A/N: This story is not marked as complete, because there are plenty more potential installments in this universe – but when this little scene appeared, it seemed fitting for the last entry in this chronology, and it wouldn't leave me alone until it was written. Since I have been posting the chapters in this AU out of chronological order all along, I guess this makes as much sense as anything, but here's the final scene ... for now.

Once again, thanks to Montana-Rosalie for the original story. Are you still out there, hun?

CHRONOLOGY WARNING: as previously announced, the chapters do not run in sequence. If you prefer reading in the order that events occurred, Ziva's (Ch. 1) runs across most of the time represented; the rest, chronologically with events, start with Ducky (Ch. 5), then Abby (Ch. 3), McGee, (Ch. 4), Tony (Ch. 6), Gibbs (Ch. 2), Tony and Abby (Ch.8), Tony and Palmer, (Ch. 10), Vance (Ch. 7), Tony and McGee (Ch. 9) and finally this new one, Tony and Gibbs, (Ch. 11).

Many thanks for reading (even with the weird posting order). Reviews and comments always appreciated!

Believing Still

Another quiet Saturday afternoon – so far. The team was off rotation, and Gibbs was in his basement. It had been a good week; they'd been called out on Tuesday morning to investigate a death that, for once, revealed no foul play, but simply an unfortunate mix of genetics and unhealthy living, and then called on Wednesday afternoon to interview an office full of potential embezzlers, with Ziva quickly getting to the heart of the issue in her interview with the civilian support employee who was foundering in back-due child support.

Nothing too exciting – nothing that would support another one of McGee's books, Gibbs smirked to himself — but a quiet week was fine with him. A quiet week meant another week when his agents could go home to a hot meal and a warm bed, when they could relax and recharge for the next bad one. However, it also left him more time than he usually liked to let his thoughts wander, and now, almost inevitable given the changes so near on the horizon, he found himself remembering his agents from over the years, his teams ... his wars ... his choices. The agents – and friends – he'd lost, and those who had survived, still whispered to him in the quiet basement, more often than anyone knew. Nothing lasted forever, and even though the math, overall, had ended up with more wins than losses for him, he felt the sting of the absence of those he'd lost in the line.

It was almost 4 PM when Gibbs heard the soft, familiar sound of his porch creaking as it was crossed, and he listened for the door. He'd known he'd have company today, just not when, and with a mental head slap he put his memories back in their dusty corner and got back to his planing, taking long, luxurious strokes against the beautiful rich grain under his hands. Especially today, Gibbs wanted to be the man that his agents believed and expected him to be, the solid, steady presence in everyone's lives he knew they'd relied on, over the years, to make command decisions and follow them though. It wasn't always as easy as they thought it was for him, but overall he was stubborn enough to make up his mind and act, and he'd had good men and women behind him who, on occasion, were willing to tell him when they thought he was off base. His six was still covered, although not by the person he'd hoped would be there when the time came to hand off his team.

As the door opened he listened, surprised to hear the that the familiar, solid tread overhead wasn't followed by other feet joining the first pair, and, in spite of himself and the mixed feelings he had about this particular decision and the changes ahead, he felt his mouth quirk up at the corner. Leave it to this bunch to make things more complicated than they needed to be.

The sounds came to him – steps across his kitchen floor, the tiny squeak of his basement door hinges opening the door wider, the soft wooden creak of footsteps on the stair treads – and Gibbs again appreciated how much he loved this house, its voice, and how safe and comfortable he felt here, its familiarity like having another partner at his back. Like a living thing, he mused, full of memories and assurances. His grin settled across his face with the nearing footfalls.

"You lost, DiNozzo?"

"Hey, Boss." This was another familiar, comfortable scenario that had shifted and rearranged itself, over the years, and as he often had over the last half-decade, his former SFA came down half way and sat, no longer asking if he was busy or this was a bad time, knowing that the response was nearly always 'no' to both and if it wasn't, Gibbs would still hear him out before rushing him off. He waited for Tony to speak again, and noted that, unlike most of their conversations these past few years, the younger man remained quiet, hesitating several moments before speaking again. Given the circumstances, though, Gibbs wasn't surprised, and suspected he knew what brought DiNozzo this time – and found himself once again touched by the man he'd all but adopted out of Baltimore, like a stray from the pound. He'd long ago realized he'd ended up with a purebred when he did.

"So, you ready for next week?" DiNozzo finally began.

Gibbs half snorted, softly. "Yeah, are you?"

