Title: Damage
Author: Xanthe
Fandom: NCIS
Pairing: Gibbs/DiNozzo
Genre: Slash
Categories: Extreme Angst, Drama, Case, Action, Hurt/Comfort, First Time, Romance
Rating: NC17/FRAO
Status: Complete
Wordcount: 132,000 (ish)
Disclaimer: These characters belong to DPB, CBS, Paramount, et al. No copyright infringement is intended.
Spoilers: This story is set during or beyond season six and Vance is director. However, it is not generally spoilery for season six beyond a couple of very tiny references.
Summary: When Gibbs investigates a minor robbery, he uncovers something much more sinister. The resulting investigation has unexpected and far-reaching consequences.
Warning: Parts 2, 3, 4 and 6 of this story contain flashback/memory scenes of child sexual abuse. The entire story deals with the theme of child sexual abuse. This is NOT an incest fic. I've tried to deal with the scenes sensitively and they are relatively light of explicit detail, but they do need to be there as they are an important part of the psychology of the character involved.

---

Damage
By Xanthe
Damage: n.1. Injury or harm impairing the function or condition of a person or thing.

"DiNozzo, David, McGee – with me," Gibbs barked, on his way to the elevator. He heard the familiar sound of his team scrabbling to grab their gear and then felt Tony breathing down his neck as he caught up with him.

"So what we got, Boss? Dead body? Terrorist threat? Break-in at a top-secret Naval installation?" Tony asked eagerly as the elevator door opened in front of them. Gibbs rolled his eyes as he stepped inside. It had been a slow few weeks, and he knew all his people were itching to get their teeth into a case, DiNozzo more than most.

"What's the matter, DiNozzo? McGee's new housekeeping gizmo not interesting enough for you?" he asked, as Ziva jogged into the elevator, and McGee brought up the rear.

"If I hear the words 'document imaging' and 'paperless office' one more time, then the probie is likely to suffer an unfortunate accident," Tony said, smiling at McGee threateningly.

"It's the future, Tony, but then I wouldn't expect you to appreciate the benefits of a paperless working space," McGee replied. "Besides cutting down on physical filing – something I'd have thought you would appreciate knowing your aversion to it - it also saves millions of trees from unnecessary destruction." His eyes glowed with a kind of messianic glee as he spoke.

"Interesting," Tony mused. "I hear the words, but it's just meaningless mumbo jumbo. Tell me, McGeek, how are you ever gonna get laid if this is the kind of stuff that gets you excited?"

"Please tell us that we have something to investigate," Ziva asked Gibbs in a tone of despair. "I do not know how much more of this bickering I can take."

Gibbs thought she had a point. A bored Tony was a trial to them all, and even banishing him to the cold case storage filing room for two days hadn't helped him cool his heels any – in fact, when he'd returned he'd been even more full of pent-up energy than usual. Gibbs had resorted to scheduling extra hand-to-hand combat classes for the entire team just to wear Tony out a little and make him bearable to have around.

"We have something to investigate," Gibbs confirmed as the elevator door pinged open at the parking garage.

"Thank God," McGee said, with a glare in Tony's direction. "What is it, Boss?"

"We have a case of a stolen laptop and a camera," Gibbs replied. He strode out of the elevator and then stopped, and turned. His team were still standing in the elevator, staring at him, unmoving.

"A stolen laptop and a camera?" Tony asked, in a tone of barely disguised disgust.

"That's right." Gibbs nodded. "Belonging to an Admiral Matthew Parrish. There was a break-in at his house in the early hours of the morning, and those items were reported stolen. So we are going to investigate."

"We're going to investigate a minor burglary?" Tony sighed. "No dead bodies?"

"Only yours if you don't move it, DiNozzo," Gibbs threw back over his shoulder as he turned and strode towards the van.

~*~

They were met by the admiral's housekeeper, a plump lady in her mid-fifties.

"I am so glad you're here. I wasn't sure if I did the right thing phoning NCIS, but the admiral is at sea until this afternoon, and I couldn't contact him, and I was so worried in case the laptop had top secret information on it," she said, as she ushered them into the hallway. "You can't be too careful these days. You read these stories about terrorists getting hold of information, and I couldn't sleep last night for worrying that if it got into the wrong hands, and if I hadn't called anyone, then it could all be my fault and people might die," she said.

Gibbs saw Tony and Ziva exchange a glance. The housekeeper clearly meant well but had jumped ahead of herself a little. All the same, she had a point, and he wouldn't be doing his job properly if he didn't establish exactly what was on the laptop and whether it contained any sensitive material.

"You did the right thing," he placated her, and she sighed.

"I don't know. I wasn't sure. I don't want to get Justin into trouble, but the admiral is out of contact and…" She shook her head.

"Justin? I thought the admiral's name was *Matthew* Parrish?" Ziva frowned.

"Oh it is, dear," the housekeeper said. "That's the admiral's name. Matthew Parrish."

"So who is this Justin then?" Ziva asked.

The housekeeper gave another sad sigh. "Oh dear. I feel just terrible about this…you see, Justin is the person who stole the laptop and camera."

Gibbs gazed at his team, and they gazed back at him blankly.

"So – let me get this straight - you're saying that not only were only two items taken, but you know exactly who took them?" Tony asked. "Not a lot of investigating required around here then, Boss!" he added in a cheerfully sarcastic tone of voice.

Gibbs ignored him. "Could you tell us exactly who Justin is, and why you think he stole the items?"

"Justin Merrells," she said, as if that explained everything. "And I know it was him because I saw him."

"You saw him?" Gibbs asked impatiently. He was beginning to sympathise with Tony's view of this case.

"Yes, dear. I live in you see – the admiral is often away and someone has to be here to take care of the place. I'd fallen asleep in front of the television and…"

"Time?" Gibbs asked tersely.

"Around 1.30 a.m. I'd fallen asleep, as I said, and then I heard a noise – like breaking glass – and I don't mind saying I was scared. I tiptoed out here and saw Justin coming out of the admiral's study with the laptop and camera – he was pushing them into a bag as he ran away, and he didn't see me. There's a small bathroom window in here which must be where he got in and out…"

She opened a door along the hallway, and Gibbs surveyed the broken glass scattered around the toilet. It was a small window but just about big enough for someone to climb through.

"I tried to contact the admiral but he's away overseeing a war exercise at the moment and is on radio silence, so I spent the rest of the night worrying about what to do. Justin is a dear boy, but he's very mixed up, and while I don't think he's involved with any terrorists I didn't want to take the chance and…"

"Exactly who is this Justin person?" Gibbs interrupted. "And where can we find him?"

~*~
 

"Justin Merrells," McGee said, pulling up a screen on his laptop as Gibbs drove. "Age 18, son of Melissa and Tom Merrells."

"His father used to be Parrish's XO," Tony said, peering over McGee's shoulder.

"That's right – they served together for years until Lieutenant-Commander Merrells was killed on active duty four years ago," McGee said. "Justin was fourteen at the time."

"He also went off the rails if this is anything to go by." Tony pointed at the screen. "Two convictions for shoplifting, one DUI, a couple of minor drug busts."

"All dating from after his father died?" Gibbs asked, his jaw tightening. This whole thing sounded like a kid crying out for help more than anything else. He'd seen it happen before in military families, and it was something that always touched him on a personal level. He understood the pressures of military life and how easily families could fall apart when a parent was killed in combat.

"Yes." McGee nodded. "It's like he went to pieces after his dad died."

"And from what the housekeeper said, it seems as if the admiral stepped in and took his dead friend's son under his wing," Tony added. "Tried to straighten him out."

"So if the admiral was so good to him, why did Justin break into his house and steal from him?" Ziva asked, with a frown.

"He's a kid," Tony shrugged. "A mixed-up kid. Kids do stuff like that – they don't need a reason."

"Yes, they do," McGee objected, glancing at Tony over his shoulder.

"I mean a reason beyond the fact that his dad died, and he's a teenager – probably just a case of rampaging hormones combined with grief," Tony said.

"We'll see," Gibbs said, bringing the van to a screeching halt outside the Merrells family home. Privately, he thought Tony probably had it about right, but something about this whole case felt off to him, and he wasn't sure what it was.

Gibbs knocked on the door, and a few seconds later a tall, skinny, blond kid opened it and blinked at them.

"Yeah?" he muttered.

"Agent Gibbs – NCIS. You Justin Merrells?"

The kid blinked at him again. "Yeah," he shrugged. "So?"

"We have a report of a burglary at Admiral Parrish's house last night," Gibbs said. "You know anything about that, Justin?"

The youth stared at him for a second, and then, without warning, he suddenly took off. He ran back into the house, grabbed something from the table, and exited out of the back door. Gibbs sighed. Tony and Ziva took off after the youth, and Gibbs followed on behind at a more leisurely pace. It looked as if Tony was right – this was just a simple burglary committed by a sullen, mixed-up teenager.

Justin almost made it to the back fence before Tony caught up with him and leapt on him, bringing him crashing down. The boy lay face down in the grass, panting, as Tony pulled his arms behind him and fastened handcuffs around his wrists.

"Justin Merrells, you're, you know, under arrest," Tony said, in a bored tone of voice that suggested he was just going through the motions.

"The laptop is here," Ziva said, picking up the computer which Justin had dropped when Tony had tackled him to the ground. “It seems unharmed.”

"Where's the camera?" Tony asked, standing up and dragging Justin to his feet.

"Here," McGee said, following them out of the house, holding up a digital camera. "It was just lying on the table, Boss."

"You know, Justin, you must be about the worst burglar I've ever had to arrest," Tony told the kid. "Couldn't you have at least *tried* to make this interesting?"

Gibbs looked at the youth, taking in the ripped, paint-stained jeans, and baggy, faded blue tee shirt. He looked scruffy and neglected, but young people these days seemed to cultivate that look, so Gibbs wasn’t reading anything into it. Justin stared up at him from under a thick wad of blond hair, and Gibbs looked straight at him, surprised. He'd expected to see defiance in the kid's blue eyes, but instead he saw something closer to fear. Justin looked like a scared animal caught in a trap.

"Justin – did you break into Admiral Parrish's house last night and steal his laptop and camera?" Gibbs asked quietly. The youth bit on his lip.

"Yeah," he muttered.

"Why?" Gibbs asked. Justin shrugged.

"I dunno," he whispered, his teenage bravado faltering under Gibbs's hard stare. He dropped his gaze to the ground.

"Uh-uh – wrong answer," Tony said, shaking the youth slightly as he shoved him towards the van. He pushed Justin into the vehicle and then took his seat behind Gibbs. "Ten bucks says you break him within two minutes, Boss," he murmured in Gibbs's ear. Then he turned and glanced at the youth who was staring sightlessly out of the window, his blue eyes empty and weary, all the fight gone out of him. "He's hardly a hardened criminal."

Gibbs gazed at the kid, feeling troubled. Justin looked younger than his eighteen years, and there was something strangely vulnerable about him that Gibbs couldn't put his finger on. Tony was right though - he definitely wasn't a hardened criminal. Gibbs couldn't help feeling sympathy for him; he was just a kid who'd lost his dad - and his way.
 

~*~

Justin sat across from Gibbs in the interrogation room, arms resting on the table, looking down, that thick curtain of blond hair covering his eyes. So far he'd refused to say a word. He just sat there, staring at his own hands.

"So…" Tony said, flicking through the file McGee had provided for them. "You're going to college next month, Justin. Did you think you'd steal a few things to take with you? Is that it? You took a look around the admiral's house last time you were there, saw he had a high end laptop and a classy new digital camera, and you decided you wanted them?" His tone was forceful, and Gibbs noticed Justin's shoulders hunch tightly as he shrugged in response.

Gibbs put his head on one side and gazed at the kid thoughtfully. He'd told Tony to play 'bad cop'. His senior field agent could be pretty hard-edged when he put his mind to it, and Gibbs wanted to play 'good cop' himself in this particular interrogation – not least because he felt some sympathy for this kid sitting opposite him. He hoped that between the two of them they could drag the truth out of Justin as quickly as possible.

"What are you going to study at college, Justin?" he asked quietly. Justin glanced up at him, and Gibbs could see him responding to his softer tone of voice.

"Art," Justin whispered. It was the first thing they'd managed to get out of him since they'd brought him in. Gibbs shot Tony a fleeting glance and knew Tony had got the message to keep going in hard.

"Not any more," Tony said flatly. "You committed a burglary last night, Justin. You broke a window, forced your way into someone's house, and you stole property that didn't belong to you. You'll be looking at a jail term for that."

Justin's shoulders hunched even more, and he glanced up at Gibbs from helpless eyes.

"Why did you do it, Justin?" Gibbs asked gently. "I thought the admiral had been good to you."

Justin's eyes flashed. "He was. He is," he whispered.

"After your father died, he looked out for you, didn't he?" Tony said forcefully. "When you got arrested for shoplifting, it was Admiral Parrish who came and picked you up. He spoke up for you."

"Yes." Justin bit on his lip.

"According to the admiral's housekeeper, you regularly visited his house. He took you to see ball games and to the movies. He even bought you materials for your art classes," Tony said.

Justin nodded. "Yes," he said again, almost inaudibly.

"And you repay him by breaking into his house and stealing his stuff?" Tony snapped the file shut with his hand and threw it onto the table. "You're a piece of work, Justin," he said, in a disgusted tone of voice, placing one hand on the back of Justin's chair and leaning over him. Tony was a big guy, and Justin was a skinny kid, so the movement, although slow and controlled, was inevitably intimidating.

"Why the laptop, Justin?" Gibbs asked softly. "Did you think the admiral had important Naval material on it? Were you going to sell it to buy drugs?"

"No!" Justin said in such an outraged tone that Gibbs was sure he was telling the truth. "I was going to put it back," he added pathetically.

"Oh, so you broke into the admiral's house, stole his stuff, and then ran off when we tried to question you – and now you say that you intended to put it back?" Tony demanded, still looming over Justin threateningly. "I don't believe a word of that crap, Justin."

"I was."

"So why steal the laptop in the first place?" Gibbs asked, in a curious, encouraging tone of voice.

"There was something on it that belonged to me," Justin muttered.

Gibbs frowned. "What do you mean, Justin?"

Justin shook his head, biting on his lip. "I was just going to delete it, and then I was going to give it back."

"What do you mean 'belonged' to you?" Gibbs asked, in that same quiet tone of voice. "What did the admiral have that you felt was yours?"

"Nothing. It doesn't matter," Justin said sullenly. He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at Gibbs through his hair.

"What about the camera – did you steal the laptop and then think you might as well take the camera too as you'd gone to all that effort to break in?" Tony demanded.

"Does my mom need to know I'm here?" Justin asked, ignoring Tony's question. "I don't want my mom to know about this."

"You should have thought of that before you committed a burglary," Tony snapped.

"You're over eighteen, Justin, so we won't be calling your mom. I suggest you call her though," Gibbs said. "Because you won't be able to keep this quiet. Agent DiNozzo is right, Justin. You'll be going to jail for this."

Justin gazed at him from helpless blue eyes, and Gibbs had that sensation again of a trapped animal. There was such a sense of empty resignation in the kid's expression.

"Does the admiral know I'm here?" Justin whispered. "I don't think he'd want me to go to jail."

"After you broke into his house and stole from him?" Tony asked, in an incredulous tone. "This isn't the same as the shoplifting, Justin. This is much more serious."

Justin wrapped his arms around his body and gazed at Gibbs.

"Talk to the admiral for me, Agent Gibbs. Please," he asked, in a desperate tone of voice.

Gibbs sat back in his chair and looked at the boy for a long while. Then, finally, he nodded.

"Okay, Justin. I'll talk to him. I'm sure you know that he's at sea at the moment, but I'll talk to him just as soon as I can reach him."

Gibbs got up, and, with another puzzled glance at Justin, he left the room, with Tony on his heels.

"I thought he'd be easier to break than that, Boss," Tony said. Gibbs didn't reply. "What do you think?" Tony asked persistently as they returned to the squad room.

"I think we should find out what's on the laptop." Gibbs picked up the stolen laptop lying on his desk and handed it to McGee. "Check it out," he ordered tersely.

"Uh…what am I looking for, Boss?" McGee asked as he opened up the laptop.

“I don't know, McGee – that's why I asked you to check it out," Gibbs replied irritably. "And the camera." He grabbed that and handed it to McGee, who took it with the usual look of wide-eyed alarm that he got whenever Gibbs growled at him.

"Tony – get me the admiral on the phone," Gibbs ordered, turning back to his desk.

"He's still overseeing that war game exercise, Boss," Tony reminded him. "They're maintaining radio silence at the moment."

"I know that, DiNozzo. Get him on the phone as soon as the damn exercise is over!" Gibbs snapped. "McGee – what is it?"

McGee was holding the camera in his hand with a blank expression on his face. "Oh…uh, it's the camera, Boss. There's nothing on it."

Gibbs glared at him.

"There's nothing on the memory card or the camera's own memory. It's completely clean," McGee said with a shrug.

"Wiped?" Gibbs asked.

"Or never used in the first place," McGee replied. “It’s pretty new.”

"And the laptop?" Gibbs demanded.

"I've only just booted it up, Boss," McGee said hurriedly, his fingers zipping over the keyboard in their usual blur of motion. "But at first glance there doesn't seem to be anything on it. Just the usual stuff; office programmes, couple of spreadsheets, word documents – they look like letters…" He brought them up onscreen and then shrugged. "Nothing hinky, Boss; just, you know, stuff. Like everyone has on their computers." He glanced up and caught Gibbs's raised eyebrow. "Well, most people. I mean those people who, uh, have computers…which isn't everyone, or even most people, and there's nothing wrong with not having one…"

"McGee!" Gibbs snapped. "Just take a good look at the damn thing."

"On it, Boss!" McGee nodded promptly.

"Boss – I've got the admiral for you," Tony interrupted. "They've just come out of radio silence – but only for a few minutes, so you don't have long."

Gibbs grabbed his phone and put it on speaker so he wouldn't have to repeat the conversation to his team afterwards. "Admiral Parrish? I'm Agent Gibbs."

"Agent Gibbs – hell, I'm sorry about all this," a firm, intelligent voice said, in clipped, precise tones. Gibbs knew from their files that the admiral was in his early sixties and a well-respected officer, as his high rank implied. "Agent DiNozzo just filled me in. Look, this isn't anything for NCIS to get involved in – you guys have your hands full doing important work. I don't want you wasting your time on a couple of items stolen from my house."

"We need to check if there's anything sensitive on the laptop, Sir," Gibbs said. "Any Naval material?"

"Hell no!" the admiral laughed. "That laptop is just for my own personal use, Gibbs – I use it to write my many letters of complaint to the various newspapers that have pissed me off with their inaccurate and biased reporting!" He chuckled, a deep, bass sound. "Look, I understand that Justin's behind this. Did he say why he stole it?"

Gibbs hesitated. "No," he said finally.

"He say anything at all?" the admiral asked.

"Not really. He's been pretty quiet."

There was a pause, and then the admiral gave a deep, heartfelt sigh. "Agent Gibbs, go easy on that boy. He's had a rough time of it."

"Yeah – I can see that."

"His father was a fine man – and a good friend. I've tried my best to look out for Justin since his death, but the kid took it hard. His mom had a breakdown after Tom died, and Justin doesn't have any other family. I've done what I can for the boy, Agent Gibbs. He's not a bad kid – he’s just going through a bad time, that's all."

"That's what I thought," Gibbs agreed. "Will you be pressing charges, Admiral?"

"Absolutely not!" the admiral replied. "That kid's been through enough. Look, just let him go, Agent Gibbs. I finish up here in an hour or so. I'll be home late this afternoon, and I'll drop by and see him. We'll talk it through. I expect he just wants some attention. I've been busy lately and haven't seen him as much as I used to. I'm sure that's what all this is about."

"Okay, Admiral."

"And if you could return the stuff he stole, I'd appreciate it!" the admiral laughed. "That camera cost me a fortune!"

"I'll return them myself," Gibbs said, and then he hung up the phone. That all made total sense, and it was all exactly as he'd suspected. Why then, did his gut still feel so uneasy about this case?

"McGee – you find anything?" he asked. McGee looked up.

"I'm not sure," he frowned. "There seem to be some encrypted files that I can't access. It's good encryption too…I mean, really good, because usually I can get around most encryptions pretty easily, but this one is…well, it's not just layman level, Boss. It's much more professional than that."

"Should we keep looking?" Tony asked. "I mean, this is the admiral's personal property and if he isn't pressing charges…"

Gibbs thought about it for a moment. Technically Tony was right, but some instinct made him reluctant to give up on this just yet. Everything the admiral had said and everything they knew about Justin suggested that this had just been an attention-seeking cry for help by a lonely, mixed up boy who missed his father. The one thing that didn't tie in was Justin saying there was something on the laptop that belonged to him. The boy could have been lying, but it was the one thing that didn't fit.

"Keep looking, McGee," Gibbs ordered. "You've got an hour. I'm going to speak to Justin, and if you haven't cracked those files by the time I've done the paperwork and released him then I'll take the laptop back to the admiral's house myself and draw a line under the case."

He strode off back in the direction of the interrogation room, Tony on his heels as usual.

~*~

McGee picked up the laptop and took it down to Abby's lab.

"Hey, McGee! You bored? I am!" Abby gave a heartfelt sigh. "It's not like I want anyone to be murdered or anything, but it's a lot more fun around here when there are dead bodies. That's all I'm saying!"

"I think Tony would agree with you," McGee grinned. "He's been driving us all crazy. At least now there's this kid – Justin - to question but no dead bodies. Sorry, Abby."

"What's that?" Abby nodded in the direction of the laptop.

"Oh – it's the laptop Justin stole. Gibbs is making me look through it, just in case. Actually I think he's as bored as Tony, and just trying to find something to do," McGee grinned, sitting down at Abby's desk and opening up the laptop. "I just brought it down because there's some weird encryption code – I wondered if you'd seen anything like it."

He pointed at the screen, and Abby glanced at it over his shoulder. "Wow…that's really sophisticated. Does the laptop have any top secret info on it?"

"Nope." McGee shook his head. "Not according to the admiral anyway."

"Hmmm…something smells hinky!" she said, her eyes lighting up at the thought.

McGee grinned at her and settled down to see if he could crack the encryption codes before Gibbs got back.

~*~

Justin looked up when Gibbs entered the room, his blue eyes hopeful.

"Did you speak to Uncle Matthew?" he asked. "Uh…I mean Admiral Parrish."

"Yup." Gibbs nodded, taking his seat across the table from the boy. Tony went to lean against the far wall. "He isn't pressing charges," Gibbs said. The boy’s eyes flashed with relief. “What's on the laptop, Justin?" Gibbs asked. The boy shrugged evasively.

"It doesn't matter."

"Did you even find what was on it? Did you find what you were looking for?" Gibbs pressed. "You any good with computers, Justin? I'm not. Hell, I don't understand the first thing about them. And you’re an artist, not a computer geek, so I figure they’re not your thing, either.”

Justin glanced up at him through that curtain of blond hair. "If he's not pressing charges, can I go home?" he asked quietly. "Only…my mom will be home soon and she'll be worried about me. She gets worried really easily," he added, working away at his chapped bottom lip with his teeth, making it bleed slightly.

"I hear she had a breakdown after your dad died," Gibbs said quietly. "That must have been tough."

"It was. She couldn't leave the house. She cried a lot." Justin shrugged.

"The admiral said he hadn't spent as much time with you lately as he used to," Gibbs said. "Is that why you broke into his house? Were you trying to get his attention?"

Justin's eyes flashed. "No! I just…it doesn't matter. I'm going to college next month, and then…I'll be gone then," he finished up lamely. "Can I go home now, Agent Gibbs?"

"Not yet. I have some paperwork to finish up – then you can go home," Gibbs said, with a sigh. He sat back in his chair and gazed at the kid thoughtfully, wondering if there was any other way he could get him to talk.

~*~

McGee liked working in Abby's lab. By preference he chose to work in silence but there was something soothing about the crash and boom of the loud music she liked. It sort of helped him zone out and allowed his brain to worry away at a problem while he worked.

Abby looked over his shoulder every so often, offering suggestions. Her ideas were always good, so he followed them up, adding them to his own, fingers working ceaselessly. Just when he thought he'd have to admit defeat the first layer of encryption fell away, leaving him with one accessible file. He clicked on it, and then instantly wished he hadn't.

"Oh shit," he said.

"What?" Abby came over and looked at his screen. Her hands came to rest on his shoulders, her fingers digging in a little too hard, making him wince. "Oh shit," she echoed. "Gibbs isn't going to like this," she added grimly. He glanced up to see that her eyes were wide and sad. "You know how he gets about stuff like this. He's really not going to like it."

"Yeah. I know." McGee took a deep breath and then reached for his cell phone. "He's going to go ballistic – I just hope he doesn't shoot the messenger."

"He won't," Abby said, still gazing sadly at the screen. "But he'll definitely want to shoot someone."

"Uh…Boss, I've found something," McGee said into his cell as soon as Gibbs picked up. He knew his boss hated being interrupted when he was in interrogation, but he figured he'd be forgiven on this occasion.

"Well – what is it, McGee?" Gibbs demanded irritably.

"Um…I'd prefer not to tell you over the phone. You really need to come down here and see it," McGee told him.

~*~

Gibbs strode into Abby's lab a few minutes later, feeling annoyed by the whole cloak and dagger approach McGee was taking. He'd left Ziva upstairs watching over Justin and brought Tony with him.

"What?" he asked tersely as he reached Abby's central workstation.

"I managed to crack one of the encryption keys," McGee said. "Only one – there are dozens of others, each of them different. If the others are anything like this one, then they've been encrypted to protect just one file each, which is a lot of effort to go to. Although having seen the contents of the file I can see why someone would make that effort. I just clicked on the top file, so I'm presuming it's the most recent, but I won't know without cracking the other files. I thought you should see this one before I go any further though, because I'm not sure how long it'll take to..."

"You said you'd found something?" Gibbs interrupted, knowing that McGee's explanations could go on interminably otherwise – and they were always especially long and convoluted when he was nervous, which he clearly was right now.

"Yeah - spit it out, McGeek," Tony said, peering over McGee's shoulder. "What have you found?"

"This." McGee clicked on a file and brought up a screen full of photographs. Gibbs felt his gut clench in response. In the first photo, Justin’s vacant eyes peered out at them from behind that block of blond hair; he was completely naked, and the torso of a man was visible behind him.

"Several of the photos are clearly from the same photo session," McGee said hurriedly. "But…and this is where I think you're not going to be happy, Boss, um, well even less happy than you are right now…but there are hundreds of photos, all of Justin, all of him in uh…this kind of position, and some of them go back years."

"Years?" Gibbs frowned. "How many years, McGee?"

"I can't tell for sure…but…look at this one."

McGee clicked on a photograph, and Gibbs found himself looking at a Justin with much shorter hair, sticking up in spiky points. He looked much younger in this photograph, his face devoid of any facial hair.

"I think…he's probably about fourteen in this one," McGee said quietly. "The date stamp on the photograph supports that, but it might not be accurate."

Gibbs felt an old, familiar wave of anger rise up inside. Cases involving children always got to him – always had. "Can you ID the man in the photographs, McGee?"

"No." McGee shook his head. "There are no facial shots. Also…" he hesitated. "I'm not sure it's the same man in all the shots, Boss. This man here – his skin seems to be considerably lighter," he pointed out, bringing up one of the pictures. "Also – this one has more chest hair, and this one…well...uh…he's less well-endowed," he muttered, his face flushing bright red. "The rooms are different as well – I think these photos were taken in several different sessions, over several years, each time with different men."

"Christ, that's sick," Gibbs hissed. He forced himself to survey the photographs with an objective eye, but it was hard. Justin didn’t look as if he was in any pain, or as if he was struggling – there was just a sense of weary, numb acceptance about him that somehow was just as poignant as if he’d shown any more visible signs of distress.

"Pedophile ring," Tony said, with a dismissive shrug. "Someone groomed Justin, and I think we've all got a pretty good idea who that must have been, and then he got passed around to the other men in the ring. Photos were taken to be shared and passed on too – just within the ring. If the admiral is anything to go by, the men in this ring are all intelligent professionals – they don't take any more risks than they have to, so they keep the ring closed and only admit new members if they're really sure about them. New recruits to the ring gain entry by bringing a child along for the others to use for sex."

McGee and Abby stared at Tony, and Gibbs glanced at him, one eyebrow raised. Tony gazed back at the three of them, looking completely unconcerned.

"What? I worked vice in Baltimore. That's how these things work," he said, with a grin.

"You just sound so matter of fact about it, Tony," Abby said. "I mean, that poor kid. First his dad dies, then his mom has a breakdown, and then the one person who befriends him turns out to be a total pervert."

Tony shrugged again. "So the kid's had some tough breaks – so what? I'm just saying I've seen this kind of stuff before, and this is how it works." He looked totally unfazed by it. "What?" he said again, when Gibbs, Abby and McGee all gazed at him. "Look, you guys have all seen more dead bodies than I bet you can even remember. Don't tell me you still get affected by each new one that shows up. I'm just saying - maybe this kind of stuff loses its ability to shock after awhile."

"I hope stuff like this never loses its ability to shock me," Abby murmured. "Just what kind of cases did you work in Baltimore anyway, Tony?"

Tony grinned. "You don't wanna know," he told her with a lascivious wink.

Gibbs frowned. Tony's reaction was very Tony - in fact it was almost stereotypically Tony – but somehow that made it all the more surprising. Tony was nosy, attention-seeking, and at times highly annoying, but over the years Gibbs had always found him to be the most empathetic of his agents. Maybe he was right, and the things he'd seen during the course of his job had dulled his reaction to them. If so, he was the only one who felt that way, judging by the expressions on the faces of the other people in the room when they looked at those photos.

"Look, there's a kid upstairs who has probably been sexually abused since he was fourteen years old. I want to catch the bastard who did that, and I want to catch every single last bastard in that ring who touched him - or any other kid - and nobody leaves this building until we've figured out how to do that. Understood?" Gibbs thundered.

"Yes, Boss," they all replied in unison.

"McGee – get those other files open. I want to know if Justin is the only kid who has been abused, or whether DiNozzo is right, and we've stumbled across a ring of pedophiles."

"On it, Boss!" McGee said, turning back to his screen.

"Abby – print out three of those photos for me," Gibbs ordered.

"Which three?"

"Oh for God's sake, Abby – I don't care. They're all equally sickening. Just do it!"

She looked at him with wide eyes but scuttled to obey all the same and a few seconds later handed him the pictures.

"DiNozzo – you're with me." Gibbs turned, photos in his hand, and strode out of Abby's lab.

"Now what, Boss?" Tony asked quietly as they got into the elevator.

"Now we go back and speak to Justin again," Gibbs replied tersely. "And this time he's a witness – and a victim – and not a suspect, Tony, so we go easy on him."

~*~

Justin looked up, startled, as Gibbs entered the room. Tony didn't lean against the wall this time – he pulled up a chair and sat at the end of the table instead, his back to the door. Gibbs took his own seat opposite the boy. He tried to keep his emotions in check, but he knew he was radiating an angry vibe – he couldn't help himself. He didn't blame Justin for any of this, but his anger at the men who had abused this vulnerable kid was so strong he couldn't hide it. Tony, on the other hand, seemed surprisingly calm.

"Hey, Justin," Tony said softly. "We know what’s on the laptop."

Justin gazed at him distrustfully, and Gibbs didn't blame him. Up until now, Tony had been an antagonist, deliberately bullying Justin to get him to open up to Gibbs's more gentle approach. Now Tony's demeanour was completely different.

"I don't know what you mean," Justin replied.

"We saw the pictures," Tony said carefully. "I can understand why you wanted to delete those, Justin. You wouldn't want anyone seeing those photographs."

"I didn't do anything wrong," Justin said, his face flushing, looking at Gibbs for confirmation. "Did I, Agent Gibbs?"

"No, Justin. You didn't," Gibbs replied gently. "But someone did." He placed the photographs on the table, and watched as Justin paled, and swallowed hard. "Did Admiral Parrish take these photographs, Justin?" he asked.

The boy shook his head.

"Was he the man in any of the photographs?" Gibbs pressed.

"No." Justin shook his head again.

"Are you scared of him hurting you?" Gibbs asked. "Is that why you're protecting him?"

"NO!" Justin yelled. "It's not him! It wasn't him!"

"Okay." Gibbs exchanged an uneasy glance with Tony, who had a thoughtful expression on his face.

"How old were you in this photograph, Justin?" Gibbs asked, pointing to the one of Justin with very short hair.

"Fourteen," Justin whispered. "It was taken a few months after my dad died."

"You do know that because you were underage, the man in the photograph and the man taking it were committing a felony, don't you?" Gibbs asked. "Even having possession of this photograph is a felony."

Justin shrugged.

"It's not your fault, Justin – you can tell us the truth," Gibbs urged. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"My dad was angry with me," Justin said. Gibbs frowned, wondering where this was going. "I told him I thought I was gay, and he got mad at me. It was the last time we talked before he died."

Gibbs sighed, and sat back in his chair. This was getting more complicated by the second. Tony leaned forward.

"That sounds pretty confusing for you, Justin," he said. Justin nodded.

"I've known since I was a little kid," he whispered. "But when I told Dad he just got angry. Then he died a few weeks later and…I just needed to talk to someone about it."

"You didn't like the idea that your father died mad at you," Tony said quietly.

"No…I mean yes but also…I thought maybe…maybe he died because he wasn't thinking clearly – because he was so upset by what I'd said to him. I mean…he was in combat, and if he was thinking about me, and what I'd said…" Justin's face crumpled up, and Gibbs saw the tears in his eyes.

"Admiral Parrish was kind to you, wasn't he?" Tony asked gently. "Did you tell him that you thought you might be gay?"

"Yes." Justin nodded. "I told him all about it. I told him about how I'd argued with my dad. Uncle Matthew was the only person I could talk to about it. He said it was okay. He's been good to me, Agent DiNozzo."

"I know, and of course that's why you want to protect him," Tony said.

Gibbs wondered where Tony was going with this. Justin had been adamant that Parrish wasn't involved in the abuse, and while Gibbs wasn't sure he believed him, he was surprised that Tony seemed to have such a good handle on the complexities of the situation.

"He was really nice to you after your dad died, wasn't he?" Tony said softly. Justin nodded. "He really took good care of you, didn't he? You found you could talk to him, and he really listened to you, didn't he?"

"Yes," Justin whispered.

"He probably said he could help you find out if you were gay," Tony added. "He told you he loved you, didn't he? Maybe he kissed you?"

Justin bit on his bottom lip again, drawing more blood. "Yes," he whispered.

Gibbs sighed. So Tony had been right – Parrish had been ‘grooming’ Justin.

"That's okay. You didn't do anything wrong. I mean, you must have needed someone to talk to after your dad died, especially if you couldn't talk to your mom," Tony added.

Justin nodded. "Uncle Matthew was so nice to me."

"Then he wanted you to meet some of his friends, didn't he?" Tony asked. Justin nodded again, mutely. "They weren't so nice, but you loved the admiral so you did what he wanted, even though it didn't feel right. Maybe he said he'd show your mom the photographs if you didn't go along with it?"

Justin flushed. "She's a nervous kind of person. I didn't want her seeing them," he said. "I thought it might make her cry – she cries a lot."

"Then you got older, and maybe the admiral seemed less interested in you?" Tony asked.

Gibbs sat back in his chair and let Tony do the work – his senior field agent was impressing him by how carefully he was conducting this interview, and his very real empathy for the kid's situation – especially considering how dispassionate he'd seemed in Abby's lab earlier.

"Yeah." Justin looked close to tears. “He said I was getting too old, and that when I went to college it’d be over. And…I was kind of glad because there were things I didn’t want to do any more, but also…I was upset because he told me he loved me, and I really thought he did. He was so cold towards me, and I got angry with him. I asked him to let me have the photos, but he refused, and I thought…I didn’t like the idea of him having them or showing them to my mom. I had to break into his house, Agent Gibbs!” He gazed at Gibbs beseechingly. “You can see that! I had to try and get them back. I thought I could make a fresh start at college – nobody had to know - but while he still had the photos…” Justin broke off and wrapped his arms around his body.

“It’s okay, Justin. We understand why you broke into the house,” Gibbs told him.

“I took the camera as well in case there were any on that. He took some on that camera a couple of months ago, when he first bought it – he said he wanted to christen it. That was before he told me it would be over when I went to college. But the camera was clean – and I couldn’t figure out how to get at the ones on his laptop. You’re right, Agent Gibbs, I’m not good at that kind of stuff. I didn’t think he’d have put those weird security codes on them.”

"Do you know who the other men are, Justin?" Gibbs asked, leaning forward. "The men in the photos - how many were there?"

"Four," Justin said quietly. "I don't know who they were. I mean, Uncle Matthew introduced them to me, but…they sounded like made-up names, and it was just first names. This is Frank, or Bob, or whatever. He took me to a hotel…"

Tony scraped back his chair, startling Gibbs and Justin. "Sorry," he smiled apologetically. "Do you know which hotel, Justin?"

"Yes." The boy nodded.

"You could take us there and identify the rooms where the photos were taken?" Gibbs asked.

"Yes." Justin nodded again, looking profoundly uncomfortable.

"Would you be prepared to testify against Admiral Parrish in court, Justin?" Gibbs asked him quietly.

"No!" Justin looked panic-stricken. "It wasn’t his fault, Agent Gibbs! It was mine. He was just trying to help me figure out about being gay – it was me who wanted more. I can’t testify against him – I love him.”

