what the hell you think you're playing at!"

Another generous measure of bourbon landed in the glass while he tried desperately to think of something to say that wouldn't make matters worse. Nothing came to mind.

"The FBI?" Scratch that. Nothing intelligent came to mind.

"One of Fornell's team has a brother in law high up in Boston PD. He called up for the inside line on you. Word spread. Fornell was sniffing around whether it was true that you were open to offers." The second glass disappeared as quickly as the first, and Tony was beginning to feel seriously out of his depth. He could feel the nerves crawling up and around his spine, sending tendrils out into his limbs, draining his strength right along with his self-preservation.

"Come on, Gibbs. I've no intentions of jumping over to Fornell's team." He was talking to his back now, as the bottle headed for the glass yet again. "And I didn't even know Boston had been in touch – they've not actually offered me anything yet."

"Goddamnit, DiNozzo!" It was a full on roar, as he swung back round, bottle in one hand, glass in the other.

And for the second time in a week, instinct got the drop on sense. He heard the noise, and the rage, and saw the flash of light off the bottle and the movement of the man coming at him. And he cowered.

There was no other word for it. Pride be damned, this was not just a flinch in the face of an irate boss, or a cringe at a poor choice of words and timing. No, this was duck and cover, and it stopped Gibbs in his tracks. In other circumstances, the vaguely bewildered look on his face would have been funny, but here and now, with the silence of the apartment broken only by the muted sound of Russian ballet music and his own ragged – no, no, do yourself justice here Tony, panicked – breathing, there was nothing remotely amusing.

"You don't seriously think I'd-" He took a pace forward as he spoke, and without thought, Tony took two back, rapidly. Gibbs stopped again, and took a good look at him, and he felt the colour rise in his face as every nuance was catalogued by a pair of eyes he know damn well missed nothing. After an eternity of no more than two minutes, the other man moved back again, put the bottle and glass on the side, and then spoke, using a tone of voice he had only ever heard produced for shell shocked victims at crime scenes. "The bottle's right here. Do whatever you like with it." And it was such an unusual tone for Gibbs, gentle and careful and so unlike the abrasive, irritable man he mostly was.

"Tony!" The command tone caught his attention, and he dragged his wandering thoughts back to the words being said with an effort. "I mean it. Pour it out, throw it away, lock it up. Whatever you want. We'll stick to coffee for the rest of this conversation. I'll be in there with – the Romeo and Juliet suite?" He shook his head in dismissal. "Never mind." The focus came back onto him. "Take your time."

His eyes refused to stop watching warily until Gibbs was no longer in sight, having exited the kitchen in one silent, fluid flow of movement that made a mockery of the anger of a few moments earlier. Back pressed up against the kitchen wall, tension in every muscle, breathing coming in short gasps and brain blessedly refusing to get involved, he sank to the floor before unsteady legs gave out, buried his head in his knees and prayed the world would go away.