No one in that living room really knew how to start this, it seemed like they had sat there for hours in glum silence, no one moving, no one looking at each other, but in reality only a few short moments had passed.

Sighing and finally breaking the tension Gibbs started. "Tony, you want to tell Tim why you did this?"

Before Tony could even start to reply Tim cut back, his words sharp and filled with anger, "what you think there is some kind of justification for his breaking into my house and terrorizing me? I should have had him arrested."

"Hey, calm it down. I'm not saying he can justify it but we need to know why and how all of this started," reasoned Gibbs. "So what do you have to say Tony?"

Tim huffed and turned further away from Tony, refusing to look at the man who until now had been sat there, his heads in his hands just wishing he could turn the clock back. Tony looked for any support he could draw on. Abby simply glared at him, Ziva nodded gently but stayed passive and he could see Gibbs' eyes gently coaxing him to speak.

"Well first I want to say I'm sorry Probie," he began only to be interrupted by Tim again.

"Yeah like that is going to make it better and fix my place up," huffed Tim. "And cut the Probie crap, you know I hate it."

Tony tried to carry on despite his feeling of loss and emptiness. "Look this is all on me Boss, can't we just say that I reverted to type, the class clown, took it too far and get to the consequences part'" beseeched Tony.

"Not gonna happen that way," answered Gibbs, "not if we want to sort out this god forsaken mess."

Understanding that he would need to reveal something more of the true DiNozzo, Tony started again. "Guess I never really had a younger brother or a junior team agent to train and look after before you came along Tim, I wanted to protect you from all of the hazing and stuff I had had before but knew you also needed to be tough to survive this job. So I thought that if I teased you a little you would toughen up, and you did. Its just… well… I forgot to stop."

"Its not that I didn't remind you, that Gibbs didn't tell you though, is it?" snapped Tim.

"Well no, I guess not, but what I'm trying to say is that what started out as me trying to find my feet with helping to train you and toughen you up became more than that. It felt like I had the younger brother I'd always wanted. I thought it could be something we had, make you laugh, break the tension of the job all that…" continued Tony.

"Break the tension?" questioned Tim astounded by the explanation, "seems to me that you create most of it."

"It was not my intention," offered Tony by way of response, "and I'm not responsible for all of the crap that goes down in that office."

"What do you mean by that?" questioned Gibbs, thinking that they might now get to the root of the matter.

"Well sometimes, I just feel that it all gets on top of us, then we don't listen to one another, and the only way to get them to notice me and listen to what I'm saying is to be the class clown," offered Tony, "it works when I'm trying to keep you off of their backs too."

Gibbs had long suspected the diversionary tactics of his second in command in protecting the junior members of the team.

"So lets look at last week and what the first thing was that created the tension," suggested Gibbs.

"What you mean other than his creating a fake online profile to make me look like an idiot?" questioned Tim still angry.

"It was just meant to be a joke Tim," Tony tried to explain.

"Just like you always treat my love life, hey," replied Tim

"No, I don't mean to, sometimes I wish you'd lighten up a bit and not rely on computer based relationships, but it really was just a joke," continued Tony, "look it was late, I was bored, I'd just been watching Weird Science, I had an idea, I didn't think it through and then there it was and you were answering my IM's and I couldn't stop."

"Bored? So where was the endless string of floozies you are constantly telling us about?" attacked Tim.

Before Gibbs could jump in to stop this running off of the rails, Tony reacted, getting to his feet, he towered over the room, "Just you take that back Probie. Let me tell you. Whilst I might make reference to all manner of relationships, I'm actually quite a gentleman, sure I like meeting beautiful women, taking them out for meals and seeing where things lead, but unlike the gigolo that you have me down as, I'm not jumping into bed with them all. I like the company, I like the conversation, I like having someone to take to the cinema but that's usually where it all ends. I usually spend what little spare time we have reading, watching tv alone or studying."

"Studying," scoffed Tim, "that what you now call reading the latest edition of GM Magazine?" Abby laughed, urging Tim on, but Tony was now on a roll, he had enough of being seen as the idiot, the uneducated one.

"No Tim and you can shut up too Abby, I'm talking about my PhD," he replied.

That little bombshell came as a surprise to all but Gibbs who knew his SFA had been hiding his education away from the rest of the team for some time now.

"What's it in?" asked Ziva, genuinely intrigued by this new side to Tony.

"Criminology and Psychology with specific reference to criminal profiling and predicting criminal patterns and behaviour," he replied. "But that's getting away from the point. I'm not an idiot, I'm sick of being treated like one by everyone."

