Disclaimer— I do not own.

Authors Note— Since you all asked so nicely here is the next chapter. Now I want you all to know that I have a very busy schedule and updates from here on out will be very sporadic, I will however try my best to keep the wait at a two week maximum. Thanks for all the support and I hope that you all enjoy this new story. =))

Chapter 2

CONFESSIONS

Tony had just walked back into the bullpen. He had gone for some breakfast after he had hesitantly admitted to Gibbs that he had not been eating well the last few days. Per Gibbs' orders he had been gone for two hours. Now back he saw that Ziva and McGee were starring intensely up at the Directors door. He came up behind them and said, "What'ch yah doin?"

McGee and Ziva jumped and Ziva whacked Tony on the arm saying, "There have been some very suspicious people roaming around upstairs with Director Vance for the last two hours and now Gibbs has been summoned and the Director did not look pleased."

Tony was just about to make a comment when the directors door was opened suddenly and Gibbs stepped out he walked up to the railing and motioned for them all to come up.

Tony suspiciously walked behind his team into the conference room that they had all been called to moments ago by Gibbs, Tony didn't like the look of things as they all filed in and took their seats around the table.

Tony cautiously looked around the room it had only the team and three other people, Vance and two other official looking people that he could see, and Tony; to his surprise he knew who they were. He couldn't believe that after all these years they were actually back in his life, but what surprised him more than seeing these people again was the anger that was coursing through him, he could feel his blood begin to boil at just the sight of them.

He had never had such a strong reaction before. He hadn't seen these men in over ten years and here he was having almost a blood lust reaction to their presence. Tony came out of his mental reverie when Gibbs slapped him on the back of the head. He instantly sat up straighter and saying, "Yes boss, sorry boss."

Vance smirked a little and said, "I was just saying that these men here are from . . ."

"An undisclosed sector of homeland security called alpha unit. They specialize in the training of secret special ops units." cut in DiNozzo, his voice was dripping with utter disdain and contempt. Tony refused to look at any of his teammates; instead he steadily glared at the men standing in the far corner of the room who were looking extremely annoyed with the whole situation. If Tony's posture had been stiff before, it became absolutely rigid at the sound of an all to familiar voice coming from behind him,

"Well, well Commander DiNozzo, it would seem as if your opinion of us has not changed since the last time we have seen each-other; what has it been? Ten years?"

Tony hung his head and said, "Unfortunately the last ten years have not been long enough, and it's been eleven."

The man in the corner chuckled darkly and then on a heavy sigh said, "Well Tony you were all ways one for the details, and I don't suppose that it has been long enough for you."

"What do you want?" growled Tony shaking his head in frustration.

"We need you and your teams help."

"Why? You promised you would never bother me again. You swore to me Director; you gave me your word."

"I know Tony. But is only because this is of the upmost importance. He is back. And we think he is back for revenge." Repeated the director with a little more urgency

Tony suddenly stood shoving his chair away so hard that it toppled over and slammed his hands down on the table so hard that every glass on it toppled over. Without turning around he ground out, "STOP! You do not have the right to call me by that name any longer. You forfeited all rights to call me by that name eleven years ago. Now stop wasting my time and tell me why you are really here."

The director came out of the shadows were he had remained for the whole time and said, "I know we messed up Commander and I had hoped that you were beyond your anger but I was wrong. That however does not change the situation at hand he is back and he has resumed his previous activities. He has also started targeting the people who he thinks betrayed him last time. You were the only operative that was not found out by him. But for all we know he has found out about you and is now intent on extracting revenge on you. But all that aside you have had the most success infiltrating his corporation, meaning that if he has found out that you were a mole then he will be even more serious about making you pay. We don't know what he knows and my superiors along with most of your previous unit and I felt like it was time to warn you and to maybe have you and your team help us do damage control."

"I told you I don't work for you any more."

