The door swung open and the living room light came on with a soft click. Gibbs shut the door behind him and leaned against it wearily. It had been a long day.

He let himself sag against the door for all of a few seconds before pulling off his coat and wrapping it over the hanger, slotting his shoes in line with the others, and stowing his gun and badge in the drawer of the low table by the door, and then marching into the kitchen and straight to the fridge. He pulled out vegetables and stacked them in piles on the counter, before he found a cutting board and a knife and attacked the piles one after another.

Half an hour later a stew had taken more or less taken shape, and was simmering gently in the too-big saucepan. Gibbs spooned it out as soon as it was ready, and carried it, steaming and too hot to eat, over to the table. He didn’t actually get more that half of it down, and put the rest away, alongside the leftovers from last night, and the night before, and Tuesday. At least he hadn’t cooked on Wednesday, choosing to eat Monday’s leftovers instead.

And it was still only ten twenty.

Gibbs took the stairs two at a time up to the bedroom, where he changed into sweats and a T-shirt, and descended into the living room armed with a rag and a frown that boded ill for the very few dusty surfaces in the room. After he’d finished wiping down all the surfaces that needed it, as well as all the surfaces that didn’t (there were a lot more of those) he sat down on the couch for a minute, staring at the door to the basement before he shook his head and headed back upstairs to the bedroom where there were clothes he could fold and put away.

In the bedroom, he noted the time (five to eleven) before dragging the laundry basket over to the bed and folding shirts and pants and towels and stacking them into neat piles, and if the piles had to be perfectly stacked and look like they’d come out of a mould, that was something Gibbs found very easy to ignore.

He picked up the pile of T-shirts, took it over to a drawer and began putting them away, still in piles whose organisation made perfect sense to him no matter what anyone else might think. Picking up a grey T-shirt, he lifted a couple on top of the pile to place the grey one under them.

And then the T-shirts fell unheeded to the floor, because the shirt underneath was Tony’s.

Gibbs found himself kneeling by the drawer, hands gripping the sides tightly, staring at the shirt. Not too many of Tony’s clothes had made it over to Gibbs’ place; they hadn’t been • well, whatever they were • for too long. A month, maybe? Yeah, about that long. Not long enough.

He did not reach into the drawer to pull out Tony’s shirt and do anything ridiculous like smell it: for one thing it would smell more like detergent than Tony, and for another thing Gibbs had no trouble remembering what Tony smelled like. No trouble at all.

Gibbs pushed the drawer gently shut and sat down heavily with his back against it, ignoring the shirts he’d dropped on the floor and closing his eyes. Six months. Six months.

Six months since he’d last seen Tony; six months since Fornell had asked for the man who was easily the best undercover agent at NCIS; six months since Gibbs had raged and railed and made his displeasure known in no uncertain terms, and tried and failed • failed! • to somehow insinuate NCIS into whatever operation it was, and tried • and failed again • to extract a promise that he would be updated on Tony’s situation (too sensitive, Fornell had said); six months since Gibbs had gripped Tony by the shoulders, surely hard enough to bruise, and locked eyes with him and told him that he’d better watch his six or there’d be hell to pay and Gibbs would absolutely hold Tony responsible if he went and got shot or cracked his skull open; six months since Tony had met his desperate gaze and said, very gently, that he’d be fine.

Six months since he’d last seen Tony. God.

For the first two months he’d been (perhaps) more abrasive to the rest of the team; he’d sought refuge by grousing to Abby, staying at work as late as he could, and working on the boat while trying to ignore the fact that Tony wasn’t sitting at the foot of the basement stairs, snarking or making conversation or just watching. Fornell was still being infuriatingly obdurate, never telling him anything other than Tony’s fine, Tony’s all right, which, sorry, Gibbs didn’t trust because he didn’t exactly trust Fornell’s version of fine. And Abby not being able to ‘find out’ where • and how • Tony was had only made Gibbs even more pissed off, because Abby could find anything, and how bad was this, how deep was Tony if even Abby couldn’t pull anything for him?

When the two months turned into three, four, five, and there was still no word from Tony, Gibbs’ relative composure dissolved, and became a spike of fear every time he looked at Tony’s desk and Tony wasn’t there, or when he couldn’t feel Tony at his left when they went on a raid, or when he woke up at three fifteen and Tony wasn’t pulling on his pants and whispering apologies for waking Gibbs up, but they had to work in the morning. He stopped spending his nights in the basement, because the feeling of Tony’s absence was so powerful that working on the boat was becoming painful.

Gibbs thought about Abby telling him he was panicking in slow motion, and smiled humourlessly. If he could just know he’d be able to regain some measure of composure and content himself with snarking at people and drinking a little (a lot) more coffee every day till Tony was back.

Or not. Maybe he just needed to see Tony again. Gibbs screwed up his eyes fiercely, and then opened them, blinking rapidly a few times. He wasn’t going to get much rest, but he knew perfectly well that he needed to sleep if he wanted to function effectively, and he was not going to let any case get short shrift because he didn’t know how to take care of himself.

He pushed himself off the floor, put the shirts away (not without running his fingertips over Tony’s shirt, surreptitiously, as if someone were watching), put the rest of the folded clothes away, and went to bed. And slept, sort of.

***

Gibbs’ first thought was what the fuck?, and then who the fuck? as the pounding on his door grew louder. He half-rolled out of bed, noted the time (one fifteen) and made his way as quietly as possible out of the bedroom, towards the door and the drawer where he kept his gun. Halfway down the stairs he stopped dead.