"Well why didn't you tell us about your education?" asked Abby.

"I shouldn't have to," he replied, "I'd have thought that being the second in command on the team would have at least given you all the impression I had some intelligence and I have a hell of a lot more experience than you."

Tim rolled his eyeballs, he'd heard Tony on this subject before. Tony spotted this.

"Don't roll your eyes at me McGee, it's all true, I recognize your strengths its about time you give me some credit for mine," he argued.

"I do and don't try to turn this all onto me," Tim fought back.

"I'm not doing, I'm just trying to tell you how I feel and why I do what I do," came Tony's reply.

"Look we all get you are the second in command, you tell us often enough, big deal, we get it," spat Tim.

"But that's the point, you don't get it, 'Tony explained, "or if you do you don't respect it. I get your little comments, the jibes, I'm not Gibbs."

"That was a long tome ago, when we were all missing Gibbs and you were being bossy," interjected Abby.

"No you're wrong, it still goes on, even now and I wasn't being bossy I was the boss and I was as worried about Gibbs as the rest of you but I didn't have time to come to terms with my loss, I tried to keep things as Gibbs would do it, you just bitched and moaned; I tried to do it my way, you still bitched and moaned, all of you, all the time. I was never good enough for you, you didn't respect me and yet I kept us together, we kept up the solve rate, I sat each night with you Abby when you were inconsolable, I did all of the SFA paperwork to help you out Tim, as well as running the team, studying and doing my undercover op, I was trying to be there for you too Ziva but it was hard getting through all of the barbed comments you threw my way." Tony let rip.

"Get over yourself Tony," commented Tim, "you were just caretaking the team until Gibbs came back."

"Enough, Tim," yelled Gibbs, "how dare you, I left the team in Tony's hands because he was the only one of you who could lead it. I had faith in him. Perhaps I didn't make it well enough known at the time and god knows my return undermined him completely, but I'm gonna put that right starting now."

"So what you are saying is that this is all my fault?" asked Tim astounded that the tide of the conversation was turning against him, "what the hell did I do to deserve him blowing up my apartment?"

"That's not what I'm saying at all," responded Gibbs getting mildly irritated at McGee's refusal to take on board any criticism, "but while we are on the subject why don't we have a look at your behaviour over the last few days?"

"I knew it, just knew it," screamed McGee getting to his feet and starting to make his way out of the room. As he made to pass Gibbs, the senior agent caught his youngest son by the wrist and held tight. "Tim, I just need you to sit back down and listen," he tried to reason with him.

"Or what," retorted McGee not ready to concede to the tightening grip on his wrist right away.

Gibbs pulled him in close to him and in a hushed tone whispered, "or else you and I go to the basement, discuss why you need to listen to this, and then I bring you back here, and sit you down on your sore backside and make you listen."

Reddening with both anger and embarrassment; and worried that the others would have heard the veiled threat, he thankfully took the sensible option and sat back down; but not without muttering to himself, if not to everyone else in the room, how unfair the whole thing was.

"So let me tell you what I think of the week," began Gibbs. "First Tony, the prank at the start with the online dating I can understand to an extent, but you knew it was getting out of hand and rather than confess it, you tried to wriggle your way out of it in the hope Tim would never find out. Next you Tim, don't think I don't know how smug you have been behaving of late, did you expect me not to know that you had refused Tony's perfectly proper order at the crime scene, do you think I did know about your comments about Jeanne. Tony had started with a prank, insensitive yes but not deliberately done to hurt you, but your comment; that was cruel, not a joke, no other way of describing it."

However angry he was Tim was not totally immune to Gibbs comments, "Boss I didn't really mean to hurt him," he tried to mitigate, "I just said it before I had really had the chance to think."

"Doesn't make it any less cruel though does it," replied Gibbs, not letting him mitigate his way out of it too far. "And it wasn't just the one comment, you kept on at him treating him like a child telling him he could play with the lights and sirens in the cop car, baiting him with that stupid bear that you had been messing around with instead of working. I should have dealt with it there and then but I didn't think it would get this out of hand, that's my fault McGee, I take responsibility for mishandling it. Now I expect the rest of you to take responsibility for your parts in this. This mess is not down to just one person. I know the ultimate end came about because of Tony and that his actions were childish, but he seems to be prepared to take the consequences of that. What I need to know is whether you are man enough to admit where you went wrong too?"

Somewhat taken aback by the rather out of character and lengthy discourse flowing from their Boss, all four other occupants of that living room had sat up straight and started to listen.