Gibbs wished he had an answer to that. He wasn't a specialist in this kind of thing. Maybe he'd just assumed that all abused kids hated their abusers, but he was starting to see that it was a lot more complicated than that. The ‘grooming’ process Tony had mentioned had clearly fucked with this kid's mind. Maybe it was similar to the kind of brain-washing techniques he'd been taught about in the military. Tony glanced at him, an unreadable expression in his eyes, and then glanced back at the kid.

"I can understand that, Justin," Tony said. Gibbs clenched his hands into fists – he sure as hell couldn't, and he couldn't bring himself to tell Justin that he could either. A wave of anger shot through him.

"The admiral abused you, Justin, plain and simple," Gibbs said bluntly. "That wasn't love. He was just messing with your head, so that you'd do what he wanted. He wanted you compliant so he could have sex with you, and so that he could give you to other men for them to have sex with you too. Can't you see that?"

Tony winced, and Justin gazed at Gibbs from wide, scared eyes, clearly terrified of his palpable anger. Somehow, he and Tony had flipped roles – and now Tony was the good cop, and Gibbs was the one to be frightened of. Gibbs could have kicked himself.

"Look – we can talk about this some more later, Justin," Tony said soothingly. "You must be hungry. Why don't I get Officer David to take you to the cafeteria so you can get something to eat?"

He glanced at Gibbs, a pleading look in his eyes, and Gibbs nodded, brusquely. Tony got up and nodded at the mirror, and a second later Ziva came into the room, her dark brown eyes gentle and sympathetic. She smiled at Justin and gestured to him to follow her. Tony closed the door shut behind her and turned on Gibbs.

"That wasn't smart, Boss," he snapped, much to Gibbs's surprise. Tony rarely argued with him about his handling of a case, but right now Tony's eyes were dark and angry. "He won't agree to testify just because you bully him into it," he said. "And frankly, he's been bullied and manipulated enough. He doesn't need you starting in on him."

"I wasn't trying to bully him!" Gibbs snapped back angrily. "We need him to testify against Parrish, Tony, or we can't bring that bastard to justice."

"We have the photographs…" Tony began.

"The laptop was stolen!" Gibbs interrupted. "Justin admits that. Parrish’s lawyer will say that Justin put those pictures on it himself to blackmail the admiral. Besides, it's not clear if Parrish is one of the men in the photographs. No, we *need* Justin to testify, or Parrish will walk free."

Tony nodded, the anger fading from his eyes. “Okay.” He shrugged and gave one of his easy, casual grins, as if he hadn’t just almost lost his temper with his boss.

“I thought you were the one who’d seen this all before and didn’t let it get to you?” Gibbs commented dryly.

“Oh, I was just pissed off that you might have screwed up the case by scaring the kid shitless like that after all my hard work getting him to trust me,” Tony grinned. “Like you said, we need his testimony.”

Gibbs slapped the back of his head for that. “I don’t screw up cases,” he growled, striding towards the door.

“No, Boss!” Tony replied cheerfully, chasing after him. “Uh - where are we going?"

"To get two warrants," Gibbs replied. "One to search Parrish's house and one to arrest him. We might find the evidence we need at his house – and I'm damn well going to bring him in the minute he gets off that ship."

He strode down to the squad room, a dozen little things niggling away at him. This case, which had seemed so easily solvable a few hours ago, had suddenly opened up to reveal a massive chasm – and he still had no idea just how deep it went. He wasn’t an expert in child sex abuse cases, but it wasn’t outside his remit, and he knew there were people he could call in if need be.

Some things were still bothering him though - such as the fact that Justin had stolen the laptop - because that could prejudice any case they tried to make against Parrish.

Then there was his gut feeling that this was just the tip of the iceberg and more digging could reveal a whole network of men like Admiral Parrish.

Finally, there was his irritation with Tony. His agent had viewed those photos without a flicker of revulsion – but had flipped out with *him* when he'd tried to persuade Justin to testify. It was almost like Tony was protecting the damn abusers, as if he didn’t *care* about what that kid had gone through, despite the empathetic way he’d questioned Justin back there.

Still, that was Tony – very little ever got under the surface. Gibbs could count on the fingers of one hand the times he’d seen Tony really affected by anything they encountered in their work – or, at least, the times Tony had *shown* he was affected, which was something different.

~*~
 

McGee cracked the last encrypted folder and then sat back with a sigh. Abby put her hands on his shoulders and massaged them helpfully.

“52 files,” McGee muttered. “I hope they’re all photos of Justin because otherwise that’s another 51 kids who’ve been abused.”

“And if they aren’t all of Justin – let’s hope it’s just one kid per file,” Abby said to him. He glanced up at her. “Or else it’s more than 52 kids,” she told him quietly.

“You okay with this?” He pointed his mouse at one of the files, poised, ready to click.

“No. You?” she asked, her eyes glowing unhappily.

“No,” he agreed.

“Then let’s do it,” she said. “They had to live through it – all we have to do is view and catalogue the evidence.”

He nodded and clicked.

~*~

“Uh, Boss, it’s me. I’ve finished opening up all the files,” McGee’s voice said in his ear.

“And?” Gibbs asked shortly, wishing he could tone down his irritation but having a suspicion that it would be with him for the duration of this case. He’d seen many things in his life, but anything involving hurt or abused children always got under his skin and made him want to lash out.

“Again, I think you should come down here,” McGee said apologetically. Gibbs sighed. This just got worse and worse.

“On my way,” he said tersely, slamming down the phone. “DiNozzo – do you have those warrants for me yet?”

“Working on it!” Tony replied, glancing up at him from his desk as he passed.

“Well work on it faster,” he snapped, striding out of the squad room.

McGee and Abby both turned anxiously towards him as he entered the forensics lab, and he could see by the expressions on their faces that it wasn’t good news. McGee read his mood and knew to just give it to him straight.

“There are 52 files,” McGee said, clicking on one. “We’ve taken a brief look at all of them. All contain photographs of boys who certainly appear to be underage. All the files, except one, contain just one boy per file. The final file contains photos of several different boys. I'm not sure yet whether those are boys from the other files or different boys."

"So we don't know if we're looking at 51 abuse cases or more than that?" Gibbs demanded.

"No," McGee agreed.

"Well get on it, McGee. I want to know just how many kids these bastards abused," Gibbs ordered. McGee nodded.

"Anything else?" Gibbs asked.

"Sometimes there are only a handful of photographs in a file, and sometimes there are hundreds," McGee replied. "There are more photos of Justin than any of the other boys – presumably because the abuse took place over a longer time period. And the first fifteen or so files contain photos taken on digital cameras.”

“Must be a godsend for pedophiles,” Abby commented grimly. “No need to take film to be developed anywhere, and you get instant results – which can be emailed directly to the other members of the ring.”

“Maybe Tony’s right, and technology isn’t always a good thing,” McGee said with a little shake of his head. “In the older files, it’s clear the photos have been taken on film and scanned so those photos pre-date digital cameras.”

“How far back does this go?” Gibbs asked.

“Impossible to say,” McGee shrugged. “Although judging by the hairstyles and the furnishings in the various rooms…” He brought up a picture of a boy with longish red hair and pointed the mouse at the psychedelic green wallpaper behind him. “I’d place this one some time in the seventies,” he said. “That’s one of the earliest I’ve found.”

“Okay – I want to know how many different boys were abused and any clues as to locations,” Gibbs said. “Or identities,” he added, although he thought he was pushing his luck with that. The boys were all visible, but the men abusing them had been carefully photographed so that their faces weren’t clear in any of the pictures.

McGee glanced up at him, an aghast expression on his face.

“Boss that could take days!” he protested. “I mean there are thousands of photographs here!”

“Then you’d better get started,” Gibbs growled, turning on his heel. “Both of you.”

He winced as he got into the elevator, out of their view. He wouldn’t wish that task on his worst enemy, but it was necessary. If they could identify any of the boys or men in the photos, then they stood more of a chance of cracking this ring and bringing the main perpetrators to justice. Just the thought that this ring had been abusing boys – and getting away with it – for decades…

Gibbs snapped his hand angrily on the elevator stop button, breathing heavily. He couldn’t help all those kids in the files, with their haunting, empty eyes, but if he did his job, and brought those bastards to justice, then he could prevent there being any future victims.

How did men like this get away with it for so long? He remembered what Tony had said about this particular ring presumably being made up of intelligent, ruthless men who knew exactly what they were doing and how to cover their tracks. He also supposed that the membership of the ring hadn’t stayed static over the years – presumably men entered it, bringing a child or pictures of children as their membership fee, and then got access to the other children and pictures. Some of the men might have died and been replaced by others, and maybe some had even been discovered and sent to prison – without revealing the names of their fellow perpetrators. That laptop downstairs had certainly been well protected. Gibbs doubted that anyone other than McGee would have been able to hack those encryption codes, so those files had been very well hidden.

Gibbs took a few deep breaths, and then he snapped his hand onto the elevator button again. He had a job to do, and he was damn well going to do it to the best of his ability – for the sake of every single kid these men had abused over the years.

Gibbs strode into the Squad Room to find Tony staring at a picture on the plasma.

“Did you get me those warrants?” Gibbs barked out.

“Yes, Boss. Here, Boss.” Tony handed them over.

“That Admiral Parrish?” Gibbs glanced at the plasma.

“Yeah. I was just trying to see if there’s something in his eyes that gives him away, but there’s nothing,” Tony said. “It’s just hard to believe that a guy like this, with all his years in the military and with all the commendations he’s had, could be capable of something like this.”

He turned his head on one side and gazed at the picture again. The man onscreen was a tall, well-built officer in his early sixties. He had silver hair and a genial smile, although his firm jaw and dark grey eyes spoke of a more ruthless character than was, perhaps, obvious at first sight. Even so, Tony was right – the man looked ordinary.

“Like all the best murderers, rapists and pedophiles,” Gibbs grunted. “They look just like us, Tony – you should know that by now.”

“Yeah.” Tony shrugged.

“Okay, let’s get moving.” Gibbs reached for his gun and badge and started striding towards the elevator.

“Uh…Boss, I was wondering – could you take Ziva instead of me?” Tony asked, trotting along behind him. Gibbs turned and gave him his glare – the one that usually silenced Tony immediately and brought him into line. Except that this time it didn’t. “It’s just…I want to build up more of a rapport with Justin,” Tony continued, ignoring the glare. “I thought he and I were - you know, that he was starting to trust me. And if we need him to testify against Parrish then…” He shrugged.

Gibbs stared at him. Something about Tony was out of focus right now, but he had too much on his plate to figure out what it was. Whatever it was, it was annoying. He needed Tony to be on top of his game with this one; hell, he needed ALL his team to be at their best, and Tony kept wrong-footing him by being slightly ‘off’ somehow. It was nothing he could put his finger on, but it niggled at him all the same.

“Okay,” he said eventually, because the request was reasonable enough – it just wasn’t *Tony* somehow. Since when did Tony ask to stay behind to talk to a kid rather than accompany Gibbs out in the field, especially if he was going to make an arrest for God's sake? Since when did Tony not want to be wherever Gibbs was for that matter? His senior field agent was like his shadow most of the time.

“Thanks. I’ll go tell Ziva to meet you in the parking garage,” Tony said, running off.

~*~

"What you got for me, Abs?" Tony said, in a mock-Gibbs tone of voice as he entered the forensics lab. McGee glanced up as Tony handed Abby a Caf-Pow.

"Tony! Gibbs has only been gone, like, an hour!" Abby grinned. "Isn't it a bit too early for you to start impersonating him?"

She took the Caf-Pow anyway and offered her cheek for Tony to kiss, which he did with a happy grin. McGee rolled his eyes.

"And this, McProbie, is for you, so don't say I never do anything for you," Tony said, handing him a coffee. McGee sniffed at it suspiciously. "I didn't put liquid soap in it this time," Tony added. "I promise."

McGee gazed at him through narrowed eyes, and he then took a chance and sipped. It was coffee, and just the way he liked it; warm and milky, no soap.

"Why thank you, Tony. Why are you being nice? It's not like you."

"Well…I figure that out of all of us you guys drew the short straw on this one," Tony said, with a nod at McGee's screen. "Why do we never get to catalogue good porn?" he sighed. "With adults, and, you know, hot women."

"Tony!" Abby elbowed him in the stomach, and he grinned at her.

"I'm just saying!" he protested. "This stuff here will warp the poor probie's delicate brain. Hell…it'd warp anyone's brain." He glanced over McGee's shoulder, and his forehead wrinkled up in a theatrical frown. "Man, this stuff is fucked up."

"Yeah. I feel like I want to scrub out my brain with bleach," McGee sighed. "What are you doing down here anyway, Tony? I thought you were babysitting Justin?"

"I was – but then I showed him Autopsy and he went all 'cool!' on me, so I left him with Palmer. Justin was talking about wanting to paint one of the bodies. Eww." Tony gave a dramatic shiver. "Why are some people so into dead bodies? It's creepy. Uh, present company excepted, Abs," he grinned at her. "So where are we at on this? What have you found?" he asked, standing too close to McGee as he stared over his shoulder. McGee elbowed him back a step.

"We have 52 files full of abused kids, and Gibbs wants us to look at every single photograph for clues as to who they are and who the abusers are," McGee told him.

"Gibbs wants you to ID all those kids?" Tony raised an eyebrow. "Good luck with that."

"Yeah," McGee sighed.

"I mean, it's not really possible, is it?" Tony asked.

"Well, we can do a search on missing kids over the past few decades to see if we can match any of the pictures but…" McGee began.

"Decades? These photos go back that far?" Tony sounded shocked. "No wonder Gibbs is marching around yelling at everyone."

"You know Gibbs. He really hates anything involving cruelty to kids," Abby sighed. "And this – right here – looks like being the kind of case that'll drive him crazy."

"And looking for missing kids might not be much use," Tony said. "If this whole ring operates like the admiral, then these kids weren't missing at any point. They weren't abducted and raped. They were groomed for abuse and manipulated by their abusers into thinking they'd somehow agreed to it – maybe that they even wanted it or enjoyed it."

"In some ways that's even more horrible," Abby said. "It sounds so premeditated. I mean, how could anyone do that to a kid?"

Tony shrugged. "People do all kinds of stuff to get what they want, Abs."

"Hey - maybe Tony can help us with our conundrum?" Abby suggested, glancing at McGee.

"Fire away." Tony nodded.

"Well, like I said, we have 52 files, and there's a different boy in each file," McGee said, pointing his mouse at the screen and zipping through some of them. "But just one boy per file - except this one." He brought up the final file. "This one has hundreds of photos of different boys in it."

"Are they the same boys as in the other files or new ones?" Tony asked, taking the mouse away from McGee and scrolling through the photos at lightning speed.

"Well, we've only just started working on that, but so far we've been able to cross-reference them back to photos we've seen in the other files," McGee replied. "So they're duplicates."

"Well then that's easy," Tony said.

McGee and Abby gazed at him, waiting. Tony didn't elaborate – he just kept on zipping through the photos, a look of concentration on his face.

"Tony!" McGee said, elbowing him again. "Were you planning on sharing the answer with us any time soon?"

"What?" Tony gazed intently at the screen and then clicked away. He looked up with a bright grin. "Oh yeah – this is the admiral's 'favourites' file, Probie. All good porn collections have a favourites file – I know mine does." He gave them a knowing little wink and an even broader grin. "So he's picked all his favourite photos from the other files and dumped them into this one."

"I don't even like to think about him having favourites among boys who’ve been abused," Abby said quietly.

"I agree. It's sick." Tony pulled the grin off his face immediately. McGee glared at him. Tony's humour could be annoying at the best of times, but right now it seemed downright inappropriate. "You know, I should get back to Justin before he ends up sketching every dead body in Autopsy," Tony said, and then he turned on his heel and left, with a jaunty wave of his hand, humming to himself as he went.

"Do you ever get the urge to hit him really hard?" McGee asked Abby conversationally.

"Oh yeah," she grinned. "All the time. Luckily Gibbs does it for us." She glanced at him sideways and mimed slapping the back of McGee's head, and they both laughed.

~*~

Tony stopped humming the minute he stepped inside the elevator. He waited until the door closed and then flicked the emergency button to give himself some thinking time. He wasn't getting this right; he knew that. His game was off, and people kept giving him strange looks, so he knew he wasn't hitting the right note. Maybe he was trying too hard.

He had to be more focussed, or this whole situation could end up getting out of hand. He knew Gibbs though – the man was like a dog with a bone when he got hold of something. There was no way he'd give this up easily, but it was going to take him some time to figure it all out. Tony had to use that time to his advantage.

Tony gazed at his reflection in the mirrored elevator wall; a couple of spikes of his hair were sticking up at a weird angle, looking out of place. He smoothed the hair down, robotically. He frowned as he noticed his hand shaking slightly; this was exactly the kind of reaction he couldn't afford. This morning he'd had no idea that this would blow up. Who the hell could have predicted this? If he had known, then maybe he could have prepared himself for it better, but he was thinking on his feet right now and that wasn't easy. No wonder he kept getting these adrenaline spikes; it was the shock of the unexpected. Once he recovered, he'd hit his stride again for sure.

He was still one step ahead of Gibbs, and if he played this right he could keep it that way. There was no reason why the old man should ever find out – McGee hadn't. Okay, so Gibbs was a hell of a lot more observant than the probie, but it was a long shot, even for Gibbs. If Tony could just keep focussed, then everything would be okay. It would be tough for a few weeks, sure - he had to resign himself to that - but then this would all go away and things could go back to how they'd been before. No need to panic. He just had to stay calm and ride it out.

He nodded at himself, and realised he was still smoothing his hair down compulsively so that it was now flat against his skull, giving him an oddly skeletal appearance. He adjusted it back to how it usually looked and then flicked the emergency button again and went down to Autopsy to reclaim Justin.

He was humming again the minute he stepped out of the elevator.

~*~

Gibbs looked up expectantly as Ziva came down the stairs.

"Nothing," she said, with a sigh, gesturing with her palms up, empty. "I can find nothing at all, Gibbs."

"It would help if you'd let me know what you're looking for, Agent Gibbs," the housekeeper said anxiously, hovering beside him as he went through all the drawers in the sleek mahogany bureau in the hallway. "I take care of the admiral – I do all his washing, ironing, cooking and cleaning. I know everything there is to know about him."

"I doubt that," Gibbs muttered brusquely, finishing with the bureau and turning back to Ziva.

"Were you worried that Justin stole anything else?" the housekeeper asked. "I don't see how that's possible. I mean, I saw him leave with that bag, and he didn't have time…"

"We are not here because of that," Ziva interrupted her.

At that moment, there was a noise at the front door, and Ziva drew her gun, glancing at Gibbs.

"I thought that the admiral was not due back until late this afternoon?" Ziva hissed.

"I'm guessing that he found a way to get off that ship sooner rather than later," Gibbs growled back at her. "Wouldn't you, in the circumstances? He has some damage control on his hands right now."

The door opened and a tall, broad-shouldered man in full military uniform entered the house. He was self-assured and imposing, with silver-grey hair and dark grey eyes.

"Admiral Parrish? I'm Agent Gibbs – we spoke on the phone earlier," Gibbs said coldly. The admiral looked confused.

"Agent Gibbs – I'm surprised to see you here," he said, glancing around at the untidy state of the house following their search. "I thought I told you that I didn't want to press charges against Justin?"

"We're not here about that," Gibbs replied. "We're here to arrest you."

The admiral went very still. "On what charge?" he asked quietly.

"I think you know," Gibbs told him, glancing at the housekeeper, unwilling to go into too much detail in front of her. He pulled out his cuffs and went over to the admiral. "For what you did to Justin," he hissed quietly in the man's ear. "And God knows how many other kids."

"I don't know what you mean," Parrish replied, a shocked expression on his face. Gibbs had to hand it to him – the man was a consummate actor. "What are you implying?" Parrish demanded, allowing Gibbs to pull his hands behind his back and fasten the cuffs on him without resistance. "You should be very careful, Agent Gibbs," Parrish said, in a hard tone. Gibbs straightened up and looked him in the eye. "I hope that you're very sure of your facts, Gibbs, because I don't appreciate that kind of accusation – and I'm not someone you want to upset." He gestured with his head in the direction of the rank insignia on his uniform.

"Oh, trust me, neither am I – and you have - big time," Gibbs told him, pushing him in the direction of the door.

~*~

Ziva gazed through the two-way mirror into the interrogation room where Gibbs was glaring at the admiral, who was sitting easily in his chair, staring back. She glanced up as Tony came into the observation room.

"I think that Gibbs has finally met his game," she said.

“It’s ‘match’, Ziva,” Tony corrected her. "So the admiral's playing tough guy, is he?" he asked, coming to stand next to her.

"Yes – he is demanding a lawyer and refuses to answer any of Gibbs's questions."

"Well, he's an experienced military commander – an admiral no less. He isn't likely to be intimidated by the Gibbs death glare, however scary it is to us mere mortals," Tony grinned. He gazed through the mirror at the admiral.

"Where have you been?" Ziva asked him. "Gibbs was looking for you."

"Did he want me in there?" Tony gestured with his head towards the window.

"I do not know, but he was annoyed when he could not find you."

"I was babysitting Justin," Tony replied with a shrug. “Must have had my cell phone switched off by mistake.”

"Where is he?" Ziva glanced around as if she expected to see Justin standing there.

"I left him with Abby – she wanted a break from staring at all those photos, so she's taken him to get a coffee. He really wants to go home though."

"Gibbs will not let him go home until he agrees to testify and makes a statement," Ziva told him.

"I know. That's why I've been spending all this time with him. Just need to make the kid see what would be best," Tony said, with a firm nod.

Next door, Gibbs leaned forward and took a sheaf of photos out of the file he was holding. "We found these on your laptop, Admiral, and thousands more like them."

The admiral stared at them, aghast. "My God! These are…Agent Gibbs – these are photographs of Justin," he said in an appalled voice. "Oh God, the poor kid…"

"Are you saying you didn't know these photographs were on your laptop?" Gibbs asked.

"I didn't know because they weren't!" the admiral protested. "Agent Gibbs – I have never seen these photographs before now."

"Then how did they get there?"

"I can only assume that Justin put them there himself," the admiral sighed.

"Why?"

"To blackmail me." The admiral buried his face in his hands.

"He is a good actor, yes?" Ziva said to Tony.

"What makes you think he's acting?" Tony asked, never taking his eyes off the admiral.

"Come on, Tony. He is surely guilty!" Ziva glanced at him, surprised.

"We might not have all the facts yet, Ziva, that's all I'm saying," Tony said to her. "Sometimes you just need to alter the perspective a little and everything gets turned on its head. Remember when I got framed for murder that time? All the evidence pointed to me, but I was being set up."

“It is a possibility, but I do not believe that is what has happened here,” she said. He didn’t reply, and when she glanced at him, she found he was staring intently at Admiral Parrish, completely engrossed.

"Why would he want to blackmail you, Admiral?" Gibbs asked.

The admiral shook his head. "That poor kid – he has so many emotional problems. The shoplifting, the drinking, the drugs…he just never got over Tom's death. He started asking me for money a few months ago – said he needed it for college, although I know that Tom and Melissa have provided him with a good college fund. I think it's more likely that he wanted the money for drugs. I refused – but he wouldn't let it go. He said that he'd tell people I'd been abusing him. I thought it was just a teenage rage – I couldn't believe that he'd really make up such a terrible thing. I mean, I know he's a good kid really, Agent Gibbs, even if he is unstable. He's like his mom, you see – she's a fragile kind of personality – you can see that by how she fell apart after Tom died, and Justin is just like her. I had no idea Justin would go this far though."

"You think he set this up to blackmail you into giving him money?" Gibbs asked. "Isn't taking naked photos of himself and planting them on your laptop going just a bit too far for an 18 year old?"

"Oh, it's not that simple, I'm afraid, Agent Gibbs," the admiral sighed. "You see, Justin blames me for his father's death. He always has. I was Tom's military commander, and I ordered him into the combat situation that led to his death. Justin has never forgiven me for that. So it wasn't just blackmail – it was also revenge."

Ziva glanced at Tony. "That was unexpected," she murmured. "Maybe you are right, Tony. Maybe we do not have all the facts."

Tony's jaw tightened, and she thought he looked very tense as he stared through the window. "Maybe, Ziva," he said softly. "Maybe."

~*~

Gibbs was in a foul mood when he left the interrogation room. Tony exited the observation room at the same time, straight into his path, and Gibbs glared at him.

"Where the hell have you been, DiNozzo?"

"Sorry, Boss – I was just…" Tony waved his hand in a vague way.

"Never be unreachable, DiNozzo – didn't I drum that into you?"

"Yes, Boss. Sorry, Boss. It won't happen again, Boss," Tony said, trotting along after him as he strode into the squad room.

"I know it won't," Gibbs snapped meaningfully. "And where the hell is Justin? I thought you were supposed to be keeping an eye on him?"

"I was, Boss – I just…I left him with Abby," Tony said.

"Well get him back!" Gibbs roared. "Parrish is playing hardball on this – he's thought up a good story and he's sticking to it. We *need* Justin's testimony if we're going to make a case against him."

"You're sure it's Parrish who is lying and not Justin?" Tony asked.

Gibbs turned, slowly, his expression murderous. "Oh yes, Tony. I'm sure," he said grimly.

"How?" Tony asked, seemingly undaunted by the glare Gibbs was giving him.

"My gut," Gibbs grunted.

"It has been wrong before," Tony pointed out. Gibbs stiffened. "I'm just saying – maybe you want the admiral to be guilty," Tony muttered. "It'd be simpler that way."

"Someone took those damn photos, Tony, and Parrish is our most likely suspect. Now go and get Justin," Gibbs said, in a low, even voice, struggling to get his temper under control. "Take him into interrogation room two and get him to agree to testify. That way, we can bring this bastard to justice."

"Yes, Boss." Tony nodded, turning and running off in the direction of the elevator.

Gibbs scratched the side of his head absently as he watched him go. What the hell was wrong with DiNozzo today? He kept pushing at him – and precisely at those times when Gibbs *really* didn't want to be pushed. Nobody liked cases like this, but Gibbs knew his own reactions were intense and extreme. He didn't want to lose it with Tony, but he thought that might be the way this was headed if his agent didn't stop playing devil's advocate. Just what the hell was Tony trying to achieve by it anyway?

~*~

“Agent DiNozzo, I’d really like to go home,” Justin said, gazing at him pleadingly from his blue eyes. He really did look like a kicked puppy.

“I know, Justin.” Tony nodded. “Not much longer now. Agent Gibbs asked me to bring you in here to see if you’d changed your mind about testifying against the admiral.”

Justin gazed at him pathetically. It would be so easy to bend and twist him into doing whatever he wanted. The kid was so clearly vulnerable and that made him malleable. Tony had to give Parrish credit for knowing his dark art so well. He’d got this kid responding to any older, male authority figure. Gibbs would know how to play him without even realising he was playing him. Tony could play him too, so easily. All it would take was just a few firm words mixed up with a little bit of kindness…he could have Justin eating out of his hand in only a slightly longer time than it would take Gibbs.

“I don’t want to testify against Uncle Matthew,” Justin said miserably. “I just want this to go away.”

“I understand.” Tony nodded. “And I think you’re right.”

Justin looked at him through that curtain of blond hair, surprised.

“You just want a fresh start don’t you, Justin?” Tony sighed. “You’re leaving to go to college next month, and you can put all this behind you. But if you make a statement, if you formally accuse the admiral of sexually abusing you, and if you agree to stand up in court and recount that abuse…well this is going to stay with you a hell of a lot longer, isn’t it?”

“I don’t want my mom knowing,” Justin confided. “She isn’t very well, Agent DiNozzo, and I’m worried this might kill her. I already killed my dad…”

“You didn’t kill your dad, Justin,” Tony said firmly. “You were just honest with him. And I’ll be honest with you.” He leaned forward. “Don’t testify,” he said quietly, looking straight into Justin’s eyes. “Don’t make a statement, don’t go to court. The admiral is a wealthy, powerful man, and you're a kid with a criminal record. There's the shoplifting, the DUI, the drugs, and the fact you broke into the admiral's house and stole the laptop. They’ll take you apart in court, Justin. Don’t do it – and don’t let anyone talk you into doing it, either. Not me, not Agent Gibbs – not anyone. Just walk away from this. Get as far away from Parrish as you can – never see him again, never talk to him again. Go to college and be someone else. Be someone this never happened to. You can be someone different – hell, you can be whoever you damn well want. Just put all this in a box, stow it away in a corner of your mind, and never think about it again. Do you think you can do that?”

Justin bit on his lip. “I don’t know, Agent DiNozzo. How does that work? How can I just not think about it?”

“It won't be easy – you'll have to work at it – but you can do it. It’s kind of like a magic trick - every time you think about it, all you have to do is distract yourself,” Tony told him. “Think about something else – something you like. Think about a movie, or a song, or a guy you like, or about something you want to paint. Talk to yourself if it helps, or goof around, or kick a ball around, or hum…anything to distract yourself, and then you’ll find it goes away. It’ll take time, but it’ll get easier to the point where you don’t think about it at all.”

“Supposing Uncle Matthew comes after me?”

“Are you scared of him?” Tony asked quietly.

“No…" Justin hesitated. "Yes," he said softly. "I'm terrified of him, Agent DiNozzo. He can be so nice but then sometimes…sometimes he goes really cold and mean, and he says these things…things that really freak me out. It’s like he’s got this whole other side to him, Agent DiNozzo, and if I don’t testify against him then he’ll be free to come after me.”

“He won’t come after you, Justin,” Tony said confidently.

“How do you know that?”

“Just trust me – he won’t come after you.” Tony leaned forward and spoke into the teenager’s ear in a whisper. “I’ll take care of that. I promise.” He leaned back again, crossed his arms over his chest, and gazed at the kid. Justin stared at him.

“You think it’s the right thing not to testify?” Justin asked uncertainly. “Only…Agent Gibbs…he got mad at me when I said I wouldn’t.”

“I know, but you make your own decisions, Justin. You can’t let anyone push you around any more. People – men – have been doing that for far too long, haven’t they? First your dad, and then Admiral Parrish, and then the men he gave you to, and now Agent Gibbs. Don’t let anyone tell you what to do any more, Justin. Gibbs has his own agenda – he wants to see Parrish sent to jail for what he did to you, and he wants him out of the way so he can’t hurt any more kids.”

“Maybe Agent Gibbs is right,” Justin murmured. Tony nodded.

“He is – but that’s his agenda, Justin, not yours. You’ll just get caught in the crossfire. They’ll crucify you in court. Your mom will be dragged into this, and you won’t be able to enjoy college because this will be hanging over you - and it will *always* hang over you. You’ll never be free of it. People will always know that you were the kid who was abused. Or worse, that you were the kid who made a false accusation - because there’s every chance the admiral will get off even if you do testify against him. I believe you, and Agent Gibbs believes you, but there’s no guarantee a jury will.”

Justin bit on his lower lip, drawing yet more blood. It welled up in the split and a tiny droplet splashed onto the table. Tony gazed at him steadily.

“Do as I say, Justin,” he said firmly. “You know it makes sense.”

Justin nodded. “I do. I will. I was scared that Agent Gibbs would…that he’d make me do something I didn’t want to do.”

“Yeah, I know, but nobody is going to do that to you again, Justin. You have to make that decision - right here, right now – nobody is ever going to make you do anything you don’t want to do ever again. Agreed?”

Justin nodded eagerly, looking like a weight had been lifted from his mind. “Yes – thank you, Agent DiNozzo.”

“Good. If Agent Gibbs comes after you, tell him you won’t testify and stick to that whatever he says. I know he can be pretty scary but just stand up to him. He can’t make you testify if you don’t want to.”

“I guess not.” Justin still looked uncertain.

"You have to look after yourself now, Justin," Tony told him softly. "Nobody else will, so you have to be strong. You have to step up and take care of yourself, and that means not doing anything you don't want to do, no matter who asks. Understand?"

Justin's eyes flashed, and he nodded slowly. "Yes, Agent DiNozzo. I really do."

"Good. That's good." Tony grinned at him, and Justin gave him a little smile in response. The kid looked happier than he had all day. “Okay then – do you want me to give you a lift home?”

“I can go home now?”

“Sure.” Tony shrugged. “We’re all done here.”

He got up and watched as the kid got to his feet and almost ran for the door. Tony caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror as he left the room. That annoying bit of hair was sticking up again. He flattened it down with his hand, humming to himself.

Really, that had been too easy.

~*~

Gibbs stormed out of interrogation room one after another lengthy and entirely pointless interview with Admiral Parrish. The man was sticking to his story, and he was smart – too smart to be waylaid by any of the traps Gibbs set for him and too sure of himself to be intimidated – and God knows, Gibbs had done his best to intimidate the man. Without a confession, or more evidence, or Justin’s testimony, the admiral would walk – and Gibbs gut churned at the thought of him being free to prey on more innocent kids.

Gibbs hoped that Tony had talked Justin into making a statement. He had every faith in his senior field agent – Tony might goof off occasionally, but he was excellent at his job and rarely failed to do whatever Gibbs asked of him.

Gibbs glanced into interrogation room two but was surprised to find it was empty. Surely Tony couldn’t have written up Justin’s statement already? And if Justin was still refusing to testify then Tony would be sitting here, waiting for Gibbs to come back in and take over the task.

Gibbs strode back to the squad room but there was no sign of Tony there, either.

“Where’s DiNozzo?” he asked Ziva.

“He left,” she said, looking up, a surprised expression on her face.

“Left to go where?” Gibbs growled, just barely keeping his temper under control. What the hell was going on around here?

“He left to take Justin home – I thought you knew.” Ziva looked just as puzzled as he felt right now.

“No I didn’t damn well know.” Gibbs dialled Tony’s cell phone number. “Where the hell are you, DiNozzo?” he snapped when Tony picked up.

“Justin wouldn’t agree to testify – he wanted to be taken home, so that’s what I’m doing,” Tony replied cheerfully.

“No you’re not. Get your ass back here,” Gibbs growled. “And bring Justin with you.”

“I can’t do that, Boss. He’s insisting I take him home,” Tony replied. “And we can’t keep him at NCIS – he hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“At the very least he broke into the admiral’s house,” Gibbs barked, clutching at straws.

“But the admiral isn’t pressing charges,” Tony rebutted. “Look, you can speak to him yourself. He’s very insistent.”

There was silence, and then Justin’s voice came on the line.

“I’m not testifying, Agent Gibbs, and you can’t make me,” he said in tones of hesitant defiance. There was a pause, and Gibbs heard a whispering sound. “Uh…I asked Agent DiNozzo to take me home. I don’t want to make a statement. I don’t have anything to talk to you about now. I don't have to do anything I don't want to do. You can't make me. I have to look after myself now.”

“Hey, Boss.” Tony’s voice again. “You heard him – he’s made up his mind. Nothing I said would change it. Hang on…I think the line’s breaking up…”

The phone went dead, and Gibbs threw it down in disgust. Ziva looked up at him, alarmed.

“Is everything okay?”

“No, everything is not okay,” he growled. “Everything is very far from okay.”

Something about this whole thing smelled wrong. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he was determined to track it down. There was no way – *no way* - he was going to allow a whole ring of pedophiles to continue to operate when he had a chance to bring them down, starting with the man sitting in interrogation room one right now…which gave him a thought.

Gibbs strode back to the observation room for interrogation room two. Mike, one of the technicians, was sitting there, drinking a cup of coffee and munching on a sandwich.

“Mike – play me back the tape of the interview Agent DiNozzo just conducted in here,” Gibbs ordered. Mike nodded and rewound the tape. A few seconds later it began playing on the TV screen.

Gibbs watched in total silence.

~*~

Tony hummed to himself as he exited the elevator. That was Justin out of the way. Gibbs would no doubt be pissed off, but Tony could handle that. He wouldn’t *like* it, because a pissed off Gibbs was a thing to fear, but he could handle it.

Tony sauntered into the squad room, still humming. “Hey Ziva!” he announced cheerfully. "What's going on?"

She glanced up, her eyes full of warning. I know, Tony thought to himself. I know. But I’m still one step ahead, and if I can just keep it that way...

He saw a scrunched up piece of paper on the floor beside her waste basket and bent down to pick it up, then turned seamlessly, in one smooth motion, and tossed it straight towards McGee's waste basket…only for it to hit someone's leg instead. Oh shit. Tony looked up into a pair of stony blue eyes.

“Hey, Boss. Sorry about Justin.” He gave an apologetic shrug. “The kid just wouldn’t budge. I did my best.”

“Did you?” Gibbs raised an eyebrow. “With me, DiNozzo. Now!” he barked. Tony made a face at Ziva and trotted obediently along behind Gibbs.

Gibbs led him to the conference room, opened the door for Tony to walk through, and then he closed it behind them.

“Sit,” he ordered. Tony sat.

“What kind of a game are you playing, Tony?” Gibbs asked, in a quiet, deadly tone of voice.

A dangerous one, the little voice in Tony’s head whispered.

"Me? I’m not playing any games, Boss,” he replied nonchalantly.

“Watch,” Gibbs ordered tersely.

He picked up the remote lying on the table, clicked a button, and the plasma screen opposite Tony flickered into life. His heart sank as he saw himself and Justin sitting in the interrogation room. He hadn’t thought for a moment that Gibbs would go this far – the man never checked over his footage. He trusted him enough to take his word for what had gone down unless there was something specific he wanted to look at.

So he’d made a mistake – it was inevitable when he was thinking on his feet like this. The situation could still be salvaged though, he was sure of that. It might cost him – so he had to decide, quickly, just how much he was prepared to lose.