"We are aware of that and we don't expect you too. We already have a mole that has begun to work his way up in the ranks. All we need from you and your team is to run the behind the scenes get information old and new to our operative to help him blend in a little more give him a leg up in the system. He's good but he's not you and that's who we need. We need our man to be able to access that information so that we can take him down. And we were hoping that since your team is the best that we could convince you to be back up if anything should go wrong."

Tony let out a mirthless laugh an said as he turned around to face the man, "You know how hard I worked on that mission I spent two years undercover for that mission. How long has your man been under?"

"Three years."

Tony just shook his head saying, "If the director orders me too I will help but other than that I wish to not have a part in this operation."

The director shook his head in exasperation and said, "But what about you personally? He's out for blood Commander and you and I both know that he isn't one to just let it go."

No one except the director had seen Tony so lethal looking before, Tony's eyes were dark, and his face was devoid of all but one emotion, anger, as he said, "Then let him come. If he is stupid enough to mess with me then let him come and learn his lesson."

With that Tony left the room and headed out towards the elevator. What he didn't realize was that he had a very pissed off Leroy Jethro Gibbs, one angry assassin, and a computer geek hot on his ass determined to get some answers out of their coworker, and maybe prevent him from doing any damage.

They watched him punch the button for the elevator but when that was taking to long he opted for the stairs instead taking them two at a time. He quickly made it down to the gym where, not bothering to change his clothes he just stripped himself of his suite jacket and his shirt leaving him in his undershirt and pants, and started wailing on a punching bag.

Minutes later Gibbs walked in and without saying a word stood behind the bag and braised it with his body he cringed when he saw DiNozzo's bare hands, but he also knew that sometimes you just needed the pain the help ground you. After a few minutes of silent partnership when Gibbs was sure that DiNozzo had burned off a sufficient amount of anger he pulled back from the bag, and grabbing DiNozzo's wrist said, "take a break." it was an order and Tony never disobeyed a direct order. So he stopped punching the bag but it didn't stop his frustrated pacing.

Gibbs finally stood in front of him and said, "Explain DiNozzo." again it was an order but this time he couldn't make him self comply this was just to damn complicated and painful. This time he just shook his head apologetically and said, "Sorry boss." and with that he backed away then turned and ran out of the gym.

To say that Gibbs was shocked was an understatement. Never in all of the years that he had worked with DiNozzo had he ever disobeyed a direct order and Gibbs knew that it had to have been bad for DiNozzo to refuse to talk about it. Gibbs then decided that he was going to find out as much about the whole situation before he agreed to help with the opp.

Heading back upstairs he found Vance and the director of the alpha unit waiting in his bullpen. Before either of the men could say anything Gibbs flanked by Ziva and McGee said, " I want my team read in on the whole opp. This one and the previous one I want to know exactly what happened to DiNozzo. Why it's so god damn important to come back into his life after ten years, who this man is that might be targeting him, and why he hates you all so much and why you need my team in particular. Those are my demands and then and only then will I tell you whether or not we can help."

Vance was about tell Gibbs off when the other director cut him off and saying,

"That's alright Leon they have a right to know." he nodded to his assistant who brought forth a brief case. The director opened it and passed out several extremely thick folders and then pulled out a flash drive. Which he passed to McGee saying, "Put this on the screen for me."

He then passed out the folders and began explaining. "What you see before you is the complete file on the operation known as Domino. Named such by Commander DiNozzo, with the idea in mind that if you knock down one piece the others will follow. Which is how it went until we went up against the biggest player of them all, Rolland Franklynns. He is the owner and CEO of the largest plastic production company in the world but we know that he also has several terrorist ties, international and home based. And he also has a very lucrative deal going in the drug importation business.

Commander DiNozzo spent over two years infiltrating and working his way up through Franklynns business, but was pulled out when his partner suddenly exposed himself as a federal agent. We found out later that his partner had begun taking bribes from local gangs and the mafia. Also it was during this time that Commander DiNozzo suffered a severe familial loss, which he was unaware of until after the mission was blown.

