AN: Thanks to everybody who first read Living By the Rules in 2010 and was patient enough to wait for me to finish this 14 (!) years later. Also, huge thanks to Kyrie, who edited the first two, and Kesterpan, who was an invaluable sounding board on this story. Both of you pushed me to dig deeper and stay true to the characters, and the trilogy is far better for it.

Late April

Early Thursday morning of Easter week, Tony swung by Dan's apartment with two coffees in his car's cupholders. He felt a little bit of tension in his shoulders release when he saw the pickup truck's tailgate was still down.

"Tony?" Dan's voice sounded surprised as he walked out the back door of the building to the parking lot.

"Coffee for the road?" Tony said, holding up one of the cups of coffee. "And, yes, it is the way you like it."

"You like coffee regular, too," Dan said as he walked over, setting the boxes in his arms down on the truck bed.

"And if I ever called light, sweet coffee 'regular' at the office, Gibbs would headsmack me into the Potomac," Tony said, as he handed over the cup. "I was afraid you'd be gone by now."

"These are the last boxes," Dan said. He slammed the tailgate shut. "I'm surprised you came."

Tony shrugged. "You were upfront with me. This was a short-term thing."

"Not that short-term," Dan said. He rested one hand on Tony's shoulder. "You could have left when I told you."

"Not much point in that," Tony said. "Besides, it was good to enjoy a relationship that lasted that wasn't an undercover op. I haven't had one of those in years." He shrugged one shoulder. "When will you know?"

Dan leaned back against the truck, turning away from Tony a bit and looking up at the sky. "I already do, I think." He sighed. "I still love my hometown, but if Chris can't be happy in Exeter, I can leave to be with him in New York or Boston or whatever city he lands in." He paused. "We talked last week, mostly to coordinate moving back."

"That's a good thing?" Tony asked.

"Not everybody's allergic to serious conversations," Dan said.

"Ouch, direct hit," Tony said, but kept his tone light. "Besides, I don't have anybody to have a serious conversation with — McAbby still seems to be ticking along fine." He sighed. "Better than fine, really. The last couple of weeks at work, they're both operating like they share a brain, none of the cranky bits." He sipped his coffee. "At least one of us is going to get what he wants."

"You should talk to him," Dan said.

"I talk to McSidekick every day," Tony said.

"Tony." Dan turned to face him. "Look, I didn't say anything about this before because, well, I liked what we had the last few months. But I caught a look on his face a couple of times when we had brunch with Tim and Abby a few weeks ago."

"Oh, the McEyebrow? That shows up all the time, especially when Abby and I are kidding him," Tony said. "He's-"

"He's still in love with you," Dan said. "I think he wanted to dislike me, or dislike us together, but he realized he couldn't."

"You only met him once."

"And I've had the same look on my face every time I've met the guy one of my sisters ends up marrying," Dan said. "But he's not thinking about you like he's your big brother."

"Please, he was as green as Kermit when we first met and looked barely out of high school." Tony remembered back to that first case in Norfolk. "I remember when he was still a wee Baby McProbie."

"Tony."

"You think I should try and break up McGee and Abby?" Tony said. "I'm not sure who would kill me first, Abby or Gibbs. Either way, I'd be dead." He sighed. "Besides, I already said I wouldn't interfere. Rule 12."

"I have to go," Dan said. "But… Think about it. At least let him know I'm out of the picture."

"I'm not going to beg," Tony said. "Tim wouldn't want me to."

"If you don't tell him, I will," Dan said. "I'll give you a week, but after that I'm going to email and tell him the truth."

"What truth?" Tony felt his guts clench.

"That you were an excellent test of my commitment to the man I'm probably going to marry, but that's as far as it went and I'm out of the picture." When Dan paused, Tony felt himself start to relax. "And I might mention the time you called out a name that wasn't mine during sex." He smirked.

Tony felt heat flood his face. "You-"

"Hey, it's fine," Dan said. "But I'm pretty sure he would want to know that."

"Yeah, another gear to get his McBrains going," Tony said. He looked down at the ground. "This can't possibly end well."

"You already don't have the guy," Dan said. "You're the one who has a whole section of movies with happy endings on your shelves."

"I have a section of movies where everything blows up in the hero's face, too," Tony said.

