He had somehow expected the macabre scene to still be intact. He was both disappointed and relieved it wasn't.
The storage facility had been cleared out of the items Kort had placed in it. They were now all locked up at NCIS, as crime scene evidence.
But, the bloodstains were still there.
Tony walked in slowly, as Gibbs hit the light.
The stains were now a dark, rusty brown.
He stared at them a while, and Gibbs slowly wandered to the other side of the room, leaning against the wall quietly to give him space.
Tony thought about what he's seen in the room, and slowly looked around.
He looked up, and saw the beam which had held the chains, and the meat hook.
He took a deep breath, rubbing his eyes for a moment.
The hook was meant for Kort to… string him up on. Likely, naked, as Stratton had done…so he would be vulnerable, and humiliated, and trapped like an animal.
He felt an inner struggle…he wanted to let himself remember it again, what Stratton had done…but he was afraid…
He was afraid that he wouldn't come back.
Every time he fell into a hallucination, or a memory, he was afraid he would be trapped in it. That he'd never come back to reality, or trust that he was really home.
He was tired of being afraid.
He had to try.
For his sake, for Gibbs, for the team.
He covered his face with his hands for a moment, letting his mind go to the horrible places Rachel Cranston had been pushing him to go all week.
His heart was starting to race, as he felt the familiar suffocation of terror.
The whispers were there.
He remembered Stratton, touching him, cutting him with the knife while he screamed in agony.
He remembered Latham looking down at him, as he laid on the floor of the state room on The Phantom.
He remembered Brian O'Shea, dead in his arms, while they drifted in the unforgiving Tyrrhenian Sea.
He remembered Kort's cold, menacing leer, as he held up the hypodermic needle.
He must have made some kind of noise because he felt Gibbs standing next to him, a hand on his arm.
Then he remembered something else.
To open his eyes.
He looked at Gibbs, with tears streaming down his cheeks.
"They're never nice," he said hoarsely.
"No, never," Gibbs smiled a little.
Tony knew, for the first time, without a doubt that this was reality.
He laughed a little, as Gibbs pulled him in tightly.
As he wrapped his arms around his friend, closing his eyes as he rested in the embrace, he heard Gibbs say in his ear,
"Welcome back, DiNozzo."