Gibbs was looking at him, as if waiting for him to say something. Tony looked at the screen. He could see that annoying tuft of hair sticking up on the back of his head, and it irritated him. Unconsciously, he moved his hand up to his head to stroke it back down, even though he was viewing footage of himself and not looking in a mirror.

The tape played through from the beginning. Tony barely heard it. He was too busy thinking, and stroking, and thinking…

It came to an end, and Gibbs turned it off with an angry click of his fingers. Tony flinched. This was going to be bad.

“I want an explanation, Tony,” Gibbs said, leaning in, looming over him. “If you have one.”

“There’s always an explanation,” Tony replied, with a cheery grin. He realised his hand was shaking, so he moved it down to his lap and held it there, out of sight. “It’s like I was saying to Ziva earlier…sometimes you just have to shift the perspective, turn things upside down, and view them from a different angle…”

“Answer me!” Gibbs slammed his hand down on the table, and Tony jumped. His grin faded. He scraped back his chair to get away from Gibbs and stood up.

“That kid has been through enough,” he said quietly. “Everything I said to him was true. If this goes to court they’ll tear him apart, and I doubt you’ll get the conviction you want, Gibbs. Parrish’s lawyer will say that Justin put the photos on the laptop himself, after he stole it. Justin isn’t a reliable witness. Nobody will believe him, Gibbs, trust me. He’s just a kid, and Parrish is an admiral for God’s sake! He’s a war hero, he’s been decorated, he has commendations for bravery, and there has never been a word said against him, by anyone. There is no other evidence, none at all, to show that he’s a pedophile. He’s too smart, and he's covered his tracks too well.”

“It’s not up to you!” Gibbs told him. “It is not up to you to decide who is guilty and who isn’t.”

“It isn’t up to you, either, Boss. I don’t regret what I said to Justin. I was right. You’re right too – but you’re just thinking about the law, and the case, and putting away a bad guy. I’m thinking about Justin.”

“So am I! And I’m thinking about all the other kids that men like Parrish and his friends have abused or will abuse if we don’t do something!” Gibbs yelled.

“Well, it’s too late for the ones who have already been abused,” Tony told him. “So don’t worry about them. They’ve found ways of dealing with it. Justin needs to find his own way of dealing with it too, and putting himself through a long, ugly court case isn’t it.”

“You manipulated the kid into thinking that,” Gibbs said quietly.

“Oh, and you’re saying that you wouldn’t have manipulated him into giving a statement?” Tony challenged. “The admiral did a good job on Justin, Gibbs. He responds to older male authority figures. He’ll do whatever they want if they’re just firm enough about it. You know that. You know how easy it would have been. You felt it when we were talking to him together earlier – you know you did. The admiral might have been the one to twist Justin in the first place, but you’d have taken advantage of it. You'd have used him, just like Parrish used him.”

Gibbs’s jaw tightened, and Tony thought that was the point at which he had gone too far.

“Give me your badge and gun,” Gibbs said quietly. Tony stared at him. “Now, DiNozzo!” Gibbs barked. “I don’t know what the hell is going on with you, but I can’t trust you right now, so I’m suspending you from duty.”

Okay, so that wasn’t the outcome he had been expecting, but maybe it was for the best. At least it bought him some thinking time, and it made what he had to do later easier.

He surrendered his badge and gun without hesitation, grateful for the fact that his hand didn’t shake as he put them quietly on the table.

“Go home and stay there,” Gibbs ordered. “I’m not done with you yet.”

It should have hurt more, and maybe it would have if he could feel anything at all right now. He loved his job. This was his family, his home – it was where he belonged – the only place he’d *ever* belonged, and Gibbs…well, Gibbs was everything to him. He hated it when Gibbs was mad at him – properly mad, and not just mildly exasperated. He actually liked mild exasperation because it showed Gibbs was noticing him, but anger – he didn’t like that, and he went out of his way never to disappoint his boss, or give him cause to be genuinely angry with him.

This had been unavoidable though, given the options open to him. If he’d had more time to think…if it had been easier to think…but he hadn’t, and it wasn’t.

He started humming to himself as he left the room.

~*~

Gibbs went to get himself a coffee, lost in thought. His anger had faded, leaving him feeling empty and disappointed. He was fond of DiNozzo – more than fond if he was honest with himself – but, more importantly, he had always been able to trust the man before. Of all his team, Tony was the one he trusted the most, implicitly, without reservation. He’d rely on Tony to have his six in any given situation, and would trust him with his life. So how had it come to this?

He sipped on his coffee thoughtfully as he went through the admiral’s service record. He spent a long time on it, just reading and thinking, trying to find a breakthrough. If he could just talk to Justin again…but Tony had been right about that much at least. That boy would do or say anything he wanted if Gibbs just asked him in the right tone of voice and with the right degree of authority. Gibbs felt sorry for Justin, and didn’t want to make this situation any worse for him, but equally he wanted Parrish to face charges for what he'd done.

Gibbs returned to the interrogation room for one last attempt at breaking Parrish, but the man was too good, and he didn't get any further with him this time than he had the last.

“If you aren’t going to charge me with anything, then you have to let me go, Agent Gibbs,” Parrish told him with a cold smile.

“Just don’t try and go anywhere, Admiral,” Gibbs warned. “And if you go near Justin Merrells, if you try to contact him – call him, visit him, email him, whatever - then I promise you that I will come after you, and I will break both your legs.”

Parrish raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re resorting to crude threats now, Agent Gibbs."

Gibbs shrugged. “Crude? Yes. A threat? No. More like a promise,” he said, as he opened the door to the interrogation room.

Parrish walked towards the door and paused when he got close. Parrish looked at Gibbs with a coolly assessing gaze, taking measure of just how tough an opponent he might prove to be. Gibbs had never yet backed down from a fight, and he sure as hell wasn't going to start now, so he returned that hard stare with one of his own. Parrish's eyes flickered, and then his face broke into a slow, icy smile.

In that instant, Gibbs knew everything he needed to know about this man. Admiral Parrish was guilty as hell – not just of abusing Justin but also countless other boys before him. He was a sly, intelligent bastard who, just like Gibbs, never backed down from a fight and didn't like to lose. In that brief moment, the battle lines were drawn, and both men knew they were facing a formidable opponent.

Then the moment was over, and Parrish stalked past him and left. It stuck in Gibbs's craw to watch that man walk out of his custody, but he was determined he’d still find a way to nail him. Gibbs wasn’t done with this yet. He didn’t *let* pedophiles walk free.

Allowing Parrish to leave, upsetting though it was, made it possible for Gibbs to set a trap for him. Gibbs put a round-the-clock watch on the admiral’s house and ordered a communications surveillance as well, so that every call he made and every email he sent would be monitored. If that bastard tried to contact the other members of the ring to warn them, then he’d lead NCIS straight to them. Not that Gibbs really expected the man to give himself or anyone else away; he was too smart for that. It was worth a try though.

Gibbs also decided to post a couple of agents discreetly outside Justin’s house – just to be on the safe side. That kid had been through enough.

It was late by the time Gibbs returned to Abby’s lab. McGee was sitting where he’d left him, his shoulders wilting. Abby was sitting beside him, looking equally depressed. Neither of them was speaking. Their hands were moving, and Gibbs could hear repeated clicks as they worked, but they both looked hollow, worn out, and utterly exhausted. Gibbs didn’t blame them.

“What do you have for me?” he asked, knowing he was working them too hard but unwilling to let up for even a second.

McGee glanced up. “There are 51 boys,” he said. “At least, I think so. We’re still cross-referencing the boys in File 52 with the boys in the other files. It’s not always easy…the photos were taken at various times and some of the boys are older, or younger, or just look different – their hair has changed or whatever.”

“Oh, and we figured out what File 52 was for,” Abby said. McGee brought it up onscreen.

“Well, Tony figured it out really,” McGee said. Gibbs’s jaw tightened. He hadn’t told them he’d suspended Tony from duty yet, and he really didn’t want to go into that right now.

“Well?” he demanded.

“It’s a ‘favourites’ file,” McGee said.

“Although who knows why that scumbag likes these photos the most,” Abby shrugged.

Gibbs gazed at the screen as McGee scrolled through a selection of the photos.

“Fear,” he said quietly as he looked at them. Abby and McGee glanced up at him. “Fear and distress. In some of the other photos the boys look numb - or even bored and disinterested. What the photos in this file have in common is that the boys all look scared or in pain. He must like that look.”

He pointed to a kid onscreen with blond-brown hair. There was a man behind him, holding him up, his big hands covering the child’s slender hips. The boy wasn't struggling, but his mouth was slightly open in a silent scream. What really got to Gibbs was the expression in the boy’s eyes. They were absolutely desperate, and he was looking straight at Gibbs as if he was pleading with him to help, begging him to make it stop. Gibbs realised, with a sickening wrench, that judging by the angle of the man behind him, and the position of the boy, he was being raped. He was one of the younger ones – perhaps about thirteen, maybe even younger judging by his size and undeveloped body.

“That photo is so horrible,” Abby said, gazing at the screen. "Poor Boy 43."

"Boy 43?" Gibbs raised an eyebrow.

"We numbered the files in order as McGee broke each of the encryptions – Justin is Boy One," Abby sighed.

“Uh Boss…” McGee glanced up at him. “Could we take a break? It’s just…I know it sounds terrible, but all these kids are starting to look the same to me. I’m finding it hard to match them back to their individual files – I keep thinking I’ve seen a shot before, but then it turns out that I haven’t. They’re all going around and around in my head. See - this kid, Boy 43, seems familiar – but we haven’t even started cataloguing his file yet.” He pointed at the boy with the blond-brown hair.

Gibbs gazed at the photograph. What was it Tony had said? Sometimes you had to shift the perspective? Turn things upside down, view them from a different angle? If you took Tony’s behaviour today and shifted the perspective, adjusted the focus a little…

Gibbs shut the laptop with a snap of his fingers.

“You’re right – you should take a break,” he said. “You deserve a break – both of you. It’s late. Go home. This will still be here tomorrow.”

“Thanks, Bossman.” Abby got up, groaning slightly as she stretched.

“McGee – this is an NCIS laptop isn’t it?” Gibbs asked, gesturing to the laptop.

“Of course.” McGee nodded. “I wouldn’t work directly on Admiral Parrish’s laptop – that’s in the evidence garage. I copied his hard drive over – twice; Abby has one copy on her PC, and I have the other on this laptop…uh, why?”

Gibbs just glared at him.

“Okay, well, I don’t need to know why. Uh, are you sure we can go home, Boss?”

“Just go,” Gibbs said. “Before I change my mind. Take Ziva with you – she’s still upstairs.”

“What about Tony?” Abby asked innocently.

“I’ll take care of Tony,” Gibbs replied grimly.

He waited until Abby and McGee left the room, and then he opened the laptop and stared at the photograph again. The boy’s eyes were haunted – he looked out at Gibbs with that terrible pleading expression, silently begging for help.

“I’m too late,” he told the boy. “By about 25 years. I’m sorry.”

Gibbs sat down in the chair McGee had vacated and rested his forehead on his hands. He didn’t want to do this. He really didn’t want to do this but since when had that ever mattered?

Someone had to do it, and that someone had to be him.

~*~

Tony took a shower the minute he got home, scattering his clothes everywhere, abandoning his work suit, shirt, tie and underwear in an untidy path between his front door and his bathroom. He just needed to get clean. It had been a difficult day, and his muscles were tense. The warm water would help.

He stepped under the water and rested his forehead against the tiled shower wall, allowing the warm water to soothe him as it flowed over his back.

“Not your finest hour, DiNozzo,” he told himself, still reeling from the loss of his gun and badge. He flinched as he remembered the expression in Gibbs's eyes when he'd taken them from him. “You could have handled that better.”

He had been thrown though, and, good as he was at thinking on his feet, his mind didn’t seem to be working as well as it usually did. He felt fuzzy, and not as sharp as he liked to be.

The water felt good. He might need to stay here for some time. There was nothing else he could do yet anyway – not until later. Gibbs wouldn’t admit defeat with Parrish for some time knowing Gibbs, and there was nothing Tony could do until Gibbs released the admiral.

Comforted by the warm water, he started to mull over the day’s events. It wasn't easy keeping everything where it needed to be though. It was as if someone had opened up a box and strewn the contents directly in his path; it wasn't easy finding a way to step over them without looking. It was hard not to trip up when he was covering his eyes the whole time.

The first photos had been a shock, but he’d covered that well – maybe a little ‘off’ but not too much. The second time had been harder…Tony found himself humming loudly, which helped. He didn’t have to think about the photos. He could watch a movie maybe, or listen to some music, although right now he didn’t want to move from under the water. Images flashed vividly before his eyes, and he hummed more loudly. He was annoyed with himself. This really shouldn’t be so difficult. He’d done it before.

He turned off the water, dried himself, wrapped his towel around his waist, and then glanced at his watch. He’d spent an hour in the shower. It hadn’t seemed that long – he thought maybe it had only been twenty minutes, if that. If he was losing time then that was bad – it meant he wasn’t concentrating, wasn’t staying focussed, and he needed to concentrate if he was going to get through the next few days. He needed to stay in the moment.

His job was gone – he had to accept that. There was no need for Gibbs to find out the rest, but what he was going to do tonight would ensure he lost his job, if nothing else. He sat on the couch for a long time, dressed only in his towel, staring into space.

When he came to, he was cold, so he went into his bedroom and got dressed; black jeans, black sweater, and black boots. Then he reached for his cell phone. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror as he did so. His hair was still damp, sticking up. He paused and smoothed it back down again, stroking gently. He started humming, gazing at himself absently.

When he looked around again he realised he’d lost another ten minutes, and he was angry with himself. He sat down on the side of the bed and called Abby.

“Hey Abs!” he said cheerfully when she answered.

“Tony! Where are you?”

“Where are you?” he asked, ignoring her question.

“Starbucks!” she laughed. “Want to join us? Me and McGee wanted to unwind. It’s been such a horrible day. What a nightmare.”

“I know, Abs - it’s been a nightmare,” he echoed. He thought he got the tone of voice right. It *sounded* right, but he wasn’t sure at the moment because he kept getting things wrong.

“Gibbs has been patrolling the building like a bear with a sore head, and me and McGee had to look at all those hinky photographs…” He could hear the shudder in her voice. He frowned, and stroked his hair fiercely.

“I know, I know,” he said soothingly. He wondered if Gibbs had told her about suspending him from duty but decided to take a chance that he hadn't. “So, I got called away early. What’s been happening? Did Gibbs release Parrish, or is he going to charge him?”

“He released him,” Abby replied. “I don't think he's finished with him yet, but he released him for now. He wasn't happy about it though.”

“Hmmm.” Tony looked at himself in the mirror. “Uh…yeah. That sucks. Gibbs must be mad.”

“He is. So, are you going to come down here and join us, Tony?”

“No, Abs. I’m feeling kind of tired. I think I’ll call it a day,” Tony replied. “See you tomorrow.” He disconnected before she could reply. He doubted he’d see her tomorrow, but it sounded like the right thing to say.

It was dark outside. Late. He opened his closet and found a black leather jacket – his favourite – and pulled it on. He opened his nightstand drawer, reached for the knife inside, and then stopped. He remembered Gibbs’s rule number nine – never go anywhere without a knife - but maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to take the knife with him tonight. He might use it and that wasn’t what tonight was about. All the same, he liked following Gibbs’s rules, so he hesitated. Then, finally, he left the knife where it was and closed the drawer. It was probably a good thing Gibbs had suspended him; he didn’t want the temptation of being able to get his hands on a gun right now.

He glanced at his watch and then stepped over his abandoned clothes on his way to the front door. He turned off the light and then hesitated. Gibbs had told him to go home and stay there, but he didn’t have to do what Gibbs said, even though the compulsion right now was much stronger than it usually was. Finally, he managed to open the door, close it behind him, and walk slowly down the stairs.

His car was parked in the building parking lot. He was aware of a knot of anxiety in the pit of his stomach. This had seemed to be the simplest solution earlier, but now he wasn’t so sure. It was the right thing to do, he knew that, but he was unsure about his own capacity for doing it. He was worried that he wouldn’t be able to access the emotions he needed for this, and that he wouldn’t be able to follow through. Or that he’d lose control and go too far, and then not even Gibbs would be able to protect him – if he even wanted to after today.

He hesitated, hand on the car door.

“Going somewhere, DiNozzo?” a voice asked quietly behind him. He stiffened. “I thought I told you to stay put.”

Tony turned, an easy grin on his face. Gibbs was standing there, in the darkness of the shadows beside the building, watching him. He had a bag slung over his shoulder, and he looked about as dangerous as Tony had ever seen him.

“Just needed to buy some groceries, Boss – no food in the house."

“That’s not where you were going, Tony.”

“Isn’t it?” Tony felt his jaw tighten. He didn’t like the way Gibbs was looking at him.

“No. You were going to visit Admiral Parrish,” Gibbs said quietly.

“Why would I do that?”

“To knock him around. To scare him. To frighten him so much that he doesn’t touch any more kids like Justin. You boxed yourself into a corner today, Tony. You genuinely didn’t want to put Justin through a court case, but you also didn’t want this can of worms opened up any more than it already was. So you had to persuade Justin not to testify. All the same, you knew you couldn’t leave Parrish out there, unchecked. So you thought you’d head on over there and deal with him.”

“Do I look like I’m dressed to go beating someone up?” Tony gestured at his clothes.

“Yes,” Gibbs replied curtly. “That’s exactly how you’re dressed. I know you don’t have a gun – do you have a knife?”

“No.” Tony shook his head. It seemed pointless to keep up this charade – Gibbs always could see through him. “I know it’s breaking rule number nine, but I didn’t want the temptation.”

“Smart move.” Gibbs nodded. “You couldn’t be sure how you’d feel when you got there. It might have got out of hand.”

“You weren’t going to get a conviction, Boss,” Tony explained. “I’m just doing what you wanted to do yourself. We might not get him through the courts, but we can stop him hurting another kid. I know I’m not as good at this as you are, but I can do it. I can make him scared enough of me that he won’t touch any more kids.”

“I know you can, Tony.” Gibbs nodded. “But you’re not going to. Let’s go inside.”

Tony hesitated. This wasn’t playing out how he’d expected. All day long he’d been one step ahead of Gibbs, but now he had the feeling he was one step behind. Gibbs didn’t even seem angry with him any more – he was watchful though, and tense, as if unsure what Tony would do.

“Now, Tony,” Gibbs ordered, with a curt nod of his head towards the door.

Tony moved his hand to smooth his hair. He wasn’t sure where this was headed, but he felt like an animal caught in a trap. If he went in there, with Gibbs and that bag he was holding…well he didn’t know what would happen. He just had a bad feeling about it.

“Tony,” Gibbs said softly.

Tony blinked. Gibbs was standing in front of him now, and a second ago he’d been standing by the building. His boss could move surprisingly fast of course, but even so…

“You need to go back inside now,” Gibbs told him, in a strangely gentle tone of voice. “Back into your apartment, with me.”

“How long…?” Tony cleared his throat.

“About three minutes,” Gibbs replied. “I called your name several times, but you didn’t seem to hear me.”

“Going deaf. Getting old,” Tony said, with a grin.

Gibbs smiled back at him, allowing him to get away with the lie. He put out a hand to guide Tony into the building, and Tony found himself flinching. Gibbs’s hand stopped just a fraction away from touching him.

“Come on, Tony. We need to handle this,” Gibbs told him, in a brisk tone.

Tony nodded and walked slowly back inside and up the stairs towards his apartment. He could hear Gibbs behind him. Gibbs and that damn bag of his. He could make a run for it, but he knew there wasn’t any point. Gibbs was, well, Gibbs, and there wasn’t any getting away from him, from this, or from what he was carrying in that bag.

Tony opened the door and turned on the light. Gibbs stepped inside and shut the door behind them. Tony noticed his discarded clothes on the floor and grimaced.

“Sorry – place is a mess,” he muttered, bending over to pick up his shirt.

“Leave it,” Gibbs ordered. “Sit down, Tony.”

Tony moved warily over to the couch and sat down on it. Gibbs sat down on the armchair opposite him and placed his bag on the coffee table between them. He opened up the bag and pulled out a laptop.

“You see, I thought I had more time,” Tony said, watching as Gibbs opened the laptop with slow, smooth movements of his hands, like he was being careful not to make any sudden, jerky gestures.

“Uh-huh.” Gibbs nodded.

“I didn’t think you’d figure it out,” Tony said. “Probie didn’t. Even if you did, I thought it’d take longer; weeks - or days at least. So I thought I had more time.”

“Uh-huh.” Gibbs nodded again as he powered up the laptop.

“I was thinking on my feet,” Tony added, trying to explain.

“I know.”

“That’s why I got things wrong. If I’d known, or if I’d had time to prepare…”

“You did good, Tony.”

“I did? Felt to me like I was screwing things up all day. Then you suspended me.”

“Well, like you said, I was looking at it from the wrong perspective,” Gibbs said. “Once I turned it around…”

He swung the laptop towards Tony, so that the screen was facing him. Tony glanced at it and then glanced away. He moved his hand to smooth down his hair.

“Tony – would you look at the photograph on the laptop please,” Gibbs requested.

Tony did as he was told. He looked into the terrified eyes of a boy who seemed to be asking something of him; begging him, pleading with him, which was fucking pointless because there was nothing Tony could do. The kid had blond-brown hair and there was a guy behind him, fucking him, big hands holding him in place. Tony began stroking his hair absently.

“Tony - that man in the photograph – is that Admiral Parrish?” Gibbs asked.

Tony frowned and squinted at the photo. Everything seemed jumbled up in his mind. He wished he had all his wits about him right now, but he couldn’t seem to gather his thoughts. The room was so noisy – there seemed to be some sort of buzzing noise, like a swarm of bees, or a circling fan. Whatever it was, it was far too loud for him to think straight.

“No,” he replied.

Gibbs was gazing at him intently. “Tony,” he said, “That boy in the photograph - is he you?”

The noise stopped, and the room was suddenly plunged into silence. Tony looked at the boy, and the boy looked back at him from desperate, pleading eyes. Tony stopped stroking his hair and looked straight at Gibbs.

“Yes.”

~*~
 

Gibbs sat there for a moment, just gazing at Tony. He had been pretty certain that the kid in the photo was Tony when he'd come here, but hearing Tony confirm it still hurt. He felt as if someone had ripped out his insides and stamped all over them. Tony was looking straight at him, his eyes a mirror of the scared eyes of the boy in the photograph – the boy he'd once been.

"Thank you, Tony," Gibbs said softly. "I know that can't have been easy."

Tony glanced at the photo and then at a spot over Gibbs's shoulder.

"I thought I could make it go away," he said quietly. "If I played it right today. Thing is, when it all blew up I wasn't expecting…" He trailed off, still glancing absently over Gibbs's shoulder.

"There's no way you could have known what we'd find on that laptop today, Tony," Gibbs told him gently.

"At first, I thought it'd be okay - although I knew I wasn't getting things right, but as the day went on, it got harder."

"At what point did you think there might be photographs of you on Parrish's laptop, Tony?"

Tony frowned and wrapped his arms around his body. "Uh…" He looked as if he was concentrating really hard just to stay in the moment and answer the question. "I'm not sure. The day just kept going from bad to worse, and I couldn't keep things under control. In my head. It all kept slipping away from me."

Gibbs gazed at him thoughtfully. The Tony sitting in front of him right now wasn't the same Tony he had worked with every day for the past eight years. He looked as if he was having trouble concentrating, and he had lost his usual defence mechanism of making jokes and pulling faces. None of that disturbed Gibbs as much as what had happened in the parking lot earlier, when Tony had seemed to go into some kind of fugue state. He'd had to call his name several times before he'd come out of it.

"Go on," Gibbs prompted. Tony nodded.

"When McGee first showed us the photographs of Justin, I felt sorry for the kid, but I also knew I had to protect myself, in case people started to suspect – about me. I tried to act the way people would expect me to act in that situation, but I know I screwed that up because I couldn't get a feel for what was right. I hadn't figured out that there might be photos of me on the laptop at that point – I just didn't want to give away any clues that this was something that might mean something to me."

"You didn't want us to find out what happened to you?" Gibbs asked. Tony nodded.

"I didn't want any of you to find out," he replied, and then he frowned. "But I really didn't want *you* to find out, Boss."

"Tony, you were just a kid in these photos. It's like I said to Justin earlier, none of this is your fault…" Gibbs began.

"When Shannon and Kelly died," Tony interrupted, and then he paused, looking apprehensive. Gibbs felt his jaw tighten. Nobody *ever* talked to him about Shannon and Kelly – they knew it was off-limits - but right now he was asking Tony to talk about something just as personal, so what the hell right did he have to get angry with him?

"When they died," Tony continued, when Gibbs made no move to stop him, "If someone had taken photos of them at that exact moment…if you had found out that they kept those photographs of your worst nightmare in their 'favourites' file…"

Gibbs clenched his hands into fists as he looked into Tony's troubled green eyes.

"Would you want anyone to see those photos?" Tony finished. "Even your closest friends? Especially your closest friends. Would you?"

"No." Gibbs shook his head, understanding Tony's analogy all too well. "Tony, I can't begin to imagine what kind of an ordeal today must have been for you."

"It got worse after I took a look at the admiral's photo – a good look," Tony said. "You came back and saw me, and I made some crack about trying to see what someone is capable of by looking at them, but that wasn't what I was doing."

"You were trying to see if you recognised him," Gibbs said quietly.

"Yes." Tony nodded.

"How many men abused you, Tony?" Gibbs asked. Tony reached up and rubbed the back of his head again, staring into space. Gibbs saw his eyes glaze over. "Tony!" he rapped out sharply, and Tony's look of concentration returned. "How many?"

"Three," he replied.

That wasn't unexpected after what they'd heard from Justin earlier, but Gibbs still felt like he'd been punched in the gut.

"Over what time period?" he asked.

"I think it was about a year."

Gibbs paused, not wanting to know the answer to the next question but having to ask it anyway.

"How old were you when the abuse started, Tony?"

Tony looked uncomfortable. "You won't like it," he warned.

"Don't worry about me," Gibbs said firmly.

"You'll get angry."

"Maybe – but not with you. How old were you, Tony?"

"Twelve," Tony said quietly.

Tony was right; he didn't like it. It was all he could do not to react, but he didn't want his anger – no, his stone-cold fury - to make Tony wary about confiding in him. There might be a 37 year old man sitting opposite him, but he was aware that on some level he was also talking to a twelve year old boy. He had to bear that in mind while questioning Tony.

"Was the admiral one of the men who abused you?" Gibbs prompted gently. Tony gazed at him for a long moment. Gibbs felt a ball of anger form in the pit of his stomach. "Tony? Did Admiral Parrish abuse you when you were a kid?" he pressed.

"Yes," Tony said quietly.

That ball of anger exploded, and Gibbs had to work hard not to lash out, or yell, or leave and go over to the admiral's house and bury his fist in the man's face over and over again. He fought the feelings back down and nodded at Tony to continue.

"Once I figured that out, I knew I had to find out if there were any photographs of me in those files on his laptop," Tony said. "I couldn't risk coming face to face with him at that point because I wasn't sure what I'd do. I thought maybe I wouldn't do anything, because I couldn't *feel* anything, but I didn't know for sure because I can't…I'm not…things are fuzzy for me right now."

"I understand." Gibbs nodded. "So you asked me if you could stay behind, instead of coming with me to search the admiral's house and arrest him."

"Yes. When you'd gone, I went down to Abby's lab to see if I could find out just what I was dealing with. McGee showed me the admiral's 'favourites' file…" Tony broke off again, a flicker of some unreadable expression on his face. "And how flattering is that?" he asked bitterly. He glanced at the photo still on display on the laptop. "I make it into some pervert's porn top ten. Anyway, I saw some photos of me…but I was just a kid then, and the context was wrong, so McGee and Abby hadn't recognised me. I knew I probably wouldn't be so lucky if you ever got to see them though. I know how observant you are, Boss."

Gibbs grunted. His brain hadn't made the connection either, initially. It was only when McGee had mentioned the word 'familiar', and he'd taken a closer look, that something had snapped into place for him.

"I thought about deleting them. It would have been easy enough to create a diversion and get rid of Abby and McGee for long enough to do that on the computers in the lab, but I knew it would be harder to gain access to the admiral's laptop in the evidence garage. Harder – but not impossible. Not for me anyway." Tony gave a little grin. "I had to weigh up the risks of being caught doing that though – and therefore drawing attention to the very evidence I was trying to hide. So I thought, on balance, it was better to take my chance with the possibility that you might never take a good look at those particular photos."

"It was just by chance that I did.”

"That just left Justin. You're right; I boxed myself into a corner there. I thought I could spare him the ordeal of a court case and handle the admiral myself, privately. I wasn't thinking straight. I wanted it to go away. I thought I could *make* it go away, Boss. I didn't think anyone would find out. I didn't want anyone to find out."

"Why, Tony? Parrish hurt you when you were just a kid. Now is your chance to bring him to justice.”

"I like my life, Gibbs," Tony told him quietly. "I like it how it is right now. This gets out and people will look at me differently. You're already looking at me differently, Boss. And just think about how McGee will look at me…" He shuddered. "And Ziva, Abby – all of them. I want to be who I've chosen to be. I'm not a victim. I am not that kid in those photos. I've moved on, made a success of my life. I've…" He struggled for the words.

"Put those memories in a box and shut them away in some corner of your mind?" Gibbs asked. "Like you told Justin to do earlier?"

"Yes. I don't think about it. If it comes into my mind, then I've found tricks to make it disappear again. I'm really good at that," Tony grinned.

"There's just one problem with that, Tony," Gibbs said, leaning forward. Tony frowned.

"What?"

"You *are* the kid in the photographs," Gibbs told him. Tony's eyes flickered. "And I think that today, faced with the all too clear evidence of that, your mind has been playing tricks back at ya," Gibbs said softly. "Maybe those mechanisms for keeping it all locked away don't work when it's staring you right in the face. Maybe it wasn't something that could ever work long-term. Maybe you need to face up to what happened to you."

"I don't want to," Tony told him bluntly. "I don't want to think about it. I don't want to *remember* it."

"You want to leave Parrish and the others out there, walking around, free to abuse more kids?" Gibbs asked him. Tony glared at him. “Or do you want to help me make a case against him for what he did to you, and God knows how many other young boys?”

“You’re forgetting about the statute of limitations,” Tony said, folding his arms across his chest. “This all happened twenty-five years ago.”

Gibbs made a little motion with his head. “You and I both know that exceptions have been made in cases like this, especially where there are repressed memories.”

“My memory wasn’t repressed. It was just…contained.”

"Okay – but the abuse against Justin was recent. You were right about Justin not being a very good witness," Gibbs said. "But if we could get him to testify, and if his testimony was backed up by a really reliable witness, like, say, a federal agent…"

"No!" Tony snapped. "No. Don't do this to me, Gibbs. Don't guilt-trip me into this."

"Tony, anything you do will be your own decision," Gibbs told him. "But it's out now. You can't put it away in that box again. *I* know, and I can't forget it – I don't have a convenient box in my brain where I can file those photos away."

“No,” Tony repeated, in an agonised voice.

“Okay.” Gibbs nodded. “But we’re clearly dealing with a pedophile ring here from all you’ve said. Whether or not you testify, any information you can give us about these men might help us crack this ring.”

Tony was gazing at him, a look of mute pleading in his eyes. Gibbs paused. He didn't have to do this. He could spare Tony this. He could protect this man sitting in front of him, a man he cared about more than he wanted to admit, and make all this go away for him. He could do that. Except that he knew he couldn't. If Tony could give them information that would bring down a whole pedophile ring, then he had to pursue it. He hated himself for it, but he did it anyway.

"We have more work to do on those photographs," Gibbs said quietly. "And at some point McGee or Abby might figure it out. Do you want to be walking around on eggshells waiting for that to happen? Or do you want to confront it? You said you didn't want to be a victim, and you don't have to be. You can take the initiative; you can sit in the driver’s seat and bring these men to justice."

Tony's hand shot out, and he closed the laptop with a hard crash.

"I said no!"

"I'll be with you, every step of the way. I promise," Gibbs told him, leaning forward, every single fibre of his being radiating his sincerity, needing Tony to believe him. "I mean it, Tony. I will walk this with you - every single moment of it. We can find these men, and we can make them pay for what they did to you, and to Justin, and to all those other kids. We can stop them hurting any other boys – we can bring them down, but you have to trust me, Tony. You have to believe in me. I promise you I will not let you down."

Tony gazed at him from doubtful eyes.

"I think this is the only way that this will ever be resolved for you, Tony," Gibbs told him softly. "I don't think you'll ever be able to stuff it back into that box of yours again – do you?"

"I don't know," Tony muttered. "It has been hard. Today. The things I used to do, the tricks I used to use in my head – they don't seem to be working."

"In the short term it'll be tough. I can't tell you that it won't, and you wouldn't believe me if I did. I know it won't be easy for you to re-live any of it. But, in the long term, I think it'll be easier for you to lay it to rest if you face up to it."

"With all due respect, Boss, you're not anyone's idea of a shrink," Tony said, with a ghost of a grin.

"Nope." Gibbs grinned back at him. "Hell, you know my opinion of shrinks, but most of this stuff is common sense. What do you say, Tony? Will you do it?"

"When?" Tony asked.

"Right now. We could go back to NCIS, use an interrogation room, and conduct an interview. If we tape it, then you'll only have to go through it once. Any information you give us will be very helpful, Tony."

"Did you mean what you said about being with me…uh…only…I don't know how I'll be. I might lose it," Tony confessed, and Gibbs noticed his hand shaking as he said that.

Gibbs looked into Tony's eyes and saw an expression in them that he'd never seen before: sheer, stark terror. Gibbs felt chilled to the bone. What Tony had told him already was bad enough, but that was just the bare bones of it. The details would clearly be far worse. Gibbs didn't want to put either of them through it, but he knew it had to be done.

"Tony – you be any way you have to be – you just let this out, and I promise you I will be there," Gibbs told him firmly. He got to his feet. "Yes?" he asked, holding out his hand. Tony gazed at it.

"Someone will have to be in the observation room doing the taping," Tony said, his hand still shaking. "I don't want it to be McGee or Ziva."

"You prefer it to be Mike?" Gibbs asked. Tony shook his head. "It has to be someone," Gibbs pointed out reasonably. "And people are going to find out, Tony. This is a case – you're a witness. You're making a statement. We'll need to gather more evidence. I'll need to bring McGee and Ziva and probably Abby in on it at some point. They're your friends, Tony."

"I don't want to do this," Tony told him.

"I know." Gibbs nodded, keeping his hand outstretched. "But you will."

"How do you know that?"

"I know you." Gibbs shrugged. "Tony, you threw yourself into the river last year to rescue me, and you've put yourself in the line of fire for every single member of the team at some point. I know I can always trust you have to my six. You – above everyone else."

"So? This isn't about that kind of stuff," Tony said with a dismissive shrug.

"The point is that you're *brave*, Tony," Gibbs said forcefully. "Whatever else you are, however you view yourself and your own failings, and whatever doubts you have, that's one thing that can't be denied. You're brave."

"Maybe not this brave," Tony told him doubtfully. Gibbs moved his head impatiently – he didn't believe that for a second.

"Trust me?" he said, looking straight into Tony's eyes, willing him to do just that. He moved his hand forward insistently. Tony looked at it and then slowly, very slowly, he reached out his own shaking hand towards it. Gibbs grasped it, firmly, holding on tight, and pulled Tony to his feet.

"Come on – let's go," he said softly.

"McGee," Tony told him as they walked towards the door. Gibbs raised an eyebrow at him. "In the observation room – let it be McGee," Tony said. "I can't face the others just yet."

~*~

McGee sat in bed, reading. It had been a long, gruelling day, and he was tired, but he wasn’t ready to go to sleep just yet. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw those damn photos. Maybe he'd just get so tired that he'd fall asleep by accident and hopefully have a dreamless night. He sure as hell didn't want to re-live any of the day's events in his sleep; they'd been disturbing enough as it was.

He was surprised when his cell phone rang. It was nearly ten-thirty, and nobody ever called him this late; well, nobody except…he looked at the caller display with a sense of dread: Gibbs.

"Hey, Boss," he said, his heart sinking.

"McGee – I need you back at NCIS," Gibbs said, as straight to the point as ever.

"Uh. Okay. I'll get dressed and meet you there. Is there an emergency?"

"No – but I need you to tape an interview."

McGee frowned. "Uh, Boss, the technician guys, Mike or Steve, they usually do that," he pointed out.

"I know that, McGee, but I'm asking you to do it," Gibbs snapped. McGee jumped at his tone of voice and held the phone away from his ear with a grimace.

"Okay. No problem, Boss," he replied, wondering what the hell that was about.

"And, McGee – this interview is confidential. You don't tell anyone about what's discussed in that room tonight – okay?" Gibbs said. This was all getting more and more mysterious.

"Okay, Boss," McGee replied, and then the phone went dead. Typical Gibbs; never a hello, never a goodbye. Just terse and direct.

He got dressed wearily and returned to NCIS. He could do without this tonight after the day he'd had, but then again, it wasn't as if he'd been going to get to sleep anyway, so he might as well be working.

The squad room was in darkness when he walked in, so he turned on the light and went over to his desk to grab some chocolate from the drawer. This might be a long night, and he needed something to keep himself alert.

The elevator pinged open behind him, sounding unnaturally loud in the silence, and he turned to see Gibbs and Tony walk into the squad room. McGee was about to say something, but then he stopped. Gibbs had one hand on Tony's shoulder, and Tony looked, well, as unlike Tony as he'd ever seen him. It took McGee a moment to place what was wrong, and then he realised what it was: fear. Tony was terrified, and he'd never seen that particular expression on his face before.