"How do you know McGee's not the hero in this story?" Dan asked, and dodged the headslap Tony automatically tried to dish out.

"Enough," Tony said. "Fine, I'll tell him. If this all blows up in my face, this won't be the last you hear of me."

"Call me next week either way," Dan said. "After I tell Chris all about this, he'll want to know how it turns out, too." He pulled Tony in for a hug and Tony didn't resist the kiss that came with it. Better a goodbye kiss than a slap across the face or declarations of hate.

He pulled back from Dan and rested his forehead against the shorter man's. "I'll call. I want to hear what you and this future husband of yours decided on, too."

By the end of the day, Tony had a plan. He needed to talk to McGee, because he knew Dan was serious about telling the other agent if Tony didn't. And it couldn't be at work or when Abby was around, which meant he needed to start today. So when Gibbs dismissed them, Tony was the first one in the elevator.

He got in his car and left the yard, but pulled over on the street and parked where he could see McGee's car leave. Abby's hot rod left first, and turned right but he could see that she was alone in it.

Ten minutes later, McGee's Porsche waited for a break in the traffic before turning left. Tony had to loop around the block to be heading the right direction, but it wasn't long before he was four cars back from his partner's car and glad McRuleFollower used his directionals religiously.

He'd thought McGee might be stopping to pick up food before going to Abby's, but the younger agent went straight home. Tony circled the block, but there was no hot rod in sight. Still, he parked on the street again and waited for half an hour to make sure Abby wasn't coming over and McGee wasn't headed back out.

~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~

McGee was just cleaning up his dinner when he heard a knock on the door. The fusillade of knocks that followed and Jethro's tail-wagging and woofling at the door told him who was on the other side. Only a team member or family could escape rounds of barking, and only Tony could knock that annoyingly.

Sure enough, the senior field agent was standing there, hand poised for another round of knocks when McGee opened the door with one hand, Jethro's collar held in the other hand. "Do we have a case?" McGee asked.

"No case," Tony said. He stepped inside, and McGee closed the door and released Jethro. "Good to see you too, McMutt," Tony said, crouching down to scratch behind his ears. "Even if you are getting fur all over my Armani."

"That's what lint rollers are for, Tony," McGee said, rolling his eyes. "I know you know that because you have them everywhere, including two in your car."

"And I will be using them before I get in my car or I'll have fur all over the seats for weeks," Tony said. He stood and looked McGee up and down. "So, no hot date tonight."

McGee rolled his eyes again and tried not to feel self-conscious about his sweats and MIT T-shirt. "It's a school night."

"Since when has that ever stopped you and Abby?" Tony said.

"Since there stopped being a 'me and Abby'," McGee retorted and turned to walk away. He flopped down on the sofa.

"Wait, you broke up? How did I not know that?" Tony walked over to stand in front of McGee looming over him. "Usually when you two are fighting, the lab is snark central and it was fine today."

"Tony, we broke up weeks ago," McGee said. "And there was no snarking involved. We just… We both agreed that it wasn't working."

Tony sank down on his heels, squatting in front of Tim and looking right at him. "Really. You and Abby agreed, just like that?"

"All thanks to you," McGee said.

Tony held up his hands. "Oh, no, I am not taking the blame for this. I like being alive, and if Gibbs doesn't kill me for this, Ziva will."

"Ziva's too wrapped up in Miami Guy to notice, or care," McGee said. "And Ducky will probably give you some kind of gold star for modeling healthy relationships for the rest of us. God knows nobody else has one on this team."

Tony sank down until he was sitting on the floor. "You're not making any sense, McBabble. Start at the beginning."

"We broke up the day after we had brunch with you and Dan," McGee said, remembering back. "Abby was the one who brought it up, but only because she talks faster. When she came over that night, I had already decided that I needed to break up with her. Even Gibbs agreed that it made sense."

"Wait, you told Gibbs you wanted to dump Abby?" Tony said. "And lived to tell about it."

McGee told him a bit about his basement conversation with Gibbs. "He's right," McGee finished. "And seeing how right you and Dan were for each other was what made me see that Abby and I just weren't." Before he could finish, Tony was laughing, but with a weird edge to it. "Tony?"