Ziva was first to break the silence that then followed, "well I guess I haven't helped either," she said, "I knew about Tony's prank with the online dating and didn't tell McGee until it had got really out of hand, and I know I have perhaps made a few comments that suggested Tony was not like you."

"Thank you Ziva," commented Gibbs, "what about you Abs?"

"Well I don't see how I have done anything to contribute to this, sure when you were in Mexico I might have commented on his not being like you," she conceded, "but he wasn't you and he was trying to act like you, and he needed telling."

"Abby, I'm not always going to be around, I selected Tony as my successor, he could have had the choice of any job; he chose to stay here with you guys, and it is not your job to tell him anything or put him in his place, who do you think you are?" Gibbs was getting frustrated again.

"Well I'm sure you would have said the same thing if you had seen him!" responded Abby not prepared to give in on the point.

"Not if he was in charge and doing his best to get the job done and looking after the team," answered Gibbs. "Do you think I got it right at the start when Mike left me in charge of his team?" he questioned. "We all make mistakes Abby, we're not perfect, I'm not perfect, but until you are in those shoes you have not earned the right to judge anyone."

Abby pouted and sulked but said no more on the point, internally she realized that she had been unfair on Tony but she did not see why Gibbs was going on about it now when this was about Tony blowing up McGees apartment.

"Tim, anything you want to add," enquired Gibbs, "I guess I've not helped matters but I don't think I deserve all of the crap I get from him."

"Ok," responded Gibbs, "We can work with that, and how about you Tony?"

"Boss, I'm prepared to take the consequences of my actions, I need to stop with the pranks all of the time, I know I have to convince people to take me more seriously," pausing he turned to Tim, "Tim, I know I have already said it but I am sorry; if you can't work with me I'll ask Vance for a transfer; If you still want to go to the police then I won't stop you; If you let me I'll make it all up to you, I'll pay for the damage to be fixed, I will do whatever it takes but I ask you to give me a chance, please."

Tim's anger had started to dissolve, he wasn't yet ready to forgive completely but he certainly didn't want his friend arrested for criminal trespass and criminal damage; nor did he want him transferred off of the team. "I guess we can work this out," he conceded.

Gibbs took a deep breath. Perhaps there was a way out of all of this, a way forward. It would be rough and there was bound to be teething problems along the way. Looking around at the four of them he announced, "Girls, I would like to go home and pack a bag for a few days and come back here, I have a project I would like you to help me and the boys with." Turning to the boys, "Tony I know you have a lot of clothes here already, Tim you packed enough last night, you two are staying too, Tony you can use your money that you were saving to go on the frat weekend with your buddies to pay for the re-wiring, you won't be going on that trip, we'll fix the walls ourselves, I need both of you in the basement, come on lets go."

Both boys made their way down to the basement whilst Gibbs saw the girls out and poured himself a coffee. When he finally made his way down there he saw two worried looking young men waiting for him.

Tony was the first to speak, "where do you want me Boss?" he asked, Gibbs looked slightly perplexed at the question. Tony spoke again, "I'd like to take McGees punishment as well as my own, I at least owe him that."

Final realizing what was going through the minds of both his SFA and Junior agent Gibbs shook his head, "Not what you think Dinozzo."

It was Tim and Tony's turn to look perplexed. They were normally sent to the basement when they were in for a really harsh spanking.

"You're here to help me start on our team project," explained Gibbs. "I figure that if you are all having to work together to produce something that none of you can do alone then you might start to recognize the value in each other. The girls will be helping too."

"Er, this woodworking project…" Tony hesitated before he continued, "you aren't going to have us make our own paddles again are you Boss?"

Gibbs chuckled, "No DiNozzo, there's a charity fund raiser for the children's ward at Bethesda, they've asked me to make some wooden toys for them and given your recent prowess with toy making and Tim's attachment to Christmas toys of days gone by I have decided to requisition you to my team. You pair will be spending your spare time, cutting, sanding, gluing, nailing painting until we have a couple of boxes worth of offerings. You will both be staying here until we have plenty and until such time as I am sure that the two of you can put aside all sibling rivalry, work together and appreciate one another's strengths."

"You mean we're grounded?" asked Tim.

"Look at is as giving something back to the community Tim." Gibbs recommended, "with accommodation on site."

Tony reached across to the pile of timber and plans laid out on the work bench, studying them for a minute he then looked up, "so Tim, do you want to cut or sand?"

Gibbs turned to go back up the stairs leaving them to work through this together. He just hoped this different approach would finally put things right and sort them out for the future.