"Yeah, but ... I just have to move my stuff from one desk to another, one floor up. Yours is farther."

"Just across town."

"Yeah, but what are you gonna do without your office, Boss? I'm pretty sure Vance isn't gonna let you take it with you," DiNozzo joked. "Budget's a little too tight to have to replace an elevator that, against all odds, is still actually working."

"Well, I'm counting on you to make it happen, DiNozzo. And about that," even trying to sound gruff, Gibbs knew he couldn't keep the bit of pride from his voice, "shouldn't I be calling you 'Boss?'"

"Nah – too weird," Tony laughed awkwardly, and as he paused again, Gibbs knew he'd found at least some of what was bothering the younger man – hell, he should have recognized it, since it was working on him some, too. But in another moment DiNozzo half-laughed again and said, "it's probably about the last thing either of us ever figured, right? I mean ... given everything ..." At Gibbs' grunt, wholly expected and comforting in its familiarity, Tony went on, "I'm not gonna say that you couldn't get yourself in some tight spots at FLETC, too, but not the kind I worry about when I'm not there to get your six anymore." Another pause, and Tony finally added, "I gotta admit, after you came back from retirement I figured that you'd be on the job until one of the bad guys got lucky, given your tendency to put yourself out there."

"My tendency?" Gibbs griped, affectionately. "Ya want to compare how many concussions we've each had on the job? Or broken noses?"

"Okay, so maybe I have a unique perspective, having put myself out there just a bit too far." Relaxing a little once the conversation was begun, Tony stood again to come down the last ten steps into the basement, turning then to cross the floor toward his mentor. Now habit, Gibbs provided a verbal cue to his surroundings.

"Stool four feet ahead, to your left." As he spoke, Gibbs put down the plane and went to his work bench, once again tossing bolts and screws on its surface to blow out the small glass jars and pour them each a couple fingers of bourbon. Tony came closer and rested his knuckles on the stool's smooth wooden surface, drumming them there quietly, but remained standing. As Gibbs came back toward him and grunted something that sounded like, "here," Tony raised his hand to feel the familiar pattern of a quilted glass jar pressed into his grip.

"Thanks," he murmured, and added softly, "And from my 'unique perspective' – I'm still glad your reflexes are better than mine." He paused to sip the bourbon, then chuckled softly, "you know, I think I've actually started liking this stuff." Tony was quiet for another few moments before he spoke again, getting to the heart of what brought him there. "You really want this, Boss?"

Jethro glanced up to the concerned face of a friend, still the best second – and probably the best partner – he'd ever had, and knew exactly what he was asking. Ten years ago, even five, he'd never seen himself voluntarily leaving field duty again. But things change, and he found that he might have more to offer elsewhere – and more to live for. "My knees do," he laughed.

Tony snorted and rolled his eyes. "And that's all it took? Bullshit; if that was all you'd have stayed in Mexico. Your knees were always crap."

"Yeah, well, crap is relative." Gibbs saw the sincere concern in DiNozzo's eyes and relented – of all times, he really did owe Tony something. "You're right, Tony – this isn't what I had planned. I screwed up when I left for Mexico, and when I came back, I figured I'd stay for maybe another five years, enough time to be there for you, anything you needed to fill in any blanks you wanted filled before you took over the team on your terms, not on mine. And when that didn't work out..."

"Yeah, that whole 'getting whacked by a flying engine' thing again," Tony nodded sagely, once again conjuring a life-changing injury into a mere pratfall. Even now, he trumped serious mention of the explosion with a minimizing joke. Once when Gibbs vented to Ducky about DiNozzo's refusal to let such a reference just go by, the wise doctor said it was Tony's way of maintaining some level of control over it – and immediately, Gibbs got it. He never begrudged DiNozzo's lame-ass jokes about it again.

"... I adjusted the timeline," Gibbs continued smoothly. "I wasn't sure who I could leave the team with, if it wasn't you." Gibbs knew that Tony had to know this already, deep down, but he realized that he owed the younger man enough that the words needed to be spoken. "I'm still not as sure as I would've been had it been you – but given that you'll be running the whole damn division, I suppose it's the next best thing."

Not surprisingly, Tony smiled at that, still pleased to have his Boss's approval, and as Gibbs expected, he shifted the topic to avoid his own emotional reaction. "You know FLETC does seem like a natural for you, between being supervisory agent for so long and a Gunny before that. You know we're counting on you to start whipping the recruits into shape so it doesn't take a dozen tries to find a good one."

