Chapter 2

One month later...

Tony was thrilled to get off the plane in DC. He didn't care how long it took him to get out of the airport. He would be off the plane. He had flown from Bahrain to Doha which was only an hour, but then, from Doha to DC had been fourteen hours. He had lucked out to get a seat with lots of leg room. However, fourteen hours was fourteen hours, and no amount of leg room could make up for being confined to such a small space for so long.

He was waiting for his turn to walk down the aisle, but he was willing to do that if it meant he'd be off the plane. He was thrilled when the people in front of him finally started moving.

He walked through the bridge and got off the plane. Because this was an international flight, he was then shuttled over to the International Arrivals building where he had to go through customs. Thankfully, as a U.S. citizen, there wasn't too much of a delay. He collected his luggage and walked out.

"Tony!"

Tony turned and grinned as he saw Tim standing there, waiting.

"Hey, Probie!"

Tim walked over and gave Tony the one-armed, manly hug.

"Not a probie anymore, Tony. I've got my own."

"You'll always be a probie to me," Tony said.

"Ha. Thank you. You need to get any more luggage?"

"Nope. I've got it already. I just want to get away from planes and sleep in a bed, not in a seat."

"You know that we'll be getting on another plane the day after tomorrow."

"All the more reason to not be in an airport, now," Tony said. "Is Delilah okay with me crashing at your place?"

"You wouldn't be staying with us if it wasn't," Tim said, grinning.

"Delilah calls all the shots?"

"Nope. I just care more about her being happy than you," Tim said.

"Oh, wounded me to core, Tim. I may never recover."

"Well, you can work on it while we drive home."

"Sounds like a plan. Lead the way."

Tim gestured and they walked to the parking garage. Tony was surprised to see a different car than Tim's Porsche.

"New car?"

Tim nodded.

"When did this happen?"

"A few months ago."

"Problem with the Porsche?"

"Not enough room. Delilah's wheelchair fit, but it was hard to do. We decided that it made more sense to get one that fit her better."

Tony raised an eyebrow.

"That doesn't bother you at all?"

Tim raised an eyebrow back at him.

"Should it?"

"Yes! It was a Porsche!"

Tim laughed. "My wife means more to me than my car did."

"Well, she should, but..."

"But nothing. I got a really good trade-in on the Porsche. This is a really nice car. Drives smooth. Gets good gas mileage...and Delilah's wheelchair fits easily."

Tony got in and looked around the interior.

"Okay. It's nice."

"Told you," Tim said, smiling.

He started the car and then drove out of the garage.

"So... you ever see Gibbs?" Tony asked.

Tim shrugged. "Sometimes. Not often." He looked over. "Ducky told you about his retirement, right?"

"Yeah. Even invited me to his retirement party, but that was a bit of a trek for one night."

Tim chuckled. "You didn't miss much. Ducky used it as the ultimate last chance to tell us stories when we couldn't interrupt him. He has Delilah and me over for dinner at least twice a month, sometimes more. I see Abby a lot. Jimmy and Bree have had us over a few times. It's kind of fun to have a couple close to our age to hang out with. But Gibbs... Well, he was always closer to you guys than he was to me. I mostly see him when cases overlap."

Tony wanted to say that wasn't true, but it was to some degree, although Tim's reticence to put himself forward coupled with Gibbs' stoicism and lack of social interaction only made things more difficult. Tim would never feel comfortable with just going over to Gibbs' place, as Tony himself would.

"How are things, case-wise?"

"Fine. I have bad days, but more good days than bad days."

"Good."

They got home fairly quickly. Tony hadn't seen Delilah since the wedding, and he wondered if she was really okay with him usurping Tim's vacation time.

Tim parked the car and got out. Tony grabbed his bag and followed him, noting anew all the little touches that indicated Delilah lived there.

"Delilah! We're here!" Tim called.

Delilah rolled into the room.

"Tony, nice to see you again. How are you enjoying Bahrain?"

"Nice to see you, too, Delilah. The summers suck," Tony said. "I hate the humidity and the heat."

"Yeah, but the winters are nice."

"I guess. Hard to tell the difference."

"Oh, crap," Tim said, suddenly.

"What?" Tony asked.

Delilah sighed. "You forgot, didn't you," she said.

"I did. It's Tony's fault," Tim said, pointing at him and smiling a little.

"What did you forget?"

"I forgot dinner. We got it ordered and I was supposed to stop on the way back. I'll go, right now."

"You want me to?" Tony asked.

"Nope. You'll just have to wait. That's what you get for making fun of my car," Tim said.

He hurried out the door, leaving Tony alone with Delilah. He looked at her for a moment and then, smiled.

"So...how's married life?" he asked.

"I can highly recommend it," she said, gesturing for Tony to sit down. "Tony, since Tim is gone..."

"Yeah? I did ask if it was okay with you if I crashed here."

"And it is. I just wanted to thank you."

"For what?"