"Boss…who are we questioning?" McGee asked.

"Nobody. It's an interview – we’re taking a statement," Gibbs said.

"Okay. So…are we waiting for someone to come in and give the statement?" McGee asked, puzzled. He glanced at Tony, but the other agent didn't even look at him. McGee had a bad feeling about this. Tony must have done something – something terrible judging by the look on Gibbs's face.

"No. It's just us," Gibbs said quietly.

McGee realised with a jolt that it must be Tony giving the statement – so he *had* done something. Gibbs reached out, opened his desk drawer, and pulled out a badge. He took hold of Tony's hand and pressed the badge into it.

"Here – I want you to have this back, Tony," he said, and McGee didn't think he'd ever heard Gibbs use that tone of voice with any of them before. It was firm but very gentle – almost soothing. "I'm not going to give you the gun back just yet, Tony. You understand why, don't you?" Gibbs asked.

Tony nodded, and McGee watched, startled, wondering what the hell was going on. When had Gibbs taken Tony's badge and gun off him in the first place, and why? And why was he now giving back the badge and not the gun?

"Okay. Then let's go to the interrogation room," Gibbs said, in that same calm but authoritative voice. "McGee – Tony asked specifically that you do this and nobody else, but it isn't going to be an easy night for any of us. Do you understand that?"

McGee was wide-eyed as he nodded. "Yes, Boss," he said quietly, shooting a furtive glance at Tony, who was gazing blankly into space, an absent look in his eyes, as if he was somewhere else entirely.

"Like I said on the phone, this interview is confidential. You don't tell anyone what happens in that room unless I say you can," Gibbs warned him again.

"Yes, Boss." McGee was starting to feel really freaked out by this.

"Okay – then go set up."

McGee scuttled off to the observation room and checked over the equipment, ensuring there was enough tape in the machines. Then he turned off the light, put on the headphones, and sat down. He opened up his bar of chocolate, snapped off a square, and put it in his mouth.

Tony and Gibbs entered the interrogation room a few seconds later, and Tony hesitated, glancing at the chairs, as if uncertain where to sit. Gibbs gestured with his head at the chair opposite the mirror. That was where the suspects usually sat, so McGee shifted uncomfortably. Gibbs had said this was an interview, not an interrogation, but just what crime was Tony going to admit to?

McGee set the tape running and glanced sideways into the room. Gibbs saw the light go on, signalling that recording had begun, and he started speaking.

"This is Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, talking to Anthony DiNozzo," he said. McGee didn't miss the fact that he hadn't addressed Tony by his title, so he couldn't be here on official NCIS business. That made him either a suspect or a witness.

"Shit, Tony, what the hell have you done?" McGee muttered under his breath. He broke off another piece of chocolate and stuck it in his mouth.

"Any time you want to start, just go ahead, Tony," Gibbs said.

Tony glanced up and caught sight of himself in the mirror. His eyes flickered, and he reached up to smooth down the hair on the back of his head. Gibbs cleared his throat.

"Don't do that right now, Tony," he said. "I think it distracts you."

"Right. Yes." Tony nodded. "Where do you want me to start?" he asked.

"Wherever feels best for you. This is your show, Tony. Any time you want to take a break, just tell me. You’ve got water there, but if you need anything to eat or drink, we can get McGee to go get us something. Okay?"

"Yes." Tony nodded again but still didn't say anything. McGee wondered why Gibbs was spelling all this out – Tony knew the procedure. There was a long silence.

"Have you ever told anyone any of the things you spoke to me about earlier?" Gibbs asked eventually.

"Just once. A long time ago."

"Who did you tell?"

"My dad." Tony shrugged.

"Did he believe you?"

Tony looked straight at Gibbs. "No."

"So I can understand why it would be hard to talk about it now. Last time you tried you weren't believed, so you've had to shove it down and bottle it up ever since. But you know I'll believe you, don't you?"

"Yeah." Tony nodded. "I guess." He took a deep breath and seemed to visibly pull himself back into the moment. "Okay. My dad was a marine," he said.

It seemed like an unexpected beginning. McGee glanced at Gibbs – or at least what he could see of the man from behind – and thought Gibbs looked a little startled by that information too.

"He fought in Vietnam," Tony added.

McGee hadn't known that about Tony's father. He wondered if it had anything to do with the way Tony so obviously revered Gibbs, also a former marine.

"While he was in the Corps, he made friends with this guy – Roy Quinn. Roy was more than just his buddy though. It was how you talk sometimes, Boss, about being in the Corps, about how those people become like family to you."

"You have to rely on them to have your six," Gibbs agreed. "In a combat situation. Your life literally rests in their hands. That brings you really close."

"Yeah. Well, that's how it was with my dad and Roy. They fought together, side by side, and then one day my dad was wounded, and they got separated from their unit. It looked pretty bad for my dad, but Roy wouldn't leave him. He could have run off and got himself to safety, but he didn’t. He stayed with my dad and gave him his water when Dad’s ran out. He dressed his wound as best he could, and he took care of him, and eventually Roy got them both back to safety."

"So he saved your father's life?"

"Yeah." Tony nodded. "My dad left the Corps, came home, got married to my mom, had me, and started up his own business. He stayed friends with Uncle Roy though, and when Roy got out of the Corps, he came and asked Dad for a job. Dad was only too happy to give him one. They worked well together too – they built up the company from scratch. My dad was an entrepreneur – he had a great vision for the company, but he wasn’t so good at the small details. Roy, on the other hand, loved that kind of stuff. He took care of the backroom work, and my dad pushed the business forward. They’re a great team."

Tony paused and took a sip of water from one of the two bottles on the table.

"Everyone loved Uncle Roy. I adored him. He was one of those people…he was just so nice, so much fun. I used to love it when he came around to visit. He wasn't like other adults – he sure as hell wasn't like my dad. He used to talk to me like I wasn't just a kid, like he really cared what I thought. He showed me card tricks and stuff like that. Dad was kind of strict, and Roy was the opposite of that. I sometimes used to wish he was my dad."

Tony broke off and gazed at himself in the mirror again, and then he started to hum. McGee frowned. He had no idea where this was heading, but Tony was behaving really strangely.

"Tony – you need to concentrate," Gibbs said firmly. Tony stopped humming and nodded.

"Yeah. Where was I? Okay…my mom died when I was eleven, and my dad – he wasn't good at expressing his emotions, but I guess he was pretty upset. He started drinking more – he'd always been a drinker, but it got worse. He threw himself into his work, and he was away a lot more, always going off on business trips. We had a live-in housekeeper, so it was easy enough for him to leave me – and Uncle Roy used to keep an eye on me."

"Okay." Gibbs nodded, and he sounded as if he could see where this was going although McGee remained mystified.

"So…Roy used to visit, and he'd take me out to a movie or a ball game when my dad was away. Or he'd just take me out for a burger. He was really nice. I could talk to him in a way I couldn't talk to my dad. I always used to be able to talk to my mom but…I guess I'd been lonely since she died. I wanted to talk about her, but my dad wouldn't – he got angry and upset if I even mentioned her. Roy would let me talk about her though.”

McGee thought he'd learned more about Tony's past in ten minutes than in all of the previous six years they’d worked together.

"One day Roy came to the house, and we watched some TV together, and the housekeeper had gone to bed, and Roy…he uh…" Tony paused.

"What did Roy do, Tony?" Gibbs prompted gently. McGee stiffened, suddenly really not liking the way this was heading.

"He…well...he asked me if I loved him," Tony said. "I said – sure I did, you know, the way a kid would. I mean, he had to be the coolest uncle anyone ever had, and he was always buying me stuff, and taking me places, and spending time with me, and my dad never did any of that shit." He fell silent again.

"What happened next, Tony?" Gibbs asked, after several minutes had passed.

"I…how much do you need to know?" Tony looked up at Gibbs with troubled eyes.

"However much you're comfortable telling.”

"Well…he said there was stuff people did when they loved each other, and…I'm not sure how exactly, but he made it seem like if I didn't do it, it meant I didn't love him, and he'd be really upset. That's how it seemed to me at the time. I mean, looking back I can see that was all bullshit, but at the time I felt like I'd really hurt his feelings if I said I didn't love him."

"Did he touch you?" Gibbs asked.

"Yeah." Tony shrugged. "At first, that's all it was. He'd make me kiss him on the lips, which I hated as he smoked these really strong cigars. Then he'd make me sit on his lap, which I thought was weird because I wasn’t six, and he'd open my pants and…"

McGee gazed into the next door room, horrified. He noticed that one of Tony's hands was shaking where it was resting on the table. Tony moved his other hand on top of it to keep it still.

"He'd play around," Tony finished.

"How old were you?" Gibbs asked.

"Twelve," Tony replied.

McGee felt the retch forming in the back of his throat and swallowed down the burning sensation, wishing he hadn't eaten that chocolate now. It was hard to believe that Tony DiNozzo – Tony, who had been like a teasing, tormenting big brother to him for all these years – that *Tony*, of all people, was saying this stuff. He could almost believe it was a lie, an elaborate hoax set up for his benefit, if it wasn't for the expression on Tony's face and the fact that Gibbs was sitting there, coaxing this whole thing out of him. Even Tony wouldn't joke about something like this – and there was no way on this earth that Gibbs would.

"My dad was away a lot at this point, and Roy was always buying me stuff and taking me places. Then, after a few months, he said that he was always doing things for me, and it was time for me to do something for him. So he took me to this hotel…"

Tony broke off again. Gibbs waited, patiently.

"What happened at the hotel, Tony?" he asked, after another pause of several minutes.

"That's where he had sex with me the first time," Tony said. Tim stared through the window in stunned silence.

"He raped you?" Gibbs asked.

"He was nice about it. I mean, he was gentle, and he kept stroking me and telling me he loved me and shit…" Tony said, in a confused tone.

"It was still rape, Tony," Gibbs told him. "You were too young to give informed consent."

"Yeah. I know," Tony replied. "But I really liked him, Boss," he said pathetically. "It was…kind of confusing. I loved him, but I didn't like what he was doing to me. He said it was our special secret, and if I wanted him to keep taking me to the movies and ball games then I had to let him do this to me. I knew it felt wrong, but he got it all twisted up in my mind so I didn't know what to think. I didn't want him to stop loving me – my dad never paid me any attention, and I didn't want Roy to stop doing that – but I did want him to stop fucking me."

"Did you tell your father what Roy had done?" Gibbs asked. Tony shook his head.

"Not then. My dad – he's not a very approachable man, and Roy was his best friend. I think he actually loves Roy more than he loves me. Roy saved his life, and Roy helped him build up his business. Roy was always everyone's favourite person – when he came into the room it lit up, and everyone wanted to be his friend. I think maybe I even felt like I was special because Roy liked me so much.”

McGee tried to reconcile this Tony, talking in that room, with the man he sat next to at work every day. They seemed like two completely different people.

“There’s more,” Tony said, in a shaky voice, after another long pause.

“I know.” Gibbs nodded. “When you’re ready, Tony.”

“I don’t like this bit,” Tony said.

“Okay – take your time. Do you want some more water?” Gibbs gestured at the bottle on the table, and Tony took another sip. He put the bottle down and replaced the cap and then started again, quickly, as if he wasn’t sure he’d be able to do it if he waited.

“So, one day he took me to the hotel, as usual, and after we'd been there a few minutes this guy showed up at the door. Roy let him in and told me this was a friend of his. Some guy called Marco – maybe he was Italian although he didn't speak with an accent, and I think even then I knew that wasn't his real name. He was quite swarthy and really hairy. He had this tattoo on his arm of a knife dripping blood. Roy told me that Marco wanted to spend some time alone with me, and then he just left the room."

McGee gazed through the window, transfixed. He felt like he was going to throw up at any moment. He'd had no idea, all these years, that Tony was hiding something like *this*.

"Marco was an animal," Tony said bluntly. "He hardly said a word to me, but Christ, he was rough. It wasn't like with Roy. When he fucked me, it hurt like hell. Roy came back after an hour or so, and I remember thinking that Roy would be really mad when he found out what Marco had done to me. I told Roy about it but…” Tony shrugged. “He told me that I had to grow up and stop being such a little whiner. He said it was good for me, and that I was lucky I had them to spend time with me when nobody else would. Then Marco said he wanted some pictures – so he'd remember our time together." Tony gave an ironic grin. “Nice, huh? Like we’d shared some great romantic moment or something.”

McGee could see the tautness of every single muscle in Gibbs’s body through his shirt, and he wondered how the hell their boss was taking all this. Everyone knew Gibbs hated anyone hurting kids, and God knows he couldn’t tolerate anyone hurting a member of his team. This had to be killing him, but he remained calm throughout, his voice gentle but firm, keeping Tony on track.

"So he fucked me all over again while Roy took pictures,” Tony said, leaning back in his chair. “I was so shocked that Roy was letting this other guy do this to me when he'd said it was some special shit that he and I did together. I couldn't believe Roy was letting it happen. I think that hurt more than what Marco was doing to me, and God knows that hurt even worse second time around. I was dying for it to be over, I was desperate for it to be over, and Roy had to see how much it was hurting me, how scared I was, and how much I was hating it. Anyone looking at those photos could see it."

Tony motioned with his head to the bag that Gibbs had brought in with him. Gibbs picked it up and pulled out a laptop, and McGee recognised it as the one he'd been working on in the lab all day. Gibbs opened it, waited for it to power up, and then pointed at the screen.

"Was this one of the photographs taken on that day, Tony?" he asked. "Is the man in this photo Marco?"

Tony glanced at the picture and then nodded. "Yeah," he replied. "That's him. I recognise the dark skin and the hairy hands – and you can just see the tattoo – there."

Realisation hit McGee. He'd *seen* that photograph. He'd looked at it several times today. He'd looked into that child's scared eyes without realising it was Tony. Now he knew, he felt ill to the pit of his stomach. He reached for the waste basket and threw up into it, a spew of dark chocolate and bile.

~*~

Tony sat back in his chair. This was hard, but he thought he was handling it pretty well. If he let the trained federal agent take over, and kept the kid inside down, then he could view the whole thing with a degree of dispassion. Remembering the details was easier than remembering the feelings – but keeping it purely factual wasn't always possible. Gibbs was helping though. His boss seemed to know the right things to say to keep him in the moment and stop him disappearing off into the memories. He felt like there was a minefield inside his own head, places he didn't dare tread too heavily in case they blew up in his face; but tip-toeing over and around them wasn't easy.

"Do you want to take a break?" Gibbs asked.

Tony shook his head. "If I leave this room now, I'll never come back."

"Okay." Gibbs nodded. "Is Roy Quinn still alive, Tony?"

That was one of those mines he'd been trying really hard not to step on. He reached his hand up absently to touch his hair.

"Tony," Gibbs interrupted him. He blinked.

"Yeah. He is."

"Any idea where he lives?" Gibbs asked.

This was all going to get serious. He'd known that when he first agreed to do this, but knowing it and facing it were two different things.

"Yeah," he said, after a long pause. "He still works with my dad. Why do you think I never go home?"

He saw Gibbs's jaw tighten. He knew what every single nuance of Gibbs's body language meant – hell, he'd been studying the man for years now and had a better handle on him than just about anyone else, except maybe Ducky. Gibbs didn't give a lot away – you had to learn to read the really tiny shadows that sometimes crossed his eyes, or the way his shoulders got all stiff and knotted looking. Right now, he was in what Tony would usually classify as the “red zone”. That meant his temper was on a hair trigger and might explode at any moment. However, his body language was at odds with his tone of voice, which was calm, gentle even, keeping Tony anchored. Tony knew for certain that however angry Gibbs was, however angry Tony's statement made him, he wouldn't express it here, in this room.

"I think Roy felt bad about what happened with Marco," Tony continued. "I don't think he liked it – Marco was rough and that wasn't Roy's style. I think he was also annoyed – he'd spent a lot of time grooming me and Marco came along and tore me up - that made it harder for Roy to keep abusing me. After we left the hotel, Roy took me out for a big meal, and he bought me some cool new sneakers, and then we went to see a movie together. I think he was trying to make it up to me, but I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that he'd let Marco hurt me. When I got home…"

Tony broke off again. There was another one of those unexploded bombs underfoot, and he had to tread carefully.

Gibbs was gazing at him intently. Tony gazed back, needing to find some courage from somewhere. He could feel that noise buzzing in his head again and reached up to smooth his hair.

"When I got home I found I was bleeding. I was terrified – I thought it meant that I was going to die." He could barely hear himself talk over all the buzzing. “I didn’t know what to do. That night, I curled up in bed and lay awake all night, waiting to die.”

Gibbs reached out a jerky hand for a bottle of water and unscrewed the cap with terse movements of his fingers. He threw his head back and swallowed down half the contents in one go. Then he put the bottle down, abruptly, and his eyes met Tony's again. They were bright, sharp, and unreadable.

"Did you tell anyone?" he asked quietly.

"Yes. I told Roy. He looked kind of annoyed, but he said it would be okay – and that he'd tell Marco to be more careful next time."

Tony gazed at himself blankly in the mirror.

"Next time," he repeated. "There was gonna be a next time. I freaked out for a couple of weeks, wondering what to do, but my dad was back home, and I knew I was safe while he was there so that bought me some time. Then the time came for him to go away again. He was due to go at the weekend, so I plucked up my courage all week, and then, on the Friday night, I knocked on his study door."

Tony reached for his bottle of water and tried unscrewing the cap, but his damn hand was shaking again. It irritated him. He could do without the melodrama. He just wanted to get this whole thing over with, so he could leave this room, get away from Gibbs's laser-sharp gaze, go home, go to bed, and fall asleep. Then tomorrow he could shove all this back into its box and forget about it again.

Gibbs took the bottle out of his shaking hand, unscrewed the top, and handed it to him. Tony took a sip, trying to gather his thoughts, to find the facts without unleashing any of the emotions that went with them. This bit was harder than the rest. He wasn't sure why that should be, but it was. It was harder even than talking about that first time with Roy or what happened with that bastard Marco.

"He'd been drinking – it was early, so not too much, but a little. My dad's a big man, kind of formal, a bit distant. He's a hard person to talk to. He's a good man, but he's very…definite. There are things he believes, and things he doesn't, and that's pretty much it. He could talk to my mom – everyone could talk to my mom – and he could talk to Roy, but not to me. He never could talk to me."

Tony rubbed his cheek absently. His mind was a jumble. He could see a mahogany door and a big desk with a green lamp on it. His father was staring at him over the top of his glasses, looking annoyed at the interruption. There was a tumbler of amber liquid on the desk in front of him and a fire burning in the grate.

He could hear his own voice, reedy and a bit nasal. "Don't go away this weekend, Dad."

His father's voice was deep and rumbling. There were lots of words like 'work', 'business', and 'keeping a roof over your head'.

"Please don't go away, Dad," Tony said, and he couldn't keep the begging tone out of his voice. "Stay here with me. Please."

Then there was a glimmer of something in his father's eyes; some kind of guilt mingled with fondness. Tony felt a little burst of hope; maybe his father wouldn't go. Maybe it was all going to be okay after all. His father beckoned him over and patted his shoulder awkwardly.

"When I come back, we'll do something," he said vaguely, and Tony's heart sank. That feeling of hope disappeared abruptly. "But Roy will take you out while I'm gone. I'll give him some money and ask him to take you somewhere really nice," his father told him.

Tony looked at his shoes and then over to the fire burning in the grate. "I don't want Roy to take me out," he whispered. "Roy does stuff I don't like."

"What – you mean he won't buy you those stupid videos you keep going on about?" his father grinned.

"No. Sometimes he undresses me and touches me."

The slap took him by surprise. He thought maybe it took his father by surprise as well. He put up a hand to his stinging cheek and looked at his father, shocked.

"That's a wicked lie, Tony," his father said, looking just as shocked. "Did you make up that lie to try and stop me going away? Do you have any idea how wicked that is? Roy saved my life, and he's always been so good to you. I know you have a vivid imagination, but you've gone too far this time. You can't go around saying things like that."

Tony didn't know what to say. He just kept rubbing his stinging cheek. His father looked upset.

"I'm sorry – I know you miss your mom, and I know I'm not around much…but you can't tell lies to get your own way, Tony. We've talked about this!"

Tony continued to rub his cheek absently. He could still feel the sting, all these years later.

"Tony, you need to stop doing that now."

A hand fastened gently around his wrist and pulled it away from his face. Looking up, into the mirror, he saw that he'd rubbed a red mark on his cheek. How long had he been rubbing before Gibbs had stopped him?

"See, thing is, I had been telling a lot of lies," Tony said. "Ever since Mom died. Stupid lies, obvious lies. Dad had spoken to me about it a few times. So I can see why he'd think that was a lie too. And I didn't have a way of saying it wasn't. I didn't have the words for it back then. Now, sitting here, it's hard for me to figure out why I didn't just keep going, convince him, make him believe me, but I didn't. I just scuttled out of the room and went to bed." He looked down at the table for awhile and then looked up to meet Gibbs’s gaze.

"We never mentioned it again. Next day, Roy took me back to the hotel and that's when I first met Matthew Parrish."

~*~
 

Gibbs watched Tony intently. Sometimes Tony talked lucidly, without any hesitation, even while recounting events that Gibbs found hard to stomach, and other times Tony drifted, and did that weird stroking thing, and his eyes went blank. Gibbs couldn't get a handle on what would set him off, or what aspect of his account upset him most.

Sometimes he sounded just like *Tony*, and Gibbs would catch a glimmer of Tony humour in his eyes, but other times it was like he was someone else – someone Gibbs had never met or even knew existed. His body language and his speech patterns changed, and his face twisted into expressions Gibbs had never seen on it before. It was like being with a total stranger.

Gibbs had known this wouldn't be easy to hear, but he hadn't realised it would be this hard, either. The federal agent in him wanted to get to the details, so he could pursue these men and get justice for Tony, and for Justin, and for all those kids in the photographs. But there was another part of him that wanted to go out and pound the shit out of anyone who so much as crossed his path, and allow the rage coursing through him to have expression. Then there was the part of him that just wanted to wrap Tony up and hold him, to keep him safe and protect him for the rest of his life. He wasn't sure about that part, or what motivated it – although he had a suspicion - but he couldn't deny it existed.

"You mentioned Admiral Parrish earlier," Gibbs said, when Tony had been quiet for a few minutes. "You said you spent a long time looking at his photograph in the squad room this afternoon."

"Yeah."

"You're sure it was him?" Gibbs asked. Tony looked up at him, his eyes flashing. "I'm not saying I don't believe you," Gibbs told him quickly. "I'm just asking if you're sure it was him and not some other guy."

"It was him," Tony said firmly.

"Can you tell me why you're so sure?"

"Well, he wasn't introduced to me as Matthew, of course, but as Luke." Tony gave a half-shrug, and his mouth twisted into a bitter grin. "Roy wasn't exactly big on imagination – that's why he ran the office while my father did the entrepreneur stuff. Luke had this air of authority about him, even back then. You could see he liked being obeyed. He wasn't rough like Marco, and he wasn't everyone's best friend like Roy. He was military – I could sense that about him, even though he wasn't wearing a uniform when I met him."

"Did he know Quinn from the military do you think?" Gibbs asked, making a note on the file in front of him to check up on that later. “I know Quinn was a Marine, and Parrish is Navy, but they both served in Vietnam – do you think they met there?”

"It's possible." Tony shrugged. "They seemed to be friends – more so than Roy was with Marco. I think Roy might even have been a bit scared of Marco, but he and Luke were tight. There was a lot of hugging and slapping each other on the back, and then they ordered up some room service, and we sat there, the three of us, in that room, like it was the most normal thing in the world. Luke had brought me a present." Tony hunched his shoulders and made a face.

"What was it?" Gibbs asked.

"One of those viewfinder things they had back then. Man, I haven't seen one of those in a long time. I don't think they exist any more. Any kid today would laugh if he got one as a present, but back then it seemed really cool. It was this red plastic thing, and when you put a disk in it, and held it up to your eyes, you saw scenes from a movie. You clicked, and the disk rolled around so you could see another scene. The disk that came with this one was "The Sword in the Stone" – the Disney movie about the kid who pulled the sword out of the stone and became King Arthur. I didn't eat anything. I spent the entire time just looking through that thing and clicking – must have gone through the whole story about a dozen times. Roy and Luke talked – I can't remember what they talked about. I had this knot in my stomach because I knew what was coming, and I was worried that Luke would be like Marco. The movie helped – I think that was when I figured out that distraction really worked. I just lost myself in that stupid story and was able to forget the stuff I didn't want to think about."

Gibbs thought it was a good defence mechanism for a twelve year old boy to get him through a terrifying ordeal, but he wasn't sure it was something that could work long-term.

He remembered Tony coming back to work early after contracting the plague; he'd said he was going crazy at home, and Gibbs had sensed a kind of panic about him. Tony didn't like too much time alone – he needed constant mental stimulation. Then there had been his time as an agent afloat – it was obvious how challenging he'd found that, and how pathetically desperate he'd been to be recalled. Hell, even these past few weeks, when things had been slow, Gibbs had ordered extra close combat training just to help Tony burn off some steam and keep him from driving the rest of his team insane. Tony needed distraction – whether it was investigating a case, thinking up elaborate practical jokes to play on McGee, or nosing into Ziva's personal life - and now Gibbs knew the reason why.

"After lunch, Roy left. I asked him not to go, but he told me Luke would take good care of me. When we were alone, Luke told me he'd seen the photos of me with Marco, and he had really been looking forward to meeting me. He said if I did everything he told me to then we'd get along just fine. He was menacing but in a quiet kind of way. He was one of those people who can turn in a second. He’d seem really nice and then, without warning, he'd get this mean look in his eyes that would make your blood run cold. He told me he'd been in combat and had killed men, and that it was much easier to kill a kid. He didn't say it like it was a threat, but I knew it was all the same."

Gibbs had met many brave men in the military, men who had given their lives for their country and men who had suffered appalling injuries in the line of duty, and he hated hearing how one man had twisted that to suit his own evil ends. He remembered that fleeting moment he'd experienced earlier, when he'd got a real sense of the kind of man Matthew Parrish was. It had just been a flash, but he'd known, instinctively, that the man had a mean, ruthless streak.

"So you asked how I know it was Parrish. It was a long time ago, and he's obviously a lot older now and looks different, but I just had this feeling when I saw the picture on his service record that he was Luke. There was one thing I knew would clinch it though – Luke had this long, jagged scar on his inner thigh. He told me some bullshit story about being on a black ops mission and taking out a bunch of Viet Cong single-handedly, but even back then I don't think I bought that. So today, while you were out searching his house, I looked in Admiral Parrish's file."

"He was injured in Vietnam – shrapnel wound to his thigh when his patrol boat was ambushed," Gibbs said. Tony looked up at him, surprised. "I know that bastard's file backwards," Gibbs told him. "I must have read it a dozen times today, looking for something, because I knew there *was* something. I had a really bad feeling about that guy in my gut. I knew he was guilty of abusing Justin – had no idea how far back it went though. Christ, how do men like him get away with stuff like this for so long?"

"Ruthless. Smart." Tony shrugged. "Well organised. Lucky." He hesitated. "And good," he muttered. Gibbs looked at him sharply. "Well they are. Roy played me like a maestro, and Parrish had Justin eating out of his hand. They were good at fucking with our minds, Boss, making us too scared or too in love with them to tell – or a mixture of both."

"No wonder you didn't want to be in the room when I questioned Parrish," Gibbs commented. "I thought it wasn't like you to have your cell phone turned off."

"I couldn't face him," Tony replied. "I wasn't sure how I'd react. Also – I think there's a part of me that's still scared of him, Boss. Marco was an animal who took what he wanted – he was rough, but he hardly spoke a word to me. Parrish was different - he said a lot, most of it designed to scare me. I think he got off on that."

"Oh, he did," Gibbs said grimly, remembering that file of Parrish’s ‘favourites’, and what they all had in common.

"I stood in the observation room, watching when you questioned him. I wanted to be sure it was him," Tony said. "I already knew I intended to go around to his house and beat the crap out of him. I just had to be sure – and I was."

"We'll get him, Tony, but another way," Gibbs told him firmly.

"Next time you question him, I'd like to be in the room."

Gibbs hesitated. "I don't think that's a good idea, Tony."

Tony's eyes narrowed. "Gibbs, I have done everything you asked of me tonight, and you know how hard it's been. This is the only damn thing I'm asking of you in return – you'll be here, with me, so what the hell can happen? I just want to look into that bastard's eyes when you question him. I want him to be scared, the way I was scared back then. I want to *see* that on his face."

Gibbs nodded. "Okay. Tomorrow," he said. "I'll bring him in tomorrow for more questioning."

"Good." Tony nodded firmly.

"Was it just the once, or were there other times?" Gibbs asked. Tony frowned.

"There were several times with Luke, but only a couple more with Marco, thank God. Mainly it was Roy.”

"There were no other men? Just those three?"

Tony shook his head. "Just those three," he confirmed.

"How did it end?" Gibbs asked.

Tony was looking and sounding better as he reached the conclusion of his statement, as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He sounded more like Tony now and hadn't had any lapses in concentration for some time. Gibbs thought maybe it had been a relief for him to finally be able to let all this out, and tell someone, after all this time.

"I became quiet and withdrawn," Tony said.

"That's quite a personality change – your dad must have noticed," Gibbs said. Tony frowned.

"Well…I might not have been the kind of kid you'd expect," he muttered. Gibbs glanced at him, with a raised eyebrow. Tony shrugged and didn't elucidate. Gibbs filed the comment away to think about later.

"I'd been reading all these books about boarding schools. They sounded fantastic, so I scoped some out. I thought it'd be a good way of getting out of Roy's clutches – I couldn't face speaking to my dad about the abuse again. Me and Dad didn’t really talk much about anything anyway. So, one day I went to his study, and I told him that I wanted to go away to boarding school. He was surprised - maybe even a little hurt - but I had to get away, and I couldn't tell him why. I think maybe he was relieved as well – he never did really connect with me. I know he loved me, but we just couldn't seem to communicate. He agreed that maybe it was a good idea and so that was it. I went away."

"What about vacation time? Did Roy ever try to abuse you again?" Gibbs asked.

"No. I didn't go back very often. I made a lot of friends at boarding school and always tried to get invited back to stay with them during vacations. Dad and I grew more and more apart, and I don't think he really understands why."

Gibbs nodded. He had inferred a long time ago that relations between Tony and his father weren't great, although it wasn't always easy sifting out the truth behind the many exaggerated stories Tony told. One thing he was sure about was that Tony hadn't exaggerated anything tonight. If anything, he'd glossed over and underplayed.

"That's pretty much it." Tony leaned back in his chair. "Do you believe me, Boss?"

Gibbs was startled. "What the hell kind of question is that? Of course I damn well believe you, Tony!"

"I still tell lies, Boss," Tony said quietly. "I tell lies all the time – the same kind I told to my Dad. Stupid lies – pointless lies. Stuff about my childhood, or my girlfriends, or my social life that I've made up. Dates I've changed, half-truths I've embellished. You know that. You can always see right through me. I catch you looking at me sometimes when I'm making something up, and I can tell you know I'm lying."

"Well, I never exactly viewed them as lies – more like entertaining stories. I thought you were just trying to amuse us, but now I see you were building a fantasy to deflect us from the truth, and you did a damn good job. None of us got a glimpse of what you were hiding."

"So how do you know I'm not lying now?" Tony asked.

"Like you said, I always know when you're lying."

Tony leaned forward in his chair. "So, you really do believe me?"

Gibbs gazed at him, puzzled, and then he saw the look in Tony's eyes and understood. Tony had carried this secret around for twenty-five years, and the only person he'd told had comprehensively rejected his version of events. Logically, as an adult, he expected Gibbs to believe him, but there was an anxious twelve year old boy inside him who had no such expectations, and Gibbs was looking at him right now.

Gibbs leaned forward, so that they were face to face, gazed straight into those apprehensive eyes, and spoke emphatically, so there could be no room for doubt.

"Tony – I believe every single word you've said here tonight."

Tony swallowed hard, and Gibbs saw just how important it had been for him to hear that.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

"Was there anything else you wanted to add?" Gibbs asked. He thought they had more than enough to take a crowbar to this case and lever it wide open, but he also suspected Tony might be able to supply more details if he needed them at a later date. It was late now though, and they'd all had a rough day.

"No." Tony shook his head. "Was that okay?" he asked anxiously a second later. "Did I…was there anything else you wanted to know?"

"Not right now, Tony," Gibbs reassured him. "We might need to come back to some of it, but right now I think we're done."

Tony nodded, looking relieved and strangely euphoric, his green eyes glowing.

"Thank God for that."

"Look – I need to make a couple of phone calls, and then I'll take you home." Gibbs paused. "Are you okay to be on your own tonight?" he asked, looking at Tony searchingly. Tony was looking more like his old self than he had all evening, but Gibbs remembered that moment in the parking lot earlier and felt uneasy.

"I'm fine, Boss. You were right, I needed to get this out – I'm feeling a hell of a lot better now," Tony said brightly. Gibbs gazed at him, unconvinced. Tony grinned and spread his arms. "C'mon – I'm thirty-seven, not twelve. I'm a big boy – I can take care of myself."

Gibbs winced inwardly at Tony's reference to the younger age – he wondered if Tony even knew he'd said it. It seemed to him that Tony had been taking care of himself even back when he was just a kid of twelve.

"Okay," he nodded.

He could hardly insist on taking Tony back to his place or on staying over at Tony's. Right now, he was wary about insisting on anything where Tony was concerned. He was mindful of what Tony had said earlier about him bullying and manipulating Justin, and he had a sense that any abuse victim might need to feel in control, so he didn’t want to railroad Tony or order him around too much. It felt wrong though. Gibbs was used to trusting his gut and giving orders to his team, and Tony had always responded well to that in the past. Gibbs was aware he was holding back right now and treading carefully. Instinctively, his gut told he shouldn’t just drop Tony home and say goodnight, but he couldn't see a way around it.

"Wait here – I'll come back and get you in a few minutes," he said. Tony grinned at him brightly, and Gibbs got up, taking his pad full of notes with him.

His first stop was the observation room next door. McGee looked up when he came in, and Gibbs winced. The probie was as white as a sheet, and he looked horrified. There was clear evidence of vomit in the waste basket next to him.

"You okay, McGee?" Gibbs asked quietly, closing the door behind him. He glanced into the next door room to make sure Tony was okay, but he was just sitting at the table, tapping on it impatiently with his fingers, looking every inch the Tony DiNozzo they all knew so well.

"No," McGee answered honestly. "Boss, I had no idea. I mean, if you'd asked me who, out of all of us, had something like this in their past, Tony would be at the very bottom of my list."

"I know." Gibbs nodded. "But he's made a conscious decision not to be a victim, and he's constructed a lot of ways to make sure people never view him as one. He's the person you'd least suspect precisely because he's been working hard to make sure nobody ever does."

"But to hide something like that for all these years…" McGee shook his head. "He must be one hell of a good actor."

Gibbs glanced into the next door room, where Tony was now drumming out a little dysphonic rhythm on the table with the palms of his hands.

"Yeah. I think he is," he said. "But this is who he's chosen to be, and he doesn't want any of us looking at him differently, so we have to respect that."

"Uh…how?" McGee asked, gazing up at him with puzzled eyes. "I mean, how can I look at Tony and not see that kid from the photograph and not remember all the stuff he said in there tonight?"

"Hell, McGee – if you find a way, you be sure to tell me," Gibbs snapped. "In the meantime, let's just try and handle this – and him - the best way we can. Now, I need to go make a couple of calls. I want you to go in there and sit with him while I do that."

"Do I have to?" McGee asked. "I don't know what to say to him."

"Well get over it – I don't want him out of sight until I drop him off safely at his apartment," Gibbs told him, walking over to the door. "I also don't want him left on his own in the NCIS offices at any point during this investigation in case he prejudices something – we can't be sure what his emotional state is right now. He made some questionable choices earlier today – understandable given the circumstances - but he could have screwed up our chances of a conviction, and I don't want a repeat of that."

He opened the door and then glanced back. "And McGee – first thing tomorrow I want a file with everything we have on Roy Quinn on my desk."

"Yes, Boss." McGee nodded. "Uh, Boss?" Gibbs glanced back. "What do I tell the others? Ziva? Abby? Ducky?"

"Nothing."

"But, Boss…!" McGee protested.

"Nothing!" Gibbs snapped. "Nothing until I've spoken to Tony about how we handle that. We'll have to bring them in at some point if we're going to investigate this properly, but he's been through enough tonight. It was hard enough for him to choose you to do the taping – I don't want him fretting about how we tell the rest of the team. I'll deal with that in the morning."

"Yes, Boss," McGee sighed.

"Good." Gibbs turned on his heel and left.

He went straight to the restroom, leaned over the sink, turned on the faucet, filled his hands with water, and splashed his face with it. He glanced up into the mirror, caught sight of himself, and then went ballistic. He slammed his fist into the wall repeatedly, cursing the entire time, shouting it out, roaring out his rage at what he'd heard tonight.

This case was so personal, so close to home, and the details so horrific that he wasn't sure he could contain his revulsion. He shouted, and roared, and crashed his fist against the wall, riding the wave of his own fury and impotence until the pain kicked in.

Then he leaned his arms against the wall, rested his forehead on his bloody knuckles, and panted for several minutes, calming himself down. Tony couldn't see him like this. Hell, none of his team could see him like this, but he had to let it out somehow. He had remained calm and focussed through every single detail of that sickening story, while every nerve in his body was straining to scream out his fury.

