The next morning, Tony slowly lifted his throbbing head out of bed and struggled his way down the stairs. Years of being Gibbs' often injured senior field agent had bestowed upon him much knowledge, the most important of which at that particular moment was the exact location of Gibbs' medicine cabinet.

In the kitchen he opened the familiar cupboard and reached in blindly for the aspirin. He could have found it with his eyes closed. If it was actually there, that was…

'Looking for something?' A deep voice startled him from behind. DiNozzo spun around comically, gripping the kitchen bench to stop himself from falling over.

'Boss,' he exhaled. 'You scared the shit out of me.'

'If you think that was scary, DiNozzo, you've got no idea what's coming.' His stare bore holes in Tony. Gibbs removed a hand from behind his back and held up the box of aspirin.

'Oh,' Tony smiled in relief. 'Aspirin. Thanks, Boss.' He walked forward to retrieve it but Gibbs pulled it out of his reach.

'Uh-uh,' the older man shook his head. 'Oh no. No, no, no. I don't think so.'

Tony's smile quickly faded into a frown as he reacher for the medicine again, but years as a Marine sniper left Gibbs' reflexes far too quick for the kid.

'Come on, Boss,' Tony pleaded. 'I feel like a bomb's gone off inside my skull.'

'Good,' Gibbs grunted, his glare never softening. 'Today, you follow my goddamn orders until we get to the bottom of this. You piss me off, that head's gonna feel a whole lot worse. Answer my questions honestly, and I might just think about letting you have one of these.' He waved the packet.

'Or,' Tony began with a bitter laugh, 'I could just walk out the front door and get myself some aspirin right now.' He marched towards the door and reached for the handle. 'Thanks for the bed, Boss,' he mumbled without looking back.

But when Tony's hand twisted the handle the door didn't budge.

'Locked. Very funny, Boss. Very clever,' shaking his head in a mix of frustration and amusement. Did that thing even have a lock?

But Gibbs' stare acknowledged nothing funny about the situation at all. 'You get your ass to the kitchen table,' he instructed. Tony held his ground. 'NOW!' Gibbs' voice shook the room.

Trying his best to hide his shock at the roar, Tony quickly shuffled towards the kitchen table and obediently took a seat.

At the opposite end of the table Gibbs slammed down the aspirin and helped himself to a seat.

'First things first,' and somehow Gibbs' tone let Tony know there would be no room for argument, no matter what this first thing happened to be.

'Last night you proved that you were entirely incapable of taking care of your own life - a life that I've busted myass time and time again to protect.' Gibbs wasn't sure exactly when he'd decided to play the hard ass card, but as he raised a hand to stop DiNozzo from interrupting him, he knew he'd made the right choice.

'So until you can prove to me that you've got more sense than a five year old, you don't get to be trusted with your own life.' The older man wasn't phased by DiNozzo's irritated expression. 'No. From now on, that duty falls to me. So this is how this is gonna go.' Gibbs rose out of his chair and advanced on DiNozzo, perching himself on the table only inches from his face.

'One. Until we sort this out you're staying here. You'll eat, sleep and live in this house until I'm satisfied that you can be trusted to look after yourself. The only time you will leave this house is for duty, which I will personally escort you to and from.' Gibbs' eyes dared DiNozzo to interrupt.

'Two. You will not consume a single drop of alcohol until I deem it appropriate. And after seeing your sorry ass last night, I can tell you right now that moment will not be coming any time soon.' He kept his gaze steady on DiNozzo's.

'Three. You will attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings each - '

'- I'm gonna have to stop you there Boss, because I'm not a -'

The head slap that rung through the kitchen shut him right up.

'I repeat,' Gibbs continued with a finger in front of DiNozzo's face. 'Three. You will attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings each week until you can be sufficiently trusted not to lose control of your substance consumption.'

'And four,' DiNozzo pulled back, wincing, as Gibbs rose a hand. But when the hand fell softly on Tony's shoulder, the young man looked back to see eyes full of nothing but concern staring down at him.

'Four,' Gibbs repeated softly. 'Why'd you do it, Tony? Why do you do it?

There was a long silence between the two men before Tony chose to break it. And in breaking it, in sharing this with Gibbs, he took his first step to trusting this man with what had become more of a problem than he was ready to admit.

'I already told you, Boss.' Tony struggled to maintain eye contact. 'To forget.'

Gibbs was shocked that the kid could remember anything from last night at all, let alone quote himself. Probably had a lot of practice, he though skeptically. Gibbs could see that the time to be rough had come and gone. He spoke gently.

'Tell me how it started,' he broached.

Tony let out a long, pained breath before starting.

'I don't know, Boss.' He could no longer look the man in the eye. But he couldn't lie to him anymore either. He owed it to him to tell the truth. At least once. So he started talking.

'I want you to know that I'm not - I'm not trying to make an excuse. You, and Tim, and Ziva - you all go to work with me everyday. You see the same things I see. The same horrors. You have the same nightmares -' he looked back to Gibbs briefly - 'I've heard you,' he mumbled after a pause, looking away once more. 'But - and I don't know what it is - but ever since I can remember, even before you let me onto your team at NCIS, I haven't been able to - handle - these things as well as you guys can. These - these thoughts - they just consume me. It's like I'm locked in some cage and I can't get out. So yeah,' he was becoming frustrated now. 'It's not an excuse. But Boss, I swear, when it's 3am and my mind is racing a million miles an hour through everything I've ever seen - from the latest victim on Ducky's slab to my own mother's - ' Enough. Enough for today.

'So yeah,' he concluded. 'Yeah. I need to forget. I do it to forget. I drink to forget.'

As Tony evened his breathing once more, Gibbs kept a solid hand on his shoulder. He had so many doubts about his next move. He was gentle with Tony and the kid answered him honestly. But at the same time he knew DiNozzo responded better to gruffness than to sympathy. If he started getting all soft on him Tony would think Gibbs was going to treat him differently from now on. Treat him as if he were lesser, weaker. And that, Gibbs thought, would ruin him.

Slapping him once on the shoulder, Gibbs rose to his feet. 'Okay,' he nodded, acknowledging in the one word both that he understood what his agent had said, that he couldn't go on right now, but that this was far from over. 'Okay.' He turned for the hall.

'Boss, wait!' The young man's raspy voice was pleading now. 'I told you everything you wanted to know. So can I - ' he tried not to sound pathetic. 'Can I please have some aspirin now?'

Gibbs considered him for a moment.

'Help yourself.' He smirked, tossing the box onto the table before leaving the room.

But when DiNozzo opened the packet, he found nothing inside. He could have sworn he heard Gibbs laugh as he descended the stairs to the basement.

A/N: I'm really excited to hear your thoughts on this one. Spent a bit of time on this chapter and it's definitely my favourite so far. Please leave a review or PM me if you like, it always helps to hear your thoughts when I'm coming up with the next chapter :) Can't thank you enough for the reviews so far, without the encouragement I probably would have abandoned this one all together.