His wife and two children were killed in a house fire that we believe was an act of arson against DiNozzo personally. We were never able to ascertain if this was from a previous grudge because I'm sure that you have all figured out by now that DiNozzo has a way of pissing people off, or if it was due to his involvement in this operation. We couldn't get too much information out of his former partner before he was killed by one of the mafia family's."

Everyone was in shock at this point. No one knew what to say. McGee was the first person to come out of his shock; he gaped at Gibbs and said to no one in particular, "Wow, that actually explains so much about Tony."

Gibbs turned with a full force glare at the visiting director and menacingly asked, "What happened?"

The director sighed and said, "We messed up. We knew that DiNozzo had received threats against his family, and we took safety measures, we moved them to a new location, we gave them temporary identities, the works-"

"But." pestered Gibbs.

"But we had a mole. Tony's partner, who was also his handler, was told of all of these things and was supposed to pass the messages back to Tony, because obviously Tony was worried about them. So while his partner was lying to him, he was going along thinking that every thing was ok when in actuality it wasn't, we were pretty sure that his partner was the one who leaked the information about the safe house, we just couldn't prove it, and we had a new agent guarding them and unfortunately for lieutenant Sacks—"

"Wait!" cut in Ziva, "You mean Sacks as in works with the FBI Sacks?"

The Director nodded and asked, "You have worked with him?"

The others in the room shared a look and Gibbs with a small grin that was any thing but pleasant said, "Yah couple of times."

The director looked thoughtful for a minute and asked, "And Tony cooperated?"

The Vance took the toothpick out of his mouth and asked, "Should he have acted differently?"

The Director shook his head and with a look of amusement said, "Well the last time those two were together Tony made some threats about what would happen to Sacks if he ever saw him again."

Gibbs and Vance shared a look and then Vance said, "Well it explains the hostility towards each other."

The director sighed and said, "As I was saying Lieutenant Sacks was new to the whole operation and became distracted and the perpetrators were able to get the jump on him, and knocked him out. Leaving Tony's family vulnerable."

There was a small sniffle and they all looked back to see that Ziva was trying desperately to cover up the evidence of her tears. She looked defensively at them all saying, "What! It is a very sad story, and it explains so much about why he acts the way he does."

McGee nodded in agreement and then asked, "Just what exactly was Tony's cover for this mission? What did he do for this Franklynns guy?"

The Director looked at them and said, "He was a general computer technician. At least that's where he started. By the end of the op he was Franklynns own personal computer technician. The guy had him doing all sorts of computer stuff that even I can't begin to explain."

McGee and the rest of the team looked stunned. McGee and Vance had their mouths hanging open, Ziva looked like she didn't quite believe what she just heard and Gibbs was trying to glare a hole into the wall. Finally after many minutes McGee began to regain his senses and stuttered out, "Tony . . . our Tony . . . Technically challenged Tony . . . who types twenty words a minute and who crashes his computer once a week Tony . . ."

The director shook his head and said, "I'm really not surprised that he never told you, he has never liked to advertise his own accomplishments. But yes the one and the same. He is one of the best. No one can hack a computer like he can. And all that you just said doesn't surprise me, he always was good at hiding himself from the world."

Stunned they had all turned their attention back to the plasma and began to go over the finer points of the operation when the elevator dinged and a very timid young lady stepped out holding a very thick envelope. She walked slowly towards the group who were all facing away from her. She cleared her throat and said, "Excuse me. Can you tell me which one of you is agent Gibbs?"

They all turned simultaneously to look at the intruder. The girl quickly shrunk back and stammered, "Um . . . I . . . I hh . . . ave a letter for him that . . . that needs to be delivered immediately."

Gibbs stepped forward and asked before he took the letter from her, "Do you know who asked you to deliver it?"

"Um no sir he just paid me fifty bucks to bring it here to you, and to tell you that you had better not waste any time opening it."

