A/N: Thank you so much to all who reviewed! I tried to respond to everyone and if I missed you, my apologies. I hope you are all enjoying the story. :)

Chapter Two

"Hello gentleman, how can I help you today?"

"We'll take two small cones," Gibbs answered, "I'll have a vanilla."

The lady behind the counter nodded then looked at Tony expectantly. Gibbs knew that if Tony hadn't of ever have gotten hurt, he would have been more prone to ask for her number instead of an ice cream cone.

When Tony didn't say anything, the lady sighed quietly, "Which flavor would you like sir?"

Tony seemed to realize that he was the "sir" she was referring to and looked anywhere but directly at her, "Um, which, stairs do you have?"

"Excuse me sir?" the lady raised an eyebrow, and Gibbs could tell she was trying not to get frustrated with his young charge.

"No! Freeze. Blue. Cone." Tony said rather loudly, "Not stairs. Stairs are inside and outside, um I mean which color, no I um, I-" Tony looked at Gibbs and Gibbs noticed that Tony was a few seconds away from a meltdown. The lady's ever rising temper seemed to be quenched almost immediately when she realized that Tony wasn't being obnoxious but was genuinely struggling with ordering an ice cream cone.

"We have strawberry, chocolate, rainbow sherbet, and vanilla," the lady said calmly, keeping Tony's choices to the more simple and popular flavors.

Tony's nervous twitching seemed to calm some, and he turned back toward the lady, "Stairs. Can I have the blue one?"

The lady paused, looking at the flavors, "Which one's blue?"

"Cone. Um no, that's wrong," Tony huffed and screwed his eyes shut for a moment, "I mean, the dark one."

"Chocolate?"

"Freeze. Yes, please," Tony said shyly, relieved that the lady's questioning was over. A moment later when the lady passed him his small ice cream cone, Tony muttered out a quiet, "Thank you," before turning and carefully sitting down at a table leaving Gibbs to pay.

"I'm sorry for being short before," the lady apologized, "With the college so close, we get a lot of kids that like to be smart alecs with the employees and it's been a long day. I didn't mean to scare him."

Gibbs saw that the ice cream lady was truly sorry and Gibbs shook his head, taking his change and putting it back in his wallet. Often, when Tony couldn't think of a word, it bothered him to the point of him becoming frustrated, which didn't help matters any.

"Thank you for helping him."

"Anytime," the lady gave Tony another glance before turning to the next customer.

"Sheesh Tony," Gibbs chuckled as he caught sight of Tony licking away at his ice cream, "You're almost done."

Tony looked up from his cone to Gibbs, "Freeze. Cone. Oh. I didn't know I was suppose to wait. I thought-"

"Tony," Gibbs sat down, "It's no problem if you eat your ice cream cone before me. Ice cream's okay to eat out of turn. What are the times we're suppose to wait for other people?"

"When we eat dinner. Blue." Tony said surely. Tony remembered this fact because it was always so hard waiting for everyone to sit down and he was always so hungry when it was time to eat and he ate really slow too and most the time, he dropped a little on himself but Gibbs didn't mind one bit.

"That's right," Gibbs smiled, "Okay, let's say we head home."

"We're home," Gibbs said, pulling up to the house.

Tony glanced around, compensating for his blind spot before looking at Gibbs a bit worriedly, "Where are the steps? Stairs."

"Inside Tony, twelve steps inside," Gibbs said again. He had worried at first that he would lose his temper with Tony but now a days, Tony's expressions and temperament had taken on an innocent almost childlike quality-even when Tony was asking for the tenth time where the stairs were. So now, Gibbs rarely got frustrated with Tony; most of the time, he was just thankful Tony was alive.

"Inside," Tony said uncertainly, almost as if he didn't believe it. He looked around again and Gibbs could almost see were Tony's own blind spots were. Tony used his good hand to open the truck door but remembered to unbuckle himself before turning to get out of the vehicle, "Our home. Freeze."

Gibbs looked at the man he had come to love as his son, "That's right Tony, our home."

Tony glanced around, before giving a small nod, "I'll remember." Tony reached back in the truck and snatched his "memory book" with his good hand. Tony could read fairly easy but when they tested right before they left the rehab hospital, Tony had scored low on reading comprehension just because he had a hard time actually remembering the things he read. Thus, the OT had recommended a "memory book" for Tony to write down anything he thought was important.

"Stairs inside," Tony said aloud as he used the pen that stayed velcroed to the book unless Tony was using it, " Twelve. There Boss. I'll remember."

"Alright then," Gibbs grabbed Tony's bag and lifted it out of the truck bed, "Let's go see everyone."

