AN - Next part on Friday.

Gibbs couldn't deny that the place was a dammed sight quieter without DiNozzo. Although, as much as Dawn professed to enjoy the respite, the first day had dragged as they had occupied themselves with busy work and waited to catch a case. On the second morning, when they had finally been called out, Gibbs had been almost glad of the distraction but, returning from the crime scene, he realised how much he had already begun to rely on the former detective. DiNozzo had the damnedest way of looking at things but his instincts were usually right.

Truth be told place was too damned quiet.

Realising that such thoughts were fruitless he decided to distract himself by going on a coffee run and then taking himself down to Abby to check her progress on the forensic evidence. Striding into her lab, coffee in one hand and a Caff Pow in the other, his expression creased into a frown as he caught sight of the Forensic Scientist. Moving across to turn off her blaring music, he watched Abby spin around with a pout at the sudden silence, only to beam with pleasure as she caught sight of the Styrofoam cup in his hand.

"Gibbs."

She made a grab for the Caff-Pow, her smile fading as the ex-marine easily held it out of her reach.

"What?" She pouted at his stern expression. "I have results for you. Or rather I have nothing, which is a good thing by the way, Gunnery Sergeant Richards' blood showed no sign of drugs, intoxication, or poison. Even his cholesterol was low, he was squeaky clean."

"Abby, I thought we talked about this?"

He waved a hand to indicate the same clothes that she had worn the day before and the four Caff-Pow cups already in the trash. They had made it a rule, very early on, that she didn't do all night parties, when she was working a case.

"Gibbs, I swear, it's not like that. I got at least six hours sleep last night. Maybe, even more," Abby assured him. "You can ask Tony because I'm a little fuzzy on what time we actually got to bed. But it wasn't much past midnight."

"Tony? DiNozzo, Tony?" Gibbs blinked.

"Did you know he hasn't even got a place yet? And his Hotel's not even that nice? It has those really thin cheap sheets and scratchy pillows and not nearly enough blanket, plus it had no room service. We had to call for Pizza. He wanted to take me out to dinner but I said .."

"Abby!" He had long since accepted that Abby was a free spirit. It was one of the things he loved about her. Who she chose to sleep with was entirely her own business. Gibbs would simply make it his business to emasculate anyone who hurt her. But this was. If he was honest he had no idea what this was. "You and DiNozzo?"

"Ew, Gibbs!" Abby protested, swatting his chest to make her point. "It's not like that. I love Tony but like a brother or a cousin. The kind you can flirt with, not the kind you can marry. Sex with him would just be wrong."

"Millions of women would disagree," Gibbs said dryly. "According to DiNozzo."

"And they'd be right," Abby agreed. "I mean, Tony is hot, he's got that great body and those eyes, not to mention that cool thing he does with his hair..."

"Abs, last week you were talking about shaving off his eyebrows whilst he was asleep," Gibbs reminded her. "What changed?"

"I am a big enough person, to admit that I might have been wrong about Tony," Abby pronounced gravely. "I just needed a little time to get used to him. He's like a piercing. It takes a while for the throbbing to stop and the skin to grow back."

"What changed, Abs?" Gibbs insisted.

"Look, don't freak out or anything, but after work last night I went to this new club. It was supposed to be really cool, but this guy started hassling me. I mean, I can take care of myself, I can. But this guy was just creepy and before I could get out my mace and zap him there he was. Like an actual knight in shining armour."

"DiNozzo." Gibbs realised.

"It was all very super secret spy," Abby practically bounced. "Tony did this whole Ninja grip thing, with his good hand, not the one that's all banged up, and creepy guy looked like he was about to pee his pants. Then Tony made him apologise to me before he kicked him out. Tony in cop mode is like really, really hot."

"Does this mean you're going to stop sending him those anonymous e-mails which detail all the ways in which a forensic scientist could dispose of his body without leaving a trace?" Gibbs raised a brow.

