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Author's Chapter Notes:
Tony has accepted reality but the pain is unbearable. What if he takes one last chance on love? Contains echoes of TIVA.
Gibbs couldn't get Tony's words out of his mind. 'Please don't ask me that, Boss. Not here. Not now. Maybe not ever.' He'd noticed Tony's change in behavior but it wasn't all the time. It was subtle. He was the mostly the same with Bishop and McGee except quieter than usual and around him, he seemed even quieter, almost never speaking unless spoken to. At first, he wondered if Tony was angry at him but usually, when Tony was angry, he knew it.

Gibbs heard Tony come in and he reached for the two clean glasses he brought down when he got home. Whatever was eating Tony, he needed it. As Tony trudged down the stairs at a deliberate but not rushed pace, he poured a shot of bourbon in each glass. As Tony came into the room toward him, Gibbs lifted the glass up to him.

Tony accepted the glass that Gibbs handed to him. Both men took a small sip. Tony set his glass down on the work table he was standing beside. Gibbs pulled up a stool and Tony grabbed the one that was under the bench and sank onto it.

Tony looked up at Gibbs and then looked away. Tony's hands were clasped together, his knuckles were white.

Tony took a deep breath and forced himself to look at Gibbs again. Gibbs waited, watched as Tony mentally peeled off his 'everything is okay' mask.

"Okay," Tony finally said, his voice just above a whisper. "It's been a year," Tony's voice turning to a growl. "A. Whole. Fucking. Year."

Gibbs nodded, his instincts correct again. Ziva. He'd known Tony would reach anger eventually.

Tony cleared his throat. "Back in Israel, I thought she just needed some time alone, you know? Get her head on straight, come to terms with who she was and who she wanted to be. I never once thought I wouldn't be part of her future. Maybe I was arrogant, maybe I was just blind. I believed her when she said she loved me." His voice cracked with emotion. He cleared his throat again and took another deep breath, finding the words difficult. "I respected her stated need for space because that's what you do when you care about someone, right? They need time alone. You give them that. I thought she would miss me as much as I miss her."

"I figured at the most three months. By then, she would make up her mind and know what she wanted. And I was okay with that. It gave me time to pull myself together after the hunt for her and be ready for when she came home. I wanted to be ready because I never wanted to live without her again."

Gibbs nodded, a lump forming in his own throat that he swallowed. Tony's pain was like a tangible object he could reach out and touch. It filled the room around them. He'd seen Tony in physical pain before. But never had he seen Tony like this. It hit him hard in the chest, a sensation he could not explain. As Tony set his glass back down, he kept his face inscrutable as he always did; listened, as he always did.

"I really believed everything would be okay." Tony continued, swallowed hard, taking another small sip of the bourbon. "After three months, I made excuses. She's just more messed up mentally than I thought. She just needs more time than I thought…but it will be okay. Just hang in there, DiNozzo, she loves you. She will come back. That's what I kept telling myself.

"At six months and still not a word from her, I was just stunned, shocked even. What was taking her so long? I asked myself. She told me she loved me. Why has she not come home?" Tony balled his hand into a fist and slammed it on the work bench, not too hard, but hard enough to make the table jump slightly and the noise and motion obviously helped him focus. "It was then that I couldn't keep telling myself to hang in there. I knew even three months was a stretch. I couldn't hang on to the dream that she would change her mind and that she would be back. No matter how much Ziva wanted to change, some things wouldn't change and her knowing what she wants and doesn't want is one of them. She's chosen anything out there but me." Tony lifted his arm to gesture the entire world beyond himself. "It's like everything we've been through meant nothing. She's gone, she's not coming back and I had to find a way to accept it."

Gibbs nodded once. He had always known Tony loved Ziva, probably before Tony himself knew it, everyone had known before they themselves knew it, even McGee had seen it long before the rest of them. "Tony…"

"I'm not done, Gibbs. You said you wanted to hear it so don't stop me now." The look on DiNozzo's face quieted the older man. Right now, Tony was completely naked. No brave mask. No sarcastic façade. Just naked emotions.

Tony ran a hand through his hair. "I joined a mens' support group. Did you know that? I knew I had to grieve, get on with my life, couldn't let despair consume me. I thought it would get me through it. I thought I could learn how to cope. I even thought it worked for a while. I mean, it was good to talk with those guys, hear their stories, know that I wasn't alone in grieving over a lost love. But it wasn't enough, Gibbs. God help me, it wasn't enough." Tony picked up his drink and downed the rest in one gulp.

"What would be enough, Tony?" Gibbs asked softly.

Tony laughed mirthlessly. "Are you sure you want to hear more? You may hate me when I'm done."

Gibbs cocked his head to the side, wondering how Tony thought he could ever hate him. "I'm not going anywhere."

