AN: Spoilers for 7X01 "Truth or Consequences".

Proverb: Italian. "He that jokes confesses."

It was always his way of dealing with hard things. He would crack a joke to lighten the mood, make some stupid comment that would ease the tension just a little bit. That had become his job—breaking the tension. So he was in Somalia trying to avenge the death of the woman he had never confessed his love for. Trying to make up for his ignorance months later.

He joked his way through the entire interrogation making one wisecrack after another, letting the truth behind the jokes cleanse him of his transgressions. His father had always said "You can tell a lot about a person by what they are willing to joke about. People generally joke about the things they care about most." Tony joked about Gibbs' love for coffee when he really meant that he would miss it, and he said Tim had the heart of a lion because he really thought the younger agent was brave.

In truth, he never meant to make it out alive. He meant to die in the same piece of hell he had condemned her to, but things never turn out like he imagined them. Instead his entire plan was blown apart because she was alive, and even though he wanted to say he was sorry, and he wanted to kiss her until she forgot that she hated him, he just made another joke. "How was your summer?" And when she asked him why, he told her it was because he couldn't live without her.

Behind all of the bravado was the solitary truth that he loved her that he would die for her. He joked his way through the hardest day of his life because that was how he confessed. He joked because it was the only way to say what he knew he meant. He joked because it was how he said "I love you."

AN: If you are following the travesty that is my health, I would like to inform you that it was not Scarlet Fever, but instead an adverse reaction to penicillin so after a shot where the sun don't shine and a day in the ER I am on my way to recovery. :)