Thanks to everyone who alerted, reviewed and faved. I appreciate your support which has been extraordinary going by how many people have placed this humble tag on alert. Much thanks to you all and although I don't usually respond individually to reviews due to internet restriction I do read them all even the negative ones. Just wanted to respond to the reviewer Beloved Daughter who thought Tony seemed depressed and I have to say that this was my impression as I wrote that scene too. Christmas is a difficult holiday for many lonely people and I think that Tony qualifies here. He had also been through a really bad time in the year or so before this episode took place, that would drive many people to reach for antidepressants or sleeping tablets and Domino had taken place not long before. Heads up that there will be fireworks in the next couple of chapters but for now enjoy :)

Arress beta'ed this chapter and has my eternal gratitude and any boo boos from my tweaking are on me. No really, this woman is a saint, spare a thought for her since I sent her an absolutely massive chapter to BR for An Eye for an Eye last night. She doesn't just wrangle my recalcitrant commas into submission either, she feeds my silliness and we bounce ideas off each other and she has a great recall for canon details that makes my life so much easier. Betas are a rare breed and they don't get nearly enough recognition!

Be Careful What you Wish For

Chapter 2

Ziva winced as she listened to Tim stumble and stutter his way through his presentation of the results of his investigation into the security tapes and also the financial examination of Juliette Clarkson, the dead wife of Marine Master Sergeant Clarkson. Tim seemed to get more nervous as he went along, and when Tony made no attempt to help him out of the hole he was digging or try to take advantage of the disaster waiting to happen, Ziva realised it was her chance to earn bluey points with Gibbs. So she snatched the clicker from the highly agitated junior agent and sashayed up to take centre stage. Having milked her extensive collection of contacts in the States and internationally, she proceeded to give an account of what she had discovered, before moving to her interviews with the neighbours and relatives.

Which Gibbs wasted no time in pointing out amounted to 'a whole lotta nothing, David' and demanded that she find them a viable lead or he'd personally load her back onto the next flight to Tel Aviv. That pissed off the former assassin since while she hadn't produced any viable leads, Tony had taught her that genius… well, okay, in this case finding leads on a case, was one percent inspiration and 99 percent respiration. You had to do lots of heavy breathing to break a case. So instead of focusing on the one percent that she hadn't found yet, Gibbs should be happy she'd ruled out many possibilities. Surely, that meant they were that much closer to an answer.

Nodding, she replied compliantly nevertheless. "Yes, Gibbs, I will get right on it." She returned to her desk as she and Tim waited to see what Tony would produce.

He stood up, walked swiftly to the plasma and commenced sharing the background check he'd done on the family before moving on to the profile he was developing on the killer. Tony reported that when complete he would have Abby submit it to CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) and ViCAP (Violent Criminal Apprehension Program) to see if they scored any hits. Before anyone had a chance to comment, he hurried on to reveal that he'd contacted the surrounding PDs to see if they had any similar outstanding or even solved cases before expanding the search to include NCIS, the MPs and other branches of the Armed Services, and he'd already begun compiling a list of POI. He'd also started compiling a second list of suspects who'd committed home invasions or house break-ins with the rationale that even rapists and killers might initially start by panicking when confronted in a house they thought was empty and merely intent on burglary.

Before anyone ventured an opinion, Tony had hurried on to report that he was currently checking the sexual offender databases for any similarities in MOs and had sent out alerts to his contacts with surrounding LEOs. Ziva, while secretly impressed with the volume of information he'd managed to tug together so fast, was nevertheless disgruntled with her teammate. Was he deliberately trying to make her and McGee look like a couple of bumbling newsters? How had he managed to get so much done anyway? While she was used to him one downing them with Gibbs when they were presenting information, he usually seemed to have done minimal work and just pulled a significant lead out of thick air, but this was different. This made her and Tim look as if they were sitting around twiddling their pinkies, and she for one wouldn't sit for it.

As she tried to figure out what she should be focusing on next to try and get back into Gibbs' happy books, she realised that all the constant irritating juvenile chatter just wasn't as infuriating as she had always thought. The joking around, especially the movie quotes, descriptions and analysis, was always a good indicator of what Tony was thinking. Although she would rather walk around stark naked than admit it to him, giving them an insight into his thought processes via his cinematic examples, Tony often gave them a chance to barnstorm ideas off each other. This inevitably lead to them coming up with an excess of possibilities to check out which almost always produce at least one solid lead at the end of the process.

