A single weeks passing had brought with it an unseasonal dip in the weather and all those who hustled and bustled into the hospital entered laden down with snow tinged boots and sodden hair. The cold air seemed to billow around the corridors and turn the attitudes of even the most professional of professionals, a little icier. Such was the condition of two chillingly angry doctors as they argued in low voices as they swept through the sterile halls. The doctor attached to Tony rapidly turning blue in the face from arguing with the doctor attached to Gibbs, Dr Mensen. But their words were caught in their throats as their white coats whipped behind them as they rounded a sharp right corner. The electronic glass pane door hid no secrets and the subjects of their heated disagreement were sharply presented from where they stood, gazing in. Tony, pale and yet green tinged, sat in the visitor's chair. His mobile IV was diligently placed beside him and he did not appear to be in any outward discomfort. Gibbs, for his part and for it was his room, slumbered on as he had been for the last seven days in his ICU bed, apparently unaware of his bedside guest.

Dr Mensen growled.

"Did you do this?" he accused Dr Patterson bluntly. "Your patient has only been mobile for a few hours and he's already found his way into my patient's room? Did you tell him he was free to roam the halls? Aren't you in the least concerned about his sutures?" Holding his hands up defensively, Dr Patterson shook his head. "Don't be ridiculous, of course I didn't. We only have so many nurses and I can't justify placing a single one on guard duty for crying out loud. Besides, his sutures are holding firm on account of him being laid up in bed for a week. They're fine. There's no rule against patients' visiting each other when we don't have contamination concerns, so what's your problem? They clearly have a history so why don't we just leave them at it and when they make up their own minds; it will settle our little…difference of opinion. Everyone wins."

Staring into the room, Dr Mensen could feel the unresolved issues within it and nodded his head.

Tony watched the two bickering doctors leave in a state of apathetic fatigue. Everything he owned, hurt. Places, body parts…he'd never even known he possessed, ached. The slow walk to Gibbs' room had taken it out of him and he'd spent the last twenty minutes getting his breath back. The hospital gown around him itched uncomfortably but he took no notice. His eyes flickered between Gibbs' lifeless form and the large, loudly ticking clock that was mounted on the wall. A morbid realisation had him. That clock was literally counting down the minutes that Gibbs had left to live. He knew that much if nothing else. He'd forced Tim to tell him everything yesterday. His doctor had point blank refused to answer his snapped questions about Gibbs' condition but he knew what he had heard, though he wisely kept that information to himself.

Gibbs was dying, but he could save him.

A cold smile played about his lips as he continued to mull over that concise synopsis he'd created. The headache that had formed from the intense pressure he'd put into trying to understand continued to burn, as he continued to try and understand. Gibbs was dying, but why hadn't he told him? He didn't need to be a doctor to know that his old boss had received his prognosis a long time ago. So why, in all that time, hadn't he told him? Hadn't told anyone? It didn't make sense. Gibbs wasn't a big sharer, sure, but keeping a death sentence a secret? After he had fought to survive the ship shooting? It just didn't make sense. And the investigator in Tony knew that when something didn't make sense, it was because he didn't have the full picture. That there was more to be uncovered. What he did know raced around his skull in a never ending, demonic loop. He was glad that both his former and current teams had had no choice but to return to their posts due to their active and shared investigation.

It gave him the time to just think.

Gibbs changed, only towards him, in and around the time of his coming back to work from the ship shooting. Since he had nearly lost his life at the hands of a pint sized assailant. Had he known then? Was that when he found out that there was an executioners axe teetering above his head? Maybe. But, why him? Why only change towards him? Why freeze him out, treat him like garbage, drive him away? The only difference he could think of, between him and the rest of the team, was that he had always been the most dispensable. Gibbs had never treated him with the same respect he showed to Tim or the devout reverence he showered on Abby or even with the burgeoning affection he sprinkled on Bishop. Not to mention the unshakeable relationships he'd had with Ziva and Kate. But somewhere along the line, he'd learned to accept that.

Learned that Gibbs simply couldn't accept him in the same way he did the others, and that had been ok. He had learned to accept that as being ok. So, was that it? Was that why he was chosen? Gibbs couldn't deal with his own mortality and so he needed to lash out, and he was there, his ever cowing whipping boy. That made sense. Tony winced in pain as the itch from his heavily clad wounds became nearly unbearable, but not as unbearable as what was in his head. Maybe there was a different reason, or an additional one. That made more sense. Gibbs rarely did things for one reason and one reason alone, there were usually parallel lines to be drawn. And the most obvious parallel that his brain had clutched onto was that…

Gibbs had known.