Tony inhaled deeply of sawdust, bourbon and the dry mustiness of Gibbs' basement and it visibly calmed him and his face, just moments ago contorted with pain, now smoothed into almost normal. "I did it. I grieved. I raged against Ziva and her stupidity for walking away from the team, our family…me. As each day past six months passed by, I accepted her choice. I accepted that I loved her more than she loved me. I accepted that she didn't want me. So, I started dating again. I was still grieving a bit but loneliness was killing me. I really wanted to find a woman that would make me forget her. I told myself that Ziva isn't the only woman in the world." Again, he laughed mirthlessly. "I had dates with eight women. On that eighth date, I was sitting at dinner with this gorgeous brunette. I could tell she liked me and she was sweet, Gibbs. Really sweet. She was the kind of woman no man in his right mind would want to break her heart. I was having dinner with her and she and I were talking about old movies - she was a fan of Ingrid Bergman and like a flash, while I was listening her to talk about Ingrid, this feeling just washed over me. I hadn't even been thinking at the time, was just listening to this gorgeous woman share our mutual interest in an old movie star and I realized, Why am I doing this? This isn't going to be any different than the last seven. None of these women are interesting. I just froze right there, Gibbs. I was wasting this otherwise seemingly wonderful woman's time by spending the evening with me. I hated myself for that. After dinner, I took her home, cutting the night short. I don't even remember what excuse I told her. I could see she was disappointed and that made me feel worse but better to walk away than waste her time."

Gibbs listened, was mesmerized even, by this long, uncensored look into Tony's mind, something Tony had never granted him before. Sure, he saw glimpses into what made his SFA tick, but nothing like this. Gibbs was both honored and terrified by this.

"There will never be any woman for me but Ziva. Sure, I still flirt with women, mostly to charm them into telling me what I need to know for a case, but outside of work, I hardly notice them anymore. Can you believe that?

"Once in a while if I'm out having a drink, like with McGee, one will put the moves on me and you know, it's nice when they do. I smile, I flirt back a little, let them know the attention is not unappreciated or unwelcome." Tony paused as he held the glass in his hand, not remembering when he had picked it up. He gently set it back on the bench. "Then, I tell them I'm married." He looked back up at Gibbs again. "It's easier to tell them that then it is to tell them they don't turn me on."

Now, Gibbs was truly stunned by what Tony was saying. How the hell could a woman not turn Tony on? He was a womanizer, always had been, not cruel about it, had always been upfront with women about what he intended, he wasn't the type to string them along…but Tony had always had an intense, high sex drive. Sexual energy cloaked him like a trench coat - it was more subdued at work usually, but it was always there just under the surface ready to bubble up at a second's notice. Women noticed it. Men noticed it. It was a part of him. And it was still there, Gibbs could feel it even now. It hadn't left Tony, he was still cloaked in it.

This does not make sense.

The air was still tense with unspoken words. Gibbs waited. Tony still sat heavily on a stool and looked lost in his own thoughts and seemed almost immune to the tension in the air.

After a moment, he met Gibbs' gaze. "A part of me died the day I accepted that Ziva wasn't coming back. I wish it hadn't but I'm tired of pretending. When I accepted that, it was then that I really felt like I understood you, why your marriages failed, why your relationships with women don't last. You love Shannon the way I love Ziva. They both left us in their own way - yours through no fault of her own and mine by choice…but the results were exactly the same. Left both of us alone, broken and dead."

Gibbs' eyes grew wide at Tony's words and then narrowed. Tony had no right to say anything about Shannon. That was his and his alone and he didn't share that with anyone. As he opened his mouth to tell DiNozzo where to shove it, he felt a flash of recognition. It was true. Gibbs' eyes softened a little. Tony never took his eyes off Gibbs as he watched the play of emotions his usually inscrutable boss was letting him see. Gibbs picked up the jar with the bourbon and downed it in one gulp, making a face as he swallowed the liquor and setting it down with a resounding thump.

Tony got up and moved closer to Gibbs. "Jethro, you've been alone all these years. Tell me, does loneliness ever eat you alive?"

Gibbs visibly bristled at hearing his SFA call him Jethro and the close proximity made him bristle even more. "What are you driving at, Tony?"

Tony leaned closer, almost in his boss' face but not quite, his eyes searched his as he spoke. "I can accept that I'm broken. I can even accept that a part of me died because Ziva rejected me. But the one thing I can't accept…won't accept…is being alone." He paused for a deep breath and let the pain of his words flow. "I don't want to spend the rest of my life alone. I don't want to never again feel intimacy with another and I don't want to exist without companionship or sex. I still want all those things badly. If I can't share them with the only woman who ever made me want to settle down, then maybe, just maybe I could share them with the only man who made me want to settle down." Tony didn't look away.