And by stark naked, Ziva meant walking around without benefit of any of her five throwing knives, two others for slitting throats and the three guns that she habitually wore. Personally, she would much rather walk around without her clothes than her arsenal of weapons. She worked hard on maintaining her body, used it as additional artillery, but to be bereft of her weapons was enough for her to break out in a cold sweat. But it was a hoot point because Tony wasn't giving anything away. Maybe he had finally realised that he was being too generous with his thoughts and decided to keep them to himself to suck down on Gibbs, although if that was his reason, then it didn't seem to be working very well.

Gibbs seemed to be more irritated with Tony than he usually was, and that wouldn't normally worry the Mossad liaison officer unduly since she liked to be the one that Gibbs cozied up to. The problem was that whatever Tony was up to, it wasn't just making Gibbs pissed with him, they were all bearing the grunt of his temper, and she was ready to hurt someone with a paperclip, and Tim looked like someone had just shot his guppy.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Tony closed the front door of his apartment and dropped his backpack on the floor near the door. Peeling off his jacket and removing his tie and shoes, he padded over to the sofa and collapsed onto the leather upholstery in a boneless heap. He'd been working 20 hour days until they'd finally closed the case of the dead wife of the Marine after they got a positive hit from the CODIS Database giving them the lead that they needed to break the case. They'd arrested the brother of a female Marine corporal who had a thing for Juliette Clarkson's physical type.

There was no comfort in finding her killer. She was still dead, the Master Sergeant was still a widower and the little five-year-old boy was still motherless, even though they caught the dirtbag. The only consolation was that this wasn't the scumbag's first rape and murder, so at the very least by getting him off the streets, hopefully he wouldn't be able to hurt anyone else… at least for a while. But Tony couldn't help but think of the little boy growing up without his mother's love. He knew that his own mother wasn't exactly the poster child for maternal love, but all he knew was despite her deficiencies, including being drunk half of the time, his life was even worse when she left him as an eight-year-old. He hoped the Master Sergeant turned out to be a better father than Senior had.

Aware that his stomach was growling because it was so long since he'd eaten a proper meal, in truth Tony was just too damn tired to get up and look for food, have a shower or even climb into a warm comfy bed. Although a little cold, he couldn't even be bothered trying to remedy the situation. And now that the case was done, he couldn't ignore the bitter truth anymore.

Gibbs had been an absolute bear to work with through the whole damned case, despite the fact he had tried really hard to give him what he wanted - an attitude adjustment. Yet he'd obviously failed to deliver… again. He was always disappointing the Boss it would seem. Despite being quiet, focused and professional at all times and working his butt off looking for the killer, Gibbs was still yelling at him… at all of them. He made sure that he didn't make jokes or tease McGee or Ziva, but they all seemed angry at him. So, he wasn't sure, but he must have done something stupid. It wouldn't be the first time, but he was thinking that it was probably the last time

If he was being honest with himself for once in his life, they hadn't really been a team for a long time now. Gibbs had told Abby that he needed an attitude adjustment, but clearly that wasn't going to fix what had been broken. Maybe what Gibbs really meant was he wanted a complete change of attitude in his agent as in a totally different person. Maybe once Tony left, he would settle down and stop taking his frustration out on the junior team members. After all, they didn't get Jen Shepard killed or deliberately conceal the fact that they were on an undercover assignment working for the director for almost a year. Clearly, his boss didn't have faith in Tony anymore, since he chose not to share the details of the Domino sting with him. Even though there was no directive from the top preventing him from being read in, Gibbs hadn't trusted him.

In fact, Gibbs had told Abby about the sting, but not him, and everyone knew that Abby couldn't keep a secret if her life depended on it. Let's face it; her behaviour had been a dead giveaway that something big was going on. Everyone was talking about it and the so-called excuse about not wanting to tip Lee off because she had killed Langer and Gibbs was worried she was dangerous, was crap. Abby was in much more danger than he would have been. He had 12 years of law enforcement experience, and hello … he was one of the best in the biz when it came to undercover work. Apart from which, when they finally were read in, no one tipped her off, not even McGee who sucked at undercover or keeping secrets almost as much as Abby did.