Gibbs glanced back at his second, his appraisal, as always now, hidden from Tony by his blindness, but just as likely now sensed in his own variation of Gibbs' gut, and considered DiNozzo's words: "we're counting on you..."

'We.' As in, Tony and Vance. Assistant Director DiNozzo and Director Vance...

He shook it off and grumbled, "I may have to take my frustrations with all those past losers out on them."

Tony's barked laugh broke the quiet of the basement. "Like you didn't on us?"

"Not even close, DiNozzo." But he was grinning – audibly – when he said it. He chuckled at Tony's melodramatic shiver in response, and let the changes they'd both be facing mid-week play out in his mind. Both of them had entered law enforcement with young men's minds, never thinking too far into the future and both lasting on the job long after many local LEOs would, having first retirement available at age thirty-five or forty. Now, both of them were heading down paths in just a couple days that they hadn't given serious thought until recent years, when they found that no matter the cases or the dirtbags or the danger, they'd managed to survive fieldwork, largely intact.

And Tony – he'd grown from the brash but insecure kid he'd snapped up from nearby Baltimore ... Gibbs had been through the worst of it with Tony and was burning with pride for what the kid had done, not only after shaking off the coma but before he'd been hurt, in every part of his work with NCIS.

"You know, I had a feeling you'd be running the place sooner or later," he volunteered with a chuckle, for once surprising DiNozzo with his thoughts. "When you stepped off that elevator into the squad room, that very first time, it was as if you were already bigger than the place, even brighter than the damn orange walls. I've never seen that happen, before or since."

"Says the force of nature," Tony tossed back, sounding a bit awkward with his Boss's unexpected admiration. "I always figured you'd willed the walls to turn themselves into that color, some kind of display of power." His joke was a bit lame for DiNozzo, but he was thrown by Gibbs' words. It was another moment before he admitted, "Ducky told me once, not too long after I started, that I was a lot like you when you started there. I couldn't see how."

"Hm. For once, I think Ducky got it wrong." Gibbs turned back to the wood again, the long strokes of the plane making a soft, hypnotic sound. He'd seen Tony's reaction to his quiet words as he turned, and knew that DiNozzo took it the wrong way. "You were more like Mike," he explained.

"Franks?"

Gibbs glanced back up at the surprised expression. "Um-hmm."

He watched the changes on the man's face as Tony considered his words, and saw his understanding. If anyone knew how he felt about Mike Franks, and why, it was DiNozzo, his own second. Gibbs knew he owed him this, too – after all, it was a week of changes for them both, and he hadn't always taken the time he should have with Tony. He always told himself that the younger man must know, deep down, how proud he was of him, all the while knowing that Tony would rarely allow himself to assume anything but the worst, even after so many years. Well, hell, it's the day to make that right, Gibbs thought, taking another mouthful of Jack to help the process.

"Maybe my gut knew it before I did, and told me to get you a job here. When it was just the two of us, at first, I didn't really see it. Maybe a little of it appeared, when Viv worked with us, or after Kate came along. But there was no question," Gibbs chuckled at the memory, "when you first had McGee in your sights. Once you had a Probie ..." he shook his head, almost fondly. "Some of the things you said or did ... it was like you were channeling Mike, way before you ever met him."

"Really...?" Tony considered – then grinned.

"Well, Mike, with a personal shopper and a hair ... guy," Gibbs relaxed into a genuine laugh at what Franks might make of his comparison, "what do they call 'em?"

"Stylist."

"Yeah," Gibbs nodded, then went back to his work. "Mike and I, we were made for field work and, maybe, passing on some of the know-how we picked up along the way. You were too, Tony, but there was always the potential for more, with you. Maybe the way you got there wasn't what any of us would have chosen for you, but next week, you're moving upstairs, someplace neither Mike nor I could ever go." He paused, then added, "I hated to see you leave field work..."

"Not as much as you'd've hated me getting your six blindfolded," DiNozzo smirked, again with the early deflation of any lingering maudlin reactions to his blindness. It was the last thing he let go, the last insecurity he seemed to have around anyone at NCIS now, and it was only with his old team – Gibbs, Tim, Abby – even Ziva, in a slightly different form – as if he had failed them somehow. Maybe one day that would be gone too, Gibbs thought. The man certainly had managed to shake off a lot of old baggage, and in the circumstances, no one thought of him as anything but heroic. Still ... maybe he should remind him...

