"You should've called me," Gibbs told Tony as they sat across the table from one another over a cup of coffee. "I would've gone with you."
"I was so convinced they'd made a mistake," he said as he gave a small, embarrassed smile. "Besides, I wasn't gonna call you up so late in the evening just to drag you to a morgue in New York."
"You shouldn't have had to do that alone."
"I do a lot on my own, boss. I've always done these things alone."
"But you don't have to," he told him. Tony looked down at his hardly touched coffee. "You know I care about you, Tony. Don't you? You're like a son to me," he said a bit quieter. Tony partially looked up, but didn't meet his boss's eyes. "Know I shoulda told you that a long time ago, but I wasn't lookin' to make you think I was tryin' to replace anyone. It's just how I feel. Hell, I'd been plannin' to ask you to my place for Christmas." Tony met his eyes then with a bit of a furrowed brow. "Ya never told us you'd had plans. I was waitin' till the last minute, so ya wouldn't feel obligated if something had come up."
"Boss..."
"Or God forbid a case should pop up and trap us all in the office anyway."
"I..."
"Hell, I should've invited ya anyway. You could've brought your dad by. But by the looks of it, you'd had everything planned out to be at your place. Chances are, I would've made you drag it all here. But that would've been selfish of me. It was supposed to be time with your dad. So I guess it's good I didn't say anything." Gibbs looked down at his own coffee, feeling a bit foolish for having said anything at all.
"Christ, Gibbs," Tony's proclamation forced him to look up at him again in question. "That was a lot for you to say in one shot, without being in interrogation." Gibbs grinned and shook his head. "But yeah, I would've dragged everything over here in a heartbeat." Gibbs' expression turned more serious, and he narrowed his eyes a bit. "Yeah, it was gonna be pretty ground-breaking to have my dad for the holidays. But you...have been everything I'd always wished my father had been for me, for so long. It'd only have been fitting to come here and spend it with the both of you." He got a bit of a smile on his face as his eyes drifted somewhere off to the side. "That would've been the best Christmas ever..."
Gibbs watched him as his smile faded and his eyes dropped. He knew what he was thinking; Christmas would never be quite the same, now. Not only would it not be the best Christmas ever, but he would inevitably always think of his father's passing whenever he saw a decorated tree or a plate of holiday cookies. This time of year would always be shadowed by the fact that he'd lost someone...
Gibbs took a moment to think of how it would feel if this had happened to himself. If he'd lost Jackson, now that they'd reconciled, it would be a bit devastating, he had to admit. And Jackson was quite a bit older than Tony's father, so it seemed a greater possibility.
When he saw Tony's eyes begin to glisten, Gibbs stood and made his way around the table. The manifested feeling of what it'd be like to lose his own father made it all the easier to pull the younger agent into another comforting embrace, accepting and absorbing the silent sobs that wracked Tony's body.
This one, however, was much more like a child clinging to his father; Tony's arms wrapped around his middle and grasping onto the back of his shirt as the side of his face plastered against the older man's chest, and Gibbs' hand secured it there. The other rubbed comfortingly up and down between his shoulder blades. He could remember hugging his daughter, Kelly, this way before he had to deploy overseas. It felt natural and right to be doing this for Tony.
He wanted to tell him that everything was going to be alright and that it would get better, easier with time. But none of that would help him or ease his pain right now, and he knew that from experience. So all he could do at this point was try and make it a little easier now. How he would go about doing that, would take a bit of planning...and some help...
Tbc...