And he'd been the last member of the team to get his place back after the team was split up. Gibbs hadn't even bothered to stay in contact with him. The one time he'd video-conferenced with his old boss in the four months he'd been exiled had been strictly case related, and even then he'd seemed uncomfortable. There hadn't even been an email to check on how he was doing even though Tony sent him a weekly how–ya-doing… well, until he realised that Gibbs didn't care how he was getting on and wouldn't bother answering his enquiries. He hadn't even said goodbye to him apart from a perfunctory, almost abrupt handshake in Jenny's outer office after her sham of a funeral.

It was clear to him that Gibbs still blamed him for Jenny's death, not that he blamed his boss at all since Tony blamed himself, too. And he had to face it; the mole had been his probie while Gibbs was down in Mexico busy growing a small furry animal on his upper lip, so he probably was angry that he'd never realised she was a traitor. If he had, then Brett Langer would still be alive. Gibbs was no doubt wishing that he still had him as his senior field agent, who was the epitome of a professional, and he knew for a fact that Gibbs never had to head slap Langer, either.

Well, it was long past time, but he knew when it was time to go. If his father had done nothing else for him, he'd taught him at an early age that he wasn't a keeper and that his destiny was to disappoint those closest to him. The very least he could do for his mentor was to read between the lines and leave before Gibbs was forced to fire him. He might not be all that smart (and Senior had been pretty vocal that he wasn't), even so, he could see the inevitable. Resolving to make a couple of phone calls tomorrow since it was Saturday and they'd been given the weekend off, he decided that he'd start afresh once again. He tried to figure out what persona he should adopt in his next job in light of the mess he'd made of his new personality, which clearly wasn't a goer. Too exhausted to keep his eyes open anymore he fell into an unhappy, troubled sleep.

Tony woke up next morning, wrung out like a wet dishcloth, but determined to see through the decisions he reached the night before. This had all happened because he'd forgotten an immutable truth that he'd learned the hard way when he was 12. He was fundamentally flawed, enough that his own father felt compelled to disown him and ship him off to RIMA and you don't get much more flawed than that when a parent is supposed to love their kid unconditionally. Ergo, he was such a obnoxious kid that his own flesh and blood couldn't wait to get rid of him. Add his ex-fiancé, Wendy, to the mix, who'd dumped him the night before the wedding and, well, that sure makes a lasting impression.

There was no point in kidding himself that he was a good person, but he was a damned good actor, and could at least pretend to be normal, hide his flaws, make people like him. At least for a while, but because it wasn't real, he just had to move on to the next gig (like any good actor, really) before anyone discovered his secret. And likewise, he could pretend to be the playboy, the life of the party, and the consummate lover who would give all of the women who went out with him such a good time that they never had the opportunity to see any of the flaws.

Then before he wore out his welcome, Tony would break off his relationships or hand in his resignation and pick up and move on to the next town or woman. Until he forgot all the rules when he came to DC and ended up staying way too long. Here he'd stayed much longer than the obligatory two-year stint, and his flaws had become glaringly obvious to everyone that was important to him. Even worse, he'd let himself fall in love again and he ended up hurting a wonderful person when she learnt who he really was. Hell, even he didn't know who he was.

Picking up the phone, he dialled resolutely. "Hi, Sir, it's Anthony DiNozzo; I was wondering if you had a few minutes to talk? You do? That's great. Just wondering if you meant what you said the last time we talked?"

End Notes:

As per my usual practice here is a list of Ziva-isms used in the chapter:

bluey points = brownie points, genius is… one percent inspiration and 99 percent respiration = 99 percent perspiration, bumbling newsters = bumbling newbies, one downing them = one upping them, pulling a lead out of thick air = puling a lead out of thin air, twiddling their pinkies = twiddle their thumbs, wouldn't sit for it = wouldn't stand for it, back into Gibbs' happy books = back into Gibbs' good books, barnstorm ideas = brainstorm ideas, was a hoot point = was a moot point, suck down on Gibbs = suck up to Gibbs, bearing the grunt of his temper = bearing the brunt of his temper, shot his guppy = shot his puppy.