Okay I'm sorry to say that this is most likely going to start getting rounded up in the next 4 maybe 5 chapters so I hope you have all enjoyed reading this as much as I have enjoyed writing it and receiving reviews. So on with the chapter. There are mentions of abuse here if you really look.

Chapter 15- Conditioned

"Your father was wrong, you are not worthless."

All Tony's movements stilled.

How was he so transparent? He'd failed at his own game now. What was he going to do if he couldn't even pretend that all that didn't matter? Why didn't it matter?

Because you don't matter you worthless brat.

He flinched a little. But Gibbs didn't, wouldn't lie to him. Would he? He'd said, and Tony had seen he was telling the truth. But he'd been so programmed to believe that he didn't matter, he'd tried to tell people but they either couldn't or wouldn't help so why would people now. Why did he matter now after all this time?

Because these people care for you, they are your family, your hope.

That is what it came down to and the end of every time he'd tried in the past.

Hope.

The hope that things would be different this time, hope that people wouldn't find out and judge how weak he was and for how much he'd failed. Then he realised that they hadn't judged him, not one little bit…but they'd made him lose his hope and that was worse because that was all he had left. That was all he ever had at the end of each time he left.

The voices were conflicting, causing a headache of massive proportions. One held hate and one hope like the fight between good and evil, past and present. And he had no idea who would win and it scared him. But he couldn't think about that now he needed to save the other person or people. Needed to do something, he would figure the rest out afterwards.

Gibbs had been so sure that those words would work, that it would get through to Tony and that Tony would finally see the truth. He'd ignored all the case he had seen and heard of about the mentalities of abused children, thought it didn't apply to Tony of all people. More like hoped it didn't. But who the hell was he kidding really, he'd suspected for a long time and not done anything. Did that make him just as bad, he didn't know? He would do all he could now, but was it already too late?

With his words, he saw the fractured façade that Tony had re-created to face the team fall. But why would in fall in face of the truth? But he knew the answer; it was right in front of him. The truth in his words meant he cared and nobody had truly cared about Tony when it mattered. He was conditioned into thinking he didn't matter, that it was normal. He could see Tony was afraid, afraid to care again, if he cared he could be hurt again or hurt someone else. Gibbs himself knew that mentality. The one of protection but he hadn't the answer for that either, he'd tried but that had ended up with more failed marriages than he cared to think.

For all intents and purposes Tony was still in front of him, but the look in his eyes said he wasn't. he was somewhere else but where? And why? He had the urge to shake him to get him to respond but didn't want to hurt him anymore than he already was. He would just have to stand there with his hands on the younger agent's shoulders and hope Tony would come out of his unresponsive state and find the right way back. Before he gathered his own thoughts, Tony shrugged out of his grasp.

And he'd lost; the space in front of him became empty.

Spinning around in the direction Tony had taken of to, the words came before he thought." Tony don't." his voice taking on a hint of pleading he didn't know he had in him, how had it come down to this? Tony took one look briefly showing the absence of any emotion.

"I have to." The voice just as devoid of emotion as his eyes. Gibbs had to admit that it hurt that he'd done everything he could and it still hadn't worked, but it didn't hurt as much as the emptiness between his fingers.

"Let me help." at least this time he didn't sound like he was pleading just asking. It stopped Tony in his tracks; Gibbs knew he was thinking, but what about?

"Why, so you can watch me fail, or is it so you can make me believe you then you just get rid of me anyway." By Tony's posture, his head down, hands in fists by his sides, Gibbs could see the struggle in his agent.

"DiNozzo, you don't have to go alone, I want to help you…Please." Gibbs felt like he was going in circles here, if he'd said it before then why would it matter if he said it again. He'd felt like they had been getting somewhere until he had spoken but what had changed? "Tony, you don't trust us anymore, do you?" he felt a bastard saying the words but what else could it be, why else would Tony not listen.

This was the reason why he'd wanted to escape before Gibbs got back, so he wouldn't have to answer that question. Trust was just as fragile as hope and since they had taken his hope, how could he trust them, they'd given him reason to doubt and that was just one step before the end, it had happened before.

"Why did you stay if the whole team wasn't there, aren't you the one always saying Semper Fi?" Tony's tone a mixture of bitterness, finality and longing, at the words Tony's posture deflated a little as if that was all he had to say, as if it were his final thought.

Gibbs winced at the accusation, Tony was right. He'd broken his own rules and now he was losing part of the team because of it. The rules that were meant to keep them together were breaking them apart.

It was him that had ruined it in the end.

TBC

Well what is Gibbs going to do with that then, I'm really sorry about the wait and the short chapter, I should be able to get a new chapter out soon though. hope you liked it, please read and review as always.