Gibbs' thoughts were interrupted by more feet on his porch, but this time more than one person, and both lighter – and more feminine – than DiNozzo's. Tony reacted too, his trademark grin suddenly appearing.

"Company?" Gibbs smirked. He knew Tony was onto him, that he'd known the team was up to something.

Tony chuckled. "How'd I do?"

"As the diversion? Not great. But the company was good, though."

Tony smiled, "yeah, Boss, for me too." In another moment, he laughed, "but why anyone insisted on calling it a surprise party is beyond me. They all knew that there was no way you wouldn't figure it all out."

"Well, I didn't know exactly what time you'd be here..."

DiNozzo's face lit up. "Really? Damn, wait 'til I tell them. Or – maybe I shouldn't; it's your party and they'd be disappointed to think you hadn't guessed every tiny detail."

"I didn't guess you'd be sent as a scout," Gibbs offered wryly.

DiNozzo's grin softened into a slightly more wistful smile. "Ziva knew I wanted to have a few minutes... " He shrugged, no real words for it, "to say thanks for everything. Not a public speech but just us, ya know? She decided it would make a good diversion, but for what I'm not sure." He laughed self-consciously as he heard the door open and muted voices fill the entryway. "Guess I didn't even get to that yet."

"Close enough, DiNozzo." Gibbs stood again to blow the sawdust off his plane, and as he went to lock it in his tool cabinet, once again made child-proof for the unlikely event that little hands found their way downstairs without adult supervision, Gibbs heard the sweet, comic sounds filtering though his house, so much like those of decades ago...

"Mama, here," an excited voice helped, quickly followed by a soft, warm one.

"Thank you, munchkin, but shhh... remember what we just said ..." The adult voice, its laughter not too well disguised, carried perfectly into the basement, as its owner suspected it would. "It is a surprise for Poppy, so you must be very quiet."

The tiny giggle in response made both men smile. "Well, I suppose it took Ziva a few years to develop those ninja skills too, Boss," Tony shrugged, as if in apology. "She probably didn't start out too quiet, either."

"It'll come." Gibbs looked at his former second, and tried, "you know this party really should be more for you than me, for your promotion." He registered the sound of others crossing the porch to his door, and knew he had so much more to say to the man before him before everyone else descended on them. "You really should be proud of yourself, Tony. I am. We all are."

"Thanks, Boss," DiNozzo smiled softly, a slight coloring across his cheeks showing how much Gibbs' words meant to him. "I think they're adding me in, too, but this is mainly for you, today. Whether you planned it or not, you shaped the people we are, all of us. We all sort of adopted you as a big brother - father figure, probably 'cos none of us had Ward Cleaver at home telling us right from wrong. It's not going to be the same without you in the squad room, you know. For any of us."

"I'll be twenty minutes away at Cheltenham," Gibbs tried to gripe, forcing back the emotion pressing him.

"I know – but it's still not the same. Hell, for starters, we'll all get back and forth faster between floors, what with the elevators moving from floor to floor withou..."

The head-slap was smart but affectionate – and resulted in a wide grin from the recipient. "I happen to have it on good authority you stop that elevator between floors now as often as I ever did."

"Exaggeration, Boss," DiNozzo's grin didn't fade. "Just keeping it in shape for when you come back and visit."

The growing sounds of stifled giggles, the door, even more people moving across the floor above and the poorly quieted voices meant their discussion was done – for now. "You'd think none of them had ever run an op before," Gibbs grumbled at a thump and a giggle combination – but Tony could still hear that almost-disguised thread of emotion in the older man's voice.

His grin twitched only a little. "Well, what now, Boss? Make a last stand here, or go meet the onslaught?"

At the sudden sound of the door opening, a soft voice admonishing, "be careful – hold the rail" and the syncopated pat-pat of toddler feet making their way down the steps one at a time, Gibbs laughed. "Don't think we have a choice."

This Saturday afternoon would be different from so many he'd spent here over the years, both those dark, painful years after Shannon and Kelly, and more the recent ones leading to this, as his 'adopted' family worked their way further and further into his heart. This Saturday would become one of shared celebration and laughter and, of course, memories spoken among those who had lost friends and more. But in the end, with the smile of settled satisfaction DiNozzo now wore, the growing sounds of the festivities upstairs and the soft, small hand trailing down his bannister, Gibbs decided it was all turning out better than he could have ever imagined – and he clapped a hand on his friend's shoulder as he went past to stand at the steps and open his arms to greet his beaming, tiny guest...