"Probie, Ziva, Ducky, Jimmy and Abby," Tony spoke as he walked/shuffled towards the front door, Gibbs' hand on his elbow, steadying him, "In our house right Boss? Blue."

"Yep."

Tony seemed as if he wanted to say something else. But instead he bit his lip and continued on.

I didn't believe Boss that Kate was dead till they brought me a picture of her with her funeral service on the back. I couldn't read to well then but I remembered that we had passed these out when my mom died and when Boss gave me the card, I cried really hard and tore it up.

I didn't want to see anyone all day after that but Boss stayed and helped me glue the card of Kate back together and helped me tape it in my memory book. It's blue like my room and I really like blue because it reminds me of the ocean and Boss always tells stories about the ocean and I like the color blue and told Boss that was what I wanted my book to be.

The ocean is nice, but it can be really scary, especially at night. I had a dream once that me and my dad were on a boat but it was a big boat and I didn't like it. It was really dark and I couldn't see and I fell into the water.

It was really hard to breathe and my head hurt in the dream cause in real life my head only hurts when I get a migraine or when I move to fast. I started crying but then I couldn't breathe and there was blue everywhere but it was a scary kind of blue really really dark and almost black, not the ocean blue I like.

Boss woke me up from that dream cause Boss stayed the night a lot when I was in the rehab hospital.

I didn't like that boat in my dream but I like other boats and I like the stories that Boss tells because in the stories everyone is always safe and no one ever falls over and goes down in the dark blue water or gets in accidents like I did. Instead they swim in the ocean blue water and I like those stories the best because I can swim and when I'm in the water, my left side doesn't drag which is nice.

I wish the stairs were in the water because then it wouldn't be so hard to go up them. Coming down stairs is easier, I just have to keep my balance but sometimes, that's really hard to do too.

Bad boy goes to hell and good boys go to heaven, that's how one of the therapists told me to remember which legs goes first when I go up stairs. My bad leg leads going down and my good leg leads going up. Boss laughed and said that if that was true I was doomed but I didn't think it was very funny and didn't laugh which just made him laugh harder. Abby said that sometimes Boss was just weird but that's okay because we're all weird sometimes.

I'm home now, my home with Boss, and it's really nice. When we first got home, everyone jumped out and said "Surprise" and even though I knew they were there they still scared me and I almost fell but Boss caught me and after that I made sure to smile so no one would feel bad that they had made me almost fall.

Abby, Ziva, Jimmy, Probie, and Ducky were there and I looked for Kate but didn't see her. I got really sad cause I thought she was mad at me and didn't want to come but then I remembered that Kate died and that she couldn't come.

But later when I spilled juice on my shirt, Me and Boss climbed the steps and even though Boss had to help me with my shirt, I did the buttons on them with my good hand. Boss said I did a good job and I knew that Kate would have laughed at me then but in a good way cause she was my friend and friends can laugh at stuff like that.

I laughed at that and wrote it down in my journal- Kate would laugh at me all the time.

Boss saw me and had a sad sort of smile on his face but then I added to it cause I didn't want Boss to think bad of Kate- Because we were friends.

That fixed things and after that we went back down the stairs and Abby let me help her cut the cake. Boss, Abby, Probie, Ziva, Jimmy and Ducky don't laugh when I talk funny. My brain adds words sometimes and my mouth doesn't know how to stop them.

After that I got really tired and my head started hurting. Boss could tell cause my mouth started working wrong so everyone said goodbye and hugged me, even Probie. After that, Boss had to help me up the steps cause my headache was getting worse.

Boss helped me take off my shirt and pants but I kept my boxers on. After that Boss helped me put on a sleep shirt and then went downstairs to grab my brace for my bad hand and my sleeping brace for my bad foot. Since they're weak, I can sleep on them wrong or they can tense up at night and the brace keeps them straight, especially my left hand because at night, it likes to tense up and become a fist even though I'm not going to punch anybody.

After Boss helped put those on, he helped with my medicine. When my head hurts, it gets hard to think and Boss has to help and sometimes I get frustrated but I always try to remember not to get that way because being mad makes everything harder.

After that, I took off my blue helmet and put it by my bed. My pillow was soft and wouldn't hurt my brain so I can take my helmet off.

I got under the covers after that and Boss patted me on the shoulder and rubbed my back. He turned on the small light and then turned off my light.

I don't like the dark because it reminds me of the dark scary blue in my dream and I don't like that dream.

Boss said goodnight after that and I think I said goodnight back but my medicines started working and my head felt better and then my eyelids got real heavy and I fell asleep, dreaming about ocean blue.