"For getting Tim to talk to me. Honestly, we might not have made it if he kept hiding what happened because he was ashamed of it. He told me that you were the one who convinced him to open up. I don't like bringing it up when he's around because Tim can still get so down on himself sometimes, but really, you helped us a lot...just by being there for Tim."

Tony shrugged, awkwardly. "Well, he's helped me out, too. It's mutual."

Delilah smiled. "I know, but just knowing what started it, knowing how bad it did get for him, it helps so much to understand...Tim. He and I really don't think the same way in any case, but knowing that he has an additional struggle keeps me from getting frustrated. It also helps when he has his... little moments."

"Still?"

"Yeah. Not much. More than he's probably admitted to you, but really, at this point, they're just little moments where he starts questioning himself. Usually at the beginning of the week. His therapist says that he probably will have this as a struggle for the long term. It's just part of who he is, and if it weren't for the fact that he's so good at his job and that he could go so much higher, I'd say that he should just give it up to save himself the stress, but Tim won't ever be satisfied with things being easy. He needs that struggle, as frustrating as that can be sometimes, for me."

That fit with Tony's own estimation.

"Anyway, are you liking it out there? Tim seems to think that you're not really enjoying it."

"Did he say that?" Tony asked in surprise.

Delilah nodded. "Once. He said that he wondered if you really liked being so far away from everyone here and that you didn't seem to like the job as much."

Tony shrugged a little. "It's been a steep learning curve, but my Arabic is really getting good."

Delilah smiled knowingly. "Sometimes, you have to get away in order to know what you really want. That's what I needed. When I went to Dubai, it was a chance to figure my life out without any input from people I already knew. It gave me a chance to get more confidence in my physical ability and to evaluate what I really wanted out of my life. I wouldn't have been able to do that here, not with Tim feeling guilty that I was the one who got hurt, not him...or that he should have been hurt, too."

"Does Tim know that?"

"Not explicitly. He knows, but I couldn't tell him something like that," Delilah said. "He'd take it as an indication of failure, and since I had the time I needed, there's no reason to make it explicit. And Tim didn't protest when I left. He wanted to, but he didn't, and I find that admirable. I don't know if I could have done the same, if our situations were reversed."

"Actually, I expected him to go running after you when you left."

Delilah laughed. "I doubt that he'd ever be that spontaneous."

"I didn't say he'd do it spontaneously. He'd plan it...just really fast."

"You're right. He would."

"Okay. So something that I've been wanting to ask you for more than a year."

"What's that?"

"What did you think when you saw the ring sitting out on the counter?"

Delilah smiled slyly.

"Come on! Tim's not here! My lips are sealed!"

"Your lips are rarely sealed, Tony."

"But they would be this time if you wanted them to be."

"Why do you want to know?"

"Because Tim was freaking out about it and he was so disappointed that he couldn't surprise you. I really want to know what you were thinking, especially because I know you guys had been fighting before."

Her smile changed and she nodded.

"Honestly, when I saw it and realized what it was, my first emotion was...I was mad at him, quite frankly. I thought it just figured that Tim would buy a ring and then not ask me. I thought that it was so typical of him to leave it out for me to find rather than just talk to me. But then... Then, I looked at it more closely. I realized that he'd got a ring that would fit me perfectly, that he'd taken into account what I would need in a ring besides what I would want. And I'd already had the email from him where he'd given me the overview of what had happened. It was forcing me to start reconsidering everything I'd thought I knew. I really wanted to be right, but I was seeing that there was more going on than that. I had to accept that Tim was not someone I was going to control, and I shouldn't want to control him. He had enough on his plate. I had to decide if I loved him as he was or if I was only still with him because I felt like I needed to change him into what I thought was right."

"I guess I know what you decided."

"Yeah. And no regrets. It's not easy all the time, but it's worth it, and as my mother said, marriage isn't supposed to be easy. It's supposed to be worth it."

"Sounds like it is."

"Yeah. It's funny because, when Tim and I started dating, I really thought he was easy to read, easy to get. I figured that he was just a typical geek, only with more social skills. I liked him, of course, but I didn't think there was any real mystery. It took some time to realize how much deeper he goes."

"Down the rabbit hole."

"Exactly." Delilah took a deep breath. "Okay. Enough of that. Tim's ears will be burning. I'll show you the spare room. Tim promised me that he washed the sheets and made up the bed."

"I'd better check that he didn't shortsheet the bed."

"I wouldn't worry about that."

"I'm not really. This will be fine."

"Good. I've got to finish up a couple of things before Tim gets back. Feel free to watch TV if you want to."

"Thanks."

Delilah left Tony to his own devices. He set his bag down on a chair and took a breath of relief at not flying for a day. He didn't bother unpacking anything, but he got out what he'd need for the next day or two. Then, he lay down on the bed and stretched out as far as he could, enjoying the feeling of being completely unconfined.

As he lay there, staring up at the ceiling, he thought about how he felt.

And it felt like he'd come home.