He didn't want to think about a twelve year old boy being repeatedly raped by a man he trusted. He didn't want to think about him being passed around to other bastards for them to rape. He didn't want to think about that kid being ripped up so badly that he bled and was terrified that he might die. He didn't want to think about that child screwing up every last ounce of his courage to tell his father what was happening, only to be knocked back, disbelieved, and *hit* for God's sake. He didn't want to think about that. He didn't want to think about the abuse continuing, and a lonely child becoming more and more withdrawn until he was forced to manufacture his own escape because no adult came to help him. He didn't want to think about any of that happening to any child in the whole damn world.

But, most of all, he didn't want to think about it happening to Tony.

~*~

McGee squared his shoulders and opened the door to the interrogation room. Tony glanced up and gave him a bright grin.

"Hey, Probie. Sorry if I screwed up your evening. I expect you had a hot date – no, wait, what I am I saying?" Tony laughed. "This is the probie I'm talking to! Your last hot date was last century."

In other circumstances, McGee would have thrown back a retort at him - possibly even thrown Jeanne at him, just to score a hit and keep Tony off his back, but not right now.

He sat down in the seat Gibbs had vacated. "Tony, I don't know what to say," he murmured.

"Then don't say anything, Probie," Tony told him sharply.

McGee shook his head. "I at least have to say I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you went through that, Tony. I can't imagine what that must have been like."

Tony shrugged, looking completely unconcerned. If McGee hadn't seen him stumbling through his statement these past couple of hours, he could almost believe it hadn't happened.

"It was a long time ago, Probie. I haven't thought about it in years, and I wouldn't have started thinking about it today if it hadn't been for those photos showing up."

"Did you tell Gibbs?"

"Hell no! He figured it out."

"How?" McGee frowned. He'd looked at the photos of Boy 43 – of Tony – several times during the course of the day, and he hadn't figured it out.

"How do I know?" Tony shrugged. "He's *Gibbs*, Probie. I do know that if I'd had my way I wouldn't have told a damn person, but he showed up at my apartment and made me spill. One thing led to another, and that's why you and me both ended up here tonight."

"I won't tell anyone," McGee said.

"I know," Tony replied. He looked straight at McGee, his eyes suddenly deadly serious. "You're pretty much my best friend, Tim. Why else do you think I asked Gibbs to call you instead of one of the others? Talking of Gibbs…" He glanced at the door. "He's been gone some time. Are you sure he's okay?"

"What do you mean?" McGee frowned anxiously. Tony sat back and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Just that you know how much he hates this kind of stuff. Are you sure he didn't go off after Parrish, or isn't pounding some innocent passer-by into a pulp right now?"

"Uh…" McGee looked at the door uncertainly.

"I think you should go and check on him, McGee."

"He asked me to stay with you," McGee said, unsure what to do.

"I'm fine. Look at me, Probie - I'm fine," Tony grinned, opening his arms wide and looking just as fine as he said he was. "Go check on him. I'll wait here."

"You promise?" McGee asked, getting up and going to the door and then hesitating, agonised. Gibbs had told him to stay here with Tony, but Tony seemed okay, and Gibbs did have an almighty temper when it was roused.

"Cross my heart, hope to die," Tony said, motioning his hand across his chest.

Reassured, McGee opened the door and left.

~*~

Gibbs spent a few minutes pulling himself back together, and then he took out his cell phone and dialled. He checked in with the security detail he had posted to trail Admiral Parrish when he left NCIS custody, but they advised him that the admiral hadn't contacted anyone all evening and was still in the house. Gibbs then called the agents he'd posted to keep an eye on Justin in case Parrish tried to threaten him. They reported that he also hadn't left his house.

Satisfied that he had those two situations under control, Gibbs knew he had to turn his attention back to Tony. He was about to leave the restroom when McGee poked his head around the door.

"Uh...oh, you're in here. Good," McGee said, and then his eyes widened as he saw Gibbs's bloody knuckles. Gibbs glared at him.

"What the hell are you doing here, McGee? I told you to watch Tony!" he roared.

"I did – I mean, I was, but then he said I should go look for you in case…" McGee trailed off.

"He played you, McGee!" Gibbs growled, leaving the restroom and sweeping past McGee on his way back to Interrogation.

"Oh shit," McGee muttered, following along on his heels like a puppy.

Gibbs sprinted along the hallway to interrogation room one, pushed open the door, and burst inside.

The room was empty.

~*~

Tony took the elevator down to Autopsy, humming to himself. He didn't bother turning on the light – he just went over to Ducky's desk and began rifling through the drawers. Hell, he needed a drink – a real drink - not more damn water.

He pulled out a bottle and opened it.

"Ah, finest Scottish malt – thanks, Duck," he said, taking a swig – only to find that all he got was a tiny sip. "Aw, hell, Ducky – you shouldn't let this happen!" he sighed, holding up the bottle and finding it completely empty. He frowned as he saw the little note attached to the side. He squinted at it in the faint light from the outside hallway.

"Anthony/Jethro – buy your own!" it said.

"Damn it – busted," Tony muttered, replacing the bottle in the desk.

He moved over to the cupboard where Palmer stowed his stuff, felt around beneath the spare lab coat, and pulled out the little packet he was looking for. He poked his nose cautiously inside and then grinned.

"Ah, Jimmy, you have yet to become old and cynical like the Duckster," he said, pulling out a cigarette from the packet. He found a box of matches in the same place, lit the cigarette, and took a long draw on it. He glanced around Autopsy and gave a shiver. "Man this place is creepy at night."

He went over to one of the steel tables, put his head on one side, and looked at it for a moment, exhaling a plume of smoke as he did so. He took another drag on the cigarette and then coughed and made a face; man he hated smoking. Then, with a grin, he climbed onto the table, stuck the cigarette between his lips, put his hands under his head, and gazed up at the ceiling.

"So this is what it's like to be dead," he muttered, gazing up, imagining Ducky looming over him wearing his protective goggles and wielding a scalpel. "Wonder what he'd say to my corpse? Bitch about the state of my plague-scarred lungs and lament my lack of good sense in getting myself killed probably."

"If he didn't, I would," a dry voice said from over by the door. Tony didn't even look around. He just took another drag on the cigarette and blew out the smoke from around the side of it.

"Hey, Boss," he muttered.

"You gave McGee the slip." Gibbs walked over to stand beside him.

"Yeah. Couldn't stand the way he was looking at me." Tony gave another little cough as the smoke irritated the lining of his lungs, which had never exactly been robust since that bout with the plague a few years back. Gibbs plucked the cigarette out from between his lips, threw it on the floor, and trod on it.

"You don't smoke," he said. Tony glared at him and sat up.

"I know. I was just, you know…"

"Ducky left the empty bottle again, didn't he?" Gibbs grinned.

"Yeah – with a note on it for us both, telling us to get our own. How did he even know it was us?"

"Because it was?" Gibbs perched on the side of the table next to him, his arm touching Tony's arm. It felt warm. Nice.

"Yeah. Didn't know you snuck down here to take a swig too though, Boss."

"Not often. Just sometimes, when I'm working late." Gibbs shrugged.

"Yeah." Tony shrugged too. "Has McGee gone? I can't face seeing him again tonight."

"I figured that was it. I sent him home. You okay?"

"Me? Sure. You were right – just needed to tell someone, get it all out, and now I can forget about it again."

"You think it's that easy?" Gibbs glanced at him sideways.

"Well it will be if McGee doesn't pull those big, tragic eyes on me every time he looks at me," Tony growled. "You going to arrest Quinn, Boss?"

"What do you think?" Gibbs asked, his blue eyes glittering dangerously in the dark room. "God knows how many kids he's abused since you, Tony. He could be out there right now, doing to some other kid what he did to you. He could have been one of the men who abused Justin."

"Yeah. I know. You think I should have done something about this earlier." Tony looked at his shoes. All these years he could have done something but hadn't. "I’m sorry. I screwed up there, Boss."

"The hell you did," Gibbs snapped. "You protected yourself, Tony, the best way you knew how, when nobody else would, when you were just a kid and shouldn't have had to. You've been protecting yourself ever since. I don't blame you for that. Nobody would."

"This is all going to come out." Tony hunched his shoulders and wished he had that cigarette back. "My dad is going to find out."

"Maybe it's time he knew, Tony."

"It'll hurt him. I don't want to hurt him."

"You can't keep protecting him – and he sure as hell didn't protect you."

Gibbs's voice was taut and angry, and Tony turned his head sharply to look at him. Gibbs had some firm ideas about fatherhood, so Tony wasn’t entirely surprised by his tone of voice, but he hadn’t expected him to sound quite so furious.

Then Tony saw the torn skin on Gibbs's knuckles, and he suddenly sensed the tightly leashed fury in Gibbs's body. He knew Gibbs's dark side; had seen it, feared it, and also admired it in a way, ever since he'd first met the man. Gibbs knew how to channel his rage, keeping it tightly reined until he could unleash it, with full force and deadly accuracy, straight at the intended target. That side of Gibbs had always scared and thrilled him in equal measure.

Now Tony realised that his boss’s legendary protective instincts were roused in his defence, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He had always wanted proof that Gibbs cared about him; he just wished it hadn't had to happen like this. He'd never wanted the man's pity – he'd always wanted something else entirely.

"What happens next?" Tony asked, pushing that thought away and filing it back in the 'unobtainable fantasies' section of his brain. "You gave me back my badge, but you and I both know I can't be an investigator and a possible witness on the same case."

"No, you can't," Gibbs agreed.

"Boss, don't make me stay at home." Tony tried to keep the desperation out of his voice, but he wasn't sure he succeeded. The thought of having all that time on his hands and nothing to do but think… "I have to stay busy."

"I know." Gibbs nodded. "I've been meaning to have someone go through that cold case backlog for years now and…"

"Aw hell," Tony groaned. "Not the goddamn cold case backlog. I hate working those files."

"I know – better than staying home though," Gibbs pointed out with a grin.

"I suppose," Tony agreed reluctantly. "What about Abby, Ziva and Ducky? You're going to tell them, aren't you?"

Gibbs hesitated. "At some point they'll have to know. I can tell them, or you can."

"Whatever." Tony hunched up again. "But if they look at me like McGee looked at me, or if they start treating me differently, then I'm going to have to take up smoking for real."

"The hell you will," Gibbs growled, slapping the back of his head.

"Ow!" Tony reached up to rub the sore spot.

"Well, you said you didn't want anyone treating you any differently."

Gibbs grinned at him, and Tony grinned back, feeling absurdly happy. With that one gesture Gibbs had managed to allay at least one of his fears.

"Where the hell did you find those cigarettes anyway?" Gibbs asked. "Ducky doesn't smoke."

"Nah – but Jimmy does. He has to hide them in case Ducky finds them – or else suffer one of Ducky's three hour lectures on the effects of smoking on your lungs, complete with pictures of all the lungs Ducky's ever plucked out of the bodies of the long-term smokers he's had on his table."

"Sounds like Ducky!" Gibbs slid off the table and began walking towards the door. "Come on, Tony. Let's get you home."
 

~*~

Gibbs drove Tony home in silence. Every so often he glanced sideways at the man sitting next to him, but Tony's eyes were closed, and he seemed to be asleep, so Gibbs didn't say anything. He felt better after their chat in Autopsy – Tony had seemed more like himself and there hadn't been any of that weird hair-stroking behaviour or zoning out. All the same, he still couldn’t shake off his concern that Tony shouldn't be left alone right now.

They reached Tony's apartment building, and Gibbs pulled up in the parking lot and got out of the car. Tony got out the other side and raised an eyebrow at him.

"Just want to see you actually go into your apartment," Gibbs said, with a shrug. He felt a surge of protectiveness towards Tony. Usually his senior field agent didn't need any protecting - he was more than capable of protecting himself - only right now Gibbs wasn't so sure. He didn't know if Tony's methods of protecting himself were still working; he had a nagging worry that they might be starting to break down.

"Aw, like a date or something," Tony grinned, making a joke of it – typical DiNozzo. Gibbs followed him into the building and up the stairs to his apartment. Tony opened the door, and Gibbs stepped in after him.

"Tony – you've been through a lot today," he said. "Are you sure you're okay to be alone?"

"Sure? I can't damn well wait," Tony griped. "I *want* some time alone, Boss. I’m gonna watch some TV in bed and then get some sleep."

Gibbs stood there, uncertainly. He had no reason to stay, and he couldn't foist his company on Tony, so why did he feel so uneasy about this?

"Okay – but if you need anything, you call me – right?" he insisted.

"Well, I'm down to my last can of beer," Tony said. "How pissed off would you be if I called and asked you to bring over a new six pack?"

Gibbs slapped the back of his head. "Very," he growled.

"I thought so." Tony grinned at him stupidly. "Seriously, Boss, I'm fine. Go home."

"Okay." Gibbs gave him a curt nod. "I'll see you tomorrow."

He left the apartment and returned to his car. He sat there for a few minutes, until he saw the light go on in Tony's bedroom window and then off again a few minutes later, plunging the apartment into darkness, and only then, finally, did he drive away.
 

~*~

Tony threw himself onto his bed, fully clothed, then turned off the light and sat there in the dark. He didn’t feel like sleeping – he wasn’t sure he’d be able to sleep. He felt an odd sense of euphoria. It was over; twenty-five years of keeping this secret was behind him, and now he could move on, once and for all.

He grabbed the remote, pointed it at the TV, and then lay there, slumped, flicking through the channels aimlessly, waiting for something to grab his attention.

“Tonio,” a voice whispered, and he shivered and glanced at the door. He began humming, and he flicked through the TV channels more urgently, skipping from one to another, searching desperately for something to drown out the sound of that voice. It was no use; there was a box stowed away in a corner of his mind, and a chorus of whispers called to him from it, insistently, demanding his attention.

“Tonio, be a good boy for Marco, the way you are for me. Hmm?”

“Where are you going?”

“I’ll be back soon. Marco will take good care of you. Ssh, Tonio – everything’s fine.”

A gentle hand cupped his cheek, and Roy kissed him on the forehead and then turned and left. Tony looked up at the wiry, swarthy stranger he had been left alone with. Marco reached for him; his breathing was fast and excited as he undressed him.

“Stop…please…Roy won’t like it,” Tony protested. He tried to wriggle away as Marco held him up, and pushed him forwards, bending him over. “Please…stop…”

“Shut up.”

A rough hand slid over his mouth. Marco’s other hand was pressing onto his stomach, pulling him back onto him. It hurt, but, worse that that, he couldn’t breathe, and he thought he might suffocate. He struggled frantically. Marco removed his hand from his mouth, but only so he could grab his hip instead and keep him steady.

He could smell Marco’s sweat, and hear his breathing, loud and guttural behind him.

It hurt so much. He felt like he was being ripped in two. It never hurt like this with Roy. Where was Roy? When he came back he’d be mad at Marco for doing this. This was just something he did with Roy. Roy had said it was special, just between them, their secret – their beautiful little secret.

Tony blinked. He glanced at his watch – it was late, 2 a.m. Damn it, he had to stop losing time like this.

He stroked his hair anxiously. What he needed was a distraction - a better distraction than watching old movies on TV, and Tony knew from experience that there was one distraction that worked better than the TV, better than alcohol, better than anything else.

He got up, grabbed his keys, and ran out of his apartment. He got in his car and drove towards the only bars that would be open at this time of night and offering him a chance of finding a warm, willing body for a few hours of pleasurable distraction. He paused when he got near, trying to decide which way to go.

"Left for girls, right for guys," he mused. He decided it didn't matter. He just wanted to lose himself – it didn’t matter what he lost himself in.

"In that case – right," he said out loud, making the turn. He parked the car across the street from a gay bar. Guys were easier to lure into bed for a one night stand than women. Women wanted you to buy them a drink and flirt with them first. Guys just looked you up and down, and if you were fit enough they'd go home with you. That was another thing Tony knew from experience – years of it.

~*~
 

Terry Dyer looked up from his drink to see the tall, good-looking guy walk into the bar. There were only a handful of people here so late, and he'd more or less given up on the hope of picking anyone up tonight – until now.

The guy glanced around the nearly empty room, looking disappointed. Terry smiled at him, and the guy's handsome face split into a wide grin, and he walked over. He was a big guy, broad-shouldered, and dressed all in black. Terry was surprised he'd come over – he'd seen this guy around before, and he only ever picked up straight-acting, older men – tough guys. Terry was none of those things, so he was pretty sure he wasn't this man's type.

"Well hello, man in black," Terry said when the guy got close. The stranger grinned – he knew a cheesy pick-up line when he heard it – Terry had a suspicion he'd probably handed out a few in his time.

"Hey. I'm Tony." The guy didn't sit down. He just leaned against the table, looking at Terry like he wanted to eat him.

"And I'm Terry. That's a sexy look you're working there, Tony. I like it."

Tony's grin widened. "If you like me dressed, you'll like me even better undressed," he said.

Cheesy – but to the point. Terry laughed. "I'm sure I would. That a proposition?"

"Yeah. It's late. I don't have the time or energy to sweet talk you into bed. I just want sex and my place is nearby. You up for that?"

Terry looked him up and down, taking in the long legs, the toned chest, and the beautiful green eyes.

"Soon will be, handsome," he joked, finishing his drink in one gulp and getting to his feet. "I knew if I waited around here long enough my prince would come," he flirted.

It was an old line, and he had a feeling this guy didn't really respond to twinky little queens like himself, but what the hell. Tony laughed and slung an arm around his shoulder, making him feel like a dwarf beside him.

"Oh, your prince definitely wants to come," he whispered loudly into Terry's ear as they left the bar.

Tony didn't say a word as he drove them back to his place; he just kept humming to himself. Terry didn't mind. He was a slender five foot eight; bright, witty and cute. He knew he wasn't anything special to look at, but he also knew he had a big heart and a lot to give to the right guy – and that wasn't the man sitting next to him.

Terry was under no illusions that this was the start of something beautiful – it was just sex, and as far as Terry was concerned there was nothing wrong with that. Tony was way out of his league for a start, and in any case guys like him always turned out to be heartbreakers. Terry had had his heart broken enough times not to want to give it away to the wrong kind of guy again – and Tony was definitely the wrong kind of guy. He was the kind of guy your mom warned you about.

He glanced at Tony as they drove. He seemed so big and sure of himself. There was a confidence to him, a kind of swagger. Tony was a player – Terry had seen him work a bar before, so he knew exactly what kind of guy he was going to be getting into bed with. All the same, there was something about Tony that he hadn't expected; a kind of vulnerability and loneliness.

They reached Tony's apartment and went inside. Tony didn't waste a second. The minute they got through the door he grabbed Terry, pushed him against the wall, and kissed him.

He tasted of cigarette smoke, but his lips were soft and agile. Terry slid his arms around Tony's big body and cupped his ass. Tony kissed him like he was drowning, putting everything into it, urgent and needy. Terry drew back.

"This is great, Tony, but I need to breathe, honey," he said. "And you're a big guy."

"Sorry." Tony pulled back, an apologetic grin on his face. "Bedroom's this way."

He grabbed Terry's wrist and led him towards a room at the back of the apartment. Terry wondered for a moment if he should be worried – he didn't know this guy, and Tony seemed kind of zoned out and weird. Yet, even so, Terry didn't get a bad vibe off him. He knew, instinctively, that Tony wasn't the kind of guy who would hurt him. If anything, Tony seemed like something of a lost soul. They went into the bedroom and Terry surveyed the black satin sheets and red velvet blanket on the bed with a roll of his eyes; Tony was *such* a player.

Tony began undressing him the minute they got into the bedroom. Terry was flattered by Tony's urgency but troubled by the look in Tony's eyes. It was as if he wasn't really there – his eyes were completely blank, and he kept humming. It was starting to freak him out.

Tony got him naked and then pushed him onto the bed and began undressing himself. That was when Terry forgot his misgivings – this guy was fucking hot! Tony stripped off his sweater to reveal acres of taut, toned, golden flesh, covered in a nice amount of chest hair, and then shucked off his pants and underwear to reveal a smooth, curving cock – nice size, cut…and disappointingly flaccid.

"I guess I'm not your usual type," Terry murmured, glancing pointedly at Tony's cock. His own was hard and aching just from looking at Tony's beautiful body.

"Hmmm?" Tony joined him on the bed, took him in his arms, and began kissing him all over.

Terry gasped – Tony sure as hell knew his stuff. He was passionate, urgent, and commanding, covering every inch of Terry's body with gentle caresses that made him sigh and moan. He didn't seem to want much back in return – in fact he wouldn’t let Terry do much to him at all. He seemed to prefer to be in control, so Terry gave up trying and just allowed Tony to kiss, and suck, and stroke him all over.

"I need you in me, Tony," Terry whispered after awhile, opening his legs wide.

Tony grinned down at him, those perfect white teeth gleaming in the darkness. He reached over, opened his nightstand drawer, and pulled out a condom and some lube. Terry lay back and abandoned himself to the pleasure of having Tony's fingers slide in and out of him. Then he grew impatient for more – he wasn't some tight little virgin who needed a whole lot of stretching. He reached down and pulled Tony's hand away.

"Come on, handsome. Let's feel you inside me," he crooned, rubbing up against Tony. "Hey…what's the problem here, big guy?" he asked, surprised to find Tony still soft. "Am I not doing it for you? Is there something you'd like me to do differently? I give great head."

"No…I…" Tony looked down, puzzled, at his flaccid cock. "This has never happened to me before," he said lamely. Terry laughed out loud.

"Oh honey! That's what they all say!"

"I mean it. Uh…let's just…keep going." Tony ground his hips against Terry's groin. He looked adorably confused. "Won't be long," Tony promised.

Terry grabbed Tony's head and looked into those strangely glowing green eyes.

"You know, honey, I'm not sure that this is what you need tonight. It's late, and you're probably tired. Why don't we just lie here and…"

"No!" Tony said forcefully, and he returned to caressing Terry's body with renewed gusto, kissing, and sucking, and biting…God it was good, but still Tony’s cock remained resolutely soft, and Terry was starting to feel more and more uncomfortable. This was all wrong.

"Look, I just don't think it's going to happen tonight, Tony," he said eventually, pushing Tony away. "It's okay – there's nothing wrong with that. It happens to us all at some point." He rolled his eyes. "Look at me – I drink too much and nothing happens in that department at all."

"I haven't been drinking," Tony told him, getting up and pulling on his boxer shorts. He sat down on the side of the bed, forlornly, looking like a kid who'd lost his favourite toy.

"Well, you're tired, like I said."

Tony reached up a hand and rubbed the back of his head, absently.

"You okay?" Terry knelt down behind him, and started massaging his shoulders as best he could while Tony kept rubbing his head like that. "Boy, you're tense, Tony!"

Tony didn't reply – he just kept on rubbing.

"Tony?" Terry asked.

When there was no response, Terry got up off the bed and went to kneel down in front of him.

"Tony?" he said again, softly.

Tony's eyes were blank, glazed over and unfocussed.

"Oh, Tony," Terry said sadly. "You really are a little lost boy aren't you?" He kissed Tony gently on the lips. "Hey, handsome prince – wake up," he teased. There was still no reply, and he was starting to get really freaked out now. "TONY!" he yelled, slapping Tony's face gently, trying to shock him. Still nothing.

Terry took a step back. “Come on, snap out of it!” he ordered. Tony just continued to stare absently into space, humming under his breath.

“Oh fuck…this is just…why the hell do these things have to happen to me?” Terry hissed.

He grabbed his clothes, pulled them on quickly, and ran out of the bedroom. He got as far as the front door of the apartment and then paused and looked back with a sigh.

“Oh shit…fuck you and your big damn bleeding heart, Terry,” he sighed.

He returned slowly to the bedroom, to find Tony where he’d left him, still sitting on the side of the bed in his boxer shorts, still rubbing the back of his head.

“Do I call 911? What do I tell them? Are you an epileptic, Tony? Do you have any medicine around here?” He glanced around and then shook his head. “What the hell difference would it make? I wouldn’t know how to give it to you. Okay…you must have some friends, Tony…let me think…”

He caught sight of Tony’s black leather jacket, abandoned on a nearby chair.

“Look, if you wake up and find me doing this, it’s not because I’m stealing from you – okay?” Terry said, picking up the jacket and searching through the pockets.

He found Tony’s wallet, and then his keys, and then he pulled out some kind of badge. He turned it over in his hand, examining it.

“NCIS? I have no idea what that is, but are you some kind of cop, Tony? Figures. All that swagger and confidence, and that hint of danger, although you’re not very dangerous now, are you, big guy?”

Terry dipped his fingers back into Tony’s jacket pocket again and finally found what he was looking for – a cell phone. He turned it on with shaking fingers.

“Okay – who do I call? Speed dial number one, yes? That has to be the person to call. Yes, Tony?” he asked.

Tony didn’t even look around. He just continued to stare, and stroke, and hum. Terry shivered – this was beyond creepy.

“Okay…okay…here goes…” Terry pressed the speed dial and then waited, shivering anxiously. A few seconds later a man’s voice answered; deep, curt, and kind of grumpy.

“Gibbs,” the man said.

~*~

Gibbs dropped Tony home and then went straight to his basement and spent a couple of hours working on his boat. He knew it was pointless going to bed – he was too angry and hyped up to sleep in any case, and he needed to bring himself down. There was no way he’d be in any shape to interrogate Admiral Parrish tomorrow if he didn’t get a grip on himself first, and when he did question that bastard, he had to do it *right* - for Tony’s sake.

Working on the boat was the only way he knew of calming himself. The smell of the sawdust and the rhythm of moving back and forwards as he sanded down the wood helped. He bored some holes into the boat and then slammed in some wooden pegs, allowing his pent-up rage to flow into the motion.

He was just about to call it a night when his cell phone rang. He reached for it quickly and felt a little spike of anxiety as he saw the name on the caller display: DiNozzo.

“Gibbs,” he answered. “You okay, Tony?”

“Uh…this is Terry Dyer,” an unfamiliar, slightly squeaky voice replied. “Um…are you a friend of Tony’s?”

Gibbs threw down his hammer and began walking towards the stairs – fast. “Who the hell is this?” he demanded, running up the stairs and out of the door. He grabbed his keys from the hall table and reached for his jacket. He had a bad feeling about this.

“It’s Terry – like I said. Look, I’m at Tony’s place, and he’s…well he’s gone kind of weird on me. It’s like he’s zoned out or something. I don’t think he can even hear me.”

“I’m on my way. I’ll be there in ten. Stay there. Do not leave him,” Gibbs ordered tersely, hanging up.

He probably broke every speed limit in the book, but he pulled up at Tony’s apartment building nine minutes later, ran up the stairs, and knocked impatiently on the door. It was opened, and he found himself looking at a diminutive guy with wide, almond-shaped brown eyes and a scared expression on his face.

Gibbs looked the man up and down. He was about twenty-five, with peroxide blond hair, wearing a tight tee shirt, impossibly tight jeans and…Gibbs thought he detected a hint of eyeliner. This must be Terry Dyer – but who the hell was he, and what was he doing in Tony’s apartment?

“Are you Gibbs?” Terry asked, in a drawly, camp tone of voice. “And do you have a first name, honey?”

“Where’s Tony?” Gibbs asked brusquely, brushing past him.

“Oh yeah, you’re Gibbs,” Terry muttered. “He’s in the bedroom. I’ll show you…”

“I know where the damn bedroom is,” Gibbs growled, heading towards it.

He strode through the bedroom door and then stopped dead in his tracks. Tony was sitting on the side of the bed, dressed only in a pair of boxer shorts, and he was staring into space. There was a vacant expression on his face, and he was humming to himself and stroking his hair absently, the way Gibbs had noticed him doing a few times earlier this evening.

“Hey, Tony,” he said softly, crouching down in front of his agent. “You okay?”

Tony made no reply. He just continued staring into space, his eyes blank and empty. Gibbs waved his hand in front of Tony’s face, but there was no reaction.

“How long has he been like this?” Gibbs asked, glancing up at Terry who had followed him into the bedroom.

“About half an hour,” Terry replied. “I didn’t know what to do. I was going to leave but that’s not me, you know? I wouldn’t leave someone in trouble. Besides, he’s a nice guy – and I wasn’t sure what would happen to him if I just left. Is he an epileptic?”

“No,” Gibbs answered shortly. He got up and glared at the diminutive man standing in the doorway. “Now, explain to me – who the hell are you, and what are you doing here?”

~*~

Terry took a step back. While he’d sensed that Tony was dangerous in his own way, this guy here took danger to a new level. Also, what was it with these guys being so tall? He knew he was short, but this man in front of him was almost as tall as Tony. He felt like he’d stumbled into a land of giants. There was one sexy, little-boy-lost giant sitting on the bed, and one grim-faced giant, just as sexy but scary as all hell, looming over him and looking at him like he was a criminal.

Terry wondered if he’d done the right thing calling this stranger. He was so curt and terse. Would Tony thank him for it, he wondered? On the other hand, who the hell did this guy think he was, coming in here and treating Terry like *he’d* done something wrong when all he’d been trying to do was help?

“I told you on the phone, I’m Terry Dyer, I’m a friend of Tony’s and…oh, okay, ‘friend’ might be overstating the case as we only just met tonight but…oh shit, you’re not Tony’s boyfriend, are you?”

Terry knew he was babbling, but he always talked too much when he got nervous, and he was definitely nervous right now. Gibbs gave him a glare so baleful he took a step backwards in alarm.

“No, I’m not Tony’s…boyfriend,” Gibbs growled. Terry relaxed slightly.

“Oh thank GOD,” he said, mock-fanning himself in relief. “Only you’re exactly his type, and I thought if you were his boyfriend, and you found me and him in here together, then you might go crazy. And you’re tall, and, if you don’t mind me saying, pretty damn scary. And I just noticed that you have bruised knuckles, so I’m guessing you’re the kind of guy who likes to solve disputes with his fists, and I’m really…not. That kind of guy. So if you were going to hit me I’d just go straight down. No resistance! So, uh, don’t hit me,” he added, with a nervous laugh.

“His type?” Gibbs interrupted, his forehead wrinkled up into a frown.

“Yeah – you’re the kind of guy he usually picks up in bars; you know - straight-acting tough guys. Older guys. I was surprised when he went for me, but it was late and there weren’t many other guys around, so I guess…well, I’m not selling myself short here, because I happen to think I’m pretty cute, but I guess he had to settle for what he could get at that time of night.”

“Bars?” Gibbs growled. “Gay bars?”

“Well, duh.” Terry rolled his eyes.

“Tony isn’t gay,” Gibbs said blankly. Terry laughed out loud.

“Oh honey!” he giggled, and then he caught the expression in Gibbs’s eyes and the laughter died in his throat. “Well, maybe he isn’t,” he said hurriedly, “But I’ve seen him trawl the bars often enough to know he isn’t 100% straight either. Maybe he’s bi?”

Gibbs turned back to Tony, a puzzled expression on his face. Terry watched as he reached out and gently touched Tony’s shoulder.

“Tony – it’s Gibbs,” he said. “Wake up.”

There was still no response. Tony just kept on staring, and stroking, and humming.

“DiNozzo!” Gibbs rapped out, in a harder tone of voice, making Terry jump. Tony's eyes remained blank. Gibbs rested his hand on Tony’s bare shoulder and then frowned.

“Tony, you’re cold. I’m going to put a blanket around you.”

He grabbed the red velvet blanket from the bed and drew it towards him, and, as he did so, the tube of lubricant and the condom Tony had got out of his night-stand fell onto the floor. Terry winced, and swooped down to pick them up. He flushed, feeling embarrassed, because Gibbs had seen them. Terry doubted there was anything Gibbs didn’t see; the man had eyes like a hawk.

Gibbs wrapped the blanket carefully around Tony’s shoulders – he was much gentler than Terry would have expected of such a terse, grim-faced man. That eased his mind a little about phoning him – whoever this guy was, he obviously genuinely cared about Tony.

“Do you know what’s wrong with him?” Terry asked quietly, replacing the condom and lube on the nightstand with an apologetic smile.

“Yes,” Gibbs replied, and then he frowned slightly. “Well, kind of,” he added grimly.

“Does this happen to him often?”

“No.” Gibbs grabbed Tony’s ceaselessly stroking hand. “Tony, I want you to stop doing that now,” he ordered, in a firm tone of voice. Tony’s hand stopped immediately, in midair.

“Wow – he really responds to you,” Terry said. “I tried doing that, and he just kept on stroking.”

Gibbs took hold of Tony’s arm and moved it down to his side. Tony started rocking gently, back and forth.

“Well, I guess that’s a little better,” Gibbs sighed. He turned back to Terry. “Tell me exactly what happened,” he ordered. “What were you doing right before Tony zoned out?”

“Uh…” Terry flushed. “Well…we were…obviously having sex. Or at least, trying to have sex.”

“Trying?” Gibbs loomed over him, looking angry. “In my experience sex is something you’re either having, or you’re not. Which is it?”

“Not. Tony uh…he couldn’t…” Terry muttered, wondering if he looked as embarrassed as he felt. There was something about this tall, terrifying man that made him feel like he was a stupid, insignificant kid, and he didn’t like that feeling or the kind of men who made him feel this way. He was worth more than this. Gibbs raised an eyebrow at him.

“Had he been drinking?” he asked. Terry shook his head.

“He said he hadn’t. He was upset – he said this had never happened to him before, and I know that’s something guys say, but I believe him. He looked pretty freaked out about it – l mean, he looked really desperate rather than just a bit pissed off. I told him it was okay, and that he was probably just tired, but then he just zoned out on me. He’s been like this ever since.”

“Had he taken any drugs?” Gibbs asked, glancing around the room.

“Not with me!” Terry bristled angrily. “I don’t do that kind of shit. And I didn’t get the vibe that he did, either. I mean, his eyes were kind of glowing, but I didn’t think at any point that he was high. If he was, they were really crap drugs. What’s with all the questions anyway? Are you a cop?”

“I’m a federal agent,” Gibbs replied.

“Oh shit,” Terry hissed, glancing over to the nightstand where he’d emptied out the contents of Tony’s jacket pockets. “You’re not just one of Tony’s friends, are you?” he sighed, catching sight of the NCIS badge he’d found.

“No,” Gibbs agreed. “I’m also his boss.”

“Oh Tony, honey, I’m sorry,” Terry said miserably, kneeling down in front of Tony and gazing at him. “I didn’t know. I mean, who the hell has their *boss* as number one on their speed dial? I don’t even know my boss’s cell phone number, let alone have her on speed dial.”

“You did the right thing,” Gibbs said curtly from behind him.

“I wonder if Tony will think so when he wakes up.”

“I need your name and contact details, and then you can go.”

Terry leaned forward and deposited a tender kiss on Tony’s forehead. He heard Gibbs make a weird little sound in the back of his throat, and got the distinct impression that he didn’t like him touching Tony.

“Good night, handsome prince,” he said softly to Tony. “I hope you’ll be okay. Maybe a kiss from your own Prince Charming will wake you, huh?”

He glanced up at Gibbs who was looking at him like he was a rattlesnake he wanted to shoot. Terry got up, pulled out his wallet, plucked out one of the little personal cards he’d had made to give to guys in bars who asked him for his number, and handed it to Gibbs.

“That’s me,” he said, pointing at the card. “Terry Dyer.”

Gibbs gave it a peremptory look and then pocketed it. “Thank you, Mr. Dyer. I’ll call you if I have any more questions about this case.”

“Tony isn’t a case – he’s a person,” Terry snapped, feeling angry. He’d had a shit night, he was tired, and this guy was really starting to piss him off. “I don’t know what the hell you see in him, Tony honey,” he said, in a flash of anger, glancing at Tony - who continued to gaze off creepily into the distance, taking no notice of him whatsoever.

Gibbs did though – he took a step towards Terry, eyebrows raised in disbelief, looking at him as if he’d gone insane.

“Oh what?” Terry said, with a defiant toss of his head. “Like there’s any way those guys he picks up in bars aren’t all you in his head.”

“Good night, Mr. Dyer,” Gibbs growled. He took hold of Terry’s arm and pushed him unceremoniously towards the door. Terry shook him off, irritably.

“I’d like to say it’s been a pleasure meeting you, but that’d be a lie. You’re not exactly a people person are you, Mr. Gibbs?” Terry snapped.

Gibbs turned towards him, his entire body stiff and intimidating, and shot him a glare that would have had many a grown man quaking in his boots. It cut no ice with Terry. He wasn’t going to be pushed around by anyone. Terry drew himself up to his full height – which admittedly wasn’t very tall – and shot him a glare of his own in response.

“Thank you, Terry,” Terry said. “Thank you for not running out on Tony, thank you for calling me, thank you for staying with Tony until I got here and explaining what happened to him. Sorry you had such a shit night and the hot sex with the very hot guy didn’t happen, but hey, you did the right thing. So thanks.”

Gibbs stared at him for a moment and then those stony blue eyes of his suddenly softened, his body relaxed, and his mouth quirked up into a little grin - and that was when Terry saw it.

“Oh…now I get it,” he said softly. “Now I get what he sees in you.”

Gibbs held out his hand. “Thank you, Terry,” he said, quietly and sincerely. “Thank you for helping Tony.”

Terry took the hand – it was warm, extremely hard, and slightly calloused. Gibbs shook his hand firmly, gazing at Terry from those beautiful blue eyes, and Terry felt himself going ever-so-slightly weak at the knees.

“You’re welcome,” he muttered. “Take good care of Tony – he really is a nice guy. Personally I don’t think you’re good enough for him but…”

A finger was placed over his mouth. “Let’s both quit while we’re ahead shall we?” Gibbs said pleasantly, grasping his shoulder and ushering him firmly but courteously out of the door.