Before he took the letter he donned a pair of gloves. He carefully took the letter and looking up saw that everyone else was holding their breath. He carefully shook the letter. He could tell by its weight that there was something in it, and by the sound of items moving around. He carefully slit the top open with his letter opener. Ever since the whole plague fiasco they had all become paranoid about taking precautions. He gently took out the letter and unfolded it.

The letter it's self wasn't even a paragraph long but it was the three pictures that accompanied it that sent terror through Gibbs's body. Two of the pictures that he held in his hands, had to have been from DiNozzo's personal collection.

Gibbs was in shock but he finally got past the pictures and began to read the note. His gut was working over time today and it had just gone into super over drive. The note was definitely a threat on his agents' life.

He looked up when Vance cleared his throat and said, "You care to share Gibbs?"

Gibbs just looked at Vance and without waiting any time read,

"Ashes to Ashes,

Dust to Dust,

Prepare to meet the ones you've lost.

Ashes, ashes your gonna fall down."

Every one looked at each other most of them were wondering at the meaning of the riddle, except the director and Gibbs was watching his reaction.

"You know what this means?" it was more of a statement than an order.

The director nodded and said, "He's telling the commander that he is coming after him and that he knows what happened."

Suddenly the piece that Gibbs felt he was missing fell into place, "Is today the anniversary of their deaths?"

The director thought for a minute and the said, "Yes."

The whole team suddenly caught on to what Gibbs was thinking and went into action. McGee went to his computer, saying, "I'm gonna activate the tracker on Tony's car and run a trace on his phone just incase he hasn't turned it off."

Ziva reached for her desk phone and said, "I will call my contacts and see what I can find out about this Franklynns."

The two Directors stood watching as the team went to work. The director turned to Vance and said, "I can see why they are the best."

Vance grunted and said; "You should see DiNozzo when he is here. Its quite interesting."

The director nodded and said, "I have seen the commander work many times. I find it most interesting that he appears to do very little and yet he was always leaps and bounds ahead of every one else. I do believe that he calls it his work smarter not harder method."

Vance smiled slightly and said, "Yeah I think I've heard of that one."

The ping of the elevators sounded, breaking the study hum of the three agents working. The director and Vance exchanged a look when a blur of black came running into the bullpen wringing her hands, and crying out, "GIBBS! Gibbs! Where's Tony? Tell me he's hear."

Gibbs took abbey by the shoulders and said, "We're trying to find him now Abb's. What's the matter?"

Abby shook her head and said, "This is not good Gibbs. Not good at all. I was sleeping down in my lab, cause you know how I've been working a lot of late hours, and all and I crashed about two hours ago cause I ran out of Caff-Pows, and I was sleeping and I had a dream and in that dream I saw Tony standing next to a grave, and then I saw him laying in the street all beat up and with a knife sticking out of his chest."

Abby took a deep breath because she had been rambling and then said in a softer voice, "I'm scared Gibbs. Every time I have a dream like that some one gets hurt and its usually Tony. Please Gibbs find him as soon as you can then bring him to me so that I can kill him for making me worry."

Gibbs just grinned and kissed Abby on the forehead, he looked to McGee and asked, "Anything yet McGee?"

McGee held up his hand for a minute before a smile spread on his face as he turned to his boss and said, "Looks like Tony's at Mama Spinellas. At least that's were his car and his cell are."

Gibbs nodded and said, "Good work McGee. Lets go get him and bring him back in. He has some questions to answer."

Vance stepped forward and said, "Gibbs I would also like you to inform Agent DiNozzo that he is from this point forward under protective custody and it is non negotiable."

Gibbs smirked and said, "I'll let you tell him that Leon."

Vance scowled at Gibbs' retreating back. The director turned to Vance and said; "I can tell by that little conversation that the commander is still as stubborn and pigheaded as ever when it comes to his own safety"

Vance turned to the visiting director and asked, "Just how closely have you been following Agent DiNozzo?"

The director cocked an eyebrow at Vance's question and said, "Well not as closely as I would have liked."

Vance nodded and turning towards his office said, "Come with me and I'll fill you in a bit."