Tony realized his breathing was fast and shallow as anxiety made him want to turn tail and run. But he couldn't. The words were out now. The ball was in Gibbs' court. He was very likely going to get punched or fired…or both. Gibbs was a marine after all and many marines didn't take kindly to being hit on by other men. And he was hitting on Gibbs, no mistake about that, but this was different in every way than he had ever hit on anyone else including Ziva. This wasn't for a one-night stand. He was betting it all on a roll of the dice and it was probably a losing roll. But even if this was another in a long line of rejection, he at least wouldn't have to live every day wondering if he should've at least tried.

Gibbs mouth went dry. The enormity of what Tony just said hit him in the chest just like he felt earlier. A thousand thoughts rushed through his head but he couldn't focus on any of them. For a moment, the room spun and he desperately tried to center himself. Tony wants me. Just like that, the spinning stopped. The room came back into focus and with that, Tony came back into focus. He had stepped back a step, close enough that Gibbs could reach him, but not as close as he was just a moment ago. Gibbs could feel the tension in his body, knew he had braced himself for the worst, expected it even. Of course he did. He had no reason to expect anything else.

Tony stepped back to give him space but he never took his eyes off of him. Everything he expected to see was there: shock, confusion, Tony couldn't even read anything else, if there was anything but he would not stand down. Gibbs had unwittingly given him no choice but to tell him because if he had known what Tony would say, the NCIS shrink was the last person he would want Tony to tell.

Gibbs swallowed, licked his lips, opened his mouth to speak and in a rush of air and his voice quavering, he spoke barely above a whisper. "Tony, this doesn't make any sense."

Tony inhaled long and deep before exhaling and his whole body visibly relaxed. "I know. I feel like I should've told you years ago I was bi- but I was always afraid if you knew, how I felt about you would be obvious and I didn't want to make you uncomfortable or find it impossible to work with me. I couldn't risk that." Tony cleared his throat. "Only reason I tell you now is because Ziva broke my heart and I have nothing more to lose. I figured it would be better to tell you and risk getting fired than to keep it all inside and wonder if I was making the same mistake by not telling you the way I did Ziva.

"Not that I expect you to feel the same way. I don't. But you don't show your hand, Gibbs. The not knowing was worse than any rejection. My gut kept telling me to tell you, for what reason I don't know…maybe for acceptance of the inevitable but now you know. If you're disgusted by me after this, say so. I will have my resignation on your desk in the morning. If you don't…"

Tony fell silent. Gibbs' eyes were boring into his soul and suddenly, his words felt heavy.

Gibbs stepped closer filling the space between them. He leaned in and said barely above a whisper. "Would you feel better if I kicked your ass all over this room?"

Tony let out a half chuckle and a half sob. "I can't possibly feel any worse than I do now."

Gibbs pulled Tony into a hug, his arm wrapped loosely around his neck. Tony hugged him back, desperate for human contact in any way he could get it. He didn't know what this hug meant but in that moment, he didn't care.

Gibbs himself couldn't say why he did it when he pulled Tony into the embrace. Just that he knew he needed something tangible to hang onto. Gibbs eyes were wet with emotions that he did not normally let come to the surface. He couldn't believe this.

It only took a moment for him to realize that Tony was quietly crying. He sniffled occasionally and his body shook with it. He'd never seen Tony cry before. Angry? Yes. In physical pain? Many times. He remembered once when he had heard Tony say, "DiNozzos don't cry." For all that, he was crying now.

Tony didn't know how much time had passed while he wept on Gibbs' shoulder. In that moment, he was just so grateful to be where he was. If Gibbs had punched him or just thrown him out, he would've understood, accepted it, would've even forgiven him easily for it but even if Gibbs was going to still ultimately reject him, he had this comfort right now.

Tony calmed down. He still felt like he could cry more but for now, it was enough. He and Gibbs unhurriedly detached and Tony wiped his eyes on his sweatshirt.

"You alright?" Gibbs said.

"No but…yeah…but…I don't know, Gibbs. I really don't know. You haven't punched me, that was good." Tony tried for a watery grin.

Gibbs grinned at him. "I'm not going to punch you, Tony."

"What are you thinking? Come on, I just told you my deepest, darkest secret. Don't go dark on me now."

Gibbs grinned then. "I…I'm…I don't know what to say."

Tony's face turned serious. "Yeah, you never saw this coming, right?"

Gibbs shook his head no. "I'm not holding back on you, I'm…"

"Overwhelmed?" Tony said, choking out the word. Gibbs nodded. Tony nodded. "Don't say anything now. Process it. Decide if you want to fire me or punch me. At least you know the real me now and no matter what happens, I'm glad you do. I won't have to pretend anymore." Tony opened his mouth as if he was about to say something else and then closed it. "I…I'll see you tomorrow, Boss." Tony bravely reached a hand out and squeezed Jethro's shoulder once.

Tony strode up the stairs and let himself out, locking the door behind him.
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