~*~

Gibbs shut the door behind the feisty little guy who had seemed to want to pick a fight with him, reached for his cell phone, and dialled.

He had to wait for several rings and then, finally, a flustered voice answered.

“You do know what time it is, Jethro, don’t you? I thought we’d established that you’d only call me at this time of night in the case of a genuine emergency.”

“It is. I need you, Ducky. Tony’s apartment. Now,” Gibbs said, and then he disconnected.

He returned to the bedroom but there was no change in Tony’s condition. He just sat there, staring blankly into space. At least he wasn’t stroking his hair again – but he was rocking back and forth and humming to himself. Gibbs knelt down in front of him again, rested his hands on Tony’s knees, and gazed into his eyes, looking for something – anything – that would reassure him that Tony was still in there.

“Where are you, Tony?” he asked, waving his hand in front of Tony’s eyes. Tony gave no reaction. “You are full of surprises, DiNozzo. Christ, what a day.”

He hesitated, and then gently stroked Tony’s cheek with the back of his hand.

“First, finding out what you’ve been hiding all these years, and then finding out what you like to do in your spare time – or at least who you like to do it with. I always had you down as straight, Tony – but I guess that was just another thing you wanted us all to believe. Damn it – so much of your time and energy has gone into all this hiding and lying. Aren’t you tired of it?”

There was no reply. He got up and saw the lubricant and condom on the nightstand where Terry had left them. He picked them up and stowed them away in a drawer.

“I’m going to have to tell Ducky about what happened to you when you were a kid, Tony,” he said. “But I’m not going to give away all your secrets.”

He sat down on the side of the bed beside Tony. Then, awkwardly, he put his arm around Tony’s shoulders and squeezed.

“I will get you through this, DiNozzo,” he said. “Just don’t go under – because I don’t know how to reach you wherever you are right now. I can’t follow you there, and I don’t know how to bring you back.”

~*~

Roy was smiling at him, gently petting him all over. Tony lay there unmoving, feeling angry and resentful.

“Do we have to do this now?” he asked petulantly. “You said you were going to take me to the movies.”

“And I will, later. Tonio…do this for me and after I take you to the movies, I’ll buy you those roller skates you wanted - hmm?”

Tony sighed and moved his legs, so Roy could do what he wanted. "You mean it about the skates?" he asked.

"Yes, Tonio…of course…my beautiful boy. Just be good for me, and you can have whatever you like."

Roy beamed at him and then leaned forward and kissed his mouth. Tony hated the taste of cigars, the feel of rough stubble on his chin, and the way Roy's tongue darted between his lips. It made him want to wipe his hand over his mouth, but he knew Roy didn't like it when he did that.

He closed his eyes and thought about what colour roller skates he'd get Roy to buy him afterwards.

~*~

Ducky looked dishevelled and more than a little peeved when Gibbs opened the door to him half an hour later.

“Well, what is it, Jethro?” he demanded, walking in, carrying his medical bag with him. “You said it was an emergency?”

“It is, Duck.”

Gibbs led the ME into Tony’s bedroom, and Ducky paused, glancing at Tony with a quizzical expression on his face.

“Anthony?” he enquired. “Tony?” There was no response. Ducky raised an eyebrow at Gibbs.

“It’s a long story, Ducky,” Gibbs sighed. “I didn’t know if there was something we should be doing for him right now, or if he needs to go to the hospital.”

“How long has he been like this?”

“At least an hour,” Gibbs replied. “It’s happened before but just for a few minutes at a time – I’ve never seen it last this long.”

“My God – are you saying this isn’t the first time…?” Ducky broke off, shaking his head in disbelief. He undid his coat and threw it onto a nearby chair, along with his hat. Then he bustled around, doing various little tests – pulling up Tony’s eyelids, taking his pulse, and all the time muttering under his breath.

Finally, he turned back to Gibbs. “I don’t see there’s any point sending him to the hospital at this stage. He could come around at any minute, and he’s not in any physical danger. But I do think we should make him more comfortable. The boy will end up with a stiff back if he stays like that for much longer. Well don’t just stand there! Help me, Jethro.”

He beckoned Gibbs over, and between them they managed to get Tony into the recovery position, lying on his side on the bed. He went easily enough – he wasn’t stiff or unresponsive. His body uncurled into the position they put it in, and he lay there, still humming and rocking. It was eerie.

Ducky pulled the blanket over him and tucked it in under his chin. “Oh, my poor dear boy,” he sighed. “What on earth has happened to you?” He glanced up at Gibbs. “I think it’s time you told me everything,” he said firmly. “And then we can decide what to do next.”

Gibbs gestured with his head for Ducky to sit in the armchair next to the bed while he sat down on the side of the bed, next to Tony. Then he spent the next fifteen minutes telling Ducky exactly what had happened to Tony – everything he knew, starting with the existence of those photographs, and the entire story of how he’d been sexually abused when he was twelve.

Ducky remained uncharacteristically silent throughout – but his face grew paler and his eyes more watery behind their spectacles as Gibbs continued. When Gibbs finished, Ducky took off his glasses, wiped his eyes, put the glasses back on again, and then gave Gibbs his finest glare.

“You will find these men who hurt Anthony, and when you do you will not be gentle with them, Jethro,” he instructed.

“Oh trust me, Ducky, I have no intention of it,” Gibbs growled. He put his hand on the blanket covering Tony’s shoulder. “Damn it, I shouldn’t have left him on his own tonight. I knew it was a mistake.”

“How did you find him?”

Gibbs hesitated. “He went out after I dropped him off. Picked up someone called Terry in a bar. Terry called me and told me he’d zoned out.”

“Bless Terri,” Ducky said, with a little smile. “That restores my faith in human nature somewhat at least. There are good people out there as well as bad.”

“What’s wrong with him, Ducky?” Gibbs asked.

“I can only make a guess,” Ducky said, glancing over at Tony’s humming, rocking body. “But you said that Tony put these memories into a box in his head and refused to acknowledge them for all these years?”

“That’s what he said to Justin, yes,” Gibbs nodded. “He said he’d found ways of distracting himself.”

“Ah yes…” Ducky gave a sad nod. “Our Anthony is very good at providing distractions, isn’t he? I always did think it strange that such a fun-loving young man spent almost as much time at the office as yourself, Jethro. And then there was all the mischief, and the movies, and the generally frenetic level of activity involved in just being Anthony DiNozzo. And of course, sexual intercourse clearly helped distract him, strange though it may seem given the nature of the abuse, but that’s not uncommon in such cases. And, I would suppose, given how stressful today was for him, it was almost inevitable that he’d go out looking for a young lady to spend the night with tonight.”

Gibbs nodded. He saw no reason to disabuse Ducky of the conclusion he’d jumped to about Terry’s gender.

“But what happens when the distractions don’t work any more?” Ducky mused. “Knowing how determined our Anthony is, I would imagine that he’d redouble his efforts – try harder. Yet, today must have been such a shock for him. It’s one thing to suppress memories for all this time, but quite another to confront photographic evidence of the very memories you’ve been keeping under lock and key. His mind has probably been struggling to cope with the intolerable strain all day.”

“He knew the abuse happened, Duck,” Gibbs said. “He was able to recount it in a fair amount of detail, quite lucidly. It clearly wasn’t easy for him, but he did it. So it’s not like he’s blocked it out.”

“No. I think it’s all rather more subtle and complex than that,” Ducky sighed. “Tony most definitely does know it happened. After all, it’s likely that his whole psyche is constructed on the basis of keeping himself from ever being that boy again – someone who could be hurt, abused, and taken advantage of. You say nobody ever found out about the abuse?”

“No. He tried to tell his father, but he wouldn’t listen. I’m only the second person he’s ever told,” Gibbs said, feeling his jaw tighten as he spoke.

“So it’s been his secret all this time, and he’s been protecting that twelve year old boy inside the best way he knows how. It might not be perfect, but it’s worked for him all these years. It does require him to keep busy – which explains a lot - I think we all know how wearying a bored Anthony DiNozzo can be,” Ducky said wryly. “But those are his coping mechanisms. Then, today, those mechanisms broke down – spectacularly. Firstly he had to talk about the abuse, which meant remembering some of the details he’s been trying to avoid, and then his various means of distraction - such as sex - stopped working for him.”

Gibbs winced, recalling what Terry had said about Tony’s failure in the bedroom and how distraught he’d been about it.

“I don’t understand what this is all about though,” Gibbs said, his hand still resting on Tony’s gently rocking shoulder. “Where is he right now? Is he conscious? Can he hear us? He's definitely not asleep.”

“No, he isn’t,” Ducky sighed. “Oh, Jethro – haven’t you figured it out?”

Gibbs raised an eyebrow.

“By suppressing those memories, Tony has given them enormous power,” Ducky said. “If I may use an analogy…”

“You usually do,” Gibbs muttered. Ducky shot him a wry gin.

“Imagine, if you will, that you are on a diet…”

“I’ve never been on a diet, Duck,” Gibbs interrupted irritably. Ducky glared at him. “Okay…I’ll imagine it,” Gibbs grunted.

“If I ask you, right now, NOT to think about chocolate cake…tell me, what is the first thing that you think about?”

“Chocolate cake,” Gibbs retorted immediately.

“It’s a well known psychology experiment,” Ducky said, with a wave of his hands. “Ask someone not to think about something, and usually that’s *all* they can think about. Tony’s coping mechanisms have broken down, his distractions aren’t working because of the shock of today’s events, and those memories have come back with a vengeance. And, because of the enormous power they hold for him - the power he has invested them with - and all the no doubt turbulent emotions he has associated with them, they are stronger and more overwhelming than any normal memory. Strong enough to disconnect him from the present and plunge him back into the past.”

“Ducky…” Gibbs gazed at the ME, horrified. “Are you telling me that’s what’s happening to Tony right now? That he’s re-living those memories?”

Ducky glanced at Tony sadly. “Well, I can’t say for certain, Jethro, but yes, I’m very much afraid that he is.”

~*~

Tony wasn’t sure if he hated Luke or Marco more. Marco hurt him, but Luke scared him.

Luke undressed him while he stood there, sullenly, eyes down. Then Luke pulled him, naked, onto his lap and caressed him firmly, hands sweeping over his body. He talked as he touched him, whispering straight into his ear.

“So Tony – I enjoyed our last little meeting. Do you know what I liked most? I liked it when I stuck it in you, and you squealed like a little piglet. A juicy little piglet. You can squeal again this time if you like. Are you afraid of me, Tony? You should be.”

He *was* afraid. Luke was a tall, broad-shouldered man, with thick, dark hair, and steely grey eyes. His hands were always cold but not as cold as his eyes. Luke placed him onto the bed, on his hands and knees. Tony moaned, and curled up into a tight ball. He hated this. At least Roy stroked him, and told him that he loved him, and that he was a good boy.

Cold hands descended on him, roaming over him, demanding and clinical. He heard the mattress give as Luke knelt on the bed behind him.

“Roy told me you were a good boy, but I’m not seeing much evidence of that right now, Tony. Open up for me…that’s right… Come on - I saw those photos of you, you little slut – I know you can do better than this. That’s it…squeal, little piglet, squeal.”

~*~

“Christ, Ducky.” Gibbs got up and paced around the room. “We have to do something to wake him up.”

“Jethro, you said he’s been in these fugue-like states before and always came out of them by himself.”

“Yeah, but he’s never been out of it for this long before. I don’t pretend to understand how this works, but you didn’t hear his statement earlier, Ducky. Those men raped him repeatedly – one of them raped him so viciously he bled and was scared that he was going to die. It’s bad enough he went through that once, but to re-live it over and over again? While we damn well stand by and watch?” Gibbs slammed his fist against the wall, barely noticing the flash of pain as the movement hurt the self-inflicted wounds of a few hours ago.

Ducky got up, came over to him, and grabbed his right hand. “Do I even want to know how this happened?” he asked, glancing at the torn, bloody flesh and the bruising across the knuckles. Gibbs pulled his hand away. Ducky blinked at him owlishly from behind his glasses. “Jethro, I remember that case with Kyle Boone many years ago; the one that cost you your second marriage. Your fists looked like this a lot then, too,” he said softly. “You always do this when a case gets to you, and of course Tony is so much more to you than just a case.”

“Ducky, it’s not important. I’m fine. I’m more worried about Tony, and how we get him to wake up. Supposing he’s lost inside his own mind and can’t find a way out?”

“I think you should have more faith in the boy, Jethro,” Duck told him gently, glancing over at Tony. “He’s very determined. He might be struggling right now, but I don’t think there’s any way our Anthony will give in without a fight, do you?”

“It shouldn’t be a battle he has to fight alone,” Gibbs growled. “Bad enough that he didn’t have anyone to help him when he was twelve, but I’ll be damned if he has to do it by himself now.”

He went over to the bed and sat down beside Tony. He hesitated for a moment and then reached out and stroked Tony's hair.

“Tony, it’s Gibbs. Listen to me - you’ve been out for long enough. You need to find a way back to us now.”

There was no reaction.

“I mean it, DiNozzo,” Gibbs said in a firmer tone of voice. “Get your ass back here.”

He glanced up at Ducky who was giving him a sad look, as if he thought this approach was very unlikely to work, but Gibbs wasn’t about to give up yet. He remembered a few years ago, when Tony had been fighting for his life with the plague, and how he’d ordered him not to die. Even leaving aside the night’s revelations, and the dubious character insights provided by Terry Dyer, he had always known that Tony worshipped the ground he walked on and would do his best to obey any order he threw at him.

“Tony!” he rapped out. “Come back now. It’s safe here – just me and Ducky.”

He stroked Tony’s hair again and then remembered something else about that time with the plague. He leaned forward and spoke directly into Tony’s ear.

“Tony, wherever you are right now, you will *not* stay there. Understand me? Come back. Now!” He combined the firm crack of that last word with a sharp tap to the back of Tony’s head.

Tony blinked.

~*~

Tony glanced around, disoriented. Last thing he remembered, he’d been sitting on the side of the bed, and now he was lying down and Gibbs was here. Where had his boss come from and what the hell was he doing here?

“Boss?” he muttered, sitting up. He groaned, his back and shoulders aching. He felt stiff. Then he saw Ducky standing by the wall. “Ducky? What the hell is going on?”

“You had another one of your episodes, my dear boy.”

“Episodes?” Tony frowned.

“You were out of it, DiNozzo. Like you were in the parking lot earlier,” Gibbs told him. “And like you were a couple of times during your statement, although just for a few seconds. This time it was longer.”

“How long?” Tony asked quietly.

“A couple of hours,” Gibbs replied. Tony bit on his lip. “You want to tell us what’s going on?”

“Not really.” Tony swung his legs over the side of the bed and then looked down, flushing. He was at least wearing a pair of boxer shorts, but apart from that he was naked.

“You do know…?” Ducky began.

“That I’ve been losing time? Yes, Ducky. I know,” Tony said curtly. “It hasn’t happened in a long while. I thought it was just a temporary blip, and it’d go away again.”

“I don’t think the human brain works quite like that, Anthony,” Ducky murmured. Tony glanced at him sharply, and then at Gibbs for confirmation.

“He knows,” Gibbs said.

Tony knew it had to happen sooner or later, but even so, he felt a wave of impotent fury at the news.

“I’m most terribly sorry, my dear boy,” Ducky said quietly. “I’m also very concerned about your mental state right now.”

“I’ll be fine,” Tony snapped. “I just need some time and space…and I’d really like to be left alone for just a goddamn minute.”

“Out of the question,” Gibbs told him tersely. Tony glared at him.

“What Jethro means is that you were lucky tonight, Anthony,” Ducky said, in a placating tone. “Your lady friend, Terri, had the good sense to call Jethro. Another time you might zone out while taking a bath, or while driving, or in some other potentially hazardous situation.”

“Terry? Oh shit.” Tony buried his head in his hands, remembering. He glanced up at Gibbs who was gazing at him steadily from those steely eyes of his, giving nothing away – as usual. Tony cleared his throat. “What happened to Terry?”

“Gone,” Gibbs replied. “Nice person though,” he added. “Thought the world of you. Didn’t like me for some reason. Told me I wasn’t a ‘people person’.”

“Yeah, I don’t know how to break this to you, Boss, but you don’t always make a great first impression.”

“Tony…” Gibbs gazed at him thoughtfully. “Do you know where you go when you ‘lose time’ as you put it?”

Tony gazed back at him blankly. “I need a drink.”

“I’ll go and get you some water,” Ducky said, disappearing out of the door.

“Lady friend?” Tony queried when he’d gone, raising an eyebrow. Gibbs shrugged.

“I just told him the name – and from there Ducky jumped to his own conclusion.”

“Fuck it!” Tony roared, slamming his hand against the night stand. “Can’t I have any kind of a fucking private life? Does everyone have to know every last damn thing about me?”

“I won’t tell anyone,” Gibbs said. “None of my business.”

“It’s not what you think,” Tony muttered, embarrassed by his outburst. That wasn't like him – usually he managed to keep everything buttoned up and under control. He sure as hell never lost it with Gibbs of all people. “Well, it’s not exactly what you think anyway,” he said quietly. “I’m not lying about the women – there have been plenty of them. I’ve just never mentioned the men – there have been plenty of them too.”

“Okay.” Gibbs shrugged again. “You don’t need to explain anything to me, Tony.”

“I need the sex,” Tony said quietly. “And to be honest it’s never really mattered who it’s with – men or women.”

“Distraction,” Gibbs said. “I understand.”

Ducky returned with a glass of water and Tony took it, his hand shaking slightly as he reached out.

“You didn’t answer my question, Tony,” Gibbs said to him. “Do you know where you go when you lose time?”

Tony swallowed down the entire glass of water in one gulp.

“Yes,” he said, in a tight, pinched voice. “I know exactly where I go.”

~*~

Ducky looked from Tony to Gibbs and back again. Gibbs looked both furious and appalled at one and the same time, and Tony – well Tony looked scared and oddly defensive. Ducky's heart went out to them both, and he decided it was time that he took charge of the situation.

“Look, it’s practically dawn, and you look terrible – both of you,” he admonished. “Anthony – you need some sleep. I’d really prefer you not to fugue again, so I’d like to administer a sedative if that’s alright with you, my boy? It would give your poor brain a rest and allow you to recover.”

“Oblivion sounds just great to me right now, Ducky,” Tony muttered, still gazing wretchedly at Gibbs.

“And you, Jethro,” Ducky said firmly. “I know you like to pretend you don’t need any sleep, and yes, I also know that you can keep going for days on end with just the occasional catnap. Now, I’m sure that’s a very special and vital sniper skill and so forth, but everyone needs sleep. Therefore, I suggest that you go home and catch a couple of hours' rest, while I stay here and watch over Anthony.”

Gibbs didn’t look happy about that, but Ducky managed to quell any incipient rebellion with a glare.

“I really don’t intend to take no for an answer,” he said. “From either of you.” He turned to glare at Tony as well – he didn’t seem too happy to hear that he’d have company while he slept. “I will be staying,” Ducky said in a tone that brooked no argument. “You won’t hear a peep out of me. I’ll sit on the chair over there.” He gestured to the armchair next to the bed.

Gibbs grunted and then got up. “Get some sleep,” he said to Tony. He grasped Ducky’s arm and led him out into the hallway. “Do not leave him,” he said. “At any point. For any reason.”

“I can assure you, Jethro, I’m quite capable…” Ducky began. Gibbs cut him off.

“He ditched McGee earlier. He might be looking all pale and pathetic right now, but he’s still *Tony*, which means…”

“That he has an inventive mind and the ability to dissemble rather well. I know, dear boy, I know. I have known our dear Anthony for quite as long as you, and I know all his admirable and also less than admirable little traits and foibles. Don’t worry about us, Jethro. I will ensure that Anthony gets some sleep – I simply ask that you go home and do the same.”

“I will.” Gibbs glanced back at the bedroom door again and then left. Ducky went to get another glass of water from the kitchen, and then he returned to the bedroom.

He opened up his medical bag, got out the sedatives, and handed them to Tony.

“I always come prepared,” he said, giving Tony the glass of water. “Whenever Jethro calls me in the middle of the night, it’s either because he’s found a dead body or there’s someone requiring medical assistance. I’ve therefore learned to come prepared for the dead or the living.”

“Or someone who’s a bit of both,” Tony muttered wryly, throwing the pills into his mouth and gulping down the water.

Ducky gazed at him sadly. “Ah, my dear boy, I very much want to keep you in the land of the living,” he said softly. He watched as Tony slid back into the bed and pulled a sheet and blanket over himself. “I’ll be here, Anthony,” he said, turning off the light. He sat down in the armchair beside the bed.

“Seems kind of weird – someone watching me sleep, Duck,” Tony muttered.

“It won’t bother you for long, my dear boy,” Ducky replied softly. “Those are very good sedatives. Before long you will be…”

He broke off as he heard Tony’s breathing change, and a gentle snore emerged from under the blanket.

“I really am most terribly sorry about all this, Anthony,” Ducky said softly, knowing his patient was asleep. “I fear that I may have misjudged you. Of course that was precisely what you wanted, I’m sure. Far better that we all saw a clown than that we caught a glimpse of that vulnerable young boy you must still be underneath. And yet I do blame myself – you see, I often *did* see glimpses and chose to ignore them, like pieces of a puzzle that I discarded because they didn’t fit the preconceived image of it that I held in my head.”

He clasped his hands together in his lap and gazed at Tony’s sleeping form.

“I’ve always been aware of your somewhat complex personality, my dear boy,” he continued. “I’m afraid I completely misdiagnosed you when I told Jethro that you were a narcissist not so long ago, and I feel I absolutely must apologise to you for that. In fact, I suspect you might be the complete opposite. What you are, what you *really* are, far from being so obviously on display for all to see and judge, is actually very well hidden.”

Ducky reached into his pocket and pulled out a packet of mints. He popped one into his mouth. “I suppose we all present a face to the world,” he mused, as he sucked quietly on the mint. “We all wear a mask that we want the world to see to a certain extent, but I doubt that many people’s masks are as carefully constructed as yours, my dear Anthony. Yours is really a work of art – a thing of quite considerable beauty in its own way. I do not mean to imply that you have been deliberately deceiving us all this time. I doubt that is the case at all.” He shook his head in the darkness, one ear listening for the deep rise and fall of Tony’s chest as he slumbered.

“You were simply forming a defence, lest anyone get too close. You see, I really do believe that adult Tony is doing his best to protect that child who was so cruelly used, and if he has to spin a rather elaborate web of subterfuge to do so then that is simply what he *has* to do. There are some things one cannot hide of course. Your sense of empathy has always been well known to me, and your courage and loyalty cannot be faulted. These features shine through. For the rest? I suspect we barely know you – the real you – at all. And for that, Anthony, I truly am very sorry.”

~*~

McGee got into the office early and had the report Gibbs had asked for ready and waiting on his desk by the time Ziva arrived. He felt uncomfortable being around her, working on this case and not being able to speak to her about it. He longed to talk to someone. Gibbs had ordered him not to say anything though, and he could understand why – this wasn't his secret to tell. Tony would either tell people himself, or Gibbs would do it for him if he thought they needed to know.

It had been hard for McGee to get that image of Boy 43 out of his head all night, and he hadn't slept much. Every time he closed his eyes he saw those photographs, and it was impossible for him to reconcile the scared child in those pictures with the man he'd been working alongside these past six years. Tony was so self-assured, so confident, and so…annoying. There was no getting around the fact that Tony could irritate them all when he was in one of his bored moods, but now McGee regretted every harsh word he'd ever said to him.

"Tony is late. Gibbs will not be happy," Ziva commented, breaking into his train of thought. McGee doubted Gibbs would care in the circumstances. "Gibbs is also late," Ziva added, with a frown. "Now that is much more unusual. Do you know what is going on, McGee?"

He glanced up, unwilling to tell an outright lie.

"Yes," he said, and then he looked back at what he was working on, reviewing a list of missing persons dating back to the 1970s, checking through all the boys aged under eighteen.

"Well?" Ziva raised an eyebrow.

"I can't say," McGee told her. That was like a red rag to a bull. She got up, came over, and perched on the side of his desk, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

"A mystery? Hmmm - I like mysteries," she said, twirling some of her dark hair between her fingers.

"It's not that kind of mystery, Ziva," he told her firmly, pushing her off his desk.

"What does that mean?" She looked surprised that her joking tone had been so comprehensively rebuffed.

"It means it's not something to be ferreted out – it's not funny, it's not a practical joke, or something we can all laugh about. It's serious, and it's not…it's not something I can talk about. Maybe Gibbs or Tony will tell you, but I can't."

"Very well. My apologies. I will not ask any more questions." She went and sat back down at her desk.

"Ziva – I'm sorry," McGee sighed. "But I really can't talk about this."

She looked up at him, her dark eyes understanding. "It is fine, McGee. I understand secrets. I have kept many myself."

The elevator pinged, and McGee looked up in alarm, his heart beating a little too fast. He didn't like himself for it, but he dreaded seeing Tony again. Hearing that testimony last night had changed his view of the other agent, and he didn't know how to behave around him now.

He was relieved when Gibbs strode into the squad room.

"What do you have for me, McGee?" Gibbs demanded, sitting down at his desk. He looked as supremely focussed as ever – and just as tightly wound up as he had been last night. McGee doubted that was going to change any time soon.

"I've left that file you asked for on your desk," McGee replied.

"Good." Gibbs picked it up and began reading it.

"Uh, how's Tony?" McGee asked. Gibbs raised his head slowly and gave him an indecipherable look.

"He'll be in later," he said tersely, which McGee was pretty sure hadn't answered his question.

Gibbs was quiet for half an hour as he read. McGee peeked at him surreptitiously every so often, but Gibbs, as always, was giving nothing away. When he finished, he got up and handed the file to Ziva.

"I want a warrant for this man's arrest, Ziva, and a search warrant for his house," he ordered.

She began flicking through the file. "Roy Quinn. On what charge?"

"Possession of child pornography for starters," Gibbs replied curtly. Her eyes widened.

"Do we have probable cause?"

"Oh yeah," Gibbs growled. "We definitely have that."

"Uh, Boss – there's one problem," McGee said, getting to his feet. "I did some digging, and Quinn is away on vacation right now – in Thailand - perhaps not an altogether surprising choice of holiday destination. He isn't due back until next week."

Gibbs gave him a glare that caused him to sit back down on his chair again.

"We could still go and check out his house," McGee suggested tentatively.

"And run the risk of someone warning him, so he decides never to come back? I don't think so, McGee. No way am I letting this bastard slip through my fingers!" Gibbs roared. "Okay – he'll wait. Ziva – get the warrants ready anyway. In fact – get me a warrant to search his business premises too."

She nodded and turned back to the file, then paused, and glanced up again.

"Gibbs – it says here that Roy Quinn is CEO of DQ Enterprises," she said. "Is that not the name of the company Tony's father owns?"

"Yes it is, Ziva," Gibbs replied tersely. "Now get me those warrants."

"Yes, Gibbs." She nodded, her eyes wide.

"McGee – we clearly can't move on Quinn for a few days, so let's turn our attention back to Admiral Parrish. Did you check the surveillance logs for him this morning?"

"Yes, Boss, I did." McGee was glad that he'd got in early and gone through everything he thought Gibbs might ask him. This case was like a powder keg – and that meant Gibbs was liable to explode if any of them made the slightest mistake. Even leaving aside his boss’s temperament, McGee wanted to do his best work in any case – for Tony's sake.

"And?" Gibbs raised an eyebrow. McGee shook his head.

"Admiral Parrish didn't call anyone – on his landline or cell phone – all night. He didn't send any emails, either. He also didn't leave the house. He's still there."

"He's a slippery bastard," Gibbs muttered. "I thought he'd be too smart to warn his fellow perverts that he's under suspicion. What about the housekeeper?"

"No, Boss. She didn't make any calls, either."

"But has she left the house?" Gibbs demanded. "He could have asked her to mail some letters."

"She's still there, Boss. You gave orders that she was to be followed and apprehended if she tried to mail anything," McGee reminded him. Gibbs slammed his fist down hard on his desk, making both McGee and Ziva jump.

"Damn it. I was hoping we'd get something."

"We could leave it a little longer, Boss," McGee suggested. "Give him a few days – he might contact them when he thinks we're not watching any more."

"And leave him out there with the potential to abuse another child?" Gibbs growled. "I don't think so."

Privately, McGee thought that unlikely given that they were following Parrish's every move, but he understood Gibbs's feelings on the subject.

"I want the other men in that ring, but I'm not prepared to risk a child's safety to get them," Gibbs said. "There are other ways in any case. Parrish is a slick bastard, but my gut tells me that Quinn will be easier to break."

"If we can get our hands on him," McGee murmured.

"Oh, we will, McGee," Gibbs said, in a grimly determined tone of voice. McGee glanced up; Gibbs's eyes were dark, and McGee felt a shiver go up his spine. "We will," Gibbs repeated, and McGee knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that there was no place in the world where Quinn would be safe from his boss.

Dozens of children had been abused, including one of his own agents, and Gibbs wouldn't allow these men to get away with that. McGee knew that his boss would do everything within the law to bring the abusers to justice. He also knew that if the only justice Gibbs could get was the rough kind then he'd take it, as a last resort.

McGee waited until Ziva had left the squad room, and then he got up and went over to Gibbs's desk.

"Boss – I was wondering, supposing we can't get Parrish, Quinn and Marco through the courts? Are they going to turn up in dumpsters with bullets through their heads one day?" he asked quietly.

Gibbs sat back in his chair and gazed at him speculatively.

"Would you have a problem with that, Tim?" he asked, just as quietly.

McGee shook his head. "No, Boss," he said firmly. "I just want to be clear what the end game is here."

"I won't ask you to get involved," Gibbs told him sharply. "If anything needs to be done, I'll do it alone."

"I understand," McGee said thoughtfully. "But, Boss, I want you to know that if that's what you end up having to do, then I'll have your six."

"It could get ugly," Gibbs warned.

"It already got ugly – twenty-five years ago.”

Gibbs nodded. "Noted and understood, Tim."

McGee nodded back at him, both of them understanding each other, and then he returned to his desk where he continued with his work as if nothing had happened.

~*~

Gibbs gave it a couple of hours, but when there was still no sign of Parrish contacting anyone, he gave the order for his agents to arrest the admiral again. McGee was right – he could leave it a few days, and keep Parrish under tight surveillance, but his gut felt uneasy about doing that. He suspected Parrish had a contingency plan for just this eventuality, and with his military training, he might have a well-designed escape route waiting for him.

In addition, Gibbs had no doubt that a successful man like Parrish had plenty of favours he could call in. Gibbs was sure the admiral's friends wouldn’t help him if they knew what he'd done, but it was unlikely that they knew about the admiral’s dark side. They'd think they were helping a friend who had been falsely accused, and Parrish might end up getting away as a result.

The admiral was seething when Gibbs's agents brought him into the squad room, hands cuffed behind his back.

"I thought I told you yesterday, Gibbs – I'm the wrong man to piss off."

"And I thought I told you – so am I."

Gibbs got up, went over to the admiral, and looked him in the eye. He remembered everything he'd heard about this man from Tony last night and felt his entire body stiffen in disgust. He knew he could take out his gun, shoot this bastard between the eyes while his hands were in cuffs, and not feel even a twinge of remorse about it.

"You couldn't make this stick yesterday – what's changed today? I told you Justin planted those pictures on my laptop himself!" Parrish protested.

"I know that's what you told us," Gibbs growled. "But we’ve had another complaint against you that backs up Justin’s story."

"What?" Parrish narrowed his eyes. "You're lying. I don't believe you."

"I'm not, and you should. I took a statement from another of your victims last night. Different boy," Gibbs said, gazing at Parrish intently as he spoke, interested in the other man's reaction.

He saw the briefest flicker of something in Parrish's eyes as he took in that news. Was Parrish trying to figure out who it was? Was he going through a mental list of all the boys he'd abused and trying to figure out which one was the most likely to have reported him? Well, Gibbs doubted that Tony DiNozzo was on that list, so he still had the element of surprise on his side.

Parrish was probably already thinking on his feet and concocting some convincing story like the one he'd made up about Justin yesterday. Gibbs was almost looking forward to playing his trump card on the admiral – because there was no way Parrish could talk himself out of what he’d done to Tony.

"Take him to interrogation room one, McGee," Gibbs ordered, with a flick of his head.

He decided to let Parrish sweat for awhile. He had told Tony he could sit in on the interrogation, but he regretted that promise now. It was all very well his senior agent being present during the questioning of a suspect, but Tony wouldn't be there in that capacity, and Gibbs was pretty sure that it wasn't a good idea to put Tony and his abuser in a room together. On the other hand, he had promised – and the shock factor of confronting Parrish with one of his victims might be enough to prompt a confession out of the man.

Gibbs felt uneasy all the same. Tony's mental state was clearly fragile, judging by what had happened last night. Supposing Tony went into one of his fugues while in the interrogation room?

He turned the problem over in his head and had just decided to proceed alone when Tony arrived, with Ducky in attendance. Gibbs gave his agent a searching look; Tony wasn't dressed in one of his usual sharp suits. Instead, he was dressed casually, in jeans and a loose green shirt, and, while paler than usual, he looked a hell of a lot better than he had last night. All the same, something about him seemed different. Gibbs wasn't sure what it was – maybe the expression on his face, or the way he carried himself - or maybe it was the haunted look in his eyes.

"You are late," Ziva said to Tony. "Very late."

"Dentist," he replied, throwing his bag down behind his desk. He patted his jaw as if he'd had some work done and then glanced at Ducky. "They gave me a sedative – man those things really knock you out."

"The dentist…" Ziva mused. "You have not had to visit the dentist since…oh, I do not know, maybe it was when you were dating Jeanne," she said meaningfully. Gibbs saw a flicker of a wince cross Tony's face – saying he had a dental appointment had been Tony's lie of choice during his undercover work with Jeanne.

"Well that was a couple of years ago, Zeeevah!" Tony replied with a grin, taking her comment entirely at face value. "Been awhile – so it’s hardly surprising I needed some work done today."

Gibbs beckoned Ducky over to his desk. "He okay?" he asked quietly.

"He insists that he is," Ducky replied. "But I'm not sure I'm convinced. He did at least sleep well – even if it was a highly medicated kind of sleep. Did *you* sleep well, Jethro?"

"Sure, Duck," Gibbs shrugged. Ducky's sharp blue eyes saw right through him.

"Ah, I suspect you are both lying to me," he said ruefully.

Gibbs glanced at Tony, who was busy regaling Ziva with a long and frankly unlikely story about how he'd got the dental nurse's phone number.

"He well enough to work, Ducky?" he asked.

Ducky gazed at Tony thoughtfully. "I think it would be cruel to refuse him the distraction that work affords," he replied meaningfully.

"Think he'll go into a fugue in the office?"

Ducky sighed. "Hopefully not – if you keep him busy enough, Jethro, and, knowing you, I'm sure that won't be too much of a problem. But the human brain is a sensitive and complex thing, and there are no guarantees. Just keep a close eye on him."

"Intended to, Duck," Gibbs grunted.

Ducky nodded and patted his arm. "Well, I've delivered him into your capable hands, Jethro. I will be in Autopsy if you require my services any further."

"Take Ziva with you," Gibbs told him. "I want to talk to Tony."

"Very well. She will have to know at some point though, Jethro," Ducky pointed out. "As will Abigail – if they're going to work on the case then you have to tell them."

"Yeah, I know – but not right now. I have enough on my hands right now."

Ducky nodded and stopped by Ziva's desk to ask her to accompany him down to Autopsy on some pretext or other. Gibbs looked up to find Tony standing in front of his desk.

"So, I hear you have Parrish in interrogation room one," he said quietly. "You weren't going to start without me, were you, Boss?"

There was something hard-edged about him, Gibbs thought; something unlike the usual eager-to-please Tony. This Tony was more brittle.

"Are you sure you want to be in there?" Gibbs asked. "It might be tough."

"You promised," Tony said, in a hard tone of voice.

Gibbs gazed at him thoughtfully. Tony was right – he had promised, and the last thing he wanted to do was betray Tony's trust right now. He had a feeling that would be a move he would live to regret.

"Okay," he said with a curt nod. "But I do all the talking."

"Boss…" Tony began, a hint of protest in his voice.

"I do *all* the talking," Gibbs repeated. "Or you don't get to sit in there. Take it or leave it, Tony."

Tony nodded, grudgingly. "Okay."

"You sit – that's all you do. You just sit," Gibbs said. "I'm hoping your presence will provoke a confession out of him, but if it doesn't, then we just live with that. We have enough to charge him, and we'll keep on digging – see if we can find some more."

Gibbs stood up and looked his agent straight in the eye. "This might be harder than you think."

"I have to do this," Tony said. Then his gaze faltered, and he looked suddenly like a scared child. Gibbs felt his stomach flip – he had definitely *never* seen Tony look like this before. "He's in my head, Boss," Tony whispered. "If I can just face him – face him now as an adult, knowing he can't hurt me any more, then maybe I can get him out."

It made a kind of sense. Gibbs nodded. "I understand."

"He used to scare the crap out of me," Tony added. "I can still feel the fear, Gibbs. I need to…need to…"

"Pull out the monster's teeth?" Gibbs suggested.

"Yeah," Tony agreed. "That's exactly what I need to do."

Gibbs swept into interrogation room one a few minutes later with Tony behind him. He sat down opposite Parrish and gestured Tony to sit beside him. This was going to be harder than usual because he had to be aware of the reactions of two people instead of one, so Gibbs knew he had to keep his wits about him. He had installed McGee in the observation room to be another pair of eyes for him, so they could compare notes later.