"Dan moved back to Massachusetts this morning," Tony said. "I was late because I stopped by to drop off coffee for his drive, but it was always going to end this way."

"Because you won't move to be with him." McGee supposed that made sense.

"Because he's going to propose to the man he loves," Tony said. "This was never going to be long term."

McGee gave Tony the look the senior agent had dubbed his McEyebrow Stare. "Come sit on the couch and explain," he said.

He listened as Tony talked and talked, but also watched the agent's body language. No hesitation, no tension in his profile.

"So, it's just over?" McGee asked, trying to keep the hope that was starting to bubble up in him from being audible in his voice. "His boyfriend spent six months living in a city and Dan spent six months living far away from home and they gave each other permission to see other people, and now they're just dating again and Dan's going to propose?"

"Well, Dan still doesn't know if they're going to live in his hometown or not, but it sounds like they both know that where they live isn't as important as that they do it together," Tony said. He shrugged and looked down at his hands. "He made me promise to tell you that he was gone and not an issue and that I still have feelings for you."

"You've had feelings for me from the beginning," McGee said. "I think they started with mockery and delight in my gullibility." He couldn't keep the corners of his lips from twitching into a smile, hard as he tried.

"Hey!" Tony jerked his head up and looked at McGee. "I—"

"I know," McGee said. "I couldn't resist. So I have Dan's vote?"

"Just promise me that if he calls you next week to tell you himself that you stop him before he tells you too much," Tony said.

McGee couldn't resist stealing one of Tony's lines as a reply. "Oh, re-eally."

"I might— I mighthavesaidyournameduringsex." Tony's voice ran the words together and his tanned skin had a definite rosy tint.

"And he broke up with you?" McGee said.

"No, but he did make me tell him all about you," Tony said.

"So that's what he meant at brunch," McGee said. "I wondered." He waited a beat. "So, are you just here to tell me you're single again?"

"Well, I thought you were serious about Abby when I knocked on the door," Tony said. "And I didn't want to incur the wrath of Gibbs by doing anything to change that."

"And now?"

"Do we still…?" Tony paused, then started again. "Would you like to go out for dinner tomorrow?"

"Yes," McGee said, and felt a warmth around his heart when Tony really, truly relaxed. "But I need to say something first." And that made Tony tense up again. McGee shifted on the couch so they were looking right at each other.

"I was wrong before," McGee said. He kept his eyes on Tony's so his partner could see all the things McGee knew he couldn't hide even if he wanted to. "When I took you up on your idea to date Abby so you would know I'd made the right choice if we ended up together, I was wrong."

Tony opened his mouth and McGee held up a hand to stop him before he could say anything. "You didn't need me to date Abby again to be sure of me," McGee said. "I needed to."

"And?" Tony said. His tone sounded like he was asking any question, but McGee could see Tony's hands flexing in fists as they rested on his knees and knew Tony wasn't as calm as he sounded.

"Now I know," McGee said. "Abby and I will always be good friends, but we just don't quite work when we date, not the way either of us deserves." He paused and swallowed. "You saw that I needed to understand that, really understand that, and maybe that's why I know now that I was also right before: You are the better choice."

Tony's smile widened, not the goofy Very Special Agent DiNozzo one, but the real "Tony is happy" smile that didn't show up nearly as often. "You couldn't have said this weeks ago?" he said.

"Weeks ago, you were still dating your sexy carpenter," McGee reminded him. "Besides, we got where we needed to be, even if it took most of a year."

"It was worth it," Tony said, and leaned in for a kiss. "It's like Rota."

"You didn't go to Rota," McGee said. "Wait, is Vance sending you to Rota now that EJ's team is in DC?"

"He'd better not try," Tony said. "He knows better." Tony wrapped an arm around McGee's shoulders and leaned against him. "You think I haven't sometimes wondered about Rota and if I should have taken it?"

"I try not to think about that," McGee said.

"I made the right decision back then," Tony said. "I'd rather be a starter on the varsity than captain of the JV team, and seeing how EJ and her team work just made me certain of that. Even if you came with me, Rota would be the wrong choice."

"So basically, you're saying you're always right?" McGee lifted his eyebrow again. "Guess I can't argue with that." He pulled Tony in for another kiss. "But that means you're telling Abby that we're dating."

Tony smiled. "First thing tomorrow."