He was famed, perhaps infamously so, for his witty repertoire and his glib come-back remarks. But for the first time in a long, long time, Tony was utterly speechless. Machines beeped lazily between both mentor and protégé, but not a single word or syllable was uttered. Gibbs, for his part, was exhausted from the fiery hold his disease held upon him and even more so from his cathartic release. Tony was just plain stunned. This is what he'd wanted. For the longest time, clarity was what he had craved. He had imagined all sorts of reasons for Gibbs' treatment of him post-Luke. But never once had the reason been so mundane as jealousy. His eyes widened perceptibly as he stared down at the visibly shrunken frame that was once the proud man, the Marine. He had idolised this man. He had revered him. He had done everything in his power to emanate him, to be him. And now it had all come to some form of twisted full circle. Now he was the strong one, and Gibbs the weak. Now he was the one to be, and Gibbs the one to replicate.

The green eyes fluttered shut for a moment, worn down by the onslaught of revelations.

"You're sorry?"

The words were out of his mouth, carried on the tongue of a cold, biting undertone. His head was snapping up before he could stop it and his fists balling to his sides before he could calm them. "You're sorry?" he spat, "That's what you have to say to me? After all this time, after everything we've been through, after everything we've done for each other and all you have to offer is you're sorry? Are you kidding me?" Though he could ill afford to do so, Tony heaved himself to his feet, his sudden upsurge of agitation not amenable to being seated. Clutching his mobile IV stand for support, he glared down at the man who could blink feebly up at him. "You chose this. You decided this. You looked after you, and the hell to the rest of us. And you know what the sickest thing is? I'd still do it. I would still go under that knife to give you whatever you needed to survive. But you're too proud for that, aren't you? You'd literally rather die than admit you're just a guy. Just a plain old guy, like me or Tim or Ducky. That you're not some sort of fucking God. Because that's what you've clung to all your life, since I've known you at least. Your job and your reputation. You never showed up to collect your medals on the job, but you were always the man who knew he had them. Always the man who was job first, everything else second."

He heaved in a dizzying breath.

"And that was fine, maybe, when you were younger. And it was fine when you just had employees for a team. But me? Tim? Abbs and Duck, Jimmy? We're not your damned employees. How many Christmases' have we all spent together? How many thanksgivings? And yet you think you can lay there after kicking dirt in my eyes and say, oh, hey…I know that was bad but I'm sorry? The bottom line is that you chose your damned pride over me. I have risked my life for you, I have decimated my personal life for you, I have lied, cheated and stolen for you. I have done everything you have ever asked of me and then some. And you, when it mattered the most, decided you knew best for me. You decided that I wasn't smart enough, or brave enough to make my own decisions. You can say you were doing it for me, but you were being a coward. You were afraid of needing help and you were afraid I'd say no. You might have forgotten this, but I know you. Well, to a degree. I know you'd literally rather die than ask for help on the off chance you might be refused. Because that would be too human for you, wouldn't it? Too mundane for the great and mighty god damned Gibbs!"

"Tony-"

"You don't get to say you're sorry! You don't get to lay there all…all broken and frail and tell me that you're sorry. You ruined my life, Gibbs. I don't care how dramatic that sounds, because you did. I stayed up night after night wondering what I did wrong. Racking my brain as to how I screwed up. I watched as you mentored Bishop the way you did me, and at the same time act like I didn't exist when I was right under your nose. I held my tongue when you put me down time and time again in front of the team. I bit my lip when you froze me out of cases, potentially damaging my career in the process. I said nothing when you treated Tim as though he were your SFA and I was dead and gone."

"Tony, I-"

"Two years. You had two years to tell me. Two years to confide in me. I've trusted you with every screwed-up piece of shit that's come my way. I've racked in your house when I couldn't face my empty apartment for another night. I turned to you when Jeanne left, when E.J. left, when…Ziva, I turned to you. I trusted you. When I had the plague, it was your house I stayed in when I got out of the hospital. And after all that, you freeze me out of the one thing you had no business freezing me out of. You and your rules, always harping on about how we're a team and how we're family. That's a crock of shit. You don't do this to family. You don't even do this to your enemy. You were jealous of me? Do you realise how sick that is? I did my job. I did what you trained me to do. I took over, just like I did when you took your little sabbatical to Mexico. I stepped up and I took care of the people you walked out on and I stepped to the side the minute you decided to walk back in. I did everything I should and could have done and I did it without a word of complaint."