“I see you’ve brought back-up this time,” Parrish said, gazing at Tony stonily across the table. “Why, Agent Gibbs? Do you think you can intimidate me into admitting to something I didn’t do?”

“No.” Gibbs shook his head. “I don’t think anyone could intimidate you, Parrish. I think it’s more likely that you do the intimidating.”

“I have no idea what that means,” Parrish replied. He linked his hands together and rested them on the table, looking calm and untroubled.

“This is Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo,” Gibbs said, with a nod in Tony’s direction. “You spoke to him on the phone yesterday.”

“I remember.” Parrish nodded.

“He remembers too,” Gibbs said. “Although he remembers you better as someone called Luke.”

Parrish went very still, and his gaze flickered searchingly over Tony’s face as if looking for clues. Gibbs watched him closely. He was glad they were taping this, so he could play it back later, because Parrish wasn’t giving much away.

“I don’t understand what that means,” Parrish said, clearing his throat. Gibbs noticed that he was still looking at Tony though.

“I can see that you’re not sure who he is,” Gibbs said. “So I’m going to refresh your memory.”

He opened up the laptop and brought up a picture of Boy 43.

“He knew you as Luke – you knew him as Tony. Circa 1984. Recognise this shot? You should - it’s in your favourites file.”

“Is this some kind of joke?” Parrish asked, but Gibbs noticed the flash of recognition in his eyes as he glanced at the photo. “I don’t know who the poor boy in this photograph is, Agent Gibbs, but you can’t possibly try and set me up using one of your own agents.”

“I’m not trying to set you up, Parrish,” Gibbs said with a shrug. “Agent DiNozzo is the boy in that photograph, and he says you raped him when he was twelve years old.”

Gibbs noticed Parrish glancing at Tony again, and Gibbs could almost see the cogs in his mind turning as he tried to figure out if Tony really was the boy in the picture. Gibbs turned to glance at Tony as well. Tony wasn’t saying anything, but his entire body was wound up tight and there was an anxious, vulnerable expression in his eyes that made him look exactly like the child in the picture. Even Parrish had to be able to see that they weren’t playing a trick on him, and Tony really was who Gibbs said he was.

“Do you know a man called Roy Quinn?” Gibbs asked Parrish suddenly. Parrish’s eyes flickered just a tiny amount at the unexpected question, and then he recovered.

“I once knew a marine by that name when I was serving in Vietnam,” he replied. Gibbs had to admire him for how coolly he was playing this – he was completely deadpan.

“He a friend of yours?” Gibbs asked.

“I knew him. I haven’t seen him in a long time.”

“Did you share boys with him?” Gibbs asked. “Did you and he groom underage boys for sex? Did you bully and coerce them to the point where they agreed to sex and then share them with each other?”

“No, and I resent the implication.”

“Wasn’t an implication, Parrish – it was an accusation.”

“Where’s your evidence?” Parrish demanded.

“Tony gave me a statement last night.”

“How old is Agent DiNozzo now?” Parrish asked, glancing at Tony dismissively. “In his mid-thirties? You say I knew him in 1984? Are you seriously saying this accusation against me is based on a child who was twelve at the time remembering someone he hasn’t seen in twenty-five years and making an accurate identification of him? I don’t think so, Agent Gibbs. If your agent really was sexually abused as a child then I’m very sorry for him, but he wasn’t abused by me. This is a case of mistaken identity.”

“Agent DiNozzo identified a scar on your inner thigh,” Gibbs told him.

“I was injured in Vietnam. It’s on my service record which you have access to. Of course I have a scar on my thigh! You wouldn’t have to see it to know it’s there – you don’t get hospitalised with a shrapnel wound and have it magically disappear!” Parrish shook his head. “This is pathetic, Gibbs. Do you seriously think any of this will stand up in court?”

“Yes, I do.” Gibbs nodded. “Tony’s a very reliable witness – he’s a federal agent.”

Parrish glanced at Tony speculatively, his eyes icy cold, like a snake considering its prey. His tongue protruded through his lips slightly, wetting them as he surveyed Tony. There was a streak of pure, cold-blooded evil in Parrish, and as Gibbs watched him watching Tony he had a sudden sense of what it must have been like for a twelve year old boy to be trapped in a hotel room with this man. No wonder Tony had been so scared of ‘Luke’.

Tony reached up and began stroking the back of his head. Gibbs moved his foot sideways and surreptitiously nudged Tony’s shoe with it under the table. Tony made a little sound in the back of his throat, but he nodded and moved his hand down to his lap. It was out of Parrish’s sight, but Gibbs could see that Tony’s hand was shaking. He wished he could give his agent more verbal reassurance – the point of bringing him in here was that he got to face down Parrish as an adult, but instead it looked as if being in Parrish's presence was simply reawakening his childhood fears.

Parrish was still giving Tony that cold, deadly, speculative look. Then suddenly he looked straight at Gibbs and smiled – and Gibbs felt a cold shiver run down his spine.

“I’m sorry for Agent DiNozzo, Gibbs. It’s terrible for him if he really is the boy in this photograph.” Parrish nodded his head towards the laptop where the photo was still displayed. “He’s so young – barely more than a child. So young, so innocent.” He shook his head sadly.

Gibbs frowned, wondering what the hell kind of game Parrish was playing.

“Fresh and innocent, like a lamb,” Parrish murmured softly. “Or…” He glanced straight at Tony as he spoke, a malicious gleam in his eyes. “A little piglet.”

Tony’s reaction took Gibbs completely by surprise. One minute he was sitting silently in the chair beside him, holding his shaking hand in his lap, mutely watching the interrogation, and the next he went ballistic. He was like a different person, someone Gibbs had never seen before, as he exploded across the room. He was making a low, keening sound in the back of his throat as he grabbed Parrish and threw him bodily out of his chair, then jumped on top of him. He pinned Parrish to the floor, one hand wrapped around his neck, and then pounded his fist into the man’s face – once, twice, three times - before Gibbs managed to pull him off, and McGee burst into the room to help.

“Tony…what the hell…? DiNozzo - back off!” Gibbs yelled, holding Tony’s arms behind his back, using all his strength to contain his struggling agent. Tony was like a bomb, exploding all over the place, and even Gibbs, with all his experience and training, was finding it hard to hold him. Eventually he managed to shove him back against the wall, and then he stood in front of him, one arm pressed across Tony’s chest to keep him there, and looked into his eyes. A stranger looked back at him; a stranger whose gaze flickered over his shoulder and stared with a blind, blank hatred at the man lying on the floor.

“Tony!” Gibbs grabbed hold of Tony’s jaw and forced him to look at him. "Snap out of it! Now!"

Tony looked at him as if he didn't even know who he was, and then, slowly, the stranger disappeared, and Tony was back again. Gibbs cautiously relaxed his hold but still kept his own body between Tony and Parrish.

“He assaulted me,” Parrish hissed. Gibbs glanced at him over his shoulder. McGee was helping him to his feet, and Parrish was wiping blood from the corner of his mouth. “He’s unstable – he went for me with no provocation. I didn’t say anything - *anything* - to provoke that, Agent Gibbs. You saw me. You heard me. You have the tape to prove it! He just went crazy. He’s out of his mind, Gibbs – and hardly what I’d call a reliable witness.”

Gibbs could have kicked himself; Parrish had laid a trap for him, and he’d just walked straight into it.

“Boss?” Tony said, in a shaky voice.

“It’s okay, Tony,” Gibbs told him softly. “Come with me – I'm going to get you out of here. You should never have been in here in the first place. McGee – take care of Parrish.”

He took hold of Tony’s arm and led him out of the door. Tony followed him blindly, like a child, looking completely out of it.

“What did I do?” Tony whispered as they got into the elevator. He crouched down on the floor, his back against the wall, covered his head with his arms, and began rocking. “What did I do, Boss? What did I just do?”

“It’s okay.” Gibbs flicked the emergency switch, stopping the elevator, and knelt down in front of him. “It’s okay. I should never have taken you in there.”

Tony just kept on rocking. Gibbs wasn't sure what to do. He'd never seen Tony like this. He reached out a tentative hand to touch his hair, which was the only bit of his head visible right now. Tony relaxed a fraction, so Gibbs began to stroke with more confidence. That seemed to work - Tony uncurled and gazed at him from shocked eyes.

“This was my fault, not yours, Tony,” Gibbs said firmly, removing his hand. “Okay? It’s not your fault.”

“I did something bad,” Tony muttered.

“No – you did something understandable. Tony…what was the trigger? One minute you were fine, if a little shaky, and the next you just lost it.”

Tony flinched and reached up to stroke his hair. Gibbs grabbed his hand and stopped it before it got there. He kept hold of Tony's hand to prevent him doing it again.

“Don’t go there, Tony. Stay with me,” he said. He grabbed Tony’s jaw with his free hand and made him look at him. “Don't zone out on me. Talk to me instead – don’t go back into the memory alone – share it with me.”

Tony didn't reply – he just kept on rocking.

“Can you do that, Tony?” Gibbs asked him insistently. “Can you talk it out instead of zoning out?”

“I don’t know. It's in my head. I can see it. I can hear it. I can feel it. It seems pretty real." His eyes started to glaze over; Gibbs tapped his jaw firmly, and his eyes came back into focus.

"Try," Gibbs ordered.

Tony grimaced. "Squeal, little piglet, squeal,” he muttered.

Gibbs gazed at him blankly, and then the realisation hit him. “That’s what he used to say to you?”

Tony nodded. “He kept asking me if I was scared of him. He wanted me to be scared of him. He wanted me to squeal when he…he kept saying it…I used to curl into a ball…'Are you scared of me, Tony? You should be. Roy said you were a good boy, but you aren’t being good right now. I saw those pictures of you, you little slut, you can do better than this…open up for me...that’s better…Does it hurt when I stick it in you? You can cry if you like. Cry for me. Squeal. I like it when you squeal, Tony…you're like a piglet, a juicy little piglet…so squeal like one, you little slut…”

The litany went on and on until Tony’s voice became hoarse, and eventually he stopped talking. He was shaking visibly, so Gibbs put his arms around Tony’s shoulders, pulled him against his chest, and held him tight. Tony rocked against him, and Gibbs didn’t know what to do except hold him. He didn't have a clue how to deal with this, so he just worked on instinct. He stroked Tony's hair soothingly, and gradually, slowly, Tony began to calm down.

Gibbs continued to hold him until the shaking stopped, and then he drew back. Tony was gazing at him from eyes that were embarrassed and scared at one and the same time. He looked like both a frightened child and a grown man, a mixture of emotions etched onto his face.

“Sorry, Boss,” he muttered with a wince. He was white with humiliation.

“It’s okay, Tony. I asked you to talk it out instead of zoning out, and that’s what you did. At least we managed to stop you going into a fugue.”

“Fuck it.” Tony got up, unsteadily, holding onto the rail in the elevator. Gibbs went with him, putting a hand under his elbow to steady him. “I feel like such an idiot. I know it was years ago, and Parrish can't hurt me now, but still something inside me just snapped. I had to protect him, keep him safe.”

“Keep who safe?” Gibbs frowned.

“The kid…me…it’s hard to explain. He’s inside me, Gibbs, and I have to look out for him.”

“I can understand that,” Gibbs said. “Nobody else looked out for him – for you – back then. You had to do it all by yourself.”

“When I went away to boarding school, I told myself I could be someone different,” Tony explained. “Someone this didn’t happen to. The kind of person nobody hurt. Nobody knew me at boarding school – they didn’t know what I was like before, and I damn well wasn’t going to let them know, either. So I had to hide him away – nobody was ever supposed to see him, and nobody has until now." A flicker of anger passed over Tony's face. "I didn’t want you to see him, Boss,” he growled. “Not you, of all people. That’s why I’m so fucking embarrassed right now. I’m…kind of protective of him.”

“Ya think, DiNozzo?” Gibbs commented dryly, remembering how hard it had been to restrain Tony back in the interrogation room. “But it's okay to let him out, Tony. I think you're gonna have to let him out more often if you're going to get better.”

“Fuck no. Never again. That was bad enough.” Tony ran a shaky hand through his hair.

“You can’t hide him any more. And he might surprise you. He might be stronger than you think.”

“He's a basket case. And I don’t want you thinking of me like that. I’ll lose my job.”

“You won’t lose your damn job, Tony! I won’t let that happen.”

“I don’t want you, or anyone else, seeing me that way,” Tony hissed. “He’s weak, damaged. He’s not lo…” He broke off. “Likeable,” he finished, but that hadn’t been what he’d intended to say.

“You can’t divide yourself in two,” Gibbs told him sensibly. “You can’t split yourself up and reject the bits you don’t like. You have to find a way to accept them, or they’ll come back and bite you like they did today.”

“Yeah, well, that's easier said than done. Did you ever see the movie ‘Deliverance’?”

Gibbs frowned. Much as he knew Tony liked his movie references, he couldn’t see how one could possibly be appropriate right now. He shook his head.

“Well, 'Deliverance' is a pretty famous movie from the 70's, Boss. Parrish had clearly seen it when he fucked me as a kid. I didn’t know it at the time, but there's a scene in the movie where this guy is raped and gets told to squeal like a pig. I’m guessing Parrish liked the way that sounded. I rented the movie when I was a freshman at college, not realising what was in it, and lost about three hours. Woke up to find I’d pissed myself and thrown up. Whole place was a mess. Christ that guy is sick.”

"I will make Parrish pay for what he did to you, Tony,” Gibbs vowed grimly. “I promise you that."

"You don't know who you're dealing with," Tony said. "He's smart, Boss – and he still scares the shit out of me. I don't mind admitting that." Tony dropped his gaze to the floor like he wanted to sink into it. Gibbs lifted his chin with his fingers and made him meet his eyes.

"I made you a promise, and I'll damn well keep it," he hissed. "Parrish will go to jail for what he's done. I'll work night and day to make that happen. Hell, I have to, because if I fail I won't be able to look you in the eye like this again, Tony. Understood?"

Tony seemed surprised by his intensity. He gazed at Gibbs searchingly, and then he nodded.

"Understood, Boss," he said quietly. "If anyone can take that bastard down, it's you."

He straightened up his shirt, which had become torn in the fracas back in the interrogation room, and then he reached out and flicked the switch on the elevator again.

“And now we’re going to see Ducky I assume,” Tony sighed.

“Oh yeah,” Gibbs growled. “Now we are definitely going to see Ducky.”

~*~

It had been a busy day in Autopsy, so by the time he was able to take a break Ducky decided to treat himself to a nice cup of tea and one of the fine Scottish shortbread biscuits that his cousin had sent him for his birthday. He had to abandon any thought of putting his feet up for a quiet half hour though, when he saw a grim-faced Gibbs usher a frankly pallid Tony out of the elevator and into his domain. Ducky took in Tony's torn shirt, and the pent-up fury in the way Gibbs was moving, and sighed.

"Mr. Palmer, would you be so kind as to go out and find some real Twinings English Breakfast tea for me," he said. "I fear someone has substituted Liptons, and it just isn't the same at all." He put his cup down with a theatrical grimace.

"Of course, Dr. Mallard," Jimmy said eagerly, always happy to run errands for him.

"Thank you – and do take your time, Mr. Palmer. No need to rush." Jimmy took off out of the door, nearly knocking into Gibbs on his way in.

"There an emergency somewhere, Ducky?" Gibbs raised an eyebrow.

"I'm afraid Mr. Palmer will be gone some time." Ducky shook his head sadly. "I sent him looking for tea."

"Shouldn't take him more than ten minutes."

"Real English Breakfast Tea, Jethro," Ducky told him with a chuckle. "That will take him a tad longer, I warrant. Now, what can I do for you two gentlemen? Tony - did you hurt your hand?" He glanced at Tony's right fist, which was streaked with blood.

"The blood isn’t mine, Ducky," Tony said.

"All the same – if you'd like to sit down." Ducky gestured him onto one of his autopsy tables, and Tony sat on the side of it and held out his hand for Ducky to clean off the blood. He was right about it not being his – the knuckles underneath were reddened, but that was all. "You and Jethro are as bad as each other," Ducky admonished. "I never see young Timothy in here with bruised fists, and dear Ziva's methods of fighting are, I fear, too subtle to leave a mark. Yet with you and Jethro it's always the same. You two are more alike than I think either of you realises."

Tony grinned at him, looking delighted by that comment.

"Are you going to tell me which poor unfortunate was on the receiving end of your fists on this occasion, Anthony?" Ducky asked, and then wished he hadn't as Tony's grin faded, and he reached up with his free hand to smooth down the hair on the back of his head. Ducky frowned and glanced at Gibbs, who grasped his arm and led him away out of earshot.

"I need you to keep an eye on him for a couple of hours, Duck."

"He's not a parcel, Jethro. You can't just pass him around," Ducky remonstrated.

"I'm not passing him around. I just can't leave him alone right now. You can see what kind of a state he's in." He nodded in Tony's direction. Tony wasn't in the fugue-like state he'd been in the previous night, but he was still smoothing his hair down with repetitive movements of his hand. "Why does he do that weird stroking thing, Duck?" Gibbs asked. "I thought it caused the fugue, but he's still with us right now, so that can't be it."

"It's a self-comforting mechanism, Jethro," Ducky replied. "He's trying to calm himself down and make himself feel better. And no, it doesn't cause the fugues – it's his attempt to head them off – one of them anyway. I've noticed he has several – the humming for example. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work, as we've seen."

"He just had a total meltdown," Gibbs grunted. "I'm not surprised he needs to comfort himself right now."

"You know, this might all be more than we can deal with," Ducky told him quietly. "He might need proper psychiatric help, Jethro."

Gibbs shook his head. "You know Tony – there's no way you'll be able to talk him into seeing a shrink, Ducky."

"Me? Oh, I wouldn't even try," Ducky replied with a wry chuckle. "You're the only one he listens to, Jethro, as you well know."

"I doubt he'd hear it, even from me. And I don't think we're there yet. This has all happened so suddenly – give him a few days, and he might settle down."

"He might – with some help." Gibbs raised an eyebrow. "*Your* help, Jethro," Ducky clarified. "He's dealing with something extraordinarily distressing right now. You can't expect him to be the same Anthony DiNozzo you've worked with these past eight years - your capable, if sometimes wayward, second-in-command. You have to handle him differently."

"Ducky - I just spent the past ten minutes holding him in the elevator while he shook like a scared kid in my arms," Gibbs growled. "Trust me, that's not the way I usually handle Tony."

"But can you work the case and be there to give him what he needs as well, Jethro?"

"I'm not giving up the case, Ducky," Gibbs snapped. "Not while those bastards are still out there."

Ducky sighed. "I thought you'd say that."

Gibbs ran a hand through his hair, looking more troubled than Ducky was used to seeing him.

"I'm not sure I'm getting this right, Duck," he admitted. "I just made a big mistake – I allowed him to sit in on an interrogation with one of his abusers."

Ducky gazed at him, horrified. "I'm presuming that was where the blood came from?"

"Yeah. The bastard said something deliberately to push Tony over the edge, and he lost it. He went ballistic. I've never seen him like that before, Ducky. You know Tony – if anything ever gets to him, he never lets it show. And he sure as hell never loses it like he did back there."

"Well, he's under extreme duress at the moment."

"I know. Thing is, I wouldn't usually have agreed to his request to be there – I knew it was a mistake. I just don't know the best way to handle him right now, and I don’t want to say or do anything to make any of this worse for him than it already is."

"Ah." Ducky nodded. "You're second-guessing yourself, my dear Jethro – and that isn't like you at all."

"It's something he said yesterday about how Parrish had conditioned Justin to respond to older, male, authority figures. Made me wonder if that's how he sees himself and me."

Ducky glanced over at Tony, who was still sitting on the side of the autopsy table, stroking his hair absently. "You know, this reminds me of a book I'm very fond of. Have you ever read 'The Little Prince', Jethro?"

Gibbs looked at him as if he'd gone insane.

"No, well, I thought not. It's an enchanting tale, but perhaps a little too whimsical for your tastes. It's full of wise little insights into the human condition. I'll spare you all the details, but at one point in the book the little prince of the title tames a fox, and the fox tells him that he is responsible forever for what he has tamed."

Gibbs glared at him. "He isn’t a fox, Ducky, and I haven't 'tamed' him."

"Except that you have, Jethro, in your own way," Ducky told him softly. "I know that boy's history. He didn't get on well at any of those places where he worked before you found him, did he? I was never exactly sure why, but you do, I think. You saw something in him, something he needed, and you picked him up, dusted him down, whipped him into shape, kicked him around a little, to be sure, but he needed that – and, most importantly, you gave him a place to belong. Everyone knows that boy worships the ground you walk on, Jethro, and now you've drawn all his darkest secrets out of him right when he's at his most vulnerable. If that doesn't make him your responsibility, then I don't know what does."

"I told him I'd be there for him through this, and I will," Gibbs growled.

"Then you may have to give some thought as to what, exactly, that will entail," Ducky said, patting his arm. "What exactly are you prepared to give, Jethro? Because…forgive me, you're a good man, but you're not someone who is comfortable in the emotional arena. I know why," he added hurriedly, seeing a familiar dark look creep into Gibbs's eyes. "And I sympathise, I really do. But that boy over there is just as damaged as you are – and, in fact, that actually makes you uniquely qualified to help him if you're prepared to try. Are you, Jethro?"

Gibbs stared at him, and Ducky wondered if he'd gone too far. His friend *was* a good man, but Ducky wasn't sure that he'd yet woken up to the scale of the task on his hands. He could see the conflicted look in Gibbs's eyes.

"The damage inflicted on you both – you and him – for the most part isn't visible," Ducky said softly. “It's in here." He patted Gibbs's chest. "You hide behind the walls you've built to keep yourself safe, and he's done the same. But as his come crashing down, you might find that you need to venture out from behind yours if you are going to help him. Are you ready for that, Jethro?"

Gibbs glanced over at Tony and then back at Ducky. A muscle in his jaw twitched violently. "Just take care of him, Ducky," he said in a terse voice. "I'll be a couple of hours." Then he turned on his heel and left. Ducky sighed, and glanced back at Tony.

"Well, I did my best, Anthony," he said sadly.

~*~

Gibbs left Autopsy in a furious mood. He returned to interrogation room one and found McGee sitting in the chair opposite Parrish, neither of them speaking.

Parrish looked up as Gibbs entered the room.

"Ah, Agent Gibbs – I'm glad you've finally returned. I want you to know…" he began.

"Shut it," Gibbs interrupted him savagely. "Listen up, Parrish, and listen well. I'm sure you've made plenty of mistakes in your life, but there are two that you will live to regret. The first is the day you laid a finger on a kid called Tony DiNozzo twenty-five years ago…."

"I never touched him, but leaving that aside – the second?" Parrish raised an eyebrow, his cold, grey eyes assessing Gibbs carefully.

"The second is what you said to him today," Gibbs told him.

"I didn't say anything to provoke such an extreme reaction," the admiral protested, gesturing to his bruised face.

"Oh, we both know that you did," Gibbs growled. "I'm not going to waste any more time on you, Parrish. I'll see you in court."

"Whatever flimsy case you have against me won't stand up to any scrutiny, Gibbs.”

"You'd better hope for your sake that it does - because you'll find prison a much safer place than anywhere else on this planet, believe me."

"Another one of your threats, Agent Gibbs?" Parrish said derisively.

"Did you hear me threaten the admiral, Agent McGee?" Gibbs asked, turning to his agent. McGee shook his head.

"No, Boss. I didn't hear any threats. Agent Gibbs doesn't make threats, Admiral Parrish – he makes promises."

"And I always keep my promises, Admiral," Gibbs told him grimly. “So, like I said, you’d better hope you get sent somewhere safe, out of my way – because if you walk free, I will come after you. And trust me, when I catch up with you I’ll definitely make you squeal like…what was it, Parrish? A piglet?”

Parrish’s jaw settled into a tight line, and he quirked an eyebrow at Gibbs, a hint of malicious glee in his eyes. It was all Gibbs could do not to punch the man. Even after all these years he was still enjoying the control he had over Tony and taking a sick kind of pleasure in his ability to scare him.

“Do we understand each other, Parrish?” Gibbs asked quietly.

“Oh, we understand each other perfectly, Agent Gibbs,” Parrish replied smoothly.

“Good. Then I’ll see you in court.” Gibbs turned on his heel and left. He went straight to the squad room and made a phone call.

"Walt? It's Gibbs. I need a favour."

Forty-five minutes later, Gibbs walked into the NCIS gym to find Walter Silberman waiting for him. Walt was an old buddy going back to his marine days. He was six feet five of solid, packed muscle, as fit now as he'd been at boot camp all those years ago.

"Hey, Jethro," Walt said, pulling on a pair of boxing gloves.

"Walt," Gibbs replied shortly. He taped up the torn, bruised skin on his knuckles, aware that Walt was watching, and then pulled on his own pair of gloves.

"Not a day for talking, huh?" Walt muttered, stepping into the ring.

"No. Just fighting. Don't go easy on me, Walt."

"Wouldn't dare, Jethro," Walt replied with a chuckle.

Gibbs went at him with every single ounce of pent-up fury in his body, and Walt pummelled him back relentlessly, neither of them giving an inch.

This was what he needed – what he'd needed since this nightmare had first begun. Gibbs thought of Tony, huddled on the floor of the elevator with his hands over his head, re-living an experience so appalling that it made hot, bitter bile rise in the back of Gibbs's throat. How could any man hurt a child like that? Gibbs lashed out, grunting as his fists connected with flesh, needing to feel the pain in his hands, the shockwaves in his wrists and shoulders, and the raw, panting urgency of his own fury.

Walt could take everything he threw at him - always had, always would. Gibbs was transported back seventeen years, to another time and a different kind of pain, and there was Walt, big and steady, taking his punches and handing out his own, never holding back, a rock in the storm.

Gibbs was aware that a little circle of NCIS staff was forming around the outside of the ring, watching silently as the two ex-marines gave a master-class in hand-to-hand combat, and still they fought on. His fury went slowly from being red hot to white cold as they fought; the heat gradually cooling as he threw himself around the ring, exhausting himself.

Walt caught him a glancing blow on the jaw, and Gibbs landed a punch to his old friend's solar plexus. Walt grunted, barely seeming to notice it, and wrong-footed him, landing him on the floor. Gibbs rolled over and was back on his feet again in a second. Walt lumbered after him, slower now but still as unstoppable as a steamroller.

Gibbs fought until his arms ached, and his own sweat was blinding him. He fought until his breathing was a rasping sound in the back of his throat. He fought until he couldn't see the scared face of a twelve year old boy every time he closed his eyes. He fought out his sense of impotence at not being able to help Tony. He fought out his anger at not being there twenty-five years ago when a boy was taken to a hotel room and raped repeatedly by a man he’d trusted and then handed around to others to do the same. It was the same anger he felt at not being there seventeen years ago when his family had been killed.

He fought out his inability to protect the people he loved - and then he fought even harder to try and come to terms with the fact that he classed Tony with Shannon and Kelly, in the category of people he loved. Even though he’d known that for some time, he’d never really faced the truth of it before. So he fought it out, all of it, until finally he was spent.

Then he stopped. Walt gazed at him.

"We done?" he asked.

"We're done."

"You heard him – beat it," Walt growled at their audience, and they all scuttled off.

Gibbs got out of the ring, and Walt followed him into the locker room.

"Want to talk about it?" Walt asked.

Gibbs hesitated. Walt had seen him at his lowest point, after Shannon and Kelly had been killed, and he'd stuck with him through everything. He had never once been judgemental about any of the ways Gibbs had found to cope with their loss. He was one of his closest friends.

"I fucked up. I can't fuck up again. Something big is going down. I have to get it right," Gibbs told him.

"This work or personal?" Walt asked. Gibbs hesitated again.

"Both," he said finally. Walt sighed.

"The work thing you'll get right – you always do," he said. "The personal thing – that's the shit you're lousy at, and I'm guessing that's the real reason I'm here right now." He ran a rueful hand over his solar plexus. "And feeling like I've gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson," he added.

Gibbs glanced at him, saw how sweaty, battered, and exhausted he looked, and gave a little wince. "Thanks, Walt," he said quietly.

"You're welcome, Jethro," Walt replied. "Did it help?"

Gibbs nodded as he unwrapped the tape from around his knuckles. "For now," he said. Walt put a hand on his shoulder.

"You need me – you call me," he said. Gibbs looked into his friend's concerned brown eyes and nodded.

"I will."

Gibbs headed for the showers and the welcome relief of the warm water pounding on his aching body. His two closest friends, Ducky and Walt, the people who knew him best, had both said the same thing: You get the work stuff right but the personal stuff – anything involving emotions – you’re crap at that, old friend.

Well, then he’d just have to figure out how to be better at it, because Tony was relying on him. Ducky was right – Tony needed his time and attention right now, and he had to find a way to give it to him. Parrish wasn’t going anywhere, and their next lead, Quinn, wasn’t due back in the country for a few days. That gave him some time to try and get into Tony’s head and turn him around. He had to get him ready to face the next big ordeal that was coming his way. Gibbs was sure the next few weeks would be one ordeal after another for Tony, and it was his job to get him through them.

His team were good – he’d let McGee run lead agent during any absences he took while he put Tony back together again. He’d been impressed with that conversation they’d had earlier, and his handling of Parrish. McGee had been turning from a boy into a man over the past year, and he was ready for this.

Gibbs exited the shower feeling better than he had all day. The fighting had cleared his mind, the way it always did; now he could see the simple truths shining through the complexity of the situation.

He would stop second-guessing himself. He’d be no use to Tony if he let his sympathy for him over-ride his own gut instincts. Tony needed him to be *Gibbs*, the man he knew and trusted, and not some stranger tip-toeing around him on eggshells.

Gibbs got dressed, grabbed his bag, and left the gym.

Tony was his priority right now, and he’d be damned if he let him down.

~*~

Tony looked up in relief when Gibbs strode through the door.

"Oh thank God! Ducky’s been making me rummage around in internal organs, Boss."

"Not your own, I hope, DiNozzo," Gibbs said.

Tony studied him – Gibbs's hair was damp, and he smelled freshly showered. He also had a number of bruises on his jaw that hadn't been there earlier and a small cut above his left eye.

"I don't think there's anything wrong with your agents learning about basic anatomy, Jethro," Ducky said, glancing up. His eyes darkened as he took in Gibbs’s battered appearance, but he didn’t draw attention to it. "It appals me how little the average member of the human race seems to know about their own body. Take Anthony here – he seems to think that the spleen is located in the pelvic region."

"In my defence, I didn't actually think that *was* a spleen when I first stuck my hand into it," Tony muttered. "All dead squishy things feel the same, Boss."

"Well you're done here," Gibbs told him.

"Hallelujah," Tony muttered in a heart-felt tone. "Uh, no offence, Ducky."

"None taken, my dear boy." Ducky beamed at him. "It's been a pleasure to have your company. I don't think Mr. Palmer needs to worry about you replacing him though. You don't really have a rapport with the dead, Anthony."

"You know – I think I'll take that as a compliment, Ducky," Tony grinned. "Where are we going, Boss?" he asked, as Gibbs gestured with his head that he follow him out of Autopsy.

"Home," Gibbs replied.

Tony hesitated. It hadn't been a great day, but he didn’t want to go home and be alone with his thoughts right now.

"You know – I think I'd prefer to stay with the dead bodies," he muttered, pausing in the elevator doorway. Gibbs made an impatient gesture with his head. Tony got into the elevator reluctantly.

"We'll go to your apartment first," Gibbs said. "So you can get what you need. Then back to my place. You're staying with me."

"Don't I get a say in this?" Tony asked.

Gibbs gazed at him, his expression as unreadable as ever. "No," he replied.

That felt oddly comforting. "Okay then," Tony said with a nod. "Just as long as we're clear."

He had been wondering, in light of Gibbs's absence all afternoon, whether his boss was tired of dealing with him. He had screwed up in interrogation and then completely lost it in the elevator, and Gibbs didn’t like his agents screwing up. His boss seemed to read his thoughts.

"I told you I'd see you through this, and I meant it, Tony," he said firmly. "But if you want to keep out of the clutches of a shrink, then you have to let me in. Any time you feel yourself going off into a fugue then you talk to me about it, like you did in the elevator."

"Yes, Boss," Tony lied. He had no intention of losing it in front of Gibbs again. It was bad enough that it had happened once. He needed to keep a much tighter grip on himself. He wasn't sure why he was struggling with this so much. He'd kept these thoughts and feelings under control for the past twenty-five years, so why the hell were they causing him so much hassle now? What was wrong with him?

He was grateful at least that he'd managed to evade most of the rest of the team all day. Abby had come to Autopsy once while he'd been there, but she didn't seem to think it was strange that he was assisting Ducky. Then again, Abby was Abby – she slept in a coffin for God's sake! Who knew what her definition of ‘strange’ was? He hadn’t seen either McGee or Ziva though, and he was thankful for that.

Gibbs drove them to his apartment in silence, and Tony packed some things. He wasn't sure how long he’d be staying with his boss, and he wished the invitation had been made under different circumstances. He wasn't entirely sure how he felt about the thought of sleeping under Gibbs's roof. The last thing he wanted was for the man to take him in because he felt sorry for him, but it did mean that he got to spend time alone with Gibbs, and that was something he always relished.

They returned to Gibbs's house, and Tony dumped his clothes in the spare room. Then he went downstairs and hooked up the TV and DVD player he'd insisted on bringing with him.

"No offence, Boss, but I'm not going down to that drafty basement every time I want to watch something," Tony had told Gibbs. “Also – that TV you’ve got down there is ancient. I don’t think you even *can* hook a DVD player up to it.”

His boss had just grunted, and Tony had taken that as permission to bring them both along. How Gibbs got by with just one tiny TV and no DVD player was beyond Tony, but he knew he couldn't. His distractions came in many forms, and this was an important one.

Being with Gibbs was another one – and a good one. Tony threw everything into making Gibbs forget about his meltdown in the elevator earlier. It felt good to be back on familiar ground, assuming his identity as Tony DiNozzo, over-active frat-boy, talking too much, clowning around, and generally getting in Gibbs’s way as his boss fixed them something to eat.

Tony launched into a long-winded lecture on the history of film from its invention to the modern era, barely pausing for breath as he covered various different styles and gave potted filmographies of all the major directors. Gibbs sat opposite him as they ate, hardly saying a word, that sharp gaze of his fixed on Tony in a way that made him uneasy.

Tony started speaking twice as fast to prevent Gibbs interrupting him. He didn’t want his boss to draw attention to the massive elephant that was currently sitting quietly in the corner of the room. Tony was done talking about what had happened to him as a kid. He'd spilled his guts out last night, and he wasn't going there again. He'd given Gibbs the information he wanted and now it was over. Done. Time to move on.

They finished eating, and Tony leaned against the glass kitchen door, still talking as Gibbs put their plates in the dishwasher. It wasn’t a conversation as such – Gibbs just moved around the kitchen while Tony talked. He hoped he was being lively, entertaining and amusing – but even to his own ears his voice had a hint of desperation to it.

“Why don’t you show me?” Gibbs asked. It was the first thing he’d said in about half an hour. Tony blinked. He had been talking so fast that he wasn’t actually sure what he’d been saying. “One of these movies you’re talking about. Show me,” Gibbs prompted.

Tony felt a rush of relief. This was good! He was on familiar ground here. They went into the living room, and he chose a classic war movie that he thought Gibbs would like.

Gibbs sat down on the couch, and Tony sat down beside him. It was an old, saggy couch, and they both sank down towards the centre of it, thighs and upper arms touching. Tony wished he could let go, and sink into Gibbs the way he was sinking into the couch. He wanted to give it all up and let Gibbs take over. If he did that, maybe Gibbs could make it all go away.

Tony needed his distractions: movies, music, sex, joking around, working too hard, talking too much…and Gibbs. It took a lot of energy to keep moving from one to the other, but he had to because the effects of each one always waned eventually. Then the only option was to move onto the next. Sometimes he got so tired of it. He wished he had a safe haven for when it all got too much, and he couldn’t shut out the memories any more. He wished he could take Gibbs up on his offer to share them with him, but he hated the thought of his boss seeing him like that again.

Tony talked through the movie, although now he was just gabbling, and he wasn’t sure he was saying anything that made any sense. Every so often Gibbs would turn and look at him, a quizzical expression on his face, and Tony knew that Gibbs knew exactly what he was doing. That made him talk even faster; distraction…he needed a distraction, so that he didn’t have to stare into a pair of cold grey eyes, or feel a pair of cold hands on his body; cruel, demanding, and invasive.

“Are you scared of me, Boy?”

“Hmm?” Tony stopped in mid-sentence and turned to Gibbs.

“I didn’t say anything,” Gibbs told him with a wry grunt, as if he’d be lucky to get a word in edgeways.

“Oh, right. Anyway, the thing about all the movies from this era is…”

“I’ve killed men with my bare hands. It’s one of the first things they taught us in training. It’s much easier to kill a child of course – the neck is smaller. I could snap it easily with just one hand – like a matchstick.” One cold hand slid around his neck to illustrate the point. He felt his breathing hitch in panic.

“Tony? You okay? You’re stroking your hair,” Gibbs told him. Tony blinked. He realised his hand was on the back of his head and moved it, quickly, down to his side.

“I’m just tired. I think I’ll go to bed now, Boss.”

He leaned forward to get up and a hand reached out and touched his arm. He flinched and went very still. That had been stupid of him. He knew he wasn't allowed to leave. He was locked in here. He had to stay still. If he didn’t, Luke would snap his neck the way he’d been taught in training. He had to do what Luke said because it was easy to kill a child and even easier to get rid of the body.