Shannon… Shannon telling him she hated to be woken up at night by the doorbell only because she never knew if it would be someone come to tell her that something had happened to Gibbs.

No. No, it’s got nothing to do with Tony and I’m being an ass and I should just go and see who the hell that is and flay them for waking me up. Because Tony’s ‘fine’, after all.

When he finally got to the door he didn’t pull out his gun after all, just stood and listened, and then he grasped the door handle and turned it and opened the door and stopped breathing.

Because it was Tony.

Tony, standing at Gibbs’ door and smiling slightly. “Your doorbell doesn’t work, Gibbs.” Then he shut up and just looked at Gibbs, and Gibbs looked back for all of three seconds before he reached out and grabbed Tony’s arm and hauled the man through the door and into his arms. And just held him there, tightly enough for it to probably hurt, but Tony didn’t seem to care because he was holding on tighter still, face pressed against Gibbs’ shoulder so that Gibbs could feel his breath across the skin of his neck, and Tony was here. Gibbs closed his eyes and buried his nose in Tony’s hair and breathed in the scent he’d tried to recall for so long, and so often, that the memory had worn threadbare. Tony made a small muffled noise and tried to burrow into Gibbs and Gibbs’ hands were finally moving, reaching behind Tony to shut the door before pulling away, very slightly but just enough to lift Tony’s head and frame the face with his hands, his hands that were shaking just a little because Gibbs was shaking. Just a little.

And then, finally, he said, “Tony.” And it was all he wanted to say really, just to reaffirm that he was here.

A small smile curled Tony’s lips. “Gibbs,” he returned, in a voice that sounded as shaky as Gibbs’. He was much thinner • almost gaunt, really; the cheekbones were more prominent. There was a tired look in his eyes, and a small scar on his right cheek, that hadn’t been there when he’d left. Gibbs felt like he’d lived years since then, and Tony looked it.

Tony had been working an undercover op for the FBI for six months.

“Tony,” Gibbs said at last, “how… I mean, you’re…”

Tony smiled, a little sheepishly. “It’s •it’s over. I got into DC a little over an hour ago. I…” • and here he couldn’t quite meet Gibbs’ eyes • “I wanted to • I mean, I wanted to see you…” he trailed off, as if he was only now realising that it was late and that Gibbs had probably been asleep. He bit his lip. “I, uh, I sort of missed you.”

Gibbs pulled him into another hug. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “Me too.” He let himself smile, a little. “You have no idea,” he added softly. Another muffled sound from Tony.

They stood there clinging to each other in the hallway, Tony brushing tiny kisses against Gibbs’ neck and Gibbs just soaking in the feeling, the presence of Tony against him, until he realised that Tony had looked exhausted, and that he wasn’t exactly fresh himself. He disentangled them, took Tony’s hand and led him up to the bedroom.

While Tony was getting rid of his pants Gibbs saw another scar, a larger one, on his shoulder. “What happened?” he asked quietly, brushing his fingers against it.

Tony shrugged. “I got a bit careless,” he said equally quietly, but Gibbs saw that that was all it was.

“Yeah?” Gibbs reached up and touched the one on Tony’s face. “And that?”

Tony actually flinched away from Gibbs’ touch. He took a step back, and sighed and met Gibbs’ questing, concerned gaze with eyes that were dark and infinitely more tired than earlier. “I don’t… I don’t want to talk about it,” he said quietly. “Not tonight.” He swallowed. “I-” He shook his head and held out his arms to Gibbs in a gesture that was both uncharacteristic and heart-wrenching.

Gibbs moved into the embrace and tucked his arms around the other man, rubbing his thumbs in (hopefully) soothing movements along Tony’s back. “Okay,” he murmured. “Okay.” He brushed a kiss against Tony’s hair. “Let’s get some sleep, hmm?”

Tony pressed a very gentle kiss to Gibbs’ throat. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “Haven’t slept properly in… months…”

Gibbs tugged him toward the bed. “Me neither.”

***

It’s five twenty. In a little while Gibbs will have to get out of bed and go to work, but for now he can lie here and watch. He strokes gently through Tony’s hair and the younger man lets out a deep sigh that would probably have been a hum of pleasure if Tony had been awake. Gibbs smiles. It’s been so long…

Reluctantly he gets out of bed, knowing that waiting for the discordant shrill of the alarm will only mean Tony waking up too, and Gibbs can see he needs the sleep. Which is weird, because Tony can get by on less sleep than almost anyone Gibbs knows (Abby excepted), and it’s one more thing they can thank the FBI for.

He dresses quietly, slips downstairs for coffee, and comes back to the bedroom for his watch. He can’t resist brushing a kiss to Tony’s forehead when he actually has to leave. Of course, Tony being Tony, this wakes him up, slightly.

“Mm,” he says, eyes at half mast. “You lea’ing?”

“Yeah,” Gibbs says softly, carding his fingers through Tony’s hair, brushing it back a little. “I’ll tell Abby you said hi.”

Tony gives a sleepy smile. “Mm,” he says again. “Cook dinner, if you like…”

Gibbs’ lips twist into a grin. “You don’t need to,” he says. “Plenty of stuff in the fridge.” He pats Tony’s cheek. “Just… sleep. You need the rest.”

“Okay…” And just like that, Tony is asleep again. Gibbs tucks the covers a little more securely round him, and twitches the curtains shut so the morning sun won’t hit Tony in the face. He pauses at the door, looking at Tony for a long moment before he leaves.