The cruel twist of fate that had perhaps been the catalyst that had torn them apart and yet continued to link them by the most tenuous of threads? Gibbs had known about it. A portion of his liver could save him, and so, the man had driven him away. Far from asking for his help, he had hidden the most damning of all facts from him like a miser protecting his wealth. Hadn't let him in, had refused to even offer him the option of offering his help. Not that it would've been an option. Had he known…had Gibbs come to him, before things had turned bad, he wouldn't have hesitated. But now…now could he say the same thing? Looking at the rising and falling chest before him, Tony felt nothing. He felt nothing but an odd sense of empty hatred. Gibbs had hidden all this from him, so why should he help now? Not that he was asking, or would accept, but why should he? In the cold light of day, Tony saw what he had done in the field as the actions of a man who was holding onto the past even though that past was toxic. He had nearly died in holding onto that past, and he would have died not knowing what had turned Gibbs against him. What had destroyed the one relationship he held most dear.

Gibbs was toxic, he could see that now.

So why was he sitting by his bedside like a worried friend, a trusted confidant? He was none of those things. He had been used and abused for thirteen years before Gibbs had watched him go without a second's thought. Before he had snapped and jumped before he was pushed. He ought to be happy now. He had his own team, something he'd wanted for years and years. But he wasn't. Because he couldn't move on. Because he needed answers, deserved answers. Suddenly, a hot fork of anger sparked within him and he found himself staggering to his feet, clutching the IV's metal pole for support. Gibbs wasn't in a medicated sleep anymore, the nurse said he would wake in his own time. But he was sick of waiting for Gibbs to do things in his own time and he was sick of marching to the old egomaniac's beat.

Reaching out, he roughly shook the sleeping patient's shoulder, not caring if he hurt him in the least.

Spluttering somewhat, even though the tubes in his throat had been removed, Gibbs blinked sleepily into consciousness. Tony shook again, harder still and the blue eyes that were not the piercing orbs they had once been slowly shook off their eyelid blankets. Gibbs, who was already pale, went an ashen hue of white as he slowly registered the man standing about him. "Tony…you're…are you…" He paled even further as Tony pressed sharply upon his shoulder blade, his green eyes flashing. "Don't," he spat, "Don't you dare ask me if I'm ok. I'm going to ask the questions for a change and if you ever gave a shit about me you're going to answer them. I deserve the truth, Gibbs, after all I've done for you the very least I deserve is the damned truth."

He removed his hand then, leaning against his IV for support.

"Let's start with something nice and easy then, shall we? Something that shouldn't be too much of a bother to answer. Let's start with…how long did you know I could save your life and why the hell didn't you tell me about it?" He fell silent then, sharply silent as Gibbs struggled to sit up in the bed. He didn't reach out a hand to help him, those days were gone, instead he watched coldly as the effort of movement shot across the old man's face. "Tony," he panted, "Don't do this. Just leave, would ya? Go. I…you've given me…." He shook his head, turning green with the effort. "Leave. There's nothing left to say to each other. Thanks for saving my life and all that, much appreciated. If I can ever return the favour out in the field someday, I will. Until then, you have your life and I have….mine, and we should both keep to our sides of the fence. Go. And don't ever come back."

Tony stared, even after everything that had happened, unable to believe his ears.

Gibbs stared back at him, breaking into a million pieces inside, but turning colder than ice on the outside. "Go," he repeated. "Go before I call the nurse. We're bowing out of the investigation, my team. I'll assign another MCRT. There's no reason for us to ever cross paths again. Leave. Now. Go to your team, they'll be needing you. I don't. I don't need you and I don't want you. So go. For the love of God just fucking go." He fell back on the pillows then, the exertion of the lies that burst from him in icy tones proving too much. For his part, Tony was experiencing the basement brawl that had cost them everything all over again. The hurt, betrayal and rejection were as fresh as ever as he stared down at the man he had once loved in a way neither could understand, but was no unrecognisable even to his eyes. A geyser of pain erupted in his chest as he squeakily moved the IV stand into action. Glancing down for the last time, his usually bright green eyes gave one last flicker before they iced over in a dead glow.

"You were everything to me. I would have done anything for you, anything. I'd have given my life for yours in a heartbeat. But you turned on me. And you never told me why. You turned on no one else, just me….just good old me…." He moved slowly towards the door, as Gibbs turned his head to the window, hiding his face from view. There was silence then as the doors swooshed open and Tony loitered within their chasm, his voice constricting the unresolved pain that dogged him day in and day out. He looked at the man who refused to look at him, and so he did not see. He did not see, or know, that the once great Leroy Jethro Gibbs was crying. That tears were running as fast as they were silent down his face, dripping onto the cheap cotton pillowcase underneath him. The last words he uttered before leaving the room tore into Gibbs' every fibre, and although the tears remained silent, they burned with years of regret and disappointment as the words of the man who had been everything to him leeched into his brain.

"Boss, why me?"

…..

A/N: TBC

(Stuck in yet another commute, no time to proof read this before I lose signal. Will edit where necessary later. Inks)

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