“It’s safe to remember it, Tony,” Gibbs said. Tony blinked. Gibbs's fingers were warm. They were curled around Tony’s wrist, drawing him back to the present.

“A child’s neck is small,” Tony told him. Gibbs nodded, as if what he’d said made total sense. “I wasn’t big at twelve. I shot up around fourteen, but at twelve I was small.” He reached up and touched his own neck. “Hands are cold,” he muttered. “Big and cold. A child’s neck breaks easily. Like a matchstick.” He made a hard clicking sound with his thumb and fingers. Gibbs didn’t move.

Tony placed his hand loosely around Gibbs’s throat. Still Gibbs didn’t move. Blue eyes gazed at him, radiating trust. Gibbs’s neck was warm, the skin stubbly beneath his fingertips.

“I want you to do exactly what I say…” Tony’s hand tightened around Gibbs’s neck. “Did you know that you can put a child’s body in a suitcase and carry it out of a hotel? Nobody thinks anything of people carrying suitcases in and out of hotels. Then, later, you can throw it in a dumpster or set fire to it in your yard. Nobody ever finds out.”

He stroked his thumb over Gibbs’s adam’s apple, and up and down his throat.

“It’s quick. No time to scream,” he said. Gibbs’s gaze never faltered. Tony put his head on one side. “You don’t scream though, do you? You squeal, Tony. Like a piglet. I like that sound. Are you scared of me right now? You should be.”

He tightened his grasp and leaned in close.

“Go and kneel on the bed for me, you little slut,” he said coldly, straight into Gibbs’s ear.

He blinked. Gibbs was unmoving, his eyes appalled.

“Tell him no,” Gibbs growled.

Tony swallowed hard, angry with himself. He’d told himself he wouldn’t do this in front of Gibbs again, but he had. Christ, what the hell must Gibbs think of him right now?

“Tony?” Gibbs said quietly. “Did you hear me?”

“No…what?”

“Next time – tell the bastard no.”

"But that's not what happened!" Tony snapped.

“I know that, Tony. Look, you can’t change the reality of what he said to you and what he did to you, but you can change the power the memory has over you. Tell him to fuck off. Tell him that you’re in control now, and he can’t hurt you any more. Hell, tell him that I’m here if it'll help. Tell him that if he touches you, I’ll kick his sorry ass. Just make it stop.”

“It didn’t stop though,” Tony said helplessly.

“I know – but you can stop the power these memories have over you if you take control of them. It’s worth a try.”

Tony nodded. “Okay then, I’ll try. Next time.”

"Good," Gibbs said firmly.

Tony gazed at the floor, berating himself for his own weakness. Gibbs must think he was so pathetic, allowing this to get to him after all this time. He was angry with himself. He'd been twelve, not six - why hadn't he fought back? Why had he believed Parrish? Why hadn't he seen that he was playing him? He'd been an idiot – a stupid, weak idiot.

“He’s still in my head,” Tony explained. “When I saw him today, I thought it was my chance to get him out, but he still scares me. I don’t know why. I’m too big for him to hurt any more. I can take care of myself, and I know I could beat him in a fight. So, why is he still in my head, Boss?”

“Because he’s an evil bastard who played mind games on you when you were too young to fight back,” Gibbs told him. “But you do now. You’re safe here – next time he’s in your head, stand up to him. Tell him where to go. I’ll be here with you. He won’t be able to hurt you.”

Tony nodded. He wasn’t convinced, but if Gibbs thought it was worth a try, then he’d do it. Then, feeling that he’d made enough of an idiot of himself for one evening, he got up.

“I’m tired,” he said. “I’m going to bed.”

“You need anything, or if you start remembering any of this again – you wake me,” Gibbs ordered. Tony nodded.

No way, he thought to himself as he walked wearily up the stairs to the spare bedroom. No fucking way.

~*~

Gibbs sat on the couch after Tony left, staring blankly at the movie still playing on the TV screen without taking any of it in. He felt chilled to the bone. What he had witnessed had been so ugly, so evil, that it made total sense of Tony’s current fragility.

Tony had mimicked Parrish’s clipped way of talking, every inflection and intonation sounding just like him, but his eyes had been those of a petrified child hearing those words for the first time. Gibbs had known Parrish was a ruthless bastard, but knowing it and being confronted with the reality of how he worked on his prey were two entirely different things.

Where had Tony's father been in all this? How could he not *see* what was happening to his son right under his nose? Were these men that clever? Or had Tony’s father been that neglectful? Or maybe it had been a combination of the two.

What if it had been Kelly? He couldn’t stop himself asking the question. Supposing it had been her – would he have noticed? Would he have seen the shadows in her eyes? Would she have suffered in silence, too scared to tell him what was happening? Would she have found it easier to come to him than Tony had found going to his father? Would he have listened to her, or dismissed her out of hand and accused her of lying?

Hell, of course he would have listened to her! He was her father. So what kind of a father had Tony’s dad been? Gibbs felt angry with the man without even knowing him, and yet Tony had said he was a good man. An awkward man, admittedly, someone who didn’t find it easy talking to people, and, from everything Tony had said, a heavy drinker. Maybe that explained it.

What kind of a child had Tony been that his father hadn’t noticed him becoming quieter and more withdrawn though? Tony had said he wasn’t the kind of kid Gibbs might expect. He’d also admitted constructing a new identity to hide behind when he went to boarding school. Gibbs wondered if he was witnessing the cracks starting to show in that identity. If tonight was anything to go by, that was exactly what was happening. Tony had been frenetic all evening, talking incessantly like he was on some kind of drug. He had been every inch the Tony DiNozzo Gibbs had known these past few years but more so, like he was playing a part, and there had been a kind of desperate intensity to his performance.

Gibbs snapped off the TV and got up, unable to shake the events of the evening from his mind. He hadn’t felt in danger himself at any point – the memory had been powerful, but Tony had been lucid throughout. Gibbs had known he wouldn’t hurt him. No, what had been so distressing was hearing the words, feeling Tony’s hand around his throat, seeing the terror in his eyes, and knowing that this had actually happened to him.

He had witnessed, at first hand, a man scaring a child into sexual compliance, and the image haunted him. Gibbs went down to his basement and reached, automatically, for his bourbon. Then he hesitated. If he started drinking he might not stop, and he had to stay sober in case Tony needed him. He put the bourbon back and turned towards his boat instead.

“I guess we all need our distractions,” he murmured, as he began working.

~*~
 

Tony got undressed, pulled on a pair of boxer shorts and a tee shirt to sleep in, and then got into bed. He lay there, looking up at the ceiling blankly. He was trapped in a nightmare, and he couldn't see a way out. The choices he'd made as a child, which had seemed like such a good idea at the time, were coming back to bite him. He felt so damn helpless.

He wasn't used to feeling like this. He'd done a good job, over the years, of creating a strong, robust personality, the kind of guy who could handle anything. Nothing ever touched Tony DiNozzo – even if bad things happened, they just rolled off him, leaving him – the real him – untouched and unscathed underneath. He didn't let people get close enough to use him, or make him feel weak, or small, or afraid. He didn't stay too long in one job, or get into relationships that lasted more than a few weeks. Beyond the occasional phone call, he didn't keep in touch with his family, and nobody ever got to see inside him. He kept his co-workers at a distance, laughing and joking with them but never allowing them to see beneath the surface.

For years it had worked, but then he'd slipped up; he'd stayed too long in his current job. He'd grown attached to the place and the people – or, more to the point, to one person in particular. That was weakness. He should have been ruthless about it and cut and run years ago. He'd meant to, but somehow he'd never got around to it, or he hadn't wanted to get around to it. So he'd taken the easy way out, and he was paying for that right now.

If it hadn't been for those photos, those stupid, damn photos, and if Gibbs wasn’t such an observant son of a bitch, then maybe none of this would have happened. Nobody should have seen those photos…nobody should have seen him looking like that - so weak and pathetic. That was a part of his life that he'd put behind him. He'd wrapped it up carefully and stored it out of sight, and he'd been so diligent about making sure that nobody got so much as a glimpse of it. It didn't seem fair that after all his hard work it had blown up in his face like this.

He heard footsteps on the stairs, and then, a second later, his bedroom door opened. He closed his eyes and feigned sleep.

"You okay, Tony?" Gibbs asked.

Tony turned and mumbled something incoherent, and Gibbs went away, closing the door silently behind him.

Tony heard him go into the bathroom, saw a light go on under his bedroom door, and heard running water. Then it stopped. The light went off, and he heard footsteps again. There was a series of moving around noises and then silence.

Tony lay awake for a long time, unable to switch off. He could leave – run away – but he knew that there was no place on this earth where he'd be able to hide from Gibbs. The man would track him down wherever he went. Gibbs wanted his conviction – he wanted Parrish behind bars, and Tony couldn't blame him for that. He sensed that Gibbs was affronted by the admiral. Gibbs, who idolised the honest, decent, military man, must be cut up inside about that bastard reaching such a high rank.

"Semper fi, Gibbs," Tony muttered. "They're not all like you."

So, running away wasn't an option, but staying here was equally unthinkable. If only he could do something that would piss off Gibbs so much that he’d wash his hands of him and throw him out – but what? He couldn’t think straight right now, but there had to be something.

There was another way out of course… Tony pounded his fist into his pillow, trying to get comfortable. He wouldn't take that other way out. He couldn't. He was too much of a coward. All the same, he was glad Gibbs had taken his gun away, so he wouldn't have the temptation.

"Come here, Boy," a cold voice whispered. "Come to me."

Tony turned onto his back. He needed a distraction – and quickly. Maybe he could go downstairs, turn the TV on low, and watch something…but he didn't want Gibbs to wake up and find him. If only he could go out, go to some club, and find some willing person to bring back for sex…

"Because that worked so well last time, DiNozzo," he told himself, shuddering as he remembered the events of the previous night. Besides, that was out of the question while he was staying with Gibbs.

He did still have his right hand. He slid it down the front of his boxers, took hold of his cock, and closed his eyes, trying to summon up his favourite jerk-off fantasies. There was the one where he was at an orgy with his favourite movie stars from the past. He liked glamour, and that certain cool, untouchable quality. He was unbuttoning Gene Tierney's silk blouse, fingers slipping onto her porcelain skin, skimming her beautiful breasts… No, that wasn't working; his cock remained soft in his hand.

Okay, so he was sharing a beer with Humphrey Bogart. They were on a yacht, both of them leaning on the rail, watching the sunset. Bogey was dressed in loose flannel pants and a white linen shirt. Tony leaned over and kissed Bogey's stubbled cheek. Bogey turned towards him with a crooked smile, challenging him. Tony accepted the challenge and trailed a line of kisses down Bogey's neck until he reached the hollow of his throat, and then…Bogey turned into Gibbs in front of his eyes and pushed him away.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, DiNozzo?" he growled.

"Trying to have sex with a screen legend, Boss, if you'd get out of the damn way," Tony muttered irritably.

His cock remained soft in his hand. His thoughts turned to Gibbs. Gibbs was one of his favourite jerk-off fantasies, but not one he gave into that often because the reality of working so close to the man and wanting him so much hurt like hell. Still, all else had failed, and he had to have some distraction, some release, or…

"I told you to come here, Boy. Don't make me wait."

Tony sat up. He was sure there was someone in the room – a shadow, over there, in the corner. He turned on the light quickly, his heart pounding, but the room was empty.

Tony sat on the side of the bed and rubbed the back of his head anxiously. Nothing was working, and he had to do something. His throat was dry, and he wished he had brought a glass of water up with him when he'd come to bed. He could go downstairs to the kitchen to get one, and hope he didn't wake Gibbs in the process.

"That's better. On your knees." An icy fist slipped into his hair and pulled back his head. He knew what was coming next…

Tony got up, quickly, and left the room. He tiptoed down the stairs, wincing when he trod on a stair that squeaked. Why couldn't he move silently, like Gibbs?

"Always creeping up on people, taking them by surprise," Tony muttered. He reached the bottom of the stairs and hesitated. It was dark in the downstairs hallway, but he didn't want to turn on the light in case that woke Gibbs. The kitchen door opened off the living room, so he fumbled his way into the living room in the darkness. He'd feel better if he could just get a drink of water. His throat was parched.

"Open your mouth, Boy."

He hesitated. It was hard to see in here, but there was a shadow over by the far wall, next to the TV. Was someone there? He hurried towards the closed glass kitchen door. Just a few more steps…

The room changed, and he found himself staring at the brown swirly pattern on the carpet.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you!"

He looked up. Luke towered over him, glaring down on him.

"I told you to open your mouth."

"I don't like it," he muttered.

The hand in his hair tightened, making him squeal. Luke gave a cold, malicious smile.

"I'll do anything else," Tony said. "Just not that. I get scared when I can't breathe…"

The fingers of Luke's other hand fastened around his throat. Tony panted in fright.

"Please don't."

He blinked. He could hear the rasp of his own breathing, shallow and scared. His throat was dry. He'd been going to get a glass of water. The kitchen door was just in front of him. If he could make it into the kitchen and get the water, he'd be fine. Just a couple more steps…

He paused…he was sure there was a shadow here, in the room with him. He reached up a hand to smooth down his hair and glanced around, humming softly to himself. The room flickered and then disappeared.

"Do you know," Luke said, holding him there, one hand in his hair, the other around his throat. "That Roy is your legal guardian? If anything happened to your father, then you would have to go and live with Roy."

Tony felt his breath catch in the back of his throat, and he took a deep gulp of air. Luke stroked his neck with his thumb.

"Of course, Roy would be too busy to look after you all the time, but I've said you can come and stay with me when he gets tired of you. Now open up."

"Tell him to fuck off, DiNozzo," a terse voice said. "Say no. "

"No," he whimpered.

Luke's hand tightened in his hair. "Your father could be killed in an accident," he said. "Plenty of people have accidents."

Tony gazed up at Luke, horrified.

"Do you want your father to have an accident, Tony? Is that what you want?"

"Tell him I'm here," that voice said in his ear. He recognised the voice, but he didn't know who it belonged to. He just knew that it was someone he had to obey. "Tell him to go away," the voice insisted.

"Go away," he said obediently, and then he flinched expectantly.

"Don't make me angry, Tony!" Luke snapped.

"Tell him to leave you alone."

Tony didn't know what to do. He didn't know which of them he should obey – the man standing in front of him, or the voice in his ear. Both were demanding and imperative.

"It's easy to kill someone and make it look like an accident," Luke told him. "It's a shame your father has such a bad son. Now open your mouth and take it."

He didn't want his father hurt because of him. He opened his mouth and almost gagged as Luke thrust himself into it. Luke grabbed his head in both his hands and began moving his thighs against his face. Tony tried to pull back, only to find he was held fast.

Where was the voice now? Where had it gone? He tried to call for help, but Luke was pushing away in his mouth, and he couldn't even talk, let alone scream.

He struggled in Luke's grasp, trying to get away, but Luke was too big for him. Luke held him in place, making him take it. He couldn't breathe. There was a buzzing sound overhead, like a swarm of bees. He struggled furiously, pushing and squirming, fighting for breath. In sheer desperation, he flung out his arm and…

There was a loud crashing sound and then silence.

Tony found that he could breathe again.

~*~

Gibbs was out of bed, wide awake, gun in hand, the second he heard the noise. He ran down the stairs three at a time, stormed into the living room, turned on the light, and then stopped. There wasn't an intruder. There was just Tony, standing there, arm outstretched, blinking.

Tony glanced at him over his shoulder. "Hey Boss," he said cheerfully, his green eyes dazed but his voice standard DiNozzo, sounding as if nothing was wrong.

"Tony," Gibbs said quietly. "Stand very still. Don't move."

Tony looked confused by the order, but he didn't move. "I came down to get a glass of water, Boss. Didn't mean to wake you."

"Okay. That's fine, Tony but just don't move," Gibbs warned, putting down the gun. He went over to the couch, found the discarded pair of boots he'd left there earlier, and pulled them on.

Tony remained exactly where he was, unmoving, as ordered. "My hand hurts, Boss," he said, still looking dazed.

"I know. Hold on, Tony."

Gibbs found a pair of his own battered leather slippers under the coffee table. He picked them up and went over to Tony. His boots crunched on the shattered glass of the kitchen door which was strewn all over the floor. The dazed look faded from Tony's eyes. He looked down at his hand, which was sticking through what remained of the door, blood running down his wrist. Tony seemed to see it for the first time.

"Oh shit," he muttered.

"Yeah. That about sums it up," Gibbs commented wryly, kneeling down beside Tony and sliding the slippers onto his bare feet. He got up and gently took hold of Tony's arm. There was a big hole in the kitchen door – and a large, jagged piece of glass pointing up directly at the soft underside of Tony's wrist. Gibbs carefully pulled Tony's arm back, through the hole in the door, taking care that the glass didn't rip into any more of his skin on the way back out.

Gibbs walked Tony over the broken glass on the floor and deposited him on the couch. Then he sat down on the coffee table in front of Tony, took his injured hand onto his knees, and examined the damage. There were several small cuts and a couple of much larger ones – both of which were bleeding copiously. Gibbs could see a few pieces of glass still sticking into the wound. He removed them, and then he took hold of Tony's other hand and clamped it down firmly on the biggest cut.

"Hold it there," he ordered.

He got up and crossed the room, crunching on glass as he went, and opened what remained of the now shattered kitchen door. He filled a bowl with water, grabbed his first aid kit and a couple of kitchen towels, and returned to where Tony was sitting, his hand still clamped down hard on the bleeding cuts.

"There are less messy and less noisy ways of trying to kill yourself, DiNozzo," Gibbs joked, taking hold of Tony's hand again. Then he looked up into Tony's pale face and wished he hadn't said that.

"I wasn't," Tony muttered.

Gibbs bathed the cuts gently, washing the blood away so he could see how bad the injury was.

"I couldn't breathe," Tony explained.

"Was it Parrish again?"

Tony nodded. "Yeah."

"I told you to wake me." Gibbs pressed a towel over the largest cut to see if he could stop the bleeding.

"Yeah. Right," Tony grunted. Gibbs looked up sharply.

"Tony – I told you to wake me, and I meant it."

"I can't be like this!" Tony told him angrily. "I can't be this fucking pathetic, Gibbs! You got called out of bed last night by my lousy fucking one night stand for God's sake. Then you had Ducky nurse-maid me at work all day, and now you've got me staying in your fucking house! I'm trying to keep it together, trying to get it back under control, but it just…it slips away from me, Gibbs. It takes over my head. I can't put it back."

"Then stop trying," Gibbs told him. "That whole thing you had going – keeping it in a box in your head? That's not working any more. Give up on it, Tony. Did you try fighting back instead, like I told you?"

"Yeah." Tony shook his head. "Didn't work. I’m not strong enough. I’m so fucking weak. I thought you were there, in my head, but it was just my mind playing tricks on me. Again. Ow…damn it…" He winced as Gibbs pressed down harder on the wound to stem the bleeding.

"Hold on, DiNozzo. I just need to see if this is going to stop by itself, or if you're going to need stitches," Gibbs told him. He sat there, holding Tony's hand in his lap, wrapped up in a towel. Tony looked pale and upset, and as unlike DiNozzo as he'd ever seen him. They were silent for a moment, just gazing at each other.

"It might have worked, if I'd tried harder," Tony said eventually. "I got scared. I couldn't breathe. He…" He flinched, and reached up his good hand to rub the back of his head.

"What did he do, Tony?" Gibbs asked, trying to head off another fugue.

"Doesn't matter," Tony muttered. "I struggled because I couldn't breathe – that must have been when my hand went through the door.

"Why couldn't you breathe?"

Gibbs opened the towel and examined the wound again. It was still seeping blood but not as much as before. Tony wasn't in any immediate danger, so he decided to bandage his hand and get Ducky to look at it tomorrow to see if he needed to go to the ER.

"Tony?" He glanced up. "Why couldn't you breathe?"

Tony's eyes were dark. "There was something in my mouth," he said. Realisation hit Gibbs, and he worked hard to fight down the surge of anger. "And he had his hand in my hair, so I couldn't pull back. I couldn't breathe." He took a few deep gulps of air.

"You're okay now," Gibbs told him firmly.

He worked on, gently, quietly, and efficiently, wrapping the bandage around Tony's hand, using skills he’d acquired as a soldier applying field dressings in combat. Tony leaned back on the couch and ran an angry hand through his hair.

"I should have moved on years ago," he said quietly.

Gibbs glanced up, frowning.

"I can take care of myself," Tony told him. "I don't need anyone looking out for me."

"I know that, DiNozzo. But everyone needs help occasionally."

"You don't," Tony muttered. “I don’t, either. I’ve always taken care of myself, Gibbs. I’ve done it before, and I can do it again.”

“You shouldn’t have had to do it before,” Gibbs growled. “You were only twelve, Tony. You shouldn’t have had to handle that all alone.”

“I did though – and I did just fine,” Tony snapped at him. "I don't like authority, Gibbs," he said, suddenly and unexpectedly.

"Ya think, DiNozzo?" Gibbs grinned at him.

"No – I mean, I don't like these older guys; military, police captains – authority figures – I don't like them telling me what to do. I can't trust them."

"No. I can understand that," Gibbs said quietly.

"You don't understand shit," Tony growled.

"Then tell me."

"There's something in me – wants to please them, wants them to like me, wants to roll over and die if they tell me to, so I have to be careful. They sense it – think they can use me, play me. They always do, even when they don't know it. That's why I left Peoria. The captain there…he was playing me. I lost it with him, told him where to shove his fucking job – that's why he gave me such a lousy reference - but I had to protect myself."

"And you've done that," Gibbs told him. "You've done a great job with that, Tony."

"Yeah – by moving on, by not sticking around and letting anyone get close to me. I ran out of Philly and Baltimore before I could screw up that way again. And then, idiot that I am, I ended up doing it anyway. With you. You were a mistake, Gibbs. You were a mistake I shouldn’t have made."

Gibbs finished making one circuit of Tony's hand with the bandage. He sat back and looked at Tony, puzzled by what was going on in Tony's head. Tony's expression was dark and intense. Gibbs started wrapping the bandage around his hand again.

"You played me too," Tony said. Gibbs paused, hands in mid-air. "It's okay. I let you do it because I trusted you. And I liked it," he added. "It made me feel safe. Being around you made me feel safe. I knew you wouldn't let anyone else get to me, or play me, and I knew you wouldn't betray me. So I felt safe."

"That why you stayed?"

"No." Tony shook his head. "I stayed because I'm in love with you."

Gibbs paused again. Tony's eyes were deadly serious.

Tony leaned forward, cupped the back of his neck in his good hand, pulled him towards him, and pressed his lips against Gibbs's mouth. His lips were soft and warm, agile and seductive, the kiss tentative but firm. Gibbs sat there, still cradling Tony's other hand in his lap. Tony drew back, and grinned at him.

"Now you can throw me out," he said, and there was a satisfied, bitterly triumphant look in his eyes.

"No." Gibbs shook his head and continued bandaging Tony's hand as if the kiss hadn't happened.

"No?" Tony looked angry and confused.

"No," Gibbs told him firmly. "That the best you can do, DiNozzo?"

"What the hell do you mean?"

"You think I don't know how much you want to run out? The only reason you haven't is because you know I'll damn well track you down wherever you go, and you're right – I will. Easier to get me to throw you out but that's not gonna happen – and trust me, kissing me sure as hell isn't the best way to go about it."

There was a shocked expression on Tony's face, and his mouth was slightly open in an unasked question.

"You think I don't know that place you're in now? You're wrong. I do," Gibbs told him firmly. "I was there once myself, after Shannon and Kelly died. That first year after they were killed I drank myself stupid every night and went out looking for fights. Every night. Night after night. My friend Walt used to wade in after me and drag me out, but he couldn't stop me. Nobody could. Drinking and fighting were the only things that kept me going. That stopped after about a year when I found a new distraction. You think you sleep around, DiNozzo? Trust me, I know all about that as well."

"Never figured you for someone who did one night-stands, Boss."

Gibbs snorted. "Hell yeah. Too many to count. For about six months I slept with any warm body that would have me. I'd wake up in strange apartments, in hotel rooms, even in my own bed occasionally but always with some stranger lying beside me. And never the same one twice. My friend Walt had to rescue me from a couple of bad situations there, too."

Tony winced. "Yeah, been there, done that," he muttered. "Why are you telling me this, Boss?"

"So you know I'm not going to give up on you, no matter what," Gibbs told him. "And because not all the people I woke up with were women."

Tony's eyes flashed. He looked so totally dumbstruck by this piece of information that Gibbs had to bite back a chuckle.

"Which is another reason why I'm not shocked, pissed off, or whatever the hell reaction you wanted out of me when you kissed me," Gibbs told him. “And Tony? There is nothing you can do that will make me throw you out, so forget it.”

He finished bandaging Tony's hand and then removed it from his own lap and put it back in Tony's.

“Nothing?” Tony asked. He looked like a kid who had been pushing boundaries and wanted the reassurance of knowing they would always hold firm.

“Nothing,” Gibbs repeated, in the firmest tone he possessed. He leaned forward. “Nothing,” he said again. “I told you I’d be here for you, Tony, and I meant it - no matter what you do to my house.” He gave a little grin at that, his gaze flickering over to the shattered glass on the carpet by the door. Tony’s lips quirked up in return, but the smile was barely there.

"You need to get some rest," Gibbs told him. "Seriously, Tony – you look like shit. Let me get you some painkillers, and then you can go back to bed."

"I can't." Tony shook his head. "Gibbs, every time I close my eyes I'm back in that hotel room. I can't go to bed."

"Then we'll stay here, but you will damn well get some sleep."

He got up, took the stuff he'd used to bathe and dress Tony's cut hand back into the kitchen, and returned with a glass of water and the painkillers. Tony swallowed down the tablets in one gulp and then emptied the glass thirstily. Gibbs turned on the lamp on the coffee table and turned off the main light. Then he sat down on the couch beside him. Tony looked at him miserably.

"I won't sleep," he said. "After what happened, I'm too scared to even try."

"You'll sleep," Gibbs predicted confidently.

He put a cushion on his lap, then wrapped his arm around Tony's shoulder and pulled him down so that he was lying with his head on the cushion, his bandaged hand nestled carefully in front of him.

“Put your legs up on the couch,” Gibbs told him.

Tony looked up at him quizzically, as if he’d gone insane. Gibbs was reminded of that fox analogy of Ducky’s; Tony’s green eyes shone with a hesitant kind of light, like an animal that wanted to come into the house and rest beside the fire but was too scared to cross the threshold.

“Do it, Tony.”

Tony moved his legs up onto the couch, and Gibbs pulled the comforter off the back of the couch and covered Tony with it.

"This won't work," Tony told him, his body stiff and tense.

"Try," Gibbs said, and then he leaned over and turned out the light.

He sat back on the couch, and then slowly, carefully, like petting a wild animal, he began combing his fingers through Tony's hair, smoothing it. Tony stiffened at first, but Gibbs didn’t say anything, he just kept stroking. He knew this was Tony’s self-comforting mechanism, and he suspected that it really did help to calm him down when he was distressed.

Tony gradually started to loosen up under his hand, his body losing its stiffness. Gibbs kept rhythmically moving his fingers through Tony’s thick, short hair, and slowly, very slowly, Tony relaxed, his body becoming heavier as he sank into the couch.

Gibbs closed his eyes. Ducky had said that he was uniquely qualified to help Tony precisely because he was damaged too, but Gibbs couldn't help but wonder if this was just a case of the blind leading the lame, both of them groping their way along and neither of them knowing where the hell they were going.

He heard Tony's breathing deepen, and then he gave a little snore. Gibbs grinned.

He fell asleep still stroking Tony's hair.

~*~

Tony wondered where he was when he woke up. His hand was throbbing, but he felt like he’d been sleeping for hours. He was warm and safe. There was something resting on the side of his head, heavy and reassuring. He lay there, trying to figure out what it was and where he was. Then the events of the previous night came flooding back in, and he stiffened.

Christ, he’d made a fool of himself; first by smashing up Gibbs’s house and then with that stupid, humiliating kiss. He’d been so sure that Gibbs would think he’d crossed a line and throw him out. But his boss’s lips had been surprisingly receptive, and while Gibbs hadn’t responded as such, he hadn’t shoved him away, either.

Tony hated that Gibbs was seeing everything he’d tried so hard to keep hidden all these years. Nobody had ever seen who he really was before, and he'd always wanted to keep it that way. Now he was unravelling, and he was stuck here, and he didn't know how to deal with it.

Tony slid out from under Gibbs’s hand and rolled off the couch. He paused for a moment and glanced at his boss. A thin strip of light shone in from a chink in the drapes, and Tony could see that Gibbs was still asleep, his head back, his mouth slightly open.

Tony saw the broken glass on the floor and winced. He found a newspaper on a nearby chair and began picking up the larger shards of glass and placing them on the paper, as quietly as he could, using his good hand. His other hand continued to throb, and he could see some blood seeping through the bandage.

“Basket case,” he muttered as he surveyed the all too obvious remains of last night’s meltdown. “Idiot.”

He thought he’d got this weak, needy side of himself under control. He remembered those first few weeks at boarding school, and the intoxicating realisation that he could be someone else. Nobody knew him here. He wasn’t the shy kid here – he wasn’t someone who got taken to a hotel room and fucked because he was too weak to say no. Here he could be loud and noisy, the centre of attention, always goofing around. It was exhilarating exploring his new personality. He loved this Tony DiNozzo – he was strong, brave, and fearless. Nothing and nobody could ever hurt this Tony DiNozzo; he wouldn't let anyone get that close.

When he shot up in height a year or two later, he found he was good at sports. All kinds – football, basketball, hockey, soccer. He threw himself around, took risks, and relished this new, agile body. This body was one that *he* got to control, nobody else. He could almost forget about the boy he’d put in a box, but sometimes, just occasionally, there were moments when he lost time.

There had been that occasion in the locker room when the coach, a big, heavy guy, had come up behind him and wrapped an arm around his neck, intending to congratulate him on an outstanding performance on the pitch. Tony had instinctively gone very still, and had only just managed to resist an impulse to get on his hands and knees for Luke to fuck. Later, when he was alone, he’d lost about half an hour.

Then there had been that time at Peoria, when the bastard captain had put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed, threateningly.

“What’s the matter, DiNozzo – you won’t take one for the team? You not a team player? We don’t like guys who aren’t team players around here. They find their lockers get broken into, and their stuff gets pissed on.”

He didn’t like being threatened, and he didn’t like the way the captain was looking at him, like he was just a kid who could be made to do whatever he was told. He knew where that ended. Later, at home, he lost twenty minutes. That was when he knew he had to get out. He’d handed in his notice the next day.

There had been other times – moments here and there - but nothing too serious. As long as he kept moving and didn’t let anyone get too close, then he was okay. Once he started working with Gibbs he stopped losing time altogether. Gibbs made him feel safe – and that was why he should have got away from the man years ago. He didn’t need protection, he could take care of himself – hadn’t he proved that, over and over again? Yet he’d been seduced by Gibbs’s strength, certainty, and fierce protective instincts. The boy in the box needed taking care of and that was tiring. Sometimes, if he was honest, Tony resented that kid, draining all his energy. He wanted someone to take care of him sometimes, and that was why he was attracted to Gibbs. Not that the man ever took much notice of him, but he was there; solid, strong, and reassuring, and that was enough.

Tony finished picking up the biggest pieces of glass and wrapped the newspaper carefully around them. He took the paper into the kitchen.

“I fucking hate you,” he said, as he threw the glass in the trash. It was all too tangible evidence that the boy in the box had got out and was now running amok and ruining his life. "You fucking little shit. I fucking hate you," he seethed.

“Who are you talking to?” a quiet voice behind him asked. Gibbs had managed to sneak up on him, as usual.

“Him,” Tony replied, turning. Somehow, Gibbs still managed to look sexy, even when dressed in boxer shorts, a tee shirt, and a pair of unlaced boots.

“Who is ‘him’?” Gibbs asked.

“Him. Tonio.” Tony pointed a finger at his head. “He got out and smashed up your house. That’s kind of embarrassing.”

“He’s you, Tony,” Gibbs told him, in an exasperated tone.

“Well, I don’t want him, Gibbs. I wish he’d go away. I’ve looked after the snivelling little brat all these years – I protected him so nobody got to hurt him again, and now he does this.”
He pointed at the shattered kitchen door.

“He’s scared. You’re scared, Tony,” Gibbs told him quietly. “He’s just a part of you. I’m guessing that as long as you keep ignoring him he’s going to keep on trying to get your attention.”

“Yeah, well, you’d know all about that,” Tony said shortly, pushing past him on his way back into the living room. Gibbs grabbed his arm.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You. Me. Eight years of it,” Tony replied.

Gibbs released his arm. “You’ve got my attention now, Tony,” he said softly.

“No, *he* has,” Tony growled. “Is it possible to be jealous of your own sub-personality? Because if it is, I am.”

Gibbs gave a little grunt of laughter, and Tony relaxed and grinned.

“You’re the one who makes me laugh, Tony,” Gibbs told him. “You always have.” He glanced around. “You cleaned up?”

“Yeah – the mess was embarrassing me.”

“How’s your hand?”

“Throbs.” Tony held it up.

“I’ll call Ducky. It probably needs medical attention.”

“Yeah. Figures. First I lose it in an interrogation, and now I’ll walk into the squad room with a big white bandage on my hand. There’s no way Ziva will let that one drop.” Tony leaned against the wall and watched Gibbs fill the kettle and put it on the hob.

“Then tell her the truth."

“No.” Tony shook his head.

Gibbs glanced up. "Nobody is going to judge you."

"No. They're going to *pity* me. That's worse. All anyone will see when they look at me is that stupid fucking kid who didn't know how to say no."

Gibbs turned around to face him. “Tony, this kid you talk about - I don’t know him. I do know that he’s a kid, and he’s hurting right now, but that's not the only reason why I care about him. I care about him because, whether you accept it or not, he's also you.”

“No, you care about him because he's a kid, and you hate it when kids are hurt,” Tony pointed out. “Any kid.”

“Yeah, but I don’t bring them all home with me,” Gibbs told him. “And I sure as hell don’t sit up on the couch all night so they can get some sleep.”

Tony flushed. “Yeah, sorry about that. It won’t happen again.”

“You can’t promise that,” Gibbs replied with an impatient flick of his head. “And it doesn’t matter. You know, when we were first married, before Kelly was born, sometimes I’d come home late at night from a training exercise to find Shannon sitting on the couch with a blanket wrapped around her. She used to like staying up late to watch these stupid horror movies in the dark, but then she’d be too scared to get up and turn on the light, so she’d just stay sitting on the couch until I got home.”

He smiled at the memory, and Tony watched him, transfixed. Gibbs never talked about anything personal. He never let his guard down, or let any of them in, and he never, ever talked about Shannon and Kelly. Now, as he reminisced about his first wife, he looked relaxed and there was that easy smile on his face - and Gibbs had never been a man for whom smiling came easy. Tony wished he could bottle the moment and keep it. It was the first time Gibbs had ever opened up to him about anything personal, and he felt honoured.

“Sometimes,” Gibbs continued, “I was so tired I’d just throw myself down on the couch beside her, and she’d snuggle up against me, and we’d both fall asleep. Sometimes...sometimes, if she was really scared, I’d get a cushion and put it on my lap. Then she’d put her head on it, and I’d stroke her hair until she fell asleep.”

Tony gazed at him with a shocked sense of realisation. Last night on the couch hadn’t been some random act of kindness towards a fucked up and unwanted houseguest. It had been something intimate, the kind of moment Gibbs had only shared with one other person before, and she had been the love of his life.

“You still miss her,” Tony said quietly, and it wasn’t a question. He had caught a glimpse of the damage that Gibbs usually kept so well-hidden, and it was humbling. He forgot all his own problems for a moment, as his well-developed sense of empathy kicked in. Gibbs didn’t let anyone see those raw wounds in his heart, but they were still there. They’d never healed over, not even a little bit, and he still ached for what he'd lost.

“Every single day,” Gibbs replied softly. There was something so obviously broken about him that Tony wondered how he’d never seen it before, and then he realised that he’d never seen it because Gibbs never let anyone see it, just as Tony never let anyone see the boy in the box.

“You want coffee?” Gibbs asked, and in an instant he was back to normal.

Tony cleared his throat. “Yeah. I’ll just go take a shower and get dressed if Ducky is coming over."

~*~

Ducky arrived half an hour later, unwrapped Tony’s now soggy bandage, took one look at the cuts underneath, and immediately proclaimed that he had to be whisked off to the ER.

“I would suture it myself, Anthony,” he said, as he peered at Tony’s cut hand through his glasses. Gibbs leaned against the wall, watching. “But since that unfortunate incident, I’m not as confident operating on the living as I am on the dead.” He gestured to his own hand, where he’d been stabbed not so long ago.

“Great. You know how I just love hospitals.” Tony made a face.

“Ah, yes,” Ducky chuckled, glancing over at Gibbs. “You and Jethro both. It always amuses me how two such very macho men can become positively green-faced at the thought of a visit to the hospital. Although, frankly, in your line of work and with the way you both throw yourselves into the path of danger at the drop of a hat, I’d think you’d be used to it by now.”

“Might be used to it - don’t have to like it, Duck,” Gibbs commented. “Do you want me to come with you, Tony?”

“No.” Tony shook his head, looking straight at him. “Ducky can take me. I know you have to work, and frankly I’ve taken up enough of your time, Boss.”

Gibbs nodded. It didn’t take two of them to drive Tony to the hospital, and Ducky