"You knew about that? Of course, you knew about that. You're Gibbs." Abby looked appropriately guilty. "I thought he was all sex and sleaze, Gibbs but he was a complete gentleman. He was even going to sleep on the floor until I told him we could share the bed. Did you know he doesn't have a single photo of his family in his Hotel room? Not even one."

"Does any of this have a point, Abby?" Gibbs demanded so sharply that her expression faltered.

He didn't mean to be so brusque. But the mention of family photos had touched a nerve. He remembered packing away every single photo he had of Shannon and Kelly into a box in his attic. Only very occasionally, after a lot of bourbon, did he have the strength to bring them out and look at them.

"Gibbs, I think he's lonely." Abby looked genuinely upset.

"Abs," Gibbs sighed as he shook his head. "He's a couple of weeks into a new job in a new city. We've had cases back to back. That doesn't leave a whole lot of time for a social life."

"No, I mean he's really lonely, Gibbs," Abby bit her lip and gathered her courage as she put all her sadness and compassion into her voice and expression. "Like you."

Gibbs was thoughtful as he returned to his desk. He knew that Abby was right. DiNozzo was one of those people who seemed to be rarely alone. Whether dating, working, playing sport or out clubbing, Tony surrounded himself with people as if he was afraid to be by himself, which told Gibbs a whole lot right there.

He didn't doubt that DiNozzo was lonely. He had enough experience with the problem to recognise the symptoms. What he wasn't sure about was what he could do about it. He knew from experience that you couldn't solve a problem like that by sticking a band-aid over it. He'd tried each time he'd married again and all that had got him was three ex-wives and a whole lot of heartache.

But maybe he could start by finding out what had made him that way.

Pulling his keyboard towards him, he hesitated a moment. This wasn't really his field. He would do much better to assign one of the geeks from Cyber Crimes to look under a few stones. It wasn't as if his background checks hadn't already flagged up the fact that David DiNozzo was a person of interest to the FBI. Even if they had never been able to prove anything yet Gibbs request wouldn't seem out of place, except that, Tony was enough like him to see any invasion of his privacy as a betrayal, no matter how well intentioned.

Making his decision he typed in two words.

DiNozzo Industries.

Thirty minutes later he had been able to establish that David DiNozzo was the son of a hard working immigrant who had built the company up from nothing. His company was a major international concern, which provided livelihoods for countless families and had some of the best welfare and benefits packages in the country.

A few more phone calls and a little more digging confirmed what he already knew. Tony's mother had died when he was ten. There had been rumours of suicide. David DiNozzo had taken comfort in a string of trophy wives and an increasing fondness for drink. Looking at a staged PR photo of the businessman arriving for an international conference in Hawaii with his young son in tow Gibbs learned a whole lot about Tony's relationship with his father.

"You know, Jethro," Steven Forrest complained, cheerfully when he called him back. "This isn't really my area of expertise, I've a divorce lawyer.

"I know," Gibbs said with feeling. "But I needed someone I could trust on this."

"Well from what I could discover David DiNozzo has pretty much turned his back on your boy. He doesn't stand to see a bean of the DiNozzo millions. Not only that but I hear there are ongoing moves to block the kid's access to some maternal inheritance or other as well," Forrest sighed. "And that's not the worst of it."

"Tell me."

"Look, Jethro, this might be nothing," Forrest reasoned, made slightly anxious by the dangerous edge in the Marine's tone. "People change their wills all the time. For all I know this might just be a ruse to appease a jealous trophy wife and her kids. Or the guy might have changed his mind and re-instated him without bothering to tell anyone but his lawyer."

"Forrest," Gibbs sighed. "Just spit it out."

With a sigh the lawyer told him. Gibbs swallowed hard. He had known since Baltimore that his Agent had very little contact with his father. He'd assumed that the multi millionaire industrialist hadn't approved of his son's decision to become a cop. As he snapped his phone shut Gibbs tried to imagine what on earth a twelve-year-old boy could possibly have done to deserve being disowned by his own father.

"Aw hell, DiNozzo."