"Listen to me, Tony, you need to-"

"So, don't you dare lie there, hooked up to all these machines like you're the tragic lead in some pathetic movie, the stoic hero, and tell me you're sorry. You didn't crash my car, you didn't ruin my favourite shirt…you messed with my head. You took the last thirteen years' worth of loyalty and threw it back in my face. You're right. I've never moved up the ladder. And you know why? It's because of you. What other SFA would have you? Have you ever asked yourself that? You think I'd leave Tim and Abbs to your mercy? You know all the times you've concussed me over the years because I was goofing off? Did it ever occur to you, that all those times happened when you were in one of your tempers? That maybe I was just trying to deflect your attention away from lambasting Tim in the middle of the bull pen, or from snapping at Abbs or Ducky for results they couldn't possibly have? Did it ever occur to you that the reason you focussed most of your anger on me over the years is because I made it so? To protect them, from you?"

"Tony-"

"If I'd taken that Rota gig all those years ago, who knows where I'd be now, what I'd have accomplished. Maybe I'd have a wife, if I wasn't at your beck and call, twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Maybe I'd have a kid, if I wasn't too busy serving your every whim, fancy and mood swing. Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn't. I guess we'll never know. But what I do know and it's for damned sure, it's that you don't get to treat me like the lowest of the low, the dirt on your shoe for two years and then expect me to weep over you because you're sorry. I deserve better than that. Maybe I haven't always been able to see that. It's hard to see your own self-worth when you're under your shadow, Gibbs. Real damned hard. But I can see it now. I'm a good Agent, and I'm a good person. I gave you everything I had and more. And I never asked for anything in return. And I never really got anything in return. But the one thing and I mean the one thing I thought I could always count on you for, was the truth. But it turns out you don't even rate me enough as colleague, let alone a friend to give me that much."

"Look, Tony-"

"The hell with you Gibbs. You hear me? The hell with you. But I'll make this real simple for you. Unlike you, I can't switch off my feelings, I'm not a robot. I'm not like you. And even though I should, I don't want to see you die. I'll give you the answer to the question you should have asked me two years ago. Yes. Yes, I will donate a part of my liver to save you, to save your life. No matter what has happened between us…I can't forget how it used to be. How you used to be, how we used to be. So, the answer is yes. But I will not give you my forgiveness. I don't have it to give. Not now, maybe not ever. But I do have this to give, this warning. If you do not accept, if you don't agree to the operation that will save your life…you and I are as done as two people can ever be. You will never see me again, I will not attend your funeral. Your name will never pass my lips again. I will erase you, I will bury you in my mind. You will have never existed to me."

He grasped the IV pole and pivoted it to guide his exit from the room of revelation, exhausted from his long speech.

"That's my price, Gibbs. That's the price for my potential forgiveness. Your life. I will not forgive a dead man, I will not mourn a dead man that didn't need to die. Of that, I'm certain. For the first time …it's not you that calls the shots. It's me. You either live and we see where we go from there, or you die and everything about you will be gone from my mind in the time it takes for your last heartbeat to finish out. I mean what I say and I say what I mean, a little lesson I've learned recently. So…you let me know what you want to do. But if your decision is to die with your pride intact and the lives of those who cared about you in tatters, then you'll die a coward. You'll die a pathetic, proud old man. You choose to live and try and rebuild what you've torn down…then at least you'll die a man who tried. But like I said, it's up to you. I've given you all I have to give. Your Doctor knows where I am when you've made your decision."

He pushed himself to the door, a shocked and silent Gibbs in his wake.

Twisting in the frame for a moment, Tony licked his dry lips and shook his head sadly.

"For the most part, you've lived your life as an honourable man. Don't die a coward. You've done me enough damage, don't make the last decade and more of my life as having been in the service of a weak man. You want to apologise to me? Then you stay alive to do it. You don't give me a deathbed confessional. I deserve more, I'm worth more. You want to make amends? Then get out of that goddamned bed and make them. Because if you don't…"

He walked from the room and called the last words over his shoulder in parting shot of ice.

"I'll go to my own grave hating you a